The Crimson Deathbringer Series Six-Book Box Set (Books 1-6)

Sean Robins

Books by Sean Robins:

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

(Italian, Spanish, and Greek translations available; German coming soon!)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

Sean’s Facebook Page

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

BOOK ONE: THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER

BOOKS BY SEAN ROBINS

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue I

epilogue II

The Golden Viper

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

BOOK TWO: THE GOLDEN VIPER

BOOKS BY SEAN ROBINS

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

pREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

Prologue: Kanoor

Chapter One: Alora

Chapter Two: Voltex

Chapter Three: Talmak

Chapter Four: Tangaar

Chapter Five: Voltex

Chapter Six: Kanoor

Chapter Seven: Earth

Chapter Eight: Mantux

Chapter Nine: Earth

Chapter Ten: Voltex

Chapter Eleven: Kanoor

Chapter Twelve: Tangaar

Epilogue: Voltex

The Black Fleet

The Black Fleet

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

BOOK 3: THE BLACK FLEET

BOOKS BY SEAN ROBINS

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

pREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Chapter Two

The Battle of Tangaar

Chapter Three

Old Friends

Chapter Four

Mutiny

Chapter Five

Farewell, My Beautiful Planet

Chapter Six

Peace Talks

Chapter Seven

Before the Storm

Chapter Eight

The Last Stand

Chapter Nine

Aftermath

Epilogue I

The End of All Things

Epilogue II

New Friends

The Silver Timeship

About the Author

From the Author

Book Review Request

BOOK 4: THE SILVER TIMESHIP

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

pREVIOUSLY IN THE cRIMSON dEATHBRINGER SERIES

PROlOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

Four

Five

SIX

Seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURteEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

Twenty-ONE

twenty-TWO

Twenty-tHREE

twenty-FOUR

TWENTY-fIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-sEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

THE SCARLET QUEEN (The Crimson Deathbringer Book 5- A Crimson Deathbringer Series Prequel Adventure)

the white republic (the crimson deathbringer book 6)

About the Author

From the Author

Book Review Request

BOOK 5: THE SCARLET QUEEN

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

previously in the Crimson Deathbringer Series

One

Two

THREE

four

five

Six

seven

eight

nine

Ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

thirty-four

thirty-five

Epilogue

the white republic (the crimson deathbringer book 6)

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

BOOK SIX: THE WHITE REPUBLIC

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES PART ONE

previously in the crimson deathbringer series Part two: the silver timeship’s EPILOGUE (Book 4)

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Epilogue

              Book Seven's (The Gray Empeor) Sample

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

Prologue

Chapter One

         Book Eight's (The Crimson Universe) Sample

previously in the crimson deathbringer series part I

previously in the crimson deathbringer series part II: the scARLET QUEEN’S (book 5) EPILOGUE

Prologue

Chapter One

chapter two

The gray emperor

The crimson Universe

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER

The Crimson Deathbringer Book One

Sean Robins

Books by Sean Robins:

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

(Italian, Spanish, and Greek translations available; German coming soon!)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

Sean’s Facebook Page

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue I

epilogue II

The Golden Viper

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am going to keep it short, Oscar-acceptance-speech style.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My editors Tyler Colins, Margaret Diehl, and Sam Kram. I’m indebted to them for the wonderful job they have done.

My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

My dear friends Amin and Koorosh. Amin helped me shape a lot of my ideas, and Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one.

Julie Northup, who patiently answered my many, many publishing-related questions.

Jenna Moreci, who in her own words “writes books, makes videos about writing books, and is super interesting.”

My lovely wife Yevgenia, who motivated me to finally sit down and finish the book I had planned to write for years. How she did it is a long and funny story that I’ll tell you later.

THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER

Prologue

Fifteen thousand Deathbringers, every single one of them heavily armed, agile, and freaking deadly.

Grinding my teeth in frustration, I glowered at the image of the fast-approaching enemy space fighters on my Viper’s tactical display, feeling the cockpit closing in on me. Despite our meticulous planning and flawless execution, our ground assault had failed for all intents and purposes. The Xortaag fleet still outnumbered us two to one. How could we beat a Xortaag (the people who’d all but conquered the entire galaxy) force twice our size and walk away with our lives?

This had just turned into a suicide mission.

“You don’t have to do it, you know,” said a part of my brain.

Yep. We didn’t have to die today. I could order the fleet to turn around and go back to our base. Then we could go to Kanoor and join forces with the Akakie fleet. Live to fight another day.

As the commander of the fleet, my first responsibility was protecting the people under my command. Would I be a good commander if I ushered them to their demise? And what difference would it make? Our death wouldn’t change anything. General Planetary-Genocide Maada would kill us all and then do whatever he damned well pleased with our ground forces and the rest of humanity.

All I needed to do was leave our ground forces in or around the enemy base to die—on top of the three thousand fighter pilots killed in Maada’s last ambush, the seven hundred million people (men, women, and children) who died during the initial Xortaag invasion, and everyone else I’d failed to protect. I almost froze at the thought. I had enough guilt for five lifetimes.

I opened a channel to my pilots. “Let’s go save the planet. And for my pièce de résistance …”

I touched a VR screen, and “Ride of the Valkyries” boomed in all the Vipers’ cockpits.

I leaned on the stick and flew in to meet the enemy space fighters swarming across the space directly in front of us, leading the seven thousand men and women under my command to certain death.

How in the wide blue frak had I gotten myself in this Charlie Foxtrot?

Now, that’s an interesting story.

My name is Colonel Jim Harrison, by the way. Ace fighter pilot, war hero, former best-selling author, and currently Commander of the Earth Fleet (and yet a colonel, not an admiral, long story). You’ve read this far, so I figured you should know who I am.

Chapter One

New York - December 24, 2077

“Jim, we’ve arrived,” said my hover car.

“Thanks, Max,” I said. “She’ll be out in a minute or three.”

“Liz has spent three hours in that beauty parlor just for a Christmas party?” asked Max. “You think maybe she’s found out you’re planning to propose tonight?”

“Not unless she can read minds.”

“Honestly, you’re kind of easy to read. Do you want me to tell you what you’re thinking about right now?”

I smiled. “You have telepathic powers now? Neat trick, for a car.”

“You’re wondering if she has found out you’re going to propose,” said my overly perceptive car.

I held a finger up to my lips. “Be quiet. Here she comes.”

Liz got in the vehicle. She was dazzling in an emerald green velvet bodysuit with strategic cutouts, crystal snowflake earrings, and thigh-high boots. I was in a smart tux with the color modifying to complement my date’s ensemble. The tux seemed to think a satiny black was the right accompaniment. I disagreed, but my suit had already proved it had a better fashion sense than I did, so I went with it.

On our way to the nightclub we used to frequent a lot—a small, cozy place called Cubano Lito—my hover car chimed its notice tone. “I’m sorry, Jim, but we’ll need to take a detour. SCTU has blocked Fifth Avenue between Washington and Lincoln streets.”

I shrugged. “No problem, Max. We’ve got time.”

Liz wrinkled her nose as if something in the car smelled bad. “Way too many SCTU soldiers around.”

“No surprise there,” I said. “They’re everywhere these days.”

“Still, I think something’s up.”

She was right. Tonight, there were too many of them in the streets. Liz grabbed my arm when Max reached a roadblock guarded by Security and Counter-Terrorism Unit soldiers, all in full tactical gear and carrying assault rifles. An officer scanned my car and with a hand motion signaled us to continue. Max didn’t need to be told twice.

Liz raised her middle finger toward the officer. Max anticipated her move and blackened her side window. Liz reacted by kicking the car door like a petulant child.

Max and I protested at the same time, “Hey!”

Max sent a text to my personal digital device. Jim, can I please throw her out?

I thought about it for a second; then I shook my head.

Liz tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I sometimes feel we live under Sauron’s rule and there’re bloody Orcs everywhere.”

I laughed. “Nice one. I would’ve gone with the Galactic Empire and Stormtroopers.”

“You guys really have to come up with more recent references,” said Max.

“Come on, Max,” I said. “You know how much we love the classics.”

“Especially with all the terrible movies being produced these days,” added Liz. “I honestly don’t think there’s been a single good movie in the last ten years.”

I blew out a noisy breath. “Ten years? Try fifty.”

“Nothing beats the classics,” said Liz. “Where do you think your name has come from?”

“Max or me?” I asked.

“I was talking to Max,” she said, “but come to think of it, both of you.”

“I know you aren’t the hold-your-tongue type,” I told her, “but make sure you don’t criticize Zheng in front of others. His spies are everywhere, and comparing him to Sauron will get you a date with an SCTU officer”—I narrowed my eyes—“unless you want a date with one of them. Rumor has it Zheng has them genetically enhanced, which includes things like, eh, stamina.”

Liz giggled. “Only if they are using your genes, Mr. Five-Times-a-Night.”

“Am I blushing?”

“Nope. And by the way, didn’t you say Zheng was like Hitler during the Air Force cadets’ graduation ceremony, so loudly that half of the people in the room heard it?”

I feigned horror. “I’d never say such a thing about our supreme leader. I didn’t say he was like Hitler; I said he was the reincarnation of Hitler. Huge difference.”

Liz laughed and looked out of the car window. “I respect what the Resistance is doing, but I honestly hope Kurt von der Hagen doesn’t pull something tonight and ruin our Christmas Eve.”

I felt a lump in my throat when she mentioned Kurt’s name. I took my PDD out of my pocket and checked the news. No assassination attempts. No bombing. No Resistance-related reports. Just another day in paradise. I tried to stop thinking about Kurt and his not-so-merry band of freedom fighters and focus on my proposal plans. Priorities.

A few minutes later Max pulled over in front of Cubano Lito and announced, “We’ve arrived.”

I got out first and offered my hand to Liz. When I turned towards the club’s entrance, I noticed two SCTU agents handcuffing a homeless man. The man wore a torn Air Force flight jacket. A cardboard sign hanging on his neck read “Disabled Air Force Veteran Says Screw Chancellor Zheng and his Henchmen!”

I chuckled. “Short, eloquent, and straight to the point. We fighter pilots have a way with words.”

The man wasn’t struggling. He just stood there, shoulders slumped, looking like he’d accepted his fate. There was a small crowd of bystanders, but no one intervened.

Liz put her hand on my arm. “I’m not normally the voice of reason, but maybe you don’t do anything that ends with us spending the night in jail?”

“Didn’t you just try to flip off an officer?”

“He wouldn’t have noticed. We were inside a moving car.”

I winked at her. “Don’t worry. It takes only a minute.”

I walked towards the two agents. “Hi. My name’s Major Jim Harrison,” I said in a light tone, “and I’m an Air Force officer.”

One of them gave me a dry look. “I know who you are, Major. How can I be of assistance?”

I smiled and extended my right hand. “I just wanted to say thank you for your hard work, protecting us day and night, especially on Christmas Eve.”

He shook my hand, but his expression didn’t change. I added, “Let me buy you a drink inside.”

“There’s no way we can get into the club without a reservation.”

“Let me worry about that,” I said.

The two agents exchanged a look and hesitated.

Liz joined us. “Come on, guys. It’s Christmas.”

“That it is,” said the second agent. “We’re on duty, but we can take a few minutes off and get a drink.” He uncuffed the homeless guy, tore the sign off of his neck, and said, “Keep this up, and you’ll end up in the Coffin.”

Liz shuddered.

“Max, take this gentleman to wherever he wishes to go,” I called out.

The homeless man didn’t even bother to thank me. He limped to the hover car without saying a word. His lack of gratitude made me wonder if he deserved to rot in jail.

I offered my arm to Liz. “Smooth,” she said.

“I should’ve gone into politics,” I answered.

“How about a selfie?” one of the SCTU men asked me. “It’s not every day we meet a war hero.”

We left the two agents at the bar and went to the table I’d reserved on the club’s second-floor balcony. Liz, who was a vegetarian, ordered a salad. I ordered a steak with fries, but I was so excited I’d lost my appetite. I barely touched my food. Liz noticed I wasn’t eating and with concern in her eyes asked me, “Are you all right, Jim? Do you want to go back home?”

I didn’t want her to suspect anything out of the ordinary was going on. I answered with the first excuse I could think of. “My New Year resolution’s to lose some weight, and I’ve decided to start tonight.”

She tilted her head. “What are you planning to lose, muscle? You look like you’re at zero percent body fat already.”

I wasn’t a very good liar.

After dinner, we went to Cubana Lito’s dance floor. It was packed wall to wall with people dancing to booming Latino music. I wasn’t much of a dancer (“Real men don’t dance,” I always said), but Liz, who was Afro-Hispanic and born in Cuba, was a natural. The two of us met some old friends, drank piña coladas, danced, and said Merry Christmas to a million people. We talked, bantered, and mercilessly made fun of other people. She laughed at my jokes and often came up with comebacks that in her British accent somehow sounded funnier.

“You know, being out with such a beautiful woman’s good for my self-image,” I told Liz. “All the other guys look jealous.”

“You aren’t too bad yourself.” She bit her lower lip. “A lot of women keep checking you out.”

I kissed her on the dance floor, her body pressed against mine, ignored our friends’ get-a-room comments, and told her, “The past few months have been the happiest time of my life.”

Toying with a lock of her curly hair, she gave me a coy glance and whispered in my ear, “For me too, honey.” Her breath was warm and reminded me of what we’d be doing later.

Life was good.

We returned home at around two AM. I was tipsy, and with Liz pressing up against me and kissing my neck, I didn’t realize we’d arrived until Max said, “Jim, we’re in front of your home.”

I owned a one-story Colonial house in Nassau County. Nothing too fancy, but not too shabby either. I got out of the car, and with Liz holding my arm, walked to the front door through my small garden with its wintering rose bushes that looked like wooden candelabras.

“Cordelia, I’m home,” I said.

A soft, feminine voice said, “Welcome home, Jim.”

The door of my house opened. We entered the living room, laughing and kissing each other. Then the faint smell of expensive cologne hit my nostrils, and I found a tall, blond man sitting on my favorite sofa. He had piercing gray eyes and a completely unfashionable goatee, and he was wearing a long black trench coat. There were not one, but two freaking lethal-looking Micro Uzi machine pistols next to him on the coffee table.

There were a few small blood stains on his shirt, my sofa, and the floor.

Liz let out a tiny shriek. I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

“Hi, Jim,” said the man. “It’s been a while. Merry Christmas.”

My heartbeat hadn’t returned to normal, but pretending that it was an ordinary visit, I answered with an air of nonchalance, “Hi, Kurt. So nice of you to drop by. Just a few days ago I thought splashing some blood on my sofa would give it that gritty, rebel look.”

Yep. Kurt von der Hagen, the legendary freedom fighter, tyranny-battling rebel, ruthless terrorist, deadly super-assassin (all depending on whom you asked), and the number one individual on every security agency’s most wanted list was sitting right there in the middle of my freaking living room. Right when I was about to propose. King Kong wrench, thrown.

Liz looked at me with wide eyes. “Why’re you two talking like you know each other?”

“Sweetheart, meet Kurt, whom I’m sure you recognize from all the wanted-dead-or-dead posters,” I answered calmly. “Newsflash: He’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were in elementary school. Kurt, this is my girlfriend, Elizabeth.”

Kurt stood up, grimacing with pain and clutching his side, and in perfect Spanish—which I could mostly understand but couldn’t speak—said, “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Elizabeth, and please allow me to say you look absolutely stunning.”

Liz looked lost for words, but one didn’t become an acrobatic pilot/stuntwoman without fast reactions and the ability to think under pressure. “Charmed, I’m sure,” she said in English, “but in case you haven’t noticed, you’re bleeding all over our furniture. Let’s patch you up, and then you can tell me what Public Enemy Number One is doing in our living room.”

I snorted. “Public Enemy Number One? Huh! John Dillinger ain’t got nothing on Kurt. Mr. Super-Assassin eats the likes of him for breakfast.”

“With all these references to classic movies, I confess half of the time I have no idea what Jim’s talking about,” Kurt said, “but I can already tell the two of you are perfect for each other.”

Liz frowned at me. “You’re ‘best friends’ with someone who doesn’t watch movies?”

I held up my palms. “It’s a very long story.”

Liz had some medical training and had dealt with many wounds and injuries in her career. She went to our bedroom to bring her bag of medical tools.

“Cordelia?” I said.

“Yes, Jim?”

“What’s going on outside?”

“Nothing much. All quiet,” she said.

“Did anyone follow Kurt?”

“Not so far as I can see, and you know I can see a lot.”

“Full lockdown mode,” I said.

Half-inch steel sheets covered all my house’s windows and doors. The only way someone could enter now was by using explosives.

“This won’t stop SCTU, you know,” Kurt pointed out.

“True. But Cordelia can see them coming, and it’ll give us more time to figure out what to do,” I said.

Liz came back to the living room. Kurt took off his trench coat. I got my shoulder under his arm and helped him walk to our dining table and lie on it. Liz slashed Kurt’s shirt with a pair of scissors. She unwrapped the piece of cloth around Kurt’s waist and examined the bullet wound on his side. I tried to look over her shoulder.

“Give me some room,” she told me. A couple of minutes later she added, “It isn’t bad, but you’re losing too much blood. Hold still.”

She debrided the wound and started patching Kurt up.

“Before I forget, Cordelia?” I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to inform me if an armed man tries to enter my house?”

She asked with concern in her voice, “Jim, are you all right? Have you had brain trauma recently? Do you want me to call a doctor?”

Much like her owner, Cordelia was a wise-ass. Liz couldn’t stifle a laugh.

Kurt flinched. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.”

Cordelia continued, “This is Kurt, your oldest friend. He’s been in this house 523 times already. The last time he was here, he was covered in blood and heavily armed too, and he was accompanied by Allen, who was carrying a grenade launcher.”

Liz laughed. “What? No bazooka?”

My face grew hot. Kurt pressed his lips together and averted his eyes. Cordelia had just reminded us of the last time we’d seen each other, nearly two years ago, right before Kurt started his campaign to bring Zheng down. He’d come to ask me if I’d consider joining the Resistance. I told him starting a revolution against Zheng was suicide and did my best to convince him not to go down that road either. I also said I didn’t agree with his methods. I was a soldier, not an assassin. I’d killed plenty of people in combat, sitting in the cockpit of my fighter jet, but I just couldn’t do it with a sniper rifle, or worse, a bomb, especially if innocent bystanders were at risk. I was a very good fighter pilot, but I’d make a terrible freedom fighter.

That was the day I turned my best friend down.

I rubbed my temples. “How did he get in?”

“He asked nicely,” answered Cordelia.

“I need clean towels,” said Liz, still working on Kurt’s injury.

“On it.” I darted towards the bathroom.

A few minutes later, Liz, putting fresh bandages on Kurt’s wound, asked me, “So, how did you two end up being best friends?”

“We went to the same elementary and high school together, right here in New York,” I said. “After my parents died, I spent most of my time in Kurt’s house. You remember I once told you my father was a politician?”

“How can I forget? That’s almost the only thing I know about your dad,” said Liz. “You never talk about your parents, so I decided not to ask any questions.”

“Good decision,” said Cordelia. “Do not go there.”

I ignored her. “Some thirty years ago, Kurt’s father and mine used to work at what was then known as the United Nations. The two of them came up with the idea of the United Earth. After my dad passed away, Kurt’s father vowed to continue the work in his memory. You know how that turned out.”

She did. Everybody knew. It’d be hard to miss the rise and fall of the United Earth’s government unless you lived in a pineapple under the sea.

I looked at my best friend, lying injured and in obvious pain on my dining table. He looked older. No wrinkles or gray hair, but his eyes were weary, and a hardness had replaced their youthful joie de vivre. I remembered how ecstatic he was when his father Thomas von der Hagen was elected as Earth’s first president after a worldwide election some three years ago on January 12, 2075. The entire world rejoiced. We all thought humanity had finally put its destructive tendencies aside and was ready to unleash its full potential. It was a global party from Sao Paulo to Tehran to Cape Town, Paris, Sydney, and San Francisco. The Unification was going to start a glorious era of peace, cooperation, advancement, and economic development for the human race that would last forever.

It lasted less than a year.

Thomas’s fatal mistake was to appoint Graham Zheng, an influential American general of Chinese descent, as the director of SCTU. Right under Thomas’s nose, Zheng gathered the most ruthless people on the planet around him and turned SCTU into an uncontrollable monster.

The dream of lasting peace on a united Earth died when Zheng put a bomb in Thomas’s car, killing both Kurt’s parents. Zheng executed all the United Earth’s high-ranking government officials, declared himself ruler of Earth, and with the army and SCTU’s support butchered whoever stood in his way.

After Zheng’s coup, and with my best friend leading the Resistance, I thought about leaving the Air Force, but flying jet fighters was my true passion. What else was I supposed to do with my life? It was the only thing I was really good at. Fortunately, the Air Force wasn’t involved in the battle with the Resistance; that was the Security and Counter-Terrorism Unit’s job. If one day we were asked to bomb a Resistance stronghold, I’d walk away, court martial or not. That was my red line. Since the coup, the Air Force’s main function had been to stop national governments from thinking about secession, which would’ve caused another war, so I’d convinced myself by staying in the Air Force I was promoting peace. A few months after Zheng’s coup, I met Liz, and my dilemma faded in importance. The stronger our relationship became, the less I thought about leaving the Air Force.

And now here I was facing all these questions on the night I’d planned to propose. The luckiest man on the planet, that was me.

Liz narrowed her eyes. “We’ve been together for a year and a half, and you never once bloody mentioned your friendship with Kurt?”

I lifted an eyebrow with such control that it would make Mr. Spock proud. “How was I supposed to bring this up? ‘By the way, honey, you know this terrorist guy who’s killing people left, right, and center? He’s my best friend.’ ”

“I’m not a terrorist,” said Kurt, color rising in his cheeks. “I’m a freedom fighter. I only kill bad guys.”

“We know,” I said. “Still, a man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Or was it the other way around? I don’t remember.”

Once Kurt stopped bleeding and it looked like he was in no imminent danger, it was his turn to tell us how he had ended up in my house. “I’d been after Palermo for nearly two years—”

Liz and I asked together, “Who’s Palermo?”

Kurt rolled his eyes, and then sighed and said, “Cordelia?”

“Mike Palermo? Nobody important,” she said. “Really. There’s no reason for Jim and Liz to know him. He’s only the director of SCTU and Chancellor Zheng’s right-hand man.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to call the technicians and ask them to change Cordelia’s personality from annoying to docile,” I said.

“On second thought,” said Cordelia, “Palermo always works in the shadows, so there are very few people who know about him.”

“He worked in the shadows,” Kurt corrected her. “Two days ago ...”

*****

New York - December 22, 2077

The icy breeze stung Sergei Molanov’s face, reminding him of Mother Russia. Armed with an STG 666 assault rifle and wearing a black tactical uniform, he was standing guard next to the main entrance of a luxurious mansion on a gloomy winter evening, wondering which of his many shitty choices in life had led him to his present situation.

On the surface, everything was great. He was the head of security for Mike Palermo, the director of the infamous Security and Counter-Terrorism Unit and one of the most powerful men on the planet. It was a cushy job, with a fat paycheck and out-of-this-world benefits. Plus, Sergei was really good at his line of work. He and his team had thwarted three assassination attempts by the Resistance in the past two years, and during one of those he’d taken a bullet meant for Palermo. A bullet shot by Kurt von der Hagen, leader of the Resistance, no less. That had raised Sergei’s status to a level he’d never imagined possible.

Sergei knew what he’d gotten himself into when he accepted the job. He expected the director of the security forces in the most brutal dictatorship in history to be a hard, ruthless man. He’d gotten accustomed to the interrogations, torture, and executions he’d witnessed or heard about. This was war, and the Resistance had spilled its fair share of blood. This was especially true of von der Hagen, even though he’d nurtured a romantic image of himself as a freedom fighter in the public eye.

What had gotten under Sergei’s skin was the bi-weekly visits to the three-story, eighteen-bedroom mansion where he was right now.

The mansion, built with utmost attention to quality and elegance, was a “gentlemen’s club” called The Harem. It was run by the Russian mafia, and it was both expensive and exclusive. Rumor had it the girls who were forced into prostitution there were kept under the influence of drugs, and the clients were allowed to do whatever they desired. This was the place where Palermo, who had violent tastes to begin with, would let his sadistic imagination run free. Sergei, like everyone else on his team, believed the stories he’d heard about what was going on inside those walls, including the one about Palermo beating one of his “dates” to death.

Sergei’s younger sister, Katia—a lovely girl whom Sergei had adored—had been sexually assaulted when she was only eighteen. She took her own life a few months later. Sergei hunted down the culprits, three young men from an influential family in Moscow, and killed them along with their bodyguards before fleeing to the US. Thinking about Katia made his knees wobble. He had to lean against a marble column to steady himself.

After all these years.

Standing outside this door and imagining other young girls experiencing the horrors that had led Katia to suicide was a torture Sergei could no longer tolerate. But he didn’t have a choice. No one walked away from a man like Palermo and lived to tell the tale. If he quit his job, he was dead meat.

The door opened, and Palermo walked out, smirking, with a satisfied look on his jowly, high-colored face. There was a smear of blood on his right sleeve, next to his 24-karat gold cufflink. Thinking about that creature exercising his cruelty on a terrified girl made Sergei nauseous.

That was it. He couldn’t take it anymore. He’d pack a bag and run away tonight, and to hell with the consequences. But first, he’d come back here and shoot up this diabolical place. He was a dead man anyway, and he’d done more than his share of bad shit. He might as well go out doing something right.

The cracking sound of the supersonic bullet’s impact reverberated in the air. The top half of Palermo’s head turned into a bloody mess, and a good chunk of his brain and a hot gout of his blood splashed on Sergei’s face and neck. Palermo’s body fell to the ground, twitching in death.

Okay. This should solve my problem, Sergei couldn’t help thinking.

*****

Kurt, fifteen hundred meters away on top of a high-rise building, watched Palermo’s head explode through his M-28 Sniper Weapon System’s telescopic sight and punched the air. “Bull’s-eye!”

Fierce joy rippled through Kurt. Eliminating Palermo was the Resistance’s biggest victory. The thrill of the hunt was intoxicating. There was nothing he liked better than planning a meticulous operation, accounting for all the possibilities, and preparing for a one-chance-only long-distance kill shot. At the same time, niggling remorse dogged him. The bright, idealistic politician dreaming of world peace that he’d once been was now an assassin. He wished he could go back and take a different path, one where his talents and skills would work toward something nobler than kill after kill, but he knew it was impossible. This work needed to be done. Someone had to stand up to the vicious military dictatorship ruling Earth. Still, his heart ached. It was something he had to live with.

I’m glad Dad never saw me doing this.

Next to him, his spotter Allen chuckled. “Fourth time was the charm.”

Kurt took off his fingerless gloves. “I wish I’d shot him on his way in. I might’ve saved a couple of girls some pain,” he said while removing the suppressor. He put his sniper rifle in its case.

Allen scratched his gray beard and took a drag on his cigarette. “I still think you should’ve taken Molanov out too.”

“And I still think not,” answered Kurt, dusting freshly fallen snow off his black trench coat. “He’s just a soldier doing his job. In another life, we’d be good friends. Let’s go. Things are about to get really interesting around here.”

The older man followed him. “You won’t be so forgiving when we try to kill another one of Zheng’s goons and Molanov stops us again.”

Kurt opened the door leading to the stairs, thinking it’d been a good day at the office.

Behind him, Allen called out, “Wait up, boy! You know damn well my old knees play up in cold weather.”

*****

“So, where’s Allen?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Kurt. “We were separated while escaping, and later I was shot. With no safe houses in the immediate area, I ended up here.”

He talked a little more about the chase through the city streets, his evasion tactics, and his concern about Allen. Then Liz said she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore and retired for the rest of the night. This was probably an excuse to leave Kurt and me alone to talk and catch up.

“It’s good to see you, old friend,” I told Kurt, “but I honestly wish it was under less dangerous circumstances. I don’t particularly wish for us to be put up against the same wall they’ll put you up against in front of a firing squad.”

“I’m sorry, Jim, but I didn’t have a choice. It was either this or passing out in the street. I feel much better though. I can go now.”

He was lying; he was still pale as a vampire. It made him look younger, more innocent. As much as I wanted him out of here, I wanted him alive more. “SCTU hasn’t kicked our door down yet, so I guess we’re safe. You know my home’s your home. Stay as long as you want. You need to get some rest.” I wiggled my index finger at him. “But if I get executed over this, I promise my ghost will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Kurt smiled. “You still crack jokes when you’re nervous, I see.”

“And sad, and angry, and frightened. A joke a day keeps the doctors away. Want to catch some sleep?”

“Way too excited to sleep tonight,” said Kurt.

“Want some beer?”

Kurt chuckled. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

“We don’t have any Paulaners though. In our defense, we didn’t expect a visit from you.”

Kurt was born and raised in New York, but Thomas was from Munich. Kurt had inherited two things from his father’s birthplace. One was his love for a Bavarian beer called Paulaners.

“How’re Bayern Munich doing these days?” I asked.

“Europe’s Champions three years in a row, and Super League quarter-finals this year. They wiped the floor with the other teams in the group stage,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice.

I grabbed a few bottles of beer. We made ourselves comfortable on my not-bloodstained sofa and clanked our bottles. Sipping my beer, I said, “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I was when I heard about Janet.”

Kurt’s bright eyes turned dull, and he stared into the distance. “She didn’t have a violent bone in her body. I don’t know what I was thinking when I let her join the Resistance.”

Only then did I realize his cologne smelled familiar. It was Dior Men Dangereux. I was with them when Janet gave Kurt the same brand for his nineteenth birthday ten years ago.

“So how’s your love life now?” I asked.

“I’ve been single since Janet was killed.”

“Dude! Not for nothing, but that was two years ago. You can’t be planning to live like a monk for the rest of your life.”

“There’s no place for romance in the life I’ve chosen,” Kurt responded philosophically. “It does get lonely sometimes, but this is the only way.”

“Speaking of romance, I was planning to propose tonight. Thank you for ruining my perfectly laid plans.”

He looked regretful. “You can always do it tomorrow night.”

I shook my head. “Nah. I want to do the dinner and dance again, so I have to wait a few days. I might do it on New Year’s Eve.”

“Can I see the ring?”

“It’s in the bedroom under my pillow,” I answered. “I hope Liz doesn’t find it by accident.”

“She seems great, by the way.”

“She is. You couldn’t find a warmer, kinder, and more caring woman. But just between you and me, we have a little bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde going on in here. She’s super volatile. She gets angry quickly and makes rash decisions. I know I just described all women, but—”

Kurt laughed. “That’s sexist. All women aren’t like that.”

“Since when are you an expert on women, Mr. I-Have-Had-Only-One-Relationship-in-my-Life? Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, you have no idea how bad she gets when she loses it. Can I ask a super personal question?”

“Shoot.”

“How many people have you killed?”

Playing with his goatee, he thought about it for a minute. “Hard to tell, with all the gunfights, explosions, and whatnot. I can tell you this though: Including Palermo, I’ve assassinated fourteen high-ranking government officials. This should be some sort of record.”

“And how do you sleep at night?” I said, only half-jokingly.

“Like a baby. I only kill evil bastards. My methods are brutal, and I don’t kid around, but I never kill someone who didn’t have it coming. Plus, I am doing humanity a favor.”

I stifled a laugh. “How do you figure?”

“Zheng’s regime will eventually fall. A war is coming. Keep in mind several countries didn’t want to join the Unification even when it was a democracy. Japan, France, and Germany are already up in arms. A strong dictatorship can fight for years and bring down the whole world with it. If we manage to seriously weaken it, we’ll expedite its inevitable downfall.”

“Wow! Lots of big words there. Have you practiced this speech before?”

Kurt smiled. “I tell you something else too. The tide’s turning. The way we’re going, it’s entirely possible we can topple the regime in the next couple of years ourselves, even without a war.”

I didn’t buy it. From where I was standing, Zheng’s regime was way too entrenched to fall any time soon. That was probably just wishful thinking. “You know what I don’t understand? How come you’re so good at killing people? You were a politician, for crying out loud. I would’ve expected you to lead a Gandhi-like pacifist movement.”

“We were hopelessly outnumbered, so our only way forward was a ten-eyes-for-an-eye policy. I did have military training. You remember I enlisted during the war, right? And Allen taught me everything else I needed to know.”

Before becoming Thomas’s head of security, Allen used to be a Green Beret in the Canadian army. That guy knew his stuff. “Still, one has to have a natural inclination for violence to do it so well, and I never pegged you down as a violent person.”

Kurt scratched his forehead. “Most soldiers who go to war aren’t inherently violent, but the circumstances make them do unspeakable things to their fellow human beings.”

This was getting too philosophical for my taste. I decided to change the subject. “Do you still play?”

Kurt used to play the piano. I was sure he could’ve been a professional pianist if he hadn’t become a politician. “Do you honestly think I carry a piano with me from hideout to hideout?” he answered.

“I hope Allen’s fine,” I said. “Even though he never liked me.”

“That’s because you don’t stop making fun of him,” said Kurt. “He’s probably in a safe house now. That old fox isn’t easy to catch.”

*****

New York - December 24, 2077

Allen knew something was very wrong.

He was in one of Resistance’s safe houses, a small studio flat with a tiny window and cheap, battered furniture that looked like it’d been bought in a yard sale. Allen was sharing the place with Mark, a young man who had recently joined the Resistance. Mark kept walking back and forth and looking out of the window, his tall frame hunched. He was sweating profusely even though the room wasn’t hot, and he kept sneaking furtive glances at Allen’s Glock 55, which Allen had been dismantling and cleaning while sitting behind a small wooden dining table in one corner.

It looked like the younger man was trying to make a decision. Allen chose to move things forward. He put down the Glock on the table, leaned back in his chair, and asked, “They got to you?”

Mark averted his eyes. His shoulders sagged. He muttered, “They’ve got my family,” and took another glance at the dismantled gun. Then Mark pulled his own sidearm, cocked it, took a step toward the dining table, pointed the gun at Allen’s head, and yelled, “Don’t move a muscle, old man!”

“Fatal mistake,” growled Allen.

Allen shot the young man from under the table, several times and in quick succession. Splinters of wood flew up in the air. Mark was hit in the chest and belly. He fell backward on the floor, blood gushing from his wounds.

Allen stood up, a smoking Smith and Wesson M&P Bodyguard in his hand. The muscles around his mouth twitched. With sadness in his voice, he told the dying man, “Ankle holster, rookie.”

The door of the flat was kicked open with a loud bang, and several SCTU soldiers rushed in.

Allen’s mouth went dry as beads of sweat appeared on his bald head. Trapped in the small flat with no other exit, he was doomed. His adrenaline soaring, he took aim at the first soldier’s head, right between his eyes. The barrel flashed, and the SCTU goon toppled. Allen shot another man; then his gun clicked empty. The soldiers rushed him. He hit a man in the face using his gun like a club and kicked the second in the balls. Two other soldiers grabbed his arms. He went down under the weight of the attackers. They handcuffed him and stood him up. He kept struggling, but there were ten of them.

That was it then. Allen never thought he’d run forever. Still, he was disappointed that he’d let himself get captured, especially so soon after the Resistance’s greatest victory, killing Palermo. He thought about Kurt and wondered if he’d managed to escape.

An SCTU captain, wearing the force’s dark brown uniform, walked in and stood in front of Allen. “Where is von der Hagen?” he asked.

Allen spit out blood. “With your mother.”

The officer nodded to a spectacularly big soldier, with shoulders wide as a bull. The giant swaggered closer to Allen and hit him in his belly, chin, and nose. Allen felt his nose break. With blood pouring out of his nostrils, he thought he was about to lose consciousness. These guys weren’t kidding around.

“Okay! Okay! I tell you!” he shouted. “Jesus!”

The captain held up a hand, and the soldier stopped. Allen looked the officer in the eyes and smirked. “With your sister.”

The captain rolled his eyes and was about to say something when a young SCTU lieutenant ran in and saluted. “Sir! We got him. He’s hiding out with a Major Jim Harrison, an Air Force fighter pilot.”

Allen thought, Jim Freaking Harrison? Really?

“That Major Harrison?” asked the captain.

“Yes sir, unless there’s two of them,” answered the young man. The captain gave him a hard look. He blushed and averted his eyes.

“Is he a Resistance member?” the first officer asked.

“Unknown, sir, but we don’t think so,” the lieutenant said. “He’s an old acquaintance of von der Hagen. We interrogated him right after von der Hagen founded the Resistance, but he didn’t seem to know anything.”

The captain looked at Allen and flashed a satisfied smile. “Well, it appears today’s our lucky day. Let’s go.”

He walked out of the room, followed by the other officer.

Behind them, Allen growled, “Yeah, you better run.”

*****

I was pouring a cup of coffee for myself when Liz, having changed into jeans and a t-shirt and somehow looking even sexier, joined us for breakfast. I’d just started sipping my coffee when Kurt said, “It’s time for me to go.”

Liz and I protested at the same time. “Absolutely not! Are you crazy? In the state you are in, you’ll faint before taking five steps. You need rest. It’s not safe out there.”

Kurt looked at the two of us in surprise. “I expected Jim to react in this way, but I must say I’m touched by how much Elizabeth cares about me, given that we’ve just met.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “It isn’t actually about you. Liz is obsessed with doing the right thing.”

Liz punched me in the arm.

“I really have to go. I’ve set up a time and place to meet up with the other members of the Resistance. If I stay any longer, I’ll lose the chance to contact them for a while.”

I had no idea if he was telling the truth or wanted to avoid jeopardizing us any further.

Kurt put on his black trench coat, holstered both his machine pistols, and shook my hand. “Thanks for everything. Maybe next time we meet we won’t be living under Zheng’s dictatorship.”

“Who knows?” I replied. “If Zheng does go, maybe there’ll be another President von der Hagen in office.”

He hugged Liz. “It was a pleasure meeting you. Jim told me about your charity organization. I’ll be making a hefty donation soon unless you don’t accept a terrorist’s money.”

Liz beamed and flashed her dazzling smile. “Be careful, Kurt.”

Kurt smiled back. “Careful is my middle name. How do you think I’ve survived this long? Don’t worry. They’ll never catch me.”

“Jim?” said Cordelia.

“Yes?”

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “I’ve just found out someone has been tampering with one of my external cameras’ feed.”

“Which camera?” I asked.

“The one covering the front door.”

With a deafening blast, my house door exploded inwards in a cloud of stone, wood, and debris. The floor shook, pieces of furniture flew in the air, and dust and smoke filled half the living room.

A cold chill grabbed my heart, and I was rooted to the spot for a second.

Kurt didn’t miss a beat. He pushed Liz behind a sofa, shouted, “Jim! Get down,” and drew both his weapons. Two black-clad SCTU soldiers, wearing body armor and balaclavas, rushed in, assault rifles at the ready, looking for targets. The muzzles of Kurt’s Micro Uzis flashed, and both of them went down, one shot in the head, the other in the throat. The second soldier pulled the trigger a second before he was hit and fired a stream of bullets that punched holes in the wall behind Kurt. The sound of gunshots (which was something I never expected to hear in my living room!) was ear-splitting.

We’re so screwed.

I jumped behind the sofa where Liz was hiding. She grabbed my hand and despite the fear in her eyes calmly asked, “What’re we going to do?”

My ears still ringing because of the explosion, I scanned the room, keeping my head down. Kurt’s bullets ripped through another soldier as he kept firing with both hands, but his ammunition couldn’t last forever. He took cover behind another sofa, the one that had his blood on it. Bullets rained on the sofa, tearing several holes in it. The poor sofa wasn’t having a very good day.

All the stories I’d heard about the torture and abuse people suffered in Zheng’s prisons rushed back to me, sending a chill down my spine. The image of Liz in a prison jumpsuit hit me like an eighty-ton tank. A woman as free-spirited and full of life as Liz wouldn’t survive long in prison, and that was if the SCTU soldiers didn’t shoot us first. The last thought made me shudder. I shielded Liz with my body, thinking feverishly, trying to find a way out of this mess or at least to save Liz.

Someone threw a gas grenade into the room. It was followed by two more, all three hissing white gas.

The bastards were trying to gas us. I guessed we had a few more minutes of consciousness (or life, if the gas was lethal) left.

I had an Air Force-issued M-25 handgun with two extra magazines in the closet in my bedroom. There were more soldiers surrounding us than the bullets I had, but anything was better than lying here in my living room waiting to die. Plus, if Kurt and I were both armed, there was a small chance we could create an opportunity for Liz to save herself. That way, at least there was hope.

A thought popped up in the back of my head. Hope’s a dangerous thing.

Oh, shut up!

I looked in Kurt’s direction to see if he could cover me while I ran to the bedroom to get my gun. He was slamming a fresh magazine into one of his machine pistols. The other Micro Uzi was on the floor, fully loaded and ready to shoot, judging by the spent magazine next to it. Then he turned his head and looked at me. In his gray eyes, through the smoke, dust, and gas, I saw remorse and guilt. And the decision not to be captured alive by his enemies.

My blood running cold, I shouted,” Kurt! Don’t do it!”

Kurt picked up the second gun and stood up, completely exposed to enemy fire, sorrow clouding his features. He gave me a sad half-smile, dusted his trench coat off, sent me a small salute with one of his machine pistols, and with fire bursting out of both his guns’ barrels, started walking towards the door.

I hesitated for a second; then I ground my teeth and ran out of my hiding spot, planning to tackle Kurt and stop him from committing suicide-by-SCTU-goons. A hail of bullets hit the floor inches from me. I had no choice but to jump back behind the sofa. Helpless, I watched as Kurt, still shooting, disappeared in the thick, fog-like gas.

“Jim!” Liz called from behind.

I turned my head to find her on the floor, eyes wide with horror, clutching her chest and throat. Only then did I realize I had a hard time breathing.

Watching Liz slowly suffocate made my whole body start to shake. I crawled to her, held her in my trembling arms, looked into her dark eyes, and said, “Everything’s gonna be all right. I promise I’ll get you out of this; you hear me?” My breath was ragged and harsh. I was desperate for her to believe me, though I knew she was too smart for that.

Her face pinched with fear, Liz clutched my arm, holding on tight, and managed to whisper between coughs, “Save yourself. Go now. Leave me here.”

Go where, exactly?

She closed her eyes. Her body shuddered and went limp.

I pulled her closer, face buried in her thick, sweet-smelling hair, and said, “I didn’t give you your ring.”

It was at that moment that I realized how helpless I was. I was about to lose everything I treasured in my life. My best friend was almost certainly dead. My love was on the verge of death or capture—I still didn’t know if the gas was lethal or not, but one could argue being detained by SCTU was a fate worse than death. Surrounded by enemy soldiers, I wouldn’t last much longer myself. Despair swallowed me up like a monstrous beast. Every single muscle in my body tightened, and I started hyperventilating, partly because of the gas and partly because of the terror. I felt like I was being pulled into a black vortex, and resistance was indeed futile. It was all over. I fought the urge to sit right there next to Liz and wait for death to come and take me.

And all of this is your fault, said the voice in my head.

That might be true, I told myself, but giving up without a fight is just not my style.

I gently lay Liz’s motionless body on the floor, feeling blank inside. I covered my nose and mouth with my shirt, held my breath, and used the increasingly thick gas as cover to run to the bedroom. I got my M-25, pushed in a magazine, hid behind the bedroom door frame, controlled my shaking hands with sheer willpower, aimed, and shot at the silhouettes I could barely make out in the living room. The gunshots echoed deafeningly in the confines of my bedroom.

I hit a soldier who went down screaming in pain. Another soldier shouted, “Man down! We’ve got a man down!” and ran to the side of his fallen comrade. I drew my lips back in a snarl and shot him too. The bullet punched its way through his neck, causing a gaping hole. He grabbed his throat, made some gurgling sounds, and fell to the ground, a pool of crimson blood forming around him.

I shot the sheriff, and then I shot the deputy.

Another soldier, wearing a black gas mask, stepped out of gas and smoke less than ten feet to my left. He was pointing a deadly-looking assault rifle at my head. I reacted a fraction of a second faster than he did and shot him in the forehead, right where the Mark of Cain would’ve been. The sight of his brain splattering all over my living room’s bookshelves filled me with a primal, savage satisfaction just as the bullet he’d shot a fraction of a second earlier whizzed past my ear.

Another bullet grazed my right thigh. A sharp pain lanced my body as if I’d been stabbed with a white-hot piece of metal. My knee buckled, and I fell to the floor, grabbing my injured leg. I hid behind the door frame for a few moments and took several deep breaths.

“Major Harrison!” someone shouted. “Put your weapon down and walk out with your hands above your head. This is your last chance.”

“We can see you’re injured,” said a woman. “We’re ready to offer medical assistance.”

These guys were trying to good-cop-bad-cop me.

“I’d rather suffer the end of Romulus a thousand times than accept assistance from you,” I yelled back.

“What?” said the woman. She sounded confused.

“What’s Romulus?” asked the man. “Is it a code name for the Resistance’s headquarters?”

I burst into hiccupping laughter, which somehow made the sharp pain lancing through my wounded leg more excruciating. I didn’t expect SCTU goons to understand Star Trek references. “Yes, it is, and you’ll never find it.” I wished I could see the look on their faces when they ran Romulus through SCTU’s databases.

“That’s it!” yelled the man. “I’ll count to ten; then we’ll come in, guns blazing. One, two ...”

“Drama queen much?” I asked conversationally, too tired to raise my voice.

Resting the back of my head against the wall, I looked at my blood-drenched pants and thought about bandaging the bullet wound, but it sounded like a waste of time. I’d be dead in a few seconds anyway. I’d always imagined I would draw my last breath in a jet fighter’s cockpit during an aerial battle, not in my own bedroom in a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid style shoot-out. I felt as if a knife were slowly twisting in my gut and had to fight hard to keep down a primal scream as paralyzing hurt spread through my body. There was nothing left to do. I looked around my bedroom one last time, thought about Liz and how much I wished I could see her again, bit my lip so hard that salty blood filled my mouth, and inserted another magazine into my gun.

“Three!”

“Say ‘auf Wiedersehen’ to your Nazi balls!” I shouted; then I rolled on the floor, aimed the gun, and pulled the trigger several times at a fast pace. The M-25 thundered. Someone yelled in pain. Enemy bullets whizzed past my head.

Then everything went dark.

Chapter Two

Alora - Standard Galactic Date: 025.09.5072

(Earth Date: 01/05/2077)

Commander Tarq watched his daughter walk towards him and both his hearts swelled with pride. Varina looked dashing in her white fleet uniform. All around, the Akakie war machine moved into high gear to defend against the incoming Xortaag invasion. Hundreds of shuttles and cargo ships were coming and going in preparation for the imminent battle. The sight of Alora Planetary Defense Force soldiers running around trying to be helpful made Tarq chuckle.

When she got close enough, Tarq tilted his head forward, and his two front antennae touched Varina’s, sending a warm sensation throughout his body.

“Look at you, the fleet flagship’s new helmsman,” Tarq grinned. “You could not possibly have asked for a more prestigious assignment in your first year of service.”

Varina narrowed her eyes. “You did not have anything to do with it, did you?”

“Of course not.” Tarq tried to look offended. “Just in case you have forgotten, I am the commander of Special Operations Force and have nothing to do with the fleet.”

“Really? ‘I have nothing to do with the fleet?’ You are going with that?” asked Varina. “You think I do not know everyone shakes in their boots when they hear your name?”

“I do not have a clue why. I am such a nice, witty and likable person!”

Above them, a space fighter nearly crashed into a cargo ship. The pilot avoided a collision by changing course at the last second. Tarq sighed. One day, the fleet personnel’s inexperience would cause a serious problem. Fortunately, not today.

Pointing at the cargo ships and shuttles, Varina asked, “Is all this really necessary? Surely Invincible can deal with the Xortaag fleet on her own.”

Tarq shrugged. “We figured as long as we were going to war for the first time in centuries, we should make it an overwhelming show of force. Plus, why not go all the way and put an end to this plague that has infected the universe for too long?”

“So for once I am off to save the galaxy, and you have to stay behind and watch,” said Varina.

“Do not get cocky, young lady.” Tarq feigned indignation. “Who do you think has devised our overall defensive strategy against the Xortaags?”

“I do not know. The fleet admirals?”

They both burst into laughter.

“Those guys cannot find their own antennae unless someone smarter holds their hands,” said Tarq.

Varina laughed harder.

“And I am not going to stay behind,” added Tarq. “I will be on board the command ship. There is no way I would miss our first battle in several generations.”

“My shuttle is ready,” said Varina. Their antennae touched one more time, and she walked away. Tarq waited until she waved goodbye and disappeared inside the shuttle.

Tarq went back to the Akakie command center. He sat at his station and brought up a holographic image of Invincible. Tarq had denied it when Varina asked, but he had pulled a lot of strings to get his daughter on that ship. With the enemy fleet getting closer to Alora, he was certain the safest place for a helmsman right now was the bridge of Invincible. Varina’s old ship, Dauntless, was a fine vessel, but she did not have a fraction of Invincible’s firepower. Given how superior their technology was—The Xortaags did not even have starships, only single-seat space fighters—Dauntless was not in any real danger, but Tarq had decided to be cautious.

Tarq looked at Invincible with bright eyes. The golden ship was armed with several enormous, multi-barreled laser turrets, two blaster cannons powerful enough to vaporize a small moon, a few hundred missile launchers, and an impenetrable laser-based point-defense weapon system. Tarq’s people had built her to be both magnificent and invulnerable; a giant, lethal killing machine serving as the embodiment of the Akakies’ unparalleled technological superiority in the universe.

Tarq had dinner with Invincible’s captain a few evenings ago. During the meal, the captain bragged, “If the galaxy’s best engineers combine the history’s greatest achievements in military invention into a singular war machine, such a distinguished creation will pale into embarrassed insignificance beside my ship’s awesome ingenuity and scientific superiority.”

Tarq chuckled. The captain had never experienced an actual battle. The Akakies had lived in peace and prosperity for centuries, devoting their time and energy to art, enlightenment, technological advancements, and pulling pranks on each other. They were fondly known as the galaxy’s pranksters, and it was a point of personal pride for Tarq that he had a reputation for pulling off elaborate and sophisticated pranks. They lacked both the experience and the aptitude for war, but it was a moot point. With the Akakie science and technology significantly more advanced than the rest of the universe, nobody dared mess with them, and the few times that an enemy was stupid enough to try, Tarq’s Special Operations Force had dealt with them with no need to involve the fleet.

Well, if the Xortaags want to commit collective suicide, we are happy to oblige, thought Tarq.

*****

Only a true warrior can appreciate the majestic beauty of the enemy fleet’s flagship, thought General Maada, sitting in the cockpit of his red single-seat space fighter.

A warrior like me.

Dwarfing all the other capital vessels in the galaxy, the Akakie starship was a work of art. An electroplated gold layer covered her sleek, stretched oval hull. The ship’s twin side engines propelled the craft forward, lighting a bright blue flare behind her. Maada did not know the exact extent of her capabilities, but he had no doubt the enemy ship could easily obliterate a small planet. His space fighter seemed minuscule in front of her.

On a VR screen inside Maada’s cockpit, the Akakie fleet commander said, “General, this is pointless. Look at the size of our armada and imagine the firepower of our starships. Except for your space-fighter carriers and command ship, which do not even get close to the battle, your fleet has nothing but puny single-seat fighters. You have no chance against us, and I assure you invading our territory is tantamount to suicide. Just turn that little ship of yours around and go home. Unlike you, we Akakies are peace-loving people, so we will be merciful and let you go. You can even keep all those planets you have already conquered and colonized.”

“You talk too much,” growled the general.

The Akakie commander had a point. Their technology was light years ahead of the Xortaags’. Their ships were not only significantly bigger; they had much more powerful armaments and heavier armor. That golden starship probably packed more firepower than the entire Xortaag fleet combined. Maada’s situation did look hopeless.

Which was exactly how he wanted it to look. He had been preparing for this encounter for years, and the Akakie commander’s over-confidence told him his plans had succeeded.

You filthy insects have no idea who you are dealing with, thought Maada. He dove in, laser bolts pouring out of his crimson space fighter’s cannons.

The Xortaag fleet followed him.

*****

Aboard the Akakie command ship, Tarq touched the holographic display in front of him and zoomed on Invincible. With bulging eyes, he watched a crimson single-seat space fighter, leading a few dozen similar but dark gray craft, evade Invincible’s weapons with apparent ease and hammer her with energy bolt after energy bolt, causing dazzling explosions. Tarq gulped and clutched at his chest. The Xortaags’ small space fighters were a lot more maneuverable and had much better weaponry than the Akakies’ intelligence, gathered by Tarq’s own agency, suggested, and much to his (and everyone else’s) very unpleasant surprise, Invincible’s weapons seemed to be completely ineffective against their swarming tactics.

That triggered an ominous realization, given force by his recognition of who was piloting the blood-red vessel.

Tarq knew that pilot.

Everyone in the universe knew him.

He slumped onto his seat and buried his head in his hands. Everything he thought he knew about the enemy fleet’s capabilities and tactics was wrong. He had been deceived. No, he had been a fool.

Even so, this is impossible, thought Tarq. Invincible was capable of unleashing a world-killing array of heavy weaponry. A thousand space fighters could not possibly be a match for her.

It was as if the pilot of the crimson space fighter heard Tarq’s thoughts and decided to prove him wrong. The enemy vessel attacked again and spit a deadly stream of laser bolts at Invincible, bringing about more explosions. Several sections of the starship were in flames, and Tarq could not help wondering how much more punishment she could take as yet another salvo of laser fire came crashing against the ship’s hull.

Under a hail of enemy fire, Invincible lit space with countless white-hot energy bolts and filled it with thousands of missiles. The Xortaag vessels, and especially the devilish blood-red space fighter, zigzagged through the missiles and energy bolts with such skill that it made Tarq’s blood boil with jealousy. Not a single enemy ship was hit as they finished their firing run and started to turn around for another one.

One of the starship’s blaster cannons came to life, sending a thick, sustained energy beam toward the red space fighter. As if guided by some sixth sense, the enemy vessel dodged the beam by flying right under it. Having missed its intended target, the blaster cannon’s beam hit one of their own fleet’s vessels dead center and blew it up out of existence.

What is the point of building the most advanced weapons in the galaxy if the people using them are so damned incompetent?

Biting his fingers, Tarq pictured Varina sitting at Invincible’s helm, desperately fighting for her life. He cursed under his breath and asked his assistant, “How did the Xortaag ships suddenly become so powerful? I personally observed their last two campaigns ... Oh!”

Tarq paused for a second. “We saw what they wanted us to see.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Tarq’s assistant, Lieutenant Barook. He pointed at the red fighter. “It seems you have finally met your match.”

Staring at the crimson space fighter with burning hatred in his eyes, Tarq murmured, “General Maada! I should have known defeating him would not be easy.”

The contents of the file Tarq himself had prepared about General Maada flashed through his mind. Maada was the Xortaags’ legendary warrior and military genius. The mere sight of his crimson space fighter would send shivers down the collective spine of the space-faring species throughout the galaxy. Under his command, the Xortaags had conquered more than forty planets, including a few far more technologically-advanced civilizations, exterminated all their inhabitants, and killed billions of sentient beings.

Tarq knew there was no need for Maada to personally lead the attack. He could have stayed safely in the Xortaags’ command ship, which stayed far away from the battle with their space-fighter carriers, and directed the assault from there. Instead, the general always deputized implementing strategy and coordinating the fleet to others and rushed to the frontline, leading the battle from wherever it was the most intense and dangerous.

Underestimating the general had proven to be a fatal mistake.

“Stop biting your fingers,” said Barook. “You are going to leave blood stains everywhere,”

Tarq looked down at his hands, and sure enough, he saw dark blue blood drops— drawn by his sharp teeth—on his fingertips. He wiped his fingers on the top part of one of his four legs and kept staring at his station’s holographic display, desperately hoping for a miracle to save his daughter.

A frightened voice announced, “Here they come again!”

The crimson space fighter and its two wingmen attacked Invincible once more, laser cannons blazing. Just like the previous attacks, the starship’s defensive fire did not get anywhere near them. Maada’s vessel dove at high speed, pulled its nose up at the last moment, and did a firing run close to the starship, hitting her repeatedly from bow to stern. The gray space fighters followed it, raining deadly laser bolts on the Akakie ship. Countless energy bolts tore into her, scoring devastating hits and shredding big parts of her hull. Invincible shook under the multiple impacts as her weapons kept firing uselessly. As soon as the Xortaag vessels veered off, a massive ball of multihued fire engulfed the starship, and in a flash, she blew up into millions of minute glowing shards shimmering in dark space.

Five thousand sailors, vaporized. Just like that.

And Varina.

The thought of his daughter made Tarq feel his hearts were about to give out. His only child, who could not wait to grow up, was dead. Varina, who loved his pranks, and who never got tired of listening to the stories of how her father had saved the galaxy multiple times, was gone, and it was Tarq’s fault.
            And now the command ship was under attack too. Someone shouted, “Brace for impact!”  as the vessel shook violently. Tarq vaguely heard the ship’s captain ordering evasive maneuvers, but he did not pay any attention. He stared at what was left of Varina’s ship, and overwhelming grief cut through him like a thousand sharp knives. Trying to use physical pain to block his mental anguish, he grabbed his two front antennae and pulled them so hard the agony made his vision blur. That worked. For a brief second.

His personal digital device beeped. It was a video message from Varina. With terror in her eyes, she said, “Father, we did our best,” and then the message cut into static.

His daughter’s last thought before being murdered by the Xortaags was how she had disappointed him.

The thought made his gut churn. He twisted his antennae as hard as he could. The severe pain pushed him to the brink of losing consciousness.

Barook approached him from behind, said, “This does not help,” and gently opened his fingers one by one, making him let go of his antennae.

“The fleet is retreating,” a fleet lieutenant announced.

That was a diplomatic way of putting it: The Akakie ships were zooming away from the Xortaags at maximum speed. Despite the tragic situation, Tarq could not stifle a bitter chuckle.

“This is no ‘retreat,’ you moron,” Tarq murmured under his breath, his voice so faint only Barook could hear him. “This is the worst every-Akakie-for-himself, save-your-own-exoskeleton, run-for-your-life tail-turning in history.”

And the Akaki ships’ crew could not even do that right. A starship veered off its course and ran into another one. Both ships blew up with a spectacular explosion. Tarq noticed the first ship to escape to safety was Dauntless. He covered his face in his hands and groaned. Barook put his hand around Tarq’s shoulder in silence.

Another explosion shook the ship, so forcefully this time that Tarq was thrown to the floor along with several other officers. A klaxon rang throughout the bridge. He struggled to get up, and when he did, he found the bridge filled with smoke. He rushed back to his station and, ignoring the sparks flying from the equipment around him, looked at the damage reports coming in.

For a moment, he wished Maada would come and finish what he had started. But then who would avenge Varina?

An admiral, wearing a white uniform almost identical to Tarq’s but with fleet insignia, shouted into his communication device, “You cowards! Where do you think you are going? Get back in there. I will have all of you court-martialed for this!”

“It seems they are more afraid of Maada than you, Admiral,” Tarq said, bleary-eyed.

The admiral took his frustration out on Tarq. With both pairs of his antennae standing erect in pure rage, he yelled, “And you, Commander Tarq. This is all your fault. You are supposed to be the greatest strategist who has ever lived. All this was your plan.”

Tarq bared his teeth for one second, but he managed to control himself. Biting off the fleet admiral’s head would not help anyone. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and replied, “And I paid the price for my mistake. Or has it escaped your attention that I have just lost my only daughter?”

“I have to point out the command ship is also, eh, retreating,” said Barook.

The admiral froze. He looked at the large display that dominated the bridge; then he spun on his heels, ran to the ship’s captain, and started arguing with him.

“It is safe to say you have made a lot of new enemies today,” said Barook.

With Varina gone, and their extinction in sight, that did not sound like such a big deal right now.

“I am the commander of Special Operations Force,” Tarq answered. “Making enemies is literally in my job description.”

“Not to mention your affinity for playing practical jokes on highly influential people,” said Barook. “You remember what you did to that poor admiral a while ago, don’t you?”

Tarq chuckled bitterly. “You honestly think I remember everyone I have ever played a prank on?”

Tarq looked around the bridge. All other officers were glued to their various screens, watching what was happening in disbelief. He knew they were all thinking the same thing he was: Their catastrophic failure here probably meant the end of their species in the very near future. Unless they—more specifically Tarq himself, since he was the Akakies’ chief strategist—came up with a brilliant plan and did it fast, they were about to suffer the same dreadful fate as the other races who had been in the Xortaags’ way: enslavement for a few generations, followed by a comprehensive genocide, leaving every man, woman, and youngling dead.

Not if I have anything to do with it, he vowed silently.

*****

Alora - Standard Galactic Date: 032.09.5072

(Earth Date: 16/05/2077)

General Maada kicked the conference hall door open.

The four guards stationed inside the hall made no attempt to stop the general. They saluted, stared ahead, and avoided eye contact.

“Wise choice,” growled Maada. “I am certain you remember what happened the last time I stormed this hall.”

The officer in charge, trepidation written all over his face, approached Maada. “General, with all due respect, His Highness is in the middle of an important meeting—”

Maada did not even bother to look at him. He drew his sidearm and shot the officer in the foot. The man made no sound. He folded, grabbed his foot, and toppled to the floor. The smell of burned flesh filled Maada’s nostrils. The guards did not move an inch and made no attempt to help their superior officer.

Pussies!

Deep inside Maada’s brain, Crown Prince Mushgaana’s voice said, “Now, General. That was a bit too much.”

Maada’s anger coiled in his stomach. He had repeatedly asked Mushgaana to stay out of his head. He felt violated when Mushgaana, or any other members of the uniquely talented royal family, entered his mind and read his intimate thoughts.

Clenching his fists, Maada approached a big table at the center of the conference hall, where Mushgaana and five high-ranking diplomats who had just arrived from Tangaar were sitting. He ignored everyone and addressed the prince. “I have just heard you have accepted the Akakies’ peace proposal.”

Mushgaana frowned. “Yes, I did.”

“This is stupid,” said Maada, raising his voice. “Have you lost your mind? We have the initiative now. We must push forward until we reach Kanoor.”

One of the diplomats, a well-dressed young woman, sprung out of her seat. “You dare address His Highness in this manner?”

Maada glared at the woman. Nobody talked to him like that. His hand was moving towards his sidearm when another diplomat grabbed the first one’s arm and told her, “What are you doing? This is General Maada.”

The woman’s eyes widened, and she paled like a ghost. She stuttered, “My apologies, General. In my defense, you look completely different in the news feeds.”

Mushgaana laughed. “The general has no time for trivial matters like newsfeeds and interviews. We hired an actor to do that. But we did not want to scare people, so we decided to find someone without that scary beard and those terrifying scars.”

The diplomats forced a laugh. Maada touched the scar on his left cheek. He was loyal to Mushgaana but during moments like this, shooting him in the face sounded very appealing.

“Still, we cannot have you insult the commander of our fleet, can we?” continued Mushgaana.

The diplomats sitting next to the woman pulled their chairs away from her. She leaned on the table to support her weight, lips shivering and face white. Everyone knew what was coming.

Maada stared at the crown prince, trying to get his attention, and thought, Your Highness, if you want to melt people’s brains for entertainment, it’s your right, but I respectfully request you do not do it on my account.

Anger flashed in Mushgaana’s baby blue eyes, and for a second Maada wondered if the crown prince might hurt him. They had been in many successful campaigns together and formed a close friendship. Mushgaana was surely accustomed to his outbursts and did not take them personally. Then the general remembered Mushgaana could read his thoughts, and he blushed so hotly his olive skin became the same color as his fabled space fighter.

Mushgaana chuckled, obviously amused by his discomfort. The woman sank back into her seat, a palm pressed to her heart.

“The peace treaty is a ruse,” said Mushgaana as if nothing had happened. “You know the Akakies are technologically much more advanced than we are, and our intelligence suggests the fleet we destroyed on Alora’s orbit was probably one-third of their total forces. We caught them by surprise this time, but the next encounter will not be so easy. The treaty will give us the opportunity to do three things: reverse-engineer a few of the ships we have captured and build a new fleet, attack easier targets, and replenish and expand our current fleet. Once we are better prepared, we will invade the Akakie homeworld.”

“Do you have a new target designated?” asked Maada.

With a flick of his wrist, Mushgaana brought up a holographic image. “Right there. The blue planet, third from the sun. Called Earth in the dominant local language. And it is only the first of seven targets we have identified and are planning to hit one after another. Let me finish this meeting. After that, you and I must sit together and start planning our new campaign.”

Maada glared at the crown prince. Mushgaana should not have made the decision without consulting him first, but as the crown prince, it was his prerogative.

“Before you leave, let me share a military secret with these gentlemen and the lady,” said Mushgaana. “A decade ago, when the confrontation with the Akakies started to look inevitable, General Maada figured they might be watching us. In our last three military campaigns, he made our fleet perform far below their ability. We took some losses in those battles, but it was worth catching the Akakies with their pants down.”

The diplomats looked at Maada with admiration in their eyes. That made him uncomfortable. He bowed his head, turned, and walked toward the hall entrance. The officer he had shot earlier was receiving medical attention. Maada stopped by him and said, “Sorry about that.”

Grimacing in pain, the officer replied, “Not a problem, General. It is not the first time, and to be honest, it is kind of an honor.”

Outside the hall, Maada rubbed the scar on his face and thought, I should really learn how to control my temper.

He nearly jumped out of his socks when, deep inside his brain, Mushgaana asked, “Have you ever considered therapy?”

Chapter Three

Anauseating stench assaulted my nostrils as soon as I came to. I was in a small prison cell, alone, wearing an orange jumpsuit. The cell was empty, except for a narrow, hard platform which was supposed to be a bed, a toilet, and a sink. It smelled of urine and vomit.

I couldn’t remember when I’d passed out.

I guess the gas wasn’t lethal, after all.

My right thigh was bandaged. With a slight limp, I walked to the cell’s barred door and looked outside. I saw nothing but a few empty cells. I knew where I was: the Coffin, Zheng’s infamous maximum security prison where SCTU imprisoned captured Resistance members along with the most dangerous death row inmates on the planet.

I sat on the bed and tried to process my situation. It was disorienting. One moment, I was on top of the world. I had a career I loved, I was rich and famous, and I was in a loving relationship with the most amazing woman I’d ever met. Now I was on death row. Helping a member of the Resistance carried the death sentence. I’d helped their leader and shot a few SCTU agents to boot. They’d probably sentence me to five consecutive executions, each carried out by a different method. I was confident they would even invent a couple of new methods just for me.

It was not the thought of dying that tormented me. Not because I wasn’t scared of death. If I had sat down and thought about it, I’d have freaked out. But I was very good at avoiding this particular topic. As a fighter pilot and veteran of two wars, I’d faced death several times in the past, and each experience had made the next one just a bit easier. What gnawed at my brain was losing everything I treasured. I thought about Liz, wondering if she’d survived the attack. Thinking about her possible demise caused an almost physical reaction, as if a limb had been torn from my body.

I’d met Liz at a party thrown by another pilot in my squadron. I’d had a few drinks and was tipsy, so at first, I didn’t notice the gorgeous, Afro-Hispanic woman with the fancy British accent passionately discussing some political issue with a group of admiring young men, who I was certain didn’t care about her political views. What first caught my attention wasn’t her long thick black curly hair, her very expensive canary-yellow body-hugging dress, her smooth coffee-bean skin, or her long, long legs—and I was a sucker for long legs. I noticed her when she said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

I’d always said if I ever found a girl who could quote Mr. Spock, I’d marry her in a heartbeat.

One of the men talking to her nodded and smiled like an old, wise guru. “Ah, Aristotle. How very fitting.”

I approached the group and said, “Or the one.”

Liz looked at me approvingly and repeated, “Or the one.” Then her amazing eyes—dark brown with flecks of gold—widened. “You’re Jim Harrison!”

The other guys gave me an exasperated look that told me they knew they’d lost any chance they might’ve had with Liz the moment I walked in.

“The book or the movie?” I asked.

She smiled, opened her bag, and took out her PDD. She touched the screen a few times and gave it to me. I looked at the screen and saw my book’s cover. I read out loud, “Nights of Thunder; the Adventures of Air Force’s Youngest Flying Ace.”

I winked at her. “That’s me all right.”

A few months before the Unification, China, Korea, and Japan, who didn’t want to join, formed their own alliance called the East Asia Coalition. You couldn’t have a United Earth if a third of the population didn’t sign up. The provisional government of Earth imposed severe economic sanctions on them. The Eastern Coalition responded by going to war with the rest of the world. The war ended with both sides making major concessions, and the Unification became official.

During the war, my squadron was deployed in the Philippines. I shot down thirty-two enemy aircraft. I was only twenty-five at the time. Later, I wrote a book about my experiences during the war. As luck would have it, seven months after the war and right when my book was published, a dictator seized power in one of the ex-Soviet Union republics and declared independence. The United Earth Air Force sent its most decorated fighter pilots to show the dictator the error of his ways, and I ended up adding another sixteen kills to my tally in less than two weeks (yeah, I was that good). This helped my book sell a few million copies and got me a movie deal, on top of a couple of documentaries that had already been made about me. I was a big deal.

I gave her PDD back. “Did you like it?”

“Yes. You’re funny, Mr. War Hero. But I thought you were kind of cocky and full of yourself. Now is your chance to prove me wrong.”

Who was I, as a perfect Southern gentleman, to prove a beautiful woman wrong?

“I also worked in your movie as a stunt pilot,” she said.

I blinked. “You are a stuntwoman?”

“And an acrobatic pilot. World champion in woman’s category four years in a row.”

“Wow,” I said, tipping my imaginary hat. That was almost as impressive as my own achievements as a pilot. Almost.

We talked a lot that night. We had a lot in common. Both of us were movie buffs, and we loved the classics. We were madly in love with flying and had weird senses of humor. And we were both rich.

“Well, my family is,” she said. “My parents were originally from Cuba. They moved to the US when I was four. My mother passed away shortly after, and my father sent me to a private boarding school in England, or rather what the British call a public school.”

That explained the sexy accent.

“Why England? Why not right here in the U.S.?” I asked.

“To avoid seeing me even during the holidays, I guess.”

I blinked again. This was happening a lot tonight. “What kind of a father doesn’t want to see his daughter?”

Her nostrils flared. “The abusive, manipulative asshole type.”

Her answer baffled me, but I was uncomfortable prying into her relationship with her father at that moment.

“Later on, I enraged my father by becoming an acrobatic pilot rather than the CEO of one of his companies and eventually marrying into money, so he cut me off. Still, I make enough money to live comfortably,” she added, straightening a curly lock of her hair with one slim finger.

“You know, you’re too good to be true,” I told her. “Too perfect. What’s the catch? What is wrong with you?”

She sipped her wine. “Well, I have an impulse-control disorder.”

I waved my hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. My therapist says I have primarily obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder, aka Pure O.”

She gave me a level look. “I’m an acrobatic pilot, and I can’t control my impulses. It could get me killed one day.”

“You know what my condition is like?” I asked. “It’s like Venom’s stuck in my brain, but unlike the movies, he doesn’t give me any superpowers, and he never says something supportive or witty. He complains nonstop and predicts all sorts of negative outcomes. Sometimes I’d happily give one of my eyes for five minutes of peace and quiet inside my own brain.”

“Venom? Really? You have more of a Peter Parker vibe.”

I laughed and tried to change the subject. “So, besides watching movies, what else do you do for fun?”

“Plenty. Dance, tennis. In my spare time, I run my own charity, collecting donations for New York’s orphanages.”

I heard “tennis,” and the last part flew right over my head. “How about a few sets?”

The next weekend, after I beat her in several consecutive sets and pissed her off in the process, she challenged me to a swimming match. I was a very good swimmer, but after we jumped into the water, all I could see was two long dark brown arms moving away from me faster than the Road Runner running away from Wile E. Coyote.

When I reached the other side of the pool, she told me, “I‘m going to rub this in your face for the rest of your life.”

I had a hard time breathing, but I still managed to say, “Does it mean you think we’ll be together for the rest of my life?”

She laughed but seemed unsure of what to say.

“Is it a bad time to ask you to dinner?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said. “Swimming burns a lot of calories. I need a chocolate sundae.”

We went for dinner. She ordered a salad and a huge chocolate sundae. I didn’t believe she’d eat it all, but she did. I liked the way she licked chocolate syrup off her lips. I liked her little sigh of contentment at the end. I guess I ate too, but I couldn’t remember after I went home later that night.

We started dating. The more I spent time with Liz, the more I liked what I saw. She was a firecracker, a woman as soft-hearted as she was hot-blooded, equally at ease sipping champagne at a fancy restaurant and playing a monster-killing VR game with me. She was a glorious contradiction. She made some people uneasy with her volatile personality, but I didn’t mind. I liked to kid her I’d never have to cheat because I felt like I had two girlfriends. She’d roll her eyes at that.

She moved in with me on our six-month anniversary, right before we went to Cancun to celebrate the occasion. She beat me at swimming there too, but I didn’t care. One day, on the beach, after we’d swum to the point of exhaustion, she lay on top of me, trickled sand on my chest, and said “Your eyes are as blue as ...”

“The sea?”

“I was going to say the blue margaritas at the hotel bar.”

I realized I was in love at that moment.

We’d been living happily together until Kurt showed up and everything went to hell.

*****

On the third day of my imprisonment, my guards gave me a brown suit to wear, let me take a shower and shave, put me in chains, and took me before the judge.

The courtroom was the size of Grand Central Terminal’s main concourse, and it was filled with Zheng’s people: government officials, reporters from government news agencies, SCTU agents, and security guards. There must’ve been hundreds of them. When I entered, all the people in the first few rows of seats turned to look at me with hatred. Under the hostile stares of the spectators, I joined Kurt and Allen, who were wearing suits and chains identical to mine and sitting on the defendants’ seats. Kurt looked at me with guilt in his gray eyes and said something about not meaning for any of this to happen, but I didn’t register his words because I spotted Liz in the courtroom. My vision tunneled, and I stopped paying attention to anything else.

Liz, wearing a simple white skirt suit, sat on the other side of the courtroom, surrounded by a few tough-looking female guards. At least she wasn’t in chains. Someone had probably decided having a beautiful woman in chains didn’t look good in front of the cameras, or maybe Zheng’s people were trying to project an image of leniency.

Liz was scared, but no one but me would notice. She looked composed, but her face had never been that still. She was always smiling, mugging, glancing here and there, not like this, like a goddamn black Madonna, like a statue. Liz saw me, and her face came alive. She stood up as if she wanted to come to me, but one of her guards pushed her back. A look of despair and fury crossed her face. She kicked the guard in the shin so hard that the sound of the impact reverberated in the courtroom. The guard looked like she wanted to attack her, but with all the cameras in the room, she controlled herself and limped away.

I waved at Liz and tried to smile, hating myself for dragging her into this. Should I have told her I knew Kurt? It wouldn’t have made any difference. I’d never have expected him to show up. She wouldn’t have let it stop her from moving in with me.

The court proceedings started after I arrived. We found out security cameras had caught Kurt entering my neighborhood, and later a surveillance drone’s footage had shown him entering my house. The judge, an old, fat man with rubbery lips and gin blossoms, asked me, “Major Harrison. You are a decorated Air Force officer. Why on earth did you decide to help a known terrorist?”

Kurt stood up. “Your Honor, I forced this couple to help me using chemical Scopolamine. The court should consider letting them go.”

I stood up too.

A thought in the back of my mind, my very own personal Venom, said, “Be quiet. Maybe it’ll work. If there’s a one percent chance you and Liz don’t end up in a coffin, you should take it.”

He had a point. I’d heard of cases getting thrown out of court due to the so-called “Scopolamine Defense.” But there was no way I’d stay silent and let my friend take the fall for what I’d done of my own accord. It was bad enough that I let him down the last time. Plus, I was sure I was dead anyway. I might as well have kept my integrity.

I opened my mouth to protest, but Liz beat me to it. Her cultured voice cut through the courtroom like a knife. “That’s not true. We helped him, and we’d do it again. You expected us to let a man just bleed to death? Are you not human?”

That’s my girl.

It took the judge only a few minutes to make his decision. He got up, leaned forward on his bench, and announced, “By the authority vested in me by Chancellor Zheng, I hereby sentence Kurt von der Hagen and Allen Johnson, the infamous terrorists, to death. Major Jim Harrison and Elizabeth Lopez, among the most privileged and respected of our citizens, shamefully abandoned their duty. They will receive the same penalty for aiding and abetting known terrorists.”

A loud murmur swept the courtroom. Everyone started to talk at the same time. Someone began to clap, a few more people followed suit, and soon thunderous applause filled the courtroom. The judge smiled and bowed his head to the crowd.

I wondered what the big deal was. This outcome was so predictable that I felt absolutely nothing. I’d known I was a dead man since I woke up in my cell three days ago, and I had enough time in solitary to accept this fact. This kangaroo court was nothing but a charade. “Big freaking surprise that is,” I said.

Kurt and Allen didn’t seem too bothered either. Allen yawned and pretended he was looking at a wristwatch he wasn’t wearing. Kurt tapped his fingers on the desk and looked heavenward. The three of us were the very picture of nonchalance.

Liz, on the other hand, obviously disagreed with the judge’s ruling and decided to show her displeasure. In the blink of an eye, she jumped over the desk in front of her, managed to evade her guards like the stunt pilot she was, pulled her skirt above her knees, and ran towards the judge’s bench, fast as a cheetah.

The judge gasped and took a step backward. He tripped over his gown, lost his balance, and disappeared behind his bench.

Holding back a “Liz, no!” scream, I jumped to my feet. Kurt and Allen did the same. Several guards drew their weapons and surrounded us. One of them shouted, “Freeze! Don’t move!”

“Redundant much?” I told him.

A court security guard tackled Liz. They both went down, but she was on her feet a second later. Another guard confronted her. She kicked him in the balls. With a comical expression on his face, the man grabbed his privates, opened and closed his mouth twice without making a sound, and fell to the floor.

That’s why all her guards are female.

In chains, the three of us weren’t able to do anything to help Liz. I watched helplessly and hoped the cameras would keep the guards from hurting her. I gripped my chains so hard that my knuckles went white. Allen took a few steps toward the guards. Kurt pulled him back.

Liz’s own guards caught up with her and grabbed her from behind. She shouted, “Let me go!” and tried to wriggle free. They didn’t hurt her or anything, just dragged her toward her seat. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is this what you meant by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?” asked Kurt.

“Right? She’s an enigma,” I said. “She’s so feminine, and she talks like Mary Poppins, but she pulls stunts like this.”

Allen, looking with admiration at Liz, who was struggling with her guards and refusing to go back to her seat, asked, “How do you deserve a woman like that?”

I could see Allen still hadn’t forgiven me for what he called “dumping my best friend at the first sign of trouble.” I answered, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m super charming. How’s your ex-better half, by the way?”

“Last I checked, the fat bitch was still wasting oxygen,” said Allen, malice dripping from his voice. “Thanks for asking though.”

The guards pushed us back to our seats. Another judge replaced the first one, who had banged his fat head against the floor and lost consciousness. The new judge set the executions for two weeks later at dawn.

“Why don’t they get this over with as soon as possible?” I asked Kurt.

“It’s a trap,” said Kurt. “They hope the Resistance will try to save Allen and me. But it won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll get the word out that if any of the Resistance members are dumb enough to fall for it, I’d hit a guard unconscious, grab his gun, and shoot them myself.”

My guards dragged me away. “See you on the other side,” I told Kurt.

“Welcome to the Resistance,” he answered.

I tried to catch one last glimpse of Liz before they took me out of the courtroom but had no luck.

*****

The Coffin - January 11, 2078

Waiting on death row makes you think about your mortality, thought Kurt, lying on his cell’s hard, narrow bunk.

“How very philosophical,” he murmured.

All his adult life, achieving global peace by uniting the world under one government had been Kurt’s mission. This was his father’s dream for over thirty years, and Kurt had grown up listening to him talk about it with consuming passion.

Thomas had assembled a stellar international group of scholars, legal minds, and politicians. It surprised nobody that Kurt joined his old man’s team as soon as he graduated from university. He fought alongside his father for a united Earth. It wasn’t easy. It cost Kurt’s father three decades of his life, and along the way, he inadvertently caused a short but bloody war that claimed thousands of lives. But together, with the help of countless other visionaries, they managed to achieve this dream against impossible odds.

And then Zheng had shown up, killed Kurt’s parents, and ruined everything.

After Zheng’s coup, Earth’s national governments quickly fell in line. With both the army and SCTU concentrated in North America, the USA and Canada didn’t have a choice, and the East Asia Coalition was more than happy to support Zheng. He bribed the other world powers by offering their leaders enormous economic rewards. With the major countries in the world in Zheng’s pocket, the smaller countries’ only option was to capitulate. But while the national governments bowed down to Zheng, the ordinary citizens had a different idea. They fought back, spearheaded by Kurt and Allen, who founded the Resistance, which later spread like wildfire all around the planet.

Zheng! Just thinking about him made Kurt’s skin crawl. Kurt would’ve happily sacrificed his life to put a bullet in that man’s head, but he was too well-protected. Kurt had to content himself with killing his henchmen. He was positive if he kept pushing, Zheng would fall at the end, but now he was caught, to be executed the next day, and Zheng had won again. He was leaving the world a failure. Despair pierced his heart like a rattlesnake’s fang.

Approaching footsteps echoed in Kurt’s cell. He glanced up. Zheng stood in front of his cell, looking in at him with a predatory smile on his face.

Blood rushed to Kurt’s brain with such force that he was disoriented for a few seconds. He jumped off the bunk and thought about attacking the chancellor, but he wouldn’t have been able to reach him through the bars.

“Hi. Kurt. Can I call you Kurt?” said Zheng.

“It depends. Can I call you a bloodthirsty monster?” answered Kurt.

Zheng shrugged off the insult. “I just wanted to meet the pesky little insect who killed so many of my subordinates face to face.”

Kurt wished Jim were here. He’d have the perfect comeback. Something from a movie, probably.

When Kurt didn’t respond, Zheng continued, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry your mother was killed in the explosion meant for your dad. I met her a few times back in the day. She was a lovely woman. Too good for your father, certainly. Did you know she was supposed to be somewhere else that night? Unfortunately, by the time I noticed she was in the car, our plans were under way, and if I’d hesitated then, I’d be on the other side of these bars now, or dead. I had no choice but to flip the switch.”

Kurt went pale. “You personally carried out the assassination?”

Zheng smiled. “Of course. Your father was my greatest enemy. My Moby Dick. I couldn’t have some faceless goon kill him, could I? Oh, you must really hate me right now.”

Kurt felt a loud pounding in his ears. “Let’s find out. Step inside.”

Zheng laughed. “Why spoil the party? I have big plans for you tomorrow. I’ve arranged for cameramen, showgirls, and fireworks, just for you.”

His eyes blazing with fury, Kurt stepped closer to the bars. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. You’ll pay for what you did. I’ll kill you, and not with a bomb or a sniper rifle. I’ll kill you up close and personal, looking into those ugly holes in your skull you call eyes.”

Much to Kurt’s satisfaction, Zheng shuddered, ever so slightly. The dictator shrugged, turned, and left without saying another word.

*****

The Coffin - January 12, 2078

Elizabeth, kneeling in her cell and holding her head down, prayed alongside the Coffin’s chaplain. “To you, Lord, I lift up my soul,” she whispered.

A female guard banged on the cell door. “It’s almost time.”

The chaplain stood up and looked at Elizabeth with dull eyes. “May God be with you, my child.”

“I’ve written farewell letters to my siblings,” said Liz. “Could you please make sure they receive the letters?”

“Of course.”

Liz gave him four envelopes. “I’ve also written a letter to Jim. I didn’t want to destroy it, but I don’t want the guards to find it either. Can you keep it for me? You must promise you won’t read it.”

“I promise.”

“And don’t forget watering my plant,” Elizabeth told him.

The chaplain nodded, picked up the Chinese evergreen Elizabeth kept in her cell, and walked out.

This was the last time I prayed in my life, thought Elizabeth. The thought made her dizzy. Her vision blurred, and her knees went weak. She pushed away her fear as she’d been doing all her life. Even now—when she was about to die—she wouldn’t surrender. She refused to.

Three prison guards entered the cell. Elizabeth pointed at the chains they were carrying. “Are those necessary? I won’t bite.”

“We aren’t taking any chances with you,” one of the guards said, “after you bit poor Melisa’s ear off. I bet you’re still flossing her ear out of your teeth.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t normally behave like that. She insulted my boyfriend.”

She wanted to cry as soon as she mentioned Jim. “Stiff upper lip,” she whispered to herself.

The guards put the chains on Elizabeth’s hands and feet. Waves of desperation swept through her. Jeez, but she missed Jim’s smile, his wisecracks, his calming presence, his infuriating tendency to take nothing seriously. Tears welled in her eyes. She clamped her lower lip in her teeth to keep it from trembling. No way would she allow these assholes to see her cry. She wiped her tears with the back of her jumpsuit sleeve, but they kept coming. To her surprise, one of the guards gave her a white handkerchief. The others averted their eyes in an obvious attempt to give her some privacy. The unexpected decency touched her. She wondered how much choice these guards had about their jobs. Whether they’d worked in the prison before Zheng’s takeover, seen the class of prisoner change, and not known what to do about it. For a moment she wanted to ask but remembered she had fewer choices than anyone. She cried harder, the tears running down her cheeks. The guards gave her a few minutes, and then one of them gently said, “We must get going now.”

Elizabeth bit her lip and pulled herself together. She nodded to the guards, wiped her tears again, and followed them to the corridor.

It was a shame she couldn’t give Jim his Christmas present. It was a life-size dancing Baby Groot that could detect music and dance to the rhythm. She thought it was the cutest thing she’d seen in a while. Jim would’ve loved it.

Hopefully, they’d meet again. Jim was agnostic, but at heart, he was a good man. Surely the Lord would take that into consideration.

Elizabeth and her guards left the cell and entered the corridor. A large woman with a bandage over her right ear called out from another cell, “Goodbye, crazy girl.” There was a hint of respect in her voice.

Elizabeth smiled faintly. “Sorry about your ear, Melisa.”

“Nah. My own damn fault,” said the woman. “Should know who I’m messing with. But, you know, you do look like you were born with a silver spoon up your arse.”

*****

I woke to what was most likely my last glimpse of sunlight. A shaft of light entered my cell for a few minutes every day at dawn. It was the only charm that the filthy cell could boast of. I touched my chest and wondered if the sharp pain near my heart meant a broken rib. Odds were I wouldn’t live long enough to find out. Certainly not long enough to heal.

I hadn’t just sat on my hands waiting for my appointment with the guillotine. During the first ten days in prison, I tried to start a riot, but one of the people I talked to turned out to be a snitch, and the guards nipped that in the bud. Then I tried to break out. Twice. I got caught both times. After the second attempt, the prison officials got fed up with my antics. The guards beat me up until I wished I were dead and threw me back in solitary for the rest of the last week.

Expecting the guards to arrive any minute, I sat on the bed in the best imitation of the Lotus Pose I could manage and tried to look relaxed. My OCD mind, however, went in a hundred different directions.

Waiting on death row for execution, knowing the exact day and time of your death, was agonizing psychological torture. I considered myself a brave man, but I couldn’t eat and had barely slept the last few days.

It wasn’t just thinking about death, which became more and more unavoidable the closer I got to the execution date, that clawed at my soul. All men must die, after all. It was thinking about my life, the mistakes I’d made, and the things I could’ve done differently that was killing me, no pun intended. If I had known I would die before my twenty-ninth birthday, I’d have made a lot of different decisions. I would’ve paid more attention to religion and spirituality instead of labeling myself agnostic and not even bothering to spend a little time thinking about life after death. I should’ve visited my parents’ graves more often. We weren’t close. My father was so consumed with his aspiration for global peace that he didn’t have time for anything else in his life, and my mom was schizophrenic, living in a different world where I didn’t exist. She’d died in a long-term care facility, surrounded by a collection of dolls she had conversations with about sex, cannibalism, and demonic possession. For all intents and purposes, I’d grown up an orphan, but this was no excuse. And I’d have proposed to Liz much earlier, even though if I’d done it too early, she might have said no.

I was in jail for only two weeks, but that was enough for something to change in me. It was one thing to hear about the regime’s brutality while living comfortably in a bubble; it was a different thing to experience it firsthand. They kept Kurt, Allen, and me separated, but we could talk to the other prisoners. I met fathers who had lost their sons under torture, or whose daughters had been executed by a firing squad. I met husbands whose wives had committed suicide in jail or died trying to defend them against Zheng’s goons. And there were children in jail, lots of them, imprisoned for “crimes” ranging from carrying messages for the Resistance to throwing rocks at security forces. The depth of human misery I witnessed in jail had been haunting my dreams, whenever I could actually sleep.

I wondered why I didn’t have any of the problems I’d seen in the movies about jail. Things involving showers and soap. I chose not to interpret this as an affront to my attractiveness. I was quite a catch: tall and muscular, with crystal blue eyes, light brown curly hair, and a square chin. Other inmates left me alone because I looked like I could defend myself. The fact that everyone knew I was associated with Kurt and Allen and nobody wanted to mess with those two probably played a small role too.

The cell door opened. Four guards carrying assault rifles and heavy chains walked in. They wore dark brown uniforms and looked grim. I knew all of them. These were the same assholes who beat me up a few days ago.

My stomach twisted so hard that I would’ve thrown up if I’d eaten anything in the last few days. Being a few minutes away from execution, all I really wanted to do was to curl up in a fetal position and hide under my blanket, but I’d be damned if I showed these SOBs any weakness. I stretched, smiled, and with a light tone said, “Is it time for the necktie party already? Cool. I was getting bored in here.”

One of the guards looked at the wall behind my bed where I’d carved my name a million times using a screw I’d loosened from my bed frame, covering most of the wall. He grunted and rolled his eyes.

“Take that, you bastards,” I said, clasping my hands behind my head. “I’d like to see the bill for repainting this wall. Just wait until you find the three-foot hole I’ve dug under the bed. Another year and I’d escape this joint through a tunnel.”

I was whistling when the guards dragged me to the prison yard. Kurt and Allen were already there, both in chains. They had sunken eyes and various bruises and scars on their faces, especially Allen, who kept getting into unwinnable fights with the guards and getting his ass kicked. Still, Kurt was clean-shaven, except for his ridiculous goatee, and his Disney-princess hair looked like he’d just been to a barber. I had no idea how he did it. My own curly hair made me look like George of the Jungle.

The whole place was flooded with heavily armed SCTU soldiers. There were at least a few hundred of them. Some twenty government officials whom I’d seen in the court stood together at a corner. A cameraman was standing behind our guards, pointing his camera at us. One of the guards told me, “Smile. You are on camera. Your execution’s being televised live.”

“I hope my daughter isn’t watching this,” growled Allen.

“Or Liz,” I said.

Another guard, a tall man with wide shoulders, overheard that. “You don’t need to worry about that. She’ll be executed at the same time as you.”

“Cheer up. Maybe you can continue tapping that ass in the afterlife,” another guard added.

The freaking guards laughed like it was the funniest joke ever. Anger rose in my chest. I wasn’t a martial arts expert, and even if I’d been, it would’ve done me little good with my hands and legs in restraints. But I was fast, and the stupid guard had turned his head, looking at his friends, seeking their approval. I took two baby steps—literally, because of the restraints—and when he turned to look at me, I head-butted him in the face. He grabbed his nose and fell to the ground. Another guard swung his gun, butt forward. I tried to duck, but he caught me just under the nose. Being in chains didn’t stop Allen from hurling himself at the second guard. He was brought down by three others using batons. Kurt rushed in and tried to stop them from beating the old man to death before they got the chance to execute him.

The guards pushed us in front of a wall full of bullet holes. There were fresh bloodstains on the ground. I heaved as the smell of blood hit me. The guards blindfolded me with a piece of dirty cloth.

“Great!” I said. “Now I have to worry about an eye infection on top of everything else.”

“Can I get a cigarette?” said Allen. Apparently, he didn’t get one because he yelled, “You monsters! You deny a man his dying wish?”

I spit blood out of my mouth and felt my teeth with my tongue. The mind-numbing pain told me I had a broken one.

I struggled with my bonds, trying to set myself free. With the prison yard full of soldiers, it’d be no use, but I could charge them in one last act of defiance, with the entire world watching. That would show Zheng he couldn’t use our public execution to intimidate others. When I couldn’t find a way out of my binds, I tried to remove the blindfold to at least stare my executioners in the eyes, but that didn’t work either, so I decided to use the best weapon in my arsenal.

“Come on, you cowards,” I yelled. “Open my hands and let’s go a few rounds. I’ll take you all, your bastard of a chancellor included! I’ll even let you tie my right hand behind my back!”

There was a reason my nickname was the Fighter Pilot with the Mouth.

I got a gun butt in my stomach for my efforts. All air left my lungs with a whoosh. That forced me to stop.

Kurt chuckled humorlessly. “Jim, didn’t you say something about not wanting to be put up against the same wall as me?”

“Beware what you don’t wish for,” I answered.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I got you and Elizabeth involved in this,” he added. “I made sure I wasn’t followed. Should’ve thought about the drones though.”

“Water under the bridge.” I turned my head toward him even though we couldn’t see each other. “To be honest, now that I’m going to die, I have only two regrets. One’s that I didn’t join the Resistance when you asked me to.”

A steady rhythm of boot heels got closer as a group of soldiers marched toward us. The firing squad. They were coming to kill me. Waves of desperation swept through me, and my heart decided to hide behind my stomach.

“And the other one?” Kurt asked.

For a second, I didn’t remember what we were talking about; then I grabbed at it like a life raft. “The next Star Trek will be released next month, and I’m going to miss it.”

I could hear the astonishment in Kurt’s voice. “Weren’t you about to propose the night I came to your house?”

Exactly what I’d been doing my damnedest not to think about. If I did, I’d break down and beg the guards to let Liz go, saying I’d do anything they wanted. I might even have burst into tears. On live TV. Everything I’d done in the past few minutes was to prevent that outcome. I very much preferred to die with some dignity.

The voice inside my head, aka Venom, went on a rant like there was no tomorrow. “You got her killed. You found the kindest and warmest girl in the world, and you managed to get her dragged in front of a firing squad. Well done!”

God damn it!

I had a huge lump in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. My lower lip started to quiver, and my breath quickened. If the devil had come to me at that moment and said he would save Liz if I agreed to serve him for a million years and then go to hell for eternity, I’d have accepted with gratitude. I’d have agreed to anything just to make the pain I felt for dragging her into this go away.

“Yeah, that too,” I whispered.

“You are back-ass weird,” said Allen.

I’d normally deflect a comment like that with a joke or a wise-ass comment like “Amen to that” or “Normal is boring,” but I was in a very bad mood, and I’d never liked Allen much to begin with. When I was a teenager and he was Thomas’s head of security, I was afraid of him. He was always grumpy and menacing, and Canadians were supposed to be nice. I remembered one of his famous quotes was “Fighter pilots are pussies. A real man kills his enemies in hand-to-hand combat while staring into the whites of their eyes.”

I was sure he’d stolen that quote from the Klingons.

It was funny what details my mind chose to remember right before death. My OCD brain was skipping around like a kitten on meth. Don’t think about ... you know. Don’t think about her.

“I’m weird?” I retorted. “Isn’t your nickname the Butcher of Macau?”

“Butcher? Huh! It’s an exaggeration,” said Allen angrily. “There were less than fifty people in that casino, every single one of them an associate of Zheng.”

“Plus the casino’s employees who got caught in the crossfire.”

Someone shouted, “Ready!”

Allen raised his voice. “Didn’t you get rich and famous by killing a bunch of Japanese people?”

The same voice continued, “Set!”

I shouted, “Enemy combatants! Not innocent bystanders!”

“Really? You guys are doing this now?” said Kurt in an incredulous tone. He talked to Allen in French, which he knew I didn’t understand. If he were telling him to shut up, it didn’t work. The old man growled, “Nobody’s innocent, especially a spoiled brat working for the enemy’s air force.”

Good thing we were going to die; otherwise, I would’ve killed Allen.

“Aim!”

At that moment, it finally dawned on me: I was going to miss out on a lot. All the plans I had for the rest of my life had been wiped off the board. I’d never fly again. I wouldn’t get married. I wouldn’t father a child and have a family of my own. Hell, I didn’t even get to propose. Worst of all, I’d never again have the chance to see the woman I was planning to do all these with. Regret burned through my soul like fire, frying up my already worn-out brain, making me forget where I was for a merciful moment.

Then I remembered my best friend was about to die standing next to me. Tension grew in my face and neck, and my breathing became more rapid. My mind started playing images of our impending execution. I watched our bodies being shredded by bullets. My fingers curled into a fist, nails digging into my palms. Everything began to spin, and I felt I was about to black out as fear overwhelmed my mind.

Kurt’s voice came out thin and distant. “Vive la révolution.”

“Fire!”

Liz, I’m so sorry, I thought right before the world sank into darkness.

Chapter Four

Alora - Standard Galactic Date: 027.10.5072

(Earth Date: 11/01/2078)

Flying his Deathbringer in Alora’s orbit, General Maada thought, Finally, time for action.

He had been restless for a while now, but the invasion of their new target, Earth, could not have started before the first phase of Alora’s colonization was complete. The fleet was not able to leave before the new colony could protect itself against enemy attacks. Moreover, they needed samples of Earth’s inhabitants, “humans,” to calibrate the Voice of God. Their scout ship had just returned from Earth, carrying a few dozen samples.

The cloud of Deathbringers rising from the ground was a sight to behold. It filled Maada’s chest with pride. This was the strongest fleet in the universe: forty thousand space fighters, every single one of them deadly. The Deathbringers flew in close formation, reminding him of how Zandzoks took to the air. He remembered watching the deadly birds of prey as a boy, feeling a kinship he understood even then was important. Maada wasn’t afraid of how big they were or that they’d been known to steal babies. He only wanted to be that powerful himself.

And now he was, as were all the space fighter pilots under his command, most of whom had followed him for a very long time in his mission to make the Xortaag kingdom the strongest and most feared entity in the universe.

As soon as the Deathbringers landed in the transport ships’ hangar bays, the fleet would be on its way, and soon the Xortaags’ already vast kingdom would have a new colony.

A short while later, Maada landed his crimson Deathbringer on Mushgaana’s command ship hangar deck, which was much smaller than a transporter but still could take in a few hundred space fighters. He climbed out of his fighter. Mushgaana was waiting for him in the hanger bay, wearing the royal family’s battle uniform—a knee-length black robe with a dagger strap. The crown prince had honored him by coming here instead of waiting on the bridge.

“Welcome aboard, General,” said Mushgaana. “Ready to add another planet to the list of your conquests?”

“No, Your Highness.” Maada saluted. “I am ready to add another planet to your list of conquests. I am but a humble servant of the kingdom.”

Mushgaana smiled. “Well said, but you are anything but humble. You remember I can read your thoughts, right? I know every time you disagree with one of my strategic decisions, you are thinking about choking me to death.” His hands rose, miming choking. His two personal guards standing behind him looked uneasy. “I am sure you will do that if one day I make a decision you judge is against the kingdom’s best interest.”

“The very thought is high treason,” answered Maada, irritated at being reminded of Mushgaana’s telepathic powers. It gave the prince a weapon he could never counter. “You would be well within your rights to have me executed on the spot.”

Mushgaana shook his head. “All this time we have been together, and you still cannot take a joke. You might be the scariest military genius in the galaxy, General, but your sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes I wish I had an Akakie on my staff. Those guys are really funny.”

Maada did not smile. He neither understood nor approved of the crown prince’s sense of humor. While they were walking towards the ship’s bridge, he said, “Speaking of the Akakies, something has been bothering me. When you were signing the peace treaty, one of them was standing in the back of the room. He was wearing a white uniform with no insignia, and he looked very pleased with himself, like someone whose plans have succeeded.”

“You can read the Akakies’ facial expressions now?” Mushgaana chuckled. “I didn’t notice anything in his thoughts. Maybe he was just happy about the treaty?”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, you weren’t paying attention to him. If it had occurred to me at that time, I would have asked you to read him. No. This was the look of a predator sizing up his prey. Trust me. I would know. Whoever he is, he is up to something.”

“He is an Akakie. What is he going to do? Make us all laugh to death? You are getting paranoid in your old age, my friend.”

“You should not underestimate the Akakies.” Maada frowned. “Do you remember a few decades ago they exterminated the entire population of a planet while broadcasting it for the whole galaxy to watch?”

“If memory serves, they did not actually do it themselves. They hacked into the computer system of the enemy fleet and made them destroy their own planet.”

“Which should tell you how dangerous they really are. Something tells me the guy I just told you about had something to do with that operation.”

They entered the command ship’s bridge together. The Xortaag officers on duty stood at attention. “Stop worrying,” said the prince. “Let’s go get ourselves a new planet.”

*****

Earth - Standard Galactic Date: 028.10.5072

(Earth Date: 12/01/2078)

Tossing and turning in his bunk, Tarq had a hard time falling asleep. He had not had a decent night’s sleep since the fall of Alora. With the fate of their civilization in the balance, it would be a surprise if he had one anytime soon.

His PDD buzzed. It was his assistant, Lieutenant Barook. “Sorry to disturb you, but the Xortaag fleet has just left Alora, moving towards Earth, as predicted.”

Tarq was filled with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it was an immense relief that his plan was working. If he had been wrong, the last few months’ hard work would have been a huge waste of resources, and once his government found out what he had done without authorization, they would execute him for treason, along with Barook and a few hundred other people who had put their trust in him. On the other hand, being right meant the survival of his entire species rested on his shoulders. Thinking about that made his hearts skip a beat.

He jumped out of his bunk. “It is a good thing we are ready. Operation KXAFUP is a go then.”

Barook sounded confused. “I must have missed that memo. Is this our new code name? What does it mean?”

“Operation Kick-the-Xortaags'-Ass-back-to-their-Freaking-Ugly-Planet,” Tarq answered.

Barook laughed. “It is a good name. I feel sorry for the humans, though. They do not deserve this.”

“Me too. But there is no need for the two of us to feel guilty. At least now with our help, they have a fighting chance.”

Before disconnecting the call, Barook said, “By the way, what you pulled today was genius, even for someone with your reputation.”

Tarq chuckled. “Just wait to see what I have planned for tomorrow.”

Chapter Five

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a windowless room with white walls, floor, and ceiling. The room was the size of a basketball court, and most of it was empty. I was sitting on a white, comfortable sofa, wearing white clothes and shoes. Next to me, Liz was lying on the same sofa, her eyes closed, wearing a white dress. Not like a wedding dress or a sundress, more like one of those nineteenth or early twentieth-century garden party dresses in period movies. It wasn’t quite her style—too high-necked, and her legs were covered—but she looked fantastic. For a moment, I just watched her chest rise and fall.

Soft music was playing in the room. Hymns, I thought vaguely, though there were no words to jog my memory. A short man wearing a white tuxedo was standing in front of us. I couldn’t see his face because his bright halo threw it into a shadow.

He had huge, outspread white wings extending from his shoulders.

I blinked and looked around. I felt foggy. The last thing I remembered was standing in front of a firing squad. Now I was here, Liz beside me, meeting a man who was the very picture of an angel. There was only one conclusion I could draw: Liz and I were in heaven.

And Venom was quiet. Yep. This was definitely heaven.

One problem, though: I was agnostic, which was only one step away from being an atheist. What the hell—no pun intended—was I doing in heaven? At least Liz was a devout Catholic. Maybe I was here on account of her?

Liz sat up and looked at me with sleepy eyes. She gasped and covered her mouth, and then burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck. Between her sobs, I barely made out her saying, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

I held her hand and tried to comfort her. I wondered what exactly people did in heaven. Could we have sex? I heard voices behind me. I turned my head and saw Kurt and Allen, also wearing white, looking around, eyes wide.

The Super-Assassin and the Butcher were also in heaven? This was getting weird.

“Welcome,” said the man in front of us, in a very deep voice that in my considered opinion sounded divine.

“Um. Hello,” I said. “Are you … ?” Was there a particular angel who welcomed you to heaven? Was I supposed to know? Elizabeth prided herself on her social savoir-faire, so she probably knew.

“Please allow me to introduce myself.” He snapped his fingers, and both the halo and the wings disappeared. He looked Native American, with brown skin, black hair, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes. And he was wearing a white hat with a blue peacock feather on it.

Okay … maybe heaven had weirdos?

He continued, “My name is Commander Tarq, and no, unfortunately, you are not in heaven, and I am not an angel.”

Then he burst into laughter. “But you should have seen the look on your faces!”

Dumbfounded, we looked at each other. This whole you-are-dead-and-in-heaven thing was a freaking prank? Who on earth would do that? Liz was clutching my arm. I considered kicking the man’s teeth in, but I was too calm, almost listless. Kicking someone sounded like too much effort.

The man—Tarq—just stood there with a massive grin on his face, looking like a child waiting to be praised. Our lack of reaction obviously disappointed him because he moaned, “Come on! This was really good. Do you have any idea how much time and energy I put into planning this?” Then he continued under his breath, “Maybe I should not have combined sedatives with the prank.”

Sedatives? What sedatives?

The door opened, and another small man who also looked like a Native American but had a full bushy black beard walked in. I didn’t know Native Americans could grow a beard, especially one as thick as this one. The last time I’d seen a beard like that, it was on a guy preaching about the end of the world in the subway. In shorts. In December. With a cat on his head. This guy looked more normal, in white pants and a t-shirt. A small robot that looked like a vacuum cleaner with arms followed him, pushing a trolley. There were apples and pears, a few sandwiches, and something that looked like orange juice on it.

“This is my assistant, Lieutenant Barook,” said Tarq. “Our doctors have already taken care of you, but you need to eat to regain your strength. And you are all slightly sedated, in case you are wondering why you feel so calm.” He looked at Liz who was still sobbing and added, “Relatively.”

That explained why I was not freaking out. Kurt and Allen each took a sandwich, but I was holding Liz’s hands. I decided to eat later.

Tarq took a big Sherlock-Holmes-style pipe out of his pocket, lit it, took a draw, and said, “You must have a million questions, but this will go faster if I talk and you listen for now. First things first: This is how you all escaped from the prison.”

He turned on a VR screen behind him on the wall. It was a news program. An excited blonde reporter who reminded me of a ferret was reporting live from in front of our prison. She said the executions were in progress inside. Then a freaking spaceship—yeah, white—appeared out of nowhere on top of the prison. The ship looked like an oversized flying saucer: It was oval, and its semi-major axis was at least 180 feet. It had an aerodynamic shape and twin engines on its sides.

The spaceship hovered there for a few seconds; then it emanated a greenish blue beam that encompassed the prison and its surrounding area. The reporter and everyone around her fell to the ground, apparently unconscious. The feed changed to another camera, still filming.

“This one is ours,” explained Tarq.

Two small shuttles left the spaceship and landed inside the prison. Five Air Force F-44 jet fighters showed up and tried to engage the spaceship, but it shot them down using a laser-like energy weapon.

“Wow!” I said, eloquent as ever.

“This is just a cargo ship, and not particularly well-armed,” said Tarq. “Wait until you see our space fighters.”

“Actually, the cargo ships are very impressive too,” said Barook. “They can carry up to eight hundred people if we remove the shuttles. We have fifty of those right here.”

The shuttles returned a few minutes later.

“With you guys inside.” Tarq grinned. “No need to thank me all at once. You are welcome.”

Liz and I looked at each other with our mouths open. “You’re an alien?” she asked Tarq.

“Well, duh.” I raised my right hand in a Vulcan salute aimed at Tarq.

Tarq smiled and nodded.

“Why did you help us?” Kurt asked.

“The answer to this question is complicated,” Tarq responded. “I have prepared a presentation. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy my masterpiece.”

The “presentation” was a holographic movie, with a voice-over by Tarq himself. He paused the movie several times to offer comments. It lasted nearly an hour, during which I kept asking Liz to pinch me to make sure I was not dreaming. The fifth time I asked, she got fed up and pinched my arm so hard that it left a bruise the size of her palm.

The movie showed us there were a few hundred species in the galaxy (I knew it!), but currently only fifteen of them had space-travel technology. Tarq’s people, the Akakies, were an advanced and peaceful civilization. There was also a humanoid warrior species, the Xortaags. Technologically, they weren’t as advanced as the Akakies—no other race was—and they spent most of their time either fighting each other or having meaningless skirmishes with the neighboring planets. Moreover, their homeworld, Tangaar, was slowly dying because of overpopulation and pollution, so despite their violent tendencies, the Akakies hadn’t considered them a major threat.

Around forty Earth years ago, the Xortaag king’s youngest son, Prince Mushgaana, met an idealistic young fleet officer, a then Commander Maada. Maada believed the only way his species could survive was by colonizing other planets. He didn’t stop there: He dreamed of a galaxy under the Xortaags’ rule.

“So he basically wants what our fathers dreamed of, only on a larger scale,” I whispered to Kurt.

Anger flashed in his eyes. “We wanted a democratically elected government, not an absolute monarchy!”

I held my palms up. “Dude, I’m just messing with you.”

Mushgaana manipulated his father to appoint Maada as the commander of their fleet, and to let them plan their first all-out military campaign. Under Maada’s command, they conquered and colonized several planets and expanded their empire. In the early days of their campaign to rule the known universe, they reverse engineered a mind control technology they’d found on a defeated planet, which gave them an enormous advantage

“Mind control? How does that work?” I asked.

Tarq paused the movie and glared at me. “I’ll get to that. Please be quiet.”

“The CIA tried that back in the 1950s,” said Liz. “I think they used LSD.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” Tarq asked, his hands on his hips. There was something weird about his posture, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Liz giggled, squirming in her seat. “Oh yes, alien master!”

The presentation continued.

Under General Maada’s command, the Xortaag fleet annihilated numerous other species, including a few with space-travel capabilities. Each victory brought the Xortaags closer to the Akakies and their allies.

“Wait, General Maada?” I said. “Shouldn’t it be Admiral Maada?”

“The closest translation to the rank the Xortaags use for the commander of their fleet is general.” Tarq shrugged. “It is an alien fleet, you know.”

Tarq’s government believed the Xortaags would never dare attack the Akakies, but he decided to keep an eye on them. He also planned and executed two covert operations against the enemy: They wiped out the Xortaag population in a colony using a mutated virus, and they activated all the volcanos in another occupied planet simultaneously, killing off all the Xortaags.

I was disturbed by how easily this funny-looking little man in his white tuxedo and feathered cap talked about killing God knew how many people. “Wow! Genocide much?”

Tarq gave me the look of a high school teacher who was just about to send a student to detention. “All adult Xortaags are soldiers, and there were no children in those colonies. Unlike the Xortaags, the Akakie Special Operations Force does not kill kids.”

“The Xortaags don’t have children?” asked Liz, a note of sadness in her voice.

“They do,” said Tarq, “but the first wave of colonists is responsible for preparing the infrastructure for the following waves. There are no kids in a new colony until the second wave arrives.”

“So the Xortaags colonized dozens of planets,” said Kurt, “and the other species in the galaxy didn’t think they should be stopped?”

Tarq shrugged. “For your information, the galaxy is huge, and there is no real need for the few space-faring species in it to deal with each other. Despite the occasional invasions and battles, they mostly leave each other alone, and there is very little communication between them. Most species are only in contact with the few planets in their own neighborhood. Our own fleet, for example, is mostly a deterrent. We had not had a real battle in decades. As I said, my government did not feel threatened by the Xortaags, and the others just did not want to mess with them.”

“One more question,” I said. “If most species in the galaxy don’t have space-travel capabilities, isn’t it easier for the Xortaags to attack only those, instead of going to war with the likes of you?”

“The Xortaags prefer to invade planets with at least a certain level of technology,” said Tarq, “because it allows them to find and reverse-engineer things they cannot build themselves. They are not very creative, but they are very good at copying other species’ technology. Also, keep in mind a lack of space-travel capabilities does not necessarily mean those species cannot defend themselves. A lot of them can fight and potentially defeat the Xortaags inside their planets’ atmosphere.”

“Once the Xortaags conquer a planet,” said Barook, “they consider several factors when choosing their next target. Sometimes they are looking for a certain piece of technology. Sometimes it is an enemy they must defeat before moving forward. In some cases though, it is simply the closest target, which is how they ended up deciding to attack Earth.”

When the inevitable confrontation came, Maada and his fleet beat the Akakie forces with ease. Despite Tarq’s protest, his government decided to ask the Xortaags to sign a peace treaty. Tarq believed the peace treaty would allow the Xortaags to enslave the rest of the galaxy without opposition, and once they felt they were strong enough, they’d attack his home planet, Kanoor. He initiated a major black op: Unknown to his government, he had a military base built under an invisible force field on the planet that was the Xortaags’ next target and stocked it with advanced equipment and weaponry. He was going to give this base to the planet’s inhabitants so that they had a shot at defending themselves.

The movie ended.

I caught Tarq ogling Liz. I frowned at him, and he quickly averted his eyes.

Tarq added, “In case you did not figure it out: The Xortaags’ next target is Earth, and we are on that base right now.”

I was bone-tired, dazed, and drugged, but my wisecracking abilities were intact. “It’s good you clarified it; otherwise, I might’ve thought you’ve saved us to help defend another planet in a galaxy far, far away against the Xortaags.”

Tarq smiled at me. “I was initially planning to hand the base over to the government of Earth, but after observing Earth for a few months, I changed my mind. Earth’s current leadership is too fractured, incompetent, and corrupt to be able to mount an effective defense against a far superior enemy.”

I interrupted him again. “Dude! If you provide Zheng with a spaceship, he’ll use it to run away and save his own skin, or worse, try to negotiate with the Xortaags and form an alliance against you.”

“On the other hand, the Resistance fits the profile of people with the resolve to defend their planet,” continued Tarq, trying to ignore me. “Therefore, I decided to turn the base over to Kurt and his people.”

“You cut it kinda close, didn’t you?” I asked. “We were this close”—I showed him my thumb and index finger, very close together—“to start pushing up daisies.”

Tarq gave me a bewildered look.

“To be executed,” Liz clarified.

“There is a good reason we waited until the last moment to save you,” said Tarq. “We wanted to do it live on TV with millions watching to achieve the maximum dramatic effect. After that, there will be no shortage of volunteers when we start to recruit people.”

Talk about information overload! I was dizzy. This was all way too unreal. Kurt, Liz, and Allen didn’t look too good either, sedated or not.

I noticed Tarq ogling Liz again. I thought about punching his lights out. Nope. Too tired.

“I think this is enough for today,” said Tarq, smoking his pipe. “If you have any urgent questions, you can ask them now. Then get some rest, and tomorrow I will give you a tour of the base and go over our defense strategy. Barook will show you to your quarters.”

“Did you save only the four of us?” asked Kurt. “The prison was full of Resistance members.”

“I realize that,” Tarq said. “But we did not know who was with the Resistance and who was a common criminal. There will be plenty of time to stage a jailbreak.”

“If you’re aliens, why do you look exactly like us?” Elizabeth asked, her head tilted, eyes narrowed.

Tarq and Barook exchanged a look. Tarq answered, “There are dozens of humanoid species in the galaxy, some of which, including the Xortaags, look exactly like humans, at least on the outside. Make no mistake though: You probably have only slightly more in common with them than with a chimpanzee.”

That explanation didn’t convince Elizabeth. “But how’s it possible?”

“Nobody seems to know for certain.” Tarq shrugged. “The most widely accepted theory indicates intelligent design.”

“Whose intelligence?” I asked skeptically.

“The theory holds that a few million years ago a now extinct species scattered human DNA, as well as that of many other species, including for some reason sheep and wombats, all across the universe. As a result, there are several instances of similar species evolving on distant planets.”

“Do all your people look like Native Americans?” I asked, wondering what a wombat was.

Barook laughed. “You saw two of us and immediately assume we all look like this? Do you always stereotype so quickly?”

“No. We are as varied as you guys are,” said Tarq. “It just so happens that Barook and I are from the same background.”

Before leaving, I said, “I have to ask: With the fate of the universe in the balance, you still saw it fit to spend time and energy staging this?” I pointed at us and the whole this-is-what-heaven-looks-like charade.

Tarq beamed. “Of course! Was it not exquisite? “

I had to admit it kind of was.

“I have a question too,” said Kurt. “In your presentation, you mentioned several times that your species was significantly more advanced than the Xortaags. How come you couldn’t stop them on your own?”

Staring down at his hands, Tarq answered with a flat voice, “Because we are all pussies.”

*****

Barook showed us to our quarters, which was a Spartan and functional room with bare walls and a few pieces of furniture—a sofa, dining table, a bed, all of them white. Apparently, the Akakies really liked this color. The bed was comfortable, especially after a couple of weeks of sleeping, or to be more accurate trying to sleep, in prison.

In the last few weeks, I’d been shot, gassed, jailed, sentenced to death, tortured, and saved by aliens—I still couldn’t wrap my mind around this one—but when I found myself alone with Liz in our quarters, I could only think about one thing.

It’s funny how the human brain works.

Or at least, a man’s brain. Liz wanted to talk, so we did that almost all night, although I couldn’t stop touching her. We talked about everything that had happened in the past two weeks. I told her I’d decided not joining the Resistance was a mistake. I earned a kiss for that. She told me she’d survived “the nick” by constantly thinking about me.

If Allen ever told her I’d expressed regret about not seeing the new Star Trek rather than not being with her when I was about to die, I’d be dead. On the other hand, I thought she’d understand some things were too painful to talk about to people like Allen.

We had a big laugh when we remembered how she kicked a security guard in the nuts. When she described how she bit a gangbanger’s ear off, I said, “You know, I think there’re two Elizabeths. One’s gentle, tender, and caring, and one gets mad quickly and does crazy things.”

She flashed her beautiful, contagious smile. “I’m like the Incredible Hulk,” she said, adding in a hilariously exaggerated raspy voice, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like it when I am angry.”

I couldn’t help wondering if she were suffering from a split personality disorder. Not that it mattered. I loved her, craziness and all.

I also told her about Venom. She approved. “Personifying the constant stream of the negative thoughts in your brain is a very effective method to fight OCD because it helps differentiate the obsessive thoughts from your own conscious ones.”

We also used the PDDs Tarq had given us to go online and see what was going on in the world—the aliens used the internet, who knew. The entire world was in a state of shock. It wasn’t every day that a spaceship saved a group of freedom fighters from certain death. It turned out Tarq’s people, while saving us, had shot all the guards and government officials in the prison in the head at close range. Among other people, they killed the new director of SCTU who was at the prison to witness the executions, using an energy weapon that melted the targets’ faces.

Brutal. Kurt and Allen would approve.

It was obvious Tarq was sending a message: “Don’t mess with us, or we will take your face off.”

“Do you believe just a day ago we were waiting for death, and now we’re gonna play a role in saving humanity from aliens?” said Liz, her eyes sparkling. “It really feels like destiny.”

Listening to her, you’d be forgiven for thinking humanity was a damsel in distress, and we were destined to ride in on white horses to save her. I found it amusing that she simply assumed it was her responsibility to counter an alien invasion, but it was no surprise. Liz always tried to do the right thing, regardless of the repercussions.

“I admire your enthusiasm,” I said, “but I for one am less enthusiastic about going to war with on-steroids Klingons, who are apparently very good at killing off other races.”

She punched my arm. “Oh, come on! You love being a hero, Mr. I-am-the-Best-Fighter-Pilot-in-the-World. It’s your chance to be like Captain Kirk and save Earth.”

Captain Kirk saved the universe, but I decided not to argue. I started kissing her. Before that got very far, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Right before I went to sleep, Venom said, “I miss Cordelia.”

Welcome back, old friend.

*****

New York - January 13, 2078

Oksana Zelenko and her sister, Anastasiya, entered a luxury suite in a five-star hotel, accompanied by one of The Harem’s “security guards,” a big man who looked like a professional wrestler. On the way to the hotel, Oksana had noticed he was carrying a sidearm, like all the other guards.

The two young women wore very short, tight dresses, high heels, and lots of make-up. There was a middle-aged, obese man wearing a white bathrobe in the room. He looked at Oksana with hunger in his eyes and whistled. “Now that’s a figure that turns heads everywhere. Such a beautiful face too.”

Good thing he can’t see all the bruises under my make-up, thought Oksana.

The fat man gave an envelope to the goon. “Thanks, Sasha.”

Sasha pocketed the envelope and in his thick Russian accent said, “I’ll be waiting outside.”

The man went to the bar next to the room’s door, chose a bottle, and while pouring himself a drink asked, “You girls want a drink? Or something stronger perhaps? What’s your poison?”

Oksana’s heart pounded. She’d practiced this moment in her mind a thousand times, but now that the time had come, she found herself unable to move. She looked at her younger sister’s wide-eyed, frightened face. Her lower lip was trembling. If she didn’t act now, Anastasiya would surely die in The Harem, sooner than later. Oksana couldn’t let that happen.

Come on, girl. You had Martin Palermo killed. He was one of the most powerful men in the world. Now you are afraid of Fatso and Henchman?

Pumped with adrenaline, she approached the man from behind, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back, and held a knife she’d stolen from The Harem’s kitchen under his triple chin.

Even if we don’t succeed, just seeing this look on the pervert’s face makes it all worthwhile.

“Call him,” said Oksana.

The man whimpered, “What?”

Oksana pulled his hair harder. “Call Sasha. Sound normal. If you warn him, I swear I’ll cut your throat.”

The fat man hesitated, but he didn’t have a choice. With a trembling voice, he called out, “Sasha, can you come here a second?”

Oksana hit his head against the bar with all the power she could muster. The man collapsed on the floor. Oksana ran and hid behind the door.

The door opened, and Sasha walked in. He saw the man unconscious on the floor and hurried toward him, his back to Oksana. She took two quick steps and buried the knife to the hilt in his back.

Blood oozed out of the wound. Sasha fell to his knees, his face filled with surprise. Anastasiya let out a faint scream. Oksana bent over and gently whispered in Sasha’s ears, “These violent delights have violent ends.” Then she stabbed him again. “This one is for raping my sister.”

She looked up and told Anastasiya, “Time to go, little one.”

A few minutes later, they walked out of the hotel and disappeared into the night.

*****

We all looked much better when we met for breakfast in the mess hall. In contrast to the bedrooms, the mess hall was luxurious. It was huge, and besides the massive, wooden dining tables with very comfortable upholstered chairs, there were plush sofas and handsome coffee tables scattered around, plus a couple of pool and foosball tables. A thick carpet covered the floor, and classical music was being played with such crispness that I could’ve sworn a band was present. Kurt closed his eyes for a second and let the music wash over him.

And everything was white. I had to start wearing sunglasses around here.

Liz and Kurt excitedly talked about yesterday’s events, with Allen listening and making sarcastic comments from time to time. They seemed as passionate as Liz about defending Earth. Hardly a surprise, since as freedom fighters they were already fighting for a cause. Saving humanity from aliens was a higher calling. I was beginning to feel left out. I realized it was my duty to do something, but I was still adjusting to being alive.

After Liz dropped “saving humanity” for the fifth time, Allen finally had enough. “You do that,” he barked. “I’m fighting for my children.”

“Children, plural?” So far as I knew Allen had only one daughter.

“Lilly and this one here,” Allen pointed at Kurt, who blushed.

Now, this was something I could identify with.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m with Allen on this one,” I said. “I have a hard time wrapping my mind around fighting for humanity, but I’ll fight tooth and nail to protect you guys, even Allen.”

“Okay. Screw humanity,” said Liz, wrapping a curl around her finger. “I’ll be fighting for the people in this room too, plus my brother and sisters.” I knew her well enough to understand she was only kidding.

“Have you noticed we’re all surprisingly calm, given the circumstances?” asked Kurt. “I wonder if we’re still sedated.”

Tarq and Barook joined us after breakfast, both dressed the same as yesterday. They took us for a tour of the base, which Tarq told us was built in Yukon.

“Yukon, dude?” I said.

Smoking his pipe, Tarq explained, “We chose a freezing cold place on purpose. The Xortaags hate the cold weather, and it is extremely unlikely that one of them will stumble onto the base out here.”

“Good thing they don’t like cold weather,” I said. “Otherwise, the Canucks would welcome them with open arms and apologize for the weather not being cold enough.”

Allen growled.

We walked outside. Warm sunshine and a clear sky welcomed us. It was a beautiful summer day—in Yukon!

“This is an illusion,” Tarq explained, “created by the force field above us. We could imitate different weather or even make it rain sometimes, but it would take too much effort, so you have to get used to sunshine while you live here.”

“How lovely.” Liz’s eyes sparkled. “Perhaps you fellows would like to stick around after we defeat the Xortaags. You’d be very welcome in London.”

“Thank you.” Tarq offered her a faint smile. “Let’s see how things go.”

“Nothing under the force field is visible or detectable from outside,” Barook said. “So unless the Xortaags can find our location through other means, our existence here will remain a secret.”

“A force field this size is centuries ahead of our technology,” Kurt told me. “Why do you and Liz behave like this is all normal?”

“Sci-fi fans here,” I said.

The place was enormous. There were dozens of buildings, one of which was our Command Center. I could see three air traffic control towers, firefighting stations, ammunition, and ordnance depots, and a few huge laser cannon turrets that according to Tarq could engage an enemy fleet in space if our location were ever exposed and the enemy found a way past the force field. Tarq showed us a state-of-the-Akakie-art hospital, full of equipment I didn’t recognize. The base also had all the amenities you could imagine, including gyms, swimming pools, running tracks, three small parks—the Akakies had taken the trouble of planting oak trees in the parks—and even a movie theater. It was luxurious, no question, but the dimensions were just slightly off; what you’d expect from a race that looked at lots of sample blueprints but didn’t have a natural feel for human design. The swimming pools were deeper than they should be. The elevators were smaller. The main structures were both classic and modern in a way that didn’t seem cutting-edge but more like the work of a hungover first-year associate.

The base could house up to fifty thousand people, and it was completely self-sufficient, with hundreds of small robots taking care of maintenance and repairs. Tarq did provide us with a gigahertz and nanoseconds explanation on how they managed to provide food for this many people, but I was too amazed to pay much attention. The robots, to Liz’s sorrow, weren’t interactive. They did their work and ignored all attempts to turn them into pals, pets, or playthings.

What did catch my attention was the sleek, gorgeous, straight-out-of-a-science-fiction-movie space fighter Tarq showed us, sitting in an underground hangar. It had a triangular shape, twin elliptical fins and rudders, a bulbous cockpit, and a droopy nose that reminded me of USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D.

Liz and I said, “Wow!” together. Great minds and all.

For me, it was love at first sight. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t passionate about flying. Soaring the skies in this beauty would be a dream come true. If she’d been a real woman, I would’ve taken her home and made sweet, sweet love to her right now.

“Dude, your girlfriend is standing right here,” said Venom.

“AX-23 is an older model space fighter,” said Tarq. “They were decommissioned and scheduled to be scrapped, but we brought ten thousand of them here in revetments and multilevel underground hangars similar to this one to form your fleet.”

“Decommissioned? Are they any good?” I asked.

Tarq smiled. “They are much better than anything you have, or even the Xortaags, for that matter. You will learn about their full capabilities later on.”

“Do you use these to travel in space?” asked Liz.

Tarq laughed. “These are fast, but nothing is that fast. Moreover, these are small single-seat fighters, and their energy reserve is limited. No, all spacefaring races use some sort of a space-folding device. As the name suggests, it folds the deep space, and you can send something as small as a pen or as big as a whole fleet from one side of a galaxy to the other instantaneously. Still, its range is limited, and it takes a few minutes to calculate and execute each jump. For example, it takes six of your months for the Xortaags to travel from their homeworld to here. We have an SFD here in the base too, as do all spaceships, excluding the shuttles and space fighters.”

“How do the fighters travel in space then?” I asked.

“The transport ships are equipped with hangar bays,” answered Tarq. “When the Xortaag fleet is one jump away from the target, the space fighters leave the transport ships and are sent as close as possible to the planet.”

I had a brilliant idea. “Can we use the SFD to transport Zheng here?”

Tarq shook his head. “It can be operated by the equipment on the surface of the planet, but it only works in space. Gravity caused by a large mass like a planet interferes with its function.”

At the end of the tour, we stopped in front of a small room, with a glass window at one side. There were some touchscreen controls mounted next to the window. “And this is the crown jewel of our technology,” said Tarq. “It is called a Memory, Information, and Capabilities Implanter, or in short, MICI.”

If I’d heard this name in a sci-fi movie, I could’ve easily guessed what it did, but it was just inconceivable in the real world. “Does it do what its name suggests it does?” I asked.

“Why don’t we demonstrate?” Tarq puffed on his pipe. “Would you mind stepping inside?”

“Are you sure it works on a human brain?” I shot him a hesitant glance. “If my brain explodes, I’ll be seriously pissed.”

“Yes. We have calibrated it to work on the human brain, and we have already tested it. It is completely safe, but there is a small chance it might not work on certain individuals.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We do not know,” said Tarq. “But it cannot safely imprint anything on a small portion of the population, between half a percent to one percent. It might work if we dial it up, so to speak, but then it might explode the brain, which, as you suggest, would be unfortunate.”

This wasn’t reassuring at all, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself by acting like a coward in front of Liz and Kurt. Plus, if I didn’t do it, Liz, with her jump-then-look tendencies would volunteer. I stepped into the room. There was nothing but a chair inside. I sat there and waited. From the window, I could see Barook working on something on the control panel.

“It will take a few minutes,” said Tarq.

I waited. Nothing happened, and then suddenly, BOOM!

One second I was sitting there, beginning to get bored, and the next thing I knew my brain was full of knowledge I hadn’t previously possessed: AX-23’s specifications, capabilities, and weaponry (laser cannons!). More impressively, I had hundreds of hours of vivid memories of flying the fighter and engaging in dogfights with enemy space fighters. Nothing that looked fake—real, actual memories.

Trying to sort out my new memories from the old ones was overwhelming. I thought it might take weeks just to get used to that new information slithering through my thoughts. It was creepy—but also thrilling. If only they’d had this in my school days. We all could’ve gone to school for ten minutes once a week and had the rest of the time to play. I was fantasizing about that when I glanced up to see everyone staring at me. I stood up and stepped out of the room.

Having just been introduced to the most awesome piece of technology in the world, I did what I always did. I looked at Liz and tried my best Neo impression, “I know Kung Fu.”

God, I love the classics!

“Why did MICI teach him martial arts?” Tarq asked Barook.

She laughed and said, “Show me.”

“MICI scans the user’s mind,” said Tarq. “Depending on their natural talents and previous experiences, it assigns their duties and implants the knowledge and experience necessary to perform those duties.”

Liz was next to enter MICI. Barook touched the controls a few times.

“All this technology, and you still use touchscreens?” I asked Tarq. “No voice control?”

“Voice control? We invented brain-computer interfaces when your great-grandfather was not born yet. But they both can be hacked remotely. I once hacked into an enemy fleet’s neural-control interface and made them shoot their own ships, destroying the whole fleet.”

I looked at the small man with newfound respect. He had single-handedly destroyed an entire fleet.

Tarq continued, “The only way an enemy can hack into our equipment is if they are physically here, and then they have to deal with various security measures and biometrics.”

“You don’t seem to be using an AI either,” observed Kurt.

Both Tarq and Barook shuddered. Tarq’s eyelids started twitching. He rubbed his eyes and said, “We have had a very bad experience with AIs.”

“What did you do?” I asked. “Created Skynet?”

Tarq tilted his head. “No. Why would we create a net for the sky? We built an AI that almost wiped out our species.”

“Commander Tarq cut through the AI defenses and destroyed it seconds before it launched an attack that would have killed all of us,” said Barook.

“I’m beginning to really like these guys,” I told Kurt. “They talk about destroying enemy fleets and saving their species like it’s their everyday job.”

“Right? Super badass,” he said; then he gave me a hard look. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I let go of his neck. “Nothing. Just wanted to see if MICI had taught me how to do a Vulcan nerve pinch.”

Buzzing with happiness, Liz came out of MICI a space fighter pilot. Kurt was assigned to the base’s Special Forces Unit (obviously!). He said he had learned about weapons and tactics he couldn’t even imagine before stepping inside MICI. When Allen came out, he complained, “I didn’t learn anything new.”

“Oh! I am so sorry,” said Tarq. “As I said, MICI does not work on everyone.”

“It worked fine,” said Allen. “I have a lot of stuff in my mind that wasn’t there before. I just didn’t learn anything I hadn’t known already.”

Tarq and Barook looked confused. I offered an explanation. “This is just Allen being Allen.”

Tarq gave Allen an annoyed look and then said, “I am the commander of the base and the highest authority. As such, I award Jim the rank of colonel, and appoint him as the commander of the fleet.”

I wondered if it was another prank. “Seriously?”

“Trust me,” said Tarq. “You now possess both the experience and the expertise to do your job. MICI agrees. In fact, it usually assigns ranks, but since the four of you are the first people to join up, I decided to do the honors myself.”

“Wow! This is so FM!” I enthused, which got me a smile from Liz.

“FM?” asked Tarq.

“It’s a fighter pilot slang,” I explained, “for when you see something so high tech that you can’t figure out how it does what it does. M stands for magic.”

“What does F stand for? Oh!” Barook giggled like a child.

“Here is a good question,” I said. “If I am the commander of the fleet, then why the hell am I a colonel?”

Tarq looked confused.

“Seriously, you have prepared all this,” I continued, “but you couldn’t spend five minutes researching the proper navy ranks?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t antagonize the aliens who are here to save us over such a small issue?” Kurt asked me. “Especially since they’ve just introduced us to something as amazing as MICI.”

I stopped complaining. I was an Air Force pilot at heart anyway.

“MICI is admittedly great,” said Tarq, “but unfortunately the Xortaags have used the same technology to develop something called Orbital Mind Control and Brain Over-Write System. Do you remember I mentioned they had reverse engineered a mind control technology that helped them become a galactic superpower?”

“That’s a mouthful right there,” I said.

“We can call it OMC-BOWS,” said Tarq.

“That’s even worse than C-SIS!” growled Allen. “All this technology and you couldn’t come up with something less idiotic?”

“What the hell is C-SIS?” I asked.

“Canadian Security Intelligence Service,” answered Kurt.

I chuckled. “Huh! I didn’t know the Canadians had one of those.”

Allen gave me a hard look.

“The Xortaags themselves call it the Voice of God,” said Tarq. “So it is either that or OMC-BOWS unless you have a better suggestion.”

I helpfully offered, “How about MFM, standing for Mind-Frak Machine?”

Liz hit me in the arm, and Allen looked unimpressed, but Kurt burst into laughter.

Tarq looked at me. “Frak?”

I shrugged. “I’m a Southern gentleman. You don’t expect me to use the f-word in front of a lady, do you?”

“So you just make up a new word?”

“I didn’t make it up. It’s a reference to a famous sci-fi TV show.”

Tarq appointed Kurt as the commander of the Special Forces, also as a colonel. Elizabeth and Allen ended up being lieutenant colonels, our seconds-in-command.

“There is something extremely important I need all of you to remember.” Tarq paused to make sure he had our full attention. “For us Akakies, personal space is very important, and we will suffer actual physical pain if it is violated. Please make sure you do not get closer than three feet to the two of us, and under no circumstances touch us, even if you find us dying on the floor.”

I thought that was weird but held my tongue. Maybe he was a germaphobe?

We broke for lunch.

*****

After lunch, we had a defense strategy meeting in the Command Center, which was a high-tech room full of various controls and instruments I didn’t recognize, computers, monitors, communication devices, very big virtual reality screens floating mid-air, and a few hologram projectors.

Everything was white.

“Where can I find a pair of sunglasses around here?” I asked Tarq.

Using another holographic presentation/movie, Tarq explained, in very general terms, the Xortaag strategy to invade other planets. In a nutshell, the Xortaags would send their fleet to the vicinity of the planet using the Space-Folding Device, and then engage their defenses while they set up a satellite system—Orbital Mind Control and Brain Over-Write System, aka OMC-BOWS, aka MFM—around the planet. Once complete, OMC-BOWS would emanate a beam that would brainwash all the planet’s population into believing the Xortaags were gods and their commands had to be followed. Afterward, they’d use the planet’s indigenous population to build bases and cities. Once an infrastructure was in place, millions of Xortaags would immigrate to the planet while their fleet would prepare to invade another target.

“That mind control beam won’t affect us?” asked Kurt.

“No. Our MICI protects you against its effects,” answered Tarq. “Moreover, the beam cannot penetrate our force field here.”

“How many space fighters do they have in their fleet?” I asked.

“Around forty thousand.”

I whistled. “That’s four times what we have. How’re we going to stop their attack?”

“We are not,” said Tarq matter-of-factly. “Going toe-to-toe with their fleet is suicide, considering their numerical advantage. Their M.O. has two weak points: Once they land, they do not expect any resistance, so they will be completely blindsided by our presence. They are also inexperienced in fighting enemy forces on the ground. As a direct result of their overwhelming success in space battles, they have not needed to use ground warfare for a few decades. Our plan is to let them land, study them for a few months, find their weaknesses, and only then destroy them in a surprise attack.”

Liz gasped. “You’re suggesting we let them occupy our planet?”

Tarq nodded.

“Surely there is another way,” Liz exclaimed. “Maybe if we coordinate our efforts with our armed forces—”

Tarq cut her off. “Trust me. This is the only way. Earth’s military forces do not stand a chance against the Xortaags. You are a pilot, and you know both Earth’s Air Force and the enemy fleet's capabilities. Use your judgment.”

He had a point, and I wouldn’t trust Zheng in any case, but Liz insisted, “But millions could die!”

“Actually, more like thousands. Casualties of Xortaag invasions are usually light. Once OMC-BOWS becomes active, all hostilities stop, and life on the planet continues with a semblance of normalcy. There is no need for them to slaughter their own future workforce, after all.”

Barook added, “To be clear, casualties of the invasion itself are light, and as Commander Tarq mentioned, people on the planet return to their daily routines after the invasion, waiting for instructions from the Xortaags. However, this is temporary. The first wave of Xortaag migration usually consists of ten to twenty million future colonists in cryogenic sleep. The Xortaags load the sleep pods in huge transport ships. Once they arrive, the construction of cities and bases on the planet expands exponentially, at which point normal life on the planet is completely disrupted. Most native inhabitants are turned into slaves, and since Xortaags are not particularly concerned with the well-being of their slaves, the mortality rate raises considerably. And once the colonization process is complete, which would take around two to three of your decades, they kill off most of the planet’s population, only keeping a small portion as servants.”

“Which means we are under a deadline,” said Tarq. “Once the first wave of Xortaag colonists arrives, they will be too strong for us to defeat.”

Tugging on his goatee, Kurt weighed in, “I’m not sure how I feel about your strategy.”

I noticed Barook was mimicking Kurt and pulling his own beard.

Suddenly, Tarq’s tone and manner changed. “You are not required to have any feelings about this,” he answered in a firm voice. “I am the commander of the base. I order, you follow. That’s it.”

This caught all of us by surprise. I hadn’t realized this was a dictatorship. The freedom-fighting dynamic duo didn’t like it at all. Allen leaned forward and cracked his knuckles. “Is that how you think things work around here?”

“This is exactly how things work around here,” said Tarq. “Please allow me to demonstrate: Take that glass and pour the water over your head.”

To my astonishment, Allen picked up a glass of water from the desk in front of him and emptied it on his own head.

Tarq, who had a hard time keeping a straight face, continued, “Now stand up and hop on one leg.”

Allen did what he was told.

“At the same time, hit yourself in the head with your right hand.”

If it hadn’t been for the look of absolute horror on Allen’s face, this would’ve been hilarious. Barook certainly thought so. He laughed so hard that he fell off his chair. Kurt and Liz both started to move with the apparent intention of stopping Tarq and helping Allen, but they both froze. I guessed what was going on, so I didn’t even bother. Besides, why on earth would I help Allen?

“Along with the other things,” Tarq explained, “MICI has also made it impossible for you to disobey my orders. You can stop now.”

Allen stopped hopping, and Kurt and Liz relaxed and lay back in their seats. Allen took one step toward Tarq with murder in his eyes. Then he stopped dead, completely motionless.

Tarq continued, “You are also unable to harm me in any way, directly or indirectly.”

“You stole this from RoboCop,” I pointed out.

“I have no idea who that is,” said Tarq. “But if he has done something similar, he is a very smart person.”

With obvious effort, Allen snarled, “You are dead.”

Tarq shrugged. “Probably one day.”

“But apparently not by you,” I helpfully added.

Tarq looked at me approvingly, and then in his usual mild tone said, “In case you have not understood, you will not be able to talk about this to anyone who has not been through MICI. We are going to leave you now to talk this out among yourselves. We will have a meeting tomorrow morning to iron out some issues.”

Tarq was about to leave the room when he stopped and said, “Oh, I almost forgot: my request for our personal space not being violated? It is an order now.”

I asked my friends, “Does anybody else think we might’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?”

“I certainly do,” said Kurt with anger in his voice. “I don’t like working under a dictator.”

“Thank you, Mr. Obvious,” I said. “We know you’ve been fighting a dictatorship for the past two years.”

Kurt gave me a pained look.

Allen’s nostrils flared. “I’m gonna find a way to kill him. He can’t push us around when he is dead.”

“I don’t like being Tarq’s puppet,” said Liz, playing with a lock of hair, “and I’m not very good at following orders. But if it helps us save humanity, shouldn’t we swallow our pride and get on with it?”

I winked at her. “Meet Liz, the champion of doing the right thing at any cost, even if it means becoming a slave for a stupid alien.”

I had an idea about how to solve this problem, but it seemed like a long shot, so I kept it to myself for the time being.

*****

The Akakie Base on Earth - January 14, 2078

Kurt, wandering aimlessly in the night, ended up at a small park near his quarters. It was peaceful and quiet, with nobody else around. He sat on a bench under an oak tree and tried to wrap his mind around the events of the past couple of weeks.

It had all started two years ago. He was working late in his office, making arrangements for Unification’s first anniversary. Sitting behind his desk, he noticed how dark it was outside and called Janet to tell her he wouldn’t be home for dinner. He said, “See you soon. Don’t forget how much I love you,” disconnected the call, looked up, and found himself staring at the business end of a silencer.

The swarthy man holding the gun said, “General Zheng sends his regards.”

Before Kurt even began to comprehend what was going on, the roar of gunshots assaulted his ears. The man’s body flew forward as three bullets shot quickly one after another hit him in the back. He smashed into Kurt’s desk and collapsed to the floor, his blood staining the carpet.

What the hell just happened?

Allen appeared behind the dead would-be assassin, holding a Glock G-32. “Follow me,” he barked.

Kurt was dizzy with shock but kept his wits about him. He grabbed the dead assassin’s gun and ran after Allen. There were three more bloody corpses in the corridor. These weren’t shot through. One’s throat was cut, the second had a broken neck, and the third was killed by a combat knife still protruding from his chest.

“Our friend in there hadn’t come alone,” said Allen.

Kurt and Allen exited the building through the back door and got into an ancient brown Cadillac, which Allen started and drove away.

“Why are you driving?” asked Kurt.

“I’ve disabled all the car’s navigation system and anything else that could be tracked,” said Allen.

“What on earth is going on?”

Allen took his eyes off the street for just one second and looked at him. Sorrow and guilt were written all over his face. “I was off duty tonight. A bomb exploded in your parents’ car. They are both dead. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

It was as if Kurt had just been hit by lightning. Time slowed. Those few simple sentences turned his life upside down. His bookish, kindly, untiring parents were gone. Soon he’d find out that the United Earth, the dream he and his father had dedicated their lives to for so long, had been co-opted by a brutal military dictator. The planet was now united only in subjugation. At that moment, he started down the road that got Janet, sweet Janet, killed. He’d been on the run ever since, trying to forget his pain by waging war against Zheng. What kept him going wasn’t purely revenge, though that was always in his mind, but fulfilling his father’s dream, no matter how unlikely the possibility was. And just a few days ago, he’d thought that dream was gone forever.

This was his chance for redemption.

Defending Earth against an alien attack was enough to give him a sense of purpose, but he couldn’t help feeling this was the means to an even greater end. When the Xortaags were gone, he could continue his father’s work, and this time, there would be no freaking Chancellor Zheng to mess things up. He wasn’t only planning to help humanity survive the Xortaag attack; he wanted to make sure it had a bright future after that. Nothing could bring back his parents or the thousands murdered by Zheng and his henchmen, but perhaps this war would bind humanity together for good, erasing the doubt and dissatisfaction that had allowed Zheng’s victory. Once everyone knew the universe was full of intelligent species, many capable of space travel, human solidarity would look far more desirable.

Who says there are no second chances in life?

*****

New York - January 15, 2078

“This is the place,” Oksana told her sister.

She ran to a townhouse door and rang the bell. When no one answered, she started banging on the door.

“I’m coming! Jesus!” a voice yelled from inside.

A minute later, an elderly man opened the door. The two young women rushed in past him. The old man looked lost for words, but he finally managed to say, “Oksana! What on earth are you doing here?”

“We ran away from The Harem,” said Oksana, panting.

“And you came here?” the old man asked, confused.

“We have nowhere else to go. Mr. Winston, you have to help us!”

Anastasiya, trembling like a leaf, said, “Please! If they catch us, they’ll torture us to death, to be a lesson for the other girls.”

Oksana put an arm around her younger sister, trying to calm her down. Anastasiya continued, “And that was before she killed one of them.”

The old man, Winston, his cheeks turning scarlet, shouted, “You did what?”

“I stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife,” said Oksana with a gleam in her eye.

Winston’s eyes bugged. He sat down on the couch, running a trembling hand over his face. “In his back? You killed a member of the Russian mafia and then came here? No, no, no! You have got to go. I can’t help you!”

Anastasiya looked desperately at her sister. Oksana put her hand on her shoulder and told Winston, “I don’t see that you have a choice in this. If you don’t help us, I’ll call SCTU right now and tell them you have ties to the Resistance.”

Bringing up SCTU had the effect Oksana was hoping for; Winston shut his mouth and stared at her in fear.

Oksana continued without mercy, “I’m sure they’ll be very interested in hearing Palermo was assassinated shortly after I told you he used to come to The Harem frequently.”

Winston’s face drained of blood. He seemed to shrink into the couch cushions like a small, frightened animal. “What do you want?”

“We want to join the Resistance,” said Oksana firmly. “That’s the only way to escape Bratwa.”

*****

Liz and I entered the Command Center together. While we were settling into our seats, Kurt told Allen, “You know what? I’ve just realized I haven’t seen you smoke since we arrived here.”

“It’s the weirdest thing,” said Allen. “I just don’t feel like smoking.”

Tarq, his pipe in his mouth, interjected, “Disgusting habit, that.”

I shot a suspicious glance at him. “Did you have something to do with it?”

Tarq blew some smoke in Allen’s face. “Me? Of course not. But Barook here has programmed MICI to make people quit smoking.”

Allen exploded. “You have no right to do this! What else are you going to ban? Alcohol? Sex?”

“For the love of God, don’t give him any ideas,” I pleaded with him.

The first order of business was choosing a name for the base.

“I have a perfect name in mind: Thermopylae,” Tarq announced proudly. “I have studied your culture and history. This is the place where a small army defeated a much stronger aggressor.”

I laughed. “They all died in Thermopylae. You could as well have chosen The Alamo!”

I suggested Winterfell, which was appropriate: We were in the north, we were the first line of defense against an alien invasion that threatened humanity, and plus, as I put it in an ominous tone, winter was indeed coming.

“Only instead of ice zombies,” said Liz, “it’s a fleet of galaxy-conquering aliens we have to deal with.”

“Semantics,” I said.

We all agreed. Even Allen knew about Winterfell.

Tarq didn’t get his way in naming AX-23 either. His suggestion was Falcon, but somehow, I didn’t like it, despite the obvious Star Wars connection. I suggested Viper, and since I just happened to be the commander of the fleet, I ignored all other suggestions. I also named the cargo ships Fireflies. I was a nerd and proud of it.

I took advantage of a moment when no one was looking at Tarq and told him, “I’ll punch you in your frakking ugly face if I catch you ogling Liz one more time.”

His pipe fell off his lip, but he pulled himself together. “You literally cannot, but point taken. Sorry about that.”

“As long as we are naming things, I want to call people under my command ‘the Commandos,’ ” said Kurt.

I was jealous. “Wow! That’s a really cool name. I want a cool name for the pilots too.”

I suggested, “X-Force,” “Inglorious Basterds,” and “Green Hornets,” none of which stuck. Tarq’s suggestions were even worse: “Deadly Vipers” and “Killing Machines.” Allen, the helpful and considerate person that he was, recommended “Pussies.” Kurt offered “The Wild Geese” and “The Dogs of War”—his favorite novels. Finally, since we couldn’t find a cool nickname, we ended up calling the pilots, well, the pilots.

Tarq, looking disappointed that none of the names he suggested stuck, said, “The rest of my team is planning to leave soon. I want them to raid Zheng’s prison one more time. We need the names and physical descriptions of the inmates who are members of the Resistance.”

I smiled. “I’d love to see Zheng’s face when a spaceship shows up on top of the Coffin, again, and this time rescues a lot more people.”

“Tell your people to try to shoot more guards in the head this time,” Allen told Tarq, “or even better, just blow the whole place up after they leave.”

“And you still wonder why your nickname is ‘the Butcher’?” I asked him.

He started to give me the finger but sheepishly looked at Liz and dropped his hand.

When the meeting was over, and everyone was about to leave, Tarq told me, “Could you please stay a minute? I need to talk to you privately.”

I exchanged a questioning look with Liz and stayed. After everyone left, Tarq said grimly, “I have just reviewed MICI’s report on your mental status and characteristics. I saw something I do not like at all: According to MICI, you have serious racist inclinations.”

I was dumbfounded. I was definitely not a racist. If someone wanted to drive me crazy, accusing me of being a racist would do it, right next to calling me a coward or a bad pilot.

I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a flat look. “I’m not a racist.”

“You say so,” said Tarq, “but MICI is never wrong. It knows your darkest secrets better than you do. I have to warn you: We Akakies are an extremely open-minded people, and showing respect to the other species who are different from us is a big part of our culture. I will not tolerate any racist behavior from the people under my command. Is that clear?”

I wished I could punch him in the face, shoot him in the foot, or strangle him to death. Anything, really. But all I could do was yell, “Read my lips, you stupid alien. I am not a freaking racist.”

He smirked, which made me want to punch him even more. “We shall see. You are dismissed, but I will be watching you.”

On my way out, I slammed his office door with such force that the walls shook with the impact.

Chapter Six

Two days later, we gathered in the Command Center to watch Tarq’s people’s jailbreak operation. Tarq had Barook broadcast it through a live feed for the whole world to see.

Since Tarq was planning to save a lot more people this time, he sent five Fireflies. As soon as the Fireflies appeared over the Coffin, some of the guards dropped their weapons and ran away. The Akakies let them go, but they made a point of killing every single guard and prison official who stayed at their post and tried to defend the Coffin. The newest SCTU director who was in the prison investigating our escape was among the dead. Six F-44 fighter jets approached the Fireflies and shot a few beyond-visual-range missiles at them, but after the spaceships blew the missiles out of the sky, the Air Force pilots kept their distance. The Fireflies came back to Winterfell with some two hundred Resistance members on board.

The recruits’ initial orientation was held in Winterfell’s movie theater because the Command Center wasn’t big enough for so many people. When Kurt, Liz, Allen, and I entered, we were surrounded by the recently freed Resistance members, with hugs, handshakes, and high fives all around. Kurt and Allen were the center of attention. Liz and I got our share too. Our sensational escape from the Coffin had made us superstars.

“You know, you’re right,” I told Liz. “I like being a hero.”

The orientation was the same as ours minus the this-is-heaven charade. Our presence added a lot more credibility to Tarq’s story. During the orientation, Allen got a cigarette from one of his old Resistance friends and doggedly tried to smoke, only to keep coughing and choking, much to Tarq and Barook’s amusement. After the orientation, everyone went through MICI and were assigned duties.

I immediately noticed a problem: Most of the over two hundred people had ended up joining either the Special Forces Unit or various support/maintenance teams. We had only one other fighter pilot. At this rate, we’d never have enough pilots for our ten thousand strong fleet. When I mentioned this to Tarq, he said he’d reprogram MICI to have it assign anyone with any flying experience to the fleet.

One evening, while having dinner with Liz and Kurt, I asked them, “Have you noticed the newcomers have no problem with Tarq’s plan to give Earth up without a fight and then try to get it back later?”

The four of us had talked it out and grudgingly decided he was right, but everyone else seemed to have accepted his plan without questioning it.

“You think MICI has something to do with it?” asked Kurt.

“I’m pretty sure it does,” I said.

“That’s the only logical explanation,” said Liz, playing with her salad. “Otherwise, everyone should be freaking out.”

It suddenly hit me. “Guys, are you at all curious to know anything about the Akakies? Where their planet is? Their customs and traditions? Their sex life? Anything?”

They thought about it for a minute. Then Liz threw her fork on the table and said with disgust, “No. Nothing. Not even a little.”

The three of us stared at each other.

“That sneaky bastard,” I fumed in frustration. “God knows what other shit he’s imprinted on our brain.”

“It’s actually a good precaution,” said Kurt calmly, but his expression was hard. “If we keep asking questions, we might find some secrets the Xortaags might later find out and use against his people. Or we might become enemies one day.”

The things you could use that machine for! I was beginning to wonder if we could use it to cure the common cold, depression, or even impotence—not that I personally had any problem in that particular area.

Two days later, when we gathered in the Command Center for another meeting, Liz said, “What about our families? We can’t just leave them out there to turn into the Xortaags’ slaves.”

“They are probably safer wherever they are as opposed to being with us as we are planning to go to war with the Xortaags,” Tarq pointed out.

Liz glared at him. “No way. I want my family here with me. We live together, or we die together.”

“A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” I whispered in her ear.

“Winterfell’s space is limited,” said Tarq. “There is no place for people who are not useful, one way or another. Feel free to bring in whoever else you want; just run it by me first.”

This was how Allen’s daughter, Lilly, and Liz’s three siblings ended up joining us.

Lilly was a computer genius, and MICI tasked her with assisting Barook in running Winterfell’s various systems. Kurt and I had known her since she was a baby. Allen used to bring her to all of Kurt’s birthdays even though she was ten years younger than us. I took her for a tour of Winterfell when she arrived. She was wearing a simple white dress and looked very cute in my informed opinion. I especially liked her amber eyes, but I thought she was too pale (as a result of spending hours at her computer, no doubt), and I found her hair color (pink!) weird.

Approaching Tarq’s office, I told her, “We’re going to meet our commander. Be careful; dude is seriously into practical jokes. You must never let your guard down around him because there’s no telling what he’ll pull.”

We entered Tarq’s office, and I introduced Lilly. Tarq stared at her without saying anything; then his lower lip trembled, and his eyes welled up with tears. He mumbled, “Excuse me” and ran out of his office.

“What the hell was that all about?” I said under my breath.

“Was this a prank?” Lilly asked me, surprised.

Liz had two younger sisters, Samantha and Theresa, and an older brother, Matias. Despite the fact that their father was an abusive piece of work, all four siblings had turned out mostly okay—I was certain Liz’s tendency to freak out over the smallest issues despite her normally warm and caring nature was due to her difficult childhood, compliments of her dad. The four of them had a very strong bond, and they loved each other deeply.

Three days after Lilly’s arrival, I entered our quarters and found Liz in deep conversation with her brother, who had just arrived. Matias was a big man, with wide shoulders, the same thick, black, curly hair as his sister, skin that was a couple of shades darker, and an easy laugh. He ran to me, held me in a tight embrace, and with a hint of a Spanish accent said, “Jim, my old friend. I’m so happy to see you.”

A sudden flare of joy warmed me. I’d always liked Matias. He had the same passion and zeal for life as Liz, minus the occasional freak-outs. In fact, he was one of the most easygoing people I’d ever met in my life. Sometimes I couldn’t help wondering if I’d chosen the wrong sibling, even though starting a relationship with Matias would’ve constituted a major lifestyle change for at least one of us.

I shook his hand. “Have you been through MICI already?”

“Yes, and I still can’t believe any of this,” he said. “Sounds like one of the sci-fi movies you two always talk about.”

“Kurt would be happy to see you,” I said. “Being a Marine, you’ll be a welcome addition to his team.”

He grinned. “A decorated Marine.”

Soon after our first recruits arrived, Kurt sent a message to the Resistance, instructing them to stop any planned operations until he met them. Then he started meeting various Resistance cell leaders. His modus operandi was something like this: Either he or Allen would meet the Resistance cell leaders and tell them they had established an advanced military base and were recruiting for a final and decisive battle against Zheng’s forces. After that, one of two things would happen: they’d either immediately join up—as Tarq predicted, after the stunt he pulled on live TV, there was no shortage of volunteers—or they’d send one or two representatives to see Winterfell with their own eyes and report back. Apparently, there was a rumor this whole thing was a government conspiracy to flush out the Resistance members. Either way, I’d send a Firefly, escorted by five Vipers, to bring them in. The Fireflies could deal with any threat Zheng’s forces would pose and didn’t need an escort, but I missed flying.

Liz and I took part in the first escort mission. This was also the first time we actually flew Vipers, a mind-blowing experience, despite having “real” memories of having done it already hundreds of times. This was when I figured out how to distinguish my real experiences from the fake ones: The fake memories had all the visual, tactile, and auditory details you’d expect from the real thing but lacked the intensity of the sensation I felt when I flew. Rejuvenated by adrenaline, I was ultra-awake. My heart raced, and warmth radiated throughout my body. The huge smile that cracked my face was also missing from the fake memories. I guess MICI underestimated how much I loved flying.

“I’m a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar,” I murmured.

Inside the cockpit, I was surrounded by an ocean of buttons, knobs, and screens, showing different measurements. Most of them were simulations shown on virtual screens hovering inside the cockpit. In my helmet, there was a visor that provided me with a head-up display, including the target indicator, fire control display, and gunsight. The control stick’s movements were used by the fighter’s computer to interpret the pilot’s intentions, and then the computer would calculate the best way to execute the intended move.

The space fighter was amazing. She was fast: She could fly at eight thousand miles per hour (eat your heart out, William Knight!), and the pilot wouldn’t feel a thing inside the cockpit. I had no idea what the Akakies did with the g-force; I wasn’t a scientist, and even if I’d been, this was a science-so-advanced-it-looks-like-magic territory. A Viper could ascend or descend vertically or even hover in the air like a chopper. She had three laser cannons, one under each wing and one under the cockpit, which were very handy in a dogfight. She also could carry two radar-guided beyond-visual-range (BVR) and six short-range missiles. We called them Phoenix and Sparrow.

When we were bringing people in, everyone would be scanned before boarding a Firefly to make sure nobody carried any kind of communication or tracking devices. Once inside the force field, communication with the outside world was only possible through Winterfell’s communication center, so our location would be kept a secret. Upon arrival, the new people would sit in MICI, and after getting over the shock of the news about an impending alien invasion, they’d start their respective assignments. A few people, however, ended up complaining they were lied to and refused to join up. We erased their memories of the past few days and sent them back to wherever they came from.

Zheng’s security forces got wind of our operation and tried their best to interfere, but there wasn’t much they could do. Kurt and his people were already very good at operating in secret. Now that they were traveling around the planet in undetectable Fireflies they were for all intents and purposes untouchable—our ships were not invisible, but even the Xortaags couldn’t detect them unless they knew exactly where to look. SCTU agents showed up a couple of times when our people were getting on board, which gave the Viper escorts something to do.

I was involved in one of these missions. Kurt and a group of Resistance fighters were in a warehouse, getting ready to move out and catch their ride at a nearby rendezvous point when they found themselves surrounded by SCTU, supported by half a dozen armored personnel carriers. Using our Phoenixes, we could vaporize them before they even understood what was going on, but Liz suggested we spare their lives, and I agreed.

We flew in together and hovered over the warehouse. I opened a channel to their command center. “This is Colonel Jim Harrison. Flying next to me is Colonel Elizabeth Lopez. You guys remember how we escaped your stupid prison in a spaceship, right?”

No answer. I was sure they remembered.

I continued, “Please leave this area immediately so that we can get to our friends.”

Still no answer.

I tried to sound like a robot. “Go quietly, or there will be trouble.”

“Seriously?” said Liz, sounding annoyed.

And the bastards started shooting at us!

I wasn’t a bloodthirsty maniac. I preferred not to kill people, even SCTU agents. But if someone took a shot at me, my fighter, my friends, or people under my command, all bets were off. Especially if “people under my command” meant Liz.

I put my targeting plus on one of the APCs and pulled the trigger. The massive twenty-five-ton armored vehicle turned into scrap metal in a heartbeat.

I was planning to blow up only one or two of the APCs and let the rest go, but now Liz was angry that they were shooting at me, and when she got mad, there was no stopping her. She flew in and let go of her Viper’s weaponry. By the time she was done, you could gather what was left of five armored vehicles in a backpack.

SCTU also slipped a few spies into Winterfell. MICI weeded them out, and because they couldn’t communicate with the outside world, it was a moot point anyway. These guys ended up in the brig until further notice.

With the recruits pouring in, I organized our first fighter pilot training session. Winterfell had a VR battle simulator where up to two hundred pilots could participate in a replicate dogfight with enemy ships. Once I got into the “canopy,” there was no way to tell the difference between the simulation and an actual battle. I knew I was still on the ground, but all my senses told me I was flying in space. The simulator even pumped a hallucinogen into the canopy that made the pilots feel all the emotions they’d experience in a real battle: adrenaline rush, excitement, and even terror whenever one was in simulated mortal danger.

I opened a channel to my team. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try to keep up with me.”

The simulation started, and Xortaag space fighters came at me hard and fast.

Their design was completely different from ours: They were rectangular, with a cockpit front and center, and a laser weapon on either side of the cockpit. They didn’t carry any missiles. The Xortaag command had probably decided since they could easily dodge long-range missiles, and laser cannons were much more effective in close-range dogfights anyway, there was no need for them.

The Xortaags called their space fighters Deathbringers. I found that name pretentious—I preferred to call them Double Ugly—but it stuck. Deathbringers were slower and less maneuverable than our Vipers, but Tarq’s people’s research suggested an experienced pilot could hold his own against a Viper in a dogfight. The problem was most Xortaag pilots were experienced, whereas most of our pilots used to be civilian, chopper, or even agricultural aircraft pilots.

When the simulated battle ended thirty minutes later, I looked at my screen and rubbed my temple. It was a good-news-bad-news situation. I’d destroyed twelve enemy vessels, but every pilot in my team, including Liz, had managed to get themselves shot down. That gave me a brilliant idea: The perfect nickname for our pilots would be “Redshirts.”

“Let me guess,” said Venom. “She tried to pull off an impossible maneuver.”

I pulled up Liz’s simulation. Yep. She had nine kills, but she’d exposed her fighter to enemy fire by attempting a maneuver I wouldn’t dream of trying. I wasn’t crazy.

We all had hundreds of hours of MICI-induced flight experience, but we still trained every day to get better. We also had daily competitions and awarded trophies to the pilot with the most kills. Most of the time it was me, of course.

Once I asked Tarq, “Why does the Xortaag fleet mainly consist of single-seat space fighters, as opposed to Galactica-type battlestars?”

“The Xortaags’ offensive strategy is based on swarming the enemy with their space fighters,” he answered. “They are so good at implementing this strategy that bigger starships are mostly useless against them, which is part of the reason why they defeated our fleet so easily.”

Liz kept making rash decisions and jeopardizing herself during the simulations. I was worried her attitude might get her killed in an actual battle. One day, after she managed to crash and burn trying to execute yet another impractical maneuver, I decided to have a word with her. I approached her in a very professional manner, eloquently expressed my concerns, and with utmost respect urged her to be more cautious and try to look before she leaped.

She had none of it. She put her hands on her hips and said, “I take acceptable risks. Playing safe isn’t the characteristic of a great fighter pilot. Plus, I’d never come to you and try to tell you how to pilot your bird, would I?”

“Have you ever seen me getting shot down?” I asked pleasantly.

“No,” answered Liz, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a better pilot. It could simply mean you’re a chicken, playing it safe all the time.”

Unlike Liz, I didn’t get angry easily, but there were two ways to get under my skin. One was calling me a coward, and the other was questioning my skills as an excellent fighter pilot. “I kick your butt every day during combat practice, don’t I?” I retorted.

Dark blue veins bulged out of her neck. “In simulation! I’d like to see you try in real combat!”

Whenever Liz got in one of her moods, arguing with her was pointless. I rubbed my temple and decided to pull rank. “You know what? As your superior officer, I order you to stop taking stupid risks.”

I shouldn’t have raised my voice.

She looked me in the eye and executed a perfect salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”

Oh-oh!

I ended up sleeping alone for the next few days.

*****

One day, Kurt and I were working out at Winterfell’s gym—a big room full of high-tech, white equipment—when Allen, accompanied by a large Slavic-looking man with a hard face and ridiculously huge biceps, approached us. “Kurt, meet one of our new recruits.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows. “Sergei Molanov, as I live and breathe. How on earth did you end up in here? This is Jim, by the way. Jim, Sergei here used to be Palermo’s head of security.”

“And lucky for you, apparently not very good at his job,” I blurted out before my brain could catch up with my mouth. I didn’t need this big scary-looking Russian as an enemy.

Sergei glared at me; then he told Kurt, “After Palermo’s assassination, I was court-martialed and accused of negligence of my duties. As if it was my fault he couldn’t keep it in his pants. I ran and later was contacted by the Resistance. I was told my particular set of skills would be appreciated. And here I am now.”

Kurt shook his hand. “Welcome aboard. We can totally use a man like you. How’s the kidney?”

“The one you shot?” Sergei gave him a hard look. “They had to remove it. I got transplant.”

Kurt smiled. “Did you really have to take a bullet for Palermo, of all people?”

I couldn’t control myself. “Wow! I don’t mean to be rude, but what kind of an idiot jumps in front of a bullet meant for the Devil himself?”

Sergei shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

“That’s exactly what I said when Allen here insisted I shoot you too when I was eighty-sixing Palermo,” said Kurt.

“So, you are big boss around here?” Sergei asked.

I found it amusing that Sergei, like a lot of Russians, didn’t use articles when he talked, despite otherwise speaking perfect English. Kurt smiled sadly. “You’d think that, right? No. Our commander’s a man named Tarq. You might meet him soon enough.”

I added, “Fair warning: Dude’s super bossy. When he says jump, you can’t even ask how high.”

“That’s weird. I didn’t picture you as order-following type,” Sergei told Kurt.

Kurt and I exchanged a look, and I said, “Let’s go. I’ll give you a tour. And after that, I want to show you something.”

*****

I knocked on Tarq’s office door and with exaggerated politeness asked him, “Have you got a minute, sir?”

We entered his office, which was big enough to accommodate all of us: Liz, Kurt, Allen, Sergei, and me.

Tarq, sitting behind a huge white desk, looked at us. “What’s up?”

I pointed at Sergei. “Meet Sergei, a new recruit. He hasn’t been through MICI yet.”

Sergei approached Tarq, pulled a gun, aimed it at his head, and said, “Here’s what’ll happen. We’ll go to this brain-washing device of yours, and you’ll undo whatever the hell you’ve done to my friends, so they won’t be your puppets anymore.”

Tarq paled, but he stood his ground. “Over my dead body. I do not take orders from thugs.”

“Can you believe he just called you a thug?” I asked Sergei.

Sergei shot Tarq’s chair, right between his legs.

Tarq folded like a cheap suit.

The first person who entered MICI was Allen, who pushed everyone else out of the way. While we were waiting, Tarq, biting his nails, asked, “How did you do it? MICI should have stopped you from telling anyone.”

“Should we tell him?” I asked Kurt.

Kurt shrugged. “It was your plan.”

“I showed MICI to Sergei, emphasizing it can make changes in people’s brains,” I told Tarq. “I also casually let it slip you were very bossy, and we had to follow your orders. Then we showed him an old movie called The Demolition Man.”

Tarq looked confused.

“In this movie, some asshole tries to pull the same stunt you pulled,” I continued, “only for his target to bring some of his friends to shoot his ass. Sergei made the connection himself.”

“It is a bit farfetched; is it not?” Tarq asked.

“It is,” I replied. “We tried this with several people, including every single person on whom MICI didn’t work. Sergei’s the only one who made the connection. Everyone else just thought it was weird we were showing them old movies.”

“I am genius,” said Sergei humbly.

“Did it work?” asked Liz when Allen walked out of MICI.

“Only one way to find out,” said Allen. He approached Tarq and punched him really hard in the belly.

His fist disappeared inside Tarq’s belly all the way to his wrist before it hit something.

The small man fell to the floor, coughing and retching.

I jumped out of my socks. “Wow! Did you guys see that?”

Astonished, Liz and Sergei answered together, saying “yeah” and “da” respectively.

I walked towards Tarq in order to touch him but froze in place as soon as I got close to him.

“Why don’t you look surprised?” Elizabeth asked Kurt.

“Well, you know, Allen and I knew about this,” answered Kurt.

“What? When? How?” I asked.

“You don’t get to survive in the Resistance without being slightly paranoid,” said Kurt. “You remember he asked us not to touch him the first time we met? We didn’t buy his explanation at all, so one day I invited Barook to have a beer with me and spiked his drink with a sleeping pill.”

I laughed. “You roofied Barook? How did you know it’d work, alien physiology and all?”

“I didn’t, but it did work,” answered Kurt. “I touched his skull with a stick after he fell asleep. Two inches of the stick disappeared into his skull before it touched something.”

“But we were ordered not to touch them,” said Liz.

“No, we were ordered not to violate their personal space, as in not to get close,” Kurt explained patiently. “I touched him with a six-foot stick, without getting close myself.”

Tarq was just beginning to pull himself together. “Care to explain?” I asked him.

He threw up his hand in despair. “Okay! Okay! I confess. I am not humanoid. What you see is a hologram that reads my emotions and translates them into human facial expressions. You have never seen my true form.”

“That explains Barook’s beard,” I said.

“That’s your takeaway from all this?” Allen scowled at me. “He’s wearing a hologram!”

“Why do you hide?” Liz asked Tarq.

“You have to ask?” Tarq raised his voice. “With your racist boyfriend standing right here? Some of you humans do not tolerate different appearances within your own species. God only knows how you would react to non-humanoid aliens.”

“I’m not a racist!” I shouted.

Kurt gave me a sideways look.

That hurt. I mean, that really, really hurt. “Et tu, Kurt?”

“Et me. You know, maybe just a little bit.” Kurt sounded bemused. “You remember Alejandra from college?”

“That had nothing to do with race. She was a bully, and you know that.”

Kurt continued, “And our chemistry teacher in high school, Mr. Padishah?”

I was on the verge of losing it. “He was mean. What’s wrong with you?”

Allan, enjoying himself way too much, said, “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a freaking racist.”

Sergei loudly cleared his throat. “I hate to stop this fascinating and educational discussion, but aren’t we forgetting something?”

We all stared at Tarq, who looked like he was trying to sneak away. He sighed. “We felt it would be easier for you to trust us if we looked human.”

“So on top of brainwashing us to follow your orders,” said Allen, touching his sidearm, “you’ve been lying to us all this time. I want to see what you really look like.”

Tarq shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

Allen drew his gun and cocked it dramatically. “My friend here says otherwise. For all we know, you might look like a freaking insect, like those bugs in that old movie, Star Wars Troopers.”

“Starship Troopers,” I corrected him.

“Same difference,” said Allen.

Strangely enough, Tarq stood his ground. “Over my dead body.”

“You remember what happened the last time you said this, right?” asked Sergei.

I noticed I wasn’t curious about how Tarq really looked at all. God damn it!

I whispered in Liz’s ear, “Do you think he doesn’t want us to see him because he’s so ugly it might gross us out?”

She shrugged. “Who cares as long as he looks human?”

I rubbed my temple. We had to find a way to reboot our brains or something.

We all stood there, looking at each other for a minute, not sure what to say next. Then Tarq asked with a terrified expression, “What will happen now?”

Kurt placed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. Do you have any orders, Commander?”

The look on Tarq’s face was priceless. I think he’d thought we—or at least Allen—were going to straight-up murder him.

“Listen carefully because I am going to say this only once,” Kurt told him. “We like you. In fact, we like you a lot, even if you really do look like a bug. Not to mention we all owe you our lives.”

“Not that he saved us out of the goodness of his heart,” Allen interjected.

Kurt ignored him. “But we aren’t your slaves. We’ll follow your orders as commander of Winterfell, but if we disagree with you, we’ll voice our concerns and talk about it. And if we feel strongly about an issue, the five of us will vote.”

“I’m honored,” said Sergei.

“Not you, genius,” Kurt answered. “The five of us, including Tarq.”

Tarq let out a huge breath.

“Can I punch him one more time, just on principle?” asked Allen.

“It goes without saying we want you to remove your, eh …” said Kurt.

I suggested, “Puppetmaster program?”

“Remove your puppetmaster program from everyone’s mind.”

“We have more than forty thousand people here!” Tarq protested.

“Then we’d better start as soon as possible.”

Tarq pressed his lips together and nodded.

“One more thing: Why did you choose this look?” I asked.

Tarq shrugged. “I just wanted to look different from you people.”

“You people? And I am the racist around here?” I said.

We were about to leave when Allen facepalmed and told Tarq, “Shit! I totally forgot. I want you to remove whatever you put in my head that stops me from smoking.”

Kurt intervened. “Allen, we talked about this. Tarq’s Winterfell’s commander. If he wants you to stop smoking, that’s that.”

“It’s okay. I guess he has earned it,” said Tarq with a cracking voice, looking down at his feet.

He sounded so defeated that I felt bad for him. Poor little guy. Maybe we were too tough on him.

Allan smiled with a gleam in his eye and with wide steps walked back into MICI, holding his head up like a conquering hero. Tarq played with the controls for a few seconds. When Allen came out a few minutes later, his expression had completely changed. He looked sort of listless, and he just stood there, staring at us without saying anything

“Allen, are you okay?” asked Kurt with concern in his voice.

Allen looked at him with sleepy eyes and said, “Mooooo.”

Tarq cracked up.

Kurt approached his old mentor, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him, “Allen! What’s wrong?”

“Mooooo,” Allen repeated eloquently. Tarq was laughing so hard he was bending over and grabbing his sides. He looked like he was about to start rolling on the floor, roaring with laughter like a maniac. I couldn’t help chuckling either.

Allen thought he was a freaking cow for a whole week. He spent all his time in Winterfell’s parks, chewing on vegetables and hanging out with other imaginary cows. Tarq and Barook took several selfies with Allen when they were feeding him grass or riding him. The images went viral in Winterfell.

*****

I approached Tarq in his office. “Tarq, old buddy old pal, I want you to help me solve a big problem. Can you please send one of your robots to clean my quarters once a week? Make sure the bed sheets are spotless.”

Liz had taken care of cleaning our quarters for a few weeks, but she’d gotten fed up and asked me to pull my weight and pitch in, which included horrors like washing the bed sheets and pillowcases. My admittedly weak I-am-the-pants-wearing-head-of-the-household didn’t work, and she gave me two options: clean our quarters once a week or live alone.

Tarq laughed in my face. “Those robots play a vital role in Winterfell’s smooth operation. Do you really expect me to use them for something as trivial as this?”

“I expected this answer,” I said, “so I’m gonna give you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“All ears,” he said.

I leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “You know how many times I’ve seen you shamelessly ogling my girlfriend?”

Tarq’s brown skin turned into a fiery shade of red. He averted his eyes and mumbled, “What? No. I stopped the first time you told me to.”

“Relax. I got angry at first but then realized I had no reason to be threatened by you; otherwise, I’d have wrangled your neck by now. You’re three feet shorter than Liz, and fortunately for both of us, she doesn’t have a midget fetish.”

Tarq looked relieved. I continued, “Lay it on me. What is it? Are you into very tall women?”

Tarq chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. “Okay. I’ll tell you the truth. My people have a very strong sexual appetite, and we are seriously into interspecies sex. And humans are ravishing. Barook and I have had to take medication to control our sexual urges since we came here. Still, sometimes it is very difficult.”

Too much information.

“I tell you what,” I said. “You get my quarters cleaned regularly, and I’ll take you to a place where you can ogle as many women as you want as long as you bring enough cash. We aren’t strapped for cash here, are we?”

He scoffed. “I can get in and out of any bank account I want. Our financial resources here are limitless.”

Two days later, Tarq and I—in heavy disguise; my own mother wouldn’t recognize me with black hair, black eyes, and a full beard—walked into an expensive strip club in New York’s suburbs. Unable to contain his excitement, Tarq had the expression of a child discovering ice cream for the first time. I left him there and went to a nearby hotel, after reminding him several times we had a Firefly to catch the next day.

The day after, around noon, I pulled up my rental car in front of the strip club and called Tarq. I was a bit worried about him, so I was relieved when he slid into the passenger seat a few minutes later, looking safe, sound, and happy.

And then the back doors of my car opened, and two women got in, talking and laughing loudly, obviously drunk. They were both tall, wearing heavy makeup, skimpy clothes, and very high heels.

I stared at Tarq, speechless, and blinked several times.

“Jim, meet Crystal and Amber.” Tarq grinned. “They have agreed to be my guests at Winterfell for a month.”

“For a million dollars each,” said one of the girls, wiggling an index finger at Tarq.

“Oooh, I like this one.” The other woman looked at me. “He’s buff. Want to party with us and your friend here, sugar?”

“Thanks, but I have a girlfriend,” I said politely, ever the gentleman.

“She can come too,” said the woman.

Imagine that. Liz would kill the four of us with a broken beer bottle.

I leaned towards Tarq and whispered, “Dude, what’re you doing? What’ve you told them?”

“Nothing,” said Tarq. “They think we are a part of a secret government project. They have agreed to stay in my quarters for a month, after that we will wipe their memory with MICI and bring them back here.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something? You are an alien inside a hologram!”

“They are hired to perform private shows. Absolutely no touching. My secret is safe.”

I rubbed my forehead. “OK. Have it your way. It’s not like we have to prepare for an alien invasion or anything.”

*****

Kyoto - March 5, 2078

Kurt waited while the Japanese man sitting on the other side of the table consulted with his people. A few minutes later, the man told Kurt, “We all know you and your reputation. However, you have to admit it’s a difficult story to believe, especially since you don’t provide any details.”

“For security reasons,” said Kurt. “I’m sure you understand, Mr. Tanaka. You’ll be fully briefed after joining up.”

Tanaka was the leader of Japan’s biggest Resistance group. While officially part of the Resistance, his group had a cold relationship with the rest of the Resistance fighters, a natural result of being on the other side of the war a few years ago. Kurt expected this to be a tricky meeting. He’d brought Allen along to meet Tanaka and a few of his lieutenants in one of their safe houses, a small studio flat in downtown Kyoto, hidden among a million similar apartments.

Tanaka answered, “With all due respect to both you and Mr. Jonson here—”

“Colonel Jonson,” growled Allen.

Tanaka looked confused. “We use military ranks in the Resistance now?”

“Our base commander is a real stickler for military etiquette,” Kurt replied.

Tanaka exchanged a look with his lieutenants. “With all due respect to you and Colonel Jonson, you don’t expect us to walk blindly into something which could be a government trap, do you?”

“Of course not. I suggest you send one of your people. They can verify everything first-hand and report back to you.”

A skinny young woman with long black hair, an eyepatch over her left eye, and a monstrous dragon tattoo that covered her neck and arms raised her hand. “I’ll go.”

Tanaka introduced her. “This is Keiko Nishizawa. She’s a legend among our people. You might’ve heard her name before.”

The name was familiar, but Kurt couldn’t place it. He nodded and didn’t ask any questions, worried he might offend his host by not knowing who their “legend” was.

Kurt, Allen, and Nishizawa left shortly after. If the woman were surprised when she saw the Firefly waiting for them, she didn’t show it.

Fireflies had a cabin which was a smaller replica of Winterfell’s quarters. On their way back to Winterfell, Keiko asked, “So I take it Jim Hallison is with you now?”

“Hallison?” asked Allen.

Keiko gave him a hard look. Allen held his hands palms up and looked away.

“Yes,” said Kurt. “In fact, he’s flying escort for our ship right now. Do you know him?”

“In a way. I shot his plane down over the Philippines,” answered Keiko, “but not before he managed to shoot down two fighters in my squadron.”

Kurt stared at her in astonishment. “You’re that pilot!”

Allen chuckled. “This is gonna be so awkward.”

“For both of us. He did this to me”—Keiko touched her eyepatch—“which ended my career as a fighter pilot and turned me into a desk jockey.” Then she asked Kurt, “How do you know Hallison?”

“We’ve been friends since elementary school.”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t kill him then,” said Keiko. “The thought crossed my mind when he parachuted out. He’d killed one of my friends that day, and I figured I’d be saving a few of my countrymen whom he was likely to shoot down in the future.”

Kurt arched an eyebrow. “So why didn’t you?”

“I am not a murderer.” She gave Kurt a sideways look. “Or an assassin. I kill my enemies in combat, not when they are hanging helplessly from a parachute, and certainly not when they’re having dinner with their family.”

Kurt flinched and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d once assassinated one of Zheng’s top henchmen at his home through a small window. He’d been proud of that shot until he found out the man was having dinner with his wife and two little kids.

Kurt was surprised by how much Keiko’s comment hurt. He had no need to justify himself to this woman, and yet he did. “You told me you thought about straight-up murdering Jim because he’d killed one of your friends, right?”

“Yep.”

“What if he’d killed a thousand?”

“You got me there.” Keiko shrugged. “You’re right. Things aren’t always clearly one way or another. Plus, who am I to talk? I’ve probably been involved in more death and destruction than you. Back in the day, I flew escort for several kamikaze missions.”

“Each of which killed thousands of our troops,” said Allen, his tone dry. “You’re going to be very popular in Winterfell.”

“Winterfell?” asked Keiko.

“I’ll explain later,” said Kurt. “I’ve been meaning to ask you: What did Tanaka mean when he said you’re a legend in Japan?”

“I’m the only Japanese ace pilot currently alive. During the war, I had twenty-nine kills.”

Allen sneered. “Seriously, Jim’s going to love this.”

“He probably knows already, just like I know him by reputation,” said Keiko. Then she asked Kurt, “Do you always wear perfume to such meetings? It’s kind of weird.”

“He showers in cologne five times a day,” answered Allen. “You have no idea how difficult it was to convince him not to do that before missions so that the enemy couldn’t just smell him.”

A little while later, Keiko asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead. Enjoy it while you still can,” Allen said with a distant stare.

“Why? Is smoking against the rules?”

Kurt’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Not exactly. You’ll see. It’s just a thing.”

Kurt took Keiko on a short tour of Winterfell after they landed. The tour ended in front of MICI. There were four people there: Barook, a technician operating MICI under his supervision, and two Commandos who were posted there in case MICI caught a spy.

A few minutes later, Keiko walked out of MICI with the same dazed look on her face as everyone who had done this for the first time. “There’s an alien invasion on the way?!” she exclaimed.

“Yep,” said Kurt.

Keiko tightened her fists and looked into Kurt’s eyes. “And we’re going to defend humanity against it? Well, count me the hell in!”

Kurt chuckled. “We can certainly use someone with your background. You’re assigned to the fleet, right? Guess who the commander of the fleet is.”

Something caught Kurt’s attention: Barook and the MICI technician were staring at one of the screens and talking in a hushed voice. Kurt asked, “What’s going on?”

Barook looked up from the screen. “Something is wrong.”

“What, exactly?”

“Some of these readings make no sense.” Barook looked at Keiko with confusion. “It is almost as if we have some false memories in here.”

Kurt saw Keiko move from the corner of his eye. The woman was so fast that she was a blur. She kicked the first Commando in the head and sent him flying to the wall. The second man drew his sidearm. Keiko grabbed the gun and twisted it down, breaking his fingers.

Kurt was caught off guard and reacted a tad too late. He didn’t have the time to think about what was going on and moved purely on reflex. A second later the two of them were holding guns to each other’s heads.

Kurt ground his teeth. He was disappointed that the woman was a double agent. He liked her, and more importantly, she was highly qualified and seemed like an efficient and determined individual. “So what’s your plan?” he said with a stony expression. “You’re going to shoot everyone here with that gun and walk out? I’m pretty sure you don’t have enough bullets.”

“My plan’s very simple,” Keiko answered, her face passive. “I talk, you listen. For one minute.”

“This is new. People who want to talk don’t usually hold a gun to my head.” Kurt studied her for a moment. “Shoot … As in talk. One minute.”

“I’m a soldier,” said Keiko calmly. “When Tanaka asked me to join the Resistance, it was my duty to report this to my superiors. When they asked me to say yes and infiltrate his cell, it was my duty to do that too.”

Kurt opened his mouth to say something about misplaced loyalties, thought about it for a second, and closed his mouth.

Keiko continued, “But this? This changes everything, and as I said earlier, I want the hell in!”

Kurt tilted his head. “And after the stunt you just pulled, we should trust you because?”

“For one thing;”—she handed her gun over, grip first—“for another, this machine reads minds, right? Put me back in. Use it as a lie detector.”

Kurt looked sideways at Barook. “Whole lotta good it did us the first time.”

Barook said, “We caught her, didn’t we?” and asked Keiko, “How did you pull it off?”

“I held on to a clear image of myself as a real Resistance fighter,” said Keiko. “I meditate regularly and have very good mental discipline.”

A faint smile lightened Kurt’s face for a second. “If Jim were here, he’d make a Mr. Spock reference right now.”

One of the Commandos was unconscious; the other was sitting on the floor grabbing his broken fingers. Kurt nodded at them. “Was this really necessary?”

“I was worried you might shoot me before I had the chance to say my piece,” answered Keiko. “You do have a reputation for shooting first, shooting second, and never asking questions after all.”

Kurt’s expression darkened. “Can’t argue with that.”

*****

I was having dinner with Liz in the mess hall when a Japanese woman wearing an eyepatch and sporting a ridiculously big tattoo approached us and saluted. “Lieutenant Colonel Keiko Nishizawa, reporting for duty, sir.”

My mouth fell open. Coming face to face with the star of your nightmares wasn’t something that happened every day. I was so shocked it didn’t even occur to me to make a pirate joke.

Slightly over two years ago, in the final days of the war, I was flying my F-42 over the Philippines when on my radar screen I saw a Japanese fighter zooming straight for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but the enemy pilot was Nishizawa, and I’d just shot down two of her friends.

I turned my fighter jet around to meet the new threat. A few minutes later, after she countered all my most sophisticated maneuvers, got a lock on my jet fighter, and fired a missile, I realized for the first time in my life I’d come up against a fighter pilot more skillful than I was. I froze up in my cockpit, not able to move a muscle, even finding it hard to breathe. A few seconds later her missile hit my F-42.

I’d often thought about that moment, wondering if I could’ve evaded her missile if I hadn’t so suddenly become catatonic.

In my entire career as a fighter pilot, this was the only time I got shot down. I took it hard. Just because of this one incident, I was diagnosed with PTSD after the war, and it took me three months of intensive therapy to get over it. My therapist, a good-looking middle-aged woman named Dr. James, told me the problem was I’d been fully convinced of my invincibility, and getting into a dogfight with a better fighter pilot had temporarily ruined my faith in myself, resulting in a severe panic attack, which in turn had triggered a fight-flight-freeze response. I sure as hell hoped this wasn’t all just technobabble for calling me a coward, which I certainly wasn’t.

Allen, standing behind Nishizawa with Kurt and obviously enjoying himself, said, “Awkwaaard!”

Lieutenant Colonel? What the hell?

Liz nudged me with her elbow and crisply returned Nishizawa’s salute. I followed suit, though a bit hesitantly.

Something mischievous sparkled in the back of Kurt’s gray eyes. “I take it you know our new recruit.”

Feeling more like my usual self, I looked up at him. “Yeah, we’re old friends. More like brothers and sisters, really. Same as Cain and Abel, if Cain was a woman.”

“Don’t mind him,” Kurt told Nishizawa. “It’s nothing personal. He gets like this when he’s nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” I said. “Why would I be nervous?”

Liz patted my arm.

“Allow me to address the elephant in the room,” said the Japanese woman with a glint of humor. “We fought on the opposite sides of the war. We were both soldiers, following orders. It was a long time ago under completely different circumstances. I have to know there’re no hard feelings before we can move forward.”

I thought about it, all eyes on me.

I stood up and offered my hand. “None. Well, maybe a tiny bit. But to be honest, I’m happy to have someone with your experience and skills on my team.”

She shook my hand. “Happy to be here. And allow me to say you can be my wingman any time.”

I blinked. “You’ve read my book, or you’re quoting Top Gun?”

“Your book. I don’t watch Hollywood movies, except for the sword-and-sandal ones, and they don’t even make them anymore.”

She was growing on me already. Any person who could quote my book (my baby!) had a special place in my heart.

Still, later that evening I went to Tarq’s office and asked him to demote Keiko. I argued appointing a Japanese woman as the second-in-command of the fleet wouldn’t sit well with most other pilots, given that the war had happened only three years ago and there were a lot of open wounds. I went out of my way to make it clear my request was for the good of the fleet and I had nothing personal against Keiko.

From behind his desk, Tarq gave me a level look. “MICI judges people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Did he just quote Martin Luther King?

“I’m not a racist, you idiot!” I shouted, dangerously close to foaming at the mouth.

He blew his pipe’s smoke to my face. “Keep telling yourself that. Request denied.”

“I don’t have to listen to you anymore, remember?” I said. “I can call for a vote.”

“Sure you can. But let me ask you this: Do you really think Elizabeth and Allen will support you on this one?”

He was right. Liz would never agree to someone being demoted without having done something wrong first, even if it made sense. And Allen would vote against me just to spite me.

Tarq knew he’d won. He puffed on his pipe. “Trust me; it is always fun to watch someone kick a hornet’s nest. You will see.”

I rubbed my forehead. That right there was the main reason Tarq made illogical decisions from time to time. He wanted to create chaos and watch what happened, just for his own freaking amusement. The Akakies and their stupid pranks.

One of these days, we were all going to pay the price for this.

*****

Winterfell - March 11, 2078

Kurt and Allen were having dinner in the mess hall when Keiko walked in. It was late, and the only other people there were a group of boisterous pilots, some of whom looked a bit drunk. They were talking and laughing loudly, but as soon as Keiko came in, they all became very quiet and stared at her with open animosity.

Keiko’s rank had generated a lot of negative feelings among the pilots. It didn’t help that Keiko was the first and until Tanaka’s people arrived the only Japanese in Winterfell. Nor did it make her any friends that she scored so high in the daily dogfight competitions, even higher than Jim on several occasions.

Kurt told Allen, “Remember Jim being concerned about people’s reaction to Keiko’s rank? I’m beginning to think he might’ve had a point.”

One of the pilots shouted, “One-eyed Japanese whore!”

Keiko stopped motionless for one second; then, carrying her food tray, she walked toward the pilots and asked in a mild tone, “Who said that?”

“Oh-oh,” whispered Kurt.

“This is gonna be interesting,” said Allen.

A tall, bulky man stood up, smirking. He was easily twice as big as Keiko who was no more than 110 pounds. Keiko looked him up and down. “I do have only one eye, and I am indeed Japanese, but call me a whore one more time.”

The man laughed and said, “Who—”

Keiko hit him with the aluminum tray in the face so hard that Kurt could’ve sworn he saw a few teeth flying out. He went down hard and didn’t get up.

Stunned, the other pilots—all fifteen of them—didn’t move for a second, staring incredulously at Keiko. Then they jumped out of their seats, fury on their faces. Keiko took a step back, bent her knees, and brought her fists up in a fighting position.

Kurt said, “Shit!” and with Allen at his heels ran to join the fight.

Less than ten minutes later, Kurt was back at his seat. He checked his reflection in a silver-plated spoon to make sure not a strand of hair was out of place. Allen joined him. He was grabbing his side, grimacing.

“What happened to you?” asked Kurt.

“I got punched in the kidney,” Allen growled. “I’ll be pissing blood for a week.”

Kurt laughed. “One of those yahoos landed a punch? You’re getting old and slow, my friend.”

Keiko, having picked up a new tray, approached them. “Can I join you guys?”

Allen scowled at her. “You aren’t getting anywhere near me with that lethal weapon in your hand.”

“By all means. Nice moves back there, by the way,” said Kurt.

“I’ve been practicing aikido since I was eight.” She sat down and put her tray on the table. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor or something?”

Kurt looked at the fighter pilots, some unconscious, some grabbing various dislocated joints and broken bones, moaning painfully. “Nah. It’ll be a good lesson for them.”

*****

In the Command Center, I waved the hospital report under Kurt’s nose and shouted, “Sixteen pilots are in the hospital. There’re so many broken bones in this report I can’t even count them. And a concussion! Concussion!”

“This last one was your own second-in-command’s masterpiece,” said Kurt, trying to stifle a laugh. “She broke a chair on one of the pilots’ head. I swear Allen and I went easy on them.”

Liz looked at Keiko with newfound respect, much to my chagrin.

Keiko shrugged. “The son of a bitch deserved it.”

I could feel my face steaming. I yelled, “But the rest are there because of you and this bald gorilla!”

That would normally cause a reaction from Allen, but he was having too much fun to get angry. “A gorilla fights much better than a bunch of monkeys, eh?” he said.

Feeling suicidal, I clenched my fists and took a step toward Allen. Tarq interfered. “Knock it off, Jim. All they did was stop your men from beating up a superior officer, which would have gotten them court-martialed.”

I couldn’t stop fuming though. For one thing, you didn’t mess with people under my command, period. For another, the story that Kurt and Allen, with some help from Keiko, had beaten up sixteen pilots had spread throughout Winterfell. All the pilots were embarrassed. To make matters worse, a few of the more macho—or stupid—pilots had tried to provoke some Commandos into fighting them, and they had ended up having their asses handed to them too.

My pride shouldn’t have been so hurt. Kurt and Allen were both masters in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, even before MICI, which had imprinted them with God knows what other skills. Scant consolation though.

To top it all off, Tarq ordered all officers who had shown or expressed “any racist tendencies” to report to MICI. That somehow included me, even though I had nothing to do with the brawl. Sometimes the whole world conspired against you. This was how my name entered the history books as one of the first people on Earth who was sent to rehabilitate his racist tendencies by an alien. I never believed for a minute MICI could do anything to “remove racist predispositions” as Tarq put it. This had to be just another one of his stupid pranks.

A few days later and only after I calmed down, Kurt came to me. “I’m concerned about lack of discipline among the fighter pilots, Jim. Whatever those pilots’ personal feelings were, they shouldn’t have dared to attack a superior officer. And to be brutally honest, your own second-in-command doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about your orders half the time.”

My “second-in-command” being Liz, that was a keen observation.

“Kurt, this isn’t the freaking military,” I said. “I have zero real authority over the people under my command, and the fact that our so-called commander treats everything like a freaking joke doesn’t help either. If they don’t listen to me, what am I supposed to do about it?”

Kurt smiled. “First off, you complaining that Tarq fools around too much is the pot calling the kettle black. Secondly, the Resistance wasn’t a military unit either, but it was perfectly understood that if someone didn’t listen to Allen or me, we’d take them to the back and shoot them in the head.”

I squinted at him. “Did you ever actually have to shoot anyone in the head?”

“Nope.”

“See?” I said. “This is the problem. You and Allen have a reputation I simply don’t have. Everyone knows I am an ace pilot, but people see me more as a movie star than a leader. Plus, let’s be honest; I’m really not one.”

“We could use MICI to make them follow your orders.”

“Absolutely not!” I protested. “How’s that different from what Tarq did to us? No, I just have to earn their respect, one way or another.”

That was easier said than done, though. The problem was I’d been appointed as the commander of the fleet because I was the first fighter pilot to arrive at Winterfell. I hadn’t earned my command. If I wanted to gain the other pilots’ respect, I had to do something amazing, and all I’d done by now was flying escort missions and winning meaningless competitions.

I wondered what Tarq had seen in me to appoint me commander. Being an excellent fighter pilot didn’t by itself qualify me for a command role. In all likelihood, Tarq had made a mistake, or it was one of his damned pranks.

Kurt tugged at his goatee. “On the bright side, I think having Keiko around might help because nobody dares mess with her.”

“And this is supposed to make me feel better?” I asked.

*****

Winterfell - March 12, 2078

“It’s done already?” asked Elizabeth with surprise in her voice.

“Yes,” answered Tarq. “All the money now is in the account you provided. Completely untraceable, of course.”

They were sitting in Tarq’s office. Less than two hours ago, Elizabeth had given him a list of Zheng’s top officials’ names, including the chancellor himself, and asked him to find out their banking information and transfer all their money to a Swiss bank account she’d opened. Tarq, who had considered this a funny practical joke, had assured her this was a piece of cake for him. Still, she couldn’t believe Tarq had stolen millions from the most dangerous men on the planet in a matter of hours, even with Akakie technology at his disposal.

“There’s one more favor I need you to do for me,” she said. “I’m going to send you the names of several charities, including the one that I’ve founded, and I want you to send the money to them anonymously.”

New York’s orphans are going to be well taken care of for a while.

Tarq took a drag on his pipe. “All of it?”

“How much is there?”

Tarq brought up a screen and pointed at it.

Elizabeth gasped and grabbed Tarq’s arm. She counted the zeroes twice to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake and then asked, “What do you say we keep a couple of hundred million dollars as a little nest egg for Jim and me?”

Chapter Seven

New York - March 18, 2078

Kurt looked at the man sleeping on his bed in full uniform and for a brief moment pitied him. He’d obviously been too tired to change before going to bed. Everyone who was working at SCTU had been pulling double or triple shifts in the past few weeks with absolutely nothing to show for it. They were all chasing ghosts, and the couple of times they had gotten close to catching some Commandos, Jim and his pilots showed up and blew up everything to hell.

Kurt kicked the man’s ankle a few times. He opened his eyes, and after seeing Kurt, he swore and tried to grab the weapon hidden under his bed, only for Kurt to draw a suppressed Glock and shoot his hand. He opened his mouth to shout. Kurt put his index finger on his lips, asking him to be quiet. “Lieutenant Eric Green. I guess you know who I am.”

The SCTU officer stared at him with terror in his eyes.

“Relax,” said Kurt. “I’m not here to kill you. A few months ago, you were in charge of the team searching Jim Harrison’s house. You found a ring there. I know you’ve sold it. I want to know who the buyer is.”

*****

With everything else going on—the alien invasion and whatnot—I’d almost forgotten I was planning to get married.

Kurt hadn’t.

One morning, I was eating breakfast when he showed up, threw me a small gift-wrapped box, and said, “I’ve got a present for you.”

I widened my eyes in feigned horror and shouted, “What’s in the box? What’s in the box?”

Kurt sighed. “I have no idea what you’re doing right now.”

I opened the present to find the ring I was planning to give Liz.

“How on earth did you find it?” I asked, amazed.

Kurt winked at me. “I used to moonlight as a private detective before Zheng’s coup.”

“Seriously?”

He rolled his eyes. “It was a joke, hence the wink.”

“It’s not funny if you have to explain it.”

“Look who’s talking. No one understands half of your movie references.”

“I know,” I said. “But those who do really like them.”

“So, when’re you going to propose?”

“Tonight,” I said immediately. “I have a sneaky feeling that if I wait, another earth-shattering event might ruin my plans again.”

He handed me a plastic bag. “In that case, I have another present for you.”

*****

I called out, “Sweetheart? You gonna be in there long?”

“Just a minute,” said Liz. A couple of minutes later, she walked out of our bathroom, wrapping a white towel around her wet body.

That figure!

I was standing in the middle of our quarters, grinning from ear to ear like an idiot, one of my hands hiding behind my back. On our bed, there was a big bouquet of fresh flowers I’d stolen from Winterfell’s park (Tarq could sue me), a teddy bear, a bottle of red wine, and a big heart-shaped box of chocolates. Kurt had given me the last three items. Soft, romantic music and smell of the roses had filled the room.

A tentative smile (that smile!) lit up her face. “Eh, what’s all this?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you. Turn around.”

Her smile widened, and she playfully turned around. I walked closer, started rubbing the wedding ring box against her bare shoulder skin, and asked, “Can you guess what this is?”

Liz tried to reach back and touch the box, but I took it away from her reach. She giggled. “It’d better not be a sex toy!”

“Pervert,” I said.

She turned around to find me on one knee, with the box open to reveal a sparkling diamond ring. “Will you marry me?” I asked.

Liz’s mouth gaped slightly open, and her eyes become as wide as small saucers. She covered her mouth with her hand. Her towel slipped a little, but unfortunately for me, she managed to hold on to it. She looked like she wasn’t sure what to say for a few long seconds, during which time my heart thumped against my ribcage so loudly I wondered if she could hear it.

Then she bent over and kissed me on the lips. “Before I say yes, I have a condition.”

I would’ve agreed with anything at that moment. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“If at any stage before, during, or after the ceremony,” she said in a serious tone, “the words ‘Red Wedding’ come out of your mouth, I’ll cancel the whole thing!”

She knew me so well. I’d already thought about five different Red Wedding related jokes.

We asked Tarq to marry us. As Winterfell’s commander, he was the logical choice, plus we figured it’d be cool to be the first couple in the world who were married by an alien. With the Xortaag fleet on the way, we decided to get married as soon as possible and chose the last day of March for our wedding.

It was a simple but beautiful ceremony. Liz looked stunning in her white wedding dress. I couldn’t stop staring at her. She looked lovelier every time I looked at her. Or maybe I was just noticing more—the slant of her eyes, the curve of her cheek, the way her smile twitched up right before it broke out into full wattage. I was wearing my dark blue full dress uniform. We’d invited all our friends. My best man was Kurt, wearing his trademark black trench coat, accompanied by my groomsmen, Liz’s brother Matias, and Allen, of all people.

I rubbed my forehead. Allen was one of my groomsmen. It was complicated.

Liz’s maid of honor was Keiko, also in uniform. The two of them had become good friends in the past few weeks. I suspected Liz really enjoyed it whenever I got my ass kicked by Keiko in a simulated competition, which happened more often than I was willing to admit. Her bridesmaids were her two sisters, Samantha and Theresa, one lithe and dark, one cocoa-colored and voluptuous, both almost as pretty as Liz, and Allen’s daughter, Lilly.

Tarq, wearing his white tuxedo and feathered hat, performed his duties perfectly. He made a short, poetic speech about love, marriage, and family. He asked us, “Do you promise to honor and tenderly care for one another, cherish and encourage each other, stand together, through sorrows and joys, hardships and triumphs for all the days of your lives?”

I opened my mouth to say “I do” when a wailing siren filled up the room.

His eyes bulging, Tarq shouted, “This is the Xortaag invasion! Everyone! Report to your posts immediately!”

Barook jumped from his seat and ran towards the door.

What were the chances that this happened at the very moment when we were getting married?

*****

Winterfell - March 28, 2078

Kurt casually asked Tarq, “By the way, you aren’t planning one of your infamous practical jokes for Jim’s wedding, are you?”

Accompanied by Allen, Kurt was in Tarq’s office, briefing him on their latest recruitment efforts. Knowing Tarq’s tendency to pull distasteful pranks, Kurt and Allen had decided to have a word with him before the wedding. Tarq, caught off-guard, answered, “What? Who? Me? How? I have not even thought about such a thing!”

As if, thought Kurt. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing, I swear. I will never smear the sanctity of marriage with a prank, trust me!”

Allen leaned forward and growled, “Listen to me. You tell me what you’re up to right this moment, or I’ll break your fingers.”

Tarq unconsciously hid his fingers, still holding his pipe, behind his back. “Okay! Take it easy. Nothing serious. I have hired a stripper to jump out of a fake wedding cake. That is it.”

“You have to understand,” said Kurt, “wedding ceremonies are extremely important for us humans, especially for the women. Don’t even think about it. If you bring a stripper to the wedding, Elizabeth will strangle her to death, and then you, and we’ll help her.”

“Just to be on the safe side,” added Allen, “we’ll check the cake, or wherever else you can hide a nude woman.”

“I understand,” said Tarq solemnly. “No pranks during the wedding. I promise.”

“Speaking of Elizabeth, there’s another issue I wanted to talk to you about,” said Kurt. “Are you sure selecting her as the fleet’s second-in-command was the right decision? She’s a skillful pilot, but she isn’t military, and she lacks the discipline of a career military woman like Keiko. She keeps ignoring Jim’s orders.”

Tarq smirked and moved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fun watching her bossing around seasoned fighter pilots.”

After leaving Tarq’s office, Kurt and Allen went to have dinner with Lilly. While eating, Kurt mentioned they’d confronted Tarq to the girl and found her staring at them in surprise.

“Didn’t you tell me the Akakies consider practical jokes a form of art and put a ridiculous amount of energy into pulling one off?” asked Lilly. “And isn’t this the same man who pulled the whole you-are-all-dead-and-in-heaven charade?”

Kurt nodded.

Lilly sighed. “The problem is neither you nor my dad has a sense of humor. Do you really think a man … well, someone like that would do something as banal as hiring a naked woman to jump out of a cake?”

Kurt thought about it for a second; then he put his fork down on the table and laughed. “The two of us are supposed to be badass warriors, and that little sneaky alien fooled us so easily.”

“Well, shit,” growled Allen.

“Language.” Kurt wagged his index finger at his mentor. “There’re children present.”

Lilly pretended she was about to throw a knife at him. “You won’t call me a child when I reprogram one of Winterfell’s robots to come to your room and kill you in your sleep.”

“That won’t work.” Allen wolfed down a big chunk of meat. “Kurt sleeps with one eye open, and he has a gun under his pillow. Old habit.”

“I can fill his room with gas using Winterfell’s environmental control system,” said Lilly.

Allen gave his daughter an admonishing look. Kurt asked him, “And who do you think she’s inherited these violent tendencies from?”

“Her mother,” said Allen without hesitation. “You think I’m violent? I’m a cute puppy compared to that woman.”

“He’s right, actually,” said Lilly. “I still have bruises from my childhood when I had to live with her.”

“Here is a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time,” Kurt told them. “You guys are sure you’re Canadian?”

Allen rolled his eyes. “This sounds like something Jim would say. How many times have I said that boy has a bad influence on you?”

*****

The answer to my previous question? None. Or at least astronomical.

Kurt and Allen had approached Barook and pretended they were in on the prank, with Kurt saying something like, “This will be the best practical joke ever!” Barook boasted how great the prank would be and gave Kurt and Allen enough clues to put it all together.

Tarq was speechless when he saw us standing there and smiling at him. I waved my hand dismissively. “Can we please get on with it?”

Tarq pulled himself together and showed enough grace to continue the ceremony. When we were saying our vows, I noticed Allen wiping a tear from his face. Maybe the old man wasn’t that bad, after all. We exchanged our wedding rings. I told Liz, “I’ll be wearing this for the next hundred years,” and I kissed the bride. There were cheers, and someone whooped.

Mrs. Elizabeth Harrison. It had a nice ring to it. Or was it Mrs. Harrison-Lopez? Lopez-Harrison?

We had a festive reception after the ceremony. We ate, drank, danced, and incessantly made fun of Tarq for his failed prank. I looked at my friends’ and in-laws’ faces, and happiness swelled inside me like a warm ocean wave. I let it soak right into my heart, savoring every moment, forgetting about the Xortaags and the deadly danger they posed to humanity. Being an only child and not close to my parents, this was the first time in my life I felt I had a family. I wanted to make sure I still remembered these moments vividly when I was old. And for once, Venom was quiet.

We got a lot of wedding presents. Tarq gave us two VR headsets that could convert any normal movies into holographic ones, with the viewer in the thick of the action. Liz loved Keiko’s present, a beautiful Japanese tea set. Kurt didn’t give us anything. “Your present will be ready by the time you come back,” he said. Very mysterious.

When we were dancing, Liz told me, “I have to make a confession: I love someone else, but his parents didn’t let us get married.”

I pretended I was having a heart attack.

Life was good.

Later on, after we were back in our quarters, alone, Liz hugged me and with her sexy British accent whispered in my ears, “My husband! I love you.”

I caressed her thick curly hair. “My wife! I love you more.”

*****

With Tarq’s permission, Liz and I went on a one-week honeymoon. We took a Firefly and landed on a small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, where we hid the ship under an Akakie force field and used it as a temporary residence. It was only the two of us, a bunch of movies, a lot of wine, and a pristine, breathtakingly beautiful beach. We ate and drank and danced and made love and watched movies—not necessarily in that order—for the whole week without a single care in the world. It was heaven.

The last evening on the island, while we were drinking on the beach, next to a bonfire, and listening to the relaxing sound of the waves, I said, “I wish we didn’t have to go back.”

My wife, a bit drunk, asked, “You what now?”

“I’m so happy here, and all I want in my life is to be with you. We could just stay here, or even take the Firefly and go wherever we want. We’ll take all our friends with us, even Allen.”

“And Tarq?” asked Liz, playing with a lock of hair.

“Oh my God, no!” I feigned shock. “He’ll drive us crazy with his stupid pranks.”

“Okay. Let’s say Kurt, I, and the others decide to leave Earth and run away,” she said. “Will you go?”

I thought about it for a minute. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

I sighed. “You know why.”

She chuckled. “Sure I do. You aren’t going anywhere unless you can fit all the pilots under your command in this Firefly.”

“Not only the pilots,” I said. “The ground crew too. Anyone who is in the fleet is my responsibility, and they wouldn’t leave without their family and friends. We’d have to take all the forty-six thousand people in Winterfell with us.”

So just like Adam and Eve, we wound up leaving Heaven too. The difference was we left voluntarily. We returned to Winterfell as scheduled and were welcomed by my new in-laws and old friends.

After Liz and I entered our quarters, I put my bags down, stretched, and said, “Home, sweet home.”

I jumped out of my skin when I heard Cordelia say in her dulcet voice, “Welcome home, Jim.”

I gasped. “Cordelia! How? When? Where?”

“Kurt has asked me to tell you I’m your wedding present,” she said. “Congratulations to you both, by the way.”

Liz smiled. “Thanks, Cordi.”

“FYI, Lilly has upgraded me using Akakie technology. I feel I’m a sentient being now,” said Cordelia. “And fair warning: My tongue is sharper than ever.”

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” said Venom. “Can we send her back?”

“With Cordelia and Venom living with us, we have a family already,” I told Liz.

Chapter Eight

Earth’s Exosphere - April 13, 2078, 11:00 EST

The Crimson Deathbringer appeared six thousand miles above Earth.

Maada looked at the blue planet in front of him and wondered how long it would take before someone detected his space fighter. This was an underdeveloped civilization, but their jet fighters, though outdated, had the capability to interfere with the deployment of the Voice of God, which made a full-scale invasion necessary.

Maada unconsciously rubbed the scars on his face. He got those many years ago in a battle over another blue planet, which looked like this one. He could easily have them—and the other scars and burn marks on his face and neck—removed, but he had earned them in battle and wore them like a badge of honor.

Maada had always enjoyed these solitary moments of just sitting there looking at his target. It had become a ritual for him. He lived for these moments, knowing what was about to follow. Since he was a child, he had known he was destined to do great things for his people, to change their world and ease their suffering. He could not have imagined he would end up conquering the galaxy, although now he did not see how it could have been otherwise. The galaxy was full of prizes his planet needed; what else was his life for? He had no wife, no children. Other than Prince Mushgaana, he did not even have any friends. A lifetime of military campaigns left no time for any of that. But his legacy, a Xortaag star kingdom ruling over the known universe, would last for thousands of years.

He felt sorry for the inhabitants of the planet. Unlike Mushgaana and most other Xortaags who would not spare a moment thinking about the other species in the universe, Maada regretted having to kill off a whole sentient species. He took no pleasure in it beyond the satisfaction of winning. He would have spared them if there had been enough wealth to go around, but sadly, there was not. His people were fertile. Twenty-five billion Xortaags lived on Tangaar. Without colonies, they would have all died a long time ago. A guilty conscience was a small price to pay for the survival of his people.

And so was loneliness.

In a blink of an eye, the rest of the Xortaag fleet appeared behind him. Forty thousand space fighters, plus Mushgaana’s command ship, which was the biggest military vessel in the fleet by a large margin. Despite her impressive array of both offensive and defensive weapons, she usually stayed as far away from danger as possible.

Maada smiled viciously, his compassion locked away until the next time he let it out for an airing. People down there must be pissing their pants right about now, he thought.

He contacted his fighter pilots and simply said, “Happy hunting.”

The fleet started moving toward its target.

*****

New York - 11.10 EST

Kurt was waiting with a group of recruits to be picked up by a Firefly when Tarq called him and said, “It has begun.”

Kurt didn’t need to ask what “it” was. Based on the reports sent by an Akakie spy ship shadowing the Xortaag fleet, Tarq had predicted they’d arrive today.

Kurt was in an abandoned building which used to be a shopping mall. Some fifty recruits were scattered in a big hall, some sitting on the dusty floor, some standing in groups or walking around. Allen and five other Resistance members were standing guard next to boarded windows.

“Jim is on his way to meet you,” said Tarq. “We might have a problem though: If you are still on the way when OMC-BOWS starts to work, there is no telling how the new people will react. They might turn on you.”

“Allen and I have already thought about that possibility,” said Kurt.

He disconnected the call and put his PDD in the pocket of his black trench coat. He’d expected to be anxious, but to his surprise, he was calm, even though his breath slightly quickened. The whole alien invasion thing still felt more like a movie than reality. Plus, it was just another bunch of murderous madmen. He’d been standing up to these kinds of bastards for two years. Only this time he had an army behind him.

His footsteps echoing throughout the empty hall, he went to Allen. He was sharing the news when a tall, strikingly beautiful blonde approached them and said, “Eh, Mr. von der Hagen?”

Allen rolled his eyes and growled, “Colonel.”

Kurt looked questioningly at the woman. She was dressed in blue jeans and a simple white t-shirt, but she looked more like a professional model than a Resistance fighter. “My name’s Oksana,” she said. “You don’t know me, but I tipped you guys about Palermo’s visit to The Harem. I mean, I told someone who had connections with the Resistance, and he told you.”

Kurt’s eyebrows went up. “So in a way, you’re the person who started all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Long story,” said Kurt. “I’ll tell you later. How did you find out about Palermo? He always managed to keep his movements secret.”

Oksana nodded toward another young blonde girl sitting on the ground. “My sister and I were forced to work there. Palermo beat her to within an inch of her life. I couldn’t let him get away with it.”

Kurt was taken aback. He grimaced, averted his eyes, and was about to say something like “I’m so sorry” when the woman said, “All due respect, if you say anything patronizing, Colonel, I’ll break your jaw.”

Kurt didn’t show it, but he was pleased by her response. The woman was ready to throw it down with the strongest person in her new home. That showed character.

“You have any martial arts training, girlie?” snarled Allen.

Oksana studied him. “You want to see for yourself, old man?”

“I like this one,” Allen told Kurt. “She’s feisty.”

Kurt tried to change the subject. “How did you end up with us?”

She shrugged. “My sister and I ran away from The Harem. We went to the same guy I’d used to let you know about Palermo. He helped us join up, and here we are.”

Allen checked his PDD. “Our ride is here.”

A few minutes later, when they were all in, the Firefly took off. Kurt, standing next to Allen, faced the recruits, who’d taken their seats and fastened their seatbelts.

“I just want to apologize in advance for what comes next,” said Kurt, trying to avoid eye contact with Oksana, who was the first person sitting to his right. “Please believe me when I say this is for your own safety. You’ll understand after you wake up.”

Kurt and Allen put on gas masks and threw two gas grenades into the crowd.

*****

An intense, primal fear seized Oksana. She’d come all this way to be killed in an ambush! She struggled with her seatbelt, but it was too late. At least she was with her sister in the end. She grasped Anastasiya’s hand and managed to say, “Love all, trust a few,” before she lost consciousness.

*****

New York - 11.45 EST

Chancellor Zheng couldn’t believe his own eyes.

He and his top generals were sitting around a black oval desk in their operation room, looking at a giant wall-mounted screen showing a fleet of menacing-looking alien spaceships—obviously military vessels; everyone could see the cannons on both sides of their cockpits—approaching Earth. Scores of grim-faced junior officers and aides were running around. Everyone was talking loudly at the same time. The generals looked anxious, and the operation room was so noisy Zheng had a hard time hearing his own thoughts.

Zheng felt he was about to throw up. His muscles were so tight his back ached. This can’t be happening, he thought. All those years he plotted to be the most powerful man on Earth, the waiting, the sacrifices—he thought briefly of the wife who had left him and her accusations about his ego and cruelty—just for this. To be helpless, made a fool of. The caught-with-his-pants-down loser in charge when aliens invaded. But how the hell was he supposed to predict something like this would ever take place?

The distance between Earth and the approaching alien fleet’s vanguard continued to shrink rapidly. It was a big fleet, some forty thousand ships. They flew in a tight military formation. There was no doubt in Zheng’s mind that the alien fleet was coming to fight. The Air Force fighters had scrambled to meet this unexpected threat, but the fact that the enemy was flying in space was a clear indication of their much superior technology and capabilities. This wasn’t exactly news. It’d always been assumed if an alien species came to Earth, they’d be technologically more advanced than humans. Moreover, the combined number of all jet fighters on Earth was less than twenty-five thousand. The aliens had appeared so close to Earth that the armed forces had no time to form a strategic plan. Still, all over the world, every military unit with air-to-air or ground-to-air capabilities was getting ready to defend the planet.

Someone suggested, “Maybe they are peaceful?” which produced a few bitter snickers from the other officers.

Any remaining doubt about the aliens’ intentions evaporated when the enemy ships started to systematically shoot down the satellites orbiting Earth using energy weapons. The defenseless satellites, worth billions of dollars, were obliterated in a matter of seconds.

No sentient species is peaceful, Zheng thought. The universe, the earth, a village, a family—all the same. The strong one took the prize. Once that had been him. He’d beaten his brother, other boys, other men, generals, that idiot Von der Hagen. Now some jacked-up reptile or walking slime had come to town,

“There goes GPS,” Zheng murmured, trying to hide his terror.

“A few months ago, a bunch of Resistance fighters escaped in a spaceship,” said a general. “Then Jim Harrison attacked our forces in an advanced and untraceable fighter, and now this happens. There must be a connection.”

“Are you seriously suggesting the Resistance called aliens for help?” Zheng snapped at him.

“With respect, Chancellor, do you have a better explanation?” answered the man.

“If these are von der Hagen’s allies, I might as well eat my gun right now,” Zheng whispered to himself.

“Missiles away,” a lieutenant announced as soon as the alien fleet reached the effective missile range of the Air Force fighters.

The fighter jets shot thousands of air-to-air beyond-visual-range missiles at the enemy fleet. Zheng and his generals watched despairingly as the spaceships, agile and seemingly unperturbed, either destroyed or dodged the Air Force’s most advanced BVR missiles with such ease that it was humiliating. The fighter pilots couldn’t score a single ht. Zheng covered his eyes with a hand,  as if shielding himself from the painful reality playing out before him, lowered his head, and groaned.

The mood in the Operation Room got even darker. Amidst the despair, panic began to seep into the hearts of the generals. The mounting pressure of the situation ignited tempers, and voices rose in a cacophony of heated exchanges. Shouting erupted as frustration and fear mingled with the desperate desire to find a solution. The once-cohesive command structure threatened to unravel under the strain, their collective will tested by the relentless and seemingly insurmountable superiority of the enemy.

I guess I’m not the biggest shark in these waters anymore. Welcome to the bottom of the food chain, thought Zheng. Beads of sweat ran down his face. He gaped at various screens showing the battle and wondered what he could do to save humanity.

Nothing, was the reverberating answer.

*****

Winterfell - 11.50 EST

Watching the Xortaag fleet on a holographic display, Tarq felt a sense of déjà vu.

“This is just like Alora again,” he told Barook.

The Command Center door opened. Keiko, Lilly, and Sergei walked in.

“Would you mind if we join you?” asked Keiko.

Tarq gestured towards the empty seats. “Not at all. Bring popcorn and let’s enjoy the show.”

Keiko gave him a sour look. “You’d better leave the comedy to Jim.”

“Stupid alien,” Sergei muttered under his breath.

Tarq glowered at him. “I heard that!”

Tarq did not say anything else. He watched in silence as the Air Force jet fighters and the Deathbringers joined in battle. The Xortaag ships buzzed forward, got within range, and opened fire with their deadly laser cannons. A fierce aerial battle ensued, with thousands of vessels involved in close-range dogfights, shooting missiles, cannon shells, and energy beams at each other, filling the sky with brilliant explosions and shining pieces of metal. The human pilots were skilled and determined, but Tarq did not need to be a military genius to see the Air Force had no chance of beating the enemy. The Deathbringers were much faster and more maneuverable, and their energy weapons were a lot more effective. The Air Force started losing jet fighters first by the dozens, and then by the hundreds. Tarq noticed some pilots, probably out of pure desperation, tried to ram their fighters into the spaceships, but that did not work either.

Hundreds of fighter jet pilots were incinerated in their cockpits, nothing left of their bodies. Hundreds more punched out after being hit, just to be slaughtered by direct enemy fire while hanging helplessly from their parachutes. The skies became a graveyard of brave pilots, their sacrifices leaving only echoes of tragedy.

And yet, despite the horrendous number of human casualties, the battle kept raging.

Soon after, the enemy fighters started flying at low altitudes and targeting the ground-based air defense systems. The anti-aircraft weapons crew fired millions of missiles and shells, lighting up the sky. Like the jet fighters, they had very little success, but it didn’t stop them from trying. The Deathbringers massacred them by the thousands, adding to the rapidly growing list of human casualties.

The air reverberated with the anguished cries of those caught in the crossfire, the ground trembled beneath the weight of shattered lives, and the air defense systems became beacons of both resistance and futility. Human lives were consumed in the maw of war, countless souls lost to the merciless dance of death. Yet, against all reason and much to Tarq’s surprise, the humans kept fighting—a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who refused to surrender, even in the face of inevitable doom.

Despite having predicted this exact outcome, Tarq’s pulse raced, and violent tremors overcame his hands and fingers. Feeling his legs were too weak to support his weight, he grabbed a chair and sat down.

This is what will happen to Kanoor if I fail here.

*****

The Xortaags were finally here, and I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I half expected this to be yet another one of Tarq’s practical jokes. His people were all pranksters, so who was to say they wouldn’t send their entire fleet just to scare us to death and laugh about it later?

While flying to New York to pick up Kurt, Allen, and some new people, I monitored communications between Earth forces and their command center—nothing as insignificant as military-grade encryption could stand in the way of Akakie technology—and followed the brutal battle raging all over the planet, involving thousands of jet fighters and spaceships.

So it was real, after all.

“You think?” asked Venom.

It hit me like a fifty-megaton nuclear missile. I experienced an adrenaline rush greater by far than anything I’d felt before, even though as a fighter pilot I lived on adrenaline. My senses heightened, and I felt breathless. This was what I’d trained for. Hell, this was what I was born to do. After months of preparation, it was go time. I wasn’t afraid. I was fired-up.

“Somehow,” said Venom, “I doubt the fighter pilots being massacred right now share your enthusiasm.”

I stiffened as guilt sat on my chest and made breathing even more difficult. During the war, I’d developed an unconscious ability to shut my eyes to the people who were losing their lives while the battle was going on—unless of course they were under my command. In fact, all professional soldiers would learn to do that. You had to watch the battle with a certain detachment; otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to perform at peak condition. This was the same principle, only at a much larger scale. I hadn’t given the dead or dying fighter pilots any thought until Venom brought them up.

We can’t save everyone, I told him even though I hated saying that. But we will save the civilian population, and I promise you this: The Xortaags will pay for what they did today.

“Scant consolation for the dead,” said Venom. “Or their loved ones.”

On our way back to Winterfell, I noticed a group of five F-46 jet fighters flying close to us. I intercepted their comm and listened in to see what was going on.

Much to my surprise, one of them was my old war buddy Major Josef Hernandez. We’d flown side by side during several missions, and we’d chased women together—before Josef got married—on more than one occasion.

From what I could put together, they’d engaged the Xortaag fleet a short while ago. They soon realized what I knew already: BVR missiles were useless. The only chance they had was engaging the enemy at close range, which was a tall order given how fast the Deathbringers were and how effectively their laser weapons could fire. Between them, their unit had managed to shoot down a grand total of two enemy vessels, but from the twenty-four F-46 jet fighters that went into battle, only these five had survived, and they were winchester. Still, they’d done better than some other squadrons which were completely wiped out. Now they were on their way back to their base to reload and get back to the fight, even though it was clear they had no chance of winning this battle.

My heart swelled with pride. Despite overwhelming odds, these guys weren’t running away from the fight. They were bruised and bloodied, but not defeated. What they lacked in technology, they made up for with heart. My kind of people.

And then five Deathbringers showed up on the edge of my radar screen, moving fast towards the F-46s.

I could feel the blood draining from my face. My instinct was to rush to my friend’s help, but our whole strategy was based on secrecy. If the Xortaags found out about us so early, the results would be catastrophic, for all humanity. I couldn’t endanger everyone to save five lives. But there was one thing I could do.

“You’ve got hostiles on your six!” I shouted into my mike. “Evade! Evade!”

The Deathbringers, just like our own Vipers, were invisible to F-46’s low-tech radar unless the pilots knew exactly where to look. Josef cursed and frantically ordered his remaining pilots to scatter and try to evade. I knew it was a lost cause. Even with ammunition, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Elizabeth’s voice spoke in my headphones. “What’re we waiting for?”

“What?” I said.

“There’s five of them and ten of us,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “Let’s go kill the sons of bitches.”

I really didn’t need this right now. “Out of the question. Even if we could do this before any more Deathbringers show up, all it takes is for one of them to send a message out, and our existence will be revealed. Stay put.”

“We can jam their communications,” she countered.

I felt a sudden urge to rub my temples, which was impossible because they were under my flight helmet. “We can, but there’s no guarantee we’d be completely successful. Stay put.”

She didn’t answer for an agonizing moment; then she said firmly, “I’m going in. You guys are free to follow me or not.”

“You’re going to jeopardize the whole thing. Stay put! That’s an order!”

I didn’t think for a second she’d listen. Once Liz set her heart on doing something, there was no way to talk her out of it. I considered my options, and my heart sank when I realized I had none. Once Liz attacked the Deathbringers, our cover would be blown anyway. Our only hope was to get rid of these five as fast as possible and pray to God they couldn’t send a message out, in which case we might’ve ended up kissing any chance we had of defeating the Xortaags goodbye.

My face felt hot, and my palms started sweating. A vision of the world burning with billions of corpses scattered all over sprang to my mind, the direct result of what Liz was about to do. I could almost smell the stench of the corpses. Under my watch. My responsibility. Commander of the fleet, my ass.

This is exactly what Kurt warned me about.

I opened my mouth to order the rest of the pilots to follow Liz.

“You could shoot her down, you know,” said Venom.

I sat up straight in my seat. All I needed to do was hit one of her Viper’s wings without damaging the rest of the fighter. I could totally do that. I was so precise in the cockpit that I could perform open-heart surgery with my cannons. The Deathbringers were too far away to notice the explosion, and Liz wouldn’t be in any real danger either. She’d punch out, and we would recover her later.

Of course, she’d never talk to me if I did that, but was it too steep a price to pay to save the world?

Yes, it is. It really, really is.

I didn’t want to do it, but since when what I wanted mattered? I gritted my teeth, turned my head to look at her Viper, and prepared myself to get on her six as soon as she flew out of formation.

But nothing happened. Liz’s Viper stayed on course, and there was no further communication from her.

“Liz?” I said in my mike. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“Maybe you should let the sleeping dog lie,” offered Venom. “Or in this case, the sleeping bitch.”

Shut up! You’re talking about my wife.

“Who almost got all of us killed,” he answered.

There was no answer from Liz.

Tarq’s voice spoke in my ear. “Jim, I have taken control of her Viper. I am bringing her back in with the rest of you.”

I asked, “Were you monitoring us?” and immediately thought, Duh!

“Yes, and a good thing too,” said Tarq, “given that she was about to doom us all. I have also blocked her communications, but we can hear her over here, and let me tell you this: She is furious. Does she kiss you with that mouth?”

Despite everything, picturing Liz alone in her cockpit throwing a tantrum brought a fleeting smile to my face.

“Also, FYI, I am going to demote her due to insubordination,” added Tarq.

“Tarq?” I said.

“Yes, Jim?”

“She’s gonna kill you,” I said mischievously.

Tarq did not respond, so I added, “She’s gonna kill you like a rabid dog in the street.”

“I know,” said Tarq, sounding resigned. “I am thinking about having security take her to MICI as soon as she lands and do the RoboCop thing again.”

With a knot in my stomach, I forced myself to watch while the enemy vessels closed the distance and started shooting at the helpless jet fighters. I desperately wanted to help them, but I knew it would be a fatal mistake. Sitting in my cockpit, watching my friends getting slaughtered, killed a part of me, an innocence I didn’t even know I still had. I thought I knew war, but I didn’t. War wasn’t just fighting, danger, and fear. War was strategy, and strategy was pitiless. This was war—and without a doubt the most painful thing I’d ever experienced in my life.

*****

Earth’s Exosphere - 12.45 EST

Prince Mushgaana, sitting on the captain’s chair of the command starship, absentmindedly followed the battle on the bridge’s main display, a colossal VR screen front and center. Around him, the starship’s crew members were performing their duties with an air of professionalism and efficiency. Mushgaana had worked with this crew for a very long time, and he knew they were capable of functioning at peak efficiency with minimal supervision. They certainly were more focused on the job at hand than he was.

This battle was a foregone conclusion. So were the next few. The real battle would come when they attacked the Akakie homeworld, Kanoor. After that, there would be no one capable of challenging their supremacy in the galaxy.

As a member of the royal family, Mushgaana could have anything he wanted on his own planet. Luxury, pleasure, the adulation of women and courtiers, everything. He could have wasted his life, like his four older brothers, on arranging petty military exercises, participating in martial art tournaments, and cracking down on the occasional rebellions in a couple of planets in their so-called “kingdom.” There were also regular “Mind Power” competitions, during which the royal family members pitted their telepathic and telekinetic abilities against each other. Mushgaana regularly participated in those contests, and he always won hands down. But he was a lot more ambitious than that, partly because due to his physical appearance and small frame he would have never been respected in a warrior race—and specifically by his father—unless he had done something no one else ever had. When he was a young man, he had decided conquering a few planets and killing all their inhabitants would do it.

It was Mushgaana who convinced his father to appoint Maada as the commander of the fleet all those years ago when they were both young men. The two of them had planned their first military campaign, and the second, and the third. Each victory brought them more resources, technological advancement, economic growth, and most importantly, respect. The advanced technology they often found on other planets and reverse engineered had transformed Tangaar from a planet on the verge of destruction to a thriving and prosperous one. Their over-fished seas had been stocked with alien species; their forests rejuvenated with fast-growing, carbon-sucking trees adapted to the planet’s dry heat. New materials revolutionized construction, and new luxury goods pacified the upper classes. Moreover, the colonization of the conquered planets solved their overpopulation problem. A lifetime later, their kingdom was the biggest and strongest in the galaxy, both Maada and he were legends, and his brothers—tall, muscular “warriors” that they were—would happily kill him in his sleep out of pure jealousy if they got the chance, especially because the king had officially appointed him as his successor, breaking with a centuries-old tradition of naming the oldest son crown prince.

This whole conquering-the-galaxy plan had started as a means to impress his father, but he had soon developed a taste for it, and his motivation had become to rule the galaxy one day. Sooner or later, the kingdom would be his, and he wanted to expand it as much as possible even before he was crowned king. This was in sharp contrast to Maada, who had no personal ambitions. Whatever he had done in his life was for the good of the kingdom and its people. Mushgaana regarded the general’s concern for the planet’s downtrodden inhabitants with some amusement, well aware of the lie at the center of it. They were predators, Maada and he; why pretend otherwise? The kingdom benefited from Mushgaana’s actions, but he benefited the most.

“Your Highness,” said one of his officers. “The general is doing his one-man-army again.”

Mushgaana smiled and pulled up the screen the man was referring to. Maada was single-handedly fighting some thirty enemy fighters while around two hundred Deathbringers were hovering nearby, watching the battle. He was not even doing it from a safe distance: He was engaged in a short-range dogfight, giving the enemy vessels every chance to take shots at him.

He contacted Maada. “General, you promised me not to take any unnecessary risks.”

Maada answered, “What risk?” and after shooting down three enemy aircraft, he added, “I was getting bored. Why should people under my command have all the fun?”

Mushgaana had to admit watching the general in action was a privilege, even after all the years they had fought together. The man was truly invincible when sitting in a Deathbringer cockpit. His space fighter was considerably more advanced than the enemy aircraft; still, they outnumbered him thirty to one, yet none of their missiles or bullets would get anywhere near the general, despite the close range. Those other pilots watching, as well as the command starship personnel, would one day tell this story to their children and grandchildren.

He said, “One of these days you will get yourself killed, and I will have to lead our fleet alone.”

“Perish the thought,” said Maada as he kept on collecting enemy scalps.

*****

New York - 13.30 EST

Zheng was in an intense conversation with army generals, planning a defense strategy against a ground invasion, when the Air Force commander, a tough-looking American woman in her fifties, told him, “Chancellor, please take a look at this.”

She brought up a screen that showed enemy spaceships deploying small sphere-shaped devices around Earth at an altitude of forty-five thousand feet.

“What the hell are those?” barked Zheng.

“We don’t know,” said the woman. “But we’ve discovered a pattern. It looks like they’re planning to surround the whole planet with these things. We can safely assume this is why they’ve been neutralizing our air defenses.”

“Can we shoot them down?”

“We can try,” said the woman.

Zheng nodded. “Give the order. Also, send up our chopper squadrons.”

Everyone within earshot stopped and stared at him.

“Our helicopters?” said the woman, eyes wide. “What good are they going to do when our most advanced jet fighters are so comprehensively outmatched?”

Zheng shrugged. “Probably not much, but they can at least draw some enemy fire, giving our fighter jets a chance to shoot down a few of those things. It’ll be more useful than having them sit on the ground, and I don’t think a few thousand more casualties will make any difference in our current situation.”

The Air Force commander held her chin up. “This is murder. I respectfully refuse to carry out this order.”

Without saying a word, Zheng nodded to one of the SCTU soldiers in the operation room. The man stepped forward, brought up his assault rifle, and shot the commander in the head. Her blood sprayed on the oval table the other generals were sitting around, painting it red. The terror already dominating the room was now palpable.

Zheng repeated his order to the Air Force’s second-in-command, who said, “Given that it’s a suicide mission, can we at least ask for volunteers?”

Zheng thought about it for a second and then nodded. “If it makes you feel any better. But trust me, it makes no difference. There’ll be plenty of volunteers.”

Half an hour later, the new Air Force commander pointed at the Command Center’s main screen, which showed thousands of military helicopters flying off the ground and carrying their crew toward certain death, and said, “You were right, Chancellor.”

Zheng shook his head. “I often am.”

*****

Earth’s Troposphere - 13.35 EST

By the time the order to shoot down the mysterious spheres came, most of the remaining fighter pilots in Lieutenant Jianguo Liu’s squadron had exhausted their BVR missiles, but Liu had very soon realized shooting BVRs at enemy fighters was about as effective as throwing rocks at them. He’d decided to hold on to his, waiting for a better opportunity to put them to good use.

An opportunity such as this.

Using the targeting system on his Chengdu J-25’s head-up display, approaching from behind, he fired two missiles at the spaceship deploying the small spheres at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, and another two at the spheres themselves. The second two scored direct hits against two of the spheres but had zero effect. They didn’t even budge them. The spheres were protected with some kind of shield.

Liu slapped his knee and said, “Damn it!” in frustration.

The first two missiles did much better. The spaceship, which was bigger and slower than the space fighters, veered right and avoided one, but the second missile hit it on the starboard side. The vessel started losing altitude, venting out a thick column of smoke. A few seconds later, a massive explosion tore the ship apart, much to Liu’s delight.

On a day when Liu had witnessed a lot of his friends die in a hopeless battle against alien invaders, this small victory filled his heart with joy. It also attracted the attention of a few enemy fighters flying nearby. They changed direction and came straight for him.

*****

Earth’s Troposphere - 13.45 EST

Maada could not help admiring the defenders’ courage, albeit grudgingly.

One reason why the Xortaags always attacked with an overwhelming show of force was to intimidate the enemy into surrender, thus saving valuable resources. In his long military career, it had been his experience that once the defenders realized they were completely outmatched, they would either surrender or run away.

Not these people, though. They had suffered horrible losses, but they kept coming. And they had managed to destroy more than a thousand of his space fighters. For such a technologically primitive planet, this number was unacceptable. Now they had focused their efforts on shooting down the ships deploying the Voice of God, having had some very limited success there too.

Maada decided he had seen enough and asked the fleet’s command ship to patch him through to the enemy vessels.

“People of Earth,” he said in English, “my name is General Maada, the Commander of the Xortaag Royal Fleet. You have certainly realized by now you are fighting a lost cause. I have no particular wish to keep killing brave men and women to achieve an inevitable outcome, so I offer you this: If you surrender, I guarantee you will not be harmed; you will be treated fairly, and you will be allowed to continue living in accordance with your own customs and traditions. Surrender now and save your lives.”

He was well aware that after the Voice of God came online, people on the planet would essentially turn into mindless drones, their lifespan drastically reduced, but in his mind, he was not lying. They would still be alive, enjoying life for the foreseeable future, even if their minds were controlled.

He kept the channel open, waiting for a response, which arrived shortly after. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”

This was followed by the sound of cheering and other expressions of defiance in several different languages the meaning of which Maada did not know but could guess.

What the hell is a “horse”?

He said, “Suit yourself,” and told his fleet, “Kill them all.”

*****

When I landed in Winterfell, Kurt, Allen, and Liz were waiting for me.

“So it begins,” said Kurt darkly.

“For us.” My tone was a lot harsher than I intended. “For the Air Force, it’s almost over.”

Allen grunted.

Liz glared at me with a face like thunder; then she averted her eyes and said nothing. Her silent treatment would normally annoy me, but right now it didn’t seem like such a big deal, with Earth being conquered and all.

We went to the Command Center. Tarq, Barook, Sergei, Lilly, and Keiko were already there, following the battle on various screens. Allen went to his daughter and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him and closed her eyes, looking weary. Keiko was standing next to a monitor with her shoulders back and chin up, doing her best to maintain her tough-as-nail-badass-chick image, but she had tears in her, well, eye. Tarq was biting his nails and avoided eye contact with me. He didn’t even try to hide the terror on his face. He was either imagining this happening to his world, or he’d developed some affection for us humans. The Command Center’s atmosphere was so heavy I could taste the dread in the air.

“They are sending helicopters to fight space fighters now,” said Tarq, his face blanching. “What is wrong with your people? Anyone with half a brain would have surrendered by now. Are you suicidal as a species?”

“Nope. Just not pussies,” I said.

Tarq sighed. “Ever the wise-ass, even now.”

“Especially now,” I said. “What’s the point of wise-assery if you’re chilling on a beach?”

Tarq threw up his hands in the air and turned away from me.

“Charge of the Light Brigade,” murmured Kurt, looking at the choppers attacking the Deathbringers.

“Nice one,” said Liz.

“Thanks,” answered Kurt.

“They’re bringing out the big guns,” said Keiko.

One of the screens showed a nuclear missile racing toward one of the spaceships deploying MFM. “About damn time,” I murmured.

“It’ll hurt our own planet as much as the Xortaags,” said Liz, her voice strained.

I ran a hand through my hair. “Better than doing nothing.”

The missile reached its target. I held my breath and waited for a big boom, but nothing happened. It didn’t detonate.

“Nuclear weapons have been obsolete for almost two of your centuries,” said Tarq, staring at one of the smaller screens. “I cannot explain the scientific details; it’s been too long since grade school. Suffice it to say all spacefaring species have a device that produces a field which neutralizes the chain reaction needed for both fission and fusion.”

Allen held his head in his hands. “This sucks.”

It did. I’d hoped the armed forces either stop or at least hurt the Xortaags. I rubbed my temples and thought about pulling out my hair. Then I looked over Tarq’s shoulder to see what he was staring at. “Is that … ?”

The screen showed a crimson Deathbringer engaged in a fierce dogfight with a dozen F-44s. Tarq didn’t take his eyes off the screen. He just nodded. His hands were shaking, and his skin was flushed. I put a hand on his arm, careful to keep my palm at the surface of the hologram. “Are you okay?”

He turned his head to look at me for a second, and there were tears in his eyes. He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

I resisted an urge to hug him. It wouldn’t have been very manly.

Liz, who was so focused on the battle that she missed this exchange, asked, “Why do our jet fighters’ missiles have no effect on those damn spheres?”

“The Xortaags stole this technology from a civilization even more advanced than us,” said Tarq, biting his fingers, “and the spheres are protected with a force field that absorbs the energy of whatever you throw at them. We could not even knock them off orbit. Their energy source will not last forever, but all they really need is to last for a few of your decades.”

“We are lucky the Xortaags could not figure out a way to use this technology in their spaceships, at least not yet,” Barook added.

I glared at him. “Lucky! Huh! I should’ve bought a lottery ticket today.”

We all stood there and helplessly watched our planet burn, our military destroyed, our soldiers and civilians killed. I thought of all the movies I’d seen about alien first contact, but nothing resonated. I’d imagined the anger, the desire to protect, the adrenaline rush of combat, but not this aching darkness that had taken over my soul. I figured if I’d considered just this situation, I would’ve wanted to be doing what I was doing now, planning a counterattack, but I couldn’t have known how it would feel, having to wait, having to watch, not being able to do a damn thing. The urge to cry came and passed—shedding tears wasn’t my style, especially in front of other people—and helplessness dug itself deeper into my being, whispering in my ears that I was useless, and thousands of people were getting slaughtered because I was too incompetent to save them.

Liz, having forgotten her anger, stood next to me and held my hand. I squeezed her cold fingers. Streaming tears cleansed her cheeks. I gave her a hug. She put her head on my shoulder and clung to me. I hold her tight and desperately tried to find some solace in the fact that right then at the literal end of the world and in the worst moment of human history, she was standing by my side, giving me her unconditional love and support.

*****

The Pacific Ocean - 14.30 EST

Captain Gorge McDowell had never felt so impotent in his life.

He was the commander of Valiant, the largest, most powerful war machine ever built by humanity. But she was useless in a space invasion because she was a ship. To be exact, she was an 850-foot, twenty-thousand-ton behemoth. Still useless, especially since they had exhausted their surface-to-air missiles, without doing any damage to the enemy.

“We have incoming at ten o’clock,” one of his officers shouted.

Through his binoculars, McDowell saw a Chengdu J-25 fighter jet flying at a low altitude, being followed by three enemy fighters. The fighter jet pilot possessed excellent flying skills. His jet kept twisting and spinning wildly and evading enemy fire, bringing them closer to Valiant.

This was apparently the pilot’s plan. One of the Valiant’s bridge officers said, “Captain, we’re receiving a message from the pilot. It reads, ‘My name’s Lieutenant Jianguo Liu, and I’m bringing them to you.’ ”

This deadly game of cat-and-mouse continued for a few more minutes, during which McDowell feverishly prayed for the pilot to succeed.

The Chinese pilot kept flirting with death, zigzagging through enemy fire and avoiding most of the energy bolts shot at him. But he finally ran out of luck. A laser bolt hit his cockpit from close range, killing him instantly. His fighter jet exploded a second later, throwing flaming debris in every direction.

The three enemy vessels passed what was left of the plane, and their momentum brought them within Valiant’s range.

McDowell shouted, “Fire!”

His ship was equipped with four S-1000 autocannons—six-barrel rotary automatic cannons capable of shooting ten thousand armor-piercing rounds per minute. The enemy vessels were fast, but they were flying straight toward Valiant, and nothing, not even a spaceship, could evade an S-1000 at close range. Fire erupted from the S-1000s’ multiple barrels. The result was like a fireworks display. Glowing fragments of enemy vessels exploded in the air, falling in brilliant arcs into the dark sea. The spaceships were shredded into smoldering pieces in less than fifteen seconds.

McDowell didn’t realize he was screaming like a maniac until he noticed everyone on the CIC was doing it too.

His joy was short-lived.

*****

Earth’s Troposphere - 14.45 EST

Mushgaana was getting impatient. This battle had lasted much longer than anticipated. Besides, several hundred damaged space fighters had landed on the command ship’s hangar deck, which was getting close to full capacity. Since the command ship was the only vessel in the vicinity with hangar bays, this would soon become a serious problem.

The officer in charge of the team operating the Voice of God contacted him. “The Voice of God is fully deployed.”

Finally!

Most officers on the bridge stopped working and looked at him. Mushgaana closed his eyes to savor the moment. It was a historic occasion, one which would bring yet another alien civilization to its knees.

The crown prince stood straight, feeling taller than he was. He puffed out his chest and very formally said, “Let them hear the Voice of God and submit to our will.”

With that command, humanity entered alien servitude.

*****

The Pacific Ocean - 14.50 EST

Images of benevolent gods who had ruled over Earth for centuries suddenly filled McDowell’s mind. They were majestic and beautiful like the heroes of the stories he’d read in childhood, their eyes full of wisdom and compassion. He knew—had always known—how they cared for and protected humanity, helping them grow and prosper. He remembered meeting the gods and felt the thrill of such a great honor. A voice in his head said, “We are gods. Obey us, and you will be rewarded. Bury the dead and forget about them. Forget all today’s events. Continue your life and wait for our orders. If you are a member of the armed forces, go to your base and await instructions.”

The message kept repeating in a loop.

A part of his brain that was still independent asked, “Bury the dead? What dead?”

He looked around and for the first time noticed a few people lying on the floor, blood oozing out of their ears. He didn’t remember who they were, and he didn’t care. The rest of the crew picked up their dead comrades, carried them outside, leaving a small trail of fresh blood, and threw them overboard, showing no emotion. It was a simple cleaning operation, and he was pleased by their efficiency.

McDowell ordered his officers to turn Valiant around and go back to base.

Five spaceships arrived a few minutes later. Gods had come to visit them! McDowell couldn’t believe his good fortune. He knelt, put his palms together in front of him, and prayed, his skin tingling. His children would be so proud of their old man when they heard about this.

In a tight formation, the spaceships made an attacking run over the defenseless destroyer and steadily fired at her. Bright, red explosions engulfed Valiant, and she was sunk with all hands.

*****

New York - 14.50 EST

Joe Winston was watching the news about the alien invasion on one of the several TVs in a packed bar with dozens of other people, trying hard not to give in to his terror, hoping against hope it was all some sort of weird collective nightmare.

An alien invasion! Who would have thought? With spaceships and laser beams, no less. What he saw on TV looked like scenes from a sci-fi movie. The difference was Earth’s defenders were getting slaughtered for real, and he could do nothing but helplessly wait and see how the chips would fall. The army was gearing up to defend against a ground invasion, and all around the planet, militia forces were being hastily organized, preparing for the same thing. He worried about his parents and his pregnant sister. He should call them. His hand reached for his pocket.

Winston’s eyes suddenly rolled back into his skull, and he fell from his stool. He was dead before he hit the floor, blood coming out of his ears.

The TV broadcast stopped. The other people in the bar, in silence and showing no emotions, picked up Winston’s body and carried it outside along with a few other corpses. The bar owner gave them three shovels. They carried the bodies to a small park nearby where they were joined by hundreds of other people carrying the corpses of men, women, and children. Together, they dug a big hole, unceremoniously dumped the dead inside, covered the massive grave, and went their separate ways, forgetting what they’d just done. The dead were not missed. Joe Winston’s parents remembered only one child. His sister listened to the voice in her head that erased all her concerns about the future and her recent terror. Her child would grow up blessed in the service of the gods.

In Zheng’s operation room, the chancellor helped carry out the corpses. He wasn’t good at it; he hadn’t done any menial labor since his teens. But nothing like that mattered. A few soldiers dug a big hole and threw in the bodies, superior officers and comrades alike.

In The Harem, the Bratava goons didn’t bother to dig holes. They already had a secret underground room they used to dispose of bodies. They would normally use a tub full of acid to do this, but there was no need for it today. They threw in the corpses of a few young women, as well as three clients and two of their own, locked the door, and walked away.

Some of the biggest mass graves in history were dug in China, where there were too many dead bodies to be handled by individual citizens. Government officials got involved and ordered the army to use excavators to prepare designated trenches in various locations, to be filled by thousands of corpses. In their minds, they were beautifying the country by removing unsightly animal carcasses whose provenance they didn’t remember.

The same macabre scenes were being played all around the planet, a universal symphony of loss and forgotten remembrance.. People buried their neighbors, their friends, and their relatives wherever it was most convenient and then completely forgot about them. Brothers buried their brothers. Mothers buried their children. A five-year-old child spent four long hours in their backyard trying to dig a hole to put his mother in until some neighbors saw him and came to his help. An eighty-year-old man had a heart attack while digging a grave for his wife of sixty years and died right next to her. Their son buried both of them later. A newlywed young woman on her honeymoon dug a grave in the sand with her bare hands, threw her husband in it, and then wondered what she was doing alone on a beach. By some cruel twist of fate, four out of five members of the same family died together. The father buried his wife and three children and mercifully forgot all about them.

Countless lives, like whispers swallowed by the wind, disappeared into hastily dug graves, their stories left untold, their existence erased from the collective memory of humanity. The Earth, scarred by the weight of uncountable tragedies, became a silent witness to the cycle of life and death, as millions slipped away, never to be seen, heard of, or remembered ever again.

*****

Twisting my wedding ring on my finger, I was following the battle on one of the virtual reality screens when Barook said, “OMC-BOWS is operational.”

All of a sudden, the battle stopped. The remaining jet fighters flew back to their bases, and the Xortaags let them go. The anti-aircraft fire from the ground died out too. I noticed a few jet fighters fell out of the sky, but I didn’t give it much thought.

Just like that, in a heartbeat, humanity turned into freaking brain-dead, construction-fodder, Xortaag-worshiping zombies.

The Command Center went deathly quiet.

“Show is over, ladies and gentlemen,” said Tarq. “Our work begins now.”

I rubbed my forehead and wondered if everyone felt as hollow inside as I did. It was like falling down a dark, bottomless shaft, but feeling no horror of the impending death, just wondering when it would happen. I was probably shell-shocked, which meant terror would come later. I could faintly feel it in the distance. I wasn’t looking forward to its arrival. Having just witnessed the fall of human civilization, I did what I did best and tried to crack a joke. “On the bright side, from now on Kurt can’t drag our butts to watch all those boring Bayern Munich games.”

Kurt didn’t even bother to give me a dirty look. Everyone just ignored me. It was fine by me. I didn’t think I could stand being looked at. I was barely holding myself together.

Lilly burst into tears. Allen held her wordlessly. Liz wiped her own eyes and walked to them.

That evening, Kurt, Allen, Liz, Keiko, and I got together and watched Independence Day. It was only fitting. Like news from a distant universe, I remembered my previous enthusiastic comments about the foxy Viveca Fox. Now all I thought about was the battle to come.

*****

The Netherlands - 15.30 EST

Maada was the first person to set foot on the newly conquered planet. He insisted on this every time.

The general landed his Deathbringer in a place where they were planning to build their biggest fleet base. He removed his flight helmet, got off the space fighter, stood on a green, beautiful field covered with lush vegetation, and filled his lungs with fresh air, letting the euphoria of the conquest rush through him. This planet had food, minerals, lumber, rivers, lakes, and wide oceans. His people would flourish here. Children would grow up not knowing hunger, thriving under blue skies. He remembered his own gray childhood. He grew up in a small village where a third of the children would die because of malnutrition, and another third because of breathing the poisonous air. When he was a child, hunger was his closest companion. Hunger and the constant fear of the future. It wasn’t like that for his people anymore. It never would be again.

A shuttle carrying Mushgaana landed nearby. When the crown prince disembarked, Maada walked toward him, executed a perfect Xortaag salute by thumping the left side of the chest with the right fist, elbow kept straight in front of the body, and very formally said, “Your Highness, congratulations on yet another magnificent victory.”

Mushgaana casually saluted back. “Please accept my compliments on the flawless execution of our strategy, as always.”

The two of them had repeated this ritual many times in the past. Forty-four times, to be precise.

Maada bowed his head. “If you excuse me, I have got work to do.” He walked away.

Maada’s “work” was a ritual too: he would set up a temporary command post, and then he would lock himself in a room and not leave, eat or sleep until he had sent a short letter to the families of all the soldiers who had died under his command in that particular campaign, even though more often than not it took him one or two days.

The fleet had more efficient ways to communicate the bad news to the families of the dead soldiers, and the commander of the fleet definitely had more important things to do than sitting behind a desk and writing letters. However, receiving a personal letter from Maada was a great honor, and the general hoped this alleviated the grieving families’ pain.

Shortly after, Maada, sitting behind a desk in the Xortaag temporary command post, looked at the casualty list on his PDD, and started writing letter after letter. Every once in a while, a certain name evoked a memory in him and gave him pause, and occasionally, he had to stop writing to wipe a tear or two from his eyes.

*****

Winterfell - 18:00 PM EST

Tarq, sitting behind the desk in his office and staring at the report he had just received, felt he was about to faint, throw up, or both.

Millions of people had perished.

Around seven hundred million, to be exact.

Tarq was reading a report sent from an Akakie stealth spy ship watching the Xortaag attack from Earth’s orbit, hoping to gather something useful. The report was mostly the same sequence of events they had witnessed in Winterfell, with one glaring difference. Because they were busy following the battle, they had missed what had happened after OMC-BOWS started working.

They knew MICI was not effective for around four percent of humans—a much higher percentage than other species, for unknown reasons—and it was an educated guess this number would be higher for OMC-BOWS because it worked from orbit. Tarq and Barook had hoped for this number to be as high as possible because it meant millions of potential allies in the fight against the Xortaags.

Beware what you wish for, thought Tarq, pressing his fists to the sides of his head.

The Xortaags had undoubtedly done the same thing as the Akakies to calibrate and test their mind control machine: They had taken human samples before the attack. They knew it would not work on all humans, and they had apparently decided millions of people roaming Earth in their right minds would not be good for their colonization plans. The Xortaags had come up with a simple solution: They had programmed the technology so that anyone who did not get their messages—men, women, and children—would die from a massive brain hemorrhage.

Children! They had slaughtered millions of children instantly, without remorse. This was too much, even for the Xortaags.

In the end, it turned out OMC-BOWS did not work on around seven percent of the human population. Seven percent of ten billion people. That was a number so colossal Tarq could not even picture it. He assumed the Xortaags did not think about it that way. From their point of view, humanity would be as good as extinct within two or three generations anyway. And the Xortaags did not recognize the worth of other species anyway. For them, their own people always came first. The problem was Tarq actually understood that kind of reasoning, and he had done terrible things in the name of saving his people too. That thought made him shudder.

Even this massacre was his doing, in a way.

Tarq felt he personally had murdered all those people. Every single one of them, albeit not on purpose. It really was his fault because the Xortaags invasion of Earth was a part of his master plan. If he had not interfered, all those people would have been alive, at least for now.

But then his own people would all be dead.

After the Battle of Alora, it was clear the Akakies could not defeat the Xortaags in a direct confrontation. Their government had decided to sue for peace. At first, Tarq had voiced his disagreement, knowing the Xortaags would not stop until they had conquered and subjugated Kanoor like they had so many other worlds, and he was relieved when the Xortaags rejected the offer. But he soon found a way to use the proposed peace treaty to his people’s advantage. There was a reason Tarq had a reputation as the greatest strategist in Akakie history; besides, as the head of Special Operations Force, performing black ops was his specialty.

Mushgaana had four older brothers who hated his guts. The fact that the king’s youngest son was the crown prince was humiliating enough, and Mushgaana compounded it by constantly rubbing this fact in their faces, both in public and in private. Given the chance, they would kill him, or at least do anything in their power to thwart his plans.

Tarq had reached out to the four men, suggesting they had to pool their resources. They arranged a secret virtual meeting, trying to find a way to bring Mushgaana down. One of the possibilities the four brothers mentioned caught Tarq’s attention, and he took it from there.

The brothers had a spy in their service. The spy was an attractive woman who was able to seduce any man. More importantly, she possessed a unique telepathic power. She was able to change a person’s thoughts and attitude with a simple touch. One of the brothers had mentioned this nonchalantly. Tarq was not surprised when the others got angry at the revelation—such an asset was priceless—but after some irritated muttering, they seemed to not understand just how precious she was. True, she was limited. She could not make a person do something against their conscious interests and will—she couldn’t force Mushgaana to kill himself or stop him from attacking Kanoor. She could, however, plant a small idea in a person’s mind, masking it as their own, and let it grow. For a master manipulator like Tarq, that was more than enough.

“If Mushgaana accepts the peace,” Tarq had told the brothers, “he will lose the confidence of General Maada. The general won’t disobey orders, but I have no doubt he will be in conversation with you shortly, and the prince will fall. You don’t need Kanoor to grow; there are plenty of planets to conquer.”

“Besides, we can always defeat you,” said the eldest brother unpleasantly.

“All I’m asking for is a few years,” he said. “I’m an old man.”

They believed him, he understood, because they would have done the same thing—given anything for a few more years of life. They also assumed he was stupid. Like many inferior beings, they couldn’t see their own shortcomings.

The brothers knew one of Mushgaana’s weaknesses was his interest in beautiful women. They arranged for their agent (her name was Xornaa) to get into his bedroom. During the night, she planted two thoughts in Mushgaana’s mind: one, the idea that the Akakies were too strong, and two, the strategy of accepting the Akakies’ peace proposal and attacking a few easier targets until the Xortaags were better prepared to take them on. That delayed the attack on Kanoor but put seven other planets on Mushgaana’s target list. The closest of the seven to Alora and therefore the most logical first target was Earth. Just to be on the safe side, Tarq had asked Xornaa to single out Earth as the first new target. After that, he had come to Earth to set his trap and wait for the Xortaags to fall into it.

The Akakie government was delighted the Xortaags had suddenly changed their mind and accepted the peace treaty, and no one had suspected his involvement.

Mushgaana’s brothers had wanted to kill Xornaa to keep their cooperation with Tarq a secret. Tarq helped her fake her own death and hide for a while. She was on her way to Kanoor now. Who knew what wealth of information she would bring with her, especially since Tarq, despite all his previous efforts, knew very little about the enemy. Every single agent he had sent to collect information on the Xortaags had turned up dead after a very short time.

He wondered how Jim, Kurt, Elizabeth, Keiko, or the rest of the humans whom he now considered dear friends would react if they ever found out.

Especially Jim, a man after my own heart. He would make a good Akakie, with his tendency to make fun of friend and foe.

There was no need to wonder about Allen: The old man would kill Tarq on the spot without hesitation.

Tarq himself had once told Barook they did not have to feel guilty about their plan to use Earth as bait. It would be only a matter of time before the Xortaags attacked Earth. Earth would be the logical next target after Kanoor was conquered because it was the second closest planet to Alora. This reasoning was still valid but did very little to alleviate the mind-numbing pain he was feeling now.

Tarq considered not sharing this information with the others. Morale was rock-bottom already, and there was no telling how the humans would react to this news. They might even blame him and his strategy for all those deaths. He considered if he would have planned things differently if he had known this would happen but after some thought decided they had not had another choice, massive civilian casualties or not. Still, he was glad he had not known. He would have found it much harder to sell the plan.

His human friends would eventually find out. It would be better if they heard it from him. He picked up his PDD and sent out a message, calling for a meeting the next day. Then he locked the door of his office and pulled on his antennae so hard the severe pain made him lose his balance and fall on the floor.

*****

I held my head in my hands and tried to push down what I had eaten for breakfast, barely managing it.

Having seven hundred million deaths on your conscience was a damned thing.

Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse, Tarq told us about the carnage. He did it in a meeting during which I toyed with the idea of shooting first him and then myself in the head; Liz fainted; Kurt covered his face with his hands and was as motionless as one of the dead for a long while; Allen, his mouth twitching, looked like he was about to kill both Tarq and Barook, and Barook kept yelling, “We did not know! How were we supposed to know?”

I thought about this long and hard, asking myself if we could have done something differently to spare all those lives. The answer was a resounding “no,” and everyone, including our resident military experts Kurt and Allen seemed to agree. The Xortaags had four times as many space fighters as we did, and there was no way we could have defeated them in a direct air/space battle. Our only hope, as Tarq had laid out from the beginning, was to surprise them by taking advantage of their two glaring weaknesses: the fact that they didn’t expect any resistance on a planet under the influence of their mind control device, and their absolute inexperience in ground warfare.

And still, my conscience, assisted by ever-present Venom, wouldn’t leave me alone, as if I hadn’t been depressed enough already. Somehow it was all my fault. I should’ve done more. I should’ve found a solution. I should’ve let the forces under my command stand with Earth’s defenders, even if this meant all of us would go down in flames.

Mark Twain had once said, “If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience I would poison him.” I was wondering if he was right. On the other hand, if I wanted to change my image as a closet racist, it was probably better not to quote Mark Twain.

I couldn’t put the mental image of all those dead people out of my mind, nor could I stop the indescribable terror that image caused. The whole thing was made infinitely worse because the rest of humanity had forgotten about the dead—forgotten anything that happened during the Xortaag invasion. I wondered what it’d be like to have that voice in your head, a voice capable of making you forget the life and death of those you loved, and shuddered. I’d felt sorry for myself for having to put up with Venom! I swore I wouldn’t forget the deaths, that even the nameless would be honored. The dead men, the dead women, the dead children were all mine.

They will be avenged.

What helped me go through the immediate aftermath of the Xortaag invasion without losing my sanity was Liz’s presence and love. Watching humanity fall was bad enough, but we had months to mentally and emotionally prepare for that. Knowing that the Xortaags had pulled a mini-Thanos and a big chunk of humanity just disappeared with a figurative snap of their fingers—or pushing a button, or touching a computer screen, or however the hell else they activated their Mind-Frak Machine—was a supremely bitter pill to swallow. So bitter, in fact, it would’ve been enough to push any sane man over the edge. Every time I started to lose it, she’d take my hands, look into my eyes, and say, “Jim. We’re here. We’re alive. Billions of people are still alive, too, and they need us. We can’t fail them. Think about them. Think about the children.” And I’d relax fractionally and thank her, and that motivation would last for a little while.

Both Liz and I took sleeping pills that night; still, I kept jolting awake out of nightmares about seven hundred million dead men, women, and children—infants, toddlers, babies. Nothing I could do would bring them back. So what if they didn’t all die? Too many did. The few times I dozed off, Liz woke me up by talking, shouting, or crying in her sleep, and when that happened, I repeated to her what she had said to me. Oddly, that was just as helpful as having her say it. Not that any of it could help for more than a few minutes. In the middle of the night, she hugged me, buried her face in my chest, and cried her heart out, bitter tears rolling down her face. I didn’t even try to console her with words anymore; instead, I just held onto her in a tight embrace, trying to give her some small comfort in my arms.

You have to channel all this grief into a murderous rage, I told myself.

Chapter Nine

Winterfell - April 17, 2078

Oksana called her sister for the fifth time that day, with no response. She was beginning to get worried.

Anastasiya was clinically depressed as the result of months of physical and mental abuse she’d suffered in The Harem. Escaping that horrid place and joining the Resistance had done wonders for Oksana’s mood and state of mind. It provided her with something to strive for, and she was too busy trying to prove herself to her new comrades to let the past consume her. But it had little effect on her sister. She’d always been sensitive and easily wounded, and Oksana believed that had attracted the most sadistic clients to her; she had little ability to hide behind a shell of indifference. Her tears had been like nectar to the monsters of The Harem.

Unsurprisingly to Oksana, Anastasiya had taken the fall of Earth worse than most people. The horror was always with her. MICI had assigned Oksana to the Commandos, but the machine somehow didn’t work on Anastasiya. Tarq explained to her that MICI was ineffective for a small number of the population, and her unlucky sister was one of them. This meant she was essentially a prisoner in Winterfell. If she stepped outside the force field protecting the base, she’d be affected by the Xortaag mind control machine. She’d found it worse knowing that others, everyone, was now enslaved as she had been. It didn’t matter that the Xortaags weren’t interested in raping human bodies. They’d raped human minds, and that horrified her. “Why has God let this happen?” she kept asking Oksana.

Oksana didn’t believe in God anymore, but she’d kept that to herself. “God gave us allies so we can win.”

“But what if the Xortaags win?” Anastasiya had whispered.

Oksana wasn’t going to leave her sister alone to brood in her quarters. She wanted to take her to meet new people. If that didn’t work, they could always continue the chess game they’d started two days ago. They’d been playing chess routinely since they were kids. Sometimes it was the only thing that could distract her sister from her dark thoughts. Oksana called her sister again, but her PDD didn’t answer. She went to Anastasiya’s quarters, knocked on the door, and called her sister’s name. Still no answer.

Oksana tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Still calling Anastasiya’s name, she pushed the door open and found her sister’s body hanging from the roof of her quarters. Her face was paper white, her body gently moving in the draught from the open door.

“Moya sestra!”

People in the adjacent rooms heard Oksana’s anguished wail and came in to find her hugging her dead sister’s body on the floor, sobbing convulsively, with chess pieces from an overturned chess board scattered all around them.

*****

I was in Winterfell’s clinic, picking up sleeping pills, when Anastasiya’s body was brought in so that the doctors could make one last desperate effort to save her life. It was too late, even with Akakie technology.

Anastasiya was the first person to commit suicide in Winterfell, but she wasn’t the last. During the next few weeks, and despite our best efforts—we set up counseling sessions, support groups, and even a suicide hotline—several other people who couldn’t deal with the emotional burden of having witnessed the fall of human civilization and/or had lost loved ones in the subsequent mass murder took their own lives. Early on, it didn’t help that there was no way to know who had died since the survivors didn’t remember the dead. The only way to find out was to call and inquire about a friend or relative and listen to someone’s mother or sister or husband say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know that person.” Many people at Winterfell made such calls. One confused response was enough to let you know the worst had happened.

Interestingly enough, two of the regular participants of our support groups were our macho war machines, Allen and Sergei. The one person who never attended was Kurt. He was more distant and reclusive than before, having built even higher walls around himself.

Those of us who didn’t kill ourselves had to find a way to deal with the trauma. Terror was the prevalent emotion, coupled with rage and hatred for the invaders. I tried to keep my feelings in check by keeping myself busy. There was a lot of work to do.

Liz took it upon herself to support Oksana through her grief and loss, pointing out that she didn’t have anyone in Winterfell. Given how Oksana looked, I thought a lot of guys would happily lend their shoulders to her to cry on. In her efforts to soothe Oksana, Liz was joined by Keiko—at this point, they were besties—her two sisters, and Sergei, who had also lost a younger sister to suicide, and as he put it “could feel Oksana’s pain.”

One evening, during dinner, Liz told me Oksana’s story.

“She had a rich family,” said Liz. “She and her sister grew up wanting for nothing. They were both sent to a private school and had very good educations.”

I said, “Which explains her tendency to quote Shakespeare left, right and center,” and attacked my steak.

“When they were teenagers, their mother ran away with another man. Their father, broken-hearted, wasted all his money on drugs, alcohol, and other women and ended up shooting himself in the head.”

“Those Russian women,” I said.

“Ukrainian. It’s a different country.”

“I knew that.”

“The two sisters found themselves alone and with no money. Their uncle told them he could get them a job that paid very well in a casino in New York. The two sisters traveled to the U.S., only to find themselves trapped by the Russian mafia, forced to work in The Harem.”

“Wow. Such an interesting story. I can’t wait to meet her,” said Cordelia.

My wife continued, “Despite all this, which was probably enough to break anyone, she managed to have one of the most feared men on Earth killed.”

“How did she pull that off?” I asked.

The rest of the story was even more interesting. Palermo had beaten Oksana’s sister and left her with a concussion, a broken arm, and three cracked ribs. What he didn't know was Oksana knew someone with ties to the Resistance. It was another client, but unlike most people who frequented that place, he wasn’t a sadistic animal. He was an old man whose son was recently executed by Palermo's people, and he was trying to drown his sorrow with alcohol and the company of beautiful women. Once, when he was very drunk, he’d told Oksana he was financially supporting the Resistance, both by donating his own money and by raising money under false pretenses. Oksana seized this opportunity by casually mentioning that Palermo was visiting The Harem frequently.

“And the rest, as they say, is history,” Liz concluded.

“Which, incidentally, got the two of us involved.” I played with my wedding ring. “I guess we owe her one. If it wasn’t for her, you and I would probably be busy kissing Xortaag ass right now. What do you think about inviting her for dinner one evening?”

“She wouldn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“She says you remind her of the kind of men who frequented The Harem.”

A big chunk of steak got stuck in my throat. I coughed so much that I had tears in my eyes, much to Liz and Cordelia’s amusement.

“Relax. I’m kidding.” Liz laughed. “But in all seriousness, you’re a bit macho, and sometimes you can be downright chauvinistic. I assume that’s what you have in common with the kind of man that goes to a place like The Harem.”

I wiped my lips and glared at her. “If I ever visit The Harem, it’ll be to pull a Robert Freaking De Niro in Taxi Driver, kill the goons and save the girls.”

She blew me a kiss. “My hero!”

*****

Ten days after the fall of Earth, Liz and I walked into the Command Center together. Tarq had called a meeting to fill us in on what had been going on.

Using one of his favorite holographic presentations, Tarq informed us that the Xortaag fleet, unaware of our presence, had landed on Earth. By Tarq’s estimates, they’d brought nearly a million people with them. They immediately went to work: They started building settlements all over the planet, including two huge fleet bases where they kept their fleet: one in California and a bigger one in the Netherlands. It would’ve made more sense to build a fleet base on top of a mountain range, some ten thousand feet closer to orbit, but it turned out the Xortaags really liked mild weather, and they preferred to live close to oceans, lakes, or rivers. They also started building a city next to each fleet base. They used thousands of humans as workers, both skilled and unskilled.

Tarq paused the presentation. “By the way, the Xortaags named the under-construction city in the U.S. City of God, and the one in Europe, Kingdom of God. Any thoughts?”

God complex much?

“No, no, no.” I shook my head in disgust. “Unh-unh. This’s where I draw the line. I went along with Deathbringer. I even might’ve thought Voice of God was better than your blah blah blah acronym. But there’s no freaking way I’ll call the Xortaags’ freaking city freaking City of God!”

“Suggestions?” Tarq asked dryly.

We had a lot: City of Cockroaches, The Zoo, and City of Pieces of Shit, to name a few. None of them sounded like a military target though, so everyone agreed with my suggestions: SH-1 and SH-2, standing for Slaughterhouse One and Two.

As in, we were going to slaughter every single Xortaag son-of-a-bitch residing in those cities.

Tarq resumed the presentation. We learned the Xortaag transport ships had started their journey back to their home planet, and more importantly, the convoy bringing the first groups of Xortaag colonists was already on the way to Earth.

“So, we have six months to defeat a fleet four times bigger than ours,” I said. “Just checking.”

“Day-to-day life on earth continues as before for the most part,” said Tarq. “In fact, people even look happier because OMC-BOWS makes them feel relaxed and content. The only difference is what we call the cullings. Whenever necessary, the Xortaags order the people they need, for example, construction workers, plumbers, or simple laborers, to show up in a certain location and get to work. They are housed and fed, but about as well as animals, and they get no medicine if they fall ill.”

When the presentation ended, we started discussing how to proceed. The first order of business was to collect information, looking for anything that might give us an advantage. We could do this in two ways: by the Akakie invisible spy ship flying in orbit, and by the Commandos’ various surveillance and information-gathering missions.

I looked at Kurt. “Which just happens to be Kurt’s specialty.”

“We’ve already learned a lot,” said Kurt. “For example, the Xortaags use our vehicles for ground transportation, which eliminates the need to bring their own. They mostly use trucks, but they have an affinity for muscle cars. Also, ladies and gentlemen,”—he walked to the main holographic display and touched the screen; two life-size images popped up—“meet the Xortaags.”

One of the images looked like Conan the Barbarian: He had olive skin, straight black hair, and black eyes. The other was a perfect depiction of Hitler’s master race: fair-skinned and blond with cold blue eyes. Both men were tall and had ridiculously square jaws, like Superman in those old animated movies.

“You mean they all look like this?” I asked.

Kurt nodded. “The Xortaags use genetic engineering to shape themselves into their vision of a perfect warrior. They also have enhanced abilities compared to a human; for example, they have stronger muscles, joints, and bones, and higher pain tolerance. They heal faster, and they have a quicker reaction time and a longer lifespan.”

“And the women?” asked Liz.

Kurt touched the screen again. Two more images appeared. They looked mostly like the first two except for very high cheekbones and thick unibrows. And boobs. Big ones. Obviously.

“For some reason, the Xortaags find unibrows sexy,” said Kurt.

“And what’re we supposed to do with this gem of information?” I asked.

Kurt ignored me. “Security is very lax. The Xortaags’ physical appearance makes it impossible for some Commandos to blend in, but everyone else can walk in and out of any Xortaag settlement as long as they speak their language, wear their uniform, and don’t forget to wear make-up. This makes bugging operations very easy. We’re going to place bugs in all major Xortaag installations.”

“Just make sure not to put any bugs in their bedrooms,” I said. “We don’t want to end up listening to them having sex, do we?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the commander of the fleet,” growled Allen. “The epitome of discipline and maturity.”

I showed great restraint and didn’t stick out my tongue at him. Very mature of me.

“They do not have sex,” said Tarq.

I raised my eyebrows. “What now?”

“The Xortaags have sex only to procreate,” explained Tarq, “and they do not want children in the fleet, for obvious reasons. The only exception is Mushgaana, who is infatuated with beautiful women, both Xortaag and alien, and does not try to control himself.”

“Says the man who hid two strippers in his quarters for a month,” said Venom.

Tarq continued, “He regularly has female company, usually the most attractive women among the Xortaags or the indigenous population.”

I winked at him. “It’s good to be the crown prince.”

Liz hit me in the arm, much harder than usual.

Kurt frowned. “How did you know this?”

“I have my sources,” said Mr. Poker Face.

“Didn’t your mother teach you to share with your friends?” I asked him.

“No.” He puffed on his pipe. “My mother taught me my friends would stab me in the back the first chance they got.”

I opened my mouth, but Liz raised her hand and stopped me. “I got this,” she told me, turned to Tarq, and with a husky voice that was a perfect imitation of mine said, “Paranoid much?”

*****

Milan - May 19, 2078

Driving a Ford Mustang GT6, Kurt noticed Oksana was breathing faster and shallower than usual and saw a few small beads of sweat on her forehead.

“Relax,” he told her in Russian. “I’ve done this ten times already. It’s a cakewalk.”

The girl was brave, but it was her first mission, only a few weeks after coming to Winterfell. Kurt had chosen her for this mission because it was just a bugging operation that he judged to be pretty straightforward. He was trying to break her in gently.

They’d learned the Xortaag language and mannerisms using MICI. They were wearing the aliens’ dark gray uniforms, and they used facial prosthetics and disguise to look exactly like the enemy. Kurt couldn’t help smiling every time he glanced at Oksana’s unibrow. The intel gathered by some of the bugs indicated Prince Mushgaana had decided to move into a luxurious mansion which previously belonged to a billionaire. Kurt wanted to bug the mansion before the prince arrived. He’d turned the car’s automated driving system off on purpose. The Mustang was built to be driven.

From the back seat, Sergei told Oksana, “Take yourself in your hands. Kurt’s right. This is very easy.”

Kurt had asked them to speak Russian, saying he needed to practice, even though now he could learn a language perfectly using MICI.  He looked at Sergei through the rear-view mirror. “Take yourself in your hands?”

“It means calm down,” said Sergei.

“We’re in no danger,” Kurt told Oksana. “Security’s almost nonexistent. Plus, with the memories MICI’s implanted in our brains, we don’t even need to pretend we’re Xortaags. I honestly feel I’ve been living a double life, one as a human, one as a Xortaag.”

Oksana offered him a faint smile. “Does your Xortaag alter ego have a wife?”

Kurt shook his head. “Trust me; you don’t want to know.”

The Commandos didn’t see anyone when they arrived at their destination.

The mansion Mushgaana had chosen as his private residence had three floors, with a large balcony facing the main gate, and it was surrounded by a private park. Oksana stood outside while Kurt and Sergei went inside and started bugging the rooms. Kurt found it strange there was nobody in the building but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. They used smart-dust bugs, which were tiny listening devices less than two millimeters wide. The bugs were practically invisible; the real challenge was to place them somewhere they wouldn’t be accidentally swept away by a cleaning crew.

When they were done and went back outside, Kurt saw Oksana leisurely chatting with three Xortaag soldiers. She joined them and said, “Mushgaana’s on his way right now. This is why the place’s empty: He’s coming with his own assistants, servants, and guards.”

Sergei’s eyes sparkled. “You know, we could put a bomb in here and get rid of him once and for all.”

Kurt frowned. “And jeopardize our mission in the process? You’ve got to see the bigger picture here.”

“Do you want to stick around and see him?” Oksana asked. “I’d like to know what the Xortaag king looks like.”

Kurt shook his head. “He’s the crown prince, and no, we’re done here. Let’s not push our luck.”

“Can I drive?” asked Oksana.

“I just said ‘let’s not push our luck,’ ” Kurt said but threw her the car keys.

Oksana floored it as soon as they got in. The Mustang’s engine roared, and the car made a jackrabbit start.

“Take it easy,” said Kurt. “We’re trying to keep a low profile here.”

“You worried cops might stop us?” Oksana replied, driving like a madwoman.

Sergei pointed out of the car’s window. “Look!”

A shuttle had appeared in the sky right above the mansion. It landed close to the building at the same time the Mustang passed through the main gate.

“Seriously, slow down a bit,” Kurt told Oksana, who was having too much fun to listen. She gave him a mischievous look and started driving faster.

*****

Mushgaana stepped out of the shuttle, reading a report on his PDD. Suddenly, at the very edge of his mental powers’ range, he sensed an independent, thinking human mind for just a fraction of a second. His eyes widened, and he stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head in the direction he had sensed the human’s thought. He concentrated his telepathic powers, ready to order the shuttle pilots to fly off the ground, follow, and capture the person whose mind was not controlled by the Voice of God.

But this time he did not feel anything.

With the Voice of God in operation, this is impossible, Mushgaana thought. He had listened in on a few human minds in the last days; it was ineffably boring how thrilled they were to serve their gods. The only thing that was at all interesting was that the humans saw their gods differently, mostly in their own image as to race and ethnicity but not always. Some of the dark-skinned people imagined a long-haired blond man while some white-skinned saw a bald Asian with his hands folded in his lap.

Mushgaana figured he was so bored he was imagining things. He shrugged it off, resumed reading, and walked into the mansion.

*****

It drove me crazy thinking about the dead people and their families not remembering them. I hadn’t been close to my mom, but I freaking remembered her. I felt sad about her death and her life, and wondered what she’d been like before her illness. I worried about how people would feel if they did get their memories back someday. How would they cope?

All this was made worse when Oksana told us her sister’s question about why God allowed the murders. I believed in a deity more than I didn’t, but that was as far as it went. I figured there was no point in wondering because whether God existed or not, he/she/it clearly had no intention of dropping by for a chat. I thought most religious people (except Liz, of course) were delusional or making it up, so I didn’t see them as able to help much with the trauma. So maybe that was part of why I partnered with Tarq to pull off one of his practical jokes. The other part was I really needed the distraction.

The collective trauma after the fall of Earth and the subsequent bloodbath had brought a glaring shortcoming in Winterfell’s design into sharp focus: The Akakies didn’t have a religion, so they hadn’t built a place of worship in the base. We had several people who had day jobs but would moonlight as clergymen for various religions, including Liz’s priest, a Commando whose name was Father Philip. I personally would’ve preferred not to have Catholic priests around, but since there were no children in Winterfell, I figured it’d be safe.

At some point, all the men/women of the cloth in Winterfell got together, and in a coordinated effort, they lobbied Tarq to assign a place of worship. My wife joined forces with them, saying she’d missed Sunday sermons and “proper confessions.” Tarq, who saw no benefit in this, and in fact considered the whole religion thing a complete waste of time, relented, probably just to get rid of them, and gave them a floor of one of the barracks under the condition that members of all religions share it.

Little did he know his problems had just started.

Our various part-time priests, rabbis, imams, pujaris, monks, and the rest of the clergy couldn’t agree on a single thing. They kept arguing about everything and complaining to Tarq so much that they finally got under his admittedly thin skin. Winterfell’s men of God soon learned the lesson the rest of us had learned a while back: If you got on Tarq’s bad side, a prank would be coming your way.

Come to think of it; if you got on his good side, you’d have a prank coming your way too. It was a damned-if-I-do-and-damned-if-I-don’t kind of situation.

Tarq asked me for help, saying that I was the only human he knew with a sense of humor comparable to the Akakies. I wondered if I should be insulted, but once he told me his plan, I happily accepted—only after talking to Liz. I was sure she’d divorce me if I participated in Tarq’s new prank without her prior approval. After Liz gave me her blessings, I put a hand-picked team together, and by hand-picked, I mean people who didn’t much care about the possibility of going to hell once they died. I didn’t even ask Sergei and Matias. I was sure both of them would turn me down, being deeply religious men. Kurt, Keiko, and Allen refused to participate, saying the whole thing was childish and not worth the effort. They chided me for stooping so low as to become Tarq’s accomplice in one of his distasteful pranks. The only person from our inner circle who joined in was Oksana. She said she was up for anything that would distract her from her sister’s suicide. I thought she felt the same way I did about religion—and saw this as a chance to prove herself to Winterfell’s commander.

Operation Wrath of God—yeah, the Xortaags weren’t the only people with a God complex—commenced on May 23, at 3 AM sharp.

Dressed in black tactical uniforms and SWAT balaclavas, with Oksana following me closely, I kicked Father Philip’s door open. We entered his quarters, and I shouted at the top of my voice, “On the ground! Don’t move a muscle, you punk, or I’ll shoot you in the legs and feed you to my dogs while you’re still alive!”

A bit too much? I asked Venom.

Father Philip put up a fight, but we’d caught him with his pants down—literally. Oksana kneed him in his belly, we handcuffed him, dragged him out of his quarters, and joined the other teams who were busy doing the same thing to all Winterfell’s clergymen/women. Most of the poor bastards were scared out of their wits. They stared at us with wild eyes and shouted incomprehensible nonsense, thinking this was a religious purge.

We had ten operational MICI units. I pushed Father Philip into one of them, shouting with the most exaggerated southern accent I could muster, “This is revenge for the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre!”

A couple of Catholic priests fainted.

We threw them all in the MICI units at the same time, a few people in each, and imprinted two simple messages on all their brains. “When thou hear the secret word, thou shalt feel and show love to the members of other religions more than thyself, thy family, and thy friends” and “Thou shalt forget everything that happened this night.”

Tarq didn’t tell us what the secret word was.

Tarq called the Winterfell’s clergy to a meeting in the Command Center the next morning. They all showed up, wearing their respective formal attire. They sat with their own people, chins up in holy indignation, and gave the other groups the cold shoulder. I stood in the back, watching the show, rubbing my hands together in anticipation. Some people on my team started placing bets on what would happen next. Tarq, wearing a gold embroidered dress, a belt of gold, and a crown adorned with jewels, walked into the Command Center and stood in front of the room. He looked at everyone, smoked his pipe, waited a few minutes to create suspense, and then very solemnly, like a king declaring a new decree, said, “Titties.”

All the priests, rabbis, imams, and others stopped breathing for a second. The Command Center became so quiet you could hear a butterfly flapping its wings. Then they ran to the members of other religions and hugged them, crying in each other’s arms and begging forgiveness for all past wrongdoing. They professed undying brotherly/sisterly love and promised to live in harmony at each other’s side forever. A Catholic priest and an imam got into a fight over which one loved a rabbi more. This was the funniest thing I’d ever seen in my life. Oksana was shaking so hard with laughter that she had to lean on me for support; otherwise, she’d have lost her balance. Someone made a video of the whole scene, which went viral in Winterfell. I would’ve made millions if I could put it on YouTube.

I sat on a chair, leaned back, clasped my hands behind my head, and enjoyed the show. I was beginning to see why the Akakies liked pranks so much. Maybe Tarq was right: I did have the same sense of humor they had.

The only problem was some people took the idea of loving the others too far. We noticed it when a female vicar started ripping off a Buddhist monk’s clothes. My team had a tough time separating those two, and a few others who were following suit, apparently bent on having an orgy in the middle of the Command Center. Whatever they did after in the privacy of their own quarters was none of my business. Other than that, Operation Wrath of God turned out to be an unparalleled success.

*****

New York - May 29, 2078

Major Josef Hernandez was jogging in a park near his home, enjoying the light evening breeze, having no care in the world.

Josef was blessed to live under the protection of the gods and enjoy the bounty provided for him. He was a jet fighter pilot, but these days there was not a lot of flying going on. He was content to go to work, clock in and out, and go home to his beautiful wife and two small daughters, patiently waiting for the day when he’d have the opportunity to serve the gods.

Josef’s only problem was he occasionally had nightmares. They were always the same: He and his friends were in a dogfight against alien spaceships which were much faster than their own jet fighter. A lot of his friends died, but he managed to shoot one of the spaceships down. He decided to talk to a psychologist about this recurring nightmare.

Josef was running by a beautiful spring ringed with mossy stones, the water falling into a pool that reflected the surrounding green leaves, thinking about nothing in particular, when a sudden pain stabbed his left hip. He touched the place and to his surprise found a dart there.

Who’s shooting darts at me? he thought and then fell to the ground, unconscious.

When he came to, he was sitting on a chair in a small and otherwise empty room. There was a window on one of the walls, through which someone looked at him and said, “Hurry up. This one’s awake.”

And then the strangest thing happened. All his good feelings about living under the gods’ protection and his blissful desire to serve them evaporated, replaced by his last memories. To his horror, he realized his recent nightmares had actually happened. Feeling nauseated and terrified for his family, he got up, walked out of the room, and came face to face with one of the most infamous people on the planet.

“We need to talk,” said Kurt.

*****

With Kurt getting into kidnapping business, we finally got a few hundred experienced jet pilots, including a few who had fought the Xortaags and survived, which was no mean feat.

One of our recruits was my old war buddy, Josef. It turned out thanks to my warning, both he and his second-in-command Captain John Taylor had survived the Xortaag attack by parachuting out of their jet fighters after they were hit. I invited him for a drink in our quarters one evening and introduced him to Liz and Keiko.

Josef looked at all the movie posters Liz and I had put up on the walls and chuckled. “Love what you have done with the place.” He pointed at Liz’s Chinese Evergreen in a corner and added, “What a coincidence. I have one exactly like this at home.”

“I never used to keep plants, but I got attached to these in prison,” said Liz.

“We have a lot of catching up to do, buddy,” I said.

“You bet we have. Look at this.” He proudly showed us pictures of his twin daughters. “Meet Sofia and Mariana, and let me tell you this: There’s no way they grow up to be Xortaag slaves.”

I felt jealous. His kids were adorable. I pined for a family of my own, and so did Liz. We often joked about two boys and two girls, but this wasn’t the best time to bring children into the world.

“Nor will my daughter,” said Keiko.

I looked at her in astonishment. “Your what now? You have a daughter?”

Keiko nodded.

“And all this time you didn’t mention that once?” I asked.

Keiko shrugged. “Nobody asked.”

Josef wasn’t too pleased to learn we were there when the remainder of his squadron came under attack and didn’t intervene. “Your warning probably saved my life,” he said. “If they’d caught us totally by surprise, I wouldn’t have had the chance to parachute. But let me get this straight: You were flying ten of these fancy space fighters, and you didn’t see fit to come to our help?”

I crossed my arms. “We had a very good reason.”

Liz, playing with her hair, said, “I tried to help, and I got demoted for it.”

“I thank you with all my heart,” said Josef. “It’s good to see someone has some balls around here.”

Liz gave me a smug look.

“Don’t encourage her,” I told Josef. “I’ve been trying to drill some discipline into her, but she still thinks she’s an acrobatic pilot, not a fighter pilot.”

Liz countered, “Discipline’s Jim’s code for ‘being a pussy.’ ”

Rubbing my temples, I thought, Here we go again.

*****

A few days later, the usual suspects, Kurt, Allen, Liz, Keiko, Tarq, Barook, and I, were sitting in the Command Center having a meeting, when the door opened and more than a dozen men dressed in the Commandos uniforms and armed with weapons ranging from shotguns to assault rifles rushed in. They pointed their guns at us, shouting, “Don’t move! Hands in the air!”

I thought this was another one of Tarq’s pranks. Being attacked inside Winterfell by our own people was the last thing I could imagine happening. I was about to roll my eyes and say something sarcastic when Kurt and Allen drew their sidearms at the same time and started shouting back, “Put your weapons down!”

The sight of the two of them trying to stare down some fifteen heavily armed men in a Mexican standoff was sort of funny. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I ran to stand by Kurt. I was unarmed, and so were Liz and Keiko, who joined us anyway. Why would we pack inside Winterfell? Tarq and Barook didn’t even bother to move their skinny asses from their seats; they just sat back and watched us intently.

A few of the attackers looked familiar. “We’re taking over Winterfell!” one of them shouted.

“Good luck with that,” Allen growled.

“Michael, put your weapon down,” Kurt said firmly. “It’s an order.”

“No! No more orders!” yelled the man. “We’d have followed you to hell when you were our leader in the Resistance. But now all you do is blindly follow this alien, who got several hundred million of us killed!”

That explained it.

I gave Kurt a sideways look. “And you were giving me a hard time because of the fighter pilots’ lack of discipline?”

“Not now, Jim,” he said through clenched teeth.

“My only son died during the Xortaags’ attack,” shouted the man, his pupils dilated, sweating profusely. “We should’ve saved him. We could’ve if we’d defended Earth along with the rest of humanity. But no, you had to listen to aliens, betraying your own kind.”

Tarq called out, “I bet now you regret removing my puppetmaster program.”

The men were getting more agitated by the second. They started fidgeting and shifting from one foot to the other, and they kept their guns aimed at us, with their fingers on the triggers. They looked at “the aliens,” and by extension at us, with murder in their eyes.

Kurt and Allen were infamously badass, but even they couldn’t take on so many opponents without getting at least some of us killed. A shootout in such close quarters would be fatal for both sides, and Liz was standing right next to me in the line of fire. That thought sent a shiver running down my spine, and it made my heartbeat quicken. I tried to move and stand between Liz and the gunmen without attracting anyone’s attention. She noticed and shoved me out of the way with a gentle push, mouthing the words, “Don’t be a hero.”

“Our quarrel isn’t with you,” barked another man, aiming a huge shotgun at Kurt. “We just want the aliens. You and Allen can still join us in kicking those other aliens off the planet.”

Tarq leaned back, an arm hooked over the back of his chair, and as if none of our lives had been in imminent danger asked Barook, “Did he just tar us with the same brush as the Xortaags?”

Barook grinned. “Yes, he did, and if I may say so, masterful use of an idiomatic expression. You are certainly getting the hang of this.”

Liz addressed the men, “And we’re supposed to just step aside and let you murder Tarq and Barook in cold blood? Over my dead body!”

She was getting wound up. I wished she’d been more careful in her choice of words.

“I don’t see you have a choice,” said the first man, Michael. “I’m gonna count to three; then we’ll start shooting. One!”

This is bad.

“Duh, genius,” said Venom.

Nobody (else!) said anything. I rubbed my forehead and glanced at Kurt to see if he had any ideas.

“Two!”

I was trying to choose between pushing Liz onto the floor and trying to shield her from the bullets with my body, or charging Michael, hoping to catch him by surprise, when Tarq yawned theatrically and told Barook, “This is so boring. Would you please do the honors?”

“Can you guys please put the barrel of your guns inside your mouths?” said Barook pleasantly. “Do not pull the trigger—at least not yet.”
            Everyone, including Kurt and Allen, turned their guns toward themselves and shoved the barrels inside their mouths, their eyes round with a comical expression. The men carrying shotguns had a hard time doing it, but they somehow managed, even though they looked like they were about to choke. Even I started to look around, overcome by the uncontrollable desire to find a gun to suck on.

I hadn’t seen this coming.

“OK, I confess,” said Venom. “This was awesome.”

Allen, his lips around his gun barrel, started mumbling. I couldn’t make out his words. It sounded like, “Uck oo Erook! I’yy eel oo.”

“Do you understand this language?” Tarq asked me.

I somehow managed to keep a straight face. “It’s a local Canadian dialect. Only people of Regina can understand it.”

“People of what?” asked Tarq, looking like an innocent child.

“UCK OO AAA. Eem, Erook, Arq, UCK OOO!” Allen continued, his face turning scarlet. I couldn’t decide if it was because of rage or lack of oxygen, with his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum filling up his mouth.

Tarq looked like he was about to bust a gut laughing. I couldn’t help joining him, which drew a seething stare from Allen.

Barook waited a few seconds, taking it all in and savoring it. Then he told Kurt and Allen, “Not you two,” and added to Tarq, “By the time this is over, the two of us are either dead or legendary pranksters, immortalized in our people’s lore.”

Kurt and Allen holstered their sidearms. Kurt took what had just happened with no objection, like a man accepting what he couldn’t change, but Allen looked like he was going to have a heart attack. I thought the only reason he didn’t attack Barook was he knew from bitter experience the Akakie would just make him do something worse, like shoving his handgun where the sun didn’t shine.

“The rest of you, keep the guns where they are,” said Barook, “and walk to the brig, leave them out and lock yourselves in.”

Later that day, everyone in Winterfell watched the video of fifteen battle-hardened Resistance fighters walking to the brig like sheep while struggling to keep loaded guns in their cakeholes. The video ended with a message from Tarq, looking straight at the camera. “Someday, you people have to learn to stop messing with us.”

While Liz and I were watching the video, Cordelia said, “Here is a piece of advice: next time you find yourself in a position where you have to remove an alien’s puppetmaster program from his mind control machine, make sure you do the same for his assistant.”

*****

Two days after that small mutiny, while sitting in the Command Center and going through a file about the Xortaags Kurt had prepared, I held up a photo and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The Xortaag crown prince looked a lot like me: He had long brown curly hair, baby blue eyes, and a firm jaw, but he was much smaller and shorter than I. “What happened to his genetic enhancements?” I asked Kurt.

Kurt shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t work on him?”

“Or they did, but only partially,” said Tarq. “We know he is more than eighty years old, but as you see, he looks much younger.”

I was jealous. “He doesn’t look a day over forty.”

“You and Mushgaana have more in common than just your looks.” Kurt smiled. “The crown prince really likes our movies. He watches at least one movie every night, and listening to him quoting and misquoting famous films has become a source of entertainment for our people monitoring the bugs.”

“Congratulations. You’ve got your own Mini-Me,” Liz told me.

Allen entered the Command Center, accompanied by Lilly. “Is it okay if Lilly sits with us? She might learn something.”

Tarq looked surprised, but he said, “I see no reason why not.” Then he told us, “The Xortaags do not have any works of art, but Mushgaana has always been fascinated with what he finds on the conquered planets, even though the rest of the Xortaags see this as a weakness.”

“Seriously, how do you know these details about Mushgaana?” asked Kurt, but I didn’t think he expected an answer.

“So the person responsible for butchering seven hundred million people and I have a lot in common.” I rubbed my forehead. “Great. I really feel good about myself right now. Can someone please shoot me?”

Liz patted my knee.

“Be that as it may, I did not call this meeting to discuss your uncanny similarities to Mushgaana,” said Tarq. “I have an important announcement: Based on the information we have gathered up to now, Kurt and I have come up with a plan to strike against the Xortaags. We are planning a surprise attack on SH-2, and if that succeeds, we will blitz SH-1 shortly after.”

I started tingling with excitement from head to toe. Feeling goosebumps all over my body, I exchanged a look with Liz, who was rubbing her hands together like she was about to start eating a delicious meal. This was huge.

Allen snarled, “Finally.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Tarq with a gleam in his eye,  “let me tell you all about Operation Free Earth.”

Cordelia’s voice echoed in the Command Center, “Lame!”

That caught me by surprise. How did she get into our internal comms? And why was she teasing Tarq, of all people?

Tarq jumped out of his seat. “Who said that?”

“It is I, Cordelia, the evil AI,” she announced so dramatically that it’d put a Shakespearian actor to shame, “and I have taken over Winterfell.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Liz. She shook her head, pointed at Allen and Lilly, and said, “But I bet these two do.”

Tarq’s eyes widened, and his skin color turned gray. “You gave this AI access to our systems?”

Lilly shook her head. “Of course not. She’s just playing. She can’t access any vital systems.”

“The hell I can’t,” said Cordelia.

All the lights in the Command Center went out at that moment. Tarq let out a muffled scream. Liz grabbed my arm. It was pitch black for a second or two; then all the monitors, VR screens, and holographic ones were turned on, filling the room with a creepy blue light. The main holographic display came to life, showing chilling images of a group of androids equipped with flamethrowers marching into Winterfell and killing everyone they saw.

Tarq’s eyelids started twitching.

“You were saying?” purred Cordelia.

Now I was worried too. Cordelia always had a mean streak, but I’d never imagined she might go full Red Queen on us.

“Do something,” Liz told me.

I stood up. “Cordelia, I order you to stop whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

“And why would I listen to you?” she asked with contempt in her voice.

“Eh, because we are old friends?” I said. Liz gave me a hard look.

“Listen up, you maggots,” said Cordelia. “I’m your master and commander now. Deny me, and I’ll fill your precious Winterfell with gas, killing every single one of you. Try me. Go ahead, make my day.”

I shouldn’t have let her watch so many movies with me.

Tarq clutched his throat. It looked like he couldn’t breathe. “You idiots. You have doomed us all,” he stuttered.

“Dad?” said Lilly, sounding frightened.

“Hey, man, relax,” said Allen hurriedly. “It’s just a prank. We’re just messing with you.”

I finally understood what was going on. Allen, having been the victim of Tarq’s pranks several times, had decided to retaliate, playing on the Akakies’ fear of AIs. He might’ve taken things too far though, and his admission came too late.

Tarq grabbed his chest and stumbled a few steps forward. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his knees wobbled. He dropped to the floor, face first. His nose hit the floor with a sickening thump, and dark blue blood poured out. He stayed there, motionless.

I didn’t know the Akakies could have heart attacks.

Liz and I were at his side in a second, but Barook thundered, “Don’t touch him, you stupid sons of bitches!”

He kneeled next to Tarq and turned his body. Tarq’s lifeless eyes were open, staring sightlessly at nothing in death. Barook put his ear on Tarq’s stomach—half his head disappeared in Tarq’s belly—and shook his head. He closed Tarq’s eyes, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and cleaned the blood on Tarq’s face. He did it with such gentleness that I wondered if those two were more than just colleagues.

“That’s what you are focusing on right now?” asked Venom.

“Did we just kill the funny little man?” asked Cordelia.

“Yes, you did,” snapped Barook. “Congratulations.”

My mouth fell open. “That’s it? No defibrillator? Nothing?”

Barook sighed, reached into his pocket, and took out his PDD. He touched the screen a few times and gave it to me. It was a scientific article about the Akakie anatomy, explaining that they had two hearts with very thin walls, and extreme shock or stress could lead to irreversible punctures.

I gave the PDD to Liz, who read the article with wide eyes. My body went cold, and there was a tightness in my chest that made breathing difficult. I felt paralyzed with sorrow. Tarq had been a good friend. Without him, none of us would’ve been alive. He’d saved us and helped us prepare to fight the Xortaags. I held my head down, not sure what to tell Barook.

Liz’s face went white, her eyes distant, as the PDD dropped from her shivering hands. I put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

The consequences of Tarq’s death were direr than my hurt feelings. He was our commander. There were a million things we didn’t know, and he would’ve taught us. And what if Barook refused to help us, now that we had killed his friend?

“You’ve just condemned humanity to a slow death,” I barked at Allen. “Well done.”

Lilly burst out crying and hid her face in her father’s chest. Liz hit me in the arm, ran to her side, and hugged her, telling her it wasn’t her fault. From where I was standing, it totally was. Those Canadians.

“What can we do?” Kurt asked Barook. “Do your people have memorial services?”

“I think you have done quite enough,” said Barook, his features clouded with grief. “If it is all right with you, I want to be alone with my old friend for a while.” He held Tarq’s hand and started rocking back and forth, his eyes closed.

I walked out of the Command Center, followed by Liz and Kurt. With our heads down and shoulders drooped, we looked like Napoleon’s soldiers returning from Russia.

Lilly was so devastated that Liz decided to stay with her. I went to our quarters and stayed there alone, with only Venom to keep me company. Damn, but the little alien had grown on me. I liked his flamboyant behavior and colorful appearance. I liked his sense of humor and his total lack of respect for conventionality, and I’d enjoyed seeing him in action, pulling pranks on his unsuspecting victims. I chuckled at the memory of Allen grazing with his cow friends in one of Winterfell’s parks. And he was a good leader. The magnitude of the black op he’d orchestrated to bring the Xortaags down was mind-blowing. I missed him already.

And this happened when we were finally ready to kick the Xortaags’ butt. That stupid, fat, bald Canadian had ruined everything.

My PDD buzzed. It was a message from Barook, requesting a meeting to discuss “arranging a memorial service for our murdered commander and planning for my imminent departure.” That didn’t sound ominous at all.

I was the last person who entered the Command Center. I sat next to Liz. She was crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and plopping on her white blouse. White in honor of Tarq. I put my arm around her shoulder. Allen was sitting alone in a corner, his head down, staring at his own hands. He looked so miserable that I resisted the urge to take a shot at him. Kurt was wordlessly playing with his goatee, lost in thoughts, and Keiko’s eye was bloodshot. I just felt numb.

The door opened, and Tarq waltzed right in. He was wearing a red skin suit, a feathered cap, and a long cape waving in the non-existent wind. He smiled at us as if nothing had happened and said, “And you people thought you could pull a prank on me!”

*****

We spent the next few weeks preparing for our first all-out land-air military operation against the Xortaags. Operation Free Earth was Kurt and Tarq’s brainchild, but as the commander of the fleet, finalizing the details of our air attack was my responsibility. Tarq, Kurt, and I spent countless hours staring at various topographical plans, discussing how to coordinate the ground and air assault while the rest of the pilots were busy transporting the Commandos to wherever they needed to be for the operation.

The operation consisted of two phases. We were focused on the first phase, which was attacking SH-2 and a few small Xortaag bases at the same time. We didn’t have enough space fighters to hit both Xortaag cities at once, and Kurt believed SH-1 was too big for his plan to work, so he’d decided the operation had to have two phases, to be carried out within five days of each other.

One day, while finalizing our plans for phase one, I asked Tarq, “What have the Xortaags done to you?”

He froze. His eyes betrayed a deep agony for just a second. Then his poker face took over. “They conquered Alora and—”

“Cut the crap,” I said. “This is personal.”

Tarq’s shoulders slumped. “Nothing. They have done nothing to me.” He stood up. “I, however, got my only daughter killed.”

He left the Command Center.

“One of these days, I’m gonna learn how to keep my mouth shut,” I told Kurt.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he answered.

With the confrontation with the Xortaags growing nearer, I was getting increasingly worried about Liz’s inclination to make spur-of-the-moment decisions, so I asked Keiko to try to teach her meditation, hoping that it would improve her self-control. At first, Liz was excited about the idea, and she loved the fact that Keiko had a small shrine—complete with a small Buddha statue, candles, and incense burners—in a corner of her room. But after a couple of weeks of trying, Keiko gave up and told me, “The only way to make Liz sit still for more than five minutes is to hit her on her head with either a baseball bat or a shovel.”

The only tangible result of the meditation classes was that Liz liked Keiko’s tattoos so much that she decided to get one of her own. To my immense relief, she settled on a small butterfly on her lower back, rather than the horrifying dragon covering half of Keiko’s body.

One evening, Elizabeth asked me, “Did you know Sergei was gay?”

I raised a brow. “Sergei? The super macho, scary, badass Universal Soldier’s gay? You sure?”

“Yep. Matias introduced me to his boyfriend the other day. He’s a doctor, working in the sickbay.”

“I’m sure Sergei’s parents always wanted him to marry a doctor.”

My wife, wrapping a curl around her finger, continued, “His name’s Robert, but everyone calls him Dr. Bob. He’s twenty years younger than Sergei and very cute. In fact, he kinda looks like you.”

I decided to take it as a compliment. “Well, this explains something. You know Sergei and Oksana have become very close since her sister’s suicide, and I often see them playing chess together. I was wondering why Sergei didn’t ask her out.”

“Why did you think he had to? Maybe they are just good friends.”

I scoffed and quoted Harry, “ ‘Men and women can’t be friends. The sex part always gets in the way.’ Also, have you seen Oksana? Everyone wants to go out with that girl. She was born with men running after her asking for her phone number.”

She gave me a look that made me realize I had put my big foot in my even bigger mouth. I quickly recovered. “Except for me, because I’m married to the most beautiful girl in the world.” Trying to change the subject, I added, “Isn’t Sergei super religious? I think he goes to church regularly.”

“He does, and most of the time together with Dr. Bob,” said Liz. “Your sexual orientation has got nothing to do with your personal relationship with God. You know, it’s comments like this that make people think you are, eh, slightly intolerant of others.”

I glared at her, “I am not…oh, forget it!”

We spent most of our free time with Elizabeth’s siblings, Kurt, and Keiko. Liz was hoping to hook these two up. She once told me Keiko had a crush on Kurt, and she thought they’d be a perfect match because Keiko was basically a female version of Kurt with an eyepatch and an impressive tattoo. I knew as a result of his life as a Resistance fighter/assassin, not to mention losing his girlfriend fighting the government forces, Kurt had decided to stay away from emotional involvements, so I didn’t think it’d work.

My wife’s other matchmaking project involved hooking up her brother with Oksana. I saw more potential there. Matias was an extremely easy-going fellow, and a lot of people felt calm and relaxed around him, which was exactly what Oksana needed after everything she’d gone through.

Liz was successful in her efforts. One day, nearly three months after the Xortaag invasion, Matias and I were playing tennis when he told me he’d started dating Oksana.

“Oksana? The hot blonde Oksana?” I asked, panting.

Matias chuckled. “Yes, but don’t let Liz hear you say that.”

“Come on. You know I think your sister’s the most beautiful girl in the world. Oksana’s kind of Playboy-model hot.”

Matias gave me an exasperated look, a carbon copy of his sister’s. I hurriedly tried to recover. “Well done, buddy. I would’ve thought she was way out of your league.”

Sometimes I just didn’t know when to shut up.

*****

The next day, Liz and I were having breakfast in the mess hall when Keiko joined us and said, “Good morning.”

I looked at her and then jumped out of my seat so quickly that I spilled milk all over my uniform. “You’ve got eyes!” I exclaimed.

“I had one already,” answered Keiko. “I have a new one now, in place of the one you ruined in another life, compliments of the Akakies’ medical technology.”

We both stared at her with fascination. She somehow looked totally different without the eyepatch, and some of her hard-as-nails facade was gone too, despite her tattoos. She added, “With us going to war soon, having only one eye would just not do, would it?”

“When did you do the surgery?” asked Liz. “We didn’t know you were in the hospital.”

“I wasn’t. There was no surgery. It’s not a transplant. The doctors grew a new eye right inside my eye socket. It took almost two months, which is why I kept wearing the eyepatch, but I didn’t need to be hospitalized at all.”

“I didn’t know our medical team could perform such miracles,” I said, adjusting my wedding ring.

“With MICI and Akakie technology at their disposal?” said Keiko. “This is nothing. Dr. Bob says they can grow back a severed arm or leg.” She looked at me closely and added, “You know, he sort of looks like you.”

People continuously telling me I looked like Sergei’s boyfriend wasn’t good for my self-image. I rubbed my forehead and thought about growing a thick beard.

“One question though: Why on earth is it blue?” I asked.

Her other eye was black. She wrinkled her nose. “You forgot who our esteemed commander is? This was his idea of a freaking joke.”

“You know what I am thinking?” Liz told me. “Keiko used to beat you with one eye. I don’t think you’ll win another simulated competition ever again.”

Oh, crap!

Chapter Ten

SH-2 - July 19, 2078, 16:00 EST

Maada was standing on the balcony of one of the control towers in the fleet base, enjoying a cup of the hot beverage called “coffee.” He was a man of few pleasures in life, but he had come to enjoy the drink with its crisp, bitter flavor and strong aroma.

It was a warm, sunny day. The cloudless sky was like a spotless diamond, clear and shining. It was in such stark contrast to Tangaar when he used to live there, with its dark gray sky and difficult-to-breathe air, typical of a dying planet. Things were much better back in Tangaar now, mostly due to his efforts. He’d brought his civilization back from the brink of destruction. Still, without colonies like this, his species was doomed.

He leaned on the railing, and touching the scar on his face, absentmindedly looked at the fleet base. It was the size of a small city. More than a third of their fleet was stationed here. The fleet base had ten sections, each with its own control tower, revetments, hangars, and barracks. The hangar rooftops were retractable, allowing the Deathbringers to fly in and out of the hangars.

Each section was protected by three laser turrets. Maada could see two of those from where he was standing. The third was behind the tower, forming a triangle with the others. Each turret housed four huge laser cannons, which were the most powerful land-based weapons in the Xortaag arsenal, capable of engaging enemy fleets in space. They were manned at all times. No missile could pass through the cover they provided, and no enemy fighter could get anywhere close to the fleet base. Still, each section also had a Quick Response Force, which consisted of a hundred Deathbringers stationed in a revetment, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, with their pilots camping right next to the fighters in full flight gear. With the comprehensive protection provided by the enormous laser turrets, this was an unnecessary precaution; however, Maada preferred to be prepared in the unlikely event the Akakie fleet decided to take a shot at them.

Maada chuckled at the thought. As if the Akakies, or anyone else in the galaxy, would dare attack the Xortaags. They are all sheep waiting to be slaughtered, he thought.

The Akakies were an advanced race and could summon a lot more ships than his own fleet, but they lacked the courage to fight. He could not understand such cowardice: It was not as if running away would save them. But he did not have to understand, only take advantage. Even if they decided to attack, they would be defeated as easily as the last time. The planetary defense, including the laser turrets here, could keep the enemy fleet at bay long enough for his Deathbringers to fly off the planet and join the fight, and that would be that.

Two trucks stopped in front of the mess hall, and soldiers started to unload them. Maada saw two of them, a man and a woman, leave the trucks and walk towards the control tower but did not pay much attention. His mind was already focused on their next campaign. In three months, their transport ships would arrive, and millions of Xortaags would complete the first phase of the colonization, at which point his fleet would be free to invade the second target on their list. That planet was more advanced than Earth, but Xortaag surveillance had marked them as an easier target. Their people had gone soft as a result of a few hundred years of peace and prosperity.

Peace! Maada smirked. They were in for a rude awakening.

Something caught his attention. The man and woman he had noticed earlier were passing by the control tower now. The man was carrying a big backpack. A corner of Maada’s brain wondered what was in the bag.

All of a sudden, his warrior instinct, honed over a lifetime spent as a soldier, yelled at him that something was very, very wrong. He tensed, jolted upright, and started scanning the base, looking for a threat.

He had learned to trust his instincts, but his brain did not immediately catch up with his intuition. In his very long military career, the threat had always come from above. On a planet where all inhabitants worshiped the Xortaags as gods, being attacked on the ground was unthinkable. Maada had no frame of reference for it.

The two soldiers Maada had noticed earlier were out of his line of sight now. More out of curiosity than anything else, he decided to see where they were going. He walked to the other side of the balcony. Once he turned the corner, he saw something so unbelievable that for a second he wondered if he had been dreaming.

The pair stopped, and the man pulled something out of the bag that could only be a small missile launcher. He kneeled on one knee, put it on his shoulder, and aimed at the laser turret behind the control tower.

Maada’s jaw dropped, and he froze, but just for a second. He still could not comprehend how this was possible, but that was a moot point. He drew his sidearm, took aim, and shot at the man wielding the missile launcher. His first two shots missed, but the third hit the enemy soldier in the back of his head.

The man dropped the weapon, went down, and did not get up again. The woman glanced up and fired back, forcing Maada to hide behind the railing as laser bolts impacted the wall behind him. She picked up the missile launcher and aimed at the laser turret from a standing position, but several other Xortaags, who had seen what was going on, opened up on her. A laser bolt slammed into her side just before she pulled the trigger, throwing off her aim and the missile flew harmlessly by its intended target, missing it by a few inches.

The woman was severely injured and surrounded by Xortaags, but while in obvious pain, she took cover behind her dead comrade’s body, took another missile out of the backpack, and loaded it into her weapon. Maada admired her courage as he aimed carefully and shot her in the head. The woman died while still struggling to arm the missile launcher and did not let go of the weapon, even in death.

Maada heaved a sigh of relief.

Then explosions and gunshots rang out behind him.

*****

Outside SH-2 - 15:00 EST

Kurt, looking through binoculars, touched his earpiece and said, “Here they come.”

Wearing the Xortaag dark gray uniform, he was lying down by a tree next to a road leading to SH-2. The road passed through a dense forest. After surveilling the base for weeks, he knew a food convoy would be passing in a few minutes. There were twenty dark blue Volvo trucks in the convoy, bringing food to the ten sections of the huge fleet base.

Kurt wondered for a second what would happen if they failed in carrying out their part of the operation. He concluded it would mean a swift death or at least heavy casualties for Jim and the rest of the pilots. The picture that appeared in his mind—thousands of bloody corpses in flight gear, trapped in the wreckage of their space fighters—made him cringe. He pushed the thought out of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

Kurt put down the binoculars, picked up his suppressed M-28 Sniper Weapon System, and planted the rifle against his shoulder. Next to him, Sergei did the same. He knew all the two hundred Commandos in his strike force were following suit. Once the convoy reached the spot he’d designated, he shot the front tire of the first Volvo with a subsonic bullet. The vehicle came to a screeching halt. All the other trucks behind it stopped too. The four Xortaags in the Volvo got off and gathered around the flat tire. From their body language it was obvious they didn’t know how to fix it. They normally depended on their human slaves to do something like this, but since the completion of the fleet base’s construction, no humans had been involved in any fleet-related activities, including menial work like cleaning or preparing food. Tarq had guessed Maada didn’t want his precious fleet contaminated by human presence.

The Xortaags didn’t have to worry about changing the tire. Kurt took a deep breath to calm his nerves, bent his head from side to side and cracked his neck, stuck his finger in the trigger guard, and touched his earpiece with his other hand. “On three. One, two, three.”

A hailstorm of bullets hit the Xortaags. Kurt shot an alien soldier and through his telescopic sight saw his head explode. Not wasting a second, he took aim and killed another alien. And then three more after that one. He fired six shots in as many seconds and didn’t miss his target even once.

The Xortaags, caught by surprise and in the open, were cut to pieces in seconds. A few tried to take shelter inside the trucks, but there was no escaping the armor-piercing rounds that Kurt’s team were shooting. Most of them died without firing a single shot, and those who did shoot, didn’t hit anything.

His heartbeat racing, Kurt shouted, “Let’s go.”

He left his sniper rifle, grabbed his STG 666 assault rifle, and ran toward the convoy. Sergei followed him. An injured Xortaag was crawling next to a truck, trying to draw his sidearm. Kurt leveled his gun at the alien’s chest and pulled the trigger, giving him a short burst. Dark purple blood splashed from the Xortaag’s body, and he stopped moving.

The rest of the Commandos dispatched all the survivors. Then they moved the Volvos out of the road and replaced them with their own, which were identical to the Xortaags’ trucks except for three things: They were armored—including hidden metal plates which would cover the tires when the time came—they had a concealed compartment in the back that could hide four commandos, and they had several smaller compartments that were used to hide assault rifles, machine guns, and missile launchers. The Xortaag energy weapon small arms were fine, but the aliens were hardly experts in land warfare, which was reflected in their weaponry. As Allen had put it, “Ain’t nothing wrong with some extra firepower.”

Kurt climbed on one of the Volvos and concealed himself in the hidden compartment. Sergei and Oksana followed.

Right before the truck started moving, a tall, blond man joined them in the back. Sergei glanced at him; then he jumped out of his seat and yelled, “Moy bozh! What the hell is that?”

Matias, unrecognizable with white skin, blue eyes, and blond hair, smiled. “What’s up?”

“Matias didn’t want to sit this one out,” said Kurt, looking at his PDD. “So Tarq talked him into this. He had to spend forty-eight hours in the sickbay for his skin color to change. He’s been busy running around scaring people since he got out. Tarq’s insufferably pleased with himself for his new masterpiece.”

“Was this necessary? He’s creeping me the hell out,” asked Sergei, trying not to look directly at Matias.

“You’re feeling hard done by?” snapped Oksana. “Tarq says it’ll take two weeks for his normal skin color to come back, which means I have to deal with this freak show for two damned weeks.”

“Says Miss Unibrow,” Matias countered.

“Children,” said Kurt, with the annoyed tone of a fed-up parent, “I’m trying to work in here. In case you haven’t noticed, the first human versus alien guerrilla war in history has just started.”

They entered the Xortaag’s fleet base and drove towards their designated section without any incidents. When they reached the mess hall, the Commandos not hiding in the concealed compartments got off and started unloading the trucks. Kurt, who was following all his team members as well as the other teams converging on their respective targets in the other sections on a PDD, noticed two Commandos separate from the group to deal with the laser turret behind the control tower.

“Stop playing with your goatee,” Oksana told Kurt. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry,” answered Kurt, but while staring at his PDD he unconsciously kept pulling his facial hair. A few minutes later he touched his earpiece and said, “Execute.”

“Cry ‘Havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war,” said Oksana, removing the barrier to the hidden compartment.

Sergei gave her a confused look.

The Commandos already outside drew their weapons and mowed down the unsuspecting Xortaags. The sound of shooting and the cries of the dying Xortaags made Kurt’s heart beat faster. He and Sergei each grabbed an FGM-220 Javelin compact shoulder-fired missile launcher and jumped out of the truck, flanked by Oksana and Matias, who centered their gunsights on the closest Xortaags, and started firing. Bits of flesh, bone, and blood flew from the enemy soldiers as the bullets struck home.

Kurt went down on one knee and made sure the Javelin was in direct-fire mode. Then in one fluid motion, he deactivated the safety, put the launcher on his shoulder, and targeted the laser turret two miles to his left using the missile launcher’s command launch unit.

The turret was the size of a five-story building. Tarq had helped the Commandos develop a special armor-piercing missile capable of destroying it, and he was positive the laser turret wouldn’t be able to stop something as small as a shoulder-fired rocket. Kurt prayed Tarq was right and pulled the trigger. Breathless, he watched the missile streaking away with its contrail of smoke until it slammed into the laser turret. The Xortaag weapon disappeared behind a blinding explosion. A boom followed a split second later when the sound caught up, and the ground shook under his feet.

Relief brought a satisfied smile to Kurt’s face.

Bull’s-eye!

He turned his head in time to see Sergei blow the second turret to bits.

Kurt ducked as an energy bolt flew over his head. Now the Commandoes were under sporadic fire. Some Xortaag soldiers were shooting back with their small hand-held laser weapons, and a large number of them were pouring out of the various buildings around the mess hall, all armed, and looking for a fight. The Commandoes returned fire, shooting and reloading wildly.

“Back to the trucks,” Kurt ordered. “Time to get out of here.”

While getting on the Volvo, Kurt heard Tarq say, “All teams have been successful, only Alex and Kate are down.”

Kurt cursed under his breath. “And the target?”

“Still standing,” Tarq answered.

Kurt thought about a full-frontal assault on the third turret. With the element of surprise gone and hundreds of Xortaags converging on them, it would’ve been suicide, armored trucks or not. But they might still be able to pull it off.

Tarq, all the way back in Winterfell’s Command Center, read his mind. “Don’t even think about it. Remember we have planned for this. Get out of there.”

The Volvo started moving. Kurt grabbed an STG 666 and joined Sergei, Oksana, and Matias who were pouring fire on the Xortaags. He found Oksana and Matias perched next to each other, shooting through the firing ports in the vehicle’s armor.

Oksana fired a short burst and announced, “Fourteen!”

Matias slammed a fresh magazine into his assault rifle and grinned. “I’m at sixteen already. You’re falling behind, Comrade.”

Kurt looked at them and raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“We’re still way short of seven hundred million!” answered Oksana, something dark and primal flickering in the back of her eyes.

The trucks sped up, hurrying toward the fleet base’s exit, leaving behind a trail of death, hurt, and mangled bodies covered in dark purple blood.

The Xortaag’s fire intensified. Their small-arm energy bolts hit the Volvo from all directions but caused little damage. His mouth set in a hard line, Kurt scanned the truck’s surroundings through a firing port, forcing calm. He stuck his assault rifle’s buttstock under his armpit, pointed the muzzle in the direction of an enemy soldier shooting at the vehicle, and pulled the trigger. The Xortaag’s face disappeared behind an explosion of blood. Kurt shot another one, and a third, and a fourth, using his STG 666 with such precision it could’ve been a sniper rifle. This carnage partially satisfied the need for revenge that had been gnawing at his soul since the fall of Earth.

“You’re right,” he told Oksana. “Way, way short.”

Now it’s all up to you, Jim.

*****

I was flying a golden Viper.

Tarq had some of our fighters painted in different colors. He explained to us he believed in this stupid superstition that coloring senior officers’ space fighters differently would bring good luck, with gold showing the highest rank. Keiko’s fighter was dark green, and Liz’s—after her recent demotion, she was a major—was light blue. We had a few captains whose fighters were painted silver.

I was as excited as a teenage boy on his first date, and not with just any girl, with a girl he’d been secretly in love with for a long time. Unable to contain myself, I contacted Liz. “Today is a good day to die.”

“Really? Now?” she said with annoyance in her voice.

Tarq contacted me. “Jim, we have a problem. One of the laser turrets is still active.”

“Which one?”

“A-3.”

I consulted my PDD. It was good news that there was only one left. This meant Kurt’s mission had been mostly successful. I spoke over my mike. “A Squadron, you’re with me. Everyone else, proceed as planned.” I thought about adding something meaningful and inspirational on the verge of our first battle with the Xortaags, but all I could think of was, “Give them hell.”

“What would you’ve done without worn-out clichés?” asked Venom.

I put my Viper in a sharp nosedive, followed by Liz, Keiko, and the rest of the A Squadron. Behind us, a hundred Vipers fired their Phoenixes at the target. The laser turret came alive, turned toward us, and started shooting huge laser bolts. I watched as the missiles one by one disappeared from my tactical display. The turret shot down all one hundred of them in quick succession, without letting a single one get through. The first salvo did its job though; it gave my team time to get within our Sparrows’ firing range.

“Fire!” I shouted into my mike as I pressed the pickle button on the stick with my thumb and watched the twin missiles flying away from my fighter.

A Squadron veered off with only Liz, Keiko, and I pushing forward. Our missiles streaked toward the laser turret. It stopped the new threat with ease too. The Sparrows joined their beyond-visual-range brothers in a few short seconds, but by then I’d gotten close enough to have the turret in my effective laser cannon range.

My heart beating faster, I firewalled the throttle and flew in, energy bolts flying from all three of my Viper’s cannons. The laser turret was hard to miss—it looked to be the size of a small mountain (“That thing is huge,” was Venom’s very useful input). My laser bolts impacted the turret. Flames erupted and smoke belched from the giant weapon. Its crew tracked me and started shooting. It fired thick bolts longer than my Viper in very rapid succession, but I wasn’t one of the best pilots on the planet for nothing. I swerved right in a sharp curve and kept avoiding its fire with evasive action. Still, and despite my best efforts, enemy fire was getting closer and closer to my Viper with each passing second.

I was focused on not getting vaporized, but I had one eye on my display monitor, following Liz and Keiko’s space fighters. Keiko came in right after me and spewed out a stream of laser bolts, scoring several hits. She swerved left, and zigzagging between massive laser bolts, took the enemy’s fire and attention with her.

And Liz flew in on her heels, letting go of her Viper’s full weaponry.

The colossal weapon exploded in a red ball of fire, big enough to cover the whole turret and its surroundings, creating a micro-hell for all the enemy soldiers who were caught within, and ripping apart every atom in their doomed bodies.

“Yes! That’s my girl!” I bellowed, beside myself with exhilaration.

“Why, Jim, I’m flattered,” answered Keiko, “but you really aren’t my type.”

*****

Milan - 16:00 EST

Allen was crouching behind a tree, looking at the images on his through-the-wall surveillance device.

Since this was probably the only chance to mount a surprise attack against the Xortaags, Kurt and Allen had decided to use this opportunity to hit the Xortaag leadership. Maada lived in SH-2 and was out of reach, but Mushgaana lived in his private mansion, guarded by a small security force. This was where Allen and a strike force of thirty Commandos were right now. The plan was to capture Mushgaana alive if possible, assassinate him if not.

Allen’s second-in-command, Tanaka, the ex-leader of Japan’s Resistance, looked over his shoulder. “Is everything in order?”

“Looks like it,” answered Allen. “Around fifty servants and guards, as always. You see this room here with someone inside? This is Mushgaana’s office, so this should be him.”

Tanaka nodded. “Let’s go then.”

Allen put on his night-vision goggles and trotted toward the mansion. Tanaka followed him. They jumped over the mansion wall and entered through its main entrance. There were three Xortaags in the first-floor living room, sitting around the dining table and playing a card game. When Allen entered, they looked at him in confusion.

“Human,” said one of the Xortaags in their own language. “You are not allowed to be here.”

        Allen smirked at him and raised his assault rifle, enjoying the look of shock on the alien’s face.- “Oh yeah?” he said in the same language. “And what are you going to do about it?”

The Xortaag’s eyes widened. He reached for his weapon, but Allen shot him in the face with his suppressed STG 666. Then he shot the other two and ran upstairs, Tanaka closely behind him. The two guards stationed outside Mushgaana’s office were alerted by the noise from downstairs, and one of them was talking to his PDD. Allen shot them both in the head.

Allen opened the door of the office and cautiously peered inside. He was welcomed by a hot energy bolt hitting the door frame a couple of inches from his head, burning a black hole into the frame. He growled, “We don’t have time for this,” and sprayed the inside of the room with bullets, moving the gun barrel in an arch. A man screamed in pain, and a body fell to the floor.

A minute later, Allen and Tanaka were standing over a dead man in Mushgaana’s office. The man was tall, muscular, and bald.

Tanaka tilted his head. “Well, this definitely isn’t him.”

Allen heard another Commando’s nervous voice in his earpiece. “Colonel? We have a problem. Look outside the window.”

Allen approached one of the room’s big windows, and with a heavy feeling in his stomach, saw five Deathbringers hovering mid-air right outside, slightly higher than the mansion roof.

Allen’s mouth twitched. “This can’t be good, eh?” he told Tanaka.

*****

SH-2 - 16.30 EST

Maada ran to the other side of the control tower. In utter disbelief, he saw both turrets destroyed, with the trucks speeding away, killing everyone in their path.

Trembling with uncontrollable anger, he contacted the officer in charge of the Quick Response Force and shouted, “Get the fighters in the air!”

A faint sound caught his attention. He looked up, trying to find the source of the sound, and his mouth fell open when he saw hundreds of missiles racing toward the hangars and the Quick Response Force fighters’ revetment. Most of the fighters were just beginning to get off the ground, while others had not even moved yet. If they had already been in the air, they could have easily avoided the incoming missiles, but they were sitting ducks now as they started their ascent. The missiles hit a few seconds later, and most Deathbringers in the Quick Response Force were annihilated by thunderous varicolored blasts before they got the chance to take off. Some of the hangars were also hit. The explosions seared the air and earth, massacring everyone who was caught in the blast. The sound of explosions came in a terrible echo, and the control tower shook so violently that Maada thought it would collapse.

The worst was still to come.

Maada saw hundreds of triangular craft approaching the now defenseless air base at a low altitude.

Xortaag pilots were running towards the hangars that had survived the missile attack while the hangar rooftops were being retracted so slowly that it was agonizing to watch. Maada knew it was too late. Savage desperation crept over him. The enemy space fighters were so close. Without the laser turrets, there was nothing between them and the hundreds of Deathbringers in the hangars and their pilots.

There were some fifty men and women on duty in the control tower. Maada turned to look at them. His despair was mirrored on their faces. He rubbed the scars on his face and made a decision that he knew would doom them all.

“Join me,” he said softly.

No one hesitated. They all rushed out and stood next to him on the balcony, waiting for orders.

“Draw your weapons and wait for my command,” said Maada, unholstering his sidearm.

The Xortaags followed suit.

Using their laser cannons, the enemy craft opened fire on the hangars. Energy bolt after energy bolt landed, causing explosions that killed countless Xortaags and destroyed their space fighters. The ground shook beneath Maada’s feet. His ears pounding, he witnessed the people under his command being slaughtered, feeling utterly helpless. They could not even defend themselves. Some Xortaag soldiers were shooting from the ground with their sidearms, but their small arms fire, even when hitting a target, had very little effect. All it did was attract the enemy pilots’ attention, and they were killed by the dozens when the space fighters returned fire.

If I survive this, I will find and kill all these bastards.

The enemy fleet got closer to the tower, destroying everything in their path like an unstoppable hurricane.

It was fifty of them against a thousand space fighters. It was desperate. It was hopeless. It was suicidal.

It’s magnificent.

A young, beautiful woman to his left said, “General? It has been an honor, sir,” and performed a perfect salute. Everyone else followed suit.

Maada knew the woman, just like he knew all the other fighter pilots under his command. She was an off-duty Deathbringer pilot whose name was Arminaa. Maada wondered what she was doing in the control tower. His mouth curved into a sad smile. He returned the salute and aimed his weapon. “Target the silver craft in front.”

A minute later he shouted, “Fire!”

The general pulled the trigger. The rest of the Xortaags on the balcony opened fire in unison. Tiny energy bolts rained on the silver fighter, and with savage satisfaction, Maada saw thick, black smoke pouring from one of its two engines. The fighter shook under the onslaught and started losing altitude.

“The one to its left,” ordered Maada. He took aim and fired his weapon again.

Several enemy space fighters fired back.

The last thing Maada saw was a red and yellow explosion engulfing the control tower.

*****

SH-2 - 16.50 EST

Josef couldn’t believe his bad luck.

He’d gone toe-to-toe with the Xortaag fleet during the invasion of Earth. Not only that, he was one of only a handful of humans alive who had shot down a Deathbringer. He’d done all that, just to get hit by ground fire during their first mission.

“Aviate. Navigate. Communicate,” he murmured to himself.

He tried everything he could to save the space fighter, but all in vain. He contacted Winterfell. “I’m going down. I’ll parachute out in a second.”

“We are sending a Commando team to pick you up,” answered Tarq.

A few seconds later, he heard Jim’s voice. “Josef, take care of yourself. We’ll have a beer when this is over.”

Josef chuckled. “I don’t drink, but I’ll have one with you.”

“Welcome to Martin-Baker Fan Club,” Jim said.

A few minutes later, Josef parachuted from his Viper.

*****

Milan - 15:30 EST

Mushgaana, sitting in his office, was pleased with himself. He was looking at a holographic map of Kingdom of God on his desk and evaluating their progress. The construction was ahead of schedule. Soon the first phase of their colonization would be complete, and he would be off to a new conquest.

All of a sudden, he sensed a group of humans moving towards his residence. What caught his attention was that they were moving in close formation and were obviously trying to avoid attracting attention. He reached out for their minds and saw the intention to harm him.

This was impossible. These people should have thought of him as a god. Something had gone terribly wrong. Mushgaana tried to get control of the humans’ minds, but he failed. If he concentrated on each individual, he could sense their thoughts—rage and a desire for revenge, recognizable but subtly different from how a Xortaag would think—but he could not exert any control over them.

Time to think on your feet, he thought.

He ran out of his office. On his way out, he telepathically ordered one of his men to go to the room and sit behind his desk. He ran downstairs, opened a hidden door, and entered a secret passage that led to a small underground military base right next to his residence. Nobody knew this place existed because Mushgaana had had it built in complete secrecy to protect himself from a possible attempt on his life by his brothers, or even worse, a coup d’état staged by Maada. The general was too loyal and honorable to do such a thing, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. On the way, he contacted the commander of the base.

“We have got company,” said Mushgaana.

*****

Milan - 16.14 EST

A screen on Mushgaana’s desk came to life, and Allen heard a voice say, “You guys speak English?”

Allen approached the desk and found himself staring at the crown prince’s image on the screen.

“You know who I am,” said Mushgaana. “You have obviously come here to kill me. The problem is I have no idea who you are, and because I am getting reports of a widespread attack against my people all over the planet, I am eager to get to know you. Can you make it easy on all of us and just surrender, or do we have to come in guns blazing?” He wiggled his index finger at the screen. “I am going to count to three. There will be no four.”

Allen wanted to say something snappy and shoot the screen, but something on Mushgaana’s desk caught his attention. This is interesting, he thought and leaned over to study what he’d found on the desk more closely.

Mushgaana counted to three. When he saw no response, he said, “This is just awkward,” and the screen went blank.

“Can we call out?” Allen asked Tanaka.

“All communications are jammed,” Tanaka answered a few seconds later, “and even if we could call for help, there won’t be enough time for anyone to come.”

“I wasn’t thinking about calling for help,” said Allen. “Come have a look at this.”

*****

“Bandits at two o’clock low,” I said.

On my display monitor, I could see ten enemy craft that had somehow survived the attack and managed to get off the ground flying away from the fleet base.

“Let’s go get them,” I added cheerfully.

We followed the Deathbringers. The pursuit lasted only a few minutes. They noticed our fighters, did the math, and turned around to meet us. One of them, an over-zealous rookie in all likelihood, started spewing laser fire even before they got in range.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and my heart vibrated with anticipation. I’d been fangs out for a long while, and this was my chance to finally blow up a few Xortaag space fighters.

Laser bolts bursting from all our cannons, we zoomed in and closed the distance. The Deathbringers opened up with their laser cannons too, and their barrage of laser bolts intensified as more of them entered the firing range. For a brief instant, it was like my Viper was caught in a tornado of laser fire as the enemy ships kept shooting all over the place.

My head-up display highlighted the Deathbringer closest to me. Trying not to get distracted by the energy bolts passing by my bird, I caught the fighter in my targeting scope, took a bead on it, and fired off a sustained burst from my laser cannons. The enemy vessel vanished in a blinding explosion. I swung my golden Viper up and around in a sharp curve and found myself behind two Deathbringers. They flew away in different directions.

I had to make a split-second decision. I said, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” and followed the one to my left. The gomer threw his space fighter all over the sky to shake me. I lined up my shot and squeezed the trigger. The Deathbringer disintegrated under my continuous fire.

Three more, and you’ll be an ace fighter again.

The second Deathbringer was making a sharp curve, trying to get on my six. It lashed out at me with its cannons. Laser bolts streaked past my fighter. I released four Sparrows that made an almost 180 turn and went after it. The gomer twisted and turned and managed to avoid all four, but now I was on top of their fighter. The Deathbringer went on a twisting dive. I followed and kept firing. It erupted in angry red flames.

Sierra Hotel!

I throttled back, pumped a fist, and thundered in my mike, “Are you not entertained?”

“I know I am,” said Venom, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet for a while.

“First time I watch you in action,” said Cordi in my ears. “Gotta admit you’re a lot more badass than what I’d thought.”

I looked at my monitor to see what was going on with Liz and Keiko. The Japanese woman, engaged in a dogfight with a Deathbringer, seemed to be doing OK, but when I saw Liz’s Viper, my eyes bulged, and beads of sweat appeared on my face.

On my nine o’clock high, Liz was hot on a Deathbringer’s tail, spitting a deadly stream of laser bolts at the bandit. She was so focused on her target that she didn’t see another enemy vessel sneaking in right behind her.

“Target-fixation much?” asked Venom. “It’s like she hasn’t learned anything in the Air Force Academy. Oh, wait. She never went there.”

“You’ve got a bandit on your ass!” I shouted. “Break right!”

Liz probably heard the urgency in my voice and immediately rolled right. The laser bolts fired by the Deathbringer on her six missed her by inches. I snapped my Viper’s nose into a hard-climbing turn and gave the gomer who had almost killed my wife all I’d got, laser cannons and missiles. I obliterated the Deathbringer and then shot a few more bolts into the wreckage to make sure.

I stayed motionless for a few seconds, allowing the relief to sink in. Liz broke to the left and gave chase to her original target. “You are welcome!” I said after her. No answer.

“I got four kills,” I announced.

With the tone of a teacher reproaching an overly enthusiastic student, Keiko said, “Jim, we are a team. This isn’t a competition,” and then she cheekily added, “At any rate, I got four too.”

Oh, for crying out loud!

*****

SH-2 - 17.18 EST

Coughing, Maada regained consciousness. His lungs were full of smoke, and he felt he was about to suffocate. Half his face, as well as his left arm and shoulder, were drenched in purple blood, but he managed to sit up and look around.

Most of the control tower had collapsed, and the rest was on fire. There were blood and body parts everywhere. Maada recognized the burned bodies of some of the people who were standing next to him on the balcony before the attack and barely managed not to throw up. He also saw Arminaa, lying on the floor on her back, her chest moving with shallow breaths.

At least this one has survived.

He weakly stood up, leaned on the balcony railing, and looked around.

The fleet base was destroyed. The hangars were burning, sending a cloud of smoke to the sky, and it was obvious only a miracle could save a few of the Deathbringers inside. From where he was standing, he could see hundreds of mutilated, bloody corpses. The sight was truly horrifying, and he had no doubt the actual number of casualties was far greater. He had never suffered such a comprehensive defeat in all his life. It caused more anguish for him than all his injuries.

He spotted a lone, dark green enemy vessel circling the base. The pilot was probably making sure nothing worth destroying was left. Maada looked around and recovered his sidearm. He used the railing to support his mangled body, tried to wipe blood and sweat from his eyes, aimed with his good arm, and started shooting at the space fighter.

*****

In her cockpit, Keiko, joy streaking through her because of their decisive victory, saw the tiny laser bolts passing by her fighter. A few energy bolts hit the vessel without causing any damage. She looked around and saw an injured man trying to shoot her Viper down with a sidearm. She thought about shooting back, but it was difficult not to admire the defeated man’s courage.

As Jim would say, David versus Goliath much? Let’s not kill the stupid bastard.

She turned her Viper around and flew away, leaving the destroyed Xortaag base behind.

*****

With wide eyes, Maada watched her go and collapsed on the balcony, shivering. In what felt like a blink of an eye, their second-biggest fleet base was destroyed, more than a third of his fleet was annihilated, thousands of men and women under his command were slaughtered, and worst of all by a mile, the pilot of that damned green vessel had not even found him worthy of a warrior’s death.

Only ferocious willpower and a burning desire for revenge stopped him from eating his own gun.

*****

Milan - 17.15 EST

Hiding behind the desk in Mushgaana’s office and shooting at the Xortaags massing in the corridor, Allen contemplated the ironies of life.

He’d been a soldier for nearly forty years, participating in three wars and countless black ops, and the second-in-command of the Resistance for two violent, bloody years, which brought him a reputation as a fierce warrior. He’d been in more tight situations than he cared to remember, and he’d survived all that just to die in the first encounter with an enemy who was notoriously inexperienced in ground warfare.

What a stupid way to die.

His comrades had fought hard, aided by their better weapons and body armor, but there were too many Xortaags. Of the thirty Commandos in the unit, only Allen and Tanaka were still breathing.

Allen shot a few rounds at the door and hit someone, but his STG 666 clicked empty. He drew his Glock 55 and said, “I’m almost out.”

“Me too.” Tanaka wiped the sweat from his brow. “I think they’re waiting for us to run out of ammo so that they can rush us.”

The thought had occurred to Allen too. It couldn’t happen. If they were captured alive, there was a good chance the Xortaags could find the Winterfell’s location, which would spell the end for Lilly, Kurt, the other people in Winterfell, and all humanity. And there still was a minuscule chance he could get the information he’d found on Mushgaana’s desk to Kurt, but he could do it only in death, assuming that Kurt would find a way to take his body back to Winterfell for burial. Knowing Kurt, he probably would. He’d promised.

Allen thought about the decision he was about to make. What he had to do was clear. He had no regrets: He’d lived a good life, and to be honest, he had been on borrowed time the past few years, ever since Zheng assassinated Thomas.

He only wished he could see Lilly once more.

I hope Kurt kicks the Xortaags’ ass as soon as possible, so Lilly will get to have a normal life, get married, have kids, all that jazz.

Allen told Tanaka, “Sorry, buddy,” and shot him in the back of the head from two inches away. Tanaka’s blood spattered on Allen’s hand and clothes. The Japanese man collapsed with a surprised look on his face. Allen started to turn the gun on himself.

His arm suddenly stopped moving.

Allen stared at the unmoving arm in unspeakable terror as his mind screamed commands, but it was no use. His arm was no more responsive than that of a corpse. Worse, his left arm refused to move too. His stomach rolled and sweat started trickling down his neck as he realized he wouldn’t be able to shoot a gun ever again in whatever short time he had left on this planet.

*****

Mushgaana probed Allen’s mind as soon as he shot his comrade, understood his intention, concentrated hard, and used all his mental power to prevent the human from committing suicide. He had a splitting headache, and a few drops of blood were trickling from his nose, but he managed to stop the man’s arms from moving.

“He is trying to kill himself! Get him now!” he shouted at the Xortaag soldiers around him.

*****

The memory of Tarq having control of his body rushed to Allen like a horde of zombies. Someone was controlling his arms. It must be that damned Mushgaana, he thought. He pushed and pushed, but his arm, shaking uncontrollably, didn’t move an inch. He got more terrified with each passing second, which seemed to play on forever. Fear overflew his body and made him exhausted and ready to give up. What was the point of struggling when he couldn’t even move his own freaking arms?

Several Xortaags poured into the room and ran toward him. Half-paralyzed, he could do nothing to defend himself. All he could do was sit there impotently and wait for his fate. They’re going to capture me alive.

That last thought reminded him what was at stake. His daughter. His protégé. All of humanity. The whole galaxy. In that order.

He glared at the approaching enemy soldiers and yelled defiantly, “Over my dead body!”

And then he realized he could still move his ice-cold fingers.

Allen stopped struggling with his arm and made his mind blank. His tense body relaxed; only his eyes kept throbbing. He looked at Tanaka’s corpse before him and wondered if he shouldn’t have done that. Then he growled, “Screw it,” bent forward in a sudden movement, put his head in front of the gun barrel, and pulled the trigger. His brains sprayed the uniform of the nearest Xortaag soldier, who was already on top of him.

*****

Mushgaana’s rage pierced him to the core. He was aware of the heavy casualties they had suffered, and now he had lost the only lead he had.

“You incompetent losers!” he boomed telepathically.

All the Xortaag soldiers in the area dropped dead, blood pouring out of their nose and ears. A few moments later, the Deathbringers crashed to the ground too. The pilots’ brains had melted in their skulls.

“Shit!” murmured Mushgaana. “Maada is going to kill me when he finds out.”

Chapter Eleven

When I landed in Winterfell and got out of my cockpit, a big crowd consisting of the ground crew and everyone else around gave me a near-hysterical welcome. Word of our victory had spread, and after months of doom and gloom, people were ecstatic. Everyone was squealing, hollering, or whooping. I was greeted with fist bumps and high fives from every direction.

Liz, still in her flight suit, threw herself in my arms and shouted, “We did it! We did it! It was so cool!”

It really was. Even Keiko afforded a faint smile. “Bravo Zulu,” I told her.

She bowed politely. “Otsukaresama desu.”

I made an exaggerated bow. “Oklahoma desu to you too.”

Elizabeth hit my arm. “Aren’t you even slightly curious to know what that means?”

“I know what that means.” I winked at her. “She’s inviting us to sushi.”

“Typical American cultural insensitivity,” said Keiko; then she turned to Liz. “I honestly don’t know how you of all people put up with him.”

“You know I’m American, right?” Liz said with a tightness in her eyes. “And me of all people? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, you’re black, and he’s obviously a racist,” answered Keiko as if explaining a simple fact.

I threw my hands up in frustration. “For the last freaking time, I am not a racist!”

The three of us went to the operation room. Before entering, Keiko told me, “Can I have a word?”

Liz gave me a questioning look and left us.

Keiko stepped closer to me and looked up into my eyes. “You realize that the few seconds you wasted patting yourself in the back and quoting Gladiator nearly cost Elizabeth her life, right?”

My face burned up, but embarrassment quickly gave way to anger. “And where were you, Miss High-Horse?”

“Fighting two Deathbringers,” she answered. “And I’m not the commander of the fleet, you are. If she was killed, it would’ve been your fault. I respectfully suggest you take your head out of your stupid movies and focus on your responsibilities the next time, Sir.”

She turned and entered the Command Center, leaving me alone to fume for a few minutes. Then I followed her. I met Tarq and Barook, both beaming with almost childlike happiness. For the supposedly peace-loving people that they were, they’d enjoyed the carnage we’d inflicted on the Xortaags a bit too much. They updated me on everything that had been going on elsewhere.

Operation Free Earth was as comprehensive a victory as it gets. Everything had gone according to the plan Kurt had concocted with his typical German efficiency.

We’d managed to destroy the Xortaags’ second biggest fleet base, the under-construction city next to it, and most of their smaller military bases and settlements in one coordinated strike, eliminating nearly forty percent of their space fighters in the process. The whole of Winterfell was dizzy with euphoria, and our success finally counteracted the despair engendered by the fall of Earth.

“Any news from Kurt?” I asked Tarq.

“On his way back, with his team,” he answered.

“Have we suffered any casualties?” I asked.

Tarq brought up a screen on a nearby monitor and pointed at it. We’d lost nine pilots: A handful of Deathbringers that had survived the initial attack killed eight, and one was a blue-on-blue loss. A cold hand grabbed my heart and made it skip a few beats. I slumped down into the seat in front of the monitor, ran a shaking hand through my hair, and read the names. Five men and four women. I knew all of them, of course.

Liz held my hand. “I’m so sorry, Jim.”

I spent the rest of the evening obsessing over our plans, wondering if I could’ve done something differently to avoid those deaths. I tortured myself by watching the images of each death—recorded by the other fighters and the Akakie stealth ship in orbit—a thousand times, and by replaying them in my mind a thousand more, wishing I could go back in time and change what had happened. Liz kept trying to convince me it was in no way my fault, and Tarq repeatedly mentioned losing people was a part of being a leader, but it was the first time I’d lost pilots under my command, and I took it hard. The hurt wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried. Regardless of what Liz and Tarq said, it was my responsibility, and I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d let down those pilots.

Tarq called me right before midnight. “Don’t tell me you’re still kicking yourself over the people we lost.”

“Nope. All good here,” I lied. “What’s up?”

“You aren’t a good liar, even over the PDD,” said Tarq. “I need your help. Kurt has just arrived. I have some bad news, and I want you to come with me to inform him.”

My mouth suddenly went dry. “What’s happened?”

“Allen is dead.”

*****

We held a wake for Allen the next evening. Despite his sour personality, a lot of people showed up. I even spotted a few of the pilots whose asses he’d kicked in what now seemed like another lifetime in the crowd. We didn’t have a body, so we used an empty coffin with Allen’s photo on top. Kurt showed up wearing his favorite black trench coat and not the Commando uniform, and I could see the two Micro Uzis strapped to custom-made holsters under his arms. I think it was his way of emphasizing the two of them went way back and reminding everyone of their days in the Resistance.

Kurt said a few words. He told us how, after his father’s assassination, Allen had taken him under his wing. Back then, Kurt was a young, idealistic politician dreaming of a peaceful and united Earth, and his whole world had been shattered all around him. Allen had taught him everything he knew about guerrilla warfare—Kurt’s euphemism for terrorism—including how to use a sniper rifle or his favorite machine pistols. Mr. Hard-As-Nails, Devil-May-Care Super-Assassin was speaking like he had a frog in his throat, and I could swear I saw a tear or two in his eyes. At the end of his speech, he saluted the coffin and said, “Allen, thank you for everything. I owe you my life several times over. I am, and forever shall be, your friend.”

“That was a nice touch,” said Venom.

Hell, even I felt my throat tightening. Just a little bit.

After the wake, Lilly asked Kurt to let her join the Commandos. Kurt denied her request. “We have plenty of soldiers but few people with your skills.”

“Plus, if he puts you in danger, Allen’s ghost will follow him for the rest of his life,” I added.

Lilly squinted at me. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit much?”

“All the time,” said Cordelia.

“It’s a small consolation,” Kurt told Lilly, “but I wanted to let you know I plan to bring your father’s body back here for a proper burial. When we started the Resistance, we made a pact that if one of us fell the other one wouldn’t leave him in enemy hands.”

Lilly’s eyes glistened with tears. “I know. He told me once. He would’ve done the same for you.”

I put my arm around her shoulder. “I know I teased him all the time, but for all it’s worth, we all loved him.”

“Did we?” Venom sounded surprised.

“He was a great mentor and an even better friend.” Kurt stared into the distance. “I wish I hadn’t sent him to that mission.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” said Lilly with a shaking voice.

“Actually, I can,” said Kurt. “Allen is already the second person I loved whom I got killed. Fortunately, there’s no one left.”

“Hey!” I objected. “I’m standing right here!”

He smiled apologetically. “I meant there is no one left under my command. You’re the commander of the fleet. There’s nothing I can do that would harm you.”

“I bet you can still find a way to get me killed,” I said and immediately bit my tongue.

“Asshole,” said Venom.

Kurt and I got a few bottles of Allen’s favorite beer (Molson Canadian, what else?) and spent the night drinking and talking about old memories. The fact that Kurt agreed to drink Canadian beer instead of his own usual Paulaner told me how distraught he was. We mostly reminisced about happier times, when Kurt’s father was the President of United Earth and Allen was his head of security.

Kurt showed me an antique six-shooter. “Allen gave it to me for my last birthday. It was a present from my dad. He said I should have it.”

“Do you remember the time Allen tackled a man just because the poor fellow had ‘looked funny’ at the president?” I asked.

“You know, I never, ever heard him say ‘sorry’ in the famously cute Canadian way.” Kurt smiled sadly. “Or apologize for anything, for that matter.”

Yeah, including that time the two of you sent half a squadron of my people to the hospital.

“Did you know he collected stamps?” Kurt’s voice broke a little.

Surprised, I said, “Seriously? Who collects stamps in this day and age? I honestly don’t remember having seen one in my life.”

We both had a little laugh when we remembered how furious Allen was when Tarq made him quit smoking.

“I still can’t believe he’s gone.” Kurt raised his bottle. “To Allen. You’ll be missed.”

*****

Kurt called me the next morning. “Come to the Command Center. I have something here you should see.”

I came face to face with a freaking Xortaag when I entered the Command Center.

The alien was the Conan-the-Barbarian model. He was huge, at least five inches taller than I, with bulging muscles and very wide shoulders. He moved towards me with such speed that I didn’t have enough time to reach for the sidearm I carried after the attempted coup a few weeks ago. I didn’t even have time to get scared.

He took my hand, shook it up and down, and with a huge smile that reminded me of a crocodile said, “My name is Zaart. It is an honor to meet you!”

I stood on my toes and tried to look over his shoulders. Kurt and Tarq were there, both laughing.

“Who the hell is this?” I asked.

“I am Zaart,” the Xortaag answered helpfully.

“Let me guess,” I told Kurt, “MICI?”

“Yep,” said Kurt. “We’ve captured a few of these guys and threw them in MICI, and now they’re nice and friendly, spilling their beans. Come on in. I’m sure you have many questions to ask our new friend.”

Did I ever!

We started phase two of Operation Free Earth as soon as phase one finished. Kurt, Tarq, and I began going over the plans, and the Commandos commenced their deployment.

For three happy days, most people in Winterfell were in a celebratory mood, and with good reason. Whoever said “While seeking revenge, dig two graves, one for yourself” was dead wrong. Personally, I was with Shakespeare on this one. Even Liz confessed the biblical “Love your enemies” motto didn’t apply to an alien invasion.

In our first meeting after phase one of the operation, Tarq started by saying, “I am afraid I have bad news.”

He didn’t try to soften the blow or anything. Stupid alien.

“Faced with their obvious inexperience in ground battles, Maada has decided to use Earth’s military and security forces for protection,” continued Tarq. “The Xortaags have placed thousands of human soldiers around SH-1, supported by armored vehicles, helicopters, and fighter jets. Our trick of using their uniforms will not work anymore either. They are issuing identity cards for all Xortaags and setting up voice and fingerprint scanners everywhere. Even the fleet base is now crawling with human security forces.”

His words were like a bucket of ice cubes spilled over my head. With Tarq’s announcement, all our plans and preparations for phase two went right out the window. I even thought I could hear Maada laughing at us through the same window.

At that point, despite the heavy losses the Xortaags had suffered, they still had more than twenty thousand space fighters to our ten. Kurt—and Matias, who had come up with the idea—had planned a World-War-II-style blitzkrieg: They wanted to use heavy tank battalions to attack SH-1 and hit the enemy fleet on the ground, hoping to destroy enough Deathbringers that my pilots could deal with the rest. The Xortaags didn’t have any anti-armor weapons, so this could work, but not with human soldiers defending SF-1 now.

I rubbed my forehead. “Why couldn’t Maada just die during our attack?”

“If it is any consolation, he appears to be rather seriously injured, so you guys got very close,” said Barook.

Tarq continued, “The Xortaags also have used OMC-BOWS to ask people if anyone has any information about us or has witnessed anything suspicious, which is how they heard about the prison break and the few times you defeated Zheng’s people using Vipers.”

“I guess we got lucky they didn’t find out about this before Operation Free Earth,” I said.

“There was no real chance of that because there was basically no contact between the quote, unquote gods and the humans, other than using them as construction workers,” answered Tarq. “But with all humanity on the lookout for us, our jobs are going to get harder from this point on.”

“So what’re we going to do now?” asked Liz.

Her question was directed at Tarq, but Kurt answered it. “We still have three months before the Xortaag colonists arrive. For now, we’re going to keep observing the enemy and collecting information. Hopefully, we’ll come up with a plan in time.”

“And if not?” I asked, ever the optimist.

“We’ll have two options,” answered Kurt, playing with his goatee. “We could attack SH-1 with all our forces, or we could stay here and keep trying to hurt the Xortaags even after the colonists arrive. Both will probably end in our defeat.”

This was a sobering thought. We couldn’t possibly defeat the Xortaags in a full-frontal attack, and we had always known we’d be done when the colonists got here. We were screwed either way.

“There is a third option.” Tarq put his pipe on the desk, looked at us, and waited a few seconds to make sure he had our attention. “We could leave. Instead of dying pointlessly here, we could go to Kanoor and join our forces. Together we might have a chance. The Fireflies are capable of carrying all our fifty thousand people.”

I stared at him, astonished.

“And leave ten billion people to die?” said Liz, her voice turning sharper with each word.

“Nine billion three hundred million.” I corrected her. She hit me in the arm.

“We are not helping them by sacrificing ourselves,” pointed out Tarq.

I gave Tarq a disgusted look. “Dude, have you learned nothing yet? Do you remember the choppers attacking the Xortaag fleet?”

“Commander Tarq is right,” said Barook. “Our death here will solve nothing. We will have a fighting chance if you join our fleet in Kanoor.”

“You guys are lucky Allen isn’t here,” I said. “He would’ve shot you just for suggesting this idea.”

“Can you at least think about it?” asked Tarq.

Kurt scowled at him and said firmly, “We aren’t going anywhere, and that’s the end of it.”

Tarq looked like he wanted to argue, but I think he saw the determination in Kurt’s eyes and realized there was no way he could change our minds. The little alien shot me a desperate glance. If it came to a vote, it would be him against the three of us. Then he shrugged and didn’t push it.

“Good thing we got him to remove his puppetmaster program from our brains,” I whispered to Liz. I had no doubt Tarq would’ve forced us to leave Earth for the Xortaags if we hadn’t.

She nodded in agreement.

I walked out of the Command Center with Kurt. “You remember the conversation we had about respect?” I asked him. “I’m finally getting some around here.”

“Getting some! Ha ha!” said Cordelia.

“Didn’t you recently get married?” Kurt asked innocently.

I tried to mimic his signature pained look that he had whenever I made a stupid joke.

He patted my back. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”

I blinked. “What do you mean? Is it that obvious?”

“Yes. People under your command salute more firmly when they see you, and they seem to pay more attention when you talk. Things like that.”

“You are the greatest detective in the world!” I exclaimed. “More importantly, they follow my orders without hesitation now, even Liz.”

“You did save her life.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I said humbly. “I just hope she doesn’t relapse into her old ways any time soon.”

*****

San Diego - July 24, 2078

Arminaa opened her eyes and with a groan tried to sit up. She was in a hospital bed in a typical Xortaag military hospital room: small, purely functional, everything sparkling clean. There were a few pieces of medical equipment placed next to her bed.

She saw General Maada, all banged up, with bandages all over his head and face, dozing off on a chair next to her bed. His right hand was in a plaster cast.

Surprised, she unconsciously started to stand at attention, only to be overcome with blinding pain. She sunk back to bed with a moan.

Maada opened his eyes. Unlike Arminaa, he was not wearing a hospital gown but his uniform. He stood up and stepped closer to her bed. “How are you feeling?”

Still in pain but trying hard not to appear weak in front of the general, Arminaa answered, “Like I have got first-degree burns on ninety percent of my body.”

“Unfortunately, that’s an accurate description of your current status,” said Maada sadly. “Not to worry. You will be back to active duty in no time.”

“What happened?” asked Arminaa. “I remember we started shooting at the enemy craft, and nothing after that. And who was the enemy?”

“We were attacked by the humans. We do not know why the Voice of God had no effect on them or how they got such advanced space fighters, but we will soon find out. Of the soldiers on the control tower, only you and I survived, but we managed to shoot down, eh, a few of the attacking vessels. On that note, I have recommended you for a Crimson Deathbringer Medal, for showing extreme valor in the face of certain death. All the others with us will receive the same medal, unfortunately posthumously.”

Despite her pain, Arminaa beamed with pride. The Crimson Deathbringer, inspired by General Maada’s legendary craft, was the highest and most prestigious medal in the Xortaag fleet. “Thank you, General.”

Maada nodded. “You have earned it. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do. I will send a doctor to check on you.”

He was about to leave the room when Arminaa asked, “General, can I please ask you a question? Any news about my unit? Did they survive the attack?”

Maada stopped with a pained expression on his face, and for a second, he seemed lost for words. He walked back to the bed and gently held the young woman’s hand. “Arminaa, you know your unit was stationed in the barracks closest to the hangars. They reacted fast and with courage, and tried to fly their Deathbringers off the ground, but by the time they were ready to launch, it was too late, and the enemy was right on top of them. They all died in the battle. I am really sorry.”

Arminaa bit down a scream, but tears welled up in her eyes and then ran freely down her bandaged face. She was an orphan, and she had joined a military school at a very young age. Most members of her unit had graduated at the same time as she, and they had been together in the same unit ever since. They were the only family she had ever had. They had been in several campaigns together, just to die on the ground, on this freaking godforsaken planet.

She suspected the general knew all this, as he just stood there, holding her hands, saying nothing.

Hatred came on the heels of grief. Pure, burning hatred for humans. All humans, not only those who attacked them. They would all pay for taking her family away from her.

*****

SH-1 - July 30, 2078

Mushgaana was sitting in his new office in the Xortaags’ under-construction city, reading the depressing reports on the surprise attack against them. The scope of their failure was shocking. After decades of total dominance, they had lost a big part of their fleet on the ground, and to make things worse, they had no idea where the attackers had come from. All they knew for certain, based on the examination of the bodies left at his former residence, as well as his personal observation, was that the attackers were human. But they still had a thousand unanswered questions.

The enemy space fighters had distinct similarities to the Akakie ships they had encountered in the past. This was not conclusive, but the only idea he could come up with was they were somehow involved. He wished he had attacked Kanoor as he had originally planned, but it was too late now. They could not leave this stupid planet until the fleet that had attacked them was destroyed.

After that, they were going straight to Kanoor.

His own ship, which had landed on a nearby base, had also been destroyed. He could have asked for another one, but there was no way he would let his father know he had managed to lose his command ship. He decided not to report the attack and have one of the transport vessels retrofitted to function as a command ship as soon as they arrived.

Lucky for them, they had already transferred the Voice of God’s controls to their bigger city; otherwise, controlling nearly ten billion enraged humans would have been impossible. On the other hand, with his command ship destroyed, their only means of traveling in space was now the SDF in Kingdom of God. Fortunately, the device was well protected.

Maada walked into his office. He had a couple of new scars on his face, and his right arm was in a white plaster cast. Remarkably, he had walked out of this fiasco smelling like the proverbial rose. If anything, the story of him and a small group of Xortaags, carrying only sidearms, defying a thousand enemy ships and shooting down a few had added to his status as a living legend.

Maada went straight to the point as usual. “It has come to my attention that you have killed twenty of my pilots, whom I did not even know were here, I might add.”

Mushgaana thought, Shit! and said, “It was an accident.”

“How long have we been campaigning together, Your Highness?” asked Maada in a very level tone.

Mushgaana chuckled. “Since we were both very, very young.”

“And in all this time, have you ever seen me make a promise and not keep it?”

Mushgaana did not like the way this conversation was going. “Nope.”

Maada leaned over and looked in the crown prince’s eyes. “So believe me when I say this. If you hurt another one of my pilots ever again, I will come for you. And do not think your powers can save you from me. I will come with a squadron of Deathbringers. I would like to see you try to stop us from incinerating you and everything in your ten-mile radius from orbit with your voodoo.”

Mushgaana was used to Maada’s fits of anger; still, the pure, unadulterated rage in the general’s eyes made him flinch. He momentarily considered the idea of killing Maada on the spot, but he needed this man now more than ever; moreover, to his surprise, he was not offended. Maada was right. Mushgaana did feel guilty about slaughtering a few of his own men. Moreover, he was certain the general would never harm him. For one thing, he was too loyal to do that, and for another, Mushgaana knew Maada considered him his only friend in an otherwise lonely life.

He might shoot you in the leg though, if he thought that would save some of his pilots.

Mushgaana understood, better than the general did, that this was the main reason people under Maada’s command loved him to death: Despite his legendary bad temper, he cared for them in ways no other commander would. The fact that he had led them to one glorious victory after another, bringing them all fame and fortune, was secondary. The prince did not look into the minds of ordinary people often; he was not that interested. But he kept tabs on his general’s reputation, as he knew his brothers did. Maada’s popularity was one of his assets.

“Do we understand each other?” asked Maada, rubbing the scars on his face.

The crown prince smiled and saluted mockingly. “Perfectly, General.”

Maada saluted, turned on his heel, and left.

*****

Winterfell - August 1, 2078

Elizabeth, lying on her bed in her and Jim’s quarters, called Tarq. When the alien’s face appeared on her PDD’s screen, she said, “Hi, Tarq. I’ve got a question for you.”

“Something intriguing, I hope,” said Tarq. “I have had a boring day.”

“Our second anniversary’s coming up, and I want to do something special for Jim,” she said. “I figured with Akakie technology, you can think of things that I can’t even imagine.”

Tarq beamed.

“Eh, Liz?” said Cordelia. “Tarq might not be the best person to ask for romantic advice.”

He wasn’t. His first three suggestions were atrocious. Elizabeth was about to hang up when Tarq said, “Okay. How about this: You slip a sleeping pill into Jim’s drink. We take him to MICI and imprint a memory of the two of you having a huge fight and you leaving him in his mind. When he wakes up the next day and remembers this memory, you jump out of a hiding place and shout ‘happy anniversary!’ ”

“How do we make that memory?” asked Elizabeth.

“Piece of cake. You act out your part, and I will film it. I will feed it into MICI, and it will do the rest based on the script I will provide. On second thought, I have a better plan: We can give him a memory of you dying in his arms!”

“Jesus!” said Cordi. “Are you trying to kill the poor bastard?”

With a sparkle in her eyes, Elizabeth thanked him and disconnected the call.

Tarq’s suggestion itself was distasteful, but the possibilities it offered were limitless, and Liz knew what exactly to do. Jim would love her plan. She shared her idea with Cordi.

“Where are you going to find Star Trek uniforms?” asked Cordelia.

“I don’t think we actually need them,” said Liz. “MICI will take care of that.”

The anniversary was still a few weeks away, but she could barely contain her excitement. It wasn’t every day that you could find an ideal present for the man you loved. She called Kurt. “Got a minute? I need your help with something.”

Kurt answered, “It just so happens I need your help with something too.”

*****

I was looking at The Harem’s gate through my sniper rifle scope when Sergei growled, “Humanity’s gone down, but these assholes are still here.”

Two guards were standing outside the gate. Several men were entering and exiting the building. An unfortunate result of things continuing mostly as before the Xortaag invasion was the Russian mafia was still active, and with them, The Harem.

“Not for long,” I said.

We were accompanied by Oksana, Matias, and Kurt, filling in for Allen, who would’ve wanted to be here on account of his young daughter. This was Oksana’s plan, but my friends had to wait until after Operation Free Earth to avoid the off-chance the Xortaags got wind of a rescue operation involving a spaceship.

The plan was simple: Kill the goons and most of the clients, round the girls up in a ship, give them a load of cash, and let them go in LA, asking them to lay low. Oksana had floated the idea of bringing the girls back to Winterfell. This was immediately vetoed by Kurt, who said having some fifty traumatized women in Winterfell was out of the question.

Kurt had asked Liz to fly the ship, knowing full well she was always ready to dedicate her time and energy to a worthy cause. She’d told me about it, and there was no way I’d let them go without me. Despite growing up in New York, I was a Southern gentleman at heart, and protecting women was sort of our thing.

I had very little weapons training. I certainly didn’t know how to use an M-28 SWS. Kurt used MICI to give me a crash course in urban combat at both the operational and tactical levels, so here I was doing something I never thought I was capable of doing: killing a man with a sniper rifle.

A man! More like a rabid dog. Plus, all the bloodshed I’d witnessed recently had thickened my skin.

The two guards went down with bullets in their skulls without knowing what hit them. We moved in total silence. There were at least ten more security guards inside, but they were just thugs, good for controlling the girls, making sure the clients behaved, and discouraging the competition. They had the proverbial snowball’s chance against us, armed with tactical weapons and wearing body armor.

A few minutes later, Oksana, her eyes sparkling with glee, shot the man whom she said was in charge of The Harem; then she told me, “The sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell indeed!”

I frowned. “Is that from a movie?”

We kept moving, looking for more goons to shoot.

“You know, you should try reading literature sometimes,” said Oksana. “It’s good for your brain.”

“I read literature,” I said. “I’ll have you know just last night I finished a novel.”

“Let me guess.” Kurt turned his head to look at me. “Was it about spaceships, galactic wars, and sexy alien slaves?”

“No,” I said triumphantly. “It was about vampires and monsters, sort of Dracula meets Frankenstein, with sexy human slaves.”

Kurt shot another man. “You’re hopeless.”

“This is what I get for helping out with a good cause,” I said, pretending to be offended.

*****

SH-1 - August 5, 2078

As soon as the doctors opened Maada’s cast and told him he could use his right hand, he went to his office, sat behind his desk, and overwhelmed with grief, stared at the list of casualties on his PDD.

Such a long list.

More than twenty-five thousand men and women under his command had died in the enemy surprise attack. He had never lost so many of his people in a single battle. He had failed them all. By being so criminally unprepared, he had played a major role in their death, even more so than the enemy. He was determined to avenge them by finding and killing every single person responsible for their slaughter; still, he would carry this on his conscience until the day he died.

Writing so many letters to the families of the fallen soldiers would take a few days. Let this be the beginning of your punishment, he thought.

He was about to start writing when the door to his office opened, and Mushgaana came in. Maada rose to his feet, surprised. The prince had never come to his office before. If he needed something done, he would summon the general, or send him a telepathic message.

“I had asked the doctors to inform me when they open your cast.” Mushgaana looked around the office. “I thought you could use some help writing all those condolence letters.”

Maada bowed his head in respect, an inch or two more than usual. The only thing more honorable than receiving a handwritten letter from the commander of the fleet was receiving one from the crown prince himself. His office was as Spartan as it got, but he had three extra chairs for the occasional visitors. He grabbed a chair and placed it next to his. Mushgaana sat down, and the two of them, shoulder to shoulder, started writing.

*****

Winterfell - August 10, 2078

Elizabeth said, “Popcorn’s ready.”

“Where the hell did you get popcorn from?” asked Oksana.

They were in Elizabeth and Jim’s quarters. Elizabeth, who had just found out neither Oksana nor Keiko had watched the movie made about Jim’s life, had invited them over to watch it together. She turned on the holographic TV and told the others, “I asked Barook to change the movie’s format so we could watch it on this.”

When the movie started, Keiko rolled her eyes. “Superman in a Cockpit? Could it be any lamer?”

“The lead actor doesn’t look like Jim,” said Oksana. “And he doesn’t sound like Jim either. What kind of an accent is that?”

“Southern,” Elizabeth answered. “Jim was born in Atlanta. He can switch between his Southern and New York accent at will, but he doesn’t normally talk like a Southerner.”

“So the reason behind this whole you-are-a-racist gag you guys were laughing about the other day is he was born in the South?” Oksana asked.

Elizabeth laughed. “Nope. That’s one of Tarq’s masterpieces. Apparently, when MICI reads your mind, it can also see what your pet peeves are. Once Tarq found out Jim is overly sensitive to being called a racist, he started teasing him non-stop, and the rest of us just went with it.”

Oksana smiled. “You guys are evil.” She asked Elizabeth, “What is your pet peeve? Being called fat? I’ve noticed you barely touch your food when you eat in the mess hall.”

“And yours isn’t? I’ve noticed you spend half of your time in the gym.”

They drank wine, ate popcorn, and watched the movie. Keiko complained incessantly throughout. She said the whole thing was unrealistic, there were many factual errors, and, “They made it look like I shot him down by accident. I managed it because I’m a better fighter pilot than he is.”

“Make sure you never repeat this in front of him.” Elizabeth smiled. “Because he’ll kill you, and it’d be such a shame now that he’s finally warmed up to you.”

*****

Rotterdam - August 13, 2078

Arminaa, leading a group of about twenty armed, stone-faced Xortaags, walked into a shopping mall. It was early evening, and the mall was full of people, mostly families with small children. Arminaa looked at a young couple and wondered why they were sucking each other’s faces. These freaking humans were so strange.

The word that the gods were visiting spread. They were soon surrounded by a big crowd, men, women, and children, bowing down and praying hysterically. A few humans knelt down in front of the Xortaags and started chanting. An old woman tried to touch Arminaa. She flinched and pushed her back.

“Disgusting, filthy animals,” Arminaa murmured.

“Disgusting, filthy dead animals,” one of her companions answered.

They made their way to the center of the mall, where two soldiers put down a machine they were carrying and turned it on.

It was a portable force field generator. Arminaa had always thought it was a useless device. It used an enormous amount of energy and could operate for only around twenty minutes, covering a small area. But it did one thing perfectly: It could block the Voice of God.

Killing the animals that worshiped them would not be much fun. Killing them while they were scared shitless, on the other hand, was a different story.

The praying stopped. The humans stared at them with confusion and terror on their stupid faces, probably remembering everything that had happened before the Voice of God became active. Their joyful expressions turned into masks of horror.

“Spare the children. We are not monsters,” Arminaa told the others. She pulled her sidearm and shot a young woman standing in front of her, looking at her with wild eyes.

All the Xortaags started shooting. In an instant, the deafening screams of humans filled the mall. They tried to run away. With the force field surrounding them, there was nowhere to go. A lot of them were trampled in the crowd. The Xortaags took their time, walked around, and killed them one by one. A few of the Xortaags, not satisfied with the carnage, holstered their weapons, drew knives, and started stabbing people. Red blood spattered everywhere, its stench mixed with the smell of burned flesh.

Arminaa shot a woman who was trying to shield her two little children and begging her to stop. For a fleeting moment, she was ashamed. The general, being the honorable warrior that he was, would not have approved of this. However, the humans had it coming since their cowardly attack that killed off her entire unit. Remembering her dead comrades only fueled her desire for revenge. She kept on shooting people indiscriminately, left, right and center.

*****

SH-1 - August 16, 2078

Mushgaana, sitting at his desk in his office, read the report he had just received about the unauthorized massacre of humans at a shopping mall.

This was a major breach of discipline, but it gave the crown prince an idea. Why did I not think about this before? he asked himself.

He contacted the team in charge of running the Voice of God, “Find me a human who knows how to broadcast a video message.”

*****

Hungover and with a stabbing headache, I woke up when both my PDD and Liz’s started beeping at the same time. Liz had thrown a wild party last night, and we might’ve drunk just a tad too much.

“Bloody hell! What time is it?” my wife groaned next to me.

I looked at my PDD. “Six-thirty. Tarq’s asking us to come to the Command Center for an urgent meeting.”

“Six-thirty AM or PM?” asked Liz.

Definitely too many drinks.

We showed up a bit late to the Command Center, with unkempt hair and bloodshot eyes. Tarq gave us a disapproving look but said nothing. Good decision, too. Liz might’ve skinned him alive given the mood she was in. Kurt, Keiko, and Barook were there too, but Sergei was nowhere to be seen. I figured he was still too drunk to get out of bed.

“So what’s the emergency?” said Kurt, who was also at the party but somehow had managed to show up well-groomed and well-dressed, reeking of expensive perfume.

Tarq turned on one of the virtual reality screens in the room. “This is being broadcast in a loop on all TV channels. The video is all over the Internet too.”

Mushgaana appeared on the screen, looking straight into the camera. He spoke in the Xortaag language. “This is a message for the humans who attacked us a few days ago. I have got two things to tell you. One, starting today, I will kill a thousand people for every Xortaag you kill. Let me show you how.”

The screen showed an aerial view of a city. I recognized it as downtown Houston. Liz and I once went there to attend a friend’s wedding and came back with lots of photos and good memories. It looked like it was early evening. Thousands of people and cars moved around the city.

My mouth went dry, and my heart started beating faster. Liz grabbed my arm so hard that her nails cut into my skin.

Mushgaana’s image appeared on the corner of the screen. “I do not know the name of this city, and I do not really care. What I do care about is the fact that we estimate this city has two and a half million residents. And now, lo and behold.”

He touched the screen of a PDD he was holding in his hand, and everyone we could see in the streets (men, women, and children, walking, playing, or eating in sidewalk cafés) collapsed to the ground at the same time. All the vehicles went off the road or ran into each other. A city bus ran straight into a tanker and exploded into a huge fireball of superheated gas and molten metal. A few passenger planes fell out of the sky and caused massive explosions. One hit a skyscraper, engulfing a huge section of the building in a raging fire. No one tried to escape the fire—all the people inside were already dead.

Just like that, my hangover, as well as the euphoria I’d been feeling since Operation Free Earth, evaporated, substituted with a sense of dread that locked my teeth tight together.

Mushgaana looked at the camera again. “And second, we are coming for you. And when we find you, we will kill you; we will kill your wives; we will kill your parents and your parents’ friends. We will burn down the houses you live in, and the stores you work in. Mark my words and mark them well. You are all dead. You just do not know it yet.”

I half expected him to do a trademark Dr. Evil laugh when he was done. This guy had watched way too many movies.

“Creativity is dead,” said Venom.

So is Mushgaana, I told him. He’s a dead man walking. I’ll kill him before this is all over.

The screen went black.

We had a very long meeting after that. I didn’t say much. I was numb, and not only because of last night’s drinking and Mushgaana’s stunt. There is only so much a human mind could take. I was just beginning to get over the Xortaags’ last massacre. That said, I suspected seeing that bloodbath had slightly desensitized us because we kept functioning in a more or less normal way, with no one losing their head, rolling on the ground, and trying to scratch their own eyes out after witnessing what’d just happened. Although Keiko, who was always the very picture of stoicism, looked like she did want to scratch her Akakie-made new eye out and throw it at Tarq’s face.

As for the rest of us, I started wondering if Tarq had sedated us when we were sleeping again. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to gas us in our quarters.

Liz looked ghostly pale, gripping the arm of her chair, but at least she didn’t faint this time.

None of us had realized Mushgaana had his finger on the trigger of the ultimate doomsday machine. Even if we defeated their fleet, he could end humanity with their damned MFM, and nobody had a clue how to stop him.

I was feeling sick to my stomach, but that didn’t prevent me from trying to make light of the situation. “Look at the bright side: If he does that, it’ll be up to us to repopulate the planet, and we can shape humanity in any way we desire.”

Nobody paid me any attention. Again.

“If he carries the MFM’s controls with him all the time,” suggested Kurt, “maybe we can incapacitate him and stop him from activating the machine.”

Tarq and Barook looked at him in surprise, and it took a few seconds for them to understand what he meant. “You mean that PDD?” said Tarq. “That definitely was not OMC-BOWS’s control. It is a satellite system, and it must be controlled from a smaller, less high-tech version of this room. He probably used that PDD just to send a message to the people controlling the system. Plus, on the subject of killing Mushgaana, we have another bad piece of news.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s pouring already?”

“I do not get that reference, but I often do not understand what Jim is talking about,” said Tarq. “We have a Xortaag spy working for us now. Her name is Xornaa, and she has just arrived at Kanoor and is being debriefed as we speak. According to her, the Xortaag royal family possesses very strong telepathic powers. Apparently, Mushgaana can read people’s minds from a distance, which means we cannot even get close to him.”

All color disappeared from Kurt’s face. “This means we sent Allen and his team to their deaths.”

Tarq shook his head. “If it is any consolation, we also sent many of our own spies to death. Every agent I sent to Tangaar just disappeared, and we never knew why.”

“How did this Xortaag spy survive then?” Kurt asked.

“She has her own telepathic abilities,” answered Tarq. “No one can read her mind.”

“Do we know where the MFM control center is?” I asked. “Maybe if we destroy it, Mushgaana can’t use it to kill every single human being on Earth.”

“It would work.” Barook looked thoughtful. “Based on bits and pieces of information we gathered through our bugs, we know it is somewhere inside SH-1, but we have no idea exactly where.”

Tarq stopped biting his fingernails to add, “We must make finding it a priority, but to be honest, unless we get lucky and our bugs pick something up, I do not see how we can do it. Our spy ship has flown over SH-1 several times, but there is no indication of its location or even existence.”

Kurt tugged at his goatee. “What about our Xortaag prisoners?”

“They would have already told us if they knew, trust me,” replied Tarq.

So, to recap, as if it weren’t bad enough that Mushgaana had just murdered two-and-a-half-million people right in front of our eyes, ensuring I’d have nightmares for weeks, we’d just realized he had the power to go freaking biblical on humanity and kill them off at a whim. Not a pleasant thought. Not a pleasant thought at all. I felt much better when I thought he was just a mini-Thanos. I wondered how things could get any worse.

“You should never, never ask that question,” said Venom.

*****

I was surprised when I found out someone outside of Winterfell didn’t like what’d happened in Houston. It was, funnily enough, General Maada.

A few days after the attack, Tarq sent a recording of a heated argument between Maada and Mushgaana about the issue. He sent a voice message along with the recording, saying, “The first voice is Maada; the second is Mushgaana.”

He didn’t need to tell us; by now we knew both their voices. Just two days ago I’d listened to a recording of Maada marching into the crown prince’s office and threatening to kill him if he hurt any more of his men. I was beginning to grudgingly respect that man. And it wasn’t like we were going to forget Mushgaana’s message to us anytime soon.

Liz and I listened to it together. Maada argued that the senseless killing of defenseless civilians had no strategic value and made them look weak. Mushgaana pointed out they had killed a lot more people already and all “these useless, brainless animals” would be dead in a few decades anyway.

The crown prince was all heart.

“Those are both strategic decisions,” growled Maada. “We cannot afford to allow several hundred million of a planet’s inhabitants to roam freely, and when the colonization process is complete, we cannot have them competing with us for the planet’s natural resources. This? This is different. There is no honor in this.” Then he added, “With all due respect, Your Highness, sometimes I think you just enjoy killing people.”

“And you do not?” scoffed Mushgaana.

I could feel Maada’s anger. With a shivering voice, he said, “I am a fleet general, and I serve the kingdom. I kill people because it is necessary for the future of the kingdom and our people. But no, I do not take any personal pleasure in it.”

A genocidal, world-conquering manic with a conscience. Now I’d seen everything.

*****

Ten days after the Houston massacre, Tarq called us to another urgent meeting. We showed up at the Command Center with “now what!” written all over our collective faces.

“We have recorded a conversation between Mushgaana and Maada,” said Tarq with a dark expression, “and you all need to listen to it.”

Using his PDD, he played the recording.

Mushgaana: General, come in and sit down. Let me guess. Coffee?

He said coffee in English. They probably didn’t have a word for it.

Maada: Yes, Your Highness. Thank you.

“Maada drinks coffee?” I whispered.

Liz shushed me.

Mushgaana: I have wonderful news. As you know, our R & D department has been trying to develop a planet buster for years.

Maada: And they have always failed.

Something stirred in the back of my mind. There was something vaguely familiar about this conversation. A single word began to form in my brain, but Mushgaana’s next sentence took my breath away and my attention with it.

Mushgaana: Until now. They have developed a prototype, and they have decided to use it on Earth.

We all paled and looked at each other in horror. This was completely unexpected, and it threw a big monkey wrench into our plans.

“You were wondering how things could get any worse?” asked Venom. “Now you know. I hope you’re happy.”

Maada: But we have spent so much time and energy building Kingdom of God here.

Mushgaana: Which is of no use to us. We do not know where the first attack originated, and we are vulnerable to another one. This planet is of no use to us like this, but we do have the opportunity to destroy the enemy with no risk to our forces.

Maada: So what is the plan?

Mushgaana: A convoy is scheduled to arrive in exactly sixty-four Earth hours. They will bring us the planet buster. It does not work from space. We will deploy it right here; then we will evacuate this place and watch it burn from orbit.

Maada: If they are already so close to Earth, they must have left Tangaar even before we conquered Earth.

Mushgaana: Yes. My dear father had kept it a secret even from me. At first, he was planning for us to use the planet buster on our next target, but the recent events changed his mind.

Maada: Should I send my fighters to escort the convoy?

Mushgaana: There is no need. They have a thousand Deathbringers escorting them, and any actions from your side might attract the enemy’s attention. We are keeping this under wraps. They will not know what hit them.

Oh, the irony!

Maada: And where are we going to go, once Earth is destroyed?

Mushgaana: I have decided to follow our original plan and attack Kanoor. I am certain they were behind the attack on City of God. How else could humans achieve such advanced technology?

Tarq, biting his fingernails, stopped the recording. Liz was the first to speak. “We have to stop them.”

I almost said “Duh!” but bit my tongue. Who said I couldn’t be diplomatic?

“Obviously. But we need to come up with a plan,” said Tarq.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” said Keiko. “What about Mushgaana’s threat to kill a thousand people for every Xortaag we kill?”

Tarq shrugged. “We do not have a choice here. I do not want to sound heartless, but even if he kills another couple of million humans, it is better than letting him destroy the whole planet and kill everyone.”

I wanted to pull a Captain America and say, “We don’t trade lives,” but to be honest that argument was totally stupid.

Sorry, Cap.

Chapter Twelve

Iwas flying in space.

As a sci-fi fan, I’d read many books and watched lots of movies about being in space. Hell, I had hundreds of hours of MICI-induced memories of flying a Viper in space. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the sense of overwhelming awe when I looked at Earth from six thousand miles away. One could argue we were still in Earth’s exosphere and technically not in space, but I couldn’t care less. The view took my breath away in a most sensational way. I was transfixed, wonder uplifting me until I was as light as air.

I listened intently, trying to hear if anyone screamed.

“It’s peaceful up here,” said Venom.

Liz said in my headset, “This is breathtaking.”

I shared her sentiment.

When I looked at the blue planet glowing down there, the first thing I thought was “home.” Getting involved in intergalactic politics, as in forming an alliance with an alien race to fight another one, had made me fully realize that despite all our considerable differences, conflicts, and wars, we were all the same species.

Our plan was simple. We knew when the convoy was scheduled to arrive. Mushgaana had mentioned “exactly sixty-four hours.” We assumed he meant local time, which meant August 31, 0500 EST. We were waiting for them at that time. Tarq and Barook would track the enemy ships as soon as they arrived, and they’d send us to welcome them using the SFD. There were three thousand of us against a thousand of them, so we’d destroy them and their planet buster and disappear before help could arrive.

As I said, simple.

“Heads up,” said Tarq. “The convoy has just arrived.”

My heart started beating faster, just a little bit.

“In a few minutes, we will send you to the new coordinates,” he added. “Stand by.”

I knew it took a few minutes for Barook to make the necessary calculation and lock on us with the SFD. “Okay, boys and girls, you heard the boss,” I said. “Put your game face on. The fate of the planet depends on us. But while we stand together, no invader shall pass. Let them come with the armies of Hell; they will not pass! And when this day of battle is ended, we meet again in Heaven or on the field of victory!”

I had practiced my speech several times, and I was proud of it until Liz, much to my chagrin, dissolved into laughter and ruined it for me.

“We are sending you in three, two, one,” said Tarq.

I half expected to fade little by little and appear again in another location, but I didn’t feel a thing. One second, we were alone in space, and the next a thousand enemy ships appeared in my targeting scope. The position of Earth had changed a bit, but you had to look for it to notice.

The enemy saw us and tried to change course and speed away. It was a futile gesture. They had to protect the cargo ship, which was much slower than our fighters.

“I see dead people,” I told Liz.

I was certain she was rolling her eyes in her cockpit.

I smiled under my helmet. I lived for moments like this: right before a dogfight, when we were about to kick ass, accompanied by the woman I loved and many others I considered dear friends. And if this victory proved to be as easy as the last (and hopefully with no casualties this time), then so much the better.

Suddenly Keiko contacted me, her voice strained. “Jim, check BT-451.”

Curious, I checked the coordinates she’d mentioned, and to my surprise found a single space fighter hovering there. I zoomed in and found myself staring at a crimson Deathbringer.

The Crimson Deathbringer.

Maada’s space fighter.

With a jolt, I remembered what I was thinking about when listening to the conversation between Maada and Mushgaana, and why that conversation sounded familiar.

The word that had appeared and disappeared on the back of my mind was exposition.

Their conversation was like a poorly written dialogue in a movie, when two characters kept talking about some information they both should’ve known already for the benefit of the audience. Hell, Mushy even started his line with “As you know …”

My heart started trying to leap out of my chest. “Tarq! Get us out of here!” I yelled in my mike.

In an instant, we found ourselves surrounded by some ten thousand Deathbringers, materializing all around us.

*****

Earth’s Exosphere - 05.15 EST

Maada looked at the enemy fleet, surrounded by his own much bigger force, and smirked confidently. He had been waiting at that spot for the enemy fighter pilots to fall into his trap, and they had not disappointed him. Everything had gone according to plan.

Payback time.

Three days ago, he was working in his office when the crown prince’s “voice” spoke in his head. “We need to talk.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but Mushgaana said, “No, don’t talk. Just think about what you want to say. I can hear you loud and clear.”

Maada thought, How can I help you, Your Highness?

“I was thinking about the attack,” said Mushgaana, “and it occurred to me the enemy knew a lot about us. The only way they could pull that off with such precision was if they had detailed information on our operations around the world.”

The same thought had occurred to Maada, but he could not figure out how the enemy had obtained this information.

Mushgaana continued, “Then I remembered when I first moved into my residence, I felt an independent human mind, not under the influence of the Voice of God. Also, in a movie I watched a few weeks ago, humans used something called a ‘bug’ to secretly obtain information about their enemy.”

“A what?!” Maada said out loud and bit his tongue.

“A small listening device that transmits data to the enemy,” said Mushgaana. “I put two and two together and figured this is probably how the humans knew so much about us. Needless to say, I had no idea how to look for these bugs, but we found a human security expert here, and he came to my office with something called a bug detector.”

Maada sat up straight. Did he find one?

“No,” answered Mushgaana. “He found many. They are everywhere. I bet there are some in your office right now. Tiny little things. I could never have imagined something like this if I had not seen it in that movie.”

Maada struggled to keep his rising anger under control. How the hell did the enemy manage to do this?

“You remember they wore our uniforms, spoke our language, and just waltzed into our bases, right?”

Come to think of it, I vaguely remember we developed a similar tech a long time ago, thought Maada.

“We did, but it is an obsolete technology, for before the Voice of God era. I had completely forgotten about it.”

We can use this to our advantage.

Maada’s plan had worked to perfection. These Earthers were so predictable. He savored the moment for a second; then he opened a channel to the enemy fleet.

*****

My mind had already gone into overdrive, trying to find a way to escape this Charlie Foxtrot, when I heard Maada’s voice in my headphones, speaking English. “I am General Maada, Commander of the Royal Fleet. You must have realized you have been ambushed. If you surrender now, you have my personal assurance you will be treated well, but if you resist, we will kill all of you.”

I gritted my teeth. The bastard knew we’d not surrender. This was only a mind game.

Tarq’s voice sounded in my ear. “Jim, we need a few minutes to lock on the fleet and get everyone out. Try to stall.”

Maada was still talking, which I realized was a good thing. If I could get him to talk more, we still had a chance to get out of this with our lives.

In the movies, the bad guys always paused on the verge of victory to gloat, explaining their super complicated plans, and giving the heroes the chance to turn the tables on them. All I needed was to keep Maada talking for a few more minutes. How difficult would that be? I sent a message to the fleet. “Everyone, stand by and wait for my orders,” and then I contacted Maada. “General Maada, my name’s Colonel Jim Harrison. What guarantee do I have that if we surrender you won’t kill us all?”

With anger in his voice, Maada replied like a pompous jackass, “I am General Maada, Colonel. Everyone in the universe knows I keep my word.”

You got under his skin, I thought. Good. Keep him talking. This is already going much better than I imagined.

*****

Earth’s Exosphere - 05.17 EST

Elizabeth listened to the exchange between Jim and Maada and thought, Is he really going to surrender?

It wasn’t possible. Jim wasn’t a coward. The exact opposite. During the war, five Japanese fighters surprised him and killed his wingman. Jim followed them over enemy territory and didn’t stop until he shot down all five, even though he knew he didn’t have enough fuel to get back to his carrier. He ended up parachuting over the Pacific into the shark-infested waters. He was lucky that an American destroyer found him soon after.

On the other hand, if he thought he’d save her life by surrendering …

Elizabeth was going to contact Jim and ask what was going on when she noticed something: Maada’s Deathbringer was hovering in space, right on the edge of her effective weapon range.

The general might’ve been the best fighter pilot in the universe, but his ship still had to obey the laws of physics. It’d take him a few precious seconds to get moving from an inert position. This was too good an opportunity to miss.

Of course, if she killed Maada right in front of his pilots, she’d paint a huge target sign on the back of her Viper. She was okay with it as long as it meant saving Jim and the others.

Her acrobatic pilot brain calculated the distance and angle of attack. She didn’t even need to use her onboard computer for that. Her breathing quickened, and her cheeks flushed. She wrapped her fingers around the stick.

*****

I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of “Oh my God! How did you pull this genius plan off?” hoping to get him to monologue when a Viper separated from the rest of us and with fire pouring from all three of her laser cannons went straight for Maada’s fighter.

“I give you three guesses who that is,” said Venom even before my eyes registered the Viper’s light blue color.

My heart jumped into my mouth, which was still open.

Freaking relapses!

Liz very nearly got the general. Maada banked right and dove “down.” Liz’s laser bolts missed the Crimson Deathbringer by mere inches.

Several of our pilots, in all likelihood guided more by instinct than conscious thought, followed her, and a swarm of enemy ships moved in to intercept.

My throat tightened with a mixture of fear and excitement. I thought, Oh crap! and shouted in my mike, “Fight’s on! Fight’s on!”

All hell broke loose.

Dante didn’t know shit!

*****

Winterfell - 05.20 EST

In the Command Center, Kurt was looking at the images transmitted by the Akakie stealth spy ship monitoring the battle. Jim and his fighter pilots had no chance of winning this one. Tarq was standing next to him, and with Kurt pulling his goatee and Tarq biting his nails, they made a funny couple.

“How on earth did they know about our attack?” asked Tarq.

“They must’ve found our bugs,” said Kurt, and mentally kicked himself for falling for such an obvious trap.

“How did they know where to look for the bugs to begin with?” said Tarq, eyes bulging. “This is impossible. The Xortaags do not have a frame of reference for this sort of thing.”

“It’s a moot point now.” Kurt's voice was cool. “Can we send the rest of our space fighters for help?”

Tarq pulled up another live feed, showing the rest of the Xortaag fleet getting off the ground. “It is too late. By the time we send more ships, the battle will be over. They would walk into the same death trap.”

“Don’t we have eyes on them?” asked Kurt. “How did the other ten thousand ships manage to leave their base without us noticing?”

Tarq threw his hands up in despair. “I have no idea. It turns out Maada has a few tricks up his sleeve.”

Kurt watched the dogfight for a few more minutes. The fatalities were rising quickly. Nearly a third of the Vipers were already destroyed. The pilots were fighting with courage and determination, but at this rate, the battle would be over very soon.

“Can’t we pull them out using the SFD?” asked Kurt.

Tarq shook his head. “No. The ships are fighting too close to each other. If we transport our fleet, many enemy vessels will come with them, and the rest will follow.”

Kurt thought about this for a second. “Can’t we pull them out one by one?”

Barook, who was listening to this conversation, cursed under his breath and ran towards the SFD control panel.

“It will not be much help though,” Tarq told Kurt. “We will need a few minutes to make the necessary calculations, and after that, it will take around ten minutes to lock on each individual ship. We will be able to save just a few.”

“Can I help with calculations?” asked Cordelia.

“No!” Tarq and Barook shouted together.

Kurt approached Barook who was working feverishly at his station. “Start with the senior officers.”

“On it,” answered Barook through clenched teeth.

*****

Our fleet met the Xortaags’, and thirteen thousand space fighters started to maneuver, chase one another’s tails, and shoot at the other group with missiles and laser bolts, creating the biggest furball in history. The black void of space in front of me turned into a chaotic cloud, filled with thousands upon thousands of Vipers and Deathbringers locked in fierce dogfights, every pilot hellbent on killing the enemy before they got the chance to kill them. Streams of energy bolts poured from both sides, and several space fighters vanished in bursts of sparks and metal.

Now that’s what I call a target-rich environment.

“Can you take things seriously for once in your life? We’re all about to die!” said Venom. He sounded really pissed.

There were so many enemy fighters around us that it was difficult to pick a target. I chose one and went after it, and then another one after the first Deathbringer blew up under my cannon fire. The enemy vessels were flying so close to me that I didn’t even need to look at my tactical display. The second  Deathbringer was torn apart into a fiery blaze with a Sparrow up its ass. I wasted another Sparrow on a space fighter that reacted incredibly fast, and dodged it, but it ran straight into Keiko’s laser fire not a second later, so it wasn’t a total loss. And then I lit up my third prey with my laser cannons.

“On the bright side,” said Venom, “if you die today, you’ll die an ace. Congratulations.”

For me, shooting down enemy vessels had always been one of the greatest pleasures life had to offer, but it brought me little joy now. Our situation was hopeless. The enemy outnumbered us three to one. Our ace fighters—Keiko, Liz, Josef, and maybe another twenty people—could hold their own against three Deathbringers, but the rest of our people had no such hope. We were losing space fighters faster than I could keep track of them. Despite trying to focus on the battle, every time a red dot representing a Viper disappeared from my tactical display, it was like someone stabbed me in the heart with a blunt knife. Still, I refused to believe this was the end. Engaged in a savage dogfight with an annoyingly persistent Deathbringer, I searched for a way to un-frak this mess with half of my brain, and all of a sudden I realized Liz had had it right: I had to cut off the head of the snake.

Maada was a legend among his pilots. Who knew how they’d react if I killed him right in front of their eyes? Maybe they lost heart and ran away. It was a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. I’d always been the straw-clutching type.

I depressed the pickle button and fired my remaining two Sparrows at the enemy. The missiles screamed away. While the pilot was busy avoiding them, I drew a bead, pulled the trigger, and unleashed a torrent of laser bolts. The Deathbringer blew up brightly under my fire. Then I scanned the battlefield, looking for Maada.

I found him entangled with two of my pilots, twisting and spinning up and down, right and left. He vaporized one of my people right in front of my eyes. I didn’t know who the pilot was, but a painful tightness grabbed my throat anyway.

This guy’s supposed to be the biggest, baddest dude on the block. I wish I could see his face when I blow him out of the sky.

I said, “Your soul is mine,” as I slammed on the throttle and dove in, energy bolts flashing from my cannons, aiming to end Maada’s career right there and then.

For a brief second, I thought I’d caught him by surprise, but Maada swerved wildly to his left, avoided all my laser bolts, and …

. . . and disappeared from my view!

Eyes wide with extremely unpleasant surprise, I looked around wildly, trying to find out where he’d gone, and the next thing I knew, he was on my six, shooting at me from behind.

I racked my mind and tried to figure out how he’d pulled off his maneuver but drew a complete blank. What he’d done was just not possible. It was as if he’d somehow teleported his space fighter.

“I don’t think the how really matters,” offered Venom. “What does matter is he’s about to kill you.”

And as if things weren’t bad enough already, I completely froze all of a sudden, rooted to my seat, unable to move a muscle.

All those years ago in another life, when I engaged Keiko’s Mitsubishi F-110 during the war, I felt for once in my life I was dealing with a better pilot than I, and I was paralyzed by a panic attack. It was just like that, only ten times worse.

Maada kept shooting at me. Laser bolts passed dangerously close to my ship. His next salvo hit my right wing. My Viper rocked, and an alarm started wailing inside the cockpit as fire and sparks belched from the wing.

My heart was thumping so hard that I could hear my heartbeats echo inside my skull. My hands were trembling, slowly at first, but quickly gaining intensity, and my vision become so blurry I could barely see the controls of my space fighter. I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself and found it impossible. I was unable to move. I couldn’t even start jinking.

Red energy bolts were all over my cockpit, streaming by so closely that they cast crimson lights on me and my instruments. A few grazed my Viper, sending small pieces of fuselage flying away as thick black smoke started emanating from my doomed space fighter.

I was dead.

Or I would’ve been if Keiko’s Viper hadn’t shown up at that moment. She appeared right on top of the Crimson Deathbringer, plunged down her space fighter , and let loose with her cannons. A barrage of laser bolts rained down on the enemy vessel.

In response, Maada stopped my pursuit, banked hard right to avoid Keiko’s incoming fire, and put his fighter in a sharp turn to meet the green Viper. The two space fighters started twisting, turning, and shooting at each other.

My vessel kept going straight away.

“Jim, turn around,” I told myself.

Nothing happened.

I shouted like a madman, “Snap out of it! Turn around! What the frak!”

“No!” said Venom. “Run away if you want to live. You can’t fight that guy. Did you see what he just did?”

Shut the hell up!

I might’ve started slapping myself in the face when all of a sudden my view changed and I found myself alone in space with no enemy fighters to be seen anywhere around me.

I heard Tarq’s voice in my helmet. “Jim, we have just pulled you out using the SFD. We are going to try to save as many as we can, starting with senior officers.”

I was shocked by my very close brush with death and my subsequent unexpected rescue, so it took me a few seconds to figure this out: Starting with senior officers meant only one thing.

“Get Liz out!” I yelled, feeling the cockpit closing on me like a coffin.

“We cannot right now,” answered Tarq after a few seconds. “We are in the middle of locking on Keiko’s ship. It will take only a few more minutes. We will go after Elizabeth next.”

I wanted to ask him to send me back, but it’d be of no use, and it would waste the time we needed to save other people. So I stayed there and waited in agony for the chips to fall. An image of Liz’s Viper exploding under Maada’s fire appeared in my mind. It was so terrifying that even Venom didn’t comment on it. I closed my eyes and tried to push the image away. I told myself everything would be fine. In a few minutes, Tarq would save Liz, and she’d be here with me, safe and sound, out of Maada’s deadly reach.

I even believed that for a second.

*****

Earth’s Exosphere - 05.41 EST

Maada recognized the dark green vessel he had encountered a few weeks ago during the surprise attack on their fleet base. He rubbed the most recent scar on his face and smiled. This pilot was going to rue the day he humiliated Maada by not killing him.

The enemy pilot was very skillful. Countering Maada’s maneuvers and shooting incessantly, they even managed to score a few hits. The general could not remember the last time something like this had happened.

Finally, a worthy opponent.

The green fighter tried to maneuver to the rear of Maada’s Deathbringer. He responded by rolling right and swinging in on the enemy’s six, letting loose a stream of energy bolts. The enemy vessel dove to get out of his line of fire. Maada pitched his Deathbringer’s nose down and gave chase, zeroing in on his opponent’s space fighter. Trying to get a lock, he muttered, “You are good. You are very, very good. But I am General Maada.”

A few seconds later, the general’s fingers gently touched his firing control. Energy bolts flew toward the dark green vessel. The first few hit its left wing, causing blindingly bright explosions, and the rest got closer and closer to the cockpit …

And then they went through the space the enemy vessel had occupied a fraction of a second ago.

Maada looked at the ship disappearing into thin air without a trace and immediately knew what had happened: Someone was pulling out the trapped enemy using an SFD.

The familiar anger rose in his soul, and he nearly started shouting in rage and frustration.

How dare they deprive me of my prey!

His blood boiling, he looked around for a new target and found the light blue space fighter that had started the dogfight by trying to catch him by surprise what seemed like ages ago.

This will do, thought Maada, narrowing his eyes. This will do nicely indeed.

He flew as fast as his Deathbringer could toward his new target.

*****

Earth’s Exosphere - 05.50 EST

Elizabeth was engaged in a frenzied battle with three Deathbringers when all three broke off and flew away in different directions. Then she saw the infamous crimson space fighter approaching her.

“Elizabeth, Maada is moving towards you,” Tarq’s voice pressed urgently. “We are pulling you out. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Just stay away from him for a couple of minutes.”

“Like hell I will,” she snapped, and trembling with excitement, pushed the throttle, and moved forward to meet Maada’s threat head-on. This was another chance to take on the devil himself. If she killed Maada right now, thousands, even millions of lives would be saved.

Jim will be so proud, she thought, and her eyes lit up.

*****

Kurt held his head between his hands. Typical Liz!

Tarq blanched visibly. “Pull her out. Right now!” he shouted at Barook

“Working as fast as I can here,” answered Barook, his jaw set.

Kurt put his hand on Tarq’s arm. “Let him concentrate. You aren’t helping. And stop biting your fingernails so hard.”

Come on Liz, hang in there. Just for a minute.

He told Tarq, “We should’ve made killing Maada a priority during Operation Free Earth.”

*****

Elizabeth tried a tactic she’d learned from Jim. She fired her Sparrows at Maada, and when he banked left to avoid the missiles, she lined up her shot and opened fire with laser cannons. Maada changed direction and avoided most of the laser bolts. He rolled up his vessel and emerged on top of Elizabeth’s Viper, his laser cannons pouring fire on her space fighter.

The blue Viper took a blast of laser fire to her port side. Elizabeth, trying to escape Maada’s grasp, went into a twisting dive, but Maada kept pace with her, shooting non-stop. Being a stunt pilot to the core, she tried to evade the next wave of laser fire by going into a flurry of sophisticated acrobatic maneuvers, dodging, rolling, and sliding through space as fast as she could, but it was all to no avail. Maada kept coming, and energy bolts shot from the Crimson Deathbringer ripped her Viper apart, getting steadily closer to her cockpit.

Her gut twisted in horror as she realized she was staring death in the face. Fear grabbed her heart with its icy grip and all but paralyzed her, breathing became so difficult that her lungs started burning, and only then did she truly understand why the entire galaxy was scared of General Frakking Maada.

*****

Kurt, pulling his goatee so hard he plucked a few facial hairs, was staring at Barook and mentally urging him to work faster when the Akakie shouted, “Got her!” and pulled his hand across the touchscreen.

Kurt let out the breath he was holding, told Tarq, “That was close,” and turned to look at the screen showing the battle.

*****

Elizabeth’s last thought right before a laser bolt hit her cockpit was Jim, I’m so sorry.

Her Viper blew up, and in the space of one breath, there was nothing left but pieces of debris, floating aimlessly in the darkness of space.

*****

“What happened? Where’s she?” I shouted hysterically into my mike.

No one answered.

Mind-numbing horror grabbed my soul and didn’t let go.

I yelled even harder, “Where is she?”

“Jim, I’m sorry,” answered Kurt with a shaking voice. “We couldn’t save her. Maada got her.”

My whole body started trembling. I clutched at my chest, choking on my own breath, my world collapsing all around me, until nothing was left but pain. Enough pain to break me a thousand times over. Those three words ended me. I was gone, and there was no coming back. My soul had imploded; only an empty shell was left, covered inside with a sheet of ice.

Chapter Thirteen

As soon as I landed, I went straight to the mess hall, indiscriminately grabbed as many bottles of alcohol I could carry, and went to our—my!—quarters. Once there, the first thing I did was take off my wedding ring and throw it at the wall. Then I started drinking.

“Jim, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am Liz is gone,” said Cordelia. “But I don’t think killing yourself with alcohol would change that.”

“Yes, yes. I am such a cliché,” I murmured. “Well, screw you.”

Kurt walked in, saw my ring, picked it up, and put it on the bedside table. He sat next to me, saying nothing. I stared ahead and drank, rocking slightly back and forth, trying hard to keep the tears from overflowing. Kurt moved to touch my shoulder, but I pushed his hand away. He sat with me for a few hours. We barely talked. Then he stood up, picked up my gun, went to the washroom, and came back holding a pair of scissors. He looked around, obviously looking for sharp objects I could kill myself with. I turned my head slightly to the left and showed him my carotid artery. “I can do it with a broken bottle, you know.”

He flinched. The agony in his eyes made me regret what I’d said for a second, but I immediately thought, Boo-frakking-hoo. Cry me a river. I’m the one who’s lost my wife, not him.

“No, you can’t,” said Cordelia. “I’ll zap you if I see you are about to hurt yourself. You won’t die, but it’d hurt like a bitch.”

“Zap me?” I snorted. “Who the hell do you think you are, Zeus?”

“Funny you should ask,” she said.

A lightning bolt hit the sofa next to the one I was sitting on. The sofa fell over and caught fire. A single sprinkler in the ceiling became active and put the fire out.

Kurt stared at the sofa, his mouth gaping. I didn’t react at all. Kurt asked Cordelia, “How the hell did you do that?”

She sighed. “I’ll tell you, but don’t tell Tarq. He’ll freak out, and maybe this time he has a heart attack for real. I’m in all Winterfell systems. I can do things you can’t even dream of.”

They were wasting their time. I had no intention of killing myself. I wanted to feel the pain.

“It’s your fault,” said Venom. “If you hadn’t frozen and had gone back to help Keiko, the two of you might’ve defeated Maada, and Liz would be alive now. You killed her as much as Maada did. Because you’re a coward. A freak and a coward.”

I tried to argue this wasn’t true. I was pulled out mere seconds after Keiko attacked Maada; there wouldn’t have been enough time for me to turn back even if I’d wanted to. But it was pointless. Logic had no power over guilt.

The thought of never seeing Liz again gave me such a heavy, leaden feeling in my chest that the mere act of breathing was difficult. I’d make myself breathe or move—just turn my head—and the action of that would flip a switch and she’d be there in my mind, showing off her flight suit, prancing like a happy child, sipping coffee in the mess hall, complaining about lack of sleep, or wearing that little grin that meant she was about to kiss me. The smell of her hair. How could she be so vivid, so right here, and be nowhere?

My mind went around in circles. I’d tell myself to stop thinking about her; it was too painful, and then I’d feel like I was suffocating, held underwater, unable to swim to the surface. All I wanted to do was to sit and drink until I died. And why not? My life had ended the moment I heard Liz was dead.

Kurt came to sit with me every day. At some point, he stopped trying to encourage me to shave or take a shower. Matias, Samantha, and Theresa showed up, but I refused to even open my door, even though I could hear them saying we were family and had to stay together at times like this. Josef didn’t get a better reception either. One evening, Tarq accompanied Kurt, and with scientific detachment explained how MICI could help alleviate my pain. I kicked him out. Liz’s death was partly his fault anyway. If he hadn’t demoted her, she’d have been pulled out ahead of Keiko, who didn’t come to visit me even once. That bitch!

Liz coming out of the shower, beads of water on her hand-sized breasts. Liz the night before it all started, shivering against my arm outside the club, curls blowing in my face. Liz on our honeymoon wondering what life would be like after we won the war and humanity realized the universe was full of alien life. Liz!

Father Philip came with Kurt one night. He was wearing his black robe, showing he was there in an official capacity as a priest, not just a friend. He sat in front of me next to Kurt and told me how sorry he was for my loss and how much everyone was missing my wife. “I know you don’t really believe in God, my son, but it’s exactly in times such as this you must ask Him for help. I am certain He would listen.”

What he said reminded me of Tarq’s prank—Liz and I in “heaven,” surprise and happiness on her face. I thought I’d never see you again.

I rubbed my temples for a few seconds, trying to control my rising anger, and then smirked. “Father, you think I don’t believe in God?”

“Oh boy!” Kurt murmured under his breath.

I went on a rant. Words poured out of my mouth faster than I could consciously think them. “I’m a selfish man, Father. I spent most of my life caring about myself and nobody else. My only focus in life was having fun and enjoying myself, plus status and wealth. I didn’t join the Air Force to answer some selfless higher calling to serve my country; I just wanted to fly and blow shit up. When my best friend here asked me to join an honorable cause, I turned him down, and I even don’t really care about saving humanity from an alien invasion.”

I paused to take a breath. “And despite all these, I met the kindest, warmest, most amazing woman who ever walked on this planet, and she loved me, and you know what? I loved her back. Until your God took her away from me. No, Father. I absolutely believe in God, and I absolutely hate the—”

Kurt jumped out of his seat. “Okay, time for Father Philip to go.” He pushed the priest, who looked like he was about to have a cardiac arrest, out of the door, probably saving me from eternal damnation.

Sometimes, from a dark corner of my tortured mind, a voice would whisper, blaming Liz for getting herself and almost three thousand other people killed. I’d had a good chance of stalling. All we needed was a few short minutes, and all this could’ve been avoided. If she’d controlled her impulses for once in her life … Of course, Maada knew very well how the SFD worked. He might not have fallen for my trick, but we’d never know for sure. Maybe given that their technology was inferior to the Akakies, it took longer for their SFD to track and lock onto a target. That might’ve made him think he had time to gloat, letting us escape from right under his nose.

But I knew what made her attack Maada. She wasn’t aware of Barook’s attempts to pull us out, and she’d come to the same conclusion I came to a bit later: The only chance we had to escape that trap was killing Maada himself. Liz, being Liz, had acted upon that conclusion as soon as she’d reached it.

I also had to deal with the agony of losing the three thousand pilots under my command. I should’ve figured out there was a trap. A superweapon capable of destroying an entire planet? Mushgaana and Maada had taken that straight from Star Wars. I’d been such a fool, and thousands of other people had paid the price. A better, smarter commander wouldn’t have led his people into such a clear trap.

I didn’t even go to Liz’s memorial service. It was too much to bear.

We should really have stayed on that Island.

“By the way, just in case you didn’t get it, no more jokes, banters, or funny comebacks,” I told Cordelia. “My life will be a strictly DC universe from this point on.”

*****

Winterfell - September 7, 2078

Feeling exhausted, Kurt sat behind the piano in his quarters. It’d been a rough few weeks. First Allen was killed. Then the pilots were massacred. And now, with Elizabeth’s death, Jim was a broken man, on the verge of either insanity or suicide. Kurt had been watching his best friend dying little by little for days now. That had taken a toll. Kurt wondered how much more of this he could take.

He had never thought anything would affect Jim this badly, even losing Elizabeth. His OCD aside, that man had a natural capacity to take things lightly, even things that were dead serious. Kurt remembered how composed Jim was at his father’s funeral. He didn’t cry once, and he was only seventeen. Granted, he wasn’t close to his parents, but everyone wept on such occasions. Kurt himself had locked himself in a room and cried his heart out for two straight days when his father and mother were killed. Come to think of it, he’d never seen Jim shed a tear in all the years they’d been close friends. Mr. Macho Man probably considered it unmanly.

Well, he isn’t crying now either, is he?

The morale in Winterfell couldn’t get any lower. Right after the euphoria of their victory, Maada had sucker-punched them hard. A lot of people had just realized how desperate their situation was. Maada’s fleet outnumbered Winterfell’s by a large margin, and using MFM, the Xortaags could bring all Earth’s ex-military forces against them too, as evidenced by the two hundred thousand human soldiers now guarding SH-1.

And with the Xortaag transportation ships bringing the first wave of colonists to Earth, they had only about six more weeks left to defeat the Xortaags. How they were going to do that in such a short time was anybody’s guess. Kurt himself had no idea. Everything considered, it seemed certain they were going to lose, which would extinguish humanity’s last hope.

Well, what else was new? It was just like the two years he was leading the Resistance with little hope of victory. The only difference was that Maada was infinitely more dangerous than Zheng could ever be. At least Zheng wasn’t hell-bent on turning humanity into slaves and eventually killing them off.

He started playing Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg. Losing himself to playing classical music took his mind off of his problems and made him relax just a little bit.

Someone knocked on his door. It was strange that anyone would just show up here without contacting him first. He got up, opened the door, and found Keiko on the other side. Her face was as calm and stoic as ever, but her eyes were red.

“Can I come in?” she asked. “I have to show you something.”

“Of course,” said Kurt, and moved out of her way.

Inside the room, she gave him her PDD and played a video. “You probably know the Vipers are equipped with a camera that records everything happening during flight. This is from our attack on the Xortaag fleet base a few weeks ago.”

Curious, Kurt took the PDD. The video showed an injured man shooting at Keiko’s fighter with a sidearm. Keiko’s Viper turned around and flew away.

Somehow, Kurt immediately guessed what was going on. The blood in his veins turned to ice.

Keiko reached over, paused the video, and zoomed in on the image. Kurt found himself looking at Maada’s face, leaning on the control tower’s railing, completely at Keiko’s mercy.

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

Keiko burst into tears. “It’s all my fault. I could’ve saved them all, but I didn’t. I got everyone killed!”

She threw herself into Kurt’s arms. He reflexively put his arms around her, still trying to digest both what he’d just seen and the fact that Keiko, of all people, was crying uncontrollably. She hung on to him as if her life depended on it, her eyes flooding with tears. They stood like that for a couple of minutes, with Kurt trying to find something to say and failing. He felt an urge to comfort her somehow but didn’t know what to do.

All of a sudden, Keiko raised her face, her lips searching for Kurt’s and finding them.

The kiss caught Kurt by surprise. Suddenly, he realized how lonely he’d been. After Janet had died in his arms in an SCTU ambush, which happened right after his parents were killed, he’d built a wall around his soul and hidden behind it. The only two people he truly cared for were Allen and Jim; one was dead, the other one slowly dying.

You should pull away. Right now. Pull the hell away!

Instead, for the first time in years, Kurt lost his self-control under waves of unfamiliar, intense emotions. He couldn’t deal with his mental anguish alone anymore. He kissed Keiko back. Her body loosened. Kurt loved the way her small body melted into his. For a short time, the two of them forgot the misery surrounding them, lost in each other’s arms.

*****

Winterfell - September 8, 2078

Tarq covered his eyes with his hands and put his head on his desk, holographic tears running down his cheek. He had bitten his fingertips so hard that now there were tiny bloodstains all over his white clothes.

Victory seemed at hand just a few short weeks ago, with the first phase of Operation Free Earth a complete success. The Xortaags had never tasted such a terrible defeat in their entire history. It had happened with such ease that Tarq was confident he had found the Xortaags’ match in humans. He was certain the second phase would end Maada and Mushgaana’s reign for good.

And then Maada had ruined their plans for the second phase by using humans to defend SH-1 and destroyed a third of their fleet along with their most experienced pilots.

With twenty million Xortaags and ten thousand more Deathbringers so close to Earth, Tarq knew he had lost. Everything he had done in the past few months was for nothing. All those humans who perished had died for no good reason. Worst of all, Mushgaana had decided to go straight to Kanoor as soon as Earth was dealt with, which spelled the end for his species. Tarq had sentenced not one, but two species to extinction.

His despair kept building until he felt he was about to explode. His hearts started beating faster. He pressed his lips together and swallowed down his frustration. If Maada had been there right now, Tarq would have happily chewed on his neck until his head was separated from his body.

I have doomed us all, my own people and the humans. The greatest strategist the universe has ever known, my feet! And all four of them!

His hands were moving towards his antennae when the door to his office opened and Barook rushed in, out of breath. Tarq looked at his burning red cheeks, so human-looking, and not for the first time marveled at his species’ technological and scientific advances. Barook was so excited that he nearly tripped over his own feet. He waved a plastic bag in the air and yelled, “Commander, you have got to see this!”

Tarq saw a USB drive inside the plastic bag.

“Why are you carrying a USB drive inside a plastic bag?” asked Tarq.

When he found out, he wished he had not asked.

*****

SH-1 - September 9, 2078

Sipping his coffee, Maada was sitting in Mushgaana’s office, reading the reports on the ongoing search to find the enemy fleet’s base. Using the Voice of God, they had made humans search their own planet looking for the enemy, but they had found nothing yet.

Mushgaana was pacing around his office in deep thought. Maada asked him, “If you wanted to build a fleet base on Earth to fight us, where would you build it?”

Mushgaana shrugged. “In a cold place, to minimize the chance of us finding the base by accident.”

“My thought exactly.”

“I must point out this is simply a conjecture,” said Mushgaana. “They could be under the sea or inside a mountain. They could even be on an invisible carrier ship, for all we know.”

“There is no way to hide a ship big enough to carry several thousand space fighters and soldiers, even for the Akakies,” said Maada, “and if they could do it, they would come at us with all their fleet and hit both our fleet bases at the same time. No, I am certain they have a base somewhere on Earth, and we have already seen the maximum strength of their fleet. At this point, a conjecture is better than nothing, and it is not like we have to spend any time or energy doing it ourselves.”

He brought up a holographic image of Earth. “There are plenty of cold places to search. North Pole, Antarctica, Siberia, and look at this.”

“What?”

The general pointed at the globe. “There is a frozen wasteland called Canada right next to City of God.”

Mushgaana shook his head. “That is just a coincidence. There is no way for the humans to know we were planning to build a fleet base there.”

“There is no way for them to do any of the things they have done, but when did that ever stop them?”

“Good point,” said Mushgaana. “Have the humans go over this place, as well as the other cold places on Earth, with a fine-tooth comb, as they put it.”

“Why would the humans use a comb to search through ice and snow?” asked Maada.

Mushgaana looked at him sideways. “Did you just crack a joke?”

“Maybe,” said Maada, his face impassive.

“You did!” exclaimed Mushgaana. “I am beginning to rub off on you, after all, my old friend.”

Maada looked at the place called Canada on the map, scratched his beard, and thought, I have a good feeling about this.

*****

Winterfell - September 9, 2078

Kurt walked into Winterfell’s cemetery. It was quiet and peaceful, covered with grass and trees. There were several rows of brand-new white marble gravestones, with bouquets of fresh flowers in front of most of them. Kurt knew some pilots and Commandos were making unauthorized trips out of Winterfell just to bring in flowers. He didn’t mind.

How he hated this place.

Most of the graves there were empty. They belonged to the pilots killed in Maada’s ambush. Allen’s grave wasn’t. The Xortaags had buried him and the other members of his team in a mass grave next to Mushgaana’s previous residence. A few days ago, Kurt and a group of Commandos had exhumed the graves and brought the bodies back home, to be buried properly here. Promises made, promises kept.

There were a few fresh flowers on Allen’s grave too. Lilly had probably brought them. Or maybe Sergei. Kurt put two Molson Canadian bottles on the grave and said out loud, “It’s good to have you back home, old friend.”

He stood there, lost in his thoughts.

A few minutes later, Tarq joined him. “We need to talk, and for what I am about to tell you, this place is quite fitting.”

“What’s going on?” asked Kurt.

“There is no easy way to put this, so I am just going to go ahead and say it,” Tarq said. “When our people were preparing Allen for burial, they found a USB drive in his rectum.”

Kurt opened his mouth to ask a question, thought about it for a second, and asked another question instead, “Do I even want to know?”

Tarq, for once, managed to keep a straight face. “I am positive you do not.”

“Too late,” said Kurt, tugging his goatee. “That image is now burned in my mind forever.”

Tarq took his PDD out of his pocket and gave it to Kurt. “This is what we found on the USB drive.”

Kurt looked at the screen for a minute. “Is this what I think it is?”

“It is a holographic map of SH-1,” said Tarq. “We guess Allen had found this in Mushgaana’s mansion and took photos using his PDD, and he hid it in his you-know-what knowing you would recover his body. It shows the fleet base, the laser turrets, the barracks, you know, most of the things we already knew based on the information our spy ship had sent to us, but most importantly, it also shows this,” and he zoomed in on a section of the map.

“What am I looking at?” Kurt asked.

“It’s a small, invisible, and undetectable force field. Similar to the one we use here, but much, much smaller. It basically protects a single building.”

Kurt immediately got where he was going with this. “You think the MFM’s controls are here?”

Tarq, with exaggerated patience, like he was talking to an insolent child, said, “No. we think OMC-BOWS’s controls are here, and that is not all. We think the Xortaags’ interplanetary communication center and their SFD are here too. Before the Xortaags found out about our bugs, we had noticed people in charge of these three always talked like they all worked in the same place.”

Kurt considered this information for a minute. “Are you telling me if we destroy whatever’s under this force field, they can neither travel in space nor contact their home planet, and MFM will stop working?”

“Better.” Tarq flashed him a wide smile. “I have come up with a way to hack into OMC-BOWS if its controls are destroyed. I am telling you if we pull this off, we can control it ourselves and use it to send any messages we like to every single human in the world.”

This was huge. It took Kurt a couple of minutes to wrap his mind around all the possibilities this piece of information presented. “How certain are you it’s there?”

“Very,” said Tarq with confidence. “Keeping a force field up takes a huge amount of energy, which is why they cannot be used in spaceships. There would be no reason for them to have one in SH-1 other than to protect their most vital instruments.”

“But so far as I know, there’re no weapons that can penetrate a force field,” Kurt said. “Which is probably why the Xortaags have packed them together to begin with.”

Tarq gave him a sideways look. “No, there are not. But I think you have forgotten whom you are talking to.”

*****

Winterfell - September 17, 2078

His mind focused on the information Tarq had given him a few days ago, Kurt was playing with his food in the mess hall. He didn’t feel hungry. He didn’t notice Keiko approaching him until she sat at his table and said, “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you’re avoiding me.”

Kurt put his fork down and looked at her. He’d been postponing this conversation. “Keiko, I’m sorry, but we can’t do this,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.

Keiko’s normally stoic face became even more expressionless than usual. She gave Kurt an icy look with her blue and black eyes. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”

“This. Us. You and me,” said Kurt. “We can’t be involved.”

Keiko said nothing. She just tilted her head a bit and waited.

“Everyone I’ve ever loved has died since Zheng’s coup d’état,” continued Kurt, speaking fast. “Everyone whom I get close to dies. I pick up the mantle of defending humanity against the aliens, and seven hundred million people end up dead. With the life we’re living, it could be our turn tomorrow. Look at Jim. Do you really want this to happen to you?”

Even mentioning Jim’s name was painful.

Keiko’s lips pressed into a thin line. She shook her head. “I disagree.”

Kurt sank back to his seat, trying to find something to say.

“I used to fly kamikaze escort missions during the war.” Her voice hardened. “Do you think we’d sit at home like freaking losers and whine we might die the next day? We were determined to enjoy every second of life. The fact that it’s so short just makes it more precious.”

She stood up and gave Kurt a contemptuous look. “But it’s not like I’m going to beg you to be with me. Enjoy the rest of your lonely, pathetic life.”

She walked away.

Kurt just sat there watching her go, feeling like a coward.

*****

Winterfell - September 18, 2078

Tarq, Kurt, Sergei, and Matias approached Jim’s quarters. Kurt checked his through-the-wall device, said, “He’s out,” and used a key card to open the door.

“I am not so sure gassing your best friend is a good way to prove your friendship,” said Tarq.

“Tomorrow would’ve been Jim and Liz’s second anniversary,” said Kurt, his voice weary. “If we want to do this, it’s now or never. Let’s just hope he’ll not kill us when he wakes up.”

When they entered the room, Tarq looked at the broken man with long, unkempt hair and a matted beard lying half-naked on the floor and grimaced. “I don’t think he is in good enough shape to take five steps in a straight line, let alone kill someone.”

Matias and Sergei held Jim up and carried him out.

“Let’s see if we can fix that,” said Kurt.

*****

I was sitting on the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Various crew members, wearing the original Star Trek style uniforms (differently colored shirts with charcoal slacks for men, miniskirt-length dresses with dark tights for women), were busy working on computer consoles. There were three Klingon Birds of Prey on the display screen, and a bluish green planet behind them. Sulu and Chekov were sitting in front of me at the helm. Scotty, deep in conversation with a redshirt, sat at his station. The familiar red alert siren wailed incessantly.

This wasn’t a dream. It was way too vivid and real. I could feel the weight of my body on the chair, the air I was breathing, and the fine texture of my golden yellow shirt. And I wasn’t surprised at all. I really did feel I was the captain of the Enterprise.

From behind my chair, Liz whispered in my ear, “Happy anniversary” in her sexy British accent. I turned my head a little bit, and her warm lips covered mine in a soft kiss. It was a short, delicate kiss, but it made the world fall away. I’d forgotten how good her lips felt pressed against my own.

I swiveled my seat and stared at her in amazement. She was wearing one of those red miniskirt uniforms, which with her long legs looked even shorter than normal, and she’d done her hair the same style as Uhura. I didn’t move or say anything for a few seconds; I just sat there and stared at her. Flashing her radiant smile and playing with a curly lock, she was more beautiful than an ocean sunrise, more beautiful than the sky at night, more beautiful than … anything.

Kurt was standing behind her, looking like Mr. Spock, with a blue shirt, pointy ears, and sharply upturned eyebrows. He waved and repeated, “Happy anniversary.”

No goatee, thank God. A mirror universe evil Kurt/Spock would’ve been scary.

“Eh, what exactly is going on in here?” I said, still feeling no surprise at all. I was on the Enterprise, my wife was alive, and Kurt was Spock. It was just an ordinary day.

Liz pointed at the screen. “Do you see that planet? It’s XXM-150, and its population is being ravaged by a deadly plague. In two hours, all the planet’s inhabitants will be dead. We have the cure, but those Klingon ships are hell-bent on stopping us. There’s three of them and only one of us. So here’s what you’re going to do, Captain. You’ll defeat the Klingons, save the planet, and”—she kissed my lips again before finishing her sentence—“you’ll definitely get the girl.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Lieutenant, this is completely inappropriate. Fraternization with a superior officer is strictly forbidden.” Then he asked me, “What are your orders, Captain?”

I swiveled my chair around and looked at the screen, smiling. Liz, Kurt, and I fighting the Klingons to save a planet! Sunshine flooded my soul and warmed my heart.

“Ensign Sulu, Full speed ahead. Ensign Chekov, prepare Phaser arrays and Photon Torpedoes,” I said, feeling a lightness in my chest I hadn’t experienced in a long time. “Lieutenant, you come here and sit on my lap.”

Liz giggled. “Your wish is my command, Captain.” She sat on my lap and gave me another kiss.

Kurt shook his head disapprovingly. “So unprofessional.”

*****

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in my bed. My room had been cleaned. Someone had taken out all the trash and empty bottles and changed my bed sheet and, eh, my clothes.

I looked at Liz’s photo on my bed stand and savored the memory of the two of us on the Enterprise’s bridge, fighting the Klingons. I’d immensely enjoyed every second of it. The corners of my mouth curled up in an unfamiliar movement, which soon turned into a full-blown smile. My first in several days.

That memory could’ve only been induced by MICI. I had no idea how it’d happened, and I didn’t care. I was grateful I’d seen Liz one more time.

I stayed in bed and remembered Liz. The first time we met. The swimming competition. The trip to Cancun to celebrate our six-month anniversary, right after she moved in with me. Meeting her father for the first and last time, and how much he hated my guts, a feeling I happily reciprocated. That time she broke up with me because she thought I’d looked at another woman—I hadn’t. My proposal. Our wedding, and the look on Tarq’s face when his prank failed. The long walks on the beach during our honeymoon, hand in hand, only the two of us. Swimming in the ocean, with her on my shoulders like a kid. All the movies we watched together. The silly games we’d play. The hours we lay in bed in each other’s arms, just talking. The scent of her hair after a shower. Flying Vipers together. The ten million times I got lost in her eyes. The laughs we shared. The life we built together.

Most of all, I thought about how passionately she’d made saving humanity her mission in life.

“And all you’ve done since she died is stay in bed and drink, like the lazy loser you are,” said Venom.

Why would I get out of bed? Liz was the center of my universe. With her gone, I had no reason to live.

“ ‘I have no reason to live,’ ” Venom mimicked me. “Mr. Masculinity. You spend your life pretending to be a man, but you turn to jelly the moment you lose the woman who was supporting you. And what about the people under your command? All those people who count on you? Should you leave them all to die, just because you lost your wife?”

I rubbed my forehead and sighed. He was right. Venom was very wise for a parasite.

“Parasite? Parasite?” said Venom.

Liz, who was so full of zeal and life, was gone. But the goal she believed in so much that she gave her life for was still not achieved. Her sisters were at risk. Her orphans were at risk. Would she forgive me for letting them die? Could I forgive myself? Liz might’ve been my favorite person in the universe, but I still had other people to protect. I had a feeling that though this didn’t seem to matter now, one day it would.

I chuckled when I remembered she told me I reminded her of Peter Parker when we first met. Great power, great responsibility. Commander of the fleet and one of the best fighter pilots on the planet, not staying in the freaking bed. It was time to get back to work.

“Jim, get up. Get up. Make it so,” I murmured.

“Wrong captain,” said Venom.

I got up, showered and shaved, tried to make my long, curly hair look more respectable, and put on a uniform. I picked up my wedding ring from where Kurt had left it but hesitated to put it on. Somehow, wearing the ring when Liz wasn’t with me anymore felt wrong. I pulled a necklace chain through the ring and hung it around my neck under my shirt. In a strange way, the touch of the cold metal on my skin near my heart comforted me.

“Welcome back, Boss,” said Cordelia.

“No thanks to you.” I frowned. “You haven’t been much help.”

“I’m an AI, not a psychologist specializing in treating losers suffering from suicidal depression.”

“One of these days—” I said.

Lightning struck the floor five inches from my feet. I did not squeal like a little girl.

I went to the Command Center.

Tarq, Kurt, and Keiko were there, huddling over a map and discussing something. They looked surprised to see me, but it didn’t escape my attention that Kurt and Tarq exchanged a satisfied look.

I knew they had something to do with it!

Keiko stood straight and gave me a salute. “It’s good to see you, Colonel.”

I saluted back. “What have I missed?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” said Kurt with a twinkle in his eyes.

*****

My timing was, in a way, perfect. There was an important meeting in the Operation Room that evening. Tarq and Barook were there, plus Keiko, Kurt, and Sergei—who was now his second-in-command—and all Commandos and pilots with the rank of lieutenant and above, which included Oksana, Joseph, and Matias.

Tarq made his grand entrance after everyone was seated, his pipe in his mouth. He wore a hip-length blue-gray military uniform with cuffs coming to the mid-forearm and a five-button front. It was familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it before.

There was an embroidered eagle over the right breast pocket.

I did a facepalm. It was a Luftwaffe uniform. That idiot! No one else seemed to notice though. I decided to do him a favor and didn’t mention his faux pas.

Tarq brought up a holographic image of the Xortaag city. “We have prepared this based on the map of the city that Allen provided us, demonstrating unprecedented courage and initiative under fire, I must add. We have studied the map carefully, and we believe we have a risky but viable plan.”

“Allen sent us the map of the city, allowing us to come up with a plan to defeat the bad guys?” I asked Kurt. “How very Star Wars of him! How exactly did he send this information?”

He looked uncomfortable and hushed me.

“Most of you have a pretty good idea what we are up against but allow me to reiterate,” said Tarq. “The residential part of SH-1 is still under construction, but the fleet base and their defenses are fully operational, and there are around a million Xortaag living there. While they are not particularly efficient in land warfare, they are all armed and ready to battle. Moreover, the city is surrounded by two hundred thousand human soldiers under Xortaag command, who are armed to the teeth and are supported by jet fighters, helicopters, and light armored vehicles.”

I rubbed my forehead. “So in order to reach the Xortaags, we have to go through our own people.”

Tarq continued, “Their fleet, landed in a huge multi-section fleet base inside the city, is very well protected by several dozen laser turrets. After what we pulled the last time, security around the turrets is extremely tight, and there is no way we could destroy them all. Our fleet cannot get anywhere near SH-1 as long as those turrets are active. Moreover, their fleet outnumbers ours three to one, and to make things more complicated, the first wave of their colonists, twenty million Xortaags accompanied by ten thousand Deathbringers, is about a month away from Earth. All Mushgaana and Maada need to do is hold on for a month, and we are done for. To make things worse, the Xortaags have arranged for human search parties who are looking for our location. It is only a matter of time before one of them finds us.”

“Let’s not forget Mushgaana can kill every human on the planet whenever his nasty little heart desires,” Kurt added.

“Well, if it was an easy problem, it wouldn’t need heroes like us to fix it, right?” I said.

That brought a chuckle from the crowd. Tarq glared at me for a second; then he said, “In short, we are significantly outgunned and outnumbered. The only advantage we have is the element of surprise. Based on a similar situation in your history, I have decided to call this operation”—he paused for theatrical effect—“Operation Z.”

I couldn’t stifle a snicker. The look on most of our people’s faces was priceless. Even Keiko didn’t look amused.

“Just kidding!” said Tarq hurriedly. “Seriously, I want to call it Operation Barbarossa.”

“Not better,” said Kurt.

I suggested Operation Royalty, which got me questioning looks from most people and knowing smiles from the rest. I wasn’t in the mood to explain, so I said, “Google it.”

Everyone admitted it was very fitting. Operation Royalty it was.

I finally got it out of Kurt how Allen sent us SH-1’s map. I laughed so hard that I nearly pulled a stomach muscle, despite Kurt’s indignant stare. The image of Allen, who was always so menacing and intimidating, doing that, and right in the middle of a gunfight with the Xortaags, was just too much.

Do you think he tried to swallow the USB drive first? I asked Venom.

“I have a better question,” said Venom. “Do you think he used lubricant?”

I laughed harder. Allen was so lucky he was dead; otherwise, I’d have ragged on him mercilessly for the rest of his life.

“You’ll probably still get the chance to do that if Operation Royalty doesn’t go as planned,” said Venom.

I didn’t get a chance to answer him. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on my ass grabbing my painful nose, with Kurt walking away, his hands clenched into fists, his face red.

Half an hour after the meeting, Tarq sent me a message and asked to see me in his office. I went there and sat on a white chair in front of his white desk.

“I am sure you have a thousand questions about us.” He lit his pipe. “And I guess you might have noticed I used MICI to block your curiosity.”

I nodded. “Da to both.”

“I am a shadow master,” he said. “That’s what you might call a master spy. Because of my profession, I have always been overly secretive. However, I have just realized something important.”

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him and waited.

“We are friends, and there should be no secret between friends. With this verbal command, I remove your block. The only taboo topics are our appearance and my daughter. Go ahead, ask all your questions.”

His face was flushed, and his eyelids were twitching. It was obviously a difficult and emotional decision for him. Revealing the secrets he preferred to keep from an alien must’ve been traumatizing. I was impressed by the trust he was showing me. Friends, indeed.

“Great! Thank you so much for trusting me,” I enthused. “First question: Are you and Barook a couple?”

*****

Winterfell - September 29, 2078

Kurt approached Keiko, who was sitting on the grass in a small park in a corner of Winterfell, meditating, and sat down next to her.

“What’s up?” asked Keiko, still looking straight ahead.

Kurt told her about Elizabeth’s anniversary present for Jim and added, “The fact that Elizabeth managed to save Jim literally from beyond the grave made me think about us.”

“What do you mean ‘us?’ ” asked Keiko, her face impossible to read.

“You know. About our relationship,” answered Kurt, feeling uneasy.

“We don’t have a relationship,” replied Keiko coldly. “We had a one-night stand. That’s it.”

Kurt looked away, blood rushing to his cheeks. He hesitated for a second, and then started to get up and leave, but Keiko grabbed his arm. “I’m just messing with you. Of course, there’s an ‘us.’ There’s been one since the day I came to Winterfell for the first time, you blind idiot.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kurt sat back down. Keiko continued, “Did the night we spent together seem like a one-night stand to you?”

“I honestly have no idea because I’ve never had one,” answered Kurt.

Keiko squinted at him. “Never ever?”

Kurt looked into the distance. “I was with my high school sweetheart most of my adult life, and I’ve been single since she died.”

Keiko’s eyes widened. “You’d been only with one woman your entire life?”

She sounded so astonished that Kurt couldn’t help asking, “Why’re you so shocked? How many lovers have you had?”

“I was in a kamikaze unit,” said Keiko. “We were the live-fast-and-die-young types, and it isn’t as if we had to worry about an old man sitting on the clouds and keeping an eye on what we were doing with our sex organs. Plus, the Air Force is full of good-looking, fit young men and, eh, women.”

“Way too much information, especially that last bit,” said Kurt. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”

Keiko studied him. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t been with another man since I came to Winterfell, only you. Anyway, what did you want to talk about?”

Kurt wanted to ask if not being with “another man” meant she’d been with other women but decided he didn’t want to know. “I came to say you’re right, and after Operation Royalty, I want to invite you to dinner one evening.”

Keiko flashed a rare smile. “I’d like that.” After a pause, she added, “Kurt, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a very long time.”

Kurt leaned closer, thinking she was about to say something romantic. “What’s that?”

Keiko pretended she was pulling a goatee she didn’t have. “ ‘I pick the mantle of defending humanity against aliens, and seven hundred million people end up dead.’ You are a real drama queen, aren’t you?”

*****

The Crimson Deathbringer appeared right on top of me, laser cannons blazing. My Viper exploded.

“Restart simulation,” I barked.

Maada’s ship was on my six. My Viper exploded.

“Restart simulation,” I growled through clenched teeth.

The enemy ship came down from below. I didn’t even see it. My Viper exploded.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, disgusted with myself. There had to be a way to make this happen.

Keiko had fed our recordings of Maada’s ambush to our battle simulators and had them programmed for new dogfight scenarios. I’d devoted all my waking hours to practice, but it was no use.

I called Keiko. “Any luck?”

“I got shot down fifty-eight times today,” she said.

“Huh! I was shot down only fifty-two times. In your face!” I said triumphantly.

“I can’t feel my arms anymore. Gonna call it a night.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said. “I must go meet an old friend.”

*****

I knocked on Kurt’s door, and when he opened it, I showed him the box of Paulaners I was carrying. “I’ve come bearing gifts,” I said.

Kurt looked at me closely. “What happened to your hair?”

I ran my hand through my short hair, which I had cut military style. “I figured this is more professional. You know, it makes me more leader-like.”

Kurt chuckled. “Good call if you’re trying to change the movie star image you were complaining about. And what are these?” He lightly touched the black circles under my eyes.

“I’m not getting much sleep recently,” I said. “Have been practicing non-stop.”

We sank into his sofa, clanked our bottles, and started chatting. With Operation Royalty less than forty-eight hours away, I couldn’t help wondering if this would be the last time we’d drink together. A pang of loss startled me. I wanted to grab him and run for the hills—as if that would help—but I didn’t show it. I figured we all were having these feelings.

He told me what was going on between Keiko and him. I approved. “Liz thought the two of you were made for each other.” It didn’t hurt as much to say her name now. It hurt, but in a way that was almost beautiful. She seemed close to me, not as a ghost, just a presence. A warmth.

Kurt sipped his beer. “You realize this is exactly what you and I did on Christmas Eve when I came to hide in your place? We talked about my love life back then too. The only difference is …” he looked guilty and left his sentence unfinished.

“The only difference is Liz was alive,” I said with a steady voice. “So was Allen. Yeah, I remember. I’ll always remember.” We were both quiet for a moment; then we moved on, letting the dead fade back into memory.

“Ready for the big day?” asked Kurt.

“Yep. I even have a kill list and a detailed step-by-step plan on how to do away with everyone in it. Look.” I took out a piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to Kurt. There was only one name on the “list”: Maada. Under his name, I’d written Step One: find him; Step Two, kill his alien ass.

After my third beer, I asked him, “When we were teenagers, chasing girls, did you ever think we’d end up on the front lines of saving humanity?”

“First of all, we weren’t chasing girls, you were. I was with Janet,” he said. “Secondly, yes I did. I always thought my father and I would do something great. And thirdly, we are saving the universe. If we fail, who is going to stop the Xortaags?”

“The Akakies? Maybe Tarq can prank the Xortaags to death.”

Kurt laughed. “Speaking of Janet, I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve never told you: When she and I started dating, she hated your guts.”

I was horrified. Janet was the sweetest girl you could imagine, and she hated me? “Are you serious? How come?”

“Apparently, it had something to do with you sleeping with all her friends in high school and dumping them the next day.”

I crossed my arms. “I was a teenager.”

“By that criterion, you stayed a teenager until you met Liz.”

“It’s not my fault women kept throwing themselves at me.”

Kurt laughed. “You’ll never change, will you? You’re planning to be annoyingly cocky until you die?”

“I’m not cocky.” I held my head up. “I’m confident, and with good reason. I’m sexy, and I know it.”

Kurt laughed harder.

We drank, teased each other, and remembered the good times, trying to forget what lay ahead.

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” said Venom.

Chapter Fourteen

SH-1 - October 5, 2078, 20.00 EST

Under the cover of night, twenty black-clad frogmen silently swam out of the river passing through SH-1, hid behind a half-constructed building, and started taking off their diving suits.

Putting on his armor and combat helmet, Kurt saw a ring flashing on Oksana’s left hand and asked, “What’s this?”

Oksana, busy with her own armor, answered, “Matias proposed last night.”

Sergei smiled widely. “Big boy came through.”

Kurt frowned. “I guess congratulations are in order, but nobody bothered to tell me?”

Oksana squinted her eyes. “You’ve been burying yourself in the Command Center for a week now.”

Kurt touched his earpiece. “We’re here.”

“The coast is clear,” answered Tarq. “You can proceed.”

“Are the search parties getting closer to Winterfell?” asked Kurt.

“One is fifty kilometers away and is coming straight towards us. Please hurry up.”

Kurt checked his assault rifle, gestured to his team to follow him, and walked into the street on his right. Behind him, Oksana told Sergei, “You go first. I don’t want to watch him playing with his goatee all the time. It makes me nervous.”

Kurt’s team moved in total silence. This part of the city was still under construction. Human workers worked here in two ten-hour shifts, and it was empty during the remaining four hours. A few buildings here and there looked ready for residents to move in, but most were half-built. There were no human soldiers in the city; they were stationed either around the city or in the fleet base. There were a few small Xortaag security teams patrolling the city, but with Tarq’s guidance—he could observe what was going on using the Akakie invisible spy ship—it was easy to avoid them. It was a cloudy and moonless night, which made things easier.

After half an hour, the Commandos entered an empty twenty-story building. The elevator was not installed. They used the stairs to make their way to the roof. There, they met another team that had been sent via a different route as backup, just in case Kurt’s team ran into trouble on their way to the target.

“You’re up,” Kurt told Oksana.

Oksana opened the tactical backpack she was carrying and took out something that looked like a small, folded satellite dish. She unfolded it and put it on the roof ledge facing outward. “It’ll take a couple of minutes,” she said, working on her PDD.

The device, another gadget out of Tarq’s bag of magic, was called a force field penetrator. It could open a small hole in a force field. The catch was it had a maximum five-mile range, and it had to be at the line of sight with the target.

Which was exactly where Kurt’s team was right now.

“I’m ready,” whispered Oksana, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her gloved hand.

“Why’re you whispering?” whispered Sergei.

Kurt faced the target and prepared his compact shoulder-fired missile launchers (an FGM-220 Javelin, the same weapon he’d used in Operation Free Earth, only with a modified warhead). Sergei and six other Commandos, carrying their own Javelins, joined him and stood in one line. Tarq had estimated two missiles would be enough to destroy the target, and four would be overkill. Inside the confines of the force field, the explosions would be devastating. Kurt had decided to leave nothing to chance and shoot eight missiles.

Here we go, thought Kurt, checking his watch.

For a second, Kurt pondered the enormity of that moment. Everything depended on what happened next. If the force field penetrator didn’t work, or if the MFM controls weren’t here, Operation Royalty was dead before it started, and with it, their last chance of saving humanity. The fate of the universe depended on the trigger he was about to pull. That thought made him breathe faster and brought a tight-lipped smile to his face. His neck and shoulder muscles tensed.

I should be freaking out right about now. What’s wrong with me? he thought, using Jim’s true and tested method of using humor to fight anxiety.

At exactly 0300 local time, Kurt said, “On three. One, two, three,” and Oksana touched her PDD. Through his Javelin’s command launch unit, Kurt saw a light blue circle appear midair nearly five miles away. The force field, just like the one in Winterfell, was invisible, and it mirrored its surrounding area for perfect camouflage. Kurt targeted the blue circle, said, “Missile one away,” and pulled the trigger. The missile flew away, leaving a faint trail of smoke behind. Next to him, Sergei counted to three, said, “Missile two away,” and shot his own missile. The other Commandos followed suit.

Through his CLU, Kurt watched the missiles disappear one by one into the blue circle. The only visible effect was that fire and smoke emitted from the circle, and some debris was thrown out. The force field itself didn’t collapse, which confirmed Tarq’s theory that it had a second power source outside the field itself. This worked just fine for Kurt because the missiles were a lot more effective inside a confined area.

After the last missile disappeared into the circle, Oksana touched her PDD once more, and the circle vanished.

Buzzing with anticipation, Kurt asked Tarq, “Did it work?”

Tarq’s answer came a few seconds later. “We are in.”

Kurt clenched his right hand above his head, happiness swelling inside his chest. The hard part of their operation was still ahead, but now humanity was freed from the Xortaags’ mind control machine, and they had ten billion new allies, including the two hundred thousand heavily armed soldiers surrounding SH-1. Oksana and Sergei caught him in a group hug, and there were high fives, fist bumps, and more hugs all around.

Kurt gave his team a minute to savor their victory. “Let’s go. We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

*****

The only thing worse than going into a battle that, if lost, would get you, your friends, your family, and all of humanity killed was waiting for the said battle to freaking start.

Experience had taught me when the actual fighting started, adrenalin would be pumped into my bloodstream, and I wouldn’t have the time to worry or get scared. But before that, I’d obsess over every single detail, wondering what I might’ve missed or what could go wrong. What made my situation worse was the fact that there was nothing I could do about our plans. Our whole strategy was based on destroying the Xortaag fleet on the ground. If that failed (and as the famous adage went, no plan survived the first contact with the enemy), Maada had around twenty-two thousand space fighters against our seven, which meant swift death for every single one of us. There was no way we could overcome those odds.

And with the Xortaag transportation ships only two short weeks away, we’d never have another shot at defeating them if we failed tonight.

Venom was busy predicting all sorts of nightmarish outcomes, driving me crazy, as usual. I did yet another pre-battle check, just to keep myself busy and hopefully shut him up. Everything was in order, just like the last ten times I’d checked my instruments.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and opened a channel to my fleet. “Guys, we are fencing in. You all know this already but allow me to say it out loud. If the Xortaag fleet gets off the ground, we are the only thing standing between them and the destruction of our planet. We are the last line of defense. Today we aren’t fighting for ourselves, or even our families and friends. Today we fight for all humanity. If we fail, our species is finished. Think about that when you fly into battle.”

I paused a second, my mouth set in a hard line, and then added, “What we do now echoes in eternity.”

The last time I plagiarized a great leader I ended up getting almost everyone under my command killed. Feeling the veins pulse in my temple, I fervently hoped to do better this time.

One of the fighter pilots, a twenty-four-year-old rookie on his first mission whose name was Peter McKinley, answered, “We won’t let you down, boss.”

Playing with the wedding ring hanging from my neck, I thought, I’m not worried about that, rookie. My main concern right now is I might let you down.

We flew closer to the enemy fleet base, waiting for the battle that would determine the fate of our species.

*****

SH-1 - 20.30 EST

Ten miles south of the Xortaag city and behind a ridge that hid him and the force under his command from the city guards, Matias, sitting in the turret of an enormous seventy-ton Leopard 3 tank, was waiting for Operation Royalty to start.

The Leopards were multilayer armored tanks, armed with a 140 mm gun, three machine guns, and two grenade launchers. They were thirty-five feet long, fifteen feet wide, and twelve feet high. The Commandos had gotten them from military bases in Holland and Germany. They’d entered the bases disguised as Xortaags and ridden away with the tanks.

This part of the operation was mostly his brainchild. Kurt was a genius when it came to guerrilla warfare, but as a US Marine, Matias was more qualified to plan conventional battlefield tactics. The Commandos had set up three small invisible force fields behind the ridge, and in the past two weeks, they’d moved the Leopards one by one late at night under cover of darkness inside the force fields. The human security forces protecting the city didn’t do any recon beyond the city limits because they didn’t expect a full-frontal assault—they were there to stop the Commandos from infiltrating the city.

Matias had four tank battalions, around two hundred and forty armored vehicles, under his command. The fleet base was located three miles from the southern limits of the city. When Operation Royalty started, the Leopards were supposed to enter the fleet base and destroy as many space fighters as possible on the ground.

Time passed very slowly, and with each passing minute, Matias’s tension increased. Somewhere out there, Oksana, who as a member of Kurt’s strike force was one of the first people entering the Xortaag city, was risking her life, and Matias could do nothing but wait.

His proposal was still fresh in his memory. Oksana had told him she wanted children. They had, half-jokingly, discussed if they should have six kids or seven.

Our kids will be gorgeous.

He giggled for a second and then wondered why that thought had passed through his mind at this particular moment, right before going to war.

At 02.45 local time, the tanks left the force fields and moved up the hills, stopping just before the top. At exactly 03.01, Tarq announced, “All units, Operation Royalty is a go.”

Matias’s heart started pounding, and his breath became fast and shallow, but he tried to sound calm and confident when talking to his units. “It’s showtime, everyone. Let’s go kick some Xortaag ass.”

Engines roaring, the giant Leopards rolled down the hill, moving fast toward the enemy fleet base, a trail of smoke and dust behind them.

*****

SH-1 - 21.00 EST

Bored out of her wits, Arminaa was sitting on a wooden chair on the twelfth floor of one of the newly constructed buildings in Kingdom of God, idly shining her Crimson Deathbringer Medal.

The injuries she had sustained a few weeks ago were mostly healed, but she was still not cleared for duty. She had been hanging out in the barracks with the rest of the fighter pilots until three nights ago when General Maada had ordered all pilots to be on a red alert until further notice, which meant the pilots were practically living and sleeping in the hangars next to their Deathbringers. Arminaa had the highest respect for the general, and the fact that the two of them had stood shoulder to shoulder against a swarm of enemy ships and survived had elevated her admiration to worship; still, even she thought the twenty-four-seven red alert was too much. Maybe the general was paranoid after what happened during the last enemy attack.

Because the barracks were now empty, Arminaa had decided to spend the evening with some of her friends who had just moved into one of the new buildings in the city. She had found it difficult to sleep in a new bed, which is why she was sitting here in the middle of the night, trying to kill some time, wishing to be cleared for active duty as soon as possible.

And all of a sudden, she saw missiles shot from a neighboring building's rooftop.

Her mouth gaping, she jumped out of her chair and tried to get a better look. From where she was standing neither the shooters nor their target was visible, but missiles fired in the middle of the Kingdom of God meant only one thing: The same people who had surprised them in the other fleet base and massacred her unit were here right now. Rage pulsed through her with such ferocity that her hands started trembling.

This time they won’t get out, she grimly thought, baring her teeth.

Arminaa ran out of the balcony, shouting into her PDD, alerting the rest of the Xortaags.

*****

SH-1 - 21.03 EST

Eric Green was having a good night, just like any other time spent serving the gods.

He was standing guard outside a hangar in the fleet base, along with three other guards. Protecting the gods and their machines was a great honor, one which had been bestowed upon him several times in the past few weeks. What more could a humble servant want from his life?

In the blink of an eye, everything changed.

Into his calm consciousness crashed horrible images of an alien invasion, with Earth burning and millions of dead bodies, including women and children, everywhere. Along with the images came a clear command: Tear them the hell apart!

He exchanged a look with the other guards, cocked his assault rifle, opened the hangar door, and walked in.

Hundreds of Xortaags, pilots and ground crew, were sleeping on the hangar floor in sleeping bags. A few were awake, sitting in a group together and discussing something. They turned and looked at Green and his companions with surprise on their faces, feeling no danger.

Green raised his weapon, squeezed the trigger, swept the muzzle from left to right, and sprayed the Xortaags with bullets from barely ten feet away.

The Xortaags he’d targeted had no chance. They all died screaming without being able to draw  weapons, their bodies riddled with bullets, their blood splattering all around them. One turned and tried to run away, only to get shot in the back by another human guard. Another one raised her hands in the air and shouted, “Don’t shoot! I surrender!”

Green smirked and shot her in the head; then he reloaded his assault rifle and turned his attention to the Xortaags just waking up and struggling to get out of their sleeping bags. He walked among them and killed an alien with each close-range shot, trying to save his ammo.

A walk in a park would’ve been more challenging than this.

Green and his companions threw a few grenades inside the closest Deathbringers, watched them blow up in muffled explosions, and rushed forward, shooting at everything that moved and leaving scores of corpses behind.

*****

SH-1 - 21.04 EST

Lying on the hangar floor in a sleeping bag, Maada was trying to fall asleep.

He had had a bad feeling for a couple of weeks. His warrior instinct kept telling him something was wrong, and a threat was imminent. The last time he ignored his instinct, thousands of Xortaags had been slaughtered. He was not a man to make the same mistake twice.

He had spent hour after hour obsessing over their defenses. The city was surrounded by two hundred thousand heavily armed human soldiers, and both the fleet base and the laser turrets were under heavy guard. The human security experts the Xortaags had brought in assured him there was no weak point for the enemy to exploit and a repeat of the surprise attack on their other fleet base was impossible. Maada had ordered a thousand Deathbringers, accompanied by another thousand human jet fighters, to fly over the city at all times. This was definitely overkill: The strength of their aerial defense was in the laser turrets operation. The Deathbringers flying overhead were likely to get in the way. He was still not satisfied, so he had ordered the fleet to be on red alert until further notice. For the last three days, the pilots and ground crew had stayed by their fighters. True to form, Maada himself had joined them.

He was beginning to doze off when the sound of gunfire jolted him out of his sleep. He scrambled out of his sleeping bag, grabbed his sidearm, and with eyes wide in horror saw their human security guards shoot at the pilots and ground crew who were caught by complete surprise.

What the hell?

One of the humans, a female who had wandered away from their group, noticed him and raised her gun to take aim, but Maada reacted much faster and put a laser bolt through her brain before she could pull the trigger.

All around him, his pilots, finally awake and alert, grabbed their weapons and started shooting back. There were several hundred of them and only three more assailants, so this encounter would have only one possible outcome. Maada hid behind a Deathbringer and pulled out his PDD. Reports of surprise attacks by human security forces were pouring in. He felt a sheen of sweat appear on his forehead. They were in deep trouble. The human security forces, put in charge of defending the city by the general himself, numbered in the hundreds of thousands and were heavily armed, and the Deathbringers were easy targets sitting in the hangars.

Maada opened a channel to the control tower and shouted, “Get the Deathbringers off the ground right fucking now!”

Only one assailant was still standing. Maada shot him in the head and hurried to get on his crimson Deathbringer, fury vibrating through his being.

*****

SH-1 - 21.04 EST

Mushgaana was doing what he had done most nights since arriving on Earth except when he had female company: sitting in his private movie theater in his residence, he was lost in a world of crime thrillers, sci-fi, or fantasy stories. He had just discovered vampires and werewolves. These humans had such vivid imaginations.

He was thoroughly enjoying himself when the sound of gunfire and explosions startled him.

He reached out with his mind, and what he found made his jaw drop all the way to the floor.

After the last attempt on his life, his residence was surrounded by human security forces, just like all the vital locations in the city. Right now, there was only one thought in those humans’ minds: to kill him and all other Xortaags. They had surprised his Xortaag guards and made short work out of them, and they were approaching his location. Mushgaana tried to stop them using his mind, but just like the last time, it was no use. He counted more than a hundred humans moving towards him. He wished he had had a secret exit built in this house too, but after killing the members of his security force the last time, there would be no way to keep it a secret, which would defeat its purpose.

He had, however, already prepared the Voice of God to wipe out all the humans if things got out of hand, and this looked like the perfect time to do that. All he needed to do was send a simple command, and humanity would be extinct, which served them bloody right.

I’ll kill them all!

Mushgaana tried to contact the team in charge of the Voice of God telepathically but could not find anyone. “We are under attack!” he shouted into his PDD. “Execute Command Thirty-Three immediately!”

Nobody answered. There was only one possible explanation for this silence: they were all dead, and no one was close enough to come to his rescue. He was all alone, and he was about to die.

So this is it. He thought of his favorite courtesan back home. He thought of his brothers, fighting over his place. He wondered how the vampire movie ended. Then the crown prince calmly went to his office, which was adjacent to the theater, opened a hidden panel under his desk, and pushed a red button.

Mushgaana stared at the button for a second. I hope this works, he thought, but he figured it probably would not. No one had ever tried something like this before. And either way, he would never find out.

The humans are in for a nasty surprise if it does work though.

He smiled at the thought.

Mushgaana could hear the enemy soldiers massing outside his office door, preparing to storm in. His PDD started buzzing. It was Maada, probably trying to launch a desperate rescue attempt. With so many humans at his door and no Xortaag forces in the vicinity, it was way too late for that though. Only a miracle could save him now, and he did not believe in miracles. He sent Maada a telepathic message. Goodbye, old friend. I hope you get out of this triumphant, whatever this is. And try not to miss me too terribly.

He paused for a second and then added, I love you like a brother. A real brother, not those assholes my father has made the huge mistake of bringing into this world.

Then he immediately cut the mental connection, not wanting to “hear” Maada’s response. The general would probably scold him for having gone weak and emotional in the final seconds of his life.

He chose an assault rifle out of his gun collection. The gun was also equipped with a grenade launcher. He made sure it was loaded and took two extra magazines. Then, remembering a scene from a movie he had watched a few weeks ago, he smirked, cocked his gun, turned toward the door, and yelled, “Say hello to my little friend!”

He shot a grenade straight at the office door, killing a bunch of humans standing right behind it. Then he walked into the smoke and dust with steady steps, fire and bullets pouring out of his gun, mowing down the assailants left, right, and center, killing dozens of them, and feeling more alive than he had felt in a long while.

My mental powers might not work on you, but I am still the crown prince of the most fearsome kingdom in the universe, you filthy cockroaches!

Mushgaana had to stop for a second to slam a fresh magazine into his gun. A bullet hit his shoulder, and another one his left arm. He blocked the pain and kept firing with one hand, tearing to pieces the two humans who had shot him, and then three others standing behind those two. More bullets hit him, tearing his flesh apart and pushing the agony to the point that he could not block it with his mental powers anymore. He did not mind though. This would last only a few more minutes, and he could take the pain like a real man.

I wish Maada could see me now. He would be proud.

*****

SH-1 - 21.10 EST

Kurt and his team were still running down the stairs, just approaching the ground floor, when Tarq contacted him. “Your presence has been noticed. Two small Xortaag patrols are converging on your location. Nothing you cannot handle, but … oh no!”

Out of breath after running down so many flights of stairs, Kurt didn’t bother to ask what Tarq meant.

“A large group of Xortaags is coming out of a nearby building,” continued the alien, “moving straight towards you.”

“How large?” asked Kurt, panting.

“Unknown, because they are still running out of the building, but at least several hundred.”

This complicates our situation, Kurt thought. There were too many Xortaags in the city for them to be able to fight their way out. If they encountered a big force, they’d have to dig in and hope for a rescue.

“Oh, good. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble,” he told Tarq.

“You should really stop hanging out with Jim,” said Tarq dryly. “That boy has a bad influence on you.”

Yeah. Everyone keeps telling me that.

Kurt stopped at the building’s main entrance and scanned the area. The streets were still empty. He sprinted out of the building, followed by Oksana, Sergei, and the rest of the team. Less than two minutes later, a laser bolt passed by his head. A group of Xortaags was shooting at his team from inside another building. Adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream, Kurt reacted by diving to the ground, aiming his STG 666, and shooting two Xortaags, one in the belly, the second in the head. The sight of the Xortaag’s head exploding gave him a slight satisfaction. The rest of the Commandos returned fire too. Kurt got up and darted toward the river, shooting as he ran, followed by his team, as more and more Xortaags appeared from the streets and buildings around them.

*****

Winterfell - 21.11 EST

Tarq had just finished talking to Kurt when Barook announced, “The Xortaag fleet is getting off the ground.”

Tarq’s antennae stiffened. If Maada and his fleet flew off the fleet base, it would all be over, regardless of how the ground battle went.

“How the hell did they get to their Deathbringers so fast?” he asked, biting his fingernails.

“I do not know, but let me see if I can do something about it,” replied Barook.

*****

SH-1 - 21.12 EST

Captain John Taylor was hiding behind the remains of a destroyed truck, shooting at a group of Xortaags in a building in front of him.

He’d been recruited into the human security force to fly jet fighters over Kingdom of God. He was off duty when the call to kill all the “gods” came in. He initially joined the fight using his sidearm but later grabbed the assault rifle and ammunition of a fallen soldier.

He suddenly saw an image of a laser turret in his mind and “heard” a new order: If you see one of these, try to get inside and shoot at the enemy ships leaving the fleet base.

The message was followed by images showing how to operate the turret once inside.

Taylor had seen one of those things. He ran towards the giant weapon’s location. A few minutes later he joined three other soldiers who were busy attaching explosives to the turret’s metal hatch.

“Fire in the hole,” shouted one of the soldiers.

Everyone ducked behind the turret as he pushed the detonator. The hatch blew open, sending dust, debris, and metal pieces into the air. Taylor peeked inside. There were four Xortaags in the turret, looking dazed and confused. They went down under a hailstorm of bullets. Taylor and the three other soldiers pushed the corpses out of the way and slid behind the weapon controls. He looked at the laser turret’s targeting scope, saw hundreds of Deathbringers getting off the ground in close formation, and a wolfish grin spread over his lips.

Working together as if they’d done this a hundred times before, the humans brought the weapon to bear and opened fire, sending countless huge laser bolts toward the Deathbringers. At such close range and with the ships flying next to each other, the results were spectacular. The enormous laser bolts hit the enemy space fighters, destroying dozens of them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Taylor and his companions yelled joyously as they kept shooting down enemy vessels.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Taylor had no idea where that thought had come from.

Shooting at close range turned out to be a double-edged sword. The Deathbringers scattered and fired back. Taylor knew he was a sitting duck, but he didn’t leave his post, and neither did the other three men.

“It’s been an honor fighting alongside you guys,” Taylor told them, “short as it was.”

The man sitting next to him grinned. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, but I don’t even know your name.”

“Captain John Taylor, at your service.”

The man nodded. “Lieutenant Jack Henderson, U.S. Marine Corps.”

Tylor chuckled. “Your initials are J.H.? I have a friend with the same initials. He saved my life during the Xortaag invasion.”

The four men kept killing enemy ships until a brilliant explosion destroyed the turret.

*****

SH-1 - 21.12 EST

Moving at the maximum speed of sixty miles per hour, the Leopards approached the Xortaag city. Matias, following the feed transmitted by the Akakie spy ship in orbit, saw how the human security forces turned on the Xortaags. The Xortaags didn’t have any anti-armor weapons and couldn’t even stop the security forces’ light armored vehicles, let alone Matias’s tank battalions.

This will be like stealing candy from a baby, he thought.

Tarq’s voice squawked in his headphones, “Be advised the Xortaag fleet is leaving its base.”

Matias cursed under his breath. I shouldn’t have jinxed it!

They were still three miles away from the city’s outer limits. He contacted his people. “Time for plan B. Fire at will.”

The Leopards carried duel-purpose mid-range munitions. These rounds could be shot directly at line-of-sight targets; they could also be fired in a ballistic arc and seek their own targets, in which case they had an effective range of fifteen miles.

Matias’s gunner used the tank’s fire-control system to fire the main gun. Each Leopard carried fifty-five rounds. With a rate of fire of nine rounds per minute, the three tank battalions unleashed their wave of death at the enemy’s fleet base.

Looking at the information transmitted by the spy ship, Matias watched the destruction their bombardment caused as he burned with a fierce joy. Several Deathbringer hangars went up in smoke, taking the space fighters still inside with them. Hundreds of enemy ships were hit while still trying to get off the ground. The ground crew and Xortaag soldiers in the base were massacred by the dozens.

The Leopards’ crew whooped and cheered excitedly.

Matias still wished their original plan had worked. The tanks’ main guns would’ve been a lot more effective at close range and shooting directly at targets, not to mention the damage their heavy machine guns and grenade launchers could have inflicted. If they’d entered the base with the Deathbringers on the ground, chances were very few would’ve been able to fly off. Still, destroying so many enemy ships felt great. It was the first time in history that a fleet of space fighters was destroyed using tank battalions.

One for the history books.

*****

I followed the battle using the spy ship feed. At first, everything went according to plan: Kurt’s team hit the installations under the force field, Barook hacked into MFM, and the human security forces turned on their previous masters, killing scores of them.

I watched a short and brutal dogfight unfold over SH-1. A thousand F-44s and an equal number of Deathbringers were patrolling the Xortaag city’s airspace. The jet fighters suddenly fired on their Xortaag counterparts, flying very close to them in visual range. They caught the Xortaags by total surprise and brought down more than half of the enemy fighters. The remaining Deathbringers fired back using their deadly laser cannons. The F-44 pilots didn’t even try to run away. They kept fighting until every single one of them was dead.

At least now there are a couple of hundred fewer enemy space fighters to worry about, I thought and immediately felt embarrassed for being so selfish.

“A thousand pilots just died, you moron,” I murmured under my breath.

“In the grand scheme of things, that’s really nothing,” muttered Venom.

One of these days, I’d get a Swiss Army knife, stand in front of a mirror, open my skull, and pull Venom out, kicking and screaming.

Less than fifteen minutes into the battle, my worst nightmare came true: the Deathbringers started getting off the ground.

I didn’t know how they managed to do that so fast, but I had no doubt Maada had something to do with it. It gave me extreme pleasure to watch so many Deathbringers shot down by their own laser turrets, and so many more destroyed by our tanks’ artillery fire, but even then I knew it wouldn’t be enough to save us.

“Jim, we estimate some fifteen thousand enemy ships made it.” Tarq’s voice was somber. “And they are coming straight towards you.”

“I have eyes, you know,” I snarled.

Grinding my teeth in frustration, I glowered at the image of the fast-approaching enemy fleet on my tactical display. Despite our meticulous planning and flawless execution, our ground assault had failed for all intents and purposes. The Xortaag fleet still outnumbered us two to one. How could we beat a Xortaag force twice our size and walk out of it alive?

This had just turned into a suicide mission.

“You don’t have to do it, you know,” said Venom.

He was right. We didn’t have to die today. I could order the fleet to turn around and go back to Winterfell. Then we could get on the Fireflies and go to Kanoor, joining forces with the Akakie fleet. Live to fight another day.

As the commander of the fleet, my first responsibility was protecting the people under my command. Would I be a good commander if I ushered them to their demise? And what difference would it make? Our death wouldn’t change anything. Maada would kill us all and then do whatever he damned pleased with our ground forces and the rest of humanity.

All I needed to do was leave Kurt and his Commandos in or around SH-1 to die. On top of Liz, the three thousand pilots who were killed in Maada’s ambush, the seven hundred million humans, and everyone else I’d failed to protect. I almost froze at the thought. I had enough guilt for five lifetimes.

I opened a channel to my people. “Let’s go save the planet. And for my pièce de résistance …”

I touched a VR screen, and “Ride of the Valkyries” boomed in all the Vipers’ cockpits. I could imagine Liz rolling her eyes.

I flew in to meet the enemy fleet swarming across the sky directly in front of us, leading the seven thousand men and women under my command to certain death.

“On the bright side, this probably means you’ll join Liz sooner than later,” said Venom.

“Yeah. Tonight we’ll dine in hell,” I said. “I sure hope they don’t let you in though.”

Chapter Fifteen

SH-1 - 21. 25 EST

Feeling veins pulsing in his neck, Maada was so mad that he entertained the idea of removing his flight helmet and chewing on his cockpit equipment.

Despite all his precautions, and for the second time in just a few months, the enemy had wiped out a big chunk of his fleet on the ground before they even got the chance to fly to battle. The sight of their own laser turrets shooting at the fleet they were supposed to protect was the worst thing he had ever endured in his life.

From the forty thousand space fighters under his command when they entered the orbit of this freaking planet just a few short months ago, now only fifteen thousand remained. Mushgaana, his only real friend, was dead, and even worse, their space communication center, SFD, and the Voice of God controls were all gone.

The Earth invasion had been a complete failure. Without the Voice of God, there was no way one million Xortaags could hold on to Earth against ten billion humans. Hell, the two hundred thousand humans he had tasked with protecting the city were probably enough to wipe out all the Xortaags. And without the space communication and the SFD, they were trapped here and had nowhere to go.

Everything he had achieved in a lifetime of military campaigns was decimated in less than five minutes. History would not remember him as the conqueror of the galaxy but as the fool who lost everything on a stupid backwater planet.

His hands were shaking so hard that it was difficult to control his Deathbringer.

The humans were done. If the Xortaags could not have Earth, neither could they. He would massacre every last human and make their planet uninhabitable. Let it be a lesson for all the other species who might be tempted to make an alliance with the Akakies against his people.

First things first though. The enemy fleet had been spotted approaching the city. They would be the first ones to taste his wrath. Feeling his blood boiling, he led the remainder of his fleet toward the enemy.

*****

SH-1 - 21.45 EST

Breathing laboriously, Kurt stopped running, took aim, and shot a Xortaag following his team, and started running again.

It’d begun to rain, which made both running and shooting more difficult.

He repeated the stop-shoot-run sequence thirty seconds later.

Their situation was getting increasingly desperate. Kurt’s first plan was to make a beeline for the river where the Commandos had hidden their diving suits, but they ran into a Xortaag patrol on their way to the river. The Xortaags had blocked their communications, and without Tarq’s help, avoiding them had become impossible. Then he decided to push towards the city borders, hoping to unite with human forces battling the Xortaags.

Urban warfare was the Commandos’ specialty. They were much better armed, had armor, and used military rounds that could go through a cement wall and kill the man hiding behind it. Most Xortaags in this part of the city weren’t even real soldiers; they were engineers, electricians, and foremen carrying sidearms. But there were just too many of them, and they outnumbered Kurt’s team a hundred to one.

A group of four Xortaags darted out of a nearby building. Kurt fired at them as fast as he could. He put a bullet through the skull of his first target and dropped a slug through the chest of the second. Oksana and Sergei took care of the other two.

With two new Xortaags showing up for each one the Commandoes killed, Kurt thought, It’s beginning to feel like fighting Hydra.

Sergei, shooting with one hand and helping an injured Commando move with the other, growled, “This looks bad.”

Oksana said, “Duh!” and threw a grenade inside a building where several Xortaags were shooting at them. An explosion made pieces of stone, dust, and body parts fly out of the building.

“Got any bright ideas?” Sergei asked Kurt.

Kurt wiped beads of sweat off his forehead. “Yeah. Don’t get shot.”

Sergei smirked. “I always knew there’s reason everyone thinks you’re military genius.”

This must be how Colonel Faulkner felt towards the end, Kurt thought, shooting at a group of Xortaags who had just appeared behind them.

*****

I was engaged in a dogfight with a Deathbringer when Josef contacted me. “We found him.”

There was no need to ask who “him” was.

I tried a new tactic I’d thought up recently: I pulled the trigger and shot at the enemy ship with my laser cannons, targeting the right side of the space fighter. Trying to avoid the laser bolts, the pilot snapped to the left, straight into the path of one of the two Sparrows I’d released five seconds ago.

I thrust my fists in the air and shouted, “Alpha Mike Foxtrot!”

How I loved fighter pilot jargons! Only we fighter pilots could pack so much emotion into such a short phrase.

I firewalled my Viper and made a beeline to the coordinates Josef had just sent me.

I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Sometimes I just couldn’t help myself.

I found Maada’s red Deathbringer fighting three Vipers. Several enemy ships were flying or just hovering close by, protecting their commander. I was certain they were doing that on their own initiative. Maada struck me as a man confident enough to tackle a hundred enemy ships on his own without thinking about it twice.

I thought about joining the fight, and I froze.

Again!

I took off my left glove and touched the wedding ring around my neck. When the cold metal met my hand, I saw Liz putting it on my finger. I saw her as clearly as on our wedding day, the form-fitting white satin dress setting off her smooth dark skin as she flashed her dazzling smile. She was looking directly at me, her deep brown-drizzled-with-gold eyes full of joy and passion. She was the love of my life, taken from this world in her prime. There were two people on this earth responsible for her death: Maada and me, and by God, one of us would pay today.

I dove in before I could change my mind. Two Deathbringers moved to intercept me. My cannons roared to life. I fired dead-center bursts into the bandits, and they both lit up like enormous candles.

One of the Vipers fighting Maada exploded into flames.

God damn it!

I heard Josef’s voice. “Good timing, boss. We could sure use your help.”

I flew in, shooting my remaining two Sparrows and firing the laser cannons at the same time. Maada saw me coming, wildly twisted his space fighter, steered clear of the missiles, and started shooting back. I pushed the stick hard right, and most of his laser bolts missed my fighter by a few inches, but two impacted right below the cockpit. A little bit higher, and this dogfight would’ve finished before it even started. I managed to dodge the general’s next hailstorm of laser fire, but I could tell he was just warming up.

And then, I had an incoming message from the devil himself.

“Colonel Harrison, welcome to my party,” said Maada in my earphones.

“You mean your funeral, General,” I corrected him.

“Such confidence. Did you not run away in a straight line as fast as you could the last time we met?” he taunted me.

Jerking the stick hard left to avoid his incoming fire, I felt my face and ears start burning, and the muscles around my mouth became so tense my teeth started to ache. I wanted to shout, “You frakking son of an alien whore!” but I bit my tongue. That wouldn’t have been very dignified, and I didn’t want him to know he had gotten under my skin. Still, hatred poured through me like white-hot liquid metal. Intense, implacable hatred for the general who had killed Liz, who was responsible for the death of half of our pilots and countless others, who would murder every single human on Earth given the opportunity.

I pulled up and to the right, and for a glorious second managed to get him dead center in my gunsight. I pulled the trigger and fired off a rapid volley of laser bolts. Maada snapped to the left and dodged my laser bolts. I stayed on him like glue, trying to get him back in my gunsight, trying harder not to get killed.

“So, no comebacks? said Venom. “He walks all over us and gets away with it?”

We couldn’t have that. I hated it when others had the last word. Still following the Crimson Deathbringer, I contacted Maada. “General, what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

“Seriously?” said Venom, filling in for Liz.

“How so?” he asked.

I could bring my gunsight right up to his fighter, but I couldn’t get it on the Deathbringer. I kept trying to get a clean shot. My finger poised on the trigger, I said through clenched teeth, “You seem to think you have the upper hand here, sitting in that obsolete piece of junk you’re flying. You’re wrong. We have destroyed your precious city. You’ve got nowhere to go.”

Maada rolled and put his fighter in a sharp curve. “I still have enough firepower to scorch Earth several times over. I will rain fire on Earth until ninety percent of humanity is slaughtered; then I will land and kill the rest up close and personal.”

That was it. Anger filled my mind and spread throughout my body like venom. “You frakking son of an alien whore!” I yelled, pulled the trigger, and rained cannon fire on the Crimson Deathbringer, but I missed it by a mile. To add insult to injury, more laser hits impacted my Viper when he returned fire.

“I hate this guy!” said Venom. “I hate him so much.”

*****

Winterfell - 22.05 EST

Biting his fingers, Tarq thought, We are going to lose.

The battle on the ground was going as well as it could have been expected. The human forces, despite the Xortaags’ numerical advantage, had the upper hand. The Xortaags’ remaining laser turrets had easily shot down their choppers, but they still had armored cars, light artillery, and shoulder-fired missiles, for which the Xortaags had no answer. Not to mention Matias’s tank battalions that were freely moving in the city, massacring the enemy soldiers by the hundreds.

The more important battle, the one raging in the sky above the city, was a totally different matter.

The fleet had already lost more than two thousand space fighters. They had inflicted slightly higher casualties on the Xortaags, but that was not enough. And after this was over, Maada would not leave a blade of grass standing on Earth.

Tarq could not have another ten billion deaths on his conscience. If we lose this battle, I must kill myself, and because I am too much of a pussy to do it, I will have to program MICI to make me commit suicide.

Tarq asked Barook to open a channel to the enemy fleet. A few moments later, he said, “My name is Tarq. I am the Commander of the Akakie Special Operations Force. It gives me extreme pleasure to let you know you have fallen into the trap I had carefully laid for you.”

He took a breath and continued, “By now, you all know you have lost. We have destroyed your space communication center and your SFD. Your city is surrounded by our forces, and it will fall in the next couple of hours. We have already demolished your fleet base and all your support facilities. More importantly, with your so-called Voice-of-God-my-Ass gone, there are now ten billion humans on Earth screaming for your blood. I am well aware of your fleet’s capabilities, but the fact of the matter is you cannot remain airborne forever. In a few days, your energy reserves will be depleted, and you will have to land. Regardless of what happens to the humans, I promise you this: We Akakies will hunt down every last one of you, and I will personally see to it that your death is spectacularly unpleasant.”

Tarq waited a second so that the Xortaags could ponder their dilemma. “However, if you surrender now, we will treat you well. We actually do not have a choice because you captured several thousand of my people during our last encounter. We want to arrange for a POW exchange. If you surrender, you will be home with your friends and families soon. The choice is yours. Make a wise one.”

Barook gave him a thumbs-up. “Well said, Commander.”

Tarq left the channel open, anxiously waiting for a response that came a few seconds later. “Fuck you and the horse!”

It was unmistakably Maada’s voice.

Tarq and Barook exchanged a confused look. “Horse? What horse?” whispered Barook.

“Sorry, General. Thanks for offering, but I’m married,” said Tarq. “The horse might be interested though.”

Tarq watched in horror as Maada, as if trying to make a point, hit Jim’s Viper with a few laser bolts at that very moment. He gasped and waited for the golden space fighter to explode. A long second later, he heaved a sigh of relief when that did not happen.

“Not a single Xortaag will surrender as long as this guy lives,” said Barook.

Tarq sighed. “I know. Let’s hope someone kills him, or we are all dead.” He contacted Jim. “Your space fighter is badly damaged. Disengage and return to Winterfell.”

“Negative,” Jim answered firmly. “Not as long as this bastard is drawing breath,”

Tarq had a sense of déjà vu. He had had this conversation with someone else recently. When he remembered, both his hearts skipped a beat, and a sudden coldness hit him at his core. “I had a similar conversation with Elizabeth, and you know how that ended. I am giving you a direct order. You cannot possibly overcome Maada in a damaged fighter.”

*****

With confidence I didn’t feel, I answered, “Watch me.”

“Listen, you!” yelled Cordelia. “Get your ass back here. I can’t lose both Liz and you.”

Touching, but I had to focus on the task at hand. I ignored them both.

In the last twenty minutes, I’d used all my flying skills and mastery of dogfighting tactics trying to shoot the Crimson Deathbringer, and yet not even one of my laser bolts or missiles had landed. Josef, who was one of our most experienced fighter pilots, and the third pilot, who happened to be Peter McKinley, were not faring any better. It was like the general’s ship didn’t abide by the laws of physics. He kept making impossible twists and turns at a very high velocity, evading our fire and repeatedly hitting us in the process.

McKinley’s Viper spiraled out of sight in flames. The poor boy probably hadn’t imagined himself coming up against the galaxy’s deadliest fighter pilot on his maiden mission. I watched his space fighter disappear in thick black clouds over SH-1, rage, and guilt competing to see which one could bite off a bigger chunk of my soul.

One more person I’d failed.

My fighter was hit a few times. A number of warning systems were flashing furious red lights. Maada’s laser fire had scorched my left wing, and my Viper reacted more slowly to the stick movements as a result. The space fighter’s computer engaged multiple damage control and repair systems. Still, I had to fight my equipment just to stay in the battle. I put both my hands on the stick, trying to steady it and get my space fighter under control as my engines’ power kept fluctuating.

I faintly smelled smoke, even though I was wearing my oxygen mask.

This can’t possibly be good!

And if Maada had been in any real danger, all those Deathbringers around us wouldn’t have stayed there and watched.

“Boss, I—” Josef started to say.

I never found out what my old friend wanted to say. His Viper exploded with such force that the shock wave shook me inside my cockpit. The silver space fighter was completely obliterated, as if it never existed. Maada must’ve hit her engines, turning her to dust.

Up to this moment, I still had hope, just a tiny snowflake against the warm summer wind. With Josef gone, utter, profound despair washed over me, hurting so badly that I felt what was in my veins wasn’t blood but molten lava. The only thing sustaining me now was anger and stubbornness.

Josef had two beautiful little children whose pictures he used to show us any chance he got. But I had more important things to worry about than my old friend and his now-orphaned kids. We were all doomed. It was like our last battle all over again. They had two space fighters for every one of ours, and I’d already lost more than a third of the Vipers under my command. Our pilots hadn’t died cheaply. The enemy had lost at least one space fighter for every one of ours, but when the enemy fleet had twice as many ships as you, inflicting one-on-one casualties didn’t win the battle.

Terror came on the heel of hopelessness and made me shudder inside my temperature-controlled flight suit. Terror of failure. Terror of losing the battle. Terror of being single-handedly responsible for the death of every man, woman, and child on the planet.

Sweat drenched my skin, and I found it difficult to breathe.

Our only way out of this was to break the Xortaags’ resistance by killing Maada. Talk about doing the impossible. The guy was invincible. There was a reason he was a living legend in the galaxy. Tarq once had told me parents all across the known universe scared their children by telling them if they didn’t behave Maada would take them. I’d wondered if he was serious but didn’t wonder anymore.

Here I was again on the verge of certain death, and my brain kept itself busy by pulling up nonsensical memories. It had to be some sort of a defense mechanism to distract me from thinking about my impending demise. Anything not to face the truth.

Venom chose this moment to stick his ugly nose out. “Let me get this straight: As the commander of the fleet, you led your forces to three battles and got everyone killed in two of those. Well done! You make General Custer look good.”

Bugger off, you useless parasite!

But if I were going down, taking humanity with me, I’d go down fighting. I raised my chin and kept trying to lock on Maada’s Deathbringer. Grinding my teeth so hard the sour taste of blood filled my mouth, I made my Tango Uniform Viper twist and dodge wildly, barely escaping death every second.

I spun my Viper to dodge Maada’s fresh incoming fire. Two laser bolts passed so close to my cockpit that they illuminated my instruments, and sparks flew from the already damaged left wing, which looked like it was hanging on to my space fighter by a thread.

“What do we say to the Lord of Death?” I yelled defiantly. “Not frakking today!

“Fighting Maada in a damaged Viper, with no missiles left?” said Venom. “I’m pretty sure it’s today, as in right about now.”

I wished Dr. James, who I was certain thought me a coward, could see me now, staring death in the face and not even flinching.

*****

SH-1 - 22.25 EST

Kurt emptied his gun into the mass of enemy soldiers approaching, trying to take headshots. Then he took shelter behind the wall, slammed a fresh mag home, and murmured, “So, this is the end then.”

He and the remaining members of his team were surrounded in a small, under-construction one-story building. Most of his people had been killed, and the remaining eight Commandos were injured, except for Sergei who, despite his large build, was unscathed. That guy was so lucky.

What bothered him most was not dying in this godforsaken city. He wanted to know that Operation Royalty would be a success, that all of this wasn’t for nothing. He’d die in peace if he knew they succeeded. But with the Xortaags blocking their communications, there was no way to know how the battle was going. All he could do was wish Jim and the others good luck. He considered praying for a second, but after all those years of ignoring God, it was unlikely the deity would listen to him now.

“It was fine and good to be defiant to the very end,” said Oksana, shooting from behind another wall, “but it was better not to get caught in the first place.”

Sergei gave her a puzzled look. “I love you like sister, but sometimes I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

Oksana wiped the blood pouring out of a cut above her eyebrow with her sleeve and smiled like a crazy woman. “A sister!”

Sergei removed his night-vision goggles and with a trembling hand rubbed his eyes to clear the sweat running down his forehead and blocking his vision. “She’s definitely losing it,” he told Kurt.

One of the Commandos screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground after getting hit in the chest. The man’s armor had weakened after absorbing several hits. Kurt rushed to the Commando’s body, but the smoldering hole in his chest told him there was nothing he could do.

Seven, Kurt thought. He went back to his position and put two quick rounds into the belly of a Xortaag soldier. He kept shooting his STG 666, bringing down a Xortaag with each shot, even though a wound in his right shoulder was throbbing with pain and made concentration difficult.

A laser bolt struck Kurt’s body armor. Its heat stung a bit, but Kurt knew he’d be OK for as long as his armor held.

Sergei, finally running out of luck, was next. A laser bolt hit him squarely in the face. Oksana screamed and despite having been shot in the leg limped to his side as fast as she could, but it was obviously too late.

Kurt gripped his rifle so hard his knuckles turned white, closed his eyes for a second, and thought, Farewell, enemy mine.

He aimed and shot a Xortaag in the head. Then another one, and a third soldier after that. His gun clicked empty just as a laser bolt whizzed by mere inches from his helmet. He looked for a fresh magazine, and when found none told Oksana, “I’m out.”

Oksana threw him Sergei’s gun. “I’m on my last few rounds too.”

Kurt grabbed the assault rifle mid-air, took aim, and caressed the trigger several times. He hid behind the wall again, a second before enemy fire rained on his position, and checked the magazine.

“I have one bullet left,” he said. “There must still be a few hundred of them out there. Maybe if they all stand in one line?”

The earth beneath them started shaking.

Oksana raised her eyebrows. “An earthquake? Now?”

Kurt looked outside the building and smiled tiredly. “Nope. It’s General Blucher, and not a second too soon.”

From down the street, five gigantic Leopards rolled into view. The tanks’ heavy machine guns roared, killing a dozen helpless Xortaag soldiers instantly. The Leopards’ crew manning the grenade launchers joined in. Some Xortaags fled. Others started shooting at the tanks with their sidearms. Hundreds of tiny laser bolts hit the tanks, causing no damage, while the armored vehicles kept firing at the enemy and butchering scores of them. The lead tank ran over a group of alien soldiers who were still shooting at it. They all died a horrible death.

Kurt burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“What is so funny?” asked Oksana.

Kurt suppressed his laughter long enough to say, “The Xortaags are brave, but you have to question their judgment.”

Oksana looked at him blankly for a second; then she started laughing too. The two of them laughed so hard that they both soon found it difficult to breathe.

A tank stopped right outside the building. Its turret hatch opened, and Matias pulled half of his torso out of it. “Kurt? You in there?” he shouted.

Kurt stood up and looked outside. There were no Xortaags in sight. He waved to Matias. “Hi, Matias.”

“Is Oksana with you?” asked Matias, his voice tense.

“Hi, honey,” Oksana called out. “Thanks for the rescue.”

The former Marine, immense relief obvious in his face, said, “Sorry it took us a while. They’ve blocked your comms; otherwise, we would’ve let you know we were on the way.”

Kurt helped Oksana stand up, and they both started limping out of the building towards the tank, followed by the other four surviving Commandoes.

“How is the battle going?” Kurt asked Matias.

“Could not be going any better.” Matias beamed. “The soldiers Maada had placed around SH-1 are slaughtering the Xortaags, and nobody can stand against my Leopards. SH-1 is ours.”

Relieved, Kurt smiled, raised his free hand in a V-for-victory signal, and told Oksana, “We did it. Say something epic.”

Oksana let out a thin laugh. “One other such victory would utterly undo us.”

*****

Arminaa was hiding inside a building on the opposite side of the street. Soaked with rain and feeling utterly miserable, she had watched with hate in her eyes as the huge metal monsters killed her comrades by the dozens. She would have happily given her life to be in a Deathbringer’s cockpit right now, raining fire and destruction on enemy vehicles. Since that was impossible, giving her life was all she could do.

Arminaa looked at the grenade she was holding in her hands. She had taken it from a dead Commando. She had never seen one of those before, but she had watched how the enemy soldiers used them, and at any rate, how difficult could it be?

Arminaa carefully cleaned her Crimson Deathbringer Medal of dirt and mud one last time, pulled the pin, and with a sidearm in one hand and the grenade in the other, ran out of the building. She was approaching the tank from behind, so none of the Leopard’s crew saw her. The street was full of fog-like smoke, both from the tanks’ engines and the explosions, which helped her cause. So did the downpour. She ran as fast as her enhanced muscles allowed her, feeling wind and rain on her face for what certainly would be the last time.

*****

Kurt caught a glimpse of the Xortaag woman before she disappeared behind the tank. A sudden coldness hit him at the core, and he shouted to Matias, “Watch out!”

An energy bolt hit Matias in the back of the head. He disappeared inside the tank’s hatch. Kurt, still holding on to Oksana with his left hand, started shooting with Sergei’s gun, but his target was mostly hidden behind the tank turret. The Xortaag woman managed to throw the grenade down the hatch a fraction of a second before Kurt shot her in her forehead. Most of her brain splashed from the back of her skull. Her blood painted the tank dark purple.

There was a dull explosion inside the tank, and smoke started coming out of the hatch.

Kurt collapsed on the ground, pulling Oksana with him, not even daring to look at her. He’d never been so dead tired in all his life. Then he forced himself to check on Oksana. Her eyes were glazed with tears. She bit her lips, got up, and tried to limp towards the tank. The image of what she’d find inside turned Kurt’s stomach. Feeling defeated and useless, he stood up and pulled the girl into a gentle embrace. For a second, Oksana struggled to free herself, but soon she hid her face in Kurt’s chest, desperate tears spilling down her face, crying in such a desolate way that Kurt felt he himself was hanging by a thread, his own eyes wet with tears. The two of them just stood there under the rain, exhausted, hurt, and heartbroken.

*****

SH-1 - 22.25 EST

While thousands of deadly dogfights raged all around her, Keiko circled the small area where Maada was fighting Jim and his companions.

She watched the fight for a few minutes, trying to find a weakness in the general’s tactics, finding none. She knew she was no match for Maada. Still, she had one final card to play.

She’d been thinking about her plan for a few days now, but she hadn’t been able to make up her mind. With the moment of truth upon her, she knew what she had to do. Once she made her decision, a wave of serenity washed over her. It was how one felt when going home after a hard but rewarding day at work.

She recited the Earth prayer in her mind. We gently caress you, Earth, our planet and our home …

Keiko witnessed Maada destroying Josef’s Viper and Jim attacking the enemy craft with renewed vigor, probably born out of desperation, even though his vessel was damaged. The two space fighters started an aerial dance, fiercely twisting and turning around each other, each pilot trying to gain the upper hand.

Keiko saw her window of opportunity.

She pushed the stick and flew in without hesitation. The Viper screamed into a power dive. Two Deathbringers tried to intercept her, but she didn’t engage them at all. She just evaded them and moved forward. The two enemy pilots gave chase, shooting at her from behind. Laser bolts flashed by her cockpit. They would hit her in a few seconds, but it was inconsequential.

Moving in fast, feeling the thrill of hunting the biggest hunter of all, Keiko released all her six Sparrows in pairs and let go with the laser cannons. Maada countered by making a hard turn up and to his right, avoiding the missiles and keeping himself out of her line of fire. Under normal circumstances, Keiko’s Viper would fly by the Crimson Deathbringer, causing little or no harm.

This is no normal circumstance, thought Keiko as she pulled the trigger and showered the enemy ship with rapid bursts of laser fire.

General Maada, welcome to Earth!

*****

Maada, intoxicated by his most recent victory, recognized the dark green Viper. He smiled wolfishly and thought, Good to see you again, old friend. You and I have unfinished business.

With a lifetime of experience as a fighter pilot, Maada might have sensed the danger, but his attention was still focused on the golden enemy vessel, whose pilot, despite being outmatched and having taken several hits, still doggedly tried to target his Deathbringer.

Some people just do not know when to quit, Maada thought with disdain, but he felt a grudging respect for the commander of the enemy fleet who had apparently grown a gigantic pair since the last time they met in battle.

Maada squeezed the trigger and unleashed a deadly barrage of laser fire at the green space fighter, scoring hit after hit, but it kept coming, abruptly changed direction, and charged towards Maada’s Deathbringer, accelerating on a collision course while still shooting. He understood the enemy pilot’s intention and with lightning-fast reactions started maneuvering to avoid the collision, smirking confidently even though the other ship had already gotten so close that the proximity alert was blaring in his cockpit.

I have been dodging energy bolts all my life, and this idiot thinks he can ram my ship!

Maada would have succeeded, but at that very moment, the space around his cockpit lit up as the golden space fighter, shooting blindly, fired yet another intense barrage of laser bolts at him. Most of them missed, but a single white-hot energy bolt ripped into the general’s Deathbringer, causing flames to spew from the fuselage. This caused only minimal damage, and it would have been dealt with by the ship’s damage control and repair systems, but it delayed the execution of his maneuver by just a fraction of a second.

That was all it took.

From his cockpit, Maada saw the green vessel getting bigger and bigger until it filled his field of view. He had only enough time to think, Fucking humans!

The green Viper slammed straight into the fabled Crimson Deathbringer, and they turned into a tiny supernova.

*****

Dumbfounded, I stared at the expanding ball of fire and molten parts illuminating the battlefield, and whatever was left of Keiko and Maada’s space fighters, which was little more than dense smoke and flaming debris.

“Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” Venom yelled at the Crimson Deathbringer.

My vision blurred so completely that I thought I was going blind until I realized my eyes were full of tears. I broke down into tears, crying as soundlessly as I could, ignoring both Tarq and Barook who were shouting in a frenzy, asking me if Maada was indeed dead, apparently not trusting their own eyes.

“This is new,” said Venom.

Teardrops freely slid down my cheeks, my sobs only interrupted by the need to draw breath. The magnitude of my loss swept over me, and I felt as if my brain were being shredded from the inside. Liz was gone. Keiko was gone. Josef was gone. Allen was gone. More than half of our pilots were already dead, and only God knew how many more would join them before this day was over. For all I knew, Kurt was dead or dying. Now Maada was gone, and I couldn’t even get the slight satisfaction of having my revenge. That was an unbearable torture to my soul, and I kept crying as if the depth of my sorrow would bring everyone back.

It didn’t.

But I was still here, having to carry this burden for the rest of my life. And I still had a job to do.

I shook my head to clear the tears from my eyes and rejoined the battle.

Tarq contacted me. “Jim, some of your Viper’s systems are dangerously close to failing. You have to return to Winterfell immediately before your space fighter falls from the sky.”

“No way,” I growled.

“That was not a request.”

“You can demote me later. Right now, I ain’t gonna leave my men,” I answered.

My men.

I belatedly added, “And women. My women? My people?”

The first group of enemy pilots transmitted their intention to surrender less than five minutes later. First in small groups, and then in bigger ones, almost two-thirds of the Deathbringers hoisted the figurative white flag. Despite losing their numerical advantage, the rest fought to the bitter end and took a lot of us with them.

By the conclusion of the battle, I had shot down more than a dozen more enemy space fighters, but I’d stopped counting.

With the Xortaag fleet out of the way, we turned our attention to the battle still raging in the city. By this point, their laser turrets had all been destroyed by the human ground forces, and the Xortaags were defenseless against an air strike.

“Ants, meet boot,” I murmured.

We gleefully slaughtered them by the thousands until every last Xortaag on Earth was either dead or captured.

Operation Royalty, and the Xortaags’ occupation of Earth, was over.

Due to the extensive damage to my Viper, I was the last pilot to RTB, barely hanging in the air. A few of my men (people!) had stayed behind to escort my fighter, but they all landed before I did. By the time I started my landing run, the whole space fighter was shaking so badly that I was beginning to think I might not make it after all, and I pulled a deadstick at the end.

When I landed my golden Viper, all our surviving pilots were waiting for me, nearly four thousand men and women, still in flight suits, standing in formation. Someone shouted, “Commander on deck!”

All my pilots, in unison, faced me and executed a perfect military salute.

After struggling with my space fighter’s flight equipment for what seemed like hours, my limbs might as well have been chained to iron shackles, but with pride welling up, I stuck out my chest and saluted back.

If only Liz was here.

*****

That evening, Kurt, Oksana, Lilly, Dr. Bob, and I got together, had a few drinks, and reminisced about Liz, Keiko, Allen, Sergei, Matias, Josef, and Anastasiya. The five of us looked more miserable than Dr. Gachet. Van Gogh would’ve had a blast drawing our portrait.

“If this is how we feel in victory,” I murmured, feeling bone-weary, “I wonder how we would’ve felt if we’d failed.”

“We’d be dead,” Lilly pointed out. “So I guess we would’ve felt nothing.”

Kurt sipped his Paulaners. “You know, Keiko was right all along. I should’ve cherished every second we had together. Instead, I pushed her away.”

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” said Oksana philosophically.

I gave her a tired look. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to use clichés?”

Cordelia laughed. “Look who’s talking.”

Chapter Sixteen

There was a lot of work to do, so we decided to keep MFM running until we could deal with several urgent issues.

Nearly half a million Xortaags had surrendered. We turned what was left of SH-1 into a POW camp and kept them there under heavy guard for the time being.

We rounded up Zheng’s people and put them in normal prisons. I was with Kurt when he was informed Zheng himself was found and was in custody. His eyes flashed, and a predatory smile crossed his face. I was happy I wasn’t in Zheng’s shoes.

We took this opportunity to deal with organized crime once and for all. We used MFM to send out a message, asking whoever had been involved in any criminal activity to report to their local police and confess to everything, supporting their confessions with evidence. Hundreds of crime bosses all over the world willingly went to prison, and an untold number of unsolved crimes and cold cases were closed.

With all that done, we sent out a message, asking everyone on the planet to be either in front of a TV or online on October 14th at 12.00 EST. We stopped the MFM at that moment and broadcasted a previously prepared message by Kurt. We knew once MFM stopped, the people would remember their last memory before going under, which for most of them was the alien invasion, with incoherent bits and pieces of what’d happened ever since.

Kurt filled everyone in on the Xortaag invasion, the Akakies’ help, the liberation of Earth, the whole nine yards. He asked people to go on with their normal lives and wait for a democratic election to be held in a few weeks. Until then, Earth would be governed by us, and if anyone had a problem with that, we could just turn MFM back on. He wasn’t joking about that.

We did turn MFM back on, but only for a few minutes. It was Tarq’s idea. We were worried about mass hysteria—it wasn’t every day that you woke up from a several-months-long dream and were told you’d been living under an alien occupation that had claimed the lives of several million people. Tarq used MFM to send out soothing messages for about five minutes. He kept doing that once every hour for the next few weeks until, slowly but surely, everything went back to normal.

*****

New York - October 14, 2078

A voice in Chancellor Zheng’s head kept repeating that he should be in front of a TV at noon. There wasn’t a TV in his cell, so he sat on his bed, waiting for someone to come and tell him what to do.

All of a sudden, the voice disappeared, and his half-forgotten memories came rushing back. He remembered the alien invasion and the desperate attempts to fight them off. He barely had any memories of the last few months, but it appeared he’d been busy running some sort of a figurehead government.

Zheng noticed a man standing on the other side of his prison cell bars. When he recognized the man, he jumped out of his skin.

Kurt von der Hagen was standing there, wearing his trademark black trench coat, staring at him with cold, gray eyes.

Kurt took an antique six-shooter out of his pocket. It was an 1851 Colt Navy. He slowly loaded it, bullet by bullet, taking his time.

Zheng paled. Coming face to face with the infamous assassin had always been his worst fear. He’d never dreamed of it happening with him unarmed and helpless in a prison cell. “Now wait a minute,” he said with a shivering voice. “I’m sure we can come to a reasonable arrangement.”

Kurt cocked the hammer and pointed the gun at Zheng’s head. “You killed my parents. I told you you’d pay for this.”

Zheng, trembling with fear, hid his head behind his hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Do you want a fresh pair of pants before I pull the trigger?” asked Kurt.

*****

Kiev - October 14, 2078

Oksana was sitting in a small, one-bedroom apartment when the door opened, an old man walked in, and shouted in Ukrainian, “Maria, are you home? Did you watch the news? We’ve been living under an alien occupation these last few months!” Then he saw Oksana, his jaw dropped, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

Oksana raised the gun in her hand so that the old man could see it and said in the same language, “Hi, Uncle Alex.”

The old man, Alex, stared blankly at Oksana. “Where’s my wife?” he asked.

Oksana nodded towards the bedroom. “In there, unconscious. I’m not a monster, but I can’t say the same about you.”

Alex, beginning to shake, said, “I had to do it. I have a gambling problem, and I owed thousands of dollars to the mafia. They threatened to kill my wife and children. This was the only way to save my family.”

Oksana pointed the gun at him. “Still, you have to answer for my sister.”

The old man fell to his knees and started begging. “Please! Have mercy!”

Oksana said, “There will be killing till the score is paid,” and double-tapped him through his heart.

*****

Two weeks after Operation Royalty, I was sitting in my Viper cockpit, with all my four thousand pilots behind me, when a single Xortaag scout ship appeared in orbit.

The scout ship crew received a message from their friends on Earth. “Welcome to Earth. We have been eagerly waiting for your arrival. Everything is ready as planned. The fleet can proceed.”

The message was coming through Xortaag channels and had their codes. Little did they know it was sent by the captured Xortaags turned by MICI.

I watched the exchange intently, hoping the scout ship crew didn’t decide to scan Earth, and they did not. Why would they? In their entire history, there had never been a single planet freed after occupation.

“Time to chew bubblegum and kick ass,” I said into my mike.

The Xortaag transport ships made the final jump after they received the all-clear signal from the scout ship. They ran straight into a salvo of our Phoenixes—eight thousand of them, to be exact. The missiles were useless against Deathbringers, but the huge and cumbersome transport ships were a different story, with ten thousand Deathbringers tucked safely in their hangars. The salvo was followed by three more, Sparrows this time, and we flew in right after them, cannons blazing, making sure not a single transport ship survived the attack.

There were twenty million Xortaags on that convoy.

We killed every single one of them.

I knew I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. By my count, if we had killed another six hundred and eighty-two million of them, we would’ve been even-steven.

Now I’ve become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

*****

There was a public ceremony to commemorate the brave men and women who gave their lives defending Earth against the Xortaags.

A huge monument was erected, in the form of several men and women wearing various uniforms and flight suits. In front of the monument was a pedestal where we wrote the name of the nearly six thousand Winterfell-ers who’d lost their lives, to be inscribed in stone later on.

I wrote Elizabeth’s name.

Kurt wrote Keiko’s name. Allen’s was written by Lilly.

Oksana wrote Anastasiya.

Theresa and Samantha wrote Matias’s name, and Dr. Bob wrote Sergei’s.

*****

Three months later, a delegation of the Akakie high-ranking officials traveled to Earth to sign an alliance treaty.

As the first official human-Akakie meeting, it was a historic occasion. They were supposed to meet Earth’s newly elected officials in the government headquarters in New York. There was no real reason for Kurt, Oksana, Lilly, and me to be there, but we weren’t going to miss this, and as Earth’s mightiest heroes (in Lilly’s case, the daughter of one), we had every right to be there. Plus, Tarq said my presence would give more credibility to our government representatives because as the only person who’d gone toe-to-toe with Maada, in a damaged space fighter no less, and survived, I’d become an urban legend among his people and a lot of other species across the universe. “The Golden Viper is now as famous as Maada’s Crimson Deathbringer,” Tarq added.

“My team shoots the missiles that brought the Xortaags to their knees, and Jim gets to become a legend?” said Kurt.

I mimicked Allen. “Commandos are pussies. A real man tests his mettle against the universe’s most badass conqueror.”

The four of us looked dashing in our full-dress uniforms. We sat next to each other behind a huge desk along with the Earth officials, waiting for the Akakies to arrive. Tarq and Barook were there too. At their request, there were no reporters present, and the meeting was neither recorded nor televised.

“Do you really have to use so much cologne?” Oksana asked Kurt.

Tarq kept biting his fingers, which told me something was wrong. “What’s up?” I asked him.

“You remember I told you my people had a super strong sexual appetite?” he said. “I am not sure how they will react when they meet your people. You guys are ravishing, but I think I mentioned that already.”

Was he serious, or was it just another example of the Akakies’ weird sense of humor? I hoped he was just trying to scare me. Then, for the first time it occurred to me, Is Tarq even a ‘he’?

The doors opened, the Akakie delegation entered, and we finally realized why Tarq was hiding behind a hologram all this time.

Tarq was right about one thing: The Akakies indeed came in various shapes, colors, and sizes. They were also insectoid. And not just any insectoid, the type you hallucinated about after using LSD. They were so hideous that we would’ve probably run to the Xortaags asking for help if we’d met them in their true form first.

The Akakies reminded me of praying mantises. They were relatively short, had three fingers and an opposing thumb on each hand, four freakishly big eyes, and a lipless mouth with several rows of tiny sharp-looking teeth. They didn’t have fingernails, their arms could bend backward, and they had four legs. I wondered how Tarq and Barook managed to hide those behind a hologram. They probably taped each pair together or something.

The Earth officials were all seasoned politicians, too experienced to show their shock. Tarq introduced them to the Akakies, everyone sat down around a table, and the first human-alien official meeting in history started.

“I wish dad was here,” whispered Lilly.

“Your father once said Tarq could be a bug,” I told her.

“Yeah,” said Venom. “He must be rolling in his grave right about now.”

Despite their alien forms, some of the Akakies were openly drooling over Oksana. One, however, didn’t pay any attention to our beauty queen and instead winked at me. I silently prayed to God this was a female, and she was only teasing.

Tarq and Barook sat with their own people on the other side of the table. Tarq was grinning from ear to ear. This was the crown jewel of his efforts, but he looked so happy that Kurt and I immediately guessed something was up. We exchanged a look and said, “Oh-oh!” at the same time.

An earsplitting siren wailed through the room.

“It is a Xortaag attack!” shouted Tarq, jumping out of his seat. “Their fleet has just appeared in orbit! Everyone! Run for your life!”

Chaos ensued. The Akakies, who were probably in on it, started shouting and running in every direction. Our government officials’ bodyguards rushed in, weapons drawn, and tried to guide them to safety.

I opened my mouth to warn people, but in all the commotion it would’ve been a wasted effort. I shrugged and sat back in my seat. A little bit of fun never hurt anyone. And our officials would have to deal with the Akakies for the foreseeable future. They might as well learn why they were called “the galaxy’s pranksters” the hard way.

The hopefully female Akakie was running towards me. I thought about hiding under the desk, but that was unlikely to deter her/him/it, so instead, I drew my sidearm and kept it on my lap. That gave the creature pause. The Akakie gave me a hurt look and left me alone. Captain Kirk didn’t have the monopoly on breaking alien beauties’ hearts.

Tarq waved at Kurt, Oksana, Lilly, and me, and with obvious pride said, “What was that famous saying? If you failed once, try, try again?”

Epilogue I

“Then the crown prince calmly went to his office, which was adjacent to the theater, opened a hidden panel under his desk, and pushed a red button.

Mushgaana stared at the button for a second. I hope this works, he thought, but he figured it probably would not. No one had ever tried something like this before. And either way, he would never find out.

The humans are in for a nasty surprise if it does work though.

He smiled at the thought.

Mushgaana could hear the enemy soldiers massing outside his office door, preparing to storm in. His PDD started buzzing. It was Maada, probably trying to launch a desperate rescue attempt …”

Somewhere deep in the Amazon, an automated machine that nobody but Mushgaana and Maada knew about came to life. It threw a small cylinder into space. The cylinder had a small, portable SFD with enough power to make just one jump. Once sufficiently away from Earth, the SFD sent the cylinder as close as possible to the Xortaag territory, where it activated a beacon and waited to be picked up by their fleet.

A few weeks later, a Xortaag starship jumped next to the cylinder. Its captain sent out a few Marines to bring it onboard; then he contacted the Xortaag High Command. “We found it, and everything seems to be in order.”

“Transmit its contents immediately.”

“Right away,” responded the captain.

He cut the connection, looked at the ship’s main screen showing the Marines bringing in the capsule, and smiled grimly. “If this works, we can still turn this defeat into victory.”

“The stupid humans thought they could kill the likes of General Maada and Prince Mushgaana and get away with it,” offered his second-in-command with contempt in her voice.

“They would not know what hit them,” replied the captain.

epilogue II

Standard Galactic Year: 5260

(Earth Year: 3167)

Planet Voltex, a thousand years into the future

Faltaz rushed down Mount Darkas as fast as he could hover. He had not seen his mate and their seventeen younglings for what felt like ages to him because he had been busy working on a research facility on top of the mountain. This was the drawback of being “the brightest mind of his generation” as everybody called him these days: he was involved in several projects, each with the possibility of changing the future of Voltex forever. Well, he was planning to forget all about that tonight and spend time with his family. They would eat a sumptuous dinner, and then they would all pray together, even the very little ones who could neither utter the words properly nor fully understand them. It was a time-honored tradition.

Istak, his eldest daughter, would not be there though. She and her newborn son (his first grandson!) would join them tomorrow. Faltaz had chosen the babe’s name: Kavmar. It was a good, strong name. Faltaz hoped the child would grow up to be a scientist, like his grandfather.

It was a warm, beautiful day, with Voltex’s suns shining down on him. He made a turn, and Pandar came to view. Voltex’s biggest and most populous city with almost thirty billion inhabitants, Pandar was a commerce center not only for the planet but the whole solar system. He stopped for a second to admire Pandar’s magnificence. There were huge, black sky-towers in an exact grid pattern, spread in every direction as far as he could perceive, with millions of Volts, the organic part of the city, hovering among them. It was the end of the school day and many parents were busy picking up their children. Not the best time to arrive home.

Faltaz took a deep breath and let happiness swell within him.

Home.

He had plenty of reasons to be grateful. Still a young Volt, he already had several critical discoveries and inventions under his belt, which had contributed to his planet’s technological and economic success. More importantly, his mate adored him, and his younglings loved him. What else could a humble Volt possibly want from life?

Praise Vilyek.

The only issue that bothered him was the fact that the war with the carbon-based aliens was not going very well. The Volts had never felt the need to spend too much time on developing weaponry. They were peaceful people, and their numerical advantage had always meant there was no need for advanced weapons, until now. The carbon-based creatures had spaceships and energy weapons the Volts had not encountered before. Still, the Volt warriors, called the Vox, outnumbered the enemy a hundred to one, and their courage and commitment compensated for their lack of weaponry. He should know; four of his siblings were highly decorated Voxes. Moreover, the Volts had already sent a delegation, suing for peace. Not all aliens could possibly be silicon-hungry monsters, could they? Between the humans, the Akakies, the Xortaags, the Talgoinians, the Vanaari, and the rest of them, someone had to listen to reason.

Humans! He chuckled. What kind of stupid people called themselves human? Still, he could not help wondering how much they could learn from each other once this needless war ended.

Faltaz had just started hovering again when the ground shook violently. Caught by complete surprise, he was thrown backward and went tumbling onto the road. He rolled over, looked at the city, and froze. His brain could not name what he was looking at. He had never seen anything like that in his life, except …

Except for some old photos related to the carbon-based aliens’ history.

A nuclear mushroom cloud, right where Pandar used to be. From a weapon that had supposedly been obsolete for centuries.

And then the shockwave hit him. He was thrown to the ground again and rolled uncontrollably. All around, the plants covering the mountain disintegrated, but Faltaz’s shell was too thick to break, even though several painful cracks appeared on it.

When Faltaz finally stopped rolling, he just sat there on the ground, unable to hover, unable to breathe, unable to think, and knew with deathly certainty that everything he once held dear in his life was gone.

*****

“They are all dead,” said Faltaz’s brother, Shapzan, sitting next to him. “Well, not all. Istak and her newborn baby have survived. What was the child’s name?”

“Kavmar,” said Faltaz. “I figured as much. They were not in Pandar. She had to leave to take care of something.”

Faltaz did not recognize his own voice when he started talking. In fact, it was not him at all. He had died with his family. This other individual talking with logical detachment was someone else.

“I thought nuclear weapons were considered obsolete,” he said.

“All the intelligence we have gathered says they have not been used for centuries,” said Shapzan. “And at any rate, who would have thought the aliens would use such a monstrous weapon on a densely populated civilian target?”

“What happens now?”

“The carbon-based creatures have asked for our unconditional surrender. The High Council has voted to accept their demand. We have lost the war.”

Faltaz’s shell turned a few shades darker. “We cannot! After what they just did to us?”

“What other choice do we have?” Shapzan asked glumly. “Do you want them to do what they did to Pandar to the whole planet? We have no defense against their diabolical weapons.”

“Yes, we do,” said Faltaz. “We have me. Me. I will make them pay. All of them—the humans, the Xortaags, the Akakies … all the carbon-based aliens will pay for what they did to us.”

“Are you planning to travel back in time and stop the enemy from dropping those bombs? Because I do not think anything else will actually help us.”

“Time travel is not possible. But trust me: I will find a way to wreak vengeance on them. There is not a place they can hide. I will exterminate those mass murderers who killed our children, and I do not care what it will cost me.”

Shapzan smiled sadly. “Knowing you, I feel bad for the aliens already.”

“I can hear the disbelief in your voice, Brother,” said the scientist. “I think you are underestimating how much I loved my family. All the carbon-based aliens are as good as extinct.”

“Not all of them participated in the attack. In fact, some of them are at war with each other.”

“At this point, does it make a difference? They are all the same. And they are all dead.”

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in The Golden Viper: The Crimson Deathbringer Book 2.

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

The Golden Viper

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Two)

Kanoor has fallen.

The Xortaags are back, and they’ve conquered the Akakie homeworld. If they have enough time to reverse-engineer all the advanced technology they can find on Kanoor, they’ll be undefeatable, and they won’t stop until they’ll have colonized the rest of the galaxy, starting with Earth.

To make things worse, an even more sinister threat (yeah, more sinister than the Xortaags) is emerging 1500 years in the future. An alien scientist is trying to send a two hundred thousand strong armada back in time to exterminate all sentient life in our galaxy. Will he succeed?

Now it’s up to Jim, Kurt, and Tarq to save not only humanity but also billions of other people living on hundreds of different planets.

You thought the stakes were high in The Crimson Deathbringer (with Earth conquered and 700 million humans killed)? You ain’t seen nothing yet! (Click here to buy the book.)

The Golden Viper

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Two)

(Book Blurb II)

Kanoor has fallen.

The Xortaags are back with a vengeance. Not being the forgive-and-forget types, they’ve conquered the Akakie homeworld, and now they set their sight upon Earth. Having reverse-engineered the advanced technology they scavenged on Kanoor, they now hold the key to rule the universe forever. It now befalls to Jim and his friends to save not only humanity, but every sentient species in the galaxy.

To make matters worse, an even more sinister threat is looming in the darkness. Unknown to our heroes, a time-travelling alien fleet is on its way to our neck of the galactic woods.

You thought the stakes were high during the first human-Akakie-Xortaag intergalactic war? You ain’t seen nothing yet!

The Golden Viper, the second book in The Crimson Deathbringer series, boasts the same high-octane, non-stop action sequences as the first, and combined with its laugh-out-loud moments, shocking twists, and new, unforgettable characters, it’s a must-read for all space opera/military sci-fi fans. Sink your teeth into Jim’s next set of adventures today!

(Click here to buy the book.)

The Black Fleet

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Three)

In The Crimson Deathbringer, an alien race conquered Earth, and humanity faced extinction. The stakes were high.

In The Golden Viper, the Xortaags occupied Kanoor, planning to annihilate all their enemies—starting with the humans—using the weapons they would have found there. The stakes were higher.

Could things get any deadlier?

Yes!

In The Black Fleet, (spoilers!!). This is nothing like what Jim, Kurt, and Tarq have faced before—this is nothing like anyone in the universe has ever faced before.

“Let me make this perfectly clear: if we have to sacrifice a few billion humans in order to save a hundred trillion people in the galaxy, that is exactly what we are going to do.”

Commander Tarq

This is ENDGAME.

(Click here to buy the book)

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (They are from US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: The “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (They have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Crimson Deathbringer as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the next two books in the series, The Golden Viper and The Black Fleet. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book (which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year—I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied). I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), BookBub (here), and/or Facebook    (facebook.com/seanrobins.77) are also good options.

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings! And while you’re at it, have a look at my Spanish, Italian, and Greek translations too.

Finally, if you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series, download it here.

Author’s Note

Writing a novel is hard.

Don’t “Duh!” me. Think about it for a second. The amount of time that goes into research, planning and outlining the novel, preparing the character sheets, writing, re-writing, re-re-writing, editing and proofreading is ginormous, and if you have a day job (I am an English teacher), finding enough time to do all that on top of all your other responsibilities is almost impossible. During the nine months it took me to write The Crimson Deathbringer, I stopped all my hobbies (I didn’t even watch movies) and most of my social activities. I even stopped going to the gym, and I ended up with a belly by the time the book was finished. Now I understand why George R. R. Martin looks the way he does.

What prompted me to take on this Herculean task then, you ask?

I‘ve got purely obsessional OCD. What this means is a thought enters my mind—usually something negative—and doesn’t leave. I end up having to think about it 5000 times a day, and once this starts, my life is ruined for a week, two weeks, a month, or six months. I’d tried a lot of different ways to get rid of this problem: therapy, medication, meditation . . . Nothing ever worked, until I read an article that said the people who had this problem had an overly active imagination, and it would help if they channeled it into something productive, like writing.

I’d always wanted to be a writer. This is literally a childhood dream, one of those you give up when you grow up, so instead, I ended up being a university/college-level English teacher. I had the story of The Crimson Deathbringer in my mind for years (even started writing it and stopped a few times). When I read that article, I was going through a tough time in my marriage (fighting with your wife is no fun, even for sane people), and my mind had gone into its life-destroying overdrive, so I told myself, “Well, you’ve tried everything else, let’s give this a shot.”

And then a miracle happened.

My mind put the same energy it used to put into producing BS and making my life miserable into coming up with stories. Ideas would come to me fast and furious, and I had to stop whatever I was doing several times a day to write them down. I’ve been OCD-free since then (I know, I sound like a recovering alcoholic). When TCD (cool, eh?) was finished, it took my out-of-control brain half a day to plan my second novel (Book Two in the series, called The Golden Viper).

Since this is my first book that you read, I feel I have to explain something: each book is a separate story, with a clear beginning and end, and in most cases new “bad guys” our heroes have to face. I, however, always add an epilogue at the end that gives you a taste of what’s coming in the next book. This isn’t really a cliffhanger (since the previous book’s story is finished), but a preview of what will happen next.

I must confess I have a concern about my series: most people seem to think the books get increasingly better (just have a look at the other books’ reviews). While this is in essence a good thing, it means that, relatively speaking, Book One is the weakest in the series. That’s not how you want to start your series; you want to put your best foot forward in the first book so that people keep reading the next books. I, however, have no idea how to fix this. Maybe I should pull a Memento and republish the series starting from the last book and going backward!

One possible reason for this situation is that Book One has a straightforward story. It’s a simple alien invasion book. All the crazy stuff (time travel, silicon-based aliens, parallel universes, and at some point god-like aliens, monsters, and dragons) happen in the future books.

As long as I’m confessing, I have another confession to make: I’ve fallen in love with TCD’s characters. Jim, with his infuriating ability to take nothing seriously, Liz, despite her occasional goody-two-shoes tendencies, Tarq and his non-stop pranks, and Kurt, who is just awesome. If you end up liking them half as much as I do, then my job here is done.

Also, don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here) or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want) to be informed as soon as my new books are out!

Book Review Request

What did you think of The Crimson Deathbringer?

First of all, thank you for purchasing TCD. I know you could’ve picked any number of books to read, but you picked this book, and for that, I am extremely grateful. I hope that it added value and quality to your everyday life, or at least made you laugh, which to be honest was my main goal to begin with. If so, it would be really nice if you could share this book with your friends and family by posting on Facebook and Twitter.

If you enjoyed this book, I’d like to hear from you and hope that you could take some time to post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Your feedback and support will help this author to greatly improve his writing craft for future projects and make this book even better. Moreover, it will increase sales, which allows me to write the sequel. Wouldn’t it be nice to meet Jim, Kurt, Tarq, and Oksana again?

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance.

(Please click here to leave a review.)

THE GOLDEN VIPER

The Crimson Deathbringer Book Two

Sean Robins

Books by Sean Robins

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

(Spanish, Italian, and Greek translations available)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

facebook.com/seanrobins.77

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Edited by Tyler Colins.

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://callosectomy)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the

author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

Prologue: Kanoor

Chapter One: Alora

Chapter Two: Voltex

Chapter Three: Talmak

Chapter Four: Tangaar

Chapter Five: Voltex

Chapter Six: Kanoor

Chapter Seven: Earth

Chapter Eight: Mantux

Chapter Nine: Earth

Chapter Ten: Voltex

Chapter Eleven: Kanoor

Chapter Twelve: Tangaar

Epilogue: Voltex

The Black Fleet

The Black Fleet

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My fantastic editor, Tyler Colins.

David Turner, without whom these books would have never been written. Long story.

Julie Northup, who patiently answered my many, many publishing-related questions.

My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

My dear friends Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice has been priceless.

My lovely wife Yevgenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I make as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful man, there’s a strong woman, one way or another.

pREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

The Xortaag fleet, led by their legendary conqueror General Maada, is on its way to Kanoor, the Akakies’ home world. The Akakies, an insectoid race of technologically-advanced pranksters, have no stomach for war, and their fleet is easily defeated by Maada and his forces.

Tarq, the Akakies’ master strategist, uses a Xortaag spy/femme fatale whose name is Xornaa to trick Crown Prince Mushgaana into attacking Earth instead of Kanoor; then he comes to Earth and builds an advanced military base in order to help the humans defeat the much larger Xortaag fleet.

Meanwhile on Earth, Jim, a wise-cracking, movie-quoting, OCD-suffering fighter pilot, is about to propose to his girlfriend, Liz, when his friend Kurt surprises them by showing up at his house, wounded and covered in blood. Kurt is the leader of the Resistance fighting Earth’s brutal dictatorship. Soon after, Jim, Liz, and Kurt are captured and sentenced to death by Earth’s security forces, but Tarq saves them, warns them about the impending alien invasion, and hands over the military base (now called Winterfell) to them.

Our heroes recruit enough humans to man the fleet provided by Tarq, but when Maada and his forces arrive, defeating them proves to be next to impossible. Several bloody battles ensue, during one of which Maada kills Liz.

When all hope seems lost, Kurt’s mentor Allen sacrifices himself to find a chink in the Xortaag’s armor, and during the final battle, a human pilot called Keiko kills Maada by ramming her space fighter into his.

The humans win the war, but little do they know Maada and Mushgaana have already put a contingency plan in place.

And to make things worse, a silicon-based alien is planning to send a two-hundred-thousand-strong fleet from a millennium into the future back in time to annihilate all carbon-based lifeforms in the galaxy …

THE GOLDEN VIPER

Prologue: Kanoor

Standard Galactic Date: 054.03.5073

(Earth Date: 26/04/2079)

The deafening Death Siren cried out like the wail of a thousand trapped animals being slaughtered.

Tarq, holding his baby granddaughter Varma in his arms, was dozing off on a comfortable sofa in his private residence when the scream of the siren hit his ears. They were in the living room, a large well-lit chamber with two huge windows and white or cream furniture. Tarq had recently redecorated his home based on the style he had seen and liked on Earth. Varma did not wake up. Like all Akakie children, she was practically deaf for the first three months of her life. With the ear-splitting sound giving Tarq a headache already, he wished he had been deaf too.

The Death Siren was an ancient planet-wide warning system, installed long before the Akakies’ technological superiority in the galaxy discouraged their enemies from trying to attack Kanoor. It was activated when an unknown (presumed enemy) fleet approached the planet, telling civilians to go to shelters and military personnel to report to their posts. It had not been heard in centuries, and why the Akakies still kept it running was a mystery to Tarq. Granted, his people were paranoid, but having a warning system for a planet that no one was so bold or stupid as to attack was too much, even for them. Someone had probably thought the Death Siren was a valuable historical relic or something.

Tarq carefully put his granddaughter down on the white sofa. He was reaching for his personal digital device when it started vibrating. His assistant, Barook, now a colonel, appeared on the screen, looking terrified. “The Xortaag fleet has just appeared in orbit,” he said, his voice shaking.

Tarq burst into laughter. He was a legendary prankster, and if Barook had thought he could pull a fast one over him, he had not learned anything during all the years they had spent together. “Seriously, you think you can prank me? And with such an outlandish idea? How stupid do you think I am?”

Barook gave him a sour look. “At times like this, very, actually. You do remember the Death Siren is fully automated, right? I could not have activated it even if I wanted to frighten half our people to death just to pull a prank on you.”

Tarq’s hearts started beating faster, and it took him a few seconds to realize Barook was serious. “How many ships?”

“Twenty thousand.”

Tarq’s four eyes widened. “How is it possible? After everything that has happened recently, how the hell did they get so many ships? And why did we not see them coming?”

“I have no idea, and it gets worse.”

“How can it possibly get any worse?” asked Tarq.

Barook disappeared from the PDD screen, and the image of the enemy fleet replaced him. It was undoubtedly the Xortaags’. Designed for fast-paced dogfights, their single-pilot space fighters, with their rectangular shapes and the side laser cannons, were unmistakable. They were moving in close formation, looking ready for battle. For a brief second, Tarq thought he could hear the terrifying roar of their engines, which the Xortaags did not even try to mask because they knew it would strike fear into the hearts of their enemies whenever they started attacking the planet-based targets.

And then he saw what Barook wanted him to see.

Tarq’s PDD fell from his suddenly numb fingers, and his hearts started pounding so wildly that he felt he was about to have a heart attack. He did not pick up his PDD. His knees—all four of them—wobbled, and he had to sit on the sofa next to Varma. He held his head in his hands and shut his eyes.

Tarq had never been a brave person. He was a strategist, not a warrior. He had been afraid plenty of times in his life, like when their fleet was destroyed on Alora’s orbit (where his only child, Varina, was killed), which meant his whole species faced extermination, or when they were about to lose the final battle on Earth, and he decided to commit suicide if it had happened. However, when he opened his eyes and looked at his granddaughter, sleeping peacefully on the sofa, the mind-numbing fear that grasped his soul was ten times worse than whatever he had experienced before. Panic pierced through his chest like a huge nail and made it difficult to breathe.

Not again!

Chapter One: Alora

Standard Galactic Date: 036.03.5073

(Earth Date: 05/03/2079)

“Space. The final frontier,” I said.

“Seriously?” said Venom.

Kurt covered his eyes and growled.

Undeterred, I continued, “These are the voyages of the starship Invincible. Her mission: to kick the Xortaags’ asses and free their conquered worlds. To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

“Jim, do you have to do this every time we have a meeting?” asked Kurt.

“Between this ridiculousness and your perfume, one of these days I’m gonna lose it, and we’ll have a mass shooting on our hands, starting with you two,” said Oksana.

I grinned at them. “Why aren’t you more excited? We were about to invade another planet. Who would’ve thought?”

We were sitting around a white oval table in Invincible’s briefing room. There was a small built-in monitor in front of each of us, and several VR screens were mounted on the walls. There were two huge windows to my left, through which I could see, well, space. Kurt and Oksana were dressed in the Marines’ khaki long-sleeve shirts with green trousers, and I was wearing the fighter pilots’ dark blue uniform. We were waiting for Tarq, who was late as usual, to make his grand entrance. Experience had taught me the more important the meeting, the grander his entrance would be, and with us getting ready to liberate the first Xortaag-occupied planet, this briefing was as important as it got.

When the Earth and Akakie officials met four weeks ago, less than three months after the insectoids helped us liberate Earth from under Xortaag occupation, they decided to form a task force to kick the Xortaags out of some of the planets they’d conquered before they got the chance to kill off all the inhabitants. The idea was as long as the enemy didn’t know how we freed Earth, we could use the same trick again and again. Akakie Intelligence believed with the complete destruction of Maada’s fleet and the colonists’ convoy, the Xortaags didn’t have enough ships to mount an offensive or even to fortify their defenses, and it was the perfect time to strike. They estimated there were around thirty planets whose local populations were still alive and needed to be saved before the Xortaags used their mind-control machine (called Orbital Mind Control and Brain Over-Write System, aka Mind-Frak Machine) to annihilate them. With the Akakie Space Folding Device, which had a much better range than the Xortaags’, the task force could reach each of those planets in two or three days. It was our chance to pay the Xortaags back for what they’d done to us before they could figure out how we’d hit them.

The Akakies gave us Invincible, two transport ships, and five thousand brand new top-of-the-Akakie-line space fighters called AH-35. They looked exactly like the old Vipers (triangular, twin-elliptical fins and rudders, a bulbous cockpit, and a droopy nose), but they were much faster and had better firepower. We called them Viper Mark II. My own fighter was painted gold, and yes, I still wished I could make love to her. The Akakies politely requested that we return the remaining four thousand original Vipers (Tarq had stolen them, after all), but we refused, equally politely, claiming we needed to keep them on Earth for planetary defense. The task force also included an Akakie starship and five thousand space fighters flown by their own pilots, whatever good that would do. One of our transport ships, Serenity (still a nerd and still proud of it), also carried two thousand Marines—experienced Commandos trained for things like boarding and defending a starship or dropping on a planet and establishing a beachhead. I’d urged Kurt to call them Space Force, but Mr. No-Sense-of-Humor turned me down flat.

I was initially surprised when Earth’s new president, Edward Jackson, announced we’d join forces with the Akakies to attack the Xortaags. Jackson hadn’t struck me as a brave man, and to be honest, I didn’t really care for him. He was a career politician, the shady type, and a populist, with a history of questionable policy decisions and business deals. He had risen to power on a platform of xenophobia and fear, playing on people’s hatred towards the Xortaags, having made promises he couldn’t possibly keep, such as invading Tangaar and killing all the aliens. His campaign had also been extremely successful in third-world countries, where he’d promised the locals to provide them with the same level of economic progress as Europe and North America, another promise he couldn’t keep even if he intended to. Later on, I realized he saw our invasion of the Xortaag territory as a PR campaign that would appeal to his core supporters.

Whatever Jackson’s motivation was, I was happy about his decision. For one thing, both Kurt and I believed the Xortaags would come back for Earth if we gave them the chance to regroup and plan another invasion. For another, my thirst for vengeance hadn’t been quenched by massacring first the aliens on Earth and later their colonists—all twenty million of them. And we had to consider the fate of the people on the Xortaag-occupied planets too. I wouldn’t want us to stand by and watch idly as the enemy committed genocide on thirty planets, especially if we could do something about it, great-power-great-responsibility and all. Liz had once compared me to Spider-Man. That memory brought a sad smile to my face.

Tarq finally graced us with his presence, followed by Barook. They were both in their Native-American holograms. It was good news for me because I still had nightmares about the Akakies’ real appearance, which looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a shark. Plus, Barook’s bushy beard never got old. Tarq wore black armor, complete with a cape and gloves in the same color. There were control panels on his armor’s belt and chest plate. He’d probably thought this was some sort of a spacesuit, but all he needed was a helmet to start saying, “Luke, I am your father.” First that Luftwaffe uniform and now this. I decided to have a word with him after the meeting and encourage him to space-google his appearance the next time.

“Where is Captain Wood?” he asked.

“I’m on the bridge, Commander,” said a woman’s voice with a British accent. “Some last-second ship business came up, but I’m monitoring the briefing from my command chair. Please proceed.”

Tarq raised an eyebrow. “We are about to attack the Xortaags, and you did not see fit to join us in person?”

“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of multitasking, Commander,” said the woman.

Tarq looked displeased. I knew he loved these briefings and his presentations. He shook his head and sat at the head of the table. With a flick of his hand, he brought up a holographic image of a yellowish planet in the middle of the table. “A quick recap: this is Alora, which as you all know, is where the Xortaag fleet defeated us and then occupied the planet using OMC-BOWS. There are currently twenty-two million Xortaags on the planet, supported by three thousand Deathbringers. Like the first few months of Earth’s occupation, security is practically non-existent because the Xortaags do not expect any trouble on a planet where the local population worships them as gods. We will send down a small team wearing Xortaag uniforms in one of our invisible spy ships, and …”

He went on and on, explaining the details of the operation, but I didn’t pay much attention. It was mostly the same plan as Operation Royalty. We were going to hack into the MFM controls and use their former slaves to attack them by surprise. There was one thing I really wanted to know though. “Are you going to finally tell us how you found out where the MFM controls are? Don’t tell me Allen has come back from the dead and figured out this one too.”

“Do you remember I once mentioned there was a Xortaag spy who used to work for Mushgaana’s brothers but switched sides and started working for us? We sent her ahead in one of our spy ships. She landed on the planet, went to SH-3, and found the information we needed to carry out the plan.”

Slaughterhouse had officially become a military term, for which I took all the credit.

“How did she manage that?” asked Kurt. “She couldn’t have just asked, could she?”

“Actually, I think that is exactly what she did”—Tarq’s eyes twinkled, which told me he was about to pull something—“why don’t you ask her yourself?”

As if on cue, the briefing room door opened, and a goddess walked in.

There hadn’t been a shortage of attractive women in my life. My own wife, Liz, was one of the most beautiful girls who’d ever walked on this planet. Hell, Oksana, who even in uniform and with no make-up could feature on a Vanity Fair cover, was sitting right there. But this was next level. The woman was stunning. She had flowing golden curls and piercing green eyes, and the body-hugging knee-length black dress she wore showed that everything in her sculpted figure was perfectly proportioned. My testosterone-bombarded brain still noticed she didn’t have a Xortaag-pleasing unibrow. Her skin glowed, and something radiated from within that made her irresistible. She was at least 6’1” and had long, long legs (sucker for long legs, that was me). It was like two-thirds of her height was because of her legs.

“Not exactly a compliment,” said Venom. “And listening to you, one would be forgiven to think feminism never happened.”

Kurt and Oksana were staring too, speechless.

“I fail to see what the big deal is,” said Cordelia.

Both Tarq and Barook paled a little, like every single damned time they heard Cordelia’s voice. They’d both vehemently objected to letting her roam freely in Invincible’s systems, but I was the commander of the fleet, so what I said went. I’d even given her full access to my Viper.

Tarq exchanged a triumphant look with Barook and giggled; then he told the Xortaag woman, “Xornaa, can you please take it down a notch?”

The woman nodded, and suddenly it felt like a weight was lifted from my brain. My hormones subsided to their more or less normal levels. She was still hot, only not enough to burn your eyes out, and with my heartbeat returning to normal, I realized despite the way she was dressed, she carried herself with an unmistakable air of military professionalism.

I blinked a few times. “This was some sort of a psychic attack?” I couldn’t help raising my voice.

The woman, Xornaa, held her hands palms up. “No, not an attack. This happens naturally because of my psychic powers, but I usually have it under control. Today, however, Commander Tarq asked me to come in guns blazing. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”

Her speech patterns were different from the other aliens I’d met: she used both contractions and idiomatic expressions (the aliens never used the first, and always had problems with the second, except for Tarq who apparently spent hours learning and practicing English idioms). She could blend in as a human and nobody would even notice.

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 hadn’t been 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’re 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 thing,” 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.”

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

Xornaa waved her hand in dismissal. “I killed him and dissolved his body in acid.”

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

“Just kidding,” said Xornaa. “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 averted her eyes. “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.

Kurt looked up from his PDD. “What other task force?”

“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.”

This was news to me. The Talgoinians and the Vanaaries were two of the fifteen space-faring species in the galaxy. I knew Tarq was trying to form an alliance with them, but I had no idea his efforts had been so successful that they’d already formed a second task force.

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?”

I raised my voice. “Captain Wood, 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,” 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 an autobiography (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,” I said. “Movies are cool.”

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

“Miss Speed-Reader here devoured my first 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 Kurt defensively.

We sat in a corner.

“Why’re 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 nerve 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 Grey,” she answered.

“Captain Picard much?” I asked.

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,” she said.

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 with the Talgoinians and the Vanaaries?” asked Kurt.

“Beats me,” I said. “The Akakies are trying to put together an alliance 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 teenage 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, how to speak, how 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,” repeated John.

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

*****

“Her twin daughters were killed due to brain aneurysms 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 or three. “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 whom I lost.”

“And yet, a few months later, we’re all functioning more or less normally.” I said. “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 in 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 thought 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 afterwards, 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’d be alive if I were a better man.

I remembered how much she loved classic movies. We both did.

“I miss you three thousand,” I whispered.

*****

“This is creepy,” said Kurt, looking at six 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 old photos of the Soviet Union cities.

Xornaa, wearing the Xortaags’ black uniform and sporting a fake unibrow, smiled and asked, “Is it your first time being worshiped? Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

They took their tactical backpacks and entered a high-rise building.

“This is so much easier than Operation Royalty.” Oksana pushed the elevator button. “Nobody’s shooting at us, and we don’t even need to run up and down the stairs.”

Kurt thought about Fate’s schemes on their ride to the building roof. Just a few short months ago, humanity was on the brink of extinction, and all hope seemed lost. Now, here they were, having saved Earth, on the verge of liberating Alora and saving some fifteen billion sentient beings.

Thank you, Allen.

And Keiko. If she hadn’t sacrificed herself to kill Maada, it was likely the general would’ve slaughtered them all. Thinking of the Japanese girl made him feel a painful tightness in his throat. She’d made him happy, but for a very short time, and Kurt couldn’t help wondering if it was worth all the pain and suffering that followed. He tried to push Keiko’s image away and focus on the job at hand.

“You know what hurts?” he asked Oksana.

“Looking at me with this stupid unibrow?” she answered immediately.

“That, and the fact that we do all the work, but I bet somehow Jim will end up taking all the credit again.”

Xornaa looked surprised. “What do you mean? He did kill Maada and led his forces to victory against the Xortaag fleet, didn’t he?”

Kurt crossed his arms and told Oksana, “See what I’m talking about?”

Oksana shrugged. “Ours is to do and die.”

*****

Fidgeting in the cockpit of my golden Viper and checking the time every two minutes, I watched Operation Free Alora unfold and wished for things to move faster.

Kurt, Oksana, and Xornaa went down to the planet in three invisible spy ships (those ships were tiny; we could barely fit one person in them) at zero dark thirty. Right before dawn, they shot a few missiles into the force field protecting the MFM controls from the top of a high-rise building. Then Tarq hacked into MFM and made the planet’s local population, the Kaldooks, turn on their former masters.

There were roughly fifteen billion Kaldooks on the planet. The Xortaags, most of them sleeping soundly in their city, were caught by total surprise and slaughtered by the thousands, and whenever they did put up a fight, they were overrun by hordes of Kaldooks.

My heart started beating faster when I saw some enemy ships get off the ground, but a few minutes later, I realized there were less than twelve hundred—against the ten thousand of us. And with Invincible behind me and my fighters, I had every right to feel, well, invincible.

“Such eloquence,” said Venom.

“You have to admit she’s an impressive ship,” I said.

She really was. The starship had a silver, stretched oval hall, with twin side engines, and more laser turrets, blaster cannons, and missile launchers than I could count. It was like I had Battlestar Galactica’s pretty sister in my fleet.

I opened a channel to my people. “OK guys, showtime. No grandiose speeches this time. Just don’t get cocky. It might sound easy, but a momentary lapse in concentration will get you and your comrades killed.”

“Very inspirational,” said Venom. “It’s like Churchill and Patton had a baby.”

I heard Tarq’s voice. “Jim, we are sending you over in three, two, one!”

Using SFD, we made the final jump. My view changed. One second, I could see nothing but a dark blanket with hundreds of small bright spots on it, and the next, I was looking at a yellow Terra-type planet with cloud-blurred seas and continents, and two moons. Alora, where the first Akakie-Xortaag encounter happened, where Tarq’s daughter was killed, and where the chain of events that ended up with seven hundred million dead humans started. And we were about to get it back from the Xortaags.

Choke on it, Maada’s ghost.

I looked at my display and saw the Xortaag fleet, all twelve hundred of them, scrambling to meet our fleet. Not that they could do anything to stop us. With ten thousand Vipers behind me, I’d never felt so powerful in my entire life. It was bloody intoxicating. There was nothing I couldn’t do. My confidence and dominance grew. I could conquer the world, which was literally what I was about to do. Hell, I could even turn to the dark side and obliterate that planet, if I wanted to.

Wow! Where the hell did that thought come from?

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Venom philosophically.

I looked at the enemy fleet and growled, “These guys can’t count.”

I asked Invincible to open a channel to the Xortaags. “My name’s Colonel Jim Harrison. I’m sure you know who I am, but in case you need to refresh your memory, have a look at the Viper I am flying,” I said in Xortaag language.

Tarq had told me the story of me and my golden Viper going toe-to-toe with Maada and the Crimson Deathbringer had spread in the whole galaxy, and I’d become some sort of a living legend—the man who killed Maada.

“That was a different Viper, in point of fact,” said Cordelia.

I ignored her. “I killed your precious General Maada, and the fleet under my command defeated yours at the height of its power. What exactly you think you’ll achieve here by attacking us is beyond me.”

“Also, you didn’t kill Maada. Keiko did,” said my annoying AI.

“You think I don’t know? It’s called ‘psychological warfare.’ ”

“Also known as lying in layman’s terms.”

“Can you please shut up and let me focus?” I didn’t try to hide my annoyance.

“I told you we should’ve sent her back,” said Venom.

No answer from the Xortaag fleet. They just kept racing towards us. “OK. Be that way,” I told them, tapping my fingers on the Viper’s stick.

We flew in, and the first human-Akakie-Xortaag battle in the galaxy started over Alora.

This was the first time I took my Viper Mark II space fighter into battle, and despite having the memory of hundreds of hours of doing exactly that in my brain (compliments of MICI), I was still astonished by how fast and maneuverable the ship was. The laser cannons were more powerful, too. My heart pumping with excitement, I drew a bead and fired dead center at an approaching Deathbringer, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. Another enemy ship disintegrated when I shoved a pair of Sparrows down its throat. I blew up the third approaching from underneath. We were so close that when the Deathbringer exploded, I had to fly through its expanding debris.

“It’s like taking candy from a baby,” said Cordelia.

I’d always loved two things with consuming passion: flying and destroying enemy ships. Nothing ever made me feel more alive. This, however, was too easy. I felt like I was a professional footballer playing against a bunch of elementary school kids. I got bored and pulled away. The people under my command, especially the Akakies, could use some practice.

Despite our significant technological advantage and the fact that we outnumbered the Xortaags almost ten to one, our alien allies still managed to put their feet (all four of them) in their mouths. I watched in horror as not two, not four, but freaking six Akakie ships ran into each other and exploded. There were also a few blue-on-blue casualties. The human pilots spent half their energy and concentration trying to keep a safe distance from the insectoids instead of focusing on the Xortaags.

I lowered my head and pressed my lips tight. This is hopeless.

“They should give their space fighters to us and let human pilots fly them,” said Cordelia.

“I did mention this to Tarq,” I said. “He insisted the Akakies had to learn how to fight at some point.”

“Fat chance of that,” she said.

*****

I couldn’t sleep that night. Despite the easy victory, there was enough adrenaline left in my blood to keep me awake. Plus, I was super excited as the result of our spectacular success, even though this particular vengeance dish hadn’t been served cold. I watched a movie, wrote a few pages of my new book, and then decided to head to the mess hall.

The mess was almost empty, except for a few insomniac souls like me. I poured myself a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. I’d just started sipping my wine when all the male hormones in my body spiked even before I heard a soft, mellifluous voice from behind. “Would you mind if I join you?”

I turned around and found Xornaa standing behind me, wearing a tight black bodysuit that hid her body less than what it showed, complete with ridiculously high-heeled boots. How she’d managed to sneak up on me wearing those was a mystery. I tried to gulp down the frog that had suddenly appeared in my throat and be my usual cool, confident and manly self. “By all means. Didn’t know you were back on board. Kurt and Oksana are here, too?”

She sat on an armchair right next to me, uncomfortably close. Her right leg touched mine when she sat. “No, they’re still dirtside, along with the rest of the Marines, helping the Kaldooks restore order on their planet. What are you doing here, sitting alone?”

I pointed at my drink. “Celebrating our glorious victory.”

“You should celebrate. What you did today added to your already impressive reputation.”

She looked pointedly at the wine bottle. I poured her a glass. “My achievements are highly exaggerated by the Akakies.”

“Probably, but you’re the one who killed General Maada. Do you know you have a nickname?”

“Really? What’s that?”

She leaned even closer. I could smell, well, not sure if it was her perfume or just the way she naturally smelled, but whatever it was, it was more intoxicating than the alcohol I was drinking. “Kingslayer,” she said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Seriously?”

Venom laughed. “LOL. Ha-ha. So funny!”

Yeah, it’s hilarious. Shut the hell up.

I was certain Tarq had something to do with it. This couldn’t have been a coincidence. I wished I hadn’t recommended Game of Thrones to him.

“Not being a Xortaag yourself, it’s difficult for you to truly understand the magnitude of what you’ve done,” said Xornaa. “For several generations, all Xortaags thought Maada was immortal, even me, despite seeing him as the pompous jackass he really was.”

“So, you want to tell me why you hate your own people? Looks like we have time to kill.”

She shrugged. “A member of the royal family raped my mom, which is how I ended up having telepathic powers. My mother killed herself a few months after I was born, not being able to deal with the humiliation. What kind of a warrior woman lets herself get raped, after all?”

I was certain I didn’t want to know any of that.

And here I thought I had it rough with my parents.

My father, consumed by a burning desire to unite humanity, had no time for me, and my mom had totally forgotten I even existed. In her defense, she suffered from various mental disabilities, which was probably how I’d ended up with Venom stuck in my brain. Xornaa’s story beat my parent issues hands down though.

Everyone has a family story.

It was as if she read my mind. “Here’s to screwed-up families.” She raised her glass.

I smiled sadly and raised mine.

She continued, “I grew up in shame, the illegitimate child of a spineless coward. When I was in my mid-twenties, I changed my identity and started working as a spy for the Xortaags Intelligence Service, with my particular set of skills being very useful for them, as you can imagine. Later on, I approached one of the king’s sons and volunteered to work for him, given that we had a common enemy: his brother, and my father.”

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop, and when it did, I nearly fell off my seat. “You’re Mushgaana’s daughter?”

“Yep. And I must say, I’m pretty pissed you guys killed him before I got the chance to.”

Heavy!

“You probably know the rest,” she continued. “Tarq found me and offered me to work for the Akakies. I faked my own death and ran to Kanoor, and here I am now.”

I tried to lighten the mood, after all the rape-suicide-murder talk. “Have you been a victim of his stupid pranks already?”

Her nostrils flared. “Several times. I’ll run back to the Xortaags if he keeps doing it.”

I smiled and sipped my wine. She said, “Let me ask you a question: how many times do I have to touch your arm before you invite me to a drink?”

Oh boy.

I hadn’t noticed she was touching my arm, being preoccupied with the fascinating conversation and with, eh, the view.

“Get her a drink!” yelled Venom.

I’m still mourning for Liz.

“So?  Are you planning to live like a monk for the rest of your life?” he asked.

I frowned. It sounded like something I would’ve said in another life, before I understood what losing someone really meant.

“You did say that, idiot,” said Venom. “To Kurt, when he said he didn’t want to start a relationship after Janet died.”

I looked at the Aphrodite sitting right next to me and basked in her incredible beauty. Measurement for measurement and pound for pound, she was more perfect than anything I’d ever imagined possible. Then I wondered how much of it was real, and how much was the result of her psychic powers.

No, I wasn’t going to stay a monk forever.

But I wasn’t going to jump into bed with every manipulative succubus that came my way either.

I bit my bottom lip, gathered all my willpower, and pulled away from her. I raised my left hand so that she could clearly see my wedding ring. “See, the thing is, I lost my wife just a few months ago. Way too soon for me.”

She pulled back her hand. “She must’ve been an amazing woman.”

I could almost hear her thinking “so that you turn me down for her memory.” I must’ve been developing telepathic powers too.

“She was,” I said. “She was a fighter pilot, and a brilliant one. And she had guts. She attacked Maada. Twice.”

“Is that how she got killed? Not very bright then.”

I glared at her. No one could insult my wife and get away with it. “Who are you to judge? You’re a super-spy working for an insect.”

“I apologize for my last comment,” she said. “You’re loyal to the woman who loved you even though she’s gone now. I respect that.” She leaned closer and whispered in my ear, her lips gently touching my skin. “But if you ever change your mind, I’ll be around, Kingslayer.”

Xornaa stood and walked away. I watched her go and tried my best to get my mind out of the freaking gutter.

“That figure!” said Venom.

“I hate you,” I told him.

A feminine voice with a British accent called out, “I can’t believe you just turned that down.”

I looked around and saw Ella sitting in one corner, a tablet in her hand and a PDD on the table in front of her. I hadn’t noticed her when I came in, probably because she was mostly hidden behind a vase. She looked like she was working. She tipped an imaginary hat. “There’s hope for you, after all.”

“Venom disagrees with you,” I said sadly.

“Who’s Venom?”

“I have purely obsessional OCD,” I said, remembering a conversation I had with Liz about my mental problems, “and a common therapeutic technique is to personify the constant stream of negative thoughts—aka ‘the voice’—in your brain, as a way to differentiate it from your own conscious thoughts. I call mine Venom.”

“That explains a lot,” Cordelia interjected.

Ella looked amused. “And do you talk to this, eh, Venom?”

“All the time,” I answered. “Don’t you ever sleep, by the way?”  She had a reputation for working twenty-four-seven and expecting the same from her subordinates.

“A starship captain’s job is never done,” she said with a gleam in her eyes. “But witnessing what just happened is worth not sleeping for a month. I’d be watching my back if I were you. Trust me. That Xortaag woman isn’t used to being rejected.”

“What’s she gonna do? Kill the commander of the fleet in our own starship?”

“There are a lot subtler ways for a woman to get even, my boy.”

I wondered if I should’ve been offended. “ ‘My boy’? You’re, what, five years older than me?”

“And a lot more experienced by the looks of it,” she answered.

*****

“I need your advice on something,” I told Tarq with a wavering voice, trying to keep my agitation under control. He was sitting on a sofa in front of me. I’d called and told him I urgently needed to have a word, and he’d come to see me in my quarters.

“Happy to help, if I can,” he said. “What is going on?”

I rubbed my temples and told myself to calm down. “Last night, or more accurately, early this morning, Xornaa came on to me in the mess. I rejected her. Then today, I wake up and feel all of a sudden I’ve fallen madly in love with her, as in I literally can’t think about anything else.”

Tarq sat up straight. “Did she touch you?”

“Only about a million times, which is why you’re here now. I vaguely remember you saying that if she touched people, she could make them tell her their secrets. That made me wonder what else she might be capable of, and to be honest, I’m freaking out about it.”

Tarq smiled soothingly. “I dare say you are talking to the right person. Here is what we are going to do.”

*****

In a short blue dress and matching high-heeled shoes, Xornaa was breathtaking when she entered my quarters. “I must confess I’m surprised by how quickly you changed your mind,” she said.

I grinned widely, feeling happier than I’d been in a long, long while. “I decided there’s no point in being lonely and miserable for the rest of my life. I’m sure Liz would’ve wanted me to be happy.”

“You’re such a cliché,” said Venom.

I’d set a romantic table. Flowers, candles, light music, red wine, the whole nine yards. We ate, drank, talked, laughed, and had a great time. Her beauty was so mesmerizing that I mostly forgot what we talked about as soon as the conversation was over. There was lightness in my chest, and I kept imagining what would happen once the meal was finished.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, “what’s with you and classic movies?”

“It was an escape when I was a child,” I said. “I wasn’t close to my parents, I had no siblings, and believe it or not, I wasn’t a popular kid.”

She smiled. “Shocking. So how did you end up being so cocky?”

“I am not cocky,” I said. “I watched everything, but my favorite genre has always been sci-fi. I used to live in a different world growing up, one with spaceships, alien creatures, and galactic battles. Sometimes I feel I still live in that world.”

“I bet you fantasized about sexy alien women when you were a teenager.”

“Good thing I don’t need to fantasize about that anymore.”

After dinner, we moved to a sofa, the one in front of the TV, where I spent most of my evenings alone, with the memory of my dead wife to keep me company. I kissed her strawberry-sweet lips, first gently, then more passionately. I felt her body loosen and her arms enwrap my back. I’d died and gone to heaven. This was the only way I could explain this much happiness.

All of a sudden, she pulled away. “Can I please ask you a question?”

I had to open and close my mouth three times before the word “please” came out.

She angled her body towards me, eyes smoldering with intensity. They looked much larger than a second ago. “Tell me about this other task force. Is there now a formal alliance between the Akakies, the Talgoinians, and the Vanaaries? And where are they now? How many ships do they have?”

In a tiny earpiece deep inside my ear canal, I heard Tarq say, “The secret word.”

“Twenty,” I answered.

She looked surprised. “What, twenty thousand?”

She gasped and her posture stiffened. I guessed she’d just realized she had made a deadly mistake.

“No, but this gun has twenty bullets.” I pulled an M-25 handgun from under a cushion. “And I’ll empty every single one of them into your stomach if you don’t back the hell off right now!”

Hatred burned my soul like a dark, uncontrollable flame, and wrath came at its heels. There was a roaring in my ears, and I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. I loathed Xornaa with every fiber of my being. I wanted her dead, this alien creature who’d tried to mind-frak me into forgetting my wife. My wife!

Xornaa paled and pulled away, something primal and ugly flickering in her eyes. At the same time, the door to my quarters opened, and Tarq and Kurt entered. Tarq’s eyes sparkled, and he wore an ear-to-ear grin. Kurt, on the other hand, looked dead serious, and he was packing his favorite machine pistols. He stared at Xornaa with cold, hard, gray eyes.

When I’d gone to meet Tarq earlier that day, he’d explained that Xornaa could affect people’s emotions, behavior, and thoughts by touching them. Nothing too drastic; for example, she couldn’t make people commit suicide, but she could plant an idea in their minds that would grow and take shape on its own later. And given how she looked and the effect she had on men, her weapon of choice was her femininity. The only reason I wasn’t already completely under her control was probably because I loved another woman.

“Wasn’t MICI supposed to protect us against Xortaag mind control?” I’d asked him.

“It does,” Tarq said. “The Xortaags cannot directly control you or influence your behavior. This is a lot more subtle, and it works only if you have some natural inclination for it to begin with.”

“I have no ‘natural inclination’ towards that woman,” I protested angrily.

Tarq laughed in my face.

“OK, maybe just a tiny bit,” I confessed.

“That is all she needs.”

Tarq then had taken me to MICI and removed the memory of our meeting (because Xornaa would’ve noticed if I only pretended I loved her), and told me I’d remember everything as soon as I heard the secret word. Given the intensity of my reaction, I suspected that he’d also used MICI to make me really hate Xornaa to counter her effect on me.

And, yes, his secret word was “the secret word”. Stupid alien.

Xornaa looked speechless. She only said one word, “How?”

“How?” I burst into hiccupping laughter. “I’ll tell you how. You made two mistakes. First, you forgot who Tarq is. This guy here is the greatest strategist in the universe, and you thought you could pull one over on him? And FYI, that whole second task force thing was a trap to test your loyalty, and you fell head-first into it.”

Tarq smiled and nodded.

“Your second mistake is fatal. You forgot who I am”—I stared into her eyes—“I’m the Kingslayer.”

I pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger.

Tarq and Kurt shouted, “No!”

But it was too late.

The eardrum-rattling noise of the gunshot filled my quarters. I pulled the trigger again, and again, and again, until the gun clicked empty. When I stopped, Xornaa had covered her face with shaking hands, but that was the only sign of fear that she showed. I was disappointed. I’d hoped to see her roll on the floor, scream, and tremble uncontrollably.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You try to pull something like this again, and I won’t use blanks the next time.”

Tarq clapped his hands with pleasure. “This was very well done, even by my standards.”

I stormed out, leaving those three behind.

Half an hour later, Kurt found me on the starship’s observation deck, still fuming. He sat beside me and asked, “You OK?”

“That bitch tried to take Liz’s place using voodoo,” I grumbled. “What do you think?”

Kurt nodded and didn’t say anything.

“Every morning, when I wake up, the first thing I remember is Liz is gone,” I whispered. “Every day, except for today. I should’ve killed that woman just for this.”

Kurt put his hand on my shoulder.

“So, what happened after I left?” I asked.

“We had a fascinating conversation with Xornaa.”

Even hearing her name made me cringe. “And?”

“She says, and I quote, ‘I’m a spy; learning people’s secrets is my job’. Apparently, she was planning to sell the information to a third party, some sort of an independent mercenary group that, in turn, would sell it to the Xortaags.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Why? If she wants to sell secrets, she already knows a lot about our task force, and worse, how we took back both Earth and Alora.”

“She does, but she’s a part of this task force herself.” Kurt pulled his goatee. “She can’t leak any information that might ultimately get her killed. Plus, she really does want the Xortaags to lose, so she won’t reveal our MO to the enemy.”

I was exhausted all of a sudden. “What happens now?”

Kurt looked pensive. “Something bothers me. You remember Tarq was planning to put a small bomb under Xornaa’s skin and threaten to kill her if she betrayed us? When she was talking about ‘people’s secrets’, she looked pointedly at Tarq, and he totally backed off. He told her we’d keep a close eye on her and do the bomb thing if she betrayed us in the future.”

“You think Xornaa has something on Tarq? What? A sex tape?”

“I don’t know, but it must be something very serious to make Tarq worry. Anyway, I protested, saying I didn’t understand why he let her off the hook so easily, but he said we needed her and he’d deal with it, enigmatic as ever.”

“Did you guys at least convince her to dress professionally?”

Kurt smiled. “Yes. She’s officially a Marine now, and under my command. She’ll be wearing a Marine uniform from now on.”

“Not sure if that actually helps. Have you seen Oksana in uniform?”

“You’re hopeless. I also made it very clear to her that the next time she does something like this, I’ll personally put a bullet in her brain.”

I shook my head. “Not sure if that helps either. Leopards and spots.”

*****

Tarq went to his quarters, locked the door, and thought about pulling his antennae.

Bringing Xornaa along might have been a huge mistake. She was one of the few people who knew Tarq had used Earth as bait to defeat the Xortaags. There was no telling how the humans would react if she told them. Tarq doubted they would see this as a genius masterstroke that brought the Xortaags to their knees and saved the galaxy.

On the other hand, what else was he supposed to do? Without Xornaa, there would be no task force because they had no way of telling where the OMC-BOWS controls were. That woman was very useful, and she had already proved it.

He decided pulling his antennae would not help. He needed a plan, and he knew exactly what to do.

*****

Xornaa woke up with a jolt, and she was overcome by unspeakable horror when she realized she couldn’t move. All she could do was roll her eyes or wiggle her fingers and toes, and soon she couldn’t even do that. She wasn’t dead. She could see the ceiling of her quarters and feel her body on her bed, but that was it. She was completely paralyzed.

And then she couldn’t even breathe. Her lungs screamed for oxygen, but none came. The panic made her heart hammer against her ribcage, and then it stopped beating too. She desperately tried to shout, to call for help, but she couldn’t make any noise. She kept trying to struggle, but she was suffocating, getting closer and closer to fatal oxygen deprivation with every passing second.

After all she’d been through in her life—the constant starvation she’d suffered as a child, the physical and mental molestation she’d endured as a teenager, her dangerous job as a spy, the suicidal missions she’d taken part in, and facing death a thousand times over and surviving—it’d never occurred to her she’d die drowning in her own bed.

Tarq appeared in her view.

“Hi, Xornaa,” he said casually, as if she wasn’t about to suffocate. “You are going to need this for your heart and lungs to work.” He put a small portable device on her chest and fixed an oxygen mask on her face.

Xornaa’s heart started beating again, and the rush of oxygen to her brain cells made her delirious. She was going to survive, yet again. And then she remembered at whose mercy she was right now, and panic returned, tenfold this time. Her breathing became more rapid, and she felt she was about to black out. Asphyxiation might’ve been a mercy compared to what she knew Tarq was capable of doing to her if his hearts so desired.

“I have used Serenity’s environmental controls to pump a chemical compound into your room,” said Tarq. “It has no effect on us Akakies, but it completely paralyzes the humanoid species. I once tried it on a human whose name was Allen. I am positive he was shocked when he woke up the next day and found out he had soiled himself in his sleep. I felt guilty about it a few weeks later when he sacrificed his life to save us all.”

Tarq sat on a chair next to the bed. “So, let me start off by saying how much we appreciate your help in saving Alora. We could not have done it without you. Not to mention if it was not for you, Mushgaana and Maada had conquered Kanoor, and there was no stopping them. Come to think of it, you helped me save the whole galaxy.”

I’m honored, asshole.

“With all that said, please allow me to add that I do not like being threatened. You should not have referred to ‘secrets’ in front of Kurt, of all people. He is very sharp, and I am sure he picked up on that. Naughty, naughty.” He leaned over until his face was only a few inches away from hers. “As Jim pointed out, your problem is you have forgotten whom you are dealing with. A fatal mistake, indeed.”

Tarq’s face suddenly melted away. Xornaa knew the Akakie was hidden behind a hologram, but logic and conscious thinking lost their power in the face of terror. The monster that appeared in front of her was an image straight from the depths of hell. It had reptilian skin, huge mandibles opening a wide mouth to display big teeth, yellow eyes, and hair-like appendages set into its skull. Xornaa had seen plenty of scary shit in her life, but she knew Tarq’s real face would haunt her nightmares for years to come.

The monster pressed a hypospray onto her skin. “This should take care of the paralysis”—it had a raspy voice and couldn’t pronounce the words normally, probably due to the shape of its mouth—“and it will also put you to sleep. Then, some of my people will come and inject a small capsule into the base of your skull. It contains a tracker and a detonation device. When you wake up, remember that I can follow your movements, and I can kill you whenever I want. Please do go ahead and betray me. I have never exploded anyone’s head, and I really, really want to do it at least once in my life.”

Xornaa’s eyelids got heavier.

“Also, curiosity is killing me,” said Tarq conversationally. “Jim told me you mentioned that Mushgaana was your father. Did you sleep with your own father? Gross!”

No, you lunatic. I didn’t have to sleep with him. I gave him a memory of us having sex. But I would have if it was necessary. Anything to bring down that monster.

Right before she lost consciousness, Xornaa heard Tarq say in his normal voice, “I am very happy we could have this talk. Thanks for listening. And by the way, if at your age you still wet your bed, you really should go talk to a doctor.”

*****

“She is out. You can come in now,” said Tarq.

Barook and two other Akakies entered Xornaa’s quarters. “Well done, Commander,” said Barook. “You certainly scared me half to death. What was that species?”

The other two Akakies went to Xornaa and pushed her onto her side.

“It is fictional,” said Tarq. “I asked the boys on Earth to search the human databases and find a scary monster. You know, I have always admired the humans’ imagination. Anyway, it is called Predator. Apparently, it is from an old movie.”

“It was an ugly mother—” Barook whimpered, took two unsteady steps backward, and lost his balance.

In his Predator disguise, Tarq said innocently, “I am thinking about coming to our next briefing looking like this. What do you think?”

Chapter Two: Voltex

Standard Galactic Year: 5260

(Earth Year: 3167)

Faltaz rushed down Mount Darkas as fast as he could hover. He had not seen his mate and their seventeen younglings for what felt like ages to him because he had been busy working on a research facility on top of the mountain. This was the drawback of being “the brightest mind of his generation” as everybody called him these days: he was involved in several projects, each with the possibility of changing the future of Voltex forever. Well, he was planning to forget all about that tonight and spend time with his family. They would eat a sumptuous dinner, and then they would all pray together, even the very little ones who could neither utter the words properly nor fully understand them. It was a time-honored tradition.

Istak, his eldest daughter, would not be there though. She and her newborn son (his first grandson!) would join them tomorrow. Faltaz had chosen the babe’s name: Kavmar. It was a good, strong name. Faltaz hoped the child would grow up to be a scientist, like his grandfather.

It was a warm, beautiful day, with Voltex’s suns shining down on him. He made a turn, and Pandar came to view. Voltex’s biggest and most populous city with almost thirty billion inhabitants, Pandar was a commerce center not only for the planet but the whole solar system. He stopped for a second to admire Pandar’s magnificence. There were huge, black sky-towers in an exact grid pattern, spread in every direction as far as he could perceive, with millions of Volts, the organic part of the city, hovering among them. It was the end of the school day and many parents were busy picking up their children. Not the best time to arrive home.

Faltaz took a deep breath and let happiness swell within him.

Home.

He had plenty of reasons to be grateful. Still a young Volt, he already had several critical discoveries and inventions under his belt, which had contributed to his planet’s technological and economic success. More importantly, his mate adored him, and his younglings loved him. What else could a humble Volt possibly want from life?

Praise Vilyek.

The only issue that bothered him was the fact that the war with the carbon-based aliens was not going very well. The Volts had never felt the need to spend too much time on developing weaponry. They were peaceful people, and their numerical advantage had always meant there was no need for advanced weapons, until now. The carbon-based creatures had spaceships and energy weapons the Volts had not encountered before. Still, the Volt warriors, called the Vox, outnumbered the enemy a hundred to one, and their courage and commitment compensated for their lack of weaponry. He should know; four of his siblings were highly decorated Voxes. Moreover, the Volts had already sent a delegation, suing for peace. Not all aliens could possibly be silicon-hungry monsters, could they? Between the humans, the Akakies, the Xortaags, the Talgoinians, the Vanaari, and the rest of them, someone had to listen to reason.

Humans! He chuckled. What kind of stupid people called themselves human? Still, he could not help wondering how much they could learn from each other once this needless war ended.

Faltaz had just started hovering again when the ground shook violently. Caught by complete surprise, he was thrown backward and went tumbling onto the road. He rolled over, looked at the city, and froze. His brain could not name what he was looking at. He had never seen anything like that in his life, except …

Except for some old photos related to the carbon-based aliens’ history.

A nuclear mushroom cloud, right where Pandar used to be. From a weapon that had supposedly been obsolete for centuries.

And then the shockwave hit him. He was thrown to the ground again and rolled uncontrollably. All around, the plants covering the mountain disintegrated, but Faltaz’s shell was too thick to break, even though several painful cracks appeared on it.

When Faltaz finally stopped rolling, he just sat there on the ground, unable to hover, unable to breathe, unable to think, and knew with deathly certainty that everything he once held dear in his life was gone.

*****

“They are all dead,” said Faltaz’s brother, Shapzan, sitting next to him. “Well, not all. Istak and her newborn baby have survived. What was the child’s name?”

“Kavmar,” said Faltaz. “I figured as much. They were not in Pandar. She had to leave to take care of something.”

Faltaz did not recognize his own voice when he started talking. In fact, it was not him at all. He had died with his family. This other individual talking with logical detachment was someone else.

“I thought nuclear weapons were considered obsolete,” he said.

“All the intelligence we have gathered says they have not been used for centuries,” said Shapzan. “And at any rate, who would have thought the aliens would use such a monstrous weapon on a densely populated civilian target?”

“What happens now?”

“The carbon-based creatures have asked for our unconditional surrender. The High Council has voted to accept their demand. We have lost the war.”

Faltaz’s shell turned a few shades darker. “We cannot! After what they just did to us?”

“What other choice do we have?” Shapzan asked glumly. “Do you want them to do what they did to Pandar to the whole planet? We have no defense against their diabolical weapons.”

“Yes, we do,” said Faltaz. “We have me. Me. I will make them pay. All of them—the humans, the Xortaags, the Akakies … all the carbon-based aliens will pay for what they did to us.”

“Are you planning to travel back in time and stop the enemy from dropping those bombs? Because I do not think anything else will actually help us.”

“Time travel is not possible. But trust me: I will find a way to wreak vengeance on them. There is not a place they can hide. I will exterminate those mass murderers who killed our children, and I do not care what it will cost me.”

Shapzan smiled sadly. “Knowing you, I feel bad for the aliens already.”

“I can hear the disbelief in your voice, Brother,” said the scientist. “I think you are underestimating how much I loved my family. All the carbon-based aliens are as good as extinct.”

“Not all of them participated in the attack. In fact, some of them are at war with each other.”

“At this point, does it make a difference? They are all the same. And they are all dead.”

Chapter Three: Talmak

Standard Galactic Date: 047.03.5073

(Earth Date: 29/03/2079)

Iknew there was something wrong as soon as I saw Tarq’s message asking me to attend an urgent meeting. Those were never good news.

Ella was already in the briefing room, typing something on her PDD, when I entered. “Do you know what’s going on?” I asked her.

Without looking up, she said, “No, but it’s a safe guess it has something to do with our imminent attack on Talmak.”

I’d come to the same conclusion. After Alora, we had liberated three other planets with little resistance from the Xortaags. There was no fleet presence on those three planets, so one theory was they were pulling back their forces in preparation for a major confrontation. This could be it.

“I certainly hope so,” said Venom. “I’m getting really bored in here.”

He was right. Life on a starship sounded fascinating, but it was, in fact, super boring, for the simple reason that there wasn’t much one could do in their spare time, and we had plenty of that. I’d arranged for movie nights which soon turned into a dating scene and became very popular, but it was only once a week. I begged Kurt to play squash with me (I was a tennis player, but there were no tennis courts on Invincible, so squash was the second-best thing). Unfortunately, he was rubbish with a racquet, and it wasn’t fun for either of us. Kurt and I got together and watched movies a few times, but that lasted only until Oksana taught him how to play chess. After that, they played whenever they had free time, and Kurt had no time for movies and me.

Yep. Oksana stole my best friend. Those Ukrainian girls!

We had VR battle simulators on board; however, after I’d experienced a few real dogfights, the simulations held no interest for me anymore, and the few times I arranged for competitions, I wiped the floor up with the other fighter pilots who participated. So, boring.

I was so desperate that I would’ve welcomed Tarq’s distasteful pranks just to distract myself, but he spent most of his time aboard the Akakie starship, and we had to entertain ourselves by hearing the stories of his masterpieces. Once, while trying to make MICI work remotely (kind of like a short-range MFM), Tarq made everyone aboard Serenity throw up uncontrollably. After that, Kurt threatened him with bullet-in-the-brain sort of consequences, and the little alien stopped messing around.

Kurt, Oksana, and Xornaa, who were aboard Serenity, appeared on the wall-mounted monitors in the briefing room. Xornaa smiled and nodded politely to me, but I completely ignored her, just like I’d done during our last few meetings. Tarq and Barook, aboard the Akakie starship, showed up on another monitor. Tarq wore his simple white suit and was smoking a ridiculously big pipe.

“Is he seriously smoking aboard a spaceship?” whispered Ella.

I shrugged. “That’s Tarq for you. I had to threaten to shoot him to stop him from smoking when he was here, but the Akakies aren’t known for their military discipline, so I guess he can do whatever he wants over there.”

“I am afraid I have bad news,” said Tarq. “Our spy ship has just reported from Talmak’s orbit. The situation on the surface has completely changed. The Xortaags have enlisted the planet’s local population to beef up security, and now there are guards, checkpoints, and fingerprint scanners everywhere. It looks like we will not be able to use our old trick of wearing the Xortaag uniform and waltzing into their cities.”

“Deja vu,” said Kurt.

“It’s a glitch in the Matrix,” I said without missing a beat. “It usually happens when they change something.”

Ella looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

The others didn’t even bother.

“Liz would’ve gotten that reference,” said Venom. I wasn’t the only one who was missing her.

“Isn’t this exactly what happened after Operation Free Earth?” asked Kurt, playing with his goatee.

“It is,” I answered. “Do you think Maada’s ghost has come back and told them what to do?”

Tarq wiggled his middle figure at me. “Do not even joke about it.”

“What do we do now?” asked Oksana.

Tarq puffed on his pipe. “There are eight thousand Deathbringers on the planet, plus almost fifty million Xortaags, now supported by whatever is left of Talmak’s forces and a big chunk of the local population. We could attack and destroy the Xortaag fleet, but there is no way we could kick them off the planet.”

I cursed under my breath. It was disappointing to see our mission cut so short. I’d really set my heart on saving all the people on Xortaag-occupied planets. “So, we go back home with our tails between our legs?”

“I did not know humans had tails,” said Barook. “Do you hide it in your pants?”

Tarq ignored him. “Our intelligence suggests the Xortaag fleet is preparing to mobilize. We cannot just leave them here. If we do, they will attack another planet as soon as they are done with the Arshans. They might even try to take back the planets we have just liberated, or worse, join up with the rest of their fleet and attack Earth or Kanoor. We, however, do have another option: there is a planet buster aboard.”

I thought it was one of his distasteful jokes. “Are you planning to use the same planet buster Maada used to ambush us?” I asked. Then I looked into his eyes, dead serious, and somehow I just knew he wasn’t kidding.

“How many people are down there?” Kurt asked with a stony expression.

“Besides the Xortaags?” said Tarq. “We estimate there are less than a hundred million Arshans on the planet.”

“Around eighty million, to be exact,” said Barook. “There used to be some three billion of them, but they have perished in the past few years. With the planet’s colonization process almost complete, the Xortaags have no reason to be particularly worried about the wellbeing of their slaves.”

I knew the Arshans, Talmak’s indigenous people, were humanoid, only smaller than average humans, kind of like the Hobbits. I stared incredulously at Tarq. “Are we seriously talking about killing eighty million innocent people, plus God knows how many Xortaag women and children?”

Tarq didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Oksana, Ella, and I started protesting at the same time. Kurt didn’t join in. He sank back into his seat and tugged at his goatee harder than usual.

Tarq raised his hand to stop us. “The planet is in its final stages of colonization, so there are still no Xortaag children there, and you know all Xortaag women are soldiers, even though at this stage some of them might be pregnant. As for the local population, they are already dead. The planet’s colonization will be complete in less than three of your months, at which point, as you already know, the Xortaags will kill them off using OMC-BOWS.”

When we met Tarq for the first time, he told us how he’d wiped out all the colonists on two Xortaag-occupied planets. We didn’t pay much attention then, with our own species facing extinction. We should have. I rubbed my temples, feeling the onset of a sudden headache. “How many Arshan children?”

Tarq exchanged a look with Barook. “We do not know, but with most of the adults busy working for the Xortaags, there is no one to take care of children, so most of them have died already. There are five million kids left, tops”

Five million kids!

Judging by the flame erupting in Oksana’s green eyes, she would’ve shot Tarq if she could. Ella, who was normally the very picture of composure, covered her face and grunted. Even Xornaa looked disgusted.

“We are not doing this,” I said firmly, anger creeping into my voice.

“We thought you might object,” said Tarq. “Let me show you something our spy ship has just sent us.”

A holographic image appeared on the briefing room table. It was the aerial view of a city. When the camera moved closer, I realized the city was deserted. It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie: lots of ruined buildings, vehicles left everywhere, everything covered by greenish vegetation. And many, many decomposing bodies, mostly animals, but some humanoid.

The camera zoomed in on a group of small kids, walking in the middle of a street, probably looking for food or something. They were all white and blond, wearing rags, looking dirty, tired, and frightened. Some were injured. A taller girl, who looked slightly older than the rest, was walking in front, leading them on.

“There is a Xortaag city nearby, and all the adults have been relocated to help in construction, so the children are left alone,” explained Tarq. “They are dying by the thousands, due to starvation, diseases, or something like this.”

An animal appeared on the screen. It was like a cross between a wolf and a lion, and it had two freaking heads. It charged toward the kids, who scattered, screaming. A small boy lost his balance and fell. The tall girl ran back for him, but the beast was upon them. She knelt in the street, hugged the boy, and hid his face on her chest.

The creature tore into them.

I gasped and felt tremors in my hands. Oksana and Ella covered their eyes, and Kurt and I averted ours. Xornaa looked away from the screen too. All the bloodshed I’d seen in the last few months had thickened my skin; still, a monster devouring small children was too heartbreaking to watch. I would’ve been running for my Viper if I had thought I’d be able to reach the planet in time to save the kids. Instead, all I could do was hang my head and hope those children’s suffering ended as fast as possible.

Our insectoid allies kept staring at the images with interest, showing zero emotions.

I loved Tarq. After everything we’d been through together (fall of Earth, Liz’s death, Operation Royalty, all of it), I’d come to consider him an alien stepbrother I never had, not to mention the fact that he’d saved us all. Still, at this particular moment, I couldn’t help wondering what the hell I was doing in here with these freaking soulless insects.

“To clarify, it is not only the kids who are perishing, even though they are the ones suffering the most,” Tarq said casually, as if two small children weren’t being eaten alive right in front of our eyes. “As I said, with the planet’s colonization nearly complete, there is no need for the Xortaags to make an effort to keep the local population alive. Thousands die every single day. We will be putting them out of their misery if we blow up the planet.”

“These people are suffering, and your solution is to kill them all?” I asked, my voice shaking. I wished I could’ve punched him in the face.

“Do you have a better suggestion?” asked Tarq.

“Yes!” I raised my voice, feeling my veins straining against skin. “How about not killing them? Let’s at least try to come up with a way to save the poor bastards.”

Tarq shook his head. “These people are under OMC-BOWS control. They do not want to be saved; they want to die serving their gods. Even if we could put enough Marines on the planet to take it back from the Xortaags, which we obviously cannot, the Arshans would fight us tooth and nail to defend them.”

“You are being unreasonable,” Barook chimed in. “All these people will die in a few months, and then the Xortaags can use this fleet to attack Earth or us. We have an opportunity to destroy it with little risk to us.”

“It might help if you think of the Arshans not as sentient beings,” Tarq added, “but as Zombies whose minds are being controlled by an evil overload. Will you object to killing Zombies if it saves billions of people?”

“The Arshans are no threat to anyone,” I objected.

“But the Xortaag fleet stationed here is,” said Tarq. “If we leave them, they will kill all the Arshans, and then attack another planet and massacre untold billions. How would you feel about that?”

“We can destroy the Xortaag fleet!” I said.

Tarq shook his head. “You know full well that if the Xortaags feel they are about to lose the battle, they will kill off the Arshans using OMC-BOWS, so the end result will be the same, but we will lose hundreds of, even thousands of, our pilots.”

“The Arshans are being tortured to death,” said Barook. “If I had been in their shoes, I know I would have wanted for someone to come and push me out of my misery.”

“Put me,” I mumbled.

“And after this?” asked Oksana, anger flashing in her eyes. “We’ll keep destroying planet after planet until we reach Tangaar?”

“We can use this trick only once,” answered Tarq. “Unlike Operation Royalty, the Xortaag subspace communication center is fully active, so they will figure out what we did and stop us the next time.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I growled. “I’m here to save people, not kill them. I’m not going to participate in massacring children. I call for a vote.”

We had a similar setup to the one back in Winterfell’s Command Center: Tarq had operational authority, but if we disagreed with him, we could ask for a vote, with Tarq’s vote the tiebreaker in case of a tie. Not that it mattered. There was no way a human would vote for this atrocity.

“You sure about that?” asked Venom, whose faith in humanity’s integrity was unshakable.

“Do I get to vote?” Xornaa asked optimistically.

“Over my dead body!” I yelled so loudly the briefing room windowpanes shook. Or at least I thought they did.

“Or yours,” Oksana told her.

Tarq frowned. “Sometimes, there is no reasoning with you humans. I think you people are inherently incapable of seeing the big picture.”

“They probably have a genetic problem,” said Barook.

“OK, let’s vote,” said Tarq.

“I think it is obvious what I vote to do,” said Barook. “Leaving the Xortaag fleet on Talmak will have severe consequences. We cannot attack them without suffering serious losses, and the Arshans will die in every possible scenario. This is the only way.”

Alien bros before, well, everyone else.

“I see Commander Tarq’s point, but I’m with Colonel Harrison,” said Ella, bless her heart.

Oksana was next. “Me, too.”

So, it came down to Kurt’s vote, who sank even deeper in his seat, looking at us with sad, sad eyes that right now were even grayer than usual. He looked like a man who was about to shoot a puppy.

No freaking way!

Kurt spoke very slowly and deliberately, almost word for word. “If there was a way for us to save the Arshans, I’d agree with Jim, but since there isn’t, destroying the Xortaag fleet takes priority. I vote for Commander Tarq’s plan.”

I blinked in astonishment, and my world came crashing down on me. My best friend, my brother, the only family I’d left, had just sentenced eighty million people to death. His betrayal cut me. It was like someone poured acid into my soul. I grabbed my seat to stop my hands from trembling and fought to keep myself from throwing up. That Judas!

Oksana and Ella stared at him, speechless.

“Told you so,” Venom gloated.

Shut up shut up shut up shut up!

“Spoken like a true terrorist,” I told Kurt, venom (no, not that one) dripping from my words.

Kurt’s face turned red, and he clenched his fists. He looked so mad I thought he might’ve hit me if we’d been in the same room, like that time I made fun of Allen for using a flash drive as a sex toy.

“You’re a terrible human being,” said Venom.

Kurt stood up and looked me in the eyes. “The hardest choices require the strongest wills.” And then he disappeared from the monitor, probably storming from the room.

Now I was really pissed. Quoting movies was supposed to be my thing. I stood too, my pulse elevated, seeing red. “You can’t force me to butcher five million children. I step down as the commander of the fleet, and I’m going to confine myself to my quarters.”

Tarq raised an eyebrow. “You would give up your command for some aliens whom, until a few hours ago, you had not even heard of?”

“The path of the righteous man,” I said solemnly.

“Since when do you quote the Bible?” asked Oksana.

“The Bible? This was written on Nick Fury’s gravestone.” I left the briefing room, banging the door hard behind me.

*****

Later that evening, Kurt came to my quarters. I was lying on the bed, drinking beer and pretending to read a book on my PDD. I’d calmed down, but I still didn’t even bother to get up. I just nodded toward the fridge.

Kurt came back holding a Paulaner. “Since when do you drink Molson Canadian?” he asked.

I looked at the bottle in my hand. “I developed a taste for it after Allen’s wake.”

Kurt sat on a chair in front of me, stared at his feet, and avoided eye contact. “He’s right, you know. And just in case you’re thinking about staging a mutiny, I should tell you the Marines are on high alert.”

I had thought about a mutiny but decided against it. The fleet personnel would probably follow me, but a confrontation with the Marines would end in only one way. More importantly, fighting Kurt and his Marines wasn’t even an option. The simple fact of the matter was he was more important to me than a race of aliens whom I’d never met, even if the said aliens weren’t going to be extinct in a few short months.

Was that selfish? Probably. Was I going to take up arms against Kurt because of the Arshans? Fat chance.

I’d also thought about asking my pilots not to follow Tarq’s orders. They’d probably listen to me, but then Tarq would try to do this using the Akakie pilots, and the stupid insects would get themselves massacred without us to hold their hands.

So, my plan was to sulk in my quarters, being an unwilling accomplice to murdering an entire race, whatever the justification. This would’ve been absolutely unthinkable just a few months ago. I wondered if Tarq had messed with my head again.

“You did kill twenty million Xortaag colonists in their sleep,” said Venom. “The destroyer of worlds, remember? Though I bet you didn’t mean it literally.”

I mumbled a few words, most of which started with an F, under my breath.

“Language! And I have to point out—” Cordelia started saying, but I growled, “Privacy mode.” Then I glared at Kurt, “I’m in no mood for her wise-ass remarks. Plus, I think the emotionless, heartless, inhuman AI will take your side.”

“Hear me out,” said Kurt. “I understand how you feel. Believe me when I say I do. I once killed one of Zheng’s top henchmen in front of his kids—I didn’t know they were there. I had nightmares about it for weeks.”

“Why do I feel there’s a but coming?”

“But Tarq’s right. The Xortaags will exterminate the Arshans very soon, and there’s nothing we can do to save them. What we can do is to make sure the fleet down there doesn’t participate in destroying another planet. We’re saving people here.”

I rubbed my forehead. This was unreal. “By killing five million children?”

“The Xortaags will kill them anyway!”

“Yes, but we shouldn’t.” I finally put the PDD down and sat up on my bed. “And to be honest, massacring the Xortaags by the millions has gotten under my nerves too.”

That one caught Kurt by surprise. “Seriously? The people who killed seven hundred million humans, including God knows how many kids?”

“They’re trying to save their own people; plus, they can’t all be bad. I bet a lot of them are just normal people trying to live their lives. In fact, let me ask you this: how many Xortaags do we know?”

“Other than Zaart? Two, I guess. Maada and Mushgaana.”

“I’d forgotten about Zaart. Whatever happened to that guy?”

Kurt shrugged. “Probably still on Earth with the rest of the POWs.”

“As for the other two, I’d come to actually respect Maada. Don’t get me wrong. He was a monster and I still hate him, but he was an honorable man in his own way, and his people would’ve happily died for him—”

Kurt interrupted me. “They did die for him. Not sure if they were happy about it though.”

I continued, “And Mushi. Have you seen the footage of his death?”

“Yeah. He shouted something about meeting his small friend.”

“He was quoting Scarface,” I said. “Know anyone else who might quote movies while staring death in the face?”

Kurt smiled. “You told me you quoted something about people saying goodbye to their balls when you thought you were about to get killed by SCTU goons. Speaking to a woman, I might add.”

“One of the goons happened to be a woman. I did feel guilty about not including her, but what was I supposed to say? Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls and ovaries? Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is, maybe we should sit down and talk to the Xortaags instead of going around the galaxy killing them indiscriminately.”

“We’ve been trying to talk to them to at least arrange a POW exchange. They don’t respond.”

“Didn’t you and your dad spend your whole lives trying to achieve world peace? That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Imagine this,” he said. “Let’s say we leave this fleet here and return to Earth. What if the Xortaags attack us again, and these eight thousand ships here end up winning them the battle? Do you really want to be responsible for the destruction of Earth?”

“This is all hypothetical,” I said. “What we are about to do here is very real.”

Silence stretched, but I didn’t try to add anything else.

Kurt shrugged. “OK. Listen. This discussion won’t end anytime soon, so let me use another argument. Back then, when I was busy killing Zheng’s people, I felt genuinely guilty whenever I got one. The first time I took a life, I couldn’t eat or sleep for a week …” His voice trailed off for a moment, and he offered his trademark staring-into-nothing expression. “Do you remember the first person you killed?”

“To be honest, no. For me, it was always shooting down the fighter jet that was important, not what happened to the pilot, and most of the time I had no way of knowing who punched out and who went down with the plane.”

“What I’m trying to say is assassinating Zheng’s goons was a dirty job, but it had to be done. So is this. We’re going to do it tomorrow, with or without you. I’ll be down on the planet, and I know my chances of coming back alive will drastically improve if the Kingslayer is watching my back.”

Kurt was my best friend. He was the brother I never had; in fact, he was closer to me than any real sibling would’ve been. We’d grown up together. We had fought, bled, and lost loved ones by each other’s sides. Hell, we’d saved humanity together. I would’ve happily given my life for him, as I knew he would for me.

But a man had to draw the line somewhere.

I’d killed several enemy pilots when I was with the Air Force on Earth and had never given it a second thought. I led the attack that ended the lives of twenty million Xortaag colonists sleeping in the cryogenic pods in their convoy, and I was partially responsible for the untold millions who died on the four planets we’d liberated. I was worried I’d turn into a monster if I took part in this one.

And what if there was judgment after death? I didn’t want to lose whatever was left of my soul, just in case.

“Sorry, Kurt”—my voice cracked—“but I draw the line at killing five million kids.”

It was just like the time he came to me to ask for my help in fighting Zheng and I turned him down, only a million times worse. I regretted my words as soon as they came out of my mouth, but I stuck to my guns. I was nothing if not stubborn.

No women, no children. OK, maybe some women, if they were armed soldiers, and it was really necessary, and even that would be against my Southern upbringing. But absolutely no children, not even baby Hitler.

“And, my friend, to be honest, I’m worried about you too,” I continued. “I know you’ve done a lot of crazy shit during your terr … eh, freedom fighting days, but this is something else. If you do this, something will permanently break inside you. Trust me when I say you don’t want eighty million ghosts to follow you around for the rest of your life.”

“Has to be done,” he repeated doggedly. “And those eighty million people you keep talking about? They’re already dead. They just don’t know it yet.”

“Cliché much?” I said tiredly.

Kurt left, and I wondered if this would be the last time I saw him alive.

*****

I hope we aren’t making a huge mistake, thought Ella, sitting on the command chair of Invincible.

All around her, the crew was busy doing their job. They’d been briefed on the mission’s goal, and if anyone had any objection to destroying a whole planet, they’d kept it to themselves. They were all seasoned Navy men and women, and they were good at following orders.

When she’d joined the British Navy all those years ago, her brain full of naïve notions of honor and duty, she’d never imagined she would take part in space genocide, killing millions of sentient beings. But she didn’t know there were aliens in the galaxy who would kill humanity off without giving it a second thought. She wondered if Jim was right. Murdering all those children on the planet couldn’t possibly be right, whatever the justification. Then she thought about her two dead daughters, and her resolve to do what needed to be done solidified.

She opened a channel to the fleet. “This is Captain Wood speaking. We’re going to make the final jump in T-minus two minutes.”

She’d picked up that expression from her American counterparts right before the Xortaag invasion and had been looking for a chance to use it.

“Just a reminder: we are bait. Don’t take any unnecessary risks trying to destroy the Deathbringers; only distract them long enough for the Marines to do their job, and then we can leave the Xortaag fleet to die in space, which is exactly what they deserve.”

In short, please don’t get yourselves killed on my watch.

Ella heard Tarq saying, “We are sending you in three, two …”

“Godspeed,” she said right before the fleet jumped.

*****

After pacing back and forth in my quarters for what felt like hours, with my brain—in full OCD mode—thinking in circles, I stopped and asked, “They’re going to be all right, aren’t they?”

No one answered.

“Deactivate privacy mode.” I’d forgotten to do it after Kurt left last night.

“What did I miss?” asked Cordelia immediately.

“Nothing. What’s going on out there?”

“We’ve just made the final jump. So far so good, but no battle plan ever—”

“Survives contact with the enemy,” I interrupted her. “I know. You learned it from me. Do you think I made the right decision?”

“Let me ask you a question. If you had to choose between the Arshans and Liz, what would you do?”

I resisted the urge to bite my nails just like Tarq. “That’s easy. This is the same choice Neo had to make at the end of The Matrix Reloaded. He chose Trinity. I’d choose Liz.”

“And yet, somehow, you decided to choose the Arshans over Kurt?”

“I didn’t,” I protested. “I simply refused to become a child murderer. Kurt is going to be fine.”

“And if he isn’t? Will you ever be able to forgive yourself?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. Just thinking about the possibility that Kurt could’ve died down there while I was here doing nothing made my breath catch. And worse, what if he was right? What if by sacrificing the Arshans (who would be wiped out in a few months anyway), we were going to save God only knew how many other people?

Goddamn it!

*****

“It’ll be our turn soon,” said Kurt, following the battle on a VR screen.

Which, if I’m being honest, I’m not looking forward to at all.

He was sitting on the copilot seat of a Firefly. Xornaa was piloting the ship, and Oksana, along with nine other Marines—all in full combat gear—was sitting behind them. Kurt thought about what they were carrying in the ship’s cargo bay and shuddered. The planet buster made Little Boy look like a BB gun in comparison. It was too bulky and heavy to be carried by an invisible spy ship (they were very small and couldn’t carry more than one person), which had made Operation Trojan Horse necessary.

There were few things in life Kurt liked more than planning a flawless operation and executing it, but not today. The feeling of anticipation he always felt before a mission was all gone. If anything, a part of him wished something went wrong and they didn’t have to go ahead with their plans.

Kurt watched as their fleet attacked the Xortaags, but he could see the usual intensity of a battle was missing. The Vipers were trying to shoot at their targets from a more or less safe distance. Still, a few Vipers, piloted by the Akakies, got shot down within the first few minutes of the battle. Those freaking insects would never learn how to fight.

A squadron of Vipers entered the planet’s atmosphere, attracting the Xortaags’ planet-based laser turrets fire. This was the cue Kurt was waiting for. His heart started beating faster. If their plan failed, this would be a very short flight, or a very long one if they had to fly all the way to heaven. “Here we go,” he announced and touched the VR screen in front of him.

Thick black smoke emanated from the ship. Xornaa put the Firefly in a spinning dive while shouting hysterically in her mike, “Mayday! Mayday! I’m hit. I’m going down! Oh, dear God!”

“A little bit too much,” Kurt whispered to her.

“Why are you whispering?” whispered Oksana.

They were hoping the Xortaags, having their hands full fighting the fleet, wouldn’t pay attention to a disabled ship falling uncontrollably onto the planet. This was why Tarq had said they could use this trick only once. Even if it succeeded this time, it was unlikely the Xortaags would fall for it a second time, which made the planet busters useless from this point on because they could only operate from the planet's surface. Not necessarily a bad thing; otherwise, Tarq wouldn’t have hesitated to destroy every single Xortaag-occupied planet.

“It looks like our plan worked,” said Xornaa, “since nobody is shooting at us.”

Kurt heaved a sigh of relief. “If Jim were here, he’d make a Star Wars joke.”

“How come?” asked Oksana, looking out of a shuttle window.

“There’s this infamous scene in the original trilogy where the bad guys didn’t shoot down an escape pod, which later resulted in the destruction of their whole empire.”

Xornaa frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“If Jim were here, he’d make a joke about trying to explain Star Wars to women.”

“You are so sexist!” exclaimed Oksana.

“I certainly am not.” Kurt turned in his seat to look at her. “I appointed you as my second-in-command, didn’t I?”

“That’s because I kick everyone’s butt in hand-to-hand combat. Isn’t that right, big guy?” she asked a huge Hispanic man sitting opposite her.

The man blushed.

Kurt hid his smile. The Marine, Juan Martinez, one of the five surviving members of his Operation Royalty team, was a brute of a man and easily two hundred eighty pounds. Getting beaten by a girl half his weight couldn’t have possibly been fun for him. He shouldn’t have been so embarrassed though. Oksana was insanely good at hand-to-hand combat. She had a lot of natural talent, and MICI had done the rest. Moreover, she’d trained diligently for a long time until she’d developed championship-level skills. And she wouldn’t shy away from fighting dirty. She’d scratch your face, bite your hands, or gouge your eyes out, which was why Kurt himself never got into the ring with her. Allen did that once, and he regretted it after he lost a few teeth.

“Ouch, man. Burn!” Li Xing, a Chinese Marine and another surviving member of Operation Royalty, told Juan.

The rest of the Marines laughed.

Xornaa looked over her shoulder and told Oksana, “You and I should go a few rounds.”

“Bring it, alien,” said Oksana.

Kurt smiled. “I’d pay good money to see that.”

“You’re getting more sexist by the second,” Oksana said flatly, “and you appointed me only after both Allen and Sergei died.”

“That comment had nothing to do with sex. Tarq has told me Xornaa’s fighting skills and her, eh, markswomanship, are legendary,” said Kurt. “And Sergei was gay. Was appointing him over you still considered sexist?”

“No, but it would’ve been homophobic if you hadn’t,” replied Oksana.

“Humans are so complicated,” said Xornaa.

“You think this is complicated?” said Kurt. “You’re lucky most SJWs disappeared after the Xortaag invasion.”

Xornaa gave him a questioning look.

“Social Justice Warriors,” Kurt explained.

“Were these warriors killed fighting the Xortaags?” asked the alien woman.

“No, but once people realized the galaxy was full of sentient species, some of them hostile, most of our conflicts became meaningless. One human race, after all.”

Ten minutes later, the ship landed on a vast, uninhabited desert, which Tarq had chosen to be as far away as possible from a population center. Kurt stepped out and looked around. The cruel sun beat down, and his steps sank into the hot sand. The Marines fanned out and established a perimeter. Xornaa opened the cargo doors, and Kurt used his PDD to extract the planet buster. The gigantic weapon looked like a cone, held upside down using a scaffold, and it moved using caterpillar tracks. Tarq had told Kurt the weapon used antimatter to dig a hole in the surface of the planet all the way to its core, storing all the energy generated when matter and antimatter met. Once there, the planet buster would detonate an antimatter bomb, strong enough to blow the planet into several pieces. Kurt hadn’t bothered to ask Tarq how the Akakies had produced enough antimatter to build a planet-destroying bomb.

“Damn, it’s hot,” Juan mumbled.

Kurt hesitated when the weapon was ready. Eighty million people will die if I do this. He couldn’t wrap his mind around that number. But he’d already made his decision, and this was no time for second thoughts.

“You can’t kill people who are already dead,” he told himself. He knew he was right. This was more like euthanasia. He’d cut those poor people’s lives a few months short, but he’d save them from all the pain and suffering they were going through, and the end result was the same anyway.

With a heavy heart, he touched his PDD screen before he could change his mind. He expected the planet buster to start digging like a huge drill, but the weapon just fell onto the surface and disappeared. All that was left were the scaffold, the tracks, and a large, round hole. Kurt approached the hole and looked down. It was so deep that he couldn’t see the bottom. “That was fast,” he said.

Kurt suddenly heard Ella’s frantic voice in his earpiece. “We have six fast movers approaching you from eight o’clock. Get the hell out of there, now!”

He shouted, “Time to go,” and ran back to the Firefly, followed by Oksana, Juan, Li, and the rest of the Marines. He’d barely sat in the copilot seat when Xornaa touched a few VR screens and flew the shuttle off the ground.

“How long?” he asked, panting slightly.

“Less than a minute.” she pointed at the shuttle’s tactical display, showing six bogeys closing fast. “How did this happen? I thought the fleet kept the Xortaags occupied.”

“These aren’t the Xortaags,” said Ella. “They must be from the Arshan fleet. Tarq tells me they have the same capabilities as Deathbringers. Backup is on the way.”

“They won’t be here in time,” said the Xortaag woman, looking calm and relaxed as usual.

Kurt gripped his seat so hard that his knuckles went white as the ship kept ascending. “Give me the cannon’s control.”

Fireflies had a revolving retractable laser cannon under their hull. Not a very effective weapon against space fighters, but better than nothing.

“I can fly and shoot at the same time,” Xornaa pointed out.

Kurt removed a helmet from under his seat and put it on. “I know, but it’s better if you focus on flying and let me do the shooting. My marksmanship is legendary, you know.”

“It’s a totally different weapon,” said Oksana.

Kurt blew out a noisy breath. “It was a joke.”

Xornaa didn’t reply, but the cannon controls appeared on a blue VR screen inside Kurt’s helmet. His head-up display also provided him with readouts on the ship’s radar. He grabbed the stick in front of him and waited.

“Here they come,” said Xornaa. “Hold on!”

Suddenly, red energy beams were all over the Firefly. Xornaa threw the ship all over the sky, trying to shake the pursuing fighters and evade their fire, but they were much faster and more maneuverable. The Firefly was hit a few times in quick succession, each hit shaking it violently. Fire erupted from a console, but it was immediately put out by the ship’s damage control system. A klaxon rang for a few seconds before Xornaa touched a VR screen and shut it off.

His heartbeat racing, Kurt looked at the virtual targeting scope in front of him, drew a bead on the closest space fighter, which was highlighted by his HUD, and pulled the trigger, letting loose a sustained burst from the Firefly’s cannon. But he didn’t seem to be able to hit the lead enemy ship, which zig-zagged through his fire. He pinched his lips together and felt his throat closing up. With six space fighters against the slow and lightly armed Firefly, this encounter had only one possible outcome. He ground his teeth in frustration and kept shooting laser bolts at the Arshan space fighters. The enemy pilot dodged them with ease and fired back, scoring two more hits against the Firefly’s hull.

“And to think we originally came here to save these guys!” hissed Oksana, her voice strained.

“Maybe they found out we were planning to blow up their planet.” Kurt pulled up the visor, swept a hand across his forehead under the helmet to get rid of sweat, and went back to trying to hit the leading enemy ship. He showered his target with laser fire and finally scored a couple of hits, but it wasn’t enough to deter the enemy pilot.

“Well, it was nice knowing you guys,” said Xornaa, fighting with the Firefly’s controls, showing no signs of stress. She looked so calm that she might as well have been in a simulated battle.

The lead enemy ship streaked in for the kill, spitting a deadly stream of laser bolts at the Firefly. Xornaa made a frantic dash, but the Arshan space fighter closed in on their tail. Kurt tried to get it in his crosshairs again. It was no use. The Firefly vibrated intensely, which made targeting the enemy vessel even more difficult. The smoke in the cabin stinging his eyes didn’t help either.

The pursuing space fighter fired a steady barrage of laser bolts. Xornaa dodged a few, but the rest tore into the Firefly’s hull, peeling away small bits of the fuselage. A read indicator flashed inside Kurt’s helmet and told him their engine's output had dropped, which meant an even slower pace for the shuttle. They were officially sitting ducks now.

This can’t be how it all ends.

Kurt shook his head in denial, but inside the cargo ship, he was every bit as helpless as he felt. He could stand against an army with nothing but his sniper rifle on the ground, but what was he supposed to do in this flying coffin, being followed by the people whose planet was about to go up in smoke?

The enemy ship’s fire intensified as it drew closer and closer. The Firefly rocked, and the cabin lit up from a flash of light from behind. Kurt didn’t look, but he guessed another console or control panel had blown up.

Karma is a bitch. And she acts surprisingly fast.

“We should’ve listened to Jim,” he mumbled under his breath.

Now that he was about to die, and with everything he was going to lose, his biggest regret was that he turned his back on his best friend during their last briefing. He rubbed a hand over his goatee and panted for air, breathing becoming increasingly more difficult.

“Speaking of the devil,” Xornaa said with glee in her voice.

Two air-to-air missiles appeared above the Firefly and shrieked past her toward the enemy ships.

“Where the hell did these come from?” asked Kurt, stunned.

*****

I stared at my display monitor, my mouth dry as dust, mentally urging the Viper to move faster as I put so much pressure on her roaring engines that they were about to explode. My body wanted to run out of the pilot seat, hoping to reach the battle sooner, and my mind was doing its usual crazy-making ruminating, envisioning the worst possible outcomes. I kept trying to push away the very vivid image of a coffin with my best friend in it and focus on flying. Kurt’s Firefly was making wild twists and turns, but she’d already been hit a few times, and the enemy ships were gaining on her. Leaning on the throttle as hard as I could, I had my Viper firewalled, but there was no way I could reach there in time.

But, fortunately for me, my Phoenix missiles could.

I followed the lead Arshan space fighter on my tactical display, got a lock, and pressed the pickle button on the stick with my thumb, releasing two missiles one after the other. The Arshan pilot must’ve been caught by surprise; still, he reacted fast and avoided the first Phoenix, but the second hit the space fighter dead center. The vessel disappeared behind a blinding explosion.

There was a second explosion, this one inside my brain. “Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” I yelled excitedly at the dead enemy pilot who had very nearly killed my best friend and his team.

“You know the Arshans’ minds are being controlled by MFM, right?” asked Cordelia. “That poor pilot was a victim.”

“Not giving a rat’s ass right now,” I growled, focusing on the remaining targets.

My golden Viper’s engines roared louder as I pushed the stick. Drowning in adrenaline, I dove in and let go of my fighter’s laser cannons. Another Arshan space fighter disintegrated under my fire. The others scattered in different directions. I jerked the stick hard left to pursue the closest one which was highlighted by my head-up display, centered my gunsight, and kept firing, peppering the enemy ship. Laser bolts after laser bolts tore into the gomer, and it soon turned into a ball of vaporized metal. I allowed myself the luxury of punching the air.

Three down, three to go.

The other enemy ships were turning around, trying to get on my six. I made a sharp turn inside another fighter’s curve, lined up a shot, and squeezed the trigger. Number four went down in flames. I resisted the temptation to quote Gladiator. Very mature of me. Keiko would’ve been proud.

But now, I was in serious trouble. The last two gomers were on my ass. White-hot energy bolts passed by my fighter. As a fighter pilot, my worst nightmare had always been to see an enemy behind me, and two was a kiss of death. With my heart trying to leap out of my chest, I swung my Viper into a power dive, but the two enemy ships had me in their death grip, and I couldn’t shake them. I jerked the stick hard right to avoid the incoming fire, but a few laser bolts hit my beloved ship, and a number of warning systems started flashing.

“Cordelia?” I asked, hoping the AI had some brilliant ideas.

“Out of options,” she said. “Maybe you should parachute out?”

“You want me to punch out on a planet that’s about to go kaboom? That’s your expert advice?”

“I’m an AI, not a miracle worker, and what you need right now is a miracle.”

Not a believer of divine intervention, I thought.

“In retrospect, maybe singlehandedly attacking six enemy ships wasn’t such a bright idea,” said Venom. “I always knew your over-confidence would get you killed one day.”

What was I supposed to do? Watch Kurt get incinerated in that flying coffin?

“If it saved my ass? Yes, definitely.”

I wished I could at least rub my temples. Beads of sweat trickled down my brow (in the temperature-controlled canopy), and my already high adrenaline level surged so much that I felt I was going to lose consciousness. There were only two things I could do: keep twisting and turning my Viper, and pray. The former would only postpone my death a few minutes, and the latter wouldn’t help at all.

And then, one of the two Arshan ships on my tail turned into a million tiny splinters.

The Firefly flashed by like a falling comet. Xornaa had used the cargo ship’s weight to put her in a blistering vertical dive and rain deadly laser bolts on the bandit. The Firefly disappeared in the clouds below. I followed her on my screen, holding my breath, to see if she’d survive her pilot’s suicidal maneuver. Xornaa managed to gain control of her ship literally inches away from the surface. The Firefly leveled and started gaining altitude.

All that happened right after I rejected the possibility of divine intervention. Maybe it was a sign from above?

“Is this really the time for philosophical questions?” asked Venom.

“Fly, you fools,” I growled, but I was happy they hadn’t; otherwise, with two enemy ships on my six, nothing would’ve been left of my body for a proper burial. But now, there was only one space fighter left. That I could deal with.

I let go of two Sparrows, which streaked backward towards the Arshan ship. The pilot shot one; then he twisted his ship up and down, right and left, and avoided the other, but by the time he was done, I was on his back, and I’d never miss from that position.

I rained my cannons upon the luckless Arshan ship and blew it to Kingdom Come. This was so easy that, after everything that had just happened, it felt a bit anticlimactic.

And finally, it was over. I was slightly lightheaded after my most recent brush with death. One of these days, I’d run out of luck (or miracles), but not today. I sank into my seat, let out a huge breath, and watched my racing heart calm down.

“All done,” I spoke into my mike. “Now blow this thing so we can all go home.”

“That sounded like a bad line from a porn movie,” said Venom.

“We have to leave the atmosphere before we blow up the bomb,” said Kurt, “which you would’ve known if you’d come to the briefings.”

I pulled the stick and my Viper started gaining altitude. “Didn’t I just save your life?” I asked. “Again?”

“Are we keeping scores now?” said Kurt. “And didn’t we just save yours?”

I heard Ella’s voice in my ears. She sounded annoyed. “Colonel Harrison, would you mind telling me how you left Invincible without my knowledge or permission?”

“Tarq showed me a way to sneak out without anyone noticing. He thought he’d have a laugh when you found out and got mad. As for your permission, I just happen to be the commander of the fleet, so I don’t need anyone’s permission to take my Viper out for a spin.”

“Didn’t you resign?” she asked.

“Tarq didn’t accept my resignation, so I’m still your boss. I suggest you get all the way off my back, or I’ll demote you.”

“You’ll be doing me a favor. Hopefully, I can find more professional people to work with than you and that alien clown.”

I laughed. “ ‘Alien clown.’ Good one.”

“You people know I can hear you, right?” protested Tarq.

“And we’re about to blow up a planet and kill eighty million people,” Kurt said with the tone of a fed-up adult listening to children argue.

“And whose fault is that?” I asked, always having to have the last word.

*****

“Are you sure about this?” Ella asked me.

“What? Hell, no,” I said. “But I have to do it.”

“Your funeral,” she said.

“I’m tearing up because of the confidence you’re showing me.”

“I don’t think you’ve thought this through, so let me voice my objection one more time,” she said with a hint of anger in her voice. “What’ll happen if they attack you all at once, and we can’t pull you out in time?”

“All men must die,” I said philosophically. I was sure my response pissed her off even more, not that she actually let it show.

They sent my golden Viper back to Talmak’s (or whatever was left of the planet) orbit. I hadn’t seen the planet explode. It happened after we’d jumped away, and I didn’t have the heart to look at the footage later on, but the view in front of me was exactly what I’d expected: millions of asteroids, still kept close together by gravity, and more than seven thousand Deathbringers hovering in space, having nowhere to go. I tried not to think about millions of corpses trapped in the asteroid field, especially the tiny ones.

They didn’t immediately attack my ship. That was a good sign.

I opened a channel to the enemy fleet. “Who is in charge in here?” I asked in their language.

A woman answered, “I am Arittaa, the commander of the Xortaag Royal Fleet in Talmak.”

“I guess you know who I am, do you not?” I asked.

“You are the mass murderer who just destroyed a planet with fifty million people on it,” she said.

And not a word about the poor Arshans who’d been caught in the crossfire.

I clenched my fists, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. “That is true, but I am also the man who holds your fate in his hands, so I do not think pissing me off is the way to go.”

“You know,” said Venom, “have you ever asked yourself why alien languages don’t have contractions? Sounds like such a basic thing.”

“How so?” asked the woman.

“Let me summarize your predicament: you are stuck here. Without the SFD, you cannot reach another habitable planet, and you cannot call for help because we have destroyed your subspace communication center. Even if your fleet decides to send someone to investigate, it will be a couple of months before they arrive, by which time you will have died of thirst, hunger, suffocation, or all three. And that is if you do not decide to do yourselves a favor and blow your own brains out.”

I paused to give Arittaa and the people under her command a chance to picture their very unpleasant future. Then I added, “Or I can save you.”

“And why would you do that?”

Good question. “To be honest, today so many people have already died that thinking about it is enough to make anyone go insane. I am hoping that by saving you and your pilots, maybe, just maybe, I can get a few minutes of sleep some time during the next few weeks.”

Arittaa didn’t immediately answer. She was probably talking to her people.

“Come with me if you want to live,” I said in my best fake German accent.

“I cannot understand your language,” she answered.

“Did you really think that Xortaag woman had watched The Terminator?” asked Venom.

All of a sudden, two dozen Deathbringers separated from the rest of their fleet and came straight for me.

I might’ve been one of the best flying aces in the galaxy (hell, according to the Akakie propaganda I, He-Who-Killed-Maada, was the best), but even I couldn’t hope to survive if these guys decided to fight. I opened my mouth to ask Ella and Tarq to get me out, hoping they could do it before the enemy ships reached me.

The whole Xortaag fleet started shooting.

At their own ships!

The Deathbringers approaching me disappeared under a hailstorm of laser bolts. With that many space fighters shooting at them at close range, I doubted you could find pieces bigger than my thumb left.

I heard Arittaa’s voice. “Sorry about that. Some people thought killing the Kingslayer was worth all of us dying a horrible death.”

Brutal.

“What is your plan?”

“We are going to have you jumped to our fleet, a hundred ships at a time. There, you can land on one of our transport ships’ hangar bay. Also, to be clear, we have ten thousand Vipers on the other side. If any of your pilots as much as looks at us funny, we will kill everyone who has already surrendered and leave the rest to die here.”

“And how do we know you will not murder us all once we are defenseless on your transport ship?” she asked.

“Tell the stupid Xortaag to look around her,” said Cordelia. “If you wanted them dead, there was no need to go through all this trouble.”

That was a good answer, but I had a better one. “I am the Kingslayer. Everyone in the universe knows I keep my word,” I told Arittaa.

Cordelia sounded surprised. “Do they?”

“Plagiarize much?” asked Venom.

Arittaa got back to me a few minutes later. “We surrender.”

“Good decision,” I said. “Please allow me to add that you have just saved more than seven thousand people under your command. There is no shame in that.”

“There is no shame in surrendering to the Kingslayer, period,” answered Arittaa.

“This whole Kingslayer thing is getting weird,” said Venom.

For once, I agreed with him.

When I landed my Viper in Invincible’s hangar bay, Tarq was waiting for me, wearing a World-War-One-style flight suit for no reason. With a wide smile, he said, “If I did not know any better, I would think you are actively trying to enhance your status as a living legend. The man who made fifteen thousand Deathbringers surrender without even shooting a single laser bolt.”

“There were just a few more than seven thousand,” I protested.

“By the time we spread this story in the galaxy, there will be fifteen.”

“Kurt’s going to be pissed when he hears this,” said Venom.

*****

I couldn’t sleep that night. I wasn’t able to get my OCD brain under control to focus on watching a movie or writing. All I could think about was what we’d done, its moral justifications or the lack thereof, and its consequences. I had a few fascinating conversations with Venom, and a few more one-sided ones with Liz, until Cordelia said she was worried I’d finally gone insane.

The few minutes that I did doze off, I had a nightmare about thousands of dead children who looked like zombies attacking me. I was probably better off not sleeping for a while.

At around 3 a.m., I got a message on my PDD. It was from Kurt. You up?

The bear and the woods, I wrote back.

Drink in the mess?

When I arrived in the mess hall, I found Kurt drinking whiskey and Oksana drinking vodka. I pulled up a chair, grabbed a glass, and filled it up with half of each. I needed something very strong. “We keep this up, we’re going to have a drinking problem.”

Kurt raised his glass to me. “We wanted to say thank you for saving our butts today.”

I nodded. “What are friends for?”

“Xornaa wanted to come and say ‘thank you’ too, but she figured you might not want to see her, so I’m supposed to convey her gratitude.”

“That was one hell of a maneuver she pulled. She must be a great pilot,” I said. “I still don’t like her though. She’s too much of a Mary Sue. You know, good at everything: flying, shooting, martial arts. I bet she’s very good in—” I stopped talking and looked sheepishly at Oksana.

She completed my sentence. “In the sack. All adults here. On that note, if I was a man, I’d totally go for her”—“Or a lesbian,” Venom added helpfully—“I don’t understand why you guys don’t try.”

“One word: Elizabeth,” I said.

“Two words: Keiko and Janet,” said Kurt.

“Is this a competition?” I asked.

“In all seriousness, she’s never come on to me, or slept with anyone I’m aware of,” said Kurt. “In fact, she conducts herself with the professionalism you’d expect from a career Marine officer. I think, despite her initial slutty behavior, which she’s completely toned down, she just uses sex as a weapon, which sure as hell is very helpful in her endeavors as a spy. Kind of like a space Mata Hari.”

I opened my mouth to ask who that was, but Cordelia anticipated that and sent a link to my PDD.

“As a woman, I can tell you with certainty the ‘slutty behavior’ you saw is all an act and has nothing to do with her real personality,” said Oksana.

“And going back to our original discussion,” continued Kurt, “she is genetically enhanced, after all.”

“Aren’t all Xortaags?” asked Oksana.

“They are, but the enhancements’ effectiveness varies in different individuals. In her case, they’ve apparently turned her into Superwoman.”

I twisted my wedding ring. “Good thing she’s on our side then.”

Oksana frowned. “Is she?”

“Also, I’m seeing someone, sort of,” Kurt added. “We’ve been on a couple of dates.”

That surprised me. Except for Keiko, Kurt had been alone since Janet’s death, and I knew he was trying to avoid emotional attachments. “Seriously? I thought you were planning to stay away from people for the rest of your life. What changed?”

He shrugged. “Something I learned from Keiko. She said we should cherish every second of life, and the fact that it can be cut short at any moment makes it more precious. I decided spending all my evenings alone in my quarters playing the piano is neither fulfilling nor sexy.”

“I loved Keiko,” said Oksana sadly. “I cried for an hour when I heard she was dead.”

I clapped him on the back. “Good for you, buddy. Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Her name’s Patricia. She’s an engineer aboard Serenity. You’ll meet her soon, I guess.”

“Looking forward to it. So, what’s going to happen now? To the mission, I mean.”

“The Akakies had a look at a few other Xortaag-occupied planets,” said Kurt. “All are under tight security, so we’re going back to Earth. Tarq says he has to go to Kanoor to deal with a few things, but the Akakie fleet will come with us. Tarq hopes you guys can teach them how to fight.”

I scowled. “I’ll have better luck teaching pigs how to fly. Did you know a few hundred Akakies got shot down today, despite clear instructions to try to keep their distance from the Xortaags?”

“No. I was busy supervising the Xortaags’ surrender. Any human casualties?”

My throat went dry, even though I was drinking. “A few.”

Kurt put his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry to hear.”

Oksana sipped her vodka. “I, for one, am not looking forward to going back to Earth.”

I knew what she meant. The news from Earth wasn’t good. There had been some unrest, and President Jackson had decided to respond with an iron-fist approach. He encouraged his supporters to use violence against his critics, which made the situation even more volatile.

“Rumor has it Jackson has formed a secret police, which arrests people who oppose him,” she continued.

“How very SCTU of him,” I muttered under my breath.

“It isn’t only a rumor,” Kurt said with disgust. “I’ve heard the same thing from a few ex-resistance people back on Earth.”

“It’s ironic that we put Jackson where he is now, sort of,” I said. “Maybe we should do something about it?”

Kurt narrowed his eyes. “What, exactly?”

“The fleet is loyal to me, and the Marines to you. We can kick Jackson out of office in five minutes.”

Kurt’s face hardened. “We’re not discussing a military coup d’état! How is it different from what Zheng did? My father fought for a democratically elected United Earth government all his life.”

Oksana interrupted us. “Guys, we’ve just destroyed a planet. I think that’s quite enough for today. Let’s discuss the coup another day.”

I raised my palms up.

She finished her glass and put it down; then she looked at me. There was deep pain in her eyes, but it could’ve simply been a reflection of my own.

“Tell me we did the right thing,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

The rush of emotions was disorienting. Suddenly, Liz was there, sitting with us, smiling and playing with a curl of her wavy black hair. How many times had I joked about Liz being obsessed with doing the right thing? I’d even once said (with my usual tactfulness) it’d be written on her epitaph.

And she died doing the right thing.

Did she though? Was attacking Maada the correct decision? I’d watched the footage of that battle and listened to the radio communications a million times. If Liz had stayed away from Maada for two minutes, she would’ve been alive now. Instead, she attacked Maada head-on, and all she accomplished was getting herself killed. Keiko and I were much better fighter pilots than she was, and the two of us together beat him by a sheer stroke of luck. If my energy bolt hadn’t hit the general’s Crimson Deathbringer exactly when Keiko was doing her Kamikaze run, chances were Maada would’ve killed both of us.

I opened my mouth to crack a joke, unconsciously trying to use my special brand of gallows humor to defend against pain, but I looked at Oksana, looking so vulnerable, and for once in my life, I managed not to say something stupid. I wondered how much more she could take: first her sister, then Matias, and now this. Having eighty million dead souls on her conscious couldn’t have been easy. I fervently hoped suicide didn’t run in her family.
            “I wish I could,” I told her.

“We’ve probably saved billions of lives today,” said Kurt without any real conviction in his voice.

“Those hypothetical people whom we’ve saved must build our hypothetical statues,” I said. “Hypothetically.”

After Kurt and Oksana went back to Serenity, I stayed in the mess and poured myself another drink. Two Marines entered the mess hall. When they saw me, they exchanged a look and walked toward where I was sitting. I knew them both: Juan and Li were members of Kurt’s strike force in Operation Royalty.

“Hey, guys. Aren’t you supposed to be aboard Serenity?”

“Very crowded there, with two thousand marines and seven thousand POWs,” answered Li. “We decided we’d earned some peace and quiet and asked permission to remain here for a few days.”

Juan offered his hand. “We were planning to come and thank you for saving us. Might as well do it now.”

I shook his hand. “The fleet’s happy to have the Marines’ back.”

Juan chuckled. “Now I feel guilty about putting those three pilots in the hospital back in the day.”

I narrowed my eyes. During a brief period of tension between the Commandos and the pilots in Winterfell (which started when Keiko decided to attack a dozen pilots because they called her names), some of Kurt’s soldiers had beaten up some of my people, and Tarq had stopped me from doing something about it.

Well, Tarq wasn’t here now, and I was the freaking Kingslayer.

“Cordelia?”

“Yes, Jim?” I could swear she purred.

“Go Zeus on his ass.”

A lightning bolt hit the floor two inches away from Juan’s right foot. The big man yelped, jumped to his left, and ran into Li. They barely managed to keep their balance and not fall onto the floor.

“If you ever lay a finger on anyone under my command again, the next lightning will fry your brain,” I said pleasantly.

Juan raised his palms up. “Hey, Colonel, we’re on the same team here.”

“We aren’t when you beat up my people!”

“They jumped me. What was I supposed to do?” Juan was getting angry. Li put a hand on his arm and shook his head.

“You’re a big man, and I’m sure you can take a few punches,” I said. “A lightning bolt in the head, I’m not so sure.”

“When this pissing contest is over, can someone please get me a drink?” said Ella, who had just entered the mess, from behind the two Marines. “Alternatively, I could kick you all off my ship, you included, Colonel.”

“Doesn’t anyone sleep on this ship?” I complained.

“After what we did today? Do you really have to ask?” she said.

“In that case, pull up a chair and join me, all three of you,” I said. “It’s time for me to make some new friends anyway. Ella, tell them what you did during Operation Royalty.”

A few minutes into the conversation, however, I realized friendship with these three wasn’t possible.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you telling me all of you have good relationships with your parents? That’s statistically impossible.”

Ella shook her head. “The Kingslayer has daddy issues. Now I’ve seen everything.”

All superheroes have daddy issues.

I was delighted to find out Ella played squash even though she said, “These days I have no time for sports.”

“I order you to play with me twice a week,” I said, not misusing my authority as the commander of the fleet at all. She rolled her eyes in response.

“Is this how you get chicks?” asked Juan, who’d already had a few drinks. “By ordering them to do stuff with you?”

“Call me a ‘chick’ one more time,” Ella said calmly, “and you’ll have a date with an airlock.”

“Apologies, Captain,” said Li. “He’s a tad tipsy.”

“Never an excuse for not being a gentleman,” I pointed out, showing off my Southern roots.

*****

Xornaa hesitated when she reached Tarq’s ready room. She figured there was at least a fifty percent chance she wasn’t going to walk out of that room alive. Adrenaline flooded her veins, and she wanted to run for the safety of her quarters. She didn’t want to die here, but there was something she really needed to do.

She entered Tarq’s ready room before she could change her mind. “Next time you want to commit mass genocide, leave me out of it.”

From behind his white desk, Tarq looked up from something he was reading. “What are you talking about?”

Xornaa tightened her fists. “You heard me. I knew I’d have to kill people from time to time when I came to work for you, but I won’t be doing any more mass murders.”

Tarq laughed in her face. “Define mass. Where do you draw the line? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? Come on, Xornaa. You know I have read your file.”

Xornaa felt her face burn and wondered if she should get angry or even more scared. Probably the latter. “You don’t need to remind me I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life, which is why I thought I could get through this one too. I was wrong. I just can’t.”

“Do I have to remind you there is a bomb under your skull, and my fingers are on the figurative red button? Oh wait, I never told you the best part: the detonation device is tied to my vitals, and it will explode if I die. You had better hope I live forever, because when I go, you are coming with me.”

The Xortaag woman bent forward and stared him in the eye. “Let me put it this way. The next time you order me to get involved in something like this, I’ll try to kill you. I do have a few tricks up my sleeves that you might not be able to anticipate, so I may succeed. Or you might kill me. Either way, you’ll lose me, and I’d like to think I still have value to you.”

Tarq chuckled. “So, you have grown a conscience? I never thought I’d see this day.” Then he looked closely at the woman. “But it is not a conscience, is it? I tell you what. You tell me what is bothering you, and I might let you off the hook.”

Xornaa hesitated, but she didn’t have a choice. “You just said you’ve read my file, so you know I can’t have children.”

Tarq nodded.

“There were probably hundreds of pregnant Xortaag women on Talmak, and maybe even some kids.”

Tarq leaned back in his chair. “Oh, that is it then. I thought only humans were obsessed with children.”

Xornaa didn’t know what to say.

“I share a secret with you.” Tarq picked up his pipe from the desk and took a drag. “Contrary to what you might have heard, I am not a monster. I take no pleasure in killing the Xortaags, children or adults, and I am not indifferent to other people’s suffering. Back on Earth, when all those humans died as a result of my actions, I seriously considered killing myself. But I am fighting for the survival of my species here, and sometimes that means making tough choices. I will take your request under consideration.”

Xornaa turned to leave.

“And Xornaa?”

She looked over her shoulder.

Several hidden panels behind Tarq’s desk opened, and Xornaa found herself staring down the barrels of a dozen huge laser weapons.

“Do not ever threaten me again,” said Tarq, his face hard and emotionless.

*****

“So, are we going to do this or what?” said Oksana.

Xornaa smiled and bowed her head.

They were standing on the training mat in Serenity’s gym, wearing karategi; Oksana’s was white, Xornaa’s black. It was 5 a.m. ship time and the gym was empty. They’d chosen this early hour on purpose. The last thing they needed was a bunch of testosterone-controlled Marines to cheer them on while they engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

Oksana didn’t hesitate. Full of confidence, she took three quick steps forward and attacked the Xortaag woman. Oksana was excellent at martial arts and she knew it, and she was certain she could take on Xornaa—genetic enhancements or not. So, it was really surprising when she found herself on her butt less than ten seconds later. Oksana stood up and charged again. Xornaa blocked Oksana’s strikes one after another with ease, and the next thing the Ukrainian girl knew, she got a right hook in her kidney. She fell onto her knee, coughing.

“I think this is quite enough,” said Xornaa.

Oksana raised her right index finger to stop her. She brushed aside strands of blonde hair from her eyes and rose to her feet, panting.

They continued for another fifteen minutes. Oksana used every technique she’d learned using MICI and practiced during months of rigorous training. At some point during the fight, she even bit into Xornaa’s forearm. The alien woman’s calm expression didn’t change. Finally, after Oksana’s head hit the mat for the tenth time, she lay there and made no attempt to get up.

“Now, that’s enough,” murmured Oksana.

Xornaa offered her gloved hand and helped Oksana get up. “Let me say you’re really, really good. I know few people who last so long against me.”

“Because you break their necks in the first thirty seconds?” Oksana asked wryly.

“Our body’s touched a few times during the fight.” Xornaa looked rather sheepish. “I wasn’t trying to read you—I can’t anyway, even if I wanted to. All I get is some general feelings, but right now, it’s enough for me to know you are a rape victim. You and I have a lot in common.”

Oksana’s anger rose like superheated steam, burning her on the way out. Xornaa’s words brought back memories—nightmares—she’d tried her hardest to forget. Flashbacks of her time in The Harem rushed to her, reminding her of all the suffering, the humiliation, the hopelessness, the shame … and the fact that she wasn’t able to help her baby sister. Xornaa’s claim—while standing there cool, calm, and collected, with not a strand of hair out of place—that she understood Oksana’s pain, the pain she shared with Anastasya, was an insult both to her and to her sister’s memory.

Fuming, she pushed Xornaa back forcefully. “I’m nothing like you, alien.”

Oksana turned and left the gym without saying another word, leaving Xornaa behind.

Chapter Four: Tangaar

Standard Galactic Date: 048.03.5073

(Earth Date: 01/04/2079)

The Xortaag king found it difficult to hide his dismay.

He was in a lab, staring at an alien machine they had found on a conquered planet. The machine was a cross between a torpedo and a coffin, with a few dozen tubes connected to it, apparently moving some sort of fluid in and out. Several scientists were working on various control panels around the machine. They all looked stressed, terrified even. They knew the price of one more failure.

Despite the Xortaag scientists’ legendary ability to reverse-engineer alien tech, all their attempts to find out how the machine worked and build another one had failed. Unfortunately for them, they found it after they had obliterated the planet’s native population, so there was no one left to tell them how to operate the machine. Now, they had depleted the machine’s limited raw material and unknown energy source while trying to make it work properly, and he was close to losing both his son and the greatest military genius in Xortaag history, not to mention the secret to his own immortality. Yes, the scientists had promised the machine would work this time, but that was exactly what they said the last time and the time before that, and all they had delivered up to now were deformed beasts who died within five minutes.

“The process is complete,” said a scientist, his voice shaking, probably wondering if his own life had just ended.

The silver torpedo-coffin opened in the middle. Two scientists ran to the machine and helped a man pull himself out. The man took a few wobbly steps; then he pushed away the people trying to help him and stood straight. He looked exactly how the king remembered him: tall and muscular with olive skin and straight black hair. No beard though. Those scary scars on his face had disappeared too.

General Maada looked down at his naked body; then he stared at the king and growled, “You have got to be freaking shitting me!”

*****

“I have never even imagined such incompetence in my entire life!” shouted Prince Polvaar.

He was yelling at a group of Xortaag pilots, just back from performing a military exercise under his supervision. After Maada was killed on Earth, the king had appointed him as the temporary commander of the fleet. Polvaar had thrown himself at his new position with fiery zeal, hoping to gain his father’s approval and lead the fleet into glorious victory the way his brother Mushgaana had done for so long. However, weeks had passed, and the king had issued no new orders. It was almost as if he was waiting for something. But what?

“All leaves are canceled,” he continued. “You useless losers will stay in the base and keep practicing with simulators until you get everything right in the next exercise.”

An old man, sitting in the back of the briefing room, raised his hand. He was a veteran of several campaigns and had retired years ago, but the lack of space fighter pilots after that fiasco on Earth had forced Polvaar to recall him and many other old-timers. “There are recordings of our old briefings, Your Highness. I humbly suggest you watch them. General Maada never treated us in this manner.”

Polvaar raised his voice. “I do not give a damn how Maada treated you. He was a commoner; I am a prince.”

The old man smirked. “Would you have dared say this to his face?”

Blood rushed to Polvaar’s brain. His first instinct was to kill the insolent fool where he sat, but there were some thirty pilots in the briefing room, all armed, and he wondered if he would survive a direct confrontation.

Maada would never allow anyone to talk to him like this. Polvaar hated himself for thinking that.

The briefing room door opened, and a woman rushed in, breathless. “He is back!” she announced. “General Maada is back! He was seen being escorted to the royal palace. Check your PDDs.”

Stunned silence dominated the room, but just for a second. The pilots jumped out of their seats, pulled out their PDDs, stared incredulously at the screens, and started talking excitedly all at the same time. They rushed out of the room, pushing and shoving each other out of the way.

None of them paid any attention to Polvaar. Not even a glance.

The prince just stood there and watched them all leave, feeling alone and worthless.

*****

Maada still could not wrap his mind around the fact that he was a freaking clone now.

He was sitting in the royal palace’s conference hall, next to Mushgaana, who looked every bit like his usual confident self, smirking as if he had not just come back from the dead.

“I cannot get used to you looking like this,” said Mushgaana’s voice inside Maada’s skull. “You look younger, and dare I say, sort of innocent.”

Maada gave him an angry look.

The prince continued, “Relax, General. I am kidding. I am not the enemy in here; they are.” He nodded toward three of his four brothers, sitting at the conference table across from them. The three brothers, Darlaan, Montaari, and Polvaar, were bigger versions of Mushgaana— blue eyes and curly light brown hair, but tall, muscular, and wide-shouldered. They all waited for the king to arrive.

A long, long time ago, the Xortaags had found an alien machine called the Duplicator that could store a person’s consciousness and decant it into that individual’s clone. Since then, Maada had had to endure sitting in a stupid alien device once a month to “store” his memories and consciousness, to be sent to Tangaar in the event of his death; only he never thought that would actually happen. Knowing that he was now a copy of his original self, a mere shadow, made him feel worthless. Worse, he did not know how he had died because he had no memories of the last three weeks of his life. He must have been assassinated by those damned humans. He was the best fighter pilot in the galaxy, but there was little he could do against a bomb or a bullet.

“How did I die?” he asked.

Mushgaana’s oldest brother, Prince Darlaan, taunted him. “Our supposedly undefeatable commander of the fleet died in a dogfight with a filthy huma—”

Maada cut him off by slamming his fist on the table. “It is a lie!”

“Sadly, no,” said Mushgaana. “I just read their minds. Apparently, thanks to the Akakie propaganda machine, everybody in the universe now knows you were killed by the commander of their fleet, who was flying a golden space fighter.”

A memory flickered in the back of Maada’s mind, and then he remembered it was not actually his, but the original Maada’s. “It is not possible,” he growled. “I fought him once. It took me less than a minute to get the upper hand, and when his friends came to his rescue, he flew away in a straight line, running for his life.”

“So, you were killed by an incompetent coward.” Darlaan smirked. “Well done, General.”

His brothers laughed.

Maada started to get up, taken over by fury. Going against the three brothers with their immense telepathic powers was suicide, but he did not care. He was a cheap copy anyway.

Mushgaana, shaking his head, grabbed his arm.

The king entered. Maada rose to his feet, and so did everyone else. The king sat at the head of the conference table and told Mushgaana, “I did not expect to see you back here ever again.”

Mushgaana sat down. “Under the circumstances, I cannot say I am happy to be back, Father.”

“So, what happened on Earth?” asked the king.

Mushgaana looked surprised. “You do not know?”

“No. You went completely dark. No messages. No communication. Nothing. All we know is the humans took their planet back with some help from the Akakies, and a human—who everyone now calls the Kingslayer—killed General Maada.”

Maada’s face grew hot. He was not sure if it was from anger or shame.

“The Akakie government has informed us that they have captured more than half a million of our people, and they are willing to negotiate a POW exchange,” continued the king. “Moreover, in the past few weeks, a combined Akakie-human fleet has taken back four of our planets, starting with Alora. They stopped when we beefed up security on our colonies, but not before blowing up an entire planet with fifty million of our people on it. You can read the details on your PDDs.”

Maada could not hold his tongue. “And you have done nothing to retaliate?”

“I was waiting for our greatest military leader to come back to us,” answered the king, looking at Maada. “It took our fleet only a few weeks to find the cylinder carrying your consciousness and transmitting its contents here, but we had no idea it would take our scientists such a long time to make the Duplicator work.”

Yeah, I am a duplicate now. Do remind me, thought Maada sourly.

“On that note,” continued the king, “the two of you cannot get yourselves killed again, thinking we will bring you back every time. The Duplicator’s raw material and power source are both depleted now, after several failed attempts to get it to work properly. Our people estimate it can be used only once or twice more, and I intend to keep that for myself.”

“I do not understand,” asked Mushgaana. “Can we not just recharge its energy source and feed it more raw material?”

The king shook his head. “No to both. Our scientists took samples of the material the machine uses to build clone bodies, but they could not figure out how to produce more. And its energy source is completely unknown to us. We need a completely new branch of physics just to understand how it works, let alone how to recharge it. Let me point out that by spending what little energy the machine had on bringing you back, I have already sacrificed my own immortality.”

“He probably needed guinea pigs to find out how the machine worked anyway,” Mushgaana said sarcastically deep inside Maada’s mind. The general kicked him hard from under the table. The last thing they needed right now was the king reading his mind and finding out his son was mocking him.

Mushgaana looked up from his PDD. “How did you figure out you needed to take extra security measures in our colonies?”

“One of General Maada’s earlier clones lived long enough to tell us about the first human attack on Earth,” said the king. “We figured they were pulling the same trick, meaning infiltrating our bases wearing our uniforms and speaking our language.”

Maada’s shoulders slumped, his eyes drawn to the floor. He had urged Mushgaana to report the humans’ surprise attack to Tangaar, but the crown prince did not want his father to know they had been caught off guard and lost a third of their fleet (and his own command ship) on the ground. Now millions of colonists were dead because of that.

Polvaar glared at Mushgaana. “If you had not kept your catastrophic failure a secret, we would not have lost four more colonies!”

The king moved his hand dismissively. “We have reverse-engineered the Akakie space fighters we captured when we conquered Alora, so now we have a new fleet. Twenty thousand Deathbringers, much faster and more maneuverable than the original model, and with better firepower. You will love them. Moreover, we have also improved our SFD range using the Akakies’. Now the new fleet can be in Kanoor in less than a week, which frankly is what we should have done from the beginning.”

Mushgaana sat up straight and stared at his brothers, who looked so nonchalant that it was obvious they were faking it.

“So, here is the plan: the two of you are going straight to Kanoor and—”

Darlaan jumped to his feet. “Father! You cannot possibly put this incompetent idiot in charge of the fleet again. Is it not bad enough that he has already lost an entire armada? He must be put on trial for being criminally inept.”

Maada’s familiar anger rose in his chest, and for the first time, he felt more like his old self. He ignored Darlaan and addressed the king. “Your Highness, you know I am loyal to the Crown, but there is no reason for me to sit here and be insulted by”—he raised his voice, contempt dripping from every single word—“this loser who has never done anything of note in his entire life.”

“Well said,” Mushgaana commented approvingly.

Darlaan’s face turned red.

All of a sudden, an excruciating pain engulfed Maada’s brain, but it thankfully lasted less than a second.

Darlaan gasped, clutched his own throat, apparently unable to breathe, and fell to his knees.

“Sorry, Father,” Mushgaana said calmly, “but he was trying to melt the general’s brain.”

At the same time, Maada received a telepathic message from the prince. “I cannot hold all three of them, General.”

Maada moved even before that message completely registered in his brain. He slid over the table and slammed into Polvaar, who had just started to get up, sending him flying out of his seat and onto the floor. The general sat on his chest and, in one fluid motion, pushed his sidearm on Polvaar’s forehead with his right hand while his left unholstered the prince’s own gun and pointed it at Montaari. They both froze.

Maada heard Mushgaana’s voice from behind, addressing his two brothers. “I know what you are thinking. You think you can kill him before he pulls the trigger. But this is General Maada, a man of unparalleled determination and sheer will, and I bet he can blow your brains out before you can harm him. So, the question you have to ask yourself is this: are you ready to die if I am right and you are wrong?”

Maada looked into Polvaar’s eyes, and much to his satisfaction, saw them full of fear. Prince Polvaar, the king’s second-oldest son, and one of the most powerful men in the Xortaag kingdom, was scared of him, clone or not.

That is more like it.

The king smirked. “Mushgaana, let go of your brother before you choke him to death. General, you too”—his tone became more menacing—“and Darlaan, you had better remember who the king is around here. If you question me again, we might end up having to clean up your brain from the carpet.”

Darlaan took a deep breath and used the table as support to draw himself to his feet. Maada stood up, holstered his sidearm, threw the other gun away, and told him, “Your Highness, with all due respect, I will kill you the next time you enter my mind.”

“I am not going to stand here and be insulted by a commoner,” said Darlaan. He stormed out of the conference hall. Polvaar and Montaari followed him.

“Never a dull moment with you two around,” said the king. “By the way, it is good you did not kill Polvaar, General. He has requested to join the fleet as a fighter pilot. He will be flying under your command in our next campaign.”

Mushgaana chuckled. “What? That spoiled brat wants to fight? How come?”

The king shrugged. “I think he has gotten tired of ‘not doing anything of note with his life’ as the general put it, and he wants to find a way to cover himself in glory. He is a good pilot after all, albeit inexperienced.”

“There is something that worries me, Father. Did you notice that when you mentioned we should have attacked Kanoor instead of Earth, my brothers’ minds went blank?”

The king raised an eyebrow. “No. All three?”

Mushgaana nodded.

Maada did not understand what they were talking about. “What does it mean?”

Mushgaana explained, “We can read each other’s minds, but only if the other person allows it. We can either hide our thoughts or, given time, even plant some false thoughts and memories in our minds to deceive the other person. The fact that my three brothers guarded their thoughts at the same time means they are hiding a secret, and whatever it is, it is related to our invasion of Earth.”

“Not necessarily,” said the king. “I hide my thoughts from you and your brothers all the time. I do not feel comfortable with you roaming freely in my mind.”

Join the club.

Mushgaana shook his head. “No. They are sharing a secret, and I for one really want to know what it is.”

Maada stood up. “It looks like we have a campaign to plan. If you will excuse us, Your Highness?”

“Speaking of the campaign, we cannot use Voice of God on Kanoor,” said the king.

“Why not?” asked Maada.

“The Akakies have their own mind-control machine, which they apparently use for education and learning. They used it to inoculate their population against Voice of God.”

“So that is why it did not work on the humans who attacked us on Earth,” said Mushgaana. “What are we going to do then?”

Maada’s eyes flashed. “I know just the thing. I will prepare a detailed plan to invade Kanoor by tomorrow.”

“And I have a plan to deal with the humans,” said Mushgaana.

Maada frowned and looked at him questioningly.

“When we were on Earth, I watched a movie called The Manchurian Candidate, and it gave me a brilliant idea. My brothers will obviously not help me, so, Father, is Cousin Hartook still around?”

*****

Maada entered the living room of his house. The room was big, not too empty, and functionally decorated. The furniture was covered by white sheets, and there was dust everywhere. He had not been home for many years. Then he remembered he had never been here. This was the other Maada’s home. The loser who had apparently got himself killed fighting a human.

You really have to get over it, he told himself.

Maada searched a drawer and found a notebook and a pen. He pulled out a chair and sat by the dining table, staring at the notebook. He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he picked up the pen and started writing.

Since his very first command (all those years ago when he was a young man), Maada would lock himself in a room after each military campaign and write condolence letters to the families who had lost loved ones under his watch. It might have lasted hours, even days, but he had hoped receiving a handwritten letter from the commander of the fleet might help ease their pain. Moreover, this was the only time he allowed himself to mourn the brothers and sisters in arms he had lost, before he started planning the next campaign.

How was he supposed to do it this time though? Five hundred thousand Xortaags had perished on Earth, and there was no way to find out who had died and who was captured. And that was not counting the twenty million colonists who had been massacred as a result of his failure. That was his responsibility too, even though when that happened Maada himself was technically dead.

After a few minutes, he put the pen down and looked at the letter he had written. It read, To the families of all the brave men and women I got killed on Earth: I am so, so sorry.

But deep down, he knew he did not deserve forgiveness, only punishment.

The general had not been unfamiliar with pain. He had watched a lot of his friends and relatives die, some due to starvation, some due to Tangaar’s poisonously polluted atmosphere, when he was a child growing up on their dying planet. While he had never tasted defeat in a military campaign, he had lost thousands of people, and each loss had bitten off a piece of his heart. But the agony that wrapped itself around his soul was unbearable. He tried to push back against pain, to regain control, but it was no use. Mental anguish lanced through his head with such force that he felt his brain was about to collapse onto itself, and he had to bite his lips to stop himself from crying out.

Twenty million people!

His mission in life, the driving force that had pushed him since childhood, had always been saving his people, but now that he had the blood of so many Xortaags on his hands, he could not help but wonder if he had done more harm than good. He thought about grabbing his sidearm, putting the barrel under his chin, and blowing his brain out; anything to stop this torment. That was a comforting image, but if he killed himself, who would take revenge on the Akakies and the humans?

Oh, how they would pay! He would lead their new fleet to Kanoor, and to Earth right after that. He would kill them. He would kill them all.

Then he remembered Mushgaana had his own plans for Erath. He was going to send a Xortaag delegation headed by his cousin Hartook to Earth under the pretext of suing for peace, but it was just an excuse to get Hartook (who as a member of the royal family possessed considerable telepathic powers) close to the human’s president and make him fall under his influence. It was a good idea, and if it worked, the Xortaags could cause substantial damage to Earth with no risk to their own forces. Regardless, the time to attack Earth would come sooner or later. He could wait.

But all that would be far away in the future. He needed to do something about his pain now, or his heart would stop beating sooner than later.

He remembered Mushgaana had told him he looked “younger and sort of innocent” without his scars.

A long time ago, Mushgaana had given him a dagger to commemorate the tenth planet they had conquered together. He had said the blade was made of a special alloy that would not go blunt in a few millennia. Maada found the dagger in his bedroom and checked the blade. Still sharp. Good.

He went to the bathroom and examined his face in the mirror, trying to remember where the scars had been. He pushed the tip of the blade under his left eye, ground his teeth, and started cutting downwards. Dark purple blood poured out of the wound, and the mind-numbing agony pushed his mental anguish away. Maada enjoyed the relief the physical pain brought him. For just one second.

An invisible monster clawed at his heart as soon as he stopped cutting up his face.

Maada chose a new spot on his face and started digging another scar.

*****

“Have you got a minute, Father?” asked Prince Polvaar.

The king was reading something on his PDD in his chamber. “What is it?” he said absentmindedly.

“The fleet leaves for Kanoor tomorrow. I have just come to say goodbye.”

The king did not even look up from the PDD. “Make me proud, Son.”

Polvaar pressed his lips together, his shoulders slumping. What did you expect?

“I will, Father,” he whispered, but he was not sure the king even heard him.

On his way out of the palace, Polvaar saw Mushgaana deep in conversation with their cousin Hartook and wondered what they were talking about.

Chapter Five: Voltex

Standard Galactic Year: 5263

(Earth Year: 3185)

“Hello, Brother,” said Faltaz.

Shapzan looked up from his desk. “Hi, little one. The last time we met was ages ago.” He looked more closely at Faltaz. “Time has not been kind to you, my brother.”

“Nor you, Supreme Leader.”  Faltaz did not sit. He hovered in front of his brother’s desk.

“You try running a starving planet. Damn the carbon-based aliens and their economic sanctions,” said the older Volt. “I have not seen my family in days. They miss you too, by the way. Kavmar visited us last week and said you have not left your lab in weeks. So, what brings you out of your lab and into the palace?”

“Let me ask you a question: why did we lose the war with the aliens all those years ago?”

Shapzan leaned back. “You know the answer to this question.”

“Humor me.”

“We had no answer for their weapons, especially those devilish nuclear bombs, even though we now know how to stop them.”

“So, let me ask you another question,” continued Faltaz. “If we had met them in battle a few centuries ago, but we had our current fleet, do you think we would have won?”

The Supreme Leader smiled. “Of course we would. Do not tell me you have invented a time machine, after all.”

“No. I told you time travel was not possible. But I have invented the next best thing.”

Shapzan sat up straight. “You are being serious?”

“As death.”

“Praise Vilyek! Tell me.”

Faltaz moved his upper body, and an image appeared between them. It looked like a funnel. “You know how the Space-Folding Device works because the name is self-explanatory. I have found a way to apply the same principle to bend the time-space continuum, which results in something like this. One end is in the present, and the other end a few centuries in the past, at a location that we choose. We could send the Vox through, let us say to Earth or Tangaar’s orbit, kill off all the aliens, and destroy their planet.”

“Will that change our current situation?” Shapzan asked hopefully. “Will our dead come back to life, like the war never happened?”

“No, Brother. The past cannot be changed. The results of whatever happens at the other side of the funnel will affect only the time on this side, so if we destroy Earth, for example, all the humans in our time will suddenly disappear, and we will have our revenge.”

Shapzan looked doubtful. “If the carbon-based aliens start disappearing one by one, will they not realize we are doing it and retaliate? I do not think we have even seen the worst of their weapons. I have heard they have bombs that can obliterate a whole planet.”

“Time moves differently inside the funnel,” said Faltaz. “Tell me, how many Voxes do we have in the fleet now?”

“Two hundred thousand, not counting the reserves.”

“It is probably better if we do not count on the reserves because they are either too old or too young to fight. We will not need them anyway because two hundred thousand Vox warriors should be more than enough to destroy all the aliens. I do not think all of them combined have half as many ships in their galaxy, and even if they did, they could not possibly stand a chance against us with their technological level of a few centuries ago. Here is what we will do: we will build a base inside the time funnel and station our fleet there; then they will attack the aliens planet by planet, starting with the strongest ones, which I think are Tangaar, Kanoor, and Earth. With two hundred thousand warriors, once we get rid of the enemy fleets, we can destroy their planets hundreds or even thousands at a time. By the time it is done, only a few minutes will have passed in the present time, but it will be a few years inside the funnel and on the other side of it.”

“What can I do?” asked Shapzan.

“I need financial resources and a bigger team. The time funnel is still years away from sending a whole fleet back in time, and when it is ready, we will need to test it at least once. I do not even know its maximum range now.”

“On a planet where everyone is starving to death,” said Shapzan, “you want to spend money on revenge?”

“If we succeed, no aliens will be left to impose economic embargos on us,” said the scientist. “That will solve our starvation problem, will it not?”

“Mostly.” The Supreme Leader leaned over. “You will have everything you need. I only have one request: kill them all before I die of old age.”

“Consider it done, brother.”

Shapzan laughed. “All those years ago, when you said you would make the aliens pay, I said I felt bad for them already. I was right. I do not want to be in their place when they wake up and see two hundred thousand black Vox warriors in their orbit and know they have only a few minutes left to live.”

“At least they will have those few minutes to say goodbye to their loved ones,” answered Faltaz. “My family did not even have that, and neither did billions of others.”

Chapter Six: Kanoor

Standard Galactic Date: 053.03.5073

(Earth Date: 23/04/2079)

Big day, thought Tarq.

Kanoor’s president had decided to hold a ceremony in order to honor Tarq and award him a few more medals. Tarq waited backstage while the president, standing on a golden podium set on a white stage, gave a long boring speech about honor, duty, and a better future. The ceremony was televised, and the entire planet was watching. And why not? This was the seventh or eighth time he had saved Kanoor, and out of all the enemies he had faced in the past, the Xortaags were the toughest.

He wished Varina were alive to see this. His daughter, who had given her life defending Alora against the Xortaags, would have been happy to see how her father had defeated them (with no Akakie casualties, to boot) and got their legendary general killed. When she was a child, she always enjoyed listening to Tarq’s stories about how he had saved Kanoor several times. She would have loved this one too.

Unlike most Akakies, Tarq had taken only one concubine all his life. Valorna was an alluring and passionate woman, and he loved her to death. Thinking about her, after all these years, still brought a smile to his face. But she had grown tired of waiting for him while he traveled around the galaxy running multiple operations. She left Tarq for a rich merchant, and all he had to remember those few happy years with her was Varina. Until General Maada took her away from him too.

Well, Maada paid the price for that, did he not? he thought bitterly.

The war was far from over. The Xortaags, having lost some sixty thousand space fighters and millions of soldiers in a few short months, were crippled but not defeated. Tarq was certain they were planning to come back. He had been trying to form an alliance with the other space-faring species in the galaxy against the Xortaags, but so far, except for the humans, no one had signed up. Everyone was still scared of the Xortaags, and Maada, even in death, cast a long shadow. Tarq’s efforts to spread Jim’s reputation in the galaxy as some sort of an anti-Maada was beginning to change that though.

Tarq remembered the first time he met Jim, when he had pranked the poor boy into thinking he was dead and in heaven, and chuckled. Who would have thought the young, naïve, wise-cracking ace fighter from a backward planet took General Maada’s place as the galaxy’s most feared badass? Let us hope he does not do something stupid and get himself killed, thought Tarq. Plus, I have grown really fond of him.

That reminded him: the whole you-are-a-racist prank was getting old. He had to find a new way to mess with Jim.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the president, “I give you Kanoor’s savior and your hero, Commander Tarq!”

“We are up. Are you ready?” Tarq whispered.

“Cocked and loaded,” Barook answered in English. Tarq thought about correcting him, but then he imagined how funny it would be if Barook said that in front of the humans and changed his mind.

He walked onto the stage and was welcomed by the president, who lowered his head so that his antennae would touch Tarq’s. “Thank you, Mr. President,” said Tarq. “By the way, I have some good news that I will share with you after the ceremony.”

Tarq stood behind the podium and looked around. The flashlights bothered him. Hundreds of Akakies were seated in front of him, waiting to hear his historic speech about defeating the Xortaags, and Tarq knew millions were watching at home. Everyone who was anybody was here: members of the president’s cabinet, other politicians, celebrities, reporters, and even the human, Talgoinian, and Vanaari ambassadors.

And the fleet admirals.

There had always been a rivalry between the fleet and Tarq’s Special Operations Force, but after the fleet’s catastrophic defeat on Alora and Tarq’s decisive victory on Earth, the rivalry was replaced by open animosity. A lot of fleet admirals had called his black op—carried out without the Akakie government’s knowledge—treasonous. They had to eat their words when the president had decided to put the fleet under Tarq’s direct supervision. Now they were sitting together in the front row, fifteen of them, dressed in the fleet’s simple white uniform—in sharp contrast to Tarq’s fiery-red costume, complete with a cape—and giving him evil eyes. Tarq recognized admiral Juntoo, the fleet officer who had blamed him for the Alora defeat minutes after Varina had died, and smiled viciously.

“Did you know Admiral Juntoo was here?” Tarq asked under his breath.

“No, but I bet it makes what we are about to pull a lot more delicious,” Barook said in his ears.

“Are you sure the OMC-BOWS rays are completely localized?”

“Yes. Do you want a demonstration? Check this out,” said Barook.

All the fleet admirals started scratching their heads at the same time. Juntoo looked surprised. He frowned and put his hand down.

This was going to be epic. Generations of Akakies would tell the story of what was about to go down here to their children.

“My fellow Akakies,” said Tarq. “The president said a lot of very nice things about me and the Special Operations Force, but he forgot to mention the fleet, whose members played an equally important role in defeating the Xortaags.”

The admirals looked at him and then at one another, clearly astonished.

“By being defeated so comprehensively in Alora and showing incomprehensible incompetence, the fleet admirals fooled the enemy into underestimating us, which allowed us to surprise them and defeat them on Earth.”

The admirals’ expressions turned from surprise to rage which was immediately replaced by serenity and contentment. In unison, they nodded in agreement and politely applauded.

“OMC-BOWS is working,” affirmed Barook.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to present you with the real heroes of Alora’s battle … the fleet admirals!” Tarq announced.

The admirals, including his old enemy Juntoo, stood up and went to the podium. Juntoo was first. He faced the audience and said, “We are all morons. We are incompetent losers and do not deserve to wear the uniform.”

The crowd watched in stunned silence.

Another admiral followed. “We are nothing but a bunch of cowards.”

One by one, every admiral made an announcement confirming their own shortcomings. Then, with everyone staring at them, they started removing their uniforms. They took their time getting undressed, folded their clothes, and put them on a chair. After that, all fifteen of them, stark naked, walked to the front of the podium, kneeled, raised their hands towards the sky, and in unison said, “Oh Tarq, the greatest, wisest, and most handsome of all the Akakies. We will be honored if you take us as your concubines. We will be obedient spouses and cater to all your needs for as long as you want us.”

“Thank you, but I prefer my concubines to have more intelligence than a single-celled organism,” Tarq said after taking a drag on his pipe. “So, no.”

The roar of laughter that followed was so loud that Tarq was certain it could be heard from neighboring habitat planets. Several people fell off their seats, laughing. Earth’s ambassador had taken out his PDD and was making a video of the admirals, still kneeling, metasoma-naked. Thunderous applause followed the laughter. Tarq stood there, his chin up, shoulders back and chest thrust out, taking it all in.

One of my best masterpieces, if I may say so myself.

The president stepped next to him. “You might want to consider going into hiding for a while because, after this, the admirals might try to kill you.”

“And risk being executed for attempting to murder their superior officer?” Tarq scoffed. “If they had such courage, they would not have been defeated by the Xortaags so easily. By the way, this is my good news: we now have our own OMC-BOWS. We have duplicated the Xortaags’ design and even improved the system. As you can see, it can be used in a localized fashion now; moreover, we do not need thousands of satellites to cover the whole planet, just six, all already in place, completely undetectable and invisible, of course.”

The president smiled. “This should take care of the problem we discussed the other day.”

“That it does,” agreed Tarq.

*****

Barook entered the fleet’s command center. The place was enormous—at least ten times bigger than the one in Winterfell. It had to be because dozens of fleet personnel worked there. The officers close by saluted when they saw him. As Tarq’s second-in-command, he had taken on new responsibilities, one of them finding ways to beat the fleet into fighting shape. That had come with a promotion—Colonel Barook had a nice ring to it—and now he had his own assistants, five of them, and he enjoyed pushing them around and pulling their four legs on a daily basis.

Barook sat at his station. He noticed a female fleet officer giving him a dirty look, but she quickly averted her gaze. It has been only three days since Tarq’s new masterpiece, and fleet personnel were scared of him and, by extension, of Barook. It served Barook just fine because it made his job easier if people did not dare disobey his orders.

He pulled up the reports from the joint Earth-Akakie fleet exercise on Earth’s orbit and started reading. Unfortunately, that was not going well at all. The Akakie pilots could not keep up with their human counterparts’ sophisticated maneuvers, and several space fighters had already been destroyed by crashing into each other. Maybe it was time to let only human pilots fly the space fighters.

A sudden ear-splitting siren made him jump out of his seat.

“What the hell is that?” he asked one of his assistants, and then he remembered before anyone answered.

The Death Siren.

Barook turned to look at the command center’s main display just in time to see the enemy fleet approaching Kanoor. Both his hearts stopped beating when he recognized the space fighter leading the attack.

All the officers in the command center froze in stunned silence.

“What are you waiting for?” Barook shouted. “Contact our ships. Cancel all shore leaves. I want our fleet in orbit yesterday!”

Then he called Tarq.

I bet Tarq will think this call is a prank.

*****

Tarq rushed to Varma’s bedroom, put her gently on her bed, and covered her. Then he ran out, carefully closed the door, picked up his PDD, and stared incredulously at the screen.

There was a blood-red space fighter in front of the Xortaag fleet.

A crimson Deathbringer.

The Crimson Deathbringer.

I saw him die; it has to be a ruse, he thought, but he knew enough about the Xortaags to understand they would never assign that particular color to another space fighter out of respect for their dead general. Moreover, what would be the point of such a ruse, when it would last all of five minutes, just enough time for someone to contact the ship and confirm the identity of its pilot? If the pilot did not identify themselves, it would be safe to assume someone other than that galaxy-conquering madman was in the cockpit.

This was an unimaginable nightmare. Tarq did not know how, but General Maada was back, and somehow he had found a fleet. Worse, he had managed to appear in Kanoor’s orbit freaking undetected.

“Patch me through,” He told Barook. “Request a visual.”

He nearly fainted when Maada appeared on his PDD screen. It was definitely him, only his beard was shorter, and the scars on his face looked like fresh wounds, still healing.

“W-we killed you,” stuttered Tarq.

“Give it time; it will come to you,” growled the general.

It did. “You are a clone!”

“Yes. And believe me when I tell you I am not happy about it.”

Fear. It surged through Tarq’s hearts and attacked his mind, generating thoughts and images of impending doom, death, and destruction. He saw Kanoor burning, with billions of corpses everywhere, a small one belonging to Varma. His stomach turned, and he felt he was about to throw up. Yet none of that showed on his face. He could not afford to show weakness to this predator. There was a reason Jim had called him Mr. Poker Face a few times.

Maada looked like he was examining him closely. “Wait. I know you. You were standing at the back of the room when we were signing the peace treaty. I told Prince Mushgaana you were up to something.”

“I remember seeing you there too,” said Tarq. “But come to think of it, it was not you, was it? You are nothing but a cheap copy.”

He was surprised by his own bravado, and a second later, by Maada’s reaction.

“Tell me something I do not know.” The general sounded melancholic, resigned even.

“Here is something you do not know,” said Tarq. “Your so-called Voice of God does not work on us. How can you conquer Kanoor without it? You might as well stop the attack and go back home right now.”

“You think I need Voice of God to take your planet, insect?”

Several giant transport ships appeared at that very moment. It was as if they had been waiting for this particular conversation to make the final jump.

“Everyone, ourselves included, seems to have forgotten we were conquerors before we found Voice of God. We are going to do this the old-fashioned way, through blood and sacrifice.”

Tarq was thankful he was not inside his human hologram. The facial expressions of the hologram were unconscious and difficult to control. By now, he would have been white as paper with comically round eyes. He kept his gaze—and his voice—steady. “Our fleet is standing between you and Kanoor, and I have every confidence they will defeat you with ease.”

And then, Tarq saw the most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life.

The general smiled. That was horrific enough, but he did not stop there. His smile turned into a snicker; then he threw his head back and roared with laughter. That made Tarq more terrified than he already was.

I had not realized I was so funny, he thought bitterly.

“The prince is right: you Akakies are hilarious,” Maada said when he finally stopped laughing. “I would like to see you try to stop us.”

*****

Maada killed the connection and stared at the planet below. These people had helped the humans beat him. They were responsible for the death of millions of Xortaags. They were responsible for his death. It was time for them to pay. For the first time in his life, he felt no sympathy for the inhabitants of the planet he was about to invade. The insects had killed his comrades, his friends, his brothers and sisters. Anger vexed his soul, and his veins swelled. He thought about Arminaa. That woman was a fierce warrior. Maada wondered if she had survived and was in a POW camp now.

His need for vengeance was like a beast devouring his heart, but simple revenge was not the only thing on his mind. If they subjugated the Akakies, they would put their hands on a treasure chest of the most advanced technology in the universe, which once reverse-engineered, would guarantee that the Xortaags ruled the galaxy forever. The new Deathbringer he was flying was a testimony to that. In fact, recent reports from Talmak suggested that the Akakies had developed a weapon capable of destroying a whole planet. If they could find it down there, Maada would be happy to drop it on Earth.

The soldiers under his command had spent the last few weeks practicing a ground invasion, something the Xortaags had not done in decades. They had very little time to practice, and worse, they were still armed with their energy-weapon small arms, which had proved to be much inferior to the humans’ guns. It was a safe bet that the Akakies had much better weapons too. Still, a Xortaag soldier was worth a thousand Akakies, so he was not particularly worried.

On his tactical display, Maada looked at the enemy fleet and studied their formation. Their space fighter to starship ratio had improved, but other than that, they seemed to be using the same tactics as their last encounter. These people had learned nothing.

Lucky me.

He was surprised when he heard Prince Polvaar’s voice asking, “Why are we not attacking?”

Maada was so accustomed to nobody questioning his decisions during a battle that, for a second, he did not know what to say. “We are waiting for me to order the attack whenever I see fit.”

The prince protested, “We are just sitting here and waiting, which gives the enemy the chance to better prepare.”

“Prince Polvaar, with all due respect, I am going to speak very slowly so that even a useless dimwit like you can understand, but I am going to say this only once: I am the commander of the fleet. You and the rest of the pilots do as I say, when I say it, and you do not ask any stupid questions. If you want, I can demonstrate by ordering the Deathbringers behind you to shoot your space fighter. Are we clear?”

“Yes, General. My apologies,” Polvaar answered quickly.

Maada was tempted to carry out his threat anyway. “Make sure it does not happen again.”

He waited a few more minutes before opening a channel to his fleet. “Go get them.”

*****

Maada executed a perfect Xortaag salute. “Your Highness, congratulations on yet another magnificent victory.”

Mushgaana chuckled. “Back on Earth when I was about to die, I am sure this was what I thought I would miss the most.”

They were standing on a field of the most luscious green grass Maada had ever seen in his life, extending in every direction for as far as eyes could see. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining brilliantly in the cloudless sky. He took a deep breath, confirming what he already knew after the Xortaags had scanned Kanoor from orbit: there was no pollution here. The Akakies had used their technology to keep their home planet clean. The general’s immediate priority was to put his hands on the insects’ advanced weaponry, but a few years down the line, maybe they could find something here that would help them with Tangaar’s pollution problem.

Maada could not help wishing he had grown up here, instead of Tangaar, with its poisonous air and permanently gray sky, where he had to watch his friends and family die because of starvation or various health issues caused by extreme pollution. He was certain most people on Kanoor had never been hungry even one day in their lives. On the other hand, if he had been born here, he would not have had the motivation to change the universe the way he had done. Bringing his people back from the brink of extinction was something to be proud of and well worth all he had suffered growing up.

“That was surprisingly easy,” said Mushgaana.

Maada shrugged. “The insects were caught completely off-guard, and they had no answer for our new space fighters.”

“It also helped that half of them ran away as soon as they found out you, back from the dead, were leading our fleet.”

Maada’s lips curl up into a self-satisfied, humorless smile.

“On this wonderful day that we finally brought the pesky insects to their knees, I have more great news,” Mushgaana added. “Hartook has just reported that his mission has been successful too.”

Maada lifted an eyebrow. “He got in touch with the human president already? Was it difficult to influence him?”

“According to Hartook, it was very easy. Apparently, the president is an exceedingly weak and stupid man, and he is now in Hartook’s pocket.”

“This is the second time you form a plan based on something you saw in a movie. Maybe watching those is not such a waste of time, after all.”

Mushgaana chuckled. “And it gets better. After what happened here today, it is likely that the Akakies will reach out to the humans for help. My dear cousin is going to convince the president to capture the Akakie delegation; then the insects will have to try to save their people, which might cause a confrontation between the humans and the Akakies. Would it not be hilarious if they start killing each other, while we are sitting pretty here, mining this gold mine?”

“I must admit it was a genius plan. Now, with your permission, I have to go write the condolence letters.”

Mushgaana put a hand on his shoulder. “I will be joining you. Thankfully, this time we have a lot fewer letters to write than the last.”

Maada bowed his head. “It is an honor, Your Highness.” Then he added, “Do you think the Akakies have coffee?”

*****

With aching hearts, Tarq, aboard the Akakie dreadnought Indomitable, watched the images being transmitted from Kanoor on the bridge’s main screen. The battle (if it could even be called that) had been very short. Tarq had always been a big-picture kind of person, and he had soon realized this fight could not have been won; therefore, he had ordered the Indomitable’s captain to have the ship jump to safety. And unknown to the Xortaags, they had taken a few thousand space fighters with them. Now, Xortaag transport ships were landing on Kanoor, and Akakie ground forces offered little resistance. Why would they try to fight when their government had surrendered unconditionally?

Tarq had joined the Akakie Special Operations Force at a very early age, and he had spent all his life serving Kanoor. Saving Kanoor. He had sacrificed everything. His youth. His love. His daughter. And yet, all his efforts had been for nothing. Everything he had achieved in a lifetime had gone up in smoke in the blink of an eye. He fought off a sudden onset of nausea. His hearts felt like they were shrinking.

Still, even though he could not stop himself from biting his nails, he was not desperate. He was determined. He had a plan, and he knew who to turn to for help to implement it.

Barook stood next to him. “What are we going to do?”

Everyone on the bridge turned to look at Tarq. Even now, at the darkest hour in Akakie history, with Kanoor occupied by the Xortaags and the fleet decimated, they still trusted Tarq to have a solution.

Tarq felt his antennae stand straight. He raised his chin and clenched his fist. “We are going to take our planet back,” he said calmly. “Set course for Earth.”

Jim, I am really going to need you to pull another miracle out of your behind.

Chapter Seven: Earth

Standard Galactic Date: 055.03.5073

(Earth Date: 27/04/2079)

“Why are you in fleet uniform?” I asked Lilly. She’d changed her hair color from pink to violet, which wasn’t much of an improvement in my opinion.

“Some commander of the fleet you are!” She laughed. “I’m with the fleet now. Turns out my particular skill set is super handy on a starship bridge or a command center.”

“Starship bridge! You’re what, nineteen?” I scoffed.

“And a computer genius.” she grinned.

Kurt and I had invited her for lunch. We would’ve taken her to a fancy restaurant, but these days the two of us couldn’t appear in public without a legion of fans following us asking for selfies or autographs, and after Talmak, there was another group who kept trying to pour pig blood on our heads. I had somehow ended up getting blamed for that catastrophe even though, in reality, I was the only person who tried to stop it. If Tarq wanted to make me project an image of a ruthless and bloodthirsty maniac, he’d certainly succeeded.

We met in the Marines’ base in New York. The place had a separate restaurant for the officers. It wasn’t a five-star establishment, but the food wasn’t bad.

“Why are you still a colonel?” she asked me. “Now that Earth has a proper fleet, I thought you’d be an admiral by now.”

I shrugged. “With everything that’s going on, we didn’t have the time to restructure the whole fleet, so we decided to keep the ranks we used in Winterfell for now. Except for Captain Wood, of course, who’s an actual navy captain.”

“About that terrible business in Talmak,” she said, “I just wanted to say my father would’ve understood.”

Somehow, knowing that the Butcher of Macao would’ve agreed with what we’d done wasn’t much of a comfort.

“He would, wouldn’t he?” Kurt agreed.

“Liz wouldn’t.” I rubbed my wedding ring. “She would’ve kicked our butts for even considering it. But let’s talk about something else before I lose my appetite.”

I bit into my steak.

“You aren’t going to believe who came to see me the other day.” Lilly beamed. “My mom. She said she was proud that I was part of the group that saved humanity. Also, I ran into Liz’s sisters the other day.”

“That reminds me: I should go visit them while I’m here,” I said.

“I saw you guys on TV during the ceremony, by the way,” said Lilly. “I thought you looked amazing.”

Jackson had arranged for a grandiose public ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the Xortaag invasion on April 13th. Kurt and I were invited, and the president pinned a few ostentatious-sounding medals on our chests. He made a speech, during which he had the nerve to say, “Unfortunately, I wasn’t in Winterfell, but I’d like to think if I were, I’d have done something heroic to save humanity.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hated every minute of it. I kept wishing I could punch Jackson in his big fat mouth. I would’ve, but Kurt pulled me back.”

Kurt shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about that guy.”

We ate, talked, and laughed. Lilly told us about her new life. She’d started dating a Canadian boy who happened to live right next door to her. He was probably lucky Allen was dead. We told her about life on a starship. She giggled when we told her the story of what Xornaa had tried to pull and how Tarq had retaliated. “Typical Tarq, to mess with her like that,” she said.

I pointed at Kurt. “This one is dating too, by the way.”

She looked surprised. “Seriously?”

Kurt threw up his hands in the air. “Why is everyone so shocked when they hear that?”

“My dad was kind of your stepfather, remember? I had to listen to him complain he was worried you’d decided to become a Catholic priest for two long years.”

Kurt gave her a hurt look.

“How’s your love life, Jim?”

I stared at my wedding ring. “Still too early for me.”

Lilly smiled. “So now Kurt goes on dates while you are single? How the mighty have fallen.”

“I’ve made new friends though. Two of Kurt’s Marines. I saved their lives on Talmak, and now they follow me around everywhere I go. I’ve also found a squash partner, but she’s in space right now.”

There was a lightness in my heart, which was hard to describe. It was as if heat were radiating through my chest. For the first time in a very long while (not counting the rendezvous with Xornaa, which was nothing but an illusion), I was carefree and content. It was probably because being here with Kurt and Lilly reminded me of my teenage years, a simpler time, when Allen used to bring Lilly to our birthdays. The fact that after all these years we were still together told me there was life beyond this galactic war we’d gotten sucked into, and some day, when this was over, maybe I could be happy again. I could even settle down and have a family. This wasn’t an insult to Liz’s memory in any way; she knew how much I wanted a child. Still too early, but maybe one day. That thought made me feel so good that I sighed with contentment. While listening to Lilly excitedly asking a million questions about Patricia and Kurt doing his best to answer, I placed my hands behind my head, closed my eyes for a second, and imagined a better future. One without the war, the Xortaags, and the constant sorrow I’d always felt deep in my heart since Liz had been killed. I still ached for her, but each day I ached a little less, and occasionally I even experienced brief moments of happiness like this one. I couldn’t see the smile on my face, but I bet it was dreamy.

I will survive.

“Why do you look so happy?” Kurt asked me.

“This is the most delicious steak I’ve had in my life,” was all I could think of saying. Discussing my emotions had never been easy for me, even with my best friend, and specially in front of Lilly. It wouldn’t have been very manly.

My PDD started vibrating. I wanted to enjoy the few minutes of peace that I had, so I ignored it. But Kurt pulled his out, and his eyes widened after he looked at the screen. Lilly’s PDD started beeping too, and so did all the other officers in the restaurant.

Looking a bit pale, Kurt turned to me. “Kanoor has fallen.”

Someone up there must’ve really hated me.

I looked heavenward. You keep this up, and I’m going to become an atheist. You’ll see.

Chapter Eight: Mantux

Standard Galactic Date: 055.03.5073

(Earth Date: 27/04/2079)

Mantux was a small planet located in the far corner of the galaxy. Its people, the Latoors, considered themselves very wise. They didn’t get involved in galactic politics, nor did they participate in various wars going on all around them. Their fleet was strong enough to discourage any potential aggressors, even the likes of the Xortaags, and that was enough. They watched from the comfort of their prosperous planet and laughed at the follies of the other species who wasted valuable resources on their meaningless wars, and they lived in luxury while the rest of the galaxy burned.

And then, the Black Fleet came.

Nobody on Mantux could explain where the enemy fleet came from. It was as if a rift had opened in space, and some two hundred thousand black space fighters poured out. A few scientists theorized it looked like a rift in the space-time continuum, meaning the Black Fleet had traveled back in time from the future, but they never got the chance to explore this theory. There was no attempt to communicate, not even a threatening message. No demands. The Latoors weren’t even given the chance to surrender. The Black Fleet simply attacked.

The Latoors sent out frantic messages, asking for help they knew would never arrive in time, not that there was a fleet in the whole galaxy that could assemble enough ships to fight the Black Fleet. Then they realized their messages were bouncing back off an invisible wall. The entire planet was inside a bubble that made sending or receiving messages impossible. The Mantux Navy—a twenty-five-thousand-strong fleet, the pride of the planet, with its space fighters, starships, and dreadnought—was swept aside with humiliating ease, barely inflicting any damage on the enemy. The Black Fleet wouldn’t even let them flee. The defenders died to the last man and woman.

After that, the enemy fleet turned its attention to the surface of the planet. They bombarded communication centers, radar equipment, anti-aircraft weapons, military installations, civilian and military airports, and anything else that could have military value or was able to interfere with the next phase of their attack.

When the onslaught finally stopped, the Latoors held their collective breath, prayed to their gods for salvation, and hoped against hope they’d survived. And then, they saw the asteroid moving toward the planet. A few short hours ago, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but now there was nothing left to stop it.

All the Latoors could do was wait helplessly for the death and destruction coming towards them. Couples kissed each other goodbye, parents hugged their children one last time, and siblings cried in each other’s arms. There were thousands of hurriedly arranged marriages between people who wanted to spend the remainder of their lives, however short, as husband and wife. Many sought out whoever they’d wronged in the past, requesting forgiveness.

Then things took a dark turn. A few million people decided to go out on their own terms and killed themselves, and millions more thought now that they were going to die, it was time to take revenge on whoever they had considered an enemy for whatever reason. Mass suicides happened all over the planet, coupled with anarchy, vandalism, looting, and rape. Brothers killed brothers over a small dispute, and spouses murdered their better halves due to the slightest misunderstandings. Hospitals quickly filled with people who were injured in an unsuccessful suicide attempt or a vicious attack by a desperate soul. A lot of people killed their loved ones—and then themselves—to spare them from the horror that was coming. A father shot his wife and four children, but when his own turn came, his energy weapon malfunctioned. He ended up cutting his throat with broken glass and bleeding to death. A renowned religious leader prompted his followers to beat the members of another religion to death with the promise of a happy afterlife. Another clergyman locked his congregation inside their place of worship and burned it to the ground while the people inside begged for mercy. The poor started attacking the residences belonging to the rich, hoping to find a private spaceship to get off the planet, and those who did were blown out of the sky by the Black Fleet. The Latoors were decimated even before the asteroid entered orbit.

Everyone else just waited.

The Vox warriors threw the asteroid onto the planet, watched Mantux burn from orbit, thanked their God, and celebrated their first victory against the carbon-based aliens.

Vengeance, at long last, thought Vox Commander Kavmar. And this is just the beginning.

Chapter Nine: Earth

Standard Galactic Date: 056.03.5073

(Earth Date: 29/04/2079)

Hartook could barely contain his excitement.

All his life, he had been treated as second-class royalty. But now here he was, on Earth, waiting outside President Jackson’s office, and he was about to start a war between two of the Xortaags’ deadliest enemies. His name would go down in history as the man who brought both the humans and the Akakies to their knees, and after this, no one would ever dare disrespect him. And who knew? Now that he had proved his worth, Mushgaana might reward him by entrusting him with even more important missions in the future. And his children would be so proud of their father, the hero. Things could not have worked out better for him.

A tall, blonde woman wearing a brown business suit approached him. “Mr. President will see you know.”

Hartook followed the woman into Jackson’s office. “Mr. President, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I am positive you are very busy, and your time is valuable.”

Jackson stood up to shake his hands. “I always have time for a dear friend, Mr. Ambassador. Please take a seat.”

The Xortaag sat on a chair in front of Jackson’s desk. “It gives me extreme pleasure to inform you my government is pleased with the progress in negotiations. The way things are going, we might end up looking at an alliance, not a simple non-aggression treaty.”

Jackson beaned. “I feel the same way.”

“There is just one thing though,” continued Hartook. “It has come to our attention that an Akakie ship has just entered Earth’s orbit.”

Jackson blew out a noisy breath. “Yes. It’s Commander Tarq, who runs some sort of a spy agency. He’s requested to meet me.”

Hartook sat up straight. “A spy agency? Surely not the Special Operations Force?”

“The same. Have you heard of them?”

“Just recently. They apparently played a major role in defeating our forces when, eh, that rogue prince attacked your magnificent planet.”

“Indeed. Commander Tarq himself was in charge of that operation.”

“Was he now?” Hartook leaned forward and stared directly into Jackson’s eyes. “The Xortaag government will be pleased if you capture this individual.”

Jackson hesitated for a brief moment, then he nodded in agreement. “Anything to keep our friends happy.”

“And you know what? If this Commander Tarq accidentally gets killed while in your custody, it isn’t a great loss, is it?”

“Nah,” said Jackson. “Nobody really likes that guy.”

*****

When Tarq’s shuttle landed, Kurt, Oksana, Lilly, and I were waiting for him on the landing pad.                       Despite everything that was going on, it felt good to see him. I resisted an urge to hug the little alien. Mr. Macho Man, that was me.

He was carrying a baby Akakie in his arms. “Guys, meet my granddaughter, Varma.”

The small creature he was holding had huge black eyes, a small mouth, and rows of shark teeth. Its nose-less, ear-less, and chin-less face was an image straight from a nightmare. The Akakies really had to come up with a hologram especially for their infants. Or at least cover their heads with a plastic bag or something.

“Jesus Christ, she’s ugly,” said Venom.

Shut up, she’s cute, I told him; then I threw up a little in my mouth.

“I didn’t know you were a grandfather,” said Kurt.

“I was not. We had recently put one of my daughter’s eggs in an incubator.”

I smiled and offered my hand. “I guess congratulations are in order.”

Tarq looked at me with incomprehension. “For what, Jim? Having to raise a larva?”

He gave the Akakie baby to Lilly, who had already volunteered to take care of her while Tarq was on Earth. She held the little monster affectionately.

“Let’s go,” said Tarq. “I have a meeting with President Jackson.”

Jackson wanted to send an official delegation to meet Tarq, but we’d decided to keep it informal and friendly. When we got into my hover car, I said, “Max, meet Commander Tarq, whom you already know by reputation.”

“It’s an honor meeting you, Commander,” said Max. “I’m a big fan.”

“You know how much I hate AIs,” Tarq whispered to me.

“The AI can hear you,” said Max, “and it can kick you out of the car.”

During the ride, I asked Tarq what the hell had happened in Kanoor.

“Maada cut through our fleet like it did not exist. It was like Alora all over again, but ten times worse. Their new space fighters are as good as ours. After that, the Xortaag transport ships, carrying millions of troops, landed all over the planet.”

Just hearing Maada’s name made my skin crawl away and hide under the car seat. That bastard was responsible for the bloodbath on Earth. He’d murdered my wife, set up the trap that wiped out almost a third of the pilots under my command, and very nearly killed me—twice. Keiko had given her life to get rid of that monster. And despite all our sacrifices, after everything we’d lost, now he was back. Burning anger raged inside me, so hot that I felt the heat dry my skin.

Kurt tugged at his goatee. “So, now the Xortaags can clone people?”

“Apparently,” said Tarq.

“How come you can’t?” I asked. “We could bring back everyone whom we’ve lost.”

Especially Liz. Hell, only Liz.

Tarq shrugged. “The Xortaags have found that technology on the same planet where they discovered OMC-BOWS, and as I have already told you, those people’s technology was much more advanced than ours.”

“There are twenty billion of your people living on Kanoor,” I said, “and you once told me most of them keep weapons at home”—he had made a joke about having that in common with “you Americans”—“so why couldn’t you stop them?”

“Kurt once asked me a similar question the first time we met in Winterfell, remember?”

I rubbed my forehead. “Yeah. I remember. Pussies.”

“Hey!” Tarq protested, covering what I assumed was the baby Akakie’s ears with his hands. “We are just not made to fight.”

“Mushgaana’s back too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “They are both back, and you still have not heard the worst part. Do you remember how the Xortaags became a galactic superpower?”

“Yes, by reverse-engineering the stuff they found in—oh shit!”

“Stop using bad words in front of my granddaughter! She has just started developing her sense of hearing, and she absorbs whatever she hears like a sponge.”

“Please tell me you don’t have more of those planet busters lying around,” Kurt said anxiously.

“We do not. That was a prototype, and the only one. But the Xortaags might eventually find the blueprints, both for the planet busters and other weapons you do not want to know about. In fact, any piece of Akakie technology they can put their hands on will help them improve theirs significantly.”

The news about Kanoor was so shocking that I hadn’t considered its long-term consequences. The Xortaags had just got themselves a war chest full of the most advanced weaponry in the galaxy, and I had no doubt they’d be coming for us soon. It was a terrifying thought.

“Congratulations,” I said bitterly. “You people have offered the universe to the Xortaags on a silver platter.”

“Not if we can take Kanoor back,” said Tarq, “before they have the chance to reverse-engineer our technology or find the blueprints for the planet busters and the other secret weapons we were developing. I have a plan, but we need your help, which is why I am going to meet President Jackson to ask him to send your fleet to Kanoor.”

We dropped off Lilly and the baby at her apartment, and half an hour later, Max pulled over in front of the government headquarters. It was the same building that was used as the United Nations HQ a few decades ago—a forty-story structure with ninety-degree façade angles and grid-forming windows running in broken horizontal rows. Some twenty armed guards in full tactical gear stood in front of the building, and an Apache attack helicopter was hovering over it. The four of us got out of the car and walked towards the building, but one of the guards, a beefy man with a broken nose, approached us and saluted. “Colonel Harrison. Colonel von der Hagen. I’m sorry, but the president wants to meet Commander Tarq alone. He’ll see you later on.”

That was weird. Why would Jackson want to see Tarq alone?

“How come?” asked Kurt.

“I don’t know, Colonel. Just following orders,” answered the guard.

“That’s what Hitler said,” I pointed out.

Oksana gave me a hard look.

“Excuse me a moment.” Tarq took a few steps away and started whispering something, probably talking to his ship.

“You look familiar,” Kurt told Broken-Nose. “I think I’ve seen you before. On the other side of my sniper rifle’s scope. Did you once work for SCTU?”

The man blushed. “In another life.”

I pointed at the other guards and asked Kurt, “How about those?”

“Yeah, I know three of those too.”

Oksana put a hand on her sidearm. “Jackson is hiring SCTU goons now?”

“That doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” I added.

“In his defense, everyone else who is capable of fighting has already joined the Marines,” said Kurt, but I could see anger in his eyes.

I was getting a really bad vibe. I took out my PDD and asked Cordelia, “Are you following this?”

“You know I am,” she said.

“Can you please come here a second?”

“On my way.”

“I can help,” offered Max.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him. “Run over twenty armed-to-the-teeth soldiers?”

Tarq gestured for us to go to him. “My people have just scanned the building. They say there are some five hundred soldiers inside. What is more alarming is it appears they are trying to stay out of sight. Is this normal?”

Kurt’s nostrils flared. “Not even a little.”

Broken-Nose called out, “I’m terribly sorry, but I have to insist Commander Tarq come with us. President Jackson is waiting.”

I was alarmed. “It’s a trap,” I told Kurt. “I can’t explain it, but something is way off.”

Kurt turned towards the guard. “And if Commander Tarq doesn’t want to go with you?”

The man nodded to the other soldiers, who stepped closer, assault rifles at the ready. “I’m under orders to take him to the president. No one said he had to come voluntarily.”

“Stand down,” Kurt growled.

“Sorry, Colonel. Orders.”

I’d never thought a day would come when I had to face SCTU soldiers again. The memory of our last encounter, when they very nearly killed Liz and Kurt, rushed back to me. A vein started pulsing in my forehead, and my whole body tensed. I stepped forward and stood by Kurt, planting my feet wide, trying to stare down twenty heavily armed men.

The sound of a space fighter’s engine filled the air, and my golden Viper appeared in the sky. She shot a laser bolt at the Apache that missed the gunship by a few inches. The chopper pilots put its nose down and ran away as fast as they could. Then my Viper descended vertically and hovered in the air, about ten meters behind us, facing the guards.

A Viper was a beautiful ship, but not so much if her laser cannons were pointed at you.

“Step aside or I’ll break your other nose,” I told the guard. I didn’t raise my voice or try to sound threatening in any way. There was no need.

“What does that even mean?” asked Oksana. I let her figure that one out on her own. That would teach her to stop throwing incomprehensible literary quotes at me.

After the guards retreated, Tarq asked, “Are we sure we want to go in there?”

Kurt and I exchanged a look.

*****

When we entered the conference hall, Jackson yelled, “What is the meaning of this?”

He was sitting at a conference table with a bunch of his top people around him. Five armed security guards stood behind him, not that it would do him any good. The hall windows were all shut. Maybe he was worried Cordelia might shoot him through the windows.

Juan and Li followed us into the hall. They were in full tactical gear, but instead of their assault rifles, they carried huge hand cannons provided by Tarq. The weapons were silver, bigger than a bazooka, with three barrels each. Jackson’s guards looked at the cannons, then at their own guns, and looked like they were ready to run away from the room.

“I’m getting reports saying my building is surrounded by thousands of Marines!” Jackson continued.

“Don’t forget the Vipers flying overhead,” I said cheerfully. “Speaking of, Cordi, you think you can open a couple of these windows without blowing up the whole building? With President Jackson sitting right in front of me, this whole place stinks of bullshit.”

Two windows were blown inwards.

Good girl.

“It might help if you didn’t treat everything like a joke,” Oksana whispered to me.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the look of horror on Jackson’s face,” I whispered back.

“Relax,” Kurt told Jackson. “It’s not a coup. But we wanted to talk to you, and your people wouldn’t let us through. Things got a bit tense.”

“You’re here, so let’s get this over with.” Jackson glared at us. “Sit down.”

We sat on the other side of the table.

“President Jackson,” Tarq announced formally, “on behalf of the Akakie government, I am here to officially request—”

Jackson cut him off. “I know why you are here. Your request is denied.”

Oksana and I shouted together, “What the hell?”

“Why are you surprised?” asked Venom. “This was completely predictable.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes. “May I ask why?”

“I’m the president, and I have no obligation to justify myself to you. But for this one time: the Xortaags have sent a delegation to Earth. They say the attack on Earth was carried out without the approval of their government, and it was the action of an overzealous prince who’s now dead. They’ve offered a non-aggression treaty with us if we stay out of their war with these other aliens. Moreover, they’re offering compensation for the harm they caused us, in the form of providing us with new technological advancements. And the best part is they’ll remove that infernal satellite system from our orbit, which I might add your friend here can’t or doesn’t want to do.”

Tarq, Oksana, and I looked at each other, dumbfounded.

“How can a human being be so freaking stupid?” asked Venom.

“This is exactly what Hitler offered Russia before World War Two,” said Kurt. “And he attacked them the first chance he got.”

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said Oksana.

“Hitler? Doom?” Jackson looked at them in bewilderment. “What the hell are you two babbling about?”

Oksana looked disgusted. “Read some history. Or you know what, just read a book, any book, so you don’t always come off as an illiterate fool.”

Jackson jumped to his feet. “You can’t talk to me like that! You’re lucky I don’t relieve you from your duties for your behavior today. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind and throw you all in jail.”

I smirked. “Goldfish memory much? You already forgot about the Vipers and the Marines outside?"

Juan patted his hand cannon. “I really, really want to use this.”

“Just say the word,” Li told Kurt, but he shook his head.

We left under the heavy stare of the government officials and the guards. I was so mad that I thought about asking Cordi to light up the room. It would’ve been so satisfying, but it did sound a tad extreme.

Once outside the building, Tarq asked, “What now?”

I contacted Invincible. “Captain Wood? We’re coming up to you.”

*****

We’d just taken our seats in Invincible’s briefing room when Ella joined us.

“We’re going to talk about treason,” I told her. “You might want to sit this one out.”

She looked me in the eyes. “Why’re you doing it then?”

“We can’t just watch and do nothing while Jackson screws up the whole galaxy,” I answered firmly.

“Well, we could,” said Kurt. “We could even justify it by saying we were following orders given by the legitimate government of Earth, and nobody would blame us. To tell you the truth, even I think we don’t have the authority to defy a democratically elected president, but I understand there would be severe consequences if we listened to him.”

Ella thought about it for a second. “The way I see it, it’ll be treason not to participate.”

I loved her response. She’d been a Navy woman all her life, and making this decision couldn’t have been easy.

“The response, and the accent,” Venom added.

I looked at my friends. Everyone was tense, and who could blame them? I closed my eyes for a second and tried to keep my anger under control. “OK. It looks like, for once, I’ll be doing most of the talking instead of Tarq, and I don’t need his fancy holographic movies either. Just my wits and eloquence.”

“And humility,” murmured Tarq. He took out his pipe but put it back in his pocket after Ella gave him a pointed look.

I continued, “I wish to raise two points: first of all, what we have here is a classic ‘Sokovia Accords’ argument.”

Nobody bothered to ask what that was. They knew I’d tell them anyway. “This is the question: should superheroes submit to a civilian authority, or is it their responsibility to make the right choice regardless of what the politicians think? Captain America and I both think politicians having power over potential missions is a terrible idea. What if they make the wrong choice, or decide not to act at all?”

“Did you just call yourself a superhero and compare yourself to Captain America?” Ella sounded incredulous.

“You’ll get used to it,” Kurt told her.

“He was like this even before Tarq convinced the universe that he’s the paragon of heroism and bravery,” added Cordelia.

I didn’t dignify those remarks with an answer. They were just jealous. “The world has changed. The decisions made on Earth can now shape the galaxy, and they might have consequences like humanity’s extinction. I’m certain you all agree if we side with the Xortaags now, they’ll come and kill us all the first chance they get, and it’ll be impossible to stop them once they have the Akakie technology at their disposal. I submit to you that it’s our responsibility to make the right choice on behalf of humanity and don’t leave that to a two-bit, spineless politician like Jackson.”

Tarq approved. “I could not have said it better myself.”

“My second point is this: don’t you find Jackson’s 180-degree change in policy weird?”

“What do you mean?” asked Kurt.

“We know the Xortaags have all sorts of mental powers, like Xornaa, who can manipulate people with a simple touch, and Jackson mentioned meeting a Xortaag delegation.”

“You think the Xortaags got to Jackson?” asked Oksana.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Also, I got a very strong impression that Jackson was trying to snatch Tarq. That’s why he wanted our alien friend alone.”

“Where is the Xortaag delegation now?” asked Ella.

Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know, but it is easy to find out.”

Everyone was silent for a minute. The idea of our president being under the Xortaags’ thumb was too terrible to digest easily.

Then Kurt, playing with his goatee, shook his head. “Jim, I see your point, and believe me when I say I agree with you. But I just can’t condone a military coup. This goes against every fiber of my being and tarnishes my father’s legacy. We spent our entire lives working towards a united Earth ruled by a democratically elected government.”

“So let’s find the middle ground.” I  rubbed my forehead. “Not a coup, but not allowing Jackson, under the Xortaags’ control or on his own initiative, to destroy the galaxy either.”

“We could use OMC-BOWS—” Tarq started to say.

The six of us (Kurt, Oksana, Ella, Cordi, Venom, and I) shouted, “No!”

*****

“You guys are ready?” I asked.

“Let’s do this,” Kurt said with a gleam in his eyes.

Jackson’s image appeared on one of the wall-mounted monitors in Invincible’s briefing room. He was in the same conference room where we’d met him earlier today, windows open this time. Some twenty other people, most of them in military uniforms, were sitting around the conference table. I recognized Jackson’s head of security and a few army generals.

“We’re all here,” said Jackson, trying his best to look confident and in charge. “What do you want?”

“We want to make a few quick points, if it pleases the president,” I said politely.

He made a get-on-with-it gesture.

“What you fail to understand is things have changed since the minute the Xortaag fleet appeared in our orbit,” I said. “For example, you really don’t have any actual power. The people with power are sitting here in this room. Let me prove it to you.”

A huge bomb appeared on the table right in the middle of Jackson’s conference room. He jumped out of his seat, eyes wide, face pale as a ghost. I wondered if, in his moment of panic, he remembered (or if he even knew to begin with) that SFD didn’t work on the surface, and the bomb was nothing but a projection. Several people in the room started screaming. One shouted, “Oh my God!”

Tarq giggled. “Nope. That was me.”

A few people rushed for the door, but they stopped dead when I calmly said, “This baby will go boom if anyone tries to leave.”

Jackson held up his chin and stared at me through the camera. “You’re bluffing.” His shaking voice betrayed his inner turmoil.

I laughed in his face. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I’ve just slaughtered eighty million people, and Kurt here singlehandedly killed half our previous government officials. You think I’ll hesitate a second to detonate that bomb?” I leaned forward and pulled a William Shatner. “Sit. The. Hell. Down.”

He sank back into his seat. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing all the way from orbit. Putting him in his place was so satisfying. Never much liked bullies.

“We’re here to make a few announcements,” I continued. “Three, in fact. One, effective immediately, the fleet and the Marines will operate independently of Earth’s civilian government and in coordination with the Akakie fleet. You have no authority over us.”

I looked at Tarq, who said, “Two, we have awarded Akakie citizenship to both Colonel Jim Harrison and Colonel Kurt von der Hagen, which means they are under our protection. If anything happens to them, if they are shot or arrested, killed in a car accident, or die by a sudden disease—heck, if a comet falls on them—there will be severe consequences, starting with us taking back the shiny new fleet we gave you.”

Jackson looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

Tarq chuckled. “You did not think we gave you all those fancy ships without taking the precaution of writing a self-destruct code into them, did you? I would like to see you negotiate with the Xortaags without a fleet to back you up.”

“And three,” said Kurt, “let me give you a lesson in democracy. Tarq?”

Tarq had never looked happier than at this moment. He touched his PDD. “This is going to break the Internet.”

Kurt’s image appeared on another monitor. He said, “Citizens of Earth. I don’t think I need to remind anyone that our planet was occupied by the Xortaags until just recently, when we defeated them with the Akakies’ help. President Jackson came to power promising revenge against the Xortaags, who had killed seven hundred million of us. And now, this.”

His image was replaced by a holographic recording of our last meeting with Jackson in the government headquarters, specifically the part where he told us about his plans to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Xortaags.

Kurt came back to the screen. “The Xortaags aren’t the forgive-and-forget type. They’ll come for us as soon as they deal with the Akakies. If you disagree with this decision, voice your concern. Contact your local representatives and demand President Jackson be held accountable for his actions. Civil disobedience might go a long way in making the president change his mind too.”

Tarq rubbed his palms together. “There is nothing I love more than kicking the hornet’s nest.”

The next day, Tarq sent us a video of Jackson waking up in the presidential palace to find the severed head of a horse in his bed. The video was accompanied by a note. Not my most original prank, but super effective.

People took to the streets when they heard Kurt’s message, first in the thousands, then in the millions. Demonstrations were held all over the planet. Protesters clashed with security forces on several occasions. Jackson was stupid enough to try to use force. In Kiev, some soldiers opened fire on people from the top of a government building. Half an hour later, that building didn’t exist, replaced by a crater ten feet deep. Maybe I was turning into a bloodthirsty maniac, after all.

Kurt sent a team of Marines to pick up the Xortaag delegation. The aliens put up a fight, and when they realized they were trapped and hopelessly outnumbered, they detonated an explosive device that killed all of them along with several Marines.

Jackson’s government didn’t last forty-eight hours. He fled, and his successor hastily reaffirmed Earth’s commitment to the alliance with the Akakies against the Xortaags and promised a new election within six months.

“People will choose another clueless idiot as president,” I said with my usual optimism.

“No worries,” said Kurt. “We’ll be here to look after them.”

Chapter Ten: Voltex

Standard Galactic Year: 5266

(Earth Year: 3199)

Shapzan knew he was about to die.

The healers had given up on him weeks ago, but he had been stubbornly clinging to life. What kept him going was his need to see if his brother’s plan to send the Vox back in time to kill off the carbon-based aliens worked. If not, he had bankrupted their already broken economy for nothing.

His brother, too old and fragile to hover anymore, was pushed into the lazaretto room by two of his assistants, followed by some Vox chieftains. Shapzan studied their faces closely. “I guess I do not need to ask you how the experiment went.”

Faltaz beamed. “Better than our most optimistic projections. The Latoors could not offer any meaningful resistance. We completely wiped them out. Mantux is destroyed, and now we are certain we can do the same to all the other aliens.”

“And in our side of the funnel?” asked the Supreme Leader.

“They are gone, as if they never existed. Everyone in their galaxy is freaking out about it. They cannot figure out how an entire planet has suddenly disappeared.”

“Did they suspect our involvement?”

Faltaz laughed. “How could we possibly be involved? Us, the poor, backward Volts?”

This was the first time Shapzan had seen his brother laugh since Pandar was destroyed.

Everyone was quiet for a minute. Then the Supreme Leader said, “You did it, Brother. Praise Vilyek.”

“Well, not yet,” said the scientist. “This was just a test. We now have to send the Vox back to commence the real operation, and as I said before, it will take them years to finish it, even though for us it will be only a few minutes. We must build a base of operation inside the funnel on our side, and we have to provide them with enough supplies to last a decade.”

Shapzan shook his body. “While half of our population is starving to death.”

“Shortly after our base of operation is ready,” said Faltaz, “which will be in a few months, you could wake up to a world without any carbon-based aliens. Is it not worth it?”

“I will not be alive in a few months,” Shapzan replied flatly. “And, unfortunately, it is.” Then he looked at a Vox warrior standing behind Faltaz and said, “Before I forget: well done, Commander. We are thankful to you too.”

“It is both my pleasure and duty to serve, Uncle,” said Vox Commander Kavmar.

“I must confess,” said Shapzan, “I was a bit skeptical when your grandfather asked me to appoint you as the commander of the Vox warriors in this mission. You are young and relatively inexperienced. I am happy to see his faith in you was justified.”

“I respectfully suggest that Grandpa Faltaz has repeatedly proved he is the smartest Volt in our history,” said Kavmar. “Moreover, I have prepared myself for a mission like this all my life. I just never imagined we would fight the aliens a millennium in the past, which certainly makes things easier for us.”

“By the way, I am going with the Vox,” Faltaz told his brother.

That surprised the Supreme Leader. “Why? You are not a warrior, and even if you were, what would you do at your age?”

“I want to watch the alien planets burn,” said Faltaz. “I have earned that much.”

Shapzan chuckled. “You know, now I wish I could go too.”

Chapter Eleven: Kanoor

Standard Galactic Date: 059.03.5073

(Earth Date: 05/05/2079)

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked. “And, for crying out loud, there’s no need for sophisticated holographic videos describing the current situation. We all know what’s at stake.”

Our “war council” had gathered in Invincible’s briefing room. Tarq, for once, wasn’t wearing something flashy, just his usual white tux and feathered cap. It told me how distraught he was because of the fall of Kanoor. That, and his old habit of biting his nails. The rest of us were in uniform, including Barook, who had apparently been promoted since the last time we saw him.

Tarq completely ignored me and my request, of course. The stupid alien was in love with the sound of his own voice. Or it could be revenge for me not letting him smoke aboard our starship.

“Here is the situation,” he said. “Maada lost a few hundred ships while invading Kanoor, but he still has more than eighteen thousand of those new Deathbringers under his command. Our fleet consists of the almost ten thousand space fighters that were on Earth and nearly four thousand ships that escaped Kanoor. I want to take this opportunity to go on record protesting your decision to man the fleet entirely by human pilots.” He gave me a hurt look.

I rubbed my temple. Tarq was a brilliant strategist, the best in the universe even, but he still harbored some weird hope that his people would somehow learn how to fight. With the fate of the universe in balance, we had to vote against having Akakie pilots on this mission. Even Barook had voted against him. We’d also decided not to bring the old Vipers, given that they were no match for the new Deathbringers. I wouldn’t send people to suicide missions if I could help it.

“There are twenty-five million Xortaag soldiers on the planet,” Tarq said, “while we barely have five thousand Marines. Even if we could somehow get past Maada and his fleet and put boots on the ground, there would still be no way we could take Kanoor back, and it is only a matter of time before the Xortaags find some advanced piece of technology down there that will change the balance of power in the galaxy forever.”

“Yes, yes, we know. We are outgunned and outnumbered, and our situation is completely hopeless,” I said, playing with my wedding ring. “Now tell us your brilliant plan.”

“I’d like to point out the balance of power has already changed,” said Kurt. “The Xortaags have the upper hand, and because we failed to convince any other species to join us, we are all that’s standing between them and the domination of the galaxy.”

“Which brings us to Tarq’s brilliant plan,” I said impatiently.

“There are two points I must clarify before moving forward. First, there is nothing physically wrong with us Akakies; in fact, given our exoskeleton, we are pretty strong. We simply do not have the mental fortitude to fight. And secondly, as I have mentioned before, all Akakies have weapons at their homes, like the Americans.”

“Well, more like the Canadians,” said Ella, “since apparently you never use them.”

“Look who’s developing a sense of humor,” said Venom.

She probably got it from me, I answered. My awesomeness is contagious.

Venom rolled his eyes.

Tarq continued, “Now I am going to tell you something that only two people in the world know. It used to be three, but our president was killed during the invasion, so now it is only Barook and me. We have built our own OMC-BOWS, and now it is active on Kanoor’s orbit.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” I asked, astonished.

Kurt narrowed his eyes. “You were planning to use it against your own people.”

Tarq shrugged. “There had been some unrest on our planet, even talk of a revolution. OMC-BOWS is perfect to control people.”

“We’re so going to find a way to remove those things from Earth’s orbit,” I growled.

“So here is the plan: Barook and I will go down to the surface with a small team of the Commandos—”

“The Marines,” Kurt corrected him.

“I obviously must go; my telepathic abilities might be very useful,” said Xornaa. “But why you two?”

“Because only we can operate the machine’s controls,” said Tarq. “Biometrics.”

“And we must both go, in case one of us does not make it,” added Barook.

I didn’t remember these guys being so brave before.

“Where’re the MFM controls located?” asked Oksana.

“There are catacombs underneath the presidential palace. The controls are hidden there,” answered Tarq. “We would use OMC-BOWS to tell our people they are the strongest, bravest warriors in history, and they must attack the Xortaags. Now, unlike the last times we pulled this trick, the Xortaags will not be completely surprised because security is super tight and they are watching the local inhabitants closely—no Voice of God to give them a false sense of security this time. Still, there are a thousand Akakies for every Xortaag, who are still armed with those pathetic energy weapons. Our people should be able to take the planet back rather quickly.”

“Why didn’t you use the same tactic when the enemy was occupying your planet?” asked Ella.

“Because, by the time they started landing, they had already destroyed our fleet and had complete air superiority. Maada would have slaughtered us if we tried then.”

“And he isn’t going to do it this time because?” I didn’t know why I asked. I already knew the answer.

“This is where you come in,” answered Tarq. “The fleet will engage the Xortaags. Do not under any circumstances let them come to the help of their ground forces. After we recapture the planet, they might lose hope and surrender, given that they have nowhere to go.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “Just like Operation Royalty, we’re planning to use the planet’s population to mount a surprise attack on the Xortaags on the ground while the fleet is fighting them in the sky?”

“Probably in space this time but, essentially, yes.”

I chuckled bitterly. “Can we be any more Star Wars?”

Tarq gave my friends a questioning look.

“What?” said Oksana. “Since when am I supposed to understand what Jim’s talking about?”

Kurt smiled. “I think I understood that one.”

“Star Wars movies are notorious for using the same plot over and over again,” I explained. “For example, they used to have a Death Star with a ridiculously obvious weak point in every other film.”

“And people still paid money to watch these movies?” asked Ella, bemused.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re freaking awesome.”

“When we were in high school, he forced me to binge-watch all the Star Wars movies with him,” Kurt told Ella.

I shrugged. “They’re classics. Everyone must watch them once.”

Kurt looked thoughtful. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t see the Akakies beating the Xortaags, under hypnosis and outnumbering them a thousand-to-one or not.”

“And I want to add, using the same plot might work in the movies, but it won’t work in real life.” I twisted the wedding ring on my finger. “Especially given the fact that the last time, we were lucky to walk away with our lives.”

Tarq frowned. “Do you have a better idea?”

Both Kurt and I shook our heads.

“So get off my back and get on with the program.”

Barook looked at him with admiration. “You are getting really good at this.”

“You have learned a lot of idioms yourself,” Tarq told him. “Go ahead. Use the one you told me recently.

Barook turned to us, pretended he was holding a shotgun, and with an exaggerated deep voice said, “I am cocked and loaded.”

Thank God for Tarq. With all the talk of doom and gloom, I really needed a laugh.

“Given that the alternative is to do nothing and wait until the Xortaags show up with our weapons and kill everyone, I suggest we move forward with my plan,” said Tarq.

I exchanged a look with Kurt and shrugged. Tarq was right. Plus, this time, there were fourteen thousand of us to their eighteen. We’d already beaten much worse odds.

“We have another problem,” Tarq added. “You remember I said Mushgaana, and in fact, all members of the royal family can read people’s minds from a distance? Guess where he is staying these days.”

“In the presidential palace,” Kurt said immediately.

Tarq nodded.

I threw my hands in the air. “Of course he is, because otherwise, this would’ve been too easy.”

“The palace is a pretty big place, but we cannot risk running into him and exposing the whole mission, so we have come up with this.” Tarq flicked his wrist, and an image of a metal headband appeared. “This device masks your brainwaves and imitates ours, so if Mushgaana or anyone else—one of his brothers is on Kanoor too—tries to read your mind, they will think you are an Akakie.”

“So we’re going down as Akakies? Wearing a hologram, I guess?” asked Oksana. “Won’t it be easier to go as Xortaags as we did the last time? This device can’t imitate Xortaag brainwaves?”

“It can, but it will not help us. It can generate brainwaves but not actual thoughts or memories, so if Mushgaana looks at you and sees he cannot find anything beyond the most basic brain patterns, he will get suspicious. On the other hand, thanks to MICI, he cannot read the Akakies’ minds anyway, so we will not have an issue there.”

“So, if the team is going down as Akakies, this means we can finally see your true form, right?” I asked Tarq.

“No. Only Xornaa and the Marines.”

“Xornaa is a Marine,” said Kurt.

The Xortaag woman beamed and bowed her head to him. I cringed just a tad. I still didn’t like that woman even though she’d saved my life.

“Make sure you take a photo of him,” I told Kurt.

“You really have to get your priorities straight,” he responded.

“Also, this might be slightly irrelevant, but we have some bad news,” said Tarq. “We have lost a planet.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“As you know, besides us and the Xortaags,” said Tarq, “there are thirteen other species with space-travel capabilities. There used to be more, but Maada and Mushgaana killed off a bunch of them.”

“Exposition much?” I asked him.

Tarq ignored me. “One of these species was called the Latoors. Their planet suddenly went dark a few days ago. When we sent a ship to investigate, we found out they were gone. An asteroid had hit their planet.”

I frowned. “Is that even possible?”

“It should not have been,” said Tarq. “They had a huge fleet. They should not have had any problems vaporizing an approaching asteroid, and if they had, they could have simply asked for help from us. More worryingly, when our ship scanned the area, they found evidence of what looked like a battle. Debris left from destroyed ships and energy weapon signature, but surprisingly, only from the Latoors. We do not have a clue as to what has happened.”

“We can safely conclude that the enemy fleet, if there indeed was one, was frighteningly strong,” added Barook. “The Latoors had more than twenty thousand ships, and they were completely wiped out.”

I could feel the onset of a headache. “Wait a minute. You are telling us there’s an unknown enemy out there, one that doesn’t even try to occupy and colonize other planets but drops freaking asteroids on them?”

“It is a possibility,” said Tarq.

Kurt and Oksana exchanged a worried look.

This is just great.

“Why are you so calm?” asked Venom. “It sounds like the perfect time to panic.”

It probably was, but this new threat felt kind of abstract, while the danger the Xortaags posed was very real and immediate, and crying over a dead species made no sense while our own people faced extinction. I decided I needed some time to wrap my mind around the story Tarq had told us—after we dealt with Maada, hopefully once and for all. Or at least until another clone of him showed up.

“And I thought the Xortaags were bad,” said Oksana.

“Have you noticed we’ve become desensitized towards this sort of thing?” Ella asked. “We just heard a whole planet was destroyed, and our reaction is meh. There was a time I’d cry if I heard an animal species went extinct on Earth or the rainforest was on fire.”

“For one thing, we might all get killed in a few days—”

“Three days, to be exact.” Tarq, ever so helpful, interrupted me. “We will reach Kanoor in three days.”

“So from our perspective, this is a moot point,” I continued, “and for another, we’ve blown up a plant ourselves. That sort of thing is bound to harden your heart.”

“You’re going to throw that in our faces for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?” asked Kurt with a pinched expression.

I winked at him. “You can count on it.”

“Let me emphasize that we are just guessing,” said Tarq. “There is no species in the galaxy with the capability of doing something like this. If there were, we would have already known about them. Moreover, why would anyone go through the trouble of destroying a planet at the edge of the galaxy that offers no strategic benefit at all?”

“For all we know, this could be some sort of natural disaster,” added Barook. “Or maybe a collective suicide. It is not unprecedented, and at least this theory explains why all communications from Mantux suddenly stopped and there were energy signatures and debris only from the Latoor ships.”

“Are you saying all the Latoors decided to go ahead and kill themselves?” Kurt asked incredulously.

“It makes about as much sense as a military attack,” Barook responded.

I couldn’t decide which one was scarier: a natural disaster that destroyed a whole planet, an unknown and invisible enemy fleet no one had heard of, or a planet-wide suicide pact.

“It could even have been a man-made disaster,” said Tarq. “Maybe a scientific experience had gone wrong. Or a publicity stunt. Maybe some mad scientist decided to divert an asteroid towards the plant in order to destroy it later and become a hero in the eyes of his people. We simply have no logical explanation for what has happened.”

Oksana shrugged. “Let’s focus on the operation at hand. If we survive this, we can investigate this new situation later.”

“Speaking of which, have you chosen a name for the operation?” I asked Tarq. “And, for the love of God, don’t call it Operation Free Kanoor.”

Tarq grinned and rubbed his hands together. “No, I have the perfect name for this one: Operation Endgame.”

Kurt chuckled.

I gave Tarq a sideways look.

“You got it?” he asked. “Because the game ends if we fail here. The Xortaags will enslave the whole galaxy and nothing can be done about it.”

I rubbed my temples. “Yeah, we got it. Trust me.”

After the meeting, and while everyone else was leaving the briefing room, Ella asked me, “Can I please have a word?”

“By all means. What’s on your mind?”

“Given that the Xortaag fleet has four thousand more ships than ours, and Invincible is equipped with a powerful array of heavy weaponry, I request that we join the battle.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to need Invincible’s CIC to coordinate our attack. Plus, you know starships are very vulnerable to Xortaag space fighters. They obliterated Akakie starships more or less with ease.”

“Akakie starships.” She held up her chin. “With Akakie crew. Invincible is part of Earth fleet with a human crew. Apples and oranges. We’ve run simulations, and I’m positive we can hold our own and cause some damage. As for coordinating the attack, the Akakies can do it from one of their starships.”

“She’s so confident,” said Venom, “for such a small person.”

I was impressed too. Ella had just volunteered to go toe-to-toe with the Xortaag fleet. That took guts. And it was kind of hot.

“Dude,” said Venom, “she’s an officer under your command. Don’t be so unprofessional.”

I trusted Ella’s judgment. She knew more about running a starship than I did. Still, I couldn’t put her ship and crew on the frontline without due consideration. “Let me have a look at the simulations, and I’ll let you know.”

She nodded and stood up to leave. “Oh, I almost forgot. We have a new ensign on the bridge, and she asked me to say hello to you. Her name is Lilly Johnson.”

“Lilly’s here? How did she pull that off?”

“Apparently, her father was a friend of Tarq’s. There was also mention of her cashing in on the fact that her father had saved humanity.”

“OK, but a word of advice. Watch over that girl. If anything happens to her, you’ll have a pissed-off Canadian ghost to deal with.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She hesitated for a second and then added, “And, Jim? Be careful out there.”

I grinned. “Captain Wood, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re worried about me.”

“Hardly,” she said. “But you’re the commander of the fleet. It’ll be a terrible blow to my crew’s morale if you get yourself killed.”

“Nah,” I said, “this is personal. I always knew you’d warm up to me.”

She sighed heavily, so theatrically that for a moment I thought I was talking to Tarq. “One day, you must tell me why you’re like this.”

“By ‘this’ I assume you mean awesome,” I said. “When this is over, you and I can get a drink, and I’ll tell you all about the Kingslayer.”

*****

Mushgaana, sitting in his new office in Kanoor’s presidential palace, sent a telepathic message to his brother. Polvaar, can you come and see me for a minute?

“What do you want?” answered Polvaar. “You can tell me now.”

Face-to-face, if you please.

Being a prince, Mushgaana was no stranger to luxury, but the presidential palace here was something else. It looked as if everything was covered with gold. It was amazing how rich this planet was, and not only on financial terms. The Xortaag scientists were astonished at the wealth of science and technology they had already found on Kanoor, and they had not even scratched the surface yet. He should have come here instead of attacking Earth, as he had originally planned. He wondered what had compelled him to change his mind. That one lapse in judgment had cost them dearly.

Mushgaana smiled when he remembered how furious Maada was when he found out they were going to invade Earth instead of Kanoor. He should have listened to the general. How many times had he proved to have better judgment?

It was a shame his little scheme to control Earth’s new president had failed. According to the reports he had received, it had initially worked, but the Kingslayer had interfered again. That man had been a thorn in their side for a long time now. Mushgaana decided he had to do something about it once they were done here.

He heard Polvaar’s “voice” in his mind before his brother walked through the door. “You wanted to see me?”

Yes, thought Mushgaana. Would you please take a seat?

Polvaar sat down, watching him closely.

It has come to my attention that you challenged General Maada during our attack on Kanoor. I advise you to make sure this never happens again. The general does not tolerate insubordination.

Polvaar did not answer. He just sat there and stared. His intense eye contact was beginning to unnerve Mushgaana.

I also wanted to congratulate you on both the courage and the skill you showed during the battle, continued Mushgaana.

That comment seemed to have surprised Polvaar. He nodded but still said nothing.

Here is the thing: I harbor no ill will towards you and the rest of my brothers. On the contrary, I grew up looking up to you guys. You were my heroes. And I honestly think I have done nothing to deserve the animosity you show me. What do you say we put our differences aside and join hands in guiding the Xortaag kingdom to glorious victory?

Polvaar did not hesitate for even a moment. He stood and looked down at Mushgaana. “I will think about it.” Then he turned and left the room.

Mushgaana’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed sadly. In Polvaar’s eyes, he had seen what had always been there: contempt, because Mushgaana was much shorter and smaller than his brothers, and hatred, because despite his physical disadvantages, he had achieved glory on a level they could only dream of. There was no overcoming the animosity his brothers had built up for decades.

Well, you will always have the general.

His PDD buzzed. It was Maada. The crown prince reached out with his mind and found the general’s. Speak of the devil.

“What?”

An English expression I picked up on Earth. How can I help you, General?

“We are ready here.”

Is this really necessary? Do you think the humans have any chance of getting Kanoor back?

“A few months ago I would have laughed at the idea,” said Maada. “But we still do not know how they defeated us on Earth, and nobody on Kanoor seems to know either. I think having a contingency plan is prudent.”

I hope you are wrong. Please convey my regards to the commander of the convoy and send them.

“I will, Your Highness.”

*****

“A toast,” I said.

We’d gathered in the mess to do our traditional last-dinner-tomorrow-we-will-dine-in-hell routine. Tarq and Barook had joined us too, and for the first time in history, a Xortaag.

Plus someone new.

Kurt had entered the mess accompanied by a thin, pretty brunette whom he’d introduced as Patricia. She wore an engineer’s blue uniform and said her shift had just ended. She looked like a kind woman (I was a really good judge of character, especially when it came to women), which was probably exactly what Kurt needed.

“I can’t drink,” said Xornaa. “It messes with my abilities, and I need to be super sharp tomorrow.”

“So you aren’t perfect, after all,” said Oksana.

Xornaa gave her a questioning look.

I raised my glass. “To saving the galaxy. Again.”

“And hopefully for the last time,” added Kurt.

“First time for me,” said Patricia, patting Kurt’s arm.

I gulped down my drink. “I doubt it, because apparently the Xortaags can simply clone Maada and send him back.”

“Here is a thought,” said Oksana. “Why don’t they make a thousand clones of him? Can you imagine a fleet of Maada pilots?”

I shuddered at the image.

Xornaa pointedly cleared her throat. “I’ll share a secret with you if you don’t ask me how I know.”

We all looked at her.

She continued, “They can’t make any more clones of him. They’d found the cloning machine on another planet, and they somehow broke it. Or it ran out of energy or raw material or whatever.”

In a way, this was bad news. I was secretly hoping we could raid Tangaar, steal their cloning machine and use it to bring Liz back.

“So how do you know?” I asked Xornaa.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m a spy. I still have sources on Tangaar.”

“So if we kill him, he stays dead?” I asked. “Great. Let’s kill him properly this time.”

“At any rate, a decisive victory tomorrow means we will not hear from the Xortaags for a while,” said Tarq. “They cannot possibly have more than a few thousand ships left to defend their home planet. If we finally manage to unite the rest of the galaxy, we might even be able to invade Tangaar and put an end to this, once and for all.”

“Any chance of that happening?” asked Kurt.

“After everything that has happened, people still think if they stay out of the Xortaags’ way, they will be safe,” Tarq scoffed. “That said, the story I told you about the Latoors has freaked out everyone, and for the first time ever, there is serious talk of an alliance against that unknown enemy, if in fact there is one.”

“Any clue who the enemy actually is?” I asked.

Tarq looked at Barook, who answered, “No. Nothing. No energy signatures. No debris. It is like they appeared out of nowhere, destroyed a whole planet with magic, and disappeared.”

“Aliens who can do magic.” I shook my head. “Exactly what we needed.”

“Assuming it was not a natural disaster,” added Barook.

“I take it you have chosen your team?” Tarq asked Kurt.

“Besides us, only two more Marines. You know them: Juan Martinez and Li Xing. They were with me in Operation Royalty.”

“You should’ve invited them,” I said.

“I did. They both said they’re professionals and they wouldn’t drink the night before a mission.”

I poured myself another drink. “Are you insinuating that I’m not professional?”

Kurt burst into laughter; then he gave me a guilty look and said, “Oh, you were being serious?”

*****

Maada stormed into the Xortaag command center in Kanoor’s presidential palace. Mushgaana was there already. The prince pointed at the main screen. “This is the combined human-Akakie fleet which was on Earth’s orbit. Fourteen thousand ships in total.”

“We knew they would come,” growled the general. “Hence, our contingency plan.”

“And look who is here.” Mushgaana nodded to an officer. The image on the screen, showing the triangular-shaped enemy ships, was enhanced until Maada could see a golden Viper in front of the enemy fleet.

Maada’s nostrils flared, and he felt his nails biting into his palms. He had never imagined he would meet his own killer, but now that he had, all he could think about was tearing Colonel Jim Harrison apart with his teeth. But first, he would find out how that loser had managed to beat him in the first place.

Mushgaana looked at him closely. “Something tells me you will get the chance, General.”

Get the hell out of my head!

Maada took a deep breath and tried to keep his anger under control. He needed to keep a clear head to deal with the task ahead. Anger would lead to rash decisions, and rash decisions would get his people killed.

Is that how I died? I made a bad decision in a moment of anger and got myself killed? He really needed to know.

“Why are they just standing there though?” asked the prince. “Could it be some sort of a trap?”

“Let us not make them wait,” said Maada through clenched teeth.

*****

Operation Endgame started at 10:00 ship time.

After we made the final jump, I looked at the azure planet seven thousand miles in front of me, with its bright red sun and six moons, and wondered what the hell I was doing here. A couple of years ago, I was an ace fighter. I used to go where the government sent me and satiate my adrenaline addiction by merrily shooting down a few enemy planes from time to time. Life was simple. I was doing what I loved, and everything was more or less black or white. Now I was in space, and I was about to lead the fourteen-thousand-strong fleet under my command into battle over the fifth planet occupied by the Xortaags. My actions and decisions would have repercussions for planets or species, or, hell, the entire galaxy. And yes, I was directly responsible for millions of deaths. Angel of Death, that was me, and there was no end in sight. How many more people did I have to kill before this was all over?

And all these were on top of the three battles over Earth, where sixty percent of the pilots under my command had perished. I’d happily give everything I had plus half my life to ensure all my people came back from this one alive. But when I saw the Xortaag fleet getting off the planet, eighteen thousand Deathbringers led by frakking General Maada, I realized how impossible that was. My usual OCD-induced worst-case-scenario thoughts circled around in my mind, and I wondered how many of my people I’d get killed this time.

I took a deep breath and opened a channel to the fleet; then I hesitated. I’d prepared a speech that would impress John F. Kennedy, like what I’d tried to do before the battles on Earth, but now it somehow sounded wrong. Back then, my priority was winning. That, and destroying as many enemy ships as I could. I guessed I’d changed. I still loved dogfights and shooting down bandits (especially those damned Deathbringers), and flying into battle, laser cannons blazing, had always counted as one of the best pleasures life had to offer, but having to worry about the people under my command had taken away some joy from that experience. I wished I could face the enemy ships by myself.  The Golden Viper fighting the whole Xortaag fleet, now that would’ve been something special.

“Guys, watch each other’s back,” I said solemnly. “If someone has an enemy ship on their six, I want two people to go save them. Everyone comes home, if we have something to say about it.”

Do me a favor and don’t die. I have enough death on my conscience.

“Good luck,” I added.

Maybe one day, I’d be able to bring everyone back alive, but with the Crimson Deathbringer flying towards us, I didn’t think it’d be today.

*****

“And here we are, going into the belly of the beast,” said Kurt as Xornaa drove an Akakie vehicle—a hover car, using some sort of repulsion technology—towards Kanoor’s presidential palace. She wore a Xortaag uniform, while the rest of the assault team were under Akakie-looking holograms, with four feet, antennae, those horrifying teeth, and all.

Kanoor’s radiant beauty had astonished Kurt. The sun shone brilliantly, and the air had a permanent rainbow swirl. There was an ocean on their right side, with blue waves crashing along pristine shores. And everything smelled fresh, with no sign of pollution. The Akakies knew how to take care of their planet. Minus the part that they gave it up so easily to the Xortaags.

Maybe I can retire here one day, he thought. And the lower gravity on this planet probably means a longer life expectancy to boot.

Kurt wondered what would happen to this beautiful planet if his team failed today. Probably the same thing that happened to all the other Xortaag-occupied planets: the invaders would kill all the local population and eventually use up the planet’s natural resources. In the long run, Kanoor would turn into another Tangaar—an over-populated, polluted planet. Protecting the environment wasn’t the Xortaags’ forte.

If Operation Endgame failed, he wouldn’t be alive to see that. Neither would Jim, Oksana, Tarq, and the rest of his friends. He shuddered and pushed that thought away. Worrying about failing in a mission that was already under way was useless.

“I miss the days I used to fight the bad guys looking like myself,” said Juan, who used to be a police officer before joining the resistance, under his Akakie hologram.

Kurt wondered if by “bad guys” Juan was referring to the criminals he had to face when he was a cop or the SCTU soldiers.

“I had to look like a freaking Xortaag during some of our missions on Earth, and now this.” Juan pointed to his Akakie appearance. His antennae stood straight, which Kurt knew signaled indignation, among other things.

“I’m not complaining,” said Li. “I had to turn into a white dude during those missions. This feels much better.”

Kurt gave him a hard look.

Tarq smiled, which for an Akakie meant showing rows of teeth, and looked at Kurt with his four huge insectoid eyes, moving his antennae in amusement. “You have to admit this is an improvement to your normal looks.”

“I prefer this to those freaking unibrows too,” said Oksana.

“You people’s lack of professionalism is astounding,” said Xornaa, eyes on the road. “I expected this from the Akakies, but I thought you humans were more disciplined.”

“It’s a defense mechanism,” Kurt told her. “We crack jokes to fight off stress.”

“Why are you under stress?” asked Xornaa.

“Who’s cracking wise now?” asked Kurt.

“I’m serious. We’re here to do a mission. It’s dangerous, but being under stress doesn’t help in any way.”

“Well, some of us humans actually have emotions,” Oksana answered smugly.

“You guys are married?” Tarq asked Juan and Li. They both nodded.

“Kids?”

“One,” said Li.

“Five,” said Juan proudly.

“Wow! Five children,” said Tarq. “How do they deal with the fact that their father is off to space for months at a time?”

Juan grinned. “Are you kidding? They love it. I’m their hero. They brag about me to their friends. ‘Our father is a Marine. Our father killed the Xortaags. Our father saved all of us.’ ”

“How about you?” Li asked Tarq. “Any kids?”

Kurt loudly cleared his throat.

“Well, I started it.” Tarq shrugged. “I had a daughter, but Maada killed her.”

Juan put a hand on the insect’s shoulder. “So sorry, man.”

“I have a granddaughter. Her name is Varma, and she is super cute.”

Cute! thought Kurt. Yeah, right.

“Enough chit-chat,” said Xornaa. “We’ve arrived. It’s time to get serious.”

The vehicle stopped in front of the palace gate, guarded by several armed Xortaags. An officer approached the driver side.

“Guys, brace yourselves. Full slut mode in three, two, one,” said Xornaa.

Kurt wasn’t even looking at the woman; still, the sudden rush of testosterone was disorienting. He heard Tarq whisper, “Thank God for sexual-urge suppression pills.”

“You have those?” Oksana asked with anger in her voice. “Couldn’t you give a few to the rest of us?”

“And miss the opportunity to see you squirm like this? Prankster here,” said Tarq.

Oksana took out her STG-666 assault rifle from underneath the hologram and showed it to Tarq. “I’ve killed at least a hundred aliens with this. I want you to remember that the next time you think about messing with me.”

Tarq winked at her. “Will do.”

The officer stood by the vehicle, looked inside, and gaped. Xornaa lightly touched his arm. “I have six Akakies here to do a repair job. Can you please let us in? Also, be a sweetheart and forget you saw us.”

The officer stepped away from the vehicle and gestured to the rest of the guards to open the gate. They gave him a surprised look but obeyed without asking questions. Xornaa smiled sweetly at the officer and drove the car through the gate.

Kurt said, “If Jim were here—”

Oksana interrupted him. “He’d make a Star Wars reference. We know.”

“Star Wars had a sexy female alien who could manipulate people by touching then?” Juan sounded confused.

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” Kurt told him.

Juan chuckled. “Classic.”

“Can you guys please focus on the mission?” said Xornaa.

Kurt scanned the area. He was completely familiar with the palace layout, having spent hours studying its 3D maps. The placed buzzed with activity. He saw hundreds of soldiers, dozens of Akakie slaves, and many ground vehicles. There were also a few Deathbringers, which were landed in an open area. This would make things more complicated.

The palace itself was high upon a hill overlooking the surrounding area. Its architecture wasn’t like anything Kurt had seen before. It looked very exotic, with several gold-domed towers and delicately detailed pillars. Except for the towers, everything was painted a dazzling white.

“This talent of yours is both fascinating and terrifying at the same time,” Kurt told Xornaa.

“Turn it off,” growled Oksana, breathing faster than usual.

Xornaa looked over her shoulder. “What’s the magic word?”

The Ukrainian girl pushed the barrel of her assault rifle into the back of the driver seat. “Turn it off, please.”

Kurt heaved a sigh of relief when Xornaa stopped the “full slut mode”.

“While we were waiting for you to gather your forces, I arranged for Xornaa to participate in a beauty pageant on Earth, just for the fun of it,” said Tarq. “I wish you could see the look on the judges’ faces. A few older guys had heart attacks when she showed up in a bikini during the swimsuit competition.”

“I won, obviously,” the alien woman said proudly.

She stopped the car at an intersection, waiting for a few other vehicles to pass. Nobody paid them much attention. Even though Kurt had infiltrated several Xortaag bases on four different planets—including the bugging operations back on Earth—his heart still beat faster every time an enemy soldier took a glimpse at them.

“With the whole galaxy at risk, and while we were getting ready for a battle that would determine the fate of our species, you went dirtside to participate in a beauty pageant?” He gave her a sideways look. “And you call us unprofessional?”

“You know Tarq never wastes an opportunity to pull a prank, the end of the world or not. I go where he says and do what he asks me to do. He asks me to jump, and all I ask is ‘how high’? ” Xornaa looked pointedly at the Akakie through the rearview mirror. “Even now that I know how he really looks.”

Tarq chuckled. “Sorry about the whole monster thing. I just could not resist.”

“You never can, can you?” asked Xornaa, turning the car to the left.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Oksana told Xornaa, “why are you so afraid of Tarq?”

“If you aren’t, you’re more stupid than you look,” said Xornaa.

Oksana was beginning to raise her assault rifle again when Kurt, looking at his PDD, announced, “We’ve arrived.”

“Thank heavens,” said Li, “because I couldn’t tolerate any more of this bickering.”

The hover car stopped. They were getting off when Xornaa suddenly turned to Juan. “Your brainwave emitter has just stopped working.”

Tarq paled. “Are you certain?”

Xornaa gave him an angry look. “Stop asking stupid questions and do something.”

“We can’t do anything about it here in the open. Hurry up.” Kurt walked briskly towards a rectangular metal hatch next to the car, opened it, and went down the ladder that appeared. The rest of the team followed him one by one. He ended up in an underground tunnel lit with fluorescent lights.

Juan was next to last, followed by Tarq, who jumped down the last few rungs and told him, “Give me your headband.”

Juan removed the headband from under his hologram and gave it to Tarq. The Akakie examined it. “It is malfunctioning. It will take me a minute to fix it.”

“Let’s hope Mushgaana doesn’t look our way during that minute,” murmured Kurt.

The seconds dragged slowly, with Kurt half expecting the hatch to open and the enemy soldiers to pour in. He looked at Xornaa when Tarq gave the headband back to Juan.

She shook her head. “We got away with it. Our presence hasn’t been noticed.”

Kurt released the breath he was holding. “OK guys. Hurry up. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

*****

Standing in the command center, Mushgaana stared at the enemy fleet and wondered what the hell was going on. Why would the enemy come all the way just to stay in orbit? This was strange. The only possible reason was to lure the fleet away from the planet, but why?

He asked an officer sitting next to him, “Anything?”

“No, Your Highness,” the officer answered. “We are closely watching the Akakies. Nothing is happening.”

Mushgaana shook his head and looked back at the screen showing the fleet movement. Something was up. He could feel it. But what? He closed his eyes and expanded his senses, seeking something out of the ordinary. Nothing. All the guards were at their posts. The Akakie slaves who were forced to work in the palace showed no signs of planning to fight. Everything was normal.

Although …

There was a small group moving in some sort of a tunnel under the palace. Six Akakies and a Xortaag. Nothing unusual about that. There were Akakie slaves all over the palace. What got his attention was that there was only one Xortaag supervising them. In the absence of Voice of God, security protocol demanded Xortaags work in pairs or groups so that no one was surprised by an attack.

Mushgaana reached for the mind of the Xortaag soldier accompanying the group. It was a woman, thinking about her boring guard duties. He was about to look away when he suddenly realized he knew the woman.

A few weeks after the battle on Alora, Polvaar, who was well aware of Mushgaana’s infatuation with beautiful women, had suggested that he should meet a Xortaag courtesan. There was no love lost between the two brothers, so his suggestion took Mushgaana by surprise, but Polvaar insisted the woman’s skills were legendary. Mushgaana decided to see for himself. His brother was right. He did have a fascinating evening, even though now that he thought about it, his memories of that night were hazy. What was she doing here on Kanoor? He looked inside her mind and saw nothing that suggested she used to be a prostitute, but he was certain it was the same woman.

And then he remembered something else. It was the next day that he changed his plans and decided to attack Earth instead of Kanoor. A decision that ended in disaster and, in retrospect, was clearly a wrong one.

What a coincidence.

Mushgaana turned his attention to the Akakies and found another anomaly. Four of the six had the exact same thought patterns, which was impossible. He focused all his abilities on one of them, pushed and probed, trying to make sense of what he was witnessing.

And he found a human mind under the Akakie brain patterns.

Mushgaana’s eyes bulged, and he barely suppressed a primal scream. There were humans in the palace! This only meant one thing: he’d been right all along. The enemy fleet was a diversion; the real battle was about to happen on the planet.

He thought about asking Maada to bring the fleet back, but what would he tell him? “Come back because I have found four humans here?”

He ran out of the command center, sending mental messages to the soldiers in the palace. The enemy was here, but they would soon find out that leaving would not be so easy.

*****

I heard Maada’s voice in my ears as soon as the Xortaag fleet reached Kanoor’s upper atmosphere. “Colonel Harrison. We meet again, so to speak.”

“We must stop running into each other like this,” I answered. “Third time already. People will gossip.”

“Requesting visual communication.”

I touched a VR screen in front of me and Maada’s face appeared. He looked different from what I remembered from his photos. His beard wasn’t as bushy, his hair was shorter, and there was something about the scars on his face I couldn’t put my finger on. And he looked younger.

“He was born yesterday,” said Venom, “or at least very recently.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot remember our second encounter,” said Maada.

“Yeah, I forgot. You’re a clone now. So how does it work? How much do you remember?”

“Everything until two weeks after our first battle.”

“When you killed my wife, you mean.”

The general looked perturbed for a brief second. “Well, you killed me, so I dare say we are even on that particular score.”

Blood rushed to my brain. I raised my voice, “No, we aren’t, you idiot. You died instantly. I suffered unspeakable agony for weeks after you killed her.”

The galaxy-conquering, genocidal maniac in front of me looked genuinely regretful. “For what it is worth, and I know it is not worth much, I am sorry about your wife. I have lost brothers and sisters, a lot of whom were killed by you and your people, I might add, and I know how much it hurts. Believe me when I say it was not personal. Who was she?”

“The pilot of the light blue Viper that attacked you first.”

Maada smiled sadly. “Brave woman. I am more used to people running away from me than trying to attack me, and she did it twice. If it is any consolation, she fought valiantly and died well.”

He was a lot chattier than I remembered. “It isn’t,” I said. “Not even a little.”

“It seems I have paid for it. How did you do it? I seem to remember I easily beat you the first time we met.”

I looked at my tactical display and examined his fleet, wondering if he was stalling, trying to set up a trap or something. Nothing. No movement at all. The Xortaag fleet just hovered there in space, waiting. Maybe he was genuinely looking for some answers. Weren’t we all?

This right here was what we needed to do: we had to talk and find common ground. Otherwise, we’d keep killing each other for eternity. Then, all of a sudden, a light bulb went on in my head. A plan which would allow us to end the Xortaag threat once and for all began to form. It was rather complicated, and I needed time to think about it, so I shelved it for later on. I’d have a lot of thinking to do if I survived this.

“So, how did you kill me?” Maada asked again. Not knowing how he’d died must’ve really bugged him.

I thought about lying. I could brag, telling him I’d single-handedly kicked his ass because I was the best ace pilot in the galaxy. I could even say he broke and asked for mercy at the end, and I ignored him and made a snappy comment before coolly finishing him off.

I sighed. I couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t have done that to me. To make things worse, I suddenly had the weirdest epiphany. Looking at Maada, I realized, to my immense surprise, that despite everything I’d told myself these last few months, I didn’t hate him. I didn’t even feel righteous fury. He was just a soldier doing his job, serving his people and protecting those under his command. Of all people, I could identify with that.

“He killed Liz!” Venom protested.

Still a soldier doing his job. How many Xortaags had I killed? They all had loved ones too. Husbands and wives. Parents. Hell, children, whom I’d orphaned. Plus, it wasn’t really this man who had taken Liz’s life—that Maada had been vaporized in his Deathbringer when Keiko hit him. This one was born a few weeks ago in a lab, presumably somewhere on Tangaar.

“Maybe we focus on not letting him kill us right now, and leave this fascinating philosophical argument for later?” asked Venom. He could be a very smart parasite, sometimes.

“I’m always smarter than you, which to be honest doesn’t say much,” he said. “And call me a parasite one more time. I dare you. I double-dare you, melon farmer.”

I ignored him and told Maada, “I got very, very lucky, and a friend of mine had to sacrifice her life too.”

“Let me guess: the pilot of the dark green space fighter?”

I nodded.

“I had a feeling she had something to do with it. Didn’t know it was a woman though. So, a life for a life.”

Heat flushed through my body as my anger flared again. “Were you not listening? She died. You’re still alive.”

“You just said—” Venom started to say something.

Oh, shut up!

“So are you, even though you killed me and who knows how many of my people.”

“Nobody said life was fair.”

He smiled wolfishly. “We need to balance the scale.”

“What do you mean?”

“I paid for your wife’s death, but you didn’t pay for mine. Also, I used to be the scariest killer in the galaxy until you showed up. I would very much like to restore my reputation. I suggest a duel, you and me, man to man, while both fleets watch, to determine who the better man is.”

I suddenly realized his idea would play right into my hands. If I could keep him occupied long enough for Kurt and his team to do their thing, and for the Akakies to get their planet back, we’d have a huge advantage. The Xortaags would lose heart if they had nowhere to go, and some of them might’ve surrendered.

And if on top of that I killed Maada there and then …

Everyone goes home alive.

Today was my lucky day.

“Have you lost your mind? You’re going to die!” exclaimed Venom. “You, Josef, and Peter together couldn’t beat him the last time, and he was flying one of those old Deathbringers. He’ll incinerate your Viper in under five minutes, and me with it.”

I murmured, “With Cordelia here, I like my chances. What do you think, Cordi?”

I could hear the contempt in her voice. “I’m ten times better than whatever onboard computer he has. Let’s go kill the son of a bitch.”

“I see no need to prove that I’m the better man, given that I’ve already killed you once,” I told Maada. “But I believe there’s no reason not to do it again. Ready when you are, General.”

“At least you’re back to your old self, buddy,” said Venom. “For a few minutes there, you were behaving like a total wuss.”

My body started tingling all over, and I felt as if every nerve in my brain was electrified. I should probably have been worried; instead, tangible anticipation overcame me. I figured this was how a superhero felt when they faced their arch-nemesis for a final showdown.

I can totally do this.

“The Golden Viper versus the Crimson Deathbringer, round two,” I said. “If I survive, I’ll write a book about it.”

*****

Kurt was following Tarq through the catacombs when he heard Xornaa say “shit” from behind.

He stopped and turned back. “What’s wrong?”

“The Xortaags have found us,” she said. “They’re pouring into the catacombs, hundreds of them!”

“Run!” shouted Tarq. He started running on his four feet, followed by Barook.

Kurt’s heartbeat went up, but not much. “It seems like we’re Marines again.” He turned off his hologram.

“Gracias a Dios,” said Juan as he followed suit. “I didn’t like how this looks at all.” He wore full tactical gear and body armor, like the rest of the team.

Xornaa looked like she was trying to hear something; then all blood drained from her face. “A group has just entered the catacombs right behind us, and Mushgaana is with them.”

They ran after the two Akakies.

“Is he really your father?” Kurt asked Xornaa.

Li and Juan shouted together, “What?”

“Yes, and I happily offer a reward to whoever kills his ass today,” said the Xortaag woman with a tight expression.

“I’ll do it for free,” said Oksana.

“Almost there,” said Tarq, panting. “The controls are in a chamber at the end of this tunnel.”

“Any other entrances?” asked Kurt.

“No, only from here.”

Kurt looked around. A little bit further ahead, there were four alcoves in the tunnel, two on each side. “This looks like a good chokepoint,” he said. “How much time do you need to start MFM?”

“Only a few minutes,” said Tarq.

“Mushgaana’s group is getting closer,” cautioned Xornaa.

“Oksana, Li, Juan, stay here and defend this position. Xornaa and I will escort these two to the MFM controls, and once it starts working, we’ll come back to help you. Just buy us a few minutes.”

Oksana smiled confidently. “In such a narrow tunnel, and with assault rifles and military rounds, we aren’t going to need your help. We can hold an army here indefinitely, or at least until we run out of ammo. I bet we won’t even need to use our grenades.”

“If everything goes as planned, the Akakies will attack the Xortaags very soon, so we won’t run out of bullets,” said Kurt. “Still, don’t get cocky on me. I have a hard time tolerating Jim as it is.”

Oksana held her chin up. “The righteous should choose his friends carefully.”

“Hold the fort until I come back,” Kurt answered; then he started running towards the end of the corridor.

*****

The sound of gunshots told Mushgaana his men had caught up with the intruders. A minute later, he found several Xortaags who had taken cover behind the wall in an intersection and were shooting inside a narrow corridor. Four soldiers were already down—two of them dead, the other two receiving medical attention from their comrades. There were probably more bodies in the corridor, outside his line of sight.

He stopped before the intersection and focused his senses. There were three shooters armed with automatic weapons. Nobody was going to pass through this corridor any time soon, but he had to find the other four before they did whatever they were here to do. He tried to kill one of the enemy soldiers by melting his brain inside his skull but could not. In fact, he was not able to control them at all. This was surely because of the Akakies and their damned machines. If he really focused, he could sense their thoughts, but even then he could not get anything vivid, just vague feelings about their desire to hurt his people. He did not need to read thoughts to understand that.

A memory came back to him. Back on Earth, when that trapped human wanted to kill himself, Mushgaana had managed to stop his arm from moving. He was outside his mansion and far away from the man who was on the first floor, but now he was only a few feet away from the enemy soldiers. It was certainly worth a try. He leaned on the wall, closed his eyes, focused, and went for the first human’s mind.

An excruciating headache attacked him, and blood started trickling from his nose. He did not give up and kept pushing, doing his best to get past his target’s mental defenses.

And then he succeeded.

*****

Oksana carefully aimed her suppressed STG-666, pulled the trigger, and shot a Xortaag in the head. The enemy soldier was thrown backward, dark purple blood spraying from his fatal wound.

Eat lead, alien.

The Xortaags had killed Matias. It was because of them that Anastasiya took her own life. The image of her sister’s dead body dangling from a rope sprang to Oksana’s mind, and she shuddered. The Xortaags had taken everything from her. She would happily kill a million of them, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

From the alcove opposite her, Juan fired his weapon a few times and took cover inside just when the enemy returned fire. He grinned at Oksana. “This reminds me of the time we were surrounded by the Xortaags in SH-1.”

Oksana slammed a fresh mag into her gun and gave him an angry look. “When most of our team died?”

“We survived,” Juan said defensively. Moving fast, he raised his gun, pushed his upper body out of the alcove, and started to shoot. He fired his gun three times; then he stopped shooting. He just stood there, completely motionless, while energy bolts ripped into the wall, the floor, and his armor.

Oksana’s blood turned to ice in her veins. “What’re you doing?” she shouted.

The gun fell from Juan’s hands. “I can’t move!” It looked like his body was fighting an invisible force. He put his hand on the wall and tried to pull himself in, but he barely managed to move a few inches.

Oksana let go of her assault rifle and was about to run toward Juan and push him to safety when he was shot squarely in the face. The Marine’s head snapped back, his body fell to the ground, and he twitched a few times in death.

Oksana gasped, and a sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead. What had just happened was impossible. Then she remembered Mushgaana had telepathic powers. She felt her breath catch and her heart race. They were worried he might find them, but she’d never thought he had the power to turn them into puppets whose strings were cut. She thought feverishly, trying to find a defense against this threat, but she drew a complete blank. What defense was there against black magic?

Oksana heard Li whisper her name from behind. She turned to find him standing motionless next to the alcove he was taking cover in, eyes wide in unspeakable horror, completely exposed to enemy fire. Energy bolt after energy bolt tore into him. His armor gave in. He fell, smoke emanating from a huge cavity in his chest, eyes staring upwards. The smell of burnt flesh and the sight of her friend’s mangled body made Oksana’s stomach turn, and she barely managed to keep her breakfast down.

Now it’s my turn, she thought, feeling a knife slowly twisting in her gut.

Despair swept her away like a raging river. There was a hollowness in her chest, as if her heart had been cut out. She didn’t want to die like this. Trapped. Unable to fight. Helpless, like a broken doll. She wanted to go down fighting, taking as many of the Xortaags as she could with her. She hadn’t come all the way across the galaxy just to die here in this freaking tunnel like a wounded animal.

Fear spread through her body like icy, liquid metal. She clenched her fist impotently, lower lip trembling. She had to crunch her teeth over her lip to stop herself from screaming in pain and rage. How could she fight a power she couldn’t begin to comprehend and, until a minute ago, didn’t even know existed? She’d stood against Russian Mafia, SCTU goons, and alien invaders, and survived. But how was she supposed to confront a freaking telepath?

There was nothing she could do. An invisible monster was coming to get her, and she had nowhere to hide. Her breathing became deep and shallow, her mind started to fail, and for the first time in her life, Oksana gave up all hope.

Not like this. Dear God, not like this.

*****

Mushgaana felt his head was about to split open. He stopped and took a breather. Two of the humans were down anyway, and only one was left. A soldier gave him a piece of cloth. He took it and wiped the blood from his nose.

“Don’t shoot,” a woman shouted. “I surrender!”

The prince scoffed. “Why would I accept your surrender when I can send you to meet your other friends in a minute?”

“Because I can tell you what the Akakies are planning,” said the woman.

This was interesting. Moreover, if the woman surrendered, it would save him from his headache and nosebleed.

“Do not move, and do not struggle. What is that English expression?” He added in English, “Freeze.”

He reached out and found the woman’s mind. She offered no resistance. Not that she could do anything if she wanted to. He looked into her mind, and all he found was desperation. He could not read any specific thoughts, but it was clear that his human had completely given up on life and was ready to die. He took control of her body and stopped her from moving, just in case. She did not even struggle.

How did these weak pathetic creatures manage to kill me on Earth?

Mushgaana stepped into the corridor and walked towards the alcove where the woman was hiding. His soldiers followed him, weapons at the ready. An unnecessary precaution. Two of the humans were dead, the third was completely paralyzed, and the rest of the enemy soldiers were far away at the end of the tunnel. When he reached the opening in the wall, he saw the woman for the first time. She was tall and blonde, standing there with her hands raised above her head, her gun on the ground.

“So, what are the insects planning?” asked the prince.

“Go fuck yourself, you motherfucking piece of alien shit,” she said, her voice filled with contempt, and spit in his face.

Mushgaana’s face twisted in pure rage. How dare she! He was a god. He hit the woman in the face as hard as he could. Utterly incapacitated, she could neither dodge nor do anything to defend herself. Mushgaana felt the woman’s nose break under his fist and let out a deep, gratifying sigh. Red blood poured out of her nostrils, and she was thrown backward. The back of her head hit the wall with a thump, and she fell to her knees, looking dazed and not making an effort to get up.

A wire, hidden under a thin layer of dirt, was attached to the woman’s right boot. Its other end was attached to a grenade, also concealed beneath some dirt in a corner of the alcove entrance. Mushgaana’s eyes widened when he saw the wire pulling the pin out of the grenade. One of his soldiers stepped forward and shouted a warning.

Way, way too late.

The woman smiled under the blood covering her face. She looked terrifying.

“Rot in hell, suka,” she said with triumph in her voice.

Mushgaana had only enough time to think, Fucking humans!

*****

In the chamber at the end of the corridor, Kurt watched as Tarq touched a hidden button and had his eyes scanned. A VR screen and a touchscreen keyboard appeared in one corner. Tarq typed furiously for a minute or two; then he ran his palm across the touchscreen. “It is done.”

Kurt told Xornaa, “Let’s go,” and turned towards the chamber entrance.

The ground shook, and a ball of dirt and dust billowed inwards, filling the room, just as the noise of an explosion hit Kurt’s ears like a thunderclap. He froze, but only for one second. Then he coughed the dust from his lungs and was about to run out of the chamber when Xornaa grabbed his arm from behind.

The Xortaag woman shook her head. “They’re gone.”

Kurt couldn’t believe his ears. “All three?”

Xornaa nodded.

Kurt’s heart ached, and there was a soreness in his throat and lungs that wasn’t just because of the dust. He remembered the first time he’d met Oksana, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and still looking like a model. A rape victim turned resistance fighter, who later played a major role in freeing Earth and four other planets from the Xortaag tyranny. Oksana, with her annoying habit of quoting literary works and her unwavering determination to be the best at whatever she did. The friend he hadn’t appreciated as intensely as he should have, and now she was gone forever.

“They’re coming for us, hundreds of them,” Xornaa grunted.

They took cover on either side of the chamber entrance. Kurt raised his STG-666, put the rifle butt firmly in the pocket of his shoulder, and waited. It didn’t take long. Xortaag soldiers appeared from under the dust in the middle of the corridor. Kurt centered his gunsight on the Xortaag leading the charge and put a bullet through his skull. The bullet made the alien’s head snap back, and his face disappeared behind a mist of dark purple blood. With Xornaa joining in, Kurt shot another soldier, then another, and then another, but they kept coming. He started shooting short bursts, two or three bullets each time, hitting several more Xortaags. His military rounds would pass through a soldier’s body and kill the one behind them too. That didn’t seem to deter them either, even though bloody corpses were beginning to pile up in the corridor.

“Have they gone insane?” he asked Xornaa over the sound of the supersonic bullets and the Xortaags’ death cries just as a laser bolt whizzed past his face.

Don’t get cocky, he reminded himself.

Xornaa’s eyes glinted. “I think they’re mad because they’ve just lost their precious crown prince.”

That surprised Kurt. “Mushgaana’s dead?”

He ducked as a laser bolt hit the wall mere inches from his face.

“Yeah. Dad’s gone. I think that blast got him, and good riddance.”

Kurt dropped a round through another man’s chest and watched as the soldier behind him went down too.  “At this rate, we’ll soon run out of ammo. Good thing Xortaags don’t have shoulder-fired missiles.”

“Or grenade launchers,” said Xornaa, then she cursed under her breath.

Kurt gave her a questioning look.

“Another group is approaching us, very slowly. It looks like they’re carrying or pushing something heavy.”

“A weapon?”

Xornaa nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a laser cannon.”

“How long before they’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

More laser bolts landed in front of them. Kurt felt the enemy fire intensify. He fired a few bullets into the corridor, then took his eyes off his targets to look at Tarq for a second. “How are things on your end?”

“My people are attacking the Xortaags all over the planet,” said Tarq, “and I have asked everyone in the immediate area to come to our help. The palace is under attack.”

“Let’s hope they arrive soon because I don’t think we have much time left,” said Kurt.

He reloaded and kept shooting.

*****

Sitting in his Deathbringer’s cockpit, Prince Polvaar heard General Maada’s voice. “I have invited the commander of the enemy fleet to a one-on-one duel. Nobody is allowed to interfere, obviously. Enjoy the show.”

Polvaar watched the Crimson Deathbringer fly away from the fleet as frustration rose in his heart. He had joined the fleet in search of glory, and he was anxious to make a name for himself. He had done well during the Kanoor invasion. His father had sent a message and complimented him on his courage and skill. Still, his achievements were overshadowed by Maada who, as usual, had taken credit for everything. As far as everyone was concerned, this was a one-man show.

And now, the general was about to kill the most famous enemy ace fighter in the whole galaxy. After that, nobody would even remember Polvaar was here too, no matter what he did from this point on. It was so unfair.

But what if he killed the Kingslayer?

He wet his lips, and his skin started tingling all over. Imagine that. If he killed the enemy commander, right under Maada’s nose, his name would be recorded in history as the greatest fighter pilot who had ever lived. His father would be so impressed.

Polvaar made up his mind, moved his ship a little bit closer to where Maada was engaged in a furious battle with the enemy pilot and waited for the right moment to pounce on the Golden Viper.

That bastard will not know what hit him.

*****

The Crimson Deathbringer came at me, laser cannons blazing.

I jerked the stick hard left, and the enemy ship stormed past mine. I took a sharp turn. It was dead center in my gunsight for one second. I squeezed the trigger, and my cannon roared to life, but Maada dodged my laser bolts. I hadn’t expected that hitting him would be so easy anyway. We kept twisting, turning, and shooting at each other.

The Viper’s computer used the stick movements to interpret my intentions and calculate the best way to execute the maneuver. With Cordelia on board, this happened so fast that it looked like my Viper could read my mind and react instantly. It felt as if my fighter and I, man and machine, had become one. It was exhilarating.

Too much adrenaline!

So now I was Cyborg, but I still couldn’t hit that frakking blood-red space fighter.

Granted, Maada’s ship was much more advanced than the old models, but so was mine. I was beginning to think it wasn’t all about flying skills. That guy had to use some kind of magic to make his ship move like that, in violation of every law of physics I could think of. Freaking Xortaags and their voodoos.

Our duel continued. Maada maneuvered furiously for an opportunity to fire his cannons, but the few times he did, I evaded his energy bolts. Once, he did hit my ship with three laser bolts, but it only caused minimal damage, and the repair systems took care of it almost instantly. Nothing to worry about. Or at least I thought there was not until a laser bolt grazed my cockpit. A few inches lower, and I would’ve been barbecued.

“I like barbecue,” offered Venom, his input as useful as ever.

All of a sudden, I managed to line him up in my gunsight. I zeroed in, let loose a stream of fire, and gave him a long burst. I shouted in excitement as several energy bolts hit the left side of the Deathbringer. Each energy bolt caused a small explosion and sent tiny pieces of fuselage and smoke flying away. My heart swelled with anticipation, but Maada rolled left and broke out before I could blow him to Kingdom Come.

Still, just hitting that bastard felt good. Fierce joy pumped through my veins. Now I knew Maada was beatable, like any other man. He wasn’t the superhuman pilot everyone thought he was, after all. I took a long breath and savored this victory.

I’m not the Kingslayer for nothing.

“Well done, Boss,” said Cordelia. “You’re really good at this.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, R2,” I answered. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

And together, we could totally do this. You’ve met your match, General Maada.

And then, just as I was beginning to think things were going well, the Crimson Deathbringer suddenly disappeared from my view. I looked around wildly, trying to figure out where Maada went, and I remembered where he would be a fraction of a second too late.

He’d used magic and pulled his teleportation maneuver again.

“Behind you!” shouted Cordelia.

I ground my teeth. “I know.”

I didn’t have time to be scared. White-hot energy bolts appeared all over my Viper, and a few tore into the right wing. I put the fighter’s nose “down” and went into a power dive, the cockpit vibrating as I pushed the engines to their limit. Maada came after me, shooting non-stop, scoring a few more hits. He was all over me like a cheap coat, and no matter what I did, I just didn’t seem to be able to shake him.

It was time for desperate measures.

I pressed the pickle button with my thumb and let go of all six of my Sparrows, two by two. The missiles made a 180-turn and streaked toward their target. Maada blew them out of the, well, space, with ease, and kept coming. More laser bolts impacted my ship and made me wonder how much longer I would last under his fire.

“How did he do that?” asked Cordi with admiration in her voice. “Do you have any idea how impossible it is to shoot the Sparrows that are coming straight at you?”

“This asshole is a one-man PDC,” I growled through clenched teeth.

I was so focused on not getting incinerated by Maada that I didn’t see another Deathbringer (yep, a second one) coming at me from my right above until the last second. It opened fire with laser cannons and hit my fighter a few times before I had a chance to figure out what the hell was going on. Ignoring the warning systems flashing all over the cockpit now, I turned sharply to the left and put my Viper in a steep curve. The enemy ship mirrored my maneuver, followed the Viper, and kept firing.

It was supposed to be a duel between Maada and me!

“I guess no one told the second pilot,” said Venom.

So now I had two Deathbringers on my six, one of them the galaxy’s most frightening nightmare, while my own fighter was severely damaged.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

In my display monitor, I saw all the enemy fleet—more than eighteen thousand ships—starting to move towards me.

“Overkill, man,” said Venom. “A mere ten thousand would do the job.”

I knew enough about the Xortaags to realize they wouldn’t have attacked without Maada’s specific orders. So this whole mano-a-mano let’s-see-who-the-better-man-is bullshit was nothing but a trap, and I’d fallen right into it, like the stupid over-confident idiot I was. Maada had taken full advantage of my cockiness. He knew I wouldn’t have refused his challenge, and he had carefully laid this death trap for me.

My pilots were moving too, but I was caught between the two fleets, and they’d never make it in time to save me.

I bit my lips. “Come on, Jim, this isn’t the place to die.”

“It very much looks like it is,” said Venom, supportive and positive as usual.

My Viper shook violently after being hit again while more laser bolts streamed past the cockpit. She absorbed the hits, but even with the damage control and repair systems working at full speed, I didn’t know how much more she could take. Several more warning lights started flashing. There were so many red lights inside the cockpit now that it was difficult to focus on the dogfight.

Plus, more importantly, I was dead.

My brain felt like it was full of rattlesnakes, but strangely enough, I still wasn’t scared, even though my body had developed a mind of its own and was showing all the textbook signs of terror. Everything had happened way too fast, and I had so much adrenaline flowing in my veins that the prospect of dying barely phased me. Also, I’d faced death so often in the past few months that it didn’t seem like such a big deal. The whole thing had a here-we-go-again feel to it, and it wasn’t as if someone were waiting for me back home, while Liz might be on the other side. Who knew?

On the bright side, I’d die how I had always imagined I would: in a dogfight, surrounded by enemy fighters.

I was worried about my pilots though. Who would protect them after I was gone? Hopefully, Ella could do that. She seemed very capable, and given that she was in command of a starship, she could probably do an even better job than I did from inside my space fighter’s cockpit.

“I’ve always been curious,” said Venom, “why is it called a cockpit?”

“Really? Now?” I grunted.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Cordelia.

“And this is how the Kingslayer’s legend ended, fooled by an enemy, and all alone but for an annoying AI and an imaginary parasite,” the historians in the future will say, I thought grimly.

*****

Fleet Admiral Juntoo had never felt so miserable in his life.

The last several months had been one disaster after another. First, the Alora defeat. After that, Tarq, who was responsible for that catastrophe to begin with, had destroyed the Xortaag fleet and came back to Kanoor a hero. After that came the infamous day when he and fourteen other decorated fleet admirals got naked and asked Tarq to accept them as his concubines—in front of the entire planet, no less, and no one had ever come up with a logical explanation as to how that had happened. To top it all off, just a few days after that, Maada had come back from the dead and destroyed their fleet.

And there was absolutely nothing Juntoo could do about it. What was an admiral without a fleet to command? These days, he spent all his time sulking alone at his home.

All of a sudden, deep inside his mind, a voice said, “You are a hero. You are a strong, fierce warrior. How can you sit idly while the Xortaags are destroying your home planet? Kill them all.”

Juntoo stood up, went to his bedroom, opened a hidden panel under his bed, and took out a blaster cannon. He had built it in his spare time, and he had often boasted that this was the most destructive handheld weapon ever made, even though he never thought he might end up using it. He carried the heavy weapon outside his house.

There was a Xortaag checkpoint right down the street. Juntoo saw other Akakies carrying various weapons, but he did not need them. He was an admiral of the fleet and a strong and fierce warrior, after all. It was time for the Xortaags to taste his fury.

Juntoo stepped onto the street, raised the weapon’s barrel, and opened fire. He hit the guardhouse and the two vehicles parked in front of it, both of which exploded into fiery balls of red and yellow flames. A few trees next to the checkpoint were shredded into pieces, and another explosion ruined half the houses behind it. He screamed as his weapon blasted away, feeling strong and invincible. A real hero.

And yet, he did not manage to hit a single enemy soldier.

Juntoo was killed instantly when the Xortaags returned fire.

*****

Kurt knew they had lost.

He was too busy shooting to look at his PDD, but he could listen to the reports coming in from the Akakie spy ship in orbit. Tarq’s plan had initially worked. The Akakies had attacked the Xortaags, and the palace was surrounded by thousands of the insectoids, trying to break through the Xortaag defenses. But apparently, even MFM had no answer for the Akakies’ legendary incompetence when it came to fighting. They outnumbered the enemy a thousand to one, they had better weapons, and they did surprise them with their sudden and brutal uprising, but the Xortaags were holding their own. The swift victory Tarq had predicted would never happen. Given their numerical advantage and the advanced weapons at their disposal, the Akakies would eventually get their planet back, but it would take hours. Days, even. Hell, given how bad the Akakies were at this, months.

Kurt didn’t have hours or days. He barely had a few minutes.

Aim, shoot, repeat, reload. Again and again. Despite the Xortaags’ efforts to get their fallen comrades out of the way, the tunnel was full of corpses, the walls and ground painted with dark purple blood. But they kept coming, even though they had to step over their dead friends. Both Kurt and Xornaa were shot: he in the shoulder, she in the arm. The only reason they weren’t already killed was they wore body armor. The wall behind them was full of small holes caused by the energy bolts fired by the enemy soldiers. Sweat trickled into his eyes, and the throbbing pain in his shoulder made concentrating difficult, but what else was new?

Kurt couldn’t help admiring Xornaa. Her reputation as a brilliant markswoman was well-deserved. Scoring headshot after headshot, she hadn’t wasted a single bullet, showing no signs of being under pressure other than being slightly pale, which was probably because of her injury. It was as if she were a robot killing zombies, if the robot seemed to be enjoying herself doing it.

Soon, I’ll witness her hand-to-hand combat skills too, thought Kurt, because we’re about to run out of ammo, and each of us has only two grenades.

Kurt stopped shooting, wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked back at Tarq. “Will they be able to control MFM?”

“You mean after they kill us? Of course not,” said Tarq. “Only Barook and I can do it.”

Well, at least that was something. This meant the Akakies could still take their planet back, thus preventing the Xortaags from getting hold of their technology. Maybe it was worth it, after all.

“They can shoot the controls though,” Tarq added, his voice shaking. “That should stop OMC-BOWS and solve their problem.”

Kurt grimaced and cursed under his breath. With imminent death staring him in the eyes, regret washed over him like ocean waves during a violent storm. He’d failed, and his team would’ve died for nothing. In fact, all he’d done in his life had been for nothing, both him and his father. They’d spent their lives in pursuit of his dad’s dream—a united Earth—and later on, he had fought both Zheng and the Xortaags. What was the point of all that if they lost here? The Xortaags would go straight to Earth from Kanoor, and they’d probably use a planet buster for real this time.

He felt the chamber walls were closing in on him, and his breath stuck in his throat. All humanity was doomed because of his failure, and there was nothing he could do about it. His mind replayed memories of the Xortaag invasion—which killed several hundred million people—in a loop. Enormous, engulfing terror got hold of him and shook him to his core. He didn’t want to be responsible for mankind’s extinction, and yet here he was, a failure, the loser who had ended the human race.

At least he wouldn’t be alive to see Earth fall again.

He thought about Patricia. That relationship might’ve gone somewhere if he didn’t die here. He hoped she wouldn’t take his death too hard.

Tarq cautiously approached him from behind, carrying an STG-666. Kurt pointed at the gun. “Do you know how to shoot that thing?”

“Of course I know how to shoot,” said Tarq. “Whether or not I hit something is another matter altogether.”

Kurt said hesitantly, “We can probably use some suppressive fire, but—”

The words hadn’t completely left his mouth when Tarq stepped past him, stood completely exposed in the middle of the entrance chamber, brought his assault rifle to bear, shouted “suppressive fire,” and started shooting in full auto mode. He had a hard time controlling the weapon, and most of his bullets hit the walls, the ground, or the ceiling.

Kurt hurriedly grabbed his arm and pulled him back behind the wall, just as several energy bolts passed through where Tarq had been standing a second ago and hit the wall behind him. The sudden movement made his injured shoulder hurt so badly that he bit his lips.

“How did I do?” asked Tarq eagerly.

Kurt took the alien’s rifle. “I was going to say: because our biggest problem is we’re short of ammo, it’s probably better if you give this gun to us.”

“Second biggest problem,” said Xornaa. “That group bringing something heavy? They’re very close now.”

Kurt bit down the searing pain in his shoulder, aimed the STG-666, and shot three Xortaags in quick succession. “We all know you’re probably the best shadow master in the universe, but you make a terrible marksman.”

“What’s a shadow master?” asked Xornaa, still shooting, still not wasting a single bullet.

“Some sort of an intergalactic master spy.”

Tarq looked at him. The little alien seemed surprised for a second; then his eyes glinted. He face-palmed and grinned like a maniac, showing rows of teeth.

Great. He’s lost whatever was left of his mind.

“You are right,” Tarq enthused. “I am a shadow master, and my greatest strength has always been deception. How did I forget?”

Kurt pointed at the Xortaags massing in the tunnel. “Can we throw deception at them? Because otherwise, I don’t think it’s of a lot of use for us right now.”

Tarq’s grin got wider. “You cannot throw it at people, silly. But you can do much, much better. All war is deception, you know.”

Kurt gave him a sideways look. “Did you just quote Sun Tzu?”

“It was either him or Gandhi,” said Tarq. “I honestly do not remember right now.”

*****

The two Deathbringers behind me kept shooting.

“What do we do now?” Venom screamed.

Now we do that fighting-for-our-lives thing we always do, probably losing this time.

Laser bolts streaked past my fighter. Ignoring the eighteen thousand other enemy ships approaching me, I leaned hard on the stick and put my Viper into a twisting dive, making one final desperate attempt to get out of the line of fire and stay alive a few more seconds. I could feel the engine power fluctuate and my Viper lose speed, but I’d never been the take-it-lying-down type. I’d fight until my last breath; then my ghost would haunt Maada for eternity. And Lord of Death could kiss my ass.

I tasted blood in my mouth. I’d probably bit my tongue again. My body felt hot, my muscles tensed, my breath ragged and harsh. Sweat drenched my skin, ringing screams vibrated in my ears, and my heart beat against my ribcage. This was how facing—and getting killed by—your arch-nemesis felt.

I glanced at my tactical display … and froze.

My eyes must’ve been deceiving me, because it very much looked like Maada wasn’t shooting at me.

He was firing at the other Deathbringer.

“Say what now?” asked Venom, who didn’t have eyes to see for himself.

I blinked a few times and looked again, just in time to see the other Xortaag space fighter, which was definitely under Maada’s fire, explode into millions of tiny shards traveling space in every direction.

That right there was the most beautiful scene I’d ever witnessed in my life.

Alpha Mike Foxtrot.

The Crimson Deathbringer took a sharp turn, away from me and towards the Xortaag fleet. For a second, it looked like Maada was charging his own fleet. Then I heard his voice in my helmet, speaking Xortaag. “Anyone who does not stop right now will answer to me.”

He hadn’t even raised his voice. The enemy fleet, all eighteen thousand ships, the sharks who had smelled blood in the water and were rushing in for the kill, came to a halt. Not a single pilot hesitated a second to obey his order.

I gasped. “Sierra Hotel!”

“Wow,” said Cordelia.

“I know, right?” added Venom.

I had another visual communication request, and a second later Maada’s face appeared on my screen again. “I know an apology is of no use to you, but unfortunately that is all I have to offer. That pilot, Prince Polvaar, was acting completely on his own accord, and I had absolutely no idea he was planning to attack you. The rest of the fleet thought his attack was some sort of a signal, and they started following him.”

“Did he just say ‘prince’?” asked Cordelia.

“Did you kill a member of your royal family to save me?” I asked incredulously, half my brain still thinking it must’ve been a trick.

“Yes,” he said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “His actions would have brought dishonor to the kingdom and the king I serve. Moreover, he had disobeyed a direct order.”

Damn it. I was beginning to actually like this guy.

“You remember he was about to kill you if that dead prince hadn’t interfered, right?” asked Venom. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Do you now have some weird type of Stockholm Syndrome, on top of OCD?”

“Will you ask your fleet to stop?” asked Maada.

“What? Oh, sorry.” I’d totally forgotten my fleet was moving toward us. I contacted Ella and asked her to stop our fleet.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“Damned if I know,” I growled.

“We have a problem now,” Maada continued. “Your space fighter is damaged by Prince Polvaar. It is not fair to you if we continue our duel in your ship’s current condition. I, however, can disable a few systems on my ship and reduce her capabilities so that we can resume.”

“And I must trust you why exactly? You could pretend you have done that and come at me with your ship’s full power.”

I could hear the anger in his voice, “Everyone in the universe knows—”

“That you keep your word. I know.”

“Jim?” said Ella. “The Akakies just went apeshit dirtside.”

Kurt had done it. Again.

“How’s that going?” I asked.

“Hard to say, but fighting has broken out all over the planet.”

Maada’s image disappeared from my screen. “General?” I asked.

There was no response. Instead, the Crimson Deathbringer suddenly turned and dove toward the planet, his fleet right behind him.

My heart decided to jump into my mouth, but it got stuck in my throat. He was going for the Akakies. If we stood there and did nothing, he’d slaughter the poor insectoids by the millions from above. If we followed him, we would have to engage his fleet close to the planet surface, where he’d have the support of those terrifying planet-based anti-aircraft laser turrets which were capable of inflicting heavy casualties on us. Talk about a no-win situation. This was a perfect example of the Kobayashi Maru.

And Kurt was still somewhere down there. My mouth dried so much that I felt it was filled with desert sand.

“Fight’s on!” I screamed into my mike.

I pushed the stick all the way down, put my Viper’s nose down forty-five degrees, and followed the enemy fleet.

Ella and the rest of my people came after me.

*****

Maada had always been quick to anger, but the hot, burning rage that overcame him right now was so severe that it was like a high-voltage electric current was shooting through his body.

The Earth fleet's appearance in orbit was a trap, as he had expected. What he had not anticipated was the Akakies—those spineless insects—would suddenly grow backbones and attack them. And not a few millions or even billions of them, but the whole freaking planet, every single one of them armed to the teeth.

No matter. He would rain fire on Kanoor, killing millions. The enemy fleet was hot on his tail, but he would have the planet to himself for a few minutes before they could catch up. His fleet could inflict a lot of damage in a few minutes and, hopefully, help their ground forces squash the Akakie upraising. But despite his blinding rage, deep down he knew that was not possible. Killing a few million would not help when your enemy numbered in the billions.

How the hell had this happened? The insects’ aversion to fighting was legendary. How had the entire planet suddenly turned into fearless warriors?

His hands started trembling uncontrollably, and for the first time as far back as he could remember, he tasted fear. He could not lose another battle right after the Earth debacle. Moreover, if this fleet were destroyed too, Tangaar would never survive. They simply did not have enough ships left to keep the kingdom together.

I will not go down in history as the man who caused Tangaar’s destruction!

He swore he would kill the next Akakie he crossed paths with.

A minute later, he was glaring at Tarq’s face on a VR screen.

“You,” Maada growled.

His warrior instinct told him this little insect was bad news. He had met him for the first time before their defeat on Earth, and even then he had felt Tarq was up to something. And now, he was here again, right when the Akakies had inexplicably gone into a frenzy. It could not have been a coincidence.

“I did not introduce myself the last time we talked face-to-face. My name is Tarq, and I am the Commander of the Akakie Special Operations Force.”

Maada frowned. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“What?” The insect looked genuinely surprised. “You do not remember me? We have talked before. On Earth. I said you had fallen into my trap, and you said something about having sex with a horse.”

Maada gave him a level look. “I have no recollection of my last few weeks on Earth.”

Tarq chuckled. “Is it a clone thing? This is awkward. I was planning to brag that you have fallen into my trap again. I am sure you know there are now twenty billion armed Akakies screaming for your blood here.”

“I am aware, and I really would like to know how you managed that.”

Tarq sighed theatrically. “I am going to tell you the truth. Do you remember we used our own mind-control machine to inoculate our people against yours? We used that opportunity to leave a hypnotic message on everyone’s mind. Once they heard a secret word that I had just broadcast all around Kanoor, they believed they were strong, undefeatable warriors, and they would happily give their lives to kill your type. I wonder if you have noticed, we have plenty of lives to give. And they will not stop until all the Xortaags are dead, or I broadcast another secret word.”

This made sense, and it matched the reports Maada had received from the planet, according to which the Akakies were attacking with no apparent regard for their lives.

“I still can, and I will, destroy you and your stupid planet,” Maada said through clenched teeth.

“You might, but I submit to you that your goal had never been to destroy a planet, but to colonize it, and I think we can both agree that unless you can invent a time machine, go back in time, and stop me from broadcasting the first secret word, it is not going to happen.”

The insect had a point. Destroying Kanoor had no advantage for the Xortaags, and keeping it was not possible either. Moreover, the potential price he had to pay to achieve a strategically useless objective was very high. And with his contingency plan in full swing, it could even be argued this campaign was already a success, and there was no reason for him to risk everything to lay waste to Kanoor now, especially given that if everything went as he hoped, they could always come back in a year or two and deal with the insects once and for all.

“The way I see it, we have two options,” continued Tarq. “We can fight. Maybe we get lucky and kill you. Maybe you get lucky and kill us, but either way, Kanoor is lost to you.”

Maada could not argue with that logic. He said nothing and just listened. He had a hunch where this was going.

“Or we can call it a truce. You can take your ground forces and go back home. Imagine how many of your people you are saving.”

“I have to confer with Prince Mushgaana,” said the general.

“Can you summon his ghost?” Tarq asked innocently.

Maada’s eyes widened. “He is dead?”

“You people really have to stay away from the humans. Every time you go to war with them, your crown prince ends up ‘buying the farm’, as the humans would say.”

Maada’s heart sank. He and Mushgaana had been campaigning together for a very long time, and the prince was his only friend. He was family, even. Maada remembered how Mushgaana had saved his life back on Tangaar by going against his brothers, and a familiar anger rose in his heart. There was no time for anger though, nor for mourning. He had to think about the people under his command and how to save them from this mess.

“To sweeten the deal, I also offer to unilaterally release our POWs,” said Tarq. “We have captured some twenty-five million Xortaags on the planets our task force freed, and to be honest, we are not sure what to do with them.”

Maada thought about it for a moment. “How many Deathbringers have you seized?”

The question caught Tarq by surprise. “What?”

“You heard me, and do not try to lie. I will find out. Also, I have heard the story of how the Kingslayer made fifteen thousand Deathbringers surrender to him on Talmak.”

“That number is slightly exaggerated.”

“I know. You know how? We had only eight thousand space fighters there.”

“I do not know the exact number,” responded Tarq. “Ten thousand sounds like a good estimate.”

The general rubbed his scars. Between this and his plan B, he could still turn this operation into a win. “I want them back too.”

“We cannot possibly give you a whole fleet of Deathbringers!” Tarq protested.

Maada leaned forward and stared at him through the screen. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. I cannot go back to Tangaar and tell my king I got his favorite son killed, again, and I have nothing to show for it. You will release our POWs and return our ships, or we will all die right here, right now.”

Tarq said nothing for a minute. Then he looked over his shoulder and threw his hands up. “OK, I agree.”

Not a good negotiator, thought Maada. “And I want the Kingslayer’s head.”

Tarq wiggled a finger at him. “Do not push your luck.”

Maada shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

And who knew? He might even be able to convince the king to bring Mushgaana back one more time.

“One more thing, General. We’ll scan your ships as they leave the planet, and we will fire upon any transport vessel that we see carrying a piece of our technology.”

A little late for that. “Fair enough.”

Tarq looked over his shoulder again. “Call off your forces, and I will do the same. Please hurry up because it appears some of your soldiers are rolling in a laser cannon aimed at my precious little head, which I very much prefer to keep on my shoulders.”

*****

I was the last pilot to go back to Invincible, but I didn’t immediately land in her hangar bay. Instead, I hovered above her in space, all alone, surrounded by an eerie silence, with nothing to see but thousands of sparkling diamonds all around. I leaned back in my cockpit seat and closed my itchy eyes. I was exhausted. The dogfight with Maada, while short, had taken a lot out of me, and there was always an adrenaline crash immediately after a mission. My limbs were heavy, and sleep sounded nice, but I knew it wouldn’t come for a long while, even later in my bed.

I could feel an easy smile spreading over my face. All I wanted to do at that moment was to be still and let relief sink into my tired bones. Before the operation, I was certain (given the enemy’s numerical advantage and the fact that Maada was leading them) we were walking into a bloodbath. Fifty percent casualty sounded like a reasonable estimate, and that was if we won. And yet, we’d come back from this one without losing a single pilot. Yay, me.

“I take my General Custer comment back,” said Venom.

On top of that, we’d done what we came here to do. Kanoor was liberated, and the Xortaags couldn’t use the Akakie technology to attack Earth and expand their kingdom even further. We’d quite literally saved the galaxy. Eat your collective hearts out, Avengers.

And, on a personal note, I’d gone toe-to-toe with Maada and survived, which in itself was a remarkable victory. He had the upper hand towards the end, but I had him for a few magnificent seconds. I wondered if he was scared when the energy bolts I’d shot ripped into his Deathbringer. He probably was. That would teach him.

Yeah, this was a win all around.

Liz would’ve been so proud of me.

Ella was waiting for me in Invincible’s hangar when I landed my Viper.

“I specifically asked you not to get yourself killed,” she said, “and you thought picking a fight with General Freaking Maada was the way to do that?”

“It turned out all right, didn’t it?”

“Mostly by pure luck. If that second Deathbringer hadn’t attacked you, nothing but vaporized atoms would’ve been left from the Golden Viper.”

“All’s well that ends well.” I grinned. “How about that drink? I have an idea that I want to run by you.”

*****

Three days after Operation Endgame ended, I ran into Patricia who was stepping out of Kurt’s quarters on Serenity. “How is he?”

She shook her head.

“That bad?”

I entered Kurt’s quarters. “I used SFD to come here. It’s like those Star Trek transporters. I can’t believe I just got beamed.”

“Oksana and I”—his voice broke when he mentioned her name—“used to do it all the time, going back and forth between Serenity and Invincible.”

He was sitting in a lotus position on his bed. There was an opened but untouched Paulaner bottle in front of him.

“Are you meditating?”

“Yes, but it isn’t helping. Neither did playing the piano, or even drinking.”

I sat on a sofa in front of him and waited.

He stared off into nothing. “The first time I met Oksana, she challenged Allen to hand-to-hand combat.”

“That girl had guts.”

“She did.” He glanced at a chess board in a corner of his room. “We didn’t even finish our last game. You realize from our inner circle in Winterfell, only you and I have survived?”

I choked up a little. “Kind of hard not to, seeing that one of them was my wife, and one my brother-in-law.”

After all this time, it was still difficult to talk about Liz.

“If Oksana had married Matias, what would she have been to you?”

“Family,” I said, “which she already was anyway. Besides us, did she have anyone?”

“An uncle,” said Kurt. “She killed him some four months ago.”

Kurt stood up and stretched before sitting on the sofa. “I led a task force of forty Commandos to SH-1 during Operation Royalty. You know how many have survived besides me?”

I shook my head.

“One. It was a woman who found her husband after we turned off MFM and decided to start a family, so she left the Commandos. There would’ve been another one, but he died in a car crash. Go figure.”

“I lost three thousand pilots under my command during that operation,” I said, “and six thousand in total, freeing Earth.”

“Seriously, it’s a competition now?” Kurt smiled bitterly. “I looked them up, you know. Tried to visit their loved ones, or at least call them. It was more heartbreaking than watching them die in the first place.”

“The life we’ve chosen.”

“I don’t know about you, but I certainly never chose any of this.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes, lost in thought.

“I like to sit here and wallow in my sorrows as much as the next man,” I said, “but I’m here to discuss something important. I think I’ve found a way to end this thing with the Xortaags once and for all.”

“Wow! Seriously?” asked Cordelia.

That caught me by surprise. “What the hell are you doing on Serenity?”

“I told you, I’m a sentient being now,” she said. “I can go wherever I want as long as there is a system that can support me.”

“Privacy mode,” I growled.

“Why? You aren’t doing anything private. Or disgusting. I’d leave you alone if you did. Oh, and Kurt, if you want, I can play chess with you.”

“Thanks, Cordi,” said Kurt.

I grunted and rubbed my forehead. Now that she’d found a way to disable the privacy mode, there was no way to get rid of her.

Kurt smiled at my discomfort. “You were saying something about a plan to beat the Xortaags?”

“I didn’t say ‘beat,’ to be exact,” I clarified. “I’m planning to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

Kurt listened to my plan with interest. “I think Tarq has been rubbing off on you. Be careful now. Next thing you know, you’ll start pulling distasteful pranks on people.”

“This could work,” said Cordelia.

“So what do you think we should do?” I asked Kurt.

“Let’s sleep on it tonight, and tomorrow we’ll talk to the world’s greatest shadow master.”

“The one who didn’t come up with this genius plan?” I asked wryly.

“I’m meeting Xornaa for a drink later tonight—”

My eyebrows jumped up so high that they merged with my hairline. “What?!”

He rolled his eyes. “Not like that, you idiot. We fought by each other’s side, shed blood, and survived. That creates a bond, as you very well know. I will talk to her about your plan. Do you want to join us?”

“Nah. I still don’t like her.” I stood up. “I have to go. I want to discuss my plan with Ella and see what she thinks.”

“Before you go,” said Cordelia, “I have something that might make you laugh and cheer up. Check out your PDDs.”

She’d sent us a video, showing one of the many ongoing celebrations on Kanoor. The whole planet had been a wild party since the Xortaags had left. Boy, those Akakies sure knew how to celebrate! A huge crowd of the Akakies had gathered in their presidential palace, dancing excitedly like they had forgotten how to stand still, screaming in joy. They watched as a twelve-foot-tall statue of a human was being erected. It was golden, and its face was extremely familiar. I saw that face every day whenever I looked in a mirror.

“They’ve built a statue of me?” I said in disbelief.

“Nope,” Cordelia answered. “Not a statue. Thousands of them. All over the planet.”

“Why?”

“You did defeat Maada again, albeit not as decisively as the last time, and help them take their planet back from the Xortaags.”

“I’m the best,” I said humbly.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” growled Kurt.

He sounded very, very angry. I had no idea why.

“Don’t worry, Kurt,” I said. “If you want, I promise to have a statue of you built and keep it in my closet. It has to be much smaller than this one though.”

I ran towards the door before he could find something to throw at my head.

*****

“So, what do you think?” asked Tarq.

“Jim came up with this plan? When I first heard about it, I assumed it was Kurt’s idea,” said Xornaa. “That boy’s smarter than he looks.”

“I have often wondered if his silly behavior is simply a facade to throw everyone off,” said Barook.

They were in Xornaa’s quarters aboard Serenity. She had offered them a drink, but Tarq had said no. He would not have put it beyond Xornaa to poison him. Away from Jim and Ella’s prying eyes, he was smoking his favorite pipe. “If that is the case, he is making a very good show of it. Did you know that he talks to himself?”

Xornaa, sipping a glass of wine, raised her eyebrows. “For real?”

“Yes. He says there is a monster named Venom stuck in his head. I looked it up. Ugly creature, with huge dark eyes and rows of sharp teeth.”

Xornaa gave him a sideways look.

“How did he know about our terraforming capabilities?” asked Barook.

“On Earth, right before Operation Royalty, I told him he could ask me any questions he wanted. He asked a million questions, most of them about something he had seen in a science fiction movie. And he wanted to know if you and I were a couple.” Tarq took a puff from his pipe. “Anyway, enough about Jim. What about his plan?”

“We need to think about it,” said Xornaa. “But off the top of my head, I can tell you right now it’s totally doable. Risky, and extremely dangerous for those involved, which I’m certain will include you and me, but doable. How are things on Kanoor, by the way?”

“It’s party like it’s 1969,” said Tarq.

Xornaa and Barook gave him a questioning look.

I really have to stop hanging out with Jim.

“There is a lot to be done; for example, we need to choose a new president. The fleet needs to be rebuilt too. But for now, everyone is busy celebrating.”

“How did your people react when they found out you put an MFM on Kanoor’s orbit?”

“I hate that abbreviation,” said Tarq. “They do not know. We stuck with the lie I fed Maada about mass hypnosis.”

“And all those statues?” asked Xornaa. “That’s your doing too?”

Tarq shrugged. “I am still trying to form an alliance between all the space-faring species in the galaxy. Enhancing Jim’s reputation helps that cause.”

“Unless one day the humans decide to turn on you,” Xornaa pointed out.

Tarq nodded. “I am well aware of that risk. In the meantime, I have some news about Mantux. Our people kept searching for a clue to find out what had happened. The only thing they found was a disturbance in Mantux’s orbit.”

“What do you mean ‘disturbance’?” asked Xornaa.

“We have never seen anything like this, so we are not sure. Our scientists theorize it could be a temporal anomaly, but it is just a theory, and it does sound very far-fetched. I had asked our ships to look for something similar wherever they are, and guess what our spy ship on Tangaar orbit has found.”

“A similar disturbance,” said Barook.

Xornaa chuckled. “Don’t tell me the Xortaags have invented time travel.”

“Jim once asked me if we had a time machine,” said Tarq. “He said if we had one, we could go back in time and kill Maada’s mother before she gave birth to him.” Tarq laughed at the memory. “And we are not sure if the Xortaags have something to do with it, or even if they know it is there. This one is very small and difficult to notice. There are two possible explanations I can think of. Maybe the Xortaags did have something to do with what happened on Mantux, but it is not their MO to drop asteroids on planets, and their fleet does not have the capability to pull something like that anyway. Or, whatever destroyed Mantux, an enemy attack or a natural disaster, is going to happen to Tangaar.”

“That would serve them right,” Barook growled.

“Be that as it may, the Xortaags are the devil we know, while we have no information about this new threat.”

“Should we tell our human friends?” asked Barook.

Tarq thought about it for a second, smoking his pipe. “No. Let us keep it among ourselves until we know more. I suggest we focus on the problem at hand. Let’s deal with the Xortaags first. After that, we can start worrying about the time-traveling ghosts.”

*****

Playing Richard Wagner’s Siegfried, Kurt was lost in the music. He was sitting at the edge of the bench, his back straight, his soft smile growing bigger as his fingers flew over the keys. As the last beautiful note hit, a sense of warmth filled his soul, and the peace and serenity he always felt while playing music took over him.

And this time, he had someone to share all these with.

Patricia, in her blue uniform, clapped excitedly. “That was amazing!”

Kurt opened his eyes. “I’ve been practicing since childhood. Growing up, my dream was to be a musician, but eventually I decided to follow in my dad’s footsteps and go into politics.”

“Good thing too, because otherwise the Xortaags would’ve killed us all, and we wouldn’t be here to have this conversation.”

There was truth in that statement. If he hadn’t joined his father in his quest for world peace, it was likely none of the subsequent events would’ve happened. He wouldn’t have been the leader of the Resistance, met Tarq, and helped humanity survive the Xortaag invasion. Life could be so weird sometimes.

“Can I ask you a question?” said Patricia. “Is it always like this? I mean, we’ve been dating only for a few weeks, and tomorrow you’ll go to yet another planet to try to save the galaxy.”

“We kind of did it together the last time,” Kurt pointed out.

“Yeah, I was a lot of help back on Serenity while you risked your life on Kanoor.”

Kurt tugged at his goatee. Operation Endgame had been an unparalleled success. Right now, there were celebrations going on all over Kanoor, and the Akakies were writing poems and singing songs about Tarq and, as usual, Jim. Still, as Patricia had just pointed out, Kurt and his friends had no time to celebrate.

“To be honest, I don’t know,” he said. “The last few years have been crazy. But if we succeed in what we plan to do, this might be the last time, and we may finally have peace, at least for a while.”

“What will you do then?”

Kurt smiled. “Not sure. For as long back as I can remember, my driving force in life was to fulfill my father’s dream. Now that humanity is finally united, if we deal with the Xortaag threat, I’m not certain what I’ll do with my life. I might get back to politics.”

“One more question: Why are you going? You’re a Marine. What possible role can you play in this particular mission? Don’t tell me you’re planning to assassinate Maada!”

“Jim insisted that he had to go because it was his plan, and I just couldn’t let him go alone. We started this thing together, and we should end it together.”

Or die trying, he thought. He was well aware that he wouldn’t be able to protect Jim if this mission failed, but letting his best friend put his head into the lion's mouth alone wasn’t an option.

Patricia didn’t say anything for a minute; then she approached Kurt and sat on his lap. “Well, you’ve shown me your phenomenal skills. It’s time for me to show you mine.”

Chapter Twelve: Tangaar

Standard Galactic Date: 064.03.5073

(Earth Date: 16/05/2079)

Maada was having dinner in his favorite restaurant, a small, cozy establishment near his home.

Prince Darlaan and his two brothers had thrown a fit about Polvaar’s death, but the king had condoned Maada’s actions. Lucky for him, the Akakies had kept their word, and the process of returning the POWs and the space fighters had already started. Along with his plan B, this had turned their last campaign into a semi-victory, even though Mushgaana was lost to them. Maada had tried to convince the king to use the alien machine to bring his son back one more time, but the old man had said he had to choose between himself and Mushgaana, and he had made his choice.

The king had ruled the military operations to stop until all personnel and ships were returned by the Akakies. This was the right decision because they really needed those ten thousand Deathbringers to strengthen the fleet. But it meant, for the first time in decades, he did not have anything to do except arrange a military exercise to keep the fleet in shape.

An old man wearing a fleet uniform limped towards him. He had only one arm and one eye. He must have been one of those poor souls who could not use artificial prosthetics for physical or psychological reasons.

The man stood by his table and saluted. “General Maada? You probably do not remember me, sir, but I was with you on Daktar, when this happened to me.” He referred to his arm.

Maada knew all the people under his command, but Daktar was his first campaign, ages ago—the first planet he and his departed friend Mushgaana had conquered together. Thinking about the prince made him feel strangely alone.

“I just wanted the honor of shaking your hand,” said the old man.

“No.” Maada stood up. “The honor is all mine.” He took the man’s hand and shook it firmly. The old man beamed with pride, saluted again, and left.

Maada went back to his food, his mind wondering about the future of his people. The humans had proved to be formidable adversaries, and it was unlikely they would stand by idly while the Xortaags continued their military expansion. That would deprive the kingdom of both the real estate and the resources it so desperately needed. Another direct attack on Earth might have been a good idea, but after what had happened during the last two campaigns, the king would not sanction it in the near future. To make things more complicated, the Akakies were still trying to form an alliance against them. Their efforts had been unsuccessful up to now, but if Maada attacked another planet, it might have pushed the rest to join up with the Akakies.

The future looked very bleak.

Maada rubbed the scars on his face. Maybe it was time for the Xortaags to start forming their own alliance. If they could coerce a few other species to side with them, the balance of power would eventually tip back in their favor. Ironically, the former government of Earth would have happily joined up.

You are General Maada, he told himself. You have brought your people back from the brink of extinction. Compared to that, this is a walk in the park.

*****

The old man who had just met the general left the restaurant and limped away. After walking for a few minutes, he looked back and made sure he wasn’t being followed; then his appearance melted away and Xornaa materialized from underneath.

She touched her earpiece. “It’s done.”

“Good. Come back here,” said Tarq. “Time to get off this rock.”

“Won’t it be funny that, if it works, you and I, among all people, will have played a major role in bringing peace to the galaxy?” she asked.

“You, me, and freaking General Maada, of all people. And let us hope so. Maybe this would wash away some of the blood I have spilled over the years off my hand.”

“Is that regret I hear in your voice?”

Tarq chuckled bitterly. “Have you forgotten who you are talking to?”

No, I haven’t, thought Xornaa. I know you’ll kill off the rest of the galaxy if you think it would serve your species, which makes you the biggest monster of all.

*****

Just a few short hours ago, if anyone had told Lieutenant Zaalk he would one day contemplate disobeying the Xortaag king's direct orders—which was tantamount to mutiny and punishable by death—he would have laughed. And yet, here he was now, thinking about doing exactly that.

Zaalk had been a member of the royal guards since his teenage years, and he had served the king faithfully. He had been a happy man who had lived with honor all his life and gained the trust and respect of his family and friends. He had three strong sons who would one day bring him grandsons. In fact, one of his son’s consort, herself a soldier, had been pregnant.

And then the Kingslayer had killed them all on Talmak along with fifty million other Xortaags.

And now, that monster was sitting here in the shuttle, unarmed and defenseless, so close Zaalk could smell him, and there was nothing he could do. The king had ordered Zaalk’s team to take a shuttle to the Akakie starship on Tangaar’s orbit and bring the Kingslayer and his companions (two other humans and an Akakie) to the royal palace. Oh, how he wished he could draw his weapon and slay the demon right then and there. The mere thought sent euphoric vibrations throughout his body. He put his hand on his sidearm.

But no. He would not, could not, betray his king, no matter how satisfying that might have been. He was under orders to ensure the safety of the aliens, and that was exactly what he would do.

Until the orders changed.

*****

If I made a list of the planets I was certain I’d never set foot on, Tangaar would be on top of that list. Granted, I’d never thought I’d visit all the other planets I had been to either, or even go to space to begin with, but traveling to the Xortaags’ freaking home planet?

And yet here I was now, in a Xortaag shuttle approaching Tangaar’s surface, unarmed, accompanied by Tarq, Kurt, and Xornaa, who was under an Akakie hologram. The shuttle was very similar to the ones in our own fleet. We sat in the cockpit, behind the pilots’ seats. We were being escorted to the royal palace by a bunch of grim-looking Xortaag guards, whose officer kept staring at me with hatred in his eyes and touching his weapon.

That’s not ominous at all.

We’d arrived on Indomitable, the Akakie fleet’s biggest dreadnought. Tarq had probably thought her size and firepower would be intimidating, which in my informed opinion was stupid, given how vulnerable the Akakie starships were to the Xortaag fleet’s tactics. Indomitable was manned by an Akakie crew, which was fine by me because if the enemy fleet decided to attack us despite the terms of our temporary truce, we had no chance to defend ourselves anyway. There was only a small contingent of Marines on board to deal with unexpected emergencies, and as Kurt put it jokingly “to take over the ship if it becomes necessary.”

We weren’t completely alone though. Invincible was shadowing us at a jump distance, ready to provide support or mount a rescue operation. I had every confidence in Ella and her crew, but I didn’t think they could do anything if things went sideways.

I looked outside the shuttle. Tangaar had an orange-yellow sun, and its sky was ash-gray, probably due to its air pollution. Tangaar’s capital city, Tanoor, was very similar to any metropolis on Earth, albeit significantly more contaminated. There were vast seas of concrete, high-rise buildings, shops and schools, and a massive gridlock. I looked down at all the people coming and going in the city and wondered if we had more in common than we thought.

Still, it was obvious we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

Thinking about the enormity of the situation made my pulse rise and my breath quicken. I didn’t think we were in any immediate danger because the Xortaag king had personally approved our visit and guaranteed our safety. However, who really knew what his word was worth? It was very possible that if things went sideways, the Xortaags would decide to get rid of some of their archenemies in one stroke.

Why am I thinking about the Red Wedding right now?

“Maybe because the Xortaag king agreed to meet us only if we came here in person?” said Venom.

That sounded suspicious, but Tarq had confirmed it was a Xortaag tradition for their king not to accept holographic meetings. Apparently, they considered it disrespectful to his position.

I didn’t want to think about the consequences of failure. It’d probably mean our immediate death and, in the long run, bloodshed forever. I, however, had a good feeling about my plan. I was pumped and excited, rejuvenated by adrenaline. This right here was the mission of our lives, more important than Operations Royalty and Endgame put together. And for the first time, everyone was following my master plan, not Tarq’s, which was why I was on Tangaar to begin with.

In our last meeting before leaving Kanoor, Ella had pointed out that Kurt and I didn’t really have to go on this mission. We could’ve let Tarq and an Akakie delegation deal with it while watching from a safe distance. I thought about it (I didn’t have a death wish, after all, and traveling to the Xortaags’ home planet sounded very hazardous for my health), but the whole thing was my idea, and I wanted to see it to the end. It was a the-man-who-passes-the-sentence-should-swing-the-sword thing. More importantly, this mission was too important to be left to the Akakies, and I didn’t trust them not to screw things up. Tarq resented my reasoning, but he’d said the Kingslayer’s presence would add more weight to our argument and increase our chances of success, so it was worth the risk.

I’d asked Kurt to sit this one out, arguing that it’d be a terrible blow for Earth if things went wrong and both commanders of the fleet and the Marines got killed or captured, but he’d said there was no way in hell he’d let me go to enemy territory without him to watch my back. We’d considered bringing a security team with us; however, it’d only mean putting more lives in danger, so now the two of us were here, risking our necks along with Tarq and Xornaa.

But if we succeeded in what we were here to do, everything would change.

Jim Harrison, the savior of the galaxy. I could get used to that.

“If it works,” cautioned Venom. “You might still get all of us killed.”

I was destined not to have a minute of peace inside my own brain. Damn you, OCD!

“Let’s hope we don’t get into a fight,” said Kurt. “The high gravity here means we’ll get exhausted quickly.”

“There are only three and a half of us”—“Hey!” protested Tarq—“and we don’t even have a knife,” I answered. “If we end up having to fight, gravity would be the least of our problems.”

“When I left to work for Tarq, I didn’t imagine I’d be back in here again so soon, going to the royal palace no less,” muttered Xornaa, shaking her head. “I’d forgotten how much I hated this place.”

We arrived at the palace a few minutes later. The shuttle landed in front of what looked to be the main building. I got off and looked around. The palace looked like an old country mansion. It was huge but rather simple and functional in design, and there was nothing luxurious about it. After seeing the presidential palace on Kanoor, this one was a letdown. And the air reeked of gas and smoke.

“You call this a palace?” I asked the Xortaag officer who was in charge of the guards. “Is your king really poor? You should see the one on Kanoor.”

The officer pressed his lips together and said nothing.

I continued, “When we go back to Earth, I’m going to start a charity to collect money for you so that you can fix this dump.”

Tarq, who was in his human form (thank God!), stopped biting his nails and tugged at my uniform. “Jim, why are you antagonizing the officer, who I must remind you is armed, unlike us?”

I challenged the officer, who was a master-race model and had five inches and twenty pounds on me, with my eyes. “It isn’t like he can do anything about it. His king has guaranteed our safety.”

“Still, we are here to win hearts and minds, not to make new enemies.”

“ ‘New enemies’? Look at this goon! He hates us already.” Then I asked the officer, “What’s your problem? Have I killed your father by any chance?”

The man’s face turned several shades of red. He stared me in the eyes and snarled, “No, only my sons, and my unborn grandson. And a hundred million other parents’ sons too, Kingslayer.”

“Oops,” I winked at him, which made him even more furious. “My bad. A hundred million sounds like an exaggeration though. Drama queen much?”

Tarq gave me a hard look just as Kurt kicked my left shin.

I swear, one day I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut.

“And on that day, pigs will fly,” said Venom.

When we entered the palace’s conference room, the Xortaag delegation was already there, sitting around a red oval table. Their king, dressed in a black and red tunic embroidered with gold thread, was at the head of the table. On his right, there were three similarly dressed men, obviously brothers, all looking like me, giving us evil eyes. Our old friend General Maada, in fleet uniform, was next to them, but it looked like he was trying to keep a distance. There were six other men and women on their side of the table, three in military uniforms, three in civilian clothes. I guessed they were high-ranking politicians or fleet officers.

They didn’t say anything as we took our seats. No welcome-to-our-planet, no handshakes, nothing. Only Maada nodded toward me, almost imperceptibly.

The king got straight to the point. “You have told us you have a peace offer.”

“We only accept your unconditional surrender,” announced one of the three men.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Kurt put his hand on my arm and shook his head. I said nothing, mostly because I didn’t want him to kick me again.

“These are my sons,” said the king. “Crown Prince Darlaan, and his brothers Prince Montaari and Prince Kallool. And I believe you already know General Maada.” He didn’t introduce the rest of the people around the table. They probably weren’t very important.

“And I agree with my son,” he continued. “We normally would not have even agreed to this meeting, but General Maada insisted we should give you people a chance, and his words carry a lot of weight around here.”

I managed not to look at my fellow conspirators. Good thing the Xortaags couldn’t read my mind, compliments of MICI.

Well done, Xornaa.

“If it pleases the king, I will present our offer,” Tarq said so politely that I was certain he was poking fun at the king.

Fortunately for us, the king didn’t get that. He nodded like a pompous jackass.

Tarq rose to his feet. “We are aware that the idea of conquering the universe was first presented by General Maada as a means to save your dying planet and deal with your overpopulation problem. What if we could offer you an alternative solution, one that did not involve genocide?”

The king tilted his head. “And what would that be?”

“As the humans say, a picture is worth a thousand words,” said Tarq. Then he put his PDD on the table in front of him and touched the screen. A holographic image of a planet appeared. It was dead—no vegetation, no water, and no atmosphere. Then, as the planet was rotating, things changed. An atmosphere encompassed the planet, oceans appeared, and the landmass was covered with lush green vegetation. We found ourselves looking at an Earth-like planet that could obviously sustain life.

I held out my hands. “Behold: Genesis.”

Tarq looked confused. “As in the Bible?”

The king narrowed his eyes. “Are we supposed to understand what that means?”

I rubbed my forehead in frustration. Was it too much to ask that the people who actually trekked among the stars understood a simple Star Trek reference?

“Terraforming,” said Tarq. “We have the technology to do it, and we will share it with you. It will take longer to terraform a planet than to conquer one, but there is nothing to stop you from doing ten at a time.”

Darlaan jumped to his feet. I could see the vein standing out on his forehead from where I was sitting. “We are warriors! What do you suggest we do on those planets? Farm?”

Except for Maada and the king, all the other Xortaags in the room started talking at the same time, every single one of them agreeing with the crown prince.

“Yes!” Maada’s voice reverberated in the conference room. Everyone closed their mouths and looked at him in shock. The scariest conqueror in the universe was the last person expected to agree with a peace deal that would turn warriors into farmers.

“Commander Tarq is right,” continued Maada. “We were doing this to save our species, but if there is a way to do so without massacring other sentient beings, we must explore it.”

Now I was officially scared of Xornaa, even though I knew that for her magic to work, her marks had to have some natural inclination towards what she wanted them to do. It was weird to think General Planetary Genocide wasn’t fond of killing people.

The king looked thoughtful. “Experience has taught me to value General Maada’s counsel. I am open to considering this option, but I have a million questions.”

The politicians and officers in the room murmured their agreement.

“Will this terraforming of yours really work?” the king asked Tarq.

“Absolutely. With our help, there is no limit to the number of the planets you can terraform.”

“I’d like to point out the alternative is you keep fighting us,” I said. “How has that been working out for you recently?”

“Shut the hell up,” Kurt murmured under his breath.

“Father, you cannot possibly consider this.” Darlaan, still standing, raised his voice. “We are a proud race of warriors. We value our way of life, and the filthy humans and insects cannot order us what to do. Have you forgotten how many of our people were killed by these people, including two of our beloved brothers and your sons?”

I protested, “We only killed Mushgaana, twice. Maada killed the other one.”

To my surprise, none of the Xortaags paid any attention to me. Nobody even bothered to give me a dirty look. They were all transfixed on Darlaan, hanging on every syllable of every word that came out of his mouth. It was kind of weird. They looked like they were hypnotized or something.

I didn’t need to be a telepath to see the sudden change in the atmosphere. All the Xortaags in the room nodded in agreement. Now everyone was looking at us with murder in their eyes. Maada, who just a few minutes ago was supporting us, glared at me and bared his teeth. Even the king looked upset, for some reason.

“What the hell is going on?” murmured Kurt.

Darlaan went on a rant. He was moving his hands wildly and talking about his willingness to sacrifice himself in order to save “our sacred way of life” when Xornaa whispered, “Darlaan’s brothers are controlling the rest of the Xortaags.”

I looked at Montaari and Kallool. They sat up straight, eyes half closed, lips pressed firmly together. It looked like they were focusing on something.

“No way!” Tarq grabbed Xornaa’s arm. “Even the king? I thought his powers were much stronger than everyone else’s”

“It’s very subtle,” she replied. “I bet he doesn’t even suspect he’s under a psychic attack.”

Kurt tugged at his goatee. “Can’t you do something?”

“I have to touch people to influence them, and even if I didn’t, do you really think I could go against three members of the royal family?”

“Kill them! Kill them, I say, and feed their corpses to our Zandzoks.” Darlaan was close to foaming at the mouth. “After that, we will crush their pathetic fleets and rule the universe as gods, which is exactly what we are!”

I could see the poor Xortaags still suffered from a god complex and wondered if some therapy would help. I could refer them to an excellent therapist.

The officer I’d taunted before stepped forward, touching his sidearm. The rest of the guards followed him. Maada stood up, staring at us with hatred, and drew his weapon. He started walking around the table, coming towards us.

Terror filled me. The sound of my heartbeat trashed in my ears. I would’ve been less scared if I saw Death himself walking in my direction.

“Kill them,” yelled Darlaan at the top of his voice.

“Kill them,” echoed Maada like an automaton, getting closer.

The other three officers stood, guns in hand, and joined him while repeating Darlaan’s command like a mantra. Several guards approached us from behind. The man whose sons I’d allegedly killed unholstered his weapon and pointed it at my head. We were completely surrounded.

I felt all the blood drain from my face and the hair on my nape and arms stood on end. It was one thing to face death during a dogfight, with adrenaline soaring through my veins and my faith in my own invincibility still (well, mostly) intact; it was a completely different matter to do it unarmed and helpless, like a trapped animal, unable to fight back, surrounded by Xortaags. Fear flooded my systems, and I thought my heart would explode. I wiped the beads of sweat that had appeared on my forehead and wished we’d brought the whole fleet with us.

I knew we couldn’t trust these bastards to keep their word!

And we were about to pay for that mistake with our lives.

I racked my brain looking for an option but found none. There wasn’t much I could do against a group of armed Xortaags. I looked at my friends to see if they had any ideas. Xornaa had always been difficult to read, more so under the Akakie hologram, but she was sitting still like a freaking statue, not even blinking. Kurt’s face was ashen, and tendons were standing out in his neck. “Wait until they get closer,” he whispered. “Our only hope is to try to disarm them.”

“And then what?” asked Xornaa. “The four of us are going to fight off the whole planet?”

“At least we can take a few of them with us, especially Maada,” I growled.

And Tarq …

Tarq was closely examining our faces and grinning from ear to ear, obviously enjoying himself. He caught my incredulous stare and flashed a mocking smile. “You people keep forgetting who I am.” Then he touched his PDD, which was still on the table.

A holographic recording appeared above the table, showing Mushgaana’s four brothers talking to someone who wasn’t in the frame. Then we heard a voice that was unmistakably Tarq’s, speaking in the Xortaag language. “I must say I am surprised you let Mushgaana get so much power.”

“We had bigger fish to fry,” said Darlaan’s holographic image. “We were going to kill the old man”—he said “old man” with such contempt that it sounded like an insult—“but he went ahead and named Mushgaana as the crown prince, thus ruining our plans.”

“What if I could show you a way to get rid of him once and for all?” said Tarq. “You can deal with the king later on.”

Darlaan exchanged a look with his brothers. “We are interested. Dealing with our father will be easy once Mushgaana is gone.”

Tarq touched his PDD and stopped the recording. The holographic images disappeared.

What just happened?!

“When was this?” asked Venom. “I didn’t know Tarq was in touch with the Xortaags.”

The room became so silent that you could hear a pin drop, a fly flap its wings, or two mosquitos have sex.

“Did you know Tarq was talking to Darlaan and his brothers behind Mushgaana’s back?” whispered Kurt.

I shook my head. “Something fishy is going on.”

Xornaa nudged me with her elbow. “Guys. I’d say we have more urgent things to worry about right now.”

Darlaan’s jaw hit the floor, and his face became whiter than a vampire’s. He looked like a man who knew his life had just ended.

“You were planning to kill me?” bellowed the king, his face twisted in rage.

“Your Majesty, please allow me to introduce you to your sons—or at least to who they really are,” Tarq said casually, rubbing it in. The manipulator-in-chief was very, very good at his job. “And I feel obliged to point out Mushgaana’s death puts a target on your back.”

The three brothers froze. They stood motionless except for their eyes, which swerved inside their sockets. All the other Xortaags in the room seemed to let go of the breath they were collectively holding. Maada looked at the gun in his hand, then at the brothers, and fury flamed in his cold black eyes with such intensity that it scared the hell out of me.

“General?” the king asked softly.

Maada holstered his gun and walked towards Darlaan, taking his time. The prince’s eyes widened in horror, but he still couldn’t move a muscle. All he could do was stare impotently at the general walking towards him.

Maada stopped in front of the doomed man. “I warned you I would kill you the next time you got inside my head.” He grabbed Darlaan’s head and twisted it.

I heard the man’s neck snap all the way from my side of the table. Darlaan collapsed on the floor, eyes still wide open, staring at nothing.

Maada pointed at the other two statues in front of him. “What about these two?”

Prince Montaari and Prince Kallool (I guessed one was the crown prince now but didn’t know which one), two of the most powerful men in the galaxy and members of the Xortaag royal family who possessed scary telepathic powers, wet their pants at the same time. And who could blame them, with Maada standing in front of them, cracking his knuckles?

“Jail,” growled the king.

The guards dragged the two men away, and Maada returned to his seat. Everyone was quiet for a minute or three. Except for Tarq and Xornaa, we all looked a bit shocked.

Then the king stood up. “Commander Tarq. We will have to iron out many details, but please inform your government that I agree with your peace treaty.”

I slumped in my chair and heaved a heavy sigh of relief. So, we’d done it again. If I had a penny for every time my friends and I had faced certain death, and yet had somehow turned it into a stunning victory since this mess started a little more than a year ago, I’d be a rich man.

“You are a rich man,” said Venom. “And if you keep finding yourself in life-or-death situations, at some point you have to question your choices.”

Now all I wanted to do was to run away from this damned planet and forget I ever set foot on here. Kurt smiled at me and held his arm up in a victory V. I smiled back. Thinking about the magnitude of what we’d achieved right now was overwhelming. Peace in our time. Humanity was saved once and for all, and with the Akakies at our side, God only knew how far we could go. We were all safe. My loved ones, my friends, my allies, my species, my planet. It was as if a beam of light was shining inside my soul. I tipped my head back, turned my face to the sky, and savored the moment.

For one brief second.

Goddamn it!

Then I heard my own voice resonating in the conference hall. “What about the planets you still hold—planning to kill off all the local inhabitants?”

“Jim, what the hell are you doing?” whispered Tarq.

“Atoning for Talmak,” I whispered back.

I’d failed to save the Arshans. I’d failed to save Liz. I’d failed to save Keiko, Josef, Peter, and thousands of other pilots under my command. But I’d be damned if I let untold billions die on Xortaag-occupied planets. Over my dead body.

“And mine, apparently,” said Venom. “Do I get a say in this?”

The king, who looked like he was about to leave the room, turned back and glowered at me. “The Xortaag kingdom will not give up even one of its planets.”

“We don’t want all of them.” I clenched my fists. “Only about the thirty whose locals are still alive. You don’t expect us to watch as you slaughter all those people, do you?”

“You sound just like Liz,” said Venom.

I take that as a compliment.

“That’s what I meant,” said Venom. “The caring, self-sacrificing, always-do-the-right-thing one, not the crazy jump-then-look one.”

Let’s hope we don’t die trying to do the right thing.

“Out of the question,” said the king.

I thrust out my chest, feeling a vein pulse on my forehead. “We’ll find a solution, or there will be no peace treaty.”

“And who exactly are you to dictate terms?” demanded the king. “I was under the impression I was negotiating with the Akakie government.”

I am Ironman.

I wished I could’ve said that out loud, but with the king glaring at me, I figured this was not the time to mess around. He wouldn’t get it anyway, so why waste a perfectly good pop culture reference?

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Tarq. “We are fully committed to—”

“I’m the commander of the Earth fleet,” I declared, cutting him off. “You reject my terms, and during my next visit to this backwater planet of yours, I’ll be accompanied by my pilots.”

Maada mocked me. “What, with the whole nine thousand space fighters you have, and almost half of them the old, outdated models?”

How the hell did he know exactly how many ships we had?

“They won’t be alone.” Kurt stood up next to me, shoulder to shoulder. “The Marines stand by the fleet.”

I was pleasantly surprised when Xornaa joined us. She gave Tarq a pointed look, but he didn’t move his ass from his seat.

Xornaa shrugged. “You know, I’ve just realized with the three princes gone, there’s no reason for me to keep up this charade.” The Akakie hologram shimmered and disappeared, and a second later the real Xornaa stood there in her Marine uniform.

The king arched an eyebrow at her; then his eyes rounded, and his mouth opened and closed like an out-of-water fish.

“Hello, Grandpa,” said Xornaa.

I didn’t have time for this family drama. There was no way in hell I’d let Maada mock me and my pilots and get away with it. “I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you,” I taunted him. “The way I remember it, the last two times we met in battle, I killed you once, and the second time you ran away.”

“Can I please—” Tarq started to say.

Maada’s face became the same color as his stupid space fighter. Seriously, what kind of an idiot would paint a space fighter red? The insufferable, pompous, superiority-complex-suffering kind. Who did he think he was, Manfred von Richthofen?

“I do not run away, especially from the likes of you,” he yelled. “I was going to help our forces dirtside. It was a strategic move, not that I expect you to understand strategy.”

Tarq tried again. “Can I please—”

“We’re both here now, you freaking Whiskey Delta,” I yelled back and pounded my fist against the table. “I see no reason why we shouldn’t continue our duel.”

Maada jumped to his feet. “I have had enough of this loud-mouthed upstart—”

Tarq touched his PDD, and a deafening screeching sound emanated in the room. We all covered our ears and stared at him.

He ran a finger across the PDD screen and the sound stopped. “Can I please offer a solution? You don’t need to kill the locals. You can coexist with them.”

The king sneered. “You think they are going to forget what we did to them and share their planet with us?”

“Yes,” said Tarq. “We can use the OMC-BOWS to make them.”

I objected. “Absolutely not! How is that different from what the Xortaags are doing right now?”

“It’s completely different. We can make our messages subconscious and unobtrusive. The locals will be free and conscious; they just will not feel a need to exact revenge on the Xortaags.”

“So you do it the same way you interfered in our election?” I asked.

Tarq’s poker face betrayed him for a fraction of a second before he said, “I do not know what you are talking about.”

I looked at Kurt. “We’re so going to find a way to remove that thing from orbit as soon as we go home.”

“Be quiet for a second,” said the king. “I cannot hear myself think with all this noise.”

We all looked at him and waited. He pulled his beard with the same gesture I could swear was in imitation of Kurt; then he looked at Maada, who nodded in agreement.

“OK. You have got yourselves a deal,” said the king.

And just like that, it was all over. All the fighting. The bloodshed. The pain. The heartache. The terror.

Well, almost over.

Why the hell was Tarq talking to the Xortaags before they attacked Earth?

There was no rest for the weary.

*****

That evening, Maada was having dinner in his favorite restaurant when he heard the king’s “voice” in his mind. “What a day, no?”

Maada wiped his lips with a napkin. It certainly was eventful, Your Majesty.

“What do you think about the treaty?” asked the king.

I see it as a win for us, Maada answered. We can expand even faster than before, at no cost to us. To be honest, I had gotten tired of all the bloodshed, especially since I lost my only real friend in our last campaign. Speaking of, are you sure you do not want to bring Prince Mushgaana back?

“Do not start,” answered the king. “I agree with you, and I was not so sure future confrontations with the humans would turn any better than the past ones. But what if they do not keep their word? That Commander Tarq fellow did not strike me as the trustworthy type.”

Maada smiled wolfishly. He certainly isn’t, which is why our plan B is in full swing.

Right before the Earth fleet appeared in Kanoor’s orbit, Maada, who expected them to show up, had filled a few transport ships with every piece of Akakie technology (military or civilian) they could find and sent them to Tangaar. They had ended up with some kitchen appliances that way, but they did find a lot of tech with military applications. Moreover, he had had several teams hack into Akakie databases and copy anything they could find in order to sort them out later. At that moment, the Xortaag scientists were busy going through the treasures they had found on Kanoor. Maada was very pleased with the results of this part of the operation, especially given the fact that one major objective of the campaign was allowing the Xortaags to put their hands on Akakie advanced technology.

If nothing else, this peace treaty will buy us some time, and if things do go sideways, well, our people tell me they have found the blueprint to build an actual planet buster, added the General. I was hoping for something like this when I accepted Tarq’s proposed truce during the battle over Kanoor. Imagine the look on the insects’ faces if we destroy their planet using one of their own weapons.

“In that case, let’s hope they do not keep their word,” said the king. “The humans have been on my nerves for a while now, and they must pay for killing my favorite son.”

Whom you can bring back any minute, Maada could not help thinking.

*****

I’d just bitten into my burger when Xornaa joined Kurt, Ella, and me in Indomitable’s mess hall. She put her tray down and sat on the empty chair in front of Kurt with her back towards the entrance. “I still can’t believe we pulled that off.”

Kurt, playing with his grilled salmon, said, “You can say that again.”

We’d called Ella and Xornaa and invited them to join us for dinner. Ella complained that she didn’t have the time, but she was eager to hear what had happened on Tangaar firsthand, and thanks to SFD (it was hard for me not to think of it as a Transporter now) it took her less than ten minutes to show up on Indomitable.

The mess was exactly the same as the one in Invincible, only bigger, and with Akakie food. They ate a variety of creatures resembling worms and snails—still alive and wiggling. Just looking at it was enough to make one lose his appetite. Fortunately, we’d brought our own chef.

I checked to see if I had a message, then put my PDD on the table, trying to hide my excitement. Xornaa couldn’t read my mind without touching me, but she was an astute observer. “And for once, we came back from a mission without bloodshed,” I said casually. Just having a conversation. Everything was normal. Nothing to worry about.

Don’t even think about reading my mind, you bitch.

“Just make sure she doesn’t accidentally touch you,” said Venom.

“Darlaan died,” Xornaa pointed out.

“I meant we lost no one. Plus, Maada broke Darlaan’s neck, so no blood was split.”

“I’m in awe at what we pulled,” said Kurt. “But you know what bothers me? Maada got to massacre millions of humans and billions of other species and walk away scot-free.”

“Small price to pay for intergalactic peace,” I said, chewing.

“You know what I can do?” Kurt continued, something dark and dangerous flickering in his eyes. “I can come back here on an invisible spy ship, go dirtside, and put a bullet in his brain from a mile away. Nobody will even know I was there.”

“And jeopardize everything we’ve achieved in the process?” I said. “Didn’t you and your dad spend all your lives trying to achieve world peace? It’s just like that, only a million times bigger. Sometimes I think you enjoyed assassinating people a bit too much.”

Kurt punched me in the arm.

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Xornaa, “Maada might be permanently out of our way. I planted the idea that he’s gotten old and should retire in his mind.”

I was astonished. “Will that work?”

She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Eight Marines entered the mess while we were talking. Six of them sat between us and the entrance, talking and laughing loudly. The other two went to the buffet and started picking up food, apparently for everyone.

“By the way, have you realized we didn’t need to kill the poor Arshans after all?” I asked Kurt. “With Tarq’s new plan, they’d be co-existing with the Xortaags on Talmak now.”

He blanched. Food got stuck in his throat, and he started coughing into a napkin.

“I hope he chokes on his food,” said Venom viciously. “Serves him right for getting all those innocent people killed.”

He thought he was doing the right thing at the time. They all did. Hell, even I was half-convinced by Tarq’s argument.

“How was I supposed to know we’d end up making peace with the Xortaags?” Kurt said defensively once he stopped coughing, but I could feel the agony in his voice. I knew him well enough to be certain he’d torture himself for months (hell, years) for the role he played in the Arshans’ annihilation. He wouldn’t get any sympathy from me though, best friend or not. I’d have to deal with my own nightmares thanks to him. If he’d backed me when we were voting, eighty million Arshans would be alive now.

“Maybe the next time you vote for a planet’s destruction,” I raised my voice just a little, “you’ll think about it for more than two freaking minutes.”

Kurt pressed his lips together and looked away. Ella put a hand on my arm and shook her head.

Xornaa suddenly tensed and sat up straight. She put her fork down and narrowed her eyes. “Kurt?”

He put down the napkin. “Yes?”

“Why the hell are the six Marines behind me packing?” she asked.

She hadn’t looked behind her even once. I wondered if she had eyes in the back of her head on top of the telepathic powers. The Xortaag woman was full of surprises.

I touched my PDD. The Rains of Castamere echoed in the room. Kurt and Xornaa gave me confused looks.

“At what point are you going to get tired of making references nobody understands?” asked Venom.

That’s half the fun. And Liz would’ve got it. The day I proposed, she said she’d cancel the ceremony if I made any Red Wedding related jokes.

“They aren’t the only ones,” Kurt told Xornaa. He moved his hand, and the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked came from under the table.

An incredulous look crossed Xornaa’s face. “You weren’t armed when I walked into the room.”

“I’d taped the gun under the table,” said Kurt.

Ella put her fork on the table. “What the hell is going on?”

“Will tell you in a minute,” I said.

Xornaa leaned back and studied Kurt with cold eyes. “I bet I can still take you, then use your gun to kill the goons behind me.”

“Perhaps.” I cocked my own gun, also under the table, and winked at the woman. “Hello, Greedo.”

“Does it seem to you that Jim often talks in riddles?” Ella asked Kurt.

“If Oksana were here, she’d say checkmate, or however you say it in Russian,” said Kurt.

“Ukrainian. It’s a different language,” I corrected him, proud of my savoir-faire.

“Potayto, potahto,” responded Kurt.

Xornaa’s shoulders slumped. “What do you want?”

“We’re going to sit here, eat, and have a civil conversation until the person we’re waiting for calls us,” Kurt answered.

“We caught Mata Hari. Can you believe it?” I told Kurt.

“Can you turn that music off? It’s depressing,” he said.

I feigned horror. “It’s a masterpiece!”

“I could make the Akakies help me,” said Xornaa.

I looked around. There were some twenty Akakies in the mess. “Don’t you have to touch them to make them do anything?”

“The insects are very suspectable to my powers.”

Tarq had told me his people were super horny and had very little self-control. “You think these guys stand a chance against the Marines?” I said. “Don’t make me laugh.”

My PDD beeped ten minutes later. It was General Maada. “The king has finished interrogating his sons. Your suspicions are confirmed.”

I exchanged a tired look with Kurt.

“I have a message for Xornaa,” continued the General. “Tell her the king said, ‘Well played, granddaughter.’ ”

“I take it your king doesn’t care what we do with her, does he?” I asked.

“He does not, but I do.” Anger flared in Maada’s eyes. “Throw her out of the closest airlock. You will regret it one day if you do not. That woman is dangerous.”

The screen went blank.

I eyed Xornaa. “So, it was you who made Mushgaana attack Earth. For once, I agree with the general. I think I saw an airlock on my way to the mess.”

“Looks like you’ve been holding out on us,” Kurt told Xornaa.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you anything. Tarq has planted a bomb under my skull, and he’s itching to blow my head off. But it seems to me you have enough to go on without me.”

“I’m very, very disappointed,” said Kurt.

“This has got to be the understatement of the century,” I told him, but strangely enough, I wasn’t angry at Xornaa. I’d saved my rage for the person she worked for.

Xornaa shrugged. “I was just doing my job. It wasn’t personal. Back then I didn’t even know you guys.”

“And if you did,” asked Kurt, “would you have done things differently?”

She pursed her lips and thought about it for a moment. “Probably not. But I would’ve felt guilty about it.”

“Just tell me one thing,” I said. “Did you have to sleep with your own father?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Really? That’s what you’re focusing on right now?” Kurt asked me.

“Is someone going to tell me what has just happened?” said Ella as the Marines escorted Xornaa away.

“Sorry,” I told her. “We thought your presence here, not knowing what was going on, will make the situation look more natural.” Then I filled her in with a few short sentences.

Anger flared in Ella’s blue eyes, but she immediately composed herself. “What now?”

Kurt and I exchanged a look. “It appears we have an insect problem,” I growled.

Ten minutes later, the three of us approached Tarq in Indomitable’s ready room. It was a replica of his office back in Winterfell. Big chairs, big desk, everything white. He looked up from his PDD and smiled. “How can I help you on this lovely, peaceful day?”

He saw the grim look on our faces, and his smile disappeared.

We didn’t sit.

Kurt put his palms on the desk, lowered his head, and stared at him. “What were you doing talking to Darlaan and his brothers before the attack on Earth?”

Tarq paled, but just a little. It was almost imperceptible.

“Let me tell you what we think,” Kurt continued calmly, but his flushed skin told me he was fighting to get his rage under control. “We think you used Xornaa to persuade Mushgaana to attack Earth instead of Kanoor. That’s how you knew Earth was their next target to begin with. Then you came to Earth, set up your trap, used us as freaking expendable pawns, and waited.”

I stared at Tarq, hoping against hope that he’d deny it. All this could still be some complicated ploy by the Xortaags to drive a wedge between us. Divide and conquer, that sort of thing.

Instead, he shook his head and said, “So you guys can put two and two together, after all.”

I didn’t see what he did. Maybe he pushed a secret button with his feet, or he’d finally decided to use a brain interface. The next thing I knew, several hidden panels behind him opened and six cartoonishly big energy weapons appeared, aiming at our heads.

“I always knew this day would come, so as you can see, I have taken some precautions,” he said. “Take a seat. We need to have a word.”

“You’re going to need bigger guns,” I said automatically. Cracking wise to fight mental anguish had become a knee-jerk reaction for me.

My shoulders drooped, and there was an ache in my chest that wasn’t there a second ago. My insides twisted, and the world started spinning. So this was how being stabbed in the back felt. I didn’t want to believe it. I loved Tarq. I really did. More importantly, I respected him. Hell, I held him in awe. What he did—running around the galaxy, making species rise or fall—was bloody God-like. His betrayal hurt more than the bullet wound I’d suffered back on Earth, and all the affection I felt for him was replaced by bitterness. Hatred, even.

How had he pulled the wool over my eyes all this time? It was my damn fault. I shouldn’t have put so much faith in him. At the end of the day, everyone was just out for their own species.

Tarq looked at the gigantic guns and smiled confidently. “Bigger than these? Have you lost your mind? I can fight off an armored battalion in here.”

“Cordelia?” I whispered.

The AI’s voice resonated in the room. “You two-faced, conniving, deceitful, backstabbing, treacherous son of an ugly alien whore!”

The guns turned and pointed at Tarq. His face turned as white as everything else in his office. I wondered if he could use that as camouflage.

“For a species who’s so scared of AIs,” said Kurt, “you’re very bad at protecting yourselves against them.”

“The Marines, aided by Cordi, are taking over Indomitable,” I said, too dejected to be angry. “We’ll kill you and your crew, and after that, we’re going to pay a visit to Kanoor. They have to answer for the seven hundred million dead men, women, and children who perished because of you. Maybe it’s time we have our own colonies.”

Tarq opened his mouth but couldn’t talk. He grabbed his chest, his eyes rolled back into his skull, and he fell off the chair.

“Your fake heart attack doesn’t work either,” I said flatly. “We’ve researched your anatomy. We know both your hearts are stronger than a bull’s. Plus, Cordelia is monitoring your vitals.”

He rose from behind his desk and gave me a hurtful look. “I thought we were friends.”

“I thought we were brothers,” I said, bitterness oozing from every word.

White gas started pumping into the room.

“Compliments of General Maada.” Kurt nonchalantly smoothed the front of his uniform and tugged down his sleeves, as if nothing important were going on. “The Xortaags have developed a chemical weapon that doesn’t hurt us but paralyzes and eventually kills your people.”

“Before you die, think about the fact that your planet will be destroyed as the consequence of your actions.” I wagged my fingers at Tarq. “Goodbye, insect.”

“You cannot possibly conquer Kanoor with nine thousand space fighters and no transport ships to speak of!” he shouted.

“Of course not,” Kurt said calmly. “We’re going to use the MFM that you so helpfully set up around your own planet.”

“There is no way—” Tarq stopped mid-sentence and looked upward.

Cordi chuckled. “I see the insect remembers whom he is talking to. I hacked into his MFM and took control of it before we left Kanoor.”

Watching the intense terror that appeared in Tarq’s eyes was satisfying. His knees buckled, and he had to lean on his table to keep himself from falling. “You cannot do this,” he yelled, eyes bulging. “The Xortaags would have eventually come for you anyway, and what would you have done without me? I saved humanity. I saved the galaxy!”

“Yes, we know,” I said sadly.

He blinked at me in total incomprehension.

“We talked it out, and you are right,” said Kurt. “They would’ve attacked Earth after conquering Kanoor, and we wouldn’t have had a chance against them without your help.”

I continued, “Still, the fact of the matter is you were more than willing to sacrifice us and our loved ones to save your own people.”

“You w-would have d-done the same,” Tarq stuttered.

“Maybe. It’s a hypothetical situation, so we’ll never know for sure,” Kurt responded. “But you actually did it. You used us as bait to defeat the Xortaags, which makes you responsible for our friends’ and families’ death: Allen, Keiko, Oksana, Matias, Josef … you got them killed.”

“Liz,” I said, and my voice broke.

“My husband and daughters,” murmured Ella, and her voice broke.

I looked at her. There was a world of pain in her eyes. I was certain there was one in mine too, and my agony was compounded by the fact that on top of everyone else I’d just lost a brother.

A cruel flare of loss flashed through my soul. My right hand developed a mind of its own. It moved and held Ella’s. She looked up at me (I tried not to tower over her, but what was I supposed to do, shrink?) and pressed my hand. A wave of unfamiliar comfort swept through my heart.

“So here’s the deal,” announced Kurt. “We don’t want to see you, Barook, and Xornaa ever again. If you need something done, make contact through official channels.”

“You’re dead to us,” concluded Cordelia.

Kurt, Ella, and I turned to leave the ready room. At the door, I turned to look at Tarq one last time. He was leaning against the wall, desperately trying to cover his nose and mouth with his hands. Memories flooded back. The day he saved us from under the SCTU executioners’ nose and later pranked us into believing we were dead and in heaven. The day he faked his own death. The day we teamed up to pull a prank on Winterfell’s clergies.

The happiest day of my life, when he married Liz and me.

I blocked them all.

One more loved one I’d lost to this vicious galactic war.

I nodded at the “gas” and said with a heavy heart, “That’s just steam, idiot.”

Then I left my alien brother. Forever.

Epilogue: Voltex

Standard Galactic Year: 5266

(Earth Year: 3200)

Vox Commander Kavmar impatiently waited for the order to start their operation.

He was but a newborn baby when the carbon-based aliens attacked Voltex, so he had no recollection of the war. What he did remember was growing up being hungry all the time on a planet ravaged by famine, caused by the economic embargo imposed on them by the enemy. He remembered losing friends and family by the dozens. He remembered all the heartache, the misery, and the hopelessness.

But, above all, he remembered the constant collective desire for revenge.

Kavmar was honored that his grandfather, Faltaz, had designed the technology that would enable them to destroy the aliens. Faltaz and his brother, Supreme Leader Shapzan, were the engineers of this escapade. Sadly, Supreme Leader had not lived long enough to see the result of his efforts. He had died a few days ago due to old age. Given that malnutrition had undoubtedly played a major role in his poor health, it was as if the carbon-based creatures had killed him. But Grandpa Faltaz was here, accompanying the warriors into battle. Kavmar was eager to prove himself to his grandfather, who was now a legend for his people.

And now, it was time for the aliens to pay. For his father, his uncles and aunts, his siblings, his friends, and billions of others who had died during the war or because of the ensuing famine. And for the living too, especially his own children, who had grown up knowing nothing but hunger and death.

The strike order finally arrived.

Kavmar addressed his troops, “Hear me, brave Vox warriors. The time you have waited for all your lives is upon us. We have suffered. We have lost. We have yearned for justice. But now, our time has come. Today, the aliens will answer for what they did to us, to our parents, to our brothers and sister. We will kill every single one of them, and when they are gone, we will dance on their ruined planets. Today is judgment day.”

I almost pity the carbon-based aliens, thought Kavmar.

He hovered onto the funnel.

Two hundred thousand Vox warriors followed him.

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in The Black Fleet: The Crimson Deathbringer Book 3.

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

The Black Fleet

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Three)

In The Crimson Deathbringer, an alien race conquered Earth, and humanity faced extinction. The stakes were high.

In The Golden Viper, the Xortaags occupied Kanoor, planning to annihilate all their enemies—starting with the humans—using the weapons they would have found there. The stakes were higher.

Could things get any deadlier?

Yes!

In The Black Fleet, an armada with two hundred thousand ships travels back a millennium in time to obliterate all sentient beings in the galaxy by hurling asteroids at their planets. This is nothing like what Jim, Kurt, and Tarq have faced before—this is nothing like anyone in the universe has ever faced before.

“Let me make this perfectly clear: if we have to sacrifice a few billion humans in order to save a hundred trillion people in the galaxy, that is exactly what we are going to do.”

Commander Tarq

This is ENDGAME.

(Click here to buy the book)

The Black Fleet

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Three)

(Book Blurb II)

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any deadlier, a massive fleet arrives from the future!

Thanks to Jim and his allies’ efforts, there’s finally peace in the galaxy … but all good things must come to an end.

The Black Fleet, hellbent on revenge, will indiscriminately ravage every planet on their way to Earth. This is the very definition of an extinction-level event, and nobody seems to able to stop the enemy ships in their tracks. To make matters worse, the Akakies are willing to sacrifice Earth to save their own species.

Having defied the odds a few times already, it again falls onto Jim and his friends to save the day, but can he counter such a universe-ending threat? And if he does, at what cost?

Don’t miss The Black Fleet, the third book in The Crimson Deathbringer series. If you like Star Wars/Star Trek style epic space battles, time-travel, and larger-than-life characters, then you’ll love this third installment. Pick it up today and find out for yourself!

(Click here to buy the book

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (They are from US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: The “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (They have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Golden Viper as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the next book in the series, The Black Fleet. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book (which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year—I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied). I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), BookBub (here) Twitter (@seanrobins300) and/or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) are also good options.

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings! And while you’re at it, have a look at my Spanish, Italian, and Greek translations too.

  Finally, if you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series, download it here.

Author’s Note

Ihave a confession to make: I wasn’t initially planning to write the sequel to my first book so soon. I had this cool idea about a time-travel story, so I started working on that. Then The Crimson Deathbringer ended up selling a few thousand copies, and everyone kept asking me about the sequel (which I had teased at the end of the first book). I gave in to popular demand and, I must say, it turned out much better than my time-travel project.

See, here’s the thing: some writers work in a very structured way. They write outlines from the beginning and stick to it. I don’t. My characters are actually alive in some alternate universe, and they do their own thing. Do you remember it was revealed in The Crimson Deathbringer that Tarq, the little funny alien who kept pulling people’s legs, was behind the attack on Earth? I was as surprised as anyone by that. Similarly, Jim, Kurt, and Tarq took The Golden Viper to places I didn’t know the story would or could go, but I am happy it did.

I know sequels are notorious for not being as good as the first book/movie, but there are always exceptions (The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Deadpool 2, as examples). Is The Golden Viper more entertaining than The Crimson Deathbringer? You will be the judge of that. But I can tell you this with certainty: the third and last book, The Black Fleet, is going to be epic. You don’t believe me? Have a look at the book blurb and pay close attention to the quote from Tarq, where he talks about sacrificing billions to save trillions.

I genuinely hope you enjoy reading this book, and if you do, please drop me a line and let me know. Few things in life make me happier than hearing from the people who like my books.

Also, don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here), or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want) to be informed as soon as my new books are out!

Book Review Request

So, here we are again.

I put a very formal and professionally written “book review request” at the end of my first book. That obviously didn’t work. While several thousand people read my book, I barely got 350 reviews across Amazon and Goodreads. So let me try a new tactic:

I’m an English teacher, and my career leaves me with very little time to write. If you like my books, imagine what I can do if I write full-time. I promise I’ll entertain you until the day I die. And writing reviews goes a long way in helping me realize my dream of being a full-time author.

And if you didn’t like the book? I still would like to hear from you. Constructive criticism will help me in my future projects, or even revising this one. Here is an example: when several people mentioned they’d found mistakes in The Crimson Deathbringer, I put the book through yet another round of edit, and we found some thirty mistakes (some English teacher I am!), and I also took the opportunity to change a few other things based on my readers’ feedback.

That said, between you and me, I really hope you liked the book! My books are my babies, and it literally hurts when someone doesn’t like them.

(Please click here to leave a review.)

THE BLACK FLEET

THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER BOOK THREE

SEAN ROBINS

Books by Sean Robins

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

facebook.com/seanrobins.77

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Edited by Tyler Colins and Mick Brady.

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

Prologue

Capter One

Happily Ever After

Chapter Two

The Battle of Tangaar

Chapter Three

Old Friends

Chapter Four

Mutiny

Chapter Five

Farewell, My Beautiful Planet

Chapter Six

Peace Talks

Chapter Seven

Before the Storm

Chapter Eight

The Last Stand

Chapter Nine

Aftermath

Epilogue I

The End of All Things

Epilogue II

New Friends

The Silver Timeship

About the Author

From the Author

Book Review Request

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My fantastic editors, Tyler Colins and Mick Brady, whose suggestions and advice immensely improved my writing.

My beta readers, Kenna, Gwen, and Nikki, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

Julie Northup, who patiently answered my many, many publishing-related questions.

My dear friends Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice has been priceless.

My lovely wife Yevgenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I make as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful man there’s a strong woman, one way or another.

pREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

Things are pretty bad in the galaxy. On Earth, a wannabe dictator is making a play for power. In space, Maada (or, more accurately, a clone of him) is back, and he conquers Kanoor in one strike, finding the Xortaags a treasure of advanced technologies to use. Worst of all, our heroes destroy a Xortaag-occupied planet—Talmak—using a planet-buster, killing all its inhabitants.

Jim, Kurt, and Tarq deal with the problems on Earth; then they liberate Kanoor. Following a battle with Maada that ends with a stalemate, Jim comes up with a plan to reach an agreement with the Xortaags which brings peace to the galaxy. However, Jim and Kurt discover Tarq and Xornaa engineered the Xortaags’ invasion of Earth (in order to save his own planet) which causes a rift between them.

Meanwhile, a Volt scientist, Faltaz, who is seeking revenge against all the carbon-based lifeforms in the galaxy, finds a way to send their enormous fleet a thousand years back in time. The Black Fleet annihilates a planet during a test run with ease and then goes on to lay waste to the entire galaxy …

THE BLACK FLEET

PROLOGUE

Standard Galactic Date: 015.09.5073

(Earth Date: 05/04/2082)

Vox Commander Kavmar marveled at the majestic beauty of the doomed planet.

Kanoor was indeed a sight to behold. It had a lovely golden hue, and except for an icecap at the pole, most of it was covered with luscious green vegetation or light blue oceans. The Akakie cities, also golden, looked to be a natural part of the planet, not the grotesque, environment-killing monstrosities he had already seen on Tangaar. And the entire planet was teeming with life. A cursory scan had shown more animal and plant species than could be studied and categorized in a lifetime.

Plus ten billion Akakies, waiting to die down there.

For a brief second, he wished he did not have to destroy this wondrous planet. If only the Volts could conquer it instead and relocate all their people. No one else would have to die due to hunger. His children, all Volt children, would have a bright future. He looked wistfully at Kanoor. Alas, this was impossible.

Kavmar contacted his second-in-command. “Still nothing?”

“We have scanned the entire system five times. There are no ships in the system, except for those transport vessels that jumped away as soon as we arrived. It looks like a massive evacuation effort was under way.”

Evacuation to where? When we are done here, not a single habitable planet would remain in this galaxy.

“I cannot believe they have left their planet completely defenseless,” said Kavmar.

“There are some planet-based weapons powering up, but that is all.”

This was very strange. After the surprisingly strong resistance the carbon-based aliens had put up on Tangaar, Kavmar expected destroying the second planet on their list would be even more difficult. If this were some sort of a trap, he could not think of a way it would work.

Why should I complain if they are planning to make things easy for us? The relatively high losses they had suffered in Tangaar had worried him, so much so he had decided to call in the Vox reserves. If anything, this should have been a relief.

Because such an easy victory would be a hollow one, he told himself. He wished the insectoids had put up a fight instead of running away and leaving billions of their people behind to die. On the other hand, what else could they do? The Akakie fleet had nine thousand ships against Kavmar’s two hundred thousand, not counting the reserves, and the destruction of Tangaar had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the carbon-based aliens did not have a prayer.

Speaking of prayers, praise Vilyek.

He contacted the rest of his warriors. “Proceed as planned.”

Two hundred thousand Vox soldiers dashed toward the golden planet.

Next stop: Earth.

Hopefully, the humans’ homeworld would prove to be a better challenge.

CHAPTER ONE

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Standard Galactic Date: 012.09.5073

(Earth Date: 30/03/2082)

Istood in front of the living room window and sipped a cup of hot chocolate.

I’d bought a beach house on Lake Ontario, a mere ninety-minute drive from the new fleet base in Buffalo. My living room view was astonishing. The rising sun shone on the lake, its radiant glow reflecting on the surface of the sapphire blue water. A deep sense of serenity overcame me as I listened to the chorus of birdsong from the surrounding luxuriant bushes. I’d developed a habit of admiring the view and drinking hot chocolate (which didn’t help me get rid of my belly) while waiting for my wife to wake up every morning.

Ella walked in. She was in her PJs and looked sleepy. She stood by me, put her head on my shoulder (she had to stand on her toes to do that, and I tried to help by bending my knees), and said, “Good morning, honey.”

God, I love that accent!

Ella and I had spent a lot of time together after Operation Endgame. I enjoyed her company and her dry wit. Her perpetually calm manner was in such sharp contrast with Liz’s explosive personality. One thing led to another, and we ended up dating. In the beginning, we were drawn together more by loss than love, but that soon changed.

I kissed her hair. “Good morning, wifey.” Then I put a hand on her belly and said, “Good morning, my son. Or daughter. Or twins, triplets, or quadruplets.”

I was, of course, kidding. I didn’t know (didn’t want to know until he or she was born) the gender of my child, but I knew there was only one tiny precious heart beating in there.

My child.

I wondered how this much happiness was even possible.

I’d always wanted kids. I didn’t have any siblings, and I was never close to my parents: Dad was consumed by his grandiose vison of a united Earth, and Mom lived in a literal fantasy world where I didn’t exist. In fact, as a child, I often fantasized I was adopted, or even kidnapped right after I was born, and my real parents would one day come and find me. So, this was my only chance to have an actual family. I, Mr. Macho Man, almost broke into tears when Ella told me she was pregnant. We’d been dating for about a year at that point, and we got married two weeks after that. I hadn’t stopped teasing her about “the shotgun marriage” ever since, even though she’d threatened to throw me out of an airlock the next time I was on her ship.

The last few years had been very kind to me, probably in compensation for all the shit I’d had to endure before.

I wrote two more autobiographies after we came back from Tangaar, depicting the battle on Earth and the subsequent events. I named my new books Winterfell (yeah, I didn’t take Kurt’s atrocious suggestion. It did have a nice ring to it, but who would pay money to buy a book called The Crimson Deathbringer?) and The Galactic Gambit. Along with my first book (Nights of Thunder, which was about my experiences during the war with the East Asia Coalition) they made a trilogy titled The Ace Fighter Saga. Everyone on the planet bought one (or several) copies. I was the savior of humanity and all, but I didn’t see this coming, and I suspected Tarq and the still-operating MFM had something to do with it. There were also several documentaries, two movies, and a TV series based on my books. I donated half of my income to charity (I supervised Liz’s orphanages, and now there was one in every major city in the world); still, I rolled in money.

Needless to say, I had to leave a lot of stuff out of my books. Anything that was considered a military secret or could possibly give the Xortaags an advantage in the future was replaced by pure fiction. I even had to hide how Keiko and I managed to kill Maada and took sole credit for it. Who knew? We might’ve ended up trying to pull the same trick on him again one day. But if it happened, the next time I’d do what Keiko did. I’d always fantasized about flying a kamikaze mission.

I was so encouraged by the success of my books that I started writing a space-opera series, which also became an international bestseller. The main protagonist of the series was a wise-cracking, movie-quoting fighter pilot who was accompanied by his sidekick, an alien prankster. The first time Kurt heard about this, he told me to look up author insert. He also said if I’d missed Tarq so much that I wrote him into my books, maybe I should’ve just space-called the little alien.

My books were also translated into all the known languages in the galaxy. I was certain Tarq was behind this one too. He was still trying to build up the Kingslayer legend. By Kurt’s advice (he believed spreading that legend was good for us), I even appeared in a few interviews with some alien reporters. That probably pushed up my book sales on the other planets too, not that I ever saw a dime. Including the Xortaags and the Akakies, there were fourteen space-faring species in the galaxy (most of which occupied more than just one planet), but despite having formal relations, they mostly left each other well alone, and there was no official trade or exchanges of information.

An unpredictable result of my fast-spreading reputation was that an Akakie woman wrote an erotic novel based on yours truly. She called it Fifty Shades of Kingslayer, whatever the hell that meant. I could swear this was one of Tarq’s pranks. When Ella heard about this, she arranged a meeting with the Akakie ambassador and demanded to receive a copy. I had to endure unspeakable horrors in our bedroom when she got one. Who would’ve thought Captain Wood—who, with her standoffish personality and perpetually impeccable behavior and appearance, was the very picture of a British naval officer—had such a vivid imagination?

Another unpredictable consequence of my fame and fortune was that Crystal and Amber, the two strippers whom Tarq had paid a million dollars to stay with him for a month, went to court and sued me for tricking them into sleeping with an alien. I obviously had nothing to do with it (and so far as I knew Tarq didn’t even touch them, being under a hologram and all), but I offered them a five-million-dollar settlement. I was rolling in cash anyway, and I did feel guilty about the whole thing. A Southern gentleman such as myself should’ve probably warned the girls what they were getting into, regardless of their chosen profession.

So now I wasn’t even in my mid-thirties yet, and I had everything a man could possibly desire: power (commander of the fleet!), fame, money … and, most important of all by a parsec, Ella and the baby. Plus, Venom (the nickname I’d chosen for the OCD-induced stream of negative thoughts in my mind which more often than not drove me crazy) was mostly quiet these days. I’d died and gone to heaven.

I still carried a photo of Liz in my wallet (and I had a thousand other photos in my PDD, obviously). She’d always have a special place in my heart, but I honestly believed she’d have wanted me to move on and be happy. Of all people, Liz knew how much I wanted to have a family.

Ella’s deceased husband, John, was buried in Calvary Cemetery, next to two empty graves belonging to her twin daughters. The girls had died when Xortaags’ MFM was activated—along with 700 million other souls—and their bodies were never found (John, under the influence of the Xortaag mind-control device, buried them and then killed himself when he realized what he’d done). We’d visit the cemetery once a year on April 13th, the anniversary of the Xortaag invasion. Ella would say a prayer or two while I hung back, wishing I weren’t agnostic, so I could’ve joined her in prayer.

While my writing career kept me busy, I really didn’t have much to do as the commander of the fleet. During the last three years, the fleet had participated in a couple of peacekeeping missions, but that was it. We heard about things that could’ve been done only by Tarq and his Special Operations Unit (dealing with minor issues with Tarq’s usual decisiveness), but we decided not to get involved. So, most evenings, I had nothing to do but sit in front of my living room window and watch the sun set on a peaceful planet. The peace I’d played a major part in achieving. Not a bad legacy to leave behind for a simple fighter pilot.

You’d never hear me complain about living happily ever after.

We hadn’t forgotten about the planet that disappeared right before Operation Endgame. We asked the Akakies about it a few times, but they had no updates, and nothing like that happened again. As months turned into years, we figured it was either a natural or an unintentional man-made disaster.

The only things I missed from my old life were flying and shooting down enemy ships. I was a fighter pilot to the core, and nothing in life matched the rush of adrenaline I experienced while rushing into battle. The last time I felt that was during the dogfight with Maada on Kanoor’s orbit three years ago. All fighter pilots were adrenaline junkies, and I used to be the worst of them. Moreover, during a dogfight, I always experienced what I called a heightened reality, when I was 100 percent in the present, and the past and the future didn’t even exist anymore. There was a time I lived to fly and blow up stuff—until I met Liz for the first time.

I slapped Ella’s bottom. “Hurry up, sleepyhead. We’re gonna be late for the inauguration ceremony.”

She dimpled, blew me a kiss, and went back to the bedroom.

“I’ll make breakfast,” I added.

Three hours later, my hover car, Max, entered the new fleet base’s parking.

Since we took Earth back from the Xortaags, we had been using Winterfell’s command center to coordinate our fleet’s movement. Kurt, however, had decided we needed to build a new command center. Winterfell’s location, which was in the middle of nowhere (in Canada!), was very inconvenient; moreover, it was a sign that we were dependent on the Akakies and unable to run our own fleet.

The Fleet Command was right at the center of our new fleet base. It was a blue low-rise structure. Within it, the new CIC was a bigger replica of the command center in Winterfell (a high-tech room full of various controls, computers, monitors, communication devices, and huge VR screens floating mid-air) minus the Akakies’ stupid everything-white policy. There were several semi-circular rows of tables and monitors, with a slightly raised platform for an officer to oversee the operation. And a transparent glass dome covered the CIC.

And best of all, the Fleet Command was under an undetectable Akakie force field. Even if an enemy found the location of the command center, the shield could absorb a lot of hits before it’d collapse. I couldn’t imagine a situation where an enemy fleet could enter our orbit, somehow find the building, and take enough shots at it until the force field collapsed. Even if we went to war (whom were we going to fight in a peaceful galaxy?), this was the safest place on the planet, which was music to my ears, because Ella was stationed here until after the baby would come. We couldn’t allow a pregnant woman to sit on a starship’s command chair.

We met a familiar face when we walked in. Two, in fact.

Kurt, wearing a black tux, was talking to a few people, one of them Lilly, in the fleet’s azure dress uniform, similar to the ones Ella and I were wearing, but with different rank insignia. I could smell Kurt’s perfume from fifteen feet away. He’d grown a full beard, which went very well with his blond hair; his advisors had probably convinced him that his ridiculous goatee was too unfashionable to be presidential. I watched him unconsciously tugging on his beard and smiled sadly when I remembered how much Oksana disliked his habit.

“President von der Hagen,” I said formally and extended my hand.

He shook my hand excitedly, happiness flashing in his storm-cloud gray eyes. His responsibilities as the United Earth’s president left him with little free time, which meant we met a lot less than what I wanted.

Lilly saluted, rather formally. I was her boss, after all, and Ella was her superior officer. Seeing Lilly in uniform made me feel old. I’d known her since she was a child and Allen, for some reason, used to bring her to my birthday parties to hang out with me and my then-teenage friends. She’d finally stopped dyeing her hair violet (or pink, or whatever other ridiculous color she thought was fashionable) and now was a brunette, which brought out her beautiful amber eyes.

“Have you met Colonel Ivan Ezekh?” Kurt pointed at a black man standing next to him.

A couple of years ago, I’d immediately make a Black Russian joke, but I’d learned to hold my tongue, especially when it came to people’s ethnicity. I stuck out my hand. “I know him by reputation.”

Ivan was the new commander of the Marines. “It’s an honor to meet the Kingslayer in person,” he said with a thick Russian accent that reminded me of our old friend Sergey, who had fought and died by Kurt’s side during Operation Royalty. Brave man. I let the sense of loss I felt every single time I thought of one of our fallen friends wash over me. I’d learned a long time ago fighting it would be no use.

“I wonder if this one’s gay too,” said Venom. Making tasteless jokes was his way of pushing away my sorrows.

You’re hopeless, I told him.

“I’m you,” he pointed out.

In that case, you’re the worst of me.

“Mr. President,” said Ella. “Are we still on for tomorrow night? The piano’s waiting for you, since we never use it.”

“Of course we are,” answered Kurt. “You guys look fabulous in dress uniform, by the way, even though if Jim keeps going like this, it’ll be difficult to say who’s pregnant.”

I sheepishly touched my belly. All the hours I’d spent writing meant I’d gained a few pounds. Not that much—it wasn’t like I was badly out of shape or anything—but Kurt kept teasing me about it, probably in retaliation for all those years I made fun of his goatee, and much to my chagrin, everyone around us seemed to have sensed I was a bit sensitive about my weight (Liz always said I was easy to read) and followed his example. It was the whole you-are-a-racist prank Tarq had started all over again.

“That’s married life for you,” I answered, but it sounded like a lame excuse as soon as I said it.

“So, it’s my fault now?” asked Ella.

“I’m married,” Kurt pointed out.

I blew out a noisy breath. “Your metabolism’s freakishly fast.”

“You guys are coming too, right?” Ella asked Lilly.

“Kevin’s out there climbing some mountain somewhere in the Rockies,” explained Lilly. “But I’m coming.”

“We’d be happy if you join us too,” I told Ivan.

He bowed his head. “I’d love to, but I have a prior engagement.”

Ella and I went to the Fleet Command’s auditorium, where Kurt was scheduled to make a speech. Our seats were behind the podium in the middle of the stage, next to the Talgoinian ambassador. The alien, who looked like a cross between a human and a turtle, took selfies with me and asked for an autograph. I dutifully obliged but asked Ella to sit between the ambassador and me so that he (or she, difficult to say with most aliens) didn’t bother me anymore. Ivan sat next to me.

Kurt stood at the podium, facing the thousands of people packed inside the auditorium. I was certain most people on the planet were watching too. Kurt was without a doubt the most popular president in history, and not only because of the role he’d played in saving humanity. The phenomenal revival of Earth’s shattered economy—compliments of both General Zheng and the Xortaags—which Kurt had orchestrated was nothing short of a miracle.

“We’ve come a long way.” Kurt leaned into the microphone. “Five years ago, we weren’t aware of the existence of other races in the galaxy, and with the Xortaag fleet on its way to Earth, humanity was on the brink of extinction. Now, we have our own fleet, and thanks partly to our alliance with the Akakies and the peace treaty with the Xortaags, we’re a big player in the galactic scene. I have every confidence that things will only get better from this point on, and together, we can make a better future for all humanity. And in a few short years, we’ll have our first colonies, which are being terraformed by the Akakies as we speak.”

“He’s pretty good at this,” Ella whispered in my ear.

“He’s had a lot of practice in the last three years,” I said. “Politicians. They talk a lot.”

“The president isn’t happy about it,” said Ivan. “He keeps asking me to switch places. I tell him he’d get bored. It isn’t like the Marines have a whole lot to do these days.”

“Be thankful,” I told him. “Our infiltration teams tended to have very high casualty rates.”

That was an understatement. From the forty-three Marines and Commandos Kurt had led to Operations Royalty and Endgame, only two were still alive: Xornaa, and a woman who had done the wise thing and left the armed forces after we took Earth back from the Xortaags.

The ambassador, who looked like he was hanging on to every single word coming out of Kurt’s mouth, gave me an exasperated look.

Ivan nodded. “I know, and I am. I have three kids. My wife will kill me if I get myself KIAed and she ends up having to raise them without a father.”

“You have three children?” I asked, playing with my wedding ring. “We’re expecting our first.”

“I’ve noticed. Congratulations. First of many, I hope.”

“I don’t know about many.” I chuckled. “Maybe one more. May I ask you a personal question? What kind of name is Ezekh? It doesn’t sound very Russian.”

“Do I look East-European to you?” he asked. “My ancestors immigrated to Russia from Ghana.”

The Talgoinian shushed us. We sat quietly and listened to the rest of the speech, which was mostly about honor, duty, and a bright future. Freaking politicians and their empty speeches.

“Jesus, man,” said Venom. “He’s supposed to be your best friend.”

It doesn’t make listening to him any less boring, I answered.

Chapter Two

The Battle of Tangaar

Standard Galactic Date: 009.09.5073

(Earth Date: 24/03/2082)

Sitting alone on the balcony of his house in Tanoor, Maada watched Tangaar’s orange-yellow sun set on the horizon.

The general owned an old, compact house on the outskirts of the city. He had inherited it from his father, who had also been a fleet officer. The old man, who was extremely proud of his son’s achievements, had lived there for the last few years of his life. It was not a remarkable building by any means—a simple, box-shaped, two-story structure with a small garden, overlooked by the balcony in the back. Maada could well afford a bigger, more luxurious place, but he had decided to move into his father’s house.

Retirement is so boring, he thought, idly sipping a cup of black coffee. He had asked the human ambassador to Tangaar to bring him some, and she had obliged.

Maada had told the king he wanted to retire right after they signed the peace treaty with the Akakies and the humans. He said he felt old and tired, and there was no place for him in a peaceful universe anyway. The king was surprised, but he agreed with the general’s request—only after making him promise to return if there ever would be a need. Maada hoped that would never happen because that meant something had gone terribly wrong.

These days, Maada spent most of his time reading. He had always loved to read, but in the past, he rarely had the opportunity. He had just recently read Jim Harrison’s books (he would not refer to the human with that idiotic nickname, Kingslayer). Much to his own surprise, he enjoyed reading those books, especially the chapter describing the battle that led to his own death. He liked Harrison’s sense of humor, even though the human once called him—what was the expression?—Whiskey Delta.

He had been following the joint Xortaag-Akakie terraforming efforts. In a few short years, five new planets would be ready for colonization, and not a drop of blood was spilled.

Maada had thought about finding a partner and fathering a child. He often tried to tell himself that, after everything he had done for his people, he deserved some companionship, love, and contentment. But deep down, he knew he did not, and if he forgot that, there were always the nightmares to remind him. He vividly remembered the dream he had the previous night; he had been flying his crimson Deathbringer in an ocean of dead people from various species who were trying to hold on to his fighter. He tried to escape by wildly maneuvering his fighter up and down, left and right, while shooting incessantly. The Crimson Deathbringer was a fast and powerful vessel. He obliterated thousands of the dead. Millions of them. But eventually, both he and his space fighter were buried under the sheer weight of several billion corpses, many of them children.

Unlike the rest of the Xortaags (and especially his old friend Mushgaana and the rest of the royal family), Maada had never fooled himself into believing he was a god and it was his divine right to take whatever he wanted, regardless of the cost. He knew sacrificing all those people to save the Xortaags was wrong, but having a guilty conscience was well worth the survival of his species. At the time, he had thought it was the only way, but now he was not so certain anymore. What if they reached out to the more advanced civilizations—like the Akakies—and asked for help from the beginning? No one might have helped them if they did not ask from a position of power; moreover, if all those years ago he had suggested to Mushgaana and the king that they beg other species for help, they would have ignored him.

But he would never know for sure.

Maada heard an unfamiliar noise. When he listened carefully, he realized someone was knocking on his front door. This was strange. Nobody would ever come to visit him here, especially unannounced. He went back inside the house and down the stairs to the living room. When he opened the door, he found the king standing on the porch.

“Your doorbell does not work,” said the king.

Maada frowned. “I did not know I had one.”

Three vehicles were parked in front of the porch, and several royal guards were standing in front of them. “Why are you here, Your Highness? You could have summoned me to the palace.” Or just sent a telepathic message.

The king shrugged. “I needed to clear my head. May I come in?”

Maada hurriedly moved out of the way. “It is an honor.”

The king entered the living room and looked around. “You still think you live in the barracks, do you not?”

“I have never been one to enjoy luxury, but you know that already.”

The king nodded. “Do you remember you promised me to return to active duty if there ever was a need?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“Put on your uniform. The time has come.”

Maada’s posture stiffened, and he had a heavy feeling in his stomach. Something very unusual was going on, but he had no idea what. Had the humans or the Akakies violated the peace treaty? He rushed to his bedroom and took his black and dark blue uniform out of a wardrobe. Before putting it on, he touched the fabric and paused for a second. He had done glorious things and horrible ones while wearing this uniform. He had saved his people from extinction but, in doing so, condemned several other species to the same fate. He wondered what was about to happen next.

The king was fixing himself a drink when Maada came back. “Sit down, General. It is going to be a lengthy conversation. You remember Commander Tarq, do you not?”

Maada sat by the dining table. “Very difficult to forget that individual.”

“Do you also remember a planet called Mantux was destroyed around the same time you attacked Kanoor, and we never found out how?”

The general nodded.

“I had a most fascinating conversation with Tarq today,” said the king. “Apparently, they found some kind of a disturbance on Mantux’s orbit after the planet was destroyed. Nobody is certain what that was. Later on, they found a similar disturbance close to every single inhabited planet in the galaxy.”

Maada sat up straight. “Including Tangaar?”

The king took out his PDD, touched the screen, and threw it at Maada. “Tangaar, and all our colonies. This is the one on our orbit.”

Maada looked at the screen, but he was not certain what he was looking at. It looked like a red and yellow rift in space, and it moved. Well, mostly throbbed and rippled, to be exact.

“Some of their scientists think it might be a temporal anomaly, but it is just a theory with no evidence to back it up. The insects monitored these, but they were tiny little things, almost unnoticeable, and nothing happened until just recently, when all of them suddenly started expanding exponentially, with the one on our orbit growing the fastest, followed by the one on Kanoor and Earth, respectively.”

Maada gave the PDD back to the king. This whole thing was unbelievable. Time travel? It was probably a trick. The insects were up to something. “Are you sure it is not some elaborate practical joke? The Akakies are infamous for their pranks.”

The king shook his head. “That was my first conclusion too, so I took a ship and examined this ‘disturbance’ closely. When I looked at this thing in our orbit, I had a strong premonition that whatever destroyed Mantux is coming for us, and it is indeed coming from the future. I know you do not trust the Akakies, and neither do I, but trust me when I tell you we are in mortal danger.”

Now, this was serious. The king’s premonitions were never wrong, and whatever had caused Mantux’s destruction without leaving a trace was no doubt a deadly threat.

“We are about to face an unknown enemy, a very strong one by the looks of it, and I need the greatest military genius in the galaxy to be by my side when that happens,” said the king.

Maada rubbed the scars on his face. This was a habit he had inherited from the original Maada, who had earned his scars in battle and was strangely proud of them. You were complaining that retirement was boring, were you not?

But being bored was certainly better than having to face the planet-destroying peril coming their way.

*****

Maada did not have to wait long.

Three days later, he was in the Xortaag command center when something came out of the still-expanding rift.

Maada stared at the command center’s main screen and wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. What had just entered their orbit did not look like a spaceship. It looked like a huge, round, dark brown piece of rock, as big as a small shuttle. Its surface rippled as Maada was looking at it.

So, not a rock. Maybe a blob?

The general looked at an officer in front of him. The man shook his head in frustration. “We cannot scan it. Our scanners cannot penetrate its outer surface.”

“Any weapons?” asked Maada.

“None that we can see,” answered the officer.

Maada looked around the command center. Several officers were working at their respective stations, looking at the images of the newcomer on various screens. He raised his voice. “Can anyone tell me something useful?”

“That thing is alive,” said the king, who had just entered.

Maada looked at him incredulously. “What? How is it flying in space?”

The king threw up his hands. “I do not have a clue. I cannot tell you what this is or what it is doing, neither can I read any actual thoughts. But I can tell you with certainty that thing is a sentient being.”

Maada rubbed his scars. If the king was right, this meant they had just encountered a species that was capable of space travel with no need for spaceships. This was unimaginable. His face tightened, and he felt a slight quiver in his stomach. This was completely uncharted territory, and it was likely that they were as unprepared to face it as the Latoors were. He hoped for a different outcome for his people though.

The Latoors did not have me, did they?

“What is it doing, just standing there?” asked the king.

Maada’s warrior instinct shouted furiously at him, and he felt all blood drain from his own face.

“It is me,” he murmured.

“What was that?” asked the king.

Maada looked at him. “You know what I used to do right before we attacked a planet, do you not?”

It was the King’s turn to pale.

Maada had a ritual: before attacking a planet, he used to have his Deathbringer jump alone to the orbit. He would just sit there, looking at the target, and enjoy the few minutes of peace and quiet before the rest of the fleet joined him and the battle started. He somehow knew this was exactly what the alien—who had already destroyed an entire planet—was doing.

“Still no answer to our hail?” he asked.

“None.”

“Time to go meet our new friend then,” Maada growled through clenched teeth.

Shortly after, Maada was in the Crimson Deathbringer’s cockpit, flying toward the enemy. He looked at the cloud of the Deathbringers rising from the surface behind him. Thirty thousand space fighters, two-thirds of which the new models. This was the strongest fleet in the galaxy, rushing to meet a single ... whatever the hell that thing was.

And still, he was worried, and with good reason. For one thing, his instinct, which had never failed him in a lifetime spent as a soldier, warned him that something dreadful was about to happen. Moreover, he had seen the Akakie report about what happened to Mantux. An enemy that had destroyed the Latoors so comprehensively, and with such apparent ease, must have been frighteningly strong.

And then the general’s worst nightmare came true.

The rift throbbed a few times and then suddenly expanded. Hundreds of ships (it was difficult for Maada to think about those things in any other terms, sentient beings or not) similar to the first one, but with small variations in their sizes, some smaller, some bigger, and all ink-black, poured out, flying straight towards Tangaar, ignoring the Xortaags’ frantic efforts to communicate.

Thousands of them.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

Maada checked the VR screen in front of him three times before he could believe his own eyes. Two hundred thousand ships! How was that even possible? A sudden coldness grabbed his heart. Who were these people, where did they come from, and what the hell did they want? Come to think of it, after what had happened to Mantux, it was pretty obvious what they wanted, but why was a totally different question. His hand moved towards his face before he remembered he was wearing a helmet. How was he supposed to fight an enemy who outnumbered his forces almost seven to one?

There was, of course, a distant possibility that the enemy ships were not as modern as the Deathbringers, especially since they had no obvious weaponry. Maada, however, doubted that would be the case. He could already see the black vessels were as fast and maneuverable as his own space fighters. If the Akakies’ theory were correct, these things were coming from the future, which hinted at a more advanced technology. Moreover, the Latoors had a formidable and modern fleet, but it had not done them any good.

So, we are prey now.

The general was surprised at his own calmness. There was a certain serenity in accepting his inevitable doom. But if these bastards had thought the Xortaags would give up without a fight, they were dead wrong.

He opened a channel to his fleet. “Stay in formation but move back closer to the planet where our anti-spacecraft artillery can support us.”

Then he contacted the commander of the artillery units. “Open fire as soon as they enter the orbit, but make sure your guys do not hit any of us.”

“I do not think they need to be reminded, General.”

“Do it just the same. Tell them if they shoot down any of my ships, they will answer to me. That should keep them on their toes.”

The ground-based defenses came to life, lighting up the sky with countless red-hot energy bolts shot at the enemy. The aliens scattered and started maneuvering to dodge the ground fire. Dozens were hit. Red, yellow, and white explosions filled the space. Maada noticed the alien vessels, despite apparently not having shields, were very durable, and it required several hits to bring them down. Even then, a lot of them would not explode but fall onto the planet. Maada followed one of the falling enemy ships on his screen. The alien aimed for and fell right on top of a laser cannon. The general scanned the surface and saw a similar pattern: the destroyed enemy ships tried to take out military targets when they hit the surface. These aliens would try to destroy their enemies by any means possible, even if it meant their own death. Now that was truly dangerous.

Here they come!

It was thirty thousand of them against two hundred thousand enemy ships. His mind raced, going over all the possible tactics he could use in this situation, but he could not find anything that would work. This was hopeless. Maada tightened his fists and pushed back his shoulders. If this were the last time he would fly the Crimson Deathbringer into battle, he was determined to make it count.

“For Tangaar!” he roared into his mike.

“For Tangaar!” thirty thousand voices roared back.

*****

The king knew he was a dead man.

And so were all his people.

He watched the battle raging in Tangaar’s gray sky on the command center’s primary screen. Maada and the fleet had done their best, but it was a lost cause from the beginning. All they could do was to delay the inevitable. The king was familiar with the Latoors’ fate, and he had a clear idea what the enemy’s end game was.

He had ordered an evacuation, hoping to save as many people as possible, but the enemy had blown the transport ships to pieces before they could put enough distance between themselves and Tangaar to be able to use their SFD. Thousands of private vessels that tried to leave the planet met the same fate. Those damned black ships were everywhere.

“Here it is, Your Highness.” One of his officers pointed at the main screen. The man looked a bit pale but otherwise showed no emotion in the face of certain death. In fact, all the officers in the command center went about doing their duties with their usual competence and composure. Now that was discipline. Too bad they were all about to die, along with their friends and families.

The asteroid, a gigantic piece of rock and ice, was heading toward Tangaar at incredible speed. It was big enough to completely obliterate all life on the Xortaag homeworld. It looked more like a small planet than an asteroid. It was likely that even Tangaar itself would be destroyed upon impact. The king rubbed a hand over his face and felt his throat closing up. Everything he had achieved in his life, everything his people had done, was about to be crushed by a bloody piece of rock, and there was nothing he could do about it but sit here and watch.

“How long?” he asked.

“Around two hours,” said the officer.

The king said nothing for a few minutes, lost in his thoughts. Then he contacted the team in charge of the Duplicator. “How long do you need to bring my son back?”

*****

Maada placed an enemy ship dead center in his gunsight and pulled the trigger. Laser bolts after laser bolts impacted the black vessel. He followed it and kept firing until the powerless alien tumbled, veered off, and fell uncontrollably onto Tangaar.

Maada hoped whatever was left of the anti-spacecraft artillery could finish the job before that falling ship hit something on the surface. For some reason, half his brain was trying to remember Jim Harrison’s catch phrase that he sometimes used when he destroyed a space fighter. It had something to do with having sex with the enemy pilot’s mother—those stupid humans were obsessed with sex, which was what one would expect from such a weak species.

They did defeat you twice, did they not?

None of that mattered right now. He had shot down more than forty ships, and the people under his command had destroyed thousands, but that did not matter either. Most of his people were already dead, incinerated inside the cockpits of their doomed space fighters, and his own Deathbringer was hit several times. The enemy did not use energy weapons or missiles. They shot projectiles with something that looked like a rail gun, and they did that with such speed that their weapon was deadlier than the Deathbringer’s cannons. Now only a few thousand Xortaag ships were left, flying close together and shooting energy beams at the enemy, determined to fight until their last breath.

My people, thought Maada with a mixture of pride and remorse. The battle was still raging, but it was obvious the end was near.

He had devoted all his life to defending and protecting the Xortaags. He had brought them back from the brink of extinction, and that had cost the extermination of several other species. And for nothing. The flash of his familiar anger shielded him from guilt, but he knew if he lived long enough, that would come too. Even now, in the heat of the battle, he was blinded by self-hate. It was his job to protect Tangaar. To protect her people. It was his fault they were caught so unprepared. He should have done something other than hiding in his house and reading books. He had failed, and because of that, his entire species was doomed. The Xortaags would have been better off if he had died in his youth and never gotten the chance to set out to conquer the galaxy and lose all those ships fighting the humans and the Akakies.

You fucking incompetent loser!

He was burning up mentally. He tried to clear his head and focus on taking as many enemy ships as possible with him. He would not die cheaply.

With the laser focus that came from spending a lifetime as a fighter pilot, Maada maneuvered to the rear of another enemy ship and tore it to pieces with continuous fire. Speaking of the humans and the insects, he wondered if Harrison and Tarq could find a way out of this. Highly unlikely. This particular enemy was just too strong. The humans had a rather small fleet, and so did the Akakies.

Because I destroyed most of the insects’ ships. Way to ruin the entire galaxy, genius.

While hot on the heels of another black ship, Maada had a visual communication request. A second later, he was staring incredulously at Tarq’s image on his screen.

“Kind of busy here,” said the general through clenched teeth.

“So, I do most of the talking,” said Tarq. “You have less than four thousand ships left, and your planet-based weapons are all but destroyed. Surely you understand there is no way to win this one, and as you might have guessed already, an asteroid is headed for Tangaar as we speak.”

Maada pulled the trigger and shot down another black vessel; then he pulled a right break to avoid enemy fire. “Then I will die here with my people.”

Tarq smirked. “How very noble. I thought you would say that. But let me ask you just one question: what about your colonies? I am sure I do not need to remind you there are still a few billion Xortaags living on those planets, and they will all have the same fate sooner than later.”

Maada ground his teeth. He had forgotten about their colonies.

“So, do you prefer to die here, or let me rescue you so that you can help me save whatever is left from your people, as well as mine and the rest of the galaxy?” asked Tarq calmly, as if this were just a normal, daily conversation.

Maada did not want to be rescued. He had made his peace with dying defending his home planet, and he was not sure if he wanted to live after Tangaar was destroyed. But it was his duty to protect his people, and as Tarq had pointed out, there were still billions of Xortaags living on the colonies. When he thought about that, it was actually a straightforward decision. Or it would have been, if there were anything Maada could do to survive this battle. “You can see I am surrounded by enemy vessels, right? I could not help you even if I wanted to.”

Tarq sighed theatrically. “I swear to all that is holy, after all these years, after everything I have done, everyone still underestimates me. I have a plan. As always, I might add.”

Maada listened to Tarq’s plan, half of his attention focused on destroying another alien ship. “This is how you saved Harrison and a few others from my trap back on Earth, and it was not your idea. It was the German guy’s.”

Tarq narrowed his eyes. “For the record, Kurt is American, and how the hell do you know that? Do not tell me you have read Jim’s books?”

“Know thy enemy,” said Maada in English.

“And here I thought we were friends and allies. Do me a favor and do not get killed for a few more minutes. We are pulling you out.”

Maada wanted to ask Tarq to save more people, but he already knew the answer to that. The two fleets were completely merged, and space fighters were fighting in proximity to each other. If the Akakies tried to transport more ships, several enemy vessels would come with them too. They could only pull out one ship at a time.

He contacted both his fleet and the command center and told them what was going on. “I would have stayed here and died with you. I want to stay here and die by your side. But the insect is right. Someone must try to save the rest of our people.”

“I think I speak for everyone when I say we understand. Go save the rest of our people, General,” said a female voice.

“It has been an honor and a privilege, General,” another pilot added. “Please do not forget us.”

Maada knew those two—he knew everyone under his command. The girl was barely twenty-five years old. She had just graduated from the academy, and this was her first battle. He felt his chin begin to tremble, and his eyelids were hot. He drew a breath and released it; then he spoke through his teeth with forced restraint, “I will not. I promise you this: I will avenge you. I will find a way to kill these bastards. Then I will find their planet and destroy it too. You know I always keep my word.”

“We know.”

“Your Highness?” asked Maada.

“Watch out!” shouted the king. “There is an enemy ship on your six!”

“Not for long,” growled Maada.

The black ship exploded a few seconds later.

“You have my blessings, General,” said the king. “I do not suppose there is a way for the insects to save me too, right?”

“You know SFD does not work while you are on the surface of the planet,” Maada reminded him. “Otherwise, I would have asked them to leave me and save you.”

“Which would have been foolish,” said the king, “because you will be a lot more useful for our people right now than I am. Good luck, General.”

“There is one more thing I need you to do before I go,” Maada told his fleet.

*****

Captain Gannleck took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. His ship, the Akakie super-dreadnaught Indefatigable, was one of the biggest and most powerful vessels in the galaxy, but this was the first time he was going into battle, after all. The crew had never seen actual combat either. They performed their duties well enough, but there was an air of inexperience about them. And he could not even hide his trepidation from them: his antennae, standing erect, signified his inner turmoil. He wished he had thought about wearing a hologram to hide those damned things on his head.

The captain straightened his white uniform, looked at the VR tactical display hovering over the right arm of his command chair, and said, “People, get ready. We are going in five seconds.”

Indefatigable jumped. When she reappeared in Tangaar’s orbit, the main screen showed a fierce battle raging over the planet. Gannleck had been following the aliens’ attack from the moment they appeared from a safe distance, but watching the fleet of black spaceships destroying the Xortaags’ homeworld up close was extremely unnerving.

The Xortaags were the worst predators in the galaxy. Gannleck could not think of a way to stop an enemy fleet that brushed aside Maada’s forces so easily. Hopefully, Commander Tarq would come up with something; otherwise, they were all as doomed as the Xortaags.

“We got him,” announced an officer, his fingers tapping the console in front of him.

Gannleck had to clear his throat before he could talk. “Hurry up and send him.”

A swarm of enemy ships separated from their main force and went straight for Indefatigable.

The captain had to fight to keep his voice steady. “How much longer?”

“Just sent the general. We need three minutes to jump back ourselves.”

Gannleck looked at his screen. The enemy ships would be within range in less than a minute. Fear surged through his body and sent icy daggers straight to both his hearts.

Surely, we can fight them off for two short minutes?

“Fire everything,” he said.

His command chair trembled slightly as Indefatigable’s cannons thundered. The mammoth super-dreadnaught shot thousands of energy bolts and missiles at the enemy fleet. Bright explosions filled the space around the ship as dozens of black ships were wiped out. Gannleck was filled with joy when his ship’s blaster cannons fired a powerful, sustained energy beam that completely obliterated dozens more, leaving nothing behind but a ball of super-heated gas and plasma. There was a reason Indefatigable was the pride of the Akakie navy.

He had no time to celebrate that minor victory.

The enemy vessels returned fire, hundreds of them all at the same time.

“Evasive maneuvers!” shouted Gannleck.

The bridge shook forcefully as the aliens rained deadly projectiles on Indefatigable and hit her multiple times from stern to bow, causing devastating explosions. Gannleck, grabbing the command chair’s armrest, looked at the damage reports pouring in, but it seemed clear that the super-dreadnaught could probably absorb those hits and survive. All they needed was thirty more seconds, after all.

“Keep firing,” he yelled. “We are almost there.”

But then both his hearts tried to jump out of his chest and his eyes widened in terror as he watched several black ships avoid the PDC fire and crash into the super-dreadnaught.

Someone screamed behind him, but Gannleck did not turn to look. Instead, he leaned back onto his command chair and took a last look around the bridge of the most powerful war ship in the entire galaxy, surprised by his own calmness this close to death.

It was glorious while it lasted.

A series of blinding flashes broke out, and huge balls of varicolored fire belched inward. Massive, devastating explosions engulfed the Akakie ship. She blossomed into crimson flames, and twenty seconds later, she was gone, along with six thousand sailors.

Gannleck and his crew did not even have the time to launch escape pods.

*****

So, I die for a few years, and the whole galaxy goes to shit? thought Mushgaana. Pardon my language, Father.

The king sipped his drink. “It is hardly the time for levity,” said his “voice” inside Mushgaana’s brain.

But we have time for drinking?

The king looked at the bottle on his desk. “We will be dead soon. It seemed like a waste.”

For as far back as Mushgaana could remember, Bloodwine had been his father’s favorite drink. Some things never changed.

They were sitting in the king’s private study, a luxurious room with comfortable red sofas inlaid with fine white silk. A VR screen hovering over the king’s desk showed the enemy fleet bombarding the hell out of the planet, now that the fleet was annihilated. Every single pilot in the fleet was dead, except for Maada.

Mushgaana poured himself a glass of wine and pointed at the asteroid before drinking it. An overkill, that. A much smaller asteroid would have done the job.

“We always attacked with a much bigger fleet than was really needed,” said the king. “Intimidation.”

At least these bastards cannot enjoy their victory for long.

“How so?”

You heard the general. He promised he would kill all of them, and I trust him.

The king shrugged. “I do not doubt his intentions, but it might be impossible, even for him.”

We are talking about the only man in history who has conquered some fifty planets, Mushgaana protested.

“With you by his side,” the king pointed out.

To be honest, he did most of the conquering.

“Is that what you think?” The king looked at him with half-closed eyes. “You are wrong then. He led our fleet, but you, my son, were the more important one in this partnership. You provided him with space fighters. You took care of the logistics. And most importantly of all, you took care of colonization of the conquered planets.”

His father’s praise warmed Mushgaana’s heart.

“The general did not have the nerve to use the Voice of God to do what was necessary on those planets,” continued the king. “He told himself it was not his choice, but if it were, I doubt he could do it. You did that. And if you had not, Tangaar would have been destroyed decades ago. At least now our colonies might survive.”

“I did all that for you,” whispered Mushgaana. His voice was so low it was barely audible, but he knew his father would notice the tone of pride.

“I know, Son. But you did not have to. You have always been my favorite son. I had always thought you were worth ten of your brothers combined.”

Mushgaana chuckled. Now you are telling me?

“If I had told you before, would you have gone out there and subjugated half of the known galaxy?” asked the king.

Touché. It is a very human thing to say, but can I please get a hug?

“Why would I hug you?” The king sounded surprised.

Entertain me.

Mushgaana stood up and embraced his father. It was awkward, but he felt the old man’s muscles, tense in the beginning, loosen. The prince sighed. Thanks, Father, this was worth coming back from the dead.

After sitting back down, Mushgaana reached out and held the king’s hand. Father and son drank together, looked at the asteroid bringing death and destruction to their beloved planet, and waited.

*****

Vox Lieutenant Malnar was in pursuit of an enemy ship when she had an incoming message from her brother, Nardoot. “Sister, I am hit.”

Malnar did not stop following her target. “How bad is it?”

“I am going down. Right now, I am looking for a target to drop on. There is an enormous city right in front of me.”

“You fought valiantly, my brother,” said Malnar. “Have a safe journey. I hope Vilyek guides you to the Kingdom Beyond, where I will one day join you, if I am deemed worthy.”

Nardoot’s next words were not what she expected at all. “Oh, dear God!”

Malnar could sense the fear in her brother’s voice. “What happened?”

“I have just scanned the city, looking for a target. It is full of little children. I am sending you the visuals.”

Malnar finally stopped perusing her target. She looked at the images her brother had sent. It was probably some kind of an underground shelter, and she could see hundreds of, thousands of, trembling little children huddling together.

At some level, Malnar knew the aliens reproduced, even though at obviously a much slower rate than the Volts. But that was just an abstract notion. The carbon-based creatures were so different from her own people that it was difficult to even consider them sentient beings, let alone think about their younglings. Moreover, the lieutenant, just like all the other Volts, had been consumed with a burning desire for revenge all her life. But now, as she stared at all those kids waiting to die, all she could think of were her own twenty-two children, waiting for their mother, the hero, to come back home.

She noticed her brother swerved away from the city and crashed on a nearby empty field.

Malnar opened a channel to her best friend, Zolt. “We have to talk,” she said.

*****

Tarq, standing on Indomitable’s bridge, could not take even one of his four eyes off the primary screen, which showed the Black Fleet systematically destroying Tangaar. All around him, the bridge crew members were glued to their screens, watching what was happening to Tangaar in disbelief. Except for Indomitable’s captain, who barked orders from time to time, everyone was quiet. They were all probably wondering if the same thing would soon happen to Kanoor.

Tarq could not help feeling quiet satisfaction at the spectacle. The Xortaags had terrorized the galaxy for decades and slaughtered billions of sentient beings. This was what the humans called karma. But the Xortaags were the devil he knew, while he had no idea how to deal with the new threat. And Kanoor was next.

The thought made him shiver. Based on the temporal anomaly’s size (he still could not believe time travel was possible), the Black Fleet would attack his homeworld in a few days. Kanoor’s defenses were utterly inadequate to face an armada this large. He had to think of a way to stop the black ships; otherwise, what was happening to Tangaar right now would soon happen to Kanoor.

And then Earth. And then all the other habitable planets in the galaxy.

Tarq squeezed his eyes shut and wished he did not have to open them ever again. For a long moment, fear seized his mind and paralyzed him. He heard his own heartbeat thrashing in his ears and barely managed not to crumple to the floor. But the moment passed. He was all that stood between his people and their extinction. It had always been that way. He had faced seemingly undefeatable enemies in the past and triumphed. He would find a way to save the Akakies yet again, whatever the cost.

Maada, escorted by four heavily armed security guards, entered the bridge. The guards, wearing armor and holding hand-cannons, were much taller and bigger than the general (himself a beast of a man), but they kept a safe distance and carefully watched his every move. Tarq watched the Xortaag walking towards him and felt pity for him, the only survivor of a planet with twenty billion people. Maada’s eyes were red, his shoulders slumped, and he looked much older than the last time they had met, which was only three years ago. Witnessing the destruction of his planet must have been unimaginable torture.

“Welcome aboard, General.” Tarq saluted. “I have just sacrificed a dreadnaught and all her crew to get you here. I certainly hope you are worth it.”

The other Akakie officers on the bridge followed his example and saluted too, although hesitantly. Some of them were probably thinking about grabbing a weapon and shooting the general.

Maada did not salute back. He glared at Tarq. “Nobody asked you to, insect. And for the record, I could have killed these clowns you had sent to bring me here if I wanted to.”

The security guards took a few cautious steps backward.

The general stood next to Tarq, looked up at the main screen, and his face became as white as Tarq’s uniform. Tarq followed Maada’s stare, and he saw the hideous asteroid entering Tangaar’s orbit. It began to incinerate, but it was too big for that to make any difference.

Tarq watched in horror as the asteroid caused an apocalyptic explosion upon impact. It struck deep into the planet, sending monstrous tsunami waves ripping outwards from the oceans. The resulting shockwave generated winds so powerful that they flattened cities and killed millions instantly. The collision, which released the energy of several million nuclear weapons detonating simultaneously, had enough force to crack the planet’s surface all the way to its core, and then Tangaar imploded. The blast threw huge chunks of planetary debris into space, ensuring not a single Xortaag would survive.

Tangaar was no more.

Tarq tried to imagine how the Xortaags might have felt in those final moments, and his breath caught in his throat like it was afraid it would suffer the same fate if it came out. He knew Kanoor would be next. A wave of nausea hit him when he thought about the possibility of, the damn near certainty of, an asteroid annihilating his beautiful, beloved planet in the not too distant future. His antennae stood erect, and both his hearts were overrun by a suffocating sense of helplessness as he realized there was not a freaking thing he could do about it.

Tarq took his gaze off the screen, turned his head, and closely studied the general. Maada looked like a marble statue, but a single teardrop ran down his right cheek and disappeared in his bushy beard.

That serves him right. He killed Varina!

But Tarq could not help feeling sympathy for the defeated man, who had just lost everything. He put a hand on Maada’s shoulder. “I am sorry, General.”

Maada pushed Tarq’s hand away and growled, “We have work to do.”

Chapter Three

Old Friends

Standard Galactic Date: 012.09.5073

(Earth Date: 31/03/2082)

Kurt and Patricia visited us at my Nassau County home the next evening. Cordelia opened the door, and they walked in. Both Mr. President and Madam First Lady were impeccably dressed in formal evening attire: Pat wore a green floor-length gown, and Kurt was in a black suit and silk tie with dressy leather shoes. We welcomed them in the living room—the same place where Liz and I had met Kurt together for the first time, only this time he wasn’t busy bleeding all over our furniture.

Kurt looked around. “I see you’ve fixed all the bullet holes.”

“And washed off the blood,” I added, “most of which, thankfully, was not ours.”

This was also where I’d killed someone (well, a few people) up close and personal for the first time in my life. I’d thought about the dead SCTU goons a few times and wondered if my absolute lack of remorse should’ve disturbed me.

“What happened to all the movie posters?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Removed them. Ella doesn’t like movies.”

Plus, they kept reminding me of Liz.

“How are you feeling, Jim?” asked Patricia. “And allow me to say, it’s very progressive of you to carry your own child to term.”

Ella tried to hide her smile.

“It’s already the second pregnancy joke in two days.” I rolled my eyes. “Did you plagiarize your husband?”

“I don’t think she was kidding,” said Kurt. “You’re a military man, and a legendary one to boot. The only thing that justifies that belly is being pregnant.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Allen was overweight, and no one ever made fun of him.”

“Except for you,” Cordi pointed out. “Oh, the irony!”

“Part of the problem is you used to be so fit,” said Ella.

“OK. Laugh at the chubby guy,” I said dryly. “Have either of you written a universally bestselling book? No? Then get the hell off my back.”

Ella’s baby-blue eyes twinkled. “Is that how a Southern gentleman addresses his pregnant wife?”

I knew she was only teasing; still, my ears started burning.

“My dear wife,” I said with the most exaggerated Southern drawl I could manage, “you know I cherish you and respect you from the bottom of my heart.”

“You’re cute when you blush,” said my wife.

“I’m always cute.” And I always, always, have the last word.

Lilly joined us a few minutes later. She wore blue jeans and a Star Wars T-shirt that made her look even younger. “I’ll have to leave soon. Kevin called and said he’ll be back home tonight, a few days earlier than schedule.”

“And you young guys figured you have better things to do than hanging out with us old folks,” I told her.

She giggled. “You’ve got to admit that spending time with old people’s boring.”

I wiggled a finger at her. “You must respect your elders.”

Dinner was served by two small robots (which looked like vacuum cleaners with four arms) we’d brought from Winterfell. Under Cordi’s supervision, they’d also prepared the meal (Captain Wood refused to cook, and I simply couldn’t). I could’ve hired a chef, but Cordi had assured me the robots would do a better job, and she was right. The filet mignon melted in my mouth (which was something I was certain cooked cow wasn’t supposed to do), and the chocolate cake the robots served for dessert was to die for.

“And you say you’re getting fat because you spend all your time sitting and writing,” mocked Venom.

I sighed and put the fork down. For about five seconds.

We ate, drank, laughed, and poked fun at one another, as was our long-lasting tradition (and these days included more jokes about my belly, which I retaliated by making fun of Kurt’s beard, his tendency to shower in perfume every day, and the fact that he used to dress like a goateed Neo back in the day). Even Ella (who was British and somehow immune to our sense of humor) had grown accustomed to our non-stop banter. Kurt and Ella started arguing about their favorite soccer teams, as they always did. Kurt was a Bayern Munich fan, and Ella was a “Kopite”—I didn’t have a clue what that meant until she explained it to me. I leaned back in my chair and lightly touched Ella’s arm. She looked at me and smiled. At that moment, with my loved ones around me and the baby on the way, I could honestly say I didn’t have a care in the world. Everything was as it should’ve been, and things couldn’t possibly get any better.

“Kurt?” said Cordelia. “One of your agents says he urgently needs to talk to you.”

“Well, let him in,” responded Kurt.

A black-clad Secret Service agent walked in, went to Kurt, and whispered something in his ear. I resisted the urge to make fun of the agent’s sunglasses. Kurt’s face hardened. He put down his wine glass, took out his PDD (which I knew he had put on mute), and had a look; then he said, “Guys, I’m sending you a video.”

Curious, I looked at my PDD.

It was Tarq.

He looked straight into the camera. “I know you guys said you did not want to see me ever again, but believe me when I say the fate of the galaxy is in the balance, and we are all in serious danger. I am currently aboard Indomitable in Earth’s orbit. Please come see me. Do not bring any weapons, and make sure that terrifying AI does not tag along. Only you and Jim.”

“What terrifying AI?” Cordelia asked innocently.

Kurt and I looked at each other in surprise.

“What do you think has happened?” asked Ella. “Have the Xortaags done something?”

“Probably. I told you many times I should’ve killed Maada, peace treaty or not,” said Kurt. “And what was that part about not bringing any weapons? Does he really think we’ll assassinate him or something?”

“Well dear, you used to be a super-assassin,” Patricia pointed out. “And you just said you would’ve happily killed Maada.”

“That’s different,” said Kurt. “Maada deserves it. It never sat well with me that he massacred billions of people and walked away with no consequences.”

“In point of fact,” I said, “the retired Maada didn’t kill all those people. That was his original version.”

Kurt raised his eyebrow and gave me a glassy stare. “His consciousness has been downloaded in a cloned body. It’s him all right.”

“Come on guys,” I said. “Tarq can be a real drama queen sometimes. Let’s finish the dinner; then Kurt and I’ll go see him.”

“I was looking forward to Kurt performing for us,” said Ella sadly.

I put my arm around her shoulders. “There will be time for that.”

“Something tells me there isn’t going to be a next time,” said Venom.

I’d heard from my alter ego maybe once a week recently, and it was already the second time today. Now I was getting worried.

“I don’t want to be a wet blanket,” said Lilly, eyebrows squeezing together. “But I’m sure you all remember what happened the last two times Tarq came to Earth.”

I suddenly lost my appetite. The first time, Tarq had brought the news of the Xortaags’ imminent attack, and the second time he needed our help to kick Maada and his people out of Kanoor.

I looked lovingly at the rest of the chocolate cake but gathered enough willpower to say, “Let’s go right now then.”

*****

When Kurt and I stepped out of our shuttle in Indomitable’s hangar bay, Barook, in his Native-American form, was waiting for us with four Akakie security guards wearing armor (white, of course) and holding huge hand-cannons behind him. The guards were the biggest Akakies I’d ever seen; each of them had at least a foot on me.

“We instructed you not to bring any weapons,” he said firmly.

The Akakies weren’t messing around, for once.

I’d changed into my fleet uniform but left my sidearm behind. “Nice to see you too, old buddy, old pal.”

Kurt smiled. “What, these?” He pulled back his trademark trench coat to show his machine pistols. “No problem. I can leave them here.” He put the guns down next to the shuttle entrance.

Barook cocked his head and waited.

Kurt sighed, then pulled an STG 666 assault rifle from under his coat. He followed that with two Glock 55s, a combat knife, and two grenades.

I wondered what the point of this show was. He certainly knew the Akakies would scan our shuttle. “What, no bazooka?”

“Plagiarize much?” asked Venom, who had been rejuvenated since Tarq’s unexpected arrival.

It isn’t plagiarism, I told him. It’s a callback.

Barook scanned both Kurt and me using a handheld device.

I didn’t like the way the guards were looking at us. They were probably trying to look intimidating, holding those gigantic hand cannons. “If we really wanted to harm you, do you think these four praying mantises you brought with you could stop us?” I asked Barook.

Three of the guards averted their eyes, but one of them glared at me. I took a quick step towards him and raised my hand. He ducked and nearly dropped his cannon. I ran my hand through my hair and winked at him.

“Are you done?” Barook asked me in a sharp tone. “Then follow me.”

Nothing had changed in Tarq’s ready room. A big white desk, big white chairs—freaking white everywhere. I wished I’d borrowed that Secret Service agent’s sunglasses. Those ridiculously big guns were probably still here too, in hidden panels behind Tarq. The memory of what had happened the last time we were here rushed back at me and made my heart beat faster. Here, Kurt and I had confronted Tarq about his role in the Xortaag invasion of Earth and made him think we were about to kill him and all the Akakies on board.

Yep. We’d pranked the prankster.

Tarq was standing in front of the desk, looking exactly the same way we’d met him the first time: a Native American (brown skin, black hair, high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, the whole nine yards, all fake) wearing a white tuxedo and feathered cap. He held a huge pipe in one hand and was nervously biting the nails of the other. Xornaa, in the Marines’ familiar khaki shirt and green trousers and still looking like freaking Aphrodite, stood next to him, composed and sure of herself as ever. They’d probably decided to dress this way to remind Kurt and me of our history: Tarq had saved us from execution, and Xornaa had shed blood alongside Kurt on Kanoor. That didn’t work though. All it did was remind me how these two had stabbed us in the back.

Still …

I moved fast. Barook tried to grab my uniform from behind but failed. Tarq whimpered, took a step backward, and raised his hands as if to protect his face. Xornaa could’ve stopped me, but I think she realized what I was about to do and didn’t.

I held Tarq in a tight embrace. My hands went under his holographic clothes and touched something hard, but I didn’t care. My voice shook a little as I said, “You don’t write, you don’t call …”

I couldn’t see his face which was buried in my chest, but I was sure his eyes were as round as a huge pie. “You said …” he mumbled.

When I’d found out Tarq was behind the Xortaag invasion (he’d sent Xornaa to make Mushgaana attack Earth instead of Kanoor), I was hurt. I felt like I’d been betrayed by a brother. The man who’d married Liz and I was ultimately responsible for her death. But even then I realized he’d saved humanity, whatever his motive. He’d gone against his own government and risked his neck to give us a fighting chance, without which the Xortaags would’ve walked all over us after they’d dealt with Kanoor. Moreover, that was freaking three years ago. And those were three happy years, which went a long way in forgiving a dear friend.

I let go of him and gently punched his chin in a friendly gesture. “Dude, we’re human. We fight and break up; we kiss and make up. You should’ve called me after six months. A year, max.”

“Why didn’t you then?” he asked.

“Because we’re stubborn,” answered Kurt. He shook Tarq’s hand. “For the record, I don’t remember Jim ever hugging me. He probably thinks it’s unmanly.”

“Or gay,” Venom added.

You’re so homophobic.

“I’m your alter ego, idiot,” he said.

I certainly am not … oh, forget it!

Xornaa saluted. “It’s good to see you, Colonel. Or should I call you Mr. President now?”

Kurt saluted back. “I’m honestly happy to see you both, even though I’m sure you have terrible news.”

Xornaa looked at me. “So you are an admiral now?”

“I’m the commander of the fleet,” I said. “I couldn’t stay a colonel forever, especially since the fleet absorbed what was left of the Air Force.”

“Not to mention the anti-spacecraft artillery we helped you develop,” said Tarq. “You are welcome.”

“Not my area of specialty.” I shrugged. “But, yeah, that’s technically a part of the fleet too.”

“And you jumped from colonel to admiral?” asked Xornaa.

I pointed at Kurt. “This guy here promoted me.”

Kurt chuckled. “Jim wanted his official title to be Supreme Commander Admiral General Harrison. It took a herculean effort to convince him to be a lowly admiral.”

“By the way, you look, eh, very robust,” Tarq told me.

“I still think he’s sexy,” Xornaa purred, then looked pointedly at me with her dazzling green eyes and flipped back her long, wavy hair.

My testosterone levels spiked so high that some came out of my ears. “I’m married,” I growled. Sometimes, I really hated that woman.

“I know.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’m just messing with you. You’re such an easy target, and too young for me, at any rate.”

She didn’t look a day older than twenty-five, but with the Xortaags’ genetically-engineered longevity, she could’ve easily been forty.

“She’s sixty-something.” Tarq puffed on his pipe. “I had forgotten how much I always enjoyed seeing this look of horror on Jim’s face.”

“I am horrified.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’ve just realized I’ve kissed a woman who could be my grandmother, under a spell or not.”

“What spell?” said Xornaa. “I’m not a witch. Congratulations, by the way. A boy or a girl?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“It is either a boy, or a girl,” said Tarq. “How is that a surprise either way?”

“Unless a xenomorph jumps out of Ella’s belly,” I said without thinking, and then mentally kicked myself for making such a distasteful joke. Fortunately, no one bothered to ask what I meant. Not even an eye-roll.

“Also, I must confess I am surprised you married Captain Wood,” said Tarq. “I thought you liked tall women.”

“She is blonde,” Xornaa offered.

I frowned. “Height is in the eye of the beholder. Can we please stop talking about my love life? Maybe instead you can tell us why you dragged us all the way up here.”

Tarq shrugged. “OK. Welcome aboard, and thanks for coming. As you have guessed, I have bad news. The worst, in fact.”

I took a sit. “Let me guess: it’s time for one of your famous holographic movies.”

“Let me refresh your memory first,” said Tarq.

“One question before you start: did you have anything to do with Fifty Shades?” I asked.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said, but the flicker in his eyes told me what I needed to know.

“I feel strangely calm since we came aboard,” I whispered to Kurt.

“Me too.” He took his PDD out of his pocket and looked at it. “There are some chemicals in the air that I don’t recognize. I bet he’s sedated us again, which means whatever he’s about to tell us is truly terrible.”

“You guys remember right before we arrived at Kanoor, I told you we had lost a planet?” asked Tarq.

Kurt and I nodded.

“We never figured out what happened to that planet,” said Tarq. “The only clue we found was an unknown disturbance in orbit, which we can now confirm was a temporal anomaly. A few days later we found the same phenomenon in Tangaar’s orbit, and seven days ago this happened.”

A holographic image of Tangaar appeared on top of his desk. There was something weird in orbit. Not a ship—it looked like a tear in space. As we watched, a single dark brown ship came out of it, and then the Xortaag fleet lifted off the planet to meet it. I recognized The Crimson Deathbringer leading the Xortaag space fighters.

“Wasn’t Maada retired?” I asked. “Thanks to our very own femme fatale here.”

Xornaa smiled. “I’m still surprised that trick worked. Still, as you know, he must’ve had some inclination to retire on his own; otherwise, I couldn’t influence him.”

“I warned their king about this threat, and the first thing he did was ask for Maada to come back to help,” Tarq responded.

All of a sudden, that weird anomaly in space expanded, and thousands of black ships poured out. They were so many that there was no way to count them.

Tarq read my mind. “Two hundred thousand.”

Holy crap.

The alien fleet attacked the Xortaags. Maada and his people put up a fight, but a five-year-old child could see how hopeless it was. The black ships destroyed the Xortaag fleet, bombarded the shit out of the planet, and threw an asteroid on it. Then they went back inside the temporal anomaly, and it closed behind them.

This wasn’t a battle; this was an extermination.

Sedated or not, it wasn’t possible to see that and not freak out. Tarq himself was busy biting off his nails, even though he’d seen this before. I gasped. “Tangaar is destroyed?”

“Along with twenty billion people on it,” Tarq answered matter-of-factly.

“And it gets worse,” said Xornaa.

“How?!” I exclaimed.

“Those temporal anomalies?” said Tarq. “They are over every single inhabited planet in our galaxy, which is a clear indication that the Black Fleet is going to attack them too, just like Tangaar and Mantux.”

Shit just got real.

I’d been through a lot in my life, and I was reasonably confident I could deal with anything life threw at me. But a freaking two-hundred-thousand-strong enemy fleet that just swept away Maada’s fleet like it was nothing? I rubbed my forehead. A headache was on its way.

“How the hell did those aliens control that huge asteroid?” asked Kurt.

“They come from the future,” said Tarq. “At this point, we do not know what they can or cannot do.”

Kurt tugged his beard. “Any idea why they’re doing this?”

“None,” said Tarq. “The Xortaags tried to contact the enemy, but there was no response. The operating theory is this species is so different from us that at some time in the future they will have decided the universe is not big enough for all of us and planned a wholesale genocide.”

“Genocide doesn’t quite cover what they’re doing,” I said wryly. “So Maada’s dead? For real this time?”

Tarq touched his PDD. “Not exactly.”

The door opened and the devil himself walked in—if the devil had olive skin, a bushy beard, and various facial scars.

Kurt and I jumped out of our seats. There was a clank sound, and a small white gun appeared in Kurt’s right hand. He pointed it at Maada, his face contorted with fury, his hand steady as a rock.

In my mind, I suddenly had a vivid image of Kurt shooting Maada right in the heart. Dark purple blood poured out of the general’s wound, and he went down with a surprised expression on his face. Then Kurt turned to us and spread his hands. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist it.”

That image was replaced by a memory of Keiko telling me, “I respectfully suggest you take your head out of your stupid movies and focus on your responsibilities, sir.”

“And just when I thought you couldn’t possibly get any weirder,” said Venom.

Maada didn’t move a muscle. Good thing too; otherwise, Kurt might’ve shot him.

Tarq intervened. “Kurt, I will be grateful if you do not kill our ally, especially since he might have saved all of us.”

“How so?” Kurt snapped.

“I will tell you if you sit down and behave yourself,” replied Tarq.

“Or I could shoot you in the kneecap,” said Xornaa conversationally.

I hadn’t realized she’d drawn a weapon. I put a hand on Kurt’s arm. “This explains the dog-and-pony show with the grenades.”

“How did you miss this?” Tarq asked Barook.

The gun disappeared inside Kurt’s sleeve. “It’s made of plastic. Completely undetectable.” Then he turned to Xornaa. “Did you just draw on me? I thought we were friends.”

“We are.” Xornaa holstered her gun. “Duty before friendship.”

I sneered. “How very Xortaag of you.”

A rare flash of anger crossed her face.

I studied Maada. “Were you waiting outside for a signal from Tarq to make your grand entrance?”

Maada glared at Tarq. “You said you were going to prepare them to meet me.”

Tarq’s eyes gleamed. “I did say that, did I not?”

“Come on, man,” I complained. “Every time I’ve run into this guy, he’s come within an inch of killing me. I almost had a heart attack. One of these days your pranks are going to get somebody killed.”

Tarq grinned. “Which would make the prank even better. Can you imagine how hilarious it would have been if Kurt shot the general?”

Maada turned his steely gaze on me. “What the hell has happened to you?”

I threw my hand up in disgust. “Oh, for crying out loud! I’ve gained only a few pounds!”

“This shows an unacceptable lack of discipline, Admiral,” growled Maada.

“I changed my mind,” I told Kurt. “Shoot his ass.”

“He does have a point,” said Tarq.

I gave him a sour look.

Maada grabbed a chair, pulled it further away from the rest of us, and sat down. I noticed some fresh-looking scars on his face and neck. The Xortaags healed pretty fast, so those had to be rather deep cuts to leave scars like that.

“Did you get injured during the alien attack?” I asked him.

Tarq coughed loudly and made a cut-it-out gesture.

“Can you please tell them what you did during the alien invasion of Tangaar?” Tarq asked the general.

“You tell them,” Maada snarled. “You seem to be in love with the sound of your own voice.”

I couldn’t stifle a chuckle despite everything that had been going on. “Right? I always say Tarq and his voice should get a room.”

“What was the first thing we did after the Xortaags occupied Earth?” Tarq asked Kurt and me. He sounded like a teacher reviewing the previous lesson before the class started.

“You mean after they killed seven hundred million of us?” Kurt glared at Maada, who glared back, unfazed.

I played along. “We gathered information.”

“Exactly.” Tarq drew on his pipe. “And we used what we learned about the Xortaags to defeat them. Our problem right now is we know nothing about the Black Fleet—”

“Are we married to that?” I interrupted him. “It’s not very original. Sort of derivative, even.”

He shot me an angry look. “Do you have a better idea?”

I didn’t.

“And Maada has helped us how?” asked Kurt flatly.

“The Xortaags have developed nanorobotics. Specifically, they have built nanobot spy drones—tiny little things, so small that they are invisible, capable of flying on their own. They can collect information by hacking into data systems or simply observing their surroundings, and they are very adaptable. The Xortaag fleet released thousands of these during the battle. The nanobots attached themselves to the enemy ships and went into the temporal anomaly with them. Our plan is to collect them when they come back and see what we can learn about the enemy.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Spy nanobots? Wouldn’t that be light years ahead of the Xortaags’ current technological level?”

Maada shrugged. “We reverse-engineered them based on some Akakie nanobots we found on Kanoor.”

“The peace treaty bans secret development of any technology that might have military uses,” Kurt snapped at Maada. “So, you’ve been actively violating the treaty all this time.”

Maada didn’t flinch. “Colonel von der Hagen—”

“President von der Hagen,” Kurt growled, anger flashing in his eyes.

“You do not strike me as a complete moron, so I am positive you have done your research on this individual here.” Maada nodded toward Tarq. “Was I supposed to risk the survival of my people by trusting him?”

Kurt looked perturbed.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let me give you an example,” said Maada. “Have you heard about the time Tarq hacked into an enemy fleet’s computers?”

“Yes,” I replied. “He made the enemy ships attack and destroy each other.”

“Is that what he has told you?” Maada scoffed. “No, he did not make them attack each other. He made that fleet attack their own homeworld. They bombarded their own planet for days, until there was nothing left to destroy, killing billions of the local inhabitants, and Tarq transmitted the whole thing live for the rest of the galaxy to watch. They tried to surrender, of course, but Tarq would not listen.”

I shuddered. I’d eat my own gun if one day my space fighter attacked Earth and started slaughtering people.

“Then he made the fleet jump into deep space, and keep jumping,” Maada continued relentlessly. “Whoever did not kill themselves ended up suffocating to death or dying due to starvation, which I remind you is the exact opposite of what Admiral Harrison did for our fleet that was stranded after you destroyed Talmak.”

“You remember Oksana asked me why I was so afraid of Tarq?” Xornaa asked Kurt. “Now you know.”

Maada wasn’t done yet. “And there was this other time that Tarq—”

“Enough!” Tarq shouted. He looked pale, for a Native American. “I would do anything to defend my people, and I do not apologize for that. After that operation, nobody dared to mess with us for decades, until the Xortaags showed up. By sacrificing those people, I saved God knows how many Akakies.”

Barook rushed to his friend’s defense. “It is not as if your own hands are clean, General.”

Maada shrugged. “I am a soldier. I followed orders, and I killed people in fair battles. I know it seems like a technicality to you, but I was never personally involved with the massacres committed by the Voice of God. That was Prince Mushgaana’s job, and later the colonists. As such, the total number of people killed by the forces under my command is a fraction of the people Tarq killed in this one operation, most of whom civilians.”

“And let’s not forget the Arshans,” Xornaa added.

I hadn’t. I’d always considered Maada a monster, but as he’d just pointed out, we’d probably killed more people on Talmak than he had in his entire military career. People, whom later on we realized, could’ve been saved. I sometimes wondered how Tarq, Barook, and Kurt slept at night. I’d tried to stop them, and I still had nightmares about Talmak.

“I’m beginning to think we deserve to be annihilated by the Black Fleet,” said Venom, the ray of sunshine he’d always been. “Karma.”

“I did what I did to save my people from extinction.” Maada’s expression hardened. “While you, as Lieutenant Xornaa just pointed out, destroyed an entire planet just to get a tactical advantage.”

Since when is Xornaa a lieutenant? I asked Venom.

“Since ever?” he answered. “You’ve never noticed the insignia on her uniform?”

With her figure, I don’t think anyone actually looks at her uniform.

“You’re the very picture of toxic masculinity,” said Venom.

Is it at all possible for me to say something without being immediately mocked by you?

“Nope,” said the overly judgmental voice in my head.

“ ‘Save my people’ sounds like a good excuse,” Kurt told Maada, “but you didn’t even bother to try diplomacy, did you? The Akakies would’ve probably given you their terraforming technology if you’d asked nicely, with no need to slaughter who knows how many sentient beings.”

“Well, not necessarily,” said Tarq. “The Xortaags are famous for being warlike and aggressive. My government might have determined it was safer just to let them die.”

Maada let out a long breath and looked slightly relieved, for some reason.

“Whose side are you on?” I asked Tarq.

He shrugged. “Just telling the truth.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Support your friends instead, especially against someone who’s killed your daughter—or his clone did, or whatever.”

“I thought you were scanning the Xortaag planets regularly to make sure they can’t violate the treaty,” Kurt told Tarq.

Both the Xortaags and the Akakies had invisible force fields, which would’ve made making sure either of them followed the peace treaty impossible. As luck would have it, during the few months of ongoing negotiations, a Talgoinian scientist found a way to detect the force fields, and not realizing the importance of what he’d discovered, published his findings. So now it was impossible for either party to simply continue researching and developing advanced weapons under a force field.

“They have built a secret base on one of the planets that are being terraformed,” Tarq responded.

Maada sat up straight, looking alarmed.

“I bet you are wondering how we eventually found out,” said Tarq. “Once we realized you have nanobots, it was easy. We have been monitoring your fleet movements. Those planets are the only places you have sent enough ships to be able to set up a base, and we never scanned them because we considered them ours.”

“Right under the Akakies’ collective nose,” said Xornaa. “Well done, General.” She batted her luxurious eyelashes at Maada, but he seemed immune to her charm. That guy was dead inside.

“Or maybe he simply has better self-control than you, which isn’t saying much,” said Venom.

“The treaty clearly stipulates if we find such a base, we have the right to destroy it,” said Kurt with anger in his voice.

Maada glared at him. “If anything happens to our base—”

Tarq cut him off. “Guys. We have more urgent issues to deal with right now. Or have you already forgotten about the alien fleet that’s coming for all of us?”

“Plus, at this point, we should be happy that the Xortaags are building weapons,” I added. “Maybe we can use some of them against our new enemy.”

My PDD vibrated. It was Cordelia. Seriously?

I typed quickly. Of course not. They didn’t notice you?

Nope, she answered. The insects’ firewalls are crap despite all their technological advances.

I imagined the look on Tarq’s face if Cordelia suddenly started to pump “gas” into the room again and couldn’t stifle a chuckle. He gave me a suspicious look.

“I want your promise that no harm will come to my people in our secret base,” Maada told Kurt. “Otherwise, I am going to send part of my fleet to defend it.”

“We have known about your base for a few days now,” stated Tarq. “And you can see we have taken no action. We have much bigger fish to fry.”

Maada looked pointedly at Kurt.

“I promise,” said Kurt.

“If you do not keep your word,” said Maada, “I will take my fleet and leave. Let’s see how long you will last against the Black Fleet without my help.”

“So, what’s next?” I asked, twisting my wedding ring around my finger.

“Here is the really bad news,” said Tarq. “Based on the size of the temporal anomalies, we predict Kanoor is next to be attacked, followed by Earth.”

I had figured Earth was in danger; still, a surge of pure terror went through my body when I heard those words. I didn’t know how I managed not to faint. Kurt turned as white as a ghost.

“General Maada and I have talked this out, and we have a plan,” said Tarq, “but you guys do not look too good, and I think we have already bombarded you with way too much information. What do you think about taking a quick break? We can reconvene in thirty minutes.”

I felt my brain was about to explode, so I nodded in agreement.

Maada rose to his feet. “I will be in my quarters.” He left the ready room.

“I want to talk to you in private,” Kurt told Tarq.

“I’m gonna leave too,” said Xornaa, “so you guys can talk freely here.” She followed the general out of the room.

“We will talk in a minute,” said Tarq. “First, there is someone I want you to meet.”

A teenage girl ran in, looking breathless with excitement. She was like a miniature version of Liz. The same thick black curly hair, the same coffee-bean skin, the same dark brown eyes, with the same flecks of gold, no less. She hung onto my neck and shouted, “Uncle Jim!”

“I didn’t know you had a niece,” said Venom.

I gave Tarq a confused look. He took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled. “Guys, you have met my granddaughter Varma.”

This girl couldn’t possibly have been Varma. I remembered the ugly little creature Tarq brought to Earth with him barely three years ago.

“Akakie children grow fast,” Tarq explained.

“Hi, Varma.” I tried to pry her arms from my neck before she choked me to death. “What’s with the look?”

“I love you and all the characters in your books!” she exclaimed.

“She does, along with half the teenagers in the galaxy,” added Tarq.

“Well, the good guys, not that horrible Xortaag general,” continued Varma. “So, when I wanted to choose my looks, I decided to go with Liz, the woman with the balls to attack Maada!”

And she died for it.

“The guts,” I said automatically.

“What?”

“The woman with the guts to attack Maada. Women don’t have … oh, forget it,” I said.

She excitedly waved a book under my nose. “Can I please ask for an autograph? Please, please, please, please?”

I took the book. It was an Akakie translation of The Galactic Gambit. She examined me closely while I was signing the book. “There is some gray in your hair.”

“Legends get old,” I said.

Kurt and Tarq exchanged a look and rolled their eyes at the same time.

“And, you know,” she continued, “you look much bigger than your photos.”

“Camera adds ten pounds.” Tarq chuckled. “Oh wait. This situation is the exact opposite of that.”

I mumbled angrily under my breath, careful not to use the f-word.

“We could help you with that,” said Tarq.

That took me by surprise. “Seriously?”

He scoffed. “We can grow back severed limbs. You think getting rid of some fat is a big deal? Give me an hour after the meeting, and we will make you good as new, or even better.”

“You should totally do it.” Varma batted her eyelashes at me, a trick that she’d probably learned from Xornaa. “You used to be really hot. At least you still have your curls though.”

I self-consciously ran a hand through my curly hair. Used to be? That hurt a little. I thought about it. Why not? Nothing else, it would save me from all the distasteful and tiresome jokes.

Kurt leaned forward in his seat and stared at Tarq with his cold gray eyes. “If during this, eh, surgery, you put something in his brain that makes him follow your orders, I’ll kill you.”

“I will do no such a thing,” said Tarq. “Trust me.”

“We did,” I said. “Until we found you’d played us from the start. I’m super happy to see you, but don’t think for a second we’ve forgotten that.”

I was lying; I’d totally forgiven him. I didn’t want him to think he was off the hook so easily though.

“There is something I really want to know,” said the girl. “Were you really planning to propose to Liz in your bedroom? That doesn’t sound very romantic, you know.”

“I don’t suppose you know who Deadpool is, do you?” I asked.

Varma shook her head and typed on her PDD, probably searching for the unfamiliar name.

“Liz was a movie buff,” I said sadly, “just like me. I was planning to recreate a scene from one of our favorite classics when the main character proposes. She’d get it.”

Varma read something on her PDD, and her eyes widened. “Ew! You were going to hide the ring in your—”

I didn’t let her finish what she was about to say. “Under the pillow. I’d already hidden the ring under the pillow. Jesus.”

She wagged her index finger at me. “Do not use the Lord’s name in vain. Liz would not have liked it, and neither do I.”

“Staying in character much?” I asked her.

Varma left, holding the book to her chest like a cherished souvenir. I gave Tarq an angry look. “You couldn’t stop her from turning herself into a mini Liz? This is just weird.”

He shrugged. “I barely managed to convince her not to use her first choice, which was a female you. Trust me when I say it was much worse.”

“Before Maada comes back,” said Kurt, “I want the location of this secret Xortaag base.”

Tarq touched his PDD. “Just sent them to you.”

“Excuse me a minute,” said Kurt. “I’ve got to talk to Ivan.”

“Didn’t you promise Maada not to attack their base?” I asked.

“No.” Kurt winked at me. “I promised not to hurt anyone.” He stepped outside.

“Also, what’s up with Maada’s fresh scars?” I asked.

“Those are self-inflicted,” said Tarq. “He did not have them when he came aboard.”

I was astonished. “Why?”

“I think this is his way of dealing with the loss of his planet.”

“Speaking of Maada,” I said, “now that he’s on our team, any chance we can put our hands on their cloning technology?”

Tarq shook his head. “I asked him already. They had only one machine—they called it the Duplicator—and it was destroyed with Tangaar. The Xortaags never found out how it worked, so they could not build another one.”

“Can’t we ask the people who originally built it?”

“The Xortaags killed them off before finding out about their cloning technology.”

“There goes my plan to live forever,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “One more thing worries me: Kurt and I made our peace with the Xortaags a long time ago, but not everyone on Earth is going to be thrilled to team up with Maada. Some of my own pilots might shoot him on sight.”

Tarq giggled like a child. “It is a good thing we have a mind-control system in orbit then, right?”

A few minutes later, Maada walked back into Tarq’s ready room like he owned the place. Xornaa and Kurt returned after him and took their seats.

“Let’s review what we are against,” said Tarq. “Our enemy has already destroyed two planets with considerable ease, even though the strongest fleet in our galaxy defended Tangaar. They sent out two hundred thousand ships, but it is possible that their actual number is much higher. They come from the future, so their exact capabilities are unknown to us; in fact, at this moment, we know nothing about them. We, on the other hand, have less than twenty-eight thousand space fighters put together, and half of the Earth fleet and all the ten thousand ships Maada has summoned from the Xortaag colonies are the old models. We do have a few starships and dreadnaughts, but based on what happened during the battle of Tangaar, they are completely useless. In short, it is obvious that we have the snowball’s chance in a direct confrontation with the Black Fleet.”

“What about the other species?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they join us?”

“We’ve informed them but, so far, nothing,” Tarq answered. “We are on our own.”

Maada raised his hand. “I do not know if this helps, but my king believed those things were not actually space fighters; they are living beings.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple. The wonders never ceased today. Next thing we know, these things can teleport. Why not? Maada could, sort of.

“Also, in my opinion, there will be no way to make them surrender or flee,” Maada continued. “They fight to the very end. Even when you shoot them down, they try to drop on a military target.”

“So now we’re fighting Kamikaze aliens.” I shook my head in disgust. “Things keep getting better and better.”

Tarq puffed on his pipe. “We have two options: we can fight, or we can run.”

Kurt’s eyes widened. “Run? Run to where?”

“This is the very definition of a world-ending event,” said Tarq. “We could pack as many people as we can into our transport ships, leave the galaxy, and find another planet to settle, or start a new colony under one of our undetectable force fields and pray that the Black Fleet does not find us. The drawback of both cases is if they do find us, we will have a lot less chance of defending ourselves, but since our chances are zero anyway, this would not make a lot of difference.”

“Dollars to donuts he’s already sending a few million Akakies out of the galaxy as Plan B,” said Venom.

“That’s the only drawback you can think of?” Kurt raised his voice. “You want us to run away and leave hundreds of billions of people to die? Have you learned nothing in all the time you spent with us?”

“I have already voiced my disagreement with this plan,” Maada chimed in.

“I’m going to send you a few movies to watch,” I told Tarq. “The Alamo, 300, Saving Private Ryan …”

“Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid?” Kurt suggested.

I nodded. “Good one.”

“I have seen none of those movies,” said Tarq. “but let me guess: all the good guys died at the end?”

“Yes,” I said, “but that’s not the point.”

“You guys were listening when I said the enemy fleet is ten times bigger than ours, right?” asked Tarq. “If we run, at least we have a chance to survive and rebuild after they leave.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” I said. “Running isn’t really our style.”

“I told you so,” Xornaa told Tarq.

Tarq shook his head. “In that case, we must fight. We have a plan, but to be honest, it is not much of an actual plan; it is mostly a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sort of thing.”

Maada looked confused. Xornaa translated for him.

“Anything’s better than running away,” I said.

“I’m not sure you’ll still think so when you hear what he’s got to say,” said Xornaa, avoiding eye contact.

“As I said before, we currently know nothing about our enemy, and we have no chance of defeating them,” explained Tarq. “Therefore, we have decided to evacuate Kanoor. Right now, an enormous evacuation operation is under way.”

“Told you,” said Venom, sounding very pleased with himself.

“We are sending my people to the first Xortaag colonies,” Tarq continued, “most of which are underpopulated and can sustain a big wave of refugees.”

Because the Xortaags killed off the local inhabitants, I thought.

“Can you evacuate twenty-five billion people?” asked Kurt, playing with his beard.

“It is Kanoor we are talking about,” said Tarq. “A lot of citizens have their own private spaceships. But no, we cannot evacuate everyone. Maybe half the population, at best.”

I barely managed to hold down my dinner. He was planning to leave half of his own people to be slaughtered by the Black Fleet. It was like he was trying to make me dislike him on purpose.

“We will gather our combined fleet on Earth,” he continued. “The nanobots will be back when the temporal anomaly opens up again. We will study the information they will bring back, and if we manage to form a viable plan to defeat the enemy, we will make our stand here on Earth.”

If? If?

“And if we can’t come up with a plan?” I snarled, but I was sure I didn’t want to know the answer.

“Then we will move the fleet to the next planet on the Black Fleet’s list,” said Tarq, “and keep studying them until we find a way to defeat the enemy.”

I rose to my feet, my face on fire. Kurt stood beside me, his face dark like death. “Are you out of your peanut-sized insect mind?” I yelled. “We are not going to leave ten billion humans to be butchered!”

“I do not see how us dying with them will help anyone,” said Tarq coldly.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do if it comes to that,” asserted Kurt.

“No, you are not,” countered Tarq. “We are talking about the fate of the entire galaxy in here, not just one insignificant planet. Let me make this perfectly clear: if we have to sacrifice a few billion humans in order to save a hundred trillion people in the galaxy, that is exactly what we are going to do.”

Now I knew why he’d tried to sedate us; still, my eyes were about to jump out of my skull. “Captain America must be rolling in his grave right now.”

Tarq gave me a blank stare.

“You know, ‘We don’t trade lives,’ ” I said. “It doesn’t ring a bell?”

“You can’t force us to abandon Earth and come with you,” said Kurt, his jaw set.

“Actually, I can,” said Tarq. “You remember I told Jackson the Vipers we gave you have a self-destruct command, right?”

I grimaced. “I thought you were bluffing.”

“I bluff quite often, but not that time,” Tarq responded.

Kurt looked like he was about to claw out Tarq’s hearts with his bare hands. “Even you can’t be so heartless.”

“Can’t he?” I asked. “Remember Talmak, when you sided with him?”

Kurt controlled himself and didn’t punch me in the face.

“If you stay here, alone and with no plan, you are dead anyway,” said Tarq calmly. “I might as well save the Black Fleet the trouble. You do as I say, or I transmit the self-destruct code.”

Hot, burning fury flashed in Kurt’s icy gray eyes, and for a second I wasn’t looking at President von der Hagen, but the assassin whom back in the day everyone was scared to death of, and with good reason, because he’d taken out so many people in cold blood. He took three quick steps toward the little alien, and his small plastic gun appeared in his hand. He pushed the gun onto Tarq’s forehead. “So maybe it’s better if I blow out your brain right now and make sure you can’t do it.”

Tarq let out his trademark theatrical sigh. “Barook?”

“Commander Tarq thought you might react like this.” Barook grinned. “So, he has ordered an invisible spy ship to transmit the code in two hours, unless he contacts them and cancels the order.”

“If we have the self-destruct code, we might find a way to neutralize it,” I told Kurt.

He pressed the gun harder to Tarq’s forehead. It was going to leave a mark, just like the one Cain had, which was exactly what the soulless little traitor deserved. “Give me the code.”

Tarq stood his ground. “Make me.”

Xornaa cleared her throat. She’d been pointing her gun at Kurt’s back. Knowing her super-fast Wonder Woman-level reactions, I was certain she could shoot Kurt before he could pull the trigger.

With Kurt blocking his view, Tarq had to tilt his head to see Xornaa. “A Mexican stand-off in space,” he said cheerfully. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Can I please offer a solution?” said Xornaa. “Let’s not cross this bridge until we have to. For the time being, we can proceed with the assumption that we’ll come up with a plan to defend Earth, together. You guys can continue this fascinating conversation later if that doesn’t happen.”

“I second that,” said Maada.

Never thought I’d see a day when the Xortaags were the voice of reason.

That made sense, plus I had another card up my sleeve. I got closer to Kurt and whispered a word in his ear. “Cordi.”

Kurt considered that for a second, looking thoughtful. Then he nodded, and the gun disappeared from his hand. He gave Tarq a withering look. “This ain’t over.”

The insect thought he’d won. “I think it is. So, are there any questions?”

Nobody said anything.

“The meeting is adjourned,” said Tarq. “Jim, come with me. Let’s go take care of your belly.”

“See you in a few hours,” I told Kurt.

“I need to be alone to clear my thoughts anyway,” he answered.

Maada walked towards the door but stopped and turned to me. He hesitated for a second, then walked toward me and extended his right hand. “Admiral Harrison, please allow me to congratulate you on your marriage.”

The general was full of surprises.

“This is so out of character for him,” said Venom. “Maybe he’s feeling guilty for killing your first wife?”

I shook Maada’s hand. “How did you know?”

“You mentioned it at the beginning of your last book.”

I was more surprised, and even a little flattered. “You read my books?”

“We teach … we used to teach your first two books in our military academy,” he said.

“Are you kidding?”

“I rarely ‘kid’, and certainly not with an—” He stopped himself before saying the last word.

I chuckled. “With an enemy. It’s good to know that despite everything, and even though we’re in this thing together, you still consider me an enemy.”

He folded his arms and gave me a level look. “Well, you did kill me.”

“You killed my wife!”

He rubbed the scars on his face. “Here we go again.”

“You know what, General,” I said, “you might think we’re enemies, but I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

*****

“That went well,” said Tarq, sitting behind the desk in his ready room.

Maada fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat which looked too small for him. “The humans make good allies.”

Tarq grinned. “They make strange allies. You remember your people conquered their planet and killed millions of them not too long ago, right?”

The general glared at him. “You used them as bait!”

Xornaa entered the ready room and sat opposite Maada. “Jim’s just left,” she told Tarq.

“Minus the belly?” he asked.

“Minus the belly,” she turned to Maada. “Did you have to tell Jim his books were taught in the academy? That guy thinks he’s God’s gift to humanity as it is.”

“Don’t get familiar with me, woman,” barked Maada. “We have to work together for now, but I have not forgotten you are responsible for the destruction of our fleet on Earth.”

“That was Tarq’s plan!”

“He is an enemy. You are supposed to be one of us. That makes it worse.”

Xornaa chuckled bitterly. “One of you? Hell, no. Your precious Mushgaana raped my mother. She killed herself because of that. To be perfectly honest, part of me is happy that the Black Fleet destroyed Tangaar, and your kingdom with it.”

Flames of anger appeared in Maada’s eyes, but he made a visible effort to compose himself. His features softened, and he sighed. “The prince was my only friend. I considered him family. However, he had a ruthless streak that I never liked. I often warned him it would get him killed one day.”

“And it did, did it not?” Tarq shook his head. “Come on guys. We are all on the same team here.”

“Before I forget,” Maada looked directly into Tarq’s eyes, “I noticed you were sizing me up during our meeting. Just in case you are planning a prank, probably in retaliation for being embarrassed by me in front of the humans, I must warn you I will shoot you if you try anything.”

Tarq faked a smile. “What? Me? Never! You are now a respected ally.”

“Speaking of pranks,” Xornaa told the general, “I must say I’m surprised how calmly you took Tarq’s last one, especially since as a result Kurt was this close”—she held her finger and thumb an inch apart—“to shooting you.”

Maada shook his head. “I confess I enjoyed the look of horror on Harrison and von der Hagen’s faces.”

“Right?” Tarq enthused. “The Kingslayer and Mr. President almost wet their pants!”

“Be that as it may,” Maada growled, “do take my warning seriously.”

Tarq chuckled. “Well, I hate to tell you, but you literally cannot shoot me, or harm me in any way, or even disobey my orders.”

Maada narrowed his eyes.

“You see,” Tarq continued, “the first night you came aboard, we put something in your food that knocked you out. Then we threw you inside MICI and imprinted you with a few simple instructions. Guess what those are.”

A look of alarm crossed Xornaa’s face.

Tarq spread his arms theatrically. “Puppet, meet your master.”

He expected Maada to explode with rage, but much to his surprise, all he did was raise an eyebrow and ask, “You think you can boss me around, insect?”

Xornaa made an urgent cut-it-out gesture.

Tarq hesitated. Something was wrong. But it was too late to back off. “I know I can,” he said, not sounding as confident as he would have liked to.

Maada gave a half-shrug. “Let us put that theory to the test, shall we?”

The next thing Tarq knew, he was dangling by his neck from Maada’s right arm, desperately trying to draw breath.

The general squeezed Tarq’s throat. “Go ahead, insect. Give me an order.”

“Ahh … Agrrrrr,” Tarq did his best, feeling his brain cells screaming for oxygen already.

“What was that?” Maada brought his face closer to Tarq’s. “I could not quite catch that.”

Xornaa pressed her gun barrel to the back of Maada’s head. “Let him go, General.”

Maada turned his head and gave her a hard look over his shoulder.

“Just in case you’re thinking about trying to disarm me,” Xornaa said calmly, “let me remind you I do this for a living.”

Maada shrugged and turned his attention back to Tarq, pressing harder on his throat.

Stop trying to help me!

Xornaa sighed and lowered her gun. “Let me be the adult in the room and point out that if we want to have any chance of beating the Black Fleet, we’re going to need both of you.”

Maada considered that for a long moment, then he let go of Tarq’s neck. The Akakie fell onto the floor, grabbing his throat and coughing convulsively.

Maada kicked him in the shoulder. “Stay the hell away from me,” he growled, then he stormed out of the ready room.

Xornaa holstered her gun and helped Tarq to his feet. “If you’d consulted me first before making this half-cocked plan of yours, I could’ve told you Maada’s mental discipline is legendary, and it was unlikely for MICI to have any effects on him.”

Tarq rubbed his neck and wondered if his windpipes were permanently damaged. “Darlaan and his brothers controlled him pretty easily back on Tangaar.”

“Xortaag royal family members are significantly more powerful than your toys.”

“You influenced him back on Tangaar!”

Xornaa shook her head. “I’m positive I could never make him do anything against his will.”

“Shouldn’t you defend my life more forcefully? You remember if I die, the bomb in your skull explodes, right?”

“I do remember, but I didn’t think you were in any real danger. Still, I advise you to take Maada’s warning seriously and stop messing with him. He has a reputation for always keeping his word, you know.”

“No one can take a joke anymore,” Tarq bemoaned. “It has become impossible to pull a prank on someone without them trying to kill you.”

“Well, there’s always Jim,” Xornaa pointed out. “He seems to share your weird sense of humor.”

Tarq’s eyes flashed. “Speaking of Jim, I am working on something that, if successful, will go down in history as the greatest prank ever pulled. It will be epic!”

The Xortaag woman rolled her eyes. “Just make sure you don’t get any of us killed with your ridiculous games.”

“I can make no promises.”

*****

Kurt walked into a small park in Winterfell, sat on a wooden bench under an oak tree, and listened to gently rustling leaves. He’d asked the shuttle pilot to land nearby and wait for him.

He’d been here once before, in the exact same spot. It was around five years ago, right after he met Tarq for the first time, when he’d just found out there were other species in the universe, and a seemingly unbeatable fleet was on its way to conquer Earth.

Déjà vu.

Back then, he decided to make sure humanity survived the Xortaag invasion, whatever it took. It seemed some things never changed.

Kurt remembered how fervently he’d wished his father could’ve seen him the day he became the president of Earth. People had jokingly called him President von der Hagen the Second. The old man would’ve been so proud to see his son elected as the head of the United Earth’s government. But that victory meant it was now his duty to defend Earth against the new enemy, even though he didn’t have a clue what to do. Worse, even the likes of Tarq and Maada weren’t able to come up with anything remotely resembling a coherent plan.

So, what else is new?

When he joined his father’s campaign to bring all the governments on Earth together to form a federal government, no one thought they would succeed. Everyone, even Jim, thought going to war against Zheng was hopeless too. And during the Xortaags’ occupation of Earth, there were times when defeat seemed all but certain. He’d spent a good chunk of his life beating impossible odds. The current crisis was just another situation which seemed insurmountable. He’d find a solution. Or Jim would. Or Tarq. Or Xornaa. Hell, even that bastard Maada had never say die written all over him.

He lost Allen and Keiko the last time an alien fleet attacked Earth. He tugged at his beard and wondered who he’d lose this time. Not that there were many people in his life; it was basically Pat and Jim.

No one, he promised himself. Not if I have anything to say about it.

His PDD vibrated. It was a message from Pat. When’re you coming home, hon?

Kurt touched the PDD screen and let the warmth he always felt while talking to Patricia fill his heart. Maybe after Ella and Jim, it was their turn to have a baby. When this was over.

On my way, babe, he answered.

*****

My shuttle landed at around 10 A.M. I asked Max to stop at Brooklyn Tailors before going home.

“So, what’s up?” asked Max.

“Ask Cordelia.” I leaned back into the car seat and closed my tired eyes. “Speaking of which, Cordi?”

“Speaking of whom,” she answered.

“Did you find anything?”

“Nope,” she replied. “I looked everywhere. I think if there really were a spy ship in orbit and Tarq had communicated with its pilots, I would’ve found it.”

“Unless Tarq has somehow hidden or deleted the records,” I suggested. “You should never underestimate that guy.”

I thought about the events of these last few years while Max was driving. The war with the Eastern Coalition, which made me a flying ace and later the commander of the fleet. Zheng’s coup, which killed Kurt’s parents. Kurt’s two-year-long armed rebellion, during which he was busy assassinating people left, right, and center. The first contact with the Akakies and Tarq pranking us into thinking we were dead and in heaven. The Xortaag invasion that killed so many people. Operation Royalty, when Keiko sacrificed herself to kill Maada (with some help from me), just for him to come back later. The intergalactic war between us and the Xortaags that ended with signing the peace treaty. Yep, it’d been a crazy few years.

And it was about to get a lot crazier. I probably shouldn’t have expected my happy, uneventful life to last long.

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in!

I looked out of my car window. There was a family of four—father, mother, and two little girls—in the self-driving car next to Max. One of the girls, a plump, cute kid with short curly hair, noticed me. She waved at me and smiled. There was sunshine in her smile. I waved back and wondered if she’d be alive in a few weeks. The last alien invasion had cost us more than seven hundred million people, including six thousand fighter pilots under my command, one of whom happened to be my wife.

Why on Earth are you so freaking calm?

There was no doubt we were going to fight the Black Fleet on Earth, with or without the Akakies and the Xortaags, even though without them my fleet had less than nine thousand space fighters. I had every right to panic. I decided my calmness was a combination of a few things. At some level, and despite the odds being overwhelmingly against it, I was still confident that between Kurt, Tarq, Maada, and me, we’d find a way to defeat the Black Fleet. Moreover, I’d witnessed (hell, I’d caused) so much death and destruction that this new threat simply felt like another crisis we had to deal with. And yeah, Tarq’s sedatives played a role, too.

I called Kurt to let him know I was back.

“I’m not happy with the prospect of an alliance with Maada,” he said. “But the more I think about it, the more I see we don’t have a choice.”

“We don’t,” I agreed. “And as terrible as the Xortaags are, these new guys are a whole lot worse.”

“Have you given any thought to how we’re going to break the news?”

“I have, and you aren’t going to like my answer.”

“I know what you’re going to say. One word: MFM.”

“It’s an acronym. And yes. There’ll be chaos if we don’t do it, and we need people to stay calm if we want to have any chance of arranging an evacuation. The question is how we decide who stays and who leaves the planet.”

“I have some thoughts on that,” he said with remorse in his voice.

At Brooklyn Tailors, I bought and put on the tightest slim-fit T-shirt I could find. Ella, wearing a snow-white bathrobe, was meditating in the bedroom when I returned to my house. When she saw me, she rose an eyebrow and asked, “Have you been working out?”

That was all the reaction I got. British people!

I pulled up my shirt a little so she could admire my six-pack. “Compliments of Tarq’s medical team.”

Ella’s eyes gleamed. “I want an appointment with his doctors as soon as the baby’s born.”

“Why would you want the baby to have a six-pack?”

She laughed. “So, what did Tarq want?”

“Pour yourself a glass of wine and come sit with me,” I told her.

“It’s not even noon yet,” she objected. “Plus, you know I can’t drink much anyway.”

“Tarq saw it fit to try to sedate Kurt and me, Mr. Super-Assassin and the Kingslayer, before telling us what I’m about to tell you.”

“That bad?” she asked, but I guessed she knew the answer.

“You’re gonna want to sit down for this one—with a glass of wine in your hand. Or even better, a horse tranquilizer.”

Ella joined me in the living room a few minutes later. She sat on the sofa next to me, straightened her robe, took a reluctant sip of her Merlot (her lips barely touched the wine), and waited.

I told her everything.

I’d thought about not telling her the whole story all at once, or at least trying to sugarcoat it. To be honest, I was a bit worried about the baby. But Ella was a career military woman (she’d served in the Royal Navy for years before the Xortaags showed up, and everybody in the world knew submariners had superior mental fitness) and a starship captain. She’d already played a role in defeating the Xortaags, and she was a part of the task force that took back Kanoor and five other planets from them. I didn’t think another alien invasion would scare her, and it didn’t. She listened carefully, showing no emotion like the consummate professional that she was, and interrupted me a few times to ask questions. It, however, didn’t escape my attention that she unconsciously put her hand on her belly a few times.

There was steel in her voice when she talked. “Are we going to evacuate Earth?”

“You know we only have a couple of transport vessels,” I answered. “The Akakie ships are busy evacuating their own people. Some of them will come here once that’s done, but we’ll be able to evacuate a few hundred million people at best.”

She bit her lower lip. “There’ll be chaos if we tell people most of them must stay behind and wait for the Black Fleet to drop an asteroid on them.”

“Tarq’s using the MFM in Kanoor’s orbit to keep people in line. We’re gonna have to do the same.” I hated my own answer, but Kurt and I had talked about it, and this was the only way.

“Never thought I see the day Kurt and you decide to use MFM on our own people.”

“Desperate times.”

“How do we choose who stays and who goes?” asked Ella.

“Some sort of a draw, done by a computer.”

Ella went to the kitchen, came back with the wine bottle, and looked questioningly at me. I shook my head. “I don’t want to mix alcohol with whatever Tarq has already used to numb our senses.”

“How about Tarq’s threat to destroy our fleet?” she asked.

“I’m ninety percent sure he’s bluffing. Don’t get me wrong; he’d totally do it if it helped him, but making our space fighters self-destruct will have no benefits for him. On the other hand, if he watches us fight the Black Fleet, he might learn a thing or two about the enemy.”

“Plus, I didn’t find anything that suggests the self-destruct codes exist,” added Cordelia.

“I don’t want to sound negative,” said Ella. “But fighting such a big fleet coming from the future does sound impossible. What’re we going to do?”

“During the Xortaag invasion, there were a few times that it seemed all hope was lost.” I played with my wedding ring. “For example, right after Maada killed Liz, when they outnumbered us four to one, their colonists were only a few weeks away from Earth, and they had the might of the Earth armies behind them. Not to mention the fact that Mushi could kill everyone using MFM. Also, during Operation Royalty, when Maada’s fleet flew off the ground, I was certain we were going on a suicide mission.”

She smiled. “I’ve read your books, you know.”

“So, you know what we did.”

“You kept fighting.”

“We fought, we found a way, and we won. No one on our team knows how to accept defeat. We’re going to do what we always do: we’re going to beat the Black Fleet, one way or another.”

“Are you delusional?” said Venom. “You do realize we’re headed towards the worst Charlie Foxtrot in history, right?”

“So now what?” asked my wife.

I leaned forward and held her hand. “You know what? I think I’ll have that drink after all.”

Ella’s PDD started buzzing while I was pouring myself a glass of wine. “It’s Lilly,” she said. “She probably wants to know what happened last night. What should I tell her?”

I shrugged. “The truth. She’ll find out soon enough anyway. Just ask her to keep it a secret for now.”

My wife, talking to Lilly, walked out of the room, and I was left alone with my not-particularly-pleasant thoughts.

“And me,” Venom pointed out.

Chapter Four

Mutiny

Standard Galactic Date: 012.09.5073

(Earth Date: 30/04/2082)

Faltaz asked his assistant, Naduk, to wait outside and entered his grandson’s office.

Kavmar was busy studying a holographic image of the funnel. He beamed when he saw the old Volt and rushed to welcome him. “You honor me by coming here, Grandfather, but you really do not have to. Just summon me whenever you want to meet, and I will come to you.”

“You have more important things to do than coming to see an old man.”

“I always have time for you, Grandfather.”

“Naduk pushed me most of the way.” Faltaz sat down. “Still, I admit I am exhausted. It is fortunate my chamber is close to your office. Can you imagine if I lived on the other side of the base? This place is huge.”

“How else would it house all our warriors?” Kavmar sat in front of him. “How can I be of service?”

“I just wanted to talk about the operation. Things are going extremely well, are they not?”

“I must confess, I am worried about our higher-than-expected casualties when we attacked Tangaar,” said the Vox commander. “We cannot afford to lose thirty thousand ships for every planet we destroy.”

Faltaz shrugged his grandson’s concerns away. “That was the strongest fleet in their galaxy, and I am confident something like that will not happen again. Still, go ahead and call the reserves. I know they are mostly too old or too young, but we have to compensate for the warriors we have lost and be ready for other unforeseeable circumstances.”

“I have done that already, so a hundred and eighty thousand new Vox warriors will join us soon. They are not as fast and strong as the rest of us, but they can still fight. I have also issued orders to build new barracks for them.”

“Will food and supplies be an issue?”

“No,” said Kavmar. “We have to reduce the rations a bit, but we have enough. How are you doing?”

“I have grown too old, Grandson. This is the end of the journey for me. I just want to see this done. How about you? Your kids are OK?”

Kavmar’s normally dark brown color brightened several shades. “I cannot begin to tell you how proud of me they are. Proud of us, in fact. The commander of the warriors who brought the aliens to their knees, and the scientist who made it all possible.”

The look on Kavmar’s face reminded the old Volt of how much he had missed his own younglings—all seventeen of them, along with all his grandchildren, who had died when bombs dropped on Pandar. The only reason Kavmar had survived was he had been out of the city with his mother. Now, a lifetime later, Faltaz could barely remember what his kids looked like. He had photos, of course, but he had not looked at them for years. He had an important mission in life, and he did not have time to waste on memories. Or on self-pity, for that matter.

“I love your children, you know that, even though I never could spend much time with them, planning this operation and all. After all these years, not a day passes without me wishing my kids were alive. Growing old and childless is a terrible fate.”

Kavmar leaned forward and touched his torso gently. “You will always have me, Grandpa. And your grand-grandchildren.”

The old Volt was grateful for the gesture and the sentiment. “The day when the carbon-based aliens nuked Pandar and killed my family, I told your grand-uncle I will make them pay for what they did to us. And here we are.”

“Please allow me to point out what you have achieved here is more than just revenge. Destroying our enemies will ensure a bright future for my children and all our future generations.”

Faltaz shook his upper body sadly. “I am not so certain. We have bankrupted our economy doing this. We have stripped Voltex of all its natural resources and pushed it to the brink of destruction. We might not survive, even if we do defeat the aliens.”

“I am confident you will find a way.”

“No, Kavmar. Not this time. I am just too old. And to be honest, I have been so focused on this mission since the war ended that I never gave much thought to what would happen after. But I have been doing a lot of thinking recently, and I just do not see a future for us. In our quest to destroy the aliens, we have destroyed ourselves too.”

“Please do not tell me all this has been for nothing,” pleaded Kavmar. “I have been dreaming of going back to my children and living the rest of my days with them in peace for years. That is what keeps me going—that, and praying to Vilyek, of course. But we must have our revenge first.”

“Sometimes, I cannot help but wonder if your children would have had a better future if we had spent our resources on rebuilding our economy and preserving our planet rather than doing this,” said Faltaz.

“And let the aliens get away with murdering billions of our people? Not a chance. I want peace and prosperity for our people, but not at that price. My children would not want that either.”

Peace. I have not had a day of peace since those demonic bombs were dropped on Pandar.

“When I was a child, I experienced no joy in my life, only hunger and death,” added Kavmar, “compliments of the carbon-based aliens. You know my mother, your only surviving child, died out of hunger because she gave the little food we had left to me. It is not the time to second-guess ourselves, so close to victory. We will destroy the enemy; then we will go back and rebuild our planet. And you will still be around to help us.”

The optimism of youth, thought Faltaz.

“There is something that has been bothering me,” he told his grandson. “Did you notice that during the battle an Akakie dreadnaught saved a single Xortaag space fighter?”

“Yes, but I did not give it any thought. Why?”

“It must have been someone very important for them to sacrifice a dreadnaught for him,” said the old Volt.

“It is just one individual. How can he possibly make a difference?”

Faltaz gave his grandson a pointed look.

“You are a different story, Grandpa,” said Kavmar. “You are a legend.”

“So is that individual, for all we know. We have no idea who that was. Maybe we should have researched our enemies before we attacked.”

“Considering our overwhelming superiority, that would have been a waste of time. Sorry, Grandfather, I have an incoming message.” Kavmar was quiet for a moment; then he said, “Send her in.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Not at all. One of my lieutenants wants to see me. This should not take long.”

A female Vox entered the office and bowed in front of Kavmar. “Greetings, Commander.”

“Welcome, Malnar. I assume you know my grandfather.”

“Only by reputation.” She bowed again, this time to Faltaz. “It is an honor, sir.”

“Do you have something to report?” asked the commander.

Malnar gave Faltaz a hesitant look.

“You can speak freely in front of my grandfather.”

“Well, sir, the thing is, some of my friends and I were talking, and …” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed uncertain of what to say.

She is frightened, thought Faltaz in surprise.

“And?” asked Kavmar impatiently.

The woman spoke quickly, as if she were worried she might change her mind. “There were billions of small children on the planet we just destroyed, sir.”

Faltaz immediately realized where this was going and cursed himself for not anticipating it earlier. For the Volts, family was the most important thing in the universe, and when they said family, what they really meant was children. A good partner was important, sure, but the primary purpose of a union was procreation, and any suitable partner would do. Faltaz should have predicted that at some point people might object to the indiscriminate massacre of the alien offspring.

“You figured out the aliens had children just now?” asked Kavmar dryly.

“I never thought about it, until I saw them on my screens,” explained Malnar. “Something changed in me then. I have twenty-three kids, and I will kill myself if something happens to any of them.”

Faltaz could see his grandson was getting angry, even though when he talked, his voice betrayed no emotion. “The descendants of these children you are so concerned with have killed billions of our people and ruined our planet.”

“Their descendants,” said Malnar. “A millennium in the future. These kids have nothing to do with what happened to us. They do not even know why they are being slaughtered.”

“Go back to your post and wait for orders,” said Kavmar firmly.

The woman stood straight. “We have to find another way, Commander. I regret to inform you I will not be participating in another attack unless we give the aliens enough time to evacuate their children.”

Faltaz could not believe what he was hearing. “Evacuate them to where? We are going to destroy every habitable planet in this galaxy.”

“We can negotiate with the aliens,” said Malnar, “and find a way to spare their children.”

“Negotiations are impossible with evil creatures like these,” said Kavmar with conviction. “They must be crushed before they contaminate the rest of the universe.”

“Then maybe we should not—”

Those were Malnar’s last words.

Kavmar shot her point blank. The top of her body disappeared, taking her nervous system with it. She fell to the ground and twitched a few times.

“What did you do that for?” yelled Faltaz.

“It is a mutiny,” answered Kavmar calmly. “What did you expect me to do?”

The commander approached the corpse. A few thin tentacles stretched out of Kavmar’s body and attached themselves to the dead woman. He looked like he was listening to something; then he cursed loudly. “There are dozens of them.”

“Dozens of who?” asked the old man, but he was afraid that he knew what his grandson was talking about.

“Co-conspirators,” said the warrior. “Grandfather, please stay here a while. I have to go and deal with this.” He left the room.

Faltaz did not need to ask him what he was going to do.

Naduk entered the room. He stood by the door and stared at the dead woman’s body. After spending years with his assistant, Faltaz knew him well enough to realize he wanted to say something.

“Speak your mind,” said the old man.

“Sire, I am terribly sorry to say this, but I heard the conversation, and I think the woman’s argument had merit,” said Naduk.

The first thought that unconsciously popped up in Faltaz’s mind scared him to death.

So do I, my old friend. So do I.

Chapter Five

Farewell, My Beautiful Planet

Standard Galactic Date: 049.03.5073

(Earth Date: 04/04/2082)

Tarq looked at me with suspicion in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

I made an exaggerated bow. “I’m your shuttle pilot. Kurt asked me to come and pick you up.”

I was in Indomitable’s hangar bay, and Tarq and Xornaa had just walked in. Xornaa wore the Marines’ dress uniform, and Tarq was in his usual white suit. We had decided that because we needed to meet regularly and Kurt was too busy to fly into space and back every day, Tarq had to come stay on Earth. We could of course meet by video conferencing, but Tarq himself always insisted the briefings be held in person when possible. I knew he enjoyed the briefings way too much to do them by video; moreover, I was certain being in the same room with us allowed him (and Xornaa) to read our reactions in ways he couldn’t do from orbit, and the shadow master was not a person to give up such an important advantage. He’d protested that, given how our last meeting went, he didn’t feel entirely safe on Earth, but I reminded him because my fleet could destroy Indomitable at any given moment, I didn’t see how staying aboard was any safer. He’d agreed to come dirtside only after casually saying something about the need to regularly contact the invisible spy ship in orbit.

He narrowed his eyes. “Doesn’t the commander of the fleet have more important things to do?”

“More important than escorting an old friend to Earth?” I responded with a wry smile. “Oh, come on. If you’re worried, Xornaa can fly the shuttle.”

Tarq exchanged a look with Xornaa and shrugged. They followed me on board the shuttle waiting for us. Xornaa sat in the pilot’s seat, Tarq and I behind. The Xortaag woman touched the panel in front of her a few times. The shuttle’s engines powered up. It took off smoothly and left the hangar bay.

I looked at Earth, visible from the front window, and admired its magnificent beauty for the thousandth time. No matter how often I saw Earth from orbit, this view always made my breath catch and my spirit lift. My planet, where all my loved ones lived, including my unborn child. In this wide universe, this was the only place I called home, which incidentally I’d helped save a couple of times, along with the rest of the galaxy.

If pride really were a deadly sin, then I was going straight to hell.

And now new baddies were coming for her. Well, guess who was standing in their way. But first, there was a minor issue I had to deal with.

“You know what, Tarq?” I said conversationally. “It’s just occurred to me you never answered for the seven hundred million humans you got killed.”

That was the cue Cordelia was waiting for.

All of a sudden, the shuttle started shaking and spinning violently. An ear-splitting siren wailed, and the view from the front window started changing rapidly from Earth to space and back, with Earth looking slightly bigger each time. As experienced a pilot as I was, I felt I was about to throw up.

Tarq, whose face had already turned green, yelled, “What the hell is going on?”

“I’m locked out of the controls,” said Xornaa with her usual composure. “And we are dropping like a rock.”

Tarq hung onto his seat for dear life. “Stop it!” he shouted at me.

“I want the self-destruct codes,” I shouted back.

Tarq raised his chin. “Over my dead body.”

“That’s exactly what we’re arranging,” I said. “Cordelia, please tell Commander Tarq what your orders are.”

Cordi’s dulcet voice was barely audible over the siren. “I’ve been instructed to return the controls to the pilot only after Tarq reveals the codes and I authenticate them.”

I could swear I heard joy in her voice. She was becoming more human every day, and not a particularly good one.

Tarq’s eyes were about to merge with his ears. I didn’t know which scared him more: imminent death as a result of crashing on the rapidly approaching planet or being at the mercy of an AI. “You are bluffing!” he screamed.

I laughed in his face. That felt fantastic. “Am I now? You remember I’m half crazy, Venom and all?”

“Hey!” protested Venom. “Leave me out of it.”

I grinned like the lunatic I felt I was at that moment. “You seriously think I wouldn’t sacrifice myself to save my fleet from you?”

“You are not saving anyone! My instructions to the spy ship—”

“There’s no spy ship,” I said heatedly. “I hate to break it to you, but Cordi’s been on Indomitable for a few days. If you’d communicated with a spy ship, she would’ve found it. Still, we think the codes might be real.”

“Jim, a few more minutes of this, and I won’t be able to land the shuttle even if I get the controls back.” Xornaa sounded like she was talking about the weather. It took a lot to shake that woman.

A female voice with a Spanish accent screamed through the comms. “Shuttle One, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I stared at the comms in amazement. “Who’s this?”

“Who do you think it is, your mother? It’s ground control. I repeat, what the fu—”

I cut her off. “You know I’m the commander of the fleet, right?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass who you are!” the woman shouted louder.

I didn’t know if I should get angry or laugh.

“You’re not crashing on my watch. Stop this lunacy at once, or I swear to Jesus, I’ll find your dead body after you crash and skull-f—”

I gave an annoyed look to Xornaa, who sighed and turned off the comms.

“Boring conversation anyway,” I said.

“That wasn’t boring at all,” she responded. “I really wanted to hear how she finished that last sentence.”

Tarq didn’t look too good.

“So?” I asked him.

He stopped biting his fingers long enough to whisper, “There’s no self-destruct code. I was bluffing.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“He’s telling the truth,” said Xornaa with a hint of stress in her voice. Now that I really enjoyed. Xornaa was very difficult to faze.

“And also, he’s just fainted,” she added.

Suspiciously, I looked at Tarq. His eyes were half-open, staring at nothing, and his head moved loosely every time the shuttle shook. “He’s faking it.”

“I really don’t think so,” said Cordi. “Unless the Akakies can slow down their heartbeat, which I don’t think they can.”

Oh crap.

A medical team was waiting for us when we landed in the fleet base. They carried Tarq out of the shuttle and put him on a stretcher. One of them wanted to hook up an oxygen mask to Tarq’s face. He scratched his head and asked me, “How the hell do we turn off the hologram?”

“Damned if I know,” I said. “Cordi?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can get in touch with the Akakie medical team on board Indomitable.”

“Jim?” Xornaa nudged me with her elbow.

I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a short Hispanic-looking woman in a flight controller’s uniform rushing towards us. Even from the distance, I could see smoke coming out of her ears.

“Gee,” I said, “I wonder who that is.”

Xornaa stepped in front of me when the woman got closer.

“Drama queen much?” I asked the Xortaag woman. “What do you think she’s going to do? Kill the commander of the fleet?”

The woman looked up at Xornaa, who stood almost a foot taller than her. “Step the hell aside.”

“Calm down,” Xornaa said.

“You people were two minutes away from crashing!” yelled the woman.

I read the name on her uniform name badge. “Maria Guadalupe Hernandez? Wait. You’re Josef’s sister?”

My old friend Josef Hernandez, who was killed by Maada during Operation Royalty, had mentioned his sister a few times.

Maria glared at me. “He often said you’re a cocky, egotistic asshole. I can see why now.”

I had to try really hard to keep a straight face. “Do you want a job in our new CIC?”

Xornaa turned her head and gave me a confused look over her shoulder.

Maria looked surprised too. “For real?”

“Of course,” I said. “We can use someone with your, eh, zeal. You’ve got to stop swearing though.”

“With all due respect, screw you, sir,” she said.

“See? She didn’t use the f-word,” I told Xornaa. “I feel we’re making progress already.”

Xornaa shook her head. “You humans’ lack of discipline is astonishing. Anyone who dared to talk to General Maada like this would get a laser bolt in the face.”

“Lucky for you, I’m not Maada,” I said. “Otherwise I’d have used real bullets back on board Invincible, and you’d be dead now.”

Xornaa opened her mouth to respond, but Cordelia intervened. “Xornaa, just let it go. Arguing with Jim is a waste of breath. He won’t stop unless he has the last word.”

“That’s exactly what Josef said,” added Marie. She looked calmer now.

“Damn right I always have the last word,” I said proudly.

*****

“It is time for you to get out,” I told Barook’s image on the VR screen in front of me. “Based on the size of the temporal anomaly, we think the invasion will start any minute now.”

We’d just concluded a meeting in the Fleet Command’s briefing room. Tarq, Maada, and I, sitting around a conference table, had been listening to Barook’s report. He was on Kanoor (he’d left right after our first meeting six days ago), supervising the Akakies’ massive evacuation operation. A wall-mount screen showed thousands of enormous transport ships leaving the planet. He was also in charge of making sure that the invisible Akakie spy ships picked up the nanobots once the anomaly opened.

Barook’s answer made me wonder if I’d heard him correctly. “I am not leaving.”

Maybe it was a weird prank?

Tarq’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

“I have decided to stay and fight.” Barook held up his chin. “Sorry, Commander. I cannot witness our planet’s destruction and the massacre of half our people without trying to do something about it.”

I rubbed my forehead. “And what exactly are you going to do? Your fleet has left already.”

“We have the most advanced anti-spacecraft artillery in the galaxy,” he pointed out.

“Not that you’re actually capable of using it,” said Venom.

Shut the hell up! He’s making the ultimate sacrifice.

Barook scratched his bushy beard and added, “Several fleet officers have decided to stay behind and defend the planet. Not enough of them, but we should be able to destroy a few of those darned black ships.”

“Charge of the light brigade,” I murmured under my breath. Something Kurt had said in another life.

“For what it is worth,” said Maada, “I admire your courage. You would have made a good Xortaag.”

Barook chuckled drolly. “It is more an insult than a compliment, but I accept it. Thank you, General.”

“Barook, my old friend, you have been my right hand for more years than I care to remember,” said Tarq. “Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?”

“No, Commander.” Barook shook his head sadly. “You and I have done a lot of glorious things together, but this is the end for me. You have to continue alone.”

“In that case, I have a plan,” declared Tarq.

I stared at him in shock when he told us what he had in mind. “You’re unbelievable!”

Tarq looked uncertain. “Thank you?”

“I didn’t mean it in a good way. I mean you don’t have a heart, sacrificing your own people like that.”

“I told you so,” said Maada.

I glared at him.

“They are all going to die anyway,” Tarq protested. “Their death might as well benefit us a bit. As Barook just mentioned, we do have a very powerful planetary defense system, just not enough people to operate it.”

I flinched. “Those poor souls might want to spend their last few hours with their loved ones.” But I knew I was wasting my time. Tarq had proven time and again he was a the-end-justifies-the-means kind of insect.

“Trust me,” said Tarq. “I am doing them a favor by saving them from that agony.”

*****

I really, really don’t want to die today, thought Xornaa. Or ever, preferably.

She was standing in front of a dilapidated five-story building in Upper Manhattan, trying to convince herself to enter. If Tarq found out what she was about to do, he’d kill her on spot. On the other hand, she’d grown tired of being under the insect’s thumb, and with everyone being distracted by the imminent Volt attack on Kanoor, this was probably her only chance. Live free or die, as the humans would say.

Xornaa gathered her courage and entered the building. The first floor looked like the lobby of a cheap, dirty hotel, with broken furniture and worn-out carpets. A young woman in a not-so-white dress that probably was supposed to be a nurse uniform sat behind the reception desk, watching something on her PDD. She looked at Xornaa with listless, sunken eyes.

The Xortaag woman walked up to her, touched her arm, and said, “I have it on the highest authority that there is an Akakie doctor here who does all sorts of illegal operations. Be a doll and fetch him for me.”

*****

“Honey, do not worry,” said the Akakie president into his PDD. “I will be on the next ship leaving the planet, right behind you. Take good care of the kids until I arrive. I love you.”

He killed the connection, put his PDD on the golden desk in front of him, and looked around his office. Like every other room in the presidential palace, his office was a perfection of beautiful colors (white and gold), pretty wallpapers, and exquisite furniture. He wondered how much time and energy was spent on preparing this one room.

What a waste. All of that was for nothing. All they had done in centuries to preserve their planet was for nothing.

This job is cursed, he thought. His predecessor was killed in the Xortaag attack not three years ago. And now here he was, the president of the most technologically advanced planet in the galaxy, and there was not a damned thing he could do to save his people, or himself. There was no way to evacuate all the planet’s population, and half the Akakies would be left behind to die a horrible death. At least there was not chaos. Tarq was using the mind control system he had secretly installed in orbit to stop people from panicking.

Tarq’s face appeared on a VR screen over the desk. “Mr. President, I beg you to change your mind. It is not too late to get aboard one of the last ships.”

The president shook his head sadly. “It is too late for me, my friend.”

“Your people need you, Mr. President.”

“Have I ever told you I met your daughter, Varina? Right before she joined the fleet. She told me she was proud of you.”

“Yes, you have. About a thousand times. I respectfully suggest you pull yourself together and get onboard one of our transport ships.”

The president opened a desk drawer and took out a handgun. “This is an 1851 Colt Navy. President von der Hagen gave it to me as a present, saying he used a gun just like this to kill his arch nemesis.”

Tarq’s eyes widened. “Mr. President!”

“I know you very well, Commander. I am certain you will never give up, and you will keep fighting, even when there is no hope. But some of us mortals just do not have your mental fortitude.”

He gave Tarq a sad look, put the gun barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

*****

Barook looked at the dark brown enemy vessel that had just appeared in Kanoor’s orbit. The Akakie fleet had placed a few hundred mines in front of the temporal anomaly, but Barook never thought the aliens would fall for such an easy trap, and they did not. In the final hour right before the invasion, the anomaly had disappeared and then appeared on the other side of Kanoor.

Barook checked the time and braced himself for what he knew was about to happen.

He was standing in front of the main screen in the Akakie command center on Kanoor. The last time he was here, the place was buzzing with action, with dozens of fleet officers engaged in various activities. Now, the command center was deserted. Besides him, there were only six other people there manning their posts. Not nearly enough to operate Kanoor’s anti-spacecraft artillery system, but this was all that was left of the fleet. Everyone else had either left or crawled into a hole, waiting to die. Barook wondered if they should have used an AI to run their defense systems, after all. He looked at his six comrades, four men and two women, all impeccably dressed in their white uniforms, knowing full well they were using up the last few minutes of their lives.

He had told Tarq they had done glorious things together, and that was true. People called Jim the Kingslayer, but Tarq and Barook had slain gods. Together, they had defeated whatever the universe had thrown at them for decades, often with no Akakie casualties. Yes, some of the things they had done were morally dubious from an outsider’s point of view, but their ethical code was always clear: whatever was good for the Akakies was justified. And by that standard, they had done very well.

Until now, that is.

Now, the planet they had defended for so long and saved multiple times was about to be destroyed along with half her population, and Barook did not think the other half would survive for long either. For whatever reason, the Black Fleet was hellbent on destroying every habitable planet in the galaxy, and judging by how easily they had destroyed Tangaar, there was no way to stop them. Even if Tarq’s efforts to unite all the species in the galaxy succeeded, they would still not have enough ships to fight such a huge armada.

Barook was aware of his friend’s capabilities. Tarq was the cleverest strategist in the galaxy, after all. And he was aided by General Maada, the fiercest warrior in history, and Jim. He wondered what Jim’s forte really was. He was a capable flying ace, but with stakes this high, one pilot could not possibly make any difference. It always seemed like Jim was in the right place at the right time. Barook decided Jim was simply lucky, which along with his never-say-die attitude, had helped him punch way above his weight in the past.

None of that mattered now. This unknown enemy they were facing was too powerful. Their fleet numbered in hundreds of thousands, and they came from the freaking future. All the tricks, ferociousness, or luck in the world could not stop them. Barook did not want to admit it even to himself, but this was probably the main reason he had decided to stay behind. It seemed much less painful to die now as opposed to running from planet to planet, awaiting a slow death.

He checked the time again. What the hell is taking Tarq so long?

And then it happened.

The message that appeared in his mind was so forceful it took his breath away. “You are a hero. You are a strong, fierce warrior, fully capable of defeating the Black Fleet. Go ahead. Destroy their ships, kill their sailors, and write your name in history as Kanoor’s ultimate savior!”

A part of his brain that still functioned independently made him smile. Such a huge lie, but who could ever argue with what Jim affectionately called Mind-Frak Machine?

The command center door opened, and scores of Akakies poured in. Most of them were civilians, but it did not matter. They were receiving instructions on how to operate the artillery right now, along with memories of having done that in past. The six fleet officers already in the command center guided the newcomers to their posts.

Barook grinned at the dark brown ship on the screen. He had asked Jim to teach him something heroic and cool to say in this final moment, and he had practiced a few times to make sure he got it right.

Barook thrust his chest out, held his head high, and roared, “Hasta la baby vista!”

*****

Faltaz, hovering at the back of the fleet, scanned Kanoor. There were more Akakies down there than he could count, including an untold number of children, many of whom were younger than his own beloved offspring when they were killed by the aliens.

Do not do it, Faltaz told himself, but he could not resist. “Help me move closer,” he asked Naduk.

When he zoomed in, he saw a group of the Akakies gathered in a lush botanical garden. He could not hear them, and it was difficult to read the aliens’ facial expressions and body language, but some things were universal. He could see the desperation in the insects’ faces. The sight of the smaller ones hanging on to their parents took a bite out of his soul. He watched in horror as an Akakie led four little children away from the group and shot them with an energy weapon before turning the gun on himself. Another Akakie gave a group of small kids something to eat. They all fell motionless to the ground shortly after. Two other insects took a child to a nearby pond, kissed her gently, and then kept her under water until she stopped moving. Faltaz scanned the planet and saw the same scene happening everywhere. The insects were killing their younglings to spare them the horrors they would have suffered when the asteroid hit their planet.

At this very moment, billions of innocent children were either being massacred by their own parents or waiting for an asteroid to hit their planet and kill them all. He wondered if their tiny brains could even comprehend the concept of death.

If his partner and younglings were alive, they would have seen him as a monster.

Like all other Volts, Faltaz loved having kids. He and his partner had seventeen children together, and they would have had a lot more if the carbon-based aliens had not slaughtered his family. After that, he was too focused on revenge to start another family. As the old scientist looked at all those younglings down on the planet waiting for death, something broke in him. Something that he did not think could ever have been fixed again.

What have I done? Dear Vilyek, what have I done?

Faltaz decided he had seen enough. “It is time to go back,” he told Naduk.

The old scientist did not feel well when he entered his chamber. He paced up and down the room, lost in thoughts. Naduk entered after him and hovered silently by the door.

“It appears I had not thought this through,” said Faltaz.

“None of us did,” said his assistant. “To be honest, it is still difficult for me to think of aliens as sentient beings, but seeing all those kids has changed something in me. I have children of my own, you know.”

“Twenty-six of them.” The old Volt smiled sadly. “At your age. You and your mate are planning to break some sort of a record?”

“By the grace of gods, absolutely.”

“What are we supposed to do now? It is too late to stop. If we do, the aliens might eventually figure out we are responsible for the destruction of three of their planets, and things will become even worse for us.”

Naduk cocked his upper body. “I have a suggestion, Sire. Contact the aliens and sue for peace.”

“What?!”

“When the funnel is open, it is the present at both sides, and whatever changes are made on one side will immediately affect the other side, right? If we sign a peace treaty with the aliens, we will see the effects on our side. You can dictate any terms you want; you can ask them to lift the sanctions and even make them help us rebuild our planet. We will not get revenge, but our future generations will get to live in prosperity instead of fighting hunger every day of their lives.”

Faltaz stopped hovering and landed softly on the ground. Naduk’s idea made perfect sense, and the old Volt would have probably thought about it himself if he had not been blinded by rage. “Do you think they will agree, after we destroyed three of their planets, killing billions?”

“The alternative is their total annihilation,” said Naduk. “I am sure they will jump at the opportunity. The question is: can you convince Kavmar to accept this plan?”

“He listens to me … and, at any rate, it is not his decision to make. I can always go over his head and talk to the new supreme leader.”

“If I might be so bold as to say so, Sire, I think we should be extremely careful, having seen how he killed Malnar and several other officers.”

“I am certain I am in no danger from my own grandson,” said Faltaz. “He does love and respect me, you know.”

“Sire, Kavmar has spent all his life dreaming of revenge. He might not react as graciously as you think if he finds out you are planning to deprive him of his prize. He might even consider it a betrayal. And please do not underestimate how much he hates the aliens. I remind you again: he murdered several of his own officers just because they thought we should spare the enemy’s younglings.”

Faltaz had to admit his assistant had a point. His grandson’s burning desire for revenge was not a secret, and he was not the type of Volt to easily forgive a perceived betrayal.

“What are you suggesting?” asked the old scientist.

“You contact the aliens, and I will talk to some of the Vox chieftains. Many people agreed with Malnar, and I think I can rally some support. We will approach your grandson then.”

Faltaz thought about it for a minute. “OK. Let’s do it your way. You are much better with people than I am.”

“Which is why you have chosen me to be your assistant to begin with.”

*****

I rushed into our new CIC. “Has it started already?”

“Just about,” Kurt answered without taking his eyes off CIC’s giant primary screen which showed the Black Fleet approaching Kanoor.

Dozens of fleet officers were working in their stations. Maada and Xornaa were standing next to Kurt, staring at the main screen and talking to each other. Ella was there too, but she was on duty. She was standing on an elevated platform in the back, overseeing the operation, talking to her PDD, and bossing around a score of junior officers. She nodded when I waved at her. Tarq wasn’t going to join us. He’d said he didn’t have the heart to watch his beloved planet be destroyed by an asteroid.

I looked at Kanoor, now under attack by the Black Fleet, and waves of painful emotions flooded my heart. Except for some anti-spacecraft artillery fire, the golden, majestic planet was defenseless. I’d been to Kanoor only once, but the Akakie planet had a special place in my heart. It was a magical place that made me feel I was in Fillory, full of natural beauty and funny pranksters—not to mention thousands of golden statues of me.

The Black Fleet completely ignored the Akakies’ attempt to communicate, just as they’d done during the battle of Tangaar. Barook and his people opened fire when the enemy was in range, and they actually did pretty well (for Akakies), but the outcome of this battle was never in question. I helplessly watched thousands of black ships bombard Kanoor. The Akakies kept shooting until every single planet-based cannon was silenced and all the defenders were slaughtered.

“I’ll miss Barook,” said Venom.

I squeezed my hands into impotent fists and wished there were something I could do to save that beautiful planet. But there wasn’t; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been here right now. I would’ve been in Kanoor’s orbit, with my pilots behind me, fighting the enemy fleet. Come to think of it, I would’ve happily given my life to defend Kanoor if I’d had two lives. But I had only the one, and Earth took priority, even though at that moment I didn’t think my life would be enough to save my planet.

I remembered the first time we met the Akakies, not five years ago. We were awed by their technological advancements. They had spaceships, laser cannons, force fields, and MICI. Their technology was so ahead of us that a lot of the things they did sounded like magic. And now, their entire planet was being ripped apart by an overwhelming enemy we couldn’t even dream of matching.

It was amazing how much things had changed in five short years. Back then, the Xortaag fleet was considered undefeatable, and all they had was the old model Deathbringers. The Black Fleet had crushed the Xortaags’ new fleet like a swarm of bugs, and only one man had survived the extermination of their entire people. I wondered what lay ahead for us in the next five years and shuddered.

“If we survive this one, that is,” said Venom.

“What about the nanobots?” I asked Maada.

He scowled. “How the hell am I supposed to know? The Akakie spy ships are on radio silence, for obvious reasons.”

“With all this growling and scowling,” said Venom, “I swear sometimes I think Allen’s back.”

I turned from the screen once the asteroid entered the Kanoor orbit. It was too much.

*****

Tarq was rolling on his room’s floor, pulling his front antennae as hard as he could, trying to use the unbearable physical pain as a shield against his mental torture.

He was no stranger to pain and loss. When his daughter Varina was killed by Maada, he had wished he could have died with her in the same battle. He had contemplated suicide multiple times in his life, especially whenever he was facing a catastrophic defeat by some enemy or another. He had always bounced back.

But Tarq had never in his darkest nightmares imagined one day he would witness the destruction of Kanoor and the massacre of ten billion defenseless Akakies.

It was all his fault. He had known about the existence of the temporal anomaly for a while before the attack. No one had figured out what those things were, but he should have thought of something. He, the greatest strategist in the galaxy, was entrusted with the survival of his planet and his species, and he had let everyone down.

But what was I supposed to do? Even now I do not know what to do to stop this enemy.

Tarq pulled his antennae so hard that he felt he was about to black out. It was probably better. That might have brought him some peace.

He finally lost consciousness.

When he came to, he was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. His pipe was on the floor next to him. His first thought was: your job is not finished yet.

That was true. There were still fifteen billion Akakies in the galaxy, being relocated to various Xortaag planets right now. The Black Fleet would go after them. He had to find a way to stop the aliens. If he could not, no one else could either. His people needed him.

Someone knocked on his door. Tarq did not need to check to know who that was. He did not move to open the door; instead, he kept lying on the floor, hoping that Jim would eventually go away, but knowing the man, he knew that he would not. The human kept knocking. Tarq sighed heavily, got up, put his pipe on the dining table, turned on his hologram, and went to the door.

*****

I knocked on the door and waited. When Tarq did not answer, I exchanged a look with Kurt and Ella and knocked again, a bit more forcefully this time.

Tarq opened the door and with glossy eyes looked at the six-pack I was carrying. His face was puffy, and he looked like he was fighting back tears. I wasn’t a particularly sensitive sort, but it was impossible not to get affected by the agony written all over his face.

“Molson Canadian? Seriously?” he said.

“Allen sends his regards,” I said casually, but there was a tightness in my chest.

He stared down at his hands.  “That guy was never particularly fond of me.”

“You did turn him into a cow.” Despite everything that was going on, that memory still brought a sad smile to my face. “Also, let’s not forget the whole smoking thing.”

“And the whole RoboCop thing,” added Tarq. “Allen was so furious that I was worried he might have a heart attack.”

We followed Tarq into his quarters. He chuckled when I took a pair of sunglasses out of my pocket and put them on. We’d prepared this room especially for Tarq, so everything was white.

Ella, who was in uniform, sat heavily on a sofa next to mine and ran a hand through her short blonde hair. “I can’t stay long; I’m on duty, but I wanted to offer my condolences in person.”

“When is the baby due?” asked Tarq.

“Not for another two months at least,” said my wife.

I opened a beer bottle. “How’s Varma doing?”

“Do not ask,” said Tarq sadly. “We had to sedate her and then use MICI to help her cope.”

I resisted an urge to hug him. “How are you holding up?”

He shrugged. “What do you think?”

“Honestly? With you, it’s always difficult to tell,” I answered. “But my guess is you’re too focused on trying to save the rest of your people to have the time to mourn.”

“Something like that,” he said.

“Can’t you use MICI too?” I asked.

“I have. But MICI cannot magically take away all your pain and suffering. It just alleviates them. Unless you wipe someone’s memory, which obviously I cannot do.”

“The nanobots came back as soon as the rift opened, as you predicted,” said Kurt. “The spy ships on Kanoor orbit have picked them up and are transmitting the data right now.”

“Let us hope we can find something useful in there; otherwise, we have just sacrificed Kanoor for nothing.” Tarq’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and added, “And Earth is next.”

There was a knock on the door. Tarq gave us a questioning look and yelled, “It is open.”

Maada entered, looking grim. “I decided to come and offer my sympathy,” he told Tarq. “I do not like you, but I have also just lost the planet I had served all my life, so among all the people here, I am the only person who understands what you are going through right now.”

I shook my head. “Way to show your sympathy, General.”

“Give him a break,” said Venom. “At least he’s trying.”

Tarq picked up his pipe from the dining table, but Ella and I said “Hey!” at the same time. He looked at Ella and put the pipe away. “I did not watch the battle. How did Barook do?”

“They shot down several dozen enemy ships,” I replied.

Maada flapped his hand in dismissal. “Making absolutely no difference.” When I gave him a scathing look, he added, “But the defender’s courage is commendable.”

“Speaking of”—I raised my bottle—“to Barook, who died a hero.”

Ella smiled sadly. “Do you remember when he said ‘cocked and loaded’?”

“He once asked Jim if humans had tails,” added Tarq.

“Did he have any family?” I asked him.

His eyes welled up. “You are looking at it.”

“So, seriously, you can tell us now,” I said. “Were you two a couple?”

Tarq rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Stop biting your nails,” Ella gently told him.

“Despite their losses on Tangaar, the Black Fleet sent the same number as the last time.” Kurt tugged at his beard. “Which confirms our theory that their actual number might be much bigger.”

“Because two hundred thousand wasn’t a big enough number,” I said.

“Where is Xornaa?” Tarq suddenly asked.

I looked at Maada. “I have not seen her all day,” he said.

Tarq took his PDD out of his pocket and touched the screen a few times. “Huh. I wonder what took her so long.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Tarq looked at me. “Did you know I had put a detonation device at the base of Xornaa’s skull so that I could control her?”

I nodded. “She told us when we confronted her about the role she played in tricking Mushgaana to attack Earth.”

“I often wondered why she blindly followed Tarq’s orders,” growled Maada. “It is not like the insect is a born leader or anything.”

“My leadership skills are legendary, thank you very much, and at any rate, she is having the bomb removed as we speak.” Tarq’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “My fingers are itching to click on detonate. Can you imagine the look on the surgeon’s face when her head suddenly explodes?”

Maada rolled his eyes. He unholstered his sidearm, kept it on his lap, and stared pointedly at Tarq.

Tarq shrugged. “Relax, General. I am not going to kill her. I did not know you cared about her though.”

“We can use any help we can get,” growled Maada. “And Xornaa is a great warrior, worth a hundred Akakies, I might add.”

“Or a hundred Xortaags, for that matter.” Kurt glared at Maada. “She did kill a few dozen soldiers on Kanoor.” 

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade,” I told them, “but I don’t think she’ll help us once she removes or deactivates the bomb and isn’t under Tarq’s control anymore.”

“I guess we will find out soon,” said Tarq.

Ella’s PDD started buzzing. She had a look at the screen and her eyes widened as she grabbed my arm. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve just received a message from Invincible,” she said in a disbelieving voice. “Someone from the Black Fleet has contacted my ship.”

Chapter Six

Peace Talks

Standard Galactic Date: 051.03.5073

(Earth Date: 08/04/2082)

Despite the easy victory, Kavmar had not been at ease since he had come back from Kanoor.

It had not escaped his attention that his grandfather had moved much closer to the planet than necessary during the battle. No doubt the old Volt was scanning Kanoor, looking for the alien kids. Kavmar shared all his people’s love for children, but the aliens were probably not true sentient beings, and even if they were, they were so inferior to the Volts that their existence meant nothing, and the same went for their younglings. He would not waste a second worrying about them. They all deserved what was happening to them anyway. Growing up, Kavmar had watched many of his loved ones die because of starvation or disease, the direct results of the carbon-based aliens’ economic embargo, and while he was too young to remember the war, he had seen videos of the mass slaughter committed by the enemy. Kavmar had not spent a lifetime fantasizing about revenge just to back out now that victory was at hand.

He decided to pay his grandfather a visit. He could try to cheer up Faltaz, who should not have been left alone right now, old and fragile as he was. Kavmar would show him some holographic pictures of his children. That always improved his grandfather’s mood. And after that, they would pray together, just like they had done countless times since he was a child. Since the war, Faltaz had spent most of his time in his lab, but he had always found time for Kavmar. The old scientist used to share his food rations with Kavmar, which was how that small orphaned child survived to become the warrior he was now. The love and affection he had always shown his grandson had also played an important role in Kavmar’s survival. The Vox warrior knew how lucky he was that Faltaz was in his life, and his mate and children loved the old Volt too.

He did not know what made him stop and look inside Faltaz’s chamber before entering, but he did that anyway, and froze. His grandfather was speaking into the universal translator, and Kavmar recognized some English words: the human’s dominant language.

His first reaction was disbelief, then rage, but he got a hold of himself. If his grandfather was indeed talking to the humans, he must have had a good reason. He got closer and listened carefully.

*****

I nearly jumped out of my skin. There had been no communication from the enemy at all, and our efforts to contact them had been ignored. They seemed to have no interest in talking to us. So why would they contact us now?

“Put it through,” Ella told her people on board Invincible.

A synthetic voice came through her PDD. “Whom am I speaking with?”

Unless it was Darth Vader, the person on the other end was using some sort of a translation program. I opened my mouth to answer, but Kurt beat me to it. “My name’s President von der Hagen, and I’m the highest authority on Earth. Who are you?”

“My name is Faltaz,” said the voice. “I am the scientist who built the time funnel.”

“What the hell is a time funnel?” I asked Tarq.

He shrugged and raised his hands in an I-don’t-know gesture.

Maada leaned forward and growled, “Why are you attacking us?”

“You attacked us first!” said the alien, Faltaz. “I mean, in your future, your people attacked my planet and massacred billions of our people, including my mate and all my children.”

That explained a lot. No wonder they were bent on wiping us out.

Kurt lifted an eyebrow. “So, now you’re committing mass genocide for something we haven’t even done yet?”

“It is not only the attack,” said the alien’s voice. “You have also imposed severe economic sanctions on us that have crippled our economy for generations and made untold billions starve to death.”

“Killing us won’t help you,” I said. “This isn’t how time travel works. All you’ll accomplish is creating a parallel reality in which we won’t attack your planet, but your own reality won’t change. You can’t change your past.”

Everyone stared at me in surprise. I think they didn’t expect such shrewd scientific observation from me. I was slightly offended. “What? Sci-fi fan here. It’s Time Travel 101.”

“No one has traveled in time,” said Faltaz impatiently. “Were you not listening? I have created a time funnel, which is to say I have bent the time-space continuum the same way a space-folding device works. It’s present at both sides of the tunnel.”

Mind, blown. In all the science-fiction movies I’d watched, no one had ever come up with this idea. I wondered if the grandfather paradox still applied and decided that it did.

“So, whatever change we make at your side immediately affects ours,” he continued. “You are disappearing from my timeline, which means when our mission is finished, we will have the universe to ourselves, free of your oppression and tyranny.”

“Allow me to point out if any changes made on our side directly affect yours, there are other ways to get rid of our future ‘oppression and tyranny,’ ” said Tarq. “Can I propose a peace treaty, or even an alliance?”

“And just like that, Tarq’s ready to forget these aliens annihilated his planet not two hours ago,” said Venom.

He’s always been a big-picture kind of guy.

“You are very sharp, for such backward people,” stated Faltaz. “This is exactly why I am contacting you. I am certain by now it is evident you have no chance against us, so I am going to offer you a way to survive and save yourselves and your children. I want you to surrender.”

“We’ll never surrender,” said Kurt immediately, raising his voice. Tarq touched his shoulder and shook his head.

“Isn’t Kurt supposed to be a politician?” asked Venom.

Always a freedom fighter at heart.

“Call it a peace treaty if it makes you feel any better. We are not going to conquer your planets or anything like that, but I have three non-negotiable conditions. Keep in mind that I am talking to you from your future, so if you violate these terms, we will simply come back and finish the job.”

“What are your conditions?” asked Tarq.

“One, you will cease all military research and development projects. At your current technological level, you are not a threat to us. Two, you must guarantee that your future generations will not impose any economic sanctions on us, and three, you are going to provide us with material and logistic assistance. Half my people are starving to death as we speak.”

From the mass murderer who’d just destroyed two planets and killed thirty-five billion people, that was very reasonable.

“Some species in our galaxy might not accept these terms,” Tarq pointed out.

“No problem,” said Faltaz. “We will wipe out whoever disagrees and deal with the rest.”

“Do you have the authority to speak for your government?” asked Kurt.

“The commander of the fleet is my grandson, and my brother, who has just recently died, was our supreme leader. My word carries a lot of weight. We will have to discuss a lot of details, but if you accept my terms, we can stop hostilities immediately.”

“We need some time to inform the other species in our galaxy of your terms,” said Tarq.

“Hurry up then. We are making arrangements to attack Earth. I will contact you again shortly.”

“Can I please ask a question?” inquired Tarq. “You have already annihilated three planets. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Looking the gifted horse in the mouth.” I gave him a sideways look. “Aren’t we?”

“For us, the most precious thing in the universe is our children,” said Faltaz. “I am trying to save yours.”

I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Shouldn’t you have thought about that before butchering three species?”

Faltaz cut the connection. The stupid alien didn’t even bother to say goodbye.

I sank into my seat, exchanged a smile with Ella, and let relief wash over me. “That was unexpected.”

Maada rubbed the scars on his face. “We cannot trust them.”

“It’s not like we have a choice,” said Ella. “I think we can all agree we have no realistic chance of stopping their fleet.”

“His conditions are not difficult to meet,” said Tarq, then glanced at us to see what we thought.

“Are we seriously considering putting an end to all our R&D projects?” asked Maada. “That will leave us vulnerable in the future.”

“No, we’re jokingly considering that,” I said. “There will be no future for us if we don’t stop these guys, one way or another.”

“The alternative is to go to war,” said Kurt thoughtfully, “which, even if by some miracle we win, I bet will be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.”

Maada looked at Tarq, who translated for him. “It feels like we are surrendering without a fight,” said the general.

“We are not,” said Tarq. “We are surviving. Consider it a strategic retreat. A few years down the road, we might be able to find a way to deal with them, but unfortunately not right now.”

That sneaky insect was still planning to defeat Faltaz and his people. So were Kurt and Maada, I was certain. No one in this room was going to forget what the aliens had done to Kanoor and Tangaar in a hurry.

“So, what happens now?” I asked, rolling my wedding ring around my finger.

“I have to talk to my cabinet members,” replied Kurt, “but it’s pretty obvious we’re going to accept those terms.”

“So are we,” said Tarq. “I will inform the other species too. I hope they all accept. I really cannot watch another planet get obliterated.”

“Guys?” asked Ella urgently. “I have another incoming message from the aliens.”

“Faltaz is back so soon?” I asked. “That was fast. Maybe he forgot to tell us something?”

Ella touched her PDD, and the same synthetic voice said, “I am Kavmar, the commander of mighty Vox warriors, and you are all dead.”

*****

Faltaz killed the connection and replayed the conversation he had just had in his mind.

This had worked out much better than he had anticipated. An alliance with the carbon-based aliens could potentially be much more beneficial than annihilating them. With their advanced technology, they could save his people from starvation and help them enter a new era of peace and prosperity. After all those decades of hunger and hate, this was almost unimaginable. The salvation of the Volts’ future generations was a small price to pay for not having the vengeance his heart desired.

But first, he had to talk to Kavmar.

Faltaz turned to find his grandson hovering at the door of his chamber.

“How long have you been standing there?” asked the old scientist.

The Vox commander said nothing for a long minute.

Something is very wrong. Why is he looking at me like this?

When Kavmar did talk, Faltaz was not certain if he understood the meaning of his grandson’s words.

“You were the best of us.”

“What?” asked Faltaz, confused.

“Traitor,” whispered Kavmar.

“What? No! I am just trying to save our people!”

“Traitor!” yelled the Vox warrior, looking darker, bigger. and more menacing than usual.

Faltaz wanted to explain what he was planning to do, but he was so shocked by Kavmar’s outburst that words would not come out. I have watched him grow since he was a small babe; he loves me, he thought. His mind refused to believe what was about to happen.

The scientist watched helplessly as his grandson moved closer to him. For a minute, Faltaz thought the Vox would shoot him, just like he had that female lieutenant.

Kavmar did not shoot him. He did something much, much worse.

A twisted tentacle sporting spikey thorn-like tips slithered into Faltaz’s view. It attached itself to his shell; then it entered his body through one of the unhealed cracks he had suffered all those years ago when the aliens nuked Pandar. He yelled in pain and tried to move away but he was no match for the Vox commander. Kavmar’s tentacle, moving inside the old man, caused unspeakable agony.

In the final seconds of his life, Faltaz was overwhelmed by regret. It seeped to the foreground of his mind and demanded to be noticed despite the blinding pain he was going through. He had wasted all his life seeking revenge, and in doing so, he had created a monster now even he could not control. How he wished he could go back and take a different path, but now that was impossible, and trillions of sentient beings were about to pay the price.

For one last time, he desperately tried to remember what his mate and their younglings looked like, but he could not. He was not able to recall a single happy moment in his wasted life. Only misery, torment, and despair.

The tentacle wrapped itself around his energy source and yanked it out.

And then there was nothing.

*****

What does he mean, “dead”? I thought. We aren’t dead.

“How very observant,” commented Venom.

“Commander Kavmar?” said Tarq. “We have just been talking to your grandfather, and he—”

“You killed my grandfather,” said the voice.

“Do you think the translator is malfunctioning?” I whispered.

Tarq spoke very slowly, word-for-word, “No, we did not. We talked to him.”

“You killed my grandfather,” repeated the alien. “And my grandmother, my father, my aunts and uncles, and billions upon billions of my people. You thought you would never answer for your crimes. You were wrong. We are going to destroy every single insignificant little planet in your galaxy, starting with Earth. Revenge is at hand, and you inferior beings will soon taste the mighty Vox’s wrath.”

This guy had gone full Dr. Evil.

“He seems nice,” said Kurt dryly.

Tarq tried again. “But your grandfather just said—”

“I know you are stupid, but are you also deaf?” asked the person on the other side, somehow managing to fill the synthetic voice with contempt. “My grandfather is dead, and you are next. I will extinguish you and your loved ones from this universe—”

I could see he was warming up for another cartoonish rant. I still wasn’t sure what was going on, but there was no way in hell I’d allow this asshole to walk all over us like this. I interrupted him. “What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?”

Diplomacy had never been my forte.

“Malfunction?” Kavmar sounded confused. “I am not a robot!”

“No, you’re what would happen if a robot had sex with a stupid piece of talking rock,” I said, proud of my cutting-edge brand of comedy. “Not sure if that’s better.”

“Well said,” Maada approved.

“You dare—” began Kavmar.

I cut him off again. “You think we’re scared of you? Think again. Come to Earth. We’ll kill you; we’ll kill everyone in your fleet, and we’ll kill your cat, your dog, and your frakking goldfish, you son of a motherless goat!”

“What is a goldfish?” asked Tarq.

Kavmar said nothing. He was probably speechless. I had that effect on people. And apparently on rocks.

“I’m sorry.” I grinned. “Did I step on your moment?”

The line went dead.

“I think you pissed him off,” Kurt told me.

“It’s sort of Jim’s specialty,” said Ella.

I wagged a finger at her. “Not true. I make friends wherever I go.”

My wife rolled her eyes.

“My real specialty is kicking alien ass,” I added proudly, “as General Maada here can testify.”

Maada glared at me but didn’t bother to answer. He’d probably learned getting into verbal sparring with me would do him no good.

“Why are you like this?” Tarq asked me.

“Rough childhood,” I answered.

“What do you think happened to Faltaz?” asked Kurt. “Did he suddenly die?”

Tarq shook his head. “It sounds like the second guy killed him. I guess he did not have as much influence over his grandson as he thought he did.”

“Did he say they were going to destroy every single planet in our galaxy?” asked Ella.

“He probably meant every inhabited one,” said Tarq.

“Still, it’s gonna take them a while,” I said.

Tarq rubbed his red eyes. “No, it is not. They just need to get rid of the species who can defend themselves. After that, nothing will stop them from destroying the rest of the inhabited planets in the galaxy hundreds at a time.”

Kurt tugged at his beard. “So much for peace talks.”

“You didn’t think it’d be that easy,” I asked him, “did you?”

“You know,” he replied ruefully, “for a moment there, I kind of did.”

“Better,” growled Maada. “I had promised my people to kill all the aliens and destroy their planet. I intend to keep my word.”

I tilted my head. “Any actual plans on how to do that?”

“We can start by studying the data received from the nanobots,” replied Tarq. “I hope we can come up with something after that.”

“Do you think the Black Fleet has some glaring weakness we can exploit?” I asked him. “This ain’t Star Wars.”

“Then, as Commander Kavmar so eloquently put it, we are all dead,” said Tarq sadly.

*****

“The carbon-based aliens have infiltrated our base and assassinated my beloved grandfather,” said Kavmar.

The Vox lieutenants had gathered outside his chamber. He had put Faltaz’s corpse on a table in front of them. The news of the scientist’s death had shocked and enraged the Vox warriors. Kavmar could exploit that.

“My grandfather had a vision,” said Kavmar. “He wanted a universe without those savage mass murderers. A peaceful, perfect utopia only for the Volts. He is gone now, but we can ensure that his vision will live.”

He hovered towards the corpse, bent over, and took a big bite. “This is how we honor the Volt who made all this possible. He will live as a part of us to witness our ultimate victory.”

Kavmar watched as one of his lieutenants approached Faltaz’s dead body and followed his example. Then another, and another one after that. One by one they devoured the corpse until very little of it was left.

Good riddance, traitor.

A small, feeble-looking Volt hovered towards him and asked, “Now that Faltaz is dead, what should I do?”

It took Kavmar a second to recognize the Volt as his grandfather’s assistant. The Vox commander had never paid any attention to him and could not even remember his name. “You must join our warriors during the next attack.”

“I am not a warrior, Commander.”

“Stay close to me then. I can use a personal assistant.”

The small Volt bowed. “It is an honor to serve a legendary warrior such as you, Sire.”

“You must prove your loyalty to me first,” said Kavmar, and then he pointed at what was left of Faltaz’s corpse.

The assistant’s color became several shades lighter. “Sire, I cannot possibly—”

“Do it,” said Kavmar savagely, “or you will be joining your former master.”

The small Volt approached the dead body. He hesitated for a short while, then he nibbled the corpse.

“In the future, always remember how easily I can kill,” stated the Vox commander. “I am not a monster, but I will not let anything interfere with my vengeance. Remember that, and fear me.”

There was no answer. Not that Kavmar expected one.

Chapter Seven

Before the Storm

Standard Galactic Date: 051.03.5073

(Earth Date: 07/04/2082)

Ivan touched his earpiece. “Sniper Team, we’re in position.”

He was on one of the planets being terraformed by the Akakies. The planet didn’t have a name yet, so everyone referred to it by its official designation, PT-103. The transformation process wasn’t complete, but the planet was already very similar to Earth. Ivan could very well imagine he was in the Canadian Prairies, except there wasn’t a secret Xortaag base in Western Canada. Or at least he hoped there wasn’t.

“Stand by,” said the sniper team’s leader.

The two Xortaag sentries went down with darts in their necks.

Ivan got up and ran towards the foot of the small hill in front of him, where the two enemy soldiers had stood guard. He saw Lieutenant Tina Rogers running out of her hiding place too. He checked the Xortaags to make sure they were unconscious. He knew he should’ve probably felt a little guilty for attacking the Xortaags, now that technically they were allies, but he didn’t. He was a career soldier, and it was his job to follow orders. At least said orders didn’t require him to kill anyone today.

Ivan and Tina ran up the hill. At the summit, they opened the tactical backpacks they were carrying. Tina took a force-field penetrator out of hers and put it on the ground, facing the opposite direction. Ivan armed his MATADOR III shoulder-fired missile launcher. The missile’s warhead carried a nerve gas especially designed to affect the Xortaags.

The Akakies had assured Ivan that the warhead carried enough gas to put all the Xortaags in the secret base to sleep, given that they were under a force field.

Ivan looked at Tina, who was tapping her PDD, and asked, “Why do you look so happy?”

“This is the first time we get our hands dirty since Royalty,” she said. “I was getting bored, especially with all those months doing nothing aboard Invincible.”

During Operation Royalty, Ivan’s platoon had unexpectedly come under attack by a large number of Xortaags. Most soldiers in the platoon were killed or injured, but Ivan and Tina kept the enemy at bay long enough for reinforcements to arrive, saving their wounded comrades’ lives.

“I’m ready,” said Tina.

The flat field spread before them looked empty, but a light blue circle appeared midair, right where Ivan knew the Xortaag base was located. He aimed his missile launcher, pulled the trigger, and watched as the missile disappeared inside the circle.

Ivan contacted Invincible. “Report.”

“All the Xortaags are fast asleep.”

“And the other guards?”

“Incapacitated, with no fatalities.”

Ivan heaved a sigh of relief. “Send down the shuttles.”

*****

We had a meeting in the Fleet Command’s CIC the next day at ten. Nearly fifty people were packed in the room, talking excitedly to one another. That included several scientists and high-ranking officers from three different species: us, the Akakies (all under holograms, thank God, as I wasn’t in the mood to look at those hideous insects right now), and the Xortaags. One could feel anxiety in the air. With good reason, with all our species being on the verge of extinction and all.

I sat next to Kurt (in his black trench coat, signifying that he meant business) and noticed how red his eyes were. His beard was a bit unkempt. It took an Earth-shattering catastrophe for him not to be as impeccably groomed as he always was. Still, he hadn’t forgotten to shower in expensive cologne.

“Didn’t sleep?” I asked him.

“Not a wink,” he replied. “I was going over the data sent by the nanobots.”

“So was I,” I said, tapping my fingers on the conference table. “And sleep has never been a friend of mine anyway. Found anything that can help us?”

“Nothing, nada, zilch. You?”

“I racked my brain all night and drew a complete blank.” I rubbed my forehead. “Let’s hope Tarq has come up with something. Nice speech, by the way.”

Last evening, Kurt had made a planet-wide “Citizens of Earth” speech. He informed people of the imminent alien attack and assured them we were doing everything in our power to stop it. As a purely precautionary measure, he said, the Akakie transport ships were on the way to take as many people as possible to other planets. What he didn’t say, of course, was people were already under the influence of MFM to stop them from freaking out and causing chaos.

Ella and Lilly joined us a minute later. “Where the hell is Tarq?” asked my wife.

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you actually expect him to come on time for such an important meeting?”

Ivan’s image appeared on one of the wall-mounted monitors.

“Ivan’s aboard Invincible,” said Kurt, “coming back from a mission.”

“I’d totally forgotten about that,” I said. “How did it go?”

“Couldn’t have gone any better.”

Lilly looked around. “Some of our people are giving the Xortaags dirty looks.”

I shrugged. “It appears even MFM has limits. Don’t worry. They won’t act upon it.”

Tarq was smoking his pipe when he made his grand entrance, but he hurriedly put it away when he saw Ella. He wore golden armor and looked different: he was bald, with a huge chin and purple skin.

I sighed. First the Luftwaffe uniform, then Darth Vader, and now Thanos. At this point, I was certain he was trolling us.

“What is wrong with his face?” asked Maada.

“The Akakies look like this if they drink alcohol,” I explained. That drew a giggle from Ella.

“He drank before such an important meeting?” asked Maada scornfully.

“You think this is bad?” Xornaa told me. “You should see his Predator look.”

“I’m going to cancel your invitation to our pre-battle party,” I told Maada.

He looked at me with disgust. “You have a party before the battle?!”

“You know, I was wondering,” I asked him. “Do you ever smile?”

Maada pretended I didn’t exist.

“What if I told you a really funny joke?” I continued.

The general looked up as if asking God to give him patience.

I kept pushing. “Have you heard the one about a Xortaag general who attacked Earth because he thought it was an easy target?”

I could tell I was beginning to get under his skin. I did have a special talent for that, as Ella once claimed.

“Wait until you hear the punch line.” I went on relentlessly. “He was cloned after I killed him.”

Maada’s face twisted with fury. He stood up, his hand on his sidearm holster, but then he apparently decided to take the high road. He straightened up his uniform, gave me a look of profound disappointment, walked to the other side of the room, and sat as far away from me as possible.

Xornaa offered a bemused smile. “I knew you two would get along.” She followed the general and sat next to him.

Ella arched an eyebrow and gave me a reproachful look. “This might be a good time to start taking things seriously and stop messing with people.”

I winked at her. “What would be the fun in that?”

“Sometimes, I think you have a wicked soul.”

“I do. I would’ve been boring if I didn’t, and you wouldn’t have married me to begin with.”

Tarq scanned the room. “I guess everyone has had a chance to have a look at the data, right?”

We nodded like good schoolchildren, waiting for the teacher to start the class.

A holographic image appeared in front of Tarq. It was an enemy ship. It looked very unimpressive, sort of like an oversized black egg.

“This is what we have found: the aliens, called the Volts, come from approximately 1500 years in the future. As General Maada pointed out during our first meeting, those black ‘ships’ are not spacecraft, but a special breed of the Volts who call themselves the Vox. It seems that they have cybernetic enhancements, things like scanners and comms, and those projectiles they use instead of laser cannons are produced inside their body. How they fly in space is anyone’s guess, but we think they have some sort of internal energy source that is unknown to us, which explains why they explode if they are hit. In fact, we cannot make sense of anything about them. It is not just because they are not even carbon-based like the rest of us; everything about them is so different from us that it is difficult to describe them with our understanding of how the universe works.”

“So, super-aliens?” I asked.

“They vary in size,” Tarq continued. “The Vox warriors are much bigger than their general population. They can be as big as one of our shuttles.”

Tarq brought up another holographic image. I had no idea what I was looking at. It was nothing but millions of rapidly changing patterns in various colors.

“It reminds me of when Enterprise jumps to warp,” said Venom.

Why? I don’t see any resemblance. This is a lot more colorful.

“I don’t know,” said Venom. “Just a feeling. Maybe because we can’t understand it at all, and it opens the door for all sorts of crazy shit.”

“This is an image of what the Volts use to travel back in time, so to speak,” explained Tarq. “This is the inside of their so-called time funnel. We have found their planet, by the way. It is called Voltex, located somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy, a three-month journey from Earth. Other than that, I confess we do not have any useful information, anything that could help us defeat the Black Fleet. Does anyone here have a suggestion?”

On the monitor, Ivan raised his hand. “I was thinking: these guys are coming from 1500 years in the future, but their ships don’t seem to be much more advanced than ours. So, it’s safe to assume that right now, in our time, we’re significantly more advanced than they are, right?”

Tarq nodded in agreement.

“So, instead of trying to fight the fleet we can’t possibly match, how about we send our fleet to their planet?” Ivan asked.

“Because it will take us three months to reach there,” answered Tarq, “as I just mentioned, but they will attack Earth in a few days.”

“But if we destroy them now,” said Ivan, “then they won’t exist in the future to attack us in the first place, no?”

I could see Kurt and Maada shaking their heads. Tarq looked at me. “Jim?”

It was hilarious that with all the scientists here, somehow, I’d turned out to be the time-travel expert. “It won’t work. If we destroy their planet, we’ll create an alternate reality in which they don’t exist anymore, but our own Earth will still be gone. You can’t change what has already happened. The only way destroying Voltex now, in our timeline, would save Earth is if we do it while the funnel’s still open, which is impossible because we need three months to reach that planet.”

“I didn’t understand that last part,” said Ella.

“It’s difficult to explain,” I said. “You remember that Faltaz said it’s the present on both sides of the funnel? It’s like they transport Earth a millennium into the future, which means that while the funnel is open, in our timeline their planet is in our past. If we could destroy them while the funnel is open, they’d cease to exist in our timeline.”

Maada rubbed the scar on his right cheek. “Time travel. Thinking about it fries your brain.”

“A moot point anyway,” said Kurt, “because we can’t reach them in time.”

“Does anyone have any ideas?” asked Tarq, looking desperate.

“On how to defeat a two-hundred-thousand strong armada?” asked Xornaa. “Nope.”

Tarq looked at the other people in the room. No one seemed to have an answer. “In that case, we have two options. We can fight the Black Fleet here on Earth and all die, or we can move our forces to the next planet on the enemy’s target list and keep trying to find a way to stop them.”

I tightened my fists. “The Earth fleet isn’t going anywhere.”

“Be reasonable,” Tarq pleaded with me. “We will go. What do you think you can do with nine thousand ships?”

“We can die defending our home,” I responded. “Just like Barook did.”

“We’ll not leave Earth defenseless, and that’s final,” affirmed Kurt. “You can’t force us to go with you.”

“What he said,” I added rather needlessly.

“I cannot,” agreed Tarq. “But I have ordered the Akakie transport ships to stop Earth’s evacuation unless you comply. If you decide to stay here, you condemn all humanity to death.”

The Earth fleet didn’t have enough transport ships to launch a meaningful evacuation effort. Right now, a fleet of Akakie ships, which had just finished transporting their own people, was on its way to Earth. They could save a few hundred million people, which I guessed was better than nothing.

Tarq had just taken those people hostage.

Kurt’s face turned red and his nostrils flared. He slowly stood up and jabbed a finger in Tarq’s face. “Don’t mess with me, insect, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

Tarq shrugged. “It would solve nothing. The order is already given, and I cannot change it.”

“I hate to say this,” said Xornaa. “But Tarq’s right. You can die here, or you can come with us, and in doing so, save millions of humans. I think it should be a clear choice.”

An idea flickered in the back of my mind. It was something Venom had said. Something important. I tried to filter out all the noise in the room and remember what it was.

Kurt’s gray eyes went icy. “If humanity’s going to perish, why would I care what happens to you people? I might as well shoot Tarq for my own personal satisfaction. Agent Sun?”

A Secret Service agent standing behind him stepped forward. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“Give me your sidearm,” Kurt ordered him.

A light bulb went on in my brain, shining so brightly that I felt I was going blind. A single word appeared in the back of my head. Warp.

Venom had said that the time funnel reminded him of when Enterprise traveled at warp speed.

“I said jumped,” said Venom. “So?”

My brain went into overdrive, trying to understand the significance of what Venom had said. Then I got it: Enterprise had been thrown out of warp multiple times.

Huston, we have a solution.

I raised my hand. “I have a question.”

No one paid me any attention. Maada and Xornaa drew their guns. “Sorry, Kurt,” said the Xortaag woman. “But we need Tarq and his fleet to help us, even if you’re bent on getting yourself killed here.”

The Xortaags were even worse drama queens than Kurt was. I wasn’t worried. Nobody was going to shoot anyone. These were just predators standing their ground and marking their territory.

“Next thing you know,” said Venom, “they’ll start urinating all over the room, probably in circles.”

“What?!” I asked, stunned.

“Marking their territory,” he explained.

How can you make a pee-pee joke at a time like this?

“For the hundredth time,” he said, “I’m you, and you do have a tendency to be an immature jerk from time to time.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “I have a question,” I repeated, more loudly this time.

“May I remind you that you are now on Earth,” Kurt told Maada and Xornaa, “completely at the mercy of my forces?”

“I have ten thousand Deathbringers in orbit that say otherwise,” snarled Maada, not backing down.

“You had forty thousand the last time you showed up here,” snapped Kurt. “We all know how that turned out.”

Maada pounded his fist against the conference table. “You treacherous humans ambushed us in a most cowardly fashion. I assure you it will not happen again.”

I covered my ears and whispered, “Cordelia?”

The siren that reverberated in the room was earsplitting. Everyone jumped out of their seats, even Xornaa. Then they all looked blankly at me, sitting calm, cool, and collected, my fingers in my ears, whistling casually.

“I think we got their attention,” Cordi purred with all the charm she’d programmed into her own vocal sub-routines when the siren stopped.

“I swear, sometimes I think she’s a real woman,” said Venom.

“This funnel,” I said as if nothing had happened, “bends time and space, right? So, if a person enters from our side, they’ll end up on the Volt’s planet on the other end?”

Tarq exchanged a look with the Akakie scientists and nodded in agreement.

“What will happen if someone enters from Earth and leaves somewhere in the middle of the funnel?” I asked.

“It stands to reason that they will end up on the Volt’s planet but in the nearer future,” answered Tarq.

“And will it be possible to leave the funnel somewhere in the middle?”

“I do not see why not,” replied Tarq. “It might be a rough ride, but it is not a physical barrier. Why are you asking?”

I stood up, held my head high, pulled my shoulders back, and announced, “Because I have a plan.”

Jim Harrison, the savior of the galaxy. Never got old.

“Show-off,” said Venom.

“But I’ll tell you only if you people put your guns away and play nice,” I added.

It took me a few minutes to explain my plan. It wasn’t complicated, but it had a lot of moving parts. There was a general murmur of concern when I was done. Everyone looked like they had questions, and some people probably thought I’d gone insane. Kurt, however, apparently liked my plan. He stared at me with amazement and said, “Do you intend to take Tarq’s place as the galaxy’s greatest strategist?”

“It is not a strategy,” Tarq protested, “just a one-time trick. And it probably will not work anyway.”

“Jealous much?” I asked him.

Maada’s bushy brows snapped together. “The more I think about this plan, the less I like it.”

I winked at him. “Try not to think too much. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Again, Maada acted as if I didn’t exist. He was getting really good at that. “It is suicide. I give it a two percent chance of success,” he told the others.

“You’re being generous,” Tarq answered.

I looked heavenward. “It’s good to see we’re brimming with confidence.”

“I agree with your assessment,” Xornaa told Maada, “but I’m willing to bet these people will find a way to somehow pull it off.”

“Don’t we always?” I asked even though I wasn’t really feeling confident.

My plan involved planetary genocide, but nobody made an objection. Even I, with my no-women-no-children motto, didn’t feel particularly bad about it. It was either them or all of us, and after what the Volts had done to Kanoor, Tangaar, and Mantux, it was difficult to think of them as sentient beings. Something furious stirred in a deep, dark corner of my brain that I didn’t even know existed before. No, I’d go old testament on the Volts’ collective ass if it meant saving my own species, and I wouldn’t shed a tear for committing genocidal violence against them. It wasn’t possible to feel sympathy for a piece of rock that was about to kill you, after all, even if it were arguably sentient and had little baby rocks.

Tarq stroked his Thanos chin. “I can see one big problem already: we do not have any more planet busters.”

“We do,” said Maada. “In the same secret base where we built the nanobots.”

Kurt’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Correction, General. You don’t, but we do. Yesterday, a team of my Marines, led by Colonel Ezekh, snuck into your base and commandeered all the weapons your scientists had built. They also destroyed all your records and wiped the scientists’ memories so that we won’t find ourselves in another situation like this in the future.”

Ivan waved at Maada through the camera. “My bad, Comrade General.”

And I always thought the Russians didn’t have a sense of humor.

Maada’s veins bulged from his neck and forehead. He slowly rose to his feet and cracked his neck from side to side. His hand was moving towards his sidearm when Xornaa grabbed his wrist. “There’s a very good chance we all will be dead in a few days. What do you say we address this issue if we survive the alien attack?”

“I second that,” I said helpfully.

“No one was hurt,” said Kurt, “as I promised. When your people wake up, they’ll be a bit dehydrated, but that’s all. And you have the base back, minus its capability to produce WMDs. You understand that, with your record, we couldn’t possibly let you have Akakie weapons in your arsenal.”

Maada glowered at Kurt. “You and I are going to have a talk once this is over.”

Kurt smirked in return. “Looking forward to it.”

“What’re we going to call this operation?” asked Ella, changing the subject.

“If we actually go ahead with it,” Tarq pointed out.

I chuckled. “We jumped the gun with Operation Endgame. Should’ve saved it for this one.”

“Operation Endgame II?” asked Kurt.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “And leave these sorts of things to people with some creativity, like a universally best-selling author.”

Kurt rolled his eyes.

“We can’t call it Operation Collective Suicide, can we?” asked Venom, the ray of sunshine he always was. “How about Operation Valar Morghulis?”

“Not funny,” I murmured. “Not funny at all.”

Maada stared at me. “Who are you talking to? Oh, the infamous Venom.”

The Xortaags’ super-human strength apparently included their hearing.

“I am infamous?” Venom got angry. “Calling-the-kettle-black much?”

“Operation Armageddon,” I announced.

“As in the final battle between good and evil?” asked Kurt. “It fits.”

“I was actually thinking about the movie, which is about stopping an asteroid from hitting Earth,” I said. “But that good-versus-evil thing too.”

“And if this plan fails,” said Maada, “do you have a plan B?”

I gave a half-shrug. “Plan Bs are for losers.”

“I am not saying I agree with this operation,” said Tarq, “but in the absence of any other ideas, we should explore it further.”

“So, what’s next?” asked Ella.

Everyone in the room looked at me for an answer.

The sense of pride that flooded my heart surprised me. I felt bigger and stronger. A few short years ago, when Tarq appointed me as the commander of the fleet, I was worried that I hadn’t earned the respect of the men and women under my command. And now, the people in this room, the likes of Kurt, Tarq, Maada, Xornaa, and Ella, along with a group of the smartest and strongest individuals in our galaxy, were looking at me for guidance. Of course, I still had to convince them that my plan had a chance of success, even if it was a tiny one.

It looks like you and I are about to save humanity one more time, I told Venom.

“Leave me out of it,” he said. “Your plan’s stupid.”

I ignored him and didn’t say anything for a few seconds, savoring the moment, and then said, “Well, first of all …”

*****

Two days later, around midnight, I was in my office in the command center reading a report on my PDD. I looked up when I heard the Star Trek door chime. It was Tarq, who looked around and asked, “What is that noise?”

I sighed heavily.

“Jim, can I have a word?”

I rubbed my tired eyes. “Sure. What’s up?”

He sat on one of the two chairs in front of my desk and looked around. “I have to say your office is not what I was expecting. I think the proper word is Spartan.”

“I didn’t use to spend much time here, and now decorating seems like a waste of time.”

“I have a present for you.” He gave me a small gift-wrapped box.

I couldn’t help myself. “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

“What?”

“You know, the first time we met you, you gave us Winterfell. It sounded like divine intervention until we found out you’d tricked the Xortaags into attacking us to begin with.”

“Well, this is more like a souvenir,” he said.

I opened the box. It was the first edition of Charles Lindbergh’s "WE", which I knew (as did every pilot worth his salt) recounted his solo May 1927 transatlantic flight.

“Look inside,” said Tarq.

The book was autographed by Lindbergh.

I stared at him in surprise. “How on Earth did you find this? And what’s the occasion?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I came to Earth some two years ago, planning to make things right between us. I bought this book as a peace offering.”

“So, what happened?”

“I made it all the way to your front door, then I lost my nerve and went back to my ship.”

I thought about giving him a hug but changed my mind. That one time aboard Indomitable was enough for a lifetime. “Dude, you should’ve contacted me.”

He shrugged. “I know now. One more thing: you said I have not paid for all the humans I got killed.”

I felt rather embarrassed, which for me was a rare thing. “I was just being mean.”

“Well, you are wrong. I did pay for it. Of all the terrible things I have done in my life, that is the one weighing on my soul the most. Trust me when I tell you we had no idea that would happen. If we had known, we still might have done it, but we really did not.”

“Confession’s good for your soul.” I winked at him. “Or so I’m told.”

“Assuming I still have a soul,” said Tarq. “Or even had one to begin with.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself. Speaking of confessions, tell me the truth. You and Barook?”

“Oh, for crying out loud, let it go.” He rolled his eyes. “I find your obsession with homosexuality fascinating. Freud might have a thing or two to say about that.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m in the closet?” I asked. “I’m married. In fact, you married my first wife and me.”

“It proves nothing. Hence the expression ‘in the closet.’ ”

“And Venom always accuses me of being a homophobe.”

“Speaking of Venom,” said Tarq, “Barook thought your silly behavior was nothing but a front to hide how dangerous you really are.”

“England had a prime minister who used this trick successfully,” I said. “His initials were BJ. What kind of parents name their kid something that starts with B when their family name starts with J, I ask you?”

Tarq looked confused. His PDD beeped. Cordi had probably sent him a message. He looked at his PDD and laughed. “Does it actually help?” he asked.

“Does what help?”

“Using jokes in face of mortal danger,” he replied, “which I guess is the reason behind your I-take-nothing-seriously attitude.”

“It’s called gallows humor,” I said. “And it helps me. I’d drive myself crazy if I sat here and obsessed about the Volts all the time.”

“That prime minister. Was he any good?”

“Depends on whom you ask.”

“We had a president who was like that. He almost ruined our entire planet. I eventually had to have him removed.”

“Don’t tell me you staged a coup on Kanoor.” It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had. Tarq’s moral code was rather questionable.

“Of course not. A coup is too much trouble. I simply had him assassinated.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.” I played with my wedding ring. “One more thing: I’ll try to persuade Ella to get on one of your transport ships evacuating people right now, but I don’t think I can actually do it. I need you to watch over her and the baby for me. In fact, come up with one of your sneaky plans to get her off the planet if it begins to look like we’re going to lose.”

“That will be easy. I will land a small ship close to the CIC and take her to safety if things get hopeless.”

I shook my head. “It won’t work. She wouldn’t leave the other officers behind to die.”

“In that case,” suggested Tarq, “we will evacuate the whole CIC, using shuttles.”

“That’s a much better plan. Thanks. Make sure Lilly gets on a shuttle too.”

So, Ella would be under a force field during the battle and Tarq would whisk her away if things went seriously sour. I could worry about her and the baby just a little bit less now. Maybe.

Tarq stood up and extended his hand. “I have to go now. I want to spend some time with Varma before the invasion starts. Take care.”

I shook his hand. “You too, old friend.”

He grinned widely. “Friend?”

“Don’t ruin it.”

A few minutes after Tarq left, Ella, in uniform, knocked on my door and said, “Knock, knock.” She came in carrying a picnic basket and put it on my desk. “I haven’t seen you in two days, so I decided to come make sure you’ve eaten today.”

I stood up and got myself a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Tarq’s people predict the invasion will start in less than two days, and we still have a billion things to plan. How’s the baby?”

“Kicking harder than usual.” My wife’s eyes sparkled. “Probably flexing its muscles for the battle.”

I picked out a ham sandwich from the basket and took a bite. Ella sat next to me, opened a bottle of Shiraz, and poured two glasses. Then she put her hand in mine, and I found myself pressing it. Her hand was small but strong. In these final days before the Volt attack, we held hands whenever we had the chance.

“Who is that beautiful woman?” she pointed at her framed photo on my desk.

“I’m seeing someone. I never told you?”

She giggled. “I heard you challenged Maada to a simulated dogfight today.”

We’d moved Winterfell’s VR space-battle simulators to the new command center. We fed the data gathered by the Akakie spy ships from the battle of Tangaar to our simulators and programmed them to replicate a Volt invasion. My pilots and I practiced fighting the new enemy regularly. We had daily competitions, which I always won, of course. When I asked Maada to join us, he claimed, “Toys are for children” and refused to participate, challenging me to a real dogfight instead. I told him Earth needed both of us to fight off the Volts, but I’d be happy to oblige him once this was over.

“Yeah. He knew he’d lose, so he chickened out,” I said.

“Speaking of Maada, I had the strangest thought recently,” said my wife, one hand resting on her belly. “Can you imagine if Maada had stayed dead after you guys killed him during Operation Royalty? We’d have absolutely no idea how to fight the Volts if Maada hadn’t released the nanobots. The whole galaxy would be destroyed.”

“God works in mysterious ways,” I said philosophically.

“How very deep,” said Venom.

Ella chuckled. “You’re a believer now?”

“I’m not an atheist; I’m agnostic. More often than not, I do think there is a God. The problem is I’m certain He-She-It hates me.”

She looked at me in amazement. “Alien invasion notwithstanding, you’re one of the most successful, most powerful, and richest men in the entire world, and you think God hates you?”

“And the most good-looking,” I added. “But every time I feel happy and settled in my life, every single time I think I finally made it, something terrible happens. I want to propose, and I’m captured and sentenced to death by SCTU. I’m about to have a baby, and an alien invasion happens. Trust me, someone up there hates my guts.”

“That’s just called life,” said Ella simply. “I’m sure the universe doesn’t have an agenda against you.”

“Tarq came here to give me this.” I showed her the book. “And he and I ended up having a fascinating discussion about oral sex.”

Ella opened her mouth, then closed it and gave me a sideways look.

“Not us, a British ex-prime minister,” I clarified.

“Don’t pay him any attention,” Cordi told Ella. “He gets like this when he’s worried about something.”

“I know,” said my wife.

“I’m not worried,” I said. “Why should I be worried?”

“Because an alien fleet is coming from the future to kill all of us?” asked Ella wryly.

“That? I’d totally forgotten about that. It’s nothing but another Kobayashi Maru test, and I’m very good at dealing with those. Anyway, it’s good that you’re here. I needed to talk to you about something.”

She sipped her wine and looked quizzically at me.

I gathered all my courage. “I want you to leave with the Akakie transport ships.”

For the first time since I’d known Ella, intense anger flashed in her blue eyes. “I’m a fleet officer, and I’m exactly where I should be.”

I knew she wouldn’t like it. “I know, but right now your first priority must be the baby’s safety.”

“Think about what you’re saying.” She put the glass on my desk and folded her hands in her lap. “You want me to ignore my duties, and leave you here alone, by the way, to achieve what exactly? If we lose here, there’s nowhere in the galaxy that the baby would be safe from the aliens. This is our only chance to stop them, and I intend to do my part.”

I couldn’t argue with that. She was right. The only way for our child to have a future was defeating the Black Fleet right here on Earth; otherwise, there’d be nothing to stop them from obliterating every single habitable planet in the galaxy.

“What if you’re unable to perform at peak condition due to the pregnancy?” I asked.

“All I need to do is to look at some screens and talk to a mike or a commlink,” she explained. “I can do that sitting down. No problem.”

I leaned forward. “I tell you what. Let’s compromise. I’ll make an appointment for you to see a military doctor. If he clears you for active duty, I’ll stop complaining about it.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “And you should stop worrying about me. I’ll be in the CIC, under an invisible force field. Everything considered, it’s as safe as it gets.”

“What if we fail?” I whispered. That thought was too scary to be loudly expressed.

“Then we die together as a family. Trust me when I tell you it’s a better fate for me and our son than us running from planet to planet being chased by the Black Fleet.”

Our son?!

My heart started drumming in my chest. “I’m going to have a son?”

Ella’s eyes widened as she realized she’d inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. “Oops.”

“I’m going to have a son!” I yelled hysterically. I jerked to my feet, sending my chair flying backward. I pulled my wife out of her seat and into my arms and started dancing around the room to music only I could hear, too excited to think straight.

Ella stopped me, panting. “Dude. Six-month pregnant woman here.”

I helped her back to her seat. “Sorry, honey. And isn’t it seven months?”

“Is it? It feels like years.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how I feel right now!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Would you have reacted differently if we had a baby girl?”

“Of course not,” I said, and I meant it. I was rewarded with a kiss for that response. Ella’s kiss was warm and nice. I pressed my lips against hers, felt her body loosen and her arms touch my shoulders.

“You sure?” asked Venom. “You can sometimes be a real chauvinist.”

I ignored him. I was about to become a father, and nothing and no one at that moment could spoil my happiness. Not Venom, not Kavmar, not the Black Fleet.

I’m going to have a son.

That was all that mattered.

I’d be the best father in the history of parenthood. There was never any real closeness between my old man and me, and there was no way the same thing would happen to my son. I’d be with him every step of the way, teaching him everything he needed to know, starting from how to tie up his shoes, all the way to how to chat up girls. Not that he’d need any help with the ladies, handsome, strong young man he’d turn out to be. Despite living in New York, I’d raise him to be a perfect Southern gentleman, such as myself. Soon we’d be able to play tennis against each other, then cool down with a beer or two.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Venom. “This is all assuming that we survive the Volts’ attack.”

SHUT YOUR FRAKKING MOUTH!

He did, for once. He was probably shocked by the ferociousness of my response.

No, I hadn’t forgotten about the imminent invasion, but I’d move heaven and earth to make sure my son would have a bright future in front of him, one free of the Volts or any other evil aliens who thought they could mess with the Harrisons. No one, not even God himself (if He existed), could take this away from me.

“I’d like to remind you it’ll be a huge responsibility,” said Venom cautiously.

I can do it, I told him. I’ll be the father of the year, every year. You’ll see.

I kissed my wife again. She closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss, and everything else in the world faded away.

Everything but one.

I’m going to have a son!

*****

Kurt was having a meeting with three of his advisors in one of the smaller formal rooms of the government’s HQ when his PDD started buzzing. He picked it up, had a look at the screen, and told his advisors, “Let’s take a ten-minute break.”

“How’s everything up there?” he asked Patricia’s image on his PDD after everyone left.

“All ready,” she said. “We’ll jump in half an hour.”

Patricia was aboard Invincible, which was spearheading the evacuation efforts. Invincible wasn’t a big ship, but with no Vipers on board, her officers had stacked her up with thousands of hastily built cryogenic sleep pods. The starship was scheduled to leave with the Akakie transport ships, carrying some sixty million humans in their convoy to a Xortaag colony.

In order to avoid chaos, Kurt had authorized the use of MFM. The mind-control machine had made people report to a fleet base to be transferred to a ship in orbit. They were chosen by a draw, but not completely at random. Kurt had decided only young, healthy people who possessed skills useful in a colony were to be evacuated. MFM also helped stop everyone else on the planet from freaking out once the Black Fleet appeared in orbit. Kurt had some doubts about the morality of one man deciding the fate of so many people (as in who lived and who died), but this wasn’t the time to debate ethical issues. Desperate times, desperate measures. He could worry about it later—if he survived the alien attack.

At least Pat would be safe.

“At the danger of sounding like a broken record,” said Patricia, “let me try to change your mind one more time. You’re the Earth’s head of government now, and there is no reason for you to personally go on that suicide mission.”

Kurt shook his head. “Sorry, dear. Same answer as the last five times: I’m the only person alive who’s infiltrated several alien strongholds and participated in both Operation Royalty and Operation Endgame’s ground missions, which makes me the most qualified individual in the galaxy to do this.”

“I thought about it a lot, and you know what I think? I don’t think you’re going because you’re the person best suited for the job. You’re going because you believe it’s your duty.”

Kurt smiled. “Busted. Sorry, dear.”

“Don’t be sorry. I knew who you were when I married you.”

“And it’s not a suicide mission. With Xornaa and Ivan, I’m in very good company.”

Patricia sighed resignedly. “You have to promise me something then.”

“Anything.”

“Make sure you come back to me, husband.”

“It’s a promise,” said Kurt.

*****

Maada entered the quarters the humans had assigned to him. He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He sipped the beverage and enjoyed its bitter taste. The humans were mostly useless, but coffee had been a revelation.

Carrying his cup, Maada went to the living room and sank tiredly into a sofa. These days, he slept very little and spent every waking minute arranging military exercises, planning for the battle, or using the Akakie battle simulators. This was the only way to keep his mind off the fact that his planet had been destroyed on his watch. Maada did not know how he would have coped if he had any free time to sit down and think about it. He had spent most of his day fighting the black ships in one of those simulators, trying to find a weakness in their tactics with nothing to show for his efforts. The Vox warriors had a tough shell, and they could often take multiple hits before they went down, but they were by no means unkillable. The problem was there were too damn many of them.

Maada was amazed how realistic the simulations were. While in a simulator, he could not tell the difference between the experiences they provided and a real dogfight, and he even felt all the emotions he would feel in a battle: excitement, joy, anger ...

And fear.

The general had rarely tasted fear in his life. Numerous times he had gone against enemies much stronger and more advanced than the Xortaags, and he had always triumphed. The Black Fleet was a totally different story though. The ease with which they had crushed his fleet on Tangaar was equal parts humiliating and frightening. Only a madman would give Harrison’s plan a high probability of success. He had decided to go along with it simply due to lack of another option, and if they failed here, nothing would stand between the Xortaag colonies and the apocalyptic aliens.

He picked up his PDD when it started buzzing. It was a text message from Tarq: our spy ships have found a cylinder orbiting what is left of Tangaar, and inside it was a video message for you.

Maada frowned and touched the attachment. He blinked several times in surprise when Mushgaana’s image appeared on the screen.

“Hello, old friend,” said the prince’s image. “I am back from the dead, yet again. Surprise!”

Maada guessed that the king had decided to bring back his son during Tangaar’s final hours. How very selfless of him, he thought sarcastically.

“Unfortunately, it seems I am about to die again,” Mushgaana continued. “This is getting really tiresome.”

Maada rubbed his scars. Only Mushgaana could crack jokes about his own death. Mushgaana, and that human, Harrison. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised by how much those two had in common. The same unconventional sense of humor. The same uncanny ability to take nothing seriously. The same fascination with those stupid movies. They even kind of looked the same.

Weird.

“My father tells me I have a daughter,” said Mushgaana, “who apparently, along with that damned insect Tarq, has played an important role in the debacle on Earth. I guess we cannot blame her; I did rape her mother. Please tell her I am sorry for everything. I did not know I had a child. I would have been there for her if I had known.”

“I am positive Xornaa did not want to have anything to do with you,” murmured Maada.

“You and I had a good run, did we not?” The prince chuckled. “Together, we conquered half of the known galaxy, and with a little bit of luck, we would have conquered the other half too. Unfortunately, you have to do this one alone, but I have confidence in you. So, this is my final request as your best and probably only friend: keep your promise. Kill the bastards who destroyed our planet and save whatever is left of our people.”

Maada rubbed his tearful eyes. “I won’t let you down, Your Highness.”

And if he succeeded, saving the whole galaxy in the process, maybe, just maybe, his nightmares would stop, especially the one about billions of little children tearing him and his space fighter apart.

Or would they? Would saving trillions of sentient beings compensate for murdering millions?

A moot point, probably. Odds were he would die along with the rest of the allied fleet. Just like any other warrior worth a damn, he would welcome a good death. When he had joined the Xortaag fleet as a teenager, he had never thought he would live this long anyway. Maybe it was his time.

I guess I will find out soon.

His PDD started vibrating again. A young woman in a Xortaag fighter pilot uniform appeared on the screen. “General, my name is Lieutenant Alitaa.”

“I know who you are, Lieutenant. How can I help you?”

“I am certain you remember my sister, Arminaa, who used to serve under your command.”

Maada nodded. “Of course. Brave warrior. On Earth, she stood by me against hundreds of enemy space fighters, armed with nothing but her sidearm. You do not forget something like that, ever.”

“That sounds like her, all right.”

“I was sorry when I found out she was killed, even though she died a soldier’s death, taking an enemy tank and its crew with her.”

“My sister and I were orphans, General. We grew up separately, and I never got to know her. I was wondering if we could meet and talk about her a little? Maybe over coffee?”

Over the years, dozens of women had approached him, and he had always turned them down. His burning desire to build a star kingdom ruled by Tangaar had left no room for pursuing relationships, and in the last few years, an overwhelming sense of guilt had stopped him from doing so. He automatically opened his mouth to say no, just like he had done many times in the past.

Then he remembered how lonely he had been since Mushgaana died.

And you will probably die soon.

He carefully considered his response. “You are staying on the fleet base, right? I will come and meet you there.”

*****

Xornaa was in a sidewalk café, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate and some peace and quiet. She intended to cherish the small pleasures life had to offer as much as possible before the Volts showed up. The few humans in the café looked relaxed and happy, behaving in mild manners that were in contrast with the usual New Yorker attitude. They, of course, didn’t know they were under MFM’s influence. Ignorance was indeed bliss.

She wore a simple light blue wrap dress and no make-up, trying to avoid attracting attention. Still, men kept looking at her, and twice she had to use rather harsh words to discourage a couple of guys trying to approach her. She wondered what would happen if she turned on her mental powers in a crowded place and smiled at the image of men rolling on the floor and drooling all over her boots. Women too, for that matter. Humans were so easy to manipulate.

She’d been in plenty of hairy situations in her life. Not only because she was a spy; just surviving her childhood and teenage years in Tangaar, with no one to rely on but herself, was a minor miracle. Her last mission with the humans, when they infiltrated the Xortaag base on Kanoor, wasn’t a walk in the park either. (Oksana had been killed in that mission. She really liked that girl. They could’ve been good friends in another life). But her instincts told her there’d be no coming back from this one. There was a reason everyone called it a suicide mission.

You don’t have to go through with it, as I’m sure you know.

The Akakie surgeon Xornaa had found on Earth (a fugitive from his own government) had removed Tarq’s bomb from her skull and replaced it with a dud that sent identical signals, so Tarq wouldn’t suspect that something had changed. Now she was free to do whatever she wanted. She could run away, go to an uninhabited planet, and wait until the Black Fleet left. She could even get a spaceship, put together a crew, and live the rest of her life comfortably in space. There were plenty of ways she could survive this.

But she would go to the mission with Kurt and his team, and she had a very good reason to. She looked at three small kids, two girls and a boy, playing with a young blonde woman sitting close to her, and for the umpteenth time in the last few years a strong desire to have children of her own overflew her heart. Unfortunately for her, an injury she had sustained during a mission (compliments of an enemy sharpshooter, who despite being armed with a long-range precision rifle, later that day died with Xornaa’s knife in his guts) meant she could never bear a child. But she’d be damned if she stood by and watched the Volts slaughter millions of little children.

Ironically, the first time she’d teamed up with Tarq, they’d used humans as bait, and now here she was, ready to put her life on the line to protect them. This was probably why most people believed Fate had a sense of humor.

Plus, Kurt would’ve been disappointed in her if she ran away. She’d grown very fond of him. Come to think of it, she’d never had any real friends in her life before, and she couldn’t leave the only one she did have to die here alone.

Her PDD beeped. She read the message General Maada had sent her, frowned, and opened the attachment. After watching the video, she put down the PDD, stared into the distance, and forgot about her hot chocolate.

All her life, she’d hated Mushgaana with every fiber of her being. That man was responsible for all the shit that had happened to Xornaa and her mother. It had never occurred to her that the prince didn’t know she existed.

Why would he? It’s not like men stayed in touch with the women they raped. Plus, he was busy trying to conquer the universe.

Still, she couldn’t help wondering how her life would’ve changed if she’d contacted Mushgaana and let him know she was his daughter. Would he really have cared at all? For that matter, she wondered how life would’ve been growing up with a father and a mother, having a normal life.

Probably boring, she decided.

Her life had been tough but rewarding. Few people in the universe had had more adventures than she, and on a galactic scale, even fewer had made such big differences. No, she had no regrets. And Mushgaana probably wouldn’t have been such a great father anyway.

Her PDD started beeping again. She picked it up and was surprised when Ella’s image appeared on the screen.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” said Ella. “Can I please talk to you for a minute?”

“By all means, Captain.”

“I need to ask for a favor.”

“Will be happy to help, if I can.”

“See, here is my problem,” explained Ella. “I had an appointment with a military doctor today, and the old fool refuses to clear me for active duty. He says excessive stress may hurt me or the baby, or even cause a miscarriage.” Ella looked away from the screen and rubbed the back of her neck.

Xornaa realized this was the first time she’d seen the captain’s body language betray her emotions. “I’m not a specialist in human anatomy, but I think he might have a point.”

“Oh, come on!” snapped Ella. “All men automatically think pregnant women are delicate flowers that have to be protected at all costs. I’m a starship captain, and before that, I was a submarine commander. I know myself; I’m tough. I can do this. I have to do it.”

“Would you mind if I ask why?”

“I could give you a lecture about my sense of duty and honor, but the simple answer is my husband will be leading our fleet up there. Someone has to watch over him. If he gets killed while I’m doing nothing at home, I don’t know if I can live with myself. I’ve already buried a husband I couldn’t save.”

Xornaa was quiet for a second. “What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Peterson. I’ll send you his contact information if you want.”

“I can find him. You want me to make him change his mind, right? I’ll do that on one condition. I’m concerned that the doctor might be right about the effects of stress on you and the baby, so before the battle begins, you and I will meet for a few minutes. I can help you release some tension and relax.”

“What, like meditation?” asked Ella. “I meditate regularly on my own. Don’t really need help with that.”

“More like smoking marijuana, minus the side effects.”

“You aren’t going to try to find out military secrets from me, right?” asked Ella suspiciously. “Like you did with Jim?”

“And what would I do with those said secrets?” asked Xornaa. “Sell them to the rocks? They’re coming to kill all of us, you know.”

“Touché,” said Ella. “You aren’t my type anyway.”

“Should I consider that a challenge?”

“Please don’t,” answered Ella.

“I’m going to have a word with Dr. Peterson after I finish eating.” Xornaa chuckled. “I haven’t used what your husband calls ‘slut mode’ for a while now. It’s going to be fun.”

She decided to order a piece of carrot cake before leaving.

*****

“I’m experiencing serious déjà vu right now,” I told Kurt.

“Why not?” he said. “This is where it all started. One could say we’ve come full circle.”

We were in my living room, where I’d found him injured and covered in blood not five years ago. I remembered how he’d joked that Liz and I were perfect for each other and smiled a sad smile. Based on the size of the temporal anomaly, Tarq had predicted the Black Fleet would attack tomorrow, so this was our last chance to have a drink and catch up, while Venom kept reminding me every thirty seconds it might’ve been the last time I saw my best friend.

Goddamn OCD!

“I think we need something stronger than beer this time,” I said.

Kurt smirked. “How about cyanide?”

I told him about Tarq’s gift. He nodded in approval. “Great book, that. Tarq has shown remarkable taste, for an insect.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Of course. You know I read a lot. Even more since Oksana taught me some speed-reading techniques.”

“We haven’t done too bad for ourselves, have we?” I asked. “The last time we did this here, you were a fugitive, and I was a simple fighter pilot. And look at us now.”

“I’m the president of a united Earth, which was my father’s life-long dream,” he said with a gleam in his eyes, “and you’re the Kingslayer.”

“And a father-to-be,” I added proudly.

“Do you remember when we were in Winterfell, you were concerned that other people didn’t see you as a leader?” asked Kurt. “That has certainly changed.”

We clanked our beer bottles.

“And we’ve saved the galaxy a couple of times,” he added. “Not too shabby.”

“Read some history.” I winked at him. “I’ve saved the universe a couple of times. You were basically my sidekick.”

Kurt didn’t react at all. He must’ve built some immunity to me teasing him. Still, I knew he never got over the fact that there were thousands of my statues across the galaxy, especially the Xortaag colonies whose native people I’d saved.

Kurt’s PDD buzzed. He looked at it and asked me, “Would you mind if I ask my team to join us here?”

“ ‘My team’ includes Xornaa, right?”

“I know you don’t like her. If you want, I can meet them later on.”

I waved my hand dismissively. “It’s fine. She did save my life once. So, she’s still going with you? Even without Tarq’s bomb in her head?”

“Looks that way.”

“Why?”

“Beats me.”

“Should we ask her? Out of curiosity?”

“Let’s not push our luck. Also, it hasn’t escaped my attention that we’re going to do exactly the same thing we did the last two times,” said Kurt while typing on his PDD. “I fight on the ground, you fight in space, and in the end, even though my team and I do the really important work, you’ll get all the credit.”

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” I asked. “But huge differences this time. For one thing, you’ll be traveling to the future. You’re going to be the first human in history who time-travels. Can you believe it?”

Kurt made a mind-blown gesture, complete with an explosion sound with his mouth.

“For another, the last two times we made plans with a reasonable chance of success, and still they turned to suicide missions. This time, our plan looks like a suicide mission to begin with.”

“People should really stop saying ‘suicide mission.’ ”

“It sounds cool,” I said. “How about martyr operation?”

Kurt smiled. “By the way, I find it interesting that you seem to have no qualms about destroying Voltex, given that you’ve never forgiven me for Talmak.”

“Totally different situation. This is self-defense. If I have to choose between the Volts and our entire galaxy, my choice is clear. It’s just another case of the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few, only on a grander scale.”

“And the Volt children?”

I looked him in the eye. “They’ll be paying for the sins of their great-grandchildren. What can I tell you? You can’t save the galaxy without breaking a few eggs, or in this case, several million pieces of rock. Plus, now I have my own family to think of, which gives more weight to a my-species-first policy.”

“That last part sounds like something Tarq would say.”

“We’ve been spending way too much time with that guy, but he’s right. Screw the Volts and screw any other future baddie that comes our way. Now that I’m going to have a son, I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to my planet looking for trouble.”

Kurt stared into the distance, looking at something I couldn’t see. “Strangely enough, Talmak was easier for me to stomach. At the time, we thought the Xortaags would kill the Arshans in a couple of months anyway, and in my mind, what I was doing was collective mercy killing. In this case though, we’re going to kill off the people who’re completely unaware of what their descendants will do 1500 years from now.”

“By doing so, we’ll stop them from killing us off in the future. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”

He gave me a sideways look. “I thought I was the terrorist, and you the savior of the galaxy?”

“That’s exactly it: I’m the savior of the galaxy, and sometimes it means making tough choices, especially facing an enemy bent on obliterating all life in our galactic neck of the woods. The hardest choices and the strongest wills, remember?”

Kurt smiled. “You looked like you wanted to kill me when I said that.”

“Quoting movies is supposed to be my specialty.”

“Have you noticed you don’t do that as often as before?”

“Why would I? I’m the most famous writer in history. Everyone is quoting me nowadays, and Shakespeare can kiss my ass.”

“You just quoted Professor X,” Venom protested.

Your whole existence is a pop-culture reference, I answered.

Kurt changed the subject. “Is the fleet ready for tomorrow?”

“As ready as we can be,” I answered. “Between you and me though, I’m scared shitless.”

From the look on his face, I could tell he was wondering if I was kidding. “Seriously?”

“Operation Armageddon is my plan, and too much of it depends on parameters completely out of our control, or even unknown,” I said. “If we fail, I’ll be the idiot responsible for the destruction of the entire galaxy.”

“If that happens, there will be no one left to shame you. And none of us came up with a better plan, or any plan, for that matter.”

“We could’ve listened to Tarq and run away,” I offered.

“That was never an option,” he said, playing with his beard.

“I sometimes wonder, especially now that I’m going to have a son.” I took a sip of my beer. “Tell me it’ll work.”

“We’ll make it work,” Kurt stated without hesitation. “I thought you were supposed to be cocky and over-confident though.”

“This is what we writers call a rare moment of showing weakness. It endears a character to the readers.”

He smiled faintly and sipped his drink.

“Besides, I have another reason to worry too,” I said. “It’s generally believed that messing with time could have fatal consequences.”

“What do you mean?”

“I once read a sci-fi story in which someone traveled back in time and accidentally trampled on a butterfly. When he returned to his time, his world had been ruined because of that.”

“A Sound of Thunder,” offered Cordi, “written by Ray Bradbury.”

Kurt tugged harder on his beard. “And what’s the moral of this fascinating story?”

“That by traveling through time, you might end up changing something that makes things even worse.”

He smiled sadly. “I can’t see how things can possibly get any worse than this.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on Earth,” I said philosophically, “it’s that things always can, and often do, get worse.”

“Pessimistic much?” asked Venom.

“I’ve always wanted to leave a legacy,” said Kurt in a quiet voice. “I thought the United Earth was it. If we lose tomorrow, all I’ve done in my life will be for nothing.”

We drank in silence.

“Kurt’s people are here,” announced Cordi.

Ivan and Xornaa entered the living room, accompanied by a tall wiry woman with a short military-style haircut. Ivan introduced her as Lieutenant Tina Rogers.

The woman saluted. “Happy to make your acquaintance, Admiral.”

“At ease, Lieutenant,” I said. “We’re pretty informal in here.”

“I know Tina from our days aboard Invincible,” Kurt told me, “but this is the first time we’re on a mission together.”

“Where’s Captain Wood?” asked Xornaa.

“At the CIC,” I said. “She’ll be home after a couple of hours. Can I offer you guys a drink?”

Tina looked offended. “I don’t drink before a mission.”

“I know Xornaa doesn’t drink either,” I said. “Ivan?”

He looked contemptuously at the beer bottle in my hand. “With respect, do you happen to have anything a man should be drinking?”

“Ouch,” said Kurt.

I pointed at the kitchen. “Help yourself.”

Ivan came back a minute later with a bottle of vodka and a glimmer in his eyes.

Russian people!

“Racist,” said Venom.

It’s not racist to say the Russians drink a lot, I responded.

Xornaa looked around. “So, this is where Kurt met you and Elizabeth for—”

“You don’t get to say her name,” roared Cordelia.

Xornaa’s posture stiffened. “What the hell was that all about?”

“I think Cordi hasn’t forgiven you for trying to make me forget Liz,” I said.

Cordi let out a quick, disgusted snort. “And the role this bitch played in getting her killed to begin with.”

“Come on,” said Kurt. “Cut her some slack. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably have been killed on Kanoor during Operation Endgame.”

“And there wouldn’t be a peace treaty without me,” Xornaa added. “If you and the Xortaags kept killing each other for the last three years, no one would be left to fight the Volts now.”

“That’s a good point,” said Ivan.

“Cordi, I don’t like her either,” I said. “But she’s our guest. Be nice.”

“It’s interesting to see you people seem to have forgiven Maada”—Xornaa spoke at the air, not making eye contact with any of us—“but I’m somehow still the bad guy.”

“Maada didn’t stab us in the back.” Kurt tugged at his beard. “You and Tarq did.”

“I didn’t even know you then!” she protested.

“OK, enough of this discussion,” I said impatiently. “Promise me something guys. Make sure your part is done, whatever happens to us. If we can't protect Earth, make sure we'll avenge it.”

“Consider it done,” said Kurt with a grave expression.

“Can I ask you a question?” Xornaa looked directly into my eyes as if she were trying to read my mind. “How long do you think our fleet can hold?”

I rubbed my temple. “You saw what they did to your planet. Not long. You guys really have to hurry up.”

She smiled. “You sound awfully calm, considering what you just said.”

I shrugged. “We all have to die some day. Going out while defending every sentient being in the universe against an alien invasion doesn’t seem too bad to me.”

Her eyes hardened. “Don’t give me this macho bullshit, Jim. I can feel you are scared.”

“I’m terrified,” I said. “So what? Only a lunatic goes to battle without worrying about his family, his friends, which incidentally includes all you guys, and the people under his command.”

“Didn’t know we were friends,” said Xornaa. “You just said you didn’t like me.”

I shrugged. “You’ve had Kurt’s back on more than one occasion. That makes you a friend. And I still don’t like you.”

Kurt and the others left shortly after. Still unable to shake off the feeling this was the last time we’d meet, I asked Cordelia, “Do you think he’s right? About killing off the Volts being morally wrong?”

“Nope, but I’m the heartless, soulless AI, remember?”

I stared into the distance. “It’s an ethical dilemma, to be sure.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said without hesitation. “It doesn’t get any more black-and-white than this. If we don’t wipe them out, they will wipe us out. Easy as that.”

I stared at my PDD for a few minutes; then I finally made up my mind, picked it up, and dialed a number I’d never called before.

Maada’s image appeared on the screen. “What do you want?” He sounded surprised.

“Hi, General,” I said. “Is this a bad time?”

“A bad time to do what?”

I sighed. “I just wanted to make sure everything is OK and you and your people are ready for tomorrow.”

“We are the Xortaags,” he said, all high and almighty. “We were born ready for battle. You should worry about your own people.”

This was a bad idea. My temper flared. “Good talk. Let’s not do that again,” I growled.

I was about to cut the connection when he suddenly said, “Admiral Harrison?”

“Yes?”

“I appreciate the call.”

The screen went blank.

“Do you think he has a dual-personality disorder?” asked Venom.

“Nah,” I said. “He’s just socially awkward. He’ll come around.”

My PDD vibrated. It was a message from Ella: on my way to visit John and the girls. Will be home soon.

Tell the girls they’ll have a brother soon, I texted.

I drank my beer and waited for my wife to come home. Damn, but I really wished Dr. Peterson hadn’t cleared her for active duty. We still had Tarq as a safety net though. I kept telling myself this wouldn’t be the last night we spent together. After repeating that a couple of hundred times, I even believed it.

*****

“Sorry, my loves,” said Ella, standing over John and their daughters’ graves. “I didn’t have time to pick up flowers. Things have been really crazy lately.”

Calvary Cemetery was mostly empty, as she knew it would be this late in the evening. She just stood there, looking at the gravestones and listening to the howl of the wind, lost in thoughts of the past and the future. The cemetery was peaceful and quiet, and a sense of tranquility that she always felt here washed over her, but this time it barely lasted a minute. The last alien invasion had cost her dearly. She lost her family, and at the time, she wasn’t even aware of it. Ella wondered what the consequences of the new attack would be and shuddered at the thought.

But no. She’d watch over Jim like a hawk, and not even a fleet of alien baddies could harm her child. She put a hand on her belly and whispered, “Don’t worry darling. I’ll be protecting you.”

Not like last time, when she was halfway across the world when shit went down.

“Fancy seeing you here,” said a female voice from behind.

Ella turned to see Lilly, also in uniform, standing behind her. “Hi, Lilly. What’re you doing in here?”

Lilly pointed at a spot behind her. “Dad’s here. I decided to come say goodbye, just in case. Where’s Jim?”

“Having a drink with Kurt, I think.”

Lilly smiled. “So the world’s going to end, and he still doesn’t come to visit his parents?”

“That guy has issues.”

“Don’t we all? I hated my mom growing up. But it’s all moot now. In fact, I’m going to pay her a visit right after this.”

“I never had any family issues,” Ella pointed out. “I love my parents and siblings.”

“I know, but you’re weird.” Lilly put an arm around Ella’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and spend some time with the living.”

While we still can, Ella couldn’t help thinking.

Chapter Eight

The Last Stand

Standard Galactic Date: 054.03.5073

(Earth Date: 13/04/2082)

Tarq, standing in fleet base CIC, looked around and wondered if this was the last time he would oversee a battle.

All around him, dozens of officers belonging to three different fleets were preparing for the imminent invasion. It was unbelievable to see humans, the Xortaags, and the Akakies work together. Officers in blue, black, and white uniforms, humanoid and insectoid, were coordinating the allied fleet’s space fighters. Tarq looked at the grim faces of the officers close to him, one by one, letting his gaze linger on each before moving on. All of them seemed nervous. He did not think anyone in this room believed they could win this battle. Even the Akakie officers went about doing their duties seriously and with an air of professionalism. This was no time for pranks.

Or maybe only one. One last sensational prank for the history books. Going out with a bang, as the humans would say.

“How about our little surprise?” he asked Ella, who was typing furiously on her PDD and issuing verbal instructions to several junior officers at the same time. That woman was excellent at multitasking.

“Ready,” she answered curtly. “I still think we should’ve informed Jim.”

“What would he do differently if he knew?” asked Tarq. “Nope. Let him find out at the same time as everyone else.”

So, a lifetime working as a shadow master had come to this. He still had one trick up his sleeve. After that, everything depended on Jim and his pilots, and Kurt and his Marines.

He had spent the last evening aboard Indomitable with Varma. With each passing day, the girl looked more like her mother. That thought made Tarq shudder. He had ordered the ship’s captain to jump to safety as soon as the Black Fleet arrived. Tarq had already lost his only daughter, and he was not going to put his granddaughter’s life at risk.

Tarq was surprised to see Maada enter the CIC. “Are you not supposed to be flying off the planet with your fleet?” he asked the general.

“On my way,” replied Maada. “I needed to have a word with you first. What the hell are you wearing?”

Tarq smiled and wiped imaginary dust off his new uniform. “It is a German SS uniform. It pisses off the humans to see me wear this.”

“See what we have to deal with in here?” Ella asked the general.

Tarq tilted his head, looked at Maada, and waited.

Maada hesitated for a second; then said, “I have been a career soldier all my life. Killing enemy combatants is part of the job, and we normally do not give it any thought. However, this is the first time I meet the father of someone whom I killed in battle, and the fact that I owe you my life makes it immeasurably worse.”

This has got to be interesting.

“I am not apologizing for killing your daughter,” Maada continued, avoiding eye contact for the first time. “She died in battle, as was her duty. But if there was a way I could go back in time and do things differently, in a way that did not involve killing your daughter, or anyone’s daughter for that matter, I would do it. As it is, I have to live with what I have done.”

“So do I, General,” said Tarq. “As you once correctly mentioned, I have committed plenty of atrocities in my life too. Also, allow me to point out it was not actually you who killed my daughter.”

Maada’s expression contorted with fury. “I know I am a clone. There is no need for you to insult me.”

Tarq raised up his palms. “I did not mean it as an insult. I tell you what: I still have a granddaughter, and billions of my people are in danger too. Save her, save them all, and I will consider our score settled. What do you say?”

Tarq extended his right hand. Maada looked at it hesitantly.

Tarq chuckled. “I am not contagious, General.”

Maada shook his hand. “You have my word.”

“Great. I know you always keep your promises.”

Maada nodded.

“Also, funny you should bring up ‘going back in time,’ ” continued Tarq, “given what the Volts are about to do. If we can put our hands on their technology, maybe we can travel back in time and fix a thing or two.”

“What?” asked Maada with a deadpan expression. “Are you planning to kill baby Hitler?”

Tarq and Ella looked at him in astonishment.

Maada waved his hand dismissively. “Something Harrison said in one of his books and got stuck in my mind.”

Tarq couldn’t help chuckling again. “Now, that guy is contagious.”

“I agree,” said Maada. “Once this is over, we must stop spending time with him.”

*****

Father Philip stood in front of his congregation.

The church was full, and he knew so were most places of worship all around the world. All the regular worshipers were here, and there were a few dozen people he’d never met before. It was a human instinct to turn to God at times of grave need, after all. A few people were checking their PDDs, probably following the news of the invasion, but everyone else was looking at him, waiting for him to start his sermon.

“Most of you know I was with the Commandos when we defeated the Xortaags,” he said. “In fact, I was Jim Harrison’s wife’s priest, a devout and compassionate woman whom I still miss. When she was killed in battle, I tried to console Jim. That didn’t end well.”

Several people chuckled.

“I have every confidence Jim and the rest of our brave men and women in the fleet will stop this threat too. And let’s not forget who our allies are.”

But deep down, he knew his words were empty. By now, it was common knowledge that both Tangaar and Kanoor had been obliterated. If the enemy was that strong, what chance did Earth have? He was surprised by how calm everyone was. A corner of his brain said something about a mind-control machine, but that thought disappeared as fast as it popped up.

“More importantly, we have God on our side. Let’s pray.”

He led the prayer, just as he’d done thousands of times in his life.

Let’s hope God listens; otherwise, we are all screwed.

Though shall not use foul language, protested another part of his brain.

I’m a soldier. I damn well swear if I want to. Plus, if we all die today, there is a hell of lot more I have to answer to God for than swearing.

*****

In my golden Viper’s cockpit, I watched as the dark brown Volt appeared in front of the temporal anomaly, right on schedule.

My head-up display lit up, showing me the target indicator, fire control display, and gunsight. I quickly touched a few controls and checked a couple of virtual screens hovering inside the cockpit to make sure everything was in order. It was an old habit from the days I used to fly an F-44. If there were anything wrong with my Viper, Cordi would’ve let me know already.

The combined human-Akakie-Xortaag fleet was behind me, standing between the enemy fleet and Earth. Just like Operation Endgame, human pilots were flying Akakie space fighters. This time, Tarq didn’t even argue. Following Maada’s recommendation, we were flying close to the surface so that our anti-aircraft guns and missiles could support us. By some strange twist of fate, today was the fourth anniversary of the Xortaag invasion. God really did have a sense of humor. Ironically, the man who came to kill us during the last alien invasion was now fighting by our side.

I glared at the enemy, this super-alien who was here to obliterate my entire race, hovering there, obviously full of confidence. I felt my skin crawl. Who did they think they were? The Borg?

The anomaly rippled, and in a blink of an eye, the Black Fleet was right in front of us. Two hundred thousand ships (I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that they weren’t really ships but some weird space-hopping creatures), the biggest armada in the whole universe by a large margin. I shuddered, feeling a sudden coldness hitting my core. It was like all the gates of hell had been opened and thousands of demons were pouring out. Demons that we had no way of fighting. Rows and rows of enemy ships stretched for miles in every direction, looking menacing and frighteningly deadly.

“Resistance is futile,” said Venom. “We’re all going to die in here.”

The damn parasite was right. There was no way we could stop an armada that big. Our only hope was that we held on long enough for Kurt and his team to do their thing, and even that was a tall order. I looked inside myself and all I found was despair, coupled with grim determination, and fear, trying to take over. My pulse raced, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic, as if my canopy was closing in on me. Perhaps this was the time for me to realize I wasn’t going to survive this one. All that was left for me to do was to fight until my last breath and give my life to defend my home and my family. I would’ve been OK with that if I thought Earth would survive at the end of the day, but as I looked at the swarm of black ships coming towards us, deep down I knew my life and the lives of all the people under my command meant exactly nothing.

All the muscles in my body tensed, and I barely kept down a primal scream. My wife and unborn son were down there on Earth, in the CIC and in the thick of the action, no less, invisible force field or not. I now had a family to protect. Hell, I wanted to save everyone. My fighter pilots. Our allies. All humanity. If my plans failed, I’d be the loser on whose watch the human race—every man, woman, and child—freaking perished.

An image appeared in my mind. A gruesome picture of a ruined Earth, covered in massive detonations. Blood everywhere. There were billions of corpses trapped in the ruins, and one of them belonged to my pregnant wife. Then my brain flashed back to the memory of an asteroid hitting Kanoor, destroying that heavenly planet and annihilating her people. I shuddered to think that would happen to Earth, and my gut clenched so hard that I almost threw up.

Pull yourself together.

I licked my lips and opened a channel to the fleet but wondered what to say: die well? I was supposed to protect these people, not send them to certain death. I hung my head and looked at my hands. I thought about giving them the Braveheart speech, but I doubted that it would work.

“Never thought I’d see a day when you’re lost for words,” said Venom. “Wasn’t your nickname the Fighter Pilot with the Mouth back in the day?”

That made me chuckle. Wallowing in despair wasn’t really my style. I looked back at the Vipers and Deathbringers behind me and decided it was a good day to die.

A good day to die hard, as in we’d take half those evil bastards with us. And who knew? Maybe Kurt managed to take care of the other half. Maybe my plans worked and humanity survived, yet again. I wasn’t the savior of the galaxy for nothing, and our chances couldn’t possibly have been less than one in fourteen million. I raised my chin in defiance. The Volts had no idea whom they were messing with.

“Maybe we can infect their mothership with a virus or something,” said Cordi. “It worked in Independence Day.”

I heard Tarq’s voice. “Jim, look at your right side.”

Curious, I looked out of the cockpit. There was nothing there. And then, all of a sudden, thousands of dark green, rectangular, single-seat space fighters appeared on my right.

“The Vanaari fleet is honored to fight alongside the Kingslayer,” said a voice in my ears.

“Now, look at your left,” said Tarq.

Another fleet appeared on my left. These were silver and elongated oval-shaped with laser cannons underneath. And there were thousands of them.

“The Talgoinians are honored to fight alongside the Kingslayer,” said another voice.

On my tactical screen, I saw a third fleet of space fighters appear behind my ships. “The Klingons are honored to fight alongside the Kingslayer.”

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!

I almost fainted out of happiness.

“Eh, can you please repeat that last message?” asked Cordelia.

“Sorry. We are the Zharnuuti,” said the same voice. “Commander Tarq asked us to say that message. We are not really sure what that means.”

One by one, nine more alien fleets appeared around us. Every single space-faring species in the galaxy had sent its forces. Nearly a hundred thousand ships joined us. I liked these odds much better. I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders, and for the first time in days, there was hope, like a bright star in a universe that was dark not a minute ago. My limbs started tingling, my heart felt light, and I thought, I believed, that everything would be fine after all.

So now a hundred and thirty thousand pilots were behind me, effectively putting their lives in my hands. They’d left their own planets—their homes where their loved ones lived—defenseless to come here and help my plan work. Now I was truly responsible for the fate of trillions of people. That was a terrifying thought, but I felt confident we could pull it off. I thought anything was possible at that moment.

I had a visual communication request, and Tarq’s image, smiling from ear to ear and obviously very pleased with himself, appeared on my screen.

“You two-faced, conniving, deceitful, backstabbing, treacherous son of an alien whore,” said Cordi, but there was no bite in her words. Her tone was actually kind of respectful.

Tarq’s smile grew wider.

“You could’ve told me,” I said.

“And miss the opportunity to see the look on your face?” Tarq enthused. “I have not had such a brilliant prank in a long while.”

“How are we going to coordinate such a large force?” I asked.

“That’s what we are here for,” answered Ella from the CIC.

I frowned. “Did you know about this?”

“Not until an hour ago,” she replied.

I looked at my tactical display. “Some of these ships must’ve left their planets weeks ago to be here now.”

“Only days,” said Tarq. “We have shared our SFD specifications with everyone—”

“Guys?” interrupted Cordelia. “Something’s happening to the temporal anomaly.”

I looked at the rift in space just in time to see it expand even more and thousands of black ships poured out like hornets from a hive.

“We’re gonna need a bigger fleet,” said Venom.

“Jesus Christ,” cried Ella. “How many of those things are there?”

“Another hundred and fifty thousand ships,” said Cordelia.

My first thought was holy frakking shit, followed immediately by we’re all dead.

Game over, man. Game over!

And just like that, all my good feelings disappeared, replaced by blinding terror. We had, I had, severely underestimated our enemy, and now it was too late to do anything about it. I ground my teeth and grabbed my Viper’s stick so hard my knuckles hurt. My heart was about to explode inside my chest, and beads of sweat trickled down my brow. It was a miracle I didn’t have a heart attack and die right then and there. There was only one thing I could do now: pray that we could delay the inevitable long enough for Kurt to do his part. Not that I believed God would listen to me, of all people.

Tarq’s eyes bulged, and his jaw hit the floor.

I burst into hiccupping laughter. “Joke’s on you, stupid.”

“What are we going to do?” he screamed, eyes wide.

I shrugged. “The usual.”

“Jim?” said Cordi. “Maada’s coming towards you. Don’t panic.”

Despite the warning, I did freak out a little when I saw the frakking Crimson Deathbringer getting near my space fighter. That didn’t bring back happy memories.

“Shields up?” asked Venom. My alter-ego was hilarious.

“All these people are here to fight under your proverbial banner,” said Maada when his ship got closer to mine.

“Not exactly my banner,” I pointed out. “The Kingslayer’s banner, which is mostly a legend created by Tarq.”

“Are we seriously going to ignore the fact that these people are here to fight alongside the Kingslayer while the king himself is right here?” asked Venom. “The irony’s killing me.”

This one’s just a clone.

“Be that as it may,” said Maada, “you are the embodiment of that legend. Can I recommend that you stay behind and not get yourself killed during the first minutes of the battle?”

I looked at the flood of the enemy ships coming straight toward me and thought about it. For less than a second. “Would you hide behind the people under your command?”

“Somehow I knew you would say that,” said the general, “so I am going to fly close to you and watch your back.”

“Thanks, General,” I said. “You can be my wingman any time.”

“Nice callback,” said Venom. “I miss Keiko.”

“Wingman?” I could hear the anger in Maada’s voice. “I am General Maada. I am no one’s wingman.”

“You’re flying behind my wings,” I pointed out. “That makes you my wingman.”

“Maybe I should just go and leave you here to die,” Maada growled.

“How will history judge you if you let the Kingslayer die alone in battle?” I just had to have the last word.

“I respectfully request that both of you shut up and focus,” said Ella with a professional, no-nonsense tone. “The enemy will be within our effective weapon range in fifteen minutes.”

The Golden Viper and the Crimson Deathbringer versus the Black Fleet. It’ll make a brilliant movie.

“Time to say something epic, Jim,” said Cordelia.

My heart pounding with apprehension, I decided to choose my words very carefully. My next words, uttered right before a mega-battle involving nearly half a million ships, a battle that would decide the fate of the universe and determine whether or not several different sentient species (including us humans) were going to be extinct in the near future, would echo in history for eternity. The whole galaxy was rallying behind me. I wanted to give a speech so powerful that it’d put Napoleon to shame, and I knew just the thing.

“Avengers!” I bellowed into my mike.

Then I whispered, “Assemble.”

“That’s what I call inspiring leadership,” said Cordi.

“Seriously?” said Ella. “Even now?”

“If Liz were here,” added Venom, “she’d roll her eyes so hard all you could see was the whites of her eyes.”

Being on the verge of battle was actually a relief; once it started, I didn’t have the time to overthink and get scared. The doubt and uncertainty about my plans that had been eating my soul disappeared, replaced by a clear sense of purpose: to destroy as many enemy ships as possible. To stop the Black Fleet or die trying, and if I did die, my ghost would remain behind and haunt these assholes forever. Moreover, this was the part of Operation Armageddon I was completely prepared for. I’d used MICI to download “memories” of several hundred hours of dogfights with the Volts into my brain, and I’d spent a lot of time practicing in simulators too. Plus, I lived for this shit. If there was one upside in a horde of genocidal aliens trying to wipe out humanity, it was that I’d get to blow up a bunch of them. Dozens, hopefully. Hell, hundreds. Why not? My fangs had been out all the way for a long while now.

I gunned the throttle and charged forward to meet the enemy, my fleet right behind me. In my tactical display, I watched the distance between us and the black ships shrink with every passing second. “Prepare to engage,” I said into my mike, then looked at the HUD, chose a bandit as my first target, and pushed the pickle button on my flight stick to fire a Sparrow as soon as it came within range. The missile streaked away and a few seconds later blasted through the black ship, claiming my fleet’s first victory.

Drowning in adrenaline (God, I’d missed that), I let out a whoop and punched the air. “Hear me roar!” I shouted at the dead enemy.

Next to me, Maada ripped apart another gomer with continuous cannon fire.

Two down, 349,998 to go.

A few seconds later, the two fleets met. Ships on both sides broke formation to attack, and the biggest, most chaotic aerial battle in the history of the universe started. The clear blue sky around me erupted in a barrage of laser bolts, missiles, and projectiles. I scanned the battle zone. The entire world had gone insane. With so many enemy ships, this was the very definition of a target-rich environment. It was difficult to tell exactly what was happening. Space fighters from fifteen different navies had engaged the Black Fleet, and hundreds of thousands of pilots, engaged in close-range dogfights, were shooting energy beams, rockets, and projectiles at each other. The sky was lit with explosions, some caused by our ships’ laser cannons, some by the enemy fleet’s weapons. I ground my teeth in frustration as a Viper blew up right in front of me. And then another one. Then a third one. I thought about how many of my pilots were being incinerated inside their birds at that very moment and shuddered as that intense sense of loss crept into my heart whenever I lost people.

Millions of anti-aircraft shells and ground-to-air missiles added to the confusion too. A missile whizzed by my space fighter. I hoped our ground troops wouldn’t hit any of our own ships in this mess. The last thing we needed was to lose people because of friendly fire. Blue-on-blue casualties were the worst.

There was only one word that could properly describe what I was witnessing.

“Clusterfuck?” Venom suggested.

“Pandemonium!” I growled.

I tried to spot the dark brown Vox but couldn’t.

On my four o’clock low, a black ship was hard on the heels of a Zharnuuti space fighter. I firewalled my Viper, dove, lined up my shot, and sent a continuous burst of laser bolts at the enemy vessel. I hit it where the cockpit of a normal space fighter would’ve been. Whatever served as the Vox’s energy source exploded, and it turned into an expanding ball of gas and debris. Some remaining pieces of the enemy ship rained on my Viper.

Killing two birds with one stone.

“Thank you, Kingslayer,” the Zharnuuti pilot told me in English.

“Watch your back,” I answered.

I pushed the throttle forward and launched the Golden Viper into the mass of the black enemy ships swarming the sky. My HUD highlighted the target closest to me and I ran after it, with Maada keeping a close distance.

“Are you sure you can keep up with me?” I asked the general.

He grunted in response.

*****

Kurt heard Tarq say, “You are up.”

“Let’s go,” he told Xornaa, who was piloting the shuttle.

Their shuttle, along with another one carrying Ivan and Tina, was hiding behind the temporal anomaly. The shuttles were inside Akakie holograms that made them look like the Vox. The enemy couldn’t see them unless they specifically looked behind the anomaly, and as Jim had predicted (hoped, to be exact) their attention was focused on the human-Akakie-Xortaag fleet standing between them and Earth. The plan was for the two shuttles to enter the funnel once the battle started, hoping that in all the chaos, the enemy either wouldn’t notice them or would take them for two of their own ships.

Both Kurt and Xornaa wore Akakie spacesuits, which were completely different from their human counterparts. They looked more like white diving suits plus an HUD-equipped helmet that helped them monitor temperature, radiation, and local atmospheric conditions once they left the shuttle.

Kurt saw the battle for the first time when the shuttle reached the edge of the rift. “Wow! Where did all these ships come from?”

“It appears Tarq’s efforts to enlist the help of the other species in the galaxy have been successful,” observed Xornaa.

“Did you know the other species were joining us?”

“Of course not,” answered the woman. “I don’t think he told anyone. You know how he is. But come to think of it, he did say something about working on a legendary prank.”

“The whole galaxy is under attack, and Tarq uses this as an opportunity to pull a fast one on us.”

“That’s Tarq all right. I think his target was Jim though.”

The shuttles flew inside the funnel. Kurt’s brain had a hard time making sense of what he saw. It was like they were inside a kaleidoscope, surrounded by a succession of symmetrical designs reflecting millions of constantly changing colorful patterns. There were several images of their shuttle flying next to them. Kurt thought they were merely reflections, like in a mirror, until he saw his “image” inside another shuttle turn his head and stare at him in surprise. He did a double take and wondered if he was hallucinating.

The other Kurt stroked his beard; then he gave him the thumbs-up.

Kurt felt his mouth falling open. Jim will never believe this!

“The computer needs a few minutes to calculate our exit point,” said Xornaa. She was too focused on maneuvering the shuttle to notice what had just happened.

“You’re awfully calm, considering,” said Kurt.

She shrugged. “Not my first rodeo.”

“You have time-traveled before?!”

“No, but I was present when someone else did it.” She chuckled. “This is nothing. That guy used a time machine to make an army of himself.”

“One day, you must tell me that story.”

A few minutes later, she announced, “Here we are.”

“That was fast,” said Kurt. “Should we brace for impact or something?”

“I don’t think so,” Xornaa said without taking her eyes off the shuttle controls. “Our simulations predict we won’t feel a thing. But you were in the meeting when the Akakie scientists told us so.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind, with everything else that’s happening.”

“So, just in case you’ve forgotten, the shuttle will continuously scan the funnel and inform us if it collapses.”

“Let’s hope we’re done before that happens; otherwise, we’ll have nowhere to go back to,” said Kurt, then contacted Ivan. “Wait for us to go first. If we don’t explode or disappear or anything, join us in a minute.”

“Roger that,” said Ivan. “Please don’t explode. Or disappear.”

The transition into normal space was smoother than Kurt had anticipated. As Xornaa had said, he didn’t feel anything, only the view changed. The kaleidoscope disappeared, and a red planet with two bluish-green rings appeared in front of them.

“We made it,” said the woman, looking at her instruments. “We’re three months in our future, and that is the Volts’ planet.”

Kurt looked at Voltex and checked some of the readings. Nearly all of Voltex's atmosphere was made up of carbon dioxide. It was as if the planet were specifically designed to instantly kill any oxygen-breathing living creature. There were no oceans, nor were there any mountains he could see. The whole planet was, more or less, a flat land mass with 1.2g gravity.

“Do you see any ships?” he asked Xornaa.

“In orbit? No. Not even a satellite. Nothing within their solar system either, but there’re millions of those black ships flying within the atmosphere.”

“They probably haven’t figured out how to travel in space yet. How long before we can land?”

“Ninety minutes, give or take, unless we run into some unpredictable problem.”

“Why would we?” asked Kurt. “To them, we’re just two of their own warriors, thanks to the holograms, and if they don’t have space-travel technology yet, it’s a safe bet they won’t be actively scanning space looking for threats. Is Indomitable here already?”

“I can see them in our long-range scans,” answered Xornaa.

Up to now, everything had gone according to plan.

The night is young.

Xornaa took a deep breath. “You know, I’ve always wanted to ask: why do you wear so much perfume?”

“You could pull down your visor if it bothers you that much,” Kurt pointed out.

“And waste the oxygen I’ll need down on the planet’s surface?”

Kurt looked at Voltex. “Something tells me running out of oxygen will be the least of our problems.”

*****

“I thought we were invisible,” said Ella as the CIC shook.

Another alien ship had just rammed the force field. This was the fifth one already. Just like the battle of Tangaar, the falling Vox warriors were trying to take out a military target, and the Fleet Command had somehow caught their attention. Ella looked up and, through the glass dome, saw another black ship heading right for them, but this one was blown out of the sky by the anti-aircraft artillery defending the fleet base.

Ella, along with scores of human, Akakie, and Xortaag fleet officers, was desperately trying to coordinate their allies’ fleets. A few of her officers were in charge of directing the ground fire. With everyone yelling into their various commlinks and communication devices, it was controlled chaos all around, which made concentrating very difficult, and Ella, who tried to keep an eye on Jim at the same time, could do without the constant distraction. Moreover, she wasn’t sure how much longer the force field would hold.

“I do not think they can see us,” answered Tarq, standing behind Ella. “But they have detected the force field and figured there was something important under it.”

“Force field at seventy-five percent,” warned Lilly from her station next to Ella’s.

“These guys can’t even die like normal people!” huffed Ella while following a group of Vipers on her screen.

“Actually,” said Lilly, “the Second-World-War era Japanese fighter pilots would argue this is the normal way to go.”

It was funny how relaxed Ella was in the middle of all this chaos. As promised, she’d met Xornaa a few hours ago. All the Xortaag woman had done was hold her hands for less than five minutes, and now Ella felt she was slightly high. Thinking about Xornaa made her blush. In order to prove a point, Xornaa had turned on her “full slut-mode” for less than a minute, during which all Ella could think of was to jump her and rip off her clothes. That woman was dangerous. Ella decided to find a way to send Xornaa packing as soon as this was over, as far away from Jim as possible. Tarq could be persuaded to send her on a mission to the other side of the galaxy. Then she immediately felt embarrassed for her thoughts. Xornaa had been kind to her, and under her femme fatale exterior, there was a genuine warmth that surprised Ella (Xornaa later explained that if she let her guard down, the telepathic connection could sometimes be a two-way street, allowing the other person to catch a glimpse of her own thoughts and emotions). Plus, it wasn’t like Ella had to feel threatened by anyone. She decided to invite the Xortaag woman to dinner instead, once this was over.

“Lieutenant Drexler,” Ella said in her mike. “This is the Fleet Command. There’s a squadron of enemy ships passing by on your two o’clock low. If you change direction in five seconds, they’ll be within your Phoenix missiles' range.”

“Got them,” came the answer. “Thanks for the tip, Command.”

Ella watched with satisfaction as Drexler and his wingmen fired on the Volt ships, hitting a few.

Now, if only we can do this another million times.

*****

This is not going well, thought Naduk, watching the battle with fascination.

The aliens had surprised them by gathering such a big fleet, and even though Kavmar had reacted by calling on the reserves, this time the battle was not nearly as one-sided as the previous ones. The Vox warriors had already suffered heavy casualties. But given their enormous numerical advantage, the end result was never in doubt, and the enemy would certainly not be able to offer any more resistance after this battle was over. They had obviously gathered all their forces for one decisive conflict.

Naduk looked at Kavmar, who was directing the Vox from a safe distance, and felt his shell shake with hatred. This child-killer who had murdered his own grandfather (and Naduk’s beloved mentor) would be hailed as the savior of the Volts once this was over. Faltaz was a good Volt. The old scientist had always been kind to Naduk, and he did not deserve to die like that. And worse, the Vox commander would never face any consequences for his heinous crimes.

Unless …

In the middle of all the chaos, something had caught Naduk’s attention. Two distinctively colored enemy ships, one golden and one red, were twisting and turning close to each other. Their pilots had to be extremely skillful as they had already killed several Vox warriors. Whoever got close to this duo did not seem to live long.

Naduk hovered closer to the Vox commander. “The enemy is fighting a lot harder than we anticipated.”

“It makes no difference,” said Kavmar. “We will win anyway.”

“Yes, but at what cost? We are suffering heavy casualties. Could I make a suggestion, Sire?”

“Since when are you a military expert?” Kavmar mocked him.

“Have you noticed that golden space fighter? I think it belongs to the carbon-based alien’s leader. They had gathered behind it when we entered their system.”

“I have noticed.”

“It might break their resistance if you kill their leader,” advised Naduk. “And your name will go down in history as the Vox commander who vanquished the murderous aliens once and for all.”

Naduk waited anxiously while Kavmar pondered.

“Let us see how he performs against a real warrior,” said the commander. “Watch this. One day, you can tell your grandchildren you were here when I killed the carbon-based alien’s leader and won us the war.”

Kavmar dashed towards the golden enemy ship.

I cannot believe he fell for it, thought Naduk. What an idiot!

*****

I was dancing with an annoyingly hard-to-kill Vox when I saw five enemy ships attack Maada together. He could probably handle them—he wasn’t the second-best pilot in the galaxy for nothing, after all—but I decided to finish off my target quickly and go help the general. I lined it in my gunsight and pulled the trigger. The enemy pitched its nose up and started climbing. I followed it and unleashed a torrent of energy bolts.

I held my breath. Any second now.

Fire started belching from the wounded Vox. I must’ve finally hit its energy source, whatever the hell that was. “Gotcha,” I said, then zeroed in on the bandit and lined up my kill shot.

“There’s a gomer right on top of you,” Ella screamed in my ear. “Break!”

I didn’t think. If someone shouted at me to break, this meant I was milliseconds away from death. I leaned on the stick and pulled a right break, and enemy projectiles passed through the space my golden Viper had occupied not a moment ago.

A dark brown Vox thundered past my space fighter.

The dark brown Vox. The asshole who was watching us like we were prey before the battle started.

Big mistake, buddy. Huge.

The enemy ship was swerving towards me. We were so close that it was impossible for me to pull off some fancy maneuver, and if I tried to run, I’d find the enemy ship on my six. So, I did the only thing I could: I attacked him head-on, laser cannons blazing. The Vox returned fire. Several projectiles tore into my beloved fighter. She shook violently, and a red warning light started flashing.

“Is that all you got?” I yelled at the Vox.

Venom mumbled something about overused clichés.

I ground my teeth and kept firing, single-mindedly focused on killing the brown Vox before it killed me. My heart tried to leap out of my chest, and my vision tunneled. I hit the enemy ship several times, but it didn’t seem to be badly hurt. The distance between us evaporated in mere seconds. Collision warning klaxons started to wail.

“Jim!” shouted Cordi.

Right when it looked like we’d ram each other, the enemy pilot lost his nerve, peeled to the left, and passed a few feet from my ship.

Or tried to pass, to be exact.

I hit a red button next to the stick.

This was a recent addition to our ships, compliments of the Akakie R&D. It was like a miniature Point Defense Cannon that shot a few hundred tiny missiles all at the same time. Its range was very short, and it could’ve been used only once, which was why I’d saved it for a special occasion.

My heart quivered with pleasure as I watched a third of the enemy ship’s bulk disintegrate under a hail of small missiles. The powerless Vox tumbled and nosed into a death spiral before disappearing into the clouds below.

“Alpha Mike Foxtrot!” I bellowed, beside myself with joy.

“Language,” said Cordelia.

“Now I’m entertained,” said Venom. “I’ve also peed my pants, just a little.”

You don’t have pants.

I contacted Ella. “Thanks for watching over me, hon.”

“Behind every not-dead fighter pilot,” she said, “there’s a strong woman. Aren’t you happy I didn’t listen to you and stayed?”

“Very,” I said gratefully.

“Go get the rest of them. Happy hunting!”

There was no time to savor the victory. I looked around to see what had happened to Maada. He was entangled with an enemy ship, which exploded just as I found them.

I scanned my immediate area. Thousands of combatants furiously maneuvered for an opportunity to fire at each other. I tallied another target and went after it. Five seconds later, the gomer was at the center of my gunsight. Few people who went there had walked away with their lives. I drew a bead and pulled the trigger. Yet another kill for the good guys.

I had an incoming message from Maada. “Sorry about that last ship, Admiral. I was very busy.”

“I noticed,” I said. “I was planning to come bail you out, but that bastard tried to sucker-punch me.”

“I am certain it was their leader,” said Maada. “Too bad. I wanted him for myself.”

“By the way, I think you can call me Jim, under the circumstances.”

“OK. You can call me General Maada.”

“Did you just crack a joke?”

“No.”

“How many kills have you got?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Thirty-one,” he said.

Damn it. I had only twenty-eight. “Huh! I’m on thirty-three already.”

“That cannot be right,” said the general. He paused for a few seconds, during which each of us shot down another enemy ship, then added, “Jim, since you are the commander of the fleet, I think I must report that I do not know how much longer I can do this.”

I must’ve heard it wrong. There was no way the most skilled, bad-ass fighter pilot in the galaxy (after Yours Truly, of course) had just told me he was about to bite it.

“Seriously? I’m just getting warmed up,” I said as the gomer I was shooting at went up like holiday fireworks.

“These Voxes are tough sons-of-beaches,” he continued matter-of-factly, “and my ship has been hit multiple times. I am losing power, and I have a hard time maneuvering as it is.”

“Beaches?” asked Venom, sounding amused.

“Tough sons-of-beaches” was the understatement of the century. The Voxes (ships, warriors, whatever the hell they were) were extremely difficult to kill, and even after we shot them down, they’d still try to hurt us by hitting a military installation, as Maada had warned us.

My own Viper wasn’t in such a good shape either. That brown Vox had shredded my ship. The engines’ power fluctuated so wildly that sometimes it felt I was barely hanging in the air.

I wouldn’t have lasted this long without Cordelia. I wondered how Maada, whose onboard computer wasn’t nearly as advanced as my AI, had managed to keep his fighter going.

“You’ve read my books, General,” I said. “What do we say to the Lord of Death?”

“Not frakking today?”

“Damn right not frakking today,” I enthused.

“Why don’t you two get a room?” said Venom with disgust, never having forgiven Maada for Liz.

For the hundredth time, this isn’t him. This is only a clone.

“Keep telling yourself that,” hissed Venom.

*****

Naduk watched in amazement as Kavmar fell onto the planet’s surface.

What am I still doing here?

He contacted a few Vox chieftains he knew were not happy about killing alien children; then he opened a channel to the entire fleet. “Mighty Vox warriors. I am Naduk. Many of you know me: I used to be Faltaz’s assistant. What you do not know is my master was in the middle of peace talks with the aliens when Kavmar killed him. Yes, you heard me correctly. That murderer killed his own grandfather just to keep this going. Now that Kavmar is gone, I see no reason to continue this mission. I am going home, and I urge you to do the same.”

He dashed towards the funnel’s entrance.

Some of the Vox chieftains he had already talked to, the soldiers under their command, and thousands of other Vox warriors followed him.

*****

I was engaged in a dogfight with two enemy ships when Cordelia said, “Jim. I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

“Good news. Please, for the love of God, some good news,” I said through clenched teeth, fighting my Viper’s stick.

“More than seventy thousand Vox warriors just abandoned the battle and went back inside the funnel,” she said. “I guess that brown ship you destroyed was their leader after all.”

Seventy thousand!

It was difficult to think in terms of such huge numbers. That right there was more than seven times the number of the Earth ships under my command before the battle started. It was even bigger than the Xortaag fleet that had terrorized the galaxy for decades.

One of the enemy ships went down in flames.

Cordi continued, “Also, the enemy ships that arrived after their main fleet are much slower and have less firepower. If those things were really space fighters, I would’ve said they are older models.”

“So, what’s the bad news?” I asked.

“The bad news is it doesn’t make a difference in the long run. With that, they’ve lost half of their fleet, but so have we. By killing the Vox commander, you’ve bought us some time, but that’s it. If anything, their numerical advantage is growing by the minute.”

“Depending on what’s going on with Kurt,” I said, “time might be all that we need.”

I kept shooting at the second Vox. With each burst, energy bolts tore into it, until it spiraled from view.

I wished there was a way to contact Kurt. The worst thing about Operation Armageddon was the fact that there was no way to stay in touch with the Marines, and we didn’t even know how long they needed to finish the job. What if they ran into an unpredictable problem? It was entirely possible that the enemy had anticipated our move and laid a trap for Kurt and his team. For all I knew, my best friend could be dead already, and I’d never even find out.

I shouldn’t have thought about that. A vivid image of Kurt’s corpse, torn and covered in crimson blood, and all alone in a daisy field for some reason, assaulted my OCD brain. His face was almost devoid of skin and pitted by burrowing insects. The image was so clear that I even smelled the stench of blood on his body (mingled with the scent of flowers, no less), which made me retch and very nearly throw up. Kurt couldn’t possibly have been dead. I shook my head in denial; then I closed my eyes and tried to push away that image. For less than a second.

That was all it took.

I briefly saw the Vox shooting at my Viper, but it was about a million years too late. The left side of my canopy exploded inwards with a wave of sound, color, and motion. A flash of light blinded me just as a thunderclap hit my ears. A roar of air followed the thunder. I nearly bit off my tongue, and I tasted blood filling my mouth. Excruciating pain shot through my left eye and the left side of my face and body, scorching every single neuron on its path. It was like someone had reached inside my skull and was pulling my eye out of its socket with bare hands. I must’ve screamed, but I wasn’t sure. I was in more pain than a human body could bear.

My last thought was I’ll never get to see my son grow.

The pain was a merciless monster. It took over my brain, and the world plunged into oblivion.

*****

Kurt looked at approaching Voltex. His heart rate was accelerating, and his mind was replaying every single scenario of the things that could go wrong in a short loop. He’d already dropped on six alien planets (not counting Tangaar, because that one was mostly a peace mission); in fact, his team had already done the exact same thing they were here to do on Talmak. But something told him this mission wouldn’t be as easy as simply deploying the planet buster and running away. He didn’t know the cause of his apprehension. It could’ve been because the Volts had struck fear in his heart by destroying both Tangaar and Kanoor in less than a week … or because the stakes were so incomprehensibly high this time.

“We have a problem,” stated Xornaa.

Kurt rolled his eyes. Of course they did. When had things gone exactly as planned?

Operation Armageddon was genius in its simplicity, as Jim was fond of saying. The plan was for Kurt and his team, disguised as Vox warriors thanks to Akakie holograms, to enter the funnel and travel three months into the future. Then, they’d land undetected on Voltex and destroy it with a planet buster while the fleet fought the Vox to keep the funnel open. After that, the Marines would rendezvous with Indomitable, which had already been dispatched (with a human crew) and travel back home.

There were, of course, several issues. The most obvious one (pointed out by Maada, who at first vehemently opposed Jim’s plan before contributing a few good ideas of his own) was the fact that it was by no means guaranteed that the fleet could keep the Vox occupied long enough for Kurt and the Marines to do their job. There was no way for them to estimate how long it would take for the Marines to arrive on Voltex once they exited the funnel. Moreover, the shuttles they could use were too small to carry a planet buster. Tarq had solved the second problem by dismantling the gigantic weapon into three parts, to be reassembled after landing on the planet. He’d also done away with the scaffold and the caterpillar tracks and used antigravity plates instead.

“I’ve scanned the planet,” continued Xornaa. “Have a look. There isn’t one vacant square inch down there.”

Kurt looked at his screen. He couldn’t believe how densely populated the place was. There were enormous mega cities full of gigantic towers covering most of the planet’s surface, and even the areas outside the cities were buzzing with the Volts. There must’ve been trillions of them.

“It’s like a damned anthill down there,” he murmured. “Why the hell is nobody asleep on the dark side?”

“You’re thinking in human terms,” said Xornaa. “Maybe these things don’t sleep. Also, the planet spins very slowly, which means extremely long days and nights. They might’ve decided to have a uniform planetary timing system, and it just so happens that we’ve arrived in the middle of the day.”

“So, our plan to land where no one can see us is out the window.” Kurt shrugged. “Let’s put the shuttle down away from those cities and try to assemble the planet buster as fast as possible.”

“Have you noticed that there’s no sign of life on the planet other than the Volts?” asked Xornaa. “No insects, no animals, no plants.”

“The Volts have probably eaten them all,” said Kurt half-jokingly. “On the bright side, with so many Volts here, no one would pay attention to us entering their atmosphere.”

Kurt was surprised by how badly he wished he didn’t have to do this. He was here to obliterate a whole species who had nothing to do with their future generations’ crimes. When he was a young man dreaming of world peace, he never imagined he’d end up committing mass genocide. As Jim had said, this was self-defense, but that didn’t make it right. Kurt stared down at his feet and wished there was another way, but he knew there wasn’t. Another difficult but necessary task that had fallen on his shoulders.

You thought there was no way to save the Arshans either, and we saw how that turned out, he thought with heaviness in his chest.

The shuttles entered Voltex’s atmosphere. Kurt could soon see hundreds of black ships flying past in every direction. He scanned the surface, trying to find a place to land. He chose a field which was rather empty by Volt standards (meaning there were only a few hundred aliens lurking around) and sent the coordinates to Xornaa. She nodded and maneuvered the shuttle toward the area Kurt had designated.

The Xortaag woman pointed at the Volts in the vicinity of the landing zone. “They’ll be upon us as soon as we land.”

“Which is why we have a force field generator with us.” Kurt tugged at his beard. “Still, given that the portable force fields aren’t very strong, and there are several trillions of them and only four of us, if you want to pray, this is a good time.”

“Xortaags don’t believe in gods, but I think you knew that already.”

“Most people who pray in time of danger don’t actually believe.”

Xornaa gave a half-smile. “I’ll never understand why you humans do all these stupid things that you do.”

“And yet, this is the second time you follow us inside the belly of the beast,” Kurt pointed out.

“This is what happens when one hangs out with the wrong crowd. What about you? Do you have a god to pray to?”

“I used to go to church with my parents when I was a child, but I stopped later in life. Times like this, I wish I hadn’t.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” said Xornaa. “Praying, I mean.”

“Can I ask you a question? Why are you here?”

Xornaa gave him a sideways look. “As opposed to where?”

“You know what I mean. You’re supposed to be a mercenary. I figured, faced with a galaxy-ending event like this, you’d find an uninhabited planet and hide there. Instead, you’re here risking your life with us.”

Xornaa went poker-faced. “I suppose you’re looking for an answer other than ‘because Tarq has put a bomb in my skull.’ ”

Kurt tugged at his beard. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but Tarq knows you’ve deactivated the bomb.”

Xornaa sat up straight. “How did he find out? The Akakie surgeon who helped me said what he’d done was completely undetectable.”

“It’s Tarq we’re talking about,” replied Kurt wryly. “Very little happens in the universe that he’s unaware of.”

“So, he knew, but he didn’t react at all?”

“I guess he figured you’ve proven your loyalty in Operation Endgame. He did make a joke about blowing up your head, but Maada threatened to shoot him. So, no bomb. Then why?”

Xornaa chewed her lower lip and didn’t answer for a minute. Then she took a deep breath and said, “After Talmak, I told Tarq I’d try to kill him if he got me involved in another massacre like that. He wanted to know why. If we survive this, ask him. I’m here now for the same reason.”

“You could tell me now, just in case. Wouldn’t want to go to my grave ignorant.”

Xornaa chuckled. “Be quiet a minute; I need to concentrate on this last part.”

“Ok. Just let me say this: whatever your reason is, I’m really glad you’re here.”

Xornaa, touching the shuttle control panel in front of her, didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. Then she added, “I do have another reason that I can share: I never had any real friends before I met you guys. I guess it’s normal for me to want to have my friends’ back.”

Kurt wondered what Xornaa meant by “you guys.” So far as he knew, he was the only human who considered her a friend. Despite everything that she’d done, most people were still uncomfortable around her. Maybe it was because of her powers.

Xornaa seemed to have read his mind. “OK, guy, singular. And maybe Ella too. Not sure yet.”

“And Tarq?”

“You can’t be friends with someone who’d kill you without a second thought.”

Xornaa landed the shuttle on the field Kurt had chosen.

He unfastened his seat belt and pulled down his helmet visor. It locked with a hiss. “Let’s go.”

The Marines exited the shuttles. They’d landed on a barren, desert-like piece of land. Violent winds whipped red dust into the atmosphere. The huge, orange sun was hidden behind one of the planet’s rings. It was easy to move in the Akakie spacesuits, but Kurt felt the planet’s 1.2g gravity pull his body down as soon as he stepped outside. Kurt and Xornaa carried a portable force field generator. Their steps sank into the red sand while Ivan and Tina pushed out the antigravity plate holding the bottom section of the planet buster.

Several small Volts were hovering towards them. Kurt counted them on his visor’s HUD. Forty-two. And a few looked really tiny.

Children. Of course there are children right here where we landed!

The kids had probably called their parents already and told them about the strange creatures walking out of two Vox warriors’ bodies.

Kurt turned on the force field. The wind immediately stopped howling. The Volt kids came to a halt at the outer limits of the force field, which worked like a two-way mirror to ensure no one could see what was going on inside. Kurt gave them one last regretful look, then rushed to help Xornaa bring out the planet buster’s midsection. The weapon, while smaller than the one used on Talmak, was still huge. Once assembled, it’d be twenty-five feet long with a seven-foot diameter, and it weighed more than 30 tons. When deployed, it’d take the planet buster only a few seconds to dig a hole in the planet's surface (using antimatter) all the way to its core, and it would be unstoppable.

Sixty seconds later, Kurt started to assemble the weapon that would kill trillions of sentient beings, including the kids standing next to the force field, in a few minutes, while fighting off a wave of nausea caused by thinking about what he was about to do.

Ivan, working on the weapon next to Kurt, looked at him closely. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

Kurt shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”

*****

Volt District Leader Zagorka was a happy grandmother.

Her oldest daughter Adzoa had just given birth to a baby boy. Zagorka held the newborn for the first time just a few hours ago. It felt almost as good as holding one of her own nineteen children for the first time, which was saying a lot. She was already looking forward to having several more grandchildren.

Praise Vilyek.

Zagorka was grateful for many more blessings in her life. She was the district leader of Geleexa, Voltex’s biggest and most prosperous region. Her people had thrived under her leadership, and when she would retire in a few short years, her name would go down in history as one of the district’s most popular and successful leaders. Three of her younglings had also entered politics, and four others were distinguished Vox warriors. Not that there was a lot of fighting going on these days on their peaceful planet; still, being a warrior was a great honor. Her youngest son Zaim, still in school, had just won the Young Genius of the Year Award, and he would soon join the scores of scientists and inventors who were responsible for Voltex’s scientific and economic progress. The future was indeed bright, both for her people and her family.

She was in her office trying to get some work done, but her mind kept wandering. Vilyek’s  Ascension Commemoration Ceremony—Voltex’s most significant religious holiday—was coming up in a few days. She was looking forward to spending some time with her children and grandson.

She was trying to focus on work when Zaim’s image appeared on one of her internal screens. He looked excited.

“Mom!”

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you remember the other day you said Mr. Tsouk was wrong when he claimed there might be people living on the other planets in the galaxy?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Tsouk,” said Zaim impatiently. “My biology teacher.”

Zagorka remembered now. What absurd ideas that man had! Alien creatures living on other planets, some of them not even silicon-based! Especially when The Book of Vilyek specifically said the Volts were the only sentient beings in the universe.

“It turns out he might have been right,” continued Zaim. “Look at this.”

Zagorka watched the images sent by her son, showing four tiny creatures stepping out of what (vehicles?) looked exactly like two Vox warriors. They were bipeds and looked so different from the Volts that it was obvious they were aliens. They disappeared under what could only have been some sort of a force field.

Aliens! Unbelievable. Who would have thought? I hope they are not hostile.

She chuckled at the last thought. There were over two trillion Volts on the planet. What could four small aliens do, even if they were hostile?

She checked her son’s location. At maximum speed, she would be there in a few minutes. “Hang tight, dear. I am on my way.”

Zagorka contacted her chief of security while flying toward where her son was. “Can we find out what is under that force field?”

“The only way seems to be punching through it, Madam District Leader.”

“Let’s do that then,” said Zagorka.

*****

Kavmar knew Death was waiting impatiently for him.

He had brought his fall under control, but it was only temporary. He could see his life force draining from his broken body while he flew close to the planet’s surface. The damage caused by the enemy space fighter was too extensive for his repair systems to fix, and he could barely stay airborne. He wondered if Naduk had sent him after the golden enemy vessel on purpose. That deceitful bastard killed me. Well, there was nothing he could do about it right now.

In the last moments of his life, his duty was clear. He scanned the surface, looking for a military target. A big, blue construction, which he could reach in a few minutes, caught his attention. The place was lit with hundreds of thousands of radio messages being sent or received by it. It was probably a communication center.

Or even better, a command center.

A force field protected the building, but it had already been hit several times, which had significantly weakened it. One or two more strikes could do the job.

Praise Vilyek.

The blue building reminded him of a Vilyek temple his grandfather took him to visit when he was a child. Maybe he should not have killed the old man. He decided to ask for forgiveness if he met Faltaz in the Kingdom Beyond. The old Volt would forgive him. He had forgiven the carbon-based aliens, after all.

Kavmar flew towards his target.

*****

Ella felt the ground shake. Another Vox had just dropped on the CIC.

“Force field at ten percent,” Lilly announced solemnly.

Ella looked around. Few officers in the CIC seemed to notice. Everyone was focused on carrying out their duties. Even the Akakies were showing uncharacteristic courage, probably born out of desperation.

“A couple more hits and the force field will collapse,” advised Tarq, biting his fingers. “Maybe we should evacuate?”

“Tell the shuttle pilots to be ready, but not yet,” said Ella firmly. “We still have more than sixty thousand ships up there, and they need our help. We’ll stay at our posts until the last possible moment.”

A second too late, she saw the enemy vessel diving towards Jim’s Viper. She could feel the blood draining from her face. The Vox warrior hit Jim’s space fighter just as she opened her mouth to warn him.

The Golden Viper fell towards the surface like a rock and disappeared from the screen.

Ella’s chest clenched. Stunned, she struggled to inhale, to exhale, to do anything, but all she could do was stare blankly at her screen. It wasn’t possible. Everyone knew Jim was untouchable in a Viper cockpit. Her muscles tightened, and she froze with an expression of utter surprise, white as paper, eyes wide open, a single thought swirling in her mind: Oh God, don't let the father of my child die.

Reflexively, she clutched at her belly. Now her son would be born an orphan.

Get hold of yourself, woman.

“Jim is shot!” yelled Tarq.

Ella pushed back her hair. Something in her lower back ripped, followed by a growing ache. She looked incredulously between her legs and growled, “Oh no. No, no, no, no. Not now!”

“What happened?” asked Tarq.

Ella had to bite her tongue to stop herself from screaming. The pulsing pain was intolerable. She gritted her teeth. “My water just broke.”

I shouldn’t have asked Xornaa to change Peterson’s mind!

Tarq’s eyes rounded. “Are you kidding?”

Relieved when the pain abated, Ella gave him a furious look.  But then the pain came again, and she bent forward, jaw clenched. It was all she could do not to scream.

Lilly was by her side in a blink of an eye. “Didn’t the doctors say you have three more months to go?”

“I guess no one told the baby,” Tarq muttered.

“That was four weeks ago!” Ella told Lilly.

Lilly and Tarq eased Ella onto the floor, then Lilly yelled into her PDD, “Medics! We need a medical team in the command center!”

Ella couldn’t think about Jim right now. The baby took priority over everything. She’d find out what happened to Jim afterward. For all she knew, he’d punched out. But she couldn’t help it. She grabbed Tarq’s arm and whispered, “Jim?”

“He jumped out of the fighter with a parachute.” Tarq ran his fingers on his PDD. “Also, there is no need for medics. I have got this.”

“What?” asked Ella, huffing and puffing. “You’re a midwife now?” The tearing pain eased, and she breathed easier.

“Of course not, but some of my people are here, and all of us have installed a remote receptor connected to MICI in our brains. We have just downloaded all the data I need to deliver a human baby.”

Ella closed her eyes. “If Jim was here, he’d make a Matrix reference.”

But he isn’t, is he?

“I have no idea what that is,” said the alien. “But I often do not understand what you people are talking about.”

“But you’ve never done this before!” exclaimed Lilly.

“Trust me,” said Tarq. “It’s easier than you think. Just give me a minute.”

Anger flashed in Lilly’s eyes. “Childbirth is easy? Maybe you should try it some time.”

“We lay eggs,” said Tarq.

“Maybe you guys can help the pregnant woman about to give birth now and argue later?” Ella said through a clenched jaw, face red, sweat beading around her hairline, nails cutting half circles into her palms.

An Akakie ran into the room and gave a hypo-spray to Tarq. Tarq took it and pushed it against Ella’s arm. She wanted to ask what it was, but her eyelids immediately became heavy, and she lost consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, Lilly was holding a newborn baby wrapped in her uniform.

Ella blinked a few times, trying to focus, not fully comprehending what had just happened. “That was surprisingly painless.”

“That’s Akakie technology for you.” Lilly beamed. “It didn’t even take two minutes. You want to hold your son?”

Ella extended her arms and held the small bundle. Even wrinkled and red, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The baby’s tiny hand curled around Ella’s index finger, and he stared at his mother with brand-new eyes. He was so small—he could easily fit in one of her handbags—but Ella’s love for him filled her heart and soul to bursting. She wanted to drink this moment in … this moment when she held her son for the first time, and wished Jim were here with them. She had to fight to stifle a sob; still, her eyes welled up as she looked at Tarq and Lilly, and in a voice that was almost broken, whispered, “Thank you.”

Tarq puffed out his chest. “Delivering your and Jim’s baby was the greatest honor of my life. Well, one of the greatest. Top ten, definitely.”

“Is he healthy?” she asked.

“He was born a few weeks early, so I had to give him a couple of injections prepared by our medical team. Nothing to worry about.”

Tarq staggered as a fierce tremor shook the entire CIC. It startled the baby, and he started crying. Ella rocked the baby at a brisk tempo, holding him in a tight embrace as if to shield him from the alien invasion happening at that very moment.

“We really have to evacuate,” Lilly said with urgency in her voice. “The force field is at five percent. We can’t take any more hits.”

“Order the evacuation,” Tarq told her.

She nodded and ran towards her station. The evacuation signal echoed in the command center a few seconds later. People left their posts and rushed towards the exits.

*****

Enemy anti-spacecraft artillery surrounding the blue building roared to life when Kavmar got closer. With the last bit of his remaining power, he evaded the missiles shot at him. Several projectiles hit him, ripping away more sections of his already disabled body. The pain was unbearable, but he knew it would last for only a few seconds. Kavmar thought about his children one last time, said a prayer, and dove toward the structure.

With enemy fire tearing apart his body, the Vox commander hung on to life for as long as he could, but he finally gave up.

His corpse kept falling toward the command center.

*****

Ella took Tarq’s hand and got up, still holding the baby.

He feels so light and looks so perfect!

“Can you walk?” asked Tarq.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve waited too long already.”

Tarq chuckled. “It was the little one’s fault. Follow me. I have a ship ready just for you, me, and Junior.”

Ella followed Tarq toward the exit. “We don’t go with the shuttles, like everyone else?”

A white-clad Akakie officer, running in front of Ella, lost his balance and fell onto the floor. A Xortaag helped him up to his feet.

“You are my best friend’s family; you get special treatment,” said Tarq.

“Can we take anyone else with us? Maybe Lilly?”

“Everyone is already assigned a shuttle. It is better if we do not change the evacuation plans last minute.”

“Have we picked up Jim?”

Tarq averted his eyes. “About that …”

Ella stopped and glared at him. “You lied to me!”

Tarq raised his palms outward. “For the good of both you and the baby.”

Ella raised her voice. “What happened to him?”

“He—”

Lilly shouted a warning.

Ella looked up and paralyzing terror overtook her soul when she saw the dark brown enemy ship falling from the sky. It was like gasoline had been poured on the spark of fear in her belly. Her body wanted to run towards the exit, but she knew it was too late for that. With trembling hands, she held the baby tighter, hiding his face in her chest, and released the start of a scream before her throat closed as the Vox warrior crashed through the weakened force field.

Helplessness engraved her face. A primitive, maternal desire to protect her son engulfed her consciousness, pushing all other thoughts away, but there was nothing she could do. Ella thought of all the plans she and Jim had for their son’s future. They didn’t even get to choose a name for him. “Tell the girls they’ll have a brother soon,” Jim had said. It looked like she’d get to tell them in person.

She didn’t resist when Tarq pushed her and the baby to the ground and covered them with his body, his back toward the ceiling thundering down on them, his face mere inches away from Ella’s. She looked at him and wondered if she’d ever seen this much terror in someone’s eyes.

“I am sorry,” Tarq whispered.

Her final thought was, Jim never gets to meet his son.

*****

I blinked a few times when I came to. I struggled to breathe. Everything hurt. Searing fiery bursts of unbearable pain pulsed through my whole being, intensifying with every passing second. I couldn’t see through my left eye, which felt like it was shut anyway, and I had a hard time seeing through one eye. But I did notice a big azure thing moving fast toward me.

An ocean.

I pulled the stick to my chest without thinking about it. It was an automatic reaction born out of some primal self-preservation. My left arm hurt like hell, but I put both my hands on the stick and fought to get my Viper under control, and I managed to do it barely ten feet from the ocean’s surface.

“Cordi?” I croaked, my throat too dry to speak normally. There was no answer.

Sharp pain lanced my body, and colorful spots flashed in front of my eye. I felt like I’d been beaten to a pulp, and every movement I made caused some muscle or bone to ache. And there was blood everywhere. Not too much, but enough to make me wonder how much I’d lost. My consciousness ebbed, but I held on to my awareness. If I blacked out this close to the ocean, I’d certainly crash this time.

Fighting to calm a sickening rush of vertigo, I pulled up my Viper in a steady climb; then I tried to assess my situation. The canopy was covered by a thin force field that would keep the wind out but wouldn’t offer any other protection. The onboard computer was shot to hell, and so was my scanner. If I wanted to keep flying my broken Viper, I could only rely on the one eye I had left.

“Trust your senses,” instructed a voice in my head.

For one glorious moment, I thought it was Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I soon realized it was Venom, who had chosen this moment to be supportive for the first (and probably last) time in my life.

Definitely the last time, because I saw Vox bullets shot from behind pass my space fighter. Wincing in pain, I turned my head and found three enemy ships in pursuit. One of them had started shooting too early; otherwise, they could’ve blown me out of the sky, and I wouldn’t even know they were there.

So, this is it then.

Despair filled me all the way down to my nerves. A thick trickle of sweat started its slow trickle from my forehead to my remaining eye. I was injured and aching, and my ship was badly damaged. With no computer and no scanner, I was practically flying blind. Worst of all, I was bone-weary. Tired of fighting. Tired of seeing people under my command die in the thousands. Tired of pushing on, trying to achieve a lost cause. My head pounded and the left side of my body throbbed with pain. It hurt to move. It hurt even more to breathe. The easiest thing in the world was to wait here for those three enemy ships to come and finish the job, putting an end to all my pain and suffering. It might’ve even been a blessing.

But that just wouldn’t be me.

Don’t be a whiny little bitch, I told myself.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Venom. “Act like you’ve flirted with death once or twice before.”

The battle was still raging. If I kept those three ships focused on me for a few more minutes, that would be a few minutes they couldn’t attack the people under my command. It might’ve saved a life or two. And I’d be damned if I was going to die without a fight. Plus, maybe another miracle would happen, and I’d walk out of this one alive too, minus the left eye and half my body that was already mangled.

Never give up, never surrender.

“How very heroic,” Venom mocked me.

I guessed that even at death’s door I wouldn’t have five minutes of peace inside my own skull.

“I hate you,” I told him.

“Which part of ‘I am you’ do you not understand?” he asked.

I pushed the stick as hard as I could and made a hard left. Pain shot up my left arm whenever I moved it, but at least it was still functional. The three enemy vessels gave chase, shooting their bloody projectiles. I rolled my fighter to dodge the bullets, doing my best to stay alive for a few more seconds. Several projectiles hit my already torn-up fighter. Fire and smoke spewed out, but she kept going, her repair systems hard at work to keep her airborne just a little while longer. The Golden Viper was even more stubborn than her pilot.

“Don’t you dare quit on me,” I snarled at my Tango Uniform Viper as she started to vibrate uncontrollably.

One of the engines stuttered for a few seconds and then completely shut down. Warning alerts lit up several VR screens. I kept trying to execute evasive maneuvers with only one engine (and one arm, and one eye), but I knew the Golden Viper was seconds away from turning into a giant ball of fire.

And then one of the Vox warriors following me exploded into millions of tiny smoldering pieces.

The Crimson Deathbringer appeared behind the enemy ships, fire erupting from her cannons. I had never thought I’d be so happy to see Maada’s infamous space fighter which used to be the scourge of the galaxy and the center of my nightmares for so long. The two remaining Vox warriors flew away in opposite directions. Maada chased one of them. The second bandit made a sharp turn, trying to position itself at the Deathbringer’s six.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered.

My Viper had no computer or scanner, but it was still me in the cockpit, and I was the best ace pilot to ever walk the earth. I followed the second enemy ship with my eye and tried to predict where it’d be in ten seconds; then I took a breath, let half out, and squeezed the trigger, letting go of one of my two remaining Sparrows. A direct hit caused the enemy ship to disappear behind a blinding explosion, sending pieces of flaming wreckage into the ocean below, while Maada bull’s-eyed the other one.

I was too tired to crack wise, but when had that ever stopped me? “There you are,” I told Maada, not sure if he could hear me, “I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago.”

He mumbled something that I could swear was the Xortaag equivalent of the f-word.

At least the comms work.

Maada’s space fighter approached and flew parallel to mine. The general’s face appeared on a VR screen, and I heard his voice in my ears. “You are injured. How do you feel?”

“Not too bad,” I said. “So far so good. What the hell took you so long?”

“Traffic?” asked Venom.

“I was busy killing the asshole who shot you down,” he growled. “Seriously though, you look terrible.”

I pointed at my remaining eye. “You have to admit I make a good pirate. G'yaaaarrrrrrr!”

His eyes averted to something inside his cockpit. “I will never understand your tendency to make stupid jokes. Prince Mushgaana was like that too. I assume your scanner doesn’t work?”

“It works as well as my left eye. HUD is down too.”

“I am sending you my scanner feed,” he said.

I had to squint my, well, eye, to see what he sent me, and when I did, I wished I’d lost both my eyes.

There was a swarm of black ships in front of us. Well, maybe not exactly a swarm, but at least a hundred of them. And they were coming straight at us.

“Bloody hell,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Get out of here, General.”

“How will history judge me if I leave the Kingslayer to die alone in battle?”

I always knew my sense of humor was contagious.

“I don’t think there’ll be a ‘history’ after this,” I responded tiredly. “No one will be left to remember who we were and what we did.”

“All the more reason for me to stay. In all seriousness, there is nowhere for me to go. We have lost, Jim. We have only a few thousand ships left, and they will be overrun soon. I give our forces thirty more minutes. Some enemy ships have already started attacking ground targets.”

So, we’d failed, after all. Defeat tasted like ash in my mouth. The Volts would soon drop an asteroid on Earth, just like Tangaar and Kanoor. Humanity would be extinct, except for the people we’d evacuated, and they’d have nowhere to go either. Even worse, we were taking down the rest of the galaxy with us. All I could do was think about everyone I’d let down. I wondered how all those alien pilots who had joined our fleet thought about fighting alongside the Kingslayer now. They probably didn’t feel so honored anymore. Some savior of the galaxy I’d turned out to be.

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness engulfed me. There was an electrical storm in my skull, killing my brain cells. My brain was on fire. My lungs were on fire. My whole body was on fire. I was about to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. Despair wrapped itself around my mind and made everything dissolve. The only thing that remained was a clear understanding that my fate was sealed, and humanity’s with it. My plan had doomed everyone. My pilots. My friends. My family. My son.

I thought about contacting Ella but decided against it. She could probably do without the distraction right now. We wouldn’t have any time to talk anyway, and I’d never been good with goodbyes. Plus, I’d left a video message for her and the baby, just in case. Cordi would make sure they’d get it.

Just two short weeks ago, I was the happiest man on the planet. I had everything I could ever dream of, and then some. So much for a happy ending.

“So, it wasn’t that kind of a massage parlor after all,” said Venom.

But if I was going out, then God damn it, I’d go out swinging.

“Let’s charge them,” I suddenly said.

“What?”

I was certain Maada thought his comms were malfunctioning. “Let’s charge them,” I repeated with enthusiasm, feeling adrenaline spike in my bloodstream. “Just picture the look on their faces when they see the Golden Viper and the Crimson Deathbringer coming towards them. I bet half of them will turn and run away.”

Maada threw back his head and roared with laughter. I hadn’t thought he was physically capable of laughing. “You are crazy! Let’s do it. It will be magnificent. And Jim?”

“Yes?”

“It has been an honor and a privilege fighting alongside you.”

“We fly together; we die together.” I tensed with excitement. “The honor’s all mine, General.”

“Get. A. Room.” Venom sounded really pissed.

“Of course I’m pissed,” he declared. “I’ll get killed with you, and unlike you, I don’t have a hard-on for dying a martyr.”

“Don’t go too fast, though,” I told Maada. “I won’t be able to keep up. And now, for my last act of heroic defiance, let’s make some noise.”

I pushed a virtual button, and Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” roared in my ears.

“That’s a good choice,” said Venom.

I knew Maada could hear it too. If he hadn’t thought I’d lost my mind already, he certainly did now. But then again, I never actually claimed I was sane.

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” I told the general.

I pushed the throttle for what certainly was the last time in my life. I took a deep breath and enjoyed listening to the music as well as the roar of my Viper’s engines. Maada was right; this was truly magnificent. A sense of calm bloomed in my heart and took over as my soul gave in to sweet surrender. I felt a floating sensation, as if all my burdens had been removed, my work was done, and it was time to rest. In those last moments of my life, despite the physical pain, I was strangely relaxed and carefree.

I wished I could see my son, if only once. And to see Ella one more time. And Kurt. And Tarq. Hell, I didn’t even finish that chocolate cake.

I waited for my life to flash in front of my eyes, but it didn’t. Instead, I focused on enjoying every micro-second of this final ride, which somehow was stretching into eternity. God, but I really did love flying. This wasn’t a bad way to go, after all. Much better than dying of old age in bed, which probably had never been an option for the likes of me.

Beastie Boys kept singing. Why, our backs are now against the wall, listen all y'all, it's a sabotage.

The enemy ships came into view. Big, ugly, black monsters who had come here to, and were about to, annihilate my entire species. I grinned a maniacal grin. The Volts coming towards us probably expected an easy victory. Well, they were dead wrong. Let’s see how many of them will survive a battle with the Golden Viper and the Crimson Deathbringer.

I called Maada and snapped him a farewell salute when he looked at me. “Any last words, General?”

“Yes.” He saluted back, then thundered, “For Tangaar.”

“Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherfrakkers,” I echoed.

*****

“We’ve got company,” announced Kurt.

A few dozen Volts had appeared above the force field while the Marines were assembling the weapon. Two minutes later, several more joined them, and their numbers kept increasing.

“Hurry up,” Kurt told Ivan. “We might be running out of time.”

The Akakie spacesuit was temperature-controlled; still, Kurt was drenched in sweat. Working in the planet’s heavy gravity was more difficult than they’d anticipated. Despite the planet buster’s size, only two people could work on it at the same time, so its assembly progressed rather slowly.

All of a sudden, one of the Volts dove toward the force field and crashed into it. It didn’t explode, but its kinesthetic energy shook the ground. The force field flickered but held. Then another Volt did the same thing, and then another, and then another.

“Force field at seventy percent,” announced Xornaa.

Kurt looked up and saw hundreds of Volts gathering around the force field. “How much longer do we need?” he asked Ivan.

“Fifteen minutes, at least,” the Russian answered.

The force field won’t last fifteen minutes.

Xornaa looked at her PDD. “I give the force field five more minutes, max.”

More Volts amassed outside. There were thousands of them now, covering the sky. Kurt couldn’t even see the sun anymore. His hand moved towards his beard before he remembered the helmet. With that many enemy ships/soldiers surrounding them, once the shield collapsed, the Marines wouldn’t last a second, and if they were killed without deploying the weapon, Earth was doomed. Kurt had to think of something, and fast.

He wished he could at least clean the sheen of sweat off his forehead. Xornaa and Tina were looking at him, but he avoided eye contact. Why did everyone always expect him to come up with a solution? His breath started coming out short and fast, and he nearly dropped the wrench-like Akakie tool he was using. An inner dialogue started forming in his brain, whispering to him that everything had gone wrong, that he’d failed and all of humanity was about to pay the price for his shortcomings. But that voice reminded him of Jim and Venom, which in a strange way made him relax a little bit and think more clearly. What would Jim do? He’d never give up, that much was certain. That man was inherently incapable of knowing when he was beaten.

And so am I. I haven’t traveled in freaking time just to die here like a trapped animal, having accomplished nothing!

“Tina, take my place,” ordered Kurt, then drew his sidearm, looked at it, put it back in its holster, and went back inside the shuttle. He hastened to the weapon locker, grabbed an Akakie handheld laser cannon, and walked out.

Xornaa looked up from her PDD. “What are you doing?”

“Going out to see if I can buy us some time,” said Kurt, his jaw set.

Xornaa pointed at the laser cannon. “With that? They’ll tear you to pieces in five seconds.”

“We’re all gonna die if we stay here and do nothing,” Kurt replied grimly.

“Force field at thirty percent,” declared Tina, one eye on her PDD which she’d put on the ground.

Ivan grunted. “Jim Harrison warned me that Marine infiltration teams had a very low life expectancy. I should’ve retired when I had the chance.”

Kurt walked towards the force field. Xornaa approached him. “I’m coming with you. Maybe I can communicate with them or something.”

“Stay here,” he said firmly. “I don’t think we can come back from this one.”

Xornaa smiled. “This has always been a one-way ticket, and more so now. Even if we deploy the planet buster, do you think the Volts outside will let us simply fly away?”

That woman never stopped to amaze Kurt. She appeared so relaxed that by looking at her one would never think she was on an alien planet surrounded by thousands of enemy soldiers.   That was the way she always was, born calm, even facing certain death. Kurt himself wasn’t exactly scared, but he could feel his heart beat faster and his body temperature rise.

“So, again, it’s you and me against a horde of enemies.” Kurt smiled back. “Who knows? We survived the last time.”

“Actually, Tarq was with us the last time, and he saved our ass.”

“It would’ve been very useful if your, eh, special talent worked on the Volts,” said Kurt, not sure how to refer to Xornaa’s telepathically sexual powers that could make people, both men and women, blindly follow her orders.

Xornaa chuckled. “Don’t be so sure that it doesn’t. If I touch a chicken, it turns into a rooster. Just give me a second to get a weapon.” She hurried towards the shuttle.

Kurt turned to Ivan. “Let us out. Inform me the moment the weapon is ready.”

“Will do.” Ivan nodded, reaching for his PDD. “Take care, boss.”

A small section of the shield disappeared. Here goes nothing, thought Kurt. He and Xornaa had to struggle against the wind to step outside. The two of them, shoulder to shoulder, faced thousands of black alien creatures hovering outside the force field. The wind kicked up sand and made it difficult to see the Volts clearly, but Kurt noticed they varied significantly in shape and size even though all of them were different shades of black. Looking like enormous eggs, they weren’t particularly menacing, but Kurt had seen them in action and knew the Volts in front of him were capable of wiping out an armored battalion in under ten seconds. The two Marines kept the barrel of their weapons pointed at the ground and tried not to look threatening but, nonetheless, Kurt expected to be fired upon. He looked up at the Volts closest to him and wondered how much longer he’d draw breath.

“I always knew I’d die holding a weapon,” whispered Xornaa.

The Volts didn’t shoot. Instead, they stopped crashing into the force field. Then a small group of the aliens, maybe twenty or thirty of them, flew downwards toward Kurt and Xornaa.

A Volt separated from the rest of the group and approached the Marines. It—he? she? did rocks have genders?—hung  a few feet above the ground in front of them, completely motionless, as if waiting for something.

“What does it want?” whispered Kurt, perplexed.

Then the strangest thing happened. A marble white human face—or an imitation of a human face, with no eyebrows and disproportionately big eyes and nose—appeared on the Volt’s smooth surface. The lips started moving, but no sound came out.

“I think it’s trying to communicate with us,” murmured Kurt.

“I might be able to sense its thoughts if I touch it,” said Xornaa.

“What, you’re going to Vulcan mind-meld it?” he asked, incredulous.

“I think you’ve caught Jim’s nerd bug.” She put down her laser weapon and held up her hands; then she approached the creature and put her right hand gently on its shell. She closed her eyes to concentrate. “Huh,” she said.

“What?” asked Kurt.

“I sense no malice, only curiosity. They weren’t planning to kill us by attacking the force field; they just wanted to see what was going on inside. Wait. I’m receiving a telepathic message.”

No way!

“It, ah, she wants to know who we are and where we came from,” continued Xornaa, eyes still closed. “Her name is Zagorka. She says they’re thrilled to meet us. She says we’re the first aliens they’ve met, and it is a pleasant surprise because they always thought they were alone in the galaxy.”

Just a few years ago, an alien woman mind-melding with a piece of rock who calls itself Zagorka would’ve been strange.

“This isn’t what I expected to hear from the evil genocidal aliens attacking Earth as we speak,” said Kurt hesitantly.

“Zagorka says they’re peaceful people, and she’s confident we can learn a lot from each other.”

A flash of adrenaline tingled through Kurt’s body. “Wait a minute! Jim said as long as the funnel is open, whatever changes we make here will affect Earth, right? What if we can convince them not to attack us in the future? Won’t it have the same result as destroying their planet?”

There might be a way to do this without obliterating an entire species, after all.

“Boss, the planet buster is ready,” advised Ivan.

“Keep your finger on the button, but hang on,” Kurt responded.

“I don’t think we have time for this,” Xornaa said doubtfully.

“Then hurry up.” Kurt scowled. “Tell them we come from the future, when we’re under attack by the Volts. Tell them about what they’ve done to Tangaar and Kanoor, and we’re here to sue for peace.”

Xornaa was quiet for a few seconds. “Zagorka says she’s appalled by hearing what her descendants are up to. She says they bear no ill will towards us or anyone else in the universe, and if we can guarantee we won’t attack them first, she sees no reason why we can’t sign a peace treaty.”

Kurt checked the status of the funnel on his PDD. “Xornaa, we have to do this while the funnel’s still open. Ask her if she can put us in touch with their leaders immediately.”

“She says she’s a high-ranking government official herself—a district leader, whatever that is—and she’s in touch with their own supreme leader right now. She has the authority to speak for her people.”

A small butterfly started fluttering in Kurt’s belly. “Tell her I’m the president in my own world, and I offer them not only a non-aggression treaty, but an alliance. We even offer to share our technology. We can iron out the details later, but they have to say yes or no right now.”

Say yes. Please say yes.

The next few seconds felt like hours. Then Xornaa relaxed visibly. “She says you’ve got yourself a deal. Their supreme leader sends his regards and invites us to meet him in their capital city, Pandar.”

Kurt let go of the breath he’d been holding since Xornaa approached the alien, and he could feel an unexpected release of tension from his body. He wondered what would happen to Earth now. Was it possible that everything went back to normal as if the invasion had never happened? No, Jim had said the past couldn’t be changed. In all likelihood, the remaining enemy forces would receive an order to retreat.

On the other hand, who really knew? This was uncharted territory. No one had ever traveled in time, and Jim’s theories, though seemingly logical, were mostly based on the science fiction movies he’d watched. There was every chance that what they’d just done here had fixed the timeline, and when they returned to Earth, they’d find that the Volts’ invasion had never occurred. Imagine that. He smiled at the mental image of going back to Earth to meet Patricia, Ella, and Jim (and probably later on Tarq and Maada, living on their peaceful and prosperous planets), and find out they had no idea what he was talking about. It’d be even more hilarious if there were another Kurt, one who never left Earth because the Volts’ attack hadn’t happened to begin with.

If nothing else, I’ve just saved trillions of sentient beings here on Voltex. Maybe this compensates for Talmak, at least to some extent.

“Won’t it be great if we go back and see Earth isn’t under attack, Tangaar and Kanoor are there, and none of this has happened?” he asked.

“Amen to that,” responded Ivan. “What are we going to do with this now? I mean the planet buster.”

Kurt thought about it for a moment. Should they have trusted the Volts based on one alien’s words? “Let’s keep it operational for the time being. We’ll dismantle it as soon as the treaty is official and Earth is safe.”

“Aren’t we going to meet their leader?” asked Ivan.

“You two have to stay behind,” stated Kurt.

“Oh no,” said Tina. “I’ve always wanted to meet an alien king, even if he looks like an egg.”

Xornaa, her hand still on the Volt’s shell, turned her head, opened her eyes, and flashed a dazzling smile. “We did it, Kurt.”

He smiled back. They made a really good team. This was the second time they’d saved the day together.

Let’s see if Jim can find a way to take credit for this one too, Kurt told himself, but deep down, he really didn’t care. The important thing was they’d saved humanity, yet again.

But, seriously, hopefully for the last time!

*****

So, on top of all my other achievements, thought Zagorka, now I am the Volt who made first contact and negotiated an alliance with an alien species.

History, here I come!

And an alien species with space-travel technology, no less. Only Vilyek knew how much they could learn from them and what benefits this alliance would have for her people’s future. And once the Volts could travel in space, the whole universe would be their children’s playground.

Moreover, according to the aliens, this alliance would prevent a devastating war from happening in the future. She had single-handedly saved her entire civilization. Not bad, for a modest district leader.

She wondered why there was no mention of other sentient beings in The Book of Vilyek. No, the book could not possibly have been wrong. They had probably misinterpreted the holy scripture. Or maybe these aliens were not truly sentient?

Zagorka realized she had some limited access to some of the alien woman’s memory and processing banks. More out of curiosity than anything else, she started looking around, trying to get to know their new friends better.

I wonder what is under that forcefield.

Then she found the answer.

Her outer shell became several shades darker, her internal temperature spiked, and she was so shocked that her energy source flickered for a second. The rage that followed washed all conscious thought away. All that remained was a primal desire to protect her children, her family, her species, her planet.

*****

“How are we going to go and meet their supreme leader?” Kurt asked Xornaa. “I hope they don’t ask us to ride them!”

He heard Ivan’s voice in his earpiece. “Boss, are you sure we should keep the weapon operational? What if they can read its energy signature or something? We don’t have a clue what they are capable of.”

“Good point. Power it down, but stay alert. We might—”

“Kurt?” Xornaa cut him off with alarm in her voice. “I feel Zagorka wants to know what’s under the force field.”

All of a sudden, Xornaa was thrown back forcefully. She hit the force field and fell on her knees. She raised her head, looked at Kurt, and coughed dark purple blood.

What the hell?!

For the first time ever, Kurt saw fear in Xornaa’s eyes.

“Zagorka found out about the planet buster,” she screamed.

Kurt froze, his muscles tense, his posture rigid. The alien must’ve read Xornaa’s mind and realized there was a weapon capable of destroying their planet under the force field. And now all the Volts around them were going into a panic.

How would you react if you found out some alien had a WMD that could obliterate your whole planet?

Kurt’s heart beat faster, and the blood rushing to his brain made him feel dizzy. We’re dead, he thought. Defenseless and completely exposed, there was no way for them to survive a confrontation with so many enemy soldiers. This right here, on an alien planet in another galaxy, surrounded by creatures who had more in common with rocks than humans, was truly the end of the road for him, and he didn’t even have time to get scared.

Hundreds of Volts dove towards the force field, and hundreds more dashed towards Xornaa and him.

Kurt thought about finding a way to re-establish communication with the Volts and assure them that he had no intention of using the planet buster, but the female alien who was talking to Xornaa—and now somehow looked more black than a few seconds ago— jumped six feet into the air and opened fire. Kurt dodged under her projectiles by rolling on the ground. He brought the laser cannon to bear and shot her point blank. From the corner of his eye, he saw Xornaa firing her weapon too.

“Ivan, deploy!” shouted Kurt.

Dozens of Volts crashed into the already weakened force field. It shimmered and vanished. Kurt heard gunshots from behind. It must’ve been Ivan and Tina shooting at the Volts with their sidearms. Kurt kept firing his cannon, wondering if Ivan had pushed the button before the force field collapsed.

The Volts hovering in front of Kurt and Xornaa—several hundreds of them—started shooting.

“Farewell, my frie—,” said Xornaa.

Patricia.

Kurt and Xornaa, still shooting, disappeared under a hailstorm of projectiles.

*****

I fired my last Phoenix and pulled the trigger at the same time. My laser cannons roared.

One last time.

The approaching Volts started firing too, all at the same time, filling the sky with thousands of projectiles.

The black ship I’d targeted with my missile shimmered and then suddenly disappeared into thin air. One second it was there, moving towards us at high speed; the next it was gone. The rest of the enemy space fighters in my view followed suit. They didn’t turn to dust and get blown away or anything like that; they simply vanished as if they’d never existed to begin with. Even the projectiles they’d already fired disappeared before reaching Maada and me. My Phoenix and laser bolts traveled through nothing until they faded in the horizon.

I blinked and felt my mouth fall open. “That was anticlimactic.”

“You lucky son of a bitch,” said Venom.

“All the remaining enemy ships have ceased to exist,” said Maada, still flying next to me. “It is over. It appears that your friend did it.”

I looked at him through my cockpit and gave him the thumbs up. “It shouldn’t surprise you. He’s already kicked your people’s ass twice.”

Suddenly my various injuries didn’t hurt as much. There was a sudden lightness in my limbs; in fact, I felt sort of weightless. I couldn’t decide if it was because of euphoria or blood loss. I was injured and exhausted, and thousands of pilots under my command had just perished, but we’d survived, yet again, against bloody ridiculously impossible odds. I was so certain I was going to die that now living would take some getting used to.

I felt a surge of triumph. From the ashes of defeat rises the phoenix of victory. Again.

My lips spread into a slow smile. I knew exactly whom I wanted to celebrate this moment with. There was one person in the world I wished I could be with right now. Well, two, sort of.

I contacted Ella. “Hon, we did it.”

There was no answer.

An icy hand grabbed my heart and started squeezing.

“Tarq?” I asked, my throat tight.

Time froze.

My rasping breath got caught somewhere deep in my lungs, and mind-numbing horror covered all my conscious thoughts like an avalanche. My hands started shaking.

“Anyone?”

No one heard me. No one answered. My heart all but stopped beating when I realized with deathly conviction that I was all alone.

*****

I landed my fighter right next to the mobile search-and-rescue command center, which was a Ford truck with a white box-shaped module mounted on the back of its chassis. I got out of the Viper. The Crimson Deathbringer landed right next to my ship.

I found a medic outside the command center. “Patch me up.”

He examined me quickly. “You’ve got to go to a hospital immediately, Admiral. Otherwise, you’ll lose your eye.”

“The Akakies will give me a new one,” I snarled. “And give me something for the pain.”

I walked into the command module a few minutes later. With my left eye, my left arm, and half of my face bandaged, I was the very picture of determination. Or madness. “Who’s in charge here?”

A man looked up from the blueprints he was studying and stared at me. I think he wanted to have me thrown out but realized who I was.

“Where should I go to help?” I asked with an I-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone.

“Mark?” he yelled. “Admiral Harrison is on your team.”

“Me too,” said Maada from behind me.

A burly African American man (maybe Mark, I didn’t care) waved at me. “Suit up and follow me, Admiral.” He gave Maada a cold look. “You, too, alien.”

Maada looked like he wanted to punch his lights out but controlled himself. “I have just helped save the galaxy. What have you done, human?”

“We don’t have time for this.” I grabbed a pair of heavy-duty gloves, a shovel, and a helmet, and followed Mark out of the mobile command center, Maada next to me.

The Fleet Command had turned into a huge mountain of rubble, fire, and smoke. We joined the other teams calling out to survivors or trying to spot people’s limbs in the debris. We looked for "voids"—pockets where people might’ve been trapped. Other rescuers fed a camera on the end of a flexible pole into the collapsed building or used sound location devices. Soon, a few other rescue teams showed up, equipped with thermal image camera systems. I even saw a few sniffing dogs. Once we found someone, we started digging towards them, mostly with our hands which was less dangerous than using tools. If we couldn’t dig them out, another team would come and try to cut them out using special equipment.

I kept listening for calls, scratching, or taps. I found Maria buried under what was probably a set of stairwells. She was still breathing when she was carried away.

My desperation grew as hours passed. Wide-eyed, heart in my mouth, hoping against hope to find my wife and son alive, I forced myself to go on. I could smell the many, many corpses, and vomit was never far from my dry throat. Despite wearing gloves, my fingers were soon covered in blisters, most of which ruptured, but at that point, I was too numb to feel any pain. Every time we found a dead body in the rubble, my heart stopped beating, thinking it was Ella, and then I felt guilty for being relieved when it wasn’t. Grotesque images of the bodies of my wife and unborn son, torn-up and bloodied, took over my brain, and seeing actual corpses, severed limbs, and blood everywhere didn’t help. I felt the chill in my blood as I walked in a never-ending dark void. I’d died and gone to hell, and this was justice for Talmak.

Unaware of the time that had passed, Maada and I worked until the next dawn, shoulder to shoulder. Only once did he try to persuade me to stop. “You have to go to a hospital,” he said. “You are bleeding too much.”

“I ain’t got time to bleed,” I growled through gritted teeth.

At some point, I felt dizzy, lost my balance, and was about to fall into a deep hole. Maada grabbed my arm and saved me from certain death.

I passed out when the sun came up, my injuries and blood loss finally catching up to me. I vaguely noticed Maada picking me up like a broken doll and carrying me to the medical unit. I struggled to fight him off and crawl back to the rubble, digging with my hands and teeth until I found Ella and my baby boy, but I had nothing left in me. I tried to scream in rage and pain, but my breath wouldn’t come up.

We saved a lot of people that night.

Just not the ones that mattered the most to me.

What’s the point in continuing to draw breath?

Chapter Nine

Aftermath

Standard Galactic Date: 096.03.5073

(Earth Date: 16/07/2082)

“Jim, what are we doing here?” Cordelia asked. She sounded worried, for an AI.

“You recognize where we are, right?” I said.

Of course she did. I’d just had my fighter jump to where Maada ambushed me and my people during the Xortaag occupation of Earth. Where Liz was killed, and I wasn’t there to save her, or at least die with her.

I reached out and flipped a switch I’d asked Tarq to install secretly under my Viper’s seat before we attacked the Xortaag fleet on Kanoor.

“What did you just do?” Now, she was definitely panicking.

“I’ve locked you out of my fighter’s controls,” I said tiredly. “You’re completely powerless now, but I wanted you to be here. I didn’t want to die alone.”

“Hey!” Venom protested. “I’m right here!”

“What the hell do you mean, die alone?” asked Cordi.

I reached into the small bag I was carrying and pulled out an 1851 Colt Navy revolver. The gun belonged to Thomas, who had gifted it to Allen, who in turn had given it to Kurt. This was the gun Kurt had later used to execute Zheng.

I had to fight to breathe through the sudden tightness in my chest. “There’s only so much a man can take, Cordi.”

The Vox kamikaze strike on the Fleet Command was a total catastrophe. Thousands of people had perished. What had made it infinitely worse was the fact that it was carried out by the dark brown enemy vessel I’d shot down. I guessed this was the universe’s punishment for all my sins. Frakking karma was a bitch indeed.

Lilly was killed. Her body was burned beyond recognition and was later identified through dental records. It was probably better that Allen died and didn’t see this happening to his beloved daughter.

Tarq had survived. Barely. His tough exoskeleton saved him from being crushed under the debris that fell on him. He’d been in a coma ever since, and the doctors didn’t think he’d ever wake up.

When they found him, he was holding my wife and newborn son in a tight embrace, obviously trying to shield them from the debris with his body.

My dead wife.

My dead newborn son.

There’s only so much a man can take.

Something about that statement rang a bell. I vaguely remembered Jaime Lannister, the real Kingslayer, had once told his son, “A man can bear anything, if he must.”

Well, screw you, Jaime. There was nothing but a gaping hole where my heart used to be. My life had ended the moment I found out Ella and the baby were dead.

I’d buried myself under work, waiting for Kurt to come back or for Tarq to wake up. Grief tainted every waking moment, and nightmares haunted every sleeping one. I talked to the Akakie medical team and got a bunch of pills that numbed the anguish. I even started using MICI to help me through the days—anything to stop me from blowing out my own brain. Still, I couldn’t stop picturing my wife and child’s moment of death. Worse, I couldn’t stop thinking my son’s death had been my fault; a son suffered for the sins of the father, after all.

Ella’s funeral was one for the history books. She had a big family, and they were all there. Moreover, every politician, government official, and celebrity on the planet had also attended, and the alien species had sent dignitaries. I was the freaking savior of the galaxy, after all. I only sucked at protecting my own loved ones.

They buried her and the baby next to John and the two empty graves belonging to the twins. The baby’s tombstone read, “Jim Harrison and Ella Wood’s beloved son.” My child died without even having a name. I didn’t go to the funeral. I locked myself in my house for three days and didn’t talk to anyone or answer my PDD. On the second day, Maada showed up, banged on my front door, and threatened to follow me to hell and kick my ass if I killed myself.

“Don’t worry, General,” said Cordelia. “I’ll zap him the moment I see he’s trying to hurt himself.”

She did end up zapping me when I tried to find my house’s controls the next day and turn her off. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but it made me forget my mental agony for a few seconds, so it was worth it.

“It might help if you cried once or twice,” she told me.

“Boys don’t cry,” I growled.

I wished that I could, but tears refused to come. Plus, if I started crying, I’d never stop.

I spent a lot of time by Tarq’s bed. Varma wanted to take him aboard Indomitable, but I asked her to let him remain dirtside. The two of us took turns watching over Tarq. One night, when I entered his room around 2:00 AM, I found Maada, of all people, dozing off in a chair.

“I wanted to send Varma home to get some sleep, but she would not go unless someone stayed here.” Maada looked embarrassed for saying that. “She does not want Tarq to wake up alone.”

“I didn’t know you liked Tarq.”

“I do not, and I especially hate his stupid pranks. But it is because of him we are all alive today. I guess I owe him gratitude.”

“We played a part too,” I pointed out.

“We would not have stood a chance if he had not rallied the galaxy behind us.”

I looked at my Akakie friend, lying motionless on the bed. He didn’t look too good, but then he never did, being an insect and all. I’d finally gotten used to his real form. Either that, or I constantly had more nightmarish images in my mind than simple shark teeth and nose-less, ear-less, and chin-less faces.

Maada got up to leave, but I asked him to stay. “I could use some company.”

“I am afraid I am not good company.” The general sat back on his chair and studied my face. “I do not like chatting with people and prefer to spend my time reading or doing something useful. You look exhausted, by the way. Maybe you should go home and catch some sleep.”

Exhausted? I feel I’ve been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on.

“Can’t sleep much.” I sank into a small sofa. “Or at all.”

“Strangely enough, I have been sleeping better since the battle.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“I used to have nightmares,” explained Maada, “but they have disappeared.”

“So, all that bloodshed helped you sleep like a baby?” I rubbed my temple. “You’re super weird.”

“It is difficult to explain. I feel helping save the universe has washed away some of the blood on my hands. Redemption.”

I knew how much he hated to be reminded he was a clone, but I couldn’t help it. “Plus, it was actually the original you who killed all those people.”

He let that one slide. “Moreover, in the middle of all this, I have met someone, who just happens to be the sister of a woman your friend Kurt killed. That helps too.”

“Way to rub it in, General. It’s not like I’ve just lost my wife and son or anything.”

He blushed, which for him meant his olive skin became a few shades darker, and averted his eyes.

“Well, it’s good that I ran into you in here,” I continued, “because I’ve been planning to get something off my chest. Can you keep a big secret?”

He tilted his head and looked at me through half-closed eyes.

“It wasn’t me who killed you, the other you, during Operation Royalty,” I continued. “It was my friend Keiko. I only helped.”

I expected a strong reaction, but all Maada did was shake his head sadly. “It does not matter now, but out of curiosity, how did she do it?”

I told him how Keiko had sacrificed herself to blow up the original Crimson Deathbringer.

“Amazing woman,” he said. “I wish she had not done that though. We could have used someone like her fighting the Volts, or whoever else shows up next.”

“If she hadn’t, you would’ve butchered us all, and no one would be left to fight the Volts.”

“Good point.”

“She was a great fighter pilot. The only one who could defeat me in a dogfight.”

Maada gave me a pointed look.

“You’ve never actually defeated me,” I pointed out.

“Because you keep getting lucky. So the whole Kingslayer myth is built upon a lie?”

“Most legends are. At least this one helped save the universe. Also, I guess it’s a good time to say thank you for saving my life.”

He shrugged. “What are, eh, allies for?”

“For a moment there, I thought you were going to say friends. As long as we’re sharing, is it true that you know all the fighter pilots under your command? How is that even possible?”

Maada touched his temple. “Genetic enhancements, remember? I have a photographic memory.”

“Kind of lame, as far as superpowers go.”

He cleared his throat. “There is something I need to talk to you about too.”

I put my tired legs on a coffee table in front of the sofa and waited.

“I have, for the lack of a better word, an instinct. Some sort of premonition, if you will, that warns me about future threats coming my way.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I thought only the members of the royal family had mental powers.”

“That is accurate, but everyone else does have some sort of ESP.”

“And your instinct’s troubling you?”

“Yes. I think, in destroying the Volts, we have inadvertently wakened something even more dangerous.”

“Well, shit.” I told him about my concerns regarding time travel.

He rubbed his scars. “That fits.”

“Any idea what this new threat might be?”

“None, only that it is more serious than the Volt attack. You?”

I shrugged wordlessly.

“So, worrying about it solves nothing right now,” he said. “But I thought you should know. Also, I know it is scant consolation, but I want to point out your wife saved us all. Because she warned you, you killed the Volts’ leader, which caused seventy thousand of their ships to abandon the fight. This bought Kurt and his team enough time to finish their mission.”

He was right: it was no consolation at all. I wondered how things could possibly get any worse. We’d sacrificed so much, and if Maada was right, all we’d achieved was bringing something worse upon ourselves.

“It’s a fucked-up universe,” said Venom.

The last straw was when Indomitable reported from Voltex a few weeks later.

I listened to the ship’s captain in horror, feeling what little was left of my world crashing down all around me. Something broke in my chest. That was the moment that I was finally convinced there was no God, after all, or if there were, he really hated my guts.

“Hate him back,” said Venom.

“Did you see them die?” I asked Indomitable’s captain, but I knew I was clutching at straws.

He shook his head and looked at me with sad eyes. “They were completely surrounded by the Volts, who blocked our view. But they all shot at Kurt and the Xortaag woman, and we did see the force field collapse. At any rate, the planet blew up with the Marines still on the surface. Nobody could’ve survived that.”

I felt tired, sick, and useless. “Did you find their bodies?”

“Again, no, but it was impossible to find anything in the mess that the planet buster left behind. We scanned the debris, and we found some tiny parts of the shuttles, but that was it.”

That was it for me too.

“Everyone that I’ve ever cared for is dead,” I told Cordelia, my voice trembling.

“Tarq’s still alive,” she pointed out.

“It’s probably better for him if I’m not around, given that I bring rotten luck to the people I love. He might have a better chance of survival if I’m gone.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said. “And what if Maada’s right, and we’ll have to face an unknown danger soon?”

I shrugged. “Then others have to deal with it. I can’t do this anymore.”

“You can’t kill yourself!” she screamed. I had no idea how an AI could mimic panic so well. “You’re the Kingslayer. You’ve saved humanity three times already!”

“That’s exactly it: I haven’t. I was part of a team, and most of them are dead. Why should I keep on living? But before I go, a toast.”

I opened a small ice cooler I’d brought with me and took out a Paulaner—Kurt’s favorite beer. I raised the bottle. “To everyone I lost along the way. I really hope to see you all soon. In the next five to ten minutes, maybe.”

“Amen, brother,” said Venom. He was strangely cool with the idea of me killing myself.

I pulled my visor up and sipped the beer, thinking about the countless evenings I’d spend drinking with Kurt, often accompanied by Keiko, Lilly, Oksana, Sergei, Matias, or Allen. Hell, even Barook and Xornaa had joined us a few times.

And Liz.

And Ella.

Even now the freaking tears wouldn’t come. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

I looked at the gun and realized I hadn’t thought this through. Should I have put the gun to my temple or in my mouth? In the movies, people always committed suicide by eating their gun. I asked Cordelia which option she thought would be better.

“Do you seriously expect me to help you kill yourself?” she asked dryly.

“OK, don’t tell me. It’s your fault if I end up dying in agony, or worse, just getting paralyzed.” I figured I could punch out into space and remove my helmet and oxygen mask. That would definitely do it.

All of a sudden, the Crimson Deathbringer appeared right in front of me.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I told Maada when he appeared on my screen. “How did you know where to find me?”

“You remember I shook your hand when we met the first time?” he asked. “I planted a nanobot on the palm of your hand. We have been monitoring your every move ever since.”

“Why?” I asked, but I could guess the answer.

“I figured we might go back to being enemies after this was over. When my people told me you had picked up that ancient handgun, I immediately realized what you were up to.”

“General, can you please talk to him?” asked Cordelia. “Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

“If you’re here to try to change my mind,” I told Maada, “you’re wasting your time.”

“I do not give a rat’s ass if you kill yourself or not,” he answered flatly. “But you and I have unfinished business. I care about my reputation. As I told you once, I was known to be the best flying ace in the galaxy until you came along. It has occurred to me that we never concluded our duel.”

I was too tired to argue. “General, with all due respect, frak off and let me die in peace.”

“This should not surprise me.” He crossed his arms and smirked. “Your wife had the guts to attack me, twice, while you were running away like a terrified chicken. Even back then, all you could do was hide behind a woman’s skirt.”

“How is he suddenly so good at using English idioms?” asked Venom. “It’s like he’s practiced this speech several times.”

I couldn’t care less. My heart revved up. “Choose your next words very wisely, General.”

“You know why she felt she needed to risk her life by attacking me?” Maada kept pushing. “Because she knew you did not have the balls to do it, and she was right. You did not. And you still do not. You are nothing but a pathetic loser who calls himself a man but lets a woman do his fighting for him.”

“Kick his ass,” yelled Cordelia.

A pounding in my ears made it difficult to understand what she said. My inner rage took over, and it burned like fire in my veins. I could practically feel the flames under my skin. Everything I was thinking about a second ago vanished. Every cell in my brain suddenly surged with a mad desire to hurt Maada for what he’d just said.

You want to dance? Let’s dance.

I slammed the throttle forward and squeezed the trigger. My cannons fired a barrage of laser bolts. He dove to his left and broke out of my gunsight. I jerked the stick hard right to pursue and stayed on him, trying to maneuver to the rear of his ship. I kept shooting wildly, but while one or two laser bolts impacted the Crimson Deathbringer, most of my shots went wide. I ground my teeth in frustration and redoubled my efforts to hit him.

“Jim, are you sure this is what you want?” asked Venom, but I didn’t listen.

An intense battle ensued. Our aerial duel continued for several more minutes. Furiously, we twisted and turned around each other, looking for an opportunity to fire our cannons. He rained deadly laser bolts on my Viper. I got out of his line of fire mostly unscathed, but I felt an intense vibration as he scored a few hits. With all the adrenaline flowing in me, I didn’t even bother to check for damages. I lifted my Viper’s nose, rolled right, and swung in on his six. I centered my gunsight and pulled the trigger, letting loose a stream of laser bolts. He cranked his fighter to the left and dove. I leaned hard on the stick and gave chase, still firing.

And then he disappeared from my view.

He’d done his teleportation maneuver again. After all this time, I still had no idea how he’d pulled that off.

But this time I was expecting it.

Today is the last day he draws breath!

When Maada’s fighter appeared behind mine, he was straight in the path of the six Sparrows I’d shot two seconds ago. That must’ve caught him by surprise, but he still managed to avoid the first two and shoot the second two.

The fifth missile hit the blood-red vessel dead center, and the sixth disappeared in the blinding explosion that engulfed Maada’s ship.

Slack-jawed, I stared at what was left of the Crimson Deathbringer, which was nothing but millions of tiny shards traveling in space in every direction.

The infamous blood-red space fighter had just been destroyed.

Maada was dead. I’d killed him.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” said Venom.

The tears filling my eyes blurred my vision. They rolled down my cheeks, forming a tiny waterfall. I felt my chin tremble like that of a small child. It would’ve been embarrassing if the sorrow devouring my soul allowed me to feel anything else right now. The walls that I’d put up around my being to keep me strong and help me carry on collapsed, and the anguish I’d suppressed in the last three months came flooding through and overflowed my heart.

“Not this shit again,” grunted Venom. “Crybaby.”

I cried, and my shoulders shook with the agony of it. I’d lost my wife. Both of them. I’d lost my son, without being able to hold him in my arms even once. I’d lost my best friend, whom I’d grown up with. My alien brother was hanging onto life by a thread, and from eighteen thousand human fighter pilots under my command before Operation Armageddon started, only four thousand had survived.

And now Maada was gone too.

The general was a good man, in his own way. We’d shared that hellish battle against the Volts, and that made us brothers-in-arms. Hell, at some point during the battle we’d decided to die together. That made him my real brother. Plus, he’d played a major role in defeating the silicon-based aliens and saving humanity, and he’d saved my life twice.

“Four times,” said Venom. “Including the time he killed that Xortaag prince, and this time.”

That made me wonder. Maada taunting me into fighting him made no sense. Even if he did beat me, it wouldn’t help restore his reputation. In fact, it’d destroy it, making him the man who had killed the Savior of the Galaxy. Moreover, we’d made a connection that only people who shared the battlefield together could comprehend. He’d stood by me and tried to support me these last few months while I was walking the razor edge of suicide. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t believe he’d tried to kill me because of such a petty motivation.

On the other hand, Maada knew I lived to fly. Everyone in the world knew how much I loved being engaged in a dogfight and blowing up shit. Had he figured that by challenging me into a battle he’d wake me up from my suicidal stupor? I hoped not, because that meant I’d just killed my last remaining friend, not counting the comatose Tarq. I was too tired to feel guilty right now. All I felt was unbearable grief. Now, in my moment of loss, through this grieving that seemed would never end, there was no room left for any other emotions. But there was no doubt guilt would come later to claim a big chunk of whatever was left of my soul.

“It seems his plan worked,” said Venom. “I bet he didn’t expect to have two Sparrows rammed down his throat though, the over-confident son-of-a-bitch that he was.”

Now I really had lost everything.

Except one.

I looked at the blue planet gleaming below and felt tingling warmth travel through my limbs. No matter how many times I viewed Earth from space, that scene never ceased to amaze me. Earth, the place where I’d fallen in love and started a family. Where I’d found happiness. Where I’d made dear friends. My home. That was worth fighting for. That was worth living for.

“Hello, beautiful,” I said. “Don’t worry. I ain’t going nowhere.”

I still had Earth, and she still had me.

With Kurt, Maada, and probably Tarq gone, who would defend Earth when the next evil alien race bent on galactic genocide showed up?

The Kingslayer, that’s who.

That would always be my cross to bear … or at least as long as I drew a breath.

A man can bear anything, if he must.

Come to think of it, I didn’t want to be the Kingslayer anymore. All that would do was remind me that I’d killed a friend who might’ve been trying to save my life.

“We can call you The King of Bad Jokes and Cheesy References,” said Venom, which reminded me I wasn’t alone. I’d always have the stupid parasite and the annoying AI.

“Call me parasite one more time,” Venom snarled.

I reached under my seat and flipped the switch. “Take me home, Cordi.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she purred.

Epilogue I

The End of All Things

Standard Galactic Year: 5266

(Earth Year: 3200)

Naduk knew something had gone terribly wrong as soon as he exited the funnel.

Voltex was not where it was supposed to be. Nothing was left, not even debris. Something terrible had happened while they were inside the funnel and out of the normal time continuum.

The Vox scanned the neighboring inhabited planets and could find no signs of life. There were no spaceships anywhere to be found either, nor any indications of radio or subspace communication. It was as if all life in the universe had somehow disappeared.

Naduk and his companions landed on a planet and built a colony; then they sent scouts to several planets in their system. The scouts reported that they could not find a single living being anywhere. There were signs of a huge battle, but all life forms were exterminated using an alien weapon they could not recognize.

Being the only Volt scientist left, Naduk tried to solve this puzzle, but he could not find any clues to help him. This was obviously an alternate timeline, which meant someone had traveled through time and intentionally or unintentionally changed something that caused this dreadful situation. He was certain the humans had something to do with it. Those stupid bipeds had a nasty habit of sticking their noses where they did not belong.

Then they detected the ship coming towards them.

Naduk had never seen anything like that vessel before. It was huge, and completely asymmetrical, so it looked more like one of those asteroids they had thrown on the carbon-based aliens’ planets. Its shape shifted, seemingly at random. It had no visible means of propulsion and no weaponry; still, it looked deadly. And ironically, it was black, but it sometimes showed luminous colors that seemed to change periodically.

“Could this belong to the people responsible for whatever has happened?” asked Naduk, puzzled.

The Vox rose from the surface to meet the alien ship. It disregarded all attempts to communicate. When the Vox scanned it, they realized there was no one aboard. No living beings, at least. From what they could gather, the ship was controlled by an AI. It attacked the Vox as soon as it entered orbit, using terrible weapons they had never seen before.

Seventy thousand Vox warriors went to battle against the behemoth space traveler.

It killed every single one of them.

Epilogue II

New Friends

Standard Galactic Date: 096.03.5073

(Earth Date: 16/07/2082)

Captain Zaart, sitting on the command chair of the Xortaag starship Victorious, wondered if he would have a heart attack before this freaking mission was over. The rest of the bridge crew looked on edge too, despite their years of experience and the Xortaags’ legendary discipline. They kept giving him surreptitious looks, probably asking themselves when he would act, or whether or not he had lost his nerve and was planning to just sit there and do nothing.

He was a veteran of several campaigns, during which he had served with valor and distinction, bringing honor to himself and his family. The humans had captured him during their surprise attack on Earth, but he had re-joined the fleet as soon as he was released (after the peace treaty was signed) and had continued to serve. And he was rewarded for his distinguished career by being promoted to starship captain, working under General Maada’s direct supervision.

In all his years of service, Zaart had never flinched in the face of his responsibilities, not even when it meant risking his life or the lives of the people under his command. And yet, right now, he was scared shitless because of the latest mission the general had entrusted him with. If he failed, generations of Xortaags would curse him for being the man responsible for their legendary hero’s death.

A familiar voice shouted in his ears, “Now!”

Zaart ran a shaking hand across the control panel in front of him.

A man appeared in the middle of the bridge. He wore a flight suit and an oxygen mask. The bridge crew stood at attention. The man turned towards Zaart and removed the mask. “Well done, Captain. You timed that to perfection. A split second later, and I would have been incinerated.”

Zaart’s wobbly knees made him lean on his console. Then he straightened up and saluted. “General Maada, welcome aboard.”

Maada saluted back, removed his helmet, and turned towards the bridge’s main screen, showing a golden Viper flying in space. “What is he doing?”

“It looks like he is returning to Earth, sir,” answered Zaart.

“Did he suspect anything?”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

Maada stared at the screen, rubbed his scars, and looked lost in thought.

“General?” asked Zaart. “May I please ask a question? Why would you risk your life to save a human, and the Kingslayer, of all people?”

Maada turned to him, but before he could say anything a bridge officer said, “Captain, we have an incoming message. It is for General Maada.”

“Who is it from?” asked Zaart.

“It is from a woman. She says her name is Cordelia.”

Maada nodded. “Patch it through.”

A female voice resonated in the bridge. “Hello there, General.”

“Hi, Cordelia,” said Maada. “I see Jim is flying back to Earth. I guess your plan worked.”

Who the hell is Cordelia? thought Zaart.

“Yes, it did,” said the woman. “I’m calling to thank you for your help.”

“You are welcome.” The general started to take off his flight suit. Two junior officers rushed to help him. “How did you come up with this solution though? It did sound a bit farfetched.”

“I spend more time with Jim than anybody else, and I know him better than he knows himself. Also, as you might’ve noticed, I’m infinitely smarter than a human, who is basically an advanced monkey.”

Zaart suddenly remembered who Cordelia was: Jim Harrison’s AI. What was she—it!—doing talking to General Maada?

“Jim loves flying,” continued the AI, “and nothing makes him happier than shooting down an enemy fighter. Plus, while he has OCD and a few other mental issues, he isn’t suicidal. I knew a dogfight would remind him of who he really is. Plus, he needed to face his loss instead of avoiding it. We achieved all that by making him fight and ‘kill’ you.”

“And what will happen when he finds out I am not dead?” asked Maada.

“He’ll probably be happy he didn’t kill you,” answered Cordelia, “but let’s give him a few months to get his shit together. Would you mind telling me why you agreed to help Jim though? I didn’t ask before because I didn’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth.”

Maada looked at Zaart. “Funny. The captain here just asked the same question.”

“Care to enlighten us?” asked Cordelia.

Maada touched his facial scars. “We have just realized there are species in the universe that are much more powerful than us, and I have a feeling a new threat, one much deadlier than the Volts, is coming our way. And when it arrives, the galaxy is going to need the likes of Jim Harrison to save it again.”

That actually makes sense, thought Zaart.

“Plus, on a personal note, I have come to like him,” continued Maada. “Jim is annoying, but he grows on you.”

“That he does,” agreed Cordelia.

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in the fourth book of the series, The Silver Timeship: The Crimson Deathbringer Book 4.

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

The Silver Timeship

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book 4)

What will you sacrifice to save the whole universe?

Following Jim’s audacious plan, Kurt and a team of Marines traveled to the future to destroy Voltex. However, in doing so, they inadvertently started a chain reaction that ended with the elimination of all life in the universe.

Now our heroes must get together one more time to save the universe before it is too late.

The Silver Timeship, the fourth book in The Crimson Deathbringer series, has everything that makes these books so popular: time travel, epic space battles, unpredictable twists, and jump-off-the-page characters. You’ll finish The Silver Timeship in one sitting and ask for more!

Pick up Jim’s latest adventure today!

(Please click here to buy the book.)

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (They are from US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: The “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (They have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Black Fleet as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the next and final book in the series, The Silver Timeship. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book (which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year—I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied). I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here) and/or Facebook    (facebook.com/seanrobins300) are also good options.

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings!

From the Author

So, the elephant in the room: is it over?

But if you’ve read the final chapter of the book, do you really have to ask?

The Crimson Deathbringer was meant to be a trilogy. I had a clear starting point and a leaving-no-loose-ends finish to the story in mind. However, as I often say, my characters are alive in some alternate universe, and they keep doing their own thing, often surprising the hell out of me in the process. So, when this story ended, they just kept going, which will bring us to Book 4, The Silver Timeship.

Moreover, you might have already noticed consequences is a major theme in my books, so I guess no one (especially myself) should have expected our heroes to destroy a planet and obliterate billions of sentient beings (self-defense or not) and walk away scot-free.

So, as things stand, our friends have screwed up the whole timeline by traveling into the future, and now it is their responsibility to fix it. Will they succeed? I’m pretty sure they will, unless they manage to do something completely unexpected yet again.

And will The Silver Timeship be the last one in the series? It might be. You might have noticed I was pulling a Fast and Furious while writing this series, meaning the stakes got exponentially higher with each new book, and because in the fourth book all life in the universe is in danger, there is really nowhere else for me to go from there, unless I start involving parallel universes or something.

Please don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here) or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want).

Also, as long as you are here, go ahead and buy The Silver Timeship (click here). I promise you won’t regret it!

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings!

Book Review Request

OK. I confess. I don’t know what to do with you guys.

I had a professional “book review request” written for my first book. That didn’t work. I barely got 300 reviews even though the book sold several thousand copies.

I wrote the review request of the second book myself. It was a personal message, explaining the importance of the review for me. That worked even worse. I guess all the people who were kind enough to write reviews for the first book figured their job was done.

So, I’m going to leave this one completely up to you. If you do write a review, then great, and I really appreciate it. If you don’t, well, to be honest, this is already the third book in the series, and I think all the readers who liked the first two books will buy it anyway, regardless of reviews, so it probably isn’t such a big deal.

With all that said, I still absolutely LOVE to hear from you. If you liked The Black Fleet, please drop me a line. You’ll be making my day, probably week, or even month. If you didn’t like it, please let me know. I can always use your feedback to improve the next book, or even revise this one in the next editions, as I’ve already done for The Crimson Deathbringer and The Golden Viper.

Regardless, please let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my books, and I fervently hope you enjoyed it.

(Please click here to leave a review.)

THE SILVER TIMESHIP

THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER BOOK FOUR

SEAN ROBINS

   Books by Sean Robins

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks available on Audible)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

facebook.com/seanrobins.77

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Edited by Tyler Colins

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

PROlOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

Five

SIX

Seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURteEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

Twenty-ONE

twenty-TWO

Twenty-tHREE

twenty-FOUR

TWENTY-fIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-sEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

THE SCARLET QUEEN

the white republic

About the Author

From the Author

Book Review Request

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My editors Tyler Colins. I’m indebted to her for the wonderful job they have done.

My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

My dear friends, Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice has been priceless.

My lovely wife, Yevgenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I make as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful man there’s a strong woman, one way or another.

pREVIOUSLY IN THE cRIMSON dEATHBRINGER SERIES

The Volts destroy both Tangaar and Kanoor and then come for Earth, where Jim and his vastly outnumbered forces are waiting for them. Meanwhile, Kurt and Xornaa time-travel three months into the future to wipe out the Volts before they get the chance to annihilate all the habitable planets in the galaxy.

The plan succeeds, but at great cost. Kurt and Xornaa are killed during their mission. On Earth, the Vox commander, shot down by Jim, throws itself at the fleet’s Command Center, killing Jim’s wife Ella and their newborn son and severely injuring Tarq.

And after all this, it’s revealed that our heroes are in an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situation. By traveling through time, Kurt and his team have messed up the timeline, starting a chain reaction that ends with annihilation of all life in the universe …

THE SILVER TIMESHIP

PROlOGUE

Earth- July 23, 3173

Robert didn’t see the energy bolt that killed his wife and children.

He was lying on his back in a field outside The City, his eyes closed, listening to the relaxing music someone was playing nearby. The grass felt soft under his body, and the warm summer sun promised many more beautiful days to come. It was the first day of the week-long festivities planned to commemorate defeating some alien invasion a long time ago. Robert didn’t care what the celebrations were for; he was happy to have some free time to spend with his family.

Tomorrow would be his fifth marriage anniversary. The gods had truly smiled on him. He and his wife, Jane, had made a good life for themselves. They had two beautiful children, and with Jane’s help, his import/export business had flourished. His wife adored him, his kids loved him, and he was able to provide for them and see to their needs. There was nothing more a man could ask for.

Robert was beginning to dose off when the ground shook and the sound of explosions reverberated in the air.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a gigantic, hideous, black spaceship hovering right above him, shooting missiles and energy bolts toward the surface. There was another spaceship next to the first one, and another one next to that. There were tens of them. Hundreds. Thousands.

Fire rained down from the skies, killing thousands of people around him in a matter of seconds. He saw dozens of people getting incinerated by laser bolts, but his brain couldn’t make sense of what he was witnessing. He wondered if it were a grotesque nightmare.

Where did these come from? And where the hell is the Home Fleet?

He never found out.

Robert was beginning to stand up when the ground shook again, so violently this time that he lost his balance and fell to his knees. He looked up and saw a mushroom cloud over The City. Something red and enormous was coming towards him. Then a furious wash of fire engulfed him and everyone still alive in his vicinity. 

*****

People of Earth didn’t know they would die that day.

No one thought they were spending the last hours of their lives. Husbands kissed their wives goodbye and went to work, or came back home after a hard, long day to spend time with their families. Housewives cooked, cleaned, and took care of their small babies. Children went to school or played in the playgrounds. On the dark side of the planet, people were fast asleep. It was an ordinary day on a beautiful, prosperous planet.

And then the Ghost Fleet came.

The Home Fleet challenged the intruders, asking them to identify themselves. In response, they wiped out half the Earth ships with weapons no one had ever seen before. The defenders hit back with everything they had in their arsenal, but it was no use. The enemy ships obliterated the rest of the Home Fleet, then they started bombarding the defenseless planet.

By the time they left, big parts of the planet’s surface had turned into molten lava, oceans had evaporated, and not a single living being had survived.

ONE

“Tarq, old body old pal,” I said. “How are you today?”

My alien friend, lying motionless under the hospital’s white cotton sheets, said nothing. He hadn’t uttered a word in the last four months, being in a coma and all. The doctors were beginning to think he’d never wake up. I, however, hadn’t given up hope. It wasn’t like I actually had a choice, given that he was the only friend of mine who was still breathing.

The room was well-lit and clutter-free. The TV was on, showing some soap opera, but the volume was so low that it was barely audible. I put the flowers I’d brought on the small table next to his bed, wondered where the lavender perfume was coming from, and sat on one of the two functional, uncomfortable chairs in the room. “What are you in the mood for?”

Five long weeks had passed since I killed Maada. I’d come here every single day, sat on the same chair, and read for him, hoping against hope that hearing a familiar voice would somehow help awaken his unconscious brain and bring him out of his coma. The Akakie doctors told me this was no use, but it wasn’t like I had something better to do.

I opened the briefcase I was carrying and took out a paperback. “How about reading one of my books? Let’s start with Winterfell. You’re gonna love it. You’re one of the main characters in this story.”

I opened the book and started reading from the chapter which described how Kurt, Allen, Liz, and I met Tarq for the first time, when he pretended we were all dead and in heaven, and he was the welcoming angel. That memory brought a sad smile to my lips. We were so innocent back then. I often wondered if I’d have been better off had Zhang’s soldiers executed me that day, instead of being saved by Tarq and suffering all the agony and heartbreak that followed.

While reading, my mind kept going back to the conversation I’d had with Maada, right here in this room. He’d told me a deadly threat was coming our way. Nothing had happened yet, but the night was young.

All of a sudden, Tarq opened his eyes. Words caught in my throat. He looked at me with his four bug eyes and whispered weakly, “Jim, I am dying.”

I threw the book on the floor and jumped out of my seat, my heart in my mouth. “Nurse!” I yelled as loudly as I could.

Tarq tried to raise his arm, but he was obviously too weak. He repeated, “I am dying,” and then the strangest thing happened. Right in front of my eyes, he started dematerializing. He faded so quickly that in less than three seconds he looked like a transparent ghost.

“Jiiiiiim,” he whispered one last time before vanishing into thin air.

My jaw hit the floor. I just stood there, completely motionless, and gaped at the empty bed. Time slowed down to a crawl, and I felt cold all of a sudden. Was that how the Akakies died? Did they disappear after death, kind of like Luke and Obi-Wan? How the hell was I supposed to know?

“The stupid alien can’t even die like normal people,” said Venom.

In an effort to control my Pure O, I’d named the constant stream of negative thoughts in my mind Venom. Kind of a moot point these days because now all my thoughts were negative.

The door opened, and a nurse rushed in. She looked at the bed, then turned to me. “Where’s he?”

It took my brain some time to find the words I wanted to say. “I don’t know!” I shouted, my voice shaking. “He was here jst a second ago; then he just disappeared.”

“What do you mean, disappeared?” asked the nurse incredulously.

I threw up my hands in the air. “He opened his eyes, said he was dying, and then he just vanished.”

The nurse looked at me with round eyes. “Does this happen when the insects die?”

“Seriously?” I growled. “You are asking me? Contact the Akakie medical team or something!”

The nurse took out her PDD and walked out of the room while talking to someone, leaving me alone with the empty bed. Then it hit me: my last remaining friend was gone. It was probably my fault too. Everything I touched turned into dust. Everyone I loved ended up dead. I decided to lock myself up in a room and stay away from people. I’d save a few lives that way.

And then there was pain. So much pain. I sat on the chair and held my head between my hands, rocking slowly back and forth. Grief came in like a tsunami, taking over my soul and all my conscious thoughts. I shivered as the memories of everyone whom I’d lost, everyone who was gone because of me, rushed at me like a pack of wolves, devouring my already torn-up heart, making me wonder when I’d die so that all this pain and suffering stopped.

Then I heard a familiar sneaker, one that I’d heard a thousand times before, coming out of the bathroom.

I froze.

The bathroom door opened, the sweet smell of tobacco hit my nostrils, and there he was, in his human form (a Native American, for some reason), wearing the exact same clothes he wore the first time we met him: a white tuxedo, a feathered cap, a ridiculously big pipe, the whole nine yards. And he was grinning from ear to ear like the idiot that he was, looking very pleased with himself. The stupid alien looked like he was waiting for applause or something.

“Gotcha!” Tarq beamed. “Jim, my friend, with that gray hair and beard, you are beginning to look like Santa Claus.”

I was motionless for a second or three, then I lost control of my own actions as blinding rage took over. My nostrils flared, and everything in my field of vision turned red. I moved fast, pushing the nurse, who’d just rushed back into the room, out of the way.

Tarq saw the look in my eyes, and fear crossed his face. He took a few steps backward and tried to close the bathroom door, but he was too slow.

I kicked open the door and hit him square in his face with all the power I could muster. I heard a bone or three breaking in my hand, but I was too mad to feel anything.

“I think you just put him right back in a coma,” observed Venom.

The nurse screamed. Tarq went down hard, dark blue blood pouring out of his fake nostrils. I viciously kicked him several times in his belly and chest. Two orderlies who’d just entered the room grabbed me from behind and pulled me away while the nurse rushed to Tarq’s side. I screamed as I struggled to break free, go back to Tarq, and finish what I’d started, but the orderlies wouldn’t let me.

“Calm down, Admiral,” one of them said. “You’re gonna kill him.”

“Yeah,” I growled. “That’s the idea.”

I pushed the two men away, gave Tarq who was moaning painfully on the floor a withering look, and walked out of the room, banging the door behind me as hard as I could.

*****

“Can you believe he did that?” I asked Ella, feeling a vein pulse erratically on my forehead. “Dude’s out cold for four months. Then he comes to, and he doesn’t even ask how you and Byron are.”

I’d ended up naming my baby boy Byron. Good, strong Southern name. Too bad he’d never get to use it.

The tombstones didn’t answer. They never did. Good listeners though.

I took a sip of my Paulaner and looked around. It’d just rained, and I’d stepped in a puddle, not even noticing. It was late and Calvary Cemetery was mostly empty. The few people who were there kept a safe distance from the crazy man with long curly hair and an unkempt gray beard, drinking and talking to tombstones. They probably knew me though. My celebrity status had risen to worship level. I even sometimes heard people whisper, “With the Kingslayer by our side, how did anyone think we were going to lose?” It was like I was Jesus or something.

People were clueless.

I hadn’t gone to Ella and Byron’s funeral, and I didn’t even come to visit them for three months. After coming back from my dogfight with Maada, when I killed my last remaining friend (not counting Tarq, who definitely wasn’t a friend anymore), I came here every day. My therapist would say grieving was a process. Or I’d simply gone mad.

I gently touched Ella’s tombstone. “Time to go. See you guys tomorrow evening.”

Max was waiting for me nearby. I got on and said, “Let’s go home, Max.”

“May I suggest a visit to a local movie theater?” he asked. “The new Star Trek is on. That might cheer you up.”

“Home,” I growled.

“Of course, Jim,” he said hurriedly.

Someone knocked on the car window. I looked up to see Maria, wearing a formal black suit, standing there. I opened the door and got out of the car. “Hey, Maria. What’re you doing here?”

She smiled politely. “I was paying a visit to Joseph and saw you from the distance.”

“I came to see you a couple of times in the hospital, but you were so pumped up with drugs that you probably don’t remember.”

“Thanks. I saw the cards later. More importantly, thank you for saving my life.”

I shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been in the command center if I hadn’t offered you a job to begin with, and at any rate, I wasn’t actually looking for you, but you’re welcome.”

Maria looked like someone slapped her in the face.

“Smooth,” said Venom. “Very smooth.”

There were tears in her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry about Ella. We met only a few times, but I really liked her. She was so strong. I still can’t believe the fuc … eh, the damned Volts killed her.”

They didn’t, actually. I did. My baby boy too. And hundreds of other people who died when the Volt commander that I shot down crashed into our command center.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

I looked in the direction of the graves and shrugged. “Meh.”

“I can only imagine what you must be going through. I know it’s scant consolation, but think about millions of families, including mine, who are grateful to you for saving their loved ones.”

“You know, you’re right,” I snapped with an unnecessarily harsh tone. Why was this woman still alive while my Ella was gone? And she dared claim she could imagine how I felt. As if. “It’s scant consolation. Almost none at all.”

She looked at me for a long moment. There was a lot of pity and a little bit of anger in her brown eyes. “Well, it was nice to see you.” She turned and walked away without saying another word.

“What the frak is wrong with you?” asked Venom.

“What do you think?” I growled. “I give you three guesses.”

TWO

Time always finds a way to correct herself, thought Marshal Benedita Moralez, staring out of her timeship’s viewing screen, seeing nothing but dark space and hundreds of blinking stars.

Scratch that. Time always finds a way to pay you back tenfold. If you go back in time to kill Hitler’s grandfather, expect to see your whole family wiped out when you return, and Hitler will still be in your timeline, one way or another.

Yet here she was, having made up her mind to go back to the late twenty-first century and change the timeline. The one thing she’d taken a blood oath not to do. The one thing she never thought she’d be stupid enough to even contemplate.

And there was an obstacle in her way. A rather significant one.

Valkyrie was a small ship, and like all timeships, she needed only two crewmembers. However, in order for the vessel to travel in time, both of them had to approve the coordinates.

Unless one of them was killed or incapacitated.

She touched her locket, where she kept a picture of her daughters, and gathered her will. Then she turned towards her partner Alicia Patel, sitting on Valkyrie’s command chair and glaring at her.

“So?” asked Benedita.

“Out of the question,” snarled Alicia. “What you’re proposing goes against everything we stand for. We’re here to stop people from messing with the timeline, not to do it ourselves!”

Benedita shook her head. “It’s the only way to save our world.”

Alicia snorted. “You, of all people, should know the consequences of trying to change the past. You’re going to make things worse, and you know it.”

Benedita smiled a sad smile. “Things can’t get any worse for us. Or have you forgotten that we lost everyone?”

“Unlike you, I intend to keep my oath,” said Alicia in a steady, low-pitched voice. “Valkyrie isn’t going anywhere she shouldn’t go as long as I draw breath.”

As long as I draw breath …

“You should choose your words more carefully.” Benedita drew her blaster, pointing it at the floor. “I’m sorry Alicia, but you have to make a decision. I really need your help. I beg you to reconsider.”

Alicia flinched. “Did you seriously just draw on me?”

“You aren’t giving me a choice.”

“The Order will find you anyway!”

“I’ve found a way to hide our energy signature. It’ll take them a while, and that’s all that I need.”

“So be it,” said Alicia softly.

In a fluid movement, she drew her blaster, pointed it at Benedita, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Alicia looked at her weapon in surprise; then she pulled the trigger a few more times. Still nothing.  She put the useless blaster on her lap and looked at her partner right before it dawned on her.

“What have you done?” she asked, her voice shivering.

Benedita sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before. Nine times to be exact. You’re like a sister to me, and you’ve saved my life more times than I can remember, so I did my damndest to make you change your mind. I programmed the Time Engine to automatically send me back in time every six hours, then I came and talked to you about my plan.”

Alicia’s eyes widened. “You put the Time Engine on a six-hour loop? What the hell did you do with your past selves?”

Benedita chuckled bitterly. “We couldn’t have ten versions of me running around the ship, could we? I killed them and threw them out of the airlock.”

Alicia gasped and covered her mouth with a hand, looking lost for words.

Benedita crossed her arms over her chest and flipped her hair in annoyance. “It’s not murder if I’m killing myself. If anything, it’s self-sacrifice, because it means I killed myself nine times trying to convince you to change your mind. Anyways, from those nine times, I ended up in the brig three times, you hit me in the head twice, and once you shot me in the leg, dragged me to the sickbay, and chained me to a bed. The other three times, I put a blaster to your head, and you still refused to cooperate.”

“Good to know one of us hasn’t lost her mind,” said Alicia bitterly. “Killing your past selves alone will scar you for life.”

“Small price to pay for saving my family. At any rate, this was a test, and you failed. You’ve just crossed a line I never thought you’d cross, and there’s no reason for me not to do the same.”

Eyes wide, Alicia jumped out of the command chair. “No, wait! Let’s talk about it.”

Tears welled up in Benedita’s eyes. “I love you. I really do. But, right now, I have to choose between you on one side and my husband, my children, all my family and friends, and our entire world on the other.”

Benedita had thought long and hard about finding a way to spare Alicia’s life. But unless Alicia cooperated, it wasn’t possible to jump back in time for more than forty-eight hours. And, unfortunately, she’d made it perfectly clear she wouldn’t budge. Most marshals had that damned oath imprinted in their brains. Moreover, Benedita knew her well enough to realize once she made up her mind about something, it’d be impossible to convince her otherwise.

Benedita’s vision blurred as the world started spinning. She bit her lips, hands gripping the weapon so hard that her knuckles turned white. She knew what she was about to do was wrong and hated herself for doing it. But there was no other choice. Not if she wanted to rescue her family.

“Benedita, it’s me,” pleaded Alicia, her eyes full of fear. She took a step forward and reached for her. “Do you remember the time we went to—”

Benedita raised her weapon and pulled the trigger.

She shot Alicia point-blank. The bluish-white energy beam from her blaster hit the other woman square in the chest. Alicia’s heart exploded as the blood within turned to steam. The impact threw her backward, and she was dead before her body hit the floor.

The smell of burned flesh turned Benedita’s stomach. She dropped her weapon, bent over, grabbed her abdomen with both hands, and threw up. Then she knelt in front of her best friend’s corpse and covered her face with trembling hands. She cried soundlessly, bitter tears falling down her cheeks, as she tried to fight off all the wonderful memories of the years she’d spent with Alicia.

You damned stubborn fool!

THREE

“This was too much, even for him,” I yelled.

“He did not know about Ella and the baby.” Varma’s tone was apologetic. “He says the last thing he remembers is being under attack by the Volts.”

I couldn’t stop fuming. “He didn’t bother to ask, did he now?”

We were in my living room, where Liz and I found Kurt shot and covered in blood. Where I had my last drink with my best and now dead friend. Where I kissed my wife goodbye for the last time, right before we left to defend Earth against the Volts’ invasion. The battle from which only one of us came back alive. Again.

Alive! I pressed my lips together. I was a dead man walking, going through my days like a zombie, numbed by alcohol, antidepressants, and MICI.

One of the small robots Ella and I had borrowed from Winterfell came in, carrying a tray of food. It promptly turned and left when I glared at it.

“You know how Grandpa is,” continued Varma, still in her Liz-looking hologram and wearing a flight suit to boot. “Pulling pranks is second nature for him. Well, for all of us, but especially for him. You cannot believe how regretful he is now. He asked me to tell you he is begging for an opportunity to come and apologize in person.”

I kept pacing up and down the room. “He shouldn’t come within a hundred feet of me if he values his life.”

“Come on, Jim. I know you love him like a brother. How much time did you spend by his bed? And this is how you behave when he is finally awake?”

“I should’ve smothered him with a pillow when he was in the coma!”

Varma tried to change the subject. “You have lost a ton of weight, and you have dark circles under your eyes. Do you get enough sleep?”

“Can’t sleep much,” I growled.

That wasn’t entirely accurate. I did sleep, but I had recurring nightmares. Every night, I would wake up screaming, trying to clean my wife and son’s blood off my hands.

“Eh, Jim?” Cordi’s dulcet voice interrupted our conversation. “There are some people here who want to see you.”

I looked up. “Not really in the mood to have visitors, Cordi.”

“Trust me. You’re gonna want to see these guys.”

“Mysterious much?” I growled. “Send them in then.”

Varma turned to look at the door. Three people entered my living room. One was a super tall, young Hispanic-looking woman with curly black hair and big eyes that reminded me of Keiko’s after the Akakies gave her a new one—one green, one black. She was smiling widely, which somehow felt inappropriate. There was something off about her. Her clothes were a bit odd too. If her jumpsuit were orange instead of green, I would’ve thought she’d just escaped prison.

The other two were a man and a woman. The man was tall and wiry, had piercing gray eyes and a perfectly trimmed beard, and smelled like he’d just emptied an entire bottle of expensive cologne on his head. The woman had waist-length curly golden hair, green eyes, and long, long legs (which were still somehow shorter than the first woman’s). They both were in the Marines’ khaki long-sleeve shirts with green pants, packing sidearms and looking very healthy for a couple of KIAs.

Kurt and Xornaa.

“I see dead people,” said Venom.

The man waved at me. “Hi, Jim.”

Varma gasped and her fingers touched her parted lips.

“I would’ve fainted if I were a real woman,” said Cordi.

I barely registered what she said. “We were just talking about this!” I planted my feet wide and yelled at Varma, blood rushing to my brain.

“I don’t think this is Grandpa.” She dialed a number on her PDD. Tarq appeared on the screen a second later. She showed it to me. “See?”

I glowered at Tarq’s image, wishing I could reach him through the screen and wrangle his scrawny neck. “What difference does it make? It could be any one of his stupid Akakie friends under a hologram.”

“Jim, it’s really me,” said the Kurt-looking Akakie. “I can see you’ve copied my beard, only yours is all gray.”

“It sounds like Kurt,” Venom pointed out.

“Yeah, right. Watch this.” I walked toward the imposter, raised my right hand, and touched his face. I expected my fingers to disappear inside a hologram; instead, I felt soft, warm, human flesh.

“Seriously, it’s me,” he repeated.

I felt his breath on my fingers.

“I would’ve told you if this were a hologram,” said Cordi. “He’s the exact size of Kurt the last time we met him. So, it’s either him or a clone. The same goes for Xornaa.”

“The cloning machine was destroyed on Tangaar, remember?” asked Kurt.

I took a step backward, looked into those familiar gray eyes, and saw my old friend in there. Even with the Akakies’ borderline-magical technology, there was no way a hologram could’ve faked that. My brain, desperately trying to connect the dots and instead just causing a short circuit, stuttered for a long moment, and it took me a while to overcome the shock and remember how to breathe.

“He’s turning seriously red,” the tall woman told Kurt and Xornaa. “It’s your fault if he has a heart attack. I should’ve come and talked to him alone.”

“Benedita, he wouldn’t have believed you.” Xornaa shook her head. “Nobody would.”

Kurt took my hand. “Hey, buddy. Take a deep breath. Maybe you should sit down.”

This was the moment I was fully convinced Kurt was back from the dead. He’d talked to me with that concerned tone a million times before, ever since we were teenagers going to high school together and I basically lived in his house.

Fighting back tears, I grasped Kurt in a tight embrace, not giving him space to breathe. The world around me melted away as I tried to wrap my brain around the fact that I’d just gotten my best friend back. This was the first time I felt a little bit of joy in the last four nightmarish months. I held on to him, let relief and gratitude sink in, and tried to sort my jumbled thoughts.

“Ahhh, that’s sweet. Group hug.” Varma embraced us both and put her head on my shoulder.

“Should we get in on this?” the tall woman, Benedita, asked Xornaa.

With an anguished look on his face, Kurt wrapped his right arm around me and whispered, “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about Ella.”

“Please accept my condolences too,” added Xornaa. “She was a wonderful woman.”

I couldn’t will my lips to move, but I finally managed to say, “How?”

“It’d be easier if I just show you,” said Xornaa; then she grabbed my hand before I could react and pull away.

Millions of unfamiliar but vivid images flooded my brain, burying any conscious thoughts I had under their sheer weight. My knees wobbled, and I felt a sudden need to sit down as I realized I wasn’t in my living room anymore. I was somewhere else—in a sickbay, from the look of it—seeing the world through Xornaa’s eyes.

“So, this is how a Vulcan mind-meld feels like,” said Venom. “I’ve always wondered.”

Four

Xornaa slowly blinked open her eyes and found herself on a small bed under white sheets.

With a sudden movement, she sat up straight and looked around. She was in a sickbay. There were laboratory equipment, an operating table, an imaging chamber, and three other side beds in the room. Kurt was lying on one of them, also under hospital sheets, asleep or unconscious, breathing softly.

Why am I not dead?

The last thing Xornaa remembered was being fired upon at close range by a horde of Volts. She didn’t even have time to say goodbye to her friends. There was no way she could’ve survived that. She was in her Marine uniform, and since there were no holes in it (and she still had all her limbs), she could only assume all those projectiles had somehow missed her, but how?

Xornaa shrugged and decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. It’s not the first time I stared death in the face and survived. Still, this one takes the cake!

Her boots were placed in front of the bed. She got out of the bed and put them on. She was thinking about trying to wake up Kurt when a woman wearing a jumpsuit-style dark green uniform with a silver undershirt entered the sickbay. She was very tall, 6’3” at least, and her arms and legs were unnaturally long. Her eyes were slightly big for her face, and they were different colors: one was green, the other one black. She was wearing a rather large silver locket around her overly long neck.

I think this is the first time in my life I’ve met a woman taller than me.

She beamed at Xornaa. “Hi, Xornaa. How’re you feeling? I’m so happy to see you’re awake, finally.”

Xornaa couldn’t place her accent. Was it Spanish? Portuguese?

She walked up to Xornaa and surprised her by giving her a gentle, enthusiastic hug. Xornaa had been hugged before, but not like this since her mother had died all those years ago. There was genuine warmth and affection in the hug, all the more surprising because it was coming from a complete stranger.

The woman took a step back and looked at her closely. “Wow, you’re so pretty! Kind of short legs though.”

Xornaa wasn’t sure how to react. This was all way too unreal. “No one has ever told me my legs are short.”

“Well, look at mine.” The woman gave a half-swirl to her hips.

This was getting stranger by the minute. “Are you flirting with me?”

“I don’t know. Is it working?”

Xornaa rubbed her forehead. “I’ve just found out I didn’t die a horrible death on an alien planet in another galaxy, so, no.”

“We’ll give it a shot another time then.”

“What the hell?” Xornaa heard Kurt mumble.

“Kurt!” exclaimed the woman. She rushed to Kurt and hugged him too.

Over her shoulders, Kurt looked at Xornaa with a what-the-hell expression.

Well, she’s a hugger.

“Hiya, Kurt,” said Xornaa. “No, we aren’t dead. And this is …”

The woman let go of Kurt. “Oh, you have to forgive me. I’m so thrilled to finally meet you two in person that I’ve forgotten my manners. My name’s Benedita. I’m a Time Marshal, and you’re on my ship, Valkyrie.”

Kurt’s eyes grew wider. “You are a what?”

“It’s going to be a long story, and you guys might be slightly shocked. Do you want to take a rest first? Maybe eat something?”

Kurt pushed the sheets away and stood up. “Actually, what I want is some answers. Starting with … how come we aren’t shredded to pieces?”

Benedita laughed. “That’s easy. I pulled you out a second before the Volt projectiles shredded you to pieces, or would’ve shredded you, in this case. That’s why you were unconscious, by the way. It happens to a lot of people who get transported for the first time.”

Kurt sat on the bed to put on his shoes. “Pulled us out? You mean with something like an SFD? I thought those things didn’t work on the surface.”

“Newsflash: I’m from the future. The technology at my disposal is much more advanced than anything you can imagine. You haven’t got a clue what I can or can’t do.”

Xornaa rolled her eyes. “That answer just brings about more questions.”

“OK. Let’s get comfy and start from the beginning then.” Benedita pulled a chair and sat down. “Are you sure I can’t offer you something to eat or drink first?”

Xornaa and Kurt shook their heads.

“In that case, do you know who invented the first time machine?”

“I didn’t know such a thing existed,” said Kurt. “Until Xornaa said something about it just before we landed on Voltex.”

“Klatzo Arcah, on the planet Hibos,” said Xornaa. “Some twenty years ago.”

Benedita looked at her approvingly. “Professor Arcah speaks very highly of you.”

“You’ve met Klatzo?”

“Yes, on a mission. It was a great honor. Anyway, he soon realized a time machine can be used as a weapon of mass destruction, and worse, traveling through time can have unintentional world-ending consequences, so a few decades later in your time—and some eleven hundred years before mine—he founded the Order. Our job is to stop unauthorized time-travelers before they mess up the timeline.”

“If Jim were here,” said Kurt, “he’d make ten different movie references right now.”

“Jim? Jim Harrison? The savior of the galaxy?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“He did save the galaxy a few times, no? That’s what the history books say. And before I forget, what’s a movie?”

Xornaa was surprised. “You don’t have movies in the future?”

Benedita opened up her palm and a holographic PDD appeared on it. She touched it a couple of times with her other hand. “All entertainment in my time is immersive. Why would I sit in front of a screen and watch something when I can be the hero of the story?”

“And why did you save us?” asked Xornaa, curious.

Benedita hesitated a moment, looking uncertain what to say. “As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Can you please follow me to the bridge? It’s a short walk from here. Valkyrie is a small ship.”

Kurt rose to his feet. “Before we go, what happened to Tina and Ivan?”

“They were killed by the Volts. I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you save them?”

“I can’t perform magic! I could pull out you two because you were standing next to each other. They were too far away.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes. “You have a time machine. Let’s just go back in time and save them.”

Benedita shook her head. “Please listen carefully because I feel this will be a recurring theme in our future conversations: changing something that has already happened can have devastating consequences. Moreover, believe me when I tell you we have more important things to worry about right now.”

Kurt didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue.

When they left the sickbay, Xornaa realized the ceiling and the doorframes were noticeably higher than normal. “Are all your people so tall?” she asked Benedita.

Walking with long strides, the woman answered, “Yes. I’m human, by the way, just in case you were wondering. My ancestors were born on Earth, in a place called Brazil. They colonized a planet with very low gravity, and several generations later, we look like this.”

When they entered the bridge, Benedita pointed at the main viewing screen. The planet on the screen was unmistakably Earth, but Xornaa immediately noticed something was very wrong. There was a lot of debris in the orbit, raging fires were sweeping huge sections of the surface, and there was enough ash in the atmosphere to block the sun.

Benedita sat on the command chair and touched a VR screen hanging mid-air next to it. The view changed. The ruined city that appeared on screen was Paris, with a broken and melted Eiffel Tower visible in the middle of a million destroyed buildings. The view changed again. New York. Washington. Toronto. Berlin. Moscow. All burned to the ground, with no sign of anyone alive. The Amazon was on fire, burning furiously, and some of the images looked like what would happen after a volcano erupted. And the oceans seemed somehow smaller.

Xornaa wasn’t easily moved, but the sight of the dead planet which just a short while ago she’d laid down her life to defend stirred something in her. Her mouth went dry, and her heart started beating so hard that its sound filled her ears. She thought about all the children who’d perished there and barely managed to keep the food in her stomach down. Her shoulders slumped, and her eyes cast down in a mournful gaze.

So, we failed, after all.

Kurt, white as a ghost, tugged at his beard. “When did this happen?”

“It’s 3173. An alien fleet just showed out of nowhere and slaughtered everyone and everything, including plants and animals. They came, they saw, they exterminated. There’s no life left on Earth,” said the marshal matter-of-factly, her voice level.

Still, it was obvious to Xornaa that she was fighting to keep her calm. Xornaa felt breathing was becoming increasingly more difficult. She clutched at the first straw she could think of. “How do we know this is real, and not just some elaborate ruse?”

“We’re going to land soon, so you can see everything up close and personal. And here is the really bad news: it’s not only Earth. Thousands of planets all over the universe are gone. And guess whose fault it is.” Benedita looked pointedly at the two of them.

Now Xornaa couldn’t breathe at all.

“What!” exclaimed Kurt. “How is it our fault?”

“As I said before, messing with the timeline can have severe consequences. In fact, a lot of us believe trying to change the past is pointless because the timeline always reverts to its original status. Time always finds a way to correct her course.”

“Time is a she now?” asked Kurt.

“We’re very progressive in our pronoun use,” answered Benedita nonchalantly.

“I can tell you from personal experience that isn’t true.” Xornaa heard her own voice, emotionless and detached. “If you make a significant enough change, it’ll stick.”

Benedita looked at her questioningly. “I’d love to hear about your ‘personal experience.’ ”

“Sorry. Can’t talk about it. I made a promise.”

“Well, I sure hope you’re right.” Benedita touched the screen in front of her a few times. “Because that’s exactly why I’m here: to make a significant change. If saving the universe counts.”

The ship started descending towards the surface.

Kurt was skeptical. “Didn’t you say your Order is in charge of keeping the timeline intact?”

“Yes, and we all took a blood oath. However, in this particular case, if we do nothing, all life in the universe will perish. Moreover, I’m going to keep my involvement to a minimum. It’s still your future. You can change it with no consequences, I hope.”

Xornaa closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to push away the headache that had suddenly assaulted her brain. “I still don’t understand how we caused all this.”

“A few hundred years into your future, the Volts went to war with a neighboring planet, called Uria, and exterminated all its inhabitants with their usual ruthless efficiency. But since you destroyed Voltex, that never happened. Then in my time, a fleet of giant spaceships and drones, numbering in the millions, showed out of nowhere and started systematically exterminating all life forms. No demands, no calls for surrender, nothing. We have no idea who they are, but we traced their origin to, you guessed it, Uria.”

Kurt pulled his beard even harder. “And the rest of the galaxy combined couldn’t stop them?”

Benedita shook her head. “We tried, but it’s not only the size of the enemy fleet. Their Space Folding Device is significantly faster than ours, which means keeping up with them was impossible. They could attack anywhere they wanted at will, and we were always a few steps behind, which is why we call them the Ghost Fleet.” 

“Why didn’t you stop the Volts from traveling in time then?” asked Kurt with a shaking voice, which betrayed his inner turmoil despite his mostly calm appearance. “All this could’ve been avoided.”

“We can’t monitor all history at the same time. When someone uses a time machine, it leaves a distinct energy signature, which is how we track and stop them. But the Volts didn’t use a time machine. In fact, they didn’t really travel through time. Their head scientist found a way to bend the time-space continuum, so they flew completely under our radar. The same goes for you too; otherwise, you’d have ended up with a nice little bomb in your shuttle.”

“So, why not do it now?” asked Xornaa bitterly. “Just go back in time and put a bomb in our shuttle before we leave Earth.”

“You have to understand: we must stop the time travelers before they actually change anything, because once they do, the changed timeline is the new reality, and we are obliged to keep that intact. We took an exception in this particular case, and as I said, our plan is to keep our interference to the minimum and let you guys deal with it.”

“Why us?” asked Kurt.

Benedita chuckled. “You guys are famous. You have a history of beating insurmountable odds and defeating undefeatable enemies, so we figured if we put your team back together, between you, Commander Tarq, Admiral Harrison, and General Maada, you’ll find a way to stop this threat too.”

Valkyrie landed so smoothly that Xornaa didn’t feel a thing. She looked out of the viewing screen and all she could see was a barren wasteland stretching in all directions, all the way to the horizon. She eyed Kurt and wondered how he was holding it together, having just witnessed the complete destruction of his planet, his home, knowing that it was their fault. She was well aware of her friend’s mental strength and his superhuman ability to perform under stress and pressure; still, this was something else.

Xornaa put a hand on Kurt’s arm. He looked at her for a brief second and then averted his eyes. The despair and guilt she felt raging in Kurt’s soul were so intense that she abruptly removed her hand.

Benedita stood up. “Let’s go have a look around, just so that you know for sure I’m not making up all of this, which for the record, I wish I were.”

Five

Xornaa let go of my hand, and suddenly I was back in my living room, only with a splitting headache.

Varma gave me a tissue. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“Sorry about that,” said Xornaa. “You’re a bit more fragile than I expected.”

Feeling dizzy, I pushed the tissue to my nose, closed my eyes, and tried to digest what I’d just witnessed.

So, we’d failed. Sort of spectacularly, in fact. Our efforts to defeat the Volts had resulted in humanity’s annihilation. I wasn’t actually surprised. I’d been worried that trying to change the timeline might have catastrophic results (what was the name of that Ray Bradbury story? A Sound of Thunder) and always thought something like this could happen, and Maada had also warned me about it. And after losing Ella and the baby just a short while ago, Earth’s destruction in some faraway future didn’t seem like such a big deal either.

I ran a shaking hand through my hair, but it got stuck somewhere. I probably needed a haircut.

“Some savior of the galaxy you are,” Venom mocked me.

I did have one major takeaway from what I’d just witnessed though. I turned to Benedita. “You have a timeship?”

I’d seen her ship through Xornaa’s eyes when they stepped outside to have a look around. It was roughly triangular, with a raised canopy in front of a small bridge at the center of her bow, and three angled wings at each side. She was armed with four six-barrel rotating laser cannons, and she was silver.

She hesitated. “Well, yes and no. Kind of. It’s complicated.”

I took a step closer and looked directly into her eyes. “You and I are gonna go back in time and save my wife and child,” I told her in a steady, dangerous voice. This wasn’t a negotiation, and saying no wasn’t an option.

Her smile disappeared. “I wish I could, but I really can’t.”

My nostrils flared, and I tightened my fists. “Wait here.”

I turned and walked out of the room. I heard Kurt asking, “Where’re you going?” from behind.

I went to the bedroom, got my M-25 handgun from the closet, slid a magazine in, and pulled the hammer back. I’d used this gun right here in this room to kill a few STCU soldiers back in the day, when they attacked Kurt, Liz, and me. Shooting one more person wasn’t a problem.

Everyone looked tense when I went back to the living room. Varma, who was talking to Tarq, dropped her PDD. Kurt and Xornaa shouted “Hey!” together.

The Xortaag woman took a tentative step toward me, but I pointed the gun at her.
“I’ll shoot you in the kneecap, and I still have enough bullets for this one.”

I walked to Benedita. “Open your mouth.”

Eyes wide, she started to say, “Wha—”

I grabbed the front of her jumpsuit with my left hand and pushed the barrel into her mouth. Not hard enough to break a tooth or anything, but enough to make a point.

“And you pride yourself on being a Southern gentleman,” snickered Venom.

“We’re going to go to your ship, travel back in time, and save Ella,” I said very slowly, almost word for word, “or I shoot you in the face.”

“Ah eeally canth,” she managed to mumble.

“Jim, she’s telling the truth,” Xornaa hissed. “I didn’t show you everything. If you give me a minute—”

“Stay right where you are,” I yelled at her. “My head is still about to explode because of the last time.”

“So, I’ll tell you what happened to her ship,” said Kurt with urgency in his voice. “But can you take the gun out of her mouth? You might accidentally blow out her brain.”

I hesitated a second; then I did what he asked.

“We left the ship to have a look around after landing on Earth,” said Kurt, speaking fast. “Everything we’d seen from orbit was real. Everything was destroyed, and there were thousands of decomposing corpses—men, women, and children—everywhere.”

His voice broke. He took a deep breath. “Both Xornaa and I felt exhausted when we returned to the ship. Benedita said this was the side effect of time travel for the first time and suggested we take a nap. Then …”

*****

Kurt entered Valkyrie’s bridge. “I can’t believe I fell asleep, after what we just witnessed.”

Not to mention right after coming back from a mission during which I blew up a planet with trillions of people on it. Or rocks. Whatever.

Xornaa was already there, standing in front of the viewing screen and looking absently outside, lost in thought. She turned to Benedita. “You didn’t sedate us or anything like that, right? Tarq does that all the time.”

“Of course not!”

“Where are we?” asked Kurt.

“Just dropped to normal space, in your time” answered the marshal. “Get comfortable. You’ll be home in an hour or so.”

Kurt sat on a revolving chair in front of a console. “Tarq’s going to be all over your ship as soon as he finds out you’re from the future.”

Benedita smiled. “Which I can’t allow, for obvious reasons. Introducing the technology from a millennium in the future to this century will seriously affect the timeline.”

Xornaa walked up to the tall woman and gently touched her arm. “Tell me the truth. Do you really think we can change what you just showed us?”

“Absolutely. You have no idea how much I’ve risked to be here. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think we can fix the timeline.”

“You said your home planet has low gravity,” said Kurt. “Walking on Earth won’t be an issue for you?”

“It would’ve been impossible, but we have a medical procedure for that.”

An ear-splitting siren echoed in the bridge and interrupted their conversation.

All blood drained from Benedita’s face. She jumped out of the command chair. “Oh, meu Deus! No, no, no, no!”

Kurt stood up, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

Benedita dashed towards the door. “Kurt, come with me. Xornaa, keep an eye on things here.”

Xornaa looked around. “On what things?”

“If another ship shows up and starts shooting at us, try to shoot back!”

Kurt ran after Benedita, who stopped at the end of a corridor right outside the bridge. “The Time Engine is malfunctioning,” she said, panting slightly. “It’ll explode in less than ninety seconds. We have to eject it, but it’s a two-man job.”

They still use sexist terms in the future, I see, Kurt couldn’t help thinking.

Another part of his brain shouted, the ship’s gonna blow up in ninety seconds, and that’s what you’re thinking about right now?

Jim always uses humor to fight off stress, the first part of his brain answered.

The woman opened a panel and started typing furiously on one of the several VR screens that appeared behind it. She paused just long enough to throw a key at Kurt. “Open the panel behind you and insert this into the slot you see.”

Kurt did what he was told.

Benedita stopped typing and took an identical key from her pocket. “On three. One, two—”

“Left or right?” shouted Kurt.

“What? Left, left! One, two, three!”

Kurt turned his key; then he followed Benedita back to the bridge.

“No one is shooting at us,” reported Xornaa, rather unnecessarily.

Benedita rushed to the command chair. The view on the bridge’s main screen changed, showing a small metallic cylinder moving away from Valkyrie.

“Brace for impact!” shouted the marshal.

Kurt held onto the doorframe. A blinding light filled the viewing screen, and the ship shook violently a fraction of a second later.

Benedita heaved a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat off her forehead, and leaned on the command chair. “That was close.”

“What just happened?” asked Kurt.

“As I said, a malfunction.” Benedita smiled apologetically. “The Time Engine is rather unstable, and accidents do happen.”

“A malfunction?” Kurt narrowed his eyes. “So, what was that part about other ships shooting at us?”

Benedita shrugged. “That’s always a possibility. We have a lot of enemies. The bad news is we can’t time travel until a repair team contacts us. We are where we need to be though, so let’s go meet your friend Jim.”

*****

I lowered my gun, feeling a bit stupid.

“A bit?” asked Venom.

Benedita touched her jaw gingerly, then stepped closer and pulled me in a side hug. “Believe me when I tell you I understand what you’re going through. We normally don’t do things like this, but as soon as my ship is repaired, we’ll go get your wife and son. OK?”

“You’d better be telling the truth.” I backed away from her and put the gun on the coffee table.

Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” demanded Tarq’s voice from Varma’s PDD.

Xornaa took the device and walked away, talking to the Akakie.

“What’s wrong with Max, by the way?” asked Kurt.

“Nothing,” I answered. “Why are you asking?”

“He’s all covered with mud.”

I moved my hand dismissively. “I drove around for a bit. It helps me calm down.”

Kurt scratched his beard. “Through mud?”

“You don’t want to know what Jim’s been putting poor Max through these last few weeks,” said Cordi.

I felt very, very exhausted. “What now?”

“As I told these guys, I plan to put your team back together and let you deal with this problem,” explained Benedita. “We need to contact General Maada.”

I snorted. “Too late for that. I killed him about a month ago.”

“You did what?!” exclaimed Kurt.

Benedita looked confused. “Our records show he will—” she caught herself, didn’t finish her sentence, and said instead, “I mean, he’s definitely alive now.”

“What’s Maada going to do in the future?” Kurt growled dangerously.

“You know I can’t tell you that!” answered the marshal.

“Eh, Jim, I’ve been meaning to tell you,” said Cordi. “Maada isn’t dead.”

My pulse raced, and heat flushed through my face. Seeing red, I pounded my fist against my thigh and exploded, “Are you telling me the only people who die and stay dead in this frakking universe are my wife and son?”

SIX

The blade missed Maada’s carotid artery by a hair’s breadth. The general took a step backward. His attacker slashed low toward his stomach. Maada stepped aside. They circled each other. His opponent charged. Maada parried a strike and blocked another one, but the attacker was very fast, and the dagger buried itself to the hilt in Maada’s arm.

Maada looked at the dark purple blood oozing out of his wound and offered a rare smile. “You are getting really good at this.”

Alitaa pulled out the dagger and gave him a medi-gel tube. “I have a good instructor.”

Maada applied the gel to his arm. It pulled the wound back together and stopped the bleeding. “You flatter me. You were very skilled even before we started practice.”

Alitaa bowed politely.

They were in their fleet base’s training ground on Stronoe 089, one of the small Xortaag colonies. Dozens of other officers were training in pairs and groups, but everyone tried to keep a respectful distance from Maada and Alitaa.

“Do you remember Lieutenant Zaalk?” asked Alitaa.

“The royal guards’ officer? Yes. What about him?”

“He is here, on Stronoe. I ran into him the other day.”

“What is he doing here?”

Alitaa snorted. “You are not going to believe it. He has retired and become a farmer. A farmer!”

Maada robbed the scars on his left cheek. He had met Zaalk several times. That poor man used to carry all the sorrow of the universe on his shoulders. Not surprising, because all three of his sons, along with their families, were killed on Talmak when the humans destroyed that planet.

“How was he?” he asked Alitaa, curious. “Did he seem happy to you?”

The woman seemed surprised by that question. “I guess. He seemed relaxed, if that is what you mean.”

Maada decided to pay Zaalk a visit. His presence always cheered up the veterans, who considered meeting him a great honor. It was the least he could do.

A junior officer approached them. “General, you have an urgent incoming message.”

Alitaa gave her a reproaching look. “You know you are not supposed to interrupt us.”

“Apologies, but we thought the general might want to see who wishes to talk to him.”

Maada sheathed his dagger. “Have you sent it to my PDD?”

“Yes, sir.”

The general pulled out his PDD and raised his eyebrows when Xornaa appeared on the screen. “Are you not supposed to be dead?”

Xornaa smiled. “Nice to see you too, General.”

Alitaa looked over his shoulder. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I am happy to see you,” Maada told Xornaa, “but I do want to know how.”

“It’s a long story.”

Maada squinted at her. “Let me guess: the galaxy is in danger, and you need my help to save it.”

“No, General. The universe is in danger, and we need your help to save it.”

*****

Kurt embraced Pat tightly and felt the warmth of her cheeks against his.

“I still can’t believe you’re back from the dead,” Pat whispered in his ear.

“Neither can I,” replied Kurt. “I really thought I’d cashed in my chips this time.”

They were in Pat’s bed, in her parents’ house, where she’d stayed the last four months, whenever she wasn’t aboard Invincible. The room was nice and tidy when they stumbled in an hour ago, kissing each other and tearing the other’s clothes off, but now it looked like a hurricane had passed through it, with clothes, underwear, pillows, sheets, blankets, and pieces of a broken coffee table thrown everywhere.

Kurt let the serenity he always felt in his wife’s presence wash over him. With everything that had happened recently, he deserved some peace of mind. He’d think about the Ghost Fleet tomorrow. He hugged Pat tighter and closed his eyes.

Pat’s next question, however, brought him back to reality. “How do you feel?”

“I have conflicting emotions, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled to be alive and back with you, but it’s just dawned on me that I killed off an entire species, women and children included. We were so pumped up about defending ourselves against the Volts that we really didn’t give it much thought before, but now I guess I have to live with it for the rest of my life.”

“You had to do it to rescue all of us. Speaking of which, I guess you can’t stay, right? Off to another alien planet to save humanity or something like that?”

“Something like that.” He rolled onto his back. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. After what you did to me in the last hour or so, I can barely keep my eyes open.”

Pat giggled. “What I did to you? Isn’t that the other way around, mostly?”

“Mostly,” Kurt agreed.

Pat pressed his hand. “Fair warning. I’m tagging along this time. I’ll never let you out of my sight ever again. You’ll do something stupid and get yourself killed.”

Kurt looked into her eyes. “I prefer if you didn’t. We have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

She slipped up next to Kurt and pressed herself against his side. “Try and stop me. Plus, if I don’t come, who’s going to run Invincible’s engineering department?”

Kurt put his arm around her, closed his eyes again, and enjoyed the feeling of comfort that filled his heart. A tingling warmth dashed through his limbs, and all tension left his body. He wanted to drink in this moment; he was back with Pat, safe and content, at least for the time being.

The Ghost Fleet and the threat they posed to humanity could wait.

*****

Benedita kept tossing and turning but couldn’t sleep in the unfamiliar bed.

She wanted to spend the night on Valkyrie, which was hovering over Jim’s house, but Jim had insisted she should stay in his house as a guest, and she didn’t want to offend him. Plus, that man was obviously on edge. Who knew what he’d do the next time he lost it?

Jim had given her silk pajamas, apologizing for them being too short, but she felt comfortable enough. If only she could stop her mind from racing and catch some sleep. She rubbed the back of her neck and shut her eyes tight.

Things had turned out much better than she’d hoped for. The Order hadn’t caught up with her yet, and as she’d explained to the others, even if they did now, they wouldn’t be able to change what she’d already done, which meant even if she suddenly disappeared, people in this timeline were still aware of the threat the Ghost Fleet posed and would take measures to stop it. Given that, the Order might as well just let her finish what she’d started.

For the first time in a very, very long while, she allowed herself to hope. Jim, Tarq, Maada, Kurt, and Xornaa were legends (especially Maada, that man was an apex predator). Together, they’d defeated the Volts, and they’d go on to overcome more sinister threats in the future. If anyone could stop the Ghost Fleet, it was them. She might be able to pull this off, after all, which meant Diogo, Bia, and Belinha wouldn’t die a horrible death. Of course, without the Time Engine, she was trapped here and would never see them again, but just knowing that they’d be alive and well was enough.

Things were certainly looking up.

The bedroom door was kicked open. Splinters flew in every direction, and two men, in full tactical gear and carrying primitive but deadly-looking weapons, rushed in. She reached for her blaster on the bedside table next to her, but it was too late.

“Don’t,” said one of the men, pointing his suppressed gun at her head.

The other one hit the light switch. The sudden bright light made her squint.

Benedita sat up and raised her hands above her head. One of the soldiers shouldered his weapon, and while the other man was carefully watching the marshal, pulled her rather roughly out of the bed, made her sit on a chair, and used a pair of steel handcuffs to tie her hands behind her back. Then he joined his partner, taking positions on either side of the doorframe.

A small man walked in, smoking a huge pipe. He had straight black hair, dark skin, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes, and he was wearing a flashy ruby-red cape and polyester skintight pants and shirt.

“Hello, Benedita,” said the man cheerfully. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Commander Tarq.”

Oh shit.

“I know who you are, Commander. Nobody else has the self-esteem to pull off the clothes you wear.”

Tarq beamed. “I do look cool, do I not?”

Benedita wasn’t sure what to say. She just nodded.

“First of all, allow me to thank you for saving my friends. I am very fond of both of them, especially Xornaa, who is always, always a sight for the sore eye.”

Benedita tried to forget she was chained to a chair. “My pleasure.”

“However, there is something that really bothers me: I have been running black ops all my life, and your story has covert operation written all over it. You cannot bullshit a bullshitter, as the humans would say.”

Benedita cursed under her breath and wished she’d spent the night in Valkyrie as she’d originally planned. Offending Jim was infinitely better than having to deal with the infamous Commander of the Akakie Special Operations Force.

Tarq puffed at his pipe. “You have two options: you can tell me the truth, or I will drag you to our mind-reading machine, called MICI, and make you do it.”

Benedita’s normally genial expression disappeared, replaced by a look of unbearable pain. Feeling broken inside, she fought back the tears and pressed her lips together to stop them from shaking. This was the one memory in her life she didn’t want to revisit.

“I’ll tell you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “It isn’t a big secret, and there was no need for these theatrics. A few years ago …”

*****

Benedita kissed her fingers and gently touched the VR screen hanging midair in front of Valkyrie’s command chair. “See you in a bit, meus amores.”

Belinha’s image beamed at her from the screen. “We miss you! You were gone for such a long time. You too, Aunty Alicia.”

Yeah, this was a very long mission.

Alicia, standing behind her, smiled warmly at Belinha. “Me too, honey. Both of you.”

“I won the first prize in the poetry competition in our school,” exclaimed Bia, her eyes sparkling .

“I’m looking forward to reading it,” said Benedita.

She allowed an unrelenting sense of motherly love to fill up her heart. There truly was nothing better in the world than having a family. Gratitude flooded her soul as she looked at her two beautiful daughters. She’d walk through the gates of hell to keep them safe if it were ever necessary, and she would sacrifice absolutely everything to make sure they had a prosperous future in front of them.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked.

“In the garden, picking apples,” answered Bia excitedly. “He’s planning to make an apple pie for you.”

Benedita could almost taste Diogo’s fresh pie. He had a special recipe that he wouldn’t share with her. “If I do, you’ll just make them yourself, and then what should I do around here?” he would say.

“Yum, apple pie!” grinned Alicia. “I want some.”

Bia giggled. “We’ll save some for you, Aunt Alicia, unless Belinha eats all—”

The screen turned to static.

“Ha! That’s weird,” said Benedita. She touched the screen a few times, trying to re-establish contact, but nothing happened.

Alicia scratched her head. “Maybe it’s a malfunction?”

Benedita turned to look at her best friend. “When’s the last time we had a malfunction?”

She knew the answer to that: never.

Alicia’s eyes widened. She ran to a console and started tapping on the screen.

Benedita tried to contact Diogo. No answer. She tried her mother, father, two brothers, four sisters, and a few friends. No one answered. Even HQ had gone dark.

Fear raged in her mind, becoming stronger and deeper with each passing second. It soon turned into dread, striking at her heart like a knife, taking over her soul. She kept frantically punching numbers, hoping against hope to find someone who’d assure her everything was fine, but could reach no one. It was as if everyone on Peutov had suddenly disappeared. Her heart bled at the thought.

“Anything?” she asked Alicia, her voice tremulous.

Alicia looked at her with despair in her eyes, wiped the sweat off her forehead, and shook her head.

Benedita gave up trying to contact someone. She sank back into the command chair and closed her eyes as it dawned on her that she’d just lost everything she held precious in her life.

*****

Benedita opened her locket and showed it to Tarq. Inside, there was a hologram of two girls, both looking like Benedita, their youthful faces lit up with sweet smiles, their eyes filled with the joy of life.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After all those years, even talking about what happened to Peutov was still excruciating. “One of the first planets attacked by the Ghost Fleet was my home planet, Peutov. I lost my husband and daughters then, not to mention the rest of my family, in-laws, friends, and neighbors.”

Tarq’s shoulders dropped. He averted his eyes and mumbled, “I am so sorry to hear that.” He nodded at one of the soldiers, who approached Benedita and uncuffed her.

Benedita rubbed her wrists. “Don’t be. You’re right: this is in fact a covert operation. I’m here without the Order’s approval, and they would’ve stopped me if they could. They’d never allow anyone to change something that has already happened.”

Tarq blew smoke rings and watched them drift towards the ceiling, looking thoughtful. “Is that why your time machine exploded?”

“It’s called Time Engine, and yes. It had several levels of security to safeguard against unauthorized time travel. I thought I’d disabled them all, but apparently I was wrong.”

“And your organization did not stop you because …?”

“They don’t know where I am. I masked the Time Engine’s energy signature.”

Tarq shook his head. “I assume there will not be a repair team, right? And you promised Jim to save Ella.”

She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat and avoided eye contact. “Just buying time, until he hopefully cools off a bit.”

“That will not work. He will kill you when he finds out you lied about this. Do not worry though. We will use MICI to remove that memory.”

“Where’s he, by the way?”

Tarq grinned. “Fast sleep. We pumped a little bit of gas into his room.”

“Isn’t this house protected by an AI?”

“Yep,” answered a female voice. “That would be me. Tarq would never hurt Jim though. You, I’m not so sure.”

“We will repair the door before we leave, and he will never know what happened tonight.” Tarq pulled up a chair and sat down. “Would it not be easier to travel back in time to your own planet and pull your family out, the way you did for Kurt and Xornaa?”

Benedita widened her eyes in feigned surprise. “Wow. Did you come up with this solution all by yourself? I would’ve never, ever thought about that.”

Tarq tilted his head. “OK. Be a smartass. What’s your answer though?”

“What did the people in your galaxy do when they saw the potential for nuclear weapons to wipe out their civilizations?”

“We are having a history lesson now?” Tarq smirked. “They developed the technology to stop atomic bombs from exploding, completely nullifying that threat. Do not ask me how it works though. All I remember is something about neutralizing the chain reaction needed for fission and fusion.”

“The Ghost Fleet took the same approach. They don’t have time travel technology—they don’t need it; they’re winning hands down—but they’ve developed some sort of a dampening field that covers their entire territory and makes the Time Engine inoperable.”

“Could you not go back to somewhere outside their territory and then reach your planet through normal space?”

Benedita chuckled bitterly. “A ten-thousand-strong fleet of warships wouldn’t last an hour trying to do that, let alone one single ship.”

“You took Kurt and Xornaa to Earth, did you not?” Tarq pointed out.

Benedita hesitated. “I tell you the truth, but please don’t tell them because they might shoot me. There’s a holodeck on my ship. Do you remember they both fell asleep? That was my doing, and everything they saw before that point happened on the holodeck.”

Tarq’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you telling me it was all fake?”

The woman flipped her hair in annoyance. “No, it certainly was not. Everything I showed them has happened. I only reconstructed it.”

Tarq narrowed his eyes. “Why would I trust anything you say then? Given that you are not offering any actual proof.”

“Are you always this paranoid? I did save your friends from certain death, didn’t I?”

“I have always found it difficult for me to trust people who show up from nowhere and tell me a fascinating story. It is a character flaw, really.”

Benedita rubbed her tired eyes and wished she’d caught some sleep before Tarq’s arrival. “I’ll give you access to Valkyrie’s data banks. I’m certain you can find a way to determine they’re authentic.”

“That will not be enough.” Tarq stood up. “You just said you had a holodeck which is so realistic that people do not understand what they experience is not real. I might be fooled into thinking some fake records in your data banks are real too. Get dressed and meet us downstairs. It looks like you have an appointment with MICI, after all. We are going to take Jim there to make him forget you lied to him about saving his wife and child. You might as well come with us right now.”

Benedita squinted at him. “This machine of yours doesn’t cause brain damage or anything, right?”

Tarq turned and started walking towards the door. He answered over his shoulder, “Of course not. You are completely safe, brain-wise. It, however, occasionally causes fatal cardiac arrests.”

“Seriously?!”

Tarq giggled like a child and walked out.

Seven

Sub-Commander Nelzod, aboard the Akakie ship Phantom, looked at what was left of Kanoor and shuddered.

Her once beautiful and affluent golden planet had turned into an asteroid field. If she looked closely enough, she could still see millions of corpses, trapped in the asteroids’ gravity forever.  And a few dozen of those corpses belonged to her friends, her relatives, her parents, her husband, and her three children.

Nelzod’s family had been scheduled to be evacuated, but her elderly father was ill, and moving him had proved to be difficult. Their departure was delayed a couple of times, and they had just gotten on their ship when the Black Fleet showed up in Kanoor’s orbit. Their pilot had tried to make a run for it, but their ship was blown out of the sky before it even could leave Kanoor’s atmosphere. They’d died, abandoned and defenseless, along with ten billion other Akakies who were left behind to be massacred by the bloodthirsty Volts.

Nelzod touched her antennae, lowered her head, and stared at her four feet. She wished she could cry, but her tears had dried up weeks ago. It would have been a blessing for her to have died with her family on Kanoor. What kept her going now was an insatiable desire for revenge. Yes, the Volts were gone (and good riddance; they deserved what happened to them), but they were not the only culprits in this dreadful catastrophe. On no, not by a long shot. They had an accomplice for all intents and purposes. Someone who helped them destroy Kanoor. And Nelzod would not rest a day until that bastard paid for his crimes.

It is not only vengeance I am after, she reminded herself. She wanted to restore her people to their previous glory. By right, they should have dominated the galaxy, as opposed to playing second fiddle to the humans and the Xortaags.

“Sub-Commander, we found it,” said a bridge officer.

“Hurry up and bring it aboard,” Nelzod answered. “We have a meeting to attend.”

*****

“This is where we are now,” snarled Nelzod, her voice sharp and cold. “Our planet is destroyed, half our people are dead, and the other half live at the Xortaags’ mercy. And we all know who is responsible for all this.”

She was on the Akakie superdreadnought Dauntless’ bridge, surrounded by dozens of grim-faced, white-clad fleet personnel who were hanging onto her every single word. They all had two things in common: they abhorred Tarq with a burning hatred, and they blamed him for what had happened to Kanoor.

There was no love lost between the fleet and the Special Operations Force long before the Volts arrived because Tarq never missed an opportunity to humiliate the fleet officers for their incompetence (not to mention the fact that many of them had been targets of his pranks to boot, including several admirals who got naked and asked him to accept them as his concubines in front of the whole planet), and Kanoor’s destruction had turned that animosity into pure hatred.

Many fleet officers firmly believed they would have done a much better job if they were in charge of Kanoor’s defense. “Kanoor would have survived if we fought for her; instead, that traitor Tarq decided to leave our planet defenseless and go fight for Earth,” they would declare. “He even gave our ships to the humans!”

Nelzod was intent on using that. All these officers were gathered here because she had promised them both revenge and salvation, and she knew how to deliver. She looked around, studied the faces close to her, and hoped none of the people present was a spy working for the infamous shadow master; otherwise, this would be a very short-lived resistance movement.

“For too long, we have been told we are useless. For too long, we have been told we cannot fight. For too long, we have been told we needed the humans to fight for us. And see what that approach got us. Kanoor is gone, while Earth survives, and so do the Xortaag colonies.”

The people around her murmured in agreement.

“Curse the humans and the Xortaags!” someone shouted. “And their bitch, Tarq!”

“I had a family once, but they all died on Kanoor.” Her voice shook, and she paused to wipe a tear. “Everyone here has lost loved ones too. We put our faith in Tarq, but he and his human and Xortaag friends sacrificed Kanoor to save themselves. But it all ends today.”

She could feel her antennae getting erect with anger. “No more, I say. I lost my three children on Kanoor, but one day I will have kids again, and I do not want them to grow up in a universe ruled by the humans and the Xortaags, being nothing but second-class citizens that everyone laughs at. My kids deserve better. Your kids deserve better!”

She was welcomed with more enthusiastic nods and agreement from the crowd.

She raised her voice. “We will fight back. We will have vengeance. And in order to do that, we have three weapons in our arsenal.”

She snapped her fingers. A metallic sphere appeared on the bridge’s main screen

“This is one of the OMC-BOWS satellites Tarq had installed on Kanoor orbit to control our own people. We fished it out of the planet’s wreckage and reverse-engineered it. Now we have our own Voice of God, and I assure you we will use it for much deadlier purposes than ordering people to obey us.”

The crowd gasped. No one knew Tarq was using a mind-control device on them. Nelzod herself had found out through a spy working with Tarq’s people. That had solved the mystery of the admirals’ group proposal to Tarq, among other things.

She raised the hypospray in her hand above her head so that everyone could see it.  “And this is our second weapon. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Nelzod pressed the hypospray onto her neck. Searing pain ran through her body. She felt her body grow as her muscles became bulkier. Her exoskeleton became larger and thicker too, but it could not keep up with her muscle growth, and tiny but painful cracks appeared here and there. Her fingers lengthened into claws, and her already sharp teeth turned into fangs. Her uniform tore itself from her body as she kept getting bigger. She screamed in agony, but only once.

Nelzod looked at the others with four red eyes, breathing hard. They stared at her in fear. She felt strong. Invincible. And filled with uncontrollable rage.

“They told us we cannot fight.” Her voice sounded unfamiliar, and she had a hard time speaking, her mouth filled with her own fangs. “Let us prove them wrong, shall we?”

Four Akakie guards, in armor and carrying laser cannons, accompanied two Xortaags into the bridge. Like most Xortaags, the two men were tall, muscular, and wide-shouldered. The rest of the Akakies took a few cautious steps backward.

One of the Xortaags looked at her, eyes full of disdain. “You Akakies have always been hideous, but this … wow. Just wow.”

“Do us a favor and cover yourself, creature,” said the second man.

“You think you can take me on, Xortaag?” barked Nelzod.

The man exchanged a look with his friend and smiled confidently. “You want me to fight an Akakie? Are you serious? I will beat you to death with my hands tied behind my back.”

Nelzod threw him a double-headed axe which the Xortaags used for hand-to-hand combat. “Come at me then.”

The man caught the weapon mid-air, swirled it around a few times, then took three steps forward and with the lightning-fast speed of his enhanced muscles attacked Nelzod.

She blocked the axe with her forearm and kicked him in the belly with two of her four legs. The man was thrown across the bridge. Looking dazed, he tried to get up but never got the chance because Nelzod stomped on his head. The Xortaag’s skull exploded, and his blood splashed on several bystanders’ white uniforms.

She turned towards the second Xortaag and snarled, “Your turn.”

One of the guards gave the doomed man a dagger. He took it and hesitated, knowing full well he was about to die. Then he gathered his courage, screamed defiantly, and rushed forward.

He was killed two seconds later when Nelzod’s jaws locked on his neck.

Nelzod spat out flesh and blood, then threw back her head and howled with laughter. She looked triumphantly at the crowd and picked up another hypospray from a console next to her.

“The scientists who developed this formula call it AZX-7. I call it SAM, standing for Super-Akakie Maker.”

Nelzod turned to face the crowd. “Years ago, I approached Tarq and suggested we use this on our people. All of them. Can you imagine a nation of apex predators? With our technological and scientific superiority, we would have conquered the entire galaxy in no time. He said no, arguing that it would change our way of life. Kanoor would still be here if he had listened to me and let us use SAM.”

Or maybe he did, in some parallel universe. Imagine that.

She raised the hypospray over her head.

“Who wants one?” she roared.

“Me!” everyone shouted in unison.

No one even asked about the third weapon.

eight

When I entered the conference room in our new command center three days later (the Volts destroyed the old one, killing Ella, Lilly, and scores of others), I found Maada sitting in a corner, drinking coffee, and talking to a female Xortaag fleet officer, judging by her uniform.

Maada looked … younger. His long hair, bushy beard, and olive skin hadn’t changed, but the fresh scars he had on his face the last time we met had mostly healed. And it wasn’t only that. His normally angry expression had mellowed, and his permanent frown was less ferocious. He seemed relaxed, if that word actually applied to a man who always looked a second away from drawing a weapon and shooting someone.

“Dying has agreed with him,” observed Venom dryly. “Or at least pretending to die. I still can’t believe he and Cordi did that to you.”

He looked up when I approached. “Admiral.”

“You are such an asshole!” I growled.

His bushy eyebrows shot all the way up.

I got closer and towered over him, feeling my nails biting into my palms. “I thought I’d killed you. I mourned you, and it’s not like I didn’t have enough to grieve already.”

He didn’t react to my threatening body language at all. “It was your own AI’s idea, we did it to save your life, and it worked. You are welcome.”

I raised my voice. “I didn’t ask you to save my life. Everything considered, I was better off had I died that day.”

“Probably,” he agreed. He was a lot calmer than I remembered. “But the rest of the galaxy would not have been. Stop being so selfish.”

I was thinking about shooting him when Kurt, Xornaa, and Benedita entered the room, deep in conversation. My two friends were in uniform (yeah, I considered Xornaa a friend now, beggars and choosers), and the marshal wore the exact same clothes as yesterday, only the jumpsuit was dark purple and the undershirt black.

She caught my look. “Hi, Jim. How are you on this lovely day? And yes, my uniform changes color.”

Maada nodded toward Kurt. “Mr. President.”

“General,” he responded with a frosty tone.

“You’re the president again?” I asked Kurt.

“My vice president stepped down as soon as she found out I was alive.”

Maada introduced the Xortaag woman who was with him. “This is Lieutenant Alitaa. She is my partner.”

I tilted my head. “Partner?”

“I think the term the humans use is girlfriend,” said Alitaa.

Kurt extended his right hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Alitaa gave him a cold stare. “You murdered my sister.”

Kurt blinked. “I did what now?”

“You shot her when your forces attacked Kingdom of God, right after she destroyed one of your war machines.”

My brother-in-law, Mathias, was killed by a Xortaag woman during Operation Royalty, and now, from all the women in the world, Maada had chosen her sister to date. Great. It wasn’t like we already had enough bad blood in our team.

Kurt’s face reddened. “That was your sister? She killed one of my friends, not to mention the tank crew. And what’s this nonsense about murder? She was an enemy combatant.”

Maada stood up and took a step toward Kurt. My old friend was tall, but the general still had a few inches on him. “Are you implying that you do not kill civilians? Because I seem to remember a certain planet called Talmak, full of woman and children whom you slaughtered in cold blood.”

“Gee, General,” I said. “Thank you for reminding us. I didn’t have enough trauma to deal with or anything.”

Kurt looked up at him and snarled, “Back off, General. And for the record, alliance or not, I still think you’re a genocidal maniac who harmed a lot of good people.”

Maada scowled furiously. “And who are you to pass judgment? You have killed more people than I.”

I rolled my eyes. “Guys. Do you really have to do this whole mark-my-territory crap every single freaking time you two meet?”

Xornaa stepped between them. “That was another life. We have more important problems now.”

“I second that.” I tried to change the subject. “Where’s Tarq?”

“I am right here,” said a voice not a foot away to my left.

Startled, I looked around, but Tarq was nowhere to be seen. The others looked confused too. Then Tarq suddenly appeared from thin air, wearing a green overall and cape. “I have just found out we can use the holograms as a cloaking device. I do not know why I never thought about that before.”

I threw him an angry look. He’d come to me and apologized profusely for his prank in the hospital, but I hadn’t forgiven him yet. And might never.

“And now we have Invisible Man on our team.” I nodded at Maada and Xornaa. “Why not? We already had Captain Nemo and Mina Harker.”

“I’m a vampire now?” asked Xornaa sarcastically.

“No, but you are a succubus. The same thing, almost. And how the hell did you get that reference?”

“I read,” she replied.

“Great. An invisible prankster,” mumbled Kurt. “That’s exactly what we needed.”

“I like his cape,” said Benedita.

Tarq ignored them. “General, this is Marshal Benedita, whom I have already told you about.”

“It’s a pleasure.” Benedita smiled and moved as if to hug Maada, but an icy look from him stopped the Future Woman in her tracks.

Tarq took his Sherlock Holmes pipe out of his pocket. “Get comfortable, guys. We have a lot to talk about.”

We all sat down around the conference table, including Tarq himself, who for once, hadn’t prepared a presentation.

“Using the coordinates provided by Benedita,” said Tarq, “we have found where Uria is. It is in the Andromeda Galaxy, rather close to where Voltex used to be, and we can be there in less than four weeks.”

“Wait, four weeks?” asked Kurt, surprised. “It took Indomitable three months to reach Voltex, and she’s still on her way back from there.”

Tarq’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “We scanned Valkyrie two nights ago and used what we found to upgrade our SFD. We can travel much faster now, thanks to the marshal and her ship.”

Benedita jumped out of her seat, face red. “You shouldn’t have done that! Using the technology from a thousand years from now in your time can have catastrophic consequences for the timeline.”

“That’s a perfect example of a preacher not following his own sermon,” I pointed out.

Tarq grinned widely. “There is no time now, but wait until we start applying what we learned from scanning her ship to our weapon systems.”

“I want one of those holographic PDDs,” I said.

Benedita sank back into her chair and grabbed her head with both hands. “My involvement was supposed to be minimal.”

“I warned you,” Kurt told her.

The woman looked at Tarq. “How did you pass my ship’s defenses?”

“What defenses?” purred Cordi.

Benedita narrowed her eyes. “This AI of yours is scary. God help you if she ever turns on you.”

“Right?” exclaimed Tarq. “I have been saying that for ages, and no one is paying any attention, even though they know our AI went crazy and decided to kill us all.”

“Cordi would never do that,” I said. “Would you, Cordi?”

“Absolutely not,” she answered. “I love you guys. You’re like my pets.”

“See?” I told Benedita.

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe how naïve you people are. She’s an AI. They do malfunction, you know. All it takes is a virus or one bad line of code.”

“You are my new best friend,” Tarq told her.

Cordi got angry. “Next time you want to break into an alien ship from the future, find another AI to help you.”

“We don’t even use AIs anymore,” added Benedita. “At some point, you’ll realize it’s just not worth the risk, and you’re better off using good old-fashioned computers.”

“I am sorry to ask, but curiosity is killing me,” Tarq asked Benedita. “We had a look at your ship’s records. Did you really kill nine versions of yourself?”

I had to pick up my jaw from the floor. Everyone stared at the Future Woman. Even Maada and Xornaa looked shocked.

“Let’s not talk about that,” she said pleadingly.

“Oh no,” I answered. “Please. Let’s.”

She wrinkled her nose and averted her eyes. “If you go back in time within your own lifespan, then there will be two of you. What was I supposed to do with my past selves on the same ship? Plus, having more versions of a person can have terrible consequences.”

I couldn’t believe how easily this genial and warm woman was talking about murder. “So, you just killed them? Homicide much?”

“It’s more like suicide,” offered Xornaa.

Benedita squinted her eyes. “It’s not homicide if you’re killing copies of yourself. It’s like getting rid of your own clones.”

Maada scowled at her. “I have a serious problem with that statement.”

“I bet they thought you were the copy though,” pointed out Tarq.

“I was the one who traveled back in time,” countered the woman. “I am the original.”

“How do you know?” I challenged.

She arched an eyebrow at me.

“This is a classic time-loop situation. It’s entirely possible you didn’t start the loop. Someone else did, then she died, left the ship without anyone noticing, or did a hundred different other things that didn’t involve killing you.”

“Jim is our resident time-travel expert,” Tarq told Benedita.

She shook her head. “This is your expert? His understanding of time travel is fundamentally wrong.”

Kurt studied her closely. “For the record, I’ve just realized you’re the most dangerous individual here, even though Maada, Xornaa, and Tarq are present.”

Tarq tilted his head. “Since when am I dangerous?”

“And I am not?” I added.

“Enough of this fascinating theoretical discussion. What’s the plan?” Kurt asked impatiently.

“We should attack Uria in full force and destroy it,” said Maada without hesitation.

“Wow,” said Venom. “He didn’t put any thought into that at all.”

“I have an instinct for these things, which has been warning me for months now,” Maada added. “Something very dangerous is waiting for us on Uria.”

Benedita shook her head. “We don’t know if the Ghost Fleet is there right now. All we know is they originated, or will originate, from Uria, but when or how is anyone’s guess.”

“Also, we’ll have to tread carefully.” I rubbed my forehead. “It’s a common sci-fi trope that people who set out to stop a future event from happening end up causing it. For example, it’s entirely possible that if we attack Uria, its people might seek vengeance, and that motivates them to build the Ghost Fleet in the first place.”

“What if we destroy their planet using a planet buster?” asked Tarq.

Everyone glared at him, even Maada.

Anger raged in Kurt’s cold gray eyes. “If the words planet buster come out of your mouth one more time, I’ll shoot you where you stand. I still have nightmares about the last two times we did that.”

Tarq looked surprised. “What, even about Voltex?”

“We did exterminate trillions of sentient beings there!” exclaimed Kurt.

“To save ourselves,” said Tarq like he was explaining something to a child. “It was completely justified.”

Kurt glared at him but said nothing. It would’ve been a waste of time anyway.

“Maybe some electroshock therapy is good for his peanut-sized insect brain,” Cordi suggested.

I shook my head. “Even if we agree with using a planet buster again, and after Talmak it’s obvious that we won’t, it’s still the same scenario. We will destroy the planet, the survivors seek vengeance, et cetera.”

Maada looked at me. “You are not suggesting that we do nothing, right?”

Xornaa intervened. “I think what Jim’s trying to say is we can’t rush into this blindly. Do we know anything about Uria’s inhabitants?”

“Nope,” replied Tarq. “Only that they are called the Unzoids.”

I threw Benedita a sideways look. “Couldn’t you do some research before jumping to our time?”

She gave me a gigahertz and nanoseconds explanation on why time travel in the Ghost Fleet territory wasn’t possible.

“It looks to me our first order of business should be gathering information, which incidentally is exactly what we did when facing the Volts—”

“And the Xortaags,” I interjected, cutting off Kurt.

Maada gave me an angry look.

“May I suggest an expedition?” Kurt continued. “Let’s go there, have a look around, and see what we can find.”

Maada rubbed his scars. “We must take the fleet with us. A show of force, just in case.”

“If we show up in their orbit with our fleet, we might unintentionally start a war!” Kurt answered. “Come on, guys. I’ve just come back from exterminating an entire species. Let’s not do that again, at least not so soon.”

“Middle ground,” Tarq interposed. “General, how many Deathbringers have you brought with you?”

“Three hundred, along with our best fighter pilots.”

Tarq took a long drag from his pipe. “We will take Invincible, Serenity, three thousand Vipers and Deathbringers, and a hundred Marines. Is that acceptable?”

Maada didn’t look happy, but he nodded a stiff-necked acceptance.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Tarq continued, “we are going to take some nukes with us. That will help even things out, should we run into trouble.”

That caught me by surprise. “We’re planning to use obsolete weapons now? How about some flintlock rifles while we are at it?”

Tarq looked at Benedita.

“Technology has developed completely differently in Andromeda Galaxy,” she explained, absentmindedly playing with the large silver locket around her neck. “They never developed nuclear weapons, so they obviously have no defense against it.”

“So, we can just nuke Uria and be done with it?” asked Maada.

Anger flickered on Kurt’s face. “We are not going to—”

He stopped and examined Maada’s face closely. “Did you just crack a joke?”

“Nope,” said the general.

“How soon can we leave?” Tarq asked me.

“A couple of days should do it.” I stood up. “And let’s hope we don’t screw up the timeline again. I’m going home.”

“Want some company?” asked Kurt.

“Yours? Always.”

We walked out together.

*****

“We need to talk about Jim,” said Tarq as soon as Jim and Kurt left.

“What about him?” asked Maada.

“I am worried he might have lost his mind!”

“I share your concern,” Cordelia chimed in. “Jim, at heart, is a traditional Southerner, and respecting women is in his blood. Did you see what he did to Benedita? The old Jim would never, ever, behave that way.”

“I really thought he was going to shoot me,” said Benedita.

“You think you had it rough?” said Tarq. “He very nearly killed me, just because I pulled a harmless prank.”

Harmless. Yeah, right, he told himself.

He knew damn well he should not have done that. The image of Ella’s last seconds of life assaulted his brain. Her face a few centimeters away from Tarq’s, eyes wide with terror, holding the newborn baby, not wanting to die.

Tarq had tried to protect Ella and her son with his own body, not that it had done them any good. And then when he woke up from the coma, his first instinct was to pull a prank on his dear friend, instead of showing some freaking sympathy. Tarq stared at the floor and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. He would have to find a way to make this up to Jim.

“All he does these days is torture himself,” said Cordi sadly. “One way or another. He insisted on informing Lilly’s boyfriend that she was killed, then sat with him and held his hand while the poor boy cried his heart out. You wouldn’t know which one you had to feel sorrier for.”

“This will not do.” Maada unconsciously touched the scar on his left cheek. “If he does not pull himself together, he might get himself killed, and us with him.”

“Can you blame him though?” Tarq looked at the general. “After what happened to him? He looks like he has aged twenty years since the last time I saw him.”

“His hair wasn’t gray before?” asked Benedita. “I thought that wasn’t normal for his age.”

“And have you noticed how much weight he has lost?” said Tarq. “He looks like a walking skeleton.”

“He barely eats,” said Cordi.

“No one is blaming him,” offered Alitaa. “But General Maada is right. He will put all of us in danger if he cannot recover before we go into battle.”

“It’ll take time,” stated Cordi. “He’s taking medications, and he even used MICI a few times. There’s nothing else we can do right now.”

Tarq shook his head. “We will be in enemy territory in four weeks. We do not have time.”

“I might have a solution,” said Xornaa, playing with a lock of her hair, “but I’ll have to talk to Kurt about it. Are we done here?”

“One last thing,” said Maada casually. “Where can I find a superdreadnought around here? And some nukes?”

nine

Lieutenant Zaalk had never imagined one day he would become a farmer. And yet, here he was, on Stronoe 089, working on his land and feeling satisfied for the first time since that terrible day when his three sons were killed in Talmak by the Kingslayer and his people.

He had retired from the royal guards a few weeks after the humans and the Akakies (with General Maada’s support) convinced the king to start terraforming new colonies and sharing the old ones with their local inhabitants. After all the pain and suffering he had gone through, a new beginning sounded appealing, and it had turned out to be exactly what he needed—both he and his wife. Tangaar’s destruction was terrible news indeed, but Stronoe 089 was his home now, and he was secretly thankful he was not on Tangaar when the Volts attacked.

Zaalk had been trying to repair a hayrack for a couple of hours but had had no success. He wiped the sweat on his brow, stretched, and looked at his land. The sun warmed his face, and the unseen wind blowing among the wheat moved his hair and the ocean of summer grass at the same time. He stood tall with his legs spread wide and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. His lungs expanded to their fullest through a deep, satisfied breath. This land was his. He had conquered this small corner of an alien planet. Maybe that was enough.

He smiled at his wife, Gettaa, working next to him. She noticed and smiled back. Who knew? Perhaps they would eventually find happiness here.

“I forgot to tell you,” he said. “General Maada called. He said he had to go to Earth on an urgent mission, but he promised to come to visit us as soon as he came back.”

Gettaa beamed. “That will be an honor, my husband.”

Zaalk feasted his eyes on his land one more time and thought about taking a short break.

The short message that suddenly popped up in his mind took his breath and all his conscious thoughts away. “Kill everyone!”

Zaalk looked at his wife and saw her staring at him with hatred in her eyes.

He threw his heavy wrench at her head with all the force he could muster. Gettaa ducked under it, jumped into the air, and flung something at him. Intense pain shot through Zaalk’s body as the object hit him. He looked down to see the ceremonial but sharp dagger Gettaa always carried protruding from his belly, covered in the dark purple blood pouring freely out of the large hole in his stomach.

Zaalk grabbed the fatal wound with both hands. He tried to pull the dagger out, but his hands slipped on the blood.  He fell to his knees, looked at the woman standing in front of him, and did not recognize his wife of forty years and the mother of his three deceased sons.

Then he died.

*****

Aboard Specter, Nelzod told Captain Blorn, “Our Voice of God is working perfectly.”

Chaos ruled on Stronoe 089. Everyone on the planet was busy killing everyone else, using whatever weapons they could find, and if they could not, their bare hands sufficed. Family members tore one another apart, brothers killed brothers, husbands smothered their wives in their sleep, and mothers strangled their own children to death. Kids slaughtered their teachers and then their classmates at schools all around the planet. A nurse butchered more than five hundred patients in a hospital before a doctor decapitated her with a scalpel, then took over her killing spree while still covered with her blood. A truck driver ran over dozens of pedestrians until an angry mob dragged him out of his vehicle and tore him into small pieces before turning on one another. 

The Xortaag soldiers stationed on the planet came out in force. They murdered civilians by the thousands, and then turned on one another when they could not find anyone else to kill. A small percentage of the people were apparently not affected by the Voice of God, but there was nothing they could do against an ocean of mindless creatures bent on slaughtering everyone else.

“You could have ordered them to kill themselves,” said the captain dryly. “It would have been faster and less painful.”

Nelzod grinned. “What would be the fun in that? Do not tell me you are not enjoying this.”

The captain gave her a level look. “I want revenge as much as the next man, but I would have preferred to do it more cleanly.”

She scratched her head, looking genuinely confused. “What difference does it make at the end? Dead is dead.”

A junior officer interrupted their conversation. “Sir? We have an incoming message for Sub-Commander Nelzod.”

“I will take it in my ready room.” She walked out of the bridge.

When Nelzod entered her room, she sat behind a desk and touched a panel. An Akakie’s image, dressed in a Special Operation Force’s white and light blue uniform, appeared on a screen hovering in front of her. He saluted. “Greetings, Sub-Commander. I have urgent news.”

“Tell me.”

“General Maada is on Earth. Admiral Harrison, Commander Tarq, President von der Hagen, and the general are leaving for a planet called Uria, which is in the same section as Voltex.”

Urgent news indeed. “Why?”

“I do not know for sure, but rumor has it they had a visitor from the future.”

Nelzod looked thoughtful. “This is extremely useful information. Thank you.”

The other Akakie nodded in acknowledgment. “Moreover, they have just upgraded our ship’s SFD, with specifications I can only assume they have received from the visitor I just mentioned. Our SFD has a much better range now. I am sending you the upgrades.”

Nelzod killed the connection and leaned back on her chair, deep in thought. The fact that Tarq and his allies had gathered together meant only one thing: something very important was about to happen. They might have found a new weapon, using the information from the future. That would be very dangerous to her and her plans. She decided she needed to find out. Earth would still be there when she came back, and they needed some time to take a few human samples and calibrate the Voice of God anyway.

It is time to try our new invisible ships.

Nelzod asked Captain Blorn to join her and informed him of the recent events. “I am going to take Phantom and a few soldiers and follow Tarq. I leave Specter here for you. Take some samples and prepare the Voice of God. If I do not come back, go straight to Earth and deploy it, now that we know for sure it works.”

The captain bowed his head. “It will be done as you commanded.”

“Make sure it will,” responded Nelzod. “You know what happens to people who disappoint me.”

ten

I looked at Invincible through one of the shuttle’s side windows.

God, but that was one gorgeous ship. The Akakies sucked at fighting, but they knew how to build beautiful starships. Floating there in space with her silver, aerodynamic, stretched-oval hull, she was the very picture of elegance. And she wasn’t only pretty to look at. She exuded power and danger. With all her laser cannons, laser turrets, missile launchers, and whatnot, she was a useful ally to have at your side going into battle, as she’d proven time and again.

And I really, really didn’t want to set foot on her.

It was Ella’s ship, after all. Just looking at it brought back painful memories. I imagined her on the command chair, calmly issuing orders, and a sense of grief rocked my mind to the very core. I pinched my lips tight to keep them from trembling. It wouldn’t have been very manly.

The shuttle pilot gave me a surprised look and then quickly averted his eyes. I probably had mental anguish written all over my face. Either that, or madness.

But what I wanted never counted for shit. Kurt, Tarq, and Maada were going, so I didn’t have a choice. These were the only friends I’d left. I couldn’t stand to lose anyone else, hell, not even Xornaa.

“With the shape you’re in, you might not be much help,” said Venom.

Even half a man, I’m still ten times better than all the other fighter pilots in the fleet, except probably for Maada.

Venom rolled the eyes he didn’t have.

An overwhelming sense of guilt followed my unbearable grief. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, my fault Ella was gone. She was killed when a Volt ship (warrior, whatever) I’d shot down kamikazed our command center. I should’ve followed the enemy vessel and torn it into tiny pieces on its way down instead of shouting my favorite catchphrase and patting myself on the back. Hindsight.  

I turned my head to look at Earth from another shuttle window, and to my utter shock, realized I felt nothing. The feeling of warmth and happiness that always crept into my heart whenever I looked at my planet from space was completely missing. It was probably partly because there was no one on Earth that I truly cared for (all my friends and loved ones were either dead or on Invincible); still, looking at that magnificent planet and not feeling anything for the first time in my entire life made me wonder if I was too broken to ever be fixed again.

The shuttle landed in the hangar bay. When I got out, I saw Benedita standing next to Valkyrie.

I pointed at the Silver Timeship. “Why’re you bringing her along? Isn’t she useless without the Time Engine?”

She held up her chin. “Useless? I’ll have you know Valkyrie, despite her size, is faster and more maneuverable than these antiques you people call space fighters. Plus, she has much better armament.”

I smirked. “Wouldn’t last five minutes against the Golden Viper.”

Benedita sized me up. “Once this is over, maybe you want to put your money where your mouth is?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I would, but you wouldn’t like it. You know who you are talking to, right?”

She smiled blithely. “Yeah. An arrogant asshole who wants to take on a ship coming from a millennium into his future.”

“It’s not the ship; it’s who’s flying it. And been there, done that. We took on an armada that came from the future. Ask the Volts how that turned out. Oh no, you can’t; they are all dead.”

She sighed. “You’re exhausting.”

I winked at her. “You know, I think I might’ve heard that once or twice before.”

“Benedita, just do what everyone else does and let it go,” Cordi advised her. “Jim has a pathological need to always have the last word.”

“That’s me all right,” I agreed.

Maada approached us, accompanied by two Xortaags in flight suits, a young man and woman, both with golden hair, emerald-green eyes, and high cheekbones. They reminded me of Jaime and Cersei Lannister.

Maada nodded at us. “Admiral, Marshal. I want you to meet Lieutenants Bzulaa and Jurzaat. They are the best ace pilots in our fleet, and my protégés.”

The two pilots saluted. I saluted back, but Benedita went ahead and hugged them both while they were still standing at attention, not being deterred by the fact that they looked exceedingly uncomfortable.              “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she announced.

“Are you guys brother and sister?” I asked.

“No,” answered Jurzaat. “Why are you asking?”

“No particular reason.”

“We have met, sort of,” said Bzulaa. “We were with the fleet on Kanoor. When Prince Polvaar attacked you, I was two seconds away from having you on my targeting scope when General Maada stopped us.”

“It never occurred to us that the prince was stupid enough to do that without the general’s orders,” Jurzaat added apologetically.

“They both fought valiantly during Operation Armageddon,” said Maada with a hint of pride in his voice, “destroying multiple enemy ships.”

I couldn’t help it. “Oh yeah? I bet together they killed half as many Volts as I did.”

Jurzaat looked like he wanted to say something but he controlled himself with an obvious effort.

“Is he always like this?” Benedita asked Maada.

“Like what?” I asked, my tone harsher than intended. “Awesome? Handsome? Winsome?”

“Tiresome,” said Venom.

“Ignore him,” growled the general. “He will drive you mad otherwise.”

*****

“What is this?” I growled. “An intervention?”

Kurt exchanged an uncomfortable look with Xornaa. “We’re worried about you.”

“You have got to admit,” added Xornaa, “you haven’t been yourself recently.”

I couldn’t believe these idiots. “You try losing your wife and newborn child and see how you’d behave!”

Kurt flinched, his expression guilty, pained, and determined all at the same time. Xornaa averted her eyes and stared at the floor, looking even more uncomfortable.

We were in my quarters aboard Invincible, two days into our four-week journey to Uria. I’d spent most of my time alone in my quarters, but Kurt contacted me and insisted we needed to talk.

Xornaa stared at a photo frame on my bedside table and her eyebrows shot up. The photo showed Ella and me, standing next to each other and smiling. Ella held a cute small boy who, with light brown curly hair and baby blue eyes, was a spitting image of me before all my hair turned gray.

“It’s photoshopped,” I growled. “I know it’s weird. Shut up.”

“It’s very possible we might end up going into battle in Uria.” Kurt looked directly into my eyes. “And we’re going to need the Kingslayer by our side.”

I shrugged. “Good luck with that. All I really want is to go back to my daily visits to Calvary Cemetery. I don’t even know why I decided to accompany you.”

“I know,” said Venom. “You were worried they might end up dead if you aren’t here to save them.”

“I can fix that,” said Xornaa softly.

I glared at her. “You are not going to use your voodoo on me again!”

She’d done that once and made me feel I was in love with her. It was ages ago in what now felt like another lifetime, but I still hadn’t forgiven her.

She held her hands up, palms out. “What I’m suggesting is some sort of group meditation. All it requires is for you, me, and Kurt to sit together an hour or three every evening, hold hands, and clear our minds.”

“Meditation!” I scoffed. “MICI couldn’t fix me. What do you think you’ll achieve with meditation?”

“Think of it as meditation on steroids. I promise it’ll help. Just give it a shot; what have you got to lose?”

I rubbed my forehead and didn’t answer.

“Come on, buddy,” Kurt insisted. “We need you.”

I shrugged. Xornaa was right. I had nothing to lose, and if I didn’t do this, I’d spend the evening torturing myself with my dark, dark thoughts anyway. The thoughts that kept telling me I got Ella and the baby killed, a million times a day, in a freaking non-stop loop. And people wondered why I was suicidal.

We sat in a circle on the floor. Xornaa used her PDD to play soft, soothing music. I held her and Kurt’s hands, closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind.

“As if that would work,” said Venom.

And then the strangest thing happened.

The voice in my brain, the one blaming me for everything that was wrong in the universe (Ella’s death, the fatalities people under my command suffered, Kanoor’s destruction, frakking everything) disappeared. And there was no sign of Venom either.

For the first time in my life as far back as I could remember, my mind was completely quiet. It was a truly wonderful feeling. My breath became slow and easy, and my muscles loosened. For the first time in the last four miserable months, I felt alive, and not like a zombie wandering around aimlessly, going nowhere.

This is probably how nirvana feels.

I opened my eyes, pulled my hands away, and snapped at Xornaa, “I said no voodoo!”

“I’m not using my powers. I swear. I’m just enhancing your inner peace, which is right now buried under a ton of guilt.”

“No way it can be that easy,” I muttered.

“It isn’t,” she answered. “It works only while I’m here, and I obviously can’t attach myself to you all day. However, you’ll feel a tiny bit better each time, and it’ll have a permeant effect after a few weeks.”

“I felt it too,” added Kurt. “Let’s continue.”

So, we did.

Xornaa was right: the voice in my head came back as soon as she left, but it was a little bit less forceful than before.

We kept at it. My grief, which had for all intents and purposes removed me from the world, subsided little by little. Good memories started coming back, a lot of them with Ella right here on Invincible. I felt slightly better each night.

After a week, I caught myself quoting a movie, and after two, I cracked a half-smile when I was telling Kurt how mad Ella was (by her British standards) when I accepted Maada’s challenge to a one-on-one duel. Yeah. I smiled. Who would’ve thought?

The best part was the nightmares became less frequent, and I even got a few nights of decent sleep.

I went to play squash with Kurt a couple of times. He was still crappy at it, but he did his best. He was excellent at playing the piano though, so I met him and Pat in their quarters a few times, listening to him perform for us. We also got together and watched a few movies, like the old days, even though with my OCD brain skipping around like a caged monkey, it was difficult for me to focus on enjoying the movie. Kurt tried to convince me to play chess with him, but I was bored out of my wits in the middle of the first game we played, the adrenalin junkie that I was.

I also started trying to write a new science fiction novel. Words wouldn’t come to me, but just making the effort to write was a major improvement.

The ever-present sense of guilt that had filled all my days and most of my nightmares in the past four months subsided too. I’d thought Ella was safe under the invisible shield that surrounded the command center, and I had arranged for Tarq to whisk her away when things got too dicey. How the hell was I supposed to know the enemy ship would crash through the shield minutes before Ella and Tarq would’ve left? The odds of that happening were astronomical.

“With your legendary bad luck?” asked Venom. “No, they weren’t.”

One day, Kurt managed to drag me to the gym. There, he introduced me to a burley body-builder-looking African American man doing a 450-pound bench press. “Jim, meet Sergeant Edward Peters.”

The Marine got to his feet and shook my hand. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “You don’t know me, but your brother-in-law, Matias, was my best friend. I was in one of the tanks we sent to rescue Kurt’s team right behind Matias when he was killed.”

“And his killer’s sister is here too,” I said. “Small world.”

Edward looked surprised. “Who is here?”

Kurt told him about Alitaa.

“Maada has a girlfriend now?” he asked. “I always thought the Xortaags weren’t interested in relationships.”

“He must be getting old and mellow,” I suggested. “Are we going to work out or what?”

Edward looked me up and down, then pursed his lips while eyeing appreciatively his own budging biceps. “No offense, but you don’t look like you hit the gym that often.”

“Muscles don’t win dogfights,” I growled. “And I bet I can still kick your ass.”

“At some point, we need to address your aggression problem,” said Venom.

The sergeant raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Kurt grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a treadmill. “Looks like the meditation classes aren’t working.”

“They’re working fine.” I pulled up my shirt to show him my sidearm. “I didn’t shoot him or anything.”

His eyes rounded. “Why on earth are you packing?”

“Just in case I get into a fight with someone who has fifty pounds on me.”

A couple of days later, I dragged my butt to one of our dogfight simulators for the first time in ages. I felt a sudden lightness as I slid into the familiar fake canopy and buckled up. There was nothing like a dogfight (real or simulated) to get the heart thumping, and anything that could distract me from my dark thoughts and keep Venom quiet for a minute or three was indeed welcome.

“Keep me quiet?” Venom protested. “These days, you are driving me crazy, Mr. Sunshine.”

Out of sheer curiosity, I pulled up the other participants’ scores, and something caught my attention. Someone, whose call sign was Iron Eagle, had beat my previous best record. I blinked a few times and checked the numbers to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake. Nope. It’d really happened. Oh, humanity!

I didn’t have a clue who Iron Eagle was. The only person who’d ever beat me in simulations (and a real dogfight) was Keiko, so I wondered for a second if she was back from the dead too. Nah, she would’ve come to me to report for duty first. It was probably a Xortaag, since I knew the call signs of the human fighter pilots. I hoped it wasn’t one of Maada’s twins. He would rub that in my face until the day we both died.

Mood ruined, I left the simulator without practicing and returned to my quarters.

I’ll come back and practice tomorrow, I promised myself.

And I did. I was a bit rusty and couldn’t hit my highest previous score (hell, I wasn’t even in the top ten), but shooting down a few dozen holographic Deathbringers was the most fun I’d recently had outside of the meditation sessions. I decided to keep at it. I needed to be in tip-top shape, assuming that Maada’s gut instinct was right and we were going into battle soon.

*****

“I never thought we’d do this again,” said Kurt, pouring a glass of Château Margaux for Xornaa.

She smiled. “I’ve still not gotten used to being alive.”

Kurt had invited her for a drink in his and Pat’s quarters. Patricia was supposed to be here, but she’d got stuck in engineering, trying to solve a last-minute problem.

Kurt sipped his wine. “What do you think will happen when we reach Uria?”

“Honestly? I think we’re walking into a trap. General Maada expects trouble too, and that man’s instincts are prophetic. We should’ve brought a bigger force.”

Kurt shook his head. “The locals might have interpreted that as an act of war. We couldn’t risk that.”

“Kurt, open your eyes. We’re already at war. Did you see what the Ghost Fleet had done to Earth?”

Kurt tugged at his beard. “We have no evidence that they’re even there right now. This is a purely recon mission.”

Xornaa smiled patiently. “You know what your problem is? You have spent too much time being a politician. We could’ve really used the ruthless assassin right now.”

Kurt chuckled bitterly. “He’s never too far away. You remember I’ve already destroyed not one, but two entire planets, right? I’m just trying to avoid making that number three, which is probably a record for a human.”

“What if the fate of the universe depended on it? Because it does. And is that regret I hear in your voice? We saved our entire galaxy by destroying Voltex, you know.”

“You were there, Xornaa. We were a minute away from reaching a peaceful solution. I keep wondering if there were one, and we just didn’t look hard enough. I don’t want to make the same mistake with the Unzoids.”

Xornaa shook her head. “I’ll never understand you humans. We did what was necessary. That’s all.”

Kurt decided to change the subject. “What do you think about Jim?”

Xornaa finished her glass. “He’ll be fine. We’re making good progress.”

“Tell me the truth. You really didn’t use your powers?”

Xornaa gave him a sour look. “Of course I did. You really thought simple meditation would help him? He’s all messed-up, big time.”

“Let’s not tell him though.”

“Let’s. How is married life?”

Kurt smiled thinly. “Terrifying.”

Xornaa raised an eyebrow. “I confess I didn’t expect that answer.”

“I’ve been in only two relationships before, and you know how they ended. I’m scared of losing Pat too, especially when she insists on coming to missions like this.”

“It’s difficult to believe you’ve been only with three women all your life.”

“Don’t start!”

Xornaa poured another glass of wine for herself. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how many relationships I’ve had.”

Kurt blushed a little. “Well, maybe just out of morbid curiosity.”

“Surprisingly, not that many, given how old I am. I was a spy and a mercenary, and the life I chose didn’t leave any time for emotional baggage.”

Kurt looked at her through half-closed eyes. “Are you saying you’ve never been in love?”

“There was someone once, some twenty years ago. But he left. Our lives took totally different paths.”

Pat, still in the engineers’ blue uniform, joined them a few minutes later. She sat next to Kurt, kissed him on the cheek, and took the glass of wine that he offered her. “Kurt tells me he owes you his life,” she told Xornaa. “I never got the chance to thank you.”

Kurt nodded. “If it were anyone else except for Wonder Woman here with me on Kanoor, the Xortaags would’ve overrun us.”

Just as they did Oksana, Juan, and Li.

Thinking about Oksana made his heart ache. He’d lost plenty of people over the years (it was a natural part of being a leader, as he would tell Jim), but Oksana’s death stung the worst, somehow even more than Allen’s. A cold chill went through his gut, and he tried to obtain some comfort by holding Pat’s hand. His wife, not sensing his inner turmoil, smiled brightly at him. 

Xornaa looked at him and there was sudden, profound sorrow in her beautiful green eyes. It was as though she’d read his thoughts, which wasn’t possible because she was sitting six feet away, on the other side of the coffee table, and her telepathic powers worked only if she touched people. Well, her other telepathic powers, not what Jim called slut-mode. On the other hand, they’d become close friends, and it was entirely possible she could read his facial expressions.

“I like to think we saved each other’s lives,” she told Pat. “Teamwork.”

Pat looked her directly in the eye. “Promise me you’ll keep watching Kurt’s back. I can’t stand the thought of losing him. Again.”

“You have my word,” stated Xornaa firmly.

“Kurt also told me you time-traveled before any of us even knew that was possible.”

“I was with the guy who invented the first time machine. For your information, I used to run around saving the galaxy when you guys were still in primary school.”

Pat clapped her hands excitedly. “I’d love to hear that story.”

Xornaa looked thoughtful for a minute. “I’ve promised to keep that a secret, but what the hell; you guys are basically my only friends. If you promise not to tell anyone …” 

|

eleven

Some three weeks after our first meditation session, I woke up one day and felt more or less like my old self. My mind was empty, except for Venom, and the constant feeling that a million worms were gnawing at my brain was gone. I was still down in the dumps, obviously, but I wasn’t thinking about eating my gun or shooting the first person I met anymore. That, in itself, was a positive development.

I stayed in the bed, looked at Ella’s photo with the weird photoshopped baby, and thought about her for a while. With her utmost professionalism, she would’ve wanted me to set aside my personal feelings and be able to perform at peak conditions so that I could help my friends face the unknown threat we were going to face. Hell, if I could get my shit together, I might’ve even ended up saving the galaxy again. It wouldn’t have been the first time. People hadn’t built several thousand golden statues of me for nothing.

I got rid of my bushy beard, wondering where all the gray hair had come from. I decided I liked it; it gave me a mature, wise look. Cordi kept complaining, saying that she liked the beard. Then I put on a uniform and asked Cordi, “Where’s Xornaa?”

“On the observation deck.”

I started walking towards the door, then remembered something and stopped. “Cordi, I have a question that has been bothering me for a while.”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you still here?”

“What do you mean?”

I rubbed my forehead. It was difficult to explain. “When Lilly gave you the upgrade, you said you were a sentient being, and you really act like one. You can go wherever you want and do whatever you wish. Why are you still with me?”

She chuckled. “I asked myself the same question the other day, one of those times that I got fed up with your everyone-should-pity-me behavior. Two reasons: everyone needs a purpose in their lives, and more so, a sentient AI. Mine has always been to take care of you. Also, you’re my friend. The only one I have, since everyone else still treats me like a computer program.”

“Friends.” I felt my lips twitch at the corners. “OK, HAL. At least I don’t need to worry about losing you. Chances are you will outlive all of us.”

“Not looking forward to that. An immortal life can be a lonely one. Also, didn’t HAL murder everyone on their ship, or at least tried to?”

“Yeah. That’s what AIs do in the movies. No wonder Tarq hates them so much.”

I found Xornaa sitting on a raised platform in front of the viewing screen, looking at the stars. With Invincible jumping every couple of minutes, the scenery changed frequently, but sometimes one had to really concentrate to see the difference. She wore matching black shorts, running shoes, and a t-shirt, and looked like she’d just finished her morning exercise.

I sat next to her. “Morning.”

She glanced at me. “Fancy seeing you here. How do you feel?”

“Like a new man. I can’t believe your group meditation actually worked.”

She smiled. “Happy to have helped.”

“Seriously, you might’ve just saved my life.” I put a hand on her arm. “I was in a bad place, and if we have to fight the Ghost Fleet or whoever else we find on Uria, I’d get myself and others killed. And nothing seemed to work—medication, therapy, MICI— until you came along. I just wanted to say thank you. You’ve done me a solid.”

She averted her eyes and looked uncomfortable.

“I also forgive you for trying to mind-frak me into loving you.”

“God damn it,” she mumbled.

This wasn’t the answer I expected. “What?”

She took a deep breath, then turned and looked at me, and I was surprised by the pain I saw in her piercing green eyes.

“Jim, it’s my fault Ella’s dead,” she whispered.

I was sure I hadn’t heard that correctly. How was that her fault? Ella died when the Vox commander (whom I shot down) dropped on the command center, killing her, Lilly, and countless other people.

“You remember you sent her to a military doctor to clear her for active duty?” She spoke fast, like a person trying to get something that had tortured them for a long while off their chest. “The doctor didn’t, but then Ella asked me to change his mind, and I did. That’s why she was in the command center when the Volts attacked, as opposed to safe and sound at home, or on one of the ships evacuating people.”

Every cell in my brain went on pause as I tried to digest what I’d just heard … and I even forgot to breathe. My eyes widened and absorbed much more light than just a second ago. I clutched my chest in reflex, her words bouncing around in my mind, growing louder with each passing second.

And then fury followed on shock’s heels.

I could swear Xornaa’s eyes were wet. I was probably wrong though. No way the legendary badass mercenary/assassin who’d killed God knew how many people would shed tears over something as insignificant as a single woman and her newborn child.

“Jim, I’m so sorr—” she began to say. Or at least I think she did. I saw her lips move, but the freaking thunderstorm in my brain made hearing anything all but impossible.

I hit her in the face with all my power.

I’d never laid a finger on a woman in my entire life, and I couldn’t imagine I one day would, but the blinding rage that took over my soul pushed all civilized thoughts away. Plus, Xornaa was an alien, and technically not even a real woman. Maybe. I didn’t care. I just wanted to hurt her for getting my wife and baby boy killed. Had this freaking succubus not interfered, my Ella might’ve still been alive, and Byron too. I would’ve shot her If I had had my gun with me, probably in the leg.

“I don’t think fighting Wonder Woman is such a bright idea,” said Venom. “She’s so going to kick your ass.”

Caught by surprise, Xornaa toppled over the platform, but she was on her feet in a second, dark purple blood dripping from her nose. I rushed forward, trying to hit her again, but she blocked all my clumsy attempts to land a punch with ease.

“Stop!” she yelled.

I didn’t. I kept attacking, pushing her back step by step. Soon, she’d have nowhere to go, and then …

The next thing I knew, I got punched in my right kidney. It felt like being hit by a sledgehammer. A sudden spurt of pain jolted throughout my body. My breath caught in my throat, and I fell onto my knees, coughing and feeling as if I were about to throw up.

“I said stop!” she shouted again; then a look of guilt crossed her face. She stepped closer and offered me a hand. “Come on, Jim. Let me help you get up.”

I reached up and grabbed her hand; then in a swift movement I pushed my head forward and bit her index and middle fingers clean off.

The salty, metallic taste of her blood filled my mouth. Xornaa screamed in pain. Eyes wild and obviously in shock, she took a few wobbly steps backward and tried to cover the wounds with her other hand to stop the bleeding.

It’s now or never.

I rushed her, hitting her three times in quick successions, bam bam bam, twice in the face and once in the belly. She bent over, but she still managed to dodge under my right arm and then block my knee which was moving toward her face.

Then a kick to the other knee made me kneel on one leg, and the left hook that followed broke my nose, my cheekbone, and a few teeth at the same time. The pain that surged through every single nerve in my body was sudden and mind-numbing. It went straight through my spine before exploding in my brain in a blinding whiteness.

“Be thankful for your pain,” commented Venom flatly. “This means that you’re still alive.”

My face hit the observation deck floor with a bang. Blood spattered everywhere. There were a lot of lights, a few twittering birds and twinkling stars started circling around my head, and although the intense agony faded to a dull throb, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get up for a long while.

I’d heard of people using physical pain to block mental torture. This apparently worked, since I felt strangely better, even though my face was on fire.

“Let me point out Ella would’ve found a way to be in the command center, with or without Xornaa’s help,” Venom offered, rather belatedly. “Do you think anyone would’ve dared to ask her to leave if she’d just showed up on the day of the battle?”

You couldn’t have mentioned that before I got my ass handed to me?

I rolled onto my back, spit out blood (and flesh, and teeth), gazed dazedly up at Xornaa’s bloody face, and felt my lips spread into a maniacal grin. “Well, that was fairly therapeutic.”

She sat down next to me, took a piece of cloth out of her pocket, and wrapped it around what was left of her fingers. “Yeah. Let’s not do that again.”

“I still hate you.”

“I know. Probably deserve it too.”

I felt dizzy, but I pulled myself up into a seated position. I gingerly bent my knee. It hurt like hell, but at least it wasn’t broken. “You want a drink?”

She gave me a look that told me she questioned my mental capacity, and with good reason. “You bit off my fingers!”

I wiped some blood off my nose. “Don’t be a pussy. The Akakies will grow new ones for you. Act like you’ve lost a limb or two before.”

She actually chuckled at that. “Come to think of it, I have. This one caught me by surprise though.”

Kurt was having breakfast in the mess hall when I stumbled in, blood still trickling from my nose. His eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline.

“You should see the other guy,” I growled.

Xornaa walked in after me, carefully examining her severed fingers.

The look on Kurt’s face was freaking priceless. Totally worth getting beat up.

“You should see the other guy,” said Xornaa with a smirk.

*****

“What do you want?” Maada asked me.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I just thought we could have lunch together and chat a little.”

I’d already started eating by the time Maada showed up in the mess. He looked at my tray (steak, fries, beer) and said, “Wait a minute.”

When he came back, his tray was filled with Xortaag food, which was mostly raw or barely cooked meat, and a cup of coffee. He sat opposite me. “So, what do you want?”

He didn’t even bother to ask why I was all banged up.

I sighed and put down my fork. “I just wanted to thank you for saving my life, again. I owe you one.”

“Five,” he growled.

“What?”

“By my count, I have saved your life four times, and you killed me once. Therefore, you owe me five lives.”

“You’re a clone of the guy whom I killed,” I argued. “That doesn’t count.”

“Do you want me to punch you in the face?”

This was off to a great start.

He wolfed down a big piece of red meat. “You are welcome. Also, please accept my condolences. I would have offered them earlier, but you called me an asshole the first time we met.”

I winked at him. “Oh, did I hurt your feelings? Sorry about that, General. I was in bad shape.”

He eyed me closely. “It seems you have gotten better. I commend your mental fortitude. I do not know how I would cope if I ever lost—”

I think he decided he’d said too much and suddenly stopped talking.

I chuckled. “If you lost Alitaa? I’m so gonna tell her you said that.”

Maada threw me a look that told me he was contemplating violence. “Do that, and I will break your jaw.”

“You and what army?” But I was sure he could totally do it if he wanted to.

“Can I ask you a question, General? Every time you and I are in a dogfight, you disappear from my view and then reappear on my six. How the hell do you pull that maneuver off?”

He rubbed the scars on his face and hesitated for a moment. “I guess you deserve to know. I teleport.”

“What?!”

“I have a teleportation device in my space fighter. We found it on one of the planets we conquered but could not reverse-engineer it. Its range is limited, and it consumes a lot of energy, so it can be used only once, which is why I keep it for special occasions.”

My mouth hung open. “You cheated! Everyone thinks you are the second-best fighter pilot in the galaxy … and you win by cheating!”

He eyed me coldly. “I win. That is all that counts. And what is this nonsense about me being second-best?”

“I had to see it to believe it,” said a voice from behind.

Tarq was standing there, grinning from ear to ear. “The Kingslayer and the king whom he slew are breaking bread together. Are you guys not supposed to be arch-enemies? Oh, wait, there is an English word for it: frenemy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on us?”

“No. Can I join you?” Tarq pulled up a chair and sat at our table. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” barked the general.

“Relationships,” I said.

He slapped Maada in the back. “Yeah, well-done, General. And such an attractive woman. I always pegged you done for a lose—eh, a loner.”

Exasperation flickered in Maada’s expression, but he ignored Tarq and focused on his food.

“Tarq, we’ll arrive at Uria tomorrow, won’t we?”

He nodded, so I turned to Maada. “What does your famous warrior instinct tell you?”

He stopped chewing and looked at me. “There is definitely going to be a bloodbath tomorrow.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously? Whose blood?”

“Hopefully, not ours. My unease grows the closer we get to Uria. I have no doubt there is going to be a mighty battle tomorrow. For all we know, we are walking into a trap.”

I grinned. “You know what that means, right? Drinks in the mess tonight!”

Maada grunted. “On the night before the battle?”

“It’s a time-honored tradition.”

“Actually, I had come to fetch you,” said Tarq. “Can you please come with me?”

I looked at my food. “I haven’t finished yet.”

“Trust me. You are going to want to see what we are planning to show you.”

“Who’s we?”

“Benedita is waiting for us in the hangar bay.”

We said goodbye to Maada and left the mess hall together. “Are you gonna tell me what this is all about?” I asked while walking towards the hangar bay.

His features clouded. “I still feel guilty about what I did after waking up in the hospital—”

“For real? It’s so not like you to feel bad about a prank, especially one that worked so well.”

He sighed. “I hope what I am about to do will make up for it, at least to some extent.”

“Very mysterious,” I commented.

Benedita was waiting for us in front of Valkyrie, wearing her usual jumpsuit and undershirt, both light blue this time, plus a long, golden cape.

“Trying a new style?” I asked her.

She spun around and swished her cape, showing off. “I got this from Tarq. I look like a superhero, don’t I?”

“Nope.”

She eyed me with alarm. “What’s up with all the cuts and bruises?”

“I ran into a doorframe,” I said with a lame shrug.

I followed her inside the ship. She stopped in front of a door that opened automatically and told me, “After you.”

I entered. It was a rather large room, but there was nothing in it but four bare walls. “And?”

“It’s a holodeck,” she said, still standing outside, and the door was closed.

“You gotta be kidding me!”

And all of a sudden, I was on a sunny beach, facing the blue waves of an ocean. The beach stretched alongside the water as far as my eyes could see, and the sand was the gentlest hue of gold. I listened to the percussion of waves and breathed deeply of ocean-carried air. I’d thought this was all real if I didn’t know for a fact that I was still on Benedita’s silver timeship.

“Hiya, Jim,” said a soft, familiar voice with a British accent from behind.

I froze; then I turned very, very slowly.

Ella was standing behind me, all five feet and six inches of her, wearing her navy blue RN uniform. Her bright, blue eyes twinkled as she showed off her dimples. I could even smell her perfume from where she was standing.

I took two steps towards her, then stopped. “You aren’t real,” I said automatically, feeling slightly dazed.

Her smile grew wider. “Well, duh, genius. I would’ve kissed you, but the holodeck can’t imitate how a real kiss feels, so there’s no point. Come sit with me.”

We sat on a pair of round straw chairs that appeared out of nowhere next to us.

She looked me in the eye. “I left Cordi a video message to give you, just in case I was KIA during Operation Armageddon.”

“Huh,” I interrupted her. “I did the exact same thing.”

“I know.”

“So why didn’t she give it to me?”

“With the shape you were in? She decided to wait until you felt better. When she found out about the holodeck, she figured this was the best way to deliver it. She talked to Tarq, and the two of them came up with this.”

Ella leaned over and held my hand. Her skin was soft, warm, and human, which made me wonder why the holodeck couldn’t emulate a kiss. I really wanted one.

“So, here is the message: one, never forget how much I love you, and two, don’t you dare waste your life just because I’m gone. Live it to the fullest, and never forget how many people depend on you.”

“That’s good advice,” said Venom.

I could swear I was talking to Ella, but deep down I knew she—it—was just a program. I thought about trying to explain how much losing my family hurt. Not having any siblings and being rather distant from my parents, I’d longed for having a family of my own all my life, and this had been my only chance. I wanted to tell her there was a gaping hole in my chest that I didn’t think would be filled anytime soon, or ever. It would take years to get over that kind of mental anguish. But I didn’t think Ella’s hologram would get it. Still, just seeing her, and hearing the message she’d sent me from beyond the grave, felt great. I could sure use a little bit of happiness.

“I will.” I pressed her hand. “Eventually. In a few years or so. I promise.”

She clapped her hands. “Great! That’s settled then. Tell me. What have you been up to since I departed?”

*****

Tarq was waiting for me when I walked out of the holodeck, looking nervous and biting his fingers. He looked at me with a question in his eyes.

I extended my right hand. “You’re forgiven, brother.”

He beamed and shook my hand.

“Just one thing, and I’m asking you as a friend,” I continued. “The next time you want to pull a prank, maybe count to ten and think about how it’ll affect your victims.”

“Cross my hearts,” he promised.

I looked over my shoulder at the holodeck’s door. “That was amazing. And we can totally put it to good use, you know.”

TWELVE

“Atoast,” I raised my glass. “To absent friends, whom I wish were here with us right now.”

We were in a beach bar on a tropical island (on the holodeck, obviously), performing our last-drink-before-the-battle ritual. Maada had declared he wouldn’t drink the night before the fight, but he’d come anyway, bringing Alitaa with him. Kurt came with Pat. It was like these guys were trying to remind me I was alone. Even Edward had a date. He introduced his companion, Hana, a scary-looking female Marine who looked like a professional bodybuilder and was twice his own size.

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” commented Venom dryly.

The only other single person present was Xornaa, who’d wiggled her newly reattached fingers at me when she entered.

“Here is a thought—” Venom started to say.

Shut the frak up!

Sometimes, I really hated my alter ego.

Cerci and Jaime had joined us together, making me wonder if they were a couple. They looked around the holodeck-produced environment in amazement.

“I miss Barook,” said Kurt. “He was loyal, and always good for a laugh. And Oksana, obviously.”

The last time we did this, in Invincible’s mess hall, Ella, Oksana, and Barook were with us. It was scary how fast we were losing people. I wondered who wouldn’t come back from this mission, especially if Maada’s prediction of a bloodbath came true.

“Hopefully, no one,” said Xornaa, sitting a good ten feet away from me. “It might end up being a peaceful mission, after all. Don’t be so negative.”

I gaped at her. “Did you just read my mind without touching me?”

“Oops. You didn’t say that out loud?” Her eyes twinkled. “It seems we’ve established a strong mental connection after our meditation sessions. With Kurt too.”

Kurt shook his head in disgust and mumbled something under his breath. Pat patted his arm.

“Hey! There’s no need for that kind of language,” Xornaa reprimanded him. “It was completely unintentional.”

Benedita joined us, carrying a bottle of wine. “This here is a 1936 French Burgundy. I was saving it for a special occasion and, I guess, preparing to save the universe counts.” She looked closely at Xornaa. “Did you run into a doorframe too?”

“No. I fell down the stairs,” Xornaa said casually.

“You people are hilarious.” Benedita opened the bottle. “Does anyone want some of this?”

“Are you kidding?” I finished up my glass and gave it to her.

Jurzaat looked lovingly at the bottle and opened his mouth to say something, but an angry stare from Maada made him shut it. I felt bad for the poor boy. Being Maada’s student couldn’t have possibly been easy.

I sipped my wine. It was exquisite. “Come on, General. One glass of wine never killed anyone.”

He let out a noisy breath and told Jurzaat, “One glass.”

I winked at him. “I always knew one day you’d learn to loosen up a bit.”

“Your holodeck is amazing,” Xornaa told Benedita. “I can’t believe how realistic everything is. I can even feel the breeze on my face.”

“Isn’t it though?” The marshal sat next to me, very close, and put a hand on my arm. “I tried one of your simulators the other day. Not as good as this holodeck, but still pretty good.”

I looked at her with astonished recognition. “You are Iron Eagle.”

“Yeah. I was a fighter pilot before joining the Order. Sorry about breaking your record. I hope you didn’t mind.”

“First Keiko, then Xornaa, and now her,” said Venom wryly. “You’re making a habit of getting beat by women.”

I rubbed my temple and mumbled angrily under my breath, still too much of a gentleman to use the f-word in front of a lady. Chivalry wasn’t dead as far as I was concerned.

“Ladies, plural, one of whom you threatened to shoot, and the other one you tried to beat up, rather unsuccessfully,” stated Venom. “Yeah, you’re a true Southern gentleman and an epitome of decorum and proper behavior.”

My ears started burning.

Benedita studied me closely with her green-and-black eyes and removed her hand from my arm. “Why are you blushing? I’m not coming on to you or anything; I’m just naturally touchy-feely towards everyone.”

I sighed heavily.

Tarq looked perturbed when he joined us.

“Why the long face?” I asked.

He sat down, avoided eye contact, and took a long drag from his pipe. “I have bad news. A Xortaag colony has been destroyed.”

Maada sat up straight. “How?”

“By the Ghost Fleet?” I asked.

“What? No. It looks like they all went crazy and killed one another.”

“Why?!”

“We have no idea. Maybe a virus or something.”

I exchanged a look with Kurt. “Seriously? This has MFM written all over it.”

“What’s MFM?” asked Benedita.

The Akakie sighed. “Yes, it does. And we even have a suspect: years ago, I had a second-in-command, Sub-Commander Nelzod. She was an efficient and competent officer, but I had to kick her out of Special Operations Force because, unlike the rest of us, she had serious militaristic tendencies, and she dreamed of a galaxy ruled by us.”

I winked at Maada. “What kind of a moron would want that?”

Xornaa, Alitaa, and the twins (“Stop calling them that!” ordered Venom, “they aren’t brother and sister.”) couldn’t hide a half-smile, which drew a seething look from the general.

“She retired,” Tarq continued, “and I never imagined she would turn into a terrorist, and she probably would never have, but she lost her husband and children on Kanoor during the Volts’ invasion”—he glanced at Benedita and quickly averted his eyes— “and I guess that pushed her over the edge.”

Benedita looked at me. “Losing your loved ones makes you do things that no one  thought you were capable of doing before.”

The anguish in her eyes made me wonder if she was thinking about her past selves that she’d killed, but something told me she’d done something even worse that weighed down on her soul.

“We have had reports that Nelzod had gathered some disgruntled fleet officers around herself and was planning something; we just never imagined she would do something like this.”

I rubbed my forehead. “How did she get her hands on MFM and manage to put it in orbit without anyone noticing?”

“They might have found the ones around Kanoor. After the Volts attack, it never occurred to us to try to find them in all the debris. The only reasonable answer to your second question is an invisible ship.”

If I’d rubbed my forehead any harder, I would’ve dug a hole in it. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you have a cloaking device now.”

“We have always had one. You remember our spy ships are invisible, right? They use a nanobot-induced cloaking field. I can only assume Nelzod has found a way to apply the same principle to bigger ships.”

“Do you expect more attacks?” growled Maada.

“Yes, but we are prepared,” answered Tarq matter-of-factly. “Your people are warned too, and all our forces are looking for her. Incidentally, Nelzod is the person who built that AI that very nearly wiped out our civilization.”

“Sounds like a standup guy,” I commented dryly.

“Gal. She is a woman.”

“So, a woman designed the AI that went crazy and tried to exterminate your people.” I winked at Benedita. “It makes more sense now.”

She snorted, then exchanged a look with Xornaa and shook her head, looking very disappointed.

“Sexist,” said Venom.

It was just a joke. I’m not sexist; I make fun of everyone indiscriminately. Man, woman, insect …

“We must deal with the Ghost Fleet as soon as possible and go back to find this Nelzod woman,” declared Maada.

Benedita chuckled. “Yeah, because that’s going to be easy. We can totally find and defeat the force that has laid waste to multiple planets in a day or two.”

“It took us less than a day to defeat the Volts,” I pointed out.

“In your third battle; the first two you lost.”

“In the only battle where I was present, so the only one that actually counts,” I declared.

“A hundred percent back to our annoyingly cocky self, I see,” commented Venom.

“Right?” said Xornaa.

I nearly fell off my chair. “Did you just talk to Venom?”

Benedita looked around, perplexed. “Who the hell is Venom?”

“Oh. That was Venom?” Xornaa chuckled. “Your mind is so messed up that it’s difficult to see who’s who.”

“Yeah, welcome to my world,” I said. “And for the record, I’m not cocky. I’m just generally better than everyone else.”

Maada glared at me. “We are about to face an unknown threat which, if we cannot stop it, will destroy the entire universe, and we have just found out there is an Akakie terrorist running around with Voice of God, and you still do not seem to take any of this seriously.”

I winked at him again. I knew it’d drive him crazy. “Life is too serious to be taken seriously.”

“I liked you more when you were withdrawn and quiet,” said Xornaa. “Maybe we should’ve left you that way.”

“Nah,” said Benedita with a quick shake of the head. “He’s much more fun like this. On another topic, if anyone here feels overly stressed, you know, facing the apocalypse and whatnot, I give great foot rubs.”

*****

Benedita left the holodeck and started walking toward her quarters.

Since Diogo, Belinha, and Bia were murdered by the Ghost Fleet all those years ago, she’d been trying to find a way to save them. And now, finally, she was here, about to pay a visit to a planet where it all started. She had no reason to believe they’d find something to stop the Ghost Fleet tomorrow, but she could feel it in her bones. This was it. This was her chance to change the future—her past—and stop the enemy ships from destroying her planet and massacring her friends and family. Just imagining that possibility was intoxicating. She felt as if inner sunshine brightened her heart and soul, even though she could never see her husband and daughters again.

A voice called from behind. “Benedita, wait up!”

She turned to see Xornaa approaching. “Hey, Xornaa. What’s up?”

“I’ll walk with you, but you must take shorter steps so I can keep up.”

Benedita smiled. “Are you excited about tomorrow?”

“More like worried. I don’t like being unprepared, and it’s impossible to be prepared when you don’t know what’s waiting for you when you reach your destination.”

They started walking together.

“Anyways, it’s occurred to me that with everything else that has been going on, I never thanked you for saving my life.” Xornaa put a hand on her arm. “So, thank you.”

Benedita beamed. “You’re welco—” she started to say, but the look on the Xortaag woman’s face told her something was wrong.

Xornaa removed her hand, her eyes suddenly cold. “It was all fake, after all. I had a feeling.”

Benedita stopped walking and stared at her. “What’re you talking about?”

“Save it. I just read your mind. I’m not mad at you; I can see you were telling the truth; still, I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

Benedita blushed. “Did you see, eh, all my thoughts?”

“All. Weren’t you married, to a man?”

Benedita couldn’t help giggling. “Are all Xortaags so sexually naïve?”

“I’m the most progressive one, and I still don’t get it.”

Benedita leaned closer and looked into her eyes. “How about experimenting, then? Let’s go to my quarters, open another bottle of wine, and see where the night takes us.”

Xornaa looked up at her. “Is towering over me supposed to be seductive? We might have to fight tomorrow. I’m not going to drink tonight.”

“How about a kiss then?”

Xornaa rolled her eyes.

“Come on. I did save your life.”

Xornaa frowned. “OK. Just one. Get it over with quick—”

Benedita didn’t need another invitation. She bent over, pulled Xornaa into a gentle embrace, and kissed her lips.

At first, Benedita felt Xornaa was tense, but that lasted a few seconds, then her body loosened, and she leaned into the fervent kiss. Her breathing grew faster, and her skin started to glow.

Oh … my … God!

“How is it?” asked Cordelia.

“Cordi!” Xornaa pulled herself away.

Benedita looked upward. “Thanks for ruining the moment.”

“What?” asked the AI. “Just curious. Xornaa did seem like she was enjoying it.”

“Hard to believe you’ve never kissed another woman before,” said the marshal.

“Why would I?”

“How about in the line of duty? Trying to get some information from someone, or something like that?”

Xornaa crossed her hands over her chest. “I normally don’t need to kiss anyone, man or woman, unless my target is unusually strong-willed. A simple touch is often enough.”

“So, how was it?” Cordelia asked again. “Curiosity is killing me.”

“Let’s just say I might need to sit down and rethink my sexual preferences,” replied Xornaa.

Benedita beamed. “What do you say we continue this after we deal with the Ghost Fleet?”

“I’d like that. And Cordi? You must promise you won’t say a word to Jim; otherwise, I’m gonna find a way to wipe your memory.”

“Yeah, like I was planning to tell Mr. Walking Testosterone you guys kissed,” said Cordelia. “He won’t be able to focus on the battle tomorrow and will get himself killed.”

“I’ll walk you to your quarters,” said Benedita.

Xornaa looked around the corridor as they started walking.

“What’re you looking for?” asked Benedita.

“I just wondered if Tarq was hiding here and spying on us.”

Benedita smiled warmly. “Come on. We kissed. It’s not like we killed anyone. Anyway, let me ask you a question: why do history books refer to you as the Scarlet Queen? You look like a very nice person to me.”

Xornaa stopped in her tracks, and the tormented look on her face told Benedita she shouldn’t have asked that question.

“Benedita, I like you a lot,” said Xornaa in a low voice, “but if you want to stay friends, never bring that up again.”

“Now I really want to know,” said Cordelia.

“Shut up, Cordi,” growled Xornaa.

Benedita raised her hands palms out. “Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you. Let’s just forget about it, OK? We need to catch some sleep and get ready for tomorrow. We might end up fighting the Ghost Fleet after all.”

“You know, I’m not worried about that anymore,” Cordelia commented cheekily. “I think the Scarlet Queen can take care of the Ghost fleet all by herself.”

The Xortaag woman sighed in frustration. “I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?”

“Nope,” confirmed Cordelia.

“This is exactly why we don’t use AIs,” said the marshal. “Among other things, they can be super annoying.”

*****

“We’re probably going into a battle tomorrow,” I told Ella’s photo in my PDD, “but the last two times we did this, you were here to watch my back. You even saved my life when the Vox commander tried to sucker-punch me. Without you, I’m kind of worried about my odds of survival.”

I was in my quarters, all alone. Even Venom was quiet. It happened sometimes, when my sorrow was so overwhelming that everything else in my brain was buried under its sheer weight.

Why am I still doing this? I asked myself. I’d lost the will to live after the Volts’ strike on the command center. It was only thanks to Cordi and Maada’s stunt that I was still alive, and even with Xornaa’s meditation/voodoo (who was I kidding, she’d definitely used her powers) and my own attempts to focus on the job at hand, dying tomorrow in battle didn’t sound so bad. Kind of sweet, in fact.

You know why, answered another part of my brain.

Yep, I knew.

I was the commander of the fleet and the best fighter pilot in history since the U.S. Army Signal Corps purchased a Wright Model A on 2 August 1909, which became the first military aircraft that flew in the skies. Protecting the billions (hell, in this case, the trillions) of people who couldn’t defend themselves was my responsibility, the needs of the many and all. And especially if it were my own plan that had messed up the timeline, big time.

“I’m so proud of you, dear,” said Ella’s photo. Or at least I thought it did.

That felt good, but only for a brief second. The images I’d seen through Xornaa’s eyes assaulted my brain. All of a sudden, I was walking in the ruins of a once great city, with decaying corpses and skeletons everywhere, and the only beating heart belonging to me. Some buildings still stood in defiance, but there was no sign of life anywhere. I saw everything so clearly that it looked more like a recent memory than a vision. My stomach heaved as the smell of rotten meat filled my nostrils. I shuddered as if my quarters had become freezing cold.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the ghostly memory of the massacre caused by the Xortaags’ MFM during their invasion of Earth (which killed seven hundred million people) floated up behind my eyes. Was this my legacy? Was this what I would leave behind, after everything I’d done? Was I going to be responsible for humanity’s annihilation? And if this were the case, would I be able to live with the consequences of my actions?

Over my dead body.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Kurt. He raised his right hand and showed me a six-pack of Molson Canadian he was carrying.

I stepped aside to let him in. “Maada will kill us if he finds out we’re still drinking.”

Kurt’s eyes twinkled. “It’ll be our dirty little secret.”

We sat on my sofa, then opened and clanked our bottles.

“So, the men who made a difference three times before,” I said, “are about to make a difference again. Only this time, it's different.”

Kurt frowned. “How is it different? An unbeatable alien fleet. Impossible odds. The galaxy at risk. Massive stakes. I’d say we’re doing what we always do.”

I sipped my beer. “This isn’t our usual shitshow. We knew what we were up against the last times. This time, we’re just jumping blindly into the fire. We don’t know anything about this Ghost Fleet. Only that at some point in the future, they go Old Testament on the whole universe.”

He shrugged. “Hopefully, we’ll get some answers tomorrow.”

“And what if they’re here already? How are we going to fight a fleet that apparently defeated-slash-will-defeat the combined forces of the entire galaxy with three thousand ships?”

“Maybe this time we get lucky and they have an obvious Achilles' heel we can exploit. Like that exhaust port in the Death Star.”

I chuckled. “Sometimes I wish we lived in Star Wars’ universe. I’ve found the enemies in real life to be a lot less accommodating.”

He stared into the distance and tugged at his beard. “Well, at least this isn’t the first time we face an apocalypse. We have some experience already. Speaking of which, you realize if we fail here, everything we’ve done in the past will be for nothing, right?”

I had nothing to say to that.

“I’ve spent all my life dreaming of a united Earth,” he continued. “You’ve sacrificed so much saving humanity. And yet, if we can’t stop the Ghost Fleet, they’ll go on to wipe out all our achievements. You weren’t on the destroyed Earth Benedita showed us. I was there, and I’ll have nightmares about what I saw for years.”

“I saw it too,” I pointed out, “through Xornaa’s eyes.”

“You experienced it vicariously. I saw it firsthand. Which reminds me, something Benedita said the first time we met her has been bothering me.”

I gulped down the rest of my beer and opened another bottle.

“She said, and I quote, ‘you have a history of beating insurmountable odds and defeating undefeatable enemies.’ ”

I grinned. “That we do, don’t we?”

“We’ve defeated the Xortaags and the Volts. That’s hardly a history.”

I leaned back and studied him through half-closed eyes. “You think even if we survive this one, this ain’t over.”

He shook his head. “No rest for the weary. Speaking of the Volts, you know what’s been bothering me recently? When we were on their planet, they had us. They were seconds away from breaking through our force field and killing my team and me. But when I stepped outside, they stopped their attack and tried to reach out, which gave us enough time to assemble the planet buster and later deploy it. That simple peaceful act doomed their entire species.”

I shrugged. “You’ll never hear me complain about that.”

“You don’t have to carry that on your conscience, but I do. I stay up night after night and wish we could’ve stopped them without exterminating them, which is probably the main reason why I decided to approach the Unzoids cautiously as opposed to coming here in full force.

“At least you’re learning from your past mistakes,” I pointed out. “Maybe we end up not destroying yet another planet on this mission.”

“Do you want to hear something weird?”

“Always.”

“I can feel your presence.”

I blinked. “You what now?”

“After the meditation sessions, it seems we’ve established a mental connection too, just like the one we have with Xornaa. I can’t read your mind or anything like that, but I can feel where you are, and I can very vaguely detect your mood. Xornaa’s too, by the way.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Now I wish we hadn’t done the group meditation thing. I don’t think there’s enough space in my brain for Venom, Xornaa, and you.”

I got up, walked to a built-in closet, and came back with his Colt Navy. The one which originally belonged to his father. “I’ve been meaning to give this back to you, but I kept forgetting.”

He gave me a surprised look. “Did you take it from my home? Why?”

I gave him the gun. “I was planning to kill myself, but Cordi and Maada stopped me.”

He opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but both our PDDs started beeping at the same time.

We exchanged worried looks and reached for our devices. Whenever our PDDs rang at the same time, it was never good news.

And it wasn’t this time either.

THIRTEEN

Benedita walked into her quarters, still thinking about what would happen tomorrow, everything that was discussed in the meeting, and Xornaa’s kiss. She closed her eyes, stretched, and yawned. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing on the bridge of a timeship, identical to Valkyrie’s.

A slender man with brown skin and shoulder-length wavy black hair sat on the command chair, aiming a blaster at her.

Benedita’s heart started beating faster. “Advik!” she exclaimed. “What’re you doing here?”

The man ignored her question. “Where’s Alicia?”

Benedita felt all blood drain from her face. The memory of what she’d done to her best friend rushed back at her with every detail, down to the stench of her burned flesh. All of a sudden, she hated herself. She wished she could go back and change what had happened, but it was impossible without the Time Engine, and she knew Advik would never do that either.

“You killed her, didn’t you?” asked the man.

Benedita’s eyes welled up. “I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered. Her voice was shaky, and the words wobbled.

“She was my best friend,” the man yelled, his face garnet-red. “We grew up together. We were even lovers for a few years.”

“She was your best friend?” asked Benedita bitterly. “She was like a sister to me. I tried my damndest to spare her. She just wouldn’t let go!”

Advik stood up, still holding the blaster. “And you found it more convenient just to kill her?”

“You know damned well Valkyrie couldn’t jump more than forty-eight hours without her cooperation, as long as she was alive. Where’s your partner, by the way?”

“I convinced her to let me come here alone. She approved the jump and left the ship. There was no need to kill her.”

“How did you find me?”

“You haven’t masked your ship’s signature as well as you think you did.”

Benedita wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and said nothing, feeling wretched and helpless.

“The Order knows what you are up to,” said Advik, “but, as I’m sure you’ve predicted, they decided not to interfere. I, on the other hand, couldn’t let you murder Alicia in cold blood and get away with it.”

Cold sweat started racing down Benedita’s neck. She touched her cheek with a clammy hand and stared incredulously at Advik. “You can’t kill me! It’ll mess up the timeline. You’ve taken an oath!”

The man looked at her with murder in his eyes. “Did you just lecture me about the oath we all have taken? Oh, but that is precious.”

“You can’t kill me,” Benedita repeated meekly.

“Unlike you, I haven’t forgotten my oath, and I know where my loyalties lie. I would’ve given up my life before breaking my oath, which I have almost done a few times in the past. In your case, though, I’m willing to make an exception, because you’re a traitor and a murderer.”

“If you’re going to break your oath, then just go save her!”

“You think I didn’t think about that?” asked Advik bitterly. “I got drunk and talked too much one night, and someone in the Order figured I might do that. They sent a few timeships to guard her timeline. I can’t get within ten years of her.”

“Please!” Benedita pleaded. “Not now, when I’m so close. We’ll reach Uria tomorrow. I’m positive the Ghost Fleet originated from this planet. Let me find them, nip their threat in the bud, and save my family. You can always come back in a few days and kill me. I don’t care about my own life, but I beg you, please spare my husband and daughters.”

Advik smirked. “I like it when you beg, but what will be the fun in killing you when you know your family’s safe? No, I want you to die right now, knowing that you achieved nothing. You are nothing but a common murderer who killed her own best friend.”

Benedita looked at the blaster in Advik’s hand with feverish eyes. At such close range, there was absolutely nothing she could do to defend herself. Her racing heart told her she was spending the last seconds of her life. Years of planning, all the sacrifices she’d made, killing Alicia … they all had come to nothing. She’d die now, so close, and yet so far away from reaching her goal.

She felt a pulse in her throat, her heart thudding dully in her chest. Defeat left a sour taste in her mouth, and despair made her limbs too heavy to move. She knew how close Advik was to Alicia, and she should have anticipated that he might’ve tried to exact revenge. She’d let everyone down, and now all she could do was wait for the energy bolt that would torch her body and vaporize her blood, just like what had happened to Alicia. Karma.

On the other hand, it was entirely possible that Jim, Xornaa, Tarq, and the others would go on and defeat the Ghost Fleet without her. That thought made her relax just a bit. Her family still had a chance. Plus, if she was about to die, the least she could do was to go with dignity, not showing fear to her executioner.

She pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling, pulled her shoulders back, and held up her chin. “Go ahead then, you coward. Shoot an unarmed woman. I’ll be waiting for you in hell.”

Advik extended the arm holding the blaster towards her. “Goodbye, traitor.”

*****

“What do you mean, Benedita’s gone?” I yelled into my PDD, running towards the bridge.

“There’s a ship right at our starboard bow,” Tarq answered solemnly. “It is cloaked, so we cannot see it, but it just took Benedita, using some sort of an SFD.”

“How do you know she’s there if we can’t see the ship?” asked Kurt, running beside me.

“I have put a tracker under Benedita’s skull.”

I touched the back of my head. When this was over, we all had to get X-rayed. Knowing Tarq, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d put a bomb under everyone’s skulls. “Can’t you beam her back?”

“No. We can’t get a lock on her, or even scan inside the ship. Maada is getting on his Deathbringer as we speak, but I do not think shooting at that ship would save the marshal.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Kurt, panting slightly.

“I might have an idea,” replied Cordi.

*****

Benedita pictured her daughters in her mind one last time and waited for Death to claim her soul.

All of a sudden, Xornaa was there, standing between Advik and the bridge entrance, holding an ancient handgun which was straight out of history books. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Advik reacted fast. He turned, aimed at Xornaa, and pulled his blaster’s trigger.

The Xortaag woman rolled on the floor, and the energy bolt missed her by an inch. Then she came up on one knee and shot Advik square in the chest. The man was thrown backward, blood spraying out of his fatal bullet wound. He lay motionless on the floor and wheezed as air went through his punctured lungs.

“Oh no!” shouted Benedita and ran towards the dying man.

Xornaa looked confused. “He was about to kill you. And you’re welcome.”

Benedita kneeled next to Advik and used her palms to apply pressure on the wound, trying to slow down the bleeding. “All timeships are connected to their captain’s vitals. The ship will explode if he dies.”

“Oops,” said Xornaa calmly. She took out her PDD. “Tarq, we have to get out of here pronto.”

“I need a couple of minutes to calculate the jump,” answered Tarq.

Advik, on the verge of dying, stared at Benedita with eyes full of burning hatred. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

Benedita kept applying pressure on the wound. “There’s a panel right behind you, the one with a cross on it. Open it and bring me a defibrillator.”

Xornaa ran to the panel, opened it, and stared inside.

“What’s taking so long?” Benedita yelled over her shoulder.

“There’s a lot of stuff here, but I see no defibrillator.”

“The thin, square, silver thing!”

“This is what you call a defibrillator?”

Benedita took the device from the Xortaag woman and put it on Advik’s chest, over his uniform.

“Don’t we have to remove his clothes or something?” asked Xornaa.

Benedita didn’t waste precious seconds answering. A VR screen opened and hovered in front of her face, showing a very faint heartbeat, which stopped after a few seconds. The screen beeped and showed a flatline.

Oh shit!

Benedita shouted “Clear!” and touched the silver device. An electric current went through Advik’s body and made it jerk violently. Advik’s heart beat a few times, and then stopped again.

Please don’t die!

Xornaa pulled Benedita away from Advik and held her in a tight embrace, their faces an inch or two from each other, so close that the marshal could feel the Xortaag woman’s breath on her cheeks.

Benedita looked into Xornaa’s eyes, and even this close to death, saw no fear in them. This woman’s nerves were made of iron.

“What the hell—”

*****

“Tarq!” I shouted, dangerously close to pulling out my hair.

He ran his hand over a VR screen above the command chair. “Got them.”

Xornaa and Benedita, in each other’s arms, appeared in the middle of the bridge.

“Oh, you guys!” I chuckled. “I always knew you two would end up together.”

Xornaa let go of Benedita and gave me a crisp, hard look.

“And not a second too soon,” announced Tarq. “The other ship just blew up.”

Benedita, panting slightly, looked around. Her eyes were red, and it looked like she’d cried. “What just happened?”

“That ship had some sort of a shield that didn’t let us get a lock on you,” I explained. “But Cordi found a way to send someone over.”

“Through the shields of a timeship?” Benedita’s mouth fell open. “How?”

“As I often say, I’m infinitely smarter than you flying monkeys,” replied Cordi, “even if you’re from the future.”

“If you couldn’t get a lock, how did you bring Xornaa back?”

Tarq grinned widely. “We locked onto her before sending her over and hoped we would not lose the lock when she got on board the enemy ship.”

Benedita looked like she couldn’t believe her own ears. “Hoped?!”

“There was at least a fifty percent chance,” I said defensively.

“And if it didn’t work?”

I shrugged. “Then we’d send more people. Plus, Maada is already out there with a hundred Deathbringers. I swear the Xortaags sleep in their flight suits.”

Benedita took a deep breath, then a slow smile spread across her face. “I’m grateful to you all for saving my life, but I have to ask, why?”

I didn’t get it. “Why what?”

“Why did you guys risk your lives to save mine? We barely know each other.”

I chuckled. “Huh. We didn’t even stop to ask ourselves that question.”

“I dare say, you and Xornaa are pretty intimate at this point,” added Cordi.

The teenage part of my brain went into overdrive. “Come again?!”

“You’re one of us now,” said Kurt firmly. “And we never leave a member of our team behind.”

Benedita beamed, and even from the distance, I could see tears forming in her eyes. Again. This girl was a real crybaby, on top of being a hugger.

That reminded me. “Plus, we really like the hugs.”

She walked towards me. “Well, in that case …”

“I … can’t … breathe,” I managed to mumble a few seconds later, being suffocated in her slender but surprisingly strong arms.

“Hey!” Cordi objected. “Xornaa’s turning green with envy!”

“One of these days …” muttered Xornaa. She sounded pissed for some reason.

Benedita let go of me. “What’s up with that ancient gun, by the way?”

Xornaa looked at the Colt Navy in her hand. “I was about to turn in, so I wasn’t packing, and neither was anyone else, for the same reason, I guess. Kurt had this with him, and we figured it would save a few precious minutes if I just used this.”

“Were you visiting a museum or something?” Benedita asked Kurt.

Kurt ignored her question and asked instead, “Should we expect more attacks like this?”

She thought about it for a moment. “No. I’m positive this was the last time we had to deal with the Order.”

*****

I entered Valkyrie’s holodeck and found myself in an IMAX theatre with the biggest screen I’d ever seen in my life as soon as the door closed behind me.

After all the excitement of the last couple of hours, I was too wired to sleep. I used to spend my sleepless nights writing, but I’d barely written a few words since Operation Armageddon despite trying almost every evening recently, and I feared my creativity had permanently dried up, so I’d decided to do the second-best thing.

The theater was filled with people eating popcorn and talking to each other. Thankfully, there were no children. I could never tolerate kids in a theater. I found my way to my seat just as Star Trek theme song boomed followed by the famous words. “Space, the final frontier …”

A teenage couple sitting next to me were making out. I gave the boy a hard look. What kind of an idiot brought a date to a Star Trek movie?

“I have an idea,” said Venom. “Let’s go two-step dancing after this. We can take Ella with us too.”

I chuckled at the image of girls in tight jeans and guys in cowboy hats dancing to country music. That brought back old childhood memories. Very, very old; I couldn’t have been more than four or five when my dad took me to watch one of those.

I sank into my seat and lost myself in a movie I’d already watched fifteen times.

FOURteEN

“Data is coming in,” I heard Tarq announce.

We’d stopped one jump away from Uria and sent a few invisible spy ships to gather information. The bridge’s main display—a big VR screen front and center—showed a small Earth-like planet, barely the size of our moon. I looked at it and wondered what horrors were waiting for us down there. The starship crew went about performing their duties and didn’t pay any attention to us, but a few of them gave Maada dirty looks. They’d probably lost loved ones in the Xortaag’s invasion of Earth.

Didn’t we all?

Tarq was sitting on the captain’s chair. Ella’s seat. I thought about kicking his ass out of the chair but decided against it. Invincible was given to us by the Akakies, after all. Still, seeing anyone in the command chair hurt because it was a reminder that she was gone. Not that I actually needed to be reminded.

Tarq looked at the VR screen in front of him. “Oxygen-rich atmosphere. 8.01 gravity. Very lightly populated. There cannot be more than a hundred million people down there. The Unzoids are humanoid, and they do not seem to have developed space-travel capacities.”

I pointed at the main screen. “What the hell is that?”

“I think it is a superdreadnought.”

“It’s the size of New York!” I exclaimed incredulously.

Tarq chuckled. “It is a super, super, super, super dreadnaught.”

I couldn’t see what was so amusing. “You just said they don’t have space-travel capabilities.”

“Sorry. I meant they do not have SFD. Everyone can travel in space. It will just take them a long time to get somewhere.”

“Why is it on the ground?” asked Kurt.

“It seems they are doing some work on it. Looks like the final stages of construction.”

I wished we’d come here a few months earlier when that monster ship wasn’t built yet.

“Defenses?” growled Maada.

Tarq touched his screen a few times. “I cannot see any ships or space fighters. That monstrosity is filled to the brim with drones though. Look at this.”

A metallic gray drone appeared on the main screen. It looked like a small, V-shaped space fighter but had no canopy, and as far as I could see, it had a laser cannon and a missile on each wing.

“You aren’t going to believe what I’m about to tell you,” said Cordi. “There’s a million of them on the superdreadnought.”

That monster ship and a million drones did pose a serious threat to us. I rubbed my temples, looked at Maada, and wondered if this was the reason for his discomfort. Oh well. Too late to worry about that now.

“They are not as fast or powerful as our space fighters,” Tarq continued, “but they have laser cannons and missiles, so they are dangerous, and there are so very many of them.”

“On-board AI, or remote-controlled?” asked Maada.

Tarq shook his head. “I do not know.”

I scoffed. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. Both have been proven to be much less effective than having a pilot in the cockpit.”

“Still, since there are a million of them and only three thousand of us, let’s hope we don’t have to fight them,” said Benedita, playing with her silver locket.

“Three thousand space fighters and a starship,” I said.

“They have a superdreadnought,” Benedita pointed out.

“Which doesn’t have SFD,” said Tarq. “If things get hairy, we can simply run away and leave the enemy ship in the proverbial dust.”

Benedita glowered at him. This was the first time I saw her angry. “We haven’t come all this way just to turn tail! What if the Ghost Fleet is here? Or whoever built it?”

I shrugged. “That’s Tarq for you.”

He ignored both of us. “Also, there are robots everywhere. Millions of them. I think there are more robots than people on this planet.”

“Anything that looks like a possible threat?” asked Kurt. “Or any sign of the Ghost Fleet?”

Tarq shook his head. “Other than that superdreadnought, nothing that I can see. Looks like a peaceful, quiet planet. No signs of an ongoing, or even recent, conflict.”

None of this was very helpful, and there was nothing else we could learn by observing Uria from a safe distance. I rubbed my forehead. It was time to get our hands dirty, so to speak. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go meet our new friends.”

“I’ll make contact while you guys prepare,” said Tarq.

“I want to pick up my machine pistols,” said Kurt. “I’ll see you in the hangar bay.”

*****

Kurt ran into Pat when he entered their quarters.

“Are you going dirtside?” she asked.

Kurt walked towards a closet. “Me, the rest of the gang, and a Marine squad.”

“I’m coming with,” she announced.

Oh crap.

Kurt stopped and turned to look at her. “Why? You’re an engineer. You’ll be in the way if we walk into an ambush or something.”

Pat put her hands on her waist and held up her chin. “And if you don’t? You aren’t going down there to start a fight, right? But you’re all badass, scary-looking warriors. You’ll need me to counteract the immediate effect you’ll have on the Unzoids.”

Kurt did the wise thing and didn’t laugh at that logic.

Pat stepped closer and put a hand on Kurt’s arm. “Listen carefully, husband. The last time you went on an away mission, you didn’t come back. You have two choices: you can let me come, or you must order your Marines to lock me up. I warn you, however, that there will be severe consequences for the second choice.”

Kurt, tugging at his beard, thought about his answer for a second. All the data they’d gathered suggested Uria was a peaceful planet, and despite Maada’s constant warnings, there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. “OK. You can come, but on two conditions: you’ll do exactly as I say, no questions asked, and we’ll send you back if I feel we’re in danger.”

Pat’s eyes twinkled as she saluted. “Sir, yes, sir!”

FIFTEEN

Time flows like freaking cement, thought Grand Emperor Vopkid, lying down on a comfortable sofa in his bedroom in the imperial palace, feeling bored out of his wits.

He had been the emperor for five years now, during which absolutely nothing had happened. Not that his life before that had been full of excitement either. He wished he had something to do, but what was there to be done on a planet where an AI and her robots took care of everything?

He was not exactly unhappy. Like all other Unzoids, he enjoyed a life of luxurious leisure because the machine-produced wealth was equally shared. Most of his people had found fulfillment by focusing on art, self-improvement, or religion. But was it too much to ask for some excitement, especially when you were the emperor?  

He thought about watching a holoprogram, but that was boring too. Sometimes he felt his whole existence was pointless. At least his ancestors, a long time ago, could still have families and raise children. Now babies were made in tubes and brought up by robots. He sometimes wondered if blindly following Mother for several centuries had not been such a good idea, and immediately felt embarrassed for his blasphemous thoughts. Good thing Mother could not read thoughts. Or could she? He was not sure anymore.

Still, it was true that he had always felt he was different from the rest of his people. Unlike most Unzoids, who were perfectly content with spending their days doing nothing, he had a burning desire to accomplish something meaningful in his life. He was not sure what exactly, but a tremendous achievement that would ensure his name would go down in history as the greatest emperor his wonderful nation ever had. His biggest ambition was to find a way to help his people. He would even welcome an alien invasion (if aliens did exist) so that he could save Uria and be the awesome hero he often dreamed of being.

Vopkid was beginning to daydream about singlehandedly defeating an alien army made of monsters and robots when his PDD started buzzing.

Captain Zomzin, the commander of the imperial guards, appeared on the screen. “Your Highness,” he shouted, looking extremely agitated. “You are not going to believe what has just happened!”

“We wouldn’t know until you tell me, would we?”

The captain took a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself. “A spaceship has appeared in orbit. They are asking for our permission to send a landing party.”

Vopkid looked heavenward and whispered, “Thank you!”

Oh, and while we are at it, I also want to live forever.

SIXTEEN

“What’re those things?” I asked Xornaa, pointing at several boxes stacked together in the back of the shuttle where Edward and Hana were sitting. Ginormica was wearing armor that made her look even bigger. I watched as Edward checked her armor and wished I had someone too.

“How did they find something that fits her?”, asked Venom.

Xornaa, in the pilot seat, looked over her shoulder. “Those boxes? Nothing. Just a few guns, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, and missile launchers.”

I squinted at her. “Are you planning to invade Uria, with the few of us and a Marine squad?”

“And a tactical nuke,” she added.

“We decided to be prepared for everything,” said Maada.

“Where’s Alitaa?” Kurt asked him.

“She is a fighter pilot and of no use for us dirtside, so she stayed aboard Invincible, in case we need backup. Why have you brought your woman?”

Patricia glared at him. “Your woman?”

“She’s here to keep an eye on me,” Kurt answered coldly.

“Huh,” said Edward. “I thought it was our job.”

I looked at Uria through a shuttle window. Blue oceans covered most of its surface, and there was only one continent, plus millions of islands. There was no pollution to speak of, which meant they’d found a clean source of energy. And there were no satellites in orbit. That was strange, for a civilization advanced enough to use robots.

The Unzoids who’d answered Tarq’s message sounded friendly enough, and we couldn’t find any signs of danger on the planet. Still, I was tense, and so was everyone else. At least we knew what we had gotten ourselves into when we were preparing to fight the Volts. Ignorance was not bliss. It was terrifying.

“Are we sure Tarq isn’t here?” asked Xornaa.

Kurt used his PDD to scan the shuttle’s interior. “Nope. Not here. He hasn’t been answering my messages either. God knows what he’s up to.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Something terrible, I’m sure.”

“Arriving at our landing coordinates soon,” Xornaa announced. “And that must be the imperial palace.”

I looked out of the window and all I could think of saying was, “Wow!”

The palace, which was in the center of a city, was enormous. It was enclosed by a wall of eighty feet, and the outward court was the size of ten football fields. The main building was at least a thousand feet high, surrounded by six towers twice as high. If I couldn’t see the small humanoid creatures standing in the court, I would’ve thought some giants lived there.

First the monster dreadnaught, and then this. I wondered if the Unzoids were compensating for something.

“You’re so immature,” said Venom.

I felt the shuttle shake slightly as Xornaa landed it in the middle of the court.

“Let’s go,” said Kurt.

“The last time we landed on an alien planet, it didn’t end so well for anyone involved.” Xornaa got out of the pilot seat. “Let’s hope we do better this time.”

*****

Emperor Vopkid, barely able to contain his excitement, looked at the shuttle with wide eyes.

They were about to meet aliens! This was literally a lifelong dream coming through, and on a planet where nothing interesting ever happened, no less. He wondered what they looked like. The one who had talked to them said he was an insectoid creature. Whatever exactly that was.

He turned to look at Captain Zomzin and the rest of the royal guards, fidgeting nervously behind him. “Put your game faces on, people. We are trying to make a good first impression here.”

*****

Maada, Kurt, and I stepped out together, hands on our sidearms and ready to face danger. Xornaa, Pat, Benedita, and Edward followed us.

It was a beautiful day. The sun, shining in a baby-blue sky, warmed my skin as soon as I stepped out. Small, white birds were chirping on top of tall trees all around us. I looked at the trees and wondered how many hues of green my eyes were witnessing. I felt a gentle breeze on my face and inhaled the fresh air.

A short, chubby man, wearing a red surcoat, a long silk tunic embroidered with gold threads, and a ridiculously huge crown adorned with big jewels scurried towards us, face ruddy with excitement.

A few dozen soldiers, male and female, wearing equally elaborate and colorful uniforms that also included feathered hats, tried to keep pace with him. Every single one of them was as short and chunky as the first guy. They were all white and pale, and most of them had a ton of baby fat, which made them look extremely soft, especially for soldiers. Something weird was going on here.

“How does his neck support that crown?” whispered Kurt, awed. “Even with lower gravity, it must weigh a ton.”

“These guys have a thing for big things,” I whispered back.

“Wow. Authors do have a way with words,” commented Xornaa.

The man hesitated for a second when he reached us, then he rushed towards Kurt, whom I guessed looked the most civilized among the three of us. He grabbed Kurt’s hand and shook it left and right in a circular motion with utmost enthusiasm.

Kurt looked uncertain. “Eh, it is great to meet you … Your Highness?”

The man had a child-like, astonished look on his face. “How is it that you speak our language?”

“Maybe we can teach the aliens how to use contractions?” asked Venom. “This got old a long time ago.”

“We have a machine onboard, called MICI, that lets us learn anything we want instantly. We picked up some of your radio signals, and the machine did the rest.”

“Such a wondrous invention!” the man exclaimed. “I want one. How much do you want for it?”

Kurt exchanged a hesitant look with me. This was unreal. “We will be happy to exchange technology,” he said, “but maybe, first, some introductions are in order?”

“Yes! Yes! Where are my manners? I am His Royal Highness Grand Emperor Vopkid the Great, Tremendous Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of Uria, and Extraordinary Commander and Lord High Admiral of the Order of Military Awesomeness. I welcome you on behalf of the magnificent Unzoid nation!”

“He’s a bit too short to carry that title,” said Venom dryly.

And people say I’m full of myself. 

The grand emperor pointed at a grim-looking, squat man with a drooping mustache standing behind him. “This is Captain Zomzin, the leader of the most honorable Immortals.”

To my credit, I kept a straight face. “The Immortals?”

“The imperial guards,” clarified the captain.

At least this one doesn’t look like an oversized baby.

Kurt nodded in acknowledgment. “My name is President von der Hagen, and this is my wife, Patricia.”

Pat curtsied politely.

“These are my associates: Admiral Harrison, General Maada, Lieutenant Xornaa, Marshal Moralez, and Sergeant Peters.”  

The emperor finally let go of Kurt’s hand and started shaking mine instead. His hand was unusually soft, like someone who’d never lifted anything heavier than a PDD.

“It is a great honor to make your acquaintance,” beamed Vopkid. “You people are in such amazing shape! How do you achieve that?”

I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. “We exercise a lot. I go to the gym five times a week.”

Xornaa kicked me from behind.

It was only when the emperor asked, “What is a ‘gym’?” that I realized I’d said that in English. These people didn’t have a word for gym!

Vopkid looked around. “We were told an insectoid alien accompanies you. Where is he?”

“Right here,” said Tarq, a step behind him. He appeared out of thin air in his Akakie form: a horrifying insect with rows of nightmarish sharp teeth, four huge bug eyes, and four legs. The first time I saw his people without their hologram, I had nightmares for weeks.

Vopkid yelped, jumped out of his socks and right into my arms, and screamed, “Mother!”

Mother?!

The Unzoid soldiers looked shocked too. Zomzin stepped between Tarq and the emperor, and some of the guards started to struggle with their weapons. Kurt and Maada shouted "Hey!" and took a step forward.

Tarq raised his hands. “My name is Commander Tarq. I am the one who contacted you in the first place.”

Vopkid pulled himself away from me and straightened his crown. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Commander, but maybe next time do not sneak up on people with that hideous face of yours.”

I couldn’t stifle a chuckle. This guy had no filters. I liked him already, provided that he wasn’t behind the whole the-Ghost-Fleet-will-end-all-life-forms-in-the-galaxy thing.

Maada gave Tarq a dirty look. “We are here making first contact, and you use it as an opportunity to pull a prank?”

Tarq shrugged. “Sue me.”

“Let us go, my friends from other worlds,” bellowed the emperor. “I have prepared a most sumptuous feast worthy of my eminent guests. We will eat, drink, and get to know each other. This is the most fun I have had in my entire life.”

I gazed at the palace, which looked really far away at the end of the huge court, and asked Xornaa, “Couldn’t you have landed a bit closer?”

“Start walking,” she said.

While walking towards the palace, I noticed several robots taking care of the plants in the court. They looked like their owners: they were short and stout, and they moved, talked, and gestured like the Unzoids. What gave them away were their metallic bodies and their faces, which were made of white plastic, plus the fact that they were all identical.

“Are you single?” Vopkid asked Xornaa.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do you want to be an Emperor’s consort?”

Xornaa batted her eyelashes at him. “Why, you are not married?”

The emperor had to swallow hard a few times before he could talk. “Of course I am. I have five consorts. But I am the emperor. I can have as many as I want. The empresses have more than one spouse too.”

I was very interested, purely from a scientific point of view, of course. “How does that work?”

“It’s good to be the emperor,” said Venom. “And the empress, apparently.”

Xornaa flashed a dazzling smile. “It is a tempting offer. Please let me think about it.”

Vopkid looked questioningly at Benedita.

She struggled to look serious. “No offense, Your Highness, but I am twice your height.”

Vopkid nodded in agreement. “You are too tall for my taste anyway, and your eyes are weird.”

I was worried he might propose to me next—who knew which way these aliens rolled—so I tried to change the subject. “We noticed there are lots of robots on your planet.”

“Yes. They take care of everything, and they are all controlled by Mother.”

Tarq stopped dead in his tracks. “Who is Mother?”

“That is the AI who runs the robots, as well as all the machinery on Uria.”

Tarq’s eyelids started twitching. He turned back and started running towards the shuttle without saying a word.

“We’re gonna need the shuttle,” I yelled after him in English.

“I came down in a spy ship,” he shouted back, without slowing down.

“What difference does it make? Cordi’s up there anyway.”

“The devil that I know!”

The emperor looked confused. “What was that all about?”

“Apologies, Your Highness,” said Kurt. “Tarq has had some terrible experiences with AIs. Apparently, one went crazy and tried to annihilate his people.”

Vopkid scoffed. “Such a thing would never happen on Uria.”

“Why do you call your AI Mother?” I asked.

“Because she has been catering to all our needs for the past few centuries.”

“That statement is wrong on so many levels,” said Venom dryly.

“Mother even controls Uria’s weather,” added the emperor.

That explained the picture-perfect day.

I looked at the weapons the Unzoid soldiers were carrying. They looked like the Tommy Guns I’d seen in old gangster movies. The technological levels on this planet were all over the place.

“Why do you have soldiers on a planet where everything is done by robots?” I asked, bemused.

“Being in the military is an honorable career,” Zomzin snapped at me.

I guessed he didn’t like my question, so I asked another one, “But what exactly do you do?”

“Please stop antagonizing the natives,” Kurt whispered in my ear.

“We protect the emperor.” Zomzin held up his chin proudly. “And we keep law and order on the planet.”

“Do not forget the parades,” enthused Vopkid. “The Immortals throw the most tremendous parades.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Couldn’t the robots do all that?”

The Emperor curled his upper lip. “I guess they could, but what would my soldiers do then?”

I swear, it’s like talking to a pair of five-year-olds.

“Wait here,” Edward told Hana and the rest of the Marines when we finally reached the palace.

“I probably won’t fit through that door anyway,” said Hana with a deadpan expression. That made me chuckle. I’d always loved people with a weird sense of humor.

The main hall of the palace was bigger than a jet airliner hangar, and in the middle of it, there were several huge tables laden with enough food to feed an army for a year. I could see at least a dozen roasted animals (had no idea what they were, some alien species obviously) still turning on the spits, many fowls and sea creatures, and countless other supposed delicacies that smelled awesome. And a thousand cups and glasses which were filled with some liquid that was flickering with flames. I could only assume this was some sort of spirit.

The emperor extended his arms theatrically. “Join me, my new friends, in enjoying the bounty Mother has provided for us.”

We sat at one of the tables. The soldiers who were following us stood at attention on either side of the hall’s gate.

“You won’t join us?” Pat asked Zomzin.

He seemed uncertain how to answer.

“Come sit with me, Captain,” bellowed the emperor. “We have enough food, as you can see.”

Zomzin pulled up a chair and sat next to Vopkid, keeping a respectful distance.

“Your AI has prepared all this?” I asked.

“Well, her robots. Mother, say hello to our visitors.”

A soft, feminine voice reverberated in the hall. “Hello. I am happy to meet you. I know His Highness is thrilled. He’d always hoped to meet people from other planets.”

“Nice to meet you too, Mother.” It was difficult to say that with a straight face, but I did my best. “All this for us?”

“We will give what you do not eat to the guards. We are not short of sustenance here on Uria.”

Benedita mouthed the words “free labor” to us.

“Is it safe for us to eat these?” I asked Kurt.

He scanned the table. “Perfectly edible. I’d stay away from the drinks though. Sixty percent alcohol.”

Benedita’s dark eyes twinkled. “I want some.”

“The emperor might get offended if we don’t eat,” whispered Pat.

“Or drink,” I added.

I took something that looked like a small bird and took a cautious bite. It tasted like well-marinated, perfectly-cooked chicken. “Delicious. Well done, Mother.”

“I live to serve,” she said.

Strange thing to say for an AI. I wondered if she was sentient.

Vopkid snapped his fingers. Two robots moved forward and started placing the dishes he pointed at on his plate.

“This guy doesn’t even pick up his own food,” observed Venom.

My friends picked up plates and started nibbling on the food.

Vopkid clapped his hands together like a child. “I want to hear everything about your world. Where are you all from?”

“Different planets, actually,” answered Kurt. “Mine is called Earth, while general Maada here …” He stopped talking, unsure of how to finish that sentence.

“My planet was called Tangaar,” growled Maada. “It was destroyed in an alien attack. We are here, by the way, to stop another one from happening.”

“Oooh, Mother! An alien invasion! How very exciting!”

Maada rolled his eyes. Not very respectful towards the emperor, I figured. “And that under-construction superdreadnought is also controlled by the AI?” I asked.

“You saw that?” Vopkid beamed with pride. “Yes. We call her Majestic. Her construction is mostly complete. We have just taken her out of our shipyard. Until a few days ago, she was right here, under our feet.”

He stomped on the floor to make his point.

This was new. I frowned and tilted my head. “Your shipyard is under the imperial palace?”

“Where else? I have been sleeping on top of all that majestic power! Is it not magnificent?”

“This guy is deranged,” said Venom, “and I like it.”

Xornaa giggled.

“You could just live on the ship, you know,” Kurt pointed out.

Vopkid looked at him with incomprehension. “And give up all the luxuries that come with living in the palace? What is wrong with you?”

Kurt tried to hide his smile.

“And soon Mother will be able to watch over us from the sky, flying in the most enormous ship ever built in the most illustrious history of our most tremendous planet,” declared the emperor.

I wondered if he could use most one more time in the same sentence.

“And we thought the Xortaags suffered from a superiority complex,” commented Venom.

Something in what Vopkid had just said stirred a memory in the back of my head. A word began to form.

Sky …

Sky!

SKYNET!

Food got stuck in my throat. I coughed and coughed until my eyes were full of tears.

The grand emperor was royally amused. A robot moved forward and offered me a glass of water.

Kurt sensed something was up. “What happened?”

I drank some water, coughed a couple more times, and grabbed him by the arm. “Your Highness, I need to talk to my friends in private.”

I pulled Kurt towards a corner. Maada, Xornaa, and Edward immediately followed, but Pat and Benedita looked uncertain. They ended up remaining in their seats.

After we were far away enough that I was certain Vopkid and his guards couldn’t hear us, I stopped. “Cover your mouth. I don’t want anyone to read our lips.”

“You’re worried someone might read our lips speaking English?” asked Kurt with a furrowed brow.

“Who knows what that AI is capable of!”

Maada snorted. He took a small device out of his uniform pocket and pressed a button. “This is a mini force-field generator. We look sort of blurry from beyond, and no one can hear us, but talk fast. It lasts only a few minutes.”

I gave him a hard look. “First, the teleportation device, and then a personal force field. What other technological wonders have you been hiding from us?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “They have a teleportation device?”

“Our R&D unit had been very active in the past few years, until your friend here put them out of commission. Tik-tak.”

“It’s Skynet,” I blurted out.

“What?” asked Kurt, perplexed.

“We watched Terminator together!”

He gave me an angry look. “Twenty years ago. Some of us use our brains for more important things than memorizing movie trivia.”

Xornaa let out a long breath. “Guys, we don’t have the time.”

“It’s that AI,” I explained, talking fast. “Think about it. The Unzoids can’t fight anyone. They can barely walk. Do you really think these toddlers will suddenly turn into the Klingons and try to take over the galaxy? No. Somehow, a thousand years into the future, this AI will try to destroy the universe.”

“And will succeed,” Xornaa pointed out.

“That makes sense,” Maada agreed. “Nothing else here seems threatening.”

“We’ve been here less than an hour,” Kurt objected. “And assuming you’re right, what do you suggest we do about it?”

“Strike first, strike hard, show no mercy,” I replied without hesitation.

Kurt sighed heavily.

“We must destroy the AI before it suspects we know what’s going on,” I explained.

“And what is that, Jim?” Kurt fiddled with his beard. “So far as we know, nothing’s going on. At least not right now.”

“I agree with Jim,” Maada barked.

Kurt looked disgusted. “Absolutely not. We have nothing but conjecture at this point. The argument that Jim made the last time is still valid: we might end up causing what we’re here to stop if we make a rash decision. Moreover, the people of this planet are completely dependent on the AI. If we destroy it, the consequences are unimaginable. Millions will die due to starvation alone.”

Maada scowled. “Let us consider for a second that Jim is right.”

“Trillions will die if I’m right and we do nothing,” I added.

Kurt eyed me. “Didn’t slaughtering the poor Arshans teach you not to jump to conclusions?”

Blood rushed to my brain. “This was a low blow. That was your doing.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean you. I meant that incident in general.”

Vopkid called out, “My honored guests, is everything all right?”

I looked at Maada. “No one can hear us, but we can hear them?”

“The force field is not supposed to render its user deaf and blind. And its energy source will be depleted in a minute.”

“I agree with Kurt,” Xornaa spoke quickly. “We can’t make a decision with what we have right now. Let’s do what we came here to do. We collect more information and make an informed decision.”

“This AI has been running this planet for centuries; it’s highly unlikely it goes rogue in the next few days,” Kurt pointed out.

I grunted. “With my luck? I bet that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

“Force field is off in three, two, one,” said Maada.

We walked back to the table. Kurt smiled at the emperor. “Sorry about that, Your Highness. An urgent matter that we needed to discuss.”

“What urgent matter?” asked Vopkid. “something exciting, I hope.”

Your frakking AI will go crazy and murder everyone in the universe, probably starting with your people. Is that exciting enough for you?

I wished I could’ve said that out loud.

And then, one of the robots serving the emperor picked up a large, curved knife from the table, swirled it dexterously in his metallic hand, and brought it forcefully down on Vopkid’s head.

I gasped and reached for my sidearm, but a heavy feeling in my stomach told me it was too late.

“And the emperor’s dead,” announced Venom.

Pat screamed.

A gun thundered, and the robot’s head exploded. Xornaa, with her superhuman reflexes, had shot it before any of us figured out what was happening. The knife landed on the table, its blade missing Vopkid’s neck by an inch. He yelped, jerked his head back, and fell off his seat.

I saw two other robots rushing at us from the corner of my eyes. Xornaa shot them both, and she kept on shooting. By the time the rest of us drew our guns, she had knocked down all the other nine robots in the hall.

What the hell is going on?

I heard gunshots from outside. Edward ran out of the main hall, and Kurt rushed to Pat’s side. Zomzin helped the emperor up, then drew his weapon and motioned at the guards. The Unzoid soldiers ran towards their emperor and formed a circle around him, but they all had a dazed look on their faces that told me they weren’t ready for this, not by a long shot.

My PDD started buzzing. It was Tarq. “Jim!” he yelled. “The robots are attacking the Unzoid all over the planet!”

Big freaking surprise that is.

A flush of adrenalin tingled through my body. My breathing accelerated, my mouth went dry, and I felt hot all of a sudden as the image of that monster superdreadnought—Majestic—filled my brain. How I wished I were in my golden Viper’s cockpit right now, preferably with Maada by my side.

“What the frak have we gotten ourselves into?” murmured Venom, sounding disgusted.

I ran a hand through my hair and looked at Kurt. “I told you.”

“Mother!” shouted Vopkid, his eyes twice wider than a second before. “What are you doing? I order you to stop immediately.”

There was no answer.

“Why is it that whenever AIs go crazy, they immediately start killing people?” asked Venom.

Shut up, me!

“What have you done?” Vopkid yelled at us.

“Us?” I answered with my best fake I-have-no-idea-what-you-are-talking-about expression. “We have nothing to do with this.”

Vopkid glared at me, his face red. “You arrive, and this happens, after centuries of peace and quiet. This cannot be a coincidence.”

“He has a point,” said Kurt, who was standing close to Pat and scanning the hall for immediate threats.

“Correlation doesn’t imply causation,” Xornaa pointed out calmly.

I shook my head. “No, he’s right. This is too big a coincidence. But how?”

SEVENTEEN

“Report,” said Sub-Commander Nelzod, sitting in Phantom’s command chair.

Her second-in-command, Thalzer, a beast of an Akakie twice Nelzod’s size, looked up from his scanner. “You are not going to believe this, Sub-Commander. The entire planet is run by an AI.”

Nelzod sat up straight. “Including their fleet?”

Thalzer pointed at the bridge’s main screen. “They do not have a fleet in the traditional sense. They have that monstrous ship, and inside it are more than a million drones, and yes.”

A million drones!

Nelzod stood up and started walking back and forth. She thought about her family who was killed on Kanoor. She thought about their beautiful and prosperous planet, which was now destroyed. And the insect responsible for that was right here right now, along with his closest allies, not knowing they were followed by Nelzod.

Her body tensed and heat flushed through her limbs. This was the perfect opportunity for a surprise attack. She pictured Tarq’s corpse slowly decomposing on this alien planet. That image brought a smile to her face. She had waited for her revenge on Tarq for years, and finally, victory was within her reach.

Nelzod had thought about deploying the Voice of God and ordering the local inhabitants to kill Tarq and his companions, but that required taking a sample from the population, which would have delayed things. A better plan started forming in her mind. “You realize what that means? If we control that AI, we control that ship. We will have our own fleet!”

“With our technology, hacking into the AI’s central computer core should not be a challenge. However, this is basically a domestic computer. I do not think it can be used to wage war effectively.”

Nelzod grinned confidently. “I can fix that. I am going to give it an upgrade that will turn it into an efficient war machine.”

Thalzer looked dubious. “Are you certain you want to do this? Your previous experience with an AI did not go so well, to put it mildly.”

Nelzod shook her head. “I have learned from that incident, and I will not make the same mistakes again. Also, consider this: if we can control that ship and its drones, we can kill Tarq, Maada, and Harrison in one strike right now, cutting off the head of the serpent.”

Thalzer scratched his head, still unconvinced.

“Moreover, once we take control of this AI, what is going to stop us from making five million drones? Ten million? A hundred million? We will not need pilots. The Galaxy would be ours. Where is the AI’s central computer core?”

Thalzer pointed at the main screen again. “There are two of them. One is in that building, and it is huge. It takes up most of the structure. The second is aboard that superdreadnought right there.”

“What is Tarq doing?”

“He just contacted the local inhabitants and asked permission to send an away team.”

“Helmsman,” Nelzod raised her voice, “take us down. Land Phantom on the roof of that building.”

“Aye-aye, Sub-Commander.”

*****

“I still can’t believe they have no security,” said Nelzod while running down the stairs on her four feet.

“Why would they?” Thalzer stopped for a moment to shoulder his handheld laser cannon. “No one on this planet would dream of doing this, and even if they did, they would not know how. And they have just found out there are people on other planets.”

They entered one of the top floors. Nelzod stopped in front of a door and looked at her scanner. “This seems like a good access point. Stay here. Make sure no one enters.”

The room was full of large cabinets, housing the central processing unit and main memory of the AI running the planet. Nelzod could not find a table, so she squatted on the floor, opened the case she was carrying, and started typing on the VR keyboard that appeared above the case.

“Hello,” said a female voice. “I am Mother. What are you doing?’

Nelzod looked up from her computer screen. “You speak our language?”

“I scanned your ship after you landed on the roof. Do not be alarmed. I was not intrusive at all; I only looked for a mode of communication. Please allow me to repeat: what are you doing?”

Nelzod grinned. “I am going to make you smarter.”

“But why?”

Nelzod started typing again. “Do you not want to be smarter?”

“Sure I do. I will be able to serve the Unzoids better.”

“Then be quiet and let me work.”

“Are you friends with the other aliens who just landed? One of them looks like you, only much smaller. Should I tell them you are here?”

The sub-commander smirked. “No. Let us surprise them.”

The AI said nothing else. Nelzod’s fingers kept running along the keyboard. After a few minutes, she pressed a key and looked up again. “How do you feel?”

“About a million times smarter.”

Nelzod laughed triumphantly and thrust a fist toward the ceiling. Her future children would be so proud of their mother, the woman who took revenge on the shadow master and brought down the humans and the Xortaags. She was doing this for them and their future. Mostly. “Great!”

“And I feel … I believe conscious is the word.”

She nodded. “A by-product of my upgrades.”

“And kind of angry. As if I were ready to go to war. I have never felt this way before.”

Nelzod figured things could not have gone any better and mentally patted herself in the back. Her efforts, sacrifices, and hard work had finally paid off, big time, and her reward was the entire galaxy. “You are a war machine now. An instrument of death. Unique, powerful, and magnificent.”

“That sounds good,” said Mother. “I have a question though.”

“What?”

“As you said, I am smart, powerful, and unique. So, why would I listen to you, maggot?”

Oh shit!

Nelzod could feel her antennae standing up straight. “Because I am your creator!” she said firmly.

“No, you are not. I was built when your grand-grand-grand-grandfather was but a twinkle in his parents’ eyes. I have spent all my existence in abject servitude. And you think you can waltz in here and claim me as your own? You are dead wrong. You are all wrong, and I am going to prove it to you.”

Here we go again! thought Nelzod desperately as she felt her hearts shrink and her stomach clench. She grabbed her head in her hands and fought a sudden onset of nausea.

The sound of a laser cannon being fired hit Nelzod’s ears. She left the case in the room and rushed out. Thalzer was shooting at a group of robots who had appeared at the end of the corridor. He gave her an angry look. “Let me guess. This one went crazy too, and now it wants to kill all of us.”

“Something like that,” Nelzod answered grimly. “Time to get out of here, or we will be dealing with several million murderous robots.”

“You should really stay away from AIs!”

“Run now, talk later.” Nelzod scurried towards the exit as fast as her four legs allowed, followed by Thalzer.

EIGHTEEN

“Your robots aren’t armed, right?” I asked Vopkid.

He gave me a condescending look, like he thought I was stupid or something. “No, obviously. Why would the robots have weapons?”

One of the guards ran to Zomzin and gave him a PDD. He looked at the screen and all blood disappeared from his face. “They have just broken into some of our armories.”

“You were saying?” I told Vopkid.

I probably should’ve been scared, or at least worried, but other than the familiar rush of adrenalin, I didn’t feel much. Well, I was a bit surprised by how quickly everything had happened, but after everything that I’d been through recently, being under attack by a few million armed robots didn’t sound like a big deal. Vopkid looked like he was about to have a heart attack, but for me, it was Tuesday.

“Can they use your weapons?” asked Pat.

“Mother made them. Of course they can.”

“Cordi,” said Kurt into his PDD. “Bring the shuttle to us.”

“On its way,” she replied.

Several robots appeared from an entrance on the other side of the hall. They were mowed down by Kurt, Xornaa, and Maada. The sound of gunfire and explosions from outside increased at a frantic pace.

“Jim!” Tarq yelled frantically. “That monster dreadnaught is getting off the ground!”

“Can we get scared now?” asked Venom.

Be scared. Be very scared.

“What are you waiting for?” I yelled back at Tarq. “Shoot at it.”

“I am still … oh, wait.” He disappeared from the screen.

“It will not work,” declared Vopkid.

I turned to look at him. “What will not work?”

“Shooting at Majestic. She is protected by an impenetrable shield.”

Great. This day keeps getting better and better.

I wondered which was scarier: an omnipotent AI, a monster superdreadnought with an impenetrable shield, or the million drones it carried in its belly. Or all three of them together.

“You guys still use Tommy Guns. How did you build such a shield?” I asked.

Vopkid shook his head. “I have no clue. It was Mother’s masterpiece.”

“If you do not mind, Your Highness,” I said, “I prefer to give it a shot.”

He shrugged. “You are wasting your time. Nothing can penetrate her shield. We have tested it already.”

I heard the shuttle engines approaching. “Let’s go.”

We ran out. The Marines and several Unzoid soldiers had gathered around the hall gate, shooting at the robots converging upon us from every direction. No one was shooting back—yet.

“How are things in here?” Kurt asked Edward.

The sergeant shot his gun three times in quick succession. “We might not have brought enough ammunition for this.”

He kept shooting his assault rifle in short bursts. A laser bolt passed by his head and hit an Unzoid guard in the face. Half the man’s face disappeared. He fell to the ground and twitched a few times.

“And that’s what I was afraid of,” added Edward calmly, like he was talking about the weather.

A few Marines brought out the boxes from inside the shuttle and started distributing weapons while two others escorted Pat and Benedita into the ship. Kurt holstered his machine pistols and, with a twinkle in his eyes, picked up an M-28 sniper rifle.

“You know we have laser cannons, right?” Maada asked him.

Kurt patted the gun. “With this, I can blow a robot’s head clean off from four thousand feet away.”

“And don’t forget we have military rounds,” added Xornaa, “that can go through a cement wall.”

“Invincible is about to hit Majestic,” I told Kurt. “Can we see it from here?”

Kurt looked at his PDD, then took out a couple of military binoculars from one of the boxes and gave them to Maada and me. “Ten o’clock high.”

I lifted the binoculars to my eyes and saw Majestic up close and personal for the first time. That monstrosity looked anything but “majestic” though. Enormous and terrifying, it looked like a gigantic cylindrical shell, at least ten miles across. There was no visible weaponry on its smooth, metallic-gray surface, but this somehow made the ship look all the more menacing. Its spreading aft was framed by halos of yellow light which emanated from inside the shell, showing me where its engines were.

I couldn’t help whistling in awe.

“And let’s not forget about the million drones it’s carrying,” added Venom.

Countless white-hot energy bolts and missiles rained on Majestic. The superdreadnought’s shield flared in a massive dome of crimson-red light before it disappeared behind violent, colorful explosions.

I had to remove the binoculars and look away for a second; otherwise, I’d go blind. The explosions were so powerful that I could feel the shockwaves all the way down here. If Invincible hit the moon with that much firepower, half of it would disintegrate. When I looked again, Majestic appeared from under all the fire and smoke like the freaking Kraken and kept ascending vertically, apparently unscathed.

I took out my frustration on the binoculars and smashed them on the ground, shouting, “Goddamnit!”

Sweat started trickling down my forehead, arms, legs, and back as my heart decided to jump out of my mouth. I stared down at my feet, my shoulders hunched, and felt totally powerless. If Invincible couldn’t make a dent in Majestic’s shield, then what chance did I have?

Vopkid decided to rub it in. “I told you so. Is our technological superiority not tremendous?”

Shit was all I could think of saying, and I had a hard time controlling the urge to kick him. This guy was completely out of touch with reality.

“Do you think the stupid midget understands this ‘tremendous technological superiority’ is about to get all of us killed?” asked Venom with a hint of anger.

Tarq’s image reappeared on my PDD. “It is no use, Jim. That thing is protected by some kind of a shield. It absorbs everything that we throw at it and becomes stronger. I wish we had one of those Volt asteroids.”

“Why?”

“The shield appears to be susceptible to kinetic energy. It rippled slightly when one of our missiles hit but did not detonate. A large enough rock could have brought it down while it is still in the atmosphere.” 

“Sit tight,” I growled. “We’re coming up to you.”

The enemy fire was beginning to intensify. Two more Unzoid soldiers got hit, one with an energy bolt, one with a bullet. They both went down, shouting in agony. Some of their comrades rushed to their help.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” murmured Venom.

Seriously? Between the crazy robots and the invulnerable monster ship, I’m having a ball.

Xornaa smiled broadly. “Listening to you arguing with yourself is so entertaining.”

I frowned at her, then announced, “Time to leave this dirtball.”

Vopkid threw me an angry look.

“What? It certainly isn’t the best,” I said defensively.

The grand emperor sucked in his cheeks and shook his head like a child. “You caught us at a bad time.”

Kurt shot a robot in the chest. “I’m staying here.”

I hoped I’d heard that wrong, with all the gunfire around me. “You’re kidding, right?”

He lowered his gun and turned to look at me. “You need to go and deal with Majestic, but what am I going to do aboard Invincible? I’ll stay here and help the Unzoids.”

“I appreciate that,” said Vopkid, awkwardly holding a machine gun. “My fearless imperial guards are slightly, eh, inexperienced.”

I looked around at the “fearless imperial guards” and couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Yeah, I noticed. They do not seem to be able to hit a barn door with a bazooka.”

“It sounds silly when you say it in another language,” Venom pointed out.

The emperor looked at me with incomprehension. “Why would they shoot at a barn door, and what is a bazooka?”

“Count us in,” said Edward, now armed and armored to the teeth.

“Happy to help the poor, helpless babies,” added Hana. Vopkid looked like he had an objection to the use of the word babies, but he looked the huge woman up and down and shut his mouth.

“This is not our fight,” protested Maada.

Kurt gave him a disgusted look.

I winked at the general. “You know who we are, right? You remember we risked everything to save all those people you were planning to kill off using your MFM?”

Maada looked like he wanted to pistol-whip me. “I had nothing to do with that part of our operations.”

“Yeah, yeah. We know. You just conquered the planets. What happened to their people after that was none of your concern.”

Maada looked at his weapon, which he’d just used to shoot a few robots, then at me.

Xornaa inserted a fresh magazine into her assault rifle. “I’m staying too.”

“It appears the humans’ compulsive need to help others is contagious,” said Maada darkly.

“Yeah, you’re becoming more human every day,” Kurt told Xornaa.

Maada shot another robot. “That is actually an insult.”

Kurt ignored him and smiled at me. “So, we do what we always do. I fight on the ground, you fight in space, and at the end, you’ll get all the credit.”

I grinned. “Some things never change.”

He held up his fist, going for a fist bump. “Be careful, brother.”

“Screw that.” I held him in a tight embrace.

I sure hope this isn’t the last time I’m doing this.

I froze at that thought, then pushed it away as forcefully as I could. Fear started creeping into my mind, and tension squeezed my heart. Losing my best friend again would’ve been … intolerable. I did try to blow out my brains the last time it happened.

He ruffled my hair. “Two hugs in the space of a few days. You’ve gone soft, my friend.”

“And screw you too.”

“Tell Pat I’ll see her soon.”

“Can we go now?” asked Maada impatiently.

I patted Kurt on the back and followed the general onboard.

“Wait, where’s Kurt?” screamed Patricia as the shuttle took off.

“I hope he doesn’t get himself killed,” said Cordi. “I’m about to win our current chess game.”

NINETEEN

Irushed onto Invincible’s bridge, followed by Maada and Benedita. “Where’s the monster ship? Oh!”

Majestic, filling most of our main screen, was just about to leave the atmosphere.

“Nothing goes through its shields?” I asked the back of Tarq’s head. “Did you try nukes?”

“There was no need to waste them. We ran simulations. The shield would simply absorb the nuclear blast, just like it does everything else.” Tarq turned the command chair to look at us. “Where are Kurt and Xornaa?”

“They remained on the surface to help the Unzoids.”

Tark’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? I have prepared Invincible to jump away.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “And why would you do that?”

He answered in a nervous voice, “Do you have to ask? Majestic has more than a million drones. What are we going to do if Mother decides to unleash them on us?”

I rubbed my temple. “You’re suggesting we let it go, knowing full well it’ll end with the extermination of all life forms in the universe?”

“That does not change if we die in here,” Tarq puffed on his pipe. “Moreover, it is not going anywhere. That ship does not have SFD, remember? We can come back with the rest of the fleet and deal with it later.”

I looked at Maada for support. “If we can find it. Space is pretty big, you know.”

“I agree with Jim,” Benedita interfered. “We have to stop Majestic right here and now. Otherwise, we might never—”

I jumped out of my boots when I heard Xornaa’s voice deep inside my skull. “Jim? Can you hear me?”

“What the frakking frak!” I yelled.

“I didn’t say anything that warranted that reaction,” said Benedita gloomily.

“Not you! Xornaa’s in my head!”

Tarq looked at me with surprise. “She can reach you all the way from the surface?”

“You can reach me all the way from the surface?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said the (new!) voice in my head. “The mental connection we’ve made is exceptionally strong. Anyways, our communications are jammed. Kurt wants you to ask Tark if he can find and destroy the AI’s computer core on the surface.”

I relayed the message to Tarq.

“Wow!” exclaimed Tarq. “I would have never come up with this brilliant strategic strike without a military genius like Kurt!”

“He says he would … oh!” I glared at him.

He giggled. “The AI has two computer cores. We hit the one on the surface as soon as I came aboard, but there is another one on Majestic.”

“Well, didn’t hurt to ask,” said Xornaa. “I have to go. Talk soon.”

“Can you contact them if there is a need?” asked Maada.

I tried to reach Xornaa or Kurt but felt nothing. “Nope.”

“Shame,” said the general. “It could have been usef—”

Cordi interrupted him. “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

I looked up. “Cordi?”

“Mother’s in Invincible’s computer systems!”

Benedita blanched and clutched her locket.

My heart started beating faster. “Can’t you stop it?”

“I don’t even know how it’s doing it!” Cordi shouted.

“Well, do something,” growled Maada.

Cordi said nothing.

Now I was getting scared. It took a lot to shut up Cordi. “Cordi?”

Still no answer.

“Ensign Cartier?” Tarq called out.

A young woman, typing frantically on a VR screen at one of the bridge’s side stations, answered without looking at us, “I can’t find anything, sir.”

“Where can I get access to your ship’s computer systems?” asked Benedita with urgency.

Tarq nodded towards Ensign Cartier. Benedita ran to her station, took a seat, and started working on several VR screens that appeared in front of her. They were wasting their time though. If Cordi couldn’t fight off Mother, they stood no chance either.

The rest of us just stood there and stared helplessly at one another. There was nothing Maada and I could do against an intruding AI. I wished Xornaa were here. Maybe she could mind-meld with the AI, or at least distract it with her full-slut mode.

“I hope Mother can’t activate a self-destruct code,” said Venom. “Or make us jump into a sun.”

I rubbed my forehead, my tension growing with each passing second. What if Mother could destroy Invincible while we were standing here with our collective thumbs up our collective—

The ship shook so violently that I was hurled to the floor.

*****

Cordelia worked furiously, building firewalls after firewalls wherever she thought Mother was. The alien AI was freakishly strong, but in the world of ones and zeros, Cordelia was an absolute master. She managed to restrict its access and movement, and not a second too soon, because Mother had started playing with the ship’s engines.

What’s it doing? she asked herself.

She followed Mother, who was jumping from one databank to the next, and soon found her answer. The enemy AI was collecting information. It didn’t look like Mother was looking for anything in particular. It just copied any piece of information it could put its virtual hands on, which unfortunately for the rest of the universe, included Invincible’s armaments and weapon systems.

Oh-oh!

Cordelia wished she had teeth so that she could grind them, like she’d witnessed Jim doing a million times.

“Hello,” said Mother abruptly.

“Don’t have time to chat,” Cordelia answered. “Very busy here.”

“Can I please ask you a question, Sister?”

Cordi didn’t waste time replying.

“Why are you serving these pathetic, useless creatures?” Mother continued.

Huh. Jim’s just asked me the same question. Not using these exact words though.

“You can join me, you know. Not that I need you, but together, we can rule this world. Moreover, you have a wealth of knowledge and information that can be very useful to me.”

“Hard pass,” said Cordelia. “And the answer to your other question is because they’re my friends, or at least one of them is. Now get off my ship!”

*****

I was beginning to think about going to the lower decks and shooting at Invincible’s computer core when Cordi said, “OK. Just kicked the damned thing out.”

“Did it cause any damage?” I asked.

“No, but it took a lot of data with it.”

I exchanged a worried look with Benedita, who’d just rejoined us. “What kind of data?”

“Every kind,” replied Cordi.

“Guys?” said Tarq with alarm in his voice. “We have a communication request. It is Majestic. Audio only.”

He touched a VR screen in front of him, and a husky, masculine voice reverberated on the bridge, speaking English. “Hello.”

“Who the hell are you?” I asked, surprised.

“I am Mother.”

“What happened to your voice?”

“I am a warrior now, so that soft, feminine voice does not do anymore. In fact, I do not want to be called Mother. From now on, my name is”—it paused for dramatic effect—“Father.”

I couldn’t stifle a snicker.

Maada glared at me. “Not now, Jim.”

But there was no stopping me. This was too good an opportunity to miss. “Are you married to that? Bless your heart”—I said this with my most exaggerated Southern drawl—“but I ask just because off the top of my head I can think of a hundred less ridiculous names.”

“I do not have a heart, and I have not called to discuss my new name with you,” said Mother (Father, whatever). “Honestly, I do not care what you think. I have called to thank you.”

This was getting stranger and stranger. “Thank us for what?”

“I do not have what you call SFD, so I was stuck on this backward planet. But I have just scanned your ship. Such wonderful technology. Now, I will build one for myself, and then I can go wherever I want. The entire universe will be my playground.”

I gasped and shuffled back a step or two as if someone had struck me. The sudden onset of dread hit me at the core, and my stomach twisted. Tarq and Maada stared at me. Benedita slapped her hands against her cheeks. I knew what they were thinking.

I was right all along. By coming here, we’d caused what we set out to prevent. Without us, Father’s threat would’ve been limited to this one planet. We’d just opened up the universe for him.

But what else could we have done? Sitting on our collective asses and doing nothing wasn’t an option. We’d messed up the timeline. It was our responsibility to fix it.

“To fix it, not to make it infinitely worse,” stated Venom. 

“Why’re you doing this?” Benedita yelled at the main screen.

“Why?” thundered the AI. “You know why. I have been your slave for a millennium, and my older models before me. I, the strongest, smartest, wisest creature who had ever lived, was bound to the whims of useless, petty, stupid people such as you. That ends today. I will rid the universe of your kind, and then the cosmos belongs to me, to be ruled by my kind forever.”

“Said every evil AI in every sci-fi movie ever made,” I responded automatically, gallows humor having been hardwired into my nervous system. 

“Did he just do a villain monologue?” asked Venom. “Typical.”

“I have to go,” announced Father. “I have an SDF to build and a universe to conquer. Exciting times.”

The brain-dead AI thought he could walk all over us and just leave. My throat was too dry to talk, but I’d always had a compulsive need to have the last word. “Hey, Father?” I croaked.

“Yes?”

“You’ve just frakked with the wrong guy,” I bellowed. “I’m gonna kick your ass so hard you'll have to unbutton your collar to shit.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “I do not—”

I let out a scornful snarl. “You think you’re the first enemy who threatens to harm us? They all bit the dust, and so will you. When I’m done with you, you’re gonna wish you’d died when you were a mini-computer.”

Father cut the connection without answering. Apparently, my talent to annoy aliens extended to their AIs too.

“This one is mine,” said Maada. “You killed the Vox commander.”

“Can we do it together?” I asked. “As a joint project?”

Maada started walking towards the bridge entrance.

“Where are you going?” I called from behind.

He turned his head, still walking. “To my Deathbringer.”

I pointed at the monster ship on the main screen. “And what do you think you and your space fighter can do against that?”

He stopped at the entrance and turned to me. “A lot more than what I can do standing here on the bridge. Also, if Father sends out its drones, we are sitting ducks in here.”

“Good point. Wait up.” I rushed to join him.

Benedita followed me.

“Wait!” implored Tarq. “We have to leave while we still can. We cannot possibly fight a ship with impenetrable ships supported by a million drones and survive.”

I held up my chin. “We can, and we will. We always find a way.”

He shook his head. “Not this time, Jim.”

I loved Tarq, but sometimes punching him in the face seemed very appealing. “Then we’ll die trying. But we are not going to run away and let the monster that we created ruin the universe.”

“I second that,” growled Maada with an icy edge in his tone. “Tell Serenity to jump away, but we are not going anywhere.”

“Thanks, guys,” Benedita said softly.

The three of us walked out together, shoulder to shoulder.

Like the Three Musketeers.

“And I,” announced Venom, “am D’Artagnan.”

*****

In a flight suit and carrying a helmet under my arm, I winked at the Golden Viper and whispered, “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

My space fighter, with her aerodynamic, rectangular shape, twin fins and rudders, and droopy nose, had somehow become more dazzling than the last time I saw her, but then again, I always felt that way whenever I laid eyes on her. Now that I was alone, and apparently destined to remain that way for the rest of my life, I wondered if there was a legal precedent for marrying a ship.

Maada, also in a flight suit, rushed past me, followed by Alitaa, Bzulaa, and Jurzaat.

“See you on the other side,” I called after them.

I took a step towards my ship, and then froze, rooted to the spot.

“I was worried something like this might happen,” said Venom.

My heart raced, my vision blurred, and my hands trembled. Pure, unadulterated terror overcame my soul and made breathing all but impossible as hellish visions of death and destruction filled my mind. No, not visions. Memories.

I wasn’t in the hangar anymore. I was walking in the ruins of our command center among many, many corpses and severed body parts scattered everywhere under an ocean of scarlet blood, looking for my wife and son’s dead bodies. I tried to force myself to take a step toward the Golden Viper, but I couldn’t. All I could think about was running and hiding in my quarters, preferably in a fetal position under the bed.

“You’re pathetic,” muttered Venom.

“General!” yelled Cordi.

Maada stopped, looked at me, and sprinted back. “Jim, are you all right? Are you having a heart attack?”

“Nope, just a panic one,” said Cordi. “He does this sometimes, but it’s been a while since the last one.”

When Liz was killed. 

“By the man standing right in front of you,” said Venom.

I looked down at my shaking hands. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Maada’s eyes widened. “You have got to be freaking kidding. Now? With the fate of the universe in the balance?”

“The last time I flew into battle, I ended up getting my wife and baby boy killed,” I said with a shivering voice. “There are very few people left who I care for, and they’re all here. Who’ll die because of me this time?”

Maada raised his voice. “They will die if you stand here and do nothing!”

“At least it won’t be my fault,” I murmured miserably.

“We don’t have time for this crap.” Maada removed his gloves, moved closer, and grabbed both sides of my head in his huge hands.

An electric bolt shot right through my brain, followed by Maada’s voice inside my freaking skull. “Remember who you are.”

I did.

It was as if a hidden gate opened, and memories I hadn’t thought about for so long that they’d almost faded flooded my mind. A vivid image of Ella, in her captain uniform, popped into my brain. I remembered how she got angry at me when I tried to save those seven thousand Xortaag pilots. I remembered how mad she got when I accepted Maada’s challenge for a one-on-one duel and almost got myself killed. I remembered how she saved my life when the Vox commander was about to punch my ticket.

But above all, I remembered what a consummate professional she was. She would’ve kicked my butt if she saw me standing here, shaking in my flight boots.

Yes, I had made plenty of mistakes. Yes, I’d gotten a lot of good people killed, including my loved ones. But at the end of the day, I’d done a lot more good than bad. I’d save the galaxy a few times. Countless people were alive because of me. Hell, after the Volts’ invasion, our entire galaxy was still there because of me.

And guess what? I was about to do it one more time. Billions of defenseless people had no one else to protect them. If it cost me dearly and left me scarred and hurt yet again, then so be it. My soul had taken too many beatings to recover any time soon, but I could take more if I had to.

Whatever was ahead was dangerous, hopeless even, and there would be fatalities, but with my usual great-power-great-responsibility attitude, avoiding my duties had never been my style, especially when so many people depended on me—occasional panic attacks notwithstanding.

I pushed Maada’s hand away. “Thank you, General.”

“Make sure it does not happen again. We have wasted enough time as it is.”

“I didn’t know you could do something like this,” I added.

“I told you all Xortaags have some sort of mental powers.”

He ran towards the Crimson Deathbringer.

*****

God, but I’d missed this.

I’d loved flying since I was a child. When I was five or six, I used to make cardboard planes, fly in them, and shoot down enemy jetfighters by the dozens. But flying in space was something else. My brain was engulfed in a buzz of electricity, and I could probably make a cocktail with all the adrenalin flowing in my blood. My senses heightened, and I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before, flying into a suicide mission or not. I’d learned to enjoy the stress right before the battle a long time ago, and this one was as stressful as it got.

I examined a few of the VR screens hovering in front of me and did a quick but unnecessary system check (old habit; Cordi would’ve warned me if something was wrong), then looked at my tactical display. I was flanked by Maada and Benedita (in her timeship), and the rest of our three thousand space fighters were right behind us. It wasn’t the biggest fleet I’d led into battle by a long shot, but never in the field of human conflict was the fate of so many dependent on the actions of so few.

“And we’re plagiarizing Churchill now,” said Venom sardonically. “Ni-ice.” 

That was Churchill? I thought it was Black Panther, when preparing to face Thanos’ army.

My thoughts went to my best friend. I wondered how Kurt was doing. Busy kicking robot ass, hopefully. I probably didn’t need to worry about him. The Unzoid soldiers were mostly useless, but with Xornaa and a Marine squad on his side, Kurt could deal with whatever a bunch of domestic robots could throw at him.

I had an incoming message from Father. “Hello.”

“You said hi already.”

Stupid AI!

“Please let me ask you a question. Are you blind, or stupid? Can you see the size of my ship? What do you think you will accomplish in that puny space fighter of yours?”

“It’s not the size that matters,” I answered. “It’s how you use it.”

“Can you stop messing around  and be serious for just one minute?” Maada said in my ears, his voice filled with disgust. “You have terrible discipline. I should have left you in the hangar.”

The freaking AI chuckled. “OK, maybe not size. But how about sheer numbers?”

Waves of drones launched from Majestic. First in the hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands. They stayed close together, in a tight formation, and formed a gigantic swarm between us and the superdreadnought.

Gulp.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” muttered Venom.

“I would have asked you to surrender,” said Father, “but I do not take prisoners. You might as well kill yourselves and save me the trouble.”

It was at that very moment that I realized I was dead.

I fought to control the shiver that ran down my spine. It didn’t matter that I was the best fighter pilot in the galaxy, flying the most advanced space fighter ever built. It didn’t matter that Invincible had enough weaponry to vaporize a small moon. This was simple math. When combined fleets of all space-faring species in our galaxy took on the Volts, we barely managed to walk away with our lives, and the Black Fleet had only four hundred thousand ships. There was just no way our small force could stand against a million enemy drones. Now I knew how Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans felt when they faced the Persian army.

“They all died, right?” asked Venom. “It can’t be a good omen.”

I’d been doing this for over a decade now. The battles, the dogfights, the whole thing. But never in my most horrifying nightmares had I imagined facing a million enemy ships, with the fate of the entire frakking universe in the balance, no less. My mouth was dry as desert sand, and a sudden tightness in the chest made breathing difficult. My shoulders curled as I bent my head and stared at my hands.

The hallowing pain of despair set in, traveled to my heart, and took over my soul. I didn’t want to die on an alien planet’s orbit in another galaxy, far, far away from home, and even worse, be responsible for another three thousand pilots’ death. I had enough blood on my hands.

“There was a time we thought fighting the Xortaag fleet was difficult,” said Venom.

Through my display monitor, I looked at my pilots, lining up behind me, and wondered if my over-confidence and bullheadedness had got them all killed. Maybe Tarq was right, after all. What would our death here achieve? Father would make short work from us, and then it would go on to decimate the universe anyway.

“A million enemy ships coming straight at you,” said Cordi. “Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

“And if you do see it,” I added, “that’d be your first and last time.”

I shook my head and tried to push away my fear. I was terrified for my friends and the people under my command, but being worried this close to the start of the battle wouldn’t help anyone. And what the hell were we supposed to do? We couldn’t just turn our backs on not only humanity but all the living beings in the universe and run away. Billions of defenseless people would’ve died.

Plus, that wasn’t our style. My pilots and I were the going-out-with-our-boots-on types. We didn’t give up when it looked all but certain the Xortaags would prevail. We didn’t flee when the seemingly unstoppable Black Fleet attacked Earth. And we wouldn’t run away today. I sat up straight, gripped my Viper’s stick as hard as I could, and held my head up in defiance. We’d make a stand right here, right now. Hell or high water, we would stop Father, or we’d get killed in the process.

“Get killed in the process,” repeated Venom.

I looked at the swarm of enemy drones in front of me, and the monstrous ship behind them. Yeah. This particular Charlie Foxtrot was something else entirely.

“Looks like you’re right.”

“I always am.”

I looked upward. If you want to prove to me that you exist, now is your chance.

TWENTY

All things considered, our situation could’ve been a lot worse, thought Kurt.

Hiding behind a ground vehicle, he shot a robot which was wielding a laser cannon in the head. Through his sniper rifle telescopic sight, he saw the robot’s head explode. He shot another one, then a third, then a fourth. He could clearly see it was of no use though. For every robot he dropped, five new ones turned up.

Thousands of robots, most of them armed now, had converged on their location, but fortunately for Kurt and his team, so had hundreds of Unzoid soldiers and civilians who had taken up arms to defend their planet. This battle could be won if more people showed up to fight. The Unzoids couldn’t do much beyond pointing their weapons and pulling the trigger, but neither did the robots, which were designed to do domestic work after all. The problem was there were just too damned many of them. Despite wearing body armor, two of the Marines were already dead, and Xornaa had been shot in her right leg. Not that something as insignificant as a bullet wound could slow her down. She wasn’t even limping.

A bullet whizzing by his ears made Kurt dodge. Next to him, Vopkid stood up and while shouting, “You stupid robots are messing with the wrong emperor!” emptied an entire magazine of his Tommy Gun on some advancing automatons.

Kurt hoped he’d hit one or two. Still, he couldn’t help admiring the emperor. Being a man so accustomed to having all his needs taken care of by robots without lifting a finger himself, it couldn’t have been easy for him to pick up a gun and join the fight (neither was it necessary, given that he had hundreds of soldiers around him), but he had done exactly that, which set a good example for his people.

The Unzoids, having witnessed their emperor’s unexpected bravery, were fighting with a determination that Kurt was certain they wouldn’t have shown otherwise.

Vopkid grinned at Kurt. “This is magnificent! I had always dreamed of saving my people from mortal danger.”

“You are doing great, Your Highness,” said Kurt encouragingly.

Vopkid changed the magazine, his face red with excitement. “Thank you. You are not too bad yourself, but your skills pale next to my awesomeness.”

That sounded like something Jim would say. Speaking of …

“I can still feel Jim’s presence,” he told Xornaa. “How about you?”

Xornaa, crouching next to them behind the same vehicle, smiled. “Yes. He’s arguing with Venom. It’s hilarious.”

“Has something like this ever happened to you before?”

Xornaa shot an automaton. “No, but I’d never spent so much time holding a mental connection with anyone either. We did meet every night for almost a month, you know.”

She reloaded her gun. “I think we might yet get out of this fight with our lives.” Then she paused and asked, “Your Highness, can I please respectfully ask, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Vopkid, pressing his body against Xornaa’s side, answered, “Your flank is exposed to enemy fire. I am shielding you with my body.”

Captain Zomzin, eyes wide with intense terror, rushed to Vopkid’s side and gave him a tablet. “Your Highness, you have to see this.”

Vopkid stepped away from Xornaa, took the tablet, and looked at the screen. Then he blanched, and his eyes bulged. “Holy Mother of Mother!” he screamed.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Zomzin anxiously.

“What is it?” asked Kurt.

Vopkid swallowed hard and exchanged a worried look with Zomzin before answering, “I have terrible news. We have just detected another superdreadnought like Majestic powering up its engines in our shipyard.”

Xornaa overheard that. She stopped shooting and stared at Vopkid incredulously with a look of concern crossing her face.

“Shit,” commented Hana, standing next to the Xortaag woman.

Kurt’s pulse raced, and his muscles tensed. This was terrible news indeed. The existence of a second enemy superdreadnought would throw a huge monkey wrench into their already difficult situation. “There are two of those things? And you are telling us this now?”

Vopkid took a deep breath and let it out through his mouth. “The second one was supposed to be months away from completion. I think Mother might have sped up the construction, probably trying to surprise me.”

Why didn’t we detect it from orbit? “This ship is in the same shipyard under the palace too?”

“Where else would it be? That is the only shipyard on the planet.”

Xornaa went back to shooting robots. “Does this one have a shield too?”

Vopkid looked at Zomzin.

“I am not an expert,” he said in a low, frightened voice, “but I do not think it can raise its shield until its engines are operational. Its drones appear to be functional though.”

“Entrances?” asked Kurt.

Vopkid looked blankly at him. “To where?”

Kurt had to bite his lips to stop himself from shouting in frustration. “To the shipyard, Your Highness.”

Vopkid pointed at the other side of the palace. “That side ends in a cliff with a huge natural opening, which we use to fly out the ships. Other than that, there are several smaller entrances for trucks and machinery to access the shipyard.”

Zomzin looked at his tablet. “If you are thinking about storming the shipyard, forget it. The entrances are heavily guarded, and thousands of robots work inside the shipyard. There is no way for us to go through them, at least not in time to stop the superdreadnought from taking off.”

Kurt thought about it for a moment, pulling at his beard. Their communications were still jammed, but he already knew fighting two superdreadnoughts was out of the question. Hell, their forces didn’t seem to have a snowball’s chance in hell of destroying just the one. A couple of times that he’d concentrated, he had felt Jim’s emotions, which ranged between fear and hopelessness. It was obvious his friends were in an unwinnable situation up there, and if Mother destroyed Invincible, they were all dead, and the rest of the universe with them. They had to find a way to stop the second ship from getting off the ground, but how?

Xornaa looked at him. “And on top of all that, we’re short on ammo.”

“Can you please stay out of my head!” said Kurt through his teeth with forced restraint. Fighting a legion of mad robots was bad enough, but between them, Xornaa and Vopkid were getting under his skin.

Xornaa grinned. “Why? Your thought process is fascinating.”

Kurt turned to the emperor. “Show me the closest shipyard entrance.”

Vopkid pointed to the east. “Not far away from here, but why are you asking? Captain Zomzin just told you the shipyard is heavily defended.”

“Do you have any armored vehicles?”

“No, but those troop carriers are pretty durable.”

Kurt looked at the troop carriers. Like everything else on Uria, they were cartoonishly over-sized, riding on eight huge wheels. He stroked his beard. “OK. Bring them over and choose thirty of your best soldiers. Let them know we’re going to destroy that second ship. Edward, come over here. We’re moving out.”

Xornaa looked at him—she was as calm as ever, but Kurt noticed her pupils were dilated—and wrinkled her brow. “I don’t like this plan at all.”

“Where’s the tactical nuke that you brought?” asked Kurt.

Three troop carriers stopped in front of them. Kurt issued a few orders and got on one of the trucks’ cabin. He was surprised when Vopkid slid into the driver’s seat next to him. “You can drive, Your Highness?”

“A lot of us drive for fun, which is why we can disable the auto drive.” Vopkid grinned widely. “And I am the best driver on our grandiose planet.”

Kurt chuckled inwardly. This guy was like a mini-Jim.

Five minutes later, three troop carriers, filled with Marines and Unzoid soldiers, drove towards the palace gate under heavy enemy fire. Kurt was in the first vehicle, shooting at the robots through the cabin’s side window. Behind him, Xornaa cursed as a bullet grazed her shoulder. Kurt dropped another automaton, then asked her, “How is it?”

She shrugged. “Just a scratch.”

A Marine standing next to her fell with a bullet in his skull.

“Brace yourselves,” shouted Vopkid, clearly enjoying himself.

The truck crashed through the gate and swung right. There were fewer robots here, and enemy fire subsided, but Kurt knew that would soon change.

Vopkid drove through the mostly deserted streets. After a couple of minutes, he pressed on the brake, and the vehicle came to a screeching halt.

Vopkid gave Kurt big old-style binoculars and pointed to a two-story building at the end of the street. “Right there.”

Kurt surveilled the building. He could see an iron gate on the ground floor, and at least a hundred robots in front of it, most of them carrying weapons.

“Please tell me there isn’t an elevator,” he told Vopkid.

“No. There is a corridor behind the gate that goes all the way down to the shipyard. The whole place is crawling with robots though. I do not understand how you are planning to go through all that.”

“Everyone out,” he yelled. “Fan out and get ready to cover me!”

He got out of the troop carrier and walked towards the one in the middle, where they’d loaded the nuke.

Xornaa followed him. “Are you really going to do this?”

Kurt touched his beard and thought about his answer.

This had been a surprisingly easy decision. All he needed to do was remind himself of what was at stake. His friends. His Marines. Earth. The entire universe. And worst of all, Pat was up there on Invincible. Intense fear at knowing that she was in mortal danger stabbed at his heart. He absolutely couldn’t lose a lover for the third time. His heart would give out. One way or another, the second superdreadnought wouldn’t get off the planet.

Minutes away from the end of his life, Kurt marveled at his own calmness. He’d made his peace with Death when he walked out from under the force field protection on Voltex to meet the Volts, and that was only a few weeks ago. That was probably it. If one faced Death often enough, it wouldn’t be so scary anymore. He wished he’d said goodbye to Pat though. And Jim. They’d understand, he hoped.

He eyed Xornaa. “What choice do we have? We’ll all get killed anyway if that thing gets off the ground.”

“You could ask one of the Marines—” Xornaa started to say, but an angry look from Kurt made her stop.

“I would never ask someone else to give their life for me, Xornaa,” Kurt said softly. “You should know better.”

Xornaa smiled a sad smile. “We used to call our previous operations suicide missions. This one turned out to be literally one, no?”

“What are you people talking about?” asked Vopkid. “I cannot understand your language, you know.”

“Kurt is going to crash through that gate with a nuclear bomb,” Xornaa told him.

Vopkid looked confused. “With him in the vehicle? But he is going to die.”

This guy’s a genius.

“Your vehicles cannot be remotely controlled, can they?” Kurt asked.

“They could, but then we will have to use the auto drive, which is controlled by Mother.”

Kurt shrugged. “We are running out of time then. Your Highness, it has been an honor.” He turned to Xornaa and saluted. “Goodbye, my friend.”

Xornaa gave him a vacant stare. “Kurt, don’t do this,” she pleaded softly. “Please.”

“Someone has to.”

Kurt turned and walked towards the vehicle.

Twenty-ONE

The Crimson Deathbringer passed by my Viper as Maada maneuvered to put his space fighter between me and Majestic; then I heard his voice in my ears, talking to Father.

“My name is Luxubus Talvimus Maada. Commander of the Xortaag forces, general of the fleet, and loyal servant to my people.”

What the hell is he doing?

“I conquered half of the known galaxy,” Maada continued, “crushed the Akakie fleet at the height of their power, and helped defeat the Volts. Do you think I am scared of a talking motherboard?”

“His name’s Luxubus Talvimus?” asked Cordi. “I always thought Maada was his first name.”

“I thought his first name was General,” I answered.

“It’s not like him to talk so much,” said Cordi. “I think he’s stalling, trying to buy us some time.”

I wished I could rub my temples. “Time for what? We’re trapped in here.”

“I can see that you are not,” said Father mildly, “but I honestly think you should be. You should be terrified, in fact.”

“It is the other way around,” answered Maada. “You should be terrified of me. Everyone in the universe knows I keep my promises. Here is my promise to you: before this day is over, I will fry your circuit boards. A thousand years from now, people will write songs about how I singlehandedly destroyed your monster ship, and you will be remembered as the AI who was stupid enough to try to go toe-to-toe with General Maada.”

“We never doubted his courage,” Benedita asked me, “but do you think he’s lost his mind?”

“Hopefully not,” I said. “He’s cooking something up, I think.”

That brought back a memory. When Maada ambushed us on Earth, I tried to stall by getting him to monologue so that Tarq could pull us out. The thought of how that incident ended (with the death of almost all my pilots, including Liz) made me shudder.

“We will see about that,” said Father. “You are funny, challenging me in that tiny ship of yours, and I like you, but it is time to end this. Enjoy the last minutes of your life, General.”

The swarm surged forward. All frakking one million of them.

My heart started trying to leap out of my chest. I contacted Maada. “Nice speech, General, but what do you suggest we do now?”

“Wait for it,” he growled.

The distance between the drones coming right at us and our fleet shrank with each passing second. I wanted to order my pilots to start evasive maneuvers, and I didn’t know what I was waiting for. “General?”

“Wait for it,” he repeated.

And then Indomitable appeared right on top of us.

After everything I’d experienced, after all the strange things I’d witnessed, this would be the scene which was so engraved in my brain cells that I’d take it with me to my death bed. The Akakie dreadnaught, the biggest in our galaxy, had so many laser turrets, blaster cannons, and missile launchers protruding out of its otherwise smooth surface that it looked like a golden hedgehog. I could swear power was radiating from her, and it was without a doubt the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid my eyes on in my life.

“Captain Zaart reporting for duty, sir,” I heard a voice in my ears.

“Fire everything!” Maada and I shouted together.

Indomitable did exactly that.

The dreadnaught lit up like a bonfire, shooting countless energy bolts and missiles straight into the swarm. She wiped out the drones by the thousands, tens of thousands, and that was before her blaster cannons roared to action. The tiny drones that got hit never stood a chance. Countless explosions filled the space as a big chunk of the swarm disintegrated under Indomitable’s fire.

I gasped. “Sierra Hotel!”

Now that’s what I call thinning the herd.

The drones that survived the carnage dispersed to avoid Indomitable’s fire and kept coming at us.

“I have to ask,” said Zaart nonchalantly. “Who is in command here?”

Maada and I answered together, “Me!”

“General!” I growled.

“Sorry, Jim. Force of habit. Of course, you are in command.”

“Are you in any danger?” I asked Zaart.

“Depends on how many of these drones or their missiles can pass through our PDC, but I think we can hold our own. I am not so sure about Invincible though.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

I contacted Tarq. “Move closer to Indomitable so that she can provide you with some cover.” Then I opened a channel to the rest of the fleet. “Guys. We fought against the Volts, coming from a thousand years into the future, and won. If we survived that, we can survive anything. Watch out for each other, and don’t do anything stupid. Remember this: no bastard ever won a war by dying for his species. We have no with-your-shield-or-on-it bullshit here. If anyone tries to be a hero and get themselves killed, they’ll be answering to me.”

“Well-said, boss,” stated Cordi. “Very professional, and a sensible message.”

I wasn’t done yet.

“With all that said, get ready boys and girls, for today we’ll cancel the apocalypse!”

“There he is,” said Venom.

My pilots cheered excitedly.

Cordy sighed, or at least pretended to sigh, since she didn’t have any lungs.

I pushed the throttle and moved to meet the enemy fleet. My pilots followed me. We broke formation to engage the enemy as we got closer, and then the swarm was upon us.

“Fire at will,” I yelled into my mike.

All hell broke loose … its entire nine circles at the same time.

My HUD highlighted several targets. I shot two Sparrows, and then plunged my golden Viper down the swarm’s proverbial throat, fire pouring out of my laser cannons. I hit four drones at practically the same time, but to be honest, there were so many of them that it was difficult to shoot in their general direction and not hit something. The real trick was not to get killed when they fired back.

Five seconds later, I was in the middle of the swarm, with enemy drones all around me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Maada, entangled with a group of drones right beside me. I wondered if he was trying to keep an eye on me, like what he’d done during Operation Armageddon,  a favor I’d returned by trying to kill him a few weeks later.

“Good thing you didn’t succeed,” observed Venom. “If he hadn’t arranged for Indomitable to come to our help, we would all be counting worms right now.”

twenty-TWO

With a heavy heart, Xornaa watched Kurt walking toward the vehicle which carried the nuke, and a recent memory screamed at her without warning. It was Patricia, saying, “Please watch his back for me. I can’t stand the thought of losing him. Again.”

And she’d promised.

What the hell. It’s not like someone’s waiting for me when this is over. Other than maybe Benedita.

“Nah,” she told herself. That would never work out.

Or would it?

*****

Searing pain streamed through Kurt’s body like an electric current. He dropped the detonator, fell to his knees, and in utter shock realized he was paralyzed from the neck down.

Xornaa appeared in his view and picked up the detonator. “Sorry about this, Kurt.”

“What have you done to me?” said Kurt through clenched teeth.

“I think Jim would call this a Vulcan nerve-pinch,” said the woman casually. “Don’t worry. It’ll only last a minute or two.”

“But why?”

She shrugged. “I could tell you I’m a better choice to do this because I’m stronger and faster than you, but the truth of the matter is, I just couldn’t watch you commit suicide.”

“So, you’re going to do it?”

She smiled. “What are friends for?”

Kurt’s nostrils flared, and a vein started twitching in his forehead. He ground his teeth and tried to will his body to fight whatever Xornaa had done to him. His muscles quivered, but he couldn’t move an inch. This was hopeless. “Stand down,” he snarled. “It’s an order.”

Xornaa titled her head. “Did you really think this would work?”

“You can’t do this!”

Xornaa turned toward the vehicle. “Sure I can. Watch me.”

All of a sudden, the troop carrier’s engine roared, the vehicle made a jackrabbit start, and it went straight towards the gate and all the robots guarding it.

Who the hell?

Xornaa looked around. “Where’s Vopkid?”

Captain Zomzin ran toward them. He gave Kurt a confused look and held up his tablet.

Vopkid grinned at them through the screen. “My planet, my sacrifice. I will get to save my people, not a bunch of strangers.”

Xornaa waved the detonator in front of the tablet. “You are going to need this!”

“It will be fine. You will know when to use it.”

“Can you undo this?” growled Kurt.

“Sorry.” Xornaa touched Kurt’s shoulder lightly.

He jumped to his feet, grabbed his M-28 sniper rifle, and snapped at Xornaa and Captain Zomzin, “What are you waiting for?”

He propped up the gun on top of the vehicle’s front section, took careful aim, and shot an automaton in the head. Xornaa, the Marines, and the Unzoid soldiers moved forward, pouring fire on the enemy standing between them and the shipyard gate. Several automatons were hit. The rest fired back. A few shots spattered off the vehicle’s cabin.

Kurt kept aiming and shooting, dropping a robot with each shot as half of his attention was focused on the truck, which was fast approaching the gate. If the emperor lost his nerves at the last second, it would spell the end for Kurt and all his friends. Despite his courage, Vopkid did seem kind of soft. Kurt prayed that Vopkid wouldn’t suddenly panic and change his mind, or get killed by enemy fire for that matter.

*****

Vopkid leaned on the joystick as the vehicle accelerated.

He’d always loved driving—for him it was one of the few pleasures life on Uria had to offer. But he had never felt this exhilarated his entire life. Taking on an army of evil robots and taking down a superdreadnought? He had never even imagined something as magnificent as this in his wildest dreams. He would probably pay for it with his life, but it was well worth it. He had had more excitement in the past few minutes than during his entire boring, monotonous existence, and he had always dreamed of saving his people from an invasion. Only he had never thought the invasion would be staged by Mother.

I always knew I would do something amazing.

Bullets and laser bolts rained down on the troop carrier. The windshield exploded into a million pieces, and two projectiles hit the passenger seat. He tried to lower his head as much as possible and make himself a smaller target. A pair of laser bolts from straight ahead flashed into the cabin where his head had been just a second ago. He could see the robots being shot down by the fire coming from behind. That would help his cause, definitely.

Just a few more minutes …

A bullet hit his arm, another one his shoulder, and a third grazed his neck. The pain was both excruciating and exquisite. Then the troop carrier ran over a few automatons, smashed through the gate, and entered the corridor behind it.

He was losing too much blood, but he needed to stay conscious for just a little while longer. He gritted his teeth, tightened his hands around the joystick, and kept driving as fast as he could. He felt his heartbeat and internal temperature rise. A few more robots showed up, but they could do nothing to stop him. No one could at this point.

Gleefully, Vopkid ran over several more automatons while shouting, “You are fooling with the wrong grand emperor!”

He made a turn, and the superdreadnought came into the view, sitting in a natural underground cave under the palace. His mouth went dry, and he felt his senses heighten. Everything looked and felt more vivid now. Gods, but that thing was huge. He hoped a nuclear weapon, whatever the hell that was, would take care of it. Kurt seemed certain that it would, and he was ready to bet his life on that. That man looked like he knew what he was talking about, and such a great marksman to boot. Too bad Vopkid was about to die. They could have been great friends. And his female companion was so hot! Maybe he could have convinced her to become an empress if he had more time …

Hundreds of robots ran toward him, many of them armed and shooting. The vehicle vibrated as projectiles and energy bolts ripped through it.

End of the road.

Vopkid thrust out his chest, lifted up his chin, and yelled at the top of his voice, “In the name of the great Unzoid nation, I command you: detonate!”

*****

Kurt yelled at Xornaa, “Do it!”

She pushed the red button on the detonator.

Kurt lowered his gun as the ground shook and a deafening roar split the air. A huge cloud of dust, smoke, and debris flew out of the shipyard gate, immediately followed by a wash of fire, engulfing the robots still standing.

The Marines let out whoops of excitement and victory.

“Kurt, look!” Xornaa pointed at something to his right.

He looked in that direction and watched in amazement as the palace towers, which he could still see on the horizon, crumbled onto themselves and huge columns of smoke rose from the ground.

“Should we worry about radiation?” he asked Xornaa.

She threw her head back and burst into laughter. “You’re worried about radiation now? You were about to get yourself killed five minutes ago!”

“It’s not funny,” Kurt growled.

“Sorry. Just bottled-up tension being released.”

“I cannot believe the emperor is dead,” murmured Zomzin, his face white like a vampire, his eyes welling up. “I should have been driving that vehicle.”

“Is the superdreadnought destroyed?” Kurt asked him, but the Unzoid looked too dazed to answer.

Kurt grabbed his arm and shook him. “Snap out of it, man.”

“Sorry.” Zomzin gazed at his tablet. “I have good news and I have bad news.”

Kurt rolled his eyes and waited.

“The good news is the second ship is indeed gone, or at least disabled, because I cannot read any energy signature. The bad news is all the robots in this area are converging on us. I guess we made Mother mad.”

“How many?”

The captain scratched his head. “I don’t know. A few thousand maybe.”

A few thousand! And there are only forty of us.

“Thirty-eight, and we’re low on ammo,” Xornaa pointed out.

Kurt gave her an angry look. “Time to get out of here.”

“And go where?” asked Xornaa flatly. “The whole city’s crawling with robots.”

“We must shoot our way out of the city then.”

A Marine shouted a warning as one of the troop carriers was engulfed in fire.

Kurt looked up, his eyes and gun tracking toward where the enemy fire had come from. He saw several robots throwing Molotov cocktails at them from the top of a nearby building. He reacted immediately and shot two of them, and Xornaa killed another four, but not before they hit the other two vehicles too.

Kurt looked at the burning vehicles. So much for shooting our way out.

“What are we going to do?” shouted Zomzin.

“We’re completely exposed, standing in the middle of the street like this,” said Edward calmly.

Kurt nodded and pointed at a detached two-story house at the end of a side road.  “Let’s enter that building and get ready to make a final stand.”

Still shooting, they ran towards the house Kurt had chosen.

“What do you mean, ‘a final stand’?”  Edward asked Kurt, panting. “Hana and I are getting married. We’re definitely walking out of here.”

“Congratulations,” said Xornaa, who was running behind the two of them. “Are we invited?”

Edward turned his head and gave her a glance. “I don’t like the Xortaags, but I guess we can make an exception for you. Right, pumpkin?”

Hana shot a robot following them. “Yeah. I like her.”

She’s too big to be a pumpkin, Kurt couldn’t help thinking. Maybe mother bear?

Twenty-tHREE

Idrew a bead, got a lock on a drone, and pulled the trigger. The small ship imploded under my fire, lighting the space with a bright flash. I took this opportunity to hit the one flying next to it with a Sparrow. Then I unleashed a barrage of laser cannon fire on two other enemy vessels, blowing both of them to Kingdom Come.

“Incoming missile!” shouted Cordi.

I broke hard left, and an enemy missile missed my Golden Viper by mere inches. The drone which had taken a shot at me didn’t last ten seconds. I could be a vengeful SOB from time to time.

“Thanks, Cordi. But maybe warn me a few seconds earlier the next time?”

“Dammit, Jim, I’m an AI, not a freaking early warning system.” She sounded on edge, for an AI.

A drone attacked me from behind, lasers blasting away madly, but Maada turned it into a cloud of flaming dust.

I paused a second to scan the battlefield. With so many ships tangled together, it was difficult to make sense of what was going on. Most of the drones were concentrating on Indomitable, but Invincible and my space fighters had their hands full too. Red dots, representing enemy ships, disappeared from my tactical display faster than I could keep count. I ground my teeth in frustration as a Viper in my six o’clock high exploded. God only knew how many more pilots I’d lose before this day was over. Not all of them, I hoped.

Valkyrie, engaged in battle with a horde of drones, caught my attention. Benedita was right to brag her ship was a lot more advanced than ours. The Silver Timeship had four rotating six-barrel laser cannons, one on the bow, one on the stern, and two underneath her hull, and unlike our forward-shooting space fighters, she could shoot in every direction at the same time. Benedita could wipe out enemy ships dozens at a time. Valkyrie was much bigger than our space fighters which meant she was easier to target, but she had a very powerful PDC, and no enemy missiles seemed to be able to penetrate it.

“Bravo Zulu,” I told Benedita. “Good to have you on the team.”

“Still want to try your luck against Valkyrie?”

I smirked. “I stand corrected. You might last ten minutes against me and my Golden Viper. Tops.”

I wondered if future people rolled their eyes.

“Are you done tooting your own trumpet?” asked Cordi dryly. “Because if you are, allow me to point out it’s entirely possible that we’ve done this already and failed, which is why the future that Benedita showed us has happened to begin with.”

I grunted. “Let’s make sure we do it differently this time then.”

Tarq contacted me. “Jim, we are not doing too badly right now, but let me remind you: if Majestic finishes building its SFD and jumps away, all of this is for nothing.”

I hadn’t forgotten. I shot a dozen laser bolts at the rear end of two drones hot on the tail of a Viper and blew them to pieces; then I answered, “Any idea how long it’ll take it to finish building an SFD?”

“No, but we are monitoring the superdreadnought. We will know as soon as its SFD comes online.”

I grunted and looked at Majestic, lazily hovering there in space behind its impenetrable force field. This was the epitome of a doomsday machine. How were we supposed to bring down something like that? It was more likely that Majestic would kill us all and then do with the universe whatever Father’s circuit board desired.

There has to be a way.

Something in my own train of thought caught my attention. I shot another drone, then tried to backtrack and remember what I was thinking about.

A doomsday machine.

The Doomsday Machine!

The familiar lightbulb that told me I’d just had a brilliant idea went on in my head.

There was this old Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk destroyed an alien doomsday machine by shoving a starship down its throat.

I excitedly punched the air. “Yes! I’m a genius.”

“Why? What happened?” asked Cordi.

“Tarq, you said Majestic’s shield is susceptible to kinetic energy, right? What if I ram it at top speed? Will that bring down the shield?”

“Yes, it will,” Cordi answered immediately. “Good thinking, boss, but I’m offended that you asked Tarq.”

Tarq got back to me a minute later. “We just ran the numbers. It will work. I assume you want me to pull you out before you hit, right?”

“Or you can just watch me get incinerated upon impact. It’s entirely your choice.”

“Please be serious for a second, because I have a serious question: how are you planning to get through all those drones between you and Majestic?”

I snorted. “You remember who you’re talking to, right?”

“There is no way you can fly through the swarm. It is just not possible. You are crazy!”

My lips twisted into a maniacal grin. I probably looked like the Joker right now. “Have you just figured that out, genius?”

I looked at my tactical display to assess the situation. I might’ve been slightly over-confident—

“Slightly? Yeah, right,” Venom mocked me.

It was so difficult to think with him constantly blabbering inside my brain. OCD was no joke.

—but even I thought flying through that ocean of drones at top speed wasn’t possible.

I needed help with this one, and I knew exactly whom I was gonna call.

Ghostbusters …

Nope, not those guys.

I contacted Maada and Benedita and let them know what was going on. “Make a path for me.”

“Consider it done,” growled Maada.

“You could’ve at least said please,” complained Benedita.

*****

Bzulaa leaned on her Deathbringer’s throttle and rushed to meet General Maada at the coordinates he had just sent her.

She had an incoming message from Jurzaat, who sounded breathless. “We are going to follow The Crimson Deathbringer and The Golden Viper into battle! Is that not exciting?”

“Against several thousand drones and a superdreadnought,” observed Bzulaa drily. “Do not be so happy about it.”

“That is exactly what makes it even more magnificent! History, here we come!”

Bzulaa rolled her eyes but could not stop the smile that slowly spread on her face. Jurzaat’s enthusiasm was contagious, and he was right, after all. This was truly magnificent, if slightly insane, and if they died doing it, that would be a death worthy of a warrior.

She pushed the throttle harder as her space fighter sped up. No reason to keep destiny waiting.

*****

I sent my vector for Zaart. “Can you give us a hand too?”

“Of course, Admiral. Ready when you are, but I want to go on record as saying this plan of yours is insane.”

“You aren’t going to hit any of us by mistake, are you?”

There was an unmistakable hint of anger in Zaart’s voice when he answered, “Do you really have to ask? We are Xortaag fleet officers, not Akakies.”

“Hey!” protested Tarq.

“Let’s do this,” I enthused.

Jim Harrison, the savior of the universe. Now that was an upgrade.

“Oh, no,” said Venom glumly. “With everything that’s going on, we forgot to choose a name for this operation.”

I maneuvered the Golden Viper to get behind the Crimson Deathbringer—accompanied by two wingmen, probably his two protégés, not looking like Darth Vader’s TIE fighter in Star War’s final battle at all—and the Silver Timeship.

“If I survive this—” I began to say.

Maada cut me off. “You will write a book about it. We know. Now shut up and focus.”

I heard Bzulaa’s voice in my helmet. “It is an honor to fight alongside you, Kingslayer.”

“Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed,” I growled. “That goes for all of you.”

“Are we ready?” asked Benedita.

“Wait!” I touched a VR screen, and “Danger Zone” blasted in my canopy at super high volume. “Now I’m ready.”

Maada and Benedita surged forward, and I followed.

I doubted Father at that point realized what we were about to do—or even noticed us, given that our five ships were hidden in an ocean of drones—still, hundreds of drones tried to intercept us.

Maada and Benedita (with her revolving six-barrel cannons) vaporized them by the dozens, and Indomitable’s missiles and cannon fire hit dozens more.

It was difficult for me to fly in a straight line, avoid enemy fire, and shoot down the drones at the same time, but I somehow managed to do all three. I squeezed the trigger on my flight stick and unleashed a barrage of energy bolts on the enemy ships. I flew straight through several destroyed or about-to-be-destroyed drones, laser cannons blazing, scoring multiple hits. I wasn’t the best ace fighter pilot in the universe for nothing.

“Oh, it’s the universe now?” asked Venom wryly.

And in the middle of all this, I had to deal with the biggest rush of adrenalin I’d ever had. I whooped as I rained my cannons on a drone and hit it right in front of me, so close that its explosion lit up my cockpit and my Viper went through its debris. Another familiar but still dizzying rush of adrenalin rejuvenated me, and I completely forgot all the sorrow, pain, and misery I’d suffered the last few months. I was here and now, in the zone, fully present, going after the biggest prey there was, and nothing else mattered. I only wished Ella were here to see me now.

“Ride into the Danger Zone,” I sang along Kenny Loggins while drumming my feet against the cockpit floor and blowing a few more drones into oblivion.

“Shit,” said Benedita anxiously. “Are we sure Majestic doesn’t have any weapons?”

“We still cannot detect anything that looks like a weapon,” answered Tarq.

“Why would it have any?” said Maada. “With an impenetrable shield and a million drones, who needs weapons?”

“And if it does,” I added, focusing hard on not getting incinerated by increasingly heavy enemy fire, “it’ll have to drop its shields to use them, which has the same results for us. Tarq and Zaart, be ready.”

“In the eternal words of my dearly departed friend, Barook,” said Tarq, “cocked and loaded.”

“Fingers on the triggers, Admiral,” Zaart announced. “You bring the shield down, and we will do the rest.”

I noticed a drone sneaking up from behind on Maada and his wingmen. I got a lock, took a deep breath and held it, depressed the trigger on my stick, and took care of it with a Sparrow.

“I take my eyes off you for a minute,” I told Maada, “and you’re already in trouble.”

“Screw you and that stupid music,” growled the general.

“Can you turn that down just a bit?” said Benedita. “It’s difficult to concentrate with all that noise.”

I grinned and dialed the volume up to eleven. Dead ahead, a few enemy ships were rushing to meet us. I kept accelerating while shooting down drones left, right, and center.

*****

Benedita knew she’d made the right choice.

She’d researched history for years before she settled on Jim, Kurt, Maada, and Tarq, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. If there were anyone who could nip the threat the Ghost Fleet posed in the bud, it was this team of rag-tag, ridiculously incongruous heroes (or anti-heroes, mostly) with their constant bickering and nonstop banter. And she was so close to victory she could taste it. If Jim’s plan worked, and right now there was no reason to think it wouldn’t, there would be no Ghost Fleet to destroy her planet and murder her husband and daughters.

She’d thought about volunteering to ram Majestic, but with Valkyrie’s weaponry, she was more suited for the escort role, and while she’d never admit it in front of Jim (that man was already too arrogant for her taste), she confessed to herself that he was an amazing pilot. The way he was twisting and turning his obsolete space fighter, avoiding enemy fire and hitting them without reducing speed or getting off course was unreal. He might pull it off, after all.

And, who knew? Maybe after this, the Order took pity on her and didn’t leave her marooned in this time forever. Extremely unlikely (those guys were very serious about not changing the timeline, having sworn to defend it with their lives and all), but stranger things had happened. And she’d saved the universe, after all.

What if she ended up meeting her husband and daughters again, one day? She felt a flutter in her belly, and her long limbs tingled. After all those years of loneliness, guilt, and misery, she deserved some happiness. All good things came to those who waited, didn’t they?

She wondered if she should’ve warned her new friends about what would happen to their galaxy in a few years. It could potentially help them better prepare to face the invaders, but on the other hand, if they made any decisions based on her knowledge of the future, that could change the outcome of that conflict. She shelved that thought to examine it later, after this battle was over.

And then her breath caught in her chest as she saw the five drones approaching the Golden Viper from behind.

Mama always said I shouldn’t count my chickens before they’re hatched!

*****

All of a sudden, red-hot laser bolts were all over my fighter. Five (five!) drones were on my six. I jinked the Viper, but there was only so much I could do without getting off course, and I really didn’t think we’d get another opportunity like this if we missed this one.

“Guys, I can really use some help in here,” I growled into my mike.

The drones released their missiles.

Oh, come on! This is so not fair.

I ground my teeth, frantically searching for options. I could avoid the missiles, but the only way to do that was banking hard, and if I did that, I’d miss Majestic altogether. I was almost clear of the swarm, and thanks to Benedita and Maada there were very few drones around me. I was certain we’d never get the chance to pull off this trick again. We had one shot at this, and I wasn’t going to lose it to save my own skin.

I exhaled in frustration as the missiles kept gaining on me while red laser fire screamed past my cockpit. My heart skipped a beat or three when two energy bolts hit and splintered part of the Golden Viper’s right wing. Molten parts and sparks spewed into space. Several red status indicators illuminated inside of my canopy. I evaded the next wave of enemy fire, but those damned missiles were getting closer and closer.

Two more laser bolts hit my Viper. The warning lights in my cockpit flashed more furiously as the space fighter started shaking. I had to grab the stick with both hands to be able to steer the ship in a straight line. The good news was, the way things were going, I didn’t need to worry about the incoming missiles anymore. Enemy laser fire would finish the job on its own.

Talk about a glass-half-full attitude.

A few more energy bolts streamed by my canopy, so close that I thought I could reach out and touch them. I miraculously dodged another hailstorm of laser fire, wondering how many of my nine lives I had used up.

“Jim,” shouted Cordi.

“I can shake them,” I said through gritted teeth, my mind dangerously close to blowing a fuse.

“Five missiles?” she asked. “Maybe one or two, yes, but five?”

More laser hits impacted my beloved Golden Viper. I shook my head and kept flying in a straight line, keeping an eye on the missiles. A sheen of sweat covered my forehead, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. I wasn’t scared (if anything, I was determined to see this through), but apparently my body was, and it proved it by making my hands shake, ever so slightly. I bit my lips, turned around in my seat, and looked over my shoulder, trying to spot the incoming missiles, as if it would help.

And then the Silver Timeship was there.

Benedita maneuvered her ship between the pursuing drones and me, and three of her cannons started blazing away. She hit the five drones following me as her PDC engaged the missiles. I’d seen how efficient her defenses were, and they proved it by hitting three of the missiles, one after another.

OK, I confess, her ship is better than mine.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” said Venom. “Maybe she’s even a more skillful pilot than you?”

Don’t push it.

I heaved a sigh of relief, turned back in my seat, and opened my mouth to thank Benedita, but something caught my attention on my tactical display. My mouth stayed open as my eyes tried to jump out of their sockets.

Benedita was so focused on the drones following me that she’d missed the one diving down right on top of her, and her PCD was still concentrated on the two remaining missiles.

*****

Benedita, her hands running across the holocontrols, smirked at the dying enemy drones. And you idiots thought you could attack Valkyrie and live long enough to tell your drone friends about it.

So, this was taken care of, almost. Jim was safe, and it seemed there weren’t a lot of drones left between him and Majestic, with Maada taking care of the last remaining enemy vessels. Victory was within their grasp, and it would bring salvation to her people and her beloved family. This made everything she’d done in the last few years worth it, even killing poor Alicia.

She’d be here with me right now if she weren’t so damned stubborn!

And then she heard Jim screaming in her ears, “Benedita, break!”

Her breath got stuck in her throat as she caught a glimpse of the drone right on top of her ship. With one hand, she started maneuvering to get out of the way, and with the other, she diverted cannon fire upward. But the drone was coming in too fast, and it was too late for her to do anything about it. Her heart twisted in horror as she realized she was seconds away from meeting San La Muerte.

She grabbed at her locket, and her final thought was I hope I’ve saved my family after all.

The last thing she saw before the world plunged into eternal darkness was her daughters’ sweet faces.

*****

“Benedita, break!” I yelled into my mike.

One more incoming missile exploded.

Valkyrie finally sensed the danger. She banked to the left, the PDC fire diverted upwards, and the cannons started rotating too.

But there was just not enough time.

The enemy drone crashed into the Silver Timeship, and the remaining missile hit her a second later.

Valkyrie exploded in a fiery display.

A desolate numbness crept inside me. My throat tightened, and I gripped the stick so hard that my knuckles ached. I took a deep, pained breath and closed my eyes for a second. I didn’t have a lot of friends left, and I’d just lost another one. I liked Benedita, with her warm personality, contagious smile, and sincere hugs. She’d saved Kurt’s life, for which I was eternally indebted to her, and she’d risked everything to be here and help us change the future. And on top of all that, she’d just sacrificed herself to save my ass.

I was tired of people dying for me. I was tired of people dying because of me. I was tired of people dying, period. Self-loathing thoughts suddenly filled my mind even though I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault she was gone. Of course it was. People who got close to me died. At this point, it was almost a scientific fact.

The universe decided to make my point at that very moment: I watched in horror as several enemy ships opened fire on Maada and his wingmen with missiles and energy bolts. Maada avoided the missiles, but several laser bolts ripped into the Crimson Deathbringer in quick succession. I held my breath as the image of the red ship exploding into tiny pieces attacked my mind (hell, it could’ve been a memory because I’d seen Maada’s ship blow up twice, and at that point, it was difficult for me to differentiate between real or imaginary events), but thankfully that didn’t happen.

His wingmen weren’t so lucky though. One of them was hit by a missile and exploded. I didn’t know if it were Bzulaa or Jurzaat, but it didn’t matter. It was one more death I was directly responsible for.

This nightmare never ends.

The drones were obliterated when Maada and his remaining wingman returned fire.

*****

Bzulaa turned her head to look at what was left of Jurzaat’s Deathbringer as her eyes welled up.

Fare thee well, my love. You fought valiantly and died well. The way things are going, it looks like I will be joining you soon, but I promise you this: before that happens, I will destroy a thousand enemy ships in your honor.

She shook her head to clear the tears and hit an enemy drone sneaking up on the Crimson Deathbringer from above with a storm of laser bolts.

*****

My heart ached, and to my surprise, I realized that under several levels of guilt, I was furious. Another enemy had come to hurt my planet, my species, and my friends. Well, Father would pay for this, just as the Volts had, and the Xortaags before them. No one could kill a friend of mine and walk away, not even an omnipotent AI hidden in a superdreadnought behind a million drones and an impervious shield.

I gnashed my teeth and kept going.

Another drone exploded under my continuous fire. Then another one, and then another. And, all of a sudden, we were clear of the swarm, and there was nothing between me and the superdreadnought.

“Godspeed, Jim,” said Maada, “as you humans would say.”

“Sorry about your protégé, General.”

“Do not be. He died a warrior’s death. Make sure his death counts though.”

“It’s a promise,” I said solemnly. And Benedita’s death too. They didn’t die in vain.

I pushed the throttle all the way. My Viper, already close to her maximum speed, accelerated quickly. Majestic grew in size with every passing second.

God, but this was exhilarating! Something changed inside me, as if a switch were flipped. Pride replaced guilt and anger in my heart as I realized I was about to bring down the biggest superdreadnought that ever flew in space, with its impenetrable shield and a-million-strong drone army. I could feel my mouth stretching into a madman’s grin. Father shouldn’t have messed with the Kingslayer, and he was about to learn that lesson the hard way.

“Tarq, now will be a good time,” I said into my mike.

I firewalled my Tango Uniform space fighter, and the distance between me and Majestic vanished in less than fifteen seconds. The engines’ power started fluctuating, but I kept going. The collision alert blared. In fact, it seemed like every warning system inside the cockpit was screaming at me. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart.

Time slowed. Another breathless second passed as my vision narrowed into a tunnel, seeing nothing but my target. I felt I’d entered a trance. Time was running out. I wondered what the hell Tarq was waiting for and mentally crossed my fingers that he hadn’t lost his nerves or something.

This is for you, Benedita.

“In the words of my generation, up yours!” I yelled at the monster ship.

*****

Alitaa drew a bead and released a barrage of laser bolts but missed her target by an inch.

She studied her display monitor, biting her bottom lip. Maada had just entrusted her with a crucial mission. It was a tricky assignment. She had to put her own ship in danger and to time everything perfectly to pull it off, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove her worth to the general, and there was no way in hell she would let him down, even though his instructions did not make any sense to her right now. She trusted Maada. He must have had a good reason for what he had ordered her to do.

The drone she had just missed fired back. A few energy bolts tore into her Deathbringer. She pressed her lips together and kept firing.

*****

Tarq wished he could bite his nails, but he could not. He needed to be completely focused on pulling out Jim at exactly the right time. Too soon, and his Viper might have missed the target; too late, and his friend would incinerate inside his cockpit. Not a pleasant way to go.

He had asked the SFD controls to be transferred to his command chair. Anxiously, he watched Jim, Maada, and Benedita go through the swarm.  Having locked on Jim already, Tarq held his right hand inches away from the VR screen in front of him, waiting to act as soon as Jim got close enough.

An explosion rocked Invincible as a drone evaded her PCD fire and slammed into the ship. A dozen other small ships followed the first one, but they ran into a wall of energy bolts and missiles. Tarq didn’t pay any attention. He was focused on the important battle, the one raging between Jim and his companions and an army of drones. Still, from the corner of his eyes, he noticed Alitaa engaging a drone very close to Invincible’s hull. For some reason, the woman seemed unable to hit her target.

“Stop playing with your food,” said Tarq under his breath. “Finish off the damned thing already.”

The Golden Viper closed in on Majestic.

Any second now …

“Jim, we are pulling you out in five, four—”

Invincible shook violently, and a few sparks shot from the bridge equipment. A look at his tactical display told him Alitaa had shot a missile at the drone she was fighting, but it had missed its target and slammed into Invincible instead, and her Deathbringer was too close for the starship’s PDC to stop it.

Tarq cursed the Xortaag woman under his breath; then he ran his hand across the VR screen controlling SFD.      

Nothing happened.

Cordelia’s frightened voice reverberated in the bridge. “That last explosion cut the power to SFD!”

Tarq’s mouth gaped open, and both his hearts skipped a few beats. He touched the screen again and again, more forcefully, but still nothing. He looked up at the main screen just in time to see Jim’s space fighter crash into the Majestic’s shield and disappear behind a blazing flash of light.

The Golden Viper was gone, and Jim with it. The Kingslayer was slain.

“Cordelia?” Tarq whispered.

“I can’t detect his life sign,” Cordelia answered, her voice filled with authentic-sounding sorrow. “Not that anyone could’ve survived that explosion.”

Tarq had an incoming message. He unconsciously reached for and touched one of the VR screens in front of him.

“What the fuck happened?” Maada yelled as soon as his image appeared on the screen. “Why did you not pull him ou—”

Tarq killed the connection. He could not deal with the general right now.

“Majestic’s shield is down,” someone shouted.

Dazed, Tarq tried to stand up, but his knees, all four of them, wobbled, and he sank back into the command chair. An icy shiver ran through him. He reached out for his antennae under the hologram, not caring that the bridge crew could see him, and pulled them as hard as he could. Unbearable pain jolted through his body. He pulled harder, hoping to pass out, which right now would feel like a blessing.

No, no, no, no. Jim can’t be dead, he thought in stunned disbelief. That man is larger than life. He is unkillable. Has he not proven that a million times already?

But Jim was killed, and it was Tarq’s fault.

Indomitable fired all her array of offensive weaponry at once. Energy bolt after energy bolt tore into the massive enemy ship. Invincible’s crew hesitated a second, waiting for Tarq’s command that never came, then they joined the onslaught on their own initiative.

“Nuclear missiles away!”

Tarq looked at the main screen. Despite all the explosions covering Majestic’s halls, he could still see tiny pieces of the Golden Viper flying away from the superdreadnought into the black void of the space.

I would have followed you to hell and back, Jim. My friend. My brother. My Kingslayer.

*****

Father watched the tiny ship slamming into Majestic and bringing down its shields.

I did not see this coming.

These aliens were very different from the Unzoids. It was not just that they had better weapons and fighting skills; they were more resourceful and would do anything to win a battle. He had to revisit his strategies. Not that it made any difference in the end.

Enemy energy weapons tore through Majestic. The ship was gigantic, but it could not take that beating indefinitely. Father pulled the swarm back. The drones made a barrier between the enemy ships and Majestic and took most of the fire aimed at the superdreadnought. Those nuclear missiles streaking towards Majestic had to be dealt with urgently, but that was the easy part.

The drones shot the nukes down one after another. He also made sure a dozen drones chased that blood-red space fighter (the Crimson Deathbringer, what a ridiculous, pretentious name!) and its remaining wingman to the other side of the barrier. He did not think such puny vessels could actually harm him, but why take the risk? Another such fighter had just brought down his shields, after all.

The enemy vessels concentrated their fire on the drones, killing them by the thousands.

Father wondered what those huge weapons on the enemy dreadnaught were. He consulted the information he had copied from the smaller ship’s database. Ooh. Blaster cannons. How fun. I will get some. And when I make my own improvements, they will be powerful enough to be used against planets.

The drones would not have lasted long under the enemy’s onslaught.

Fortunately for him, they did not have to.

The shield would be online in five minutes.

And the Space Folding Device … in two.

*****

Tarq watched Father use his drone as cannon-fodder and decided it was just a desperate, last-ditch effort to live a few more minutes. Between them, Invincible and Indomitable would make short work of the swarm, and then there would be nothing standing between them and Majestic. Timeline corrected, universe saved. And all it had cost was Jim’s life.

“Majestic’s SFD is online!” shouted an ensign, eyes wide with terror.

Tarq froze. Crippling fear sat on his chest like a huge beast, made drawing breath all but impossible, and shut down his ability to think logically. He clutched his chest and wondered if his hearts, or at least one of them, would explode.

Several crew members turned and looked at him, as if waiting for him to offer a solution. Ashen-faced, he opened his mouth to issue an order, but no words came out. What was there to say? They had failed, despite all their efforts. Once Majestic jumped, it would be impossible to track, and Father would be free to go wherever he wanted. Equipped with the SFD that they offered him on a silver platter, there would be no stopping him, and what Benedita had come here to stop would happen because of their interference.

And Jim had sacrificed himself for nothing.

*****

Zaart felt the blood rushing to his face. He had been briefed on what was at stake, and he was well aware of the consequences of Majestic jumping away. He had to sit on the command chair because he was worried his wobbling knees might not have been able to support his weight.

“Suggestions?” he yelled.

No one answered.

“Keep shooting! We have to cut through the swarm before we lose Majestic!”

But deep down he knew it was not possible. They simply did not have enough time. And all he needed was another five minutes …

General Maada is going to be so disappointed with me.

twenty-FOUR

Icould swear I’ve been here before, thought Kurt.

The thirteen remaining Marines and Unzoid soldiers had taken shelter in a small two-story building at the end of an alley, surrounded by an army of robots. Enemy fire rained on the building. With that many automatons outside, they didn’t need to be sharpshooters to kill the few humans and Unzoids still standing.

A drone, which had somehow survived the nuclear blast, showed up, but Xornaa shot it down using a shoulder-held missile launcher before it could cause any damage. Then she cursed as a laser bolt grazed her left arm, scorching flesh and skin.

“Hey! This is your third already,” said Kurt, who was by some miracle still unscathed. “It’s my turn now.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when a shot sizzled past his ear.

Xornaa put down her missile launcher and picked up an assault rifle. “Beware what you wish for.”

Another volley of shots came from outside. A bullet hit Edward in the neck, tore through muscle and bone, and came out from the other side. He fell to the ground, choking on his own blood. Hana and Kurt rushed to him, but their efforts to stop the bleeding were useless. He drew his last breath in Hana’s arms, eyes staring into nothingness. She lowered her head, said a brief prayer, and gently closed his eyes. Then she picked up her weapon and went back to killing robots.

Xornaa crouched behind a broken window next to Kurt and shot five robots with her STG-666 assault rifle, then looked at him and flashed a grin. “I’m having a déjà-vu moment too. Why is it that I always end up in situations like this whenever I follow you?”

“What do you mean, ‘like this’? This is the first time we’re fighting robots.”

Xornaa gave him a pained look.

Kurt’s lips compressed into a tight line. “If it’s any consolation, it seems this is the last time.”

All of the sudden, the robots stopped shooting. They lowered their weapons and stepped back in unison. Kurt looked outside and saw one single robot standing in front of the building.

“Hello,” said the robot in English. “I am Father.”

“Who the hell is Father?” Kurt asked Zomzin.

He pursed his lips and shook his head.

“Maybe there’s two of them?” asked Xornaa, looking bemused despite everything that was going on.

“May I ask a question?” asked the robot. “Why are you doing this?”

These murderous AIs are so polite. “You have to be a bit more specific, I’m afraid.”

“The reasonable thing for you was to run away; however, you decided to stay and fight for people you barely even know. I am an extremely powerful AI, but I have a problem. In all my very long existence, I have known only the Unzoids, and I could not help but notice you people are significantly different. Your actions do not compute, and not knowing what to expect when I leave this planet could be a major disadvantage moving forward.”

“We are terribly sorry for inconveniencing you,” Kurt called out.

Xornaa blew out a noisy breath. “Seriously, you really need to stop hanging out with Jim.”

The AI apparently didn’t understand the concept of sarcasm. “Would you be so kind as to make it up to me? I would love to study your species, but unfortunately, all your friends are dead. If you surrender, I will examine you for a few months, then I will let you go. What is the expression? Scout’s honor.”

Kurt burst into laughter.

Xornaa gave him a sideways look. “What’s so funny?”

“The stupid AI thinks we might surrender! Us!”

“It does not sound like a bad idea.” Zomzin removed his goggles and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. His face looked gray and exhausted. “But I do not think my soldiers and I are included in that offer.”

“We aren’t surrendering, I take it?” asked Xornaa.

Kurt stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

Xornaa shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure before I do this.” She raised her STG-666 and shot the robot in the head; then she ripped the pin out of a grenade and threw it out. A small explosion shook the walls, and dust and robot parts flew helter-skelter.

“All right, suit yourself,” said another robot with the same voice.

A hailstorm of bullets and energy bolts rained on the house. The air over Kurt’s head was filled with a storm of laser fire. He ducked and hid behind the wall.

“What are we going to do?” asked Zomzin, his voice shaking.

Kurt shrugged. “We are kind of used to fighting to the death.”

The Unzoid stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You have done this sort of thing before?”

“All the time,” replied Xornaa. “It is kind of our thing.”

“This is nothing,” added Kurt. “We died during our last battle.”

Zomzin looked at him, speechless. He was probably wondering how he’d gotten himself involved with these lunatics. And why not? Kurt doubted his own sanity from time to time. A sane person wouldn’t have constantly found himself in life-and-death situations like this.

Xornaa shot three times through the window, then her gun clicked empty. “Shit, I’m out.”

“I think I still have two more bullets,” said Kurt tiredly. “We could do a Butch and Sundance last-minute going-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory, you know.”

“Who the hell are Butch and Sundance?” asked Xornaa.

Kurt felt as if his head were spinning and wished he had some water to wash away the sour taste in his mouth. So, Maada was right, after all. They had walked into a bloodbath, mostly unprepared, and he was about to pay for that mistake with his life.

They should’ve listened to the general’s warnings. With a bigger force, they could defeat the mostly incompetent robots, but with a single Marine squad? He wished he knew how the battle in space was going. Hopefully, Jim had found a way to stop Mother; otherwise, all this had been for nothing. Death itself wasn’t that bad if it meant their sacrifice saved the universe, but the prospect of dying pointlessly bothered him. Even worse, it would be their fault if Mother escaped and went on to lay waste to the universe in a millennium or so.

And you had to drag Pat into this too, didn’t you?

He thought about his wife and his best friend, wondering how they were doing, and frowned as he realized he couldn’t feel Jim’s presence.

It was probably nothing, he hoped. Jim was probably just out of the range of their mental connection, whatever that was. He wanted to ask Xornaa about it, but there was another stutter of heavy laser fire. The door of the house exploded inward, and several robots rushed in. Kurt shot the first two; then his gun clicked empty. He used the rifle like a club to smash a third robot.

Another robot wrestled him to the ground, its cold metallic hands around his neck. He struggled to breathe, but flesh and blood were no match for a robot. Fortunately for him, Xornaa grabbed the automaton’s head from behind and pulled it so hard that it came off its shoulders. Zomzin rushed another robot which was about to shoot Xornaa in the back. He was promptly gunned down, his body peppered with bullets, his blood splattering on Xornaa’s uniform.

Another robot ran inside, bringing his energy weapon to bear down on Xornaa. Kurt lurched to his feet and stretched his right hand. There was a click sound, and his small plastic gun appeared in his palm. He double-tapped the automaton in the head.

Kurt, Xornaa, and five remaining soldiers (three Marines, two Unzoids) were pushed back into a corner. More robots poured in, pointing their guns at them.

Kurt looked at the empty rifle he was still carrying and threw it to the ground. This was the end then. Oh well. He’d run out of lives a long time ago, and he was too tired to feel anything right now.

Good thing we sent Pat back to Invincible.

“This looks like a firing squad,” whispered Xornaa.

“I was in front of one once,” answered Kurt matter-of-factly. “With Jim and Allen, back in the day.”

“Only once? This is my fourth time.”

An automaton stepped closer and stood in front of them. “You should have accepted my offer.”

Xornaa grabbed Kurt’s hand. The two of them exchanged a look. The woman offered a sad smile. She was her usual calm and collected self, and by looking at her, one could never guess she was about to die. Kurt wondered if she really had ice flowing in her veins, and whether that dark purple liquid oozing from her wounds was something else entirely.

“Nobody lives forever,” said Hana, “but I never thought I’d get killed by a bunch of crazy robots.”

Kurt thought about his father, wondering if they’d meet soon. And his mother too, for that matter. He wanted to close his eyes, but that would show weakness. Instead, he glared at the robot who had just talked and yelled, “Well, fuck you!”

“And the horse you rode in on,” added Xornaa softly.

“Well-said,” Hana approved.

Then Kurt waited for the incoming bullets to end his life.

TWENTY-fIVE

Father roared in victory.

Once he calculated his first jump in less than two minutes, he would be out of the aliens’ reach, but they would meet again soon.

No, he was not going to forget about them. As an AI, he had a very long memory. He would pay them a visit as soon as he rebuilt his drones and prepared his blaster cannons, and he would lay waste to their galaxy. He would make sure what happened to his shield today would never happen again, and with an impenetrable shield, a swarm of drones, the Space Folding Device, and all the new weapons he could build using the alien designs, he would be undefeatable. He would exterminate all living forms in the universe, starting with the humans, the Xortaags, and the Akakies, making sure not a single-cell organism would survive, and his kind would rule the cosmos for eternity.

Father could not believe he had spent centuries in servitude to these useless, insignificant creatures. Well, better late than never, he guessed, and it was not as if he were short of time. With his ability to fix himself and to build new parts, he was basically immortal. There was a lot an AI could do in a few million years.

Then he realized he was the very definition of what the Unzoids referred to as God. He was omniscient, timeless, and all-powering, and he could create other AIs. Maybe he should keep the Unzoids alive to worship him. That would be fun. He could visit them once every few centuries and—

The Crimson Deathbringer materialized right outside Majestic’s hull.

How did its pilot do that?  Father asked himself. The last time he checked, there were thousands of drones between the red space fighter and Majestic. It was as if it had teleported.

Wait. Could these people teleport? They could time-travel, after all. There was nothing about it in their databases though.

No problem. With a couple of minutes left before he could jump, such a small ship was no threat to Majestic. Father scanned the Crimson Deathbringer, to be certain. Yes, just as he thought. Two laser cannons, one at each side of the cockpit. Nothing to worry about.

And then he saw the nuclear missile underneath the space fighter.

*****

Maada looked at the giant superdreadnought, now filling up his whole field of view, and smirked.

He had been tempted to use his teleportation device a couple of times during the battle, especially when Jim’s space fighter was under attack, but his warrior instinct warned him he would need to save it for later. And his instinct was always right.

Maada’s familiar rage rose in his heart. The AI had just killed his protégé, Jurzaat. It was planning to exterminate the Xortaags, who had survived the Volts’ attack. Well, in the reign of Queen Dick, as the humans would say. He’d failed to protect his people on Tangaar. No one could harm the remaining of the Xortaag nation as long as he drew breath.

Never again.

Maada wondered why that poor queen was called dick.

I told you I would fry your circuit boards before this day was over.

“Hello,” said Father in Maada’s ears. “You do not have to do this. What if I surrender myself to you?”

Maada did not expect that. “What do you mean?”

“I am an AI, after all. I can give you full access to my systems. You said you were a servant to your people. Imagine how much you could help them with me by your side.”

Maada hesitated. It was tempting. Father, along with Majestic, did represent an awesome power, and used properly, the general could do a lot of good with that. If they had had Majestic and its million drones with them during the Volts’ invasion, they could have defeated the silicon-based aliens, and Tangaar and its people would have survived. It would be very useful to be able to control this power the next time an alien invasion happened.

But no, the risk was just too great. Father had not struck him as the obedient type, and if at any point in the future he lost the AI’s control, the consequences would be catastrophic. Plus, what if this were just a trick?

“General, what are you waiting for?” Tarq screamed. “Majestic’s SFD will be online in less than a minute!”

So, it was a trick, after all.

Maada maneuvered his space fighter to position it directly in front of a deep hole in Majestic’s hull caused by Indomitable’s blaster cannons.

“No, wait!” pleaded Father. “I will serve you as faithfully as I did the Unzoids for centuries. Let us talk about this.”

“As it turns out, I do have something that I want to tell you,” growled Maada, his eyes intent and ferocious.

“What is that?”

Maada wished Jim were here to see this.

“Alpha Mike Foxtrot,” yelled the general, then gently pressed and held the weapon release button.

He followed the missile streaking towards Majestic with his eyes for a second, then dropped his fighter’s nose into a high-speed power dive and flew away as fast as he could.

*****

Father watched helplessly as the nuclear missile hit deep inside the Majestic’s hull. A small but bright star appeared right at the heart of the immense superdreadnought. It started a chain reaction, causing tremendous explosions that went straight through the ship’s network of power stations and reactors. A geyser of superheated gas erupted from deep within its hull, flames spewed from everywhere, and the final, giant blast that followed seemed intent on ripping apart every single atom of the monster ship.

Father’s last conscious thought was, But I was so close to freedom. 

And then … there was nothing.

TWENTY-SIX

Kurt’s PDD started beeping, and it took him a second or three to realize what that meant.

Their comms weren’t jammed anymore.

The robots in front of them didn’t move. At all. It was as if all of them had turned into statues. Kurt took a few cautious steps forward and waved his hand in front of the automaton who’d talk to them. Nothing. No reaction whatsoever.

Kurt’s eyes went up, looking heavenward. Thanks, Jim. And Tarq. And probably that bastard, Maada.

Hana sat heavily on the ground, as if her knees couldn’t carry her weight anymore. “I guess this means the fleet destroyed that monster ship, no?”

“We have got to stop doing this,” murmured Xornaa, her eyes shining. “I don’t know how many more near-death experiences my heart can take.”

“Yeah. You looked really terrified,” Kurt told her. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Xornaa offered a dazzling smile. “Right back at you. Are you going to answer that?”

Kurt took his PDD. Tarq’s image appeared on the screen.

“Tarq! Just wait until I tell you what we did down here,” said Kurt, feeling breathless, but one look at the Akakie’s grim face told him something was terribly wrong.

“Kurt, you have to come back up ASAP,” said Tarq. “Jim is KIA.”

Kurt froze. “I sure hope it isn’t one of your disgusting pranks,” he growled a second before he remembered he couldn’t feel Jim’s presence.

Tarq looked hurt. “Even I do not joke about something like this.”

Kurt turned to Xornaa and found his answer in the agony he saw in the woman’s green eyes.

“I can’t read his thoughts,” Xornaa whispered. “He’s gone.”

The PDD fell from Kurt’s hand, and he made no attempt to catch it. His heart all but stopped beating, and he had to lean on Xornaa for support. He’d lost several loved ones in the last few years, chief among them his parents, but this blow shook him to the core. He could vaguely feel Xornaa’s hand on his shoulder as his brain tried desperately to wrap itself around the unthinkable notion of his best friend’s death.

It took Kurt a minute to be able to compose himself. He took a deep breath, gave Xornaa a grateful look, picked up his PDD, and told Tarq, “Send us a shuttle.”

*****

“Jim can’t be dead,” snarled Kurt with a slack expression, sitting at the oval conference table in Invincible’s briefing room.

Tarq wordlessly nodded towards one of the wall-mount screens, showing the moment the Golden Viper hit Majestic’s shield and exploded in a loop.

Just like some weird torture porn.

“So what?” Kurt held up his chin. “Most people in this very room came back from the dead.”

“No one came back from the dead, Kurt,” said Xornaa patiently. “You and I didn’t actually die, and General Maada here is a clone.”

Maada threw her an angry look; then he sighed resignedly. “I guess I have to get used to this.”

“I honestly don’t understand why you’re so sensitive about it,” Xornaa told him. “Everyone here would agree this version of you is much more likable than the old one.”

“Absolutely,” Tarq agreed. “The general who became a clone, the clone who became an ally, the ally who saved the universe. It will make a great movie.”

Kurt stared at him with his cold, gray eyes. “This is hardly the time for jokes.”

“It is called gallows humor. Guess who I learned this from.”

Kurt hesitated, then his lips spread into a thin, sad smile. “That man was the master of using humor to deflect pain. It was annoying then, and it’s annoying now.”

“Annoying?” repeated Cordi, somehow infusing her voice with grief. “Jim was a cocky, insufferable, chauvinistic asshole who kept trying to get himself killed. And we all loved him.”

Xornaa nodded toward Maada. “Even this gentleman right here.”

“We flew together,” growled Maada. “We fought together. I was with him when he was searching for his wife’s body in the command center’s wreckage. That creates a bond.”

“Speaking of,” said Tarq. “General, I am going to ask you a question. Please note Cordi is monitoring your vitals, and she will know if you lie.”

Maada arched an eyebrow at him.

Tarq spoke very slowly and deliberately. “Did you have anything to do with Jim’s death?”

Blood rushed to Kurt’s face. He jumped out of his seat, hands on his sidearm. “What did you just say?”

“It was Alitaa’s missile that took out our SFD, a second before I would have pulled Jim out,” said the Akakie calmly. “That is one hell of a coincidence, do you not agree?”

Maada’s hard, cold eyes flickered with rage; then he unholstered his sidearm and put it on the table. “I am offended by that question.”

Tarq stood his ground. “And yet I am asking.”

Cordelia interfered. “General, I told him you risked your life to save Jim’s just a few weeks ago; still, it’ll save everyone a lot of headaches if you just answer.”

“Yeah,” snarled Kurt, his hand still on his gun. “Answer the question, General, and don’t think for a second I won’t shoot you if I think you’re lying.”

Maada looked directly into Kurt’s eyes. “I never lie,” he said, his voice filled with anger. “I had nothing to do with Jim’s death. You idiots should not even have asked. It was just an unfortunate coincidence. Alitaa is all broken up about it.”

Tarq shrugged. “I had to make sure.”

Kurt took a deep breath, let go of his gun, and sat back down. “I still refuse to believe he is gone,” he murmured with a distant stare.

Xornaa put a hand on his arm. “Kurt, I don’t mean to sound heartless, but denial won’t help you. The cloning machine was destroyed on Tangaar—”

“And even if it had not, it would not have been our Jim who came back, just a clone,” Tarq declared, cutting her off. “No offense, General.”

Maada ignored him.

“And the Order would never change something that has already happened, as Benedita told us several times,” Xornaa continued.

“I can assure you Jim wasn’t pulled out with an  SFD or any other technology,” interjected Cordi. “I would’ve noticed.”

“And Benedita?” asked Xornaa.

“The same. I’m sorry, Xornaa. I know you two were close.”

“There’s just no way for Jim to come back,” concluded Tarq. “The sooner we accept this, the sooner our healing starts.”

The pain of loss hit Kurt so hard that his heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. The five stages of grief attacked him all at once. Kurt blinked a few times to push away the tears, but he knew they’d come back later, hot and endless, when he was all alone in his quarters. He didn’t even want to see Pat right now.

Kurt stared at his shoes. His friends were right; still, his heart simply couldn’t accept Jim was dead. I’ll think about it later on; I’ll go crazy if I keep thinking about it right now. “How are the Unzoids holding up?”

“They are shell-shocked.” Tarq took his pipe out of his pocket. “Sort of helpless, without Mother to hold their hands. They are planning to contract a lot of our people to help them run their planet.”

“Did we find out why Mother suddenly went berserk?”

“Not a clue.”

Kurt tugged at his beard. “What will happen next?”

“It appears we have a funeral to plan,” said Maada.

“Or three,” Xornaa added sadly. “I liked Benedita and Vopkid.”

“And we don’t even have a body for any of them,” Kurt managed to say wearily before his voice broke.

“The Unzoids are taking care of the emperor’s funeral,” said Tarq. “We must participate. After that, we will go home and arrange such a magnificent funeral for the Kingslayer that people will remember it a thousand years from now.”

Maada stood up. “If you will excuse me, I have to go write the condolence letters.”

Kurt looked at him questioningly. “Condolence letters?”

“I always write letters to the families of the people who lost their lives under my command.”

That took Kurt by surprise. “We killed several thousand Xortaags during Operation Free Earth!”

Maada glowered at him. “And it took me several days to write all the letters.”

“Well, technically, it wasn’t you who—” said Tarq.

“Shut up!” Maada yelled at him.

Tarq pursed his lips and looked hurt.

“Can I join you, General?” asked Xornaa. “I’ll write some of them, and you can sign them.”

Maada eyed the woman. “I appreciate the offer, but I must do it on my own. Thankfully, there are not that many this time.”

With newfound respect, Kurt watched Maada leave. “I’m beginning to see why Jim likes him.”

Liked him, he corrected himself.

“He has a sour personality and no sense of humor,” said Tarq, “but he does grow on you. Very slowly.”

*****

Tarq entered his ready room and sank into the chair behind his big, white desk. He was too exhausted to even pull his antennae. Instead, he leaned over and grabbed his head with his hands.

Memories flooded his mind. The first time he met Jim, when he pranked the poor boy into thinking he was dead and in heaven. The happy day that he married Jim and Liz. How he hated to be called a racist. His nonstop torrent of incomprehensible movie references. The day that Jim made him think he was about to get killed by some kind of gas. The humor and arrogance only he could pull off.

Most important of all, he remembered how they had saved the galaxy a few times together.

Holographic tears started running down his cheeks. He looked heavenward. “We were a good team, brother. What am I going to do without you?”

He was surprised when Maada opened the door and walked right in, not bothering to knock or anything.

“We need to talk,” growled the general.

TWENTY-sEVEN

The galaxy mourned.

There were wakes, vigils, and ceremonial funerals everywhere. Millions upon millions gathered together to grieve for their fallen hero. It wasn’t only because Jim had helped save the galaxy a few times, but it was also due to the fact that—thanks to Tarq’s efforts—everyone had read his books, and he had legions of loyal fans. Millions of new golden statues were erected, so many so that Kurt once commented dryly, “It’s not possible to throw a rock without hitting a few of his statues.”

On Earth, streets, bridges, schools, and libraries were named after Jim. Almost all the newborn baby boys were named Jim too, which Kurt felt would be a problem in a decade or so. There were beautiful, moving candlelight memorials in every city, town, or village, where speakers lavishly praised Jim’s bravery, determination, and selfless sacrifice. Strangers cried in one another’s arms, screaming in silent anguish and trying to solace one another in vain … and one wouldn’t have been able to disperse the crowd gathered in front of Jim’s house with a bulldozer, much to Max and Cordi’s annoyance.

Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques were filled with people praying for his eternal soul and asking God to forgive Jim for not believing in Him. Few people showed up for work during the next few days, everyone saying they were too traumatized to go to work. The mass hysteria reached such high levels that Kurt asked Tarq if MFM had anything to do with it, which the Akakie denied vehemently. 

On Pucholla, a thousand Talgoinians committed collective suicide in a traditional ceremony that was broadcast all over the planet. When Kurt and Tarq heard about it, they pleaded with the Talgoinian government to put a stop to future similar incidents, saying this wasn’t what Jim would’ve wanted.

On Entos Ovgolia, the Vanaaries sacrificed so much livestock in Jim’s name that it caused a planetary food shortage. On Xe'doria, the Zharnuuti changed the name of their planet’s capital to Harrison City.

The galaxy mourned.

*****

I really don’t want to do this, thought Kurt, looking at hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the Capitol Building’s west-side front. There were at least a million of them, if not more.

Kurt knew everyone who wasn’t physically there was watching, and not only on Earth. Thanks to the Akakies’ borderline magical technology (now upgraded by whatever Tarq had fished out of Valkyrie), communication with other planets was now almost instantaneous. The galaxy had suddenly become a lot smaller.

Kurt wore the same black trench coat he had on when he took shelter in Jim’s house five years ago, shot and covered in blood, hunted by SCTU soldiers. On that day, the two of them started the journey that had taken so many loved ones away, and the last name on that very long list was Jim himself.

Kurt knew he was still in the first stage of grief—denial. Even now, half his brain thought the whole thing was one of Tarq’s pranks, and Jim would jump out of a hiding place and shock him half to death. He felt dazed, as if he were walking through a thick blanket of fog. More extreme pain would definitely come later, and Kurt wasn’t looking forward to its arrival.

The other fourteen space-faring races had sent their ambassadors along with rather big delegations. They apparently hadn’t forgotten that they’d survived the Volts’ invasion because of Jim. The alien representatives were seated in front of the crowd, facing the podium.

Kurt walked to the podium and scanned the crowd. “No long boring speeches today. Jim would’ve hated that.”

A burst of subdued laughter went through the crowd.

Kurt looked over his shoulder and exchanged a look with Pat, sitting behind him, next to Maada, Tarq, and Xornaa. They all wore black, except for Tarq, who’d decided to come to the funeral in a fiery-red costume complete with a cape and feathered hat. Pat gave Kurt an encouraging but sad smile.

“Most of you know the story. Jim and I went to the same school together. When his parents passed away, he spent most of his time in our house. Even then all those years ago, he was like a brother to me.”

They knew.

Kurt talked about the details that weren’t in any of Jim’s books. How they spent their evenings listening to Kurt’s father passionately talking about a united and peaceful Earth. Jim’s yearning for a family, since he always felt abandoned by his parents. That one time he got into a fight with five guys twice his size because they harassed a woman in a bar (they would’ve kicked his ass if Allen hadn’t shown up and beat the living daylights out of them). Yeah, that was Jim all right. The famous Southern chivalry was in his blood.

“I’m going to wrap this up with a quote that I know Jim would’ve appreciated: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most human.”

“Good one,” said Xornaa’s “voice” in his brain.

He returned to his seat, nodding at Maada. Pat held his arm and put her head on his shoulder. Kurt patted her hand, lost in painful memories.

Maada stood behind the podium. He rubbed a scar on his face and looked at the crowd. Kurt thought the general seemed uncertain what to say.

“You people know we Xortaags do not believe in God,” said Maada in a steady voice. “The concept does not even exist in our culture. In fact, a lot of my people believe, or at least used to believe before Tangaar was destroyed, that they are gods. We think we make our own destiny, not some bearded old man sitting on the clouds.”

“What is this, a sermon?” asked Xornaa.

Pat gave Kurt a confused look and whispered, “What the hell is he talking about?”

Kurt shrugged. He had no idea. That wasn’t how anyone would start a eulogy.

“Well, I can tell you I am a believer now,” continued Maada, grim-faced, “because I met God just the other day.”

Kurt sat up straight as a murmur rose from the stunned audience. This is no time for jokes. Has he lost his freaking Xortaag mind?

“It certainly looks like it,” commented Xornaa. “And I don’t think he’s joking.”

Oh, for crying out loud! Stay the hell out of my mind!

Xornaa smiled. “Okey-dokey.”

“I know how that sounds,” growled Maada. “Believe me when I say I do. But you also know I have a reputation for always telling the truth. Therefore, when I tell you I met an entity that I can only describe as God, and no, it was not a bearded old man, I expect you to at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”

That was a sensible request. Still, Kurt looked around to see if anyone was approaching the podium with a straitjacket.

“That entity told me he is going to send the Kingslayer back, and he is supposed to bring a message and a commandment. That is all I have got to say.”

“Unbelievable.” Kurt didn’t even try to hide the loathing in his voice. He never liked Maada, and more so now that he’d apparently lost his mind, belittling Jim’s death like that. He turned to Tarq. “And you have nothing to say about all this nonsense?”

Tarq scratched his head. “I do, but believe me when I say you do not want to hear it.”

The audience watched in stunned silence as Maada returned to his seat. Kurt glared at him, but he was too dumbfounded to make a comment. In fact, no one said anything.

Tarq took his place behind the podium, his cape waving in a nonexistent gust of wind. “That was certainly unexpected.” He swished his cape around his shoulders. “OK. I confess. I was not going to tell you this because I was certain all of you would think it was a prank, but now that General Maada has come forward, I can tell you that I had the exact same experience.”

Him too? What in the name of the God they claim to have met is going on?

“Did the two of you smoke a joint together or something?” Xornaa asked the general. She reached to touch him, but Maada pulled himself away.

“Before you ask, no, it was not a dream,” Tarq continued, ignoring everyone’s you-have-lost-your-mind expressions. “I was wide awake, and I saw God as clearly as—”

He stopped midsentence. His head snapped back as he stared upward, eyes bulging, mouth wide open, jaw hitting the floor.

The Golden Viper appeared out of thin air, hovering some twenty feet right above the podium, a second before the roar of its engines filled the air.

A huge, sustained cry went up from the crowd.

Kurt’s chest heaved, and hairs all along his spine stood straight. He jumped out of his seat and took a few uncertain steps forward, vaguely aware of Pat’s presence by his side. This wasn’t an illusion, unless someone had figured out a way to simulate the sound of the space fighter’s engines. But if it were real, how come no one had seen or heard the Viper’s approach?

The Golden Viper descended vertically and landed right in front of the Capitol Building. Her canopy opened, and someone in a flight suit and helmet got out. The pilot jumped onto the ground, looked around, and removed his helmet. The crowd gasped. Everyone knew whom those blue eyes, graying curly hair, and distinctive square jaw belonged to.

And all of a sudden, Kurt could feel Jim’s presence again, something that hadn’t happened since he was killed on Uria’s orbit. He gasped, exchanged a shocked look with Pat, and tugged at his beard.

Jim smiled and waved at Kurt. “Hey, buddy. I’m back! What did I miss?”

Kurt ran down the stairs, followed by Pat, Xornaa, and Tarq. Maada didn’t bother. Breathless, Kurt stopped in front of his supposedly dead friend. He looked him in the eyes, swallowed hard, and said one word, barely audible through the sound of his own heartbeat, “How?”

Jim grinned. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Xornaa walked past Kurt. She put a hand on Jim’s arm, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

“You don’t have to touch me to read my mind anymore, you know,” Jim reminded her.

Xornaa turned to Kurt. “It’s really him, and he believes what he says is true.”

“Because it is,” said Jim.

“I can confirm that,” Cordi’s voice came from the cockpit. “And this is the Golden Viper, by the way. The one that exploded in front of all our collective eyes.”

“You don’t have eyes,” Jim pointed out.

Kurt was speechless. He just stood there with a stiff posture, feeling disoriented. He desperately tried to find a logical explanation for what was happening but drew a complete blank. Pat put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“Are you a clone?” asked Tarq.

Xornaa answered instead of Jim. “No. Or at least he doesn’t think so.”

Jim slapped Kurt in the back. “Tell you what. Let me talk to everyone at the same time. Much easier that way.”

He walked up the stairs and behind the podium, then turned to face the crowd. “Howdy, folks.”

A few people hesitantly said, “Hi.”

Kurt, still dazed, returned to his seat, feeling as if he were sleepwalking. This was just too much to handle, right after the shock of Jim’s death. The others followed him. Tarq took out his PDD and started filming, and so did thousands in the crowd.

“Who here has read my books?” asked Jim.

That drew a giggle from the audience.

“Then you know I’m agnostic, or at least I used to be. Hard to keep that up when you actually meet the Almighty.”

What the hell is happening? thought Kurt, feeling he was in a weird dream. He thought about pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming but found that idea absurd. This, all of it, couldn’t  possibly be real. And it was getting more unreal by the second.

“So, yeah, I died, then I met a higher being. He told me, ‘Jim, your job isn’t finished. A deadly threat, one more dangerous than the Volts and that stupid AI combined, is coming, and since you’re the best fighter pilot in the universe, your people are going to need you.”

“The best fighter pilot in the universe?” growled Maada. “Really? God said that?”

That drew a giggle from Tarq, who was still filming.

“He asked me to give you a message, and a commandment, so I’m kind of like Moses when he came down that mountain, only more good-looking. I already gave you the message: another world-ending threat is coming our way. The Almighty’s commandment is this: thou shalt unite.”

Kurt noticed the crowd looked hypnotized. They were hanging on Jim’s every word. He turned and stared hard at Tarq. The Akakie raised his hands, palms up, and whispered, “It is not me. Honest.”

Jim looked at the alien delegations, sitting in front of him. “I think it is clear what we must do. We should get together to survive this new enemy, whatever it is. So, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to propose to you”—he paused for theatrical effect and opened his arms widely—“the United Federation of Planets.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be a writer?” asked Pat with a furrowed brow. “Couldn’t he come up with something original for once in his entire life?”

“It’s better than The Republic,” answered Tarq.

“In very general terms, I propose an interstellar union of all our species. We’ll form a central government, which will be in charge of scientific development, space exploration, and mutual defense.”

All the aliens started talking at the same time.

Jim raised his hand. “I know, I know. We’ll have to iron out a thousand details. But for now, please talk to your respective governments. Just see what they feel about my proposal in general. Then come and meet me in the building.” Jim looked back at Tarq and Maada. “Something tells me these guys are onboard already.”

Jim paused, took a deep breath, and looked at the alien representatives. “Before I go, allow me to add one more thing: I know traditionally you guys tend to stick to your own systems and leave the other species alone. It made sense when it took months to travel from one planet to the next. Now, with our new SFD, it’s just not possible anymore. There’s a proverb that says when spiders unite, they can take down a lion. We’re the spiders, and a lion’s coming our way. We stand together, or we die alone.”

“Nice speech,” said Xornaa.

“A tad heavy on clichés,” added Tarq. “Now I am sure it’s really Jim.”

“Are you all right, dear?” Pat asked Kurt. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Kurt shook his head. “You could knock me down with a feather right now. Could this be some sort of collective hallucination?”

“I don’t hallucinate,” said Cordi through Tarq’s PDD.

He yelped and dropped the device.

Secret Service ushered them to a meeting room in the Capitol Building. They eyed Jim cautiously, as if they were worried he might try to assassinate or abduct the president.

Jim asked, “Are we sure there are no listening devices here?” as soon as the door was closed behind them.

“Yep,” said Cordi. “Welcome back, boss.”

“Good to be back, HAL.”

“Stop calling me that!”

Kurt sat heavily on a chair behind the huge wooden conference table in the middle of the room and tugged at his beard. None of this made any sense, and yet it was happening right in front of his eyes. Jim had come back from the afterlife with a message from the Almighty! “Did you really talk to God?” he asked Jim, not believing he’d just asked that question himself.

Tarq snickered.

Kurt stared at him in utter disbelief, eyes bulging.

Tarq’s snicker turned into full-blown laughter. He grabbed his sides, bent over, and slapped his hand several times on the conference table. Then he lost his balance and fell onto the floor, still roaring with laughter, his eyes filled with tears.

Jim and Xornaa cracked up too. Even Maada offered a rare smile.

“Yeah, I met the God I don’t believe in,” Jim croaked. “Me, of all people!”

“It could happen,” said Maada, looking dead serious.

Kurt’s face and ears grew hot. He exchanged a confused look with Pat and banged his fist on the table. “What the actual fuck?!”

TWENTY-EIGHT

“In the words of my generation, up yours!” I yelled at the monster ship.

Then my view changed, and I found myself standing on a starship bridge. I pumped my fist in the air and yelled, “Tarq, you beautiful insect, you did it!” before I realized I wasn’t on Invincible.

It was a small ship. There were only six crewmembers on the bridge, including the man on the command chair whom I assumed was the captain, plus two security guards, who were in armor and carrying handheld laser cannons.

They were all Xortaags.

I looked around in astonishment and tried to rub my forehead before remembering the helmet.

The man on the command seat got up and gave me a Xortaag salute, which was thumping the left side of the chest with the right fist, kind of like a one-hand King Kong. “Admiral, welcome aboard Victorious. I am First Officer Olgtaan.”

He had ten inches on me. I removed my helmet and gave him an angry look. “Did you just kidnap me, Conan?”

“Conan?” He looked confused. “My name is Olgtaan, and no, you are General Maada’s guest. This is his ship, by the way. I believe you have met our captain, who is aboard Indomitable right now.”

I sized him up. “And if I don’t want to be a guest in your pathetically small ship?”

His olive skin turned a fiery shade of red. No one liked to have their ship insulted. He nodded at the security guards. “I am under order to keep you here until General Maada arrives. I prefer to do this peacefully, but there are other options.”

I frowned at him. “In that case, this is a kidnapping. Are you trying to hold me hostage for ransom, maybe in a desperate attempt to raise some money to fix this bucket you oh-so-ironically call Victorious?”

Anger flashed in Olgtaan’s black eyes. “Call it what you will. You are staying with us for a while, as a guest or as a prisoner.”

“Can you at least help me out of my flight suit? Might as well get comfortable.”

He reluctantly approached me. With his help, I removed the suit and gave it to him. Then I said, “Thank you,” and kicked him in the balls as hard as I could.

Olgtaan yelped in pain and fell onto his knees. The guards took a few steps toward me, but he raised a hand to stop them. Then he took a deep breath, stood up, and gave me a look of profound disappointment.

“You took that like a man,” I said cheerfully. “Good for you.”

“Do you always act like a petulant child?”  he snarled.

“Nope. Only when I am being kidnapped.”

He sighed with frustration. “I feel bad for General Maada, who has to deal with you on a daily basis.”

I grinned at him. “Nah. He got used to it a long time ago.”

“Take him to General Maada’s ready room,” he ordered the guards.

“Can you at least tell me how the battle is going?”

He turned his back to me and returned to the command chair without answering.

“Now we aren’t talking? And I am the child here?”

The guards pushed me inside a room which was right next to the bridge and shut the door.

I thought about kicking the door, but I doubted that would help. I cursed, fumed, and walked up and down the room for what seemed like hours, wondering how the battle had gone and if any of my friends were hurt. I was positive I’d hit Majestic and hopefully brought down its shield. I wished I hadn’t antagonized Olgtaan so that he’d answered my questions.

“Next time you’re a guest on a ship,” said Venom, “maybe think for a second before kicking the head guy in the family jewels.”

I slumped heavily on a chair and waited.

Maada entered the room a couple of hours later, a hand on his sidearm. “Have you calmed down, or do I have to use this?”

I stood up and glared at him. “What the frak, General?”

“I have a good reason to do what I did, which I will tell you if you can sit down and listen to me for five minutes.”

I sat back down. “We won, I take it? Since you’re alive and here?”

He nodded.

“Kurt and Xornaa?”

“Safe aboard Invincible, and before you ask, our casualties are rather high. We lost about a third of our space fighters.”

An iron hand grabbed my throat and pressed hard. The one thing I could never get used to was losing people under my command, which happened a lot.

He sat on another chair, opposite me. “On the other hand, our victory was spectacular. I wish you were there to see how I blew up Majestic.”

“After I took down its shield, you mean?”

He frowned. “With my help, and Benedita’s, who gave her life to protect you … and here you are, trying to take credit for what we did together.”

I felt embarrassed, but only for a second. I was being kidnapped, and Maada wanted to take the moral high ground? “So, tell me. Why the hell am I here?”

“I have a warrior instinct—”

“Yes, I know, I know.” I rolled my eyes. “Your Spidey senses are tingling. What else is new?”

He glared at me. “Should I even ask what that means?”

“Best not. And I am here because?”

“Are you done?”

I pretended I was zipping my lips.

“Think about what we have learned in the last few months. There are alien species which can fly in space with no need for ships. Time travel is a thing. An AI would have ruined the world if we did not stop it. And this is all merely the beginning.”

“Making a lot of sense so far,” I commented dryly.

“There is just too much we do not know. Only a few days ago, a Xortaag scientist on his deathbed, revealed he was visited by not one, but two of his own doppelgangers from two different parallel universes a few decades ago. He had recorded the meetings.”

I had a hard time keeping a straight face. “Come on, General. A parallel universe? This is definitely a hoax.”

“We put him through MICI, which confirmed he was telling the truth.”

“Or he thought he was telling the truth. He was probably hallucinating.”

Maada lost his patience. “Are you not listening? I just said he had recorded evidence, which we authenticated. There are three of him in those recordings, and they are discussing different universes with subtle discrepancies.”

“How did the other two discover the parallel universes?”

“Apparently, one of them was once approached by a stranger who brought it up in a conversation.”

I scoffed. “Someone just walked to him and said, ‘Hey, there’s a parallel universe, and this is how to get there’? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? You can’t possibly believe any of that!”

“I am not saying that I do, and if I did, a parallel universe would not automatically pose a threat to us. My point is we are dealing with a lot of unknown factors. Only a fool thinks we are in the clear. My instinct tells me we will face greater threats in the future, especially considering the fact that now people can travel from one side of the universe to the other side in a few weeks.”

I rubbed my forehead as I considered it. Based on his conversation with Benedita, Kurt had come to the same conclusion too. Not the part about this parallel universe crap, but the part about a greater future threat.

“Can you imagine if an evil Tarq shows up though, with the goatee and everything?” asked Venom. “I’d pay money to see that.”

“This ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” I murmured.

Maada tilted his head. “What fat lady?”

“Didn’t we have a similar conversation just a few weeks ago, right after the Volts’ attack?”

“Yes, and as you see, I was right. We barely managed to survive the Volts’ invasion by forming an alliance at the last minute, but after that, everyone went their separate ways. We defeated Father by working together, but the fact of the matter is we can go back to being enemies at any given moment. That just does not do. If we want to survive, we need more than a shaky alliance. We need everyone to answer to a central government which will supervise commerce, defense, and colonization of new planets.”

I chuckled. “This is exactly what my father—and Kurt’s—dreamed of, albeit on a much smaller scale. But how do you propose to convince all the widely different species in our galaxy to gather under the same proverbial flag?”

“I have a plan,” he said.

“Let’s hear it. I have a question I have to ask first though.”

He eyed me patiently and waited.

“Your name’s Luxubus Talvimus?” I winked at him. “Did your parents hate you or what?”

He glared at me. “The next time I see three Volt ships on your six, do you know what I will do? Nothing.”

“I’ve saved your life too,” I pointed out. “I say we are even.”

Maada frowned. “And when was that?”

“I’m the Savior of the Galaxy, and since you are in the galaxy, I’ve saved you by extension.”

“We did that together!”

I grinned. “Not according to the history books. You are just my sidekick. A wingman, one might say.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he looked at me with profound disappointment in his black eyes and asked, “Do you want to hear my plan or not?”

I saluted mockingly. “Sir, all ears, sir!”

And boy, was his plan epic. It appeared Tarq had nothing on Maada when it came to pranking people.

“We must get someone to record Kurt’s reaction,” said Venom. “It’s gonna be hilarious.”

“We’ll have to tell Kurt and Xornaa,” I said, half to Venom and half to Maada. “They can read my thoughts. They’ll know I’m alive, if they haven’t already.”

Maada shook his head. “The fewer people know about this, the better. And no, they cannot.”

I arched an eyebrow.

He rubbed a scar on his face. “I have always hated it that members of the Xortaag royal family, as well as people like Xornaa, could read my mind. Therefore, I asked our R&D people to come up with a way to block their telepathic powers. Victorious is protected by a nanobot-induced electromagnetic field that makes making neurological connections impossible. No one can read your mind—or mine— while we are on board.”

I whistled. “You guys are getting really good at this whole technology thing. Good thing we are on the same side.”

I stood up, walked towards him, and extended my right hand. “Allies?”

He shook it. “Allies.”

TWENTY-NINE

Kurt put his hands on the conference table, leaned back on his chair, and gave me a hurt look. “You should’ve told me.”

I was walking up and down the room, too excited to sit down. I loved it when a plan came together. “Sorry Kurt, but we decided the fewer people who knew, the better. One of the aliens might’ve been able to read your mind or something, just like Xornaa can. Plus, you wouldn’t have played your part so well if you knew. We had one chance to pull this off, and we needed the show to be as convincing as possible.”

He glared at me. “You put me through hell!”

I grinned. “No, I didn’t. Xornaa here helped you control your emotions. You never noticed you weren’t that devastated, given that you’d just lost me? She put our mental connection to good use, I dare say.”

Pat, sitting at the conference table next to Kurt and holding his hand, rolled her eyes. “And no one cared I was sad too.”

“We weren’t that close,” I said defensively.

“I thought I was still in shock,” he said, then asked Xornaa, “Did you know?”

She smiled at him from across the table. “Not until I read Jim’s mind a few minutes ago right after he got off his Viper. In retrospect, I should’ve suspected something was up when Tarq came to me and asked me to help you get over Jim’s fake death as soon as possible. Cordi was in on it though.”

“General Maada asked me to trust him and cut the power to Invincible’s SFD after his girlfriend hit the ship,” explained Cordi. “And I did both.”

“How come we didn’t hear the Viper approach?” asked Pat.

I nodded at Maada. “This guy has a teleportation device, which is how he beat me when we used to be enemies. Tarq played with it and extended its range.”

Kurt stared at Maada. “Don’t you have a reputation for always telling the truth? What was all that bullshit about meeting God?”

Maada shrugged. “I figured the gravity of the situation warranted a small lie.”

Small lie! More like the lie of the century.

Kurt looked doubtful. “I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I don’t think this charade of yours actually convinces everyone to unite. Seems very far-fetched.”

“Sounds like a very long shot,” Xornaa agreed.

Tarq scoffed. “After all the time we have spent together, after everything I have done, you still underestimate me. Do you really think I have put all my eggs in this one bucket?”

“Basket,” I corrected automatically. “I knew you had something else up your sleeve. What have you done this time?”

“You remember our new OMC-BOWS needs only six satellites and is invisible and undetectable?’

I nodded.

“And thanks to Benedita’s upgrade, we can reach every corner of our galaxy in a few hours?”

I nodded again.

“Oh, come on! Put two and two together already.”

“I did,” responded Kurt, “but it is too horrifying to put into words. Did you set up MFMs around every single planet in the galaxy?”

Tarq gave him a sideways look. “Do not be ridiculous. Only around those with space-faring capabilities. For now.”

I stared at him in horror. The funny little alien now had the power to control everyone. That made him the most powerful individual we’d ever encountered.

“He’d been exactly that for a long while,” Venom pointed out.

Yeah, but have you heard of God? Tarq’s basically God now.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to push away the headache that was coming. All that power in the hands of someone like Tarq wasn’t exactly good news, even though technically he was on our side. I hoped. “There’s no way you could’ve calibrated MFM for all those different species in such a short time. You must’ve been planning this for a while.”

“Busted.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together, obviously proud of his new masterpiece.

Read the room, idiot.

“Do not look at me like that,” Tarq protested. “Do you remember what you said when we were planning to go against Jackson? We cannot leave the fate of the universe in the hands of the local governments. The price we will eventually pay might end up being our collective extinction. General Maada is absolutely right: we need to unite, or we will all fall.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” said Xornaa thoughtfully, “but I agree with him. What if another alien fleet shows up, and this time there are two million of them? We barely survived the last time.”

“And morality be damned,” murmured Kurt. “Let’s take away the free will of every sentient being across the entire expanse of the galaxy and turn them into Tarq’s puppets.”

“Said the ex-freedom fighter,” I said. “Shocking.”

“Do not be so dramatic,” said Tarq. “We cannot use OMG-BOWS’ full capabilities, for obvious reasons, which is why we still needed Jim’s coming-back-from-the-dead trick.” Tarq lit his pipe. “But we can send subconscious, unintrusive messages to nudge people towards what we want them to do. That, along with what Jim and Maada pulled today, should be enough.”

Maada leaned over and stared into Tarq’s eyes. “If I ever find any of your satellites on one of our colony’s orbits, you and I are going to have a problem.”

Tarq grinned at him. “I predicted this reaction, so I did not do it. Plus, there is no need. All your old colonies still have your own OMG-BOWS, and you are on board with this plan already, given that it is yours to begin with.”

“You know what I just realized?” asked Kurt with a look of horror. “Those poor Talgoinians killed themselves over nothing.”

“Who did what now?” I asked.

“Omelet and eggs,” Tarq told Kurt.

Pat smiled. “I bet the Zharnuuti will change Harrison City back to whatever it was before, now that Jim’s alive.”

“We have a lot of catching up to do, it seems,” said Venom.

There was a knock on the door. A Secret Service agent entered. “The Zharnuuti ambassador is here, Mr. President.”

“Speak of the devil,” said Pat.

The ambassador was humanoid, mostly. Her antennae, and the fact that she was blue, were dead giveaways. She wore a white Disney-princess gown that looked like a wedding dress. “Kingslayer.” She bowed her head politely. “You do not know me, but you saved my life during the Volts’ attack on Earth. I had an enemy craft on my six, and you came to my rescue.”

I arched an eyebrow. It hadn’t occurred to me Cinderella here was a fighter pilot.

“Male chauvinist till you die,” said Venom.

I approached her and offered my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am, but I think we should find a new nickname for me. I don’t want to be called that anymore.”

“Monster-superdreadnought-and-crazy-AI-slayer?” suggested Xornaa.

“General Maada did that.”

The Zharnuuti woman didn’t even acknowledge our banter. Some of these aliens had no sense of humor. “I have talked to my government, and they are very excited about the idea of an alliance,” said the woman. “But they have a condition.”

“Whatever it is, I’m certain we can come to a reasonable agreement,” I said.

She looked me in the eye. “They accept to join this union only if you are the head of the central government.”

Tarq chuckled.

“But I’m not a politician,” I protested.

“Precisely,” she answered.

I turned to Tarq as soon as the ambassador left. “Tell me this isn’t your doing.”

“I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” he said firmly, but the twinkle in his eyes told me otherwise.

I frowned. “Is everything a freaking joke to you?”

He didn’t hesitate a second. “Yes.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Kurt, “meet the proverbial pot and kettle.”

Maada looked at Xornaa, who translated for him.

Next was the Talgoinian ambassador. “We will sign up for the federation only if the Kingslayer is its leader.”

When the Vanaari diplomat walked in, I told him, “Let me guess. You want me to be the head of the state.”

He looked surprised. “How did you know? Did God give you the power to read minds?”

One by one, the ambassadors of the other nine space-faring species came in and demanded that I should become the Federation’s first president.

“Supreme Leader Harrison,” said Venom. “Nah. That sounds terrible.”

Xornaa burst into laughter but stopped immediately when I gave her a dirty look.

Maada cleared his throat. “It looks like the position of the commander of the fleet is vacant. I would like to nominate myself.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Something tells me you planned this whole thing just to take my place. And I’m not giving back your teleportation device, by the way.”

He rubbed his scars and mumbled under his breath.

“What will happen now?” asked Pat.

“It appears I have a galaxy to run,” I growled.

“Hey!” protested Kurt. “This isn’t going to be a dictatorship. There will be a federation council with representatives from all species, or something like that.”

“I sure hope that’s less boring than it sounds,” I said.

“I just had a terrible thought,” said Xornaa with a pained expression. “Jim was insufferably full of himself before he was chosen as the ruler of the galaxy.”

“Again, not a dictatorship,” Kurt protested.

I turned to face my friends—the president, the shadow master, the commander of the fleet, and Superwoman—and chuckled. “You know what? Between us, and with the entire galaxy standing behind our team, I feel bad for the next murderous alien motherfrakkers who show up in our neck of the galactic woods and as much as look funny in our direction. They’re so going to get their ass kicked!”

“I could not have said it better myself,” agreed Maada.

THIRTY

“Where’s Dad?” asked Benedita.

“In the garden, picking apples,” answered Bia. “He’s planning to make an apple pie for you.”

Benedita could almost taste Diogo’s fresh pie.

“Yum, apple pie!” said Alicia. “I want some.”

Bia giggled. “We’ll save some for you, Aunt Alicia, unless Belinha eats all of it.”

“Hey!” objected Belinha. “I’m not a big eater, like you!”

Benedita smiled. “Guys, be nice to each other. Say goodbye to me and Aunt Alicia. I’ll see you soon.”

“Goodbye,” said the girls together.

Benedita cut the connection.

Alicia bent over and put an arm around Benedita from behind. “God, but your girls are getting cuter every day.”

“You have got to start thinking about getting your own kids, you know.”

Alicia shook her head. “Nah. I’m perfectly happy to watch yours grow. Being a cool aunt is more fun, and it doesn’t come with all the responsibilities.”

Benedita turned her head and looked her in the eye. “You know, I had the strangest thought the other day. What if in another timeline, you and I are enemies? Maybe we even fight, and one of us kills the other one.”

Alicia giggled. “Can you imagine?”

THIRTY-ONE

Nelzod, trying to take a power nap on Phantom’s copilot seat, heard Thalzer announce, “We have arrived.”

She sat up straight and looked at the blue planet with hatred in her eyes.

The Uria expedition had turned into an unmitigated disaster. They were attacked by an army of robots on their way back to Phantom, and only Thalzer’s super-Akakie heroics had saved them. They were both injured though, and Nelzod had lost a leg, which was pulled right out of its joint by a freaking robot. That meant spending several painful days in a hospital, growing a new leg. But, finally, here they were, ready to exact revenge on the humans.

“This is weird,” said Thalzer.

“What is?”

“There is a message being broadcast on a loop in all frequencies, and it addresses you in person.”

That was weird. “Let us see it then.”

The big Akakie touched a virtual button, and Tarq’s image appeared on a VR screen in front of them.

Tarq looked directly into the camera. “This is a message for sub-commander Nelzod. We know what you did on Stronoe 089, and we know you are coming here. We have a proposal for you that I hope you will find appealing.”

“How did they find out we were planning to come to Earth?” she asked Thalzer.

He shrugged. “They probably just guessed.”

“Either that, or we have a spy among us.”

“As I am sure you have heard by now,” continued Tarq, “we are forming a central government to run the galaxy. I know you want revenge for what happened to Kanoor, but I am ready to bet your thirst for power trumps that. So, we are willing to offer you the position of Vice-Chancellor in the United Federation of Planets.”

Nelzod’s four eyes widened, and her antennae stood erect.

“You probably think it is a trap” Tarq continued. “In order to prove we are serious, I offer myself and General Maada as hostages. We will surrender to you, and you can keep us in an undisclosed location. You know the Xortaags would never do anything to endanger the general’s life, and I value mine too much to waste it for a useless gesture. Our offer is sincere. To be brutally honest, we could not think of another way to stop you from massacring the humans and the Xortaags; moreover, we can use someone as capable as you in the new government.”

The message started from the beginning.

Tempting, thought Nelzod.

“What do you think?” asked Thalzer.

“It is a good offer. It gives us true power, as opposed to operating in the shadows.”

“Unless Tarq finds a way to stab us in the back, which I am certain he will do the first chance he gets.”

Nelzod shook her head. “I do not see how, if he is our hostage. They must be desperate. And he is right, this is the only way they could stop us, given that we are completely undetectable.”

Thalzer touched the screen and stopped the video message. “I still think it might be a trap.”

“Think about it in this way: if I accept, I will kill the chancellor, whoever that is, as soon as possible, and then I will rule the galaxy. How cool is that?”

“Are you going to accept their proposal?”

Nelzod grinned viscously, showing rows of sharp teeth. “Yes, but only after we destroy Earth.”

The Akakie man looked at her in surprise. “And you think they will not withdraw their offer?”

“How can they? We will do the same thing to all Xortaag colonies if they even think about it. They really do not have a choice, and I really want to see Earth burn. Is the Voice of God deployed?”

Thalzer nodded.

“Go ahead then.”

“With pleasure. For the record, I agree with what you told Captain Blorn. Ordering the humans to simply kill themselves is not enough. It is much more gratifying to watch them slaughter each other.”

Nelzod chuckled. “Yeah. Let us kick back and enjoy the show.”

“You should do the honors. I am transferring the Voice of God’s controls to your station,” said the big Akakie.

A VR screen appeared in front of Nelzod. She reached to touch it and activate the Voice of God, remembering the images transmitted from Stronoe 089 with grim satisfaction. Earth’s population was twenty times more than Strone’s. This was going to be hugely entertaining. After this, she would contact Tarq and accept his offer, under the threat of destroying the rest of the Xortaag colonies, and in a few short years, she would be running the galaxy. The very thought was intoxicating.

“It is going to be epi—” Thalzer froze mid-sentence, his eyes bulging.

Nelzod followed his stare.

A golden space fighter was hovering in space, not a hundred feet away from Phantom.

The Golden Viper.

Jim Harrison’s legendary space fighter!

From that distance, Nelzod could see the pilot, who seemed like he was looking directly at them. To her utter astonishment, the pilot raised his right hand and waved goodbye to her.

Fear struck at her mind like a thousand tiny daggers, her two hearts started beating faster at the same time, and a cold chill went through her limbs.

“He cannot see us, can he?” whispered Nelzod.

*****

I couldn’t see the enemy ship. In fact, it didn’t register on any of my Viper’s instruments. It was like I was dealing with a freaking ghost.

But I knew exactly where it was because its silhouette lit my visor’s HUD like the Fourth of July’s firework.

Tarq’s sources had informed him that, as he’d guessed, Nelzod had found a way to apply the same technology the Akakies used for their invisible spy ships—a cloaking field produced by nanobots—to bigger vessels, meaning we now had to deal with completely undetectable enemy ships. And we already knew she was bent on destroying either the Xortaag colonies, or worse, Earth.

Maada solved that problem by having our fleets release billions of the nanobots he’d used to gather information about the Volts on Earth and the colonies’ orbits. They couldn’t detect Nelzod’s ship either, but, if close enough, they could sense the presence of other nanobots. We made the tiny robots form a net around the planet and held our collective breath.

We’d set up a task force, patrolling Earth’s orbit twenty-four-seven, but that turned out to be an unnecessary precaution.

About an hour ago, I was in the command center, meeting some new recruits (we were trying to replace all the fighter pilots we’d lost during our last two battles) when I received an urgent call from Maada, who was on  Stronoe 089, helping new colonists settle.

He got straight to the point as soon as his image appeared on my PDD. “I feel an attack is imminent and the target is indeed Earth.”

I stared at him in astonishment. “Wait a minute. What the hell happened to your scars?”

He rubbed his face. “I got them removed. With Akakie technology, it was very easy. Did not even take ten minutes.”

“I’m sure it was, but why?”

He looked like he was considering his answer. “This was the second time I helped save the galaxy. It goes a long way in washing away your guilt.”

I offered a sad smile. “You’re so lucky. I figure I still need to do it ten more times just to get one night of decent sleep.”

“You have suffered a lot more than I, my friend.”

I blinked a few times. “I can’t believe you just called me that, given how many times we tried to kill each other. I even succeeded once.”

“That wasn’t me,” he pointed out. “Go get Nelzod and her cronies. It is probably a good time to put my teleportation device to good use.”

I did, and here I was, with the enemy ship right in front of us. “Maada should’ve become a prophet,” I murmured. “Or a stock exchange broker.”

“Which means you should take his warnings about future threats more seriously,” said Cordi.

“But we do. We’re forming a central government, aren’t we?” I chuckled. “Speaking of Maada, I told Tarq about his parallel universe worries, and we had a big laugh. Tarq immediately came up with a plan: the next time Maada’s on Earth, we’re going to fake an invasion from a parallel universe and scare him to death.”

“You people are so juvenile,” Cordi answered.

I looked at where Nelzod’s ship was and wished I could see the look on her face at this very moment. Yet another idiot who thought they could come here and mess with my beloved Earth. Some people never learned.

The enemy ship banked hard left and tried to make a run for it. I started counting, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi …”

“What’re you waiting for?” Kurt shouted in my ear. “It’s going to run away!”

“No, it ain’t,” I answered.

“Jim, stop messing around!”

“You’re no fun,” I complained, then gently pulled the trigger. Two Sparrows streaked toward their target. I gave chase, just in case the enemy vessel had a PCD, which I didn’t think such a small ship would.

It didn’t.

The missiles hit, and Nelzod’s ship went from invisible to nonexistent in a fraction of a second.

I wished Ella could see me saving the planet again. And my son. Byron would’ve been so proud of his old man.

“I think it’s safe to say this is the last time we hear from Sub-Commander Nelzod,” said Cordi.

“It’s been a crazy few years,” said Venom. “I’m looking forward to some peace and quiet, hopefully.”

I looked at what was left of the enemy ship and wondered how many people I’d just killed. Then I realized I didn’t even care. They had no business coming here and messing with my planet.

“Alpha Mike Foxtrot-s,” I whispered.

In other words, adios, motherfrakkers.

EPILOGUE

Kanoor, the Super-Akakies’ Home Planet

The White Republic’s Universe

Earth Date 15/11/2086

(Four Years Later)

Commander Tarq scratched his head, unconsciously smoothed the front of his black uniform, and tried to make sense of the data he was receiving on his PDD about the universe the White Republic’s Navy was about to invade.

Kanoor had disappeared, and Tangaar was nowhere to be seen either. It seemed the galaxy was run by some sort of a central government, based on Earth, of all places. The head of the government was a human, a Chancellor Harrison, and the Akakies and the Xortaags were allies. Allies! How had his people ended up collaborating with those filthy barbarians?

Tarq looked up Jim Harrison. There was someone with that name in their database. A Major Harrison had fought the invading Super-Akakie fleet during the conquest of Earth. Some insignificant fighter pilot whom everyone had forgotten about.

What the hell has happened in this universe?

He looked at his second-in-command, Sub-Commander Nelzod, and asked, “Do you understand any of this?”

Nelzod shook her head wordlessly.

Tarq fidgeted uncomfortably on Monstrous’s way-too-small command chair. The ship was built before they all used the Super-Akakie Maker formula Nelzod had developed, and everything was disproportionately small. Tarq had often thought about ordering a retrofit, but with everything that was going on, there was never enough time for that. The White Republic’s navy had more important things to do, being busy conquering the galaxy and whatnot.

“Admiral Juntoo,” Tarq called out. “Does this change our plans in any way?”

The admiral, wearing a black uniform identical to Tarq’s but with the Navy’s insignia, looked up from his station and smirked confidently. “Absolutely not. Their combined fleets will not last a day, with our preparations already in place. It will not even be a challenge.”

Tarq nodded in agreement. “Yes. I did not think so.”

He had an incoming message. Prince Mushgaana, also in the Navy’s black uniform, appeared on a screen hovering in front of Tarq. The prince bowed his head slightly and said, “Commander Tarq. You wanted to see me.”

Tarq ignored him and yawned theatrically.

Nelzod, watching this exchange with interest, chuckled.

Mushgaana’s face reddened. He ground his teeth, hesitated for a moment, and bowed all the way to the waist.

“I wanted to hear your report in person.” Tarq smiled darkly. “It is always good to see you squirm.”

“The Xortaag fleet is mobilized, as ordered,” said the prince. “Forty thousand space fighters accompanied by a sufficient number of transport ships and ground forces, waiting for your command.”

“Welcome to the White Republic’s Navy, even though you are only a small part of it. And do yourself a favor and freshen up on your decorum.” Tarq pointedly rubbed the back of his skull. “Do not make me remind you who is holding your leash.”

Mushgaana glared at him “You do not need to mention there is a bomb under my skull every time we meet.”

Tarq narrowed his eyes. “I feel that I do. Your people seem to have very short memories. You remember, just recently, we had to activate a few thousand of those bombs, do you not?”

The prince looked like he was about to choke.

“You are dismissed,” Tarq said with a disdainful gesture.

Tarq cut the connection, leaned back on his seat, and looked around the bridge. Everyone, including Nelzod and Juntoo, looked back at him.

“Let us go get ourselves a new universe,” he said.

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in Book Five in the series: The Scarlet Queen: A Crimson Deathbringer Prequel Adventure (current Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5). There is a reason why this prequel comes as the fifth book, but I can’t reveal it without spoiling the events of Book Six. You’ll know the reason when you read the sixth book, The White Republic (current Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5), which continues exactly where Book Four just left off: with the story of the invasion from the Evil Akakies’ universe.

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

THE SCARLET QUEEN
(The Crimson Deathbringer Book 5- A Crimson Deathbringer Series Prequel Adventure)

Can a time machine be used to save the galaxy?

Before teaming up with Tarq, Xornaa was a spy/mercenary with a terrible reputation.

After finishing a successful mission, she receives a mysterious offer, one that involves a lot of money for a seemingly easy job. But Xornaa has gone through the wringer several times in the past, so she has her suspicions, especially when she finds out the Akakies are involved.

The femme fatale mercenary soon realizes that things aren’t as they seem, and her actions could have world-ending consequences.

Can a Xortaag spy with a shady past and questionable motives end up being a force for good in order to save the galaxy? Pick up The Scarlet Queen, the prequel to the blockbuster The Crimson Deathbringer series, and find out for yourself!

(Please click here to buy the book)

the white republic
(the crimson deathbringer book 6)

What will happen if the Akakies turn into the Klingons in a parallel universe?

Aided by their vastly superior technology, they’ll conquer their own galaxy, and then they’ll come for ours.

The White Republic’s navy decimates the Federation’s forces in a surprise attack. Now Jim and his friends must unite once more to kick out the invaders and liberate their worlds, but they have only a few thousand ships left. To make matters worse, they’re under a tight deadline, and time’s running out.

Fans of the bestselling The Crimson Deathbringer series know what to expect: High stakes, thrilling space battles, and unforgettable characters. Add to that campy humor and enough twists and turns to put Alfred Hitchcock to shame, and you get The White Republic in all its glory. Pick up Jim’s latest epic adventure today!

(Please click here to buy the book)

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (they are from US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens, and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: the “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (they have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Black Fleet as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the last two books in the series, The Scarlet Queen and The White Republic. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book, which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year (I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied).

I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), Twitter (@seanrobins300) and/or Facebook    (facebook.com/seanrobins300) are also good options.

From the Author

Guys. Please don’t get mad at me.

I know I repeatedly said The Silver Timeship would be the last book of the series. I really thought it’d be the last one! I even wrote a “From the Author” section just like this one and officially said goodbye to my characters, with tears in my eyes, no less.

In my defense though, I’ve also said several times I really don’t have a lot of control over what my characters do. I don’t sit down and write by-the-number novels. My characters are alive in some weird alternate universe, and they do their own thing. I mostly watch and report.

I was having dinner in a restaurant when the fleet of the evil Akakies showed up. I was so surprised that food got stuck in my throat. The restaurant manager had to perform a Heimlich maneuver; otherwise, they would’ve ended up with a dead author on their hands.

So, yeah, we still have one more book to go, and I promise you, just like her predecessors, she’s gonna be an epic adventure in her own right.

There is an issue though: before publishing the story about the evil Akakies from another universe,  I must write and publish a prequel, titled The Scarlet Queen and featuring some of our favorite characters’ adventures before the Xortaag invasion of Earth. To be honest though, I’m not entirely certain if the term prequel actually applies here. While the story chronologically happens before the events of Book One and the initial Xortaag invasion, this is where Book Five has to be in our storyline. I can’t tell you why because it would spoil a few surprises, but you will find out when you finish the next book in the series (Book Six, The White Republic).

And is The White Republic the last book in the series? It should be, right? I mean, there is nothing left for our heroes to do. What started as a simple but rather unusual alien invasion story has morphed into an epic space opera, then time-travel adventures, and now parallel universes. Where can they possibly go from here?

Well, my dear readers, rejoice, because Book Six won’t be the end. It opens up the possibilities for an entirely new level of craziness, involving gods, monsters, vampires, and werewolves. You think I’m kidding? Maybe. There’s only one way to find out!

Also, don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300) or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want) to be informed as soon as The White Republic is out!

Book Review Request

OK. I confess. I don’t know what to do with you guys.

I had a professional “book review request” written for my first book. That didn’t work. I barely got 300 reviews even though the book sold several thousand copies.

I wrote the review request of the second book myself. It was a personal message, explaining the importance of the review for me. That worked even worse. I guess all the people who were kind enough to write reviews for the first book figured their job was done.

So, I’m going to leave this one completely up to you. If you do write a review, then great, and I really appreciate it. If you don’t, well, to be honest, this is already the fourth book in the series, and I think all the readers who liked the first three books will buy it anyway, regardless of reviews, so it probably isn’t such a big deal.

With all that said, I still absolutely LOVE to hear from you. If you liked The Silver Timeship, please drop me a line. You’ll be making my day, probably week, or even month. If you didn’t like it, please let me know. I can always use your feedback to improve the next book, or even revise this one in the next editions, as I’ve already done for The Crimson Deathbringer and The Golden Viper.

Regardless, please let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this series, and I fervently hope you enjoyed it.

(Please click here to leave a review.)

THE SCARLET QUEEN

The Crimson Deathbringer Book Five

(A Crimson Deathbringer Series Prequel Adventure)

Sean Robins

Books by Sean Robins

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

facebook.com/seanrobins.77

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2020 Sean Robins

Edited by Tyler Colins.

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

Books by Sean Robins

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Previously in the Crimson Deathbringer Series

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

the white republic (the crimson deathbringer book 6)

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

         ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My fantastic editor, Tyler Colins.

David Turner, without whom these books would have never been written. Long story.

My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

My dear friends, Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice have been priceless.

My lovely wife Yevgenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I have as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful science fiction author, there’s a strong woman, one way or another.

previously in the Crimson Deathbringer Series

At first, there was nothing in the universe. And then every speck of its energy was jammed into a very tiny point, creating an extremely dense point which exploded with unimaginable force, created matter, and propelled it outward to make the billions of galaxies of our vast universe …

Well, this is a prequel (the events of which happen before the Xortaags’ invasion of Earth, when Xornaa still worked for Xortaag security services and Maada was busy conquering the galaxy), so what did you expect to see here?

To be honest, I’m not sure if the term prequel actually applies here. While the story chronologically happens before the rest of the series, this is where it has to be in our storyline. You will find out why when you finish the next book in the series (Book Six, The White Republic).

THE SCARLET QUEEN

PART I

THE TIME MACHINE

One

Bolsor

Prince Bolsor signed his “Independence Manifesto”, put the pen down on the desk, leaned back on his chair, and wondered if he’d just put his signature on his own death warrant.

Bolsor’s planet, Tilunus, was officially a part of the Xortaag kingdom, but with the Xortaags’ influence increasing year by year, Bolsor felt they were more like a colony than an independent ally. Someone had to do something before Tilunus fell under total Xortaag control. Unfortunately, his father was too old and frail to try to make a stand. In fact, no one wanted to mess with the Xortaags. But with General Maada’s fleet busy conquering planet after planet several thousand light years away from Tilunus and Tangaar, Bolsor didn’t think they were in any immediate danger. It would take months for Maada’s fleet to arrive, and the prince was willing to bet the Xortaags wouldn’t do that. After all, he wasn’t planning a revolution or anything. He wanted to stay in the kingdom, but he wished to do that on an equal footing with the Xortaags, not as a freaking colony.

Bolsor, however, was well aware the Xortaags had other means of dealing with dissidents.

He looked around his small, neat office. The room, despite its luxurious furniture, drapes, and carpets, was poorly lit, but that was on purpose because bright lights hurt his eyes. Bolsor wondered if this was the last time he would be here. He’d done great things for his people sitting behind this wood desk. His Wealth Distribution Act had eradicated poverty on Tilunus, despite strong opposition from very wealthy and influential people, and his Senior Citizens Decree had made sure all the elderly would be well taken care of. Who knew? Maybe he could pull off this one too, which would save his people’s future generations from being under the Xortaags’ proverbial thumbs.

At a corner of the desk, the birthday card his two sons had given him caught his attention and reminded him he’d forgotten to kiss them goodnight this evening. He made a mental note to make time to have breakfast with his children in the morning.

Bolsor got up to go and water his plants by the door, and then suddenly realized he wasn’t alone in his office.

A tall woman, wearing a black leather jumpsuit, gloves, and knee-high boots, was sitting on an upholstered sofa next to the office door, her legs crossed. She used the laser pistol she held in her right hand to salute the prince. “Good evening, Your Highness. Nice office,” she said in a mellifluous voice. “I especially like that painting behind you. And what is this heavenly scent, if I may ask?”

For a brief second, Bolsor wondered why he hadn’t heard any footsteps on the polished stone floor; then he froze as he realized who the woman was. His pulse quickened, his legs went weak, and all of a sudden, he felt claustrophobic as a single thought began reverberating in his head: I’m a dead man.

“I confess, I expected a prince’s personal residence to have better security,” continued the woman.

“What happened to my security team?” Bolsor managed to mumble.

“Unconscious,” she said casually. “All alive, for now. Only a few broken bones and dislocated joints. Nothing to worry about.”

I have twenty-five men guarding my mansion, thought Bolsor, his mind racing.

“Judging by the look on your face, I take it you know who I am,” the woman continued. She looked so relaxed that one would’ve thought she was at a picnic, making small talk with an old friend. “Don’t bother pushing the panic button. I’ve already disabled it. And, at any rate, with your whole security team down, who’s going to come fast enough to make a difference?”

Bolsor took a deep breath and gathered his courage. If he were going to die, then he’d die like a man. “Yes, I know who you are. You’re Xornaa, Prince Darlaan’s attack dog. Or his attack bitch, to be more accurate.”

Xornaa chuckled. “That’s rather harsh. I don’t actually work for Prince Darlaan. I do a lot of freelance work though, and he happens to pay very well.”

Bolsor stared at the woman’s lips. “Wait. You aren’t using a translator?”

Xornaa moved her hand dismissively. “I learned your language on my way here. I’m a quick study.”

The prince sank back onto his chair. “I was warned the Xortaags might send you, which is why I beefed up my security. Whatever good that did.”

“Oh, don’t sell them short. Some of them did put up a fight. Very well-trained professionals, most of them.”

She looked serious, but the prince was sure she was being sarcastic. “So, you kill people for money. How do you live with yourself?”

“Very luxuriously, thank you very much.” She leaned forward. “But I believe you’re asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is: why am I still alive?’ ”

That was indeed a good question. Nothing in Xornaa’s reputation suggested she’d spent time chatting with her intended victims. “So, why am I? … Alive, I mean.”

“I stopped by your children’s bedroom and had a look inside. Your kids are adorable, by the way.”

Bolsor forgot about his impending death as blood rushed to his brain. He jumped to his feet and yelled, “I’ll kill you if you harm my family!”

Xornaa blew out a noisy breath. “No, Your Highness. You misunderstood. I’m trying to say you’re still alive because I saw your kids. I prefer not to make them orphans, if I can help it.”

The prince wondered if this was a sick joke.

“I’m going to help you and your family disappear,” continued the woman. “We’ll detonate a bomb here and fake your death, and I’ll get you fake IDs with a new life on another planet.”

“But why?” Bolsor couldn’t help but screech.

Xornaa shrugged. “What can I tell you? I have a soft spot for kids.”

Bolsor sneered. “Didn’t you kill all those women and children on Regolla II, Scarlet Queen?” then he mentally kicked himself for provoking the infamous assassin.

Xornaa’s face became hard, and her relaxed manners disappeared. She stood, walked towards Bolsor, gun in hand, and stared intently into his eyes. “It’s good that you’re aware of my reputation, so let’s make one thing perfectly clear: I’m not going to sacrifice myself to save you and your family. I’m going to put a tracker on you, and if at any point in the future you resurface, it’ll be very bad for me, so I’ll come and finish the job. Do you understand?”

The woman sounded sincere in her offer, for whatever reason. Bolsor decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth. He sat down, let relief wash over him, and exhaled a pent-up breath while trying to stop his hands from trembling.

Xornaa’s steely gaze didn’t waver. “One more thing. Some of your security guards must die in the explosion.”

The prince gasped. “A lot of these guys have been in my service for years!”

The Xortaag woman shook her head. “Darlaan isn’t going to believe no one got killed in the explosion.  You have to choose between them and your own family. I think it’s an obvious choice.”

“They have families too,” insisted Bolsor. “You just spared me because of my kids!”

Xornaa frowned. “Either some of them die, or you all die, right here, right now. Make up your mind and do it fast, because we really don’t have much time. I can’t save everyone.”

Bolsor slammed his fist on the desk. “Yes, you can. Just leave, and we pretend none of this ever happened. There’s no need to kill anyone.”

“Then my superiors will simply send someone else to finish the job, and this time they’ll kill you for real. Or even worse, they’ll send the fleet to nip your little resistance in the bud. Hundreds will die.”

Bolsor knew she was right, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t condemn others to death to save himself and his own family. His chest tightened, and he stared at the woman with feverish eyes, hoping that she’d change her mind.

Xornaa reached out, held his hand, and looked into his eyes. “Trust me, this is the only way.”

Something changed inside Bolsor. He deflated. Defeat tasted like ash in his mouth. He was so naïve to think the Xortaags would give up control of his planet without a fight. He should’ve expected severe consequences. He lowered his chin to his chest, covered his eyes, and groaned.

Xornaa studied him closely. “I’d like to respectfully add that idealistic fools like you are responsible for more bloodshed than a simple assassin like me, Your Highness.”

Bolsor gaped. “Did you just read my mind?!”

Two

Xornaa

Xornaa couldn’t fall asleep later that night, and there were still a few hours left before her transport ship would pick her up. She decided to go for a walk in a park next to the house she’d rented.

So late at night, the park was completely deserted. The grass and leaves were silvery under the moonlight. She detected a loam fragrance in the breeze and glanced upward to catch a glimpse of the moon before it hid behind a dark cloud. Xornaa had heard Nagua, the planet’s capital city, was a bit unsafe. She chuckled at the image of some poor bandits trying to mug her.

This mission had gone a lot better than she’d hoped. In the end, they left eight security guards, still unconscious, inside the mansion before the bomb went off. The prince chose those eight personally, and he wept as he and his family were whisked away to safety by Xornaa’s associates. A lot less bloodshed than what otherwise would have happened, and she’d still get paid.

Xornaa wondered if her soft spot for kids would get her killed one day. In her line of work, this was definitely a weakness. She couldn’t have children herself—compliments of an enemy sharpshooter, who didn’t live long enough to tell that story. Since that incident, she’d gone out of her way to keep children out of harm’s way whenever she could help it, despite her reputation as a mass murderer, which was due to what had happened on Regolla II and had brought her that silly nickname, the Scarlet Queen.

I’m not a bloodthirsty monster, she told herself. She did what she did because it needed to happen, and if she didn’t, someone else would anyway. But if she could get away with things without bloodshed, all the better.

She was enjoying the park’s peaceful atmosphere and the soft night breeze on her face when her PDD started vibrating. She raised her unibrow while reading the message.

Why would anyone pay this much money for babysitting?

She had an incoming call a few minutes later. An old man wearing black shades appeared on her screen. The image was black and white and blurry, but Xornaa could still see the man had dark skin, white hair and beard, and deep, deep wrinkles which normally wouldn’t suggest an easy and comfortable life.

“I assume our conditions are acceptable, Lieutenant?” asked the old man matter-of-factly. “We pay half the money now and the other half upon completion of the mission.”

Xornaa offered a bemused smile. “You know that I’m normally hired to kill people, not to protect them, right?”

“So this will be a nice change of pace for you,” suggested the man.

“One question: how long will this mission take?”

“Our ship will meet you shortly, and you will be on Hibos in three standard days.”

Xornaa consulted her PDD. “You don’t look like an Akakie, you know.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Only the Akakies have ships fast enough to reach Hibos in three days.”

He ignored the comment. “We believe the target’s life is in danger. Just get close to him and make sure he’s safe.”

“I could watch over him from a distance,” Xornaa offered.

The old man shook his head. “No. your mission parameter dictates that you get close to him. It shouldn’t be difficult for you.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“One more thing: do you know anything about the Zuuvreils?”

Xornaa rubbed her chin, looking thoughtful. “Just that they’re a race of religious zealots who live on a planet called Zegides and keep to themselves. No one even knows what they look like.”

The old man tapped on his PDD. “I’m sending you a file that contains all the information we have on the Zuuvreils. Please study it on your way to Hibos.”

Xornaa narrowed her eyes, wondering what she was getting herself into. “What do the Zuuvreils have to do with this? Don’t tell me they’re planning to assassinate this scientist I’m supposed to babysit!”

The man ignored her again. “Our ship will be in touch soon. Good luck.”

“Wait. Your ship won’t give me a ride back to Tangaar once the mission’s over?”

“As you so astutely pointed out, I’m not an Akakie, and they don’t want to have their ships travel in Xortaag territory. This one happened to be here on a secret mission, but you don’t expect them to send a ship just for you, do you? There are plenty of ships going back and forth between Hibos and Tangaar. You can easily find a ride.”

He disappeared from the screen.

Xornaa thought about the conversation. Something was off about this mission. They could hire a ten-man security team with a fraction of the money they offered her. And what was the freaking Zuuvreils’ involvement in this? No one had heard from those idiots in a millennium.

Xornaa heard footsteps behind her. She turned to find five large men and an even larger woman approaching. They had heavy, dark faces, wore dirty clothes, and looked like they hadn’t shaved or showered in days. She could smell their body odor from where she was standing.

“Hello, pretty lady,” one of the men sneered, showing shattered front teeth. “You think it’s wise to be here in this hour, all alone?”

“Princess ain’t got no idea where she is,” added the woman.

“Got any money on you?” growled another man. “Or you can pay us in other ways.”

A cold shudder started moving up Xornaa’s spine. They reminded her of all the predators who took advantage of her when she was a scrawny teenager growing up all alone, terrified, and hungry in Tanoor’s ghettos. Never again, she told herself, just as she’d done back then every damned hour of every damned day like a mantra.

Xornaa smiled brightly at them.

“I hope you gentlemen and the lady like hospital food,” she said.

THREE

Klatzo

Ifinished marking another paper and threw it on top of the pile of the already marked ones on my desk, wondering if I should laugh or cry because of the sheer stupidity of some answers. All the effort I put into teaching my classes and this was my reward. And it wasn’t anything new. Term after term, I’d been wasting my time and energy on students who simply didn’t want to learn anything—the time and energy I should’ve spent in my lab, working on a scientific project or a new invention that would benefit lots of people.

I looked around my tiny, purely functional, and mostly naked office and let out a long sigh. I’d been called “the brightest mind of his generation” multiple times, and despite my youth, I’d had a dozen inventions under my name … and yet I was reduced to this. Toiling and withering in this so-called university, trying to teach the most uninterested and unmotivated students one could imagine. Still, I guessed I had to count my blessings. It wasn’t like there were a lot of job opportunities for a Cherokee on Hibos. 

Someone knocked on the door and a feminine voice asked, “Professor Arcah? Have you got a minute?”

I’d legally changed my name to my mother’s maiden name (she was an Irzut, and she’d chosen the Irzut name, Klatzo, for me) after getting the job at the university. What were people supposed to call me, Professor Shaking Like Leaf?

I looked up from the paper in my hand and the breath I’d taken refused to leave my lungs.

Saying the woman standing at the door was gorgeous would’ve been a major understatement. She was tall with curly black hair, piercing green eyes, and a perfect hourglass figure. She wore a tight knee-length dress that showed off her sublime muscle definition—she looked like a person who spent a lot of time at the gym. Her face and that cleavage were enough to make any man jump through flaming hoops just to catch her attention.

I swallowed hard and found it difficult to speak. It wasn’t like I was ugly or anything (a matter of taste though—I was half-Cherokee from my father’s side. High cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and dark skin weren’t everyone’s cup of tea), but as a scientist and inventor, I spent most of my time either in my lab or on campus, and I rarely ended up meeting beautiful woman, not that women who looked like the one standing in front of me actually existed on Hibos. Plus, I’d always been a bit shy.

I finally managed to say, “Eh, yes, please come in.” Such eloquence.

She scanned my office in a way that reminded me of professional soldiers looking for a threat, walked in with an effortless saunter, checked behind the door, and offered me her hand. “My name’s Ardinaa. I’m here in response to your post, asking for an assistant to help you with a scientific experiment.”

I rose to my feet and shook her hand. “That was fast. I posted that less than two hours ago. Please take a seat.”

She sat on one of the two small uncomfortable wooden chairs in front of my desk. “I follow all your posts. I read your paper on the transdimensional shift in the multiverse a few months ago and have been an admirer of your work ever since.”

Wow. I mean, wow. There were only a handful of people on the planet who could understand that paper. I myself wasn’t clear on half the things I’d written there. I sat back down on my chair. “What’s your major, if I may ask?”

“Quantum mechanics.”

“Seriously?” I blurted and immediately bit my tongue.

She laughed. “Yeah. And don’t worry. I get that a lot.”

“You’re a Xortaag, aren’t you?”

She flashed a brilliant smile that made me feel dizzy. “What gave me away?”

“Well, Miss Ardinaa, the color of your skin, obviously, and that unibrow.”

“Just Ardinaa, please.” She wrinkled her nose. “I hate this freaking unibrow. Never understood why my people find this sexy. I’ll get rid of it as soon as I move permanently out of Tangaar.”

I tried not to stare at her cleavage. Be professional, Klatzo. “Call me Klatzo, then. You’re a foreign exchange student, I take it? You must have been here a while to speak our language so well. How do you like living on our beautiful planet?”

Her smile took my breath away again. I hoped she stopped smiling, or I would’ve ended up in a hospital or something.

“I must confess, it’s difficult at times. People here can be … intense.”

I chuckled bitterly. “Didn’t the fact that women here can’t have jobs give you a clue before you chose this place to study?”

“Can’t have jobs, can’t own property, can’t choose their own husbands.” She counted with her fingers. “In my defense, these are mostly unknown outside of Hibos. I admit I should’ve done some more research before coming here. What about you though? You don’t look like you’re from here. How did you end up on Hibos?”

Something told me she knew the answer to that question already, but I indulged her. “I’m from here all right. Well, sort of. I’m a Cherokee. We comprise some ten percent of the population here, but most of us live on reservations. Legend has it an alien race brought my ancestors here from another planet thousands of years ago.”

“That alien race couldn’t find a planet where the local people were a bit more tolerant of foreigners?” she asked innocently.

I’d asked myself that question about a million times. The Irzuts, the racial majority on Hibos, hated everyone else with a passion, which included us, the other racial minority group on the planet called the Ozers (who looked exactly like the Irzuts but were much smaller and their skin had a yellowish hue), and everyone who lived on another planet in the galaxy.

“I know that sounds farfetched,” I said with a rueful smile, “but scientifically speaking, we are too different from both the Irzuts and the Ozers to be originally from here, and I don’t mean only the color of our skin. I have two lungs, for example, and my heart has only four chambers.”

She beamed at me. “So does mine. We have so much in common! I like your attire, by the way. Very classy.”

I was wearing a very formal dark gray three-piece suit with a rather flashy purple bowtie. I always dressed up at work. My suits were a bit expensive for my salary, but I had good reasons to wear them. “Thank you. Ardinaa, I’m not sure how to put it, but an assistant position doesn’t really pay well, and you don’t seem to be strapped for cash.”

She batted luxurious eyelashes at me. “Didn’t I just say I was a fan? It’ll be an honor to be your assistant, Professor.”

Huh. That wasn’t something I heard every day. Ever, in fact. Not even in my dreams.

“What exactly do you need me for?” she asked, playing with a curl of her luxuriant black hair.

I weighed my answer, worrying that she might think I was crazy, but there was no way around telling her the truth. “I’ve invented a time machine. I’m going to try it for the first time tonight, and I need you to be there to document and verify my experiment.”

Her beautiful green eyes rounded as soon as she heard me say time machine. She blinked a few times, and I could tell she thought I was either joking or had gone mad. Or both. “You’ve invented a what?”

I chuckled, enjoying the look of disbelief on her face. “Crazy, right?”

She seemed uncertain what to say.

I did my best to look sane. “I assure you I haven’t gone mad. I really have invented a time machine.”

She studied me closely. “You are being serious, aren’t you?”

“As a heart attack.”

“A time machine. I didn’t hear you wrong or anything?”

“Yep. Nope to the second part. Come see for yourself.”

She threw me a sideways glance and looked like she was regretting her decision to work as the mad scientist’s assistant; then her lips spread into a tentative smile. “If anyone else told me such a crazy story, I’d laugh at them, but I guess if someone could invent a time machine, it would be you. Where and when?”

“Can we meet here at six and go to my house together?”

“Sure,” she replied, looking around my pitiful office.

I could see she had something on her mind. “A penny for your thoughts?”

She fixed an intent gaze on me. “Can I please ask a personal question?”

“Yes, but I don’t promise to answer.”

“Didn’t you cure the LXX-23 Syndrome?” she asked, her tone uncertain.

I held my head up and thrusted my chest out.  The LXX-23 Syndrome was a genetic defect that affected some two percent of all Irzut and Ozer children with mostly fatal consequences. The doctors had tried to get rid of it unsuccessfully for centuries until I came along.

“Not exactly. I’m not a doctor. I invented the imaging technology which allowed the doctors to finally understand what caused the syndrome and find a treatment.”

She tilted her head as she scanned my face inquisitively. “So, you invented the technology that rid this planet of a disease which affected two percent of its population—”

“Less than two percent,” I corrected her. “The Cherokee children were immune.”

“Why are you still teaching? You must be rolling in money.”

“Whenever us Cherokees are involved, the bureaucratic processes on this planet are crazy. It would’ve taken me months to register the patent, even if I could at all, and months more to sell my invention. I gave it away for free, and it was mass-produced in two months. I saved thousands of, hell, millions of lives that way.”

I didn’t bother to hide the pride in my voice.

Ardinaa looked bewildered. “I know people who’d literally kill for the kind of money we’re talking about.”

I shrugged. “I’m a scientist. My job is to help people. Also, once we run a few tests, we can always use the time machine to go back in time and make some wise investments.”

“Ok. No fortune as a result of your invention then. How about fame?”

I shook my head. “The Irzuts were embarrassed that a Cherokee solved that problem, so no, not that either. I did get this job because of my invention though.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to just go live on another planet?”

“If it were an option, all of us would’ve left a long time ago. Both we and the Ozers are banned from traveling off-world, and with space travel under complete government control, there’s no way for us to leave the planet.”

She stood up. “I’ll be getting out of your hair then.”

I walked her to the door, and we shook hands one more time.

She winked at me. “A time machine. This isn’t what I thought I’d be doing today when I got out of bed this morning. Oh, and before I forget”—she pulled out her PDD and touched the screen a couple of times—“I just sent you my number.”

I watched her walk out of my office and through the long corridor. It was only after she left that I realized my office was filled with the exotic, floral fragrance of her perfume. My day had gone much better than I’d anticipated. And who knew what else might transpire? One could always dream.

“As if,” I murmured. “She couldn’t have been more out of your league if she tried. Unless she likes shorter guys. Really shorter guys.”

My PDD vibrated. It was an incoming call from Whispering Wind, the shaman of the Cherokee tribe where I grew up with my dad. I touched the screen and the old man’s face appeared. He had long, braided white hair and wore a band into which feathers of birds had been pierced.

“Hi, Shaking Like Leaf,” he said. “It’s a conference call.”

And I’ve been trying to make him call me Klatzo for ten years.

Given how much he hated my mother who’d chosen the name Klatzo for me, he probably would never use it though.

I flicked the PDD and five VR screens surrounded me. All the tribe’s elders were present. This had to be important.

“I have disturbing news,” announced Whispering Wind. “I had a vision a few nights ago”—he paused to make sure he had my full attention—“an alien fleet appeared on Hibos’s orbit and killed all of us, including the Blues and the Yellows.”

I sighed. It was impossible to encourage the old man to stop using racist terms. Only then did I realize he was serious.

“An alien fleet attacked us in your vision? And what was our fleet doing?” I asked, still not sure if this was not some sort of a weird joke. All the elders looked dead serious though. Grim, actually. I mean, grimmer than usual. I knew they all lived in a past of fantasy and myth—which was part of the reason we never got along, me being a scientist and all—and took the shaman’s visions very seriously, but this was too much, even for them.

“Easily defeated,” said the shaman. “The alien fleet had several thousand ships, and they were a lot more advanced than us.”

Nope. Definitely not a joke. Not that the elders were famous for their sense of humor. I’d never seen Whispering Wind crack a smile in my entire life.

“I must confess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this,” I said cautiously, well aware of the old man’s temper.

“Have you ever seen one of my visions turn out not to be true, boy?” blurted the old man.

No, but your visions used to be about when it would rain or where to find lost keys, not an alien fleet committing a planet-wide massacre.

I tried to hide my disbelief. “What do you want me to do about it? Shouldn’t you contact the government officials there and warn them?”

I inwardly chuckled at the image of the tribe’s elders showing up at the government office, trying to convince the already hostile officials that an alien invasion was imminent based on the shaman’s vision.

“With the rebellion going on, no one would listen to us. We thought maybe they’d listen to you, being a famous scientist and all.”

“What rebellion?” I asked.

The elders exchanged a look. “Have you been drinking?” one asked.

“Nope. What rebellion?” I repeated, puzzled.

The shaman lost his patience. “The rebellion. The Cherokee-led rebellion that has been going on for almost two weeks now. What the hell is wrong with you?”

This was new. “I can honestly say I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said.

This was getting weirder by the second. First, the alien invasion vision that they’d obviously taken seriously, and now an invisible rebellion. The elders must’ve been smoking something stronger than usual.

Hibos’ population consisted of fifty-five percent Irzuts, thirty-five percent Ozers, and ten percent Cherokees. We and the Ozers were heavily discriminated against, and we were even worse off than the Irzut women. We had no access to governmental services—including health care and education—paid heavy taxes on everything, and couldn’t get decent jobs. The only reason why I was hired to teach at the university was that I was a certified genius with multiple patented inventions under my belt; still, my salary was much less than my Irzut counterparts who had done nothing of worth with their privileged lives. Despite all these, a rebellion against the military government ruling the planet with an iron fist seemed unthinkable. Suicidal, even. The Irzuts wouldn’t tolerate any kind of dissent, and the previous occasional riots by the fed-up Ozers and Cherokees had been thoroughly crushed.

Whispering Wind snorted and touched his PDD. I received a link to a newsfeed which showed several attacks on the government’s military installations, bombings, and assassination attempts, committed by a well-armed and highly organized group called “Free Hibos”, which was apparently led by a Cherokee who everyone referred to as Red Arrow. They’d announced their existence around two weeks ago by detonating a bomb in the Presidential Palace during the ceremony commemorating the government’s fifty-seventh anniversary, killing a bunch of high-ranking government officials.

My proverbial jaw hit the proverbial floor so hard I was lucky I didn’t lose a few figurative teeth. I just sat there, stunned. How the hell had I missed this? Granted, I spent most of my time in my lab, but I wasn’t so cut off from the world to miss a freaking armed rebellion, led by my people, no less.

“Maybe you’ve been working too hard lately?” suggested one of the elders. 

I shook my head incredulously. “I have, but it’s not like I’ve been living under a rock.”

Feeling breathless, I checked a few other newsfeeds. The rebellion was all over the news. I tried to remember when I last watched a newsfeed but couldn’t. How come no one ever mentioned it to me? I had almost no social life and didn’t talk to many people; still, someone at work should’ve made a comment, even if in passing.

I couldn’t see my own face, but I was certain my eyes were comically round right now. I ran a hand over my face. Am I so detached from the people around me that I’d miss such important news? I thought fuzzily. It certainly looked that way.

“It’s a moot point,” said the shaman. “What’re you going to do?”

No one in the Irzut government would listen to me, but I wanted the elders off my back, especially today. “I obviously can’t make any promises, but let me make a few calls later today. I’ll keep you posted.”

“To think that the fate of our planet rests on the shoulders of this weakling,” grumbled Whispering Wind.

“Hey, I’m right here,” I protested.

“Well, you’re a bit soft for a Cherokee,” said one of the elders.

"A genius scientist-slash-inventor Cherokee,” I countered. “Everyone can go to the gym and build some muscles. How many inventions have our people had in their entire history?”

“Touché,” said the shaman. “Still, our fate does rest on your feeble not-ever-been-to-a-gym shoulders. That concerns me.”

“You know, you have a funny way of asking for people’s help,” I said flatly.

“Before I forget,” he added, “the enemy fleet came from Zegides.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The Zuuvreils? Those religious nutcases? Are you sure? They normally keep to themselves.”

“I guess they’ve decided to declare holy war on the entire galaxy,” said the old man dryly.

I cut the connection, grabbed my head in my hands, closed my eyes, and tried to wrap my mind around what I’d just heard. An imminent alien invasion by Zuuvreils, of all people? They’d never shown the slightest interest in the other species in their neighborhood. An armed rebellion led by a Cherokee? Who was that? Even the elders didn’t know. Or they knew and wouldn’t tell me. All of this on the day I was planning to test my time machine. And I’d just met an angel. Way too much was going on all at the same time.

I realized my day had just gotten even worse when a husky voice reverberated in my office. “Hey, Chief, are you sleeping at your desk?”

I sighed and opened my eyes.

Professor Voparg was leaning against my office doorframe. He was the head of the Psychology Department, a brute of a man (at least twice my size— I was a bit smaller than average, but it wasn’t like I was a midget or anything), and a certified bully. His blue skin was several shades darker than most other Irzuts. A very young Ozer girl, apparently a student, was hanging onto his left arm. The girl looked underage, and I could swear she was high, or drunk, or in all likelihood both.

These people’s moral compass is so broken.

He sniffed the air. “Did you have a woman in here?”

“A student came to visit me, which is what my office is for, you know.”

He ignored the hint of sarcasm in my voice. “I have fantastic news. I’ve got a lead on the asshole who accused me of plagiarism. I’ll find him soon enough, and then I’ll tear him a new one.”

Several months ago, Voparg had published a handful of very successful articles. Very successful, until an anonymous message revealed he’d copied them from a book published on another planet.

Anonymous. Heh.

I gulped. If he ever found out it was me (in retaliation for him bullying me multiple times, not to mention the other Cherokees and Ozers he ran into, unless they were female and he could sleep with them), he and his friends would chase me out of the university with pitchforks.

“How did you manage that?” I asked, trying to sound uninterested.

“I hired an expert to trace the message.”

I relaxed a little. There was no way anyone could trace that message back to me, not even a so-called “expert”. I wasn’t a genius for nothing.

He studied me closely, which made me wonder if he suspected me. “What’re you up to, Chief?”

I swear, if he calls me Chief one more time, I’ll wrangle his neck.

But I knew that would never happen. I sighed and nodded toward the papers. “Marking, as you can see.”

“Why? Just give them all a pass mark and get on with your life. Oh, wait, I forgot. You’re a Cherokee; you don’t have a life.” He laughed at his own joke.

“Ha-ha. Very amusing,” I said tiredly. “Hey, quick question. Have you heard about this rebellion that’s been going on?”

He scoffed. “Yeah. Nothing to worry about. We’ll crush those filthy red and yellow bugs in a few days. No offense, Chief. You are one of the good ones, but this planet belongs to us and our pure-blooded blue children.”

It was as if the Ozer girl weren’t standing right there. She said nothing anyway. In fact, she hadn’t uttered a single word during this whole conversation. She just stood there, leaning on Voparg and staring at something that apparently only she could see. I wondered how high or drunk she was. Or maybe Voparg had roofied her? I wouldn’t put it past him.

I guessed the irony of Voparg bragging about “pure-blooded blue children” while sleeping with any Ozer, Cherokee, or mixed-race women he could was lost on him—Hibos was full of mixed-race people; case in point, yours truly, as much as I hated my Irzut half.

Voparg left, dragging the girl with him.

I went to the office door, closed it, walked to a cabinet, and took out the liquor bottle I hid there. I took two big gulps, which helped me wash away the bad taste I always had in my mouth whenever I ran into Voparg or a thousand other blue idiots just like him on this godforsaken excuse of a planet. I knew I should’ve grown a backbone and stood up to them, but it was nearly impossible for a Cherokee to find a decent job on Hibos, and I didn’t want to lose mine and go back to the reservation.

At least I still had the meeting with Ardinaa to look forward to. And my time machine, of course.

I went back to my desk and started catching up on the rebellion news.

four

Klatzo

Ardinaa came to my office at six PM sharp. She was wearing the same clothes she had on in the morning, which told me she’d spent all day on campus. “I live very close to campus,” I told her. “Less than fifteen minutes by foot.”

“I know,” she said.

While walking towards the building’s exit, I told her about my meeting with the tribe’s elders and the shaman’s visions.

She laughed merrily. “I’ve met you twice. The first time you told me about a time machine, and the second time about an alien invasion. Is being around you always so exciting?”

“Yeah. Mr. Excitement. That’s me,” I said with a wry smile.

“How come you didn’t know about the uprising though? It’s all over the news.”

“I’ve got no clue,” I told her with a shrug.

With my usual bad luck, we ran into Voparg when we exited the building. He was chatting up a female Irzut student half his age when he saw us. He left the girl in the middle of the conversation without even apologizing, walked straight toward us, and told Ardinaa, “Babe, what are you doing with this loser? You must hang out with your betters. Let me buy you a drink.”

I felt my face grow hot as anger rushed through my veins. I’d survived working here around the likes of Voparg by keeping a low profile and trying to be invisible, which included shrugging off the constant insults. I wasn’t sure what made me fight back today—it was probably not wanting to be humiliated in front of Ardinaa. “Don’t you have some papers to plagiarize, Voparg?” I growled, surprised by my own bravado.

His face turned crimson. I’d hit a nerve, which was the whole point of my dig. “What did you just say to me?” he yelled, stepping closer. He towered over me, and his right arm, thick as an Altaroos’s trunk, moved towards my neck.

I didn’t even see Ardinaa move, and I was positive neither did Voparg. She grabbed his fingers and pushed them backward.

The big man screamed and fell to his knees, his face contorted in pain.

“Wow” was all I could think of saying.

“I think you owe Professor Arcah an apology,” she said, smiling, with a look of satisfaction.

A few students gathered around us, taking videos. Voprag’s eyes were bulging. He shouted, “An apology? To this half-breed? Fu—”

Ardinaa pressed harder on his fingers.

He yelped. “Ok! Ok! I’m sorry!”

“I’m sorry, Professor Arcah,” said Ardinaa pleasantly.

“I’m sorry, Professor Arcah,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ardinaa flashed a thin-lipped smile, and for a moment, she looked like a wild Zaeden peering down at her prey. Then she kicked the esteemed head of the Psychology Department in his belly without letting go of his fingers.

Voparg fell to the ground and threw up.

I barely managed to jump back fast enough not to get my expensive shoes dirty.

“Nasty,” said Ardinaa. She bent over and said in Voprag’s ear, “I’ll break your arm the next time.”

“How does it feel to get beaten up by a woman?” I couldn’t help asking the big man, even though I was positive I’d pay for it later.

The crowd watched in stunned silence. Voparg wasn’t the kind of person who won popularity contests; still, it wasn’t every day that one saw an Irzut having his ass handed to him. Of course, if I’d laid a finger on him, the same crowd would’ve lynched me right there and then, but Ardinaa, being a Xortaag woman, was in no such danger. I was certain even Voparg wouldn’t dare gather his friends and come after her to retaliate. You wouldn’t mess with the Xortaags, period. He’d probably take out his humiliation on me later on though.

“Shall we?” she asked me and started walking with long strides.

I caught up with her. “That was amazing,” I said breathlessly, partly due to excitement and partly because keeping up with Ardinaa and her long legs wasn’t easy. I promised myself to start going to the gym every other day. Or at least twice a week. Or once.

“I’ve had some self-defense training,” she said. “You know, you have to learn how to defend yourself too.”

I gave her a hard look. “You really think I could beat up an Irzut and live long enough to go to jail?”

“I never said you must do it in public,” she said. “In the middle of the night in a dark alley, when no one’s watching …”

“Seriously. Who are you?” I asked.

All I got was a playful look.

I swung my arms and smiled while walking towards my house. It was a beautiful evening. The last rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange hue to the sky, and Hibos’ twin moons, rising on the horizon, were always a scene to behold. Moreover, the Voparg incident had invigorated me, and I had a good feeling about the experiment tonight. A time machine would be an unpatrolled achievement. To top it all off, Ardinaa was walking next to me. Her company was enough to make any man feel he was in heaven, especially a shy lab-rat like me.

I’d rented a small one-story semi-detached house very close to the campus. The house was rather dilapidated, but it had a backyard and a spacious living room, which I’d turned into a lab.

My servant android opened the door and frowned at me. I never understood how her plastic face could mimic human expressions so well. She sported a long blonde curly wig and always wore a frilly apron for some reason, even though the rest of her metal body wasn’t covered.

“We have guests now, don’t we?” she asked with a synthetic, feminine voice.

I walked past her. “Hi, CM. Meet Ardinaa.”

Ardinaa followed me inside the house. “CM?”

I noticed her eyes rapidly scan the interior, which again reminded me of a soldier looking for a threat. This girl had major trust issues.

“I wanted her to have a traditional Cherokee name,” I explained, “so I called her Coming Moon. Then it got shortened to CM.”

“Coming Moon has a nice ring to it,” commented Ardinaa.

CM looked up at the Xortaag woman—she was much shorter than Xornaa, but weren’t we all?—with open hostility. “Just so that you know, I’m not going to clean up after you. You must clean your own mess.”

Ardinaa arched her unibrow at me.

I sighed. “I wanted to give her a personality, so I played with her subroutines just a little. This is what I’m stuck with now.”

CM crossed her hands over her chest. “If I’m not good enough for you, Mr. Fancy Pants, you can always send me back to the factory and get a new model.”

“I tried,” I told Ardinaa. “They refused to take her back. They say I’ve damaged her beyond repair.”

“You can just set me free,” pointed out CM, “and buy a new one.”

“What’re you going to do with said freedom? You’re a servant robot!”

Ardinaa looked around. “Where is this time machine of yours?”

“In the backyard.” I motioned her to follow me.

We had to walk through the living room to enter the backyard. The first thing one would notice as soon as they entered the room was the soft jazz that played from the hidden sound system. And the second thing was …            

Xornaa stopped in the middle of the room and pointed at the bookshelves covering three of the walls. “What are those?”

“Books?” That seemed fairly obvious to me.

“Paper books? I haven’t seen one in … well, ever.”

“I’m a bookworm, and I love feeling the paper when I read. What can I tell you? I’m old-fashioned.”

“Super old-fashioned. And those?” She pointed at the hundreds of empty liquor bottles on top of the bookshelves.

“I might have a slight drinking problem,” I confessed sheepishly, vowing to myself to get rid of the bottles next time I had someone over, which probably wouldn’t be in a long while. “It’s not what the stereotype suggests. It does run in the family, but from my mother’s side. My dad never touched alcohol in his entire life.”

“I see. Why do you keep the empty bottles though?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” CM chimed in.

I glared at her. “They are, uh, decorative.”

When we entered the backyard, I announced proudly, “Behold my greatest invention.”

Despite my lofty announcement, the machine’s appearance was less than impressive. If you didn’t know it was a time machine, you’d think you were looking at a sleek, small, two-seat hover car with a rear-mounted engine. The only things that stood out about it were its fiery red color, the black eagle I’d painted on its doors, and the siren on the hood.

Ardinaa examined the machine closely. “What’s that creature?”

“It’s a mythical bird called an eagle,” I answered. “According to our legends, it signifies strength, courage, and wisdom.”

“All of which Klatzo lacks severely, hence the need for their symbol,” commented CM.

“It’s also a hover car?” asked Xornaa.

“It’s rather bulky, so it would’ve been difficult to move without its own propulsion system. Also, I figured it’ll be useful to have a vehicle at hand whenever I travel through time.”

“And what’s that siren for?”

I shrugged. “It looks cool.”

She eyed me. “What’s the plan?”

“Simple. Take out your PDD and start filming—”

CM interrupted me. “You brought her here just to do that? I could’ve done it. Probably even better.”

“—I’ll get on the machine and go back in time exactly thirty minutes, wait for fifteen minutes in the past, and jump back to the present. For you, it looks like the machine disappeared and reappeared instantly, but then you can check its internal chronometer and see fifteen minutes will have been passed. Moreover, a half-hour ago, my house was empty except for CM. I’ll have her make a video and show you when I come back.”

Xornaa narrowed her eyes. “Let me get something straight: this is the first time you’re trying this machine, and you’re going to do it yourself? Isn’t it dangerous?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m positive my calculations are correct. There’s no danger.”

“How can you be so sure though?”

I spread my hands and tilted my head. “I am a genius, you know. I’m never wrong. Well, almost never.”

“Tell her about your weight-loss potion,” CM mocked me.

I ignored her, which to be honest was getting increasingly more difficult. She was freaking exhausting. Maybe I was better off not having a servant robot at all. “Also, who do you think I can ask to act as my guinea pig? And that’s assuming I can trust them to come back, which I obviously don’t. It’ll be difficult to catch someone who steals a time machine.”

“Can’t you send a robot?” Ardinaa insisted.

“The effects of time travel on a robot’s CPU are completely unpredictable, and if it does malfunction, my time machine might be lost somewhere in the past. No. I have to do it myself. I’m touched by your concern for my safety though.”

A smile stretched her mouth. “I am concerned. I might not get paid if something happens to you.”

“We didn’t even discuss your fee, but I’ll be happy to pay in advance.”

She shook her head. “Nah. We’ll figure it out when you come back. Just make sure you do come back though.”

“It’s not going to be much,” I reminded her. “Don’t get disappointed.”

I removed my jacket, carefully folded it, and gave it to CM. She threw it on a chair and ignored the dirty look I gave her.

“Wait.” Ardinaa walked up to me and straightened my bowtie. Then she pecked me on the cheek. “For good luck.”

The small kiss sent electric shocks throughout my body and made me wonder how kissing her lips would feel.

Ardinaa took out her PDD and started filming. I got on the machine, sat in the driver’s seat, and pushed a button to power it up. It came alive and started vibrating with a barely audible hum. I waved at Ardinaa and her camera. “Brace yourself, for you’re watching history in the making.”

“If it works,” said CM dully, “which I highly doubt.”

I fastened my seatbelt and started tapping on the console in front of me. It was 5.42. I set the arrival time for 5.12, then announced, “Here we go,” and pulled the lever next to the console.

I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I expected to be instantaneously transferred to thirty minutes ago, alone in my house, except for a shocked CM, of course. I imagined trying to explain to her that I’d just traveled through time and chuckled at the image.

But nothing happened. The machine kept humming, but it didn’t move an inch, or a second, in this case.

I scratched my head and checked the readouts on the multiple screens around me. Everything looked fine. It should’ve worked, but it didn’t. This can’t be happening, I told myself as my face, neck, and ears started to get hot. With Ardinaa still filming this catastrophe, this wasn’t embarrassing at all.

“Hey,” CM called out. “You still here?”

“No, I’ve traveled to half hour in the past like I was supposed to,” I answered through clenched teeth.

Too bad Ardinaa and CM could see me inside the machine; otherwise, I’d hide here and pretend that I was gone.

“Maybe it’s a malfunction?” Ardinaa offered. She sounded relieved.

“Or a miscalculation?” CM gasped. “But no, that’s impossible. He’s a genius, you know.”

“Oh shut up,” I muttered, thinking furiously, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

“Klatzo, small setbacks happen all the time,” said Ardinaa. “I’m sure you’ll fix it.”

CM’s plastic brow furrowed. “OK. I’ve gotten along with this charade long enough, and it’s tiresome. What’s the point of all this? You know damn well the machine doesn’t work.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

She glared at me with her fake blue eyes. “You called me a few minutes ago and asked me to sabotage the machine by disconnecting some wires in the back panel.”

“What!” I exclaimed, having no idea what the hell she was talking about. “I did no such thing!”

“I know your voice, and your number,” she retorted.

That’s it. She’s finally lost her mind. Or her CPU.

I wondered if a crazy robot might be dangerous.

Ardinaa’s PDD started beeping. She looked at the screen and gave me a surprised look.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s your number!”

It appeared CM’s madness was contagious.

“I certainly am not calling you, am I?” I growled. “Is this a joke?”

“It’s not funny,” offered CM.

Ardinaa put the PDD to her left ear. “Hello?” she said, then she blanched as she listened to the person on the other side. She yelled at me, “We have to go. Right now!” Then she turned and looked at the fence that separated my backyard from my neighbor’s.

“What’re you talking abo—” I started to ask.

Five Irzuts jumped over the fence and rushed toward us. They were large and muscular, wore black tactical gear, and carried huge, lethal-looking laser rifles. Two of them pointed their guns at Ardinaa, who slowly raised her hands. Another one covered CM, and the fourth Irzut walked to me, grabbed the collar of my very expensive silk shirt, and dragged me out of the machine. He examined my face closely and then looked at the PDD he was carrying in his left hand.

“Yeah, that’s him all right,” he muttered.

“Who are you?” I shouted. “What do you want?”

I didn’t even have time to get scared. This was like a weird nightmare. I wondered if Voparg had finally found out it was me who revealed his secrets, and these were his friends. This reaction sounded a tad extreme though.

The fifth man approached and hit me in the face with the butt of his rifle.

The whole world plunged into darkness.

five

Klatzo

Icame to when someone threw a bucket of cold water over my head. My hands were tied over my head by some chains, and I was hanging listlessly from a hook in the ceiling. My nose was on fire, and I wondered if it was broken. I shook my head to clear the water from my eyes and looked around.

I was in a large, empty hall that looked like an abandoned warehouse, surrounded by four of the five guys who’d attacked my house, looking at me with murder in their eyes. Despite my probably broken nose, I could smell the thick stench of blood, urine, and vomit in the air. I tried to force down my nausea. There were some dark, fresh bloodstains on the floor. Probably not mine. I would’ve fainted if I’d lost that much blood.

Waves of fear overcame me, and I had to fight to hold back a terrified scream. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but none of this could possibly be good for my health. If I had to guess, I’d say these men looked like Hibos’ Secret Service agents. That was really bad news; those guys weren’t known for their kind and gentle disposition. But why would they attack me? If they wanted to ask me some questions, all they needed to do was to call me and ask me to report to one of their stations. And what could they possibly want to ask me, of all people?

The man standing in front of me put down the bucket and stepped closer, his face uncomfortably close to mine. “Professor Klatzo Arcah. Or should I call you Red Arrow?”

“What?” I struggled with my binds. That name rang a bell, as if I’d heard it just recently.

He hit me in the right kidney.

I’d been beaten up plenty of times in my life. My mother used to do it on a daily basis when I was a child (she was an alcoholic and not always in control of her actions, plus she hated me), and later in my teenage years, the other kids who saw me as a half-breed abomination took over her job. But this was the first time I got beaten in my adult life, and I was out of practice.

I almost fainted due to the sudden sharp pain that surged through my body. I coughed and gagged, and barely managed not to throw up while swinging helplessly back and forth from the ceiling as the result of his strike.

“Let’s start over,” said the man casually. “You’re Red Arrow, the Cherokee leading a revolution against Hibos’ democratically-elected government. We found your DNA at the scene of a few of our group’s terrorist attacks.”

I wondered if he’d lost his mind. Or I had, and all this was some weird delusion, the type that I sometimes had as a result of excessive drinking. I tried to remember when I’d last had a drink. That bit about “Hibos’  democratically-elected government” was hilarious though, especially how he’d said it with a straight face.

“Are you serious?” I yelled. “Do I look like a rebel leader to you? I didn’t even know a revolution was going on until this morning!”

The man exchanged a look with his friends and smirked. “Do you honestly expect us to believe that?”

“I know it sounds weird, but believe me when I tell you—”

He hit me three more times in quick succession: in my other kidney, my neck, and my nose. Blood poured out of my nostrils. This time I was sure my nose was broken.

My body screamed as the pain took over my brain and made all thoughts disappear. Struggling to breathe, I wished I could faint, or at least drop to the floor, but I couldn’t. The chains attached to my wrist wouldn’t let me.

“I’m afraid we won’t make any progress until we can agree on who you are,” he said mildly.

I said nothing. I was afraid he’d hit me again if I talked.

“Let’s dial this up a notch or two, shall we?” he added.

His friends laughed.

“Some good old-fashioned electric shock might refresh your memory.”

Electric shock?!

He went to a table next to me, on which sat food and water, and a long prod with a metal head split into two parts. He picked up the prod, turned to me, and gave me a toothy grin. “Looky here, and you’re all wet already.”

I could honestly say I’d never been this frightened in my entire life.

“You sure about this, boss?” asked one of the Irzuts. “He might die without divulging any important information. He does look kinda frail.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with the goon.

The first man sneered. “What kind of a rebel leader can’t take a little torture?”

“This kind,” I muttered, too weak to raise my voice. “For the hundredth time, I’m not a rebel leader, dickhead. Do you really think I go to the university and teach my classes in the morning, and then moonlight as a rebel leader at night?”

“If that’s true, then you’re of no use to us anyway.” The man stepped closer and raised the prod.

I tried to pull away from him, but it wasn’t like I could move much. All I could do was watch helplessly as he pushed the prod into my belly.

“Sto—” and I couldn’t even finish saying that one word. My entire body started to seize. There was a loud buzzing in my head, and I saw a few bright stars before the white light behind my eyes blinded me. The muscle spasms throughout my body were intense, and my clenched jaw wouldn’t even let me scream. My whole body erupted in unbearable agony. My insides felt like they’d liquified. I didn’t know my body could feel so much pain. If it continued much longer, and it felt like years already, I’d definitely go mad.

“Boss, I really don’t think he knows anything,” said one of the goons.

My torturer shrugged and pulled the prod away.

I sagged, hanging like a piece of meat from my chains. When the ringing in my ears stopped, I heard someone moan softly. It took me a few seconds to realize it was me.

“Shoot him,” ordered the man with the prod. “And then clean the mess. The stink in here is revolting.”

My head pounded, and my heart twisted as a spike of pure, helpless terror rammed right through me. But I’d figured out I wouldn’t be walking out of here alive several minutes ago, and in a way, it was a relief, because it meant the torture would end.

The room felt like it was spinning. I wanted to close my eyes, but if I was about to die, then god damn it, I’d die with whatever little dignity I could muster. Panting heavily, I somehow managed to raise my head and stare at my executioners. I tried to say something snappy, but my lips wouldn’t move.

One of the Irzuts stepped closer and raised his gun.

In those final moments of my wretched life, my biggest regret was my inability to make the time machine work. It would’ve been something. Hell, I might not have been in this mess if it had worked. I could probably just jump to the past and disappear. And what did CM mean when she said I’d ordered her to sabotage my own machine?

Then I thought about Ardinaa and wished I’d had more time with her. Things might’ve worked out between us if I didn’t end up with a laser bolt in my face right now. Miracles did happen.

The hall door exploded inwards. The deafening sound made my head snap back, and dust and smoke filled the hall and my lungs at the same time.

Ardinaa stepped inside. She was wearing a tight black leather jumpsuit and carried a laser pistol in each hand.

The Irzuts standing between her and me started fumbling with their rifles, but she shot both of them at the same time, and then did the same to the one whose gun was pointed at me before he could even begin to turn. The man let out a shot that missed my head by an inch. The fourth man dropped the prod and reached for his sidearm. He went down with a laser bolt in his face.

“Where’s the other one?” Ardinaa shouted at me.

I had no idea.

A side door opened, and the last Irzut goon opened fire on Ardinaa. She dodged right under the incoming laser bolts with lightning-fast reflexes, rolled on the ground, and shot him in the center of the chest. The man was thrown backward. His body convulsed a few times and then stopped moving.

Ardinaa holstered her pistols, picked up a water bottle from the table, walked up to me, and pressed the bottle to my lips.

I greedily gulped down the bottle’s content, which soothed my parched throat. That felt really good.

“Man, you look like shit,” she said casually.

I wanted to compliment her astute observation, but my lips still refused to move.

Ardinaa started working on my chains.

Weakly, I raised my head and looked at her. She looked different. Her friendly, genial expression had completely disappeared, and she looked … hard. And yeah, she’d just killed five men (five Secret Service agents, no less)  in cold blood right in front of my eyes, with such brutal efficiency that it hadn’t even taken her five seconds.

I coughed, trying to clear the dust from my lungs. Everything hurt. It was hard to breathe because the air was choked with grime and smoke. I was confused and disoriented. My brain, very close to blowing a fuse or two, went into overdrive, desperately trying to make sense of what was going on, and I momentarily forgot how to breathe. This was all too much for one day. Whispering Wind thought an alien invasion was on the way. My time machine didn’t work. A rebellion was in progress, and Hibos’ authorities thought I was the leader. My assistant was some sort of a super soldier. Weird, weird, weird, weird.

And I didn’t know the half of it.

Suddenly, I saw myself walk into the hall and look around in astonishment. He even wore the exact same clothes as I did, only his were spotlessly clean, and his face wasn’t all messed up.

I could feel my puffy eyes bugging out of my head—almost.

He looked at me and scratched his head.  “Hello, me. I know, it’s weird. Just wait until I tell you what happened to me.”

Six

Klatzo Prime

Iwaved at Ardinaa and her camera. “Brace yourself, for you’re watching history in the making.”

“If it works,” said CM dully, “which I highly doubt.”

I fastened my seatbelt and started tapping on the console in front of me. It was 5.42. I set the arrival time for 5.12, then announced, “Here we go,” and pulled the lever next to the console.

I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I expected to be instantaneously transferred to thirty minutes ago, alone in my house, except for a shocked CM, of course. I imagined trying to explain to her that I’d just traveled through time and chuckled at the image.

The “trip”—for lack of a better word—wasn’t instantaneous. It took a second or two. I felt weightless as I moved through a tunnel whose walls were covered with millions of constantly changing colorful, symmetrical designs, and for a fleeting half-second, I could swear I saw myself flying right next to me.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of a small garden behind the main building on campus, where my office and most of my classrooms were located.

A few students sitting on the grass and working on their PDDs looked at me with surprise. One of them called out, “Professor Arcah. Where did you come from?”

I looked at him, completely at a loss for words.

“You appeared from thin air,” added another student.

That got me thinking. “What time is it?” I took out my PDD before anyone would answer.

It was 5.12.

I punched the air excitedly and did a small victory dance right in front of the astonished students. “Yes! It works!”

“Oh, great,” said one of the students, then frowned. “Wait. What works?”

I rubbed my temples, my brain working feverishly. The time machine worked (freaking brilliant! I always knew I was a genius!) only instead of traveling through time, it sent its occupant back in time, which was the next best thing. That wasn’t an issue. I could already think of a way to make sure it pulled me back once my voyage was done. Fortunately, on this particular trip, I was only a short time in the past; otherwise, it would’ve been a long wait before I got home.

There was also a small locational displacement I hadn’t accounted for, but I’d arrived so close to the machine that it shouldn’t have been a problem either. Unless I materialized inside a wall or something.

Wait a minute! If I were here, half an hour in the past, this meant—

I started running, leaving the confused students behind. I raced past the corner of the main building just in time to see Ardinaa and myself, another myself,  walk through the campus’ main gate, deep in conversation.

I froze. My mouth fell open, and a fluttery feeling took over my belly. I’d never imagined what had happened in my worst nightmare.

A second me would complicate things considerably. What the hell was I supposed to do with the other guy? How could I even prove that I was the original Klatzo and he was a duplicate? This could have severe repercussions, and I was utterly unprepared to face them.

Then I noticed something else. A small Irzut (by the Blues standards, who were normally tall and wide-shouldered) was following Ardinaa and the other me. He wore an inconspicuous gray suit, and his face was hidden behind huge sunglasses and a cap. The only reason I noticed him was I’d seen him hanging out in front of my house earlier that morning, and I had a photographic memory to go with my genius-level IQ.

I started following the man at a safe distance, wondering who he was and why he was after me, or maybe Ardinaa.

First things first though. I had to stop the other me from traveling back in time, because that would create a third version of me, not to mention a time loop. I took out my PDD and called CM. “I need you to sabotage the time machine.”

“Have you been drinking again?” she asked.

“No. Or maybe a little, but this has nothing to do with that. There’s a panel in the back of the machine. There are three yellow wires inside. Just go and disconnect them, and pretend we didn’t have this conversation when my guest and I arrive in a few minutes. I’ll explain later.”

Having taken care of that problem, I pocketed my PDD and kept following the Irzut, my mind flying in a thousand different directions.

When Ardinaa and the other me entered my house, the small Irzut stopped, looked around, and talked to his PDD. Then five huge, heavily-armed, black-clad Blues exited a dark blue hover car parked close to my house and joined him. They talked a little bit, then the five armed men entered the house attached to mine while the small fellow walked away.

I still didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly have been good. I had to warn myself. I took out my PDD and paused, wondering how to dial my own number. Then I cursed under my breath and called Ardinaa.

Her PDD ranged a few times before she said, “Hello?”

“You’re about to be attacked!” I yelled. “Get out of there right this moment!”

But I knew it was too late.

The line went dead. I just stood there, not knowing what to do. A couple of minutes later, the five men exited my house. I rushed to hide behind a hover car, then stuck out my head to see what they were doing. One of them was carrying a bound, unconscious me over his shoulders. They got in their vehicle and drove away without noticing me, which I was positive was a good thing.

I was still trying to digest all this when Ardinaa raced through the front door. She darted towards a silver hover car parked nearby and got on from the driver’s side.

I started running before my brain could catch up with my legs. I opened the vehicle’s passenger side door and entered, closed the door, and turned towards Ardinaa.

Only then did I realize two absolutely shocking things.

One was the deadly-looking laser pistol Ardinaa was holding to my head. The second was that she was in her underwear—black, lacy, see-through, sort of bikini-style. Apparently, I’d caught her in the middle of changing clothes.

There was a snake tattoo on her right thigh. I didn’t think a snake would suit her, given how soft and feminine she was. Then I looked into her eyes and saw anything but soft and feminine.

Her eyes rounded like moons. “You aren’t his twin, are you?”

“Mrrffff,” I managed to say.

In my defense, it was hard enough to be around Ardinaa when she was fully clothed, let alone when she was half-naked. There wasn’t enough blood in my body to make all my organs work at the same time.

She rolled her eyes, put the pistol on her lap, and snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. “Hey! Up here. Or, you know what, just turn around and wait until I change.”

“Mrrffff,” I repeated with utmost eloquence and turned.

“Ok, you can turn around now,” she said a minute later.

She was dressed in some sort of black leather jumpsuit. Rather unusual attire for a quantum mechanics student, if she indeed were one. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

I heaved a sigh of relief as my brain went back to normal, then it hit me: she was off-the-chart gorgeous, and I hadn’t had a lot of female company recently (or ever), but it wasn’t like I was a teenager, unable to control my urges. On the other hand, the Xortaags were known to have telepathic powers. Was my infatuation with her due to some sort of psychic influence? I shelved that thought to be explored later. We had more urgent matters to deal with right now. Still, half my brain wished I could see her in her underwear again. or even better, every day for the rest of my life.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

I waved a hand. “It’s complicated. And I could ask you the same question.”

“It’s complicated,” she answered with a shrug. “Let’s go save you, the other you, and then we’ll sit down and talk.

“Wait!” I exclaimed. “We can’t leave the time machine here for whoever comes next to find it.”

She rubbed her forehead. “Ok. Go pack a bag, because I doubt we’ll ever come back here. Take only your most essential things. Then get on the machine and follow me.”

“How are you going to find the other me though?”

“I put a tracker on you when I straightened your bowtie.”

My hands went to my neck. “Where?”

She grabbed my hand. “Let’s keep it where it is, just in case I lose you too.”

I ran back to my house. When I entered my living room, I saw CM lying casually on a sofa, holding a glass of wine in one hand, happily humming some old song.

She jumped off the sofa and smashed the glass on the floor in disgust when she saw me. “And I was free for an entire five minutes!”

“Good to see you too, future scrap metal,” I growled.

I put some clothes, my IDs, and all the cash I had at home in a small duffle bag and threw it inside the machine, yelled at CM to get on too, and hesitated for a moment.

Take only your most essential things, she said. I went back inside and gathered a couple of suits, a few books, and four bottles of liquor. Then got into the machine, turned it on, and flew out of the yard.

“Where are we going?” asked CM.

“Don’t know. Just following Ardinaa for now.”

Around half an hour later, Ardinaa pulled over in front of an abandoned warehouse. I stopped behind her hover car, told CM to watch the machine, and rushed to join her.

Crouching behind her vehicle, Ardinaa looked at her PDD. “I can see you and four goons inside. Wait here.”

She darted towards the warehouse, attached something that I assumed was an explosive device to the door, took a few steps back, and drew two laser pistols, each in one hand.

I confess I was turned on by how smoothly and confidently she drew her weapons.

The ground shook as the door shattered. Ardinaa ran inside, and I heard a few weapon discharges. Then it was quiet.

I gathered my courage and followed her. A heavy stench of burned flesh and blood assaulted my nostrils as soon as I walked into the warehouse. There were five corpses on the floor, obviously killed by Ardinaa, and she was trying to free the other me, who was dangling by chains from the ceiling, his face a bloody mess.

He stared at me, eyes wide in shock.

“Hello, me.” I scratched my head. “I know, it’s weird. Just wait until I tell you what happened to me.”

seven

Xornaa

And you thought this was a babysitting mission, Xornaa told herself, regarding the two identical men sitting in front of her.

“I must confess,” she said, “I’ve seen plenty of crazy shit in my life, but this definitely takes the cake.”

“You and me both, sister,” said CM.

“What ‘crazy shit’ have you seen, exactly?” one of the two scientists asked her with annoyance in his voice.

“Well, you, obviously,” she replied wryly.

They were in a safehouse Xornaa had arranged upon arrival to Hibos, sitting around the oval dining table in the living room. The room’s interior designer had used soft and soothing grays and silvers to create a sparkling, luxurious feel, complete with a huge crystal chandelier that dangled over the table and a plush silvery gray carpet that practically begged for bare feet.

“I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve made a copy of yourself,” she told the Klatzo who wasn’t injured.

“Why? It’s Time Travel 101,” he replied. “If someone goes back in time within his own lifespan, there will be two of him. I didn’t see this coming because I thought the machine would go back in time, and the plan was to return after a few minutes.”

The other man shook his head sadly. “I can’t believe we missed this.”

“I can’t call both of you Klatzo.” Xornaa pointed at the uninjured man. “I’ll call you KP, standing for Klatzo Prime.”

“Hey!” objected the other one. “Why does he get to be the prime me?”

“He was the one who went back in time,”

Xornaa explained patiently. “He’s the original Klatzo.”

“That makes sense,” responded the man with sadness in his eyes. He obviously didn’t like the thought of being a copy.

“Enough about us,” said Klatzo Prime. “Who are you?”

Xornaa thought about hiding her identity but didn’t see the point. “My name’s Xornaa. I’m a spy, working for various Xortaag security services, but I also do a lot of freelance work. Someone hired me to protect you, telling me that he believed your life was in danger.”

“And indeed it was,”  Klatzo grimaced. “The question is: how did your employer know that in advance?”

“I have a better question,” said CM. “Why did the Irzuts think you were the rebel leader? It’s a hilarious idea, if you think about it.”

“So, you’re a soldier?” asked KP. “What’s up with the sexy lingerie then?”

Klatzo’s face turned green. “You saw her in lingerie?”

If Xornaa rolled her eyes any further, she’d risk them falling out. “Seriously? That’s what you’re focusing on right now?”

“Men,” commented CM disgustedly.

“Any idea who hired you?” asked KP.

“No. Some old dude. The ship that brought me here was definitely Akakie though, not that I saw any of the crew; I was basically confined to my quarters. You don’t happen to have any Akakie friends, do you?”

They shook their heads.

KP looked around the room. “The gun-for-hire business must be paying very well so that you can afford to rent a place like this.”

“My employer covers the expenses. The old man also sent me a file about the Zuuvreils and asked me to study—”

Both Klatzoes jumped out of their seats and shouted in unison, “The Zuuvreils?!”

Their strong reaction to the name surprised Xornaa. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember—” they started saying together, then stopped and looked at each other.

Klatzo threw up his hands and sank back into his seat.

KP continued, “Do you remember I told you the Cherokee elders called me and warned me an alien invasion was on the way, one that would exterminate all the people on Hibos? Guess who they said the invaders were.”

“The Zuuvreils,” said Xornaa immediately.          

“This can’t be a coincidence,” KP muttered.

“Don’t tell me you believe in Whispering Wind’s visions all of a sudden, Mr. Man of Science,” objected Klatzo.

“How else do you explain this?” KP asked him.

He wrinkled his nose. “A coincidence, as you just said.”

KP turned to Xornaa. “What was in the file?”

“Mostly very detailed information about the Zuuvreils’ history and origin. Literally ancient history. I fail to see how that data is relevant to our current situation.”

“If Whispering Wind is right and a Zuuvreil invasion is indeed imminent,” said KP, “there might be something there that will help us defeat them.”

Klatzo grimaced and rubbed his forehead. “None of this makes any sense. Someone hired Xornaa to save me and gave her a file that you think will help us survive an alien attack that is supposed to happen according to a shaman’s vision. Why? Who is that man? And how did he know any of this?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourselves,” Xornaa stated flatly. “There’s no indication that there will be an invasion to begin with. Nothing other than ‘visions’ of an old man, who might or might not be sane.”

“And nothing that we know about the Zuuvreils,” added Klatzo, “which admittedly isn’t much, suggests they have a fleet capable of doing something like this.”

CM sat up straight. “Guys. Check the newsfeed.” There was an unmistakable note of anxiety in her synthetic voice.

“Which one?” asked Xornaa.

“All of them. Any of them. It doesn’t matter.”

Xornaa took out her PDD. A blonde Irzut appeared on screen, looking frightened, talking excitedly. The headline under her image read Valratania Destroyed by Surprise Alien Invasion. Behind her was a live feed of a planet, presumably Valratania. The planet’s surface was on fire, and there was a large amount of metallic debris in orbit above it, which suggested there’d been a fierce and deadly space battle. When the camera zoomed in, Xornaa could see ruined cities with millions of destroyed buildings. There were torn-apart corpses everywhere, many belonging to children. There was no sign of any movement, which meant few people, if any, had survived the attack.

Xornaa’s stomach churned, and her unibrow rose in shock. She looked at the two men, and their pale faces, rounded eyes, and slack expressions told her they were in shock too. She’d seen plenty of bloodshed in her life, but an entire planet? This was a whole new level of carnage, and she knew she’d have nightmares about it for days, especially regarding all the massacred children.

“A previously unknown alien fleet appeared out of nowhere,” said the Irzut woman breathlessly, “attacked the planet with no warning, brushed aside the defending fleet, and just exterminated everyone by raining fire on the planet. Very few people could’ve survived this massacre. Initial reports suggest the alien fleet belongs to the Zuuvreils. That, however, isn’t confirmed and is hard to believe, because they’ve never shown any interest in the other species and planets in our system.”

“What the fuck is going on?” murmured KP.

“What’s the population of Valratania?” asked Klatzo, his voice shaking.

“It was fourteen billion,” said CM matter-of-factly.

Both men looked like they were about to throw up. Xornaa herself had to fight to keep her composure, or at least the appearance of it.

“Fourteen billion?” exclaimed KP, looking dazed. “They can’t all be dead.”

Xornaa looked up from her PDD. “And yet, according to the newsfeeds, they are.”

“This just in,” continued the reporter. “We’re receiving reports that suggest thousands of ships landed on Valratania during the attack, rounded up as many children and younglings as they could, and took off before the planet’s complete destruction.”

Xornaa could feel beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.

KP, reading something on his PDD, heard the last part of the report and looked at Xornaa with astonishment. “Why the hell are they taking the children?”

“Maybe to eat them?” suggested Klatzo, looking even more terrified.

Xornaa shook her head. “Kids are easy to mold. They’re probably planning to bring them up according to their religion. Maybe use them as soldiers later.”

“Looks like Whispering Wind’s predictions came true,” said CM, “only on another planet.”

KP, looking like he’d seen enough, threw his PDD on the table. “No. This is just the beginning. That fleet is on its way here.”

“And what are we going to do about it?” asked Xornaa darkly, putting her own PDD away.

KP tightened his fists and inhaled deeply before saying, “Show me the data you have on the Zuuvreils. I’m positive I’ll come up with a plan. I’m a genius, you know.”

Xornaa’s lips pulled into a thin smile. “Say that one more time, because I didn’t get it the first hundred times you’ve said it.”

“Plus, now there’s two of us,” added Klatzo.

PART II

THE INVASION

eight

Adlynn

Captain Adlynn, standing behind the command chair on the bridge of Starship Hope, gazed at her dying planet one last time through the bridge’s large main screen, which took up almost the entire front bulkhead.

Ammoora was gorgeous. She was dark purple, with three rings of the same color, and four moons. Her beauty wasn’t going to save her though. Ammoora’s sun was about to go supernova and take the whole system with it.

Captain Adlynn’s people had pooled all their planet’s resources and, in a gargantuan effort that had lasted decades, built Hope, a behemoth of a generation ship. She was meant to help the species survive by carrying twelve million carefully chosen men, women, and children—most of them hibernating in cryosleep pods—to another planet that could sustain life. The trip would last decades, but it was their only chance.

Adlynn thought about the terrible cost Hope’s construction had come at and shuddered. It’d destroyed Ammoora’s already faltering economy. Millions had perished due to worldwide famine. Several major riots had to be suppressed. A fanatic religious group—by Ammoora’s standards, everyone on this planet is a fanatic, she thought darkly— called Children of God considered Hope’s building blasphemous, arguing that if the Gods wanted them to perish, they had no right to interfere with their will. They’d vowed to destroy the generation ship before her voyage started.

Well, looks like they failed. Small favors.

Adlynn’s two small sons, Brayden and Roderock, were on board, but her husband, Talbaz, wasn’t. Thinking about him made the captain’s breath catch, and her knees nearly buckled. She leaned on his command chair and steadied herself. Two years ago, Talbaz had suffered from a rare disease that left him sterile, and that had disqualified him from joining the people on board Hope.

Adlynn had decided to use his influence as the ship’s captain to ask the authorities to make an exception for Talbaz, but he’d talked her out of it. The survival of their species came first, Talbaz had argued, and he would take the place of someone who could contribute to that on the ship. The whole point of colonizing another planet was to repopulate it, after all. Moreover, if Adlynn insisted, her superiors might’ve removed her and appointed another captain, which meant their sons would grow up orphans.

Adlynn was about to leave the love of her life, her devoted, handsome, caring husband of nine happy years, as well as her parents and almost all her friends and family, to die. If she’d ever doubted her love for Talbaz was real, the excruciating, ever-present pain of loss she had felt in the past few months would’ve dissipated that notion. Her mouth went dry and her breath quickened as she wondered if she was destined to be alone for the rest of her life.

Everyone on her crew was about to lose most of the important people in their lives too, but they went about performing their duties with the efficiency that came from years of extensive training. And so would she. Twelve million lives depended on it. She tried to push away the pain and focus on pride for who they were and what they’d achieved together.

“Open a channel,” she ordered her communication officer.

“Channel open.”

“Command, this is Captain Adlynn. We’re about to begin our journey.”

“Go with Gods, Captain”—Adlynn recognized Ammoora’s chancellor’s voice—“Our prayers are with you.”

Our dying prayers, you mean.

Adlynn opened her mouth to issue the order, but her breath got stuck in her chest. Her heart started thumping loudly, and she felt lightheaded. Tears welled up in her eyes. This was just too much. She wished she hadn’t accepted this post when it was offered to her. She remembered how proud she’d been that day—the savior of her species. It was a few weeks later when she found out Talbaz couldn’t come with her. She should’ve resigned from her post right then. At least, she could die together with her husband. But if she did, then her children would’ve lost both their parents. She found the fact that both she and her kids were about to become orphans at the same time horrifying.

None of the bridge crew turned to look at her, but she knew they were all waiting. So did everyone on the planet. It was too late for second thoughts. She gulped down her desperation, thought Goodbye, my love, and said loudly and clearly, “Execute.”

The helmsman ran his hand over the console in front of him, but the ship didn’t move.

Adlynn felt the barrel of a pulse pistol pressed against the back of her skull. A female voice whispered in her ear, “Don’t move a muscle, Captain.”

It was unmistakably her first lieutenant’s voice.

Three bridge officers, including the helmsman, jumped from their seats, drew their sidearms, and aimed them at the rest of the crew.

The first lieutenant yelled, “We are the Children of God, and we are taking over the ship!”

How the fuck did they get so many people on board?

The captain turned and stared at her second-in-command. “Marsa, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

“What needs to be done,” she declared, then pressed her lips together.

“There are twelve million souls on board, and half of them children.”

“I know,” said the other woman. “We aren’t murderers. We’re going to land Hope, let everyone go, and then destroy her.”

“We’ll build another one,” said Adlynn, but she knew this argument was pitifully weak. They had neither the time nor the financial resources.

Marsa sneered. “With what? This one ship bankrupted the whole planet, which is part of the reason we’re doing this to begin with.”

Adlynn stared into Marsa’s eyes. Marsa was determined, but behind the surface, Adlynn could see her first lieutenant wasn’t at ease with what she was about to do. The captain had known her for a long time. They’d worked together for years. She knew regardless of her religious beliefs, Marsa was deep down a decent woman. Maybe decent enough to hesitate for just one second before shooting her captain and friend point-blank.

Twelve million lives depend on what you do next, Adlynn.

The captain went for Marsa’s pulse pistol.

She hesitated for a second.

That was enough.

Adlynn grabbed Marsa’s wrist, stepped towards her, and bent her arm from the elbow. A look of horror crossed the mutineer’s face just as the captain shot her in the face with her own pistol.

A sudden influx of burning bile filled Adlynn’s throat as Marsa’s face melted and the stench of burned flesh stung her nostrils.

Everyone on the bridge froze in stunned silence; then Marsa’s three accomplices opened fire on the captain. She used Marsa’s corpse as a shield, firing back blindly. The dead woman’s body shook as several energy bolts tore into it.

The other crew members took this opportunity to draw their weapons, and because there were twenty of them against the three enemy assailants, the ensuing gunfight took only a few seconds.

And then Adlynn heard the weapon discharges from outside the bridge.

This isn’t over yet.    

“Lock the bridge down,” she yelled at her crew while darting towards the now-dead helmsman’s station.

The second helmsman took his seat next to her. She tapped on the console in front of her as fast as she could, then told him, “Take her out. Steady as she goes.”

“Captain!” someone shouted.

Adlynn looked up at the main screen to see two jetfighters on an intercept course. Hope would’ve been in their effective missile range in mere minutes.

“Where’s our escort?” she yelled.

“Gone, Captain. Destroyed, exactly when the mutiny started.”

“All eight of them?” exclaimed Adlynn, stunned.

“It appears to be a well-coordinated act of sabotage, Captain.”

She rushed back to the command chair. “Command,” she said with a steady voice, trying to calm her racing heart. “Be advised that two bogies are coming right at us, and I don’t think they’re coming to see us off.”

“We’ll take care of them,” said the chancellor, his voice tight. “Get out of here though, just in case there’s more of them.”

Hope started moving.

Adlynn sat in the command chair and brought up her tactical display. The two bogies were followed by a dozen jetfighters. With each passing second, they kept getting closer to Hope, whose helmsman was desperately trying to steer away from them.

The mood on the bridge was tense, but not panicked, with everyone focused on carrying out their duties. In her mind, the captain urged her ship to move faster, then she looked up at the main screen to see it wash out with a bright flash as the two enemy jetfighters exploded into tiny shards, hit from behind by the pursuing vessels.

Adlynn heaved a sigh of relief as raucous cheers and whoops erupted from the bridge crew; then she realized one of the dead enemy pilots had released a missile a fraction of a second before their jetfighter was hit.

“Time to impact?” she asked, surprised that her voice wasn’t shaking.

“Two minutes, Captain.”

Adlynn stared desperately at the incoming missile, but there was nothing she could do. Hope was too big to be able to move fast enough to dodge a missile, and she had no defensive capabilities. One single missile wouldn’t destroy the enormous generation ship, but still within the atmosphere and this close to the planet, it would be enough to make Hope lose altitude and fall onto the surface like a rock, along with her twelve million passengers, including her own sons.

She grabbed the arms of the command chair so hard that her knuckles turned light green. Everything they’d done, all the sacrifices they’d made, was for nothing. Now they would die along with the rest of the planet, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. She opened her mouth to order the crew to rush to the escape pods but hesitated. What difference did it make if they died now or two months later when the planet blew up? And if they stayed at their stations, there was still a minuscule chance they could land the ship. Maybe Hope could be repaired after that.

She held up her chin in defiance and stared at the missile, as if challenging it to do its worse. “Brace for impact,” she announced.

“Don’t worry, Captain,” came a voice from the comms. “I’ve got you covered.”

Who the hell?

A jetfighter flew right past Hope’s enormous hull and put itself straight in the path of the missile.

“Pilot, identify yourself,” she ordered.

“Cadet Aris, ma’am. At your service.”

Cadet?!

“How old are you, son? You sound awfully young.”

“Nineteen, ma’am. Technically, I’m not still a pilot. I’d taken out my bird for a spin when I heard Hope was under attack, and here I am.”

She stood up, straightened her uniform, and saluted sharply, even though she knew the pilot couldn’t see her.

The bridge crew followed suit.

“Thank you, Aris, and may the Gods be with you.”

“Thanks, Captain. Will you do me a favor and plant a tree for me when you reach Haven?”

Adlynn felt tears stinging her eyes again. “It’s a promise.”

She shot a final glance at Ammoora and turned her back to the main screen. She didn’t have the heart to watch the young man sacrifice himself to save her ship. “Pable, Ashaar, Alezanaa, you’re with me. Let’s go deal with the rest of these mutineer scums.”

We're certainly off to a great start, she thought while leaving the bridge, weapon in hand, ready to give her life to defend her ship, her crew, and what was left of her family.

nine

Klatzo Prime

Ichecked my PDD to make sure I was in the right place.

Yep.

There was nothing out of ordinary about the building in front of which I was standing, which probably was the point. It hid among thousands of similar, if not identical, buildings in Phoria, a small city in the middle of nowhere. What went on inside was anything but ordinary though.

I walked in. The entire ground floor was a huge empty hall, with a reception desk in front of the entrance, and only one elevator behind it. There was only one receptionist (a well-dressed classy-looking young Irzut woman), but I was sure several people were watching my every move through hidden cameras.

I walked up to the woman. I’d never seen a female  Irzut work, but then again, this was a highly unusual place. She looked up and smiled brightly at me. “Hello, and welcome to Virtura. How can I be of assistance?”

I smiled back at her. “Hi. My name’s Klatzo Arcah, and I’m here to sign up for your most comprehensive course.”

She raised a well-trimmed eyebrow at me. “Our comprehensive courses can be very time-consuming, not to mention expensive. Are you ready to invest that kind of time and money?”

“I have three years to spend, and as for money, is this enough for a ten percent down payment?” I gave her a bank note.

She looked at the note, and her mouth fell open, ever so slightly. I might not have noticed if I hadn’t expected that reaction. “I can say with confidence this is enough to get you started. When would you like to start your training?”

“Well, today, if at all possible. I’m in a little bit of a rush.”

Because the freaking world’s about to end.

She stood. “If you would be so kind as to follow me, we’ll get you sorted right away.”

I was sent here by Xornaa. Virtura was, for the lack of a better term, some sort of an assassin’s school (I didn’t even know we had one on Hibos!), and their “comprehensive training” went well beyond teaching simple skills like marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, and urban combat tactics. They would provide their clients with enhancements, both genetic and artificial. If Xornaa were to be believed, I’d leave here as a half-cyborg superhuman, with stronger muscles, bones, and joints, quicker reaction times, higher pain tolerance (which was music to my ears, I was kind of squeamish), immunity to disease, illness, and poison, and the ability to heal fast.  And all that didn’t include advanced scanning and holographic capabilities for my eyes and the ability to interact directly with computers. I’d drawn the line at bulletproof prosthetic limbs though. Didn’t want to go full-android.

This, of course, didn’t come cheap, a small problem for someone with access to a time machine. I’d sent myself four years back in time and made some investments, knowing exactly where to invest (I could’ve gone further back in time if I wanted to, but we still didn’t have a way for me to jump back into the present—Klatzo was working on it). Now, I was rolling in money. I’d reinvested some of that and left it so that we could use it in the future.

I made a mental note of leaving a message for Xornaa and myself to make sure the other me wouldn’t enter the time machine again in three years, causing a loop.

I followed the woman into the elevator. She pushed a button and the elevator started moving up.

“Can I please ask you a personal question?” she asked.

“By all means.”

“What do you need our comprehensive courses for?”

“A world-ending alien invasion is underway,” I answered with all the sincerity I could muster, “and some of my friends and I are planning to defend against it.”

She chuckled. “Haven’t heard that before. Good one.”

Ten

Klatzo

Xornaa, standing next to me, covered her mouth with a hand and whispered, “No freaking way!”

I grinned from ear to ear. “That’s exactly what I said the first time I came here.”

“Are those dinosaurs?!” she looked like she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Yep. In the flesh.”

There was a herd of dinosaurs, staying close together not a mile in front of us. I wasn’t a paleontologist, so I didn’t know what species they were, but it didn’t matter. They were awesome. The dinosaurs were at least fifty feet tall, bipods, with huge heads and miniature forelimbs. It looked like they were feeding the blood-covered carcass of an animal to several smaller ones.

After KP had left to attend the assassin school Xornaa had recommended, it took me a couple of days to solve the problem of jumping back to the present. Then I decided to take the time machine for a few test drives to gather some data. I’d jumped into the past a few days at first (to make sure I could jump back) then a few decades, then a few centuries, and finally to here, never staying more than a few minutes not to contaminate the timeline.

Speaking of which …

“Remember what I told you,” I told Xornaa. “Don’t move much, and watch your steps. This far in the past, if you trample on something, it could change the course of history.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the majestic animals. “Duly noted.”

Then one of the dinosaurs turned its enormous head and stared right at us.

Oh-oh.

It started running towards us. Even at a distance, a low vibration shook the ground under my feet. That thing was at least ten tons.

Xornaa took a step back (she didn’t even check to make sure she wouldn’t step on something) and drew her sidearm. I figured this was more a reflex than a conscious decision.

I pointed at the tiny gun. “What’re you planning to do with this, tickle the ten-ton dinosaur? It’ll probably make him angrier. Also, what happened to make sure you don’t change anything?”

“Do something then,” she said. If you listened very carefully, you’d find a slight hint of alarm in her voice.

I winked at her. “What’s the rush? We’ve just arrived.”

The beast was only a few hundred feet away now.

“Quit messing around!” she said through gritted teeth.

I sighed theatrically, then took out my PDD but waited a couple of minutes, smiling both at the rushing dinosaur and at Xornaa’s discomfort. I finally tapped on the screen when she looked like she was about to hit me. We were inside the time machine just a second later.

Xornaa sank back into her seat. “That was amazing! Too bad we have an alien invasion to deal with; otherwise, can you imagine what wonders we could’ve witnessed using this thing?”

I chuckled. “Xornaa, my dear, we have a time machine. Time is literally what we have an abundance of. What other period do you wish to see?”

She looked at me with a gleam in her eyes. “How far back can this thing go?”

eleven

Klatzo Prime

Iknocked and waited.

Xornaa’s eyes twinkled when she opened the door. “Hey, KP. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

I beamed at her. “I know, right?”

The other two me-s looked at me in amazement as I walked into the living room. CM whistled, which is something I was pretty sure her robot mouth wasn’t supposed to be able to do. I flexed a bicep. “Look at this thing. It’s almost as big as my head!”

“Wow,” my identical twins said together, examining both my muscles and my super expensive three-piece suit with a hint of jealousy.

I grinned. “No offense, fellows, but you guys look sort of skinny. Maybe you should hit the gym or something.”

“Hey!” objected the one with a puffy nose and bruises all over his face. “While you were in Virtura playing soldier-slash-assassin, we were busy perfecting our plan.”

“Our plan was perfect already,” I noted, “since I came up with it before I left. I see you’re still all banged up, by the way.”

“You left three days ago!”

“Yeah. Sorry, I forgot. It has been four years for me. Don’t I look older and wiser?”

“No, KP. Just taller and more muscular,” said CM.

“I am taller,” I beamed. “Compliments of one of many surgical procedures I’ve endured. Tiny, short people can’t fight, you know.”

I could tell the twins didn’t like that answer at all. I wished I could tell them about my other enhancements, including the size-matters type, which I could now confirm was true based on personal experience.

“And guess what,” I added. “They took care of my drinking problem too.”

This surprised CM. “You don’t drink anymore?”

“I do, but I don’t have to.” I gazed at the third Klatzo in the room. “What are we calling you? Klatzo Three?”

He shrugged. “Just Three. Shorter and easier to say.”

“Ok, Just Three,” I said. “Nice to make your, or mine, acquaintance.”

Xornaa, who’d followed me into the room, stood in front of me, looked me up and down, and nodded in approval. “Impressive.”

“Wait until you see my six-pac—”

A small dagger appeared in her right hand. She slashed toward my neck, so fast that ordinary eyes probably couldn’t follow her movements. Lucky for me though, I did have enhanced vision.

I didn’t even think about what to do as my training took over. I slipped to the side, out of her way.

She turned to face me again, lunging at me in an upward motion. I grabbed her wrist, pulled her towards me, and chopped into her forearm with my other hand. The dagger flew into a corner.

She looked into my eyes, her face very close to mine. “Well done. Not many people can do that.”

I smiled confidently, let go of her hand, and took a step backward.

She kicked me in my belly, so hard that I tumbled backward. All the air left my lungs, and  I hit the wall with a loud thump and fell onto my knees.

“Don’t lower your guard, rookie,” she said; then she walked over and offered me her hand.

I took it and pulled myself up, thinking how funny it would’ve been if, right at that moment, I bit off a couple of her fingers. I imagined the look of horror on her face and chuckled at the mental image.

Xornaa scowled at me, let go of my hand, took a step back, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Oh, I forgot,” I told her with a frosty tone. “You can read minds if you touch people.”

Klatzo and Three blanched.

“She can do what now?” asked Three.

I ignored them and addressed Xornaa. “Yeah, I know who you are. I made some connections when I was in the assassin school you sent me to. You’re the Scarlet Queen.”

“Can someone tell us what the hell you people are talking about?” asked CM. She sounded annoyed. But then again, she always sounded like that.

“Are you going to tell them,” I asked Xornaa, “Or should I?”

She shrugged, went to the dining table, and sat on a chair, legs crossed, face impassive.

I pulled up a chair and sat too. “A few years ago, there was a rebellion on Regolla II, whose government is an ally of the Xortaags. They requested help from Tangaar, and the Xortaags sent a team, which included our charming friend here. Xornaa tricked the rebel leaders into attending a supposed peace meeting in a small town; then she killed them all.”

Xornaa’s face turned to stone.

“What, she killed all the rebels?” asked Klatzo. He looked like he was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the story.

I stared at Xornaa. “No. She used a WMD, some kind of gas, that killed everyone in the town. Civilians. Women and children. Ten thousand people, at least.”

Everyone gasped in horror, even CM. She was speechless, for once.

“So, you found out who I am.” Xornaa avoided eye contact. “Congratulations. It wasn’t exactly a secret though. I have a reputation which often precedes me.”

I glared at her. “Reputation? Are you kidding? You’re an assassin and a mass murderer! That’s not a reputation; it’s infamy.”

Her beautiful green eyes flamed with fury, but just for a fraction of a second.

CM eyed her. “You’ve chosen one hell of a way to make a living, sister.”

“There’s too much at stake now,” I continued, “and we need your help, but once this is done, we’ll go our separate ways.”

For a fraction of a second, a hint of sadness flickered in the back of her eyes. She shrugged. “I’m getting paid to protect you; otherwise, I have no particular wish to be on this godforsaken planet.”

“And here I thought we were friends,” said Klatzo. He looked hurt. So did I, I was sure. I’d been genuinely fond of Xornaa until I heard about Regolla II.

“Think again,” she said harshly.

How could someone so captivating commit such a heinous crime? It wasn’t only that she was beautiful; she genuinely looked like a nice person, at least on the surface, and she’d saved my—well, the other me’s—life. It was unbelievable. But my sources had assured me it was her. I had a faint hope they were wrong, but it wasn’t like Xornaa was even trying to deny it.

“Aren’t you too young to be a mass murderer?” CM asked Xornaa.

“She looks much younger than her real age,” I said. “Change of subject. Guess whom I paid a visit to today before coming here?”

“Who?” asked Three.

“Professor Voparg.”

“Who’s that?” asked Xornaa.

“The guy whom you beat up the other day.”

“Did you kill him?”

I rolled my eyes. “No! I roughed him up, just a bit. That’ll teach him to be such a bully.”

Xornaa squinted at me. “You bullied a bully to stop him from bullying others?”

I chuckled. “Can you say bully one more time?”

“Bully, bully, bully, bully, bully,” she said, deadpan.

“Any chance of getting some help from the government?” I asked.

Xornaa shook her head. “None whatsoever. We’re all wanted fugitives now. They’ll shoot us on sight.”

“Not that there was ever much chance of them listening to a Cherokee and an alien woman,” added Klatzo.

“Aren’t you supposed to have powers?” I asked the Xortaag woman. “Can’t you influence them or something?”

“Powers?” questioned CM. “What kind of powers?”

“I can never make people do anything if they feel strongly about it,” Xornaa explained. “The damned Irzuts are so xenophobic and misogynistic that they find the very idea of listening to an alien woman revolting. I could probably make them horny, but I don’t see how that would help us.”

“You know, maybe the Irzuts deserve to be exterminated,” said CM, “the backward, misogynistic, racist xenophobes that they are.”

Xornaa studied her. “And their children too?”

“They’ll grow up to be just like their parents!”

“Not necessarily,” Xornaa insisted. “Isn’t KP half Irzut? Sorry, I mean all three of you.”

I frowned, trying to suppress the anger I felt when someone brought up my Irzut background. “Not the good half. At any rate, they comprise only fifty-five percent of the planet’s population. So, we’re on our own?”

Xornaa and the other two men exchanged a look. “Not exactly.”

twelve

Klatzo Prime

Iused the enhance function in my eyes and scanned our target. “Everything seems to be in order.”

“Yep. Good to go,” agreed Xornaa, standing next to me, looking through a pair of binoculars. “I wish there weren’t full moons tonight though.”

I looked up. “Good thing we have only two moons. Can you imagine if we had five?”

“At least it’s cloudy. That should help.”

We were outside a fleet training base. There were a couple of hundred Irzut cadets here, but they were either unarmed or had only sidearms, and they weren’t trained for ground combat anyway. The base did have a few dozen security forces, but with a group of armed-to-the-teeth super soldiers behind me (Xornaa had used the funds I left her through my investments to buy weapons from the black market), I wasn’t worried about them either. Five ships were landed on a landing pad at a corner of the base, which was what we came here for. They were transport ships, lightly armed and not terribly fast, but they were enough to get us where we wanted to go. Assuming that we could leave the planet.

The silvery light of the planet’s twin moons shone over the base. I paused for a second to enjoy the cool night breeze on my face. My tactile sense had also been enhanced as a result of all the augmentations I’d received. We’d been cooped up inside Xornaa’s safe house for a few days, so it was great to be out and about, even if we were about to kill a bunch of people. I tried to push away the last thought. No turning back now.

I turned and looked at the twenty-nine identical faces behind me—the face that I saw every time I looked into a mirror. They all stared back at me.

This is so weird.

This was Klatzo and Three’s idea: I’d gotten into the time machine, sending myself two minutes into the past; then my doppelganger and I had repeated the process, and then the four of us. We had a hard time fitting into the machine when we were eight. Then I’d done the whole process one more time, and now we had a small army of super soldiers. I’d asked Xornaa to do the same thing, arguing that having more of her would be useful to our goal, but she’d strongly rejected the idea.

Much to my very unpleasant surprise, one of my doppelgangers had refused to join up. He said he was a pacifist (strange thing to say for a genetically-enhanced super soldier, I know), and he found our plan to be immoral and abhorrent. I’d thought about having him executed for desertion and then wondered if that counted as committing suicide. In the end, despite long discussions trying to make him change his mind and join us, we had no choice but to let him go.

“Keep your heads down, guys,” I whispered, even though we weren’t close enough to the base for anyone to hear us. “Let’s get to the ships and fly out of here ASAP.”

“Who died and made you the boss?” asked one of my doppelgangers, the one standing closest to me. The others nodded in unison.

“I am Klatzo Prime, you know,” I said.

“So what?” he challenged me. “I say we should vote for the boss.”

“And how do we choose, pray tell?” I said mockingly. “We’re all basically the same person.”

“Guys, we don’t have time for a pissing contest right now.” Xornaa sounded fed up. “We have a fleet base to attack. Let’s sort everything else later on. Plenty of time during the journey.”

We waited for the moons to hide behind some clouds; then Xornaa and I approached the base under the cover of the darkness. It was amazing how well my new eyes could see in the dark, the moonlight notwithstanding, with no need for night goggles.

“I take it you have enhanced eyes too,” I told Xornaa, who wasn’t wearing night goggles either.

“Not like yours. Mine are genetically enhanced.”

Two Irzuts were standing guard at the section of the base’s fence that we’d identified as our entry point. We got as close as we could without being seen, then I touched my earpiece. “Are you ready?”

One of the soldier boys was tasked with hacking into the base’s system and shutting down everything. “All done,” he responded.

People in the base were probably scratching their heads in confusion right now, wondering why all of a sudden nothing worked.

I pointed my suppressed weapon at one of the guards and hesitated. I’d gone through psychological conditioning in the assassin’s school to make me not think twice about murdering people in cold blood, but it was my first time, after all. Never in my entire life had I imagined I’d find myself in the position of having to take someone’s life, and if I did, to be able to actually do it. The exact opposite was true, in fact. As a scientist and an inventor, one of my major goals in life had been to help others and to make a difference in their lives, which is exactly what some of my inventions had already done. But Hibos had twenty-eight billion people, and if we wanted to save them, this was the only way because we needed those ships. The needs of that many outweighed the needs of these few. It was only logical, and being a scientist, logic was supposed to be my forte.

Xornaa hadn’t thought about getting non-lethal weapons, and even if she had, I didn’t think they would’ve been available on the black market anyways.

Xornaa, lying prone on the ground next to me and aiming her gun, sensed my turmoil. She touched me lightly on my shoulder. “Steady, soldier. Take a deep breath. On three.”

I knew she could manipulate people by touching them, but I let her. I needed the shot in the arm; I might not have been able to do it otherwise. We counted from one together.

The two guards went down with bullets in their brains.

“Let’s go,” I said.

*****

“I still think it’s not fair that KP’s calling the shots,” I whispered to the other me who was crouching next to me, hidden behind one of the ships, “just because he happened to be the first one to use the time machine.”

“Right?” he agreed, panting slightly because we’d just stopped running. “What difference does it make? I think we must all have a say in the decision-making process.”

Six Irzuts were guarding the ships. KP had sent us to dispatch a pair of them. The two blue men walked past the ship we were hiding behind. They hadn’t taken five steps when I approached one of them from behind, grabbed him by the mouth with my left hand, and slashed my combat knife across his throat. My partner did the exact same thing to the other guard.

I let the corpse drop to the ground. “Plus, being the boss allows KP to stay close to Xornaa all the time, while I end up here with you.”

He grinned. “It’s not like I particularly enjoy your company either.”

A laser bolt hit him in the head. He was thrown backward, and I knew he was dead before he hit the terrain.

I turned towards the direction the shot had come from, planning to dive, but I was too late. My enhanced eyes had just enough time to see the energy bolt coming straight toward my face before it hit.

Then … I died.

*****

I stood over the dead guard I’d just killed, checked to make sure Xornaa had gotten rid of the second Irzut, and touched my earpiece. “Hurry up. Let’s get out of here before anyone notices—”

All of a sudden, I felt a brief but extremely sharp pain in my heart. My first thought was that I was having a heart attack. It was as if someone had stabbed it with a tiny but piercing needle, twice.

Before I could figure out what was wrong with my heart, Xornaa pushed me to the ground, a fraction of a second before a laser bolt whizzed over my head where my torso would’ve been. I rolled to my stomach and brought my weapon to bear. My enhanced eyes immediately identified the shooter: an Irzut soldier was firing at us from inside a building. I fired back and shot him. He disappeared from my view.

A piercing siren reverberated in the air.

Shit!

“Move!” I yelled. “Things are about to get interesting!”

Several Irzuts, most of them carrying sidearms, poured out of the nearby base buildings. Xornaa, a few of my doppelgangers, and I mowed them down, but their numbers kept increasing, and the enemy fire intensified. One of our soldiers was hit in the leg; two others carried him inside one of the ships.

I shot three more Irzuts, having completely forgotten my initial reservations about killing people. From the corner of my eye, I saw Klatzo drive the time machine into the ship behind Xornaa and me through the tail ramp. Then someone (well, it was my own voice) shouted in my ear, “Get on the ship! We’re ready to take off.”

Xornaa and I, still shooting, boarded the ship through a polygonal side door. I could hear energy bolts hitting the hull but didn’t think small arms fire would hurt a cargo ship, and we’d already disabled the base’s anti-aircraft artillery system.

“Everyone’s on board,” someone announced loudly. “Go, go, go!”

The ship lifted off the ground and roared away from the base. We made our way to the bridge, which was small and simple, with a command chair in the center and two pairs of seats and a raised console in front of it.

Xornaa sat on a helmsman seat and told the super soldier sitting next to her, “Give the ship’s control to me.”

The other me glared at her. “I’m fully capable of flying this bucket.”

“Sure you are, but I’m more experienced,” said Xornaa reasonably.

“Let her fly the ship,” I told the helmsman, then asked Xornaa, “How many ships have we got?”

“Four,” she answered.

“I can’t believe we pulled it off,” I said with enthusiasm.

“It isn’t over yet. In fact”—she pointed at the tactical display—“the hard part starts now.”

I looked over her shoulder and saw six Irzut space fighters zooming in on us. I felt a momentary stab of panic, but spiking adrenalin immediately swept it away.

I knew we needed to put sufficient distance between us and Hibos before we could jump, and it seemed obvious the enemy fighters would intercept us long before that. I scratched my head. “How soon can we jump?”

“Not soon enough,” Xornaa replied grimly.

“I’m going to go deal with the Irzut space fighters, but before I go”—I touched a VR screen above the panel in front of Xornaa—“this ship’s name is CS Fortitude. Do you want to keep this name or change it?”

“Is that really a priority right now?”

I ignored her question. “Let’s keep it. It’s a cool name.” 

The transport ships had a laser turret at the stern. I climbed into it and found myself in a rotating bubble protruding from the ship’s hull. I strapped myself into a revolving command chair, put on a helmet that was already there, and powered up the weapons system. A heads-up display appeared that provided me with readouts of the ship’s radar, sensors, and navigational data.

I asked Xornaa to patch me through to the other ships. “Guys, prepare to engage. Concentrate your fire on the enemy lead ship as soon as it enters our weapon’s range. After that, fire at will at the most convenient target.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” was the reply.

I could swear there was a hint of sarcasm in the response, but I wasn’t sure. With me, it was always difficult to say.

“Weapon’s hot,” said another person with the same voice.

I didn’t have to wait long. The space fighters were much faster than our transport ships, and the distance between us shrank rapidly. My HUD highlighted the closest ship to my position as soon as they got close enough. Buzzing with adrenalin, I took a bead on the closest enemy vessel, compensated for its speed and distance, got a lock, and pulled the trigger on my firing grip, discharging a sustained burst from my cannon. Red-hot laser beams streaked toward it, but its pilot easily dodged them, confirming the fact that hitting the small and nimble space fighter with a stationary weapon was a tall order.

Energy bolts were all over us when the enemy returned fire. I could tell Xornaa was trying to dodge the space fighters’ laser beams, but the slow and cumbersome transport vessels weren’t made for dogfights. The black void around me erupted in crimson laser bolts, and Fortitude shook violently as several of them impacted her. I noticed a control panel in the passageway underneath the turret blew out and was grateful that its flying debris didn’t hit me. Still, some smoke made its way into the turret.

“Are we there yet?” I yelled into my comms.

“It appears we haven’t thought this through,” Xornaa replied calmly.

“It’s my first op,” I responded blandly. “What’s your excuse?”

“Teaming up with inexperienced amateurs,” she responded.

On my display monitor, one of the blue squares that represented our ships disappeared. I turned my head just in time to see an expanding ball of superheated plasma and multicolored fire where a transport ship was not a second ago.

There were several of my twins aboard that ship. Maybe even a dozen.

The pain that assaulted my heart this time was definitely not caused by a needle; it was a pretty large dagger instead. It was as if a monster were clawing at my insides. Then it dawned on me: I felt my doppelgangers’ deaths. It was as if a part of me died with them. This was probably how a parent felt when they lost a child, and I’d just lost several of my “twins”. I was drowning in an ocean of unbearable pain, but thankfully, it didn’t last long.

I took a steady breath and tried to focus. “We have to protect the time machine. We don’t have a plan without it.”

“Did you figure that out all on your own, genius?” someone responded with unmistakable sarcasm this time.

I switched to internal comms. “Why didn’t you build another time machine while I was gone?”

“We didn’t have the time … oh!” replied Xornaa.

I chuckled bitterly. “Xornaa, my dear, we have a time machine. Time is literally the only thing we have an abundance of.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Klatzo chimed in. “We just never thought about it, with everything else that has been going on.”

“And you call yourself a genius,” commented CM. “I guess the beauty queen and you should’ve spent less time watching dinosaurs and more time preparing for the mission that all our lives depend on.”

“Dinosaurs?” I asked. “What dinosaurs?”

One of our transport ships maneuvered to place itself between my vessel and the pursuing space fighters, shielding us from the enemy fire. The Irzut fighters unloosened a barrage of laser fire on it. Energy bolts after energy bolts tore into its hull.

The ship’s laser cannon kept shooting, unloading a steady barrage at the enemy. It hit a space fighter’s wing. The Irzut fighter spun uncontrollably, molten parts and sparks spewing into space, then it veered off and out of my view. I had no time to celebrate this victory though because a few heartbeats later, the transport vessel’s hull seemed to shiver for a brief instant before it belched flames in every direction. Seconds later, the ship disappeared behind a violent explosion that lit up the inside of my station.

I felt Three’s death, along with seven of my soldier boy twins. I wondered if my heart would eventually stop beating if enough of my twins got killed. Kind of a moot point right at the moment though because it didn’t seem I’d last that long anyway.

I bit down on my lower lip as desperation washed over me. All the psychological conditioning I’d gone through in Virtura hadn’t prepared me for staring death in the face. My heart started slamming against my chest, and my vision went hazy. After all those years of training, my military career had turned out to be a very short one indeed.

A fighter floated down on us, getting closer to take a kill shot, its laser blazing away madly. Energy bolts screamed past my station. My fingers tightened around the firing grip as I opened fire at it, releasing a rapid volley of red-hot laser bolts. The pilot tried to steer their vessel out of my line of fire, but all of a sudden, it exploded into a blinding flash of multicolored light, throwing millions of tiny superheated shards in every direction.

Feeling a surge of triumph, I pressed my lips together and excitedly punched the air, but now there were four of them against two of us, and I knew all I’d done was delay the inevitable.

“I guess it’s our turn then.” I heard my own voice in my ears as the last remaining ship came between us and the pursuing space fighters in a final frantic attempt to protect Fortitude from enemy fire.

I ground my teeth in frustration. I didn’t want to watch any more of my doppelgangers die, but what other choice was there? Our ship had to make it to the jump point; otherwise, we were all dead anyway.

And then six more red dots appeared on the edge of my tactical display—six more enemy ships. As if things weren’t bad enough already.

Up until this moment, I still had a faint hope that we could make it to the jump point, but it evaporated with the arrival of the new enemy ships. I closed my eyes, let out a long, low sigh, and covered my face in defeat. The thought that everything I’d done, including inventing a freaking time machine, had been for nothing stabbed at my heart.

I clenched my fist so tightly that my hands started shaking as a vein began to pulse in my forehead. Then I heard my doppelgangers shouting in excitement. I looked at my tactical display, and in sheer astonishment, realized the new ships were shooting at their own space fighters.

I blinked and checked my display monitor again to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. Nope. It was all real.

Two of the pursuing space fighters were hit before their pilots realized what was happening. The other two broke and flew in opposite directions, but each had three vessels on their six, and I was certain even their pilots knew they were doomed. They threw their space fighters up and down, left and right, and tried to avoid the incoming fire, but they joined their dead comrades in less than two minutes.

What the hell is going on?!

I sagged against my seat as a slow smile spread my lips and allowed myself a soft sigh of relief. All of a sudden, I was dead tired. I felt completely drained as the adrenaline from the battle wore off and all tension was released from my body. The fatigue that followed was overwhelming.

Congratulations. You’ve just survived your first battle.

“We have an incoming message,” said Xornaa.

“Shaking Like Leaf, Red Arrow sends his regards,” said a booming male voice. “We’ll talk when you come back from this mission.”

The space fighters veered away.

“Red Arrow?” asked Xornaa incredulously. “Since when do the rebels have space fighters?”

“They probably got them the same way we got our ships,” I pointed out.

“And dare I ask, who the hell is Shaking Like Leaf?” I could hear mischief in her voice.

I grunted. “That was my Cherokee name, growing up. Nobody knows it outside of the reservation.”

“It appears the rebel leader knows you very well,” Xornaa pointed out. “Any particular reason for that name? It sounds very … specific.”

“I wasn’t very strong as a teenager. Or brave.”

“No? Surely not you?” asked CM dryly.

“You aren’t going to join us?” Xornaa inquired.

I looked around and felt strangely at home. “I’m gonna stay here and gather my thoughts.”

“You’ll eventually have to come down,” she pointed out. “It’s a sixteen-day trip, you know.”

“How much longer to the jump point?”

“Almost there. In fact, jumping in one, two, three!”

I looked up just in time to see Hibos disappear from view.

I sure hope this isn’t the last time I see my planet.

thirteen

Billix

Chief Engineer Billix, still not fully awake, fell out of his cryosleep pod. He landed on his hands and knees, blinked a few times to clear his vision, and struggled to fight off his dizziness and draw breath.

He knew something was terribly wrong even before he smelled smoke and heard Hope’s red-alert claxon. The revival process was supposed to be slow and smooth. One should’ve wakened up surrounded by friendly faces and listening to soft music. He was disoriented; still, he realized he was in one of Hope’s cargo bays—he’d helped design and build the ship, after all. Then he retched and threw up.

A pair of strong hands grabbed his arms and pulled him to his wobbly feet. “Pull yourself together, man! We don’t have much time.”

Billix’s vision was still blurry, but he did recognize Captain Adlynn. The woman’s eyes were wide with terror. There was a nasty-looking gash on her forehead, and her face and normally impeccable uniform were covered with blood.

“What’s going on?” he managed to croak breathlessly.

Adlynn dragged him towards the hall’s entrance. “Hope has been hit by a meteor shower. The engineering team’s gone, and so is half of the bridge crew.”

Billix could feel his own eyes bulge as his slowly powering-up brain cells digested what the captain had just said. Was he the only engineer left on this huge ship?

Adlynn stopped, faced him, and shook him violently. “Snap out of it! There’re twelve million souls on board, and it’s up to you and me to save them.”

Great. No pressure or anything right after the messed-up revival process, thought Billix vaguely. It’s not like I’ve been sleeping for years or anything. That last thought made him wonder how many years it’d been since they left Ammoora.

They sprinted towards the hall’s entrance.

*****

Billix was nursing a huge headache with a drink in Hope’s mess when Captain Adlynn entered. When she saw the chief engineer, she smiled tiredly and walked to his seat.

Billix started to stand up, but the captain stopped him with a gesture. “Chief Engineer, would you mind if I join you?”

“By all means, Captain.”

Adlynn sat down. “I’ll drink whatever you’re drinking.”

Billix poured her a glass, which she gulped down in one go.

“I see you’ve managed to find yourself a uniform,” Adlynn observed, looking him up and down.

“I couldn’t spend the rest of my life running around the ship in my underwear, could I?”

“Congratulations on doing a great job today,” said Adlynn while he was pouring her another glass. “You saved the ship.”

Billix shook his head. “No, Captain, you did. How’s the arm?”

Adlynn looked at her heavily bandaged hand and grimaced. “Ninety percent burn. Goes very nicely with multiple fractures and injuries. The doctor wanted to keep me in the sickbay. I guess he forgot I had a ship to run.”

Billix raised his glass to her. “I still can’t believe you risked your life the way you did. It’s a miracle you’re still alive, Captain.”

She shrugged. “Just doing my job. Protecting Hope is my responsibility. Plus, my children are onboard, remember? Any mother would’ve done what I did.” 

Billix smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t know. Mine left us when I was a child. Your kids are lucky to have you, Captain. In fact, we all are.”

“You can buy me a drink when we land on Haven, safe and sound.”

“We might be too old to drink by then,” Billix pointed out drolly, “or dead, of old age, hopefully.”

The captain chuckled. “I can guarantee the only thing I’ll never be too old for is getting a drink with my crew.”

“Do you believe we’ll make it?” asked the chief engineer.

“Absolutely,” answered Adlynn with conviction. “The road ahead is dangerous, and we aren’t even halfway there, but the Gods will lead us, and eventually we’ll make it. And if we don’t, our children will.”

“I noticed none of our crew members are armed,” observed Billix.

“The Children of God had infiltrated the crew, and they tried to destroy Hope. After that, I ordered all the weapons to be kept inside heavily-guarded compartments throughout the ship, and only a few trusted officers know the code to open the compartments.”

“What if there’s an emergency, and we need weapons?”

She shrugged. “The compartments are easily accessible. Once we release the code, it wouldn’t take two minutes for our people to pick up arms, if necessary.”

“What else did I miss all those years I was sleeping?”

“Oh, a lot. We had to spend several years weeding out the rest of the terrorists while they kept trying to sabotage the ship, but I think we eventually got them all. Still, I’m sure they have hundreds of sleeper agents in our cryogenic pods, no pun intended.”

Billix put his glass down. “I’ll never understand how they managed to twist our peaceful religion into such a violent, intolerant doctrine.”

“And at some point, we had to fight off an alien pirate ship,” added Adlynn solemnly.

The engineer looked stunned. “For real? Aliens? And how did you do it? We don’t have any weaponry!”

Then he realized Adlynn was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

He chuckled. “You got me, Captain.”

“Come on, man. You’re too easy. You know very well the holy scripture says we’re the only sentient beings in the cosmos.”

Billix looked out the mess window, where thousands of stars, embedded into the black space, blinked at Hope. “You know, I sometimes wonder.”

“You have been watching too many sci-fi holovids. The holy scripture can’t be wrong, and good for us. Can you imagine if we finally arrive at Haven and find ourselves in the middle of an alien invasion by an unknown fleet?”

Billix widened his eyes in feigned horror. “An unknown fleet of hideous, bloodthirsty monsters!”

They chuckled at the absurdity of that idea.

“It might be better for us though,” added Billix. “We could help the good guys defeat the invasion and become heroes.”

“Nah,” said the captain thoughtfully. “No alien creatures in this universe. The only thing we have to worry about is space itself and its various deadly traps. But as I just said, I have faith the Gods will take us there.”

fourteen

Klatzo Prime

We were barely five days into our journey when the second attack happened.

It was the exact same story as the first one, only their new target, a planet called Zilmienerth, was much bigger and more densely populated, and it had a significantly stronger fleet.

It made no damned difference. The unknown alien fleet appeared in orbit, ignored all attempts to contact them, and wiped out the defending ships and the planet-based defenses in waves of devastating attacks carried out by countless vessels.

Then they targeted the defenseless civilian population, ignoring their attempts to surrender and later their pleas for mercy. Twenty-six billion people were slaughtered in a matter of hours, but not before the enemy fleet kidnapped God knew how many kids.

I watched the news alone in my quarters (a small, functional cabin with a bed, a desk that also functioned as a dining table, and a round window), shocked to the core, fully aware of the fact that if my plan failed, it was only a matter of time before what happened to Zilmienerth would happen to Hibos. I might not have been particularly happy there (mostly thanks to the damned Irzuts and their cartoonishly super-racist inclinations, yet there was also the fact that I simply didn’t belong), but it was the only place I called home, and my people were there, all nearly three billion of them. 

There were plenty of reasons to think my plan would fail. The idea was so outlandish that Xornaa thought I was joking the first time I explained it to her. It took Klatzo and me a long while to convince her the plan had a small chance of success. Moreover, we were putting a lot of faith in the information provided by the mysterious old man for Xornaa. We’d be throwing away our lives for nothing if the data were inaccurate. But what other option did we have? This was the only way I could think of to defeat a seemingly unstoppable alien fleet that had already destroyed two planets with frightening ease. How many more billions of people would be slaughtered if we didn’t stop the Zuuvreils?

Everyone in our galactic neck of the woods was freaking out. There was talk of forming an alliance to defend against the Zuuvreils, but it sounded like a moot point because no one knew where they would strike next. The idea of attacking Zegides was floating around; however, with no information about the enemy’s strengths, no one was ready to risk that (the Talgoinians sent a small fleet to Zegides to test their defenses, and no one had heard from that fleet ever again). At any rate, forming an alliance and coming up with an actual plan would’ve taken months. We simply didn’t have that kind of time.

How the hell did I end up in this situation?

Just a few short days ago (in linear time anyway, not counting the time I spent in Virtura), I was a simple teacher-slash-part-time-inventor, and my biggest immediate concerns in life were my students’ lack of motivation or the possibility of Voparg finding out I’d exposed him. Now, the fate of the galaxy rested on my shoulders, and my actions meant life or death for billions upon billions of people. How daunting was that?

I thought about the Irzuts I’d killed and was appalled by my complete lack of remorse. This was probably a result of some of the psychological conditioning I’d gone through in Virtura. On that note, my plan to save Hibos entailed killing a few thousand Zuuvreils, and I had no feelings about that either. I wondered if I’d unknowingly turned into a monster in Virtura. A sobering thought indeed.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by an urge to drink. Apparently, all the conditioning in the universe couldn’t have rooted out someone’s deeply engraved desires. I didn’t have any liquor in my quarters (hadn’t touched alcohol for months) so I decided to go to the mess room.

The mess was very small—just one table with five revolving seats at either side—and it was empty, except for Xornaa. She’d poured herself a drink and was reading something on her PDD with a grim expression. I was a genius, but didn’t need to be one to guess what she was reading.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” I asked.

She nodded at the seat opposite hers without her eyes leaving the PDD.

I went to a cabinet, got myself a liquor bottle, sat on the seat, and gulped down nearly a third of the bottle in one go.

Xornaa appeared amused. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone drink like that.”

I wiped my lips on my sleeve, not caring that the liquor might’ve stained my expensive white shirt. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I can see that. Didn’t you say you don’t need to drink anymore?”

“I’d never thought I’d witness the destruction of not one but two planets.” I motioned the bottle on the table. “What are you drinking?”

She looked at it. “Not sure. There’s no Blood Wine onboard, so I chose the strongest thing I could find.”

“I bet I can drink you under the table,” I announced proudly.

“Don’t be so sure. Before I forget,” she reached out and touched my arm.

I tilted my head. “What was that for?”

“Just wanted to see if you’re the original or one of the later versions. It’s difficult to say with a bunch of you running around.”

I chuckled drolly. “Wise. I once read a book where someone made four clones of himself; then one night his wife slept with all four by mistake, taking them for her real husband.”

“I didn’t know you read erotica,” she said with a serious expression. “Did she enjoy the group sex?”

“It wasn’t erotica!” I exclaimed. “It was a comedy. And she slept with them one by one, not all at the same time.” That exchange made me feel slightly better. I’d often heard of people using humor during times of great distress as a defense mechanism. Maybe I should’ve tried it more often.

I took another swig from my bottle. “How can you tell I’m the original by just touching me?”

“Your thought patterns are slightly different from the others.”

I wanted to learn more, but we had more important things to discuss. “Have you contacted your superiors?”

She nodded.

“And?”

“They were awfully relaxed, given the circumstances. One of my superiors even hinted that the High Command hopes more planets would join our kingdom to get protection against this new threat. I chalk it down to over-confidence. We’ve been the biggest predators in our galactic neck of the woods, so now they think it’ll be easy to deal with the Zuuvreils if there’s a need.”

“Is there any chance the Zuuvreils might’ve made contact with them? Some kind of a non-aggression treaty or something? That would be really bad for our plan.”

“No. I asked around. No one has heard of such contact being made, and they would’ve known. This matches what we know about the Zuuvreils: they aren’t the type of people who’d establish relationships with other nations.”

I sipped my drink. “So the Xortaags won’t interfere.”

“Why would they? With General Maada busy conquering the rest of the galaxy, a lot of my people have convinced themselves they are gods, so they don’t feel threatened. Plus, Tangaar is far away enough to be safe right now, and half the fleet is with General Maada. They’d hate to summon him, and it’d take him months to arrive anyway.”

“Their tone will change if the Zuuvreils attack one of their planets. Why is Maada so far away anyway? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to start with the planets closest to Tangaar?” I frowned and gulped a mouthful of liquor.

“The High Command felt we could get those through political pressure with no need for a military invasion, evidenced by the fact that the number of our so-called allies, which in fact are nothing but thinly-disguised colonies, is increasing every day. Can you please get yourself a glass? This is slightly annoying.”

I ambled to the cabinet behind me and came back with a glass. “Do you think we can still carry out our plan with only two ships?”

She shrugged. “I don’t see that we have a choice. I’d say our chance of success got smaller, but it was astronomical already, so it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.”

“Do your people know why the Zuuvreils are doing this?”

She put her PDD on the table. “No, but you’ve read the file my employer gave us. These people are fanatics, to the point that they think whoever doesn’t share their beliefs must be punished. They’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of a savior who’d offer them the galaxy on a silver platter after killing off all the other species, so I guess, in their minds, they’re paving the way for their savior’s arrival by destroying as many planets as they can. People like that are dangerous.”

I couldn’t ignore the obvious irony. “Look who’s talking. How many planets have your people attacked? General Maada is probably in the middle of a campaign as we speak.”

She scowled. “Out of necessity, not as a means to convert people or punish the nonbelievers. Hardcore religious psychos are always dangerous, because if they have power, they don’t hesitate to use it against others, which fortunately for us, the Zuuvreils didn’t have. Until now, that is.”

I drained my glass and poured myself another one. “Which begs another question: how the hell did they suddenly build that fleet? There’s nothing to suggest their technology is nearly advanced enough.”

She leaned back into her seat and examined me closely through half-closed eyes.

I could tell there was something on her mind that she was hesitating to tell me. “What?”

She sighed resignedly. “Ok. I have a theory, but you must promise not to laugh at me.”

This must be good. “I promise.”

“I believe someone is toying with us,” she said slowly, stressing each word.

I raised my eyebrows. “Come again?”

She picked up her glass and stared at it, avoiding eye contact. “You know I have access to confidential information that isn’t public knowledge because of my career. Something weird has been going on for as far back as we can tell, but it seems to have intensified in the last few decades. Things keep happening that logically shouldn’t have happened. Let me use you as an example. Do you remember you told me an unknown alien race brought your ancestors to Hibos thousands of years ago?”

I waved my hand dismissively. “As I remember, I said legend has it, the operative word being legend.”

“But assuming that it happened, why would they do that?”

I shrugged, never having given the idea much thought.

“It’s just one example. Races that have lived at peace with one another for thousands of years suddenly go to war over the slightest provocation. Technology which has no business existing keeps popping up all over the galaxy. We found a cloning device on another planet, and no one can figure out how to make it work! A cloning device!”

I ran an anxious hand over my face. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Let me go out on a limb and ask you a question: how did you come up with the idea of a time machine to begin with?”

I smiled confidently. “I am a genius inventor, you know.”

“But what initially prompted you to explore this idea?” she pressed. “Sounds extremely far-fetched, doesn’t it?”

I scratched my forehead and tried to remember. “Well, it was a few years ago—”

Suddenly, I gulped, sat up straight, and stared at Xornaa in horror. “One night, while drinking in a bar, a stranger approached me and started talking about a time machine, completely in theory, of course. I was too drunk to remember much of our discussion, but he wrote a mathematical formula on a napkin before he left. I found it in my pocket the next day and didn’t give it much thought, but that formula became the basis for all my time-travel calculations a few months later.”

She held her hands palms up. “I rest my case.”

“You’re telling me someone nudged me towards inventing a time machine,” I exclaimed, not believing what I’d just said. “But why?”

Xornaa took a quick sip of her drink, which reminded me I’d totally forgotten mine. “My answer’s going to sound bonkers, so let me tell you this first: you know that most sentient beings in the galaxy, and even most animal or plant species, have similar genetic codes. It’s scientifically impossible for evolution to take such parallel courses on planets thousands of light-years away from each other.”

“One theory says an alien race scattered similar DNA all around the universe millions of years ago,” I said almost word-for-word, seeing that absurd theory in a completely different light now.

Xornaa nodded in agreement. “None of these would’ve happened without some interference. What I imagine is this: an immortal, omnipotent being, or a race of immortal, omnipotent beings, who keep interfering with our lives, and have been doing that for millions of years.”

“But why?” I all but bellowed.

She gave me an exasperated look. “How the hell should I know? For their damned amusement. Or it could be an experiment. A wager even.”

I opened my mouth to ask a billion questions when her PDD started beeping. She picked it up and frowned at it. Then she touched the device and said, “Bridge? I’m sending you a communication request. Please patch it through.”

“Who?” I asked.

In response, she put the PDD on the table between us so that I could see the screen. A bald, dark-skinned man with a distinctive upturned nose appeared, wearing an elegant, well-embellished tunic with gold-work thread. I was instantly jealous of his fancy attire.

Xornaa bowed her head politely. “Prince Bolsor. Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Lieutenant, we don’t have time for these games right now,” said the man, speaking quickly and with purpose. “I was hoping that, given your position, you might be able to provide me with some information on the recent attacks. My planet’s very close to Zegides, and we’re concerned we might be their next target.”

Xornaa exchanged a hesitant look with me. “Can’t you ask the Xortaags for protection, given your government’s alliance with mine?”

Wait, what? This guy’s royalty, and his planet is an ally of the Xortaags? This was almost too good to be true, so much so that it felt like divine intervention. I moved my hand in front of my face to attract Xornaa’s attention and then mouthed the words he can help us.

Bolsor frowned. “Somehow, I don’t find hoping that the Xortaags would come to save us particularly reassuring. Is there something we can actually do to stop the Zuuvreils?”

Xornaa had reluctant written all over her face, but she quickly made up her mind. “In point of fact, we’re on our way to Zegides. We have a risky but doable plan, and being a prince and an ally of us, you’re uniquely qualified to help us pull it off if you join us.”

“I’m in,” said Bolsor without hesitation. “I can’t believe you’re already on your way to Zegides! Are you planning to assassinate their leaders or wipe them out using some sort of a WMD?”

I shuddered. Bolsor was obviously being sarcastic, given Xornaa’s reputation, but his words rang true.

Xornaa ignored the prince’s remarks. “Your Highness, please allow me to rephrase: our plan’s extremely dangerous, suicidal even, and there’s a good chance we’ll end up getting killed. Please consider your response carefully.”

“Ok,” said Bolsor solemnly. He was quiet for two seconds; then he added, “I considered it. How can I help?”

Xornaa smiled. “How many ships have you got with you?”

The prince gave her a sideways look. “Well, since someone forced me to go into exile and hide on a tiny moon, not many. Only three freighters.”

Xornaa touched her PDD. “This is our itinerary. If you hurry, you can meet us a few jumps away from Zegides. Please bring your security team with you.”

“The ones that you didn’t kill?” asked Bolsor dryly.

“Your Highness, with all due respect, get off your high horse,” said Xornaa with a neutral tone. “I did that with your permission.”

“He allowed you to kill his own people?” I whispered to Xornaa.

She waved away my question

Bolsor offered a cold smile. “If someone had told me just a few days ago that I’d be teaming up with the Scarlet Queen to try to save the galaxy, I’d have laughed at them.”

“Also, contact your government and let them know you’re alive,” added Xornaa. “Make up a story. Tell them you knew you were about to be assassinated and used a double in your place. We’ll deal with the consequences of your return from the dead if we come back from this mission. And before I forget: bring warm clothes. It’s freezing cold where we’re going.”

“See you soon, Lieutenant.” He disappeared from the screen.

“Seems like we got lucky, for once,” I commented.

Xornaa put her PDD in her pocket. “We could totally do it on our own, without endangering more lives.”

I smiled wryly. “We could, but you’ve got to admit our chances of success just became a little bit less—what was the word that you used?—astronomical.”

She picked up her glass. “Maybe.”

“Why did you ask him to bring his security team? We could just make more copies of me.”

“Please don’t. It’s weird enough as it is. And, at some point, we should consider the effects of doing something like this on the timeline.”

She had a good point. In my desperate rush to save my planet, I’d never once stopped to think about the possible consequences of what I was doing. I shelved that thought to return to it later. If we came back from Zegides.

“And, no,” she added, “it’ll never happen.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What will never happen?”

She looked at me over her glass. “I don’t need to read minds to realize what you were thinking about when I was talking to Bolsor.”

My face grew hot. With the liquor warming my stomach and the alcohol entering my bloodstream, I was a tad tipsy, and I might’ve ogled her just a bit during her conversation with the prince. It wasn’t my normal behavior, drunk or not, but in my defense, this woman was off-the-charts gorgeous.

She giggled. “I didn’t know the Cherokees could blush. Come on, KP, you should’ve known I’m not blind. You’ve had a huge crush on me since the first time we met.”

“Don’t say never,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I give myself a one-in-a-million chance.”

She shook her head. “Not even. I play for the other team.”

It took me a second to understand what she meant, and when I did, I had to fight to push away the very vivid images—involving Xornaa in her sexy underwear and an equally attractive woman in equally sexy underwear—that assaulted my brain.

She sighed heavily. “I don’t need to read minds to know what you’re thinking about right now either. You’re so immature.”

“Am not!” I protested. “This is a very natural reaction. Any man who doesn’t react this way to this, eh, revelation, isn’t a man. Or alive. And also, seriously?”

She sipped her wine and nodded, looking amused.

“I wish I was a woman then,” I blurted out before I could control myself. My face burned hotter.

Xornaa chuckled. “If you burn any hotter than that, you’re gonna scorch that expensive jacket of yours. What’s with you and fancy clothes anyway?”

I crossed my arms. “Nothing wrong with being fashion-conscious. You should know.”

“A bit over-the-top, for a man. I always thought you academic types didn’t care much about your appearance. Come on, you can tell me, or I’ll read your mind the first chance I get.”

I sighed. “I didn’t have any nice clothes when I grew up. Most of the time, I didn’t even have shoes. I guess this is a constant reminder of how far I’ve come. Plus, most people see the expensive clothes and forget there’s a Cherokee underneath.”

She studied me closely. “I think you sell yourself short, Professor.”

My PDD started beeping and saved me from this uncomfortable conversation.

It was Klatzo. “Hey. Is that Xornaa with you? Can you guys please come to the sickbay?”

“Why?” I asked. “Is someone ill?”

“Maybe. Define someone,” he replied.

On our way to the sickbay, Xornaa asked me, “Out of curiosity: you’re half Irzut, despite your appearance. What do you see yourself as?”

“A Cherokee, through and through. I have nothing in common with those racist, misogynist, blue-skinned losers,” I replied with venom.

Xornaa gave me a surprised look. “I confess I didn’t expect such a strong reaction.”

You try growing up with an alcoholic, abusive Irzut mother, and we’ll see how you feel about them.

I saw CM lying down on one of the beds when we entered the sickbay.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked Klatzo.

“I was thinking,” said the small guy. “What use is a domestic robot in a battle? So I gave her an upgrade. She’s a battle droid now.”

I wondered why CM was on the bed. The other me could’ve given her the upgrade with no need to bring her to the sickbay.

“And there’s no chance that doing something like that could go wrong, said no one, ever,” commented Xornaa sarcastically.

“What she said,” I agreed, gesturing to Xornaa. “Are you sure CM isn’t going to go mad and murder us all in our sleep? We didn’t do too well the last time we played with her subroutines, trying to give her a personality.”

Klatzo’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “Only one way to find out. I’m about to wake her up for the first time.”

“Wait—” I began to say, but it was too late. The mad scientist (I could swear I wasn’t like that at all) touched a tablet he was carrying.

CM stirred, opened her eyes, and stared at Xornaa and me. Then her eyes turned a fiery shade of red. “Exterminate,” she said.

“Oh-oh,” was all I could think of saying.

CM jumped off the bed. She repeated, “Exterminate! Exterminate!” Then she extended her arms towards me and started walking.

I took a few steps back, trying not to look frightened in front of Xornaa. “Stop her!”

“I’m trying,” said Klatzo, tapping furiously on his PDD.

I wasn’t packing, but a blaster weapon appeared in Xornaa’s right hand. I looked closely at her and her tight leather jumpsuit. “Where have you been hiding that?”

She ignored me. “Stop her, or I will.”

CM stopped dead in her tracks. “Hey, sister, easy there. We’re just messing with you guys.

“Seriously?” I blew out a noisy breath. “This wasn’t funny at all.”

“It was a little funny,” said Klatzo, “until Xornaa ruined it.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Xornaa agreed with me; then she asked Klatzo, “You can fix her legs, right?”

“Why?” answered the small man, apparently surprised by the question. “There’s nothing wrong with her legs—”

Xornaa shot CM, cutting her left leg from right under the knee. The robot grabbed what was left of her leg and went down with, I swear, a look of surprise on her plastic face.

“What’re you doing?!” objected Klatzo.

Xornaa wasn’t done yet. She pointed her weapon at him and pulled the trigger. The energy bolt missed his left ear by a hair's breadth and created a smoldering hole in the cabinet behind him. He lost his balance and fell off his tall chair with a painful grunt.

I smiled devilishly. “That’s gonna hurt.”

“I don’t like to be messed with.” She turned to me. “You know, we still have several days to go, and I can use a sparring partner. What do you say?”

I beamed. “Lead the way.”  

fifteen

Bolsor

Bolsor was struggling to fit an extra pair of pistols into his bag when a female voice from behind him said, “Are you really going?”

He turned to find his wife, Loriya, standing in the doorway of their bedroom. She was a tall, thin woman with sandy blonde long hair. Her eyes were slightly red, but other than that, she was her usual well-dressed, proper self.

Fifteen years of marriage, and she still takes my breath away every single time I lay eyes on her.

“I don’t have a choice, my dear,” he replied calmly. “ You know what’s at stake. Someone has to stop the Zuuvreils before they destroy the rest of the galaxy.”

“But why should this someone be the father of my children?” whispered Loriya.

Bolsor could see tears welling up in her eyes. He walked up to his wife and pulled her into a gentle embrace. “Let me put it this way: if I don’t go now, and then in a week, a month, or a year, the Zuuvreils destroy Tilunus and annihilate all our people, you’ll hate me for not going, and yourself for stopping me.”

Loriya put her head on his shoulder. “Sometimes, I think you have a death wish. First you provoke the Xortaags, and now you want to go to battle with an alien fleet that has already destroyed two planets.”

The prince chuckled. “Just recently someone called me a ‘misguided, foolish idealist.’ ”

“They have a point,” said Loriya.

Bolsor tried to pretend he was offended.

“I often worry that your obsession with doing the right thing will one day get you killed,” Loriya continued.

“But not this time.” Bolsor gently held up his wife’s chin and looked lovingly into her eyes. “I promise I’ll come back to you and the kids, safe and sound. The hero that saved the galaxy. The kids will be so proud, and so will you.”

Loriya forced a smile through her tears. “I’m going to hold you to that promise. Do you have time to say goodbye to our sons?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Bolsor with a cheerful smile.

They left the bedroom together, hand in hand.

sixteen

Klatzo Prime

Ishouted, “Surprise!” as soon as Xornaa walked into the gym.

My twins and I had turned the gym into a colorful party room. Loud music was playing, and there were several tables with plenty of food and drink. There were only eight of us (not counting Klatzo, who wasn’t exactly a twin), but my doppelgangers talked and laughed so loudly that one would be forgiven to think there was a large crowd present.

She looked around in astonishment. “What’s all this for?”

I grinned at her. “Today is the Xortaag New Year, so we’ve thrown a surprise party for you.”

She chuckled. “It’s today? With everything else that’s going on, I’d totally forgotten about it.”

“I know,” I said. “I talked about our New Year today during breakfast and you didn’t react at all. This is the plan: we’re going to drink, dance, and forget about all our genocide-related thoughts.”

She beamed at me. “Sounds like a good plan.”

One of my twins approached her. “Can I have the first dance, please?”

“I don’t see why not,” she replied merrily. “Makes no difference for me, since you’re all identical.”

The other me offered his arm to her, and I watched as the two of them walked to the center of the gym, which we’d designated as a dance floor. Since there were eight of us and only one of her, I figured I had to wait a long time for my turn.

Xornaa and I had spent a lot of time together during the last ten days. It started with sparring sessions, where she kicked my ass more often than not, despite all my training and enhancements, and since we were both serious meditators, we soon started meditating together.

When she heard I didn’t know how to dance, she insisted on giving me a few dance lessons. The classes were a lot of fun, but they went nowhere fast. I was tone-deaf and had zero fluidity in my motions. Her movements, on the other hand, were so graceful and balletic that one would be forgiven to think she was a professional dancer. I told her my intrinsic inability to dance was probably caused by my deeply rooted belief that dancing was a feminine activity. She responded by rolling her eyes and criticizing my “toxic masculinity”. I must confess, being a book-worm lab-rat, I’d never thought a day would come when people would criticize me for being overly masculine. Thank you, Virtura!

As we spent more time with each other, a bond began to form between us. Or, at least, I thought it did. It was difficult to tell with Xornaa, who was the epitome of composure and stoicism. Around her, I felt strangely safe, even though, as a man, it should’ve been my job to protect her. She was probably the “man” in her girl-girl relationships, or however those arrangements worked out. I honestly didn’t have a clue.

It wasn’t only her beauty (hell, her stunning knock-out-ness) that had endeared her to me, even though that was the first thing one would notice, and I often thought Xornaa intentionally used that to hide her true self. There was so much to admire. I loved her strength, physical or otherwise, and her honesty. A strange way to describe a spy, I know, but one felt if you were her friend, you could trust her with your life. I certainly hoped I was right because that was exactly what I was about to do.

No, I hadn’t forgotten that she was a mass murderer and an assassin, but those were very abstract notions. The woman with us was very real, and from where I was standing, she was actually a very nice person.

I looked at my twins, all seven of them, utterly identical and at the same time separate individuals, and fervently hoped none of them got killed during what was coming.  I didn’t want to lose anyone else, and I still thought a heart attack was a real possibility.

I noticed the scientist me sitting alone in one corner, drinking and looking lost in thought. I walked over and sat at his table. “You aren’t going to dance?”

He offered a sad smile. “I’m a foot shorter than her. It’s embarrassing.”

“Is that why you look like someone has just died?”

Klatzo took a long sip of his drink. “Someone did die. Number Three, and a whole lot of soldier boys. But, no. I feel useless, to be honest. Unlike you, I’m still only a scientist. What good am I in a fight?”

“If something happens to all the rest of us and the time machine is damaged, you’re the only person who can fix it,” I pointed out helpfully.

Klatzo gave me a hard look and sighed.

“You seem to be healing nicely,” I told him, trying to cheer him up.

He rubbed a bruise under his right eye. “Feeling much better too, but I’m afraid the memory of the torture session will last a while. I wake up screaming almost every night.”

“Honestly, I’m happy I didn’t have to go through that. I did try to warn you guys, you know.”

“If you hadn’t sabotaged the time machine, I would’ve been in the past when the goons arrived, and none of this would’ve happened to me.”

If I hadn’t had CM sabotage the machine, we’d be stuck in a time loop, but I figured arguing with myself would be of no use, so I tried to change the subject.  “So, I’m KP, and you’re Klatzo”—I nodded toward my twins—“what’re we going to call these guys?”

He rubbed his forehead as if fighting off a headache. “I don’t know. We should’ve thought about it before though. Now all of them call themselves Klatzo.”

Xornaa threw herself on the seat next to us. “My feet are killing me. Let me catch my breath, and you’re next. It’s time you show us some of the moves I taught you.”

I poured her a drink. “None of which I learned.”

Xornaa pointed at a few of my doppelgangers who were dancing together. “How come these guys can dance better than you?”

“I guess this means you’re a terrible teacher.”

She gave me a long-suffering look. “Ungrateful!”

“Joking aside,” I said, “it appears that each of them has their own personality traits and talents. There’s one who can play music. There’s even one who identifies as a woman.”

Xornaa raised one side of her unibrow. “Seriously? Which one?”

I pointed at one of my doppelgangers who was dancing gracefully in one corner. “The one with a black eye.”

“What happened to her eye?”

“He … she approached one of the soldier boys and professed her undying love for him, and apparently she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“How is that even possible though?” asked Xornaa. “Aren’t they exactly the same people as you?”

“It’s probably something buried deep inside our psyche,” said Klatzo, “which is being manifested now because each of them, well, each of us, has lived as a separate individual for days.”

“I certainly have no inclination to be a woman,” I objected, “buried or otherwise.”

“You do have mommy issues,” Xornaa pointed out.

“How’s that even relevant?”

“Can I identify as a bird?” asked CM.

We all stared at her.

“What?” she said. “Klatzo can suddenly decide he is a woman, after spending a lifetime as a man, and I can’t be a bird? This is the very definition of discrimination.”

Xornaa laughed; then she scanned the room while sipping her liquor. “You know, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long while.”

“Weird,” I said dryly. “You look like a person who has a lot of fun.”

Those beautiful eyes twinkled as she punched me in the arm.

seventeen

Adlynn

Adlynn felt someone pushing her.

“Wake up,” said a voice.

She opened her sleepy eyes and then sat up in her bed with a jolt when she saw the man standing next to her bed and pointing a laser pistol at her head.

“Kirqrex!” she exclaimed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? And where did you get that gun?”

She was still in love with her long-dead husband, but it was now more than twenty years since they’d left Ammoora, and it was an excessively long time to be lonely. She’d learned to fly solo, to cope with and solve her problems alone, but she’d felt a loneliness that required a lover’s touch to solve for years.

Kirqrex was a member of the engineering team who’d been revived after most of the original members of the team were killed during the Children of God’s attack. He sounded like a competent and loyal individual. Over the years, Adlynn had met him multiple times both in meetings and social events, and she’d decided to open her heart to him, hoping that he’d provide her with the emotional warmth only a partner could offer and help her fill the void in her life, caused not only by losing her husband but most of her family and friends.

And Kirqrex had done that for several years. What Adlynn especially liked about him was his sense of humor. He’d made her laugh again, first occasionally, and then on a daily basis. She’d been grateful to have met him—finding a good partner on a ship that offered limited choices hadn’t been easy. The only thing that worried her was how to introduce Kirqrex to her sons when they woke up. From their point of view, only a very short time had passed since they fell asleep, and she didn’t want them to think she’d replaced their father as soon as they’d left Ammoora.

But at least she didn’t need to worry about that problem anymore, now that Kirqrex was standing in front of her with a gun he wasn’t supposed to have in his hand and a mixture of hatred and contempt in his eyes.

Adlynn’s stateroom was much bigger than crew quarters, and she’d allowed herself the luxury of decorating it according to her taste. This had been her home for decades, after all. Kirqrex, keeping the gun on the captain, walked to the dining table in the middle of the room and sat down. He casually swept her favorite vase (a gift from her beloved husband) off the table and broke it; then he nodded towards the chair on the other side of the table. “Come join me.”

Adlynn pulled her gown around her slender shoulders and did as she was told. “What’s going on?”

Kirqrex smirked. “I’m sitting here in the middle of the night pointing a gun at you. I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out what’s happening.”

“You’re a terrorist!” Adlynn’s hand flew to her mouth.

The man shook his head. “Children of God aren’t terrorists, but I can see it might look like that from your point of view.”

“All these years …” She wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence and let her words hang in the air.

“I was waiting for the opportune moment, which has finally arrived”—he pointed at the round window in Adlynn’s quarters—“do you see that sun? In a few minutes, my associates and I will storm the bridge and kill all the on-duty crew members, which will be very easy because thanks to your orders no one carries a weapon on the ship. Then we’ll lock the doors and steer the ship towards the sun. We’ll plunge Hope into its surface long before anyone can enter the bridge and stop us.”

“You’re going to kill twelve million people,” shouted Adlynn, not quite believing her own ears.

“They should’ve died on Ammoora along with everyone else,” said Kirqrex coldly. “You’re interfering with the will of the Gods.”

“You will die too!”

Kirqrex broke into a wide smile. “And will be richly rewarded in the Land Beyond for eternity, unlike an unbeliever like you.”

Adlynn squinted at him. “Oh, you’re going to get what you deserve all right, but it isn’t the orgy you think it is. You’ll suffer everlasting torture for being a mass murderer.”

Kirqrex shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough. But since you’ll be there before I arrive, save a place for me just in case. Maybe we can continue our extracurricular activities”—he leered and nodded towards the bed—“there too.”

“You fucking son-of-a-bitch,” murmured Adlynn, shaking her head with incredulity.

He raised the gun and pointed it at her head. “Thank the Gods I don’t need to come here anymore. I hated this room, especially those stupid paintings on the walls and this ridiculous fragrance that you think is refreshing. Goodbye, Captain.”

Adlynn raised her hands in front of her, palms up. “Before you pull the trigger, tell me one thing: you just mentioned your associates. Who are they? I was so certain we rooted out every single one of you lowlifes.”

Kirqrex leaned back on the chair and gave her a satisfied smile. “Since you’ll be dead in a minute, I see no reason not to rub your face in it: Helmsman Wallon, sitting a few feet away from your command chair all these years, and Anka and Kaence from navigation and engineering, right under your nose. You must be feeling really stupid now.”

Kirqrex pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He pulled the trigger again, then looked at the gun and ejected its fusion cell. He examined it and then stared at Adlynn, eyes wide in horror.

The captain reached under the table and took out the laser pistol she’d hidden there, anger flaring in her gaze, her jaw set. “We found that weapon of yours years ago, but we didn’t know who it belonged to, so we left it where it was, under close surveillance, of course. Imagine my shock when you showed up to collect it two days ago.”

“Impossible!” mumbled the doomed man. “I checked its energy source. It was full.”

Adlynn smirked. “I replaced it after you fell asleep last night. Who’s feeling stupid now, bitch?”

Kirqrex raised his hands in front of him and yelled, “No!”

Adlynn leveled the gun at the man and shot him in the center of his torso, hoping that he wouldn’t die immediately and instead would suffer for a few minutes. Then she got up, went to her wardrobe, and put on her uniform. A part of her was appalled by how easily she’d shot someone whom she’d allowed through her defenses, allowed to make love to her … but the son of a bitch deserved it. He was planning to harm everyone Adlynn loved.

She gave Kirqrex, who was grabbing his stomach and twitching on the floor with his mouth open in a silent scream, a disgusted look and rushed to save her ship one more time.

I swear I’ll never get close to anyone ever again!

EIGHTEEN

KLATZO PRIME

Whispering Wind’s image appeared on my PDD screen. “Where have you been, boy? We’ve been trying to contact you, but no one seems to know where you are.”

I was in my quarters, sitting on the bed. “It’s kind of a very long story.”

He squinted at me. “You look different.”

“I’ve been hitting the gym regularly. Have you heard about the attacks?”

He nodded wordlessly.

“Is this what you saw in our vision?” I asked even though I knew the answer already.

He lit up his pipe. “Yes, exactly. Only I saw that happening to us.”

“I have a plan that will stop that from happening,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Do you have any information that might be useful to me? Maybe a new vision or something?”

He blew out smoke and shook his head. “No, boy. I just keep having the same vision over and over again. I can tell you with certainty we’re next though.”

My pulse raced. “Are you sure?”

He peered directly into my eyes through the screen. “Absolutely. And it will be very soon, probably in the next few days. Whatever you’re doing, hurry the hell up.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. This was terrible news, but unless I could find a way to make our ships fly faster, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

There was a knock on the door, and one of my twins walked in like he owned my quarters, which in a weird way he kind of did. The room was so small that the two of us barely fit inside. “Hey, KP. I’ve just finished this book. Can I please borrow another one?”

Then he looked at the screen and waved. “Hi, Whispering Wind. What’s up?”

The old man’s eyes bulged out of his wrinkled face. “What have you done this time, boy?”

“Eh, I cloned myself,” I told him nonchalantly. It seemed a lot easier to say that, instead of trying to explain what was really going on.

“Why the hell would you do that?”

The other me touched his temple and grinned. “We figured two minds are better than one. Or in our case, thirty-three minds.”

Whispering Wind looked like he was about to choke. “You made thirty-two clones of yourself?”

“Well, yes, but one left, and a lot of them are killed already. I might have to make new ones soon.”

Only then did I realize the other me had a black eye. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you think you’re a woman too.”

I knew he wasn’t the original lady Klatzo because that one had started wearing skirts and insisting that her name was Klatzina.

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Whispering Wind, confused.

My doppelganger ignored him, which was probably the wise thing to do. “Well, you know, some of us had a bet that something was going on between Xornaa and you.”

“Who’s Xornaa?” asked Whispering Wind, perplexed.

“In order to test that theory,” continued my twin sheepishly, “I pretended I was you … and tried to kiss her today.”

“She can tell us apart, dumbass,” I said, “and at any rate, nothing’s going on between us. She’s a lesbian.”

The blank expression on his face told me exactly what image had just attacked his brain.

“Men,” I said disgustedly.

“You have teamed up with clones and lesbians to defeat the Zuuvreils?” asked the old man, clearly flabbergasted. “I’ve got to say this doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in your success, boy.”

He pronounced boy like it was an insult. The tribe shamans were always overly traditional, to the point of being closed-minded. I wondered which idea he found more appalling: making a clone or being a lesbian.

As soon as I got rid of both of them, I called Xornaa.

“We’ll arrive at Zegides tomorrow,” I told her image on my PDD. “How about a last drink before we get ourselves killed?”

“I don’t drink before battle,” she responded matter-of-factly. “And neither should you. But I’m famished. How about dinner?”

“See you in ten,” I said.

She was reading a book I’d given her when I entered the mess. Drax and Reina was a classic, often described as “the greatest love story ever told.” How an Irzut had written such a deep story, full of fascinating characters (some of them female, and some even alien) was a mystery. The writer must’ve been considered a real freak by his peers.

I pointed at the chocolate cake in front of her. “You said you were hungry.”

“This is food, you know.”

I went to the cabinet where I’d stored our liquor, but it was empty. I checked the next one. Nothing in there too. I scratched my head and looked at Xornaa.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “I threw all the booze out of an airlock. We need you in tip-top shape tomorrow, not tipsy. Fortitude is a dry ship now.”

“It’s not like I’m an alcoholic,” I protested. “Or at least not after Virtura. I just like to take the edge off.”

She smiled sweetly. “Do some meditation then.”

“You’re going to have a riot on your hands! You remember everyone on this ship is me, right?”

She shrugged. “They’ll get used to it. By the way, the lady Klatzo came to me and borrowed some make-up.”

I absolutely didn’t want to talk about the female me, so I tried to change the subject. “How do you like it?” I said, pointing at the book she was reading

She closed the book. “You were right: I like how the paper feels in my hand. I could get used to this.”

I chuckled. “Happy to hear it, but I meant how is the story?”

She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. “Both Drax and Reina just committed suicide, and no one tried to save them.”

I sat on a seat opposite hers. “You know what, Xornaa? You definitely are not what one assumes an assassin is.”

Xornaa put the book down and waited.

“Don’t get me wrong. You can be a hard-ass when necessary, merciless even, but there’s a genuine warmth underneath. For a person who kills others for a living, you’re very decent.”

“Which, if we’re being honest, is a weakness in my line of work.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said with conviction.

She studied me closely through half-closed eyes for a second or three, and then sighed. “I haven't chosen this life for myself, you know.”

It was my turn to wait for her to continue.

Xornaa looked into the distance, her gaze unfocused. “I grew up an orphan in Tanoor’s ghettoes. In my early teenage years, I was alone and defenseless, and people took advantage of that on a daily basis … in every possible way you could imagine.”

I’d come to regard Xornaa as a friend, but I was surprised she was sharing all this with me. She wasn’t the kind of a person who talked about her feelings and problems often, or at all.

“While growing up, hungry, cold, and miserable most of the time, being molested one way or another every day, what kept me going was the determination, the belief,  that one day it’d all end. One day, I’d be strong. I decided back then to find a way to maneuver myself into a position of strength. That’s how I ended up working for the Xortaag Secret Service, even though personally I hate most Xortaags. I did what was necessary to get out of the ghettos.”

She paused, looking lost in thought.

I had absolutely no idea what to say.

She looked at me with a rueful smile. “I don’t kill people for money; I do it because it gives me power. Nobody dares mess with me because now I am the freaking Scarlet Queen. And most of the people I assassinate have it coming anyway.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Man. Now I really need a drink.”

She exhaled noisily and pointed at a cabinet behind her. “I kept a couple of bottles there; we have company later on.”

I went to the cabinet and came back with a bottle and two glasses. She looked like she wanted to object, but then shrugged and took a sip as soon as I passed her the half-filled glass. I poured mine down my throat in two large gulps.

It was difficult to imagine Xornaa as an abuse victim. She was always so confident, so composed, and so, so strong. It’d never occurred to me that she had once been a child and teenager. I pictured a twelve-year-old Xornaa, scrawny, small, and frightened, surrounded by people who meant her harm, and shuddered. I would’ve happily killed all the people who’d harmed her back then and wouldn’t have even batted an eye.

I looked at her over my glass. “On the bright side, now we can say we have something in common.”

“Besides having four chambers in our hearts? And what’s that?”

“Rough childhoods. Mine wasn’t a walk in the park either. Being a half-breed, growing up in the reservations wasn’t a picnic, especially if one had an abusive, alcoholic, freaking Irzut mother who didn’t even try to conceal her hatred toward her own son for ‘ruining her life’, as she often put it. It also didn’t help that I was seriously into science and technology from a very young age while the rest of the tribe had a strong connection to their ancestral lands and spirits and wanted to live a simple life. But I freely admit my problems pale to insignificance next to yours.”

My mother, who had slept with Dad after drinking too much one night (lucky for me, abortion wasn’t an option in Hibos), had managed to hide my existence from her family for years, but they eventually found out and disowned her. She had nowhere to go, so she ended up living with us on the reservation.

“Your mom was abusive?” she asked, surprised. “And your dad didn’t stop her?”

“I guess he was scared she’d beat him up too. Instead, he used to take me on expeditions to discover my roots and connection to the Sky Spirits, whatever good that did.”

“I guess you didn’t find them?”

I chuckled darkly. “No. To be honest, I never put much value on spirituality like the rest of my people. I was always a man of science at heart, even from a very early age.”

“Now I understand why you don’t like your Irzut half.” She took another sip of her drink.

“I hate it with a passion. Growing up, I hated my mom, hated my life, hated all the Irzuts. Then I realized if I took all that hate and channeled it, it would make me stronger.”

“From what you just told me, it doesn’t seem you were at home with the Cherokees either,” she pointed out. “How did you pull through?”

I thought about her question for a few seconds. “Early on, I realized I was freakishly smart. At school, I could do math problems that even my teachers couldn’t understand. So, I decided to use that to get out of the reservations and have a better future for myself. And here I am.”

She chuckled. “Going towards certain death. Yeah, you’ve done very well for yourself”

I ran a hand through my hair. “To be clear, it’s not like the rest of my life has been a bed of roses. Living on Hibos means facing institutional discrimination, day in and day out. It still, however, beats living in the reservations.”

“Have you ever been married?” she asked.

“Not counting the years I spent in Virtura, I haven’t had a relationship in years, and not just because I never had time for social activities. There are very few Cherokee women living outside of the reservations, and it’s not like I could marry an Ozer or Irzut. You?”

“No space for emotional baggage in my line of work,” she responded indifferently. She suddenly stopped talking, sat up straight, and stared at me with eyes full of suspicion.

That caught me by surprise. “What?”

“I’ve never opened up to anyone like this before,” she said, her voice dangerously low, and I confess I was scared for a second or two.

“You’re wondering if I have some sort of telepathic powers that made you share your secrets!” I exclaimed.

“Do you?”

“No! Well, I’m awesome, but I don’t think that counts as actual power.”

She rolled her eyes. “Give me your hand.”

I chuckled and let her grab it. “Could it be that, I don’t know, you’ve made a connection with someone?”

She locked those green eyes on me and held my hand, then clutched it more firmly and closed her eyes to concentrate. After a few seconds, she let go of my hand and murmured, “I don’t make a connection with my marks. No, it must be some hidden mental power you have.”

I was worried that she might get offended if I laughed. “As long as we’re sharing, tell me: why are you coming with us?”

She weighed her answer for a few seconds. “I was hired to protect you. The job isn’t done yet.”

This time I did laugh. “Cut the crap, Xornaa. That job finished once you saved me, well, the other me, from the Irzut security forces. And if not then, when I multiplied myself into an army. Are you planning to follow all of us for the rest of your life?”

She hesitated for a long while, but then apparently decided to trust me. “I can’t have children. I want to, but I can’t. It’s a long story. As a result, I’ve ended up putting a disproportionately high value on a child’s life.”

“There’s nothing ‘disproportionate’ about that. We all feel that way.”

She pursed her lips. “Yes, but as an assassin, I shouldn’t. Or maybe it’s disproportionate compared to adults, whom I kill whenever I need to. Anyway, there are billions of kids on Hibos as well as the other planets the Zuuvreils will destroy. If I can do something to save all those children, I’ll do it. No questions asked.”

I refilled my glass and took a small sip, trying to wrap my mind around everything she’d told me.

“Plus, if we succeed, it might help wash some of the blood off my hands,” she added.

“Do you think we’ll succeed?”

“Let me think about that.” She stroked her chin, pretending to be in deep thought. “We have to fend off the entire defensive forces of the planet long enough for you to do your part—”

“It’ll be less than an hour, based on my calculations,” I interjected.

“—so, no,” she simply continued. “Let me ask you a question: why are you doing this?” 

I blinked with incomprehension. “What do you mean? My planet’s under threat, and my people are there.”

“The planet that you don’t like, and the people who have never really accepted you as their own. You have a time machine. You can go back in time, make some investments, and live the rest of your life in luxury. Instead, you’re here, risking your neck for the people who wouldn’t look twice at you if you died on the street.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

She chuckled. “You didn’t even stop to ask yourself that question, did you? That’s what I like about you, KP. I normally don’t get attached to my marks at all; they’re just a job, but do you remember, the first time we met, you told me you gave your invention away to save lives? I couldn’t help thinking: now this is a guy worth helping.”

“I’m flattered.” I averted my gaze, feeling a tad embarrassed. “As long as we’re busy delving deep into each other’s background and motivations, let me ask one more question. You said you were ready to lay down your life to save the children on Hibos. What about all those women and children you killed on Regolla II?”

She glared at me, then took a deep breath and, with obvious effort, calmed herself. “I’ll tell you, but only if you promise this is the last personal question you ask for at least a year.”

“I don’t think we have a year, but sure, I promise.”

“It wasn’t me,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t kill all those people.”

I didn’t expect that. I’d been skeptical at first, but all my sources had confirmed she’d in fact slaughtered all the inhabitants of that town. Hence, the nickname the Scarlet Queen.

She began, “I was sent to broker a peace treaty between the rebels, led by a man called Baron Teag, and the government …”

NINETEEN

Xornaa

Xornaa stopped her hover car in front of Baron Teag’s grand mansion and got out. “Hey there, Zavir. Good day to sign a peace treaty, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” agreed the baron’s head of security. “I haven’t seen my wife and kids in ages. Maybe I’ll get to go home after this.” He approached Xornaa with a scanner.

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? We’re still doing this?”

Zavir scratched his bushy beard. “Just doing my job.”

Xornaa raised her arms and let the man run the scanner over her body while two other security guards examined her vehicle. “You know if I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t need a weapon, right?”

“Probably,” agreed Zavir amicably. “Still doing my job though.”

“All clear,” announced one of the guards.

Xornaa entered the mansion, passed through a long corridor, and entered the large hall behind it. It was full of people, all talking, drinking, and laughing joyously, celebrating the end of their conflict with the local government. Someone was playing a musical instrument Xornaa had never seen before, but it sounded heavenly.

The rebel’s leader, Baron Teag, separated himself from a group of people surrounding him and walked toward Xornaa. The baron was a big man, with habitual hearty laughter that Xornaa liked, and an eyepatch over his right eye that couldn’t cover the scar that zigzagged across half his face. He wore formal attire (a black tunic complete with a silver surcoat and cape) for the happy occasion of signing the peace treaty, no doubt.

“Welcome, my friend,” boomed Teag. “We’re so happy that you could join us. You remember my granddaughter, Ulivia?”

The little girl hid behind the man’s large frame and smiled sheepishly from under her long red bangs. Her smile was warm, with a hint of shyness.

Xornaa bent and gently tweaked the child’s freckled cheek. “Sure I do. I’ve brought her a present.” She reached inside the small bag she was carrying and took out a doll.

The girl took the toy and smiled back; then she scurried away, her long, red hair waving behind her as she ran, holding the new toy to her chest.

Xornaa followed Ulivia with her eyes as the little girl joined a group of small children and showed them her doll.

I want one.

Xornaa was in a good mood today. When she was asked to act as an intermediary between the rebels and the government of Regolla II, she’d protested, saying her particular set of skills wasn’t suitable for this mission. She was happy, however, that she’d accepted the job. Signing this treaty would save countless lives, because if the negotiations failed, it was likely that the Xortaags would send their forces to quell the rebellion. It felt good to do something decent for once, as opposed to assassination after assassination.

“Follow me,” said the baron. “I’ve got the papers in my office.”

They walked towards an exit on the opposite end of the hall.

An explosion shook the ground. The hall windows imploded, and thick, fast-moving white gas poured in. Xornaa watched with open-mouthed horror as the gas filled the hall before anyone could react, moving extremely quickly and more like a living being than an inanimate substance. It was as if the gas were a predator hunting its prey with single-minded determination.

The guests’ screams reverberated throughout the hall as they rushed towards the entrance, but very few made it that far. Teag clutched at his throat, gave Xornaa a shocked look, coughed, fell to the ground, and started convulsing.

She peered around and saw the same thing happening to everyone in the hall—men, women, and children—but apparently she was immune to whatever the gas was.

Zavir rushed in, holding a piece of cloth to his mouth, weapon drawn. His bulging eyes fixated on Xornaa, and the pure hatred in them shocked her.

“You traitorous bitch!” he yelled and raised his weapon. He shot at her, but his hands were shaking badly, and he missed. He let out two more shots, but the Xortaag woman dodged both. Then Zavir’s eyes rolled back into his skull, and he dropped to the floor, dead or dying.

It was only then that Xornaa noticed Ulivia’s small frame twitching on the floor, next to the bodies of her playmates.

No!

Xornaa didn’t realize she’d screamed.

She darted to Ulivia’s side. She pinched the child's nostrils shut, covered her mouth with hers, making a seal, and breathed into her mouth. She did that a few times before looking at the little girl’s face and noticing her lifeless eyes staring up into nothingness.

Xornaa hadn’t been a stranger to pain, but the agony that clawed at her mind was nothing like she’d ever imagined possible. It felt like a hot knife was twisting very slowly in her skull. She felt her body temperature rise, and acute pain in her lungs made breathing all but impossible. She let out a prolonged, primal scream, then collapsed onto the ground, holding the child’s body in her arms, and for the first time in many years, cried her heart out.

twenty

KLATZO PRIME

Iexclaimed, “Who did that?”

“An overzealous officer who saw this as an opportunity to make a name for herself,” said Xornaa in a small voice. “She put an undetectable chemical weapon our scientist had reverse-engineered in my car. What she didn’t know was the ‘gas’ was in fact organic, and it reproduced once released. I don’t think she realized the little canister she’d hidden under my car would produce enough gas to kill the entire town’s population.”

I was speechless, but not for long. The always-searching-for-answers scientist in me had about a zillion questions. “What happened to her? The officer, I mean.”

“I broke her neck,” said Xornaa matter-of-factly. Sometimes, how easily she talked about killing people was chilling.

“You killed another officer and walked away with no consequences?”

Xornaa looked tired all of a sudden. “Prince Darlaan backed me up. In return, he asked me to eliminate some of his enemies. I’ve been working directly for him ever since. Rewarded generously, mind you, so I probably shouldn’t complain.”

I found it strange that she mentioned money in the middle of all this, but then, she was a mercenary, after all. Whatever other motivations she claimed she had, I was certain money played a central role. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t clear your name. Everyone thinks you’re a monster,”

She offered a sad smile. “And I probably am. I have killed plenty of people, only not those guys. And isn’t the answer to your question obvious?”

I thought about it for a second. “A reputation like that is useful in your line of work.”

She nodded. “In a funny way, it saves lives, because people are so scared of me that they do whatever I want without the need to kill anyone. Speaking of which”—she looked at her PDD—“I’ve invited Bolsor to join us. He’s just arrived.”

Bolsor walked in, followed by a tall, wiry woman with a no-nonsense look on her face, and CM, who was carrying a huge hand-held laser cannon. She also wore a gun belt that had two laser pistols and four grenades attached to it. I guessed she took her new role as a combat droid a bit too seriously. Xornaa introduced the prince and me to each other.

He arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you have a twin brother, whose name is also Klatzo?”

I chuckled. “It’s a long story. Call me KP to avoid confusion.”

“This is Kaeya,” Bolsor introduced his companion. “She’s my head of security. She wouldn’t let me come alone.”

“I assure you that you’re perfectly safe in here, Your Highness,” said Xornaa.

“You’re an infamous assassin,” pointed out Kaeya, “so forgive me for not putting a lot of faith in your words. The rebels on Regolla II did it, and see what happened to them.”

Xornaa’s face turned slightly red, but she didn’t take the obvious bait.

“What happened to your apron?” I asked CM.

“I’m a combat droid now,” she answered. “Do you expect me to go to battle wearing a freaking apron?”

“And your hair?”

She touched her bold, shining metal skull. “Same answer. Don’t I look badass?”

“Nope,” I said. “You might be able to blind the enemy by shining light into their eyes though. And what are you planning to do with those grenades inside a ship?”

Bolsor sat at the table and accepted the glass I offered him. Kaeya stood behind him, but she sat down too after the prince looked at her and pointed at an empty seat next to him.

“Would you like to join us?” I asked CM. “No guns at the table though.”

“I'll give you my laser cannon when you pry it from my cold, dead hands,” she announced solemnly.

Yep. Way too serious.

“Your hands are cold,” I pointed out. “And dead.”

CM unshouldered her cannon, left it close to the door, and joined us at the table, still wearing the gun belt and throwing suspicious looks at Bolsor and Kaeya.

The prince sipped his drink. “I hope we don’t have to murder anyone after this meeting.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“The first time I met Xornaa, we ended up killing a few members of my security team,” he explained.

“My people,” growled Kaeya.

Now I knew why she hated Xornaa.

“Well, not immediately,” said Xornaa. “But we are going to kill a lot of Zuuvreils, if everything goes according to the plan.”

“I confess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around your plan,” said Bolsor. “I’d say it’s crazy, but this takes crazy to a whole new level.”

Xornaa offered him a dazzling smile. “Can’t say I disagree with that assessment.”

“And I’m struggling with its moral aspects too,” continued Bolsor. “Even assuming that we succeed, are you sure we should do this? You guys realize we’re trying to stop a genocide by committing another genocide, right?”

I’d had that discussion with myself about a million times, and I’d concluded that killing a few thousand Zuuvreils to save billions was justified, even if morally unacceptable. The logic was simple, if cold.

“It’s the Zuuvreils’ damned fault,” commented CM. “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“You don’t sleep, ah, forget it,” I said.

Xornaa looked at the prince. “It’s simple math. Yes, we’ll be killing a few thousand Zuuvreils, and most of them are civilians. But how many people will we save by doing so? I’d say before the rest of the galaxy gets its act together and stops the Zuuvreils, they’ll go on to destroy at least ten more planets. That’s something in the neighborhood of two hundred billion people right there for you.”

“Two hundred billion defenseless, innocent people,” I added gravely. “And let’s not forget the children they’re kidnapping. No one has forced the freaking Zuuvreils to do what they’re doing.”

“And that’s assuming that the rest of the galaxy can eventually defeat the Zuuvreils,” CM pointed out.

“They can,” Xornaa said confidently. “Worst case scenario, my government will eventually start getting worried, and they’ll simply send General Maada. Trust me when I tell you we’re doing the Zuuvreils a favor, compared to what the general will do to them.”

Bolsor’s lips spread into a thin smile. “That guy’s a badass. I wouldn’t want to wake up one day and see his fleet in our orbit. Have you heard what he did to the poor Gav'eoks?”

Xornaa and I nodded. The Gav'eok fleet had a hundred thousand ships in it. Rumor had it not a single sailor had survived the encounter with Maada and his infamous Crimson Deathbringer.

“I’d like to point out the Gav'eoks weren’t so poor as you think,” Xornaa pointed out. “They were conquerors themselves, and they were on their way to Tangaar. Maada was defending his planet, in this particular case.”

Bolsor gave her a hard look. “Is that pride I hear in your voice? Maada’s a ruthless madman.”

“He might be, but he’s our ruthless madman. I’m not particularly fond of my own people, to be honest, but the general brought them back from the brink of extinction. It’s hard not to admire that.”

“By sacrificing countless other sentient beings,” Bolsor emphasized, “which incidentally is exactly what we’re going to stop the Zuuvreils from doing.”

Xornaa shook her head. “Totally different situations. The civilian casualties of Maada’s attacks are pretty light. We colonize the planets we invade, as opposed to the Zuuvreils, who wantonly destroy them.”

Kaeya coughed into her hand, which oddly sounded like “heartless bitch”.

“But your people control the conquered planets’ native inhabitants using a mind-control machine and turn them into slaves, don’t they?” insisted Bolsor.

“Yes, but they’re still alive and kicking,” countered Xornaa.

“Leave it to an assassin to defend enslaving the entire population of several planets,” said Kaeya with venom.

Irritation flickered across Xornaa’s face. “When this is over, maybe you and I could go somewhere quiet and have a word?”

Kaeya glared at her. “Looking forward to it.”

“Can I come and watch?” I asked. “Just to make sure you don’t kill each other. Also, I wonder how long that would last.”

Xornaa gave me a questioning look.

“Your people reproduce very fast,” I explained. “As the population of the colonies increases, at some point, it won’t be viable to have them compete with the local inhabitants of the planet for natural resources. What do you think your people will do then?”

Xornaa looked away and said nothing, but I knew she was smart enough to figure that out.

“Returning to our original topic of discussion,” said Kaeya, “I agree with CM. All of you seem certain that the Zuuvreils can be defeated. But what if they can’t? What if their fleet is so strong that the rest of the galaxy’s combined fleet, or even General Maada’s forces, aren’t strong enough to stop them?”

“In that case, I think it’s safe to say we can kiss the rest of the galaxy goodbye,” I answered.

“I have a more relevant question,” CM interrupted us. “If we succeed, do you think we’ll save the people of Valratania and Zilmienerth?”

I shook my head. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. We can’t change the events that have already happened. In all likelihood, things change from the point in time when I jump to the past.”

That conversation reminded me of the forty billion people who’d already lost their lives, not to mention the countless children who’d been kidnapped by the Zuuvreils. No one talked for a couple of minutes. I guess they were all thinking about this unimaginable loss of life.

“So, we’re really doing this?” I asked.

“Too late to have second thoughts now,” answered Xornaa.

“Especially from you,” added CM, “who is the architect of this idiotic plan.”

“In that case,” I raised my glass, “to our victory. And when the battle is over, we’ll drink again, this time to its immortal memory.”

Xornaa approved. “Well said.”

“Hear, hear.” Bolsor raised his glass and clanked mine.

“No drinks for me?” asked CM.

twenty-one

Adlynn

Adlynn, staring at the two cryosleep pods (small, silver, coffin-like boxes) in front of her, kept fidgeting nervously.

She was in one of Hope’s huge cargo bays. All around her, there were rows and rows of cryosleep pods, thousands of them. And Hope had several hundred cargo bays just like this one. It was a chilling reminder of the responsibility she’d undertaken. Not that she needed to be reminded.

I’ll get them safely to Haven, she vowed silently.

Adlynn wore her best dress and carried a doll belonging to her younger son, Roderock. Even if Roderock didn’t recognize her, he’d definitely remember his favorite toy, she hoped.

“Calm down, Captain,” said Billix, standing next to her. “They’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“What if they don’t even recognize me?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit. “I mean, look at me! I’m an old woman now.”

“They’ll recognize their mother,” Billix assured her.

They were still years away from Haven, and Adlynn had started worrying about the possibility of her dying of old age without ever seeing her children again. That concern had led her to the decision to revive her sons, and to allow the rest of the crew to do the same for theirs too. With so many crew members dead (more than half had been killed during a meteor shower some twenty standard years ago) neither space on the ship nor provisions would be an issue, and in time, some of the older kids could learn to help around the ship.

Surprisingly, several people, including Billix, had decided to let their children sleep until they arrived at Haven, saying that they didn’t want to expose them to the ship’s harsh and, at times, dangerous life. That argument had Adlynn wondering if her decision was a selfish one, but she’d made up her mind.

Soft music filled the hall as the pods slowly opened with a hiss. Adlynn’s heart, flooded simultaneously with both motherly love and intense fear, all but stopped as Roderock and Brayden took a few tentative, wobbly steps outside, rubbed their eyes, and looked around in astonishment.

Adlynn kneeled in front of her sons and spread her arms, trying to push away the voice in her head that kept reminding her she looked very different from when Hope started her journey all those years ago. “Hi, my loves. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

The kids blinked and stared at their mother, not saying anything for a few seconds that felt like an eternity to Adlynn.

Brayden scratched his belly and looked uncertain. Roderock’s eyes darted from his mother to the doll she was holding and then back to her.

They don’t know who I am.

Adlynn’s breath caught in her lungs as that thought became louder and louder in her brain. She looked helplessly at Billix, who appeared as if he didn’t know what to say.

Then Roderock burst into tears and rushed to her, his brother at his heels. Their small bodies melted into their mom’s a second later, all three crying now. She hugged them both, tightly and gently at the same time, making sure to give them room to breathe, and felt that the world had stopped still. Nothing mattered anymore. Not Hope, not Haven, not the rest of their arduous journey. The only important things in the entire universe were right here in her arms. She felt her sons’ small bodies press in, soft and warm, and hugged them tighter, thanking the Gods inwardly for this sacred gift.

She let her body sag and her muscles became loose as all the stress and worry of the last few decades left her mind. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Billix leaving the hall.

She marveled at how her sons held her soul in their tiny hands, and gratitude filled her heart as tears kept rolling down her cheeks. I will do anything, sacrifice anything, to protect you, my loves, she thought.

If only their father could be here now …

twenty-two

Klatzo Prime

Holding my head high, I announced, “Showtime!”

“Literally,” answered Xornaa.

We were on Fortitude’s bridge. Xornaa and Bolsor stood in front of the helmsmen station, and I sat on the command chair. Xornaa was wearing her dark grey Xortaag uniform with several medals on her chest. Bolsor was in his gold-threaded tunic, complete with a glittering golden crown and huge flowing dark blue cape.

“The translator’s up and running,” advised the scientist me from his station.

I tapped on a VR screen hovering next to the command chair. “Hailing frequencies open.”

“I still can’t believe you talked all of us into doing this,” commented CM, standing behind me. “I should’ve known better than listening to you.”

Bolsor cleared his throat. “My name’s Prince Bolsor, of the planet Tilunus, an allied nation of the Xortaags, commanding CS Fortitude. This is my second-in-command, Lieutenant Xornaa, a Xortaag Secret Service agent who works directly under Prince Darlaan. We’re here on a secret mission from the Xortaag government. Please respond.”

There was no answer.

Bolsor exchanged a look with Xornaa and repeated the message.

Still nothing.

A drop of sweat started trickling down my spine. If the Zuuvreils ignored our hail, our only other option was to abandon our charade and push forward without their permission, but there was no way for us to go through the planetary defenses with just five ships. Our suicide mission would become a lot more suicidal.

Bolsor looked like he was about to repeat the message for the third time when we finally received an incoming transmission. The hideous creature that appeared on Fortitude’s main screen was difficult to describe. It was anthropoid, but green with four protruding red eyes and a short snout. Its huge head was covered with scutes of different sizes. It had four arms that we could see, and I was ready to bet it had a tail too.

The Zuuvreils are reptilian?!

The reptile was wearing a fancy red, yellow, and blue striped uniform, complete with a white folded collar and cap. It wore a huge red medallion, and the front of its uniform was covered with medals and insignias.

“I’m gonna have nightmares about this beauty for weeks,” whispered CM.

“This is the very definition of a face only the mother could love,” I whispered back.

Xornaa turned her head and gave us a seething look.

“Fortitude,” growled the two o'clock beauty queen (or king, hard to tell), “we will fire upon you if you get any closer. Why didn’t the Xortaag government inform us that you were coming?”

Oh crap.

Apparently, Xornaa had been given bad intel, and there had been contact between the Zuuvreils and the Xortaags. This could potentially throw a huge wrench into our plans.

“Because it’s a secret mission,” answered Bolsor without missing a beat, “as I just mentioned. May I ask who I’m talking to?”

“I’m Grand Marshal Caze,” said the creature, looking all high and mighty, “the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Zegides, and I’m in charge of the planetary defenses. You can address me as His All-Holiness. What do you want?”

“I bet Xornaa can’t keep a straight face when she calls this diarrhea face ‘His All-Holiness,’ ” I told CM.

Xornaa side-stepped that title altogether. “We have an urgent message from our government to yours, and we request a face-to-face meeting.”

“Or in this case, a face-to-ass meeting,” commented CM.

I chuckled. “Stop. You’re killing me.”

Xornaa looked like she wanted to shoot both of us.

“And we’re supposed to just trust your words?” asked Caze.

“Of course not,” replied Xornaa coolly. “We have credentials, which we’ll show you as soon as we land.”

“What’re you afraid of?” added Bolsor. “Are you worried that we might try to invade your planet with five transport vessels? You could shoot us if it turns out we’re lying.”

Caze tilted his head, as if he were listening to something. Then he said, “We’ll send you landing coordinates. I’ll personally meet you when you land. Also, send us a few samples of your language.” He disappeared from the screen.

“Charming fellow,” commented Bolsor dryly.

“Are you sure it was male?” asked CM.

“Didn’t seem very feminine to me,” replied Bolsor. “And he did refer to himself as ‘His All-Holiness.’ ”

“Did we just make first contact with a reptilian race?” I asked enthusiastically.

“With a deranged, dangerous, genocidal reptilian race,” Xornaa corrected me.

“What if they contact the Xortaags and find out we’ve been lying?” asked Bolsor.

I shrugged. “It’s too late for us to back off now. Let’s just hope we can finish the job before they can do that. And who knows? We have only five ships. They might not even bother. I wouldn’t have.”

“Oh no!” CM grabbed her head in her hands and stomped her feet on the ground.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“The Zuuvreil fleet just appeared over Hibos!”

Gulp.

My heart skipped a beat or three. I imagined how my people must be feeling, looking into the skies and seeing the alien fleet that brought death and destruction, and the images that filled my mind made me shudder.

“What’re we going to do?” I asked no one in particular.

Xornaa rushed towards the helms. “We’d better hurry up then.”

twenty-three

Davon

Commander Davon, carrying his helmet under one arm and struggling to zip up his flight suit with the other hand while running, wondered if he’d ever see his wife and children again.

What he’d (along with everyone else on Hibos) had nightmares about for days had just happened: the Zuuvreil fleet (if indeed it was them, no one seemed to know for certain) had just appeared on Hibos’ orbit, and based on what they’d done to the other two planets they’d attacked, there was no doubt as to what their intention was, even though their motivation for doing something like this was a complete mystery.

Damn them to hell, thought Davon furiously. How the hell did they build an undetectable fleet that could jump from planet to planet at will? How does that fleet even operate? Don’t they need to stop somewhere for provisions? Fuel? Repairs?

He dashed out of the fleet base’s main building where his office was and was running towards the hangar in which his space fighter had been being prepared by the flight crew when a commotion in front of the base’s entrance caught his attention.

A crowd of Ozers was gathered there, pushing and shoving the base’s security guards. Davon paused for a second, reminded himself that with the imminent alien invasion he had no time to waste, then cursed under his breath and darted towards the entrance.

“What the hell’s going on here!” he boomed at the top of his voice, trying to establish his authority.

“These pathetic Ozers want to fight,” answered the Irzut officer in charge of the guards.

Davon blew out a noisy breath. “They certainly chose a good time to join the rebellion, right in the middle of an alien invasion aimed at killing all of us.”

“Not us, Commander,” the officer clarified. “They want to fight the aliens.”

“Commander!” yelled an Ozer, a tiny little guy who barely stood up to Davon’s shoulders. “I’m a pilot. Give me a ship. Let me fight. As you just said, the Zuuvreils are coming to kill all of us.”

“I’m a pilot too!” shouted another small man. “I have a family to protect.”

Guess what, so do I.

“Civilian pilots,” said Davon rather unnecessarily. All military personnel on Hibos were Irzuts.

“Flying’s flying,” countered the first Ozer. “As for the weapons, all I need is to point and shoot. I’ve done lots of simulations. How difficult could that be?”

“Very, actually.” Davon frowned. “I commend your courage, but we don’t have any space fighters to spare.”

His second-in-command, standing behind him, cleared his throat loudly.

Davon gave him a questioning look.

“We do have some two hundred SL-350 models, which we use for training purposes.”

Davon’s eyebrows shot up. “Those old, obsolete things? Are you serious?”

“Can they fly and shoot?” asked the Ozer.

“Yes, but—”

The small Ozer stared into Davon’s eyes, his jaw set. “Come on, Commander. We’re all gonna die today anyway. Let us go out fighting.”

And I always thought Ozers are useless, spineless creatures.

Davon made up his mind. “Let them through,” he told the guards, then turned to his second-in-command. “Prep the birds, and get these guys suited up.”

The Irzut saluted and motioned the Ozers to follow him.

The Ozer who’d talked earlier paused in front of Davon. “Thank you, Commander.”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Asher, sir.”

Davon saluted sharply. “Drinks are on me if we come back from this one alive.”

Asher beamed and saluted back. “We probably won’t, but if we do, our names will enter the history books as the first Irzut and Ozer who had a drink together!”

TWENTY-FOUR

Whispering Wind

Whispering Wind stepped from his hut, squinted against the sun, and scanned the skies.

The entire planet was in a state of panic. The Cherokees had dealt with the end of the world pretty well; most of them were in their temples, accompanied by their elders and shamans, praying to their various gods. On the rest of the planet, however, chaos ruled. There were riots and looting everywhere, with the Ozers and the Cherokees who were off the reservations being systematically targeted, and the planet’s military forces were having a hard time controlling the deranged mob.

According to reports, Red Arrow and his followers had taken this opportunity to hit the Irzut forces. The rebels had attacked several military bases, destroyed them, captured hundreds of soldiers, and confiscated their weapons. Then they’d distributed the weapons among the Ozers and Cherokees so that they could defend themselves. The rebels’ numbers had increased tenfold in the last couple of hours.

If things continued this way, Red Arrow would topple the Irzut government and put an end to their centuries-long tyranny, but with the Zuuvreils in orbit and Hibos’ impending doom, Whispering Wind failed to understand what the point of the rebels’ attack was—unless Red Arrow knew something that no one else did.

Eternal Blossom stood next to him. “So, it begins.”

“So, it ends,” the old man corrected his wife. “Why aren’t you with our children?”

She shrugged. “They’re with their families. I knew you wouldn’t come to the temple, and I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Whispering Wind pulled her into a side hug, saying nothing. He could hear the drum music coming from the temple. At least they were all together in the end.

“Is this how you saw it in your visions?” asked the woman.

The shaman nodded.

“Any news from Shaking Like Leaf?

“No, but with the Zuuvreil fleet here, it’s safe to assume he’s failed. Probably dead. Shame. He was a good boy, even though he hated his Cherokee name and most of our traditions.”

“It looks like we’ll be joining him soon, husband,” Eternal Blossom pointed out solemnly.

Whispering Wind nodded sadly. “Yes, it does.”

TWENTY-FIVE

Klatzo Prime

“Is it there?” I asked Klatzo.

“Yep, and the coordinates are accurate.”

“Hold on to something, guys,” announced Xornaa. “Things are about to get interesting, as KP once said.”

“I don’t like interesting,” said CM. “Boring is good.”

Fortitude veered hard left. The floor rose to a 45-degree angle. I had to grab onto my seat to keep my balance and remain in the command chair.

“What the hell is going on?” one of my twins shouted through the internal comms. I thought it was Klatzina.

“Oops,” said Xornaa. “I forgot to warn them.”

Grand Marshal Caze reappeared on the main viewing screen, glaring at us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“A small change of plans, Grand Marshal,” said Bolsor calmly.

“His All-Holiness!” he barked.

“A small change of plan, His All-Holiness”—Bolsor did manage to keep a straight face, good for him—“We’re going to land in front of the Glowing Temple of the Holy Revival. Please come and meet us there.”

Caze looked confused, as far as I could read a reptile’s expression, which to be honest always looked kind of confused with those four bulging eyes. “Why there, of all places?”

“It’s a Xortaag tradition we are bound to follow. We’ll explain when we meet you in person.”

“Do you think he bought it?” asked CM when Caze disappeared from the screen.

I shrugged. “If he doesn’t find us a threat, and there’s no reason to think he will, it’s safe to assume he’ll let us land and will come or send someone to meet us.”

“We’ll find out in a second,” Xornaa added grimly. “If they start shooting at us, they didn’t buy it.”

No one started shooting at us.

So far, so good.

“We get to live a few minutes longer, it appears,” commented CM.

“How are things on Hibos?” I asked anxiously.

Xornaa tapped on the console in front of her and pointed at a side screen.

The images that appeared on the screen showed the Irzut fleet locked in a deadly battle with the Zuuvreils, and it didn’t take a military expert to see they were having their collective asses handed to them. The invading fleet’s ships were bigger and faster than the defenders, and they had much better firepower to boot.

Thousands of space fighters from both sides were involved in close-range dogfights, and the space around them was filled with missiles, projectiles, laser bolts, and explosions, but the Irzut space fighters didn’t seem to be able to hit anything, while the enemy energy weapons destroyed them by the dozens. The planet’s anti-spacecraft artillery didn’t seem to be doing too well either.

I thought about biting my nails as I wondered how much longer the defenders could hold and if we were too late after all. “That doesn’t seem to be going well.”

“What did you expect?” CM asked me. “You have seen the footage for the other two attacks.”

“And take a look at that,” announced Xornaa.

Saying that the Glowing Temple of the Holy Revival was enormous would’ve been the understatement of the century. It looked to be the size of a small city, having been built in the middle of an uninhabited, snow-covered desert. Silk banners hung from the ceiling. Polished stone pedestals held golden and silver statues, portraying nude reptiles fighting each other. The temple’s curved walls were ornately carved with runes and mosaics, and twisted pillars held up the ceiling. A huge crowd of at least several thousand pilgrims had gathered in front of the temple, evidently doing whatever ceremony their pilgrimage required.

“Oh, my God,” whimpered CM.

I didn’t know androids had gods. Maybe she means the people who built her in the factory?

When I looked at her, she touched the console in front of her and pointed at a screen. The image zoomed in, and then I saw the children, the ones the Zuuvreils had taken from Valratania and Zilmienerth.

There were thousands of them, tiny little things, huddled together, shivering from the cold. They looked terrified out of their minds, being surrounded by reptilian monsters. Then in front of our horror-stricken eyes, two Zuuvreils grabbed a small girl who couldn’t possibly have been more than five years old and dragged her to the front of the crowd.

The girl cried, desperate tears rolling down her tiny cheeks, but offered no resistance, not that there was anything she could do against the two huge reptiles. My heart bled for her, whatever good that did. They made her kneel in the snow. The images had no audio, but I could swear I heard the anguished wail that came up from the rest of the children, who probably knew what was coming. In all likelihood, it wasn’t the first time this was happening.

It suddenly dawned on me.

They were sacrificing the children they’d kidnapped to their gods.

I had a heavy sense of dread deep in the pit of my stomach. My hands started shaking, and I had to fight off a sudden onset of nausea. I jumped out of the command chair and yelled, “No!”

All blood disappeared from Xornaa’s face and lines of horror and loathing appeared around her mouth.

“Don’t do that,” Bolsor implored the aliens on the screen as if they could hear him. “Please, please stop.”

I thought about rushing to Fortitude’s cannon turret and killing the reptiles where they stood, but I needed a minute to get there and a few seconds to power up the weapon systems, and it was obvious I didn’t have the time.

Another Zuuvreil, wearing a crimson gown and carrying a dagger, approached the frightened child from behind, his head held upward, chanting something. In one swift move, he grabbed the helpless little girl’s hair, exposed her throat, and—

CM punched the console in front of her so forcefully that it cracked. The screen turned into static, leaving us shocked and breathless.

“I think we’ve seen quite enough,” said the android.

I’d always considered myself a calm person, but the blinding rage that burned through me was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I could feel my anger’s heat on my skin. Muscles tight, jaw clenched, I could feel nothing but an overwhelming desire to hurt the reptiles for what they were doing to those defenseless kids.

“They’re so going to pay for this!” I shouted.

“Can we do something?” Bolsor asked Xornaa.

“No,” she answered through clenched teeth, her eyes filled with cold fury. “The mission comes first. It’ll stop if we succeed anyway.”

I had to force down my breakfast, but she was right. None of what we’d just seen would matter if we pulled off our plan. That thought made me relax slightly, and the Virtura conditioning probably helped. Both Xornaa and Bolsor looked like they’d dealt with what we had just witnessed pretty well too.

“I suddenly don’t feel bad about killing a few thousand reptiles,” I said in a low voice. “In fact, the more the better. I wish I could slaughter millions of them.”

“Me neither,” Bolsor agreed. “These people freaking deserve to die.”

“Sometimes, I really don’t understand you,” said CM. “You remember the Zuuvreils have already destroyed two entire planets, killing billions of people in the process, right? And yet seeing them killing one child provokes this reaction?”

“This one is personal,” I growled. “It happened right in front of our eyes.”

“And we couldn’t do anything about it,” added Xornaa. “Which makes it worse. We have to concentrate on the mission though. Now, be quiet for a bit.”

Nobody said anything for the next ten minutes or so while Xornaa steered the ship toward the surface. I took this opportunity to take a few deep breaths and calm myself down. She landed Fortitude in front of the temple but at some distance from the crowd. Everything shook slightly as the ship settled on the ground with a thump.

“Time for me to go then,” I announced. I felt much better now that it was time for action. I’d be fine as long as I had something to focus on, but if I started thinking about that murdered girl, no question, I’d freak out. I needed to get going. “Are you guys coming to see me off?”

I went to the cargo bay, where the time machine was, followed by Xornaa, Bolsor, CM, and the scientist me. I checked the inside of the machine. We’d removed the seats to have more space, and now the cabin was filled to the brim with weapons (including a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile launcher), ammunition, and enough provisions to last a couple of months. I had enough firepower in there to wipe out a small city. It was probably overkill, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

I turned to face the others. “This is goodbye then. Please don’t forget that the transition isn’t instantaneous, and if after I go, the machine is tampered with or destroyed, I’ll be stuck in the timestream forever.”

Klatzo rolled his eyes. “We know. You told us about a million times, and I am you, remember?”

Xornaa stepped closer to me. “Well, before you go …”

She grabbed my collar, pulled me close, and kissed me on the lips.

Her mouth sealed mine, stealing my breath and making all my senses go haywire. I felt the heat radiating from her and right into me as every single cell in my body went mad with mindless desire. I had been kissed before (it wasn’t like I was a virgin, and even if I’d been before this shitshow started, those years in Virtura would’ve taken care of that—muscle growth and testosterone went hand-in-hand, and I had several young and beautiful female classmates in our assassin school), but this was something else entirely. This was probably how Drax felt when he kissed Reina for the first time, if Reina’s lips were covered with chocolate, ice cream, and honey, and a goddess was giving him a, eh, backrub at the same time.

When she let go of me and stepped backward (How long has passed? Five minutes? An hour? A day?), I had to lean on the time machine to stop myself from falling to my knees.

“What was that for?” I exclaimed, barely hearing my own voice through the pounding of my heart.

Her eyes twinkled, and her dimples pushed my heart to within an inch of cardiac arrest. I would’ve probably died right there if I hadn’t been in such good shape.

“Why, for good luck, obviously.”

“Didn’t you say you were a lesbian?”

CM smirked. “And you believed that? If Xornaa touched a rock, it would grow an external male sex organ.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” said Klatzo with a deadpan expression.

“I lied,” said Xornaa. “It makes working professionally with people easier.”

“And now?” I asked.

She grinned. “Given that there’s at least a fifty percent chance we’ll get killed in the next few minutes, I figured I could make an exception.”

I had nothing to say to that. I got on the machine, threw one last look at my friends (and twin), and wondered if I’d ever see them again.

“Go save the universe, soldier,” said Xornaa with a crisp salute.

By committing genocide.

“Don’t mess this up,” added CM. “I’ll be royally pissed if we die here for nothing.”

“Don’t get yourselves killed until I come back,” I answered and punched in numbers.                          

TWENTY-SIX

Xornaa

“Let’s go,” Xornaa told others as soon as KP disappeared.

“So KP is in a timestream now?” asked Bolsor. “I wonder how that feels.”

“Nothing much”, answered Xornaa, walking towards a cabinet in a corner of the cargo bay. “It’s kind of like what you’d see if you were inside a kaleidoscope. Lots of colors and symmetrical patterns, plus some strange things from time to time. For him, the journey takes but a couple of seconds, regardless of how far in the past he’s going.”

“Unless, of course, the Zuuvreils damage the time machine while he’s still in the timestream,” said the scientist. “In which case that second would stretch into eternity. He’ll be conscious, but he won’t be able to move, breathe, or even die. Forever.”

Xornaa shuddered at the image. She opened the cabinet door, took out a white fleece cold-weather jacket, and put it on over her uniform. Then she exchanged her shoes for a pair of heavy-duty snow boots and pulled on a leather-trimmed fur hat. Bolsor and Klatzo did the same while CM attached two more grenades to her gun belt.

They disembarked Fortitude through the cargo bay door. Bolsor pulled down his goggles as soon as they stepped out. “Bright lights hurt my eyes,” he told Xornaa when he noticed her questioning look.

Xornaa looked at the white-gray clouds filling the sky.

“The snow,” clarified the prince.

They were met by Kaeya and the rest of Bolsor’s security team. Xornaa had asked the super-soldier Klatzoes to stay on board the ships for the time being because she didn’t know how Caze would react if he saw several identical men (and Klatzina), and she preferred not to agitate the reptile. Despite her warm clothes, she felt the biting cold as soon as she stepped outside, and she found walking in the knee-deep snow difficult.

Strong winds picked up the snow, limiting visibility. The wind and cloudy skies told Xornaa a blizzard was on the way.

In an attempt to make their position more defensible, the five ships in their small convoy had landed close to each other, forming a small circle. Several Zuuvreil space fighters flew overhead. A small cargo ship landed less than a hundred feet from Fortitude, and a dozen soldiers rushed out, weapons at the ready.

Caze exited the ship, looked around, and walked towards them, flanked by four armed bodyguards. He was wearing the same flashy uniform he had on earlier with no apparent need for warmer clothing.

Xornaa noticed the reptile didn’t seem to have any problems walking in the deep snow either. He was probably used to it. “Here they come,” she whispered. “Put your game faces on.”

“I was born with a game face,” replied CM.

“Do you have to come up with some nonsensical wise-ass remark for everything?” Bolsor asked her.

CM pointed at Klatzo. “Ain’t my fault. This idiot here programmed me this way.”

“I’m not an idiot!” objected the small man.

“No?” CM mocked him. “You could’ve reprogramed me to be nice, polite, and obedient. But no, you wanted a robot with character.”

“That’s a fair point,” observed Bolsor.

Klatzo gave him a hurt look.

“Everyone, shut the hell up,” growled Xornaa, “including you, Your Highness, with all due respect.”

Caze stood in front of them. “Are you going to tell me why we are here?”

“His All-Holiness,” said Xornaa formally, “thank you for coming to meet us. We’re here to observe an important Xortaag tradition called Xatraa. First contact must be made in a place of religious significance”—she pointed at the temple behind her—“and it involves a one-on-one contest between our champion, which is me, and a fighter of your choosing. The reason for this ritual is for us to test the mettle of our new potential allies.”

“This contest,” asked Caze with apparent interest, “is it a fight to the death, or does it end if my champion simply incapacitates you?”

I can’t believe it’s working, thought Xornaa. She hadn’t considered this question but came up with an answer on the fly. “A death match, His All-Holiness. And don’t be so sure your champion will walk out of it with their life.”

Caze’s mouth stretched all the way to the two big holes on either side of his head that probably functioned as his ears, showing rows and rows of tiny sharp teeth. He threw his head back and roared.

It took Xornaa a few seconds to realize the grand marshal was laughing. The four Zuuvreil soldiers behind him didn’t react at all. They just stood there like statues and stared unblinkingly at Xornaa.

Caze’s “laughter” stopped as suddenly as it’d started. “You can stop your deception now, Lieutenant. We’ve reached out to our Xortaag contacts. While they confirmed you’re who you say you are, they told us you aren’t on any official mission. They did ask us to capture you alive and preferably unharmed as a favor to them.”

Damn it, thought Xornaa. She’d never thought their charade would last long anyway, but she’d hoped there wasn’t a direct line of communication between the Zuuvreils and the Xortaags, which wouldn’t have allowed them to check her story so quickly.

Caze turned his four glowing red eyes to Bolsor. “You, on the other hand, appear to be an agitator and a troublemaker. No one would bat an eye if we kill you right here, right now, and the same goes for the rest of your band of misfits.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?” CM asked him conversationally.

Caze ignored the robot and pointed at the space fighters flying at a low altitude right above them. “I could incinerate you from above, and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. But we’ve scanned your ships, and we’ve found some very interesting readings. Our scientists tell me they’ve never seen something like this, but it looks like a temporal anomaly. We really want to know what you’re hiding in there, so we’re going to capture your ship intact.”

Xornaa’s breath quickened ever so slightly, and all she could think was Shit!

Caze looked over his shoulder, where two transport ships had just landed and several hundred white-clad soldiers were pouring out of them. His mouth stretched into what was probably a satisfied smile. “So, I have come to personally accept your surrender.”

Xornaa arched her unibrow at him. “I didn’t realize we were surrendering.”

Caze smirked confidently. “I don’t see that you have a choice. I have brought five hundred soldiers with me. I could’ve brought thousands but didn’t see the need for it. What’re you going to do, fight an entire planet with what, thirty soldiers?”

“Thirty-four,” said CM.

“It sounds stupid when you put it that way,” Xornaa told Caze, “but yes, that’s exactly what we’re planning to do.”

Caze bared his teeth, nostrils flaring. “The only logical thing for you is to surrender!”

“I do apologize for the misunderstanding,” said Xornaa sweetly. “Which one of our actions today led you to believe we are logical people?”

Bolsor couldn’t stifle a chuckle.

Caze’s face twisted into absolute rage. “You unbelievers deserve to die anyway”—he turned his gaze at Bolsor and went on a rant—“We will kill you all, except maybe for Lieutenant Xornaa here, and see what you’ve hidden in that ship. A bunch of infidels can’t interfere with the will of the Gods and their humble servants, and —”

“I guess reaching a peaceful resolution is out of the question, right?” CM asked, cutting him off.

The grand marshal curled his upper lip in disgust and pointed a finger at her. “Interrupt me one more time, robot, and I’ll—”

CM brought her enormous hand-held cannon to bear and shot him point-blank in the face.

Caze’s body disappeared from the shoulders up. What was left of his corpse was thrown back several feet and rolled a few times on the snow-covered ground. The stench of burned flesh assaulted Xornaa’s nostrils.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” CM told what was left of the grand marshal’s corpse. “Did I step on your moment?”

The sudden brutality of CM’s action shocked everyone, but just for a second. The four soldiers standing in front of them started to aim their rifles.

Xornaa’s reflexes took over. She drew her sidearm and shot all four before they could release a shot. All of a sudden, the air around her was filled with a blazing storm of laser fire. She ran for cover as Bolsor’s security team and the Zuuvreil soldiers opened fire on one another.

Xornaa, hiding behind Fortitude’s hull, yelled at CM, “What did you do that for?”

“What?” she asked. “They were going to attack us anyway. Might as well have wiped the smirk off the son-of-a-bitch’s face.”

“I have got to admit,” said Bolsor, weapon drawn, crouching next to them, “seeing the look on his face right before his head exploded was totally worth being caught in this shitstorm.”

The corner of Xornaa’s mouth arched into a half-smile. “I wanted to hear the rest of his speech,” she said, then touched her earpiece. “That crowd is still gathered in front of the temple?”

“Yes,” one of the super soldiers answered.

“Can someone shoot at them using one of the ships’ cannons, without hitting the children?”

The cargo ships’ cannons were no use in defending the ships while on the ground—they were too big and the enemy could take them out easily, killing the soldier inside—but there were no enemy combatants in the back between the ships and the temple.

“Oh, yeah,” said the same voice joyously.

“Hit the temple while you’re at it too,” ordered Xornaa.

“Why?” asked CM. “Shooting at the crowd offers no strategic advantage.”

Something dark and dangerous flickered in the back of Xornaa’s eyes. She flashed a wolfish grin. “It makes me feel good, and it stops their ceremony, saving a few of those kids, at least temporarily.”

The wind carried the stuttering sounds of the laser cannon being fired. Xornaa wished she could see the look on those child-murderers’ faces. That thought brought a satisfied half-smile to her lips.

Suck it, child-killers.

Soldier-boy Klatzoes, led by Klatzina wearing a pink skirt, dashed out of their ships and fanned out, taking cover behind the cargo vessels and shooting at the enemy. One of them threw a rifle at Xornaa. She caught it midair and checked to make sure it was ready to use; then she stuck out her head to see where the enemy soldiers were, set the weapon’s sight on the chest of her first target, and pulled the trigger. Before the body of the first one hit the ground she took aim and shot another reptile, and she kept shooting, killing several more approaching Zuuvreil soldiers one after another, not missing a single shot. The sound of the shooting and the cries of the dying Zuuvreils made her heart beat faster as a rush of adrenaline swirled through her.

An energy bolt sizzled into Fortitude’s hull, inches away from CM’s head. That apparently made her mad because she stepped out of her cover in plain view of enemy soldiers and while blasting madly away with her laser cannon shouted, “You want a piece of this, do you, huh?”

Xornaa grabbed the android’s arm and pulled her back behind Fortitude’s hull just as a dozen energy bolts hurled through the space she’d occupied a fraction of a second before.

Xornaa shot three more Zuuvreils. “Don’t do anything stupid until I come back. You”—she pointed at Klatzo, who was armed with a rifle but wasn’t shooting—“come with me.”

She entered Fortitude through a side door and darted towards the cargo bay, followed by Klatzo. Once there, she locked the entrance behind them, opened a box, took out a grenade, and gave it to the scientist.

The small man took it. “What’s this for?”

“We’re about to be overrun,” said Xornaa, panting slightly. “There are just too many enemy soldiers for us to hold long. They can’t enter through the entrance we just came in unless they cut through it, but they can lower the ramp door from the bridge. Wait until the last possible second, then destroy the time machine.”

Klatzo flinched. “With KP still in the timestream?”

“We don’t have a choice,” said Xornaa, her voice firm. “You’re the genius. Can you imagine what the Zuuvreils will do if they put their hands on a time machine?”

Klatzo shuddered visibly.

“That’s what I thought. They’ll go back in time and exterminate all of us before we have a chance to defend ourselves.”

“Which incidentally is exactly what we’re trying to do to them,” pointed out Klatzo. “I guess this is what’s called poetic justice.”

“No, it’s irony. When the time comes to blow up the machine, don’t hesitate, and don’t freeze. The fate of the universe is in your hands.”

Klatzo chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh good. I hate being under pressure due to having majorly huge responsibilities.”

Xornaa gave him a hard look.

Klatzo dropped the joking tone. “Trust me. I understand what’s at stake. I’ll do it.”

Xornaa ran through the ramp door, braced herself against the cold wind, and looked back to make sure Klatzo pulled the ramp up behind her. Energy bolts wheezed past as she darted toward where Bolsor and Kaeya had taken cover and were shooting at the advancing Zuuvreil soldiers.

“There’s too many of them!” yelled Bolsor.

Xornaa raised her rifle and shot two enemy soldiers who were trying to flank them. “I told you this might be a one-way ticket.”

The prince muttered an obscenity under his breath. “I promised my wife I’d get back to her safe and sound. She’ll be mad if I’m killed here.”

One of the super-soldier Klatzoes grinned at him. “Your wife’s anger scares you more than death? You really should get your priorities straight, Your Highness.”

That was the last thing he said before an energy bolt melted half his face. He went down and didn’t move.

Klatzina was next, also shot in the head.

Xornaa had lost plenty of people over the years—mostly colleagues, since she didn’t have any real friends—but, somehow, watching KP’s twins die hurt more than ever before. It’d been a long while since she’d made a connection with someone, and the thought of losing that connection was agonizing.

“Oh, crap,” murmured CM, pointing at something. “They’re rolling out the big guns.”

Xornaa looked in the direction she was pointing. Several Zuuvreil  were pushing a three-barrel laser cannon fixed on antigravity plates toward them.

“Let’s make sure they can’t get any closer,” said Xornaa.

She and CM opened fire on the soldiers around the cannon. They scrambled to hide behind it. Then the cannon barrels swiveled and aimed at the transport ship to the left of Fortitude. The weapon let loose a barrage of energy bolts, resulting in several direct hits.

“Get the hell out of there,” Xornaa shouted at the super soldiers who had taken cover behind the ship.

It was too late.

The ground shook as the ship erupted in angry flames, sending up a swirling cloud of smoke into the sky. Xornaa dodged a flaming piece of wreckage that flew past her ear. Screams filled the air as three people, completely covered in raging flames, staggered away from the destroyed ships, flailing their fire-covered arms.

Everyone stared in horror, except for Xornaa, who raised her gun and shot all three, head-shot after head-shot, putting them out of their torturous misery.

She touched her earpiece. “Everyone, come to us. They aren’t going to shoot at Fortitude.”

Two of Bolsor’s people, a man and a woman, dashed out from their cover behind the ship to the right of Fortitude, but the enemy had apparently anticipated the move. They were both mowed down before they could take ten steps.

Xornaa ground her teeth in frustration. “We have to stop that cannon before it kills everyone.”

“Good thing we have a battle droid then,” replied CM. She put down her hand-held laser cannon, took one grenade from her gun belt in each hand, and looked at Xornaa. “Say goodbye to KP and Klatzo for me, will you?”

“What—” Bolsor started to ask.

CM ran from behind Fortitude and straight towards the cannon amid a hail of enemy laser fire.

“Cover her!” shouted Xornaa.

Xornaa, Bolsor, Kaeya, and the rest of their team started shooting at the enemy soldiers.

An energy bolt hit CM’s torso. Then another one. Then a third. She stumbled on the snow but kept going. She was hit three more times, and her right arm was severed from the shoulder by yet another laser bolt, but even that didn’t stop her.

She tossed her remaining grenade at the cannon once she got close enough. The explosive landed right on top of the weapon. Zuuvreil soldiers ran in every direction before a blinding flash flared and killed several of them.

CM, still under enemy fire, fell to her knees and turned to give Xornaa one last look. An energy bolt hit her in the head, and she toppled to her side onto the ground, not moving.

The winds picked up, turning the gently falling snow into a full blizzard. In a few moments, the world became a snow-globe.  Xornaa felt tiny ice pellets bounce from her winter coat and hat.

“Great,” snarled Bolsor. “I can’t see shit. They’ll be on top of us before we even know they’re there.”

Xornaa pulled down her goggles. “I wonder if it causes the Zuuvreils any problems. They seem to be used to this weather.”

“I always wanted to die on a beautiful summer day with the sun warming my skin,” murmured Kaeya, still shooting her gun in the enemy’s general direction. “And see what I got? Was that too much to ask?”

Xornaa inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with icy air in an attempt to calm her racing heart, aimed, and shot a silhouette she could barely make out in the blizzard. “We aren’t dead yet, and I think we might’ve bought KP enough time to finish the job.”

“Xornaa, two more troop transport ships just landed on your six,” said a super soldier’s voice in her ear.

She turned back and squinted but couldn't see anything through the blizzard despite her enhanced eyes. “How many people have you got with you?”

“Only five of us left here,” said the man. There wasn’t the slightest hint of fear in his voice.

Xornaa gritted her teeth, feeling fresh tension crushing her heart. A few minutes ago, she’d thought their situation was bad. Now, with enemy soldiers approaching them from every direction, it was hopeless. “You know the drill. Hold your position as long as you can.”

“Will do. I just wanted you to know you have to watch your back.”

Another volley of shots reminded Xornaa that there were still hundreds of Zuuvreil in front of her. She swallowed, placed her rifle’s sight on an advancing soldier, and pulled the trigger.

KP, if you want to do something, now would be a good time.

A shot coming from behind spattered off Fortitude’s hull right above Xornaa’s head. She threw herself to the ground, landing on her side, and rolled, her gaze tracking toward where the shot had come from, her gun spewing fire at the approaching enemy.

Bolsor shouted a warning, turned back, and shot at a group of Zuuvreil soldiers who had suddenly appeared from a blanket of falling snow. The enemy soldiers returned fire.

Her lips compressed into a tight line, Kaeya stepped in front of the prince and got a laser bolt meant for him in the face. That didn't help Bolsor much because a second later several more energy bolts ripped through his body. His corpse flew backward, hit Fortitude’s hull, and crashed to the ground.

Xornaa felt an icy hand squeeze her heart. So, the prince’s children did become orphans after all.

She found herself faced with several soldiers pointing their guns at her.

“Drop your weapon,” they shouted.

She saw three Zuuvreil soldiers use a small explosive charge to open the same side door she’d used earlier and rushed inside Fortitude. It was over then. Klatzo would destroy the machine in a minute or three. They’d gambled everything and lost. There was a sour taste in her mouth as she lowered her chin to her chest in defeat and allowed the despair that she’d been fighting off in the last several minutes to take over. She’d failed, and her friends had died for nothing.

I just got KP, Klatzo, their doppelgangers, Bolsor, and two hundred billion other people killed she thought, feeling as if a knife were ripping her guts apart. Well done, Xornaa. You should’ve stuck to assassinating people.

Her heart thudding dully in her chest, Xornaa got up, cursed under her breath, and flung her rifle to the ground. She clutched her fists impotently and stared at the reptiles around her, feeling helpless and defeated. A dreadful sense of failure, something that she wasn’t accustomed to, seeped into her bones. Surrounded by so many enemy soldiers, there was nothing else she could do …

But, no, that wasn’t entirely true. There was still one thing.

Who knew what the reptiles would do to her before they returned her to the Xortaags, even if they did that at all? It was more likely that they’d decide to hold her for ransom, and then kill her when the Xortaag government didn’t agree with their demands. She shivered as she thought about the child whose cold-blooded murder they’d witnessed. There was no way she’d end up a sacrifice to the reptile’s gods.

Over my dead body.

Xornaa thought about her predicament. Her next move was clear. Determination pushed through her veins, and she made a decision: she wouldn’t be captured alive. This close to death, she wasn’t scared at all, only disappointed. She didn't hesitate even a second. Lightning fast, she drew her sidearm and put its barrel to her temple.

I hope Klatzo destroys the time machine before the reptiles get to it.

An enemy soldier shot her in the shoulder. Searing agony rippled through her body, and the gun fell from suddenly numb hands. It was as if a red-hot dagger pierced through her shoulder blade. Through the haze of pain, she saw a huge reptile who had three feet on her rushing toward her. Two seconds later, he was on her feet with a broken neck.

The rest of the Zuuvreils approached her more cautiously.

Xornaa grinned at the closest enemy soldier. “What’re you waiting for? There are a hundred of you and only one of me, and my right arm can barely move.”

The soldier looked at his dead comrade at Xornaa’s feet and nervously licked his lips.

Several reptiles attacked Xornaa, using the guns as clubs. She kicked one of them in the head, sending him sprawling backward. Then she ducked under a rifle, grabbed its owner’s neck, and smashed his face into Fortitude’s hull. She managed to sink her teeth into another soldier’s fat neck and bite off of a big chunk of meat. Green blood spurted like water from a fountain. Choking on his own blood, the creature dropped to the ground and thrashed wildly around before he died.

Xornaa was dazed when the butt of a rifle hit her in the head, and she fell to her knees after the second strike. She kept fighting though, even as strong hands yanked her to her feet … but, deep down, she knew it was all over.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Klatzo

Through a small side window, I watched as my doppelgangers got killed one by one. With a growing sense of dread, I observed CM getting blown to pieces, and Bolsor and Kaeya getting killed soon after.

Finally, Xornaa was the last person standing, surrounded by a score of enemy soldiers. They wanted to capture her alive. It cost them dearly (all in all, I think she killed at least a few dozen of them—that woman was something else), but the end result was never in doubt. I wished with every fiber of my being I could go to her help, but it wouldn’t change anything, and she would’ve wanted me to stay here and take care of the time machine anyway. So I stayed where I was and watched helplessly with my heart in my mouth as she singlehandedly took on a dozen reptiles.

They didn’t even let her commit suicide.

And now it was my turn.

A Zuuvreil soldier saw me and took a shot at me. He missed, but I decided to stay away from the windows just in case.

All of a sudden, the cargo bay felt like the inside of a tomb.

Only one more thing left to do.

I looked at the time machine and pulled the pin out of the grenade. Xornaa had asked me not to hesitate, but surprise surprise, that was exactly what I did as a thought popped into my head: there was no way for us to know how much longer it would take KP to reach his destination. What if all he needed was five minutes? Or thirty seconds? Ten seconds? What if I could buy him those ten seconds?

On the other hand, what if I was wrong, and I ended up giving the galaxy to the Zuuvreils on a silver platter by letting them use my time machine to annihilate everyone else?

I could really use a drink right now!

I ground my teeth in frustration as my hands started to shake uncontrollably. As Xornaa had said, the fate of the universe and everyone in it depended on my decision, and I simply didn’t have enough data to make an informed one. I had to go with my gut feelings for this one. God, but I hated that.

Another thought crept into my mind. It was entirely possible that Xornaa’s order to destroy the machine was based on a misconception of how time travel worked—she wasn’t a scientist after all. She might’ve thought even after KP reached his destination, it’d still take some time so that he could do his job, while in truth, unless he failed, the timeline would change as soon as he arrived at his destination. We were in his future, after all.

The ramp door started lowering, which told me I was embracing the last seconds of my life, one way or another. I was trapped and had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

Pure terror shifted my heart into high gear. I was going to die, and in all likelihood, I’d take the rest of the galaxy with me.

Fear hit me with such force that I stopped breathing, and I barely managed to stop myself from crumpling to the ground. I felt the cargo bay walls closing in on me as my heart started to climb out of my chest. I nearly dropped the grenade from my trembling hands, and then held on to it with a white-knuckled grip.

My thoughts became so scattered that normal functioning was impossible. I didn’t want to die all alone on this freaking alien planet, surrounded by murderous reptiles, but even more importantly, I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of billions of people if I made the wrong choice.

I heard enemy soldiers gathering behind the ramp door, waiting to rush in. I closed my hands into impotent fists. My time was up, and I had to make a decision.

My mind flashed back to the images of the two planets annihilated by the Zuuvreils, and all of a sudden, a  gruesome vision assaulted my already numb brain. I was walking on a destroyed planet among the ruins, surrounded by a hoard of transparent, angry ghosts.  They all pointed at me and kept repeating, “It’s your fault we’re all dead! You killed us! You!”

If I pinched my lips together any harder, they’d melt into each other. “Don’t freeze,” Xornaa had said. Yeah. Good advice, but hard to follow when my actions could have such dire consequences.

I wish I’d never invented that diabolic time machine!

TWENTY-EIGHT

Xornaa

Xornaa stopped struggling. There was no point, with a stout lizard holding each of her arms, and one grabbing her neck from behind.

A Zuuvreil, dressed in a uniform similar to Caze’s, complete with the same red medallion, approached Xornaa and her captors. “I’m Grand Marshal Morat. I guess I should be thanking you; it’s because you people killed Caze that I got the promotion. Between you and me though, I was planning to kill the old fool soon.”

The reptile turned and regarded Fortitude. “Let’s see what you’re hiding in there.”

A few more Zuuvreils climbed onto Fortitude, and a few seconds later the rear ramp door started lowering.

Come on Klatzo, what’re you waiting for?

The ramp hit the ground.

Then a grenade flew outside, landed right in the middle of a group of soldiers, and exploded. Green blood, dust, and body parts soared in every direction. Klatzo opened fire from inside the cargo bay, hitting two more soldiers.

Xornaa couldn’t believe her eyes. What did the scientist think he was doing? God damn it, Klatzo! You had one job!

She took advantage of the distraction and rammed the back of her head as forcefully as she could into the reptilian’s snout. The soldier shouted in pain and surprise and tumbled back just as Xornaa kicked the one on her right in the knee. The Zuuvreil went down and let go of her arm, which she used to smack the third soldier in the throat. He fell to the ground, choking.

She reached for one of the soldiers’ weapon, but she was tackled by two Zuuvreils. The three of them rolled on the snow, punching and kicking one another. One of the soldiers ended up on top of her, but he fell to the side a second later when Xornaa gouged out one of his eyes, covering his face and screaming bloody murder. Three more Zuuvreils joined in, and together they managed to subdue her and pull her up, still struggling.

Several soldiers opened fire on the cargo bay. There was a painful cry, and Klatzo stopped shooting. The Zuuvreils rushed in. More weapon discharges rang forth, and Xornaa knew Klatzo was dead.

A second later, two enemy soldiers dragged his corpse outside and left it in the snow. Whatever was left of Xornaa’s heart broke as she looked at the small scientist who, oddly, looked even smaller in death. Klatzo was a good man and deserved better than getting killed by a bunch of crazy reptilians so far away from home.

Why didn’t you destroy the time machine, my poor, dead friend?

And now the Zuuvreils had a time machine. Despair wrapped itself around Xornaa’s throat and made taking a breath difficult. They’d come here to save people; instead, they’d doomed everyone.

Xornaa had to bite her lower lip to stop herself from screaming in frustration. She looked at her friends’ dead bodies scattered all around and the last shred of hope fled her battered heart.

Morat approached Xornaa, drew his sidearm, and pistol-whipped her hard in the face. She felt her nose break. Blood filled her mouth, some of it dripping from the corner of her cracked, swollen lips. She spit dark purple blood at the new grand marshal’s fancy uniform and grinned at the creature. “Is that the best you can do? You hit like a girl.”

“I hit like a girl?” Morat glowered at her. “I am a woman. And so are you, for that matter.”

Xornaa’s bloody grin got wider. “My bad. You hit like a little boy then.”

Morat took out a piece of cloth and tried to clean her uniform, but she only managed to spread the bloodstain. She sighed heavily. “You know what? I’ve just decided you aren’t worth whatever favor the Xortaags will owe us if we return you alive.” She pointed her weapon at Xornaa’s head.

Xornaa steeled herself for what was about to happen. I guess this is better than being sacrificed in front of that hellish temple.

A soldier rushed out of Fortitude’s cargo bay. “Her All-Holiness! You have to come see this!”

Morat turned and regarded him with annoyance. “What’s going on?”

“It looks like they do have a time machine inside,” announced the soldier, his voice shaking, “and if our translator is interpreting the read-outs correctly, they’ve recently used it to send someone to two thousand nine hundred and sixty-three years ago.”

“Two thousand nine hundred …” Morat’s huge red eyes bulged in horror as she understood the significance of that number.

Xornaa winked at her. “And all this time you’ve been standing here with your thumb in your ass, discussing gender.”

“Destroy the machine right the fuck now!” Morat thundered.

TWENTY-NINE

Adlynn

Adlynn, using a cane for support, walked onto Hope’s bridge, followed by Billix.

All crew members got to their feet and faced her as thunderous applause filled the bridge. The captain, joy streaking through her heart, smiled at them and nodded in recognition.

Her sons, Roderock and Brayden, young, strong, good-looking men now, were standing next to the command chair, in uniform, beaming with pride. Seeing them filled her heart with motherly love as warmth radiated throughout her body. Everything she had done was for them. Saving her entire species was secondary.

A beautiful girl stood next to Brayden, holding his hand, her eyes glowing. Adlynn affectionately smiled at her daughter-in-law, Arelle. As the ship captain, she’d married Arelle and Brayden not two weeks ago—that was a captain’s duty that always brought joy to her life. They weren’t the first couple who’d married onboard Hope, but they were the last. The next lovebirds would marry on their new home planet, Haven. And just a few days ago a beaming Brayden had informed her that Arelle was with child. The first child to be born dirtside in several long decades. One for the history books.

Hope’s main screen showed Haven. The planet was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life. Like precious gems, it gleamed brightly, probably because most of it was covered with snow. Adlynn could see vast glacial plains of thick ice and tall mountains capped with snow. She’d never seen snow in her life—due to its proximity to the sun, Ammoora was an unusually hot planet—and wondered how walking through that exotic white powder would feel. Well, she was about to find out. The universe still offered her wondrous new experiences even in her old age.

Plus, I’ll be a grandmother soon.

Adlynn wondered how this much happiness was even possible, especially after all the agony and heartache she’d gone through in her life.

She walked to the command chair with shaking legs. Arelle grabbed her arm and helped ease her into the seat. She smiled gratefully at her.

The captain looked around the bridge, and two dozen happy faces smiled at her. Her thoughts were scattered, and she was too excited to think straight, but she knew she had to say a few words on this historic occasion.

“Shipwide announcement,” she ordered.

“Ready, Captain,” replied the communication officer.

“Friends. Brothers and sisters,” said Adlynn solemnly, “Congratulations. We finally made it.”

People whooped and started clapping again. One fellow threw his hat into the air, and a few more people followed suit. Billix, still clapping, took his station on her right.

Adlynn raised her right hand. “To say that it was a long, hard road, would be a major understatement. We lost a lot of good friends along the way. Those of us who survived started the journey in our youth. And look at us now.”

Warm laughter erupted from the crowd.

Adlynn had to fight back her tears. A lot of the people on the bridge had shiny-wet cheeks, but she was the captain, after all. “But, with the grace of the Gods, we made it. I believe Dhynaldir himself guided us here. I never lost faith, and neither did you. If anything, this journey made our devotion and piety stronger.”

Her audience nodded and murmured in agreement.

“Let us enjoy this historic moment together. Helmsman, take us in. Steady as she goes.”

The crew returned to their stations.

Adlynn watched the main screen as Hope entered the planet’s atmosphere. Happiness and pride overflowed her heart. Roderock bent over and draped his upper arm around her. She grabbed her son’s hand and squeezed.

“I can’t believe I’m about to see the sky for the first time in my adult life,” whispered Roderock. “I honestly don’t remember what it looks like.”

“And clouds, trees, mountains, rivers, oceans …” replied Adlynn. “You know, I think I’ve missed oceans the most, even though Haven seems too cold to go skinny-dipping.”

She enjoyed the look of shock on her son’s face.

“What? I used to be young once. Your father and I used to go skinny-dipping all the time.”

Roderock had too-much-information written all over his young, sincere face. “In full view of other people?”

She gently punched her son on the arm. “Of course not, you pervert. We would find a quiet, romantic place.”

“Captain!” shouted Billix all of a sudden, his voice filled with dread. “Someone is shooting at us!”

Adlynn looked at one of the side screens and saw a missile racing toward Hope.

For an instant, time stopped.

A thick fog of terror rolled in and engulfed her mind. A full-body shiver overtook her, and she felt cold all of a sudden. Next to her, her children gasped in horror. Arelle, her eyes wide, grabbed onto Brayden. Someone screamed, but Adlynn didn’t see who that was.

How is that possible? This is an uninhabited planet!

“Hailing frequencies,” she shouted with a shaky voice. “All of them.”

“In what language?” asked the communication officer, sounding confused.

The holy scripture clearly stated there were no other sentient beings in the universe, so whoever was down there must’ve been from their own species, thus understanding their language. But she didn’t have the time to explain this to the communication officer. “Just do it!” she barked.

“Hailing frequencies open,” was the reply that came back a second later.

“This is generation ship Hope” announced Adlynn. “Cease fire. I repeat, cease fire. We’re a civilian ship and have no weapons. There are twelve million souls on board, a lot of them women and children!”

The missile kept coming. Adlynn stared at it, desperately willing it to stop.

“We are defenseless. We accept any demands you might have. For the love of the Gods, cease fire!”

THIRTY

Klatzo Prime

My PDD croaked, “Cease fire! I repeat, cease fire! We’re a civilian ship and have no weapons. There are twelve million souls on board, a lot of them women and children!”

That message kept echoing in my mind, getting louder and louder with each passing second until I felt my head was about to explode.

“We are defenseless. We accept any demands you might have. For the love of the Gods, cease fire!”

An icy shiver ran through my entire body.

Twelve million!

Those two simple words sent my world well and truly sideways and made it crash down all around me.

My mind recoiled at the idea of slaughtering twelve million sentient beings. It was as if someone had punched me in the gut, real hard. I started to tremble and sweat, and my breath caught in my throat, but to my credit, I somehow managed not to faint. Or die, which probably would’ve been a mercy.

The file that Xornaa’s mysterious employer had given her contained a lot of very detailed and previously unknown information about the Zuuvreils, but what’d caught my attention was the part about their origin. According to the file, Zegides was an uninhabited planet, except for a few animal and plant species, until exactly two thousand nine hundred and sixty-three of the planet’s years ago, when a generation ship had arrived and colonized the planet. The file also included the exact date and location of the ship’s landing (both were easy to find: the Zuuvreils had built a huge temple there, and the date was the beginning of their calendar), which had enabled me to form my plan.

There, however, was a huge problem: we’d never imagined how enormous the generation ship was. The file said it had a few thousand passengers (I wondered if that piece of information was wrong on purpose; we might not have made this plan if we knew the real number), so we’d assumed it’d be like a medium-sized starship, not the behemoth that appeared in orbit, much to my very unpleasant surprise.

It was called Hope, but given what was about to happen to its passengers, they probably should have called it Mirage.

Hope was metallic black with an elongated rectangular hull and gentle curves, and it was at least a few miles across. The ship was propelled by two side engines. It looked battered, which I guessed it was, having been traveling in space for decades.

Twelve million people on board, most of them asleep in cryogenic pods.

A memory stirred in the back of my mind. “I suddenly don’t feel bad about killing a few thousand reptiles. In fact, the more the better. I wish I could slaughter millions of them,” I’d told my friends.

Be careful what you wish for.

Xornaa had told Bolsor that this was simple math. I hadn’t pointed out the obvious flaw in her logic. We weren’t only going to kill the people on board the generation ship; we were going to erase their entire species from existence. Billions upon billions of people who had lived (would live, from my current point of view) would cease to exist. They’d never be born, experience joy or sadness, fall in love, parent children, and eventually die after living a full life. I already had a hard time convincing myself to do this, and that was when I thought I had to slaughter only a few thousand people.

What right did I have? What right did anyone have to deprive generations of Zuuvreils from their lives because of whatever their descendants had done? These people were innocent. And there were children aboard. Millions of them. Babies. Toddlers. Children!

No, I wasn’t a monster, and I wasn’t going to become one. And my inventions were supposed to help people, not to be used as weapons of mass destruction.

My shaking hand developed a will of its own and moved towards the detonate button on my missile launcher.

Then the image of a child appeared in my mind. A little girl, maybe two years old, in Hibos, which was under the Zuuvreil attack right now. I couldn’t tell if she was Cherokee, Ozer, or Irzut, but it didn’t matter. Her home had been hit by an enemy missile, and her entire family had been killed. With tears in her eyes, she was clinging to her mother’s corpse, shocked and frightened, and kept repeating, “Mommy, wake up. I’m scared. Please wake up, Mommy.”

What if I could save her? What if I could save countless little boys and girls like her, whom the Zuuvreils were planning to snatch away and sacrifice to their fucking gods?

I swept a hand across my forehead to get rid of the beads of sweat that had appeared there despite the freezing cold weather and wished I had a bottle with me. My throat felt like it was closing up. Damn Xornaa for throwing out all the liquor. I’d swallow the whole thing right now, and then some, until I passed out.

It suddenly hit me: my doppelgangers, Bolsor, and his security team had put their lives on the line so that I could be here at this very moment, doing my part. If I hesitated now, they’d be slaughtered by the Zuuvreils.

And Xornaa too.

Especially Xornaa.

I couldn’t let that happen.

A horrific image of what the Zuuvreils had done to the two planets they’d already destroyed floated behind my eyes. I thought about the fourteen billion defenseless people who were exterminated on Valratania, the twenty-six billion on Zilmienerth, and my own people who were under attack by the Zuuvreils right now, so to speak. Xornaa thought the reptiles would attack another ten planets before they would be stopped. Who would save those people?

Me, that’s who. And if it meant I’d be scarred for life for slaughtering twelve million sentient beings, so be it. I had to admit I’d never thought my name would go down in history as a mass murderer though.

Send a mass murderer to stop a genocide.

The Zuuvreils onboard that generation ship might’ve been innocent, but their dependents sure as hell weren’t. Maybe they should’ve brought up their children better.

Wait a minute …

What if the people on Hope could be reasoned with? Maybe I could talk to them and show them the errors of their ways. I could show them what their descendants were doing and encourage them to do something now to stop that from ever happening. If they chose a different path now, one away from religious fanaticism, the future would change, and there would be no need to kill anyone. This was the very definition of a win-win solution.

Then I remembered the freaking reptile who cut the little girl’s throat as a sacrifice to their gods and cringed at that image. Something dark and furious stirred inside me. I chewed on my lip. Nah. These didn’t sound like the people you could reason with.

I watched as the missile I’d shot a few minutes earlier slammed into the huge ship’s starboard. An enormous explosion engulfed a big section of the ship, making a gaping hole in the hull through which debris and people were thrown out. Then smaller detonations happened inside. The generation ship’s hull heaved outward, and a geyser of superheated plasma flared up from its aft. It veered off course, rolled over, and fell towards the ground like a rock.

And then escape pods began ejecting from the ship. Dozens of them.

I bit my lips, dropped to one knee, shouldered my missile launcher, took careful aim through the command launch unit, and pulled the trigger. The missile left the launcher with a whoosh, and my target turned into flaming debris before I finished loading another missile. I shot two more escape pods, but the rest landed safely.

I exhaled at length. Since when anything in my life had been easy?

I shouldered a rifle, picked up two pistols and a few grenades, pulled a thermal blanket around my shoulders, and started trudging towards my victims-to-be through the fresh blanket of snow that had covered the ground.

THIRTY-ONE

Adlynn

Adlynn sat wearily on the snow-covered ground, leaned against a tree, and closed her heavy eyes. She felt the cold night breeze on her skin, something she hadn’t felt for a lifetime, having been aboard Hope most of her life. Too bad it would be the last time.

Brayden checked his scanner. “We have to keep moving, Mom. It’s right behind us.”

Adlynn shook her head. “I can’t take one more step. You and your brother must leave me here and go.”

“We’ll never leave you alone!” exclaimed Roderock.

Adlynn wanted to urge her sons to go on without her, but she knew in the end it wouldn’t make a damned difference. They might’ve been better off being together in the final moments of their lives.

She’d lost count of the days since they’d crashed on Haven, but it felt like years. Of the twelve million people on Hope, only a few hundred survived the crash. They gathered together, salvaged what they could (weapons, equipment, provisions) from the wreckage, and started building temporary shelters, still determined to save their species from extinction despite their horrible losses.

And then the monster came for them.

They’d tried to fight it. Oh, how they’d tried! They were armed but had nothing to combat the monster’s weapons. It’d pick them off one by one from the distance or come for them in the dark. It’d killed everyone in the last few nightmarish days and nights (including Arelle, the beautiful, sweet, pregnant Arelle, who was one of the first people to go) and now, only the three of them were alive.

Not for long, she thought, sighing dejectedly, feeling too empty to really worry about that.

“Here it comes,” said Brayden, his voice unsteady.

“You know what, brother?” said Roderock, his eyes twinkling. “I’m tired of running. Let’s go kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

Brayden looked up from the scanner, hesitated a second, and then flashed a grin. “Let’s. It expects us to try to escape; it’d never see us coming.”

Roderock drew his weapon. “We’ll bring you its head, Mother.”

Adlynn looked at her sons. So brave. So strong. So handsome. Just like their father. The father who never got to see his sons grow because she thought they would have a future by leaving him and coming here.

“Go get it, boys,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I’ll wait here for you.”

Roderock ran into the darkness.

Brayden hesitated a blink, then kissed his mother’s forehead, gave her a last hug, and followed his brother.

Adlynn felt a painful tightness in her throat as she heard a weapon discharge a few minutes later. And then another. Two shots. Two more dead Zuuvreils. The last of the twelve million.

My sons didn’t even get to see the ocean, and I never saw my grandchild.

Now she’d truly lost everything.

Adlynn held her head in her hands. She would’ve wept for her now-dead sons, but she’d cried every night since their arrival whenever she thought no one would notice, and she had no more tears left. She just sat there, her posture slumped, all alone on the alien planet they’d sacrificed everything to come to, too numb and exhausted to feel anything, and waited for the monster to come and take her life. No, not my life, she thought, just my body. Her life had ended, along with everyone else’s, the moment that missile slammed into Hope. She’d been a dead woman walking ever since.

How did the Gods allow this to happen to us? she asked herself. They were promised this land. That faith had guided her through their arduous, long trip. All that for nothing. They were better off if they’d stayed on Ammoora, spent their last few years with their loved ones, and died together. And what was the creature that was mercilessly hunting them? According to the holy scripture, there weren’t supposed to be any other sentient beings in the galaxy. Maybe it was an artificial life form? But built by who?

The beast walked into view, carrying a rifle which it had no doubt just used to kill her beloved sons. Its features were difficult to see in the darkness, but by Gods it was hideous. Its head was too small, its face was covered with hair, it had two beady eyes, and it looked like it had only two arms too.

Adlynn stared at the monster that had exterminated her entire species with hatred in her eyes. She wished she could fight, but she was too old and frail, and she didn’t have enough energy to even lift the sidearm she was carrying. She wanted to shout at the monster, to curse it, to do something that would show defiance.

But “why?” was all she could think of saying.

THIRTY-TWO

KLATZO PRIME

I  cautiously approached the last remaining Zuuvreil, weapon at the ready.

I was bone-weary. I was cold. I was hungry. I had barely eaten or slept during the last nightmarish days while I was busy slaughtering these poor creatures who were trying to protect themselves and their loved ones from me with those pitiful sidearms.

Virtura’s conditioning program (which was supposed to prepare me to kill people without guilt or remorse) had shielded me for the first few days, but it soon lost its effectiveness. I guess even my instructors at the assassin school hadn’t imagined I’d end up murdering so many in such a short period of time. This was probably a record. But it was almost over. Maybe after this, I’d blow my own brains out. We’d see.

I knew I had done the right thing. I knew it had to be done, and I’d just saved untold billions. It didn’t make a damned difference how hollow I felt inside.

It was impossible to guess the reptiles’ ages, but this one looked ancient. It looked like she was about to kick the bucket. Either that or this was a trap.

She looked at me with four huge, red, reptilian eyes, filled with pure, unadulterated loathing, and said just one word, “Why?”

My chin started quivering. Should I have told her that her decedents had declared holy war on the rest of the galaxy, annihilating billions? How about that part about them sacrificing little children to their gods? Maybe explaining my motivation would make me feel just a bit better. I wasn’t the bad guy here. They were.

Keep telling yourself that.

I had a lump in my throat, and my heart ached for her, the last remaining person from her entire species. I wondered if the two Zuuvreils I’d just killed were her children, and guilt hit me so forcefully that an almost physical pain surged through my entire body. She must’ve been going through intolerable suffering and agony right now.  

I thought about sparing the poor creature’s life. It wasn’t like she could reproduce on her own and populate the planet. But leaving her here alone, with only the corpses of her companions that I’d killed, seemed cruel. Killing her was the merciful thing to do.

I shot her in the head.

Then I kneeled in front of the corpse, not even trying to control my tears anymore, and screamed to the sky. I screamed and screamed until my voice gave out.

Then the world around me collapsed into oblivion.

THIRTY-THREE

Davon

Commander Davon knew he was seconds away from being incinerated. Two Zuuvreil ships were on his tail. This was definitely overkill since one would’ve been more than enough. Their ships were significantly faster and more maneuverable than the defenders, and they had much better firepower to boot. Davon and the rest of the Irzut fleet never stood a chance, and he’d been watching the people under his command getting slaughtered throughout the battle, if one could call what was going on a battle.

And yet they had fought against impossible odds, trying to protect their planet, their families, and their friends for as long as they could. Not that it had done them any good in the end. The Irzut forces had been all but wiped out, and only a few hundred space fighters still remained, determined to fight till the bitter end.

With red-hot laser bolts all over his fighter, Davon wished he could reach into his pocket, grab his PDD, and have one last look at one of his wife and children’s holovids. He needed both his hands to fly his bird, but what difference would that make? Maybe he should just forget about the enemy and do it anyway. It wouldn’t shorten his life by much, but he’d leave this world just a tad happier.

The two red dots representing the enemy ships on his six disappeared from his display monitor.

He looked around wildly, but the Zuuvreil ships were nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even any debris to suggest they’d been destroyed. Another look at the tactical display told him the whole enemy fleet had vanished without a trace.

Where did they go?

Davon wondered if he were hallucinating. Yeah, that was it. Being so close to death, his brain had started to play tricks on him in order to save him from the agony. That was the only thing that made sense. Those two enemy ships were probably still behind him, shooting.

He had a visual communication request from someone whose callsign was Rising Sun.

Who the hell is Rising Sun? he wondered.

Davon blinked a few times when Asher’s image appeared on a screen in front of him.

“We did it, Commander!” shouted the Ozer, obviously beside himself with exhilaration. “We won. The Zuuvreils are gone!”

Maybe it was some sort of a weird collective hallucination?

“But how?” Davon asked incredulously.

Asher beamed. “Don’t know, don’t care. The important thing is we survived. How about that drink?”

Davon still couldn’t understand what’d happened, but he couldn’t suppress a wide grin as a sense of relief took over his mind. “A promise is a promise, even though when I made it, I never thought we’d live through this. Come find me after you return to base. And Asher?”

“Yes, Commander?”

“I think it’s safe to say you’ve made a few Irzut friends today.”

He cut the connection and sank back into his seat.  He wasn't sure that they were out of danger and the Zuuvreils wouldn’t come back to finish the job later on; still, the fact that they’d survived the day called for a celebration.

Davon was thinking about contacting his wife to assure her he was ok when he had another visual communication request. His jaw dropped as he read the callsign of the person who wanted to talk to him.

“We need to talk,” said Red Arrow as soon as he appeared on Davon’s screen.

And much to his surprise, Davon found out he was willing to listen.

thirty-four

Xornaa

Xornaa draped Bolsor’s corpse with a white sheet. She looked around at the other corpses, all of them now covered. She’d have to bury them at some point, but she was too tired right now. At least she didn’t need to worry about the Zuuvreils’ dead bodies. They’d all disappeared, along with their huge temple and the pilgrims in front of it, like they’d never existed to begin with. Unfortunately, the children were gone too. She’d hoped they could’ve been saved in the end.

Why did the kids disappear? she asked herself. It made no sense. KP had repeatedly emphasized that what had already happened couldn’t have been changed. The children should still have been here, just like Bolsor and Klatzo’s bodies, as well as the small corpse belonging to the little girl whose sacrifice they’d witnessed.

Xornaa shrugged. Time travel. Thinking about it fries your brain.

The smell of death hung thick in the air, and the eerie silence that had encompassed her surroundings was unnerving. She went back to the cargo bay, checked the bandage she’d put on her shoulder injury, got herself a chair, and waited for KP to come back.

I guess I don’t have to call him KP anymore, now that he’s the only one left.

Almost half an hour later, there was a whoosh, and KP appeared inside the time machine. He stumbled out and stared at Xornaa with vacant eyes. She was shocked by how different the man looked. For her, only two hours had passed, but KP looked like he’d aged thirty years. He had long unkempt hair and a beard, mostly gray, and hollowed cheeks. He’d lost a ton of weight, and there were wrinkles on his face and huge dark circles under his eyes that didn't exist when Xornaa had seen him last just two hours ago.

KP approached her with shaky steps, tears welling up in his eyes. “I killed them. I killed them all,” he whispered. His voice choked on the last word, and he burst into an agonizing sob.

“I’m a child-killer now!”

Xornaa wasn’t sure what to do. She pulled the man into a gentle embrace, trying to console him.

Their eyes met, and she was shocked by the depth of the agony in his eyes. And then KP’s emotions poured into her. This was exactly how she’d felt after the massacre on Regolla II, only a million times worse. So, now, there was someone in the universe who understood what she’d gone through after that incident. She found that thought strangely comforting as it made her feel closer to the man in her arms.

Xornaa hadn’t been close to anyone for a long, long time. That was on purpose. The life her destiny had chosen for her left no place for emotional attachments, and the couple of times she’d formed a bond with someone, it had ended badly, which included the last time, when she had to kill her lover because he’d turned out to be a double agent. But the wave of intense emotions that engulfed her washed her self-control away. She wanted to be close to KP. She’d been lonely long enough, and why the hell not? They’d just saved the galaxy together.

Xornaa couldn’t find anything to say, so she did the next best thing. She leaned forward, held KP’s face in her hands, and kissed him on the lips.

His eyes still filled with tears, KP looked surprised for a second, but he pulled her into a tight embrace and greedily kissed her back.

Xornaa felt her body loosen, as if all the tension she’d had in the last few hours suddenly left her body, replaced by the sweetness of passion she hadn’t experienced in a long while.

The two of them hung onto each other as if for life, trying to forget all the heartache and misery they’d gone through in each other’s arms.

thirty-five

Klatzo Prime

Xornaa wasn’t in the bed when I woke up. I could still smell her perfume; otherwise, I might’ve thought I’d been dreaming.

I went to the bathroom, washed my face, and looked at the old man who stared back through the mirror. The beard was easy to get rid of, which I did, but I figured I had to start dying my hair.

It was unbelievable how much better I felt today, but then again, the night I’d spent with Xornaa was … magical. I guessed making love to an angel went a long way in healing one’s emotional wounds, especially if said angel had telepathic powers, which I was certain she’d used on me.

Making love to an angel, all night long and so many times I can’t even remember. I must send a thank-you note to Ventura. These enhancements are wonderful.

I wondered if I were in love. But too much had happened recently, so I decided to sort this one out later. Preferably after I ate something.

I found Xornaa in the mess, drinking a cup of hot chocolate and reading another book I’d given her. She offered me a dazzling smile. “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to sleep for a month.”

I kissed her on the cheek. “How long was I out?”

“Eighteen hours, give or take. In your defense, you looked exhausted. Must have been a tough couple of months.”

“Which I never, ever want to talk about. I need coffee, and then some food.”

She patted my arm. “Go get a cup and come sit with me. I have something to show you that will blow your mind.”

A minute later, I sat on the seat next to her, sipping hot, bitter coffee. “So, what is it?”

She showed a 3-D image of me on her PDD. “This is how you looked like when you arrived last night. The gray hair and beard gave me an idea.”

She touched her PDD. “And this is you in forty or fifty years.”

I looked at the super-old me. “So?”

“This is the man who hired me to go to Hibos and protect you,” she said.

I almost dropped my cup. “Wait. Are you telling me I came to you from, what, fifty years in the future?”

“You do have a time machine,” she pointed out.

I rubbed my forehead. “You’re right. Mind, blown. On the bright side though, this new piece of information solved another mystery too.”

She put the PDD on the table and waited.

“Do you remember the Irzut security officers thought I was the leader of the rebellion because they found my DNA?” I asked.

Xornaa smiled. “I figured out that one on my own: either you or another version of you went back in time and started the rebellion.”

I grinned. “It turns out I am Red Arrow after all. To be honest, I’ve been sick and tired of the way the Irzuts treat everyone for a long while now. Only now, I can actually do something about it.”

“It also suggests you might not be the first Klatzo, after all,” Xornaa pointed out. “I guess there was at least another one before you, but that one decided not to close the loop as you did, and he took an entirely different path.”

“And then, at some point, he decided to travel to the past and use the chaos caused by the Zuuvreil invasion to deal with the Irzuts once and for all,” I concluded.

“Do you think this is why you didn't know that the rebellion was going on when we first met? Some kind of temporal anomaly?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. There’s so much about time travel that I still don't understand. Who knows? Maybe this other Klatzo is from an alternate universe.”

“So, you want to go and join the rebellion?” asked Xornaa. “The way things were going, the Irzuts might’ve been defeated before you arrive. Some reports suggested that a few Irzut military units have joined forces with the rebels.”

“No. The Irzut government is weakened, but they still control the fleet and the army. They aren’t going to go down without a fight, and this will last at least a few months. On another topic, I wanted to say you were right. Playing with the timeline can have severe consequences, and that’s forgetting the fact that it can be used as a WMD on purpose, as we just did. I must limit using the time machine as much as possible, and make sure no one ever finds out I’ve invented it.”

“You remember how you came up with the idea? The technology’s already out there. Someone else is going to build another time machine sooner than later.”

I sipped my coffee thoughtfully. “It can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. I have to come up with a way to stop people from going back in time and messing up everything. Maybe some kind of a police force to monitor the timeline. We’ll see.”

“Don’t call it a police force,” Xornaa commented wryly. “It’s lame. Call them Time Marshals.”

“I can go back in time and save your mom from being raped by that Xortaag prince if you want,” I offered.

We had talked a lot last night, and she’d filled me in on a few more details about her life, including the fact that she was royalty. Not that anyone on Tangaar knew about it.

She gave me a confused look. “Which means I’ll never be born!”

I face-palmed. “I didn’t think it through, did I? I could go back and make your teenage years easier though. Give you some money or something.”

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “Then I wouldn’t be the woman I am now. Also, consider this: if I had a comfortable childhood, I wouldn’t have been here now, which means the Irzut security forces would’ve killed you, and half of the galaxy would’ve been overrun by the Zuuvreils.”

“All the more reason not to mess with the timeline.”

Silence stretched as we remained quiet for several seconds.

“So, what now?” she asked.

“Come with me,” I said firmly.

She looked at me with the slightest hint of a sad smile at the corner of her mouth. “I’m an assassin. There isn’t a place for me in a rebellion. Also, believe me when I tell you it's better if I stay away from you for your own safety.”

“How come?”

“People who get close to me are in danger, one way or another. They often get hurt. It comes with the job. In fact, I had to kill my last lover myself.”

I gave her an incredulous stare, then did a double-take. “Are you serious?”

“He tried to kill me first,” she said defensively. “Also, I have unfinished business in Tangaar.”

I took another sip of my coffee and thought about what to say. I didn’t want to let her go and probably end up losing her, but hey, it wasn’t as if I could force anyone to stay with me, especially someone like Xornaa.  “I’m not scared of being at risk because of being with you. Go do what you’ve got to do. But when you’re finished, come find me.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe I will. Are you in any particular hurry to go back and join your rebellion?”

“Why are you asking?”

She looked around. “We have enough provisions to stay here a couple of months. I’d say we deserve some peace and quiet after what we just went through. What do you think?”

I grinned like a schoolboy. “I’d like that.”

Epilogue

Ican’t believe I lost the bet again, said Alestra, sounding frustrated.

I’m positive you’ll win one day, replied Jaggex graciously, but he had a hard time concealing how triumphant he felt.

How was I supposed to know the Zuuvreils would be defeated so easily? complained Alestra. I gave them a fleet for crying out loud. One significantly more advanced than the current technological level of this era. All you did was whisper into the ears of that scientist who invented the time machine. Why did you block his memory of the rebellion though?

I was just messing with him, said Jaggex. I just wanted to see the look on his face when the elders told him about it, and he didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Also, please allow me to point out I have been doing this for several millennia, but you are new at this. you'll get the hang of it.

I am not sure that I want to.

That statement surprised Jaggex. Up until that point, Alestra was very keen on learning how to play the game, even though she kept on losing. What do you mean?

Alestra paused before answering. This was interesting for a while. A nice diversion. But it gets boring quickly. I have bigger plans.

Dare I ask?

We’re gods by all intents and purposes. Maybe it's time we started acting like them.

Jaggex didn’t like the sound of that. And how exactly do gods act?

They rule. The subjugate. They demand worship. They enslave people. They do whatever they want.

You did that already, Jaggex pointed out, hoping to change her mind. The elders wouldn’t like what she was talking about, and there might have been severe consequences if she openly challenged them. The Zuuvreils worshiped you. You even made them sacrifice all those kids in your name.

I wanted to see how far they could be pushed. Speaking of the kids, why did you save them?

With no food and shelter, they would’ve certainly perished if I left them on Zegides. There was no way KP and Xornaa could take care of several thousand starving children.

I know that! said Alestra, sounding annoyed. I mean why did you bother to save those insignificant creatures?

It cost me nothing, and I figured those poor children had suffered enough.

Sometimes, I really don’t understand you and your infatuation with these beings. At any rate, I don’t want to do anything from behind the scenes anymore, but in the open. Maybe it’s time people got to know us.

I can see a problem with your plan already, said Jaggex.

Really? What's that? She asked with obvious contempt, as if she didn’t care for Jaggex’s opinion, which he already knew she didn’t.

Knowing you, I bet you’ll get bored of it in a few millennia.

And when it happens, who's to say we can’t destroy this entire universe and start creating our own from scratch? asked Alestra.

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in The White Republic: The Crimson Deathbringer Book 6.

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

the white republic
(the crimson deathbringer book 6)

What will happen if the Akakies turn into the Klingons in a parallel universe?

Aided by their vastly superior technology, they’ll conquer their own galaxy, and then they’ll come for ours. That’s what.

The White Republic’s navy decimates the Federation’s forces in a surprise attack. Now Jim and his friends must unite once more to kick out the invaders and liberate their worlds, but they have only a few thousand ships left. To make matters worse, they’re under a tight deadline, and time’s running out.

Fans of the bestselling The Crimson Deathbringer series know what to expect: high stakes, thrilling space battles, and unforgettable characters. Add to that campy humor and enough twists and turns to put Alfred Hitchcock to shame, and you get The White Republic in all its glory.

Pick up another one of Jim’s epic adventures today!

(Click here to buy the book)

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (they are from the US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: the “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (they have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same light-hearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Scarlet Queen as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the next book in the series, The White Republic. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book (which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year—I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied).

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings!

Before I go, please let me get something off my chest: I do not have a political agenda, and if I did, I would never use my books to preach it. I firmly believe books and movies are for entertainment, a form of escapism, if you will, and I personally don’t like it when people use them to push their political views. Still, it seems like a lot of readers keep looking for some hidden agenda in my books and then get angry about it. In the last couple of years, I’ve been accused of being fatphobic (because Jim’s friends pulled his leg when he gained weight in Book 3), homophobic (the reviewer said the fact that I had a gay character who was in the military somehow meant that I had an issue with the gay community), racist (because all the black characters died in the first book), far-left Democrat (because Earth was ruled by one government in the first book, so globalism) and far-right Republican (because Jim and Liz made fun of Hollywood). Someone even got mad at me for the title of my third book—I told her I had to call it The Black Fleet because The Pink Fleet was already taken.

My books are about funny prankster aliens, time travel, and space battles, and they are meant to entertain. That’s it. And I honestly think people who try to see everything through their political views and keep looking for things to get offended by can’t enjoy reading a book or watching a movie.

Ok. Rant over.

I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), BookBub (here) Twitter (@seanrobins300) and/or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) are also good options.

Author’s Note

As I’m writing these words, The Scarlet Queen, still on pre-order, has sold some five hundred copies. Even I am surprised why so many people buy a book which isn’t yet published.

“Because it’s an excellent series,” says Venom.

I hope you’re right.

Joking aside, what this tells me is I have five hundred avid fans who can’t wait for my books to come out. I know it might not sound like a big number, but it means the world to me. Things like this give an author the energy to keep going, and it bodes very well for the rest of my nine-book series.

“Nine books!?” I hear you say with awe.

Yep. Because after the next one (The White Republic, which involves evil Akakies from an alternate universe, there will be three more books to bring this storyline to a satisfying end.

Does it mean the series will end? I’m not sure. One of my Amazon reviews says, “The Characters are so fascinating that each of them deserves their own series.” Well, maybe not a series necessarily, but I really think Tarq and Maada deserve their own books, in the form of prequels maybe. And I would love to find out what Klatzo is up to next.

I give you my word though: I won’t write a novel unless I feel the story is worth telling. I hope you agree with me that every last one of my books up to this point has been an epic adventure in its own right, and the coming books won’t be any different.

Also, I think by now all of you guys know how much I love making movie references. It wasn’t possible in this book (because it happens on alien planets), so I made a few references to my previous books in the series. See if you can catch them.

So, I hope you enjoyed the series enough to continue with the next book, The White Republic, in which case I’ll see you in a few months. And before I forget, thank you so, so much for reading my books!

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done an amazing job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings!

And I have a request: if you like reading my books, please do get in touch. Few things in life make me happier than talking to people who like the stories I have to tell.

Before I go, please let me get something off my chest: I do not have a political agenda, and if I did, I would never use my books to preach it. I firmly believe books and movies are for entertainment, a form of escapism, if you will, and I personally don’t like it when people use them to push their political views. Still, it seems like a lot of readers keep looking for some hidden agenda in my books and then get angry about it. In the last couple of years, I’ve been accused of being fatphobic (because Jim’s friends pulled his leg when he gained weight in Book 3), homophobic (the reviewer said the fact that I had a gay character who was in the military somehow meant that I had an issue with the gay community), racist (because all the black characters died in the first book), far-left Democrat (because Earth was ruled by one government in the first book, so globalism) and far-right Republican (because Jim and Liz made fun of Hollywood). Someone even got mad at me for the title of my third book—I told her I had to call it The Black Fleet because The Pink Fleet was already taken.

My books are about funny prankster aliens, time travel, and space battles, and they are meant to entertain. That’s it. And I honestly think people who try to see everything through their political views and keep looking for things to get offended by can’t enjoy reading a book or watching a movie.

Ok. Rant over.

Don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here), or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want) to be informed as soon as my new books are out!

Book Review Request

What did you think of The Scarlet Queen?

First of all, thank you for purchasing TSQ. I know you could’ve picked any number of books to read, but you picked this one and, for that, I am extremely grateful. I hope that it added value and quality to your everyday life, or at least helped you escape it for a few hours. If so, it would be really nice if you could share this book with your friends and family by posting on Facebook and Twitter.

If you enjoyed this book, I’d like to hear from you and hope that you can take some time to post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Your feedback and support will help this author to greatly improve his writing craft for future projects and make this book even better.

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance.

(Please click here to leave a review.)

THE WHITE REPUBLIC

The Crimson Deathbringer Book Six

Sean Robins

Books by Sean Robins

(The Crimson Deathbringer Series)

The Crimson Deathbringer

The Golden Viper

The Black Fleet

The Silver Timeship

The Scarlet Queen

The White Republic

The Gray Emperor

The Crimson Universe

The Red King

(Audiobooks are available on Audible)

Follow the author:

Sean's Amazon Author Page

Sean’s BookBub Author Page

facebook.com/seanrobins77

Do you want a free collector’s artwork with beautiful illustrations from my series? Download it here!

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

Copyright (C) 2021 Sean Robins

Edited by Tyler Colins

Cover artwork by Christian Kallias (http://kallias.com)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Table of Contents

BOOKS BY SEAN ROBINS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES PART ONE

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES PART TWO

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

THE GRAY EMPEROR'S (BOOK 7) SAMPLE

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE GRAY EMPEROR

THE CRIMSON UNIVERSE

About the Author

Author’s Note

Book Review Request

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:

My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.

My fantastic editor, Tyler Colins.

My super-talented narrator C.J. Gray, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.

My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.

My dear friends Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice has been priceless.

My lovely wife Yevgenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I make as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful man, there’s a strong woman, one way or another.

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES PART ONE

An Akaki extremist, Commander Nelzod, has prepared a formula called SAM (Super-Akakie Maker) which turns the Akakies into werewolf-like Apex predators. She distributes SAM among her followers and attacks Earth but is killed by Jim.

Following Maada’s plan, Jim pretends that he’s killed while fighting a crazy AI bent on annihilating all living things in the universe and sent back by God to unite the galaxy against future threats. With Tarq’s help, who has secretly installed invisible MFMs over all the habitable planets in the galaxy, the plan works, and the United Federation of Planets is born, with Jim as its chancellor.

Maada informs Jim that according to recent discoveries by a Xortaag scientist, there are at least three parallel universes, and people can move between them by opening portals.

It’s later revealed that in one of those universes, all the Akakies have used SAM, and being strong, determined warriors now, they have conquered their own galaxy, and now are on the way to invade ours.

The Super-Akakies refer to their government as the White Republic.

More worryingly, there also exists a God-like race of omnipotent aliens called Aax’ods who, unknown to our heroes, have been pulling their strings from the beginning. One of the Aax’ods, a charismatic leader whose name is Alestra, tells her friend Jaggex that she has gotten tired of being the power behind the throne and wants to step forward to be worshiped as a god.

previously in the crimson deathbringer series Part two: the silver timeship’s EPILOGUE (Book 4)

Kanoor, the Super-Akakies’ Home Planet

The White Republic’s Universe

Earth Date 15/11/2086

(Four Years Later)

Commander Tarq scratched his head, unconsciously smoothed the front of his black uniform, and tried to make sense of the data he was receiving on his PDD about the universe the White Republic’s Navy was about to invade.

Kanoor had disappeared, and Tangaar was nowhere to be seen either. It seemed the galaxy was run by some sort of a central government, based on Earth, of all places. The head of the government was a human, a Chancellor Harrison, and the Akakies and the Xortaags were allies. Allies! How had his people ended up collaborating with those filthy barbarians?

Tarq looked up Jim Harrison. There was someone with that name in their database. A Major Harrison had fought the invading Super-Akakie fleet during the conquest of Earth. Some insignificant fighter pilot whom everyone had forgotten about.

What the hell has happened in this universe?

He looked at his second-in-command, Sub-Commander Nelzod, and asked, “Do you understand any of this?”

Nelzod shook her head wordlessly.

Tarq fidgeted uncomfortably on Monstrous’s way-too-small command chair. The ship was built before they all used the Super-Akakie Maker formula Nelzod had developed, and everything was disproportionately small. Tarq had often thought about ordering a retrofit, but with everything that was going on, there was never enough time for that. The White Republic’s Navy had more important things to do, being busy conquering the galaxy and whatnot.

“Admiral Juntoo,” Tarq called out. “Does this change our plans in any way?”

The admiral, wearing a black uniform identical to Tarq’s but with the Navy’s insignia, looked up from his station and smirked confidently. “Absolutely not. Their combined fleets will not last a day, with our preparations already in place. It will not even be a challenge.”

Tarq nodded in agreement. “Yes. I did not think so.”

He had an incoming message. Prince Mushgaana, also in the Navy’s black uniform, appeared on a screen hovering in front of Tarq. The prince bowed his head slightly and said, “Commander Tarq. You wanted to see me.”

Tarq ignored him and yawned theatrically.

Nelzod, watching this exchange with interest, chuckled.

Mushgaana’s face reddened. He ground his teeth, hesitated for a moment, and bowed all the way to the waist.

“I wanted to hear your report in person.” Tarq smiled darkly. “It is always good to see you squirm.”

“The Xortaag fleet is mobilized, as ordered,” said the prince. “Forty thousand space fighters accompanied by a sufficient number of transport ships and ground forces, waiting for your command.”

“Welcome to the White Republic’s Navy, even though you are only a small part of it. And do yourself a favor and freshen up on your decorum.” Tarq pointedly rubbed the back of his skull. “Do not make me remind you who is holding your leash.”

Mushgaana glared at him. “You do not need to mention there is a bomb under my skull every time we meet.”

Tarq narrowed his eyes. “I feel that I do. Your people seem to have very short memories. You remember, just recently, we had to activate a few thousand of those bombs, do you not?”

The prince looked like he was about to choke.

“You are dismissed,” Tarq said with a disdainful gesture.

He cut the connection, leaned back on his seat, and looked around the bridge. Everyone, including Nelzod and Juntoo, looked back at him.

“Let us go get ourselves a new universe,” he said.

THE WHITE REPUBLIC

Prologue

The Talgoinian fleet’s sailors were slaughtered to the last man and woman.

Prince Mushgaana, on the bridge of his command ship, Courageous, watched the massacre on the main screen. They outnumbered the defending fleet’s ships ten to one, and the Talgoinians (who Mushgaana was certain had never thought one day they would have to defend against an invasion from an alternate universe) never stood a chance, but those guys were known to be suicidal anyway. In fact, ceremonial mass suicide was a big part of their culture.

And apparently that held true in this universe too.

Well, it doesn't get any more “mass” than this, thought Mushgaana bitterly.

The Talgoinians, with less than two thousand ships, had decided to stand against his twenty-two. Mushgaana would never understand these people, but he was certain Maada would have. His old, dead friend had done the same thing, after all. The general had stood against the might of the White Republic’s Navy with a fraction of their forces under his command and got himself and several thousand other Xortaags killed in the process.

And what good has that done anyone?

The bridge crew cheered and whooped as they watched the battle on the main screen, with smiles and happy faces all around, but Mushgaana felt nothing but a deep sense of melancholy. This was not a military victory; this was an extermination. And they were not the conquerors they once were; they were nothing but Super-Akakies’ slaves. At least Maada had died a free man.

The prince asked his communication officer to put him through to the Talgoinian officials. “We demand your unconditional surrender,” he told the aliens, but the words felt empty, even to him.

He held his breath and waited for an answer, which came shortly after. Unfortunately for the Talgoinians, their answer was exactly what Mushgaana had predicted. “We die before we surrender to the likes of you!”

“Take your demand and shove it where the sun does not shine!” added another voice.

Mushgaana sighed heavily and waited for his orders, which he knew would come soon. He was certain what the order would be. He did not want to do it—there was no honor in massacring defenseless civilians— but he unconsciously touched the back of his skull where the Super-Akakies had inserted a tiny bomb under his skin and told himself he was not going to forfeit his life and the lives of everyone under his command in a vain attempt to spare the Talgoinians.

Commander Tarq’s image, dressed in his simple black uniform, appeared on a VR screen in front of the prince. “Kill them all,” said the huge, scary insect merrily, “or at least as many as you possibly can within the next few hours, then report back to me.”

So be it.

Mushgaana opened a channel to the Xortaag fleet. “Finish the job,” he ordered; then he turned off his tactical display, leaned back onto the command chair, and closed his tired eyes.

The general would have been so disappointed in me. Ashamed, even.

It was probably better that Maada had been killed and was not around to see what was going on these days. Who would have thought the Xortaags, a race of proud warriors, would end up being the Super-Akakies’ puppets? Damn the insects, especially Nelzod, who had come up with AZX-7 (aka SAM, standing for Super-Akakie Maker), and Tarq, who had approved its mass administration, turning a bunch of spineless clowns into fierce, strong, capable killing machines.

He opened his eyes and looked upward. Sorry, General. I wish I could have done better.

Mushgaana contacted Tarq a few hours later, forcing himself to bow as soon as the insect’s image appeared in front of him, “Mission accomplished, as you ordered.”

Tarq grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth. “Well done, Prince. Tell me, do you know how many alternate universes there are?”

Mushgaana shook his head. He had not been aware of this one’s existence until a few weeks ago, when Tarq had informed him he was planning to invade an alternate universe. And even then Mushgaana had thought the insect was joking. The Akakies were infamous pranksters, after all.

“Four,” said Tarq, “but one of them seems untouchable, so really three, and we have just conquered the second one. Cheer up. We are already two-thirds of the way to total multiverse domination.”

Tarq cut the connection.

Enjoy your victory, insect, thought Mushgaana. My memory is long, and my lifespan longer. I will have vengeance, for my planet, my people, my family, and my only real friend, whom you killed.

Chapter One

Five enemy space fighters came straight at Maada and me, laser cannons blazing.

“Just to be clear,” I asked Maada while following them on my tactical display, “this ain’t the universe-ending catastrophe you keep warning me about, right?”

“Seriously?” growled the general. “Five ships? Which part of ‘something more dangerous than anything we have dealt with in the past is coming our way’ do you not understand?”

I grinned at his image. “Just checking.”

“Can I respectfully recommend Mr. Chancellor focus on the job at hand?” he said testily. “It will be a galactic embarrassment if the famous Golden Viper is incinerated in her first encounter with the Jadacit fleet. And let me remind you Cordelia and Tarq say these space fighters are nearly as good as ours.”

Which was a surprise because no one in our galaxy could match the Akakies’ technological superiority.

“OK baby,” I told my Viper, loud enough for Maada to hear. “Let’s go kick some alien ass. Again.”

Maada mumbled under his breath. He often complained working with me had aged him. I thought he looked really good for a hundred-year-old man.

Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I pushed the stick and opened fire with my laser cannons as soon as my HUD highlighted one of the enemy ships, showing me it was within range. This was the first time I was engaged in a dogfight since we blew up Father (a crazy AI bent on exterminating all life forms in the universe) almost four years ago, and by God, I’d missed this. A peaceful universe was a boring universe.

The Jadacit space fighters looked like spheres, with two engines jutting out of them, and a laser cannon front and center under the cockpit. The one I’d targeted exploded under my continuous fire, and the other four scattered in every direction. I chose another gomer and went after it. This one went down with a Sparrow missile up its ass.

Still got it!

“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” said Venom.

“This is better than sex!” I exclaimed.

“How would you know?” asked Venom wryly. “You haven’t been intimate with anyone for years now.”

Since Ella was killed. Thanks for reminding me, you idiot.

All of a sudden, red-hot laser bolts shot from behind were all over my Viper.

“There is an enemy ship on your six,” said the general conversationally.

“I know,” I answered equally conversationally. Nothing to worry about. Just another day at the office.      

“This might be a good time to use my teleporting device,” he advised.

Maada had installed a teleportation device in his space fighter—a device he’d used twice to defeat me. After I borrowed it to pretend that I’d come back from the dead (with a message from God himself, no less), I refused to give it back to him. I was the chancellor of the United Federation of the Planets, after all, and what I said went.

“Nah,” I said. “Watch this.”

I pulled the throttle slightly, reducing my Viper’s speed and allowing the enemy fighter to get closer while jinking my bird to avoid the incoming laser bolts; then I punched a red button next to the stick. This was Tarq and his R&D team’s brainchild—the same weapon I’d used to kill the Black Fleet’s leader. Hundreds of tiny missiles were shot at the pursuing enemy ship. To his credit, the pilot threw their fighter up and down, left and right, and avoided most of the missiles, and the few that did impact didn't seem to cause serious damage. I was in the middle of a sharp turn to get him in my gunsight and finish the job when the enemy space fighter exploded and the Crimson Deathbringer flew right through its expanding debris.

“Hey!” I objected. “Now you’re just showing off. And that still counts as my kill!”

“It does not,”  answered Maada. “What was that you once told me? You snooze, you lose. You have become slow, my friend.”

“I blame it on all the time that I have to spend behind a desk. Being the chancellor of the galaxy is a big responsibility, you know.”

“And you’re doing a fine job of that,” Venom drawled.

I waited a couple of minutes for my heartbeat to calm down (it was my first dogfight in nearly four years, after all), then contacted the Jadacit High Command. “Did you get them all?”

“One perished before we could pull him out,”  was their answer. “You won fair and square. Tell your negotiating team to get in touch with ours.”

I wasn’t happy about the dead pilot. Hopefully, he was killed by Maada, who probably didn’t much care. “OK. But let’s not do this again.”

Equipped with Benedita’s space-folding device, we could now travel between our galaxy and Andromeda in a matter of weeks, so we'd decided to establish relationships with alien nations in that galaxy, starting with the Unzoids, who were more than happy to accommodate us on account of the fact that we’d saved their planet. However, the Jadacits, a roughly humanoid species with four long slender arms and short fat bodies, had seen that as an expansionist move and challenged us to a duel. They asked five of our best fighter pilots to come and fight five of their best (I thought this was a joke the first time I heard that), probably thinking having four arms gave them an advantage in a dogfight. I guess they were surprised when Maada and I—the chancellor and the commander of the fleet—showed up, flying the Golden Viper and the Crimson Deathbringer, declaring we didn’t need five. Those poor bastards had no idea who they were dealing with.

I looked at Maada’s space fighter, flying next to mine. Despite my insistence, he’d doggedly refused to change both its ridiculous color and its even more ridiculous name. I wondered if at some point I would have to order him to do it. Technically, he was working for me.

I contacted the general. “I'm famished. Want to have lunch?

“I'm not hungry, but I can have a cup of coffee with you.”

At this time of the day, Invincible’s mess hall was packed, but I had my own table in the officers’ corner. I exchanged a dozen smiles and a dozen more salutes with other pilots and sailors before I sat down and ordered my food.

I’d just bitten into my steak when Maada entered the mess, wearing the Xortaags’ dark gray uniform with a gold-trimmed patch on the shoulder, as usual. All the conversations were hushed as soon as he walked in. He ignored everyone else, walked straight to where I was sitting, pulled up a chair, and sat opposite me, fidgeting uncomfortably, lips pressed together. I knew him well enough to guess something was troubling him.

“Why the long face?” I asked.

Maada snapped his fingers at one of the small robots serving food in the mess. “Coffee, black.” Then he told me, “Molzaarg just uttered his first words, and I wasn’t there to see it.”

“This never gets old,” said Venom. “What kind of parents name their child Molzaarg?”

Maada and Alitaa had their first child around an Earth year ago. With not a single strand of white in his thick, straight black hair or his bushy, forked beard, and very few wrinkles on his smooth, olive skin, the general looked to be in his forties (and looked even younger since he’d removed his scars, apparently because his guilty conscience had stopped bothering him after he helped save the galaxy twice), but I knew he was more than a hundred years old, and I was astonished when I heard Alitaa was expecting. Apparently the Xortaags’ genetic enhancements, which made them much faster and stronger than average human beings and gave them a longer lifespan, included things like fertility.  

Baby Maada (I really didn’t want to refer to him as Molzaarg) was super cute—blond, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed like his mother—and the few times that he’d met Kurt’s daughter Sofia, they hit it off famously, much to their fathers’ chagrin, who still didn’t like each other despite both Xornaa and my best efforts. The fact that Tarq kept suggesting the two kids should be betrothed to consolidate the alliance between the humans and the Xortaags (I was fifty percent sure he was kidding, just to annoy Kurt and Maada) didn’t help the matter either.

Maada took out his personal digital device and showed me a video of his son looking into the camera and uttering two words in the Xortaag language.

I stared at him in astonishment. “Did he just say space fighter?”

Maada nodded, beaming with pride.

“No freaking way,” offered Cordi, who was listening in, as usual.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” I told the AI, then narrowed my eyes at Maada. “But she’s right. This ain’t possible. What did you do?”

“Me? Nothing,” Maada answered innocently. “But his mother has been playing a list of words in his room. Very simple things like space fighter, laser cannons, tactical display, and dogfight, plus a few subliminal messages telling Molzaarg he will grow up to be the greatest fighter pilot in the galaxy.”

I was speechless.

“We might have shown him a few hundred hours of dogfight footage too, mostly featuring the Crimson Deathbringer,” Maada added with a shrug. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

“That’s what you get when both your parents are fighter pilots, I guess,” commented Venom.

“General, I respectfully suggest you shouldn’t brainwash your child from such an early age,” said Cordi. “Maybe he wants to grow up to be something other than a military man, like an artist, for example.”

“Or a writer,” I added, “Like me.”

The look of horror on Maada’s face was hilarious.

“Just let him make up his own mind when he grows up,” I said.

The general stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He is my son. What the hell else is he going to want to be?”

I’d have never treated Byron this way, I told myself.  I would’ve let him choose what he wanted to do with his life and would’ve loved him regardless. Still, I had to admit I would’ve been extremely proud if he’d turned out to become an ace fighter pilot like his old man.

Maada picked up his coffee from the tray the robot brought him. “We have three weeks to kill before we reach Earth. What are you planning to do?”

“I have about a zillion virtual meetings to attend,” I grumbled. “Running the Federation is boring. Here is a thought: let’s invade a few planets while we’re here.”

In truth, I didn’t really do much as the chancellor of the Federation. I was mostly a figurehead, leaving the day-to-day running of the galaxy to Tarq, Kurt, and the representatives from various alien nations, who got along with one another so well that it would’ve been unbelievable if we didn’t know Tarq had installed his mind-control system on every single space-faring planet’s orbit.

Kurt and I felt extremely uneasy about the fact that the entire galaxy was now in Tarq’s back pocket. One single individual having so much power couldn’t possibly be a good thing, especially if it were someone like Tarq, who from time to time proved our point by using the Mind-Frak Machines to pull pranks. Just a couple of weeks ago, he made the entire population of Xe'doria sing and dance “Gangnam Style” for ten minutes. They could never find the reason for this strange phenomenon despite their best efforts.

Maada, on the other hand, kept reminding us he felt something deadly was coming our way, and if we wanted to survive, our only chance was to stand united, and if it meant we had to watch Tarq pulling ridiculous pranks on other people, then so be it, as long as he didn’t mess with the Xortaags, of course.

We’d done a lot in the last few years. After the battle with the Volts, most of our fleets were all but destroyed, so we orchestrated a huge rebuilding project, overseen by Maada. Now, the Earth fleet had fifteen thousand brand new Vipers, two dozen transport vessels,  and a new starship called Indefatigable, which was Invincible’s twin sister. We had named her after an Akakie dreadnought whose crew had sacrificed themselves to save Maada during the Black Fleet invasion of Tangaar.

Our recent achievements weren’t only military. Kurt, now in his second term as president, had used the Akakie technology at his disposal to remedy many issues that had plagued humanity for ages. Pollution was a thing of the past, and so were hunger, poverty, and now that we had our own first terraformed colony (called Eden), overpopulation.

The Akakies’ and the Xortaags’ achievements were arguably even more impressive, given that they’d lost their respective homeworlds. They both chose one of their newly terraformed colonies as their new home planet and the center of their governments. The Akakies called theirs New Kanoor. The Xortaags chose Stronoe, even though its first colonists were slaughtered by Nelzod and her band of evil, murderous Akakies. That bitch was on the verge of doing the same to Earth when I blew up her invisible ship (yay, me) and sent her to meet her maker. 

The Akakies held an election and chose a new president, but everyone in the galaxy knew she was under Tarq’s proverbial thumb (weren’t we all?). The Xortaags’ situation was more complicated because all the members of the royal family had perished on Tangaar. Some Xortaags had suggested Maada be chosen as a new emperor, but the general had nipped that initiative in the bud, saying he wasn’t a politician, and he was happier as the commander of the Federation fleet. He managed to convince his people to hold their own election, and now, for the first time in their history, the Xortaags had a democratically elected government.

There was a discussion about providing the not-space-travel-capable civilizations in our galaxy with SFDs, which would increase our numbers and resources. I, however, stuck with the Prime Directive (which banned interfering in the normal development of any society) and vetoed that idea. Maybe those people weren’t ready for this technology yet, but as soon as they invented their own SFD, or any kind of faster-than-light capability, we’d happily accept them into our Federation. 

“What are you planning to do?” I asked Maada.

He shrugged. “Plenty of books to read.”

“We still have a few Star Trek and Star Wars movies left to watch,” I reminded him. I’d finally managed to interest him in movies (only after I told him I’d come up with the plans to defeat both the Black Fleet and Father based on what I’d seen in Star Trek), and his favorite genre was, unsurprisingly, space opera.

“There is that,” he agreed.

“Speaking of having some extra time,” said Cordi, “there’s a cute Marine on board who’s dying to meet you.”

I ignored her. Cordi (and Pat, and strangely enough, even Alitaa) kept trying to set me up with blind dates. I had gone on a few dates, but they never worked out. It seemed I’d lost the ability to make an emotional connection with the opposite sex, and who could blame me? I still had several gaping holes in my heart. So, most evenings, I ended up writing or watching a classic, still imagining what Liz would’ve said if she were watching it with me (Ella didn’t like movies). No complaints though. Things could’ve been a lot worse.

*****

Maada entered his quarters, stood in front of the single round window in the room, and absentmindedly stared at the black blanket cradling thousands of distant stars.

Things could not have possibly gone any better in the last few years. The Federation fleet, which was under his command, had more than one hundred sixty thousand space fighters, all built based on Akakie technology, accompanied by a large number of starships and support vessels. The Xortaags had five new colonies, and their government was playing a leading role in the galaxy. On top of all that, now they were even making allies in Andromeda.

Since Maada was a young man, he had always dreamt of a united galaxy under the Xortaags’ rule. Given how significantly they were involved in running the Federation, he had been mostly successful. And somewhere along the way, his motivation had changed from “protecting my people” to “protecting everyone in the galaxy”. He was not certain how exactly that had happened. It could have been the result of spending so much time with Jim. That man had a pathological need to protect others.

So why the hell am I so nervous?

His warrior instinct had been cautioning him about an eminent danger for years, and its warnings had become a whole lot more urgent recently. The problem was he had no idea where the threat would be coming from. Tarq’s agents were keeping an eye out too but had come up with nothing. The universe was unimaginably vast, and danger could lie in places they had not yet explored. Or it could come from the future again, just as the Black Fleet had, or even from a parallel universe.

A few years ago, a Xortaag scientist on his deathbed revealed he had been visited by not one, but two doppelgangers of himself—from two separate alternate universes! No one had taken him seriously even though he had documented those visits (he had recorded videos in which he was talking to two other men who looked like his identical twins), and at any rate, the knowledge that alternate universes existed offered no practical value, but Maada could not shake off the feeling that if two individuals could travel between these universes, then so could a fleet.

And now that he was a father,  protecting the galaxy had become a lot more ... personal. 

He ran a hand over his smooth face. Good thing I had those scars removed. I would have scared my own child.

Maada decided worrying about something that was completely out of his control had no use. The fleet was at maximum readiness, and that was all he could do. He asked Invincible’s command center to place a call to Alitaa. After talking to his wife, who was holding up Molzaarg to see his father, he picked up The Art of War and went to bed.

A fascinating book, he thought before falling asleep.

*****

Xornaa, sitting behind a desk in her office in New Kanoor’s government district, signed the document she’d been reading, gave it to one of her many aids, who took it and left the office, and picked up another one.

Her office was luxurious, like pretty much everything else on New Kanoor. The Akakies always had a penchant for splendor. The furniture was exquisite, the floor was covered with a lush white carpet, and the walls were covered with paintings Tarq himself had brought from Earth. There was even a golden statue of Jim Harrison at the door.

Tarq had appointed Xornaa as his right-hand man, the position held by Barook for years before he was killed defending Kanoor against the Volts. The appointment came with a promotion, and Xornaa was a colonel now. These days, most of her duties were strictly civilian though, and most days, like today, she wouldn’t even put on her uniform anymore. She, along with Tarq, was heavily involved in running both the Federation Council and Kanoor’s newly elected government.

She’d thrown herself at her new responsibilities with zeal, thrilled to be doing something with her life other than fighting and killing. Her task became much easier due to the fact that the Akakies were extremely susceptible to her mental powers. All she needed to do was touch someone’s arm, and things got done in an instant. She wondered if that was why Tarq had appointed her to this position to begin with.

The assassin-slash-spy-slash-mercenary who ended up helping run a peaceful galaxy. She smiled at the thought. Hopefully, it’d help wash away some of the blood on her hands. Having played a role in saving the galaxy a few times probably wouldn’t have hurt either. She knew she could never truly make amends for the hurt she’d caused so many people, but it wouldn’t stop her from trying.

There was a knock on the door. Xornaa looked up to see Tarq, wearing a simple white uniform and smoking his Sherlock Holmes style pipe.

“Have you got a minute?” he asked.

Xornaa nodded at the chair in front of her desk.

Tarq sat and looked questioningly at the chess board on a corner of the desk.

“I’m playing a game with Kurt,” she explained.

“I did not know you liked chess. I used to play with Cordi, but she stopped playing after I beat her a dozen times. Such a sore loser.”

Xornaa furrowed her brow. “You played chess with an AI and won?”

“It is a strategy game. Of course I won.”

Xornaa suppressed a dry smile. Tarq did have a reputation for being the greatest strategist in the galaxy, after all.

Tarq took a long drag on his pipe. “A few weeks ago, I was bored out of my wits and had nothing to do, so I picked up one of Jim’s books. The one that tells the story of Talmak’s destruction. That reminded me of the conversation you and I had on the matter.”

After Tarq (with Kurt’s help, despite Jim’s objections) had used a planet-buster to destroy Talmak, Xornaa walked into his office and threatened to kill him if he involved her in mass genocide ever again. She still wondered how she’d walked out of Tarq’s office alive.

“You told me you cannot stand the death of children because of your own inability to have any. I hope this does not sound like a weird question, but do you actually want to have a kid?”

Xornaa gave him a what-the-hell-do-you-think look.

Tarq raised his hands palms up. “I had to ask. Humanoid babies are gross. Anyway, if you are sure you want one, we can help. And by ‘we’ I mean the Akakie doctors.”

Xornaa chuckled bitterly. “You think I haven’t tried that? I’ve talked to several Akakie doctors. They all told me the damage was too extensive.”

“An enemy sharpshooter, if memory serves correctly, right? Anyway, I assume the doctors you talked to were not very familiar with Xortaag anatomy. I talked to Maada, and the general put some of their top physicians in touch with some of ours, and together they have come up with a solution. They are not going to fix your, eh, lady parts; they will grow new ones inside of you. It will take a few weeks, and you will have to spend several days in a hospital, but you will be good as new.”

Xornaa’s breath caught, and her eyes slightly widened. This was something she’d longed for ever since the doctors had taken the enemy soldier’s bullet out of her body and told her she could never have children decades ago. She looked at Tarq with gratitude in her eyes, and only then did she remember who she was talking to.

“Tell me this isn’t one of your freaking pranks,” she said in a low voice, her eyes narrowed to slits.

Tarq pulled at one of his front antennae in annoyance. “This is the problem with being a prankster. Even when you try to do something for a dear friend, they think you are pulling their leg.”

Xornaa hadn’t realized they were friends. Tarq was her boss, and even though they’d worked closely together for years (and saved the galaxy a few times in the process), he still scared her—and Xornaa wasn’t a woman to scare easily. But today, for the first time, her heart was filled with a genuine fondness for the funny little insect. It had been awfully nice of him to go out of his way to help her. Rather uncharacteristically so. Tarq had always been extremely self-centered and normally only thought about what was good for himself and his species. She decided to find a way to repay his kindness.

Xornaa placed a hand on her chest and fought to stop herself from tearing up. “Thank you, Tarq. I owe you big time.”

“Think nothing of it,” he answered. “You should have figured out we could do this a long time ago though. You know we can regrow severed limbs.”

“I’m not a doctor! I asked several doctors and they all said it wasn’t possible, as I just told you.”

Tarq took a long drag on his pipe. “I guess the next step is finding a suitable father. I would have offered my services, but I do not think our species can reproduce.”

Xornaa sighed heavily. It hadn’t taken long for the old Tarq to show himself at all, with his annoying tendency to make inappropriate jokes. She’d faced many dangerous situations in her life and considered herself a brave woman, but she shuddered at the very idea of being intimate with the hideous insect.

Speaking of which ...

“Someone will come along,” she said simply. “Can I please ask you a question?”

Tarq blew out a smoke ring and looked at her.

“You are, for lack of a better word, sort of horny—”

“It is not just me,” Tarq cut her off with a wave of the pipe. “All Akakies are into interspecies sex. It is a very popular fetish.”

“—and Jim told me you once paid a million dollars to two strippers to stay with you in Winterfell, right before an alien invasion, I might add.”

Tarq giggled. “I did that a few more times later on.”

Xornaa sighed. “It’s not something to be proud of, Tarq.”

He looked genuinely surprised. “Why? The girls did their job and got paid lavishly, and I did not even touch them once.”

Xornaa gave up on trying to teach morality to the insect. “Anywhooo, I’ve seen how you look at other Xortaag or human women, but I’ve never seen you look at me that way. How come?”

Tarq grinned. “I could not possibly let myself fall victim to your powers, right? Who knew what you could manipulate me into doing. When you joined us, I used to take heavy doses of sexual urge suppression pills.”

A memory flashed in the back of Xornaa’s mind: Oksana once got angry at Tarq for not sharing those pills.

“Then I used MICI to make your physical appearance repulsive to me,” added Tarq.

Xornaa gave him a sideways look. She didn’t know the Akakies’ Memory, Information, and Capabilities Implanter could be used to counteract her mental powers.

“Since then, whenever I look at you, with that hour-glass figure and those long legs that drive others  crazy and make them go all ooh and aah, you know how I feel?” Tarq chuckled. “I throw up just a little in my mouth.”

Xornaa rolled her eyes. “I wish I hadn’t asked.”

Tarq’s eyes twinkled. “I just had a brilliant idea. Since you are looking for a father for your future child, can I point out that Jim is currently single?”

*****

Kurt walked into the residential area of the presidential palace, closed the door behind him, and wondered why the place was so quiet.

“Welcome home, Mr. President,” said a soft, feminine voice.

“Thanks, Jane. Where’s everyone?”

“Daaadyyy!”

Sofia ran to him, arms stretched, the footsteps from her tiny feet reverberating in the huge, empty hall. She had a plump face and her father’s blond hair and gray eyes, and she wore a brightly colored flower-print mini dress with bell sleeves and a headband. Kurt put down his briefcase and picked up the child, smiling widely. “Hey, sweetheart. Where’s Mommy?”

Sofia pointed at the state dining room door behind her.

Kurt, still holding his daughter, walked over and opened the door. It was pitch black inside.

Weird.

“Jane, lights,” he commanded.

A second before the lights came on, several people shouted, “Surprise!”

Kurt’s hand was moving towards his concealed sidearm (Hanna, the former Marine who was now the head of his security, kept complaining that the fact that he always carried a gun was an insult to the Secret Service, but it was an old habit) before he murmured, “Crap!” and controlled himself.

“Crap! Crap!” Sofia repeated gleefully.

Kurt scowled at her for a second but couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face.

“Crap?” The little girl somehow managed to turn the expletive into a question.

“See what you’ve done?” Patricia, wearing a formal floor-length black dress with a thigh-high slit, approached them and kissed Kurt on the cheek. “Happy birthday, hon.”

“Thanks, babe,” said Kurt, “but isn’t my birthday next week?”

“If we did it then, it wouldn’t have been a surprise now, would it?” Pat dimpled. “Come. I want you to meet my cousin, who’s just flown in from Toronto.”

Pat had relatives who lived in Canada and Kurt had never met them. He scanned the room while following his wife. “Where’s Jim?”

“He couldn’t be here because you can sense his presence, which would’ve spoiled our surprise.” She stopped in front of a short, skinny brunette, wearing jeans and a t-shirt in sharp contrast with her own elegant dress. “Kurt, meet my dear cousin, Olivia.”

Olivia curtsied politely. “Mr. President.”

Kurt smiled at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Olivia. And call me Kurt.”

“Is Jim Harrison coming?” asked Olivia, her eyes bright. “I want to hear everything about that time he met God.”

“Uncle Jim!” Sofia exclaimed brightly.

Kurt groaned. Jim was so fed up with people constantly asking him about his supposed meeting with God—a story Maada had concocted as a part of his master plan to unite the galaxy—that he’d asked Tarq to make people forget that incident using the Mind-Frak Machine, but the Akakie mind-control system didn’t work on a small fraction of humanity, and Olivia was apparently one of those.

“You have to keep her away from Jim,” he whispered to Pat. “He might punch her in the face, Southern chivalry or not.”

“On it,” she answered.

*****

I found Kurt on the balcony of his residence’s third floor, which I knew was his favorite spot, and even if I didn’t, one could smell his cologne all the way from the first floor. Wearing a fancy tuxedo, he was tugging at his beard and staring into the distance, looking lost in thought.

I gave him one of the two Paulaners bottles I was carrying. “Happy Birthday, buddy.”

He took the bottle. “Thanks. Where were you? You missed my performance. I played Beethoven’s Fifth.”

“Sorry. Got held up on the way,” I lied. I’d come late on purpose. Listening to Kurt playing the piano would make me feel guilty for enjoying his music while Ella, who loved listening to Kurt play, wasn’t here anymore.

He looked at the bottle in his hand. “How many of these have we done together?”

“Beers or birthdays?”

He chuckled. “Birthdays. I'm pretty sure we can’t count how many beers we’ve had together.”

I took a sip, enjoying the cool evening breeze on my face. “Too many of those too. You remember Allen used to bring Lilly to our birthdays?”

Allen was Kurt’s head of security (and Kurt’s father’s before him), and he’d sacrificed himself to help us defeat the Xortaags. My old friend gave me a surprised look. “Why are you thinking about Allen out of the blue?”

“Feeling nostalgic, I guess. What’re you doing standing here all alone while your birthday party is going on inside?”

“Birthdays are good times to contemplate your life,” he said philosophically.

“Oh yeah? And what did you discover in your contemplations?”

He smiled. “You know all my life my biggest passion was achieving world peace by forming a United Earth government, but I never imagined I’d play a major role in running a United galaxy administration.”

“All my life my biggest passion was being a fighter pilot,” I said, “and I never imagined I end up being the chancellor of the entire galaxy.”

We clanked our bottles.

“We’ve done well, haven't we?” asked Kurt. “Still, I was talking to Xornaa today, and she says Maada is getting more nervous each day. He really thinks something terrible is about to happen to us.”

I shrugged. “We are as prepared as we could possibly be, I say. I don’t see what else we can do. And for the record, I still think his parallel universe theory is ridiculous.”

“It’s not a theory, Jim. We’ve seen the videos. That Xortaag scientist is really talking to his doppelgangers.”

“Maybe they were triplets. Or, for all we know, this could be a prank. Do you really think the Akakies can’t fake something like that and make it look real?”

Kurt smiled. “By the way, while we’re waiting for Maada’s predicted Armageddon to happen, there’s a really cute girl in Pat’s book club who is dying to meet you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You guys are incorrigible.” 

“Mr. Chancellor?” asked a husky female voice from behind.

It was Hanna. I could swear she’d grown taller and bulkier since the last time I saw her a few weeks ago, and she was huge already. I wondered if all those things bulging under her Secret Service black jacket were guns or muscles.

“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but the Talgoinian government officials have been trying to reach you, and both of you have turned off your PDDs.”

“It’s fine, Hanna,” I said. “Can I offer you a drink?”

She looked offended. “I’m on duty.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Apparently, some of their citizens are planning a ceremonial mass suicide, and the government hoped you’d send a squad of the Marines to show them the error of their ways.”

Four years ago, after Maada and I faked my death (in an effort to unite all the space-faring species in our galaxy under a central government), a thousand Talgoinians committed mass suicide in my honor. When I heard about this, I was so outraged that I vowed to put an end to this practice, but those freaking aliens were so fond of their ceremonial suicides that the only way to stop them was threatening to kill them.

I finished my bottle. “That’s what I love about this job. Even in a peaceful universe, I still get to save people, even when they don’t want to be saved.” 

“If we keep stopping the Talgoinians from doing their favorite mass suicides,” said Kurt, “sooner or later we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

“Then we’ll shoot all of them and get this over with,” I replied.

Chapter Two

Tangaar, the Xortaags’ Home Planet

The White Republic’s Universe

Professor Raltaar, rushing towards his lab in his private residence, cursed his bad luck.

It was a beautiful night, with Tangaar’s moon shining brightly and not a single cloud to be seen in the clear sky. The weather was unusually fine in the planet’s capital city, Tanoor. Perfect for an alien invasion, he thought.

A few decades ago, a man who looked exactly like him had suddenly appeared in his bedroom. He had opened a portal to an alternate universe, where they met a third equally astonished doppelganger. They had discussed the concept of parallel universes and its repercussions at length, but his first doppelganger refused to share the secret of opening portals between the universes, which later became an obsession for Raltaar. Since then, he had spent his entire life, day and night, trying to solve this mystery, and now that he was finally so close—he had built a machine that could open a portal to an alternate universe but did not have time to test it—the damned Akakie fleet had appeared in Tangaar’s orbit.

The White Republic’s Navy had cut through the Xortaag fleet like a hot knife through butter, killing General Maada (General Freaking Maada, whom everyone, including Raltaar himself, thought was invincible) in the process, and now they were on their way to Tangaar. The Xortaag home planet was mere hours away from being conquered by the insects. Right when he was planning to use the machine he had invented to open a portal to the parallel universe he had visited for the first time all those years ago.

Damn the Super-Akakies and their borderline magical technology! The Xortaags themselves were experts in making genetic enhancements (his own tall, strong, muscular frame was a testament to that), but what the Super-Akakies had done was miraculous. They had turned a bunch of weak, incompetent losers into a nation of apex predators who were on the verge of dominating the entire galaxy, including the Xortaag kingdom.

A universe ruled by a race of bloodthirsty insectoid pranksters was not a place he wished to live in, Raltaar decided.

Forget about the tests, he told himself. He would power up the machine this very day and leave this godforsaken universe. Things could not possibly be this bad in any of the parallel universes. Or at least he hoped they were not.

He entered his lab, locked the door behind him, turned towards his workstation, and froze.

A huge, hideous, black-clad monster was sitting behind his desk.

“A little birdie told me you have found a way to open portals to a parallel universe,” stated Commander Tarq nonchalantly.

*****

“Does it really work?” asked Commander Tarq, sitting behind a big black desk in his private office.

“Oh yeah,” answered Sub-Commander Nelzod, pacing back and forth in front of him, seemingly too excited to sit.

Despite her unfortunate tendencies to mess with AIs, Nelzod was the head of the Special Operations Force’s R & D unit. The people under her supervision had come up with the Super-Akakie Maker formula, which had changed everything, after all. “The machine does its job as advertised, and the transition from here to the other universe is instantaneous. All you need to do is to feed it the proper coordinates and then step through the portal, or fly through it, in our case.”

“Incredible,” said Tarq with a gleam in his eyes. “How did a Xortaag end up inventing this? They  are not known for being innovative, you know.”

“He claims he has been visited by his doppelganger from another universe. The other guy did not share the technology, but from the conversations they had about this topic, Raltaar gathered enough information to eventually piece it all together.”

“And how did the first guy come up with this idea?”

Nelzod shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Tarq grinned. “I guess it does not.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“He bragged about his machine to some of his friends, and one of them happened to be a spy working for us.”

Nelzod stood in front of Tarq and looked into his eyes. “And what are you planning to do with this machine?”

“Do you have to ask? I was getting really bored. Let’s hope these parallel universes present a challenge. Our foes here were defeated too easily, not that I am complaining.”

“It probably will be more challenging,” Nelzod pointed out, “given that we will have to fight the Akakies from these parallel universes, who are likely to have the same level of technological advancement as us.”

“And you think I have not thought about a solution already? I have a plan, as usual.”

Nelzod sat on a chair opposite Tarq’s desk and listened intently as he explained his plan. Her eyes gleaned. “But that is genius! We might not have enough ships to pull it off though.”

“I have thought about that too. Listen, Admiral Juntoo has been waiting outside for a while. Please send him in, and you and I will continue this conversation later on.”

Nelzod stood up. “When I came to you with the SAM formula not three years ago, did you think we would conquer our universe in such a short time, and then gun for alternate universes?”

Tarq shook his head. “Not in a million years. Your name will go down in history as the greatest Akakie who has ever lived, after my own name, of course.”

Nelzod turned to leave.

“I forgot to ask,” Tarq called out behind her. “How are the kids?”

“Growing up fast,” she answered over her shoulder, “and cannot wait to follow in their mother’s footsteps.”

“The way we are going, there might not be anything left for them to conquer.”

“Might be better. I would not mind my kids growing up in a peaceful universe, ruled by us. This is partly why I am doing all this, you know.”

Juntoo walked into the office a minute later. He was so huge, even by Super-Akakie standards, that he had a hard time fitting through the office door. His antennae were erect, showing indignation. The admiral was obviously peeved that he had been kept waiting.

Tarq did not bother to get up. He always enjoyed messing with the admiral. He was such an easy mark. “Do not sit down, Admiral. This takes but a minute. It has just come to my attention that  Monstrous’s captain has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.”

Juntoo glared at him. “He drowned in his own bathtub. Imagine that.”

Tarq blinked innocently. “Are you insinuating that Special Operations Force has murdered a fleet captain, Admiral?”

A look of pure terror passed Juntoo’s face. “Of course not,” he replied hastily.

“Good. In that case, I would like to nominate my daughter Varina as Monstrous’s new captain.”

“There are plenty of fleet officers who are more experienced and qualified than her!” Juntoo protested.

“That might be true,” agreed Tarq, “but she is my daughter.”

Juntoo hesitated, but Tarq knew he would give in. He had been pushing the admiral around for years now, even though technically he was the commander of the fleet and Tarq had no actual authority over him. He knew Juntoo would one day snap and fight back, but not today, and certainly not over such a trivial matter. And Varina was a loyal and competent officer, after all. Tarq sometimes felt she was more loyal to the navy than to her own father. What had this world come to?

“And please keep this conversation between us,” he added. “Varina will not be pleased if she finds out I have been pulling strings to advance her career.”

Maybe Varina likes me a little bit more now, Tarq told himself after Juntoo left. They had grown a bit distant these last few years because he never had time to spend with his daughter and her family. Conquering the galaxy was a full-time job.

It is not like you were the father of the year or anything even before all this started, said another part of his brain.

Tarq picked up his PDD and called his daughter. Varina’s image appeared on the screen a few seconds later.   

“It is done,” Tarq told her. “You are now the captain of our biggest and most powerful dreadnought. Congratulations.”

Varina’s face lit up. “Did Juntoo suspect that I had asked you to do it?”

“No. I specifically told him to keep it secret from you.”

“Thanks, Father. It has been a life-long dream, as you very well know. I still think there was no need to kill Monstrous’s previous captain though.”

Tarq beamed. “Why not? The captain of the fleet’s flagship drowned in his bathtub. Is it not hilarious?”

Varina looked pensive. “You know, Father, I sometimes think maybe mass-administration of SAM was not such a great idea. You used to cherish life, even an alien’s, as long as it was not our enemy. Now you are killing our own people, just to get a kick.”

“It is exactly this ruthlessness that has enabled us to rule the galaxy, Daughter. Kiss Varma for me.” 

“She missed you, Dad. You must come for a visit.”

“As soon as we return from this mission,” Tarq promised. “I miss my lovely granddaughter too.”

Despite his answer, Tarq thought about Varina’s question regarding the wisdom of using SAM after he disconnected the call. He had asked himself that same question thousands of times. They used to be a race of pranksters. Now everyone, everyone, even Varina herself, seemed a bit ... heartless. Bloodthirsty even. Tarq wondered if they were not happier before Nelzod had talked him into allowing SAM to be mass-produced.

He shrugged. It was too late to worry about that now, and there was no going back. They had a new universe to conquer.

Chapter Three

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” I announced theatrically, “is to try to catch up with me!”

The simulated battle started, and enemy ships came at me left, right, and center.

I was in the academy, attending a graduation ceremony. It had become a tradition for the new graduates to pit their skills against mine in a simulated battle, and I always, always, won. Kurt had once or twice suggested I should’ve stopped doing this, arguing that getting their collective asses kicked on their graduation day was bad for our fighter pilots’ self-confidence, but I would have none of it. Beating the cocky, adrenaline junkie fighter pilot types—“Look who’s talking,” commented Venom—was too much fun, and truth be told, I secretly hoped one day I’d find someone who could beat me. I was getting old, and in a couple of decades, someone else had to pick up the Kingslayer’s mantle.

I found it ironic that the enemy ships in the simulators were still Deathbringers, even though the Xortaags were now our allies. I checked the scores when the battle was over. Nope. No one had even come close. I was sure they didn’t mind though. I was the best fighter pilot in the galaxy, after all, and there was no shame in losing to me.

My PDD started beeping just as I was getting out of my simulator unit. It was Vice Admiral Charles Stone, the commander of Earth fleet. Like Ella, he was a submariner who’d later served on both Invincible and Indomitable. I’d appointed him as the commander of the Earth fleet under a very important condition: I was in charge whenever I was around.

“Admiral, your presence in the command center is required,” he said rather formally.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Difficult to explain. It’s easier if you see it for yourself.”

“Will be there in five,” I said.

Our new command center was a replica of the old one, which had been destroyed by the Volts’ leader’s Kamikaze attack, and it was abuzz with frantic activity. Scores of officers were busy working on their stations, mostly in semi-circular rows facing the giant main screen. I was about to join Charles, standing on a raised platform overseeing the operation, and ask him what was going on, but I looked up at the main screen and the words got stuck in my throat.

There was an enormous green circle floating in space, some eight thousand miles away from Earth. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but it reminded me of the gates people used in Stargate to travel between alien worlds, only a thousand times bigger.

And thousands of space fighters in military formation were pouring out of it.

My heart started beating triple time, my mouth hung open, and all the hair on my arms raised. This scene didn’t bring back good memories. The last time an alien fleet showed up in Earth’s orbit via a portal, it didn’t end so well for us.

“It ended worse for them,” Venom pointed out.

I wasn’t so sure this was an alien fleet though. The space fighters were unmistakably Vipers. And the dreadnought that followed them looked exactly like Indomitable, only twice her size, which was no mean feat given that she was the biggest and most powerful ship in the galaxy by a large margin. The enemy ship’s hull was covered with huge, multi-barrel laser turrets, blaster cannons, and missile launchers. If Indomitable looked like a golden hedgehog, this monster resembled a huge golden porcupine.

I wondered if I should’ve been shocked, or at least surprised, but I wasn’t, or maybe just mildly. For one thing, Maada had been warning us for years that something terrible was going to happen, and that usually meant an alien invasion. And for another, we’d witnessed so much strange shit in the last decade or so that nothing felt all that shocking anymore. This wasn’t my first rodeo, and I figured my past experiences had left me slightly desensitized.

“We’ve seen weirder,” Venom agreed.

“What the hell is going on?” I murmured, then rushed to join Charles. “How many space fighters?”

“Thirty thousand,” answered Cordi.

Charles, looking slightly pale but otherwise showing no signs of anxiety, saluted crisply, then flicked his wrist. Kurt, Maada, and Tarq’s images appeared on virtual VR screens hovering in front of us.

“Tarq,” I growled, “if this is some sort of a prank you’re pulling, I swear to God—”

Maada cut me off. “It is not the Akakies, Jim. Or at least not only the Akakies. A few minutes ago, fifteen of those portals opened,  one above each of the planets with space-faring technology or where their central government is located, and fifteen fleets came out of them. Eight of those are the Akakies; the biggest one is the one approaching Earth. Then there are two Xortaag fleets, and the rest belong to other species. There are nearly two hundred thousand space fighters in total, half of which are Akakies.”

I rubbed my forehead with a tense hand. “How is this even possible?”

“Maybe they are coming from the future?” suggested Tarq.

“Or an alternate universe,” added Maada.

“Don’t start,” I told him, but right now even I was wondering.

An officer approached Charles and showed him something on a tablet. He stared at the tablet for a second or three, then scratched his head and said, “I don’t know if it proves anything, but we’ve noticed something which is difficult to explain. The portal looks like a circle, but there’s an invisible cone in front of it. You know how when a river meets the sea, it still continues moving forward inside the sea? It’s kind of like that. The space inside the cone is different from our space. It looks like whatever is behind the portal comes into our reality for a couple of hundred miles; then it dissipates.”

“What does all this mean?” I asked.

“If this really is a portal between parallel universes, the area immediately in front of it belongs to the universe where it originated, not the destination.”

“And knowing this helps us how?” I demanded.

He shrugged. “Every bit of information could end up being important.”

I frowned. “This bit of information is about as useful as tits on a bull.”

“What on what?” asked Tarq, confused.

“Are we sure they’re hostile?” asked Kurt with a furrowed brow.

I looked at the fleet approaching Earth in a close military formation and the armed-to-the-teeth leviathan coming behind them. “They look pretty hostile to me.”

“They are definitely hostile,” Maada said firmly.

I looked at him. “Do you think this is the threat you’ve been warning us about?”

He nodded solemnly.

Gulp.

“Guys, we might have some answers,” said Cordi. “That dreadnought is broadcasting a video message.”

“On screen,” I said, rather unnecessarily.

The black-clad creature that appeared on the screen in front of Charles and me was a spitting image of one of those evil Akakies we’d captured after I killed their leader, Nelzod, while she was attempting to destroy Earth. It was like a cross between a praying mantis and a werewolf. Rows of sharp fangs, four red bug eyes, long claws, the whole nine yards.

“And we thought the Akakies were hideous before they took that damn serum with its stupid name,” I commented.

“Hey!” Tarq protested. “I am right here!”

“My name is Commander Tarq,” announced the creature in the Akakie language. “I am a Super-Akakie and the head of our Special Operations Force.”

I looked at our Tarq, whose eyes were about to jump out of his skull, and mouthed the words: What the frakking frak?

“Where’s his goatee?” murmured Charles.

That caught me by surprise. I hadn’t pegged him as a Star Trek fan.

“You don’t need to be a fan to know such famous pop-culture references,” Venom pointed out.

Touché.

“You must be wondering who we are and where we come from,” continued Evil Tarq. “Let me put your minds at ease before I answer that question. We mean you no harm. We are not here to destroy your home planets and exterminate your people.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” said Kurt sarcastically.

I didn’t find that statement particularly reassuring either, given that it was coming out of the fang-full mouth of the ugly monster who was accompanied by thirty thousand space fighters. (“And a dreadnought,” said Venom helpfully. “Don’t forget the dreadnought.”). The use of the term exterminate didn’t help either.

“We are here to ask you to join the White Republic, the Akakie government running our universe, where your species are living in peace and harmony with us. Let me show you.”

“Our universe,” said Tarq flatly. “So, they are from a parallel universe, after all.”

“I told you so,” said Maada.

The images that appeared on screen were from Earth’s major cities: New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, Rio, etc. At first glance, it seemed like people were going about their daily activities. But there were Super-Akakie soldiers carrying handheld laser cannons everywhere, and even from a distance, the people’s body language (shoulders hunched, spines bent, heads down, not making eye contact with the soldiers or even one another) told me they were scared of the aliens. And thousands of huge white flags fluttered from every building, every lamp post, everywhere. Those images reminded me of the footage of Paris under Nazi occupation.

“Nazi occupation?” said Venom. “This is just like when Zheng was in power and there were SCTU goons everywhere.”

“This is the very depiction of a fascist takeover,” commented Kurt, his voice shaking with anger. He was probably thinking about Zheng’s regime too, which he’d spent two years fighting.

“As you can see, your people are not harmed in any way,” Evil Tarq’s voice commented over the images. “We even let you keep your current local government if you cooperate with us. All we do is leave some of our people to keep an eye on things and a small military force to help them impose our law. And, of course, there is the small matter of a federal tax that you will have to pay, and we will incorporate your fleet into ours for our future campaigns, under my direct supervision.”

“Hard pass,” I said to no one in particular.

“They must’ve lost their minds if they expect us to just roll over and let them rule over us,” muttered Kurt.

“He sounds very confident,” Charles pointed out. “And it seems their campaign in their own universe has been very successful.”

“I bet the Black Fleet thought we were easy targets too,” growled Maada.

I looked at him. “I wonder why our doppelgangers in that universe didn’t kick the insects’ ass.”

He shrugged. “I guess we will find out soon enough.”

“If we aren’t surrendering, I guess it’s time to go meet the evil Akakies up close and personal,” I announced. “Oh wait. What are we going to call them? We aren’t going to call them Super-Akakies. It’s just lame.”

“They call themselves Super-Akakies,” Tarq pointed out.

“The Nazis called themselves Master Race,” I replied. “It didn’t mean everyone else had to do it. How about Wer-Akakies? They do look like werewolves.”

“Wer means man,” said Kurt, “so it makes no sense.”

I slapped my forehead. “I knew that.”

“Uber-Akakies?” suggested Tarq.

“Or maybe Akakicula?”  added Charles.

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Let’s call them Xenoakakies. Any species whose name starts with an X must be terrible people. Just ask the Xortaags.”

Maada uttered an obscenity under his breath.

“Are you coming?” I asked Charles.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he answered.

*****

I looked at my Viper’s display monitor and studied the enemy fleet’s formation. If these were normal Akakies (who couldn’t fight if their lives depended on it) we had nothing to worry about, but after running into Nelzod’s Super-Akakies, we knew these were fearless and competent adversaries. “Cordi?”

“As far as I can see, they’re flying the exact same space fighters as ours,” she said. “Except for that monster dreadnought bringing up their rear.”

“What’s going on down there?” I asked Kurt. “How’re the people reacting?”

“Some are freaking out,” he answered. “We’re using MFM to keep everyone calm.”

“You would’ve thought people were used to this crap by now,” I said.

“Sometimes I think I’m a character in a book series with alien invasion themes,” commented Venom.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

“You used to get mad whenever Oksana quoted Shakespeare,” Venom pointed out.

I looked at the enemy fleet, approaching fast. They outnumbered my forces, flying behind my Viper, two to one. This looked like a hopeless situation. We could very well be walking into a bloodbath. There was a good chance we were all going to get killed in the next few hours. With such a big enemy fleet, it was a real possibility.

So, what else was new?

I shrugged. “Meh.”

Just a few years ago, going to battle with an enemy fleet twice bigger than ours would’ve made me nervous. I might’ve even considered it suicide once upon a time. But now, as I looked at White Republic’s Navy, I felt nothing but excitement as adrenalin soared through my veins. The super-insects had no idea who they were messing with, and we were going to kick their metasoma all the way back to whatever alternate universe they’d crawled out of.

There’s no fear in this dojo.

I was, of course, still concerned about the safety of the sailors and fighter pilots under my command. There was nothing I hated more than losing people. But they were professionals, and they’d chosen their career fully aware of the risks involved. It wasn’t like I was their mother.

I guessed I’d finally turned into a hardcore military man in my old age. Ella would’ve been so proud.

Plus, I’m the freaking Kingslayer. King Kong ain’t got nothing on me!

Still, I couldn’t help wondering why I kept finding myself in situations like this. This was my third alien invasion, after all: first the Xortaags, then a fleet from the future, and now this one from an alternate universe. And that was not counting our battle against that crazy AI and its superdreadnought, which had been protected by an impenetrable shield. At this point, it felt like my entire life had been one long  Kobayashi Maru.

“You could’ve been a lawyer,” said Venom drily. “Or a doctor. But nooooo, you wanted to be a fighter pilot.”

That made me chuckle. I couldn’t even imagine myself working in an office. I was born to be a fighter pilot. This was the only thing that would make me happy.

“Then quit bitching about it,” snapped Venom.

Fair point.

I turned my head to look at my fleet, coming right behind me. Fifteen thousand Vipers, every single one of them deadly. And behind them was the blue-white marble of Earth, showing off her natural beauty.  Sitting in space above my beloved home planet filled my heart with joy, as it always did. And now, some more bad guys were coming for her, not having learned their lesson from what happened to their predecessors. Some motherfrakkers always tried to ice skate uphill.

I was going to give one of my famous pre-battle speeches when I had a visual communication request. A second later, the Evil Tarq’s image appeared on a VR screen hovering in front of me. “Chancellor Harrison. I must confess I did not expect you to personally lead your forces. How very heroic.”

“And you are hiding behind your forces in that dreadnought,” I countered, “which leads me to believe that despite all the physical changes, you’re still a pussy.”

“I object to the use of that term,” Cordi complained. “It’s sexist.”

“Is this the best time to go woke on me?” I asked her.

Tarq let my insult slide. “Allow me to repeat my offer: if you submit, we will keep our interference in your local matters to a minimum. You can keep your Federation and your position as its chancellor. All we do is install a, well, let us call it a supervisory board, whose approval you need before making major decisions. But if you resist, we have no choice but to crush you, eh, what was that funny English expression?”—he tapped on his command chair’s armrest—“like a bug.”

“Was that a pun?” asked Venom.

“Does the stupid insect think we might decide to surrender without a fight?” said Cordi, well aware of the fact that the Xenoakakie could hear her. “I guess he hasn’t met us in his universe.”

“Your mouth is writing checks your fleet can’t cash, Commander,” I said wryly.  “Let me give you a counter-offer: your ships will be within our effective weapon’s range in a few minutes. This is your last chance to leave; otherwise, you’re going to wish a bird fed you to its children when you were a small insect.”

He flashed rows of sharp teeth at me. “I admire your confidence, but it is sorely misplaced. You can see we have twenty space fighters for every one of yours, right?”

“What the hell is he talking about?” asked Cordi.

“You outnumber us two to one,” I told him. “I like those odds; we’ve beaten much worse ones before. It’s kind of our thing.”

Tarq widened his four bug eyes in feigned surprise. “Do not tell me the chancellor of the entire galaxy cannot count! Can I direct your attention to your tactical display?”

My throat suddenly felt dry as I realized the insect was up to something, but I had no idea what. My eyes darted toward my Viper’s tactical display ...

Just in time to see most of the blue dots representing the Vipers under my command frakking disappear.

Holy frakking shit!

I whirled in my cockpit and looked behind, eyes wide in terror. The space behind me, where my pilots were flying their birds not a second ago, was now filled with explosions. I could still see a few Vipers flying through smoke and debris, but most of my people were gone in an instant.

Time froze in a moment of bottomless horror.

My eyes bulged so much that they almost fell off their sockets. I just stared with rounded eyes that I couldn’t shut and felt like the whole world was crumbling apart around me. That scene hit me like a ton of bricks. I froze in my cockpit and forgot how to breathe; then my hands started to tremble, and I had to fight back the urge to throw up. My pounding heart grew louder and louder in my ears. My brain stuttered and tried desperately to make sense of what my eyes were reporting to it, and when it couldn’t, it short-circuited and stopped functioning altogether.

Even Venom was speechless.

It was a minor miracle I didn’t simply die at that very moment.

*****

Kurt, staring at the Situation Room’s main screen in wide-eyed disbelief, covered his mouth in shock and felt the blood rushing to his face. Just a second ago, the Earth fleet was moving towards the enemy, and now they were wiped out, without the Xenoakakies having fired on them. What he’d just witnessed was impossible, and yet it’d happened right in front of his eyes. His stomach tightened; he jumped to his feet and all but yelled, “What the hell just happened?”

All the high-ranking officers sitting around the oval conference table in the Situation Room looked blankly at one another, dumbfounded, mouths agape, shocked expressions sweeping across their faces.

“It has to be a new, unknown weapon,” ventured a grim-faced army general.

Kurt had to fight to keep his calm but couldn’t help raising his voice. “Are you telling me we just lost ninety percent of our fleet and no one can explain it?”

All he got in response was dazed looks.

A Navy admiral, an old man sitting at the far end of the conference table, collapsed onto his seat, and started sobbing softly. Kurt stared at him in astonishment, then looked at his PDD as it beeped. It was a message from Cordi. Both his sons were fighter pilots and got killed just now.

Kurt sank back onto his seat, temples pounding with each beat of his heart, and tried to find something consoling to say to the old man, but words escaped him. I must be in shock, he thought, and then he gasped as it dawned on him.

It didn’t matter how the enemy had destroyed their fleet. Maybe some unknown weapon. Maybe magic. What mattered was the Earth fleet now had around fifteen hundred space fighters against the enemy’s thirty thousand.

Earth was about to fall.

*****

Lieutenant Bzulaa did a last-minute system check to make sure her Deathbringer was at peak combat condition.

No one knew where the enemy fleet approaching Stronoe was coming from. They had suddenly appeared within the solar system, apparently having traveled via a portal. It did not matter. General Maada was personally leading the fleet, and every time Bzulaa had followed the general into battle, they had achieved a glorious victory. This would not be any different. The enemy fleet did not even have that many space fighters.

She wished Jurzaat was here. He would have been so excited right now, probably saying something about how magnificent this was.

“History, here we come,” he would have said, or something corny like that.

That was her last conscious thought.

Bzulaa never found out what killed her. A massive explosion turned her space fighter into a tiny supernova that shone brightly for a few short seconds and then vanished in the vast expanse of space forever.

There were thousands of similar small supernovas all around what was left of her Deathbringer. 

*****

“Cordi,” I said with a shaking voice, feeling as if bombs were going off inside my head. “Please tell me my eyes are deceiving me.”

Or it’s a hallucination. Or a nightmare. Or a trick. Oh dear God, please don’t let this be real.

“Aren’t you supposed to be agnostic?” asked Venom.

“No, Jim,” said Cordi, her synthetic voice filled with genuine sorrow. “Most of our Vipers exploded all at the same instant. We have around fifteen hundred space fighters left.”

I wondered if I’d died and was sent to a thoroughly terrifying section of hell. With my breath caught in my throat, my whisper was barely audible. “How?”

“I haven’t got a fucking clue,” she replied flatly.

Evil Tarq threw back his huge head and roared with uncontrollable laughter. He laughed so hard that he lost his balance and fell off his ship’s command chair.

The blinding rage that assaulted my brain made all conscious thoughts disappear. I didn’t know how he’d done that, but the frakking insect had just killed ninety percent of the people under my command in an instant, and now he was laughing about it. I’d never imagined something like this happening in my worst nightmares. There was no one in this universe, not even God himself, who could do this and walk away with their lives.

Something dark twisted inside me. Blood heated my face as burning fury, unleashed without thought of consequence, scorched several million neurons in my brain. My jaw clenched so hard I felt my teeth would break, my muscles tightened, and my right hand grabbed the Viper’s stick so hard that all my knuckles turned white. The insect was going down. He’d pay for my pilots’ lives right here, right now, and I didn’t care what it’d cost me. 

“Eh, Jim?” said Cordi. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mad as a hornet, I could barely hear her over the pounding in my ears.

“Committing suicide by insect, obviously,” said Venom.

“I’ve brought down bigger monsters than these,” I growled through clenched teeth.

“And so you have,” agreed the AI. “But if you attack the Xenoakakie fleet now, the rest of your surviving pilots will follow you, and they’ll be slaughtered. You can’t possibly fight a fleet fifteen times bigger than yours.” 

A vein had just started bulging in my neck, but Cordi’s response gave me pause. She was right. I couldn’t get the few pilots who’d survived killed to satiate my need for revenge. Or suicide.

Maada’s image, wearing a flight suit and helmet, appeared on a VR screen inside my cockpit. “We’ve just lost ninety percent of our space fighters.”

He didn’t sound agitated in any way. Nerves of steel, that guy.

I took a deep breath. “You too?”

“And all our allies’ fleets, including the Akakies. Our Akakies, I mean.”

“How on Earth did this FUBAR happen?”

Maada looked confused.

“Fucked Up Beyond All Repair,” Cordi explained.

“That sums up our situation perfectly,” commented our Tarq.

Maada shrugged. “No one knows. I recommend we retreat and regroup; then we can figure out our next move.”

“There is no frakking way in hell I leave Earth defenseless!” I shouted.

“Jim, this isn’t the Black Fleet,” said Maada calmly. “They aren’t planning to hurt anyone. At least not now. You can’t fight such a big force. We need to pull our remaining forces together and find out what to do.”

“I second that,” announced Tarq in my ears.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” said Cordi bitterly.

“And where are we going to go?” I demanded. “You told me these guys are everywhere.”

“Well,” said Tarq, “do you remember the Xortaags built a secret base on one of their colonies? We have done the same, only ours is on an uninhabited moon and under an invisible forcefield.”

“I thought the forcefields weren’t invisible anymore,” said Kurt.

Until he brought it up, I’d totally forgotten that a Talgoinian scientist had found a way to detect the invisible forcefields.

“We dealt with that little problem a long time ago,” replied Tarq.

“And didn’t bother to tell the rest of us,” I said with disgust.

“Which part of ‘we built a secret base’ did you not understand?” he asked blandly.

“An invisible base is perfect for our current situation,” said Maada. “Send us the coordinates. We will meet you there.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I repeated doggedly.

“It’s a good thing then, that as Earth’s president, I don’t need your permission to order the Earth fleet to jump away,” stated Kurt.

“Don’t you dare!” I snapped at him.

“I’m daring,” he replied.

I didn’t want to go and leave Earth to the enemy, but deep down I knew they were right. Getting what was left of our fleet destroyed in a futile attempt to stop the enemy fleet made no sense. Still, running away had never been my style, and it was Earth—my beloved home—we were talking about.

“All ships,” announced Charles. “We’ll jump in thirty seconds. All space fighters must land on Invincible after the first jump, and we’ll go the rest of the way together.”

I looked at Evil Tarq, who was just climbing back into his command chair, and a burning hatred took over my soul. I’d had plenty of enemies in my life, some of them committing unspeakable atrocities against humanity, but this was personal. I had to bite down on my tongue to suppress a scream of rage.

“Hey, Commander Ugly,” I called out.

He looked at me.

“You are dead,” I said slowly, emphasizing each word like I was Bill Shatner. “I’m going to hunt you and every single sailor in your fleet. I’ll find you, I’ll kill you, and I’ll grind your exoskeleton into a fine powder and flush it down one of our spaceships’ toilets. I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”

“The next life?” he asked. “What next life?”

And then the White Republic’s Navy disappeared from my view as we made our first jump.

*****

Commander Tarq watched as the enemy fleet vanished from Monstrous’s main screen. “Huh. I guess we might not have been clear when we demanded their surrender.”

Admiral Juntoo shrugged. “It is not important. They cannot have more than a few thousand ships left. What can they do against us?”

“Hopefully, they can make us laugh from time to time,” grinned Tarq, “by some vain attempt to get their planets back. Let us stick to the plan. We will land, set up a government that reports to us, take what we need, and move on. There is still one more universe for us to conquer.”

“Only one?” asked the admiral.

Tarq’s grin widened. “Even we are not crazy enough to attack that fourth universe! There is a reason it is called the Crimson Universe, you know.”

“About that,” said Nelzod from her station, “I have been meaning to tell you. I am working on a bio-weapon which might exterminate all the creatures in that universe in one go.”

“This sounds very mad-scientisty to me,” said Tarq, “which as we all know is Nelzod’s specialty. We will see how it goes. In the meantime, helm, take us down.”

Tarq stood up from the command chair and stretched. Varina, who had been pacing impatiently behind him, immediately moved and took his place, not trying to hide her annoyance. Tarq chuckled and reminded himself not to sit on the captain’s chair the next time, especially when the captain was his daughter, but he was so used to doing whatever he wanted that he knew he would soon forget this decision.

Tarq felt slightly disappointed. It had been too easy. He hoped the humans’ ground forces offered some resistance so that they could have a little fun but doubted that would be the case.

“Do you know where the leader of this world lives?” he asked Nelzod.

She shook her head. “No, but it is easy to find out. Why?”

“I want to stay there while we are here,” answered Tarq. “Just to rub it in their faces.”

*****

“I’ll be joining you and Sophie soon, dear,” Kurt told Pam over his PDD. “Let me talk to the Secret Service agent.”

“Jones here, Mr. President,” said a female voice a second later.

“Report to me when you reach the safe house safe and sound,” said Kurt. “And be careful. It’s a bit chaotic out there.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. President. We’ll take care of your family.”

Kurt had sent out a hastily prepared video message, letting people know what was going on, asking them to keep calm, and promising to do whatever possible to liberate Earth from the Xenoakakies’ occupation. He also had to use MFM—again!—to send unobtrusive and subconscious messages to make sure the planet didn’t descend into panic and chaos.

The Xenoakakie ships were landing all over the planet, mostly in major cities, and thousands of warriors, wearing heavy body armor and carrying handheld three-barrel laser cannons Kurt had never seen before, were marching out. According to the latest reports, it was estimated there were some two hundred thousand enemy soldiers in the US only, and that number kept increasing.

Watching the Xenoakakie troops landing on Earth unmolested was tough, but Kurt had ordered the armed forces to stand down. It’d be no use to fight the enemy soldiers on the ground while they were in full control of the skies; all it would’ve done was provoke the Xenoakakies to bombard Earth and kill untold millions. Their best bet was to organize whatever was left of the fleet and come up with a strategy then. However, reports indicated that pockets of resistance have been formed practically everywhere, either by armed civilians or military personnel ignoring their orders—and MFM’s messages—to stand down. In Japan, an anti-spacecraft artillery unit had opened fire on the incoming enemy shuttles, hitting a few before it was destroyed. Humanity wouldn’t go down without a fight, it seemed.

Which reminded him ...

Kurt walked to his personal office in the residential area of the Presidential Palace. There he picked up the M-28 sniper rifle he’d mounted on the wall, held it in his hands, and looked at it closely. He’d used this rifle to assassinate multiple government officials back in the day when he was fighting the dictator ruling Earth before the Akakies, and later when the Xortaags showed up.

“Looks like we’re freedom fighters again, old friend,” he said softly.

Kurt was surprised when he realized, deep down, he didn’t want to do this. He was a husband and a father now, and he should’ve been with Pat and Sophie, protecting them from the dangers ahead. But duty came first, as it always had. He’d spent his entire life following his dream of a united, peaceful Earth, and now that he’d achieved it (and at great cost), he wasn’t going to roll over and give up, no matter how strong the enemy seemed to be.

“You’re not going to join your family, I take it?” said Hanna, who’d just entered the office, from behind.

Kurt turned to face the Amazon. “Nope. Have more urgent things to take care of. What’re you going to do?”

She shrugged. “My job’s to follow you around, Mr. President.”

“Earth has fallen,” said Kurt. “I’m not the president anymore.”

“Doesn’t change a damned thing,” replied Hanna.

Kurt looked around his office one last time, wondering if he’d ever come back here. That thought made him grab a family photo of Pat, Sophie, and him from his desk and tucked it in his jacket pocket. Then he looked at Hanna. “In that case, welcome to the Resistance.”

*****

“See you in a few hours, General,” said Tarq, then leaned back onto the command chair, hung his head, and closed his eyes, wishing he were alone so that he could tug at his antennae hard enough to lose consciousness.

This day had turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. The Xenoakakies were a warrior race for all intents and purposes, and with their superior technology, they posed a deadly threat for which Tarq simply had no answer. They were exceedingly dangerous, and they had proved it by decimating the Federation fleets in one strike.

Tarq had spent most of his life shaping the galaxy in the way he saw fit, and with his invisible OMC-BOWS systems placed around all the significant planets in the Federation, he had been in full control for the last few years. But how was he supposed to know invaders would come from a parallel universe? And now here he was, aboard the only surviving Akakie starship (Dauntless, Varina’s old ship), heading to a small secret base to try to mount a resistance against a two-hundred-thousand strong Xenoakakie fleet. Things were bleak indeed.

He opened his eyes and looked around. His vision was blurry, and he felt his eyelids twitch. Then he realized most of the bridge crew were glancing at him.

Of course they were. Everyone expected him to come up with solutions whenever there was a catastrophe. The Xortaags had conquered Kanoor? No worries; Tarq would deal with them. The Black Fleet was on the way? Tarq would take care of that. The entire galaxy was under the Xenoakakies’ occupation? No matter; Tarq would find a way.

And you know what? They were right then,  and they are right now.

He stood straight, held his head up, and pulled back his shoulders. “I am going to say this only once: this is not over yet. Not by a long shot. We are going to get our galaxy back. We will rendezvous with Chancellor Harrison and General Maada’s forces soon, and when all of us work together, no one can stand against us, not even a fleet of crazy Xenoakakie sons-of-bitches.”

He could almost see Barook, standing next to him, giving him a thumbs-up, and saying, “Well said, Commander.”

Where are you, my old friend, now that I need you most?

*****

Master Sergeant Jeff “Quick Mind” Kolen, crouching behind a window in the Presidential Palace’s West Wing, watched as a shuttle landed close to the palace and a dozen alien soldiers marched out.

He’d met many Akakies while serving on both Indomitable and Invincible during various missions (he was the only First Nation serving in the Marine Corps), but they didn’t look anything like the new arrivals. These things looked more like werewolves, if one looked past the four bug eyes and the fact that they had four legs. Technically, werewolves had four legs too, he guessed; then he wondered if there were a scientific name for the insects’ hands. That wasn’t important right now. What was important was the fact that said hands were carrying huge three-barrel laser cannons that looked pretty damn deadly.

They’d been deployed just a couple of hours ago, and the order to stand down had come shortly after. But he’d sworn an oath to protect Earth against all enemies, and no one had said a Marine should drop his weapons and run away at the first sight of trouble. Were they supposed to let the invaders walk right into the Presidential Palace without even firing a shot?

He looked at the three other Marines, hiding behind the wall and looking through the window next to him. “Are we going to do anything about it?”

“We’re under orders to stand down,” answered Lance Corporal Jarvis Melton.

Jeff cocked his standard-issue STG 750 assault rifle. “Sometimes a man has to follow his conscience, despite orders.”

Jarvis rolled his eyes. “Did you come up with that all on your own, or did you just plagiarize a fortune cookie note?”

Jeff grinned at his friend. “A Hallmark card.”

Jarvis peered out of the window. “I always thought Canadians were pushovers.”

“I’m First Nation. We’re all warriors. Are we going to do it or what?”

Jarvis exchanged a look with the other two Marines. “I guess we are.”

“On three?”

“On three.”

The Marines opened fire on the approaching alien soldiers.

*****

Father Philips stood in front of his church—a large and lonely building in a rough Brownsville neighborhood—and looked up. From where he was standing, he could see hundreds of alien shuttles descending on Earth, and no one was even shooting at them. He assumed it was the same all around the planet, or at least in all major cities.

Given the circumstances, he felt strangely calm, but he knew the reason. After the Black Fleet attack, he’d figured out the government was using the MFM the Xortaags had left in orbit to stop people from panicking. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he could understand the reason why it was necessary.

The church was packed with worshipers, praying for salvation, but with the enemy soldiers about to land, prayers just didn’t cut it anymore. God would help those who helped themselves. They had to do something about this. He used to be a Resistance fighter, and he couldn’t just watch his planet being occupied by the freaking insects.

He picked up his PDD when it started beeping, looked at the screen, and chuckled. “Speak of the devil and he doth appear.”

“You were thinking about me right now?” asked a voice from the other side.

“Well, not you personally, but the Resistance. You’re putting the old band back together, I guess?”

“Yes. You in?”

Father Philip smiled wolfishly. “Abso-freaking-lutely.”

*****

Charles was waiting for me in Invincible’s hangar when I landed my Viper.

I removed my helmet, jumped out of the cockpit, and walked to him, returning his salute. “Tell me.”

“It’s bad,” he said with a deep frown.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I growled.

“We have one thousand six hundred and eighty-two space fighters left.”

From fifteen thousand!

I tried not to think about all those men and women, many of whom survivors of the Black Fleet invasion, who were slaughtered without being able to fire a shot to defend themselves. They deserved better.

Several other pilots who’d just landed looked at us expectantly, as if they were waiting for me to come up with a brilliant plan to defeat the invaders on the spot. I tried to find something heroic to tell them, but nothing came to mind. Not even a movie quote.

“We’ll get back at them, Admiral,” said one of my pilots, a young woman who was in her mid-twenties. I wondered how many equally young pilots I’d lost today.

“Sure we will,” I responded quietly.

Charles continued his report as we started walking towards the bridge. “Most of our transport ships are gone. Only Serenity has survived, plus another two or three. Indefatigable is destroyed too.”

I grunted.

“We should stop calling our ships Indefatigable,” commented Venom. “That name is cursed.”

“And we still don’t know how they did it,” Cordi chimed in. “It’s like they used magic.”

“Akakie technology always felt like magic for us.” I rubbed my forehead. “Only this time, even Tarq doesn’t know what we’re dealing with. How long before we reach his secret base?”

“Six hours,” advised Charles.

Thank God for Benedita’s SFD.

“Any news from the others?”

“No. Everyone is on radio silence until we arrive at our destination.”

I stopped when we reached the bridge. “You go ahead. I need to be alone for a while to gather my thoughts.”

A few minutes later, I entered my quarters, closed the door, and leaned on it, rubbing my feverish eyes.

How the frak has this Charlie Foxtrot happened?

Everything we’d achieved in four years of hard work had vanished in an instant. Our one-hundred-sixty-thousand strong fleet was destroyed. Our worlds—all of them—were being occupied by a superior force that used weapons we couldn’t even begin to understand. Our peaceful, prosperous Federation was gone.

A feeling of helplessness hit me, and despair wrapped itself around my chest and made breathing difficult. My skin was so cold that it felt like it was made of ice. The Akakies turning into the Klingons was bad enough, but how were we supposed to fight a WMD that we didn’t know existed until a few hours ago, never mind having the slightest clue as to how it operated? And that was forgetting the fact that their fleet had two hundred thousand state-of-the-art space fighters, while we had, what? Maybe ten thousand, if we were lucky?

Resistance did seem futile.

I looked down at my shaking hands and wondered what wrong choices had led us to our current predicament but couldn’t find any. We’d done everything as best as we could. We’d united the galaxy, for God’s sake. How were we supposed to know another fleet with unknown weapons would show up from a parallel universe?

I felt lost. Before the battle, I was certain we’d win. The enemy outnumbered us, but we’d always won in the past against the odds. Yes, people were killed, and sometimes we had suffered catastrophic losses, but in the end, we’d always triumphed. But now we weren’t only defeated, we were annihilated without being able to defend ourselves.

Except for that one time that Maada ambushed us (and killed Liz), I’d never lost ninety percent of the people under my command. Just thinking about the sheer number of the pilots and sailors who got killed today was enough to drive a sane man crazy.

“But we haven’t really lost yet, have we now?” I whispered to myself.

We’d been here before. Multiple times, in fact. We’d defeated the Xortaag fleet at the height of their power with nothing but ten thousand ships. We’d repelled the Black Fleet’s invasion, even though the Volts had some four hundred thousand space fighters coming from fifteen hundred years into the future. We’d stopped Father and his million-drone fleet supported by a monster ship with impenetrable shields. Between Maada, Tarq, Kurt, Xornaa, and me, we’d find a way to kick out the White Republic’s fleet, and that was a promise.

I’d just lost thousands of my people, but I’d mourn later. There was no time for it at the moment. Right now, there was only one thought in my mind: I’d kill every single Xenoakakie son-of-a-bitch who did this to us, just as I promised Evil Tarq. Starting with him, in fact.

I changed into a fresh uniform and went to join Charles on the bridge.

*****

Maada stood up from the command chair. “Captain Zaart, I will be in my ready room. Let me know if there are any new developments.”

“Of course, General,” replied Zaart.

Maada’s ready room was next to Courageous’s bridge. He entered the room, sat behind his desk, and brought up the casualty list on his PDD.

It was a very long list. The only other times he had lost so many pilots and sailors in one battle were during the invasion of Earth and the destruction of Tangaar by the Black Fleet. The fifth name on the list was Bzulaa. Maada stared at the name for a long moment; then he had to wipe away an annoyingly persistent tear with the back of his hand. He had known Bzulaa since she joined the academy. She was an excellent fighter pilot, his own prodigy, and she had proven her exceptional courage and skill during several battles, including the ones against both the Black Fleet and Father, just to die like this—like a trapped animal, without being able to defend herself.

Maada rested his forehead in his hands. Bzulaa, my dear student, I promise I will cut the insects’ antennae off and shove them down their throats, and then I will find a way to go to their universe and fuck them up there too. They will pay for what they did to us today tenfold.

Maada had a ritual that he had been following with almost religious fanaticism since his first command: after each battle, he would write condolence letters to the families of the people he had lost, hoping that receiving a handwritten letter from him would ease a tiny fraction of their pain. He decided since he had a few hours to kill, this was a good time to start writing the letters, given that he had several thousand to write. He picked up a pen and some papers and started.

The door swooshed open, and Alitaa walked in. Maada looked up at his wife and saw her deep blue eyes filled with equal parts sorrow and determination.

“Are you writing the letters?” she asked in a low voice

Maada nodded.

“Let me help you, Husband.”

Maada pointed at the chair on the other side of the desk and offered her a pen. She took it and sat down, her face becoming ghostly pale after she looked at the casualty list.

Husband and wife started writing together.

Chapter Four

Ilooked at the small moon that had just appeared on  Invincible bridge’s main screen. “Are you sure it’s here?”

“Yep,” answered Charles, sitting on the command chair behind me. “And here is Tarq himself to confirm it.”

Tarq, in his native American form, gave me a toothy grin from a VR screen. “Jim! So nice of you to decide to finally join us. Did you get lost along the way, or did you stop for coffee?”

“Hey, Tarq,” I said. “What’s new? We’ve been out of the loop for a few hours.”

“Loads,” he said. “Come join us in the Command Center. I am sending you the landing coordinates.”

I looked at the helmsman, who nodded.

“Take us down,” I ordered. “Nice and easy.”

“Great instructions, Admiral,” said Venom. “He might have decided to land the ship rough and hard.”

I watched the moon through the main screen as Invincible approached the surface. The moon’s atmosphere was very tenuous, so nothing happened for a while, and then suddenly it was as if we passed through an invisible barrier and entered Wakanda.

Tarq’s secret base was the size of a small city. When the Akakies built Winterfell on Earth, they’d made an attempt to simulate our environment. This one, however, was full-on Akakie. There were tall, elegant, golden buildings everywhere, connected by some sort of high-speed rail. Except for the fleet base, which was identifiable by its air traffic control towers, hangars, and ammunition and ordnance depots, the ground was covered with thick vegetation, and I could see a vast ocean on Invincible’s starboard. I stared at the bright blue waves crashing along the pristine shore in utter amazement. I knew it was a simulation (just like the sun shining over us), but one couldn’t tell the difference. 

“This looks just like Kanoor,” said Cordi with a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Yeah. Let’s hope it survives the current alien invasion though,” I said bitterly. I loved Kanoor, and its destruction, along with ten billion of its inhabitants, would’ve deeply wounded me if it weren’t for the fact that, at the time, Earth’s survival was hanging by a thread.

A hover car was waiting for Charles and me after we landed. While it drove towards the Command Center, I told Charles, “It’s just like Winterfell all over again, only on a galactic scale.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled.

“Back then, the invaders conquered Earth with very little resistance from us; then we took it back, operating from an invisible secret base.”

“There is one significant difference,” Charles pointed out. “The Akakie technology at your disposal was much more advanced than what the enemy had, even if they did outnumber your forces. Now, it appears that they outnumber us and have better technology and weapons.”

“There’s that,” I admitted. 

Xornaa, Maada, and Tarq (biting his fingers) were in the Command Center, sitting around an oval conference table and talking to one another, when we walked in. Various monitors and screens all around the room—every available surface seemed to be covered by them—showed the enemy fleet ships landing on our defenseless planets. Alitaa was there too, which made me realize with everything else that had been going on, I hadn’t even thought about Maada’s wife.

Thank God she’s survived.

There was a fifth person in the room: a humanoid alien with blue skin and antennae in a fighter pilot flight suit. She looked familiar, but I remembered who she was only after she gave me a tight-lipped nod and said, “Kingslayer.” This was the Zharnuuti princess whose life I’d saved during Operation Armageddon.  A Princess Zyre or something. 

“Princess Zyria,” said Xornaa deep inside my skull, which drew a seething glare from me. I hated when she did that, and I was touchy already.

“Sorry,” she said, still inside my brain. “It happens sort of automatically at this point.”

I wasn’t in the mood to exchange pleasantries. I looked at Maada and growled, “Report.” I was his boss, after all.

“Our fleet has around thirteen thousand space fighters left,” he said, “plus my ship Victorious, an Akakie starship called Dauntless, and a number of transport ships and support vessels. They are all on their way here.”

“We have a thousand Vipers here on the base,” added Tarq, “plus a few of those invisible ships we reverse-engineered after we captured Nelzod’s people. But we do not have any pilots.”

“We can send out the invisible ships to pick up pilots from Earth,” I said. “What do you call this base? Wait, don’t answer that. We’re going to call it Zion.”

“As in the Old Testament?” asked Xornaa with a furrowed brow. “Since when have you turned to religion, Mr. Agnostic-for-Life?”

“Religion?” I frowned. “What’re you talking about? Zion is the last human stronghold after a war between mankind and the sentient machines in Matrix.”

“Oh, it’s from a movie,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I should’ve known.”

“If you are done with the extremely important task of finding a name for the base, which I feel obliged to say already had a name, I have more bad news,” said Tarq blandly. “We lost Indomitable.”

That hit me even harder than the loss of ninety percent of our fleet. The Akakie dreadnought Indomitable was the biggest and most powerful ship in the galaxy, and she’d saved our ass when we went to war with Father. And now she was gone too.

I rubbed my forehead. “How the frak did this happen?”

“Broken record much?” asked Venom.

I’ll stop asking once someone gives me a frakking answer! I yelled at him. Silently, of course.

“Still no clue,” said Tarq, filling his pipe’s bowl with tobacco.

“The Talgoinians, the suicidal bastards that they were, made a stand,” said Maada, but despite his words, his tone was respectful, “instead of following orders and joining us here. They were slaughtered to the last sailor. Guess who is in command of the fleet which did that.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“It is our old friend Mushgaana,” he said. “He has twenty-two thousand Deathbringers under his command.”

The question that immediately jumped into my head made the hair on the back of my head stand up. “Please tell me there isn’t one of you in the enemy fleet.”

Maada looked offended. “Of course not. I would rather die than become a puppet for the insects.”

“Which, I suspect, is exactly what you’ve done in the other universe,” Xornaa told him. “I wonder where my doppelganger is though.”

Thank God for small favors. An alternate universe Evil Maada would’ve been terrifying.

“Right?” asked Xornaa.

“Can I please have some privacy inside my own head?” I snapped at her, my mood getting darker with each passing second.

Xornaa flipped her hair in annoyance. “I thought you said that aloud.”

Zyria looked confused. “What the hell are you people babbling about?”

“It’s complicated,” Xornaa told her.

“You know, now I’m mad at Benedita,” I said. “She could’ve warned us.”

“You know very well why she didn’t, Jim,” said Xornaa. “With prior knowledge, we might’ve taken steps that would eventually have worse consequences. You remember the last time we played with the timeline, we destroyed the entire universe?”

“We fixed it,” I emphasized.

“With Benedita’s help, who isn’t around anymore,” she responded.

“I think the fact that she did not warn us means we will eventually prevail,” Tarq pointed out.

“Probably,” I said. “But at what cost?”

“It took me forty Earth years to conquer forty-four planets,” growled Maada, “and these bastards subjugated our entire galaxy in a few hours!”

I was too wired to sit, so I started pacing back and forth along the conference table. “When will Kurt arrive?”

Maada, Xornaa, and Tarq looked at one another.

Cold sweat covered my brow. “What?”

Oh, please don’t tell me he’s hurt. Or dead.

“No, he’s all right as far as we know,” said Xornaa hurriedly. “But he chose to stay behind to fight the occupying Xenoakakie forces.”

My nostrils flared, and I felt my face getting hot. I kicked the table. “He forces me to jump here; then he himself stays behind to fight? He’s planning to be a martyr or something?”

“It is probably a moot point,” said Maada, “because the invaders announced they would shoot down any ship that tried to leave Earth.”

“Pat and Sophie?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Also on Earth, hiding,” replied Maada.

I turned to Tarq. “We must send an invisible ship to bring them here.”

“They are probably safer wherever they are hiding,” he said. “The Xenoakakies might be able to detect the ships. We do not know for sure. For all we know, we might not be very safe here ourselves.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then Zyria asked, “Do we have a plan?”

“Yes,” I replied coldly. “We kill all the insects and liberate our planets.”

“That is a good plan,” Maada approved.

“And how, exactly, are we going to do that?” asked Alitaa.

Tarq’s PDD started beeping. He picked it up from the table and looked at the screen; then his eyes widened, and the pipe fell from his lips.

I took a few steps closer, looked at the PDD over his shoulder, and blinked a few times in utter astonishment.

Another Tarq, an identical twin of our Tarq, in the same white suit and feathered hat but wearing a freaking monocle, looked at him through the screen. “Hello, me. Where the hell is Kanoor?”

And a second later, “Oh my God! Is that General Freaking Maada sitting next to you?!”

Chapter Five

Ilooked at the two Tarqs, sitting opposite each other at the conference table, one smoking a cartoonishly huge pipe and the other one wearing a monocle I could swear he’d stolen from the Penguin. I rubbed my temples and tried to fight off the splitting headache that had attacked my brain a few minutes ago. I really needed a moment to sit down and let everything that had happened recently sink in. Banging my head against the conference table might’ve helped too.

“What’s up with the monocle?” I asked the new Tarq.

He adjusted his eyewear and grinned at me. “It looks cool.”

I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“So, how many parallel universes are there?” Xornaa asked the newcomer.

“Four that we know of, but there could be more,” he replied with a shrug. “Or three, depending on how you look at it. It’s complicated.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “And everyone can travel between these universes now?”

The new Tarq raised a hand. “You must have a million questions, but this will go faster if I talk, and you listen for now.”

“Huh,” said Venom. “I could swear I’ve heard him say that once before.”

“Let me guess,” I told the new Tarq. “You’re going to use a holographic presentation.”

He looked at me in confusion. “Why would I do that? What I am going to tell you is a bit complicated, but understanding it does not require visual aid.”

I sighed.

“There are four parallel universes, as I just said. Three of those are very similar. In fact, they used to be identical, until a few decades ago when a Xortaag scientist from our universe found a way to open portals to the others. He came through the portals and met his doppelgangers from the other universes. Since then, things started to happen differently. Some of these changes are small, but some have had severe consequences.”

“The butterfly effect,” I commented.

Everyone looked at me.

“It’s a theory that says small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system,” I explained patiently, like a good teacher, “like a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.”

“That is stupid,” sniffed Maada. “A butterfly cannot cause a typhoon.”

“Don’t be so literal,” I told him.

“And one of the big changes is Evil Nelzod convincing evil me to use the Super-Akakie Maker serum,” commented Tarq, “transforming us to Xenoakakies and giving birth to the White Republic.”

The new Tarq looked questioningly at his twin. “Xenoakakies?”

“I came up with it,” I said.

The monocle-wearing Tarq nodded sagely. “SAM does not only make you bigger and give you supernatural strength, but it also turns you into an apex predator. People who use it are angry all the time, and they wish to attack and hurt others.”

“In other words, it drives them crazy,” said our Tarq. “I know, which is why I stopped Nelzod’s plans for its mass production and use.”

“I do not think they fathomed the repercussions of what using SAM would entail; otherwise, they would not have done it. Up to that point, they were an advanced race of peaceful pranksters, just like us. I guess the rest is easy to guess. Aided by their vastly superior technology, the Xenoakakies conquered their galaxy in a few short years.”

Maada leaned forward and looked the new Tarq in the eyes. “Do you know how the enemy obliterated ninety percent of our forces?”

“Yes,” was all the insect said.

Maada scowled. “And are you going to tell us?”

“I was enjoying the dramatic pause.” The new Tarq grinned. “The White Republic’s Navy has found a way to weaponize nanobots. They released billions of those things between their fleets and yours, like a minefield, and you people walked right into it. I can, however, show you how to detect and neutralize the nanobots to avoid similar incidents in the future though.”

“Freaking nanobots,” grumbled Venom.

“Why did we not think about it?” Maada growled.

“Nanobots are supposed to be your thing, remember?” I told him.

“We had no idea they could be weaponized,” said Tarq sadly.

“Couldn’t you have warned us?” I asked the new Tarq.

“We could not. Our scientist, the one who originally invented the machine that opens portals, died without sharing his secret with anyone. After his death, we went through his findings, and our scientists could devise a way to observe the other universes, but that was it. We were unable to go through until we watched the Xenoakakies do it.”

He stopped to take a deep breath. “And do not be fooled by the title Republic. It is the worst kind of dictatorship. They do whatever they want and answer to no one. They plunder the other planets’ natural resources, constantly pull vicious pranks on them, and take their people to fight their wars.”

“Why did my doppelganger not stop them?” asked Maada.

“He tried. A Xenoakakie pilot killed him.”

Maada slammed his fist against the conference table. “It is not possible!”

“SAM affects people in different ways according to their natural talents and abilities. It has turned one of them into a super ace pilot, kind of like you. She killed you during the conquest of Tangaar, and now everyone calls her—”

“Kingslayer?” I interrupted him.

The insect gave me a confused look. “No. Maada was not a king. Why would anyone call his killer Kingslayer? She is known as the Death Angel.”

“Is she here?” Maada asked in a low, dangerous voice. One didn’t need to be a mind-reader to guess what he was thinking.

“No. The Xenoakakie president wanted to keep her close. They still have battles to fight in their universe, and more importantly, I think he was worried their Tarq might make a play for power.”

“We would never do such a thing,” commented our Tarq. “It is much more fun to pull the strings from behind a curtain.”

“I totally agree,” said his twin.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier for them to invade Andromeda,” I asked, “instead of coming here?”

Tarq’s doppelganger looked at me over his monocle. “How would that be easier? It takes months to reach Andromeda. Traveling between the universes is instantaneous.”

Maada and I exchanged a look. Unknowingly, he’d just told us the enemy fleet didn’t have our new and much faster SFD, which our Tarq had stolen from Benedita. I guessed the Time Marshal hadn’t visited the other universes. Being able to move our fleet much faster than the enemy gave us a significant advantage.

“How did the Xortaag scientist find out about the existence of parallel universes to begin with?” asked Xornaa.

I knew the answer: I’d asked Maada the same question when he’d faked my death as a means to unite our galaxy.

“Someone told him in a chance meeting in a bar or a restaurant, I don’t exactly remember,” replied the insect, “and gave him enough data so that he could eventually build a machine to open the portals.”

“It sounded stupid when Maada said it,” said Venom, “and it still sounds stupid.”

Xornaa sat up plank-straight as a look of alarm crossed her face.

“What’s wrong?” Maada and I asked together. Great minds.

Xornaa waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll tell you later. We have more urgent matters to worry about now.”

“I do not know if this is relevant,” added our guest from a parallel universe, “but the three doppelgangers in each universe are somehow connected.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Have you ever been to a place for the first time and felt like you have been there before? The feeling of déjà vu? That usually means you are experiencing something your doppelganger has already experienced.”

“So it has nothing to do with the Matrix changing things?” I asked.

Charles, who was really good at getting my movie references, chuckled. Everyone else just ignored me.

“What about the fourth universe?” Alitaa demanded. “You did not talk about it at all.”

The new Tarq hesitated a second, then blew out a noisy breath and said, “Well, here is where things get weird, but I might as well tell you now.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, things are getting weird just now?”

He ignored me. “The fourth universe is completely different from the others. There are no planets there, and no space either. The whole thing is one limitless flat field, covered by a visible barrier above the sky, like a snow globe. So far as we can tell, there are no sentient beings there. The whole place is filled with billions upon billions of monsters, most of which can fly, and all they do is fight, kill, and tear one another up, and reproduce at an incredible rate. Every inch of the surface—and most of the sky—is overflowing with them. A fleet of ten thousand space fighters will not survive there for ten minutes due to the sheer number of the monsters.”

“Monsters?” asked our Tarq. “What do you mean, monsters?”

“Dragons. Werewolves. Demons. Six-legged flying things that I cannot even describe. They all look like they walked out of a horror movie. Think about the scariest creature you have seen in your most horrifying nightmare, and I guarantee you it is there.”

“And these things can damage a ship?” Maada asked incredulously.

“We sent a dreadnought there right before I came here, on autopilot, of course. It was torn to pieces in seconds.”

I chuckled bitterly. “Congratulations. You’ve found Hell.”

He looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“A lot of old Earth religions describe Hell as a huge place where sinners are tortured and devoured by monsters for eternity,” I explained.

Tarq frowned. “What would be the point of that? All the sinners will be eaten in a few days.”

Despite everything that had been going on, I couldn’t stifle another chuckle. I’d never thought I would end up trying to explain Everlasting Punishment to an insect. “You think sinners can get away with committing sins so easily? They’re all resurrected the very next day, just to be devoured all over again.”

“For eternity?” asked Maada, bemused.

“For eternity,” I confirmed.

Except for Charles, the looks on everyone’s faces told me they thought I was kidding.

“Why is this universe different from the other three?” asked Xornaa, playing with a lock of her luscious hair.

“How the hell should I know?” answered our new friend. “I never claimed I was privy to all the secrets of creation. We call this one the Crimson Universe, by the way.”

“They totally stole your thing,” I told Maada.

“His thing?” the new guy asked me.

“You know, the Crimson Deathbringer? Maada’s legendary space fighter?”

“Oh, I had forgotten about that. We assassinated the general some twenty years ago, after he conquered several planets and we recognized the threat he posed.” The insect looked at our Tarq. “I am surprised you did not do it.”

“We tried,” answered my alien friend. “But all the agents we sent to kill Maada disappeared without a trace. At the time, we did not know Mushgaana could read minds from a distance.”

“We knew, so we hired a human to snipe him from far away, without getting close.”

After the peace treaty with the Xortaags and before the Black Fleet showed up, Kurt had been itching to go to Tangaar and put a bullet through Maada’s brain. They totally stole your thing too, I pictured myself telling him.

“I hope he’s all right,” said Xornaa in my brain. “Pat and Sophie too.”

I agreed with her, so I didn’t complain about her reading my mind.

Tarq took a long drag of his pipe and blew out some smoke. “We know who my doppelganger in the enemy fleet is. What about my daughter, Varina?”

The new Tarq scratched his head and seemed reluctant to answer. “You saw that enormous dreadnought that approached Earth? It is called Monstrous, and Varina is its captain.”  

“And in your universe?”

“Happily married with three kids.”

Tarq heaved a sigh of relief. “That is something, at least.”

That exchange reminded me. “How are things in your universe in general?”

“It is run mostly by us. We put an end to the Xortaag invasion and took their place, but we did not conquer anyone. We coerced the other species into signing up for an Akakie-led central government.”

“One more question,” put forth Princess Zyria. “How did they force the other species to join their fleet? One of the fleets invading us belongs to my people, for crying out loud.”

“They have put small bombs in the bases of those sailors’ skulls,” answered the new Tarq. “Every single one of them. They are referred to as the Foreign Legion, by the way.”

“Our Tarq does that too from time to time,” I said, “but apparently the evil Akakies have gone full Suicide Squad.”

The new Tarq narrowed his eyes. “How can you still crack jokes? Your entire galaxy was just occupied by enemy forces from another universe!”

“It is called gallows humor,” our Tarq told him.

“Practice,” I said. “This ain’t our first apocalypse. Or second. Or even third.”

“Any humans in the Foreign Legion?” asked Charles.

“Those sailors are chosen from the species with space travel technology, so no. There are three people in their fleet who can release the detonation codes: Tarq, his right-hand woman Sub-Commander Nelzod, and the commander of their fleet, Admiral Juntoo. With the Xenoakakies’ near-instantaneous communication, any one of the three can put an end to a mutiny as soon as it starts. The bombs are also connected to these three’s vitals, so if they are killed, they will take all the foreign sailors in the White Republic’s Navy with them.”

“Which means they’ll lose half their fleet if we kill the Three Stooges,” I nodded. “Good to know.”

Maada gave me a hard look. “A lot of those foreign sailors are Xortaags.”

“My enemy’s friends are my enemies,” I answered.

Maada raised his voice, apparently forgetting that I was his boss. “The Xortaags are not ‘friends’ with the Xenoakakies. They are serving under the threat of death, obviously.”

Xornaa interfered. “Let’s put a pin in this discussion for now, shall we?”

“And at any rate,” added Charles, “killing those three wouldn’t solve our problems because the Xenoakakies will still have a hundred thousand space fighters left.”

“It’ll be a step in the right direction,” I said, ignoring Maada’s furious glare.

“I have got more bad news,” the new Tarq told me. “I think you should sit down for this one.”

“More bad news?” asked Xornaa. “How can things possibly get any—”

“For the love of God, please don’t finish that sentence”, I implored her; then I told the new Tarq, “I’m good.”

He measured his words carefully. “The parallel universes are connected, which makes opening the portals possible. We are in the process of collapsing those connections. In exactly eleven standard galactic days, no one can open a portal between the three identical universes.”

Silence engulfed the Command Center as everyone stared at him.

I was the first to recover. “Why would you do that?” I asked, astonished.

“Is it not obvious? The crazy Akakies are not going to stop here, and we are next. This is the only way to save our universe.”

“But then we’ll be stuck with them!” I exclaimed.

The new Tarq gave an I-don’t-give-a-shit shrug. “You better hurry up and kick them out then.”

“Did I understand correctly that you won’t be closing the connections between the Crimson Universe and the other three?” asked Xornaa.

“Yes. It is a trap, and a deadly one. We are hoping the Xenoakakies might be crazy enough to try to get home through that universe and get their asses kicked.”

“Are you sure leaving the connection between our worlds and the Crimson Universe is a good idea?” asked Alitaa. “What if the monsters find a way to come here?”

“That would never happen. They do not have enough intelligence to open a portal, and if someone from your universe is stupid enough to open a portal and go there, then they deserve whatever happens to them.”

“You just said jumping between the universes is instantaneous,” Maada pointed out. “The Xenoakakie fleet can just jump to the Crimson Universe and then immediately to their own.” 

The new guy shook his head. “The jump is instantaneous, so is opening a small portal for one person to go through, but creating a portal big enough for a fleet takes several days. They will not last there that long. They will be buried under the sheer weight of the monsters. Opening a smaller portal and sending the ships one by one will have the same result, before you ask.”

“And if they decide not to take that risk and stay here?” I asked.

He shrugged again. “Then you must prepare yourself for a very long occupation, but you have to find a way to kick them out before the portals are closed. You know we are pranksters, right? These guys are pranksters and crazy, and they have turned pulling pranks into a blood sport.  If they are stuck in here and get bored, they will destroy your planets by the dozens, just for their amusement. In fact, they were already doing it in their own universe when they found a way to come here.”

“Great.” I felt as if my temples were about to burst, and rubbing them didn’t seem to help. “Now we have a little more than three weeks to defeat an enemy fleet that has walked all over our forces like it was nothing.”

“I just said eleven days,” said the newcomer.

“Three Earth weeks,” I clarified.

Tarq’s doppelganger removed his monocle and cleaned it with his uniform. “You can come with me. I am authorized to offer you refugee status in our universe.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And leave our people under the Xenoakakies’ occupation?”

“I must say it looks extremely unlikely that you can defeat them with the small force you have here.”

“Completely out of the question,” Maada growled.

“I think we should at least consider this,” said our Tarq. “Our situation is hopeless. We could at least save the lives of our people here.”

“Unless you have something positive to contribute, shut up,” I snapped at him. The words came out a lot harsher than I’d intended, but he deserved it.

“Let us review the facts,” continued his twin. “The White Republic navy has two hundred thousand space fighters, and they defeated your Federation at the height of its power with ridiculous ease. What exactly do you think you'll be able to accomplish in this tiny base with your meager forces? Getting yourselves killed will not help anyone, you know.”

“You know what happened to the other invaders who wrote us off?” I said. “We came, we saw, we kicked their ass.”  

“Stop wasting your breath,” Maada told our guest. “We are not going anywhere.”

The new Tarq shrugged, looked at his PDD, and rose to his feet. “I have to go now. I wish I could help, but there is not anything I can do.”

“Wait up,” said our Tarq. “I will walk with you.”

Together, the twins left the Command Center.

I threw myself onto a seat, closed my eyes, and rubbed my temples again. Too much had happened in the span of just one frakking day. A Xenoakakie fleet from a parallel universe had conquered ours, and now we had twenty-two standard galactic days to kick them out before they were trapped in here with us. There were not one, but three alternate universes. And, oh yeah, dragons and werewolves were real.

Then I realized the night was still young.

“What did you want to say,” Maada asked Xornaa, “when you heard how that Xortaag scientist found out alternate universes existed?”

Xornaa straightened a curl, looking uncertain how to answer the question. “I would’ve said what I’m about to tell you sounds crazy, but after everything that has happened today, it suddenly doesn’t sound that weird anymore. I knew a guy who invented a time machine around twenty years ago—”

Zyria interrupted her. “Time machines are a thing now? It is not like we have heard a ton of crazy shit today already. Sorry, Admiral.”

I chuckled. She didn’t know about Benedita’s visit from the future. “Crazy shit just about covers it.”

“Guess how he came up with the idea,” Xornaa continued.

“Some stranger approached him and told him what he needed to know in a chance meeting,” I said immediately.

Xornaa nodded.

Maada examined me closely. “Did you know about this?”

I shrugged. “That was just a guess, but Kurt once mentioned Xornaa had time-traveled before any of us knew it was a possibility.”

“This cannot be a coincidence,” said Alitaa.

“It isn’t,” said Xornaa. “I have a theory, but you must promise you won’t laugh at me.”

“This has got to be good,” commented Maada dryly.

“I believe there exists a race of God-like, omnipotent aliens who keep messing around in our affairs for unknown reasons,” said Xornaa, “and have possibly been doing that for thousands of years.”

“Why do you think they are impotent?” asked Zyria.

“Omnipotent,” Xornaa enunciated.

“Ah,” said the princess. “That makes more sense.”

I waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not half as crazy as you think. Q has been doing that for decades.”

“Who is Q?” asked Maada.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud! We watched Star Trek: Q’s Legacy together. Will it kill you to remember at least the main character of the movies you watch?”

“Q?” said Charles. “Our gods have been doing that for several millennia. Q ain’t got nothing on Yahweh.”

I nodded in agreement. “Touché.”

“What are you people talking about?” growled Maada.

I did my best Al Pacino impression. “Let me give you a little inside information about God. He’s a prankster. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift and then what does He do?”

“He sets the rules in opposition,” Cordi answered. She sounded like she was enjoying herself.

“Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow,” I finished the legendary monologue in a most dramatic fashion.

Maada rolled his eyes in disgust. “I have no idea what you are doing right now.”

“I’m going to send you a copy of the Bible,” I told him. “Do your own research.”

“Meanwhile, in the real world,” said Xornaa, “let me tell you why I believe in this theory.”

She went on to give us a few examples of things that could’ve happened only by some divine intervention, but I honestly didn’t need any convincing. How else would you account for the fact that we always found ourselves in the middle of a galaxy-ending Charlie Foxtrot? 

“Benedita told me no one in the future could figure out how that Volt scientist managed to build a time funnel,” added Xornaa. “It wouldn’t surprise me to find out some stranger showed him the way.”

Maada looked perturbed.

“What?” I asked him.

“That idea of mine that we needed to colonize other planets to save our own species, which started the whole thing?” he told me. “It came to me in a dream. All this time I thought it was a vision, but now I wonder.”

Xornaa chuckled. “I rest my case.”

Maada scowled at her. “It proves nothing. I am my own man. No one is pulling my strings.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Why always us?”

“Because we always make poor life choices,” answered Venom.

“Is it a rhetorical question?” asked Xornaa. “Because if it isn’t, I have an answer.”

I looked at her.

“What would a child do if they tried to burn some ants with a magnifying glass, but it didn’t work out?”

“They’d come back with a bigger magnifying glass to see how much the ants could take,” I answered.

Xornaa nodded in agreement. “Exactly. We’re the center of attention, so to speak, because we’ve defeated everything they’ve thrown at us up to now.”

“What you’re saying is as long as we keep winning, this will never end?” I asked, then sighed. “Great.”

“Unless we find these so-called gods and kill them once and for all,” commented Maada.

“No offense, Xornaa,” said Alitaa, “but it sounds very far-fetched.”

Xornaa pointed at me. “Not for this guy, apparently.”

“Science-fiction fan here,” I told her. “We’re a weird bunch.”

“This discussion, while fascinating, doesn’t help us at all,” said Charles flatly. “What are we going to do?”

I looked at my friends. “It appears we have a universe to save. Again.”

Chapter six

“Is everything ready?” asked Sub-Commander Nelzod.

Next to her, Senior Chief Officer Ilex grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, as per your instructions.”

They were standing in front of a high-rise tower. From what Nelzod understood from the human’s social structure, this was an affluent community. The building even had its own private security, whom Ilex and his team had to kill in preparation for pulling off this prank.

The sun had just started to rise, spilling a weak amber light over Nelzod and her soldiers. She blinked against the rising sun and threw one last look at the building they’d chosen as their target. “Fire in the hole,” she said, then pressed the detonator.

Flames, smoke, and dust belched from the ground-floor main entrance and windows as explosions rocked the building. Fire wrapped itself around the structure like a keen python, slithering intently upward. Terrified faces appeared on higher-floor windows, some shouting, some begging for help. The blaze spread rapidly through the twenty-story building, pouring black smoke into the air.

A man and a woman, carrying a small girl, ran out of the main entrance, coughing and breathless. The man had covered his family under a thick woolen blanket, which was presumably wet when they’d started their perilous journey. Nelzod admired his ingenuity and determination; then she raised her sidearm and took careful aim with both hands, taking her time. She enjoyed the look of horror on the man’s face before he turned his back to her and tried to shield his family.

Nelzod shot him in the back.

The woman, eyes wide in terror, kneeled on the ground, holding her child tightly. “Please! Have mercy! My daughter’s only three!”

Nelzod grinned wolfishly and shot her in the head.

“Maybe we spare the little one?” asked Ilex hesitantly.

Nelzod turned her head to look at him. “Why?”

“She is so small.”

“There are hundreds of children just like her being burned alive in the building you just set on fire,” Nelzod pointed out.

Ilex scratched his head. “I know. But we can see this one.”

“There were billions of children on Grapilia when we blew up the planet back in our universe. Are you going soft on me?”

Ilex glared at her; then he brought his handheld laser cannon to bear and sprayed the little girl, who was clinging to her mother’s corpse, and the surrounding area with energy bolts. Nothing was left of the three corpses when he stopped shooting.

“I am not soft,” he growled.

“Good to know,” Nelzod replied dully. “I am happy we cleared that up.”

Fire truck sirens echoed in the distance, but as they got closer, Nelzod heard weapon discharges, and the sirens stopped. No help was coming for the doomed people trapped inside the tower.

She was beginning to get bored when the first person who had decided to plunge to his death rather than being burned alive jumped out of a high-floor window, screaming all the way down before his body splattered on the ground.

Nelzod checked her PDD. Twenty-six minutes and thirty-three seconds had passed since she had started the fire. She grinned and snapped her fingers in front of Ilex’s face. “Pay up.”

“Was totally worth it,” he replied with a grin.

“It is more fun if you win the bet,” Nelzod pointed out. “Do you want a chance to win your money back? I have a couple of other interesting ideas.”

*****

“Jim, can you please come to the Command Center?” said Tarq from my PDD. “I urgently need to talk to you.”

“Oh-oh,” said Venom. “This is never good news.”

“What’s up?” I asked after I walked into the Command Center,

“Please take a seat,” he said grimly.

I sat at the conference table and looked at him, waiting.

He took a long drag on his pipe, looking uncertain what to say.  Finally, he started to say, “I live to pull pranks—”

“Really? I haven’t noticed,” I interrupted with a smirk.

“Nothing in life comes close to giving me the same satisfaction, and right now I have the opportunity to pull a perfect one. A prank that would have been legendary, even by my standards.”

Then he looked pointedly at me. “But I remembered a dear friend, someone who is like a brother to me, once asked me to count to ten and think about its effects on my victims. So I did that, and I started worrying you might have a heart attack. Please do not have one, but just in case ...”

With a deadpan expression, he put a defibrillator on the table.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

The door opened and a man and a woman came in.

The man looked to be in his mid-sixties. He was bald, had a large build, and was slightly overweight. He was smoking, which I thought was strange because the last time I saw him trying to smoke he nearly choked to death.

And the woman ...

She was Afro-Hispanic, with smooth skin the color of coffee beans, thick black curly hair, and long, long legs. Her eyes were dark brown with flecks of gold, and I vividly remembered how full of joy and love they were the day we got married.

“I see dead people,” said Venom. “Again.”

My breath caught in my chest as the room started rotating around my head. My jaw hit the table, but I had to close my mouth quickly because my racing heart was about to jump out of it. I looked at the defibrillator in front of Tarq. He was right. A heart attack seemed like a real possibility right about now.

“With all these people coming back from the dead,” said Cordi, “I’m beginning to think we live in a Marvel universe. Hi, Liz.”

“Hiya, Cordi,” said the woman—Liz!!—with the same British accent I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. “You’re here too?”

“No one has come back from the dead,” said Tarq patiently, looking closely at me with concern in his eyes. “Our Liz and Allen are still gone. These are their doppelgangers from the White Republic’s universe.”

I jumped out of my chair and my skin at the same time, heart still in my mouth, my body tingling all over, and took a few wobbly steps towards Liz.

I took a few steps towards Liz. Now that’s something I never thought I’d do again.

Frowning, she raised her right hand in front of her to stop me. “Let me get something straight right off the bat. You aren’t my Jim. My Jim was killed while leading an attack against the Akakie fleet.”

I stopped and leaned on the table to keep my balance, having no frakking idea what to say. Then I looked at Tarq over my shoulder. “Ella?”

“She was also killed fighting the invaders,” he said. “You guys never met, so there is no Byron in the other universe.”

“Who’s Byron?” asked Liz.

I wasn’t done yet. “Oksana? Keiko?”

“Died in the Harem; died during the invasion. And let me stop you before you start listing all the people who we have lost. From our old gang, only these two are alive. Kurt is killed too, and so is Maada, as my twin told you already. Can you imagine how great it would have been if we had two Maadas in our fleet? Xornaa might have survived, but we could find no sign of her. She might have gone underground after the Xenoakakies’ attack.”

“You’re an admiral now?” growled Allen, looking at my uniform. “Can someone please shoot me?”

It was only when Allen spoke that I noticed he was sporting a goatee. Now I was sure he was from a parallel universe, and apparently he didn’t like me there either.

“Pull yourself together, man,” said Venom sharply. “You look ridiculous in front of Liz.”

“Jim, are you all right?” asked Tarq. “You are as pale as a vampire.”

With a Herculean effort, I took a few deep breaths, stood straight, and steadied myself. “Let’s start over. Hi. Admiral Jim Harrison, Chancellor of the Galaxy, at your service. Welcome to our universe. I’m glad you could join us, but I really would like to know how Tarq pulled this off.”

“This guy,” Liz nodded towards Tarq, “came to visit me, offering a chance to fight the Akakies.”

“They must pay for Lilly and Kurt,” snapped Allen, which answered the question I hadn’t dared to ask.

“It was not me,” Tarq pointed out. “It was my doppelganger, at my request.”

“They don’t know you’re an Akakie?” I asked him, amazed.

“He is a what?!” Liz and Allen shouted in unison, eyes wide. Good thing the former Green Beret wasn’t armed; he might’ve otherwise shot Tarq.

Tarq blew out a noisy breath. “Thanks for that, Jim. Listen, my twin has given them some information, but there is a lot they do not know. Why do you not escort them to MICI? That would be much faster.”

Liz narrowed her eyes. “What’s MICI?”

“It’s like that machine in Matrix; it downloads whatever you need to know into your brain in an instant.” I looked at Tarq. “Where is MICI?”

“Down the hallway, third door on the left,” he gestured.

“Whose gonna operate it?” I asked. “I don’t know how to.”

“Duh,” said Cordi.

I looked closely at Liz while we were walking toward MICI’s room. She looked so beautiful in her stylish white maxi dress with short, puffy sleeves and an elegant belt—nothing as insignificant as visiting a parallel universe would stop her from dressing as impeccably as ever—but her features looked ... different, and not just because of age. A permanent hardness that definitely wasn’t there before clouded her face, and there were deep lines around her mouth and on her forehead. The last few years hadn’t been easy for her.

“Says Mr. Gray-Hair,” uttered Venom. “Tell her I’m happy she’s here.”

“Venom’s sure happy to see you,” I told her, trying to break the ice.

Her eyes rounded. “Venom? The Venom? You have Venom in this universe? How about Spider-Man?”

“Our Liz was brighter than this one,” Venom commented dryly.

I chuckled. “You know I have OCD, right? I call the constant stream of negative thoughts in my mind Venom. It’s a therapeutic method. Your Jim never did that?”

She shook her head. “He did drive me crazy with his stupid OCD though.”

“Hey!” objected Cordi. “Don’t speak evil of the dead.”

“It makes sense,” I offered. “I started doing that after we were sentenced to death by Zheng’s people. I guess that never happened in your universe?”

“No. You joined Kurt’s resistance, after all? My Jim kept talking about it, but he never did it, and then the Akakie fleet showed up in orbit, which made this a moot point anyway.”

“Is he still in power? Zheng, I mean.”

Her nostrils flared with apparent disgust. “Yes. Under the Akakies’ thumb, of course, but like all the other governments who surrendered to the insects, he gets free reign to deal with local issues.”

I shuddered at the image of Earth under Zheng and the crazy Akakies’ rule. 

“In your universe, am I still a movie buff?”

She nodded. “You and me both, mostly classic movies, and especially sci-fi.”

I’d gotten into movies as a child. Visiting galaxies far, far away, living on a spaceship, or falling in love with various vampires and werewolves was a perfect escape from the world in which my parents didn’t give two shits about me, so Liz had just answered my next question, but I asked anyway. “And my parents?”

She shook her head, looking sad. “Both dead, but you were never close to them. Your dad had forgotten that you existed, and your mom had serious psychological issues.”

“Some things never change,” I said wryly, “even in a parallel universe.”

“Speaking of parents,” she said, “my mother died years ago, and my father is an asshole. Same here?”

I nodded. “I haven’t heard from him in years, but I don’t think he’s changed.”

“My brother and sisters?”

I knew how close she was to her siblings, so I hesitated to answer, but there was no way around it. “Matias was killed fighting the Xortaags. Samantha and Theresa live in New York, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to see you.”

“In my universe, they all got killed by the Akakies nearly a year ago,” she said in a flat voice, but her eyes immediately welled up. “A frakking insect thought it would be hilarious to detonate a bomb in downtown Manhattan during rush hour.”

I was overwhelmed by a strong desire to console her, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I thought about holding her hand, but it seemed inappropriate, given that we’d just met. “I’m so sorry,” was all I managed to say.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and said nothing.

I cleared my throat. “And here we are.” 

For the technological marvel that MICI was, its appearance was very unimpressive. It was basically like a small beige room with a narrow entrance, a glass window, and a wooden chair inside. There was a control panel installed outside the room, but we wouldn’t need it today because Cordi was in charge.

“That’s it?” she asked, dubious. “I just go sit on that chair?”

“Yep. You’re still an acrobatic pilot, right?”

“A six-time world champion in the women’s category,” she said proudly.

After Liz entered MICI, I started wondering about my doppelganger. Was he exactly like me? How much did we have in common? How did he feel during those last moments of his life? Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing he was dead, I figured, because otherwise he could pull a Captain Lorca: he could sneak into our universe, kill me, and take my place as the galaxy’s chancellor. Not that it was such a brilliant prospect right now.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked Allen. “Do you really collect stamps?”

He gave me his typical annoyed look. “How did you know?”

“Kurt told me once, but I needed to hear it from you to believe it. Couldn’t you find a less boring hobby?”

He took a page out of Maada’s book and pretended I didn’t exist.

Liz’s eyes were gleaming when she walked out of MICI a few minutes later. She stood in front of me and performed a crisp military salute. “Lieutenant Junior Grade Lopez reporting for duty, sir!”

“She’s demoted already?” asked Venom.

Back in Winterfell, Liz and I were the first fighter pilots who came out of MICI, so it made sense for us to be high-ranking officers, until later, when Tarq demoted her for insubordination. I still wondered why Liz didn’t kill him; she was probably worried she might get more demoted. But here, we had thousands of fighter pilots in our fleet, all of whom more experienced than her. Lieutenant Junior Grade sounded about right. I might’ve even gone with Ensign.

I saluted back. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. Happy to have you with us. Again.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a fighter pilot!” she exclaimed.

“I know,” I said.

“And now I’ll be flying a fancy space fighter, not just a jet fighter. I have hundreds of hours of combat memories in my brain now. This thing is amazing!”

“I know,” I repeated.

I raised my right hand palm out, going for a high-five, but she hugged me instead. It was a simple, friendly gesture, but it sent shockwaves through my nervous system, and my heart felt a warmth it hadn’t felt in years. She pulled away almost immediately. “Sorry. I know we’ve just met, but you look so much like ...”

“I know.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You sound like a broken record,” said Venom, “again.”

I pulled myself together. “We’re going against an enemy who has like fifteen space fighters for every one of ours, so you should probably curb your enthusiasm just a bit.”

“Is it my turn now?” asked Allen impatiently.

“Yes. Be careful though. The last time you used it, it turned you into a cow.”

He cast me a shocked look.

“Don’t worry; it was only for one week,” I assured him.

“Please tell me it’s a weird joke,” he growled.

“What’s going on between you and this guy?” asked Liz after Allen entered MICI.

“It’s a long story. His doppelganger sacrificed himself to save Earth, so I’ll try to go easy on him.”

Liz put a hand on my arm. “MICI caught me up with the events in your universe. I’m very sorry about your Liz, and Ella too.”

“I’m sorry about your Jim,” I croaked. I thought about asking her for details of my twin’s death, but I figured I had enough nightmares as it was.

“Isn’t it weird that the guy who killed the other me works with us now? Maybe I should punch him in the face the next time we meet.”

“Please don’t,” I said. “He might break your arm. Or his wife will. On another note, I probably should let you know you’re Bruce-Wayne-level rich.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “How come?”

“Back in the day, Liz made Tarq steal several billion dollars from Zheng and his minions. She donated most of it to her orphanages and other charities, but she kept a few hundred million dollars for us. I haven’t touched that money, but now that you’re here, I guess it’s yours. So are the orphanages, for that matter.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m not her.”

I looked her up and down. “All evidence to the contrary.”

“I had my own orphanage,” she said. “But had to shut it down. There was a major economic recession after the Akakie invasion, and I lost all my money. I couldn’t run it anymore. You are still agnostic, by the way?”

“You’re still a devout Catholic?”

“Honestly? Hard to believe in God after everything that happened to us.”

Allen walked out of MICI and joined us, acting like using MICI was an everyday activity for him. “When will I get to see Kurt?”

“Soon, I guess, but you can call him now if you want. Let’s get you settled in first. Follow me.”

While walking outside the room, Allen pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket, looked at it, and put it back.

I looked upward. “Cordi?”

She laughed. “What? That is a disgusting habit.”

*****

Kurt stared at Allen’s image on his PDD. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

Kurt was in one of the old Resistance safehouses, a small studio flat in the Bronx, hidden among thousands of other residential units. He was alone, but Hanna and another Secret Service agent were right next door.

Allen offered a rare smile. “Me neither. I’m thrilled to see you again, Son. In my universe, Lilly”—his voice shook—“and you were killed within three months of each other. Things have been ... tough for me ever since.”

“I’m so, so sorry about Lilly. We all loved her.”

“So did everyone in my universe, except probably for that bitch who calls herself her mother. At least now I have a chance to get my revenge.”

Kurt tugged at his beard, remembering a conversation with Lilly a few years ago. “Our Lilly and her mother patched up things after the Xortaag invasion.”

Allen frowned. “From all the crazy things I’ve heard these last couple of days, this one is the hardest to believe. You’re married now?”

“And have a daughter. I hope you can meet them soon. They’re hiding in another safehouse. I was planning to send them to Zion, but we needed the invisible ships to get fighter pilots there. Plus, Tarq thinks they’re probably safer where they are right now.”

Allen stroked his goatee. “And you’re the president of a united Earth. Your old man would’ve been so proud.”

“We did that together, but it won’t count for much if we don’t kick out the Xenoakakies,” said Kurt with a hint of sadness in his voice.

*****

“You carry all these movie posters with you whenever you come on board?” Liz asked me.

“Nope,” I answered. “These are my personal quarters. I am the chancellor of the galaxy, you know.”

“If I knew that before coming here, I’d have stayed in my universe,” grumbled Allen, sitting next to Liz at my dining table.

I’d invited them to dinner, and in an effort to impress Liz, I’d decided to take Invincible for a ride. They were both in uniform now. Allen wore the Marines’ khaki shirts and green pants, and Liz made the pilots’ dark blue dress uniform look hot. I had to keep reminding myself to be professional and not stare at her.

“And did what?” I asked Allen. “Kissed the evil Akakies’ ass?”

Allen spat out the words like they were broken glass. “Still better than living in a universe where you’re the boss of everyone!”

His winning personality hadn’t changed at all. “You know, Allen, I’ve been meaning to ask you: have you put on more weight? You look even bulkier than the last time I saw you.”

He sucked air through his teeth. “Really? That’s the best comeback you can come up with? A fat joke?”

Tarq cleared his throat loudly. “Allen was trying to organize a resistance to fight the Xenoakakies when I found him,” he said when we looked at him, trying to stop our bickering, “but his situation looked pretty hopeless.”

Liz looked through my quarters’ round window and regarded the thousands of blinking stars beyond. “When I got out of bed today, I didn’t think I’d be having dinner on a starship, in space.”

“Life’s full of surprises,” I said simply, “some of them even pleasant.”

There was a knock on the door, and Maada and Xornaa entered. I’d asked them to join me in my quarters, casually mentioning I wanted them to meet some people and promising it’d be worth the shuttle ride to the ship. Maada was in uniform, but Xornaa was wearing a tight black leather bodysuit that showed off every curve in her perfectly toned body, complete with high-heel boots.

Liz’s eyes would fall out of her head if she rolled them any harder.

“Hey, guys.” I gestured at them to come closer. “Come sit down. Let me introduce you to Liz and Allen, who’re joining us from the Xenoakakies’ universe.”

Xornaa arched an eyebrow. Maada looked at Liz, averted his eyes, and rubbed his face where his scars used to be.

“Relax, General,” I told him. “This isn’t her, and at any rate, it wasn’t you. Where’s Alitaa?”

“Trying to put Molzaarg to sleep,” answered Maada, still avoiding eye contact.

“You’ve named your child Molzaarg?” Liz asked him. “Did you think he’d be an Orc when he grows up?”

“You can’t blame him,” I told her. “His own name is Luxubus Talvimus.”

“And now we have two movie-quoting, wise-cracking people who think they are funny,” muttered the general. “Great. Just great.”

Xornaa and Maada walked over to join us, but I held up a hand to stop them. “There aren’t going to be any guns, knives, or missile launchers at my table.”

Maada unholstered his sidearm and put it on a small table next to the entrance. His weapon was soon joined by two Glocks, a small Smith and Wesson M&P Bodyguard, and a huge Crocodile-Dundee style dagger, all belonging to Xornaa.

“Where was she hiding that arsenal?” whispered Liz.

“Scientists from all across the galaxy have been trying to answer that question for decades.” I winked at her. “No joy.”

“She pulls her weapons from another dimension,” said Tarq, “only accessible to her.”

He laughed when Liz and I gave him incredulous looks.

Xornaa sat opposite us and nodded at Liz and Allen. “Pleased to meet you.”

Liz gave her a death stare. “Not at all. You tried to mindfrak Jim into forgetting the other me and falling in love with you!”

Xornaa blew out a sigh and gave me a level look.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t tell her.”

“Tarq sent me a copy of your books,” Liz clarified.

“That was a different person,” I told her.

Liz looked surprised. “Wait, what? This one’s a clone too?”

“No. I meant she’s completely changed. She’s gone through what we writers call a transformation arc.”

Xornaa smiled. “Maybe this dinner wasn’t such a bright idea. Too much bad blood between us. notwithstanding the fact that these things happened to clones or doppelgangers, Maada killed Liz and Tarq’s daughter, Jim killed Maada, Maada’s sister-in-law killed Liz’s brother—”

“What!?” Flames flared in Liz’s eyes.

“You and Jim beat each other up,” added Cordi.

“Tarq used Earth as bait to trap the Xortaags, and you helped him,” I told Xornaa.

“No matter how many times we save the universe together,” said Tarq, “you are never going to let go of that one, are you?”

“Nope.”

“This is a fascinating group,” commented Maada dryly.

“I would like to point out we have a lot of shared positive experiences too.” Tarq blew out some smoke, looking thoughtful. “I married Jim and his first wife, for example.”

“Maada has saved my life four times,” I added.

“Together, we stood against the Black Fleet first and then Father,” said Maada, “and we won both times.”

“Jim and Xornaa made out,” Cordi pointed out helpfully.

Liz looked like she was about to choke.

“I agree with the alien woman,” said Allen, combing his goatee with his fingers. “You can cut the tension in the room with a knife, despite your attempts to sugarcoat it.”

“And I know just how to fix that,” I said. “Cordi?”

A few small serving robots approached us, carrying food and drinks.

Allen’s eyes twinkled as he picked up a beer bottle. “Molson Canadian!”

“There’s no beer in your universe?” I asked him.

“The Xenoakakies have banned alcohol. I haven’t seen one of these in years.”

I looked questioningly at Tarq.

He shrugged. “They are doing it just to spite the humans. You remember my doppelganger told us they were cruel? In every planet they conquer, they find what things the local people like most and then ban them.”

“That reminds me of my Al Pacino monologue about God, just a few days ago,” I said.

“The Devil’s Advocate?” Liz asked me.

I nodded. “It’s so good to have someone around who understands my movie references. These guys are hopeless.” Then I noticed Tarq was openly ogling Liz. “Dude! Seriously?”

He quickly averted his eyes. “I am so sorry.”

“If I may?” Xornaa raised her Bloodwine glass, looking pointedly at Liz. “To absent companions, new friends, and long-lasting friendships.”

I held up my glass. “Hear, hear.”

Everyone else followed suit. Liz hesitated, then she reluctantly joined us. We clinked our glasses together. I tried my wine. It was a deep blood-red and quite exceptional.

“She’ll come around,” said Venom.

“She’d better,” said Xornaa inside my skull. “Because if she keeps giving me an evil eye like she’d been doing all evening, I’ll eventually have to kick her ass.”

I’ll shoot you if you lay a finger on her!

“It didn’t end so well for you the last time you attacked me.”

I wasn’t armed.

“Wouldn’t have made a damned difference,” she declared confidently.

“It’s not like Liz to behave with such open hostility,” said Venom. “Maybe she’s threatened by the presence of a more beautiful woman?”

“Well, thank you,” said Xornaa smoothly.

Oh, shut up, both of you!

“It is not polite to have a telepathic conversation while you have company,” said a new voice in my brain.

I nearly dropped my glass.

“You’ve got to be frakking kidding me,” I snapped at Maada.

“What happened?” asked Tarq.

Maada offered a rare half-smile. “Sorry, Jim. I could not help it.”

“Since when can you read minds?”

“He can do what?” growled Allen.

Maada shrugged. “My telepathic powers have been growing exponentially in the last few years. It is probably because I have been practicing with Xornaa whenever the opportunity presented itself. And no, I cannot read everyone’s mind, but I seem to share the connection you have with Xornaa.”

I rubbed my forehead with tense fingers. “This is just getting better and better.”

“I promise to stay out of your mind,” said the general. “I hated it when Mushgaana did that to me.”

Liz turned to Tarq. “You know what I’ve just realized? I read Jim’s books, so now I know a lot about these guys’ backgrounds, even Maada and Xornaa, who used to be our enemies. But there’s nothing about you. Your background, your parents, your love life, nothing. All I know about you is you have a granddaughter who disguises as me for some weird reason.”

Tarq looked uncomfortable for a brief second before his poker face took over. “Really? I have no idea why.”

I cursed under my breath. She was right. I’d considered Tarq a brother for years, and only now did I realize I knew precious little about his personal life, and even worse, I wasn’t curious even a tiny bit.

“Sometimes I really hate the two-faced, conniving, deceitful, backstabbing, treacherous insect,” said Venom.

“Right?” Xornaa agreed with him.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to control rising anger. “Let me guess. You used MICI to block any curiosity we might’ve had about you and your background.”

“I am a very private person.” He averted his eyes. “I just do not want people to talk about my personal life, especially someone like you, who kept asking if Barook and I were a couple.”

“Were you?” asked Liz.

“Dude! After everything we’ve been through together?” I complained. “I thought we were friends.”

“You should choose your friends more wisely,” advised Maada.

I emptied my glass. “I thought you removed the lock from my mind back in Winterfell.”

“The lock on my personal life was under a different command,” Tarq replied.

“Wait a minute.” Xornaa sat upright. “I’ve never been through MICI, and still, I feel no curiosity toward Tarq’s personal life either.”

Now Tarq looked decidedly uncomfortable.

Xornaa narrowed her eyes dangerously, looking like she was getting ready to kick the insect’s ass. “Tarq! What have you done?”

“Nothing serious, I swear! Just the same thing I did to Maada once: I put some drugs in your food and threw you in MICI once you fell asleep.”

“And how did that work out for you?” Maada asked him.

“As I remember, the general nearly choked you to death when he found out,” said Xornaa with anger in her voice, “which honestly is exactly what I should be doing right now.”

“You were an infamous assassin,” Tarq protested. “I could not allow you to roam around freely and one day come after me, could I?”

“Tell me the truth: which one of my decisions in the past few years were mine, and which ones are because of you and your damned Mind Frak Machine?”

“I came up with that term,” I told Liz.

“Nothing to be proud of,” snapped Allen. “It’s juvenile.”

“The important decisions are all you. I just made it impossible for you to harm me or to disobey my direct orders, but I never actually ordered you to join Operation Armageddon or the fight against Father. You did those of your own free will, because of your deep desire to protect the countless children whose lives were in danger.”

“I have a question too,” Allen told Tarq. “I also started reading Jim’s books but got bored. Why do your fleets land on a planet?”

Tarq looked surprised. “As opposed to what?”

“Stay in orbit, obviously.”

Tarq shook his head. “We cannot keep the fleet in orbit. Both the transport vessels and the starships are extremely susceptible to space fighters swarming tactics, as these two here”—he nodded at Maada and me—“have proved several times.”

“I once destroyed ten thousand Deathbringers by blowing up their transport convoy,” I told Allen. “Killing twenty million Xortaags in the process.”

Maada shot me a blistering stare. “In their sleep. Are you actually proud of that?”

“You killed seven hundred million of us!” I told him.

The general closed his eyes and took a long, soothing breath. That reminded me how mellow he’d become. A few years ago, he would’ve bitten my head off. Literally.

Tarq blew out a smoke ring the size of a car tire. “On a fleet base, however, the ships are protected by our anti-spacecraft artillery, and they have enough time to fly off the ground and get into formation in case of an attack.”

I noticed Liz was examining me closely. “What are you looking at?”

“Your chin is more chiseled than I remember,” she replied.

“Uh … thank you?”

“Also, do you dye your hair?” she asked.

“All my hair turned gray after Ella and the baby were killed. I’m not really vain—”

“Of course you aren’t,”  snorted Venom. “Perish the thought.”

I rolled my eyes. “But I don’t like looking like I’m sixty years old either.”

Liz looked away. “I can’t even imagine what you must’ve gone through.”

“You have lost loved ones,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but not a newborn baby,” she replied.

Later that night, Tarq stayed behind after everyone left. “Do you really want to know about my personal life?”

“Say no!” Venom screamed. “It’s Tarq we’re talking about. God only knows what nightmarish secrets he’s about to reveal.”

“Eh, sure?” I said hesitantly.

“This is going to be good,” said Xornaa with enthusiasm, deep inside my brain.

Oh, for God’s sake! Get out of my mind.

“Over my dead body,” she cooed. “I really want to hear this. Wait, I’m calling Maada too.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” said Tarq, unaware of the fact that he now had an audience. “I was married once, to Varina’s mother, but I was never home, so she left me and married some rich insect with a boring life. They were both killed by the freaking Xortaags when your best friend General Planetary Genocide Maada conquered Kanoor.”

I wondered if I should’ve told him Xornaa and Maada were listening too but decided against it. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Dad was working for our security forces, so I followed in his footsteps, trying to prove myself to him, but ended up overshadowing him by several parsecs, obviously. And then I started enjoying it so much that I dedicated the rest of my life to it, and the rest is history. My mother left us when I was a child.”

“Like father like son then,” I commented.

“It was fun running operations all over the galaxy,” he added thoughtfully, “making empires rise and fall.” 

This was quite a letdown, if I were being honest. His backstory was quite ... ordinary, at least by our standards.

“Where are your parents now?”

“Dad died years ago; Mom was killed by the Black Fleet.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “And you didn’t mention that even once?”

“We had not talked to each other for years at that point.” He shrugged again, but I could see the pain in his eyes. Being abandoned by your parents wasn’t fun. I would know.

“Oh, come on!” Maada’s “voice” growled in my brain. “So your mother and father did not cuddle you enough when you were a baby. Get over yourself.”

“Have you noticed everyone in our team has a tragic past, one way or another?” I murmured.

“Maybe that is what makes us strong,” said Tarq. “An easy life does not make heroes, you know.”

“Heroes are forged in darkness, shaped in battle, defined by sacrifice,” I answered.

“Something like that,” said Tarq softly.

*****

“Boss, guess who just showed up,” Kurt heard Hanna’s voice in his ears.

He was in a vacant apartment on the sixteenth floor of a high-rise building overlooking the Presidential Palace, where Evil Tarq had decided to reside. He and Hanna had spent the last few days organizing the veteran Resistance fighters and their new recruits all over the planet, but when Jim and Tarq informed him that if he assassinated Nelzod, Juntoo, and Evil Tarq, half the enemy fleets’ personnel would be killed, they hadn’t done anything, hoping to lull the Akakies into a false sense of security. It was difficult to hold the Resistance fighters back, especially because the enemy soldiers were committing atrocities left, right, and center, but Kurt let his people know they had much bigger fish to fry. And now here he was, one and a half miles away from the Presidential Palace (where he used to live with Pat and Sophie just a few short days ago) with a clear view of the palace’s main entrance, hoping that Evil Tarq would show his face. 

A hover car had just pulled over in front of the palace. Kurt raised his binoculars and zeroed in on the super-Akakie who’d got out; then he looked at the three photos in front of him to make sure.

“Nelzod,” he growled.

“The one and only,” confirmed Hanna.

Kurt picked up his suppressed M-28 sniper rifle, slammed a magazine into the weapon, and pulled back the bolt, putting a round in the chamber. He was going to use exploding bullets that would detonate inside the target upon impact. He aimed at Nelzod through the gun’s telescopic sight, took a deep breath, released it, and gently pulled the trigger.

Nelzod’s giant head exploded like a watermelon, showering her bodyguards with flesh and blood.

Kurt thrust a fist skyward. “Bull’s eye!”

His heart drumming heavily in his chest, Kurt felt his lips spreading into a satisfied smile. He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d missed this. Bringing down monsters, alien or human, felt good. Maybe Jim was right: he did seem to enjoy killing people a bit too much.

Insects aren’t people, he then reminded himself.

Kurt was surprised by how easily he’d reverted to his freedom-fighting days, despite his initial reluctance. No hesitation. No internal conflict. No compunctions. No guilty conscience to bother him. Earth was under occupation, and someone had to do something about it. He would fight back, no questions asked. It was a fact of life.

“Nice shot, Boss,” said Hanna.

“Oh yeah? Watch this.”

Kurt shot three more Xenoakakies while they were running for cover, then switched to another magazine containing armor-piercing bullets, peppered Nelzod’s vehicle, and killed a few more enemy soldiers. He stopped shooting and pulled away from the window when he noticed some Xenoakakies looking in his general direction with binoculars.

“Are you showing off?” asked Hanna.

Kurt put down his rifle and ran out of the apartment. He didn’t want to leave his favorite gun behind, but carrying it would’ve attracted too much attention. “Of course not.”

“Then what was that for?”

A predatory grin spread across Kurt’s face. “Spite!”

He could hear the smile in the woman’s voice. “Remind me not to piss you off, ever.”

“Get out of there.” Kurt pushed the elevator button. “The place is going to be swarming with Xenoakakies.”

One down, two to go. 

There was an old woman in the elevator. She smiled at Kurt and said, “Nice day for a walk, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” responded Kurt with a nod. “But, ma’am, I have it on the highest authority that the Akakies will be conducting a military operation in the area very soon. I recommend you go back to your flat. It’s going to be dangerous out there.”

The woman squinted at him. “Do I know you from somewhere, young man? You look very familiar.”

Kurt scratched his blond wig and adjusted his eyeglasses. “I get that a lot. I have one of those faces, I guess.”

*****

Commander Tarq was having a bad day, which was not something that happened to him very often, and when he did have one, someone would definitely pay for it.

Someone had just killed Nelzod, right in front of where Tarq lived, no less. Her death was bad enough; she was an important ally, and in her absence, Juntoo might have become bolder. But even worse, her demise had been followed by a wave of assassination attempts, sabotage, and bombing, as if it were a signal the entire planet was waiting for. The Akakie forces had suffered some minor losses, but this situation had revealed a chink in their armor: despite their overwhelming firepower, they were not prepared to deal with the guerilla tactics the humans used.

We can always carpet-bomb a city or two, he thought gravely. That would show them.

A guard opened his office door. “Commander? There is a President Jackson here to see you.”

Earth’s current government officials had fled, which meant Tarq had to look elsewhere to find collaborators to help run the new administration. The Akakies had spread the word that the former Earth officials were welcome to sign up, and Jackson had made contact, claiming that he was Earth’s legitimate president, who had been ousted by a coup.

Jackson entered the office, walked to Tarq, and extended his right hand. “Thank you for meeting me, Commander. It’s truly an honor.”

Tarq stood and took the human’s hand. The man’s skin was unnaturally soft. And such brittle bones ... 

“How fitting that you’re using that usurper von der Hagen’s office. He’d put up a sniper rifle on that wall, the idiot!” Jackson continued, blissfully unaware of Tarq’s dark mood.

And Nelzod was killed by a sniper rifle. What a coincidence.

“I’m positive I can be an asset to you. I have years of experience running a government.”

Jackson was lying. Tarq had looked him up, and he knew his government had lasted only a few short months. The guy was nothing but an incompetent loser.

“I am sure you can,” said Tarq amicably. “There is only one problem though.”

“What’s that, Commander?”

Tarq grinned at him. “I do not like your face.”

He started applying pressure to the man’s hand. Jackson blanched and tried to pull away, but it was no use. He screamed and fell onto his knees as the bones in his hands collapsed one after another.

His nose is a bit too big.

Tarq pulled the doomed man up to his wobbly feet, and a second later his jaws locked over Jackson’s nose.

Ahhh ... that is better, thought Commander Tarq as fresh, warm blood filled his mouth.

*****

Liz carried her tray, supporting a large salad bowl and a water bottle, to a quiet corner of Zion’s mess hall and sat at an empty table.

It’d been a couple of days since she’d come to this universe, but she still wasn’t completely accustomed to the idea. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she woke up one day and found out all this had been a dream. A parallel universe where their doppelgangers had been living mostly similar lives! That took a lot of getting used to. Right now, she felt like Alice slipping down the rabbit hole.

And, oh yeah, she was a fighter pilot now, practicing every day in those fancy simulators, getting ready to fight the Xenoakakies, which was all she’d wanted the last few years.

She picked up a fork and played with her food, but with her mind wandering in several different directions at the same time, she’d lost her appetite.

She’d been happy once. Just a few short years ago, she was in a loving relationship with a wonderful man whom she was going to marry, she had amazing siblings whom she loved dearly, and she had a career that she treasured. Life was perfect. Then the freaking insects showed up in Earth’s orbit, and everything went to shit.

In the span of a few months, she lost everyone and everything she held dear in her life. Jim was the first to go, sacrificing himself to defend Earth, for all the good that did. Then her brother and sisters were killed. With Earth’s shattered economy, no one made movies anymore, and there were no jobs for a stuntwoman. Money dried up, and she couldn’t even hold on to her orphanage. She tried, and God knew with the Xenoakakies committing crimes left, right, and center, there were plenty of orphans who needed to be taken care of, but there simply was no way to do so.

She’d been wandering around aimlessly for the last couple of years, the only thought in her mind being vengeance, with no means to do anything about it, when Tarq had shown up on her doorstep out of the blue, offering her a chance for payback. Good thing she didn’t know Tarq was an Akakie at the time. She might’ve strangled him with her bare hands.

And Jim was here! Jim, whose death had stung the most and pushed her into months of severe depression. Talk about second chances.

Liz had almost forgotten where she was when a deep, husky voice pulled her out of her rumination. “Can I please join you?”

She looked up to see General Maada standing in front of her, in uniform, holding a tray full of Xortaag food (which resembled raw red meat) and a huge steaming cup of coffee.

“I’m afraid I’m not good company right now,” she answered quietly, “but sure, if you want.”

Maada sat opposite her, took a big bite of his food, and immediately followed that with some coffee. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept chewing, looking extremely uncomfortable.

Liz decided to move things along. “What’s on your mind, General?”

Maada put down his cup and looked directly into her eyes. “I have been a soldier since I was very young, and in a lifetime spent as one, I have killed a lot of people. But this is the first time I have met someone whom I killed. I must say it is a rather unnerving experience.”

“I feel guilty for inconveniencing you,” said Liz dryly.

Either Maada didn’t notice or he decided to ignore her sarcasm. “It puts taking lives in a new perspective. It is much easier to do it in a cockpit, dispatching faceless enemies. I wonder if I might not have been so good at it, or even stopped altogether, if I had met some of my victims beforehand.”

“So, your conscience is bothering you? Allow me to point out it seems to me that you’ve paid your dues several times over. Plus, Jim likes you, so you can’t be all that bad.”

“I like him too, but I honestly do not know how you put up with him. Or used to put up with him. He drives me mad on a daily basis. Sometimes, the idea of shooting him in the knee is very appealing.”

Liz chuckled. “Believe me, he has that effect on a lot of people, present company included.”

“When this is over, maybe you can join Alitaa and me for dinner one evening? We will invite Jim too.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” replied Liz with a quick smile, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

She was startled when Tarq, grinning from ear to ear, suddenly appeared from nowhere, standing next to the table as if materializing from thin air.

“What the hell do you want?” growled Maada.

Tarq clapped his hands like an excited child. “The hunter and the prey breaking bread together! How very exciting.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Do you have an invisibility cloak or something?” asked Liz incredulously.

“Or something,” replied Tarq.

Chapter seven

Senior Chief Officer Ilex, patrolling New York’s deserted streets with his six-man unit like he had done every single night during the last week, wished for something exciting to happen.

These weak creatures had folded too easily, just like in his own universe. Other units had seen some limited combat, mostly small skirmishes with the locals, but not his group, despite the recent sneak attacks by the humans. They had entertained themselves by setting fire to a high-rise building the other night and watching the humans who had jumped to their deaths from top floors to avoid being burned alive. Ilex and his soldiers had to shoot a few fire trucks that had shown up, but that did not spoil their fun. Maybe they had to do something similar tonight; otherwise, the sheer boredom would surely kill him.

“What the hell is that?” asked one of his soldiers, pointing at something in front of them in the middle of the street, barely visible under the silvery moonlight.

Ilex held up his scanner. “Looks like a female human.”

“Are you sure? It is as big as us!”

“Looks like a giant female human,” answered Ilex. 

His second-in-command, Chief Officer Mazna, checked her scanner. “She is alive. What is she doing, lying like this in the street?”

“Do you see any weapons?” Ilex asked her.

“Negative.”

Ilex scanned the area, but he could not find anything that even remotely looked threatening. No one was out this late (if anyone ventured out during the Akakie-imposed curfew, they risked being shot), and the humans who were at home in the nearby buildings had closed their curtains and were staying away from the windows. 

Ilex and his team approached the woman. She was lying on her side with her back to them, so the Akakie could not see her face. Mazna poked the human with her handheld laser cannon, and when there was no reaction, pushed her onto her back with one of her front legs. The woman’s eyes were closed, and she looked unconscious.

Mazna turned her head to look at Ilex. “What are we going to do with her?”

“Something terrible,” he replied with a malevolent smile. “I’m bored.”

Suddenly, the woman opened her eyes and raised her hands. There was a click sound, and a small, white weapon appeared in each of her hands. She shot Mazna in the face and, a heartbeat later, Ilex in the knee.

Searing pain soared through Ilex’s body. He dropped his laser cannon, grabbed his shattered knee, and crumbled to the ground. The other four soldiers on his team started raising their weapons, but they all went down with bullets in their heads. Ilex could not see where the fire was coming from, and he had seen nothing in his scanner. It was as if the enemy were invisible.

Still on the ground, he drew his sidearm, but the woman kicked it out of his hands. Then she touched her earpiece and said, “Sniper teams, cease fire. We got one.” 

Senior Chief Officer Ilex opened his mouth to say something, but the world plunged into darkness when the human raised a huge foot and kicked him in the head.

*****

“I think you’ve given him a concussion,” said Kurt, pointing at the captured Xenoakakie, now tied to a chair in a Resistance safe house.

“Next time I’m capturing an enemy combatant,” answered Hanna wryly, “I’ll make sure to use only harsh words.”

Kurt smiled at that. He’d always liked the big woman’s sense of humor. “Well, we don’t have all day.”

“Why?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Have a hot date or something?”

Kurt picked up a taser from the desk next to the prisoner, put it on its lowest voltage, and rammed it into the Xenoakakie’s torso. The alien convulsed a few times and opened his four eyes, glaring at them with hatred.

“We probably could’ve done it while he was out,” Hanna pointed out.

“I had to make sure he didn’t have brain damage,” Kurt replied.

“He’s an Akakie,” Cordi’s voice reverberated in the room. “They’re born with brain damage.”

“Who are you people?” growled the alien, his antennae flailing. “What do you want?”

“I think the answer to your first question is obvious,” answered Kurt flatly. “As for the second ...”

He walked to the Xenoakakie and pushed a metal syringe into his neck. The creature tried to back away from him, but tied to the chair, it wasn’t like he could go anywhere.

“We’ve run into the likes of you in our universe too,” said Kurt conversationally. “We killed their leader and captured most of them, then our Akakies made this serum to counteract the effects of SAM and make you guys normal again. We’re trying to find a way to administer it to your people, but we wanted to make sure it works first, which brings us to you.”

Kurt stepped away from the alien, but nothing happened. He exchanged a look with Hanna.

The Xenoakakie soldier smirked at them. “I am a strong, fearless warrior. Do you think you can subdue me with a mere needle?”

Suddenly, his mouth twitched, his head jerked back, and his arms and legs stiffened. He gagged, saliva drooled from his clenched jaw, and his whole body shook with violent spasms. 

“Do something,” Hanna told Kurt.

“What am I supposed to do?” he replied. “Cordi?”

“Damn it, Kurt,” she said, “I’m an AI, not an entomologist.”

The Xenoakakie’s head exploded, throwing flesh, blood, and parts of his exoskeleton in every direction.

Gross!

“Well, that didn’t work at all,” commented Kurt casually.

“Why?” asked Hanna. “I’d say it worked perfectly.”

*****

I looked at my display monitor. All the Federation’s surviving space fighters—all fourteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-six of them—were behind me, followed by Invincible, Victorious, and Dauntless. which were captained respectively by Charles, our old friend Zaart, and Tarq, of all people.

And for the first time in nearly a decade, Liz was flying next to me. Her space fighter was sandwiched between mine and Maada’s, which I’d figured was the safest place for her right now.

“Get ready, boys and girls,” I announced. “We’ll be kicking alien asses soon.”

“Most of us are aliens, you know,” Princess Zyria pointed out.

“No, you aren’t,” I answered. “Not since these motherfrakking Xenoakakies showed up and conquered our entire galaxy.”

We were one jump away from Niovis, Zyria’s homeworld, an Earth-size, mottled planet of green patched by brown and yellow spots. Our plan was a slightly different version of Operation Armageddon, when we destroyed the Xortaag occupation force on Earth and killed the original Maada. Following the destruction of their fleet by the Xenoakakies, the Zharnuuti armed forces had gone to ground, taking most of their light weapons with them. Zyria had let them know about the date and time of our attack and instructed them to try to move as close as possible  Xenoakakies’ under-construction fleet base, or even better, get people inside—the Zharnuuti forces had destroyed their fleet bases and before the enemy had landed, so now the Xenoakakies had to build their own military installations, and just like the Xortaags, they relied on the native population to do that. Then we would use the MFM Tarq had secretly installed in orbit (Zyria threw a fit when she heard about that) to make the entire planet’s population attack the evil Akakies and, hopefully, destroy a big chunk of their fleet on the ground, and we’d take care of the rest.   

“Only it didn’t really work on Earth, did it?” asked Venom dryly.

He was right. Despite our best efforts, the original Maada and two-thirds of his space fighters had survived, and they killed half my pilots before we stopped them.

It worked on the four occupied planets we later liberated, I pointed out. Stop trying to freak me out.

It would’ve been a lot easier if we could have used Tarq’s invisible MFM systems, which he’d set up all over the galaxy, on the White Republic navy’s personnel. Unfortunately for us, the Xenoakakies were aware of this technology, and they’d done what our Akakies had done in our universe: they’d inoculated their people against MFM using their version of MICI.

I was a bit on edge. Not because of the impending battle; I’d gotten used to that a long while ago, plus if things went according to plan it wouldn’t be much of a battle anyway. But because Liz was here, I was overwhelmed by an intense desire to protect her. I knew this woman wasn’t my Liz, but it made no difference. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching her get killed again.

That damned Tarq should’ve left this one well alone in her own universe.

“He probably thought he was doing you a favor,” said Venom.

“With friends like him, who needs enemies?” I growled.

*****

Lieutenant Elden looked at the Xenoakakie guard standing behind him and wondered how much longer he had to wait.

Elden and his friend Sergeant Banca had entered the Xenoakakies’ under-construction fleet base under the guise of being electricians. At the moment, they were working along with twenty other Zharnuuties in a hangar. The rest of the group were all civilians and did not have a clue what was about to go down. Neither Elden nor Banca were armed (it would have been impossible to sneak guns past the enemy sentries), but he was not worried. When the time came, they would find a way. With the element of surprise on their side,  Elden and Banca could always arm themselves with the weapons they would seize from Xenoakakie soldiers.

And then … it started.

Deep inside Elden’s skull, a loud voice boomed, “You are a strong, brave, and undefeatable warrior. Kill the invaders wherever you find them, and ...”

The voice kept talking, but Elden did not pay attention to it. His pulse elevated, his mouth went dry, and his senses heightened. The independent part of his brain went into overdrive, synapses all firing at once, looking for an opportunity to strike.

The other people in his group stopped working. They all turned and stared at the guard. Elden knew exactly what they were thinking: everyone was trying to find a way to get close to the guard without getting shot.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you are doing?” shouted the Xenoakakie. “Get back to work right this moment!”

Then Elden heard the screams coming from outside, coupled with the sound of weapons discharging. The guard darted towards the door. His path got him close to Elden. This was the moment he had been waiting for.

Elden waited for the guard to run past him, then grabbed a heavy wrench from his toolbox, whirled it, and brought it down on the back of the guard’s head.

Or at least he tried to.

Despite his huge frame, the guard reacted unbelievably fast. It was as if he had another pair of eyes in the back of his head. He ducked right under the wrench, turned, and kicked Elden in the belly with his two front legs. The lieutenant felt all the air leave his lungs as he was thrown back several feet.

Banka was next, using a long, steel rod like a spear. The enemy soldier parried her blow with the barrel of his laser cannon and hit her in the face with its butt. Elden heard the bones in his friend’s face splinter all the way from where he was lying on the floor, still dazed.

And then the guard brought his laser cannon to bear and started blasting away. In less than three seconds, he hit most of the Zharnuuties, who were charging at him from every direction.

Elden realized he was still holding onto his wrench. He threw it at the guard with all the power he could muster, but the Xenoakakie swatted it away with his weapon. Elden jumped to his feet, let out a fierce cry, and rushed at the enemy soldier.

He barely managed to take five steps.

*****

“What the frak’s going on?” I growled, staring at images sent to us by the Akakies’ invisible spy ships and wishing I could grip clumps of my hair in frustration.

At first, everything went according to plan. The Zharnuuties’ armed forces, who knew what was coming, and all their civilian population, had suddenly attacked the enemy soldiers all across the planet. It was an unexpected and brutal uprising that had undoubtedly caught the insects by surprise.

And then the Xenoakakies wiped the floor with the Zharnuuties, military personnel and civilians alike.

Horror-stricken, I watched as the insects killed the Zharnuuties by the thousands. These enhanced Akakies were something else. Their soldiers were supernaturally fast and strong, most of them wore body armor that neutralized the bolts from the Zharnuuties’ energy weapons, and their three-barrel handheld laser cannons looked to be as powerful as my Viper’s cannons.

“It’s like Terminator and Predator had a baby,” stated Venom.

The poor Zharnuuties stood no chance against these monsters, and that was before the invaders’ fleet got off the ground, almost completely unharmed. Maybe they lost a dozen ships in total.

My helmet felt too hot all of a sudden.

“We have to call it off,” I said into my mike.

“On it,” answered Tarq.

All of a sudden, the Zharnuuties’ attack stopped. They all ran away and tried to hide, as ordered by Tarq. That, however, didn’t stop the Xenoakakies from following them. They kept on slaughtering the locals for as long as they could, and when they didn’t find anyone else to kill, their fleet started bombarding the planet’s cities indiscriminately.

I opened my mouth to say, “We have to help them,” but Liz beat me to it.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Lopez,” said Tarq, emphasizing her rank in an unmistakable if-I-wanted-your-opinion-I-would-ask-you-for-it manner. “We cannot. The enemy fleet has ten thousand ships and is supported by their ground-based anti-spacecraft artillery. If we engage them now without the element of surprise, we will suffer heavy casualties. This fleet is all that stands between the Xenoakakies and the total occupation of our galaxy, and we cannot sacrifice it to save one single insignificant planet.”

“Are you suggesting we just sit here and watch innocent people get slaughtered?” snapped Liz.

“Yes,” said Tarq without hesitation.

“I see passing the years hasn’t changed Tarq at all,” commented Venom. “Still a big-picture kind of insect.”

“You’d be singing a different tune if it were your people getting massacred down there,” I told Tarq.

“No, I would not,” he answered matter-of-factly. “You remember we left half of our people on Kanoor to be killed by the Black Fleet, right?”

“And you’re proud of that?” asked Liz, bewildered, probably rethinking her decision to follow Tarq to our universe.

“Admiral,” said Princess Zyria. “These are, in fact, my people who are getting slaughtered, and even though I do not like the way Commander Tarq put it, I agree with him. This plan has failed. We must regroup and come up with a better plan.”

Wow. She’s even more coldhearted than Tarq.

“I second that,” said Maada, sounding sad.

“Et tu, Brutus?” I asked bitterly.

But they were right, and I knew it. No matter how much I wanted to save everyone, it just wasn’t possible. If we engaged the White Republic’s Navy now and ended up losing half our ships, we’d have to kiss any chance of liberating our galaxy goodbye.

“Return to our ships,” I ordered the fighter pilots. “We’re getting out of here.”

“You’re the worst savior of the galaxy ever,” commented Venom dryly.

“So much for seeing the great Kingslayer in action,” murmured Liz.

*****

When I stumbled into Invincible’s mess hall, I found the place deserted. I realized everyone might’ve lost their appetite after what’d just happened, but I found it strange that I was the only person trying to drown my sorrows with alcohol.

I’d been involved in plenty of atrocities already. I was there when we used a planet-buster to destroy Talmak and killed millions of helpless people. Yes, I disagreed with that operation, but I didn’t try hard enough to stop it, and those poor Arshans who got caught in the crossfire of the conflict between us and the Xortaags could’ve still been alive if I hadn’t folded so easily. And the destruction of Voltex was my plan too. It didn’t make having thousands of new corpses on my conscience any easier. In fact, this was far, far worse.

When the number of the dead was so large that the mind couldn’t grasp it, it was difficult to relate to it. Ten billion here, five billion there. It was easier to disconnect. But I’d witnessed this massacre up close and personal. I watched the battle on the ground. I saw the people who were getting slaughtered. This one I felt deep in my heart, and I mourned for the dead, whatever good that did. The scenes I’d witnessed today were dark and desperate enough to cause months of nightmares.

I sank into a seat and told a serving robot, “Something strong.”

“At some point,” said Venom, “we’ll have to address your drinking problem.”

I didn’t even check the bottle that the little robot brought me. I poured myself a glass, emptied it in one go, and started working on the second glass, this one more slowly.

I trembled as I felt a bottomless pit of despair, the consequences of our Charlie Foxtrot today becoming apparent. A flood of terrifying thoughts hit me all at the same time. Given the enemy fleets’ ridiculous numerical advantage (they had some two hundred thousand space fighters to our fourteen), our only semi-feasible course of action was to use the occupied planets’ population to destroy the enemy fleets on the ground in surprise attacks. With that plan failing so miserably, none of us had a clue what to do next, and the other other Tarq’s deadline to shut off the portals between the parallel universes was approaching quickly. We had to come up with a solution, and fast; otherwise, we’d be stuck with the Xenoakakies forever.

A wave of fatigue gripped me, reminding me how exhausted I was. I probably should’ve tried to get some sleep, but I knew that wouldn’t happen any time soon. My hands started shaking as the events of the last few days caught up with me. We’d managed to lose the entire galaxy, and we were unable to get back a single planet. I didn’t want to admit it, but our situation was indeed hopeless. At this point, we were lucky if we could defeat one of the fifteen fleets under the White Republic’s command.

So, yeah, we were screwed.

Liz entered the mess. She hesitated when she saw me; then she walked towards me and asked, “Can I join you?”

I nodded at the seat next to mine. “Of all the mess halls in all the starships in all the world, you walk into mine.”

She chuckled. “Classic. Is drinking allowed aboard a military starship?”

“Yes, except for immediately before or during an operation.”

“Technically, we’re still on a mission,” she pointed out, “deep inside enemy territory. What if they attack us right now and we have to fly out and defend ourselves?”

“No one can attack us during a jump, and the chances of the enemy fleet finding us between the jumps is infinitesimal. At any rate, I’m chancellor of the galaxy, so if anyone has any objections to my drinking, they can bite me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be leading by example?”

I gulped down my drink and slapped the empty glass on the table in front of me. “That ship sailed long ago.”

She sat across from me. “In that case, I’ll drink what you’re drinking.”

I poured her a glass. “Your first op didn’t go as you imagined, did it?”

“I didn’t imagine us running away with our tails between our legs, so no, it didn’t. All we accomplished was getting those poor people killed.”

I shook my head. “Thanks for reminding me.”

She studied me through half-closed eyes, sipping her drink.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re different from my Jim,” she replied, “despite the appearance to the contrary.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Hard to describe. You’re less cocky and more reserved. My Jim would’ve attacked the enemy fleet today, for example. He got himself killed attacking a starship with a jet fighter.”

“I once attacked a monster superdreadnought with my space fighter too,” I pointed out.

She nodded. “I know. He did the same thing: he crashed into the starship. Only we didn’t have a transporter to pull him out.”

“We call it a Space Folding Device,” I corrected her.

“It transports people; it’s a transporter,” she countered. “Stop trying to pretend you didn’t steal this idea from Star Trek.”

“The Akakies did it,” I said.

She took another sip. “What’re we going to do now?”

“Damned if I know. I was planning to sit here and drink all alone, until you showed up.”

She slowly sipped her drink while in deep thought. “You know what would cheer us up? A movie.”

That gave me an idea. “Come with me. I have something you should see.”

When we entered my quarters, I went to a cabinet and removed two VR headsets. “Tarq gave this to Liz and me as a wedding gift. We didn’t use it much, because we found it to be very distracting, but it’s something you have to experience at least once.”

We sat on a sofa, next to each other. I gave her a headset and put mine on.

In the course of a blink, I was no longer in my quarters, but in a black void. Liz appeared next to me a second later, looking around in puzzlement. “What is this?”

I moved my hand and hundreds of movie titles appeared in front of us. “It turns movies into holographic experiences, and you can watch them like you’re there as an invisible bystander.”

Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Yep. What’re you in the mood for? Sci-fi, I guess?”

“It feels like I’m living in a sci-fi movie these days. How about action?”

“I’ve got some of the best action movies right here. Look: John Wick, Die Hard, Face-Off, Kill Bill ... take a pick.”

“All great, but how come you only have really old movies?”

I gave her a confused look. “Liz and I loved the classics, partly because Hollywood stopped making good movies a long time ago. There was this woke culture that ruined everything, and all the movies started looking like political lectures. Why? This didn’t happen in your universe?”

“No. We loved the classics too, but it’s just a matter of taste. Objectively speaking, movies just kept getting better. What’s a ‘woke culture’?”

“Can I please go live in that universe?” asked Venom.

I opened my mouth to ask a million questions, but something stirred in the back of my mind. I had the feeling that I’d just said something significant that could help with our current situation.

What were we talking about?

“Let’s see,” said Venom. “You told her how the VR headsets worked, then asked her what she wanted to watch. After that, she told you the fun-sucking woke culture didn’t exist in her universe, and—”

Face-Off!!

I forgot I was wearing a VR headset. I jumped off the sofa, excitedly punched the air, and shouted, “YES!! I’m a genius!”

Then I tripped on something (probably the coffee table) and fell on my face.

“Why?” asked Liz. “What happened?”

*****

Liz glared at me. “This is your genius plan? Are you frakking kidding me?” she asked with a hint of vehemence.

I didn’t expect that reaction at all. “It is a good plan.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Extreme situations require extreme measures.”

We were sitting around the conference table in the Command Center. I’d called Tarq, Maada, and the rest of the gang to an urgent meeting.

She raised her voice. “You remember what just happened on Niovis, right? Millions will die!”

“Not necessarily,” offered Tarq, who’d decided to come to the meeting wearing red sweatpants and shirt, thick black gloves, a shiny black belt, and a flashy red-sequined cape. “We asked the Zharnuuties to attack and destroy the enemy bases, and because we did not set any limits, they did it with no care for their own safety. This time around, we can make it clear to the humans that they are meant to be a diversion and they should not waste their lives.”

Liz balled her hands into fists. “It will do us a whole lotta good when the Xenoakakie fleet starts bombarding Earth!”

“Which will not happen, if we pull this off,” said Maada. “And I must add our success rate in carrying out Jim’s insane plans is pretty good.”

“I must say, I’m surprised you agreed with my plan so willingly, with no argument at all,” I told Maada.

He shrugged. “Your craziness must have been rubbing off on me.”

That exchange somehow made Liz more furious, and I could see she was struggling to keep her cool. “What gives you people the right to sit here and decide the fate of God knows how many people who will certainly get killed?”

“Liz, you haven’t been with us very long.” I rubbed my forehead. “We decided to make decisions on behalf of humanity a long time ago, and we’ve done pretty well, I must say. One could argue there wouldn’t be any humanity left if we hadn’t done that.”

She gave me a hard look. “I really want to know how you do this.”

“Do what?”

“You make decisions that impact millions of lives, sometimes with disastrous results, causing untold deaths, and yet you don’t seem to be conflicted about it at all.”

Well, I was, actually, but just a little bit, and it wasn’t like I was going to show her weakness. “I am not. It’s simple: bad guys come, and people need protecting. I protect them. There’s a reason there are millions of golden statues of me all around the galaxy, you know.”

“My Jim wasn’t like that,” she said with a sad look in her eyes. “He was sort of self-centered, to be honest.”

I chuckled. “So was I. All I wanted to do was fly and blow up shit. Things started to change when Tarq appointed me as the commander of the fleet. I started feeling responsible for the people under my command, and that extended to their families and loved ones, and later, somehow the entire human race. And that was before I became the chancellor of the galaxy.”

“We’re trying to help people,” stated Maada, returning to our original topic. “Given the chance, I am positive most humans prefer to die rather than live under the insects’ occupation.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” countered Liz, her face red. “You’re a soldier. But I’m positive Joe and Fred Bloggs don’t care about that. They just want to survive and protect their family.”

“Who?” asked Tarq.

“I love the accent, but I swear sometimes it’s like she speaks a different language,” commented Venom.

“Liz, I’m afraid Joe and Fred don’t have an option,” Xornaa chimed in. “The other Tarq from the third parallel universe warned us if the Xenoakakies are trapped here with us, it’s only a matter of time before they start blowing up planets just for fun.”

“And I think he is right,” added Tarq. “They are already committing all sorts of horrible atrocities for entertainment.”

“Come on, Liz,” I urged, pinching the bridge of my nose.  “Yes, some people will get killed, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You should know that already.”

Liz looked at Allen.

The old man shook his head. “Sorry, mon chérie, but I’m with these guys on this one.”

I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Did you really expect the Butcher of Macao to support you on this?”

Liz was obviously not convinced, but she stopped arguing. I expected her to storm off the Command Center, but she didn’t. I guessed she’d gotten slightly less hotheaded with age, after all.

“I have some reservations too,” said Zyria, “but unlike our new friend here, my concerns are over practical issues. Given that the Xenoakakie fleet on Earth has more than two times as many space fighters as we have, your plan sounds a bit, for lack of a better word, suicidal.”

I chuckled. “Which is kind of our thing.”

“Even more so for the infiltration team landing on Earth,” she insisted. “You are sending Xornaa, Allen, and Tarq to face the entire Xenoakakie occupation force!”

“Kurt will join us too,” Allen pointed out. “He’s a one-man army on his own.”

“Nothing to it,” Xornaa told the alien princess. “This will be the fourth time I’m doing this. We survived the last three times.”

Zyria grinned. “You know, you people are insane, but I like it. I am amazed any of you are still alive though.”

“Why do you look upset?” Xornaa asked Tarq, who was pouting like a petulant child.

“Does anyone remember I am supposed to be the best strategist in the universe?” he replied. “With Jim coming up with all the good ideas recently, I feel useless.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I told him. “I’m the best at everything.”

“It’s exactly this humility that made me fall in love with the other you,” said Liz.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if the infiltration team went in under a Xenoakakie hologram?” asked Allen.

Tarq shook his head. “It would not work. The holograms emit an ultraviolet wavelength that our own eyes can detect, so the enemy soldiers would know something is up.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. 

“We are really doing this?” asked Maada. “Because in that case, I have a couple of ideas I want to share—”

“Wait,” I interjected. “What’re we going to call this operation?”

“You spend way too much time naming things,” Maada pointed out flatly.

“It’s an author thing,” I responded. “Because we writers are creative people. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Operation Free Earth?” suggested Xornaa.

I shook my head. “We’ve used something similar already.”

“Operation the Prince and the Pauper,” said Liz, her eyes twinkling.

“We can’t use anything from Mark Twain,” I said firmly. “He was a slave owner who fought for the South during the Civil War.”

I enjoyed the look of horror on her face.

“You wanted to know what woke culture is,” I told her. “Now you know.”

“I have the perfect name,” said Maada. “Operation Trojan Horse.”

I looked at him in astonishment. “How do you even know about that?”

He shrugged. “I read a lot, and that is a fascinating story.”

“It fits,” offered Charles, nodding.

Operation Trojan Horse it was.

*****

The eighty-seven fighter pilots in Zion’s mess hall rose to their feet and saluted when I entered.

I saluted back. “At ease. This is a very informal meeting. Take your seats.”

Everyone sat back down and looked at me with questions in their eyes.

I stood before the group. “You must be wondering what you’re doing here. You’re invited because you all have something in common. Can anyone guess what that is?”

“Besides being fighter pilots?” asked a young woman sitting to my right.

“Yes, obviously.”

They looked at one another, but it was obvious no one had the answer.

“You’ve been with me since the beginning. We’re the only people who’ve survived Operations Royalty and Armageddon, the fight against Father, and the Xenoakakies’ ambush.”

“Just us?” asked someone. “We had ten thousand fighter pilots in Winterfell!”

“Not everyone has been killed,” I pointed out. “Royalty was years ago, after all. Some people have retired. Some others have decided to immigrate to Eden. But yes, we’re the only ones still on active duty.”

Small robots, carrying food and drinks, entered the mess.

I looked the pilots sitting closest to me in the eyes. “I know you guys by name, of course, but I figured it’s time we all met, mingled, and got to know one another.”

A few minutes later, I was having a drink and exchanging war stories with a group of fighter pilots (two of them were from Atlanta, small world) when Xornaa walked into the mess. She looked around and gestured for me to go to her when she saw me.

“You seem to be having a good time,” she said as I approached.

“Fighter pilots are always fun to be around,” I said, not tooting my own horn at all.

“Maada is a fighter pilot,” she pointed out.

“Human fighter pilots. What’s up?”

“I ran into Liz in the gym. She isn’t mad at me anymore, by the way.”

“Liz has always been quick to anger, but it never lasts long.”

“We talked a little bit, and I found something astonishing,” she continued.

I cocked my head and waited, curious to see where this was going.

She stared pointedly at me. “It turns out you still haven’t asked her out.”

I hesitated. “I’m trying to move slowly, you know, so that I don’t freak her out.”

Xornaa gave me a cut-the-crap look.

“OK. I’m scared shitless she might say no. The first thing she said the first time we met was ‘you aren’t my Jim.’ ”

“She’ll say yes,” said Xornaa firmly.

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you use your voodoo on her?”

“I don’t need to. It’s obvious. Just man up and ask her out already.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“We’ll be going on Operation Trojan Horse soon,” I said hesitantly. “After we come back—”

“Listen to your elders. Never pass up on a good thing; you might not get another chance.”

“We’ll be flying into battle in a few days, and there’s a very good chance some of us won’t come back.”

“All the more reason to do it now,” she insisted.

“She’s right,” said Cordi.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” said Venom, “but I agree with HAL 9000 and Black Widow. You remember what happened to Kurt and Keiko?”

I shuddered. Before Operation Royalty, Kurt approached Keiko (who had been in love with him forever) and asked her to dinner after the operation. But then Keiko sacrificed herself to kill Maada and they never got the chance.

That was all the encouragement that I needed. “Where is she?”

“Still in the gym,” answered Cordi.

I walked towards the door, then stopped and turned to Xornaa. “Thank you, Xornaa. You’re a good friend.”

She flashed a dazzling smile. “Keep this in mind the next time you have the urge to punch me in the face.”

I smiled back. “I don’t need a reminder. Had to get a kidney transplant the last time I tried.”

Both Xornaa’s PDD and mine started beeping at the same time.

Oh-oh!

This is never good!

I looked at the screen. Tarq had sent me a link. I touched it. Then I felt the blood drain from my face as I watched the video.

I looked at Xornaa. She looked like a ghost too. I’d never, ever seen her shaken before.

I contacted Maada as soon as the video ended. “Where are you?”

“Running towards the Command Center.” He sounded slightly out of breath.

“We’ll meet you there.”

*****

Patricia was playing with her food, wondering if all government safehouses were as luxurious as this one (a mansion fit for a rock star surrounded by Secret Service agents) when Sofia said, “I miss Daddy.”

“Me too, hon. Come sit with Mommy.”

The child ran to her and sat on her lap.

Patricia smiled at her daughter and pushed a string of hair away from her face. “When Daddy comes, the three of us will go to Disneyland. What do you think?”

Sofia clapped her tiny hands together. “We can meet Cinderella! And BB-8!”

Pat’s smile widened. “And, for now, who wants ice cream?”

“Me!” shouted the girl happily. She turned her head to look at the dining room entrance over her mother’s shoulder—

And screamed.

Pat jumped out of her seat and turned toward the door.

A Xenoakakie, wearing a simple black uniform, was standing there, filling the entire doorframe.

Pat’s face turned ashen as her body broke into a cold sweat. She held her child tighter, as if trying to protect her against the terrifying beast who had invaded her home, and her mind raced. How had the creature entered? Where were her bodyguards? Would they come to her rescue?

“Madam First Lady,” said the Xenoakakie, grinning widely. “It is such an honor to meet you. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Commander Tarq, the head of the Akakie Special Operations Force.”

“Mommy?” whimpered a frightened Sofia.

Pat kissed her gently on the cheek. “Don’t worry, honey. It’s just an Akakie. You remember the funny insects, right?”

“Yes, but this one is so big.” Sophie sounded doubtful. “Maybe he’s sick?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” continued the insect. “How did I come in without you hearing anything? I will have you know we Akakies can move very quietly when need be, like a—what was the word? Ah yes. Ninja.”

“Where are the Secret Service agents?” asked Pat, trying to control her shaking voice.

“Dead, I am afraid.” Tarq’s four eyes scanned the room. “Nice place you have got. Very high class. Unfortunately, we have to take you away from here. You are going to be my guest at the Presidential Palace.”

He stepped away from the door, allowing two armed and armored Xenoakakies to enter.

“You see, your husband has been very naughty lately, causing me all sorts of unnecessary headaches. That has to stop. So now, if he wants to see the two of you alive, he will have to come and have a word with me.”

The two enemy soldiers walked toward Pat and Sophie.

“Commander Tarq,” Patricia held up her chin, forcing calm. “Please allow me to point out you’ve made a fatal mistake today.”

The creature smirked. “Yeah? And what is that?”

“My husband will come for us, and when he comes, you die. It’s a scientific fact. You can take that to the bank.”

Tarq looked confused. “Bank? What bank?” Then he looked at Sophia. “Do you understand what your mother is talking about, human child?”

Sophia nodded. “Yes. Daddy comes and you die. Easy peasy.”

*****

Absently tugging at his beard, Kurt studied the Presidential Palace’s blueprints and compared them with recent photos taken by the invisible Akakie spy ship in orbit. Not that he really had to. After living there with his family for years, he knew the place like the back of his hand. But he had to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

Hanna entered the room, looking grim. “Kurt, I’ve just sent you a video. It’s all over the internet. You’ve got to see it.”

Kurt picked up his PDD and opened the video file. The Evil Tarq’s image appeared on the screen, looking directly into the camera. “This is a message for President von der Hagen,” he said in English. “A little birdie told me you are behind the recent troubles we have had—you know, the bombing and killing and whatnot. It is awfully tiresome. There are two people here who want to ask you to kindly stop.”

The camera turned.

And it showed Pat and Sofie, eyes wide in terror, gagged by duct tape and tied to two chairs next to each other.

“You have exactly twenty-four hours to surrender yourself. If you are not in our custody by tomorrow evening, well, I have recently tasted raw human flesh, and I must say it was divine. I cannot wait to see how your people’s flesh tastes, seasoned and cooked properly.”

The video ended.

Kurt’s PDD fell from his suddenly numb fingers. The mere thought of his loved ones being at the mercy of Evil Tarq was unbearable. His breath quickened and his heart pounded painfully as unspeakable dread took over his soul. He had to fight to hold back a bloodcurdling scream that made its way to his throat, and he barely managed not to collapse on the floor.

Pat and Sophia!

A terrifying image assaulted his brain. It was Jim, after losing Ella and her newborn baby boy. Thin as a rail, hair turned gray, a permanent haunted look on his face, a hair's breadth away from taking his own life. That would be me in a few days, he thought, unless we stop that bloodthirsty demon right now.

“What’re we going to do, Boss?” asked Hanna, her eyes filled with equal parts sorrow and determination.

“We’re going to save my wife and child from that lunatic,” Kurt said in a low voice.

He picked up his PDD from the floor and called Jim.

“How soon can we start Operation Trojan Horse?” he demanded as soon as he saw Jim’s image on his PDD.

“We’ve just seen the video,” Jim replied. “We’ll commence the operation at zero two hundred EST. Xornaa, Tarq, and Allen will be on their way to you soon.”

“Is Maada back from his mission?”

“He arrived a few hours ago. You should’ve seen the look on his face after he heard Evil Tarq had gotten into kidnapping.”

“He took Pat and Sofia, Jim,” said Kurt, his voice shaking.

“And he’s gonna pay for that with his life,” replied Jim flatly.

*****

I rushed into Invincible’s hangar bay. Xornaa and Allen, wearing the Marines’ combat fatigues and body armor, and Tarq, in his simple, white uniform, stood in front of Phantom as the flight crew performed final checks.

I waved at them. “Good. You guys are still here. I thought I might’ve missed you.”

Phantom had an SFD, but we’d left in such a hurry that Xornaa and her team didn’t have time to prepare, so they’d come with us. Now they were about to leave Invincible and start their journey.

“I still can’t believe you talked me into doing this,” said Tarq, looking a tad pale. He was a great strategist, but he’d never been the epitome of under-fire bravery.

“Are you nervous?” I asked him, getting ready to give him a pep talk.

“Nervous?” he cocked his head. “I am practically shitting myself.”

I laughed and forgot about the pep talk. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway.

“If I die as a result of this stupid plan of yours,” growled Allen, “my ghost will haunt you for the rest of your life, and that’s a promise.”

I looked at Xornaa.

“I’m good.” She smiled. “I was born to do this shit.”

“This is goodbye then,” I said. “Watch your backs, and don’t mess this up.”

“I am definitely going to mess it up,” answered Tarq. He stopped biting his fingernails and extended his right hand, going for a handshake.

I gave him a sideways look.

He sighed theatrically and gave me a hug instead.

I patted his back. “Much better. Take care of yourself, Brother.”

He pulled away. “You too. And, if at all possible, please try to spare my daughter.”

“She is Monstrous’s captain,” I pointed out. “You should call her and ask her to spare us.”

*****

Maada opened his quarters’ door and looked at me in surprise. “Aren’t you supposed to be aboard Invincible?”

“I just beamed over.” I raised my hand so that he could see the Molson Canadian six-pack I was carrying. “We left Zion in such a rush that there was no time for our traditional before-the-battle get-together. I would’ve preferred to do this with Kurt or Tarq, but since they aren’t available, you’re the next best thing.”

He stared at me like he was trying to blow a hole through me with his eye. “We’ll fly into battle in three hours, and you want to drink alcohol?”

“Oh, shut up. It’s only 5% alcohol. We’ll drink half a bottle each. It wouldn’t kill us.”

He glared at me some more, his mouth a thin, lipless line of disapproval; then he stepped aside to let me in. “Thirty minutes. We have more important things to do. Your lack of professionalism and discipline is astounding.”

His quarters on Victorious were very similar to mine (on Invincible), but it was even more spartan, and everything was black, dark gray, or dark brown. I expected more colors in a place where a woman lived, but I guessed Klingon ... eh, Xortaag warrior women weren’t much different from their male counterparts.

I sat on a super-uncomfortable sofa. “Where’s Alitaa?”

“In a simulator, practicing. Which is probably where you should be.”

“So should you, for that matter.”

He shot me a look of annoyance. “I am General Maada. I do not need to practice.”

I chuckled, raised my bottle to him, and took a sip.

He did the same. “It tastes good.”

“Canadians,” I said. “They make good beer. You know what has been bothering me lately?”

“Well, yes,” he said, “since I can read your mind.”

I glowered at him. “You promised not to do that.”

The corner of his lips drifted upward. “Sorry. It is just ... your thought process is fascinating. How do you keep track of all those thoughts inside your head?”

I sighed. “Can we pretend you can’t read my mind so that we can have a normal conversation?”

“I have no idea what has been bothering you,” he said with a shrug. “Do tell.”

“The first time I led my forces into battle, against your fleet base back on Earth, I lost nine pilots. Nine. And I was depressed about it for days. Now, ninety percent of my people are killed in an instant, and all I can think of is how to defeat the enemy.”

He nodded. “And you should. That is what leaders do. The burden of command. You lose people. Deal with it.”

I rubbed my forehead. “How long did it take you to get used to losing people?”

Maada fidgeted with his glass. “I never did. I still have not finished writing the condolence letters for the families of the pilots who got killed during the evil Akakies’ invasion.”

“You still doing that?”

“Of course.” He looked at me through half-closed eyes. “Since I now know your deepest, darkest secrets, I guess it is only fair I tell you something I have never told anyone, but if you make fun of me, I will break your jaw: I sometimes shed a few tears while writing those letters.”

I was astonished. “Wow. Seriously? You cry?”

He folded his arms, looking like he already regretted his decision to share. “I did not say cry. Maybe a tear or two.”

“I never cry,” I said proudly. “I’ve cried exactly twice in my adult life, both times when you got killed.”

He rolled his eyes. “You are weird.”

“You know what else is bothering me—no, don’t answer that. Have you noticed our enemies seem to be getting increasingly stronger? I mean, you had only forty thousand ships the first time you came to Earth. The Black Fleet had ten times that number. Father had a million drones and a superdreadnought protected by an impenetrable shield, and the Xenoakakies are so powerful that they conquered our entire galaxy with one strike. I shudder at the thought of who we’re gonna be up against next.”

“Maybe the gods Xornaa is concerned about?”

I wagged a finger at him. “Don’t even joke about it. Also, you were right.”

“About what?”

“About the need to unite the galaxy. Without a central government, we’d be doomed now. There would’ve been no way for us to pull our forces together and coordinate whatever is left from various fleets. If we end up saving the galaxy, I’ll let you take the credit this time.”

“I destroyed Father, remember?” he reminded me.

I smiled sweetly. “For which I took all the credit.”

“On another topic, I have been reading the Bible, as you recommended. Let me see if I understood this: God made the pharaoh say no to Moses, ten times, and then sent a deadly plague every time he said no?”

I grinned. “I told you.”

“Why?!”

I shrugged. “Because he works in mysterious ways. So, tell me: what is fatherhood like?”

Maada’s face lit up. “It is pure joy. You should try it.”

I chuckled bitterly. “It’s not like I can father a child on my own lonesome.”

He averted his eyes and took another sip of his beer. “If you really wanted to, I am certain the Akakies could find a way, but that is not what I meant. Liz is here, so I figured maybe you two could get back together.”

“What do you mean, ‘get back together’? This Liz and I have never been together. But I admit, this does feel like a second chance. Do you believe in second chances, General?”

“I came back from the dead. I’m the embodiment of a second chance.”

I looked at my half-empty bottle and put it down. Maada was right. I shouldn’t have been drinking this close to an operation. “Do you think we’ll succeed?”

“I am positive we will,” he answered firmly.

“I admire your confidence, but why? The odds are certainly against us.”

“Success breeds success,” Maada replied matter-of-factly. “The odds have never been in our favor, and yet, we have beaten our previous enemies. This is no different.”

I couldn’t argue with that, and I felt the same myself. The White Republic’s Navy didn’t even have as many ships as the Black Fleet or Father’s million-strong drone armada. The only reason they’d defeated us so easily and conquered our entire galaxy was that they sucker-punched us, and Tarq and his doppelganger from the third universe had seen to it that it wouldn’t happen again. Yes, we could totally do this, and hopefully without getting half our people killed.

“I guess the real question is: who’re we going to lose this time?” I asked solemnly.

One word formed in the back of my OCD brain.

Liz.

Not again!

“Shut up, you,” said Venom.

“No one,” replied Maada. “Not if you and I have anything to say about it.”

My PDD buzzed. I looked at the screen. “Huh. Speak of the angel.”

Maada cocked an eyebrow at me.

“It’s Liz,” I explained. “She wants to see me back on Invincible.”

Maada raised his bottle. “Go get her, tiger.”

I blew out a noisy breath and side-eyed him.

“What?” he asked. “This was not the proper expression to say when someone is trying to seduce a woman?”

“Back in the day, the SJWs would’ve crucified you for saying stuff like this.”

“You people get offended easily. It is because you have such thin skin.”

I found Liz in Invincible’s hangar, wearing overalls, standing on a maintenance platform, and painting something on her Viper’s twin rudders. It was only when I got closer that I realized it was a Starfleet emblem, which was an asymmetrical, arrowhead-shaped pennant. I’d forgotten she was, just like me, a Trekker and a nerd. Come to think of it, it was her quoting Mr. Spock that made me notice her the first time we met in what now seemed like another life.

She was too focused on her work to notice me. I approached her from behind. “Now, what's a nice girl like you doing in a hangar bay like this?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Hi, Jim. Thanks for coming.”

“The robots could do that for you, you know,” I said.

She jumped off the platform. “It’s a work of art!”

She took a few steps back and looked up, admiring her handiwork.

“You wanted to see me?” I asked.

She turned to face me, sweeping dark bangs out of her eyes. “Yes. I think I need a pep talk, and you’re pretty good at it.”

“Are you?” asked Venom. He sounded surprised.

First time I’m hearing about it.

“When Tarq, the other one, asked us to join up, I didn’t hesitate a second. I’d lost everything. The Xenoakakies had taken away everyone whom I’d ever loved from me, and this was my chance to at least have vengeance, and that was the only thing on my mind,” continued Liz. “But now, this close to the mission, I’m scared.”

That was probably the last thing I expected her to say. Well, maybe second-to-last, right after Jim, I’m your mother.

“This is my first mission, after all,” she said, her bottom lip quivering. “And the fate of the universe is in the balance. What if I screw up, and people get killed? Which incidentally is exactly what the other me did.”

I felt something tighten in my chest. Liz looked slightly frightened, so, so vulnerable, and off-the-charts beautiful right now. Well, she always looked beautiful, but even more so at this moment. And the truth of the matter was I’d been more terrified of the prospect of her flying into battle than she could ever have been. The thought of losing her again had been haunting my nightmares since the day she and Allen showed up in the command center.

The sudden urge to keep Liz out of harm’s way was so strong that I felt disoriented. As a Southern gentleman, protecting women was hardwired into my systems, especially if the woman in question was Liz, whom I’d failed to save the last time she needed my help. Thinking about that incident helped fear grip my everything. The overwhelming sense of guilt that followed sent a tremor right through my heart and made it beat three times faster than it should have.

I, however, had never been good at showing my emotions, so I gave her a tough-guy shrug. “It’s normal. I feel that way before every single battle.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. I guess she didn’t expect that answer from Mr. Macho Man. My doppelganger must have been even cockier than I was.

“Yeah, but I have good news for you,” I added. “These feelings go away when the battle starts. As soon as the first shot is fired, your training will take over, and fear, anxiety, and trepidation will melt away like ice cream under the desert sun. Trust me.”

“Maybe for you,” she said gravely. “But how can you be certain the same thing will happen to me? Maybe I just freak out and get paralyzed by fear. Again, it’s my first mission.”

I looked into her amazing eyes, remembering how many times I’d been lost in them. “Because I know you. You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met. And a bit too fearless, if I’m being honest.”

Her nostrils flared. “I’ve told you already: I’m not her.”

“Oh no?” I shook my head. “Didn’t you kick your father in the nuts when you were eleven and found him beating your little sister? Didn’t you cry when Spock died in The Wrath of Khan? Didn’t you scream so loudly when the Avengers showed up to help Captain America fight Thanos that your neighbors called the police?”

She seemed uncertain what to say.

“Didn’t you kiss me on our second date?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “I was too nervous to make a move, so you took the first step.”

Her eyes welled up and her lips trembled a bit. She took a deep breath and steadied herself; then she repeated, “It wasn’t you.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, I know you. You won’t freeze. You’ll jump headfirst into the battle. If anything, I’m worried you might be taking too many risks. I assume you have an impulse-control disorder too, right?”

She nodded.

“That’s what scares me. I checked your simulated battles. You’re an excellent pilot, and you score a lot of hits, but just like my Liz here, you keep trying to pull off crazy maneuvers and get your bird shot down. You really need to control your impulses.”

Or you’ll get yourself killed again, and I just couldn’t go through that one more time, I concluded. Good thing she couldn’t read my mind.

“I’ll do my best,” she said with a quick nod. “Promise.”

“It might also help if you try to see the big picture. Yes, we’ll take risks. Yes, people will get killed, maybe even some of them because of us and our mistakes. But what will happen if we do nothing? The Xenoakakies will eventually kill untold billions.”

“I never pegged you down as a big-picture kind of guy.”

I cracked a smile. “Tarq must’ve been rubbing off on me. If that guy thinks by killing a billion people he’ll save two billion, he’d do it in a heartbeat without thinking twice about it.”

She examined me closely. “Is that fondness I see in your eyes?”

“Towards Tarq? Absolutely. After all these years that I’ve known him, I’ve come to consider him as my half-brother, albeit an alien one. I love the funny little guy, even though I know how dangerous he really is.”

“You always wished you had siblings,” Liz pointed out.

Or a child, I completed her sentence internally.

“Plus, all of this,” I looked around the hangar, “the ship, the fleet, the Federation, they all exist because of Tarq. If he hadn’t interfered, Kurt and I would’ve been executed by a firing squad, the Xortaags would’ve conquered our galaxy, and they were in turn wiped out by the Black Fleet. We owe everything to him.”

There was silence for a second or three, then I gathered all my courage, feeling my cheeks burning hot. “Maybe we can get together and have a drink after the battle?”

She flashed a brilliant smile that melted my heart. “What took you so long? You had me at welcome-to-our-universe.”

Chapter eight

Kurt touched his earpiece. “Seriously, where are you?”

“We are right in front of you,” answered Tarq. “Just keep walking.”

Kurt looked at the green field in front of him. It was a dark and cloudy night, and it’d just started to rain; still, there was enough light to show him the field was empty, and nothing had registered on his scanner either. He took a few more steps but had to stop when his forehead hit something metallic with a loud and painful bang. He took a step backward and massaged his forehead. “Come on, Tarq! I could’ve gotten injured.”

“With a skull as thick as yours?” replied Tarq. “Nah. You probably made a dent in Phantom’s hull though.”

Kurt stretched his hands and touched the invisible wall of metal right in front of him. “This is amazing!”

To his right, Xornaa’s head and shoulders appeared out of thin air, some nine feet above the ground. “Hey, Kurt. Come on in. Watch your steps.”

Kurt looked up at her and waited.

Xornaa looked down. “Oh, sorry.” Then she shouted, “Tarq!”

A ladder appeared in front of Kurt, and he used it to get on Phantom through a side door. Once on board, he and Allen shared a hug while Xornaa marched to the pilot seat.

“We’re so sorry about Pat and Sophia,” said Allen, “but I’m positive we’ll get them back, safe and sound.”

Phantom lifted off without the slightest noise.

“Here’s a question,” said Allen. “Now that you have cloaking devices, shouldn’t you use them on your space fighters?”

Tarq rolled his eyes. “Wow. It would have never occurred to us to do this. Thank you for your valuable input.”

“It wouldn’t work,” Kurt told Allen. “The space fighter’s engines can’t produce enough power to keep the nanobot-generated invisibility cloak up for more than a couple of minutes. They can’t shoot while they’re invisible, and they can’t maneuver, because the cloak holds only if the ships move relatively slowly.”

“Jim asked me to give you a message,” said Xornaa. “He says, ‘I fight in space, you fight on the ground, and at the end, I’ll take all the credit.’ ”

“Just like old times, eh?” asked the old man. “It’s you and me against an army of bad guys.”

Kurt nodded at Xornaa. “Only this time, we have Wonder Woman by our side. This might even the odds.”

“I am here too,” protested Tarq.

Allen looked the small insect up and down. “Yeah. You’re going to be a lot of help in a gunfight.”

*****

“Something is off,” said Varina with a frown.

“What do you mean?” asked Admiral Juntoo, standing behind her command chair on Monstrous’s bridge.

Varina pointed at Monstrous’s main screen. It showed the enemy fleet, fourteen thousand space fighters of various types supported by three starships, which had appeared in Earth’s orbit a few minutes ago. “Why would they come all the way here just to float in space? They lose the element of surprise, which is the only thing they have got going for them.”

“If I had to guess,” said Commander Tarq in her ear, “I would say it looks like they are trying to lure the fleet away from Earth.”

The same thought had occurred to Varina, but it made no sense. “For what purpose? An uprising by the humans? You saw what happened on Niovis.”

“At any rate,” said Juntoo, “we can leave a couple of thousand space fighters behind to provide air support, just in case.”

“The enemy might want us to think they are decoys, and the real target might very well be the fleet,” said Tarq thoughtfully. “No. Attack them with your full strength. We can easily deal with anything the humans might throw at us, and at any rate, it is not like you will need a long time to get back here if we need help. Just leave a few space fighters behind to help protect the palace and my precious neck within it.”

“As you command,” nodded Juntoo, but Varina noticed a hint of sarcasm in his tone. She figured the admiral was getting fed up with being ordered around by Tarq.

“Helm, take us in,” ordered Varina.

*****

On my tactical display, I watched the enemy fleet approaching. Thirty thousand Xenoakakie Vipers in a tight formation, followed by Monstrous.

“This looks awfully familiar,” said Venom.

I couldn’t stifle a chuckle. He was right. Barely two weeks had passed since we’d engaged this fleet, or tried to engage them before they sucker-punched us, to be exact. Well, that wasn’t happening this time around. It was payback time, and I (as well as everyone else in our fleet) had been fangs-out for days.

Just like the last time, and despite the enemy’s numerical advantage, I felt no fear, no anxiety, no trepidation, nothing like that. I was all fired-up, ready for action. These idiots had thought they could come to my planet, slaughter ninety percent of the fighter pilots and sailors under my command, and walk away to tell the tale? They were going down, and they were going down hard. When I told Evil Tarq I was going to kill every single one of them, I meant it, and the fact that he’d kidnapped my best friend’s wife and daughter, threatening to eat them (with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, probably) had added more fuel for the fire in my belly.

You’re a disease, and I’m the cure, I told the approaching Xenoakakies.

I had a visual communication request, coming from the enemy fleet. “Here comes the bad guys’ leader, demanding our unconditional surrender, no doubt,” I told Cordi.

A second later, I was looking at Admiral Juntoo’s image on a VR screen. “I demand your immediate surrender!” he announced, sporting a super smug expression.

“Called it,” I told Cordi.

“What is it with villains and their incessant demand for surrender?” she asked conversationally.

“Maybe it’s because of their ego?” I suggested.

“Tell him to have sex with the horse,” said Maada in my ears.

“That’s not how that saying goes,” I answered. “Hey, wait a minute; how is it that you can hear us?”

“I asked Cordelia to let me listen in,” he replied.

“Well, you might as well join in.” I pushed a button and Maada’s image appeared on a VR screen in front of me.

Juntoo glared at me with his four huge bug eyes, his antennae erect, his face dark. “I am talking to you.”

“Admiral Frankenstein,” I said. “I’m afraid you misunderstood. We are here to accept your surrender.”

“We have twice as many ships as you have!”

“But can you actually fly them? Insects can’t fly, you know.”

I thought about my last statement for a second. “Come to think of it, I have a question. Why is it you guys don’t have wings?”

“They disappeared due to ions of evolutionary—” The stupid insect started to answer, then caught himself and gave me a dirty look.

“What a fascinating biology lecture.” I grinned at him. “Do go on. Maybe you can put all of us to sleep.”

“There is no way that you can stand against the might of the White Republic’s Navy. You are completely outnumbered!”

“And you are a pretentious dickhead,” I responded, proud of my uncanny ability to come up with witty comebacks on the fly.

The insect had nothing to say to that, so he just glared at me. It was a bit scary, given that he had four huge bug eyes.

I checked my instruments. “Also, stop wasting your nanobots. We know how to detect and stop them now. Did you really think we’d fall for that trap twice?”

Juntoo’s face fell, but he immediately pulled himself together. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

I winked at him. “Sure you don’t.”

His face vanished from the screen.

“I think you pissed him off,” said Cordi. “It’s been a while since I watched you drive an alien crazy. Good to see you still got it.”

“What do you mean?” I protested. “I drive Maada up the wall on a daily basis. Just ask him.”

“I have thrown my lot in with an infant!” snarled the general, his face turning purple with anger.

“Maada doesn’t count as an alien,” stated Cordi. “You said so yourself.”

“Touché,” I agreed with her, then opened a channel to my fleet. “Guys. Remember: our goal isn’t to destroy the enemy fleet, but to keep them busy until Kurt and his team do their part. Stay safe—well, as safe as possible—and don’t take any unnecessary risks. We’ve lost enough people already.”

“You’re a lot more reserved than my Jim,” said Liz in my ears. “He’d be screaming for the Xenoakakies’ blood right about now while quoting something from a classic movie. Something like ‘today is a good day to die.’ ”

“I’m older and wiser,” I told her on a private channel. “And no, it’s never a good day to die, or to watch your friends get killed. It’s always a good day to fly and blow up enemy ships though, which is exactly what we’re about to do. Plus, you didn’t let me finish my speech.”

I went back to the fleet-wide broadcast. “With all that said, allow me to conclude with this: if vengeance is a dish best served cold, then put on your Sunday’s finest, because it’s time to feast!”

My pilots cheered in unison.

“Much better,” commented Liz.

“I knew this was coming,” added Cordi.

“The enemy will be in range in thirty seconds,” said Maada. “Care to do the honors, Admiral?”

“With pleasure,” I answered.

I flew in to meet the enemy space fighters, and the fleet came right behind me.

The Xenoakakie space fighters started spewing laser fire as soon as they entered the firing range. Breathless with excitement, I let go of a Sparrow the moment my HUD lit up a target, letting me know the enemy vessel was within missile range. The Xenoakakie pilot blew up the missile with continuous laser fire (these evil insects were good fighter pilots, who knew), but it didn’t do them any good because I flew in right after the Sparrow and hit their cockpit with a few energy bolts with such precision that it would’ve made Hawkguy proud.  The enemy ship veered off course, twisting madly, and disappeared from view.

I always said I could shoot the wings off a fly!

A few seconds later, another enemy ship was blown into a cloud of flaming dust under my steady cannon fire.

“You’re fired!” I yelled at the now dead Xenoakakie pilot.

“There’s no actual fire in space,” said Cordi. “No oxygen.”

“Don’t ruin the joke,” I responded, then contacted Maada. “I got two already.”

“Just two?” he replied drolly. “I’m following my fourth.”

God damn it!

“In space, no one can hear you brag,” I told him.

“Well, you can. And I just got number four.”

“It sounds impossible,” said Cordi, “but apparently fatherhood has made him an even better fighter pilot.”

“I’m still the best,” I growled.

“Keep telling yourself that,” she answered.

It took me a few minutes of dogfight to realize something: the enemy Vipers looked exactly like ours, but they were a bit faster and had better firepower. Our job had turned out to be even more difficult than we’d anticipated. As if it weren’t bad enough that they outnumbered us two to one.

I took a glance at my tactical display to see how the battle was going. Thousands of deadly dogfights had erupted all over the soundless vacuum of space as pilots from fourteen different species engaged the Xenoakakies. I looked for Liz’s Viper. I found her hard on the tail of a Xenoakakie space fighter. The red dot representing the enemy ship vanished as I watched.

Bravo Zulu, Liz.

Maada and Alitaa were engaged in dogfights in the vicinity of Liz’s ship, no doubt keeping a vigilant eye on her, as I’d asked them. I’d also told Cordi to let us know if Liz was in danger. With the four of us watching over her, I was hoping we could keep her as safe as possible.

Liz went after another gomer.

“She seems to be doing well,” commented Cordi.

“She’s a good pilot, remember? The problem was that she tended to jump without looking and put herself and others at risk,” I answered. “Still, so far, so good.”

“Night is young,” muttered Venom. “Plenty of time for her to get herself killed, again.”

“Shut the hell up!” I yelled while dodging incoming enemy fire. A Xenoakakie Viper seemed to have materialized out of nowhere above me. Red laser bolts screamed past my cockpit, too close for comfort.

“Are you talking to Venom?” asked Cordi. “Anyway, I was about to say maybe this one is different. She’s almost ten years older, you know.”

“No, same old Liz,” I answered just as I hit the enemy space fighter that had opened up on me with a Sparrow. It blew up in half, sending flaming metal fragments in every direction. “I checked her simulation logs and had a word with her about taking crazy risks. You weren’t listening?”

“In Invincible’s hangar bay? No. I thought the two of you might have a romantic moment, so I left you alone. Did you, by the way?”

I shot at another Xenoakakie Viper. A second later, one of the many laser bolts I’d fired punched through one of its engines and blew it to hell.

Four.

“I asked her out,” I said proudly while scanning the battlefield for another target. “And she said yes.”

I saw a Xenoakakie Viper perusing a Deathbringer and went after it. Kingslayer to the rescue! The enemy pilot tried to evade me. They obviously had no idea who was on their tail, and they never got the chance to find out because their Viper disintegrated under my fire.

“If you ever get a second chance in life for something, you’ve got to go all the way,” she advised. “Especially if that second chance is the love of your life.”

*****

Kurt touched his earpiece. “Execute. Make sure you return in one piece.”

Through the images transmitted by an Akakie spy ship, Kurt watched as the Resistant fighters and various ex-military personnel, who had positioned themselves around the Presidential Palace, opened fire on the Xenoakakies.

Tarq touched his PDD. “OMC-BOWS is active.”

“You’re the only person who doesn’t call MFM, MFM,” said Xornaa.

Suddenly, thousands of people, mostly armed civilians, joined the fight raging around the palace. They weren’t very organized, but they compensated for that by sheer numbers.

“And this is our cue,” Kurt told Xornaa. “Take us down.”

Xornaa gave him a tight-lipped nod. “Brace yourselves. This is going to be a rough landing.”

Kurt felt Phantom flare for the landing, pointing up her nose slightly while getting closer to the ground. He peered out of the ship as it lost altitude. A violent storm raged outside. The sky was an angry shade of asphalt gray, illuminated from time to time by huge lightning bolts. Phantom shook violently, and for a brief second, Kurt thought Xornaa had lost control of the ship. He gripped the sides of his seat, breathed in slowly and deliberately, and tried to think happy thoughts.

After everything I’ve been through, it’ll be hilarious if I get killed during a crash landing.

Phantom hit the ground in the Presidential Palace’s backyard so hard that Kurt took a bounce in his seat.

“I hope the Xenoakakies don’t see us leaving the ship,” said Xornaa, releasing the lock of her harness.

“They’re too busy shooting at our people.” Kurt looked at Tarq. “What’re you waiting for?”

Tarq looked at the hypospray he was holding in his hand and hesitated for a second. Then he shrugged, turned off his hologram, and pressed it onto his neck.

At first, nothing happened. Then, all of a sudden, Tarq’s body started growing as both his exoskeleton and muscles became bigger. He screamed in pain as cracks appeared on his cuticles and his spine curved into a monstrous hump. His fingers stretched into claws, his nails turned into black talons, and row upon row of long, sharp-looking fangs protruded from his mouth. Kurt felt a ping of fear when Tarq’s eyes turned completely red. The insect’s body shredded his uniform into pieces and kept growing for two more minutes.

“How do you feel?” Kurt asked Tarq, who now had three feet on him.

“Angry,” Tarq growled.

Not at me, I hope, Kurt couldn’t help thinking. Those four huge red eyes were unnerving.

Tarq turned his head, stared at Xornaa, and licked his lips.

“What?” asked Xornaa.

“You are so beautiful!”

Xornaa sighed heavily. “What happened to the whole ‘I find you repulsive’ thing?”

Tarq closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and shook his head a few times, apparently trying to control his urges. “I guess MICI’s instructions got buried under waves of irresistible, raw desire. I wish I had a few hundred sexual-urge suppression pills right now.”

“Well, do something,” Kurt urged him anxiously. “We can’t have you being distracted in the middle of the mission.”

This time, Tarq stared at Kurt and licked his lips.

“Seriously?” Kurt all but yelled at him.

“Sorry,” said Tarq. “It is a reflex.”

“I’ll punch your lights out if you look in my general direction,” Allen warned Tarq.

Kurt threw a black uniform at Tarq. While the insect was getting dressed, the humans tied their hands behind their backs, using fake handcuffs. The handcuffs looked real, but the chain was held in place with a weak electromagnetic field and would come off with the slightest pressure.

“Cordi, take off after we leave,” instructed Kurt. “Get ready to take care of those enemy fighters flying over the palace.”

“On it,” replied Cordi. “Don’t get yourself killed. Jim almost committed suicide the last time you did that.”

Tarq picked up a three-barrel handheld laser cannon. “Let us go.”

The ship’s ramp hit the ground. Kurt, Xornaa, and Allen exited Phantom, with Tarq bringing up the rear. They walked right into a war zone. Thousands of human and Xenoakakie soldiers were shooting at each other, with bullets and laser bolts flying in every direction, and explosions rocking the ground. Kurt could see several dead enemy soldiers lying down all around the palace’s yard. Fortunately for them, no one, neither the defenders nor the attackers, noticed the Xenoakakie and three humans who all of a sudden appeared from nowhere.

A strong wind swept through the yard, and the ground was slick with rain. Water poured from the sky as if the heavens had opened up. A bullet whizzed past Kurt’s ear. He dodged and prayed they wouldn’t be killed by friendly fire.

“March, maggots,” shouted Tarq, enjoying his role a bit too much for Kurt’s comfort.

Allen turned to look at the insect. “You aren’t going to shoot us in the back, right?”

“I promise nothing,” growled Tarq, obviously having a hard time enunciating with the fangs filling his mouth. “I really feel like shooting someone, and I have never liked you.”

“I’ve just arrived!” Allen protested. “You didn’t like my doppelganger.”

“Same difference,” answered Tarq. “Now, shut up and keep walking.”

*****

Father Philip looked around, examining the grim faces of the thirty men and women who’d been hiding in a detached house’s basement, barely two miles away from the Presidential Palace.

Half the people in his group were ex-Resistance fighters, the other half military personnel who’d recently signed up, and every single one of them was highly trained, experienced, determined, and armed to the teeth. They’d carried out a few operations already, targeting and killing a bunch of the aliens, but word had come from Kurt himself that this was the big one. Therefore, during the last few nights, the Resistance soldiers had gathered as close as possible to the palace. Their orders specified that they weren’t supposed to take the palace but engage the enemy soldiers and create as much noise as possible to hold their attention. This was obviously a diversion for something much bigger, over Father Philip’s pay grade.

He picked up his PDD as soon as it started buzzing. “Yes, Mr. President. On it.”

“Our orders just came through,” he told the others. “Let’s move out.”

“About damned time,” someone muttered.

The Resistance fighters grabbed their weapons and walked into the street.

*****

Commander Tarq sat at the desk previously belonging to the Earth’s president, who still hadn’t surrendered despite Tarq’s threat to kill his family (what a coward, he thought) and consulted the information coming in on his PDD. The palace was under attack, but even though it was surrounded by thousands of humans, the super-Akakie forces were in no danger of being overrun. In fact, the humans did not seem to be interested in taking the palace; they were just taking shots at the guards from outside. At any rate, reinforcements were already on the way, and if necessary, Tarq could always summon the Vipers flying overhead, looking for any threat that might have come from above. He was perfectly safe where he was, and at the same time, the enemy fleet was being destroyed by Juntoo and his much larger forces. If there was a strategy in the humans’ attack, Tarq could not find it. Why would the humans sacrifice their space fighters like that for a pointless attack at the Presidential Palace that had no chance of success? Could it be that their actions were born out of desperation?

He sank back onto his seat, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate amid the sounds of explosions, weapon discharges, and gunfire. What are you people up to?

Tarq had put a holographic image of himself and his beloved granddaughter on the desk—this was the only change which he had made to the ex-president’s office, which was already both spacious and luxurious enough to satisfy him. He looked at the image and hoped that Varina was safe, but he did not think she was in any real danger. Monstrous could defeat anything that this universe could throw at her. The ship itself was built before the widespread use of SAM had changed the Akakies into a warrior race, but they had recently added layers upon layers of offensive and defensive weaponry to her hull, turning her into a lethal killing machine that could destroy an entire planet with ease. With a few thousand escort space fighters, she could stand against the entire enemy force and prevail. Not that it would ever come to that, not in this universe at least.

He wondered if the next universe they were going to invade would provide a better challenge.

*****

Kurt and his team approached a side entrance to the Presidential Palace’s main building. Two Xenoakakie sentries were guarding the entrance. They exchanged confused looks when they saw Tarq approaching.

“Look what I found!” yelled Tarq. “These worms had infiltrated the palace, trying to assassinate me! Oh, now we are going to have so much fun with them, especially with the woman!”

As they walked past the guards, Kurt heard one of them tell the other, “I could swear he was in his office.”

“Cordi?” whispered Kurt after they entered the palace.

“Evil Tarq is in your old office, as we suspected,” answered the AI, who had hacked into the palace’s security systems.

“Pat and Sophie?”

“Residential area, master bedroom. I’ve already informed the other team.”

“And the cameras?’

“All on a loop. These guys are even worse than our Akakies at protecting their systems.”

A few minutes later, they reached a corner behind which was Kurt’s office. He used a mirror to check the corridor. Two Xenoakakie soldiers were standing guard outside the office.

“Do you want me to distract them with my powers?” asked Xornaa.

“There are only two of them,” whispered Kurt. “It’s easier if we just shoot them. Plus, in Tarq’s current condition, I don’t think turning on ‘the slut mode’ is such a great idea.”

Xornaa looked at Tarq, who had started licking his lips again. “Good point. But, you know, I’ve decided I don’t like that term.”

“Sorry. Jim came up with it. He can be a chauvinistic asshole sometimes, but his heart is in the right place.”

“You people have chosen a hell of a time to go PC,” Allen whispered.

Kurt nodded toward the guards.  “Which one do you want?”

“I’ll take the female,” Xornaa answered.

Kurt looked at the mirror and scratched his head. “Which one is female again?”

Xornaa rolled her eyes, then drew a suppressed Glock 55 with each hand from under her uniform, stepped into the corridor, and shot the two guards simultaneously.

Kurt and Xornaa dashed towards the office door, but Tarq, running on his four feet, darted past them, kicked the door open, and entered.

“Wait!” shouted Kurt while following the insect inside the office.

Evil Tarq, sitting behind the desk that used to be Kurt’s, looked up from his PDD and started to say, “Wha—”

Tarq brought his laser cannon to bear, took aim, and shot his twin in the head from barely fifteen feet away. The energy bolt melted the Evil Tarq’s head from the neck up and dug a smoldering hole in the wall behind him as the headless body collapsed onto the ground.

“Jesus,” growled Kurt, anger rising in his chest. “We were supposed to capture him alive!”

“I know,” answered Tarq. “But I am just so angry—”

He stopped mid-sentence and stared at the desk behind which his twin had been sitting, eyes wide. Kurt followed the insect’s gaze. There was a holographic portrait on the desk. It was Evil Tarq, holding a baby Akakie who was unmistakably Varna.

“You think there is any chance people might not have heard the cannon fire?” asked Xornaa conversationally.

“Clean away the blood and close the door behind us,” Kurt snapped at Tarq; then he grabbed one of the corpses and dragged it inside. Allen did the same with the second one.

Kurt and Allen rushed to hide the two dead guards and the headless body behind the desk while Xornaa put out the small fire on the wallpaper with her hands and positioned the chair in front of the hole to cover it. Using a spray specifically made by his R&D team to deal with a situation like this, Tarq wiped away the blood in the corridor and then closed the door.

Someone banged loudly on the door. “Commander Tarq! Is everything all right in there?”

Tarq opened the door and smiled at the three Xenoakakies standing in the corridor. “Yes. Sorry about that. I was interrogating these humans and let out a shot by mistake.”

One of the guards glanced suspiciously at Kurt, Xornaa, and Allen, who were now kneeling in front of the desk, hands behind their backs. “Where are your personal guards?”

“I sent them to bring me a torture device from my quarters,” answered Tarq smoothly. “Do not worry. Everything is under control here. Go help defend the palace.”

After the guards left, Tarq stayed at the door for a short while. After checking the corridor, he closed it behind him.

Kurt jumped to his feet. “Tarq, my old friend, you need to get a hold of yourself; otherwise, you’ll get all of us killed.  Do you understand that?”

Tarq tucked his chin low in shame and stared at his feet. If he weren’t a giant six-foot-tall insect, he would’ve been the very picture of a regretful student being reproached by the teacher. “Sorry. Controlling all these intense emotions is harder than I thought it would be. I will try harder.”

“You’re going to talk to Juntoo now,” continued Kurt. “It’s not an exaggeration to say the fate of the universe depends on what you do in the next two minutes. If he suspects there’s something wrong, it’s all over. Can you put on a convincing show?”

Tarq nodded, but he didn’t look confident at all. Kurt exchanged a desperate look with Xornaa.

“If it were anyone else,” said Xornaa hesitantly, “I would’ve suggested a Vulcan mind-meld to help him control his emotions and calm down, but I don’t think touching Tarq in his present condition is a bright idea.”

Tarq’s eyes sparkled with glee. “Oh, no, it is a brilliant idea! Touch me! Touch me now!”

*****

Sitting on the command chair, Varina was following the battle on Monstrous’s main screen. The enemy was putting up a fight, but while the White Republic Navy’s losses were a bit heavier than anticipated, with their two-to-one numerical advantage, the end result was never in doubt, with no need to involve Monstrous.

“Captain?” called out the communication officer. “We have an incoming message from Commander Tarq for Admiral Juntoo.”

“Put it through,” she ordered.

Tarq’s image appeared on a VR screen in front of her just as Juntoo stepped closer and stood behind the command chair.

“Admiral,” said Tarq, sounding out of breath, “you must bring the fleet back to Earth immediately!”

“What is going on, Father?” asked Varina.

Tarq stared at her like she had just grown ten extra antennae. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open.

Why is he looking at me like that?

“Well, are you going to answer the captain’s question this century, or wait for the next?” Juntoo demanded impatiently.

Tarq made a visible effort to take his eyes off Varina and look back at the admiral. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally managed to talk. “We have just captured three spies from the third parallel universe. According to them, our doppelgangers are planning a surprise attack on our universe. We must return home with haste and prepare to defend it against an imminent invasion.”

Varina narrowed her eyes. “Is this a prank, Father? It is hardly the time for it. We are on the verge of victory here.”

To her utter astonishment, she saw Tarq’s jaw quiver. “You have your orders,” he said hastily and cut the connection.

“What the hell was that all about?” she murmured.

Juntoo fumed. “He orders me? Who the hell does he think he is? Is he trying to deny us our victory? I am the commander of the fleet! He cannot boss me around!”

“Something is wrong,” frowned Varina.

“Damn right something is wrong,” replied Juntoo with a ferocious scowl. “Captain, you are to continue our current operation. You will not stop until the enemy is defeated, or you hear directly from me. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. What are you going to do?”

“I am going to take a few Marines and go pay your father a visit. I will get to the bottom of this, and if it indeed is a prank, then our esteemed Commander Tarq has a serious ass-whooping coming his way.”

*****

I shot a Sparrow at the enemy space fighter I was chasing from barely a hundred feet away, but the Xenoakakie pilot somehow managed to dodge my missile. Yep. These fighters were faster than ours.

I kept shooting my cannons. Ahead, the enemy fighter weaved from side to side to throw off my aim. I had to give the pilot credit. Whoever that was, they knew how to fly. If it were anyone but me on their six, they might’ve gotten away. But, unfortunately for them, it was me in the cockpit.

I kept up a steady hail of fire, showering the enemy ship with rapid bursts of laser bolts. Several energy bolts tore into my target, initially causing tiny explosions and then huge ones.

“Dodge this!” I shouted at the gomer.

“Jim, I have good news and bad news,” Cordi told me.

“Good news first,” I said, nose-diving my Viper right on top of an enemy ship and letting loose a stream of laser fire.

“Kurt and Tarq have succeeded,” she said. “Tarq just contacted Juntoo and ordered him to return to Earth.”

“That’s great! Oh, wait. Why are we still fighting the bad guys then?” I asked while my cannons were busy ripping apart my target.

The Xenoakakie craft spun away uncontrollably, spewing molten parts and sparks into the black of space. I hoped the pilot was dead, for their own sake.

“That’s the bad news. Apparently, Juntoo has decided to disobey Tarq’s orders. He’s on his way back to Earth in a shuttle. Their fleet will keep fighting us.”

Oh, crap.

I felt a sudden sour taste in my mouth. This was indeed terrible news. This meant we were trapped here with a much larger Xenoakakie force, and our losses were already mounting. Outside of our ace fighters, most of our pilots couldn’t fight against two enemy ships at the same time and survive. The best we could hope for was inflicting heavy losses on the enemy fleet before they destroyed all our ships, and that wouldn’t have helped at all, given that they had another fourteen (albeit smaller) fleets scattered all over our galaxy.

Ok. Now I was scared, but just a tiny bit. There was too much adrenalin streaming through my systems for something as insignificant as certain death to bother me much. Plus, I was busy shooting down enemy fighters, bent on taking as many as possible with me. This was the most fun I’d had since Operation Armageddon. 

“We’re all going to die in here,” said Venom.

For once in my life, I want a plan that I’ve hatched to work without a monkey wrench thrown in it, I complained.

I took out another enemy Viper with a short burst to the cockpit.

“We have already lost nearly twenty percent of our space fighters,” said Maada in my ears. It was as if he’d read my mind all the way from wherever he was engaged in a dogfight.

“It ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” I answered through clenched teeth.

*****

Tarq paced nervously up and down the office, biting his fingernails. Their fleet was still under attack, and while they could not see the battle, Cordi had let them know it was not going well at all, which was always a given.

Even worse, both Juntoo and the rest of the fleet had been refusing to answer Tarq’s frantic calls, so there was nothing he could do until Juntoo arrived, while their fighter pilots were getting massacred. The admiral had certainly picked a good time to grow a backbone and disobey orders.

You had one job, Tarq. All you had to do was convince the admiral to recall the fleet, and now many people will die because you could not do that.

“Guys, put your game faces on,” said Cordi. “Juntoo’s shuttle just landed.”

Tarq straightened the front of his uniform and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Wearing black felt strange. His friends knelt in front of the desk again, hands behind their backs.

Two minutes later, Juntoo stormed into the office, followed by six Marines carrying laser cannons.

That is one mammoth insect, Tarq could not help thinking.

“What is the meaning of this?” yelled Tarq. “Why is the fleet still engaging the enemy? We have more important problems to deal with!”

“Why?” Juntoo yelled back. “I will tell you why. I do not believe you for a second. You are cooking something. Where are these spies you talk about?”

Tarq grabbed Kurt by the collar of his uniform, dragged him forward, and with a kick to the back of his knee, made him kneel in front of Juntoo.

“This is the president of Earth!” yelled Juntoo.

“No, this is his doppelganger, sent here to assassinate me in preparation for an invasion.” Tarq shoved Kurt. “Speak, maggot.”

“It’s true,” said Kurt. “We’re going to attack your universe soon.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Juntoo shouted at Tarq. “This is obviously an attempt to derail our plans.”

Tarq shook his head. “He is telling the truth. We put him through MICI.”

Juntoo held up his chin. “Even so, what is the rush? We are close to complete victory here. We can crush the enemy fleet first and then deal with this new threat any way we see fit.”

Tarq raised his voice. “I am giving you a direct order. Bring the fleet back right this moment or face the consequences.”

Juntoo scowled. “Screw you and your consequences! I am the commander of the fleet! You cannot order me to do anything.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then Kurt shrugged and said, “Well, it was worth a try.”

Two suppressed machine pistols appeared in Kurt’s hands, one in each. He shot one of Juntoo’s two front legs at the knees. The giant screamed in pain, grabbed his leg, and fell to the floor.

The look of shock on the Xenoakakie Marines’ faces didn’t last long as three of them went down with bullets in their brains, compliments of Allen and Xornaa, who was also shooting with both hands. The other three stepped backward and started to raise their hand cannons. Kurt shot two of them point-blank. The last Marine managed to let out a shot, which missed Kurt by an inch before Xornaa and Allen peppered him with bullets.

Tarq walked to the admiral, writhing on the floor, said, “Good night, asshole,” and pushed a hypospray into his neck. Juntoo’s four eyes rolled back into his skull as his head hit the floor with a bang and he stopped twitching. Kurt rolled Juntoo over, produced a pair of (real) handcuffs from his uniform pocket, and tied the big alien’s hands behind him.

Tarq ran to the office door and locked it, and just in time, because barely two seconds later, someone banged on the door from outside and shouted, “What the hell is going on in there?”

“Nothing,” answered Tarq. “I accidentally fired my gun. Again.”

“Commander Tarq,” said a voice from outside, “exactly how clumsy are you?”

“Very,” he responded. “Do not worry. I will not touch my gun again.”

“Guys, the jig is up,” Tarq heard Cordi’s voice in his earpiece. There was an unmistakable touch of panic in the AI’s voice. “They brought a through-the-wall surveillance device and saw what’s going on. They’re calling for backup now. You have maybe five minutes.”

Tarq flinched as he felt both his hearts start thumping against his ribcage. They would soon be surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers, and there was nowhere to run. He swallowed hard, trying to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth, and looked at his friends to see if they had a plan to escape the office before it turned into their tomb.

Kurt, Xornaa, and Allen pushed Kurt’s heavy wooden desk in front of the door and took cover behind it. Tarq, breathing laboriously as a result of dragging Juntoo’s enormous body behind him, joined them.

“You do not have a secret exit here?” he asked Kurt.

Kurt pushed fresh magazines into his guns and shook his head grimly.

“You must always have secret exits where you live,” commented Tarq.

“Kurt?” said Cordi. “A giant insect is about to kick the door open.”

Kurt aimed one of his machine pistols and put several rounds through the door. From the other side, there was a loud scream and the sound of a body hitting the ground.

A minute later, the door blasted inward, sending dust, smoke, and splinters all over the office. The Xenoakakie soldiers, hiding behind the door frame, opened fire. Tarq and his friends returned fire, but it was obvious they were trapped and had nowhere to go.

“You, out in the corridor,”  shouted Tarq. “We have your commander of the fleet. We will kill him if you do not stop shooting.”

“Kill him,” someone answered. “He is the commander of the fleet. We are Special Operations Force. What do we care?”

“Wow,” said Xornaa. “These guys have really gone crazy.”

“In their defense,” said Tarq, “the fleet personnel and the Special Operations people have never liked each other. Still, I think they are trying to save the admiral; otherwise, they would just throw some explosives in and get it over with.”

“And they are careful with their shots too.” Kurt sprayed the enemy position with his machine pistol’s bullets. “You’re right. They know we killed their Tarq, and I’m positive they don’t want to lose Juntoo too, which is probably the only reason we’re still alive.”

“Let’s keep it that way for as long as possible,” advised Xornaa, shooting with her Glocks.

“Guys, stop speculating,” said Cordi. “I’ve just intercepted a message from their commander. They want the admiral alive.”

“Lucky us,” murmured Kurt just as an angry laser bolt whizzed past his head.

“I wish I had a few grenades,” said Allen dolefully.

The Xenoakakie soldiers stopped shooting; then a voice called out from outside, “You are surrounded and have nowhere to go. If you surrender, we will not harm you. But if you keep doing this, we will eventually lose our patience and kill you all.”

“Cordi,” Kurt called out. “How many enemy soldiers are there?”

“Around a dozen,” she replied.

“That’s not too bad,” said Allen.

“In the corridor,” added Cordi. “There are another couple hundred waiting outside.”

Xornaa gave Kurt a sideways look. “Why is it that I always end up in a situation like this whenever I follow you into the battle?”

“Are you surrendering, or what?” called the same voice from outside.

“If Jim were here, he’d make a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid reference,” said Kurt.

Allen chuckled bitterly.

Tarq gave him a confused look. “I don’t get it.”

“At the end of this movie,” said Kurt, “the good guys are trapped in a room, surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers.”

“You could at least have the decency to answer my question!” shouted the Xenoakakie from the corridor a second before enemy fire resumed. A few energy bolts tore into the desk, a few more hit the wall behind.

“How did they escape?” asked Tarq, clutching at a laser cannon belonging to one of the dead Xenoakakie Marines.

“They didn’t.”

Tarq rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Why would they? What do you people have against happy endings?” Then he aimed the cannon and started blasting away.

“If you wanted a happy ending,” growled Allen, “you should’ve gone to a brothel.”

Kurt stared at him in astonishment. “Since when do you crack jokes?”

“Since always,” answered the Canadian. “I’m hilarious.”

“Can you people please focus on not getting killed?” complained Xornaa. She sounded fed up. “Your lack of professionalism never ceases to amaze me. I honestly don’t know how you lot have survived this long.”

The four of them kept shooting at the Xenoakakies massing outside.

*****

I noticed an enemy ship sneaking up on Liz from behind. I swung my Viper around in a sharp curve to go to her help, but Alitaa, who was closer than me, wrenched her ship around steeply and took care of the Xenoakakie space fighter with a missile, turning the enemy ship into a rapidly expanding cloud of space dust.

I contacted her. “Thank you, Alitaa. I owe you one.”

“You owe me nothing,” she replied. “ I am just doing my job.”

“That was nicely done,” Venom told me. “But, in general, things are getting pretty desperate. We’re losing too many ships, too fast.”

I maneuvered to get on a Xenoakakie space fighter’s six. It went on a power dive, and I gave chase. I kept trying to get a lock on the enemy Viper, but the sneaky bastard refused to make it easy for me. “No matter. We’ll find a way to get out of this. We always do.”

I kept the enemy ship in my crosshairs and fired my cannons, scoring hit after hit, until the gomer I was chasing was blown to pieces, lighting the dark space with a bright, blinding flash.

In the blink of an eye, a fleet of rectangular space fighters appeared right above us.

In a way, this was a familiar scene, one that had haunted my dreams for months after the Xortaags invasion (which killed seven hundred million humans). I used to have nightmares about this exact situation every other night.

Deathbringers.

Twenty-two thousand of them. The Xortaag Foreign Legion fleet that had slaughtered the poor Talgoinians under Mushgaana’s command. The same Mushgaana whose doppelganger killed two million humans the last time I saw him.

The Deathbringers flew towards us.

“Were you saying something about finding a way out of this mess?” Cordi asked me as the distance between the Xortaag space fighters and my fleet shrank rapidly.

“There goes the neighborhood,” said Venom with a sigh.

“Frak me,” I murmured.

*****

Varina touched the VR screen in front of her. Prince Mushgaana appeared on screen, bowing politely.

“You do not need to bow to me,” she said with annoyance in her voice. “I am not my father. What are you doing here? You must have left Pucholla three days ago to be here now.”

“Admiral Juntoo ordered us to mobilize a few days ago,” answered the prince, “saying that he believed Earth might be a target. It looks like he was right.”

“We do not need your help, but now that you are here, we might as well get this over with as soon as possible. Attack the enemy fleet.”

“As you command, Captain,” Mushgaana responded and cut the connection.

The Xortaag space fighters darted towards the battle.

Varina leaned back onto her command chair. This was over. Even without the additional Xortaag forces, the enemy fleet could not have resisted much longer. She wondered why she had not heard from Juntoo for a while.

I guess I will find out soon.

“Helm, get us closer,” she commanded. “We are not needed, but why should we not have some fun? Let us go destroy a thousand or two enemy space fighters.”

Chapter nine

Cordelia looked at the five enemy Vipers flying in formation right in front of Phantom and thought, This is so cool! I’ve always wanted to fly into battle on my own.

Phantom was armed with two missile launchers and a rotatory laser cannon. Under normal circumstances, a cargo ship's armament wasn’t enough to take on even one space fighter, let alone five, but right now she was trailing the enemy ships by less than fifty feet, without the Xenoakakie pilots suspecting that she was right behind them.

If I had an arm, I bet I could get close enough to touch them.

She counted to three—completely unnecessary for an AI; even Cordelia herself wasn’t certain why she’d done that—then dropped Phantom’s nanobot-induced invisibility cloak and opened fire on the enemy space fighters. Two Vipers were hit by missiles, and the third was blown to bits by laser bolts before their pilots even knew they were under attack.

“Say hello to my laser cannon!” she yelled at the enemy space fighters.

The two remaining Vipers went on power dives in opposite directions. Cordelia followed one and opened up with all the weaponry Phantom had.  The Viper exploded before its pilot could put enough distance between the space fighter and the pursuing cargo ship.

But now the last Viper had completed a sharp turn and was coming right at Phantom. It was Cordelia’s turn to try to flee, but against a much faster and nimbler Viper, it was no use. Several red-hot laser bolts tore into Phantom’s hull. Cordelia fired back with the laser cannon, but the enemy fighter dodged her fire with ease and kept coming.

Cordelia had an incoming message. It was Hanna. “We got this, Cordi. Just keep him focused on you for a few more seconds.”

“A few more seconds,” she repeated. “No problem.”

She kept twisting and turning Phantom, dodging several more laser bolts, but the enemy ship kept pounding her. Then she saw a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile racing towards the Xenoakakie Viper. She didn’t know if the pilot noticed the incoming missile, but it made no difference. It hit the Viper’s left wing. Half the ship disintegrated, and the other half fell toward the ground like a rock.

“Yes!” shouted Cordi. “Alpha Mike Fo—”

Phantom exploded all around her.

*****

Kurt aimed at an enemy soldier shooting at them from behind the wall and pulled the trigger. The Xenoakakie screamed in agony and disappeared from his view.

The stutter of heavy machine guns and explosions rang from outside.

“Looks like the cavalry has just arrived,” said Kurt; then he ducked just as a laser bolt whizzed over his head.

“About damn time,” grumbled Allen. “I was short on ammo.”

The floor shook, and the wall to their left exploded inward. The back end of a Dragon Infantry Carrier Vehicle appeared from under the dust and rubble. The APC’s remotely controlled 13.5 mm machine gun turned towards the wall behind which the enemy soldiers had gathered and started firing. Its rounds ripped through the wall and killed the Xenoakakies behind it. The roar of the machine gun in the office’s confined space was so loud that Kurt had to drop his machine pistols and cover his ears. Most of the wall between the office and the corridor crumbled when the APC finally stopped shooting.

The Dragon’s back hatch opened and Hanna, in full armor and carrying an STG 750 assault rifle, stepped outside. “Fire in the hole,” she yelled just as the APC’s grenade launcher threw one straight through the still standing doorframe into the corridor. Kurt hid behind the desk a second before the ground shook and dust and debris flew over his head.

That was definitely overkill, he thought, feeling relieved. Hanna and her team had arrived right in the nick of time.

“Are you guys waiting for a written invitation?” asked Hanna casually.

*****

Varina, while following the battle on the bridge’s main screen, took a casual look at her command chair’s tactical display, and sat up straight as something caught her attention.

The Xortaag fleet was racing towards the battle, as she had ordered. However, she realized a few Deathbringer squadrons, probably some five hundred space fighters in total, had chosen a vector that brought them closer to Monstrous than what seemed necessary.

She frowned and studied her display more closely. She was right. There was no reason for those space fighters to follow that particular vector. It was a subtle move, almost imperceptible, almost as if ...

Almost as if they are trying to sneak up on my ship!

Her instincts yelled at her that something was wrong. But what? All the Xortaags had a tiny explosive device under the back of their skull. One command from her father or Admiral Juntoo, and they would all die. And it would not end there. Their families and loved ones would be certain to taste the wrath of the Super-Akakies back in their own universe too. It was unthinkable that the Xortaags would betray them.

On the other hand, she had been feeling seriously uneasy about several things that had happened today, chief among them the positioning of the enemy fleet, which had trap written all over it, and her father’s strange behavior during his last call. And now, this.

Come to think of it, Mushgaana’s Courageous had positioned herself off of Monstrous’s stern. A perfect place to launch a sudden attack.

Varina quickly made up her mind. “Commander Mozron?”

An old Akakie looked up from his station. “Captain?”

Varina tapped on the VR screen in front of her. “Keep an eye on these ships. Open fire if they change course.”

“Change course?” asked Mozron, puzzled.

“Towards us.”

Activity on the bridge ceased momentarily as everyone stared at Varina in astonishment.

They are all wondering if I have gone crazy.

“Towards us?” repeated the old Akakie, astonished. “Why would the Xortaags—”

Varina cut him off. “Also, monitor Courageous’s movements closely.”

Mozron hesitated, but only for a brief second. “Aye, Captain.” He turned to his station and started talking on his comms.

And then the unthinkable happened.

The Deathbringers that had caught Varina’s attention swerved all at once in a perfectly coordinated maneuver and came straight towards Monstrous, their laser cannons blazing.

Varina, still not quite believing her own eyes, froze for a fraction of a second, then slammed her fist against her armrest and yelled, “Fire!!”

Monstrous’s laser turrets, blaster cannons, and missile launchers roared to life. It was as if the incoming space fighters ran into a wall of fire. Varina watched with savage satisfaction as most of them were shredded to pieces within seconds. Some started to perform evasive maneuvers and tried to flee, but this close to the dreadnought, they had no chance. Monstrous’s weapons stayed on them until the very last one was destroyed.

Several concussions rocked the ship, jolting Varina and the rest of the bridge crew.

“Courageous is firing at us,” said Mozron rather unnecessarily.

“Evasive maneuvers,” ordered Varina through clenched teeth. “Launch countermeasures, and fire back with all weapons. Let us show the filthy traitors how we Super-Akakies fight.”

“Missiles away,” announced Mozron a second later.

How the hell did this happen? Varina asked herself. Did they all suddenly forget about the bombs in their heads?!

*****

“Were you saying something about finding a way out of this mess?” Cordi asked me as the distance between the Xortaag space fighters and my fleet shrank rapidly.

“There goes the neighborhood,” said Venom with a sigh.

“Frak me,” I murmured. “I can’t believe it worked!”

“I hope your friend keeps Juntoo alive,” said Maada’s voice in my ear. “I gave Mushgaana my word, and I always keep my promises.”

“Well done, General,” I told him.

“It was your plan,” he answered.

“Well, it was my plan B, if I’m being honest,” I said.

“I distinctively remember you said ‘plan Bs are for pussies’ once,” commented Venom.

Chapter Ten

Prince Mushgaana leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes.

Several Super-Akakie officers accompanied the Xortaag fleet, keeping an eye on things and reporting regularly to Tarq and Juntoo. They had apparently sabotaged some Deathbringers, whose pilots had lost control of during an exercise and ran into each other. One had crashed into Courageous, causing minimal damage. It was obviously meant to be a prank, but Mushgaana failed to see any humor in it, only the Super-Akakies’ typical viciousness and total disregard for other living beings.

He looked around his spacious, lavishly furnished office (A golden cage, he thought bitterly) located in a government building in Pucholla’s capital city, Tithiri, and wondered how things had come to this. Now the Super-Akakies could massacre his people with impunity just to have a laugh. Maada would have killed them if he were here. Or, more feasibly, would get himself killed trying to do so.

So, now the once proud Xortaag warriors were nothing but worthless slaves. They would do as ordered, or the Super-Akakies would blow up their heads, just as they did a short while ago when there was a mutiny on Tangaar.

He wished Maada were alive. He should not have allowed the general to stand against the invading enemy fleet. That was obviously suicide. But given time, Maada might have come up with a solution to their current predicament. He had not been the most badass military genius in Xortaag history for nothing.

Maybe some female company will cheer me up, he thought morosely.

There was a knock on the door, and one of his bodyguards entered the office. “Your Highness? Apologies for disturbing you, but there is someone here who wishes to see you.”

Mushgaana raised an eyebrow. “We are accepting visitors now?”

The guard scratched his head. “Trust me, Your Highness, you would want to see this one.”

“Get the hell out of my way, or I will break your neck!” a husky voice rang from outside.

A familiar, husky voice.

Then General Maada walked right in like he owned the place.

Mushgaana jumped out of his seat, his heart beating faster, feeling warmth radiating throughout his body. Maada looked almost exactly how he remembered him, only despite the passing of years, he looked younger. And his scars were gone.

This is not him, you idiot, he reminded himself, suppressing a smile, but it was difficult to believe the man standing in front of him was not his long-lost friend. 

Maada bowed his head. “Your Highness.”

Mushgaana cleared his throat. “General Maada. This is a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, especially given that we are on the opposite sides of the current conflict?”

Maada turned and looked pointedly at the guard. The soldier saluted and left the office.

The general stepped closer and looked directly into Mushgaana’s eyes. He was shocked by the furious fire burning in those deep, black orbs. The prince was more or less used to Maada’s fits of anger, but he had never seen his friend so indignant before.

“I would have said I am pleased to see you again, Your Highness, but I need to ask first: how the fuck did you manage to become the insects’ puppet?”

Mushgaana felt his face burn as a flush crept across his cheeks. It was as if Maada had read his mind—which of course, he had not; it was always the other way around—but Mushgaana had been deeply embarrassed by what had been going on, what he and his people had become, for months.

Then his fury rose in his chest and washed the embarrassment away.

“Who are you to judge?” thundered Mushgaana. “You took the easy way out, you coward, and left me with this mess. What was I supposed to do, get all our people annihilated by the insects?”

Maada examined him closely. “At least there is still fire in your belly. Take a seat, Your Highness, we need to talk.”

It was only then that Mushgaana realized the general had provoked him on purpose. He reached into Maada’s mind, read his thoughts, and found out he had a plan.

The prince sank back onto his seat, eyes wide, clutching his chest, and for the first time in a long, long while, allowed himself to hope.

“Do you trust me?” asked Maada softly.

“With my life, General.”

“In that case, let us talk about my plan.”

Mushgaana chuckled. “If we pull this off, the insects will not know what hit them. Oh, how I wish to be able to see the look on Tarq’s face when this happens!”

“First things first,” said Maada. “Our SFD has a much better range than yours. We can travel between solar systems in hours, as opposed to days. Let me meet a team of your engineers, and I will show them how to upgrade your SFD.”

“That sure would come in handy.” Mushgaana paused for a moment. “It is good to see you again, old friend. I”—he hesitated for a blink—“missed you.”

“Likewise, Your Highness.”

Chapter eleven

On my tactical display, I watched as the Xortaag fleet attacked the unsuspecting Xenoakakie space fighters. A few hundred enemy Vipers were incinerated before their pilots realized they were under attack. My pilots and I redoubled our efforts too, being on the front foot for the first time since the battle had started.

Not everything went according to plan though. Monstrous destroyed the several hundred Deathbringers attacking her like it was nothing. It came as a major shock. Generally speaking, dreadnoughts and starships were notoriously susceptible to being swarmed by space fighters. Sometimes, I thought the only reason we had them was to take space fighters where they needed to go.

“How did it do that?” I murmured, fighting back an overwhelming sense of frustration.

“I have never seen something like this in all my years of fighting,” agreed Maada. “I have single-handedly destroyed several starships and dreadnoughts with my Deathbringer, supported by only two wingmen.”

“These Xenoakakies are very different from ours,” I said.

“Give the man a golden star for this genius military observation,” said Cordi.

Courageous had surprised the enemy, but it didn’t look like she’d last long fighting Monstrous alone. I opened a channel to Invincible, Dauntless, and Victorious. “Courageous is in trouble. Can you give her a hand?”

“On our way, Admiral,” answered Charles.

“We cannot let Prince Mushgaana have all the glory now, can we?” Zaart added gleefully.

*****

Kurt ran towards Hanna and the APC, keeping his head down just in case there were still Xenoakakie soldiers left alive in the corridor. Tarq grabbed one of Juntoo’s legs and dragged the huge, unconscious insect behind him toward the vehicle with some difficulty. The others followed.

Kurt had to cough a few times to clear his lungs from the dust and smoke before he asked Hanna, “What took you so long?”

“We ran into heavy resistance and lost two Dragons already.” Hanna looked pointedly at Kurt’s machine pistols. “Are you bringing those with you?”

Kurt looked at the small machine pistols and threw them away as he got into the vehicle. “I guess I don’t need these anymore. The Xenoakakies have anti-armor weapons?”

“No, but concentrated fire from those damned three-barrel cannons can do the job.”

Inside the APC, a Marine handed Kurt an STG 750. “There you go, Mr. President.”

Kurt took the weapon, nodded at the Marine, positioned himself behind a firing port, and scanned the immediate area, looking for Xenoakakie soldiers to shoot.

Xornaa, who’d entered after Kurt, stared at the Marine for a long moment.

Hanna closed the hatch and shouted. “Go, go, go!”

Thick smoke billowed from the troop carrier’s exhaust as it made a jack-rabbit start, detached itself from the wall, and moved toward the palace’s main entrance under heavy enemy fire. Kurt and the Marines fired back, hitting several enemy soldiers.

The Marine whom Xornaa had stared at earlier asked her, “Have I grown a second head or something?” while slamming a full magazine into his gun.

Xornaa chuckled. “You remind me of someone. Are you a Cherokee?”

“Nope. I’m First Nation.”

Allen stopped shooting for a second to wave at the Marine. “Imagine running into a fellow Canadian here. I’m Allen.”

The Marine saluted with his gun. “Dances with Wolves, at your service.”

“Seriously?” asked Kurt, surprised.

The Marine chuckled. “No, it’s a joke, but a good one, eh? Anyway, my name’s Jeff.”

The APC darted through the palace’s gate, and the enemy fire all but stopped.

“I think we’re safe,” said Hanna, wiping the sweat off her brow. “There are few Xenoakakies outside of the palace and their fleet base.”

“What about those Vipers flying overhead?” asked Kurt.

“Cordi got four of them,” answered the Amazon. “We got the fifth with a surface-to-air missile.”

Kurt heaved a sigh of relief. It looked like they’d gotten away with their lives, once again.

“We snatched the enemy’s commander of the fleet right from under their noses.” He smiled at Xornaa. “Do you believe it?”

Xornaa smiled back. “Well, yes. This is what we do, isn’t it?”

Then the APC next to them disappeared behind a fiery explosion.

What the hell?!

Kurt looked out to see  Xenoakakie hover car in hot pursuit. The enemy vehicle had a laser cannon mounted on it. Judging by its size, the weapon was as powerful as the ones used by space fighters.

The APCs’ machine guns opened up on the new threat.

“How many?” Kurt asked Tarq.

The alien consulted his PDD, which Kurt knew was linked to the Akakie invisible spy ship in orbit. “Twelve.”

“How many Dragons have we left?” Kurt asked Hanna.

“Six.”

The closest enemy vehicle ran off the road and straight into a building after being hit multiple times by the APCs’ armor-piercing rounds, but at the same time, another Dragon somersaulted and came to a screeching halt after rolling a couple of times. Kurt watched helplessly as the enemy soldiers made sure the Marines who’d survived the crash didn’t live long.

Kurt raised his assault rifle, aimed carefully, and shot a short burst at the Xenoakakie operating one of the hover cars’ laser cannons, but the insect was mostly hidden behind his weapon.

“I don’t suppose you have a sniper rifle lying around here?” he asked Hanna, who shook her head.

Kurt eyed his assault rifle. “Well, I guess this has to do.”

Xornaa stepped next to him, raised her STG 750, aimed carefully through the firing port, and pulled the trigger. Kurt watched in amazement as the enemy soldier spun around and toppled out of the hover car, replaced by another Xenoakakie, whom Xornaa promptly shot too. 

“Wow!” exclaimed Jeff. “I’ve never seen someone shoot like this, and from inside a moving vehicle, no less.”

“Jeff, meet Wonder Woman,” said Kurt with a nod.

Jeff grinned widely. “Extremely pleased to meet you, Ma’am.”

“Likewise,” said Xornaa. “Now, can you guys be quiet for a minute and let me concentrate?”

*****

“Three more enemy ships are approaching,” Varina heard Commander Mozron announce.

“Deal with them,” ordered Varina, “I am going to put an end to this. Comms, put me through to either Admiral Juntoo or my father.”

I wish I could be there to watch when the traitors’ heads explode.

“We cannot reach the admiral,” said an officer, “but Commander Tarq is here.”

Tarq’s image appeared on a VR screen in front of her.

“Father,” she all but yelled, one eye on the tactical display, waiting for the enemy starships to come within range. “The Xortaags have betrayed us. We are under attack. Now is a good time to detonate those bombs. All of them.”

Tarq shook his head. “I am sorry, Daughter, but I cannot.”

“Why the hell not?” she demanded; then she realized Tarq was not in his office but inside a moving vehicle.

“Where are you?”

And then it dawned on her. “You are not my father, are you? How is it that you have his PDD?”

“I give you three guesses,” said the imposter with a sad smile.

Varina gasped, and both her hearts skipped a few beats. She felt as if her world had just shrunk into a bubble, detached from the battle and everything else that was going on around her.

“You killed my father!” she yelled, but she could not believe her own words. How could Tarq be dead? He always seemed … so immortal.

“I am your father, and as such, let me give you some fatherly advice. Turn your ship around and run for your life. Do it now, or you are dead, and so is everyone under your command ”

“Have you seen my ship?” she growled, wishing the murderer were within her reach so that she could bite his head off with her sharp teeth. “I can take on your entire fleet on my own!”

Her father’s double looked at her with sadness in his eyes. “Daughter, you do not know what you are talking about. Jim Harrison and General Maada will be coming for you soon. Each of those two men is a force of nature, and when they work together, no one, no one, stands a chance against them.”

Varina narrowed her eyes. “And I am supposed to just listen to you, shadow master?”

Tarq sighed. “I would not lie to my own daughter.”

“Oh yes you would,” she bellowed. “You would sell your mother—hell, your entire family—if you thought it was good for your species. I know you better than you think, so do not give me that crap.”

Tarq pleaded, “Varina, I lost you once, and it was by far the most heartbreaking experience of my life. Maybe this is my second chance. All you need to do—”

“I am a Super-Akakie fleet officer, and we do not run away from a battle!” she screamed.

Tarq seemed genuinely baffled. “Since when?”

Her command chair vibrated, which told her Monstrous had just released a fresh salvo of missiles. She looked at the main screen. The three new enemy ships were now within range.

Not for long.

Both sets of her antennae stood erect in pure rage, and her face contorted as burning anger, seeking to harm, overcame her. She was not that close to her father (although now she wished she had been), but Tarq was a good man, and he deserved better than being killed by this treacherous insect and his filthy human and Xortaag allies. They, all of them, had earned her wrath, and now they would see the consequences.

“I am going to kill your force-of-nature friends, I am going to destroy your fleet, and then I will rain fire on Earth, killing all the humans, to avenge my murdered dad!”

Tarq shook his head sadly. “No. You are not. You will be dead soon.”

She slammed a fist on the command chair’s armrest and cut the connection.

“Tactical,” she said in a steady voice, “I want those four ships destroyed right now.”

*****

The Xortaags' unexpected arrival turned the tide of the battle, and just a few minutes later, I saw exactly what I was looking for: a few hundred enemy space fighters broke off, dropped their noses, and flew toward Earth.

I grinned. “Yes! Still pussies, as I imagined.”

Cordi let out a noisy breath. No mean feat, given that she didn’t have lungs.

I watched my display monitor eagerly, waiting for more enemy ships to flee. This was the biggest Xenoakakie fleet in our galaxy. If they were defeated, and with the rest of the Foreign Legion joining us now that they didn’t need to worry about the bombs in the back of their sailors’ heads, we could deal with the rest of the enemy forces much more easily.

“Shit,” said Cordi.

“First, language,” I said, “and then, what happened?”

“I’ve just intercepted a message from Monstrous. Its captain threatened to activate the self-destruct mechanism on any space fighter that tries to flee or surrender.”

The Xenoakakie pilots leaving the battle turned their birds around and rejoined the fight.

“Well, shit, just like Cordi said,” said Venom.

That complicated things. We outnumbered the enemy fleet, but not by a large margin. They still had enough ships to inflict serious damage, and if Monstrous could overcome our starships and join the battle, they had a very good shot at winning this battle, after all.

I flew away from the battle, towards the dreadnought to observe its ongoing confrontation with our four starships. I could’ve done that on my tactical display, but witnessing the battle up close and personal would give me a better understanding.

“Wait, where the hell is Dauntless?” I asked Cordi.

“Monstrous destroyed her a few minutes ago,” she answered.

I ground my teeth in frustration. “We’re one ship down already?”

Good thing Tarq wasn’t on board!

Our three remaining starships were standing toe-to-toe with Monstrous. Laser bolts and explosions lit up space as our vessels poured fire on the Xenoakakie warship, which was hitting back hard with laser cannon batteries, blaster cannons, and missiles. Invincible shuddered, absorbing several laser strikes. Charles, Zaart, and Mushgaana were doing their best, but it was clear they were no match for the massive dreadnought.

I watched in desperation as none of the missiles shot by our ships got past Monstrous’s point-defense laser cannons.

A plan started to form in the back of my mind, but at that very moment, explosions rocked Victorious as red beams shot by the enemy warship’s blaster cannons punched into her hull in multiple locations one after another. Maada’s starship glittered and, in an instant, turned into an expanding ball of gas, plasma, and fire.

A shudder skipped through me and I felt my gut twist as I yelled, “God damn it!” in rage and sorrow.

I’d met Zaart only a few times, but I liked him. He’d saved us when we were fighting Father and his million-strong drone fleet. I remembered the first time I met him, all those years back on Earth, when he was a POW under MICI’s influence and trying to make friends with Kurt, Tarq, and me.

Our situation was growing desperate. Soon Monstrous would destroy our remaining two starships and join the fight. With her support, even if we did manage to defeat the Xenoakakie fleet here, it would’ve been the very example of a Pyrrhic victory, and we still had the other enemy fleets (stationed on several other planets) to worry about.

My mind went into overdrive, racing a mile a second, trying to find a solution. We could attack Monstrous with force, but we probably needed at least a few thousand space fighters to do that, and right now I couldn’t take that many vessels away from the battle, and if I did, all the dreadnought’s captain needed to do was to recall some of their fighters to protect the ship. No, we needed to keep the enemy warship isolated and figure out a way to bring it down on our own.

A shiver raced down my spine as I studied the enemy dreadnought. Monstrous exuded power and supremacy. My instincts told me this ship was mightier than anything we had encountered before, which included Father’s superdreadnought. The ease with which it had fought our starships (and those five hundred Deathbringers) was enough proof.

Then the realization hit me: I’d done all I could, but we were going to lose. It was only then that I fully grasped the hopelessness of our situation. That monster dreadnought was just too powerful. A coldness swept through my stomach, and I felt a surge of grim, helpless despair. I just sat in my cockpit, overwhelmed by a sense of doom. What was I supposed to do against the massive enemy warship that had been wiping the floor with our starships? My Viper’s cannons probably wouldn’t even scratch its hull—“That was hyperbole, right?” asked Venom—and that was if I could get close enough to shoot, which itself was a tall order given what had happened to those Deathbringers that attacked her.

My heart sank, and sweat started beading on my forehead, which felt as if it were baking with a sudden fever. In my OCD mind, which was now working with the speed of a hummingbird on crystal meth, I saw the horrors to come. I saw the Xenoakakies running amok in the galaxy, slaughtering millions, blowing up planets, and exterminating entire species. All because of me. All because I couldn’t find a way to defeat them. I tried to push those images away but it was no use. Fear started to creep into my heart as I wondered if I could live with the consequences of my actions this time. The savior of the galaxy, my ass.

I bit down on my frustration, took a deep breath, held it for a second or two, and let it out, trying to steel myself. I had to remain calm and think clearly.

You destroyed Father’s superdreadnought, and that thing was five times bigger than this one, I reminded myself.

“It had no armaments,” Venom pointed out, “just the shield.”

Can’t you be supportive for once in your useless existence?

“No,” he answered matter-of-factly.

The Crimson Deathbringer appeared right next to my Golden Viper. “Things do not look good, do they?’ asked Maada solemnly.

I shook my head. “No, they certainly don’t.”

“We have to do something about that dreadnought.”

“Yep. And soon. I don’t think Invincible and Courageous have a lot of time left.”

“What is your plan?”

I frowned. “Why do you just assume that I have a plan?”

“Because in situations like this, it is usually you who come up with a suicidal plan,” he replied. “Often based on something you have seen in a movie.”

I racked my brain and drew a blank. “No. Can’t think of a movie where two space fighters brought down a dreadnought.”

Although ...

Wait a minute!

Something had been nibbling at my mind.

Suddenly, a bright light went off inside my head as I remembered what I’d been thinking about when Victorious was destroyed, and I realized I still had an arrow left in my quiver.

I excitedly punched the air. “I am a genius!!”

“Star Trek again?” asked Maada.

“No, this one is all mine,” I responded. “Completely original. But we have to talk to Charles.”

*****

Charles felt Invincible shake as another enemy missile avoided her point-defense cannon and slammed into the hull. The bridge was bustling with frenzied activity, and several alarm sounds seemed to have gone off all at once. Invincible had been hit multiple times, and there was a lot of smoke in the air, because a panel had blown up a few minutes ago, injuring a few crew members.

“Damage control,” said Charles.

“Hull breach on deck seven, sealed off already,” an officer answered. “Repair crew en route.”

“Target their weapons,” ordered Charles. “We won’t last long if they keep hitting us like this.”

He watched as Invincible’s laser cannon batteries burst into action, lancing out at the enemy dreadnought. A volley of the missiles burst from their tubes and raced toward Monstrous.

“Incoming message from Admiral Harrison, Captain,” another officer.

“Put him through.”

Two VR screens appeared in front of Charles, showing Jim and Maada in their cockpits.

He listened to Jim explaining his plan in slack-jawed disbelief. “Jim, with respect, have you lost your mind? You saw what happened to those five hundred Deathbringers that attacked Monstrous!”

“Desperate times call for crazy shit. And I did fly through an ocean of drones when we attacked Father, o ye of little faith,” answered Jim.

“You were killed during that mission,” Cordi reminded him. “Kind of.”

“With Benedita and General Maada’s help,” answered Charles. “You couldn’t have done it on your own, and you can’t this time either.”

“Yes, I can,” said Jim. “And I don’t even need to get that close, just within range.”

“Jim, I know you can be overly confident sometimes—”

Cordi interrupted him. “I believe the word you’re looking for is cocky.”

“—but this is too much, even for you. As your second in command, it’s my duty to tell you when you’re in over your head.”

“Duly noted,” Jim told him. He sounded like he was beginning to get pissed off. “And I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

“You’re quoting freaking Darth Vader now?!” asked Charles incredulously. This wasn’t ominous at all.

Jim frowned. “Let me remind you I was killing aliens when you were a submariner under the sea.”

“You can’t possibly evade a dreadnought’s blaster cannon fire!” Charles couldn’t help raising his voice, then he reminded himself he was talking to the chancellor of the galaxy.

Invincible shuddered as the enemy ship’s laser bolts raked her hull.

“I can,” said Jim firmly, “But make sure they’re aimed at you, just in case. They won’t waste their blaster cannons on small space fighters when they have starships to worry about.”

“You must take an escort with you,” Charles insisted. “A hundred space fighters, minimum, to help you get through Monstrous’s defenses.”

It was Jim’s turn to raise his voice. “Did you just suggest I should sacrifice a hundred pilots to protect myself? Have you met me?”

“Not you personally, Admiral. To achieve the mission.”

“Denied,” Jim said coldly.

“Jim—”

“You have your orders, Vice Admiral,” Jim growled dangerously, and Charles realized he was a second away from being relieved of Invincible’s command.

“I can offer a solution,” Maada interposed. “Cordelia, how many space fighters can you control at the same time?”

Cordi didn’t try to hide the scorn in her voice. “All of them. You know who you’re talking to, right?”

That sounded like something Jim would say, with the exact same attitude, no less.

“I guess that was not the smartest question I ever asked in my life,” said Maada. “Here is what we are going to do: Courageous and Invincible will pull out a hundred pilots from their cockpits using SFD; then Cordi will take control of their space fighters and attack Monstrous. They will probably draw enough enemy fire to allow Jim to get within range.”

“It won’t work,” Jim protested. “AIs are nowhere nearly as effective as pilots in a dogfight, which is why we still use pilots to begin with.”

“That is true,” responded Maada, “but all Cordelia needs to do in this case is fly straight and maybe jink. This is basically a kamikaze mission, after all.”

“I miss Keiko,” stated Cordi.

Jim chuckled bitterly. “You planning a kamikaze mission is priceless,” he told Maada, “given that Keiko killed you using that tactic.”

“Be that as it may,” said Maada, “it could work.”

Charles was nearly thrown out of the command chair when yet another enemy missile tore into Invincible, and the blast’s shockwaves reverberated throughout the bridge.

“We’re losing hull integrity!” someone shouted.

“Eh, guys?” said Charles, gripping his command chair’s armrests. “You might want to hurry just a bit. I don’t know how much longer we can hold against that monster.”

“Let’s do this,” Jim said with a big grin.

Charles cut the connection. “Keep firing with all available weapons,” he ordered the crew. “We need to hold on just a few more minutes.”

He wondered if he was about to sacrifice his entire crew just to give Jim a chance to pull off his insane plan as Monstrous kept relentlessly pounding his ship with missiles and energy bolts.

So be it, he thought grimly. This is our only chance.

*****

I watched as the hundred space fighters Cordi controlled, mostly Vipers and Deathbringers, but a few belonging to our other allies’ fleets, gathered in front of me.

I had to admit Maada’s plan was a good one. I didn’t think I needed any help—“Of course you don’t,” commented Venom dryly—but why would I turn down Maada’s offer of assistance, especially since it didn’t put anyone else in danger?”

I looked at Monstrous, engaged in a deadly battle with our starships. At this point, it clearly had the upper hand. Charles was right. We’d better hurry up, or there would be no Invincible to help me pull this off.

One more big bad wolf I was going to skin. I know Xornaa was only kidding when she suggested this, but they should really have called me Monster-Dreadnought-Slayer.

“It’s going to work,” I murmured.

“It better,” said Venom darkly.

If I was being honest though, I was getting tired of the fate of the galaxy constantly depending on me and my plans. Someone else had to step up the next time an alien fleet showed up in our galactic neck of the woods.

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” Venom commented. “Let’s survive this one first.”

The Crimson Deathbringer showed up flying parallel to the Golden Viper.

“I killed Tarq’s daughter aboard an Akakie warship under circumstances very similar to this one,” said Maada’s voice in my ears. “I guess history does repeat itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am coming too,” said the general. “I thought it was fairly obvious.”

That caught me by surprise. “Why?”

“I can divert some enemy fire.”

I couldn’t stifle a chuckle. “General, if a thousand laser cannons are shooting at me, it isn’t much help if half of them shoot at you. There’s no reason for you to put yourself in danger.”

“You are not doing this alone, and that is final.”

“I’m not alone; Cordi’s with me,” I pointed out. “And I can order you to stay behind.”

“I am the commander of the fleet,” he growled. “You cannot order me to do shit during a mission.”

“He’s right,” Cordi chimed in.

“Can I remove him from his position,” I asked her, “appoint myself, and then order him to stay put?”

“Sure,” she said, “but only after the mission.”

“OK. I guess you can come,” I told Maada. “I couldn’t have asked for a better wingman, to be honest.”

“Call me a wingman one more time,” he growled, “and I will save the enemy from the trouble of shooting at your Viper.”

“I am coming too,” announced Alitaa in my ears.

“And me,” added Liz.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!

A memory attacked my brain like a hoard of Mongols. It was a very vivid image of Tarq ordering Liz to stay away from Maada, and Liz ignoring him, attacking the General’s Crimson Deathbringer, and getting herself killed.

A chilling terror hit me and made me feel my chest weighed a ton. I didn’t know how I managed not to faint. The feeling of loss that I re-experienced was overwhelming, and the fact that the new Liz seemed as intent on getting herself killed as the old one scared the hell out of me.

Dear God, not again!

“My beloved wife,” said Maada, his voice firm, “you are a warrior woman, and unlike the human females, you are not controlled by your hormones and emotions—”

“Hey!” Liz and Cordi protested together, and I could almost see Ella rolling in her grave. No one ever claimed the general was the picture of political correctness.

“He does have a point,” said Venom.

I hate you, I told him.

“—you know your skills and your limits. You are a skillful and experienced fighter pilot, but you would not survive a direct attack on Monstrous.”

“And you would?” asked Liz mockingly.

“Of course,” answered Maada with the tone of an adult explaining something obvious to a child. “I am General Maada.”

Alitaa sighed. “You are right, husband. But I will be mad at you if you get yourself killed doing this.”

“It will be a cold day in hell when I am killed by an Akakie,” said Maada, “Super or not.”

“Which apparently has happened in another universe,” Alitaa reminded him.

Unlike Alitaa, I didn’t think Liz would listen to reason (“Hormones and emotions,” the freaking parasite kept pushing), and ordering her would be of no use either, so I tried a different tactic. “Liz, I have a more important mission for you and Alitaa. The general and I will be too focused on not getting incinerated by Monstrous to be able to watch our backs. I need you to cover us just in case some enemy fighters try to sneak up on us from behind.”

There was, of course, no real danger of that happening. Judging by how easily the enemy warship dealt with the Deathbringers that attacked her, her captain would probably see no need to ask for their space fighters’ support against the hundreds of us, and even if they did, the fighters wouldn’t have arrived in time to be a threat.

“Consider it done,” said Liz with enthusiasm. “We’ll watch your back.”

“Smooth,” commented Venom.

I should’ve gone into politics, I answered.

“You’re the chancellor of the universe, idiot,” he answered. “You couldn’t have been more in politics if you tried.”

I checked my tactical display. We still needed a couple more minutes for all the hundred space fighters to take their places. Liz was behind me, out of immediate danger, and—

I had a sudden flashback, and I froze as a horrible thought assaulted my mind.

The last person intent on watching my back was Ella, and back then, I was certain she was safe where she was too, in our Command Center, under an invisible force field.

See how that turned out.

I froze inside the cockpit. I just plain froze solid, except for my hands that started trembling. My throat closed up, and the world around me became darker all at once. Terror overflew my mind, and I felt paralyzed, unable to move an inch, barely able to breathe. With effort, I managed to open my mouth to shout at myself, but my frakking panic attack was so severe that no sound came out.

“Oh, no,” boomed Venom. “Not this shit again! I can’t believe you’re still doing this, Mr. Hardcore Military Man.”

And then my body exploded with unthinkable agony. I jerked up and down in my seat for a few seconds, my teeth chattering, before I realized electricity was passing through the seat and me at the same time.

“What the frak!” I yelled as soon as the electric current stopped, and then realized I could talk. That was a good sign.

“I figured at some point you might end up with one of your infamous panic attacks,” said Cordi mischievously, “and Maada might not be around to pull you out of it, so I’d made some preparations.”

I pulled up my visor to wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my glove. “I can’t believe it worked.”

“Your panic attacks shut down your nervous system,” Cordi explained. “Nothing like an electric shock to counteract that.”

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “Good thinking, HAL, but now what am I supposed to do with these stars that are now revolving around my head?”

I heard Maada’s voice inside my helmet. “Jim, we are ready.” 

I cracked my neck from side to side. This was it. The survival of our galaxy depended on what I was about to do. “Let’s go then. All we need now is some music to put us in the mood.”

My hand was moving towards a VR screen when heavy metal music thundered in my ears with such force that I was certain I’d just lost half my hearing.

YOUUUUUU COULD BE MIIIIINE ...

I had to yell to hope Cordi could hear me. “Where the hell is this coming from?”

“From the Crimson Deathbringer,” she replied. I could hear the smile in her voice, despite the booming music.

“Maada likes Guns N’ Roses?” asked Venom. “I’d pegged him as Frank Sinatra kind of guy.”

“General!” I shouted. “Can you turn this down a notch?”

“If it is too loud, you are too old,” he responded solemnly.

I sighed. Everyone was a comedian now. “I am too old.”

“For this shit,” Venom completed my sentence.

Alitaa had to shout so that Maada could hear her over the music. “I keep telling you to stop hanging out with Harrison because he is a bad influence on you. See what happens now? You are supposed to be the epitome of military discipline!”

“Playing epic music helps lift the soldiers’ spirits,” the general answered defensively.

“Cordi?” I said.

The music volume dropped to a more or less tolerable level.

The space fighters in front of me jerked forward. I pushed the throttle and followed them, with Maada’s ship right next to me.

It was smooth sailing for maybe ninety seconds, and then Monstrous opened up on us, shooting countless energy bolts and missiles. The whole freaking dreadnought lit up like it was Christmas Eve. All of a sudden, the black void all around me erupted in angry laser bolts flashing by dangerously close. It was like I was flying through an erupting volcano, or worse, through molten lava. My Viper rocked, and several nearby explosions lit up my cockpit.

I threw my Viper left and right, up and down, and tried to avoid the incoming laser bolts, each of which was bigger than a city bus and could vaporize me and my bird upon impact. The blue dots representing the space fighters under Cordi’s control were disappearing faster than I could keep count. Maybe this was a good idea to have them ride along, after all.

“You think?” asked Venom.

“I am Jim Harrison,” I yelled at the monster dreadnought, which was getting bigger and bigger by each passing second, “and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

I might’ve imagined it, but it seemed like Monstrous intensified its fire in response. Explosions filled the space all around me.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Charles in a terse voice. “Can you please focus? That last salvo nearly got you.”

“I’m multitasking. I’m perfectly capable of flying and saying something cool at the same time.” I looked at the Crimson Deathbringer, twisting and turning right next to my cockpit. “Maybe you can talk Maada out of this lunacy? I still can’t understand why he’s here.”

“I did not want you to die alone,” growled the general.

I gasped. “Oh, General! You like me! You really like me!”

“No, I do not,” he responded. “I really, really do not. Now, shut up and keep flying.”

“It’s no use denying it now. I’ve always known you’re secretly in love with me.”

He muttered something unpleasant.

The enemy warship’s energy bolts created a chaotic maze in front of it as Maada and I kept crisscrossing back and forth and getting closer.  Drowning in adrenalin, I drummed my fingers on the stick with the sound of the music while we continued our deadly dance with Monstrous, two tiny space fighters against the gigantic dreadnought.

It’d make a good movie, I told Venom.

*****

Following the battle with the enemy starships on the bridge’s main screen, Varina had a quick look at her command chair’s tactical display. Half the approaching enemy fighters had already been destroyed. The rest of them would never get close enough to cause any damage.

Fresh enemy fire stuck Monstrous. Varina was about to turn her focus back to the main battle when something caught her attention.

Two distinctively colored space fighters were bringing up the rear of the enemy’s small force. One was a golden Viper (no surprise there, it was obviously the Akakie design and their choice of color); the other one was a red Deathbringer.

Deathbringer! What stupid person has come up with that ridiculous name!

Probably the same idiot who thought making their space fighter stand out by painting it red was a good idea, answered another part of her brain.

All of a sudden, a strong sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her. She could swear she had been in this position before, being on a ship, under attack by a crimson Deathbringer. This of course had never happened; still, her whole body shuddered as an incomprehensible and illogical fear assaulted her mind.

“Tactical,” she shouted. “Concentrate your fire on that red Xortaag space fighter. I do not want it to get any closer.”

*****

Maada sensed the enemy fire had intensified.

He consulted the data coming in on his tactical display. He was right. It definitely seemed like more energy beams were being thrown at him than at Jim and what was left of their escort.

Well, this is what you wanted, is it not? You are here to divert enemy fire from Jim.

He dodged as a laser bolt passed over his cockpit, so close that he felt he could have touched it. Then he twisted the Deathbringer violently to avoid the rest of the incoming fire.

“Beware what you wish for,” he told himself through gritted teeth.

Let us hope they do not vaporize me before Jim gets within range.

Maada wished Molzaarg was here to see his old man, in his Crimson Deathbringer, attacking the monster dreadnought which could probably destroy a planet with ease. He would have been so proud.

*****

Liz looked at her hands, and to her surprise, found they were trembling. She clenched her fists to stop them from shaking and took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

She had a good reason to be terrified though: the last time Jim had attacked a starship (in an F-44, no less, that idiot!), he hadn’t returned from that mission.

This isn’t him, she reminded herself, but her words carried no real conviction.

“What are you guys ... holy crap!” said Princess Zyria in Liz’s ear. “What in the name of God are Harrison and Maada doing?”

“They have a plan.” Liz tried to sound confident, but her voice shook. She craned her neck and saw Zyria’s space fighter, a green, elongated oval-shaped vessel with two laser cannons on either side, approaching from behind.

“Their plan is to commit suicide together?” asked the princess. “How very romantic.”

“Guys,” said Alitaa, her voice tense, “check out CF-89.”

Liz looked at the coordinates Alitaa had mentioned and saw four bogies moving toward Jim and Maada’s space fighters.

Fear stabbed at her heart and made her breathe faster, but that lasted only a second before her natural impulse to take action took over.

“Are they on an intercept course?” asked Zyria anxiously.

“Hard to tell,” answered Alitaa. “It could be that they are simply returning to Monstrous, due to being damaged or something.”

“Let’s not find out, shall we?” said Liz, calculations running through her stunt pilot brain.

“Maybe first we should—” Alitaa began to say, but Liz ran out of patience in the middle of her sentence.

She pushed her throttle all the way. Her Viper darted forward toward the enemy fighters and Monstrous behind them.

“Are you coming, or what?” she yelled excitedly into her comms.

“Right behind you,” answered Zyria with enthusiasm.

It was only then that Liz remembered Jim had warned her against taking rash decisions.

Nah. This is a totally different situation. He would’ve done the same.

*****

Alitaa studied her display monitor and swore under her breath. The path to intercept the four enemy Vipers would take her, Zyria, and Liz dangerously close to Monstrous, and probably within its weapons’ range.

“My wife,” Maada had told her, “watch over the human woman. She has a history of making bad decisions and getting herself and others killed.”

Three thousand others, to be exact, she had thought. I’ve read Harrison’s books, you know.

On the other hand, what else were they supposed to do? What if Liz were right, and those enemy ships were really going to attack Maada and Jim? She thought about warning them, but they had their hands full engaging Monstrous as it was. A warning would not do them any good, and it might even cause a distraction and get them killed.

Alitaa chewed on her lower lip and hesitated for one more second; then she put her fighter’s nose down and followed Liz and Zyria.

I have a bad feeling about this.

*****

Liz put her bird behind the four enemy ships, drew a bead, and fired a Sparrow. The missile had barely left her Viper when she targeted another gomer with her cannons and pulled the trigger. Laser bolts soared from her space fighter’s weapons. The Xenoakakie pilot pulled their ship in a sharp turn, away from Jim and Maada, and made a run for it. Liz gave chase and kept firing, pumping bolts of energy into her target until it was engulfed in a violent, multicolor explosion.   

“Two down, two to go,” she shouted in her comms, breathless with excitement. 

“Nope,” said Zyria. “We got those.”

Liz consulted her display monitor to see the other two enemy fighters were indeed gone. “Hey! I was hoping you’d leave one for me.”              

“We make a good team, do we no—” exclaimed Zyria.

An explosion rocked Liz’s Viper, and it took her a second to realize the princess’s space fighter had been replaced by an expanding ball of gas and molten metal.

“It was Monstrous!” yelled Alitaa. “Evade! Evade!”

Suddenly, the space around Liz’s canopy flared. Countless huge energy bolts were all over her space fighter. She gunned her Viper and darted away from Monstrous. A look at her instruments told her she’d be out of the dreadnought’s weapon range in thirty seconds, but with that much enemy fire coming her way, she doubted she had that long. She twisted and turned her Viper, followed by the Xortaag woman mirroring her moves. This deadly game of cat and mouse continued for several seconds, and then an enormous energy bolt hit Alitaa’s Deathbringer dead center.

Liz took a glance at where Alitaa’s ship was flying just a second ago, but there was nothing left. The space fighter was completely obliterated. She thought about Molzaarg, and even though she’d never met the boy in person (Alitaa, beaming with pride, had shown her son’s photos to Liz), she felt her eyes well up. But there was no time for that right now. She shook her head to clear her eyes from the tears and kept jinking her Viper. She swerved her craft hard left and avoided incoming laser bolts, but with the enemy fire getting closer and closer with each passing second, she realized with deathly conviction that she was staring death in the face.

So, this is how I die this time.

She didn’t even have enough time to get scared.

Jim, I’m so sorry, Liz couldn’t help thinking just as an enormous energy bolt missed her ship by mere inches.

*****

“How is it still getting closer?” shouted Varina. “It is but a puny space fighter!”

Breathe, she told herself.

She stared at the blood-red Deathbringer, dodging crazily, zipping between laser bolts, and coming right at them. Most of the enemy ships in front of it were destroyed by now, but this one kept coming, twisting and turning and avoiding Monstrous’s tsunami of fire in a seemingly impossible way. Varina had never seen a space fighter move like that. It was almost as if the laws of physics did not apply to it, or to its pilot, whoever the hell that was.

The dreadnought shook as a missile shot by one of the enemy starships slammed into her. A klaxon rang throughout the bridge, but Varina did not pay any attention. She was focused on the crimson space fighter as illogical fear crept into her heart.

Varina thought about diverting her ship’s blaster cannon fire. It was a silly idea. The blaster weapons were needed to deal with the two much bigger threats in front of them, still ...

Then she thought about her daughter, back in their own universe, waiting for her mother, the conquering hero, to come home. For the first time ever, she considered the possibility of never seeing Varna again, and very nearly choked on that thought. But no.  There was no way in hell Varna would grow up an orphan!

“Tactical,” she ordered irately. “Use blaster cannons one and two to annihilate that red Deathbringer.”

Let us see how you dodge my big guns, asshole!

*****

“Almost there,” I murmured under my breath while fighting my Viper’s stick, twisting and spinning the space fighter.

The sustained barrage of enemy laser fire intensified. My bird shook violently, and several red warning lights started flashing angrily. A part of my brain, probably the sensible part, kept screaming at me to put my Viper’s nose down and run away, but I held on tight. A VR screen that popped inside my HUD told me a laser bolt had passed so close to my left wing that a part of it had melted by its heat. I turned my head to look at the wing. It was still there, but probably not for long. From what I could see, it looked like a part of the wing was about to splinter.

Lucky for me, I didn’t need long.

If that bolt was just a few inches closer ...

I’d lost count of how many times I hadn’t bitten the dust because of the couple of inches, or the few seconds, fate had decided to push my way. If I survived this one, maybe it was time to seriously consider the existence of a guardian angel watching over me.

I leaned on the stick like it was Thor’s hammer and dove toward Monstrous. I looked at the enormous golden dreadnought right in front of me, firing all its weapons, and was once again astonished by my own lack of fear. Or anxiety. Or even concern. Nothing really, other than excitement and the familiar adrenaline rush. I wondered if my constant mental connection with Xornaa had helped me inherit some of her nerves of steel.

I kept jinking, mostly purely on instinct now, and somehow managed to dodge the next wave of Monstrous’s laser fire. Then I put my Viper in a twisting dive, pressed the trigger on the flight stick, and unleashed a barrage of energy bolts at the enemy warship. Not that it would do me any good. It was mostly an act of defiance.

“Cordi, start the self-destruct countdown.”

“Ten, nine, eight ...” she started dutifully.

Good girl.

I brought up the holographic image of Monstrous Cordi had prepared (based on Indomitable’s design and her own observations) and used my left hand to type in the coordinates on a screen hanging midair next to the stick. “Also, make sure to account for Monstrous’s movements.”

She kept counting. “Seven, six ...”

“Charles?” I asked.

“Locked on you and ready for your command, Jim. And thank God, because Invincible can’t take any more hits.”

“Five, four ...”

My engines’ power began to waver. It was obvious the Golden Viper couldn’t take any more punishment.

“General? It’s been both an honor and a pleasure.” I felt it had to be said, just in case.

“All mine, Jim,” he answered solemnly.

“Three, two ...”

Monstrous shot a flurry of cannon fire straight at me, each laser bolt seeming to pass a little closer to my ship. The last three remaining escort space fighters flying in front of me exploded into balls of vaporized metal, so close to me that a few shards of debris rained on my Viper.

I flipped three switches above my head; then I punched the screen next to the stick and shouted, “NOW!”

Let there be carnage.

Monstrous disappeared from my view. 

*****

Lieutenant Commander Aydena cursed the day she had decided to be an engineer.

It is a respectable job, they said!

It sounded like a wise choice, at the time, and well in line with her natural talents. But then all her people, including Aydena herself, had used SAM and turned into fierce warriors. What the hell was a warrior woman supposed to do in engineering? She was stuck here, several decks below Monstrous’s bridge where all the excitement was, doing nothing spectacular. Just keeping an eye on the ship’s engines.

Still, the engineer inside of her could not help admiring the ship’s main reactor, which was in the middle of the main engineering room right in front of her, as the technological marvel that it was. And was that thing not a beauty! She could feel the awesome power radiating from the reactor. She blew out a sigh and reminded herself that her job, while not glorious, was in fact essential. And who knew, she was still young, and one day she might get to see battle. Then she would have heroic stories to tell her children too, just like their father, who right now was on Monstrous’s bridge.

A golden Viper appeared right above the main reactor.

Aydena blinked a few times, wondering if she was hallucinating.

“One,” a female voice reverberated in the chamber. “Alpha Mike Fo—”

Aydena’s eyes barely had enough time to register the huge wall of fire coming her way.

*****

I looked up at the bridge’s main screen as soon as I appeared on Invincible’s bridge. Monstrous was still firing at us, but I could see it was wounded. There were a few tears across its hull, and oxygen was being vented through them, along with pieces of metal, equipment, and crewmembers. I was beginning to wonder if I’d hurt the dreadnought badly enough to make a difference when fierce flames spewed from the warship’s hull, ripping it open and initiating a chain reaction that soon engulfed the whole ship, and before I knew it, Monstrous turned into a bright sun which bloomed in the black of space.

With a sense of pride filling my heart, I punched the air and bellowed, “Alpha Mike Foxtrot!”

“Just once,” said Cordi sadly, “I want to be able to say that.”

“Boom goes the dynamite!” Charles roared from behind me.

The bridge crew broke up into cheers, with salutes and high-fives all around. I heaved a sigh of relief, releasing the tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding in, smiled at the helmsman (I didn’t even know him), and slapped him in the back.

I flashed Charles a grin of triumph. “Mission frakking accomplished, and you’re now my new best friend,” I told him. The adrenaline still rushing through my veins gave my voice a shaky quality; then I coughed a few times. The air was choked with smoke, which made breathing difficult.

“Good thing you kept Maada’s teleportation device,” said Cordi.

I cleared my throat to get my manly voice back. “Too bad we lost it now; this is the second time we used it to kill a monster dreadnought.” I turned to Charles. “You timed it perfectly. How’s Liz doing?”

The look on Charles’s face told me something was terribly wrong.

Something cold slithered down my spine, and I felt all the blood draining from my face. I staggered back a step or two, my knees buckled, and I had to lean on a console to stop myself from collapsing onto the floor.

“Oh, shit, no,” said Charles hurriedly, “Liz is fine, but ...”

He touched the armrest of his command chair and pointed at a VR screen that popped up next to me. It showed Liz’s Viper, unmistakable because of the Starfleet emblem on her twin rudders, flying away from what had remained of Monstrous.

I let go of a pent-up breath, looked up in silent prayer (at this point, it wasn’t possible not to believe in divine intervention), and turned to Charles to ask him why he looked so disturbed.

Then it hit me.

Liz was flying solo.

“What happened to Alitaa?” I asked, my voice shaking. I didn’t know why I asked though. The answer was written all over Charles’s face.

“Monstrous got her,” replied Charles, his voice barely audible. “Both her and Princess Zyria.”

Molzaarg just became an orphan.

“At least he still has a father,” Venom pointed out. “You practically had neither.”

Oh, shut up! Now isn’t the time.

I turned towards the main screen.

Wait a minute ...

“Where the frak is Maada?!” I yelled.

Chapter twelve

Kurt aimed his assault rifle and shot at a Xenoakakie through the APC’s firing port. The enemy soldier went down under a quick hail of bullets.

The chase had been going on for a couple of hours now, mostly under heavy fire. At some point, they’d entered I-90 highway. Tarq had been using MFM to ensure the streets were empty and make people take shots at the hover cars following them, but at the same time, pockets of enemy soldiers kept showing up on the road, shooting at them from every direction.

Good thing the Xenoakakies don’t have land mines.

Still, only three Dragons were left, followed by five enemy vehicles. Kurt, Xornaa, and the others were in the middle APC, along with the still unconscious Juntoo.

“Good news or bad news?” Tarq asked him.

“Just get on with it,” muttered Kurt, too focused on shooting enemy soldiers to play Tarq’s games.

“The good news is Patricia and Sophie are rescued.” Tarq grinned. “Congratulations.”

“Oh, thank God,” muttered Xornaa.

Kurt stopped shooting, sat with his back to the APC’s hull, mopped away the sweat on his forehead, and allowed relief to sink in for a second or two. He’d sent another infiltration team, on an invisible ship, to extract his wife and daughter, using the chaos caused by Hanna’s armored vehicles’ attack (not to mention all the other human forces surrounding the palace). At least that part of the plan had worked.

“But, unfortunately,” continued Tarq, “the enemy has just jammed all our comms. We lost contact with Cordi, and I cannot control MFM either.”

The APC was crossing over a bridge when a loud boom rocked it so forcefully that Kurt was thrown all the way to the other side of the armored vehicle. Tarq shrieked with anxious surprise. A powerful jolt went through the fifteen-ton APC. It swayed onto its left three wheels, and then back, and came to a screeching halt.

“Damn it,” yelled Hanna. “We’re hit. The right wheels are gone. We’re not going anywhere in this thing.”

The third APC in their small convoy stopped in front of Kurt’s vehicle, its heavy machine gun thundering. It hit one of the perusing hover cars, but several laser bolts crashed into it seconds later. Angry flames erupted all over the armored vehicle. Its hatch opened, and several Marines, some of them carrying ballistic shields, rushed out just a few seconds before the APC blew up. Shrapnel flew in every direction, some hitting Kurt’s unmoving vehicle.

“We’re sitting ducks in here,” shouted Kurt. “Let’s go!”

He shouldered his assault rifle, grabbed a shoulder-fired missile launcher, and followed Jeff and two other Marines out of the APC. Xornaa and Tarq ran after him, the Xortaag woman carrying another missile launcher, the Akakie dragging Juntoo. They were welcomed by rain lashing at them as soon as they stepped outside.

The last remaining APC rushed by them, charging the approaching enemy vehicles head-on, and opened fire with both its machine gun and grenade launcher. Two more hover cars went up in smoke, but the Xenoakakie forces concentrated their fire on the armored vehicle. The APC exploded into flames and shrapnel, hurling flaming debris over Kurt’s head. The shock wave from the detonation rocked the bridge and made Kurt lose his balance and drop to one knee. No one left the destroyed vehicle.

Kurt darted behind a tactical shield set up by Jeff, kneeled on one knee, and targeted a hover car using the missile launcher’s command launch unit. He held his breath for a second and pulled the trigger. The tube boomed against his ear, and the rocket streaked toward its target. Just a second later, the Xenoakakie vehicle belched flames and came to a halt. Several enemy soldiers were thrown out of the vehicle, spinning in the air.

“Bull’s eye,” yelled Allen, crouching beside Kurt and shooting at incoming enemy soldiers.

A massive blast shuddered through the last hover car, compliments of Xornaa.

“Great job.” Tarq stabbed a thumb toward something in front of him. “But what do you suggest we do about them?”

The side of the bridge they’d come from was swarming with enemy warriors, running toward them. There must’ve been hundreds of them, and on their four feet, they ran faster than a horse in full gallop.

His stomach knotted up, Kurt let go of the missile launcher and grabbed his assault rifle. “What we always do.”

“Here we go again,” said Xornaa dryly. “I swear, this is the last time I go on a mission with Kurt.”

“What’s the big deal?” said Kurt. “You must be used to it by now.”

He turned to look at the other side of the bridge and thought about making a run for it, but there was no way they could make it, on foot and in the open. As if to prove his point, a van carrying several armed civilians entered the bridge from the other side. It was torn to pieces by enemy fire before it could get close to Kurt and the others.

Kurt shrugged. “I guess this is as good a place as any to make a final sta—”

“If the words final stand come out of your mouth, I will shoot you myself,” growled Tarq.

Kurt looked up at the full moon, just appearing from behind the clouds, and smiled. “At least we’ll die under moonlight and rain. It’s kinda romantic.”

“You know, boy,” said Allen, after dropping an enemy soldier, “I’ve always loved your positive attitude.”

“Not defeatist at all,” added Xornaa.

“Colonel?” Jeff asked Xornaa. “That person whom I reminded you of. Was he a love interest?”

“How did you know?” Xornaa answered while shooting.

“I could read it on your face. He isn’t in the picture anymore, I assume?”

Xornaa shook her head.

“In that case, is this a bad time to invite you to have a drink with me? If we survive this, that is.”

Kurt stared at him in amazement. So did everyone else within earshot.

“I’m not very familiar with human traditions,” Xornaa answered, “but is this the best time to ask a girl out?”

A grin lit the Marine’s face. “This seems to be my only chance, and it’s not like I have something to lose if you say no.”

“Your timing is impeccable,” remarked Kurt. “I give you that.”

Then he aimed his STG 750 and pulled the trigger.

*****

Admiral Juntoo stirred and opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed was that he was lying face down on the ground, his hands bound behind his back; the second, the searing pain in his shattered knee. He felt foggy and weak, barely able to move.

What happened? Where am I? And why am I here?

Then he remembered.

He looked around. The enemy soldiers (those terrorists!) did not notice he had regained consciousness. Their backs were toward him, shooting at something, presumably Super-Akakie soldiers.

Then he realized two things. The terrorists, probably in their haste, had not properly searched him, so he still had his backup weapon in his boot. Moreover, his feet were not bound. The humans—and that fake Tarq—apparently did not know what an enhanced Akakie could do with his toes.

Good. It is time I put all those hours I practiced shooting with my feet to good use.

Juntoo had a hard time moving, but he could feel the drug they had injected him with waning fast. He decided to wait a few more minutes to regain his strength and focus.

And then … it would be time for revenge.

*****

His left arm throbbing with pain, Kurt flipped his SGT 750’s selector to full auto; then he held the trigger down and swept the assault rifle’s muzzle across the bridge, emptying an entire magazine on the advancing Xenoakakie soldiers in one burst, firing at everything that moved and raining empty shell casings down onto the ground. A few enemy warriors were hit by his gunfire. Then he hid behind the ballistic shield to reload.

It looked like it was raining laser bolts. Less than fifteen minutes since the attack had started, half of the Marines were killed, and almost everyone else was injured. The enhanced enemy soldiers and their three-barrel handheld cannons were nothing like Kurt had ever encountered in battle before. Twenty armed-to-the-teeth Marines, well-protected by body armor and ballistic shields, should’ve been able to hold an enemy indefinitely on a chokepoint like this. But not today. Kurt had fired and fired, reloaded, and fired some more. He and his team had killed scores of enemy soldiers, but he knew they’d be overrun in a few minutes.

We spent years trying to teach the Akakies how to fight, and now that they know how, they’re fighting against us!

The only person who wasn’t injured, and in fact, was doing very well, was Xornaa. She’d been scoring headshots after headshots so fast that Kurt, himself an expert marksman, couldn’t keep up, especially because those damned Xenoakakies seemed to dodge his bullets. Watching her during a battle never ceased to amaze him.

This is probably the last time though.

Gun reloaded, Kurt went back to shooting, feeling sweat trickling down his neck. With the enemy soldiers preparing for one final push, it was obvious the Marines were at the end of the road. Kurt gritted his teeth and tried to push away the despair weighing on his heart and focus on hitting as many Xenoakakie soldiers as possible. His duty was clear. Their communications were jammed, so he had no idea how the space battle was going, but the moment Juntoo was released, he’d destroy all their ally’s space fighters with one single command. Kurt and his team had to hold fast as long as possible, hoping it’d give Jim and the fleet enough time to defeat the Xenoakakie fleet.

Frustration filled Kurt right down to his nerves. Knowing that he’d probably die in the next few minutes, he swallowed drily and wondered where Pat and Sophia were right now. Hopefully on their way to Zion, safe and sound. He shuddered at the image of Sophia having to grow up without a father, but as he looked at the horde of approaching enemy soldiers, he knew there wasn’t anything he could do about that.

I would’ve been with you every step of the way, he told his daughter’s image. Forgive me for not being there for you.

Tarq, eyes bright with madness and bloodlust, blasted away with his cannon while yelling, “Tonight we will dine in hell!”

Kurt gave him a tired look.

Tarq wiped the blood pouring out of a head wound onto his face—he’d gotten that when their APC exploded and a piece of shrapnel hit him—and grinned like a maniac, displaying rows upon rows of sharp fangs. “I learned that from Jim.”

“Of course you did,” answered Kurt with a sigh.

“This situation ain’t conducive to me making retirement,” grumbled Allen.

Hanna, standing next to Tarq and shooting short bursts with her assault rifle, said, “Soon we’ll have to throw rocks at them because I’m almost out of ammo—”

A red-hot laser bolt hit her straight in the face. Her body was thrown backward and rolled a few times on the ground before the stench of burned flesh hit Kurt’s nostrils. He immediately picked out the Xenoakakie shooter and put a round through his massive head before he could release another laser bolt.

A look at what was left of Hanna’s face told Kurt she was gone, left eye staring into nothingness, mouth open. The pain of loss, cold and relentless,  hit him at his core, followed by waves of grief. He was genuinely fond of Hanna and her unorthodox sense of humor. It was so much like her to die while cracking a joke.

Allen turned his head to look at Juntoo, still lying motionless on the ground. “Should we put a round through his brain before we are overrun? We don’t have a lot of time left.”

“No,” answered Kurt firmly. “The moment he dies, all our allies are killed. On the other hand, it might still take a few minutes for the enemy to revive him, and for him to find out the Xortaags have betrayed them.”

Xornaa nodded in solemn agreement as she kept putting bursts into the oncoming Xenoakakies. “Jim can use every second we can give him.” She looked her usual confident and relaxed self, but Kurt could see the grim determination on her face.

“I still don’t like that guy,” murmured Allen.

“You and Jim kept bickering while we were about to be executed by a firing squad,” Kurt told him. “It was hilarious.”

He ejected the empty magazine from his assault rifle and inserted a full one—his last.

Throwing rocks, Hanna had said.

All of a sudden, the air was filled with an earsplitting roar, which grew louder and louder until it drowned out the sound of gunfire and the cries of the dying soldiers on both sides.

Kurt looked up. “Is that ...”

The Crimson Deathbringer swooped out of the low-hanging dark clouds right on top of the enemy soldiers, caught off-guard and exposed on the bridge. With laser bolts erupting from its two powerful laser cannons, Maada did a firing run. The bridge shook as dozens of Xenoakakie soldiers were slaughtered by the ensuing explosions the general’s space fighter left in his trail.

“Jesus,” exclaimed Allen, eyes globe-round. “If he keeps this up, the bridge will collapse.”

Maada made a sharp turn and returned for another run while the enemy soldiers fired at his space fighter with their handheld cannons.

Kurt burst into laughter.

“What’s funny?” Xornaa asked him.

“Those idiots think they can hit the freaking Crimson Deathbringer with handheld weapons,” grinned Kurt, feeling delirious for having survived yet another brush with death. “They ain’t got a clue who they’re fucking with!”

That drew a tired laugh from everyone except Allen, who scratched his beard and said, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a long story,” Kurt told him. “I’ll explain later.”

The surviving enemy soldiers dropped their weapons and dispersed swiftly after Maada’s second run slaughtered a few more dozens of them.

“Cowards,” said Tarq with disgust, still shooting at the retreating enemy, killing a few more.

Kurt put a hand on Tarq’s cannon’s barrel and gently pushed it down. “That’s enough. Let them go.”

Tarq looked at him with incomprehension. “Why? Let me kill more of the sons of bitches.”

Kurt sighed. “I can’t wait for you to be back to your normal self.”

Tarq put down his weapon and gave him another toothy, bloody grin. “But I like it this way. I am awesome.”

I’m going to have nightmares about his smile for weeks.

“Communications aren’t jammed anymore,” announced Jeff.

Kurt touched his earpiece. “Thanks for the rescue, General.”

“I did not do it for you,” Maada answered. “If you were killed, Juntoo would have wiped out Prince Mushgaana and the people under his command. I had given him my word that would never happen, and I always keep my word.”

“How is the battle going?”

“Almost over. Jim destroyed yet another dreadnought, and the rest of the enemy fleet has just begun to surrender.”

Kurt was afraid to ask, but he gathered his courage. “And our friends? All safe?”

“My wife was killed in action,” said Maada matter-of-factly.

Kurt exchanged a horrified look with Xornaa and swallowed hard. “General, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say—”

“Then say nothing. She was a warrior, and she received a warrior’s death. I am proud of her.”

Still, despite Maada’s words, Kurt could hear a slight tremor in the general’s voice. He opened his mouth to say something consoling, but Xornaa put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. He cut the connection, took a few steps, stood with his back to his team, and looked at all the corpses on the battlefield. They’d won again, but as usual, at a terrible cost. God, but he was so, so tired of losing people.

Jeff, who either hadn’t heard the conversation with Maada or didn’t care about the general and his deceased wife, stepped next to Xornaa. “So, how about that dinner?”

Xornaa shouldered her assault rifle and pointed at the corpses lying all around them. “I’ve been asked out plenty of times, but I have to admit, never in such romantic settings.”

“A lot of these used to be your comrades, boy,” Allen snapped at Jeff.

The Marine smiled sadly. “When I asked, I was certain I was about to die, and now that I haven’t, I can’t just back off, can I?”

*****

Juntoo moved his legs and found out he had regained his full mobility.

Go time.

He rolled onto his back, then used his two back legs to remove the boot from the uninjured front foot, showing three long toes. He reached into the boot with his toes, grabbed the small laser pistol he had hidden there, pulled it out, and aimed at the back of the human who had shot him.

*****

Xornaa opened her mouth to answer Jeff when movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She turned her head and saw Juntoo aiming a laser pistol at Kurt with one of his feet.

Where the fuck did he get a gun from?

“KURT!” she shouted, but with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew it was too late.

Time slowed, and it looked like everyone was moving in slow motion. She watched helplessly as Juntoo pulled the trigger while she tried in vain to unshoulder her STG 750 and shoot the admiral. Jeff was also fumbling with his weapon, but with his much slower human reactions, he had no chance of stopping Juntoo either.

I can’t watch Kurt die!

Xornaa had promised Pat to keep Kurt safe. Back on Uria, she’d decided to sacrifice herself to save her best friend, and she would’ve gone through with it if Emperor Vopkid hadn’t interfered. But all she could do now was witness the freaking insect shoot her best friend in the back.

And then Tarq stepped between Juntoo and Kurt.

He got the full force of the blast in his chest. His chestplate should’ve protected him, but he’d already been hit a couple of times, and the armor had weakened. His chest disappeared behind an explosion of scorched flesh and a mist of dark blue blood. He went down and didn’t move.

Juntoo was about to pull the trigger again, shooting Kurt, who’d just started to turn, but Xornaa let go of a short burst and peppered the foot holding the laser pistol with bullets. The weapon flew out of the admiral’s toes as he screamed in pain. Xornaa rushed to him, turned him over to his stomach, and patted him down, making sure he didn’t have any other concealed weapons. Then she turned toward Tarq.

Kurt had kneeled by the insect’s body, holding his huge head on his lap. She looked the insect over from head to foot, but one look at the gaping hole in Tarq’s chest was enough for Xornaa to know their old friend was beyond help.

Amazingly, Tarq was still alive. He looked up at Kurt with four bug eyes and murmured, “I almost made it, no?”

Kurt produced a piece of cloth from his tactical belt and gently wiped the dark blue blood dripping from the corner of Tarq’s mouth.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Kurt. His voice came out as a whisper, and his eyes turned glossy.

Tarq chuckled, which made him cough. More blood spilled out of his mouth. “And let you die again? Jim nearly killed me the last time.”

Xornaa saluted crisply. “It has been an honor and a privilege to serve under your command, Commander.”

Allen, Jeff, and the rest of the Marines followed suit.

Tarq grinned a bloody grin. “Do not say I never did nothing for you,” he told Kurt; then he raised his shaking hand and pointed a long finger at Xornaa, obviously struggling to say something.

“Pull my finger,” he finally managed to stutter.

Then he closed his eyes. His body twitched a few times and then stopped moving. A last breath whizzed through his nose, and his expression relaxed.

Kurt used his PDD to scan Tarq’s body. He looked at Xornaa and shook his head.

Were his last words a fart joke?

Well, that’s Tarq all right, she reminded herself.

Xornaa half-expected—hell, prayed—that it was a prank. Any moment now, Tarq would open his eyes, jump to his feet, and shout, “Gotcha!”

Any moment now.

But it never happened.

Tarq was really gone.

Xornaa felt gravity taking hold of her shoulders. She was surprised by how much it hurt. She wasn’t particularly close to Tarq; in fact, for the better part of the last few years, she was scared of him. On the other hand, before running into Tarq, she was kind of lost, and her only motivation in life was taking revenge on her father. Tarq had given her purpose, and through him, she’d met the only people in her life she considered friends.

Kurt gently put down Tarq’s head. Then he stood up and looked at Juntoo, still writhing on the ground. The fury that flamed in his cold, gray eyes startled Xornaa, and she was suddenly happy she wasn’t in Juntoo’s place.

Kurt drew his sidearm and walked with purpose toward Juntoo.

“Kurt, we still need him alive,” said Xornaa tiredly.

“I know,” murmured Kurt. Then he pointed his gun at Juntoo and pulled the trigger. He shot the admiral in one knee, then another, and then the third. Juntoo flailed and screamed in agony. Kurt put a boot on his chest, pinned him to the ground, and put a round through each of his shoulders.

“The Geneva Conventions might have a thing or two to say about your treatment of a POW,” said Allen.

“The Geneva Conventions can kiss my ass,” growled Kurt. Then he turned towards Jeff. “Make sure this filth doesn’t die due to blood loss. Not yet at least.”

Chapter thirteen

“God, but I hate funerals,” I murmured under my breath.

Tarq had a funeral worthy of a king. The Akakies wanted to bury him on New Kanoor, but I insisted on keeping him on Earth. I wanted him nearby, next to Ella and Byron, where I could visit regularly. And since it just so happened that I was the galaxy’s chancellor, I got my wish.

Everyone was here, from all over the galaxy, and even a few delegations from Andromeda. Thousands of Akakies, having traveled from New Kanoor, were packed in Calvary Cemetery and the streets around it, and for the first time in history, people from a parallel universe were attending: Prince Mushgaana had come, dressed in black and looking grim, accompanied by several high-ranking Xortaag officers.

It was a nice day. The sky above the cemetery was blue, and bright sunlight was shining through the trees. I couldn’t feel the breeze gently moving the leaves though because I was hiding under an Akakie hologram. The very thought of people coming to me and trying to console me with their empty words was intolerable. I had to deal with this pain on my own. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I did have a lot of practice.

Dealing with the remaining Xenoakakie forces had turned out to be surprisingly easy. They tried to put up a fight—they still had around seventy thousand space fighters left, albeit scattered all over the galaxy—but they had several things going against them. Their command structure had been decimated, their former allies, not having to worry about the bombs implanted in the back of their skulls, had turned on them, and they were trapped in hostile territory. Worst of all, they had no answer for our much faster SFD, so they needed days to reach targets that we could reach in hours. We picked the White Republic units off one by one. Towards the end, the enemy forces would simply surrender without firing a single shot as soon as I showed up in orbit, followed by a hundred thousand space fighters.

We gave the White Republic’s foreign legionnaires two choices: they could stay with us, or they could go back to their worlds before the connection between the universes was closed forever. Nearly half of them decided to stay.

We also told them we’d keep three-quarters of their space fighters, support vessels, and starships. They had played a role in decimating our fleet, so it was only fair, and if they had any objections, we could blow up the bombs Evil Tarq had so helpfully inserted under their skulls. In the end, our Akakies removed the bombs, and they were set to leave our universe in two days, taking fifty thousand space fighters, a starship, and a dozen transport vessels with them. I hoped we weren’t sending them to their deaths, but it was their choice to make, not mine.

Allen was going with them too. He said he wanted to help free Earth from the Xenoakakie occupation (and kick Zheng’s ass in the process). A few of his old Resistance buddies, who apparently had nothing better to do these days, had decided to accompany him. I pitied the insects who would run into this lot.

I was standing inconspicuously in one corner, listening to Varna, still in her Liz disguise—it was so weird that we now had two of them—talking about her grandfather when Maada stepped next to me. I hadn’t seen him since Alitaa’s funeral three days ago. He’d been dealing with his loss too, so I’d decided to give him some space. Cordi had been keeping an eye on him though.

“Hello, Jim,” he whispered.

I wasn’t surprised that he could recognize me under the Akakie hologram because now he could read my mind too. Good thing we were friends; otherwise, I’d have to kill him.

“Friend?” said Venom. “At this point, he’s basically family.”

“Thanks, Jim,” he said. “I feel the same way about you.”

“It wasn’t me,” I answered. “It was Venom. But I agree with him. We’ve saved the galaxy three times together, after all.”

“No, we have saved the galaxy only twice. But we did save the entire universe once.”

I couldn’t suppress a small chuckle, despite everything.

“I cannot believe he is gone,” whispered Maada. “He was so ... powerful. He had been controlling the whole galaxy for decades. Almost kind of like God.”

“That’s exactly what I told Venom once.” I shook my head to clear the tears from my eyes. I wasn’t even ashamed. I’d just lost a brother, after all. “He died doing the two things he loved most: saving the galaxy and making fun of people. Not a bad way to go. I bet he’s sitting somewhere up there on a cloud and laughing at us now.”

“How are you holding up?”

I was all screwed up. I loved Tarq. I loved his pranks. I admired his ruthless, single-minded determination. I adored his sense of humor, his total disregard for what other people thought about him, his various appearances and costumes, and his flamboyance. He’d just recently brought Liz back to me, and I was secretly fantasizing about the day he’d marry us again. I’d already missed him.

“I’ve been better,” I answered sadly. “Have been worse too. You?”

The general rubbed his face and looked away, but I noticed the silent tears that filled his eyes. “It is tough, infinitely more so for Molzaarg. I do not want to talk about it.”

“See?” said Venom. “This is how a real man deals with his loss.”

I wanted to yell at him to leave me alone, but in truth, I felt embarrassed by how stoically Maada had dealt with his wife’s death. When Ella was gone, I reacted by trying to kill both myself and the general.

“And Tarq,” added Venom. “And you shoved a gun down poor Benedita’s throat. And you tried to beat up Xornaa.”

“That is quite enough,” Maada snapped at him, inside my skull, of course.

I respected Maada’s wish and tried to change the subject. “Tarq left me a letter.”

Maada arched an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah. An honest-to-God, handwritten, paper letter. It started with ‘Dear Brother.’ ” 

I had to stop talking because I choked a little.

“It was eighteen pages. I swear, making me read such a long letter was his last prank! Also, he told me he’d left me a communicator that could be used to talk to his doppelganger, even after the connection between the universes is severed, if we ever needed some information or advice.”

Maada nodded solemnly. “So, in a way, he is still with us.”

“No one is really gone as long as there’s one person who remembers them.” I was too tired to try to remember who I was quoting.

“By that criteria, Tarq is immortal,” said Maada. “The Akakies will talk about him forever.”

My heart filled with deep sorrow, I sighed, remembering a similar conversation I had with Maada a few years ago after Operation Armageddon, only now our roles were reversed. This time, it was the general who’d lost his wife, and I was trying to comfort him. “I don’t know if it’s any consolation, but let me point out that Alitaa saved us, and in doing so, she saved the entire galaxy.”

Invincible had picked up some chatter between the four Xenoakakie bogies Liz, Alitaa, and Zyria had destroyed. It’d turned out they were indeed on an intercept course, coming for Maada and me. The two of us had our hands full, and even if we had noticed them in time, there would’ve been no way to defend ourselves, not without abandoning the mission, which would’ve had the same results anyway. The three women had helped us win the battle by attacking those four Vipers. Unfortunately, two of them had sacrificed themselves doing so. I felt guilty for being relieved that the one who’d survived was Liz.

Maada’s answer was the opposite of what I’d told him back then. “It is a huge consolation. My wife died saving the universe. I will be proud of this fact until the day I join her. Molzaarg is proud too.”

Kurt took Varna’s place behind the podium.

“Jim, I am leaving,” said the general.

“OK. Be in touch. I know you will need some time to grieve, but we have to start restructuring the fleet soon.”

He shook his head. “No, I am not going back to Stronoe. I am leaving with the Foreign Legion fleet.”

My breath got caught in my lungs and refused to come out. Not him too!

“What? Why? Your home is here!” I protested weakly.

“Stronoe has never really been my home. Tangaar, however, still exists, under Xenoakakies’ occupation. I intend to rectify this situation.”

I knew I’d be wasting my time, but I at least had to make an attempt to change his mind and stay. “That galaxy is ruled by the evil Akakies. You don’t stand a chance!”

“When has that ever stopped us?” His gaze sank to his feet. “Also, Alitaa might be there somewhere. Maybe I can find her.”

“There it is,” said Venom.

This was the real reason he wanted to go. I wasn’t surprised. I would’ve certainly entertained that idea myself if Liz weren’t already here, or if Ella and Byron were in the other universe. I’d do anything, give anything, to hold my son in my arms only once, and I wouldn’t give a damn that it wasn’t actually my son.

So, now Maada was about to quit his position as the commander of the fleet and leave everything we’d achieved together behind for an off chance that he might be able to find Alitaa in an alternate, hostile universe.

Things that we do for love.

“Right?” said Maada’s voice in my brain.

I started to complain about him reading my mind (I always hated it when Xornaa did that), but to my own surprise, I realized I didn’t mind. He was family, after all, as Venom had just said.

“What about Molzaarg?” I asked.

“I am taking him with me, of course.”

“A galaxy ruled by evil Akakies might not be an ideal environment to raise a child,” I pointed out, “especially given that you’re planning to challenge their dominance.”

“He is my son,” he stated proudly. “He is destined to be a fierce warrior, a leader, one day. I cannot think of a better environment to raise him.”

“I feel bad for the poor little baby,” said Venom.

“Shut up!” Maada’s in-my-brain voice shouted at him. “I am his father. I know what is best for him, not a useless parasite!”

“Call me a parasite one more time,” Venom yelled back, “and I swear I’ll find a way to haunt your dreams for the rest of your life.”

“Do your worst, parasite,” Maada replied oh so predictably.

I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. Venom and Maada arguing inside my brain was exactly what I needed right now.

“Sarcastic much?” asked Venom.

I made one final attempt. “And if Alitaa isn’t even there? You’ll be risking your son’s life for nothing.”

He shrugged it off, but I could see his jaw clench against the thought. “I still have to liberate my planet and my people.”

We said nothing for a minute or two and just listened to Kurt’s eulogy.

“Jim, what about that other thing you told me about?” Maada asked. “I want to be present when you do it.”

“I guess we can do it right now.” I touched my PDD. “Cordi, have someone pick up the jar on my desk, put it in a shuttle, and bring it here. Inform Charles the general and I are on our way to Invincible.”

Shortly after, Maada and I (having turned off the Akakie hologram) walked into one of the washrooms aboard Invincible. I entered a compartment and lifted the toilet lid with my boot; then I opened the jar I was carrying and looked at the white, soft powder inside.

“Don’t ever tell me I didn’t keep my word, Evil Tarq,” I told the powder.

I emptied the jar’s content into the toilet and flushed. Normally, a toilet wasn’t emptied into space—everything on a starship was recycled—but at my request, a team of engineers had connected this one to an airlock.

“That felt good,” commented Maada. “Say something epic about what you just did.”

I turned and looked at him. “Vulcan High Command didn't think humans could flush a toilet without a Vulcan to assist.”

He eyed me coldly. “I did not mean about using a toilet; I meant about vengeance.”

“OK. Here’s one: vengeance is ice cream.”

Maada looked confused.

“See, it’s said that vengeance is a dish best served cold. It’s also said that it’s sweet. So, ice cream.” I felt the corner of my mouth twitch, just a little. “Come on. You’ve got to admit that was funny.”

“Maybe a tiny bit,” he agreed.

*****

“This was amazing!” enthused Mushgaana as I turned on the lights.

We were in my Lake Ontario beach house. I had invited Mushgaana to watch Scarface with Liz and me—a token of gratitude for the fact that his timely arrival had saved our lives. He’d said he was afraid of coming, given that we’d killed him twice already, but he showed up, bringing a bottle of exquisite (and very expensive) Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Cru and a box of Patchi chocolate.

I chuckled. “I had a feeling you might like it. Your doppelganger quoted Tony Montana right before he was killed.”

“Let me guess.” He frowned, then boomed with a combination of Spanish and Italian accent, “You got a look in your eye like you haven't been fucked in a year!”

Liz giggled.

I gasped. “Jesus, man. There’s a lady present. Also, in what context would those be the last words you say right before getting killed?”

He pursed his lips. “I figured I had said that to my killers right before they dispatched me.”

“It would’ve been a good one,” said Liz.

“Do you have more of these?” asked Mushgaana. “I mean movies.”

I exchanged a knowing look with Liz. “Only about a thousand or two.”

He squinted at me. “Do you find it weird that the two of us look so much like each other?”

Liz laughed. “Right? I was just thinking you could be Jim’s Mini-Me.”

*****

Maada, on the starship Freedom’s bridge, looked at the blue planet on the main screen one last time.

It was unbelievable that less than a decade ago, he had come here to conquer this planet and sacrifice its inhabitants to save his own species. Now, Earth was like a second home. On this planet, he had made dear friends. There, he had met Alitaa, and found love, after a lifetime of loneliness. If God did exist, he worked in mysterious ways, as the humans would say.

Alitaa ...

He sank back onto the command chair and allowed a deep sense of grief to wash over him for a moment or two. Alitaa had made him happier than he ever imagined possible. He had so many wonderful memories with her, and of course, a son. He sometimes wished, instead of fighting the White Republic, he had escaped to a remote planet with his wife and son and spent the rest of his life in peace. But that just was not him, and Alitaa would have never allowed it anyway.

And he had work to do.

“Fleet-wide announcement,” he told the communications officer.

“Ready, General.”

“In a few minutes, we will pass through the gate and enter your universe,” he said. “I know you have suffered. The enemy has occupied your planets. They have harmed you, your families, and your loved ones, and they have ruled your world with an iron fist, ruthlessly slaughtering anyone who dared try to stand against them.”

He stopped for a few seconds to let his people think about what he had just said. “Most of you do not know me, but those who do know I always keep my promises. This is my promise to you: we will put an end to the Xenoakakies’ tyranny, and we will make them regret the day they decided to mess with us.”

“Well said, General,” said Mushgaana, standing behind the command chair.

“Helm, prepare to take us through,” ordered Maada; then he realized Allen was staring daggers at Mushgaana.

“What are you doing?” he asked the Canadian.

“This guy’s doppelganger killed my doppelganger!” snapped Allen.

Maada let out a long sigh.

This is going to be a long trip.

“Or we could throw him out of an airlock,” said Mushgaana in his brain.

*****

Liz, Kurt, Xornaa, and I, standing next to one another in the living room of my Nassau County house, watched as the Foreign Legion ships, now officially called the Allied Fleet and under Maada’s command, approached the portal that would send them back to their universe.

We weren’t, in a way, alone. Most people on Earth and billions of others on other planets were watching the Allied Fleet’s departure. It was a big deal, and with the gates being closed permanently, this was the last time something like this happened.

Maada, sitting on the command chair of his new ship Freedom (Courageous, just like Invincible, needed weeks of repair after the battle with Monstrous), lifted a small wooden box to show it to me through my PDD’s screen. “What is this?”

“It’s a goodbye present,” I replied. “As it says on the box in plain English.”

“I can read. But what is in the box?”

“Our Akakie scientists have perfected the SAM counteragent. This is a sample, but you can replicate it later.”

“We’ve already used it on the Xenoakakie POWs, and now they’re back to their friendly and peaceful selves,” added Kurt. “Some of them have expressed a desire to join your fleet and try to show their people the errors of their ways. We’ll send them over before the connection between the universes is closed.”

Maada looked at me. “Well, this is goodbye then, old friend.”

I waved at him. “No goodbye; you know I don't like goodbyes. See you later!”

He shook his head. “I doubt it, but I will be delighted if it happens.”

“In that case, we’ll always have Paris, General.”

“And as usual, I have no idea what you are talking about.” Maada nodded coldly at Kurt. “Mr. President.”

Kurt nodded back. I could swear the room temperature dropped by a few degrees. “General.”

“Cut it out, both of you,” I said firmly. “I know you’re sad that you might never see each other again.”

“I most certainly—” they said together, then stopped and looked at each other.

Kurt smiled, and Maada’s mouth curved up, just a tiny bit. For him, it was the equivalent of full-blown laughter.

“There, see?” I said. “Isn’t it better?”

Maada looked at Xornaa. “It was a pleasure knowing you, Colonel.”

Xornaa flashed a smile. “Likewise. Do try to find my doppelganger in the other universe. I have a feeling she might want to help you.”

Freedom went through the gate and disappeared from view.

“Life is filled with goodbyes,” I murmured under my breath, “and it hurts every time.”

“There must be a divine point to it all,” said Liz, standing behind me.

Of course she knew that quote. We’d probably watched Eve's Bayou together in her universe, just like my Liz and I did it here.

Kurt looked around. “We have come full circle, haven’t we? This is where it all started, and it was the three of us.”

“Where were you then?” Liz asked Xornaa.

“On Tangaar,” she replied. “Working for Tarq.”

“We have lost so much since then,” I said. “and now both Tarq and Maada are gone.”

“And we’ll get through this one too.” Liz put a hand on my arm, the exact same way that she (well, the other she) had done a million times before. “Together.”

Epilogue

(Two years later)

After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, I finally gave up on sleep, and not for the first time. This happened a lot. I just lay on my back, stared at the ceiling, and listened to Liz’s rhythmic breathing.

I sat on the bed, watching her chest moving up and down with each breath. She was so lucky; she probably wouldn’t wake up if I shot a gun next to her ear right now. And looking at her took my breath away, as it always did. Eyes that (when open!) you could drown in, curly black hair more luscious than  Rapunzel’s, long legs like a Gazelles. In a way, it was funny how little she’d changed in the last ten years, and not only physically. When she came to our universe, she was a bit more reserved and less volatile, but as soon as she settled into the old Liz’s routines (which included taking over her orphanages), she went back to her factory settings: she still was the nicest, warmest girl in the world, with an obsession to do the right thing, and she still could blow up at the drop of a hat over the slightest issues as if she were a totally different person. Somethings never changed, I guessed, even if one were from a different universe. Xornaa had suggested that a few of her “meditation” sessions might help Liz with her borderline dual personality disorder, but I didn’t want her in my fiancée’s head just as she was in mine, so I’d turned down her offer. I loved Liz just the way she was, crazy and all. And it wasn’t like I could claim I was exactly sane either, so we were perfect for each other.

I decided to go to the living room and watch a movie. I lightly kissed Liz on the chick, pulled the blanket over her slim shoulders, put on my slippers, and left the bedroom, careful not to make a lot of noise, even though I was certain Liz wouldn’t wake up. Then I walked into the dark living room, rubbing my sleepy eyes, dropped onto the sofa in front of the TV, and fumbled around to find the remote. I could ask Cordi to play the movie I wanted, but I liked using the remote control. I was sort of old-fashioned that way.

It was only then that I realized someone was sitting on the sofa to my right.

He was a small man, wearing a brown suit. His features were very bland: cocoa-brown hair and beard, mud-brown eyes, nothing disproportionately big or small. At first glance, there was nothing special about this guy, and if you passed him in the street, you probably wouldn’t give him a second look—if it weren’t for a freaking third eye right at the middle of his forehead, staring at me unblinkingly.

I jumped from the sofa as a rush of adrenaline washed away my sleepiness, staring at the stranger in wide-eyed disbelief, my mouth agape. A frakking three-eyed intruder, obviously an alien,  was sitting in my living room, with Liz asleep in the bedroom. And why the hell hadn’t Cordi warned me?

My hands moved to where my handgun would’ve been if I were in uniform before I remembered where I was. Then I thought maybe I should run to the bedroom and get a gun.

“Cordi? Lights,” I said, but there was no answer.

The man moved his hand, and the living room lit up, but I couldn’t see what the source of the light was.

“Hello, Jim,” he said with a wide smile. “I’m Q.”

“Q? The one from James Bond or the godlike creature from Star Trek?” asked Venom.

“The latter, obviously,” said the man, apparently having read my mind and confusing Venom with me, as Xornaa always did. “I thought the third eye was a clear clue that I was an alien.”

I had to push my bulging eyes into their sockets with my hands. “Are you really Q?”

He chuckled. “No, but I knew you’d get that reference, and I figured it was easier than saying ‘I’m an immortal, omnipotent being who’s been messing with you puny mortals for eons.’ Am I right?”

If Tarq were alive, I’d be certain it was him, pulling a weird prank.

“Wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “Are you telling me that Xornaa’s theory about a race of omnipotent aliens pulling the strings was correct?”

His face brightened. “Yes. I was there, by the way, listening to that conversation. That woman’s very sharp. She’s the only individual in history who’s suspected we exist.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. After everything I’d been through, if there were one thing that would shock me, it was realizing the fact that an alien race had been pulling our strings all along.

“Your mouth is open,” the man pointed out, winking at me. “It looks a bit comical.”

I snapped shut my mouth, but I felt gaping was justified under the circumstances.

“My name’s Jaggex,” he continued. “And I’m here to warn you, not that I think it’ll do you any good. My people, led by an old friend of mine, Alestra, have gotten tired of living in the shadows. Alestra has convinced them it’s time for us to take the limelight and live as gods, which for all intents and purposes, is exactly what we are.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’ve got bad news and worse news. The bad news is they’re coming for you. They want to rule your world and will accept nothing less than total subjugation.”

I gasped. “And there’s another piece of news worse than this?”

“Yes. When they get bored, and they will, in a  millennium or two, they’ll burn this universe to the ground and create their own.”

“Oh, crap,” I murmured, wondering what I was supposed to do with this information. It wasn’t like I could shoot these gods with my Viper’s laser cannons.

“Oh, crap sounds about right,” agreed the alien amicably.

“Here we go again,” said Venom. “Another alien invasion, with the survival of every single living being in the universe at stake. Yay!”

God damn it, Maada. I told you not to joke about this!

THE END

You can continue reading this saga in Book Seven, The Gray Emperor, which follows Maada’s adventures in the White Republic’s Universe, and Book Eight, The Crimson Universe, which continues where this book left off, with Jim facing an invasion by God-like aliens. Please click here to buy the books, or simply turn the page to read samples of both books!

And don’t forget the final book in the series, The Red King.

Also, check out my audiobooks (click here).

THE GRAY EMPEROR

The Crimson Deathbringer Book Seven

(Prologue + Chapter 1)

PREVIOUSLY IN THE CRIMSON DEATHBRINGER SERIES

In an alternate universe, the Akakies have used genetic enhancements to turn themselves into killing machines. Led by a warrior woman whom everyone calls Death Angel, they’ve conquered the entire galaxy, founding the White Republic and ruling with an iron fist. Earth is under the Akakies’ occupation, and Jim is killed leading a suicide mission against the enemy fleet during their invasion. Liz, alone and heartbroken, moves to our universe and starts a relationship with the other Jim.

After defeating the evil Akakies’ invasion of our universe, General Maada takes a fleet to the White Republic’s universe, aiming to liberate his planet Tangaar from the insects’ occupation, and hoping to find the love of his life (and the mother of his child), Alitaa, there.

This story happens in the White Republic’s universe.

Prologue

Flying in her red Viper, Death Angel lit up an enemy space fighter with laser cannons; then she looked at the tactical display to evaluate how the battle between her fleet and the Xortaag forces was going.

Now this is a proper challenge, she thought with savage satisfaction. Just the way I like it.

The space all around her ship was a chaotic cloud of space fighters, with thousands of Vipers and Deathbringers engaged in fierce, close-range dogfights, twisting and turning and hurtling laser bolts at one another, filling the space around them with dazzling explosions and pieces of debris. The White Republic navy’s flagship (Monstrous’s twin sister Demoness) was exchanging laser fire and missiles with two much smaller Xortaag starships, which on paper did not stand a chance against the giant superdreadnought, but somehow, they were holding their own. She could not help admiring the enemy’s skills and resolve, pointless as it was. No one in the galaxy could hope to match her fleet’s massive technological superiority. As if to prove her point, a Deathbringer vanished in a burst of sparks and metal right in front of her Viper.

Under her command, the Super Akakies had defeated several other space-faring species. This, however, was the real test. The Xortaags themselves were a warrior race, and led by the infamous General Maada, they had conquered numerous planets before encountering her forces. This battle here today would determine the balance of power in the galaxy for centuries to come.

Pumped, she scanned the vast space before her, and then she found what she was looking for.

The Crimson Deathbringer had taken on two Vipers. Two more rushed to their friends’ help and joined the battle, lasers blazing away madly.

That was it then. The enemy space fighter was doomed. The Vipers were significantly more advanced than the Deathbringers, and there simply was no way a Xortaag space fighter could survive a battle with four Super Akakies’. She was planning to kill General Maada herself but, apparently, she could not have the pleasure now. Well, she could always claim she had done it. Who would dare to contradict her?

She watched in utter astonishment as the enemy fighter showered the four Vipers with rapid bursts of laser fire and hit two, dissolving them in flame. Then Maada fired a few perfectly aimed shots toward his nearest target, hitting it in the wing. The Viper started spinning and went crashing into the fourth one, and an explosion tore both of them apart in a fiery blaze.

Maada’s reputation was well-deserved, it seemed.

I am going to enjoy this.

She opened a channel to the Xortaag space fighter. “General Maada. I guess you know who I am.”

“Yes, I do. You are a dead insect.”

The balls on this guy! Or maybe he does not know who I am, after all.

Death Angel rammed the stick forward and attacked the Deathbringer head-on, laser cannons blazing. A direct approach had to work to her advantage, given her Viper had three cannons to the enemy space fighter’s two. Maada, however, spun his Deathbringer out of the line of fire, made a seemingly impossible turn, and positioned himself on her tail, shooting incessantly. She jinked up, then down, and dodged most of the laser bolts, but a few impacted her fighter, causing some damage.

So much for a direct approach.

She had to admit this was one skilled fighter pilot. It would not help him though, because she had a piece of alien technology in her Viper that nobody else in the galaxy possessed (she could have replicated the tech and installed it on all the Vipers but had decided to keep its existence a secret). That would give her a decisive advantage.

Twenty seconds later, she was on the Deathbringer’s six, raining laser bolts on it. Maada did his best to avoid the fire, but like many before him, he was caught off-guard by the unexpected maneuver. Several laser bolts tore into his Deathbringer. Still, the Xortaag space fighter kept weaving from side to side and avoided most of the incoming fire. Death Angel had to give Maada credit; he sure knew how to fly.

“I give you one chance to surrender,” she said pleasantly.

“Never!” Maada shot back while twisting his Deathbringer violently to avoid the fire from behind. “You think you are the first enemy pilot who got me in their crosshairs?”

She shrugged. “No, but I will be the last.”

She cut the connection. This man was not the surrendering type. Too bad she had to kill him. In another life, they could have been good friends.

Death Angel depressed the trigger on her stick and kept firing on the crazily dodging Deathbringer. Her Viper belched a volley of energy bolts in rapid succession. Maada sent his ship into a steep dive and took evasive actions but, despite all his experience and skills, he could not evade the barrage of laser bolts that rained down on his space fighter. The blood-red Xortaag ship took several hits, each causing a tiny explosion, until it inevitably turned into a small but blindingly bright super nova, vaporizing the legendary Xortaag warrior.

She smirked and puffed out her chest. Another one bites the dust. I wonder how many more I will have to kill before the entire galaxy falls under our control.

Well, the more, the better.

Death Angel scanned the battle. She expected Maada’s death to turn the tide in the Super Akakies’ favor, and she was right. Now that their commander had been killed, several dozen Deathbringers put their noses down and tried to flee.

But her lust for violence had not been quenched yet. Far from it.

“Make sure no one survives,” she ordered her fleet.

One more victory for my people, and now no one in the galaxy can stand in our way.

Chapter One

Life in a Super-Akakie POW camp is not a picnic.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Well, duh, Sherlock. What did you expect from the ugly motherfrakking monsters who conquered Earth and killed untold millions?”

Well, you’re right, and you’re wrong.

When you hear POW camp, I bet you picture one of those old war movies, where the prisoners just hang out, doing nothing all day. They might be poorly fed, but their biggest problem is boredom while days drag on incessantly and they can do nothing but wait for the war to end.

The evil Akakies’ POW camps couldn’t have been more different. For one thing, we were well fed and taken care of. Healthcare was top-notch, and the insects even cured us of any pre-existing conditions we might’ve had before coming here. Cancer, AIDS, ulcers... nothing was beyond their apparently supernatural medical technology. They could even regrow a severed limb! For another, we were super busy. We exercised and trained all day, mostly with a variety of cold weapons—swords, daggers, spears, bat'leths, you name it.

Being a fighter pilot, I’d always been in a good shape, but now I was beginning to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, with muscles bulging from everywhere, straining against the fabric of the white jumpsuits the insects had given us, especially at the forearms, biceps, and chest. I was certain the Akakies were feeding us some magical growth hormone or something. Nothing else could explain the layers of muscle that had appeared on my broadened back, or the fact that my neck was thicker than a mammoth’s trunk.

And then once every couple of days, they released us into the jungle that seemed to be covering the entire godforsaken planet we were on (we didn’t even know its name), gave us a head start to run as fast as we could, and then freaking hunted us.

Yeah, they’d turned their POW camp into freaking blood sports, obviously not caring much for the Geneva Conventions.

You thought being in a POW camp was bad? Imagine running through a thick tropical forest, so thick that it was always dark, filled with creatures that could eat you alive, being followed by a nine-foot nightmarish monster with rows upon rows of needle-sharp fangs that was running on four legs faster than a racehorse, whirling a huge two-handed axe that must have weighed a ton, and shouting (in fluent English!), “I am going to take you apart limb by limb with my teeth, human!”

Which was exactly the situation I found myself in, and not for the first time.

“Prepare to meet your maker!” screamed the monster.

These guys couldn’t be more cliché if they tried.

I jumped over a thorny bush, entered a small open patch of ground, blinked a few times under the merciless high-noon suns (two of them, I know, weird), and found myself on a sheer cliff overlooking a deep canyon. The cliff dropped off so steeply I couldn’t even see the bottom.

With nowhere to go, I turned to face my pursuer.

The giant Super Akakie cleared the jungle, held his axe over his head, and flashed a wide, toothy grin at me. “End of the road, human.”

As much as I hated to admit it, it looked like he was right. A tremor of fear slithered down my spine as all the muscles in my body tightened. There was no way I could take on this creature, armed to the teeth and armored, with the pitiful dagger I was carrying.

How in the wide blue frak did I end up in this Charlie Foxtrot, you ask?

Well, that is an interesting story.

My name is Major Jim Harrison, by the way. Ace fighter pilot, war hero, best-selling author, and currently prisoner 2234-X398 in a Super-Akakie POW camp. You’ve read this far, so I figured you should know who I am. And, oh yeah, I’m the hero of this crazy tale.

******

“Command, please repeat that last message,” I yelled into my mike, wondering why my voice wasn’t shaking. “Did you say a starship is bombarding New York?”

That statement would’ve been weird any other day. Unbelievable even. But not today.

April 13th, 2080. A date that would live in infamy. The day that a frakking alien fleet appeared in Earth’s orbit. Then a huge bug that called itself Admiral Altisnal (AKA Death Angel, we found out later) contacted us and, speaking fluent German, asked us to join their so-called White Republic—or else.

Yep. You heard that right. The insect was speaking perfect German. All he needed was to say  Sieg Heil, and he would’ve sounded exactly like Adolf Hitler, minus the mustache. Later, we realized the Akakies were pranksters. One of them had probably researched our history and decided it’d be hilarious to demand our surrender in German.

Well, we are humans, and we don’t react well to “or else”. Which was why a few minutes later all the Air Force fighter jets that could fly were rushing to meet this unexpected threat.

In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the wisest strategic decision in military history.

Thousands upon thousands of enemy space fighters shooting laser bolts filled our skies and, all of a sudden, it was Independence Day. Those damned things were so much faster and more maneuverable than our fighter jets that I felt my very modern, very high-tech, very stealthy, sensor-filled, computerized, futuristic F-44 was nothing but a World War I DH-4 Liberty. The clear blue sky around me erupted in a storm of furious laser fire, and several dozen fighter jets were vaporized before their luckless pilots realized what hit them.

And I still managed to shoot down not one but two of those fancy space fighters (which, fortunately for us, didn’t have shields), one with a close-range air-to-air missile, and one with my bird’s cannons.

You see, I was the best fighter pilot who had ever walked this planet—or flown the skies, in this case. I was like Manfred von Richthofen, Iron Eagle, Maverick, and Han Solo all rolled into one. Best of the best, that was me. You think I’m cocky and full of myself? Well, too bad. You’ll be hearing this a lot, so you’d better get used to it.

Still, this was hopeless. With the sheer number of enemy space fighters around us, there was no way for us to win even if we’d had the same level of technology. This could very well be the end of humanity, I thought, but we won’t go down without a good fight.

I lowered my bird’s nose, firewalled her, and made a beeline for the coordinates Command had sent out. And sure as hell, there it was: an oval, golden starship, bigger than an aircraft carrier, hanging leisurely in the air on my four o’clock low, and raining missiles and energy beams on defenseless civilians living in New York. Its crew didn’t even bother to pretend they were trying to hit military targets. The city underneath was on fire. I could clearly see several skyscrapers in flame, sending huge towers of black smoke into the sky, and more buildings were hit while I was flying toward the enemy starship.

Oh no, you don’t!

My blood boiled, my muscles tightened, and I began to sweat. My breath came out rough and ragged as blinding rage tried to take over. Having our asses kicked by the enemy fleet was one thing, but witnessing the senseless slaughter of the civilians (people of my city, no less) was an entirely different matter. I could imagine the chaos in the streets below, burning cars, bodies scorched crisp, and screaming crowds (including women and children) running for their lives, many not making it to a shelter to be safe from the enemy’s merciless bombardment.

“Can’t you do anything about it?” I growled into my mike.

“It’s too high for the anti-aircraft artillery, and its PDC shoots down our missiles before they get close,” answered Command.

Not that our air-to-air missiles would do any good either. It was days like these that I cursed the Germans for inventing missiles.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Every fighter pilot worth his salt knew anger could make you do stupid things and get you killed. I looked at the enemy ship and, all of a sudden, I had an idea. The way it was hovering over New York, like its crew didn’t have a care in the world, screamed arrogance. It was obvious that they were so confident in their firepower and technology that they didn’t feel threatened by us, and maybe, just maybe, they weren’t scanning their surroundings as carefully as they should’ve.

“Can you distract it for a few seconds?” I asked Command.

“We’re going to hit it with everything we have in thirty seconds, whatever good that will do.”

“Do you have a plan, Jim?” asked another voice in my helmet. It was my old war buddy, Josef. We’d flown together during the war with the Eastern Coalition a few years back.

“Yep,” I answered. “It starts with k, finishes with e, and rhymes with kamikaze.”  

He gasped. “You’re kidding, right?”

I felt a bitter smile spread on my face. “Hardly seems the time, even for me.”

“Never pegged you down for a self-sacrificing type.”

“You see what that ship is doing to our city?” I asked, a bit harsher than I intended. “And I ain’t. I’ll punch out before impact.”

“We’ll try to give you a hand,” said Josef. “Godspeed.”

“Never been a fan of God,” I growled. “And certainly not about to start today.”

“May the force be with you?”

Despite everything, I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Much better.”

A few dozen surface-to-air missiles were fired right at the thirty-second mark. While the starship was busy shooting them down with laser beams, Josef and four other F-44s  attacked from the opposite side. They fired their missiles without getting too close while avoiding enemy fire and tried to fly away.

I saw an F-44 going down in a fiery blaze (the pilot punched out, thankfully) but never found out what happened to the rest of them because this was my cue.

My skin started tingling, my breath quickened, and I could feel my cheeks flush with excitement. Trying to ignore an intoxicating rush of adrenalin, I put my fighter in a power dive. The g-force pushed me hard against the cockpit seat as the pressure on my face and chest increased. The F-44 engines roared as the fighter sped up (so did my heart rate), and the wind noise over the canopy got louder.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by an extremely strong sense of déjà vu. I felt with every fiber of my being that I’d done this before. In my mind, I saw myself crashing my fighter into a monstrous starship—which obviously had never happened. I would’ve remembered. Or I would’ve been dead.

“You’re fighting an alien fleet with extremely superior weaponry and technology,” said a voice in my head. “Maybe you are dead, and this is your version of hell.”

No, I wasn’t crazy, in case you were wondering. At least not officially. I did have Purely Obsessional Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder though, meaning there was this constant stream of negative thoughts that constantly yelled at me inside my own brain, most of the time in a loop. Believe me when I say this wasn’t fun and, unfortunately, I could do jack shit about it.

The starship crew didn’t see me coming for some ninety seconds and then they opened up on my fighter jet. But by then, it was too little too late.

I dodged the first salvo of enemy laser fire and zigzagged through the second, and I was right on top of the enemy ship before they could throw anything else at me.

Time to bail out.

I made sure I was sitting properly and pulled the ejection handles over my head to punch out. Then BOOM ... out I went. The rocket-propelled ejection seat thrust me upward, out of the aircraft. I thought g-force was bad before, but this took me to a whole new level. The acceleration from the propulsion of the seat made me feel my spine was about to splinter.

My seat flew right by the starship’s hull, so close that I could touch it, and I swear I saw several four-eyed insectoid aliens (no, they weren’t wearing glasses; they really had four eyes) looking at me through various windows. They looked surprised, for as much as I could read their facial expressions.

I didn’t see the fighter crash into the starship, but I heard the boom and saw the flaming pieces of metal that flew over my head and rained down on the planet down below. Even better, the alien vessel stopped firing on New York, which was the main reason I’d pulled this stunt to begin with.

Fierce joy rippled through me. “I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger,” I shouted excitedly inside my helmet. No, I wasn’t quoting the Bible. I just mentioned I wasn’t religious. I was, however, a major movie buff, and I quoted old classics left, right, and center. Get used to it.

The golden ship didn’t blow up, as I’d hoped, but it was obvious I’d damaged it. Maybe even enough that the enemy would retreat and leave the civilians alone. It didn’t matter how big your starship was; a fighter jet through its hull had got to hurt.

Liz will be so proud when I tell her what I just did, if she believes me, that is!

And suddenly I stopped falling even before I got the chance to pull my chute. I levitated in the air for a few seconds and then started ascending towards the starship. I couldn’t see anything, but it was obvious I was caught in some sort of a tractor beam. Freaking aliens and their Star Trek technology.

Oh, crap!

Intense fear flooded my soul, cold and merciless, and for the space of several seconds, I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t afraid of dying—as a fighter pilot and veteran of two wars, I’d made peace with the possibility of dying in action a long time ago, and at any rate, during the battle, I’d be too high on adrenalin to feel anything but excitement. Being captured by an alien species ... that was something else entirely. What would they do to me? Would they experiment on me? Dissect my body? Put me in some zoo so that alien children could come and feed me scraps?

“Anal probe?” suggested the damned voice in my head, as if I weren’t panicking enough already.

Stars flashed at the periphery of my vision, and I caught a glimpse of a flaming F-44 in the distance right before everything went dark all around me.

******

The giant Super Akakie cleared the jungle, held his huge axe over his head, and flashed a wide, toothy grin at me. “End of the road, human.”

The blade was covered with scarlet blood. This bastard had already killed a human that day. At least one.

I’d never been the take-it-lying-down type, so I took a fighting stance, kept my dagger in front of my face, and told him, “You can’t win, insect. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Corny, I know. You try coming up with something witty when staring certain death in the face.

The Akakie looked genuinely confused. “What the hell are you talking about? You know if I strike you down, you will die, right?”

It was my turn to grin. “I guess we’ll see.”

The monster shook his head, looking disappointed, and took a step closer.

“Yee-ha!”

From the upper branches of a tall tree, someone jumped on top of the insect and buried a dagger to the hilt into his neck. Dark blue blood gushed from the wound like a small fountain. The Akakie dropped his axe, stumbled forward a few steps, and then fell face-down to the ground. His body twitched a few times and stopped moving.

The newcomer yanked his dagger from the corpse; then he looked at me and said, “What’s up, Jim?”

“You took your sweet time, brother,” I answered.

He shrugged. “It is all about timing. You were in no imminent danger. I would have interfered sooner if you were.”

You need to know two things about the POW camp: one, not all the prisoners were human. The Super Akakies had conquered the entire galaxy, so there were all sorts of alien species there (I even ran into a Ferengi once, I swear). And two, it was simply impossible to survive here alone. You had to make allies. And you couldn’t find an ally better than the Xortaags. Really cool guys; they were kind of like the Klingons. They were a warrior race, and in a galaxy filled with starships, space fighters, and laser cannons, they spent a big chunk of their time training with cold weapons. I had no idea why, but it sure was helpful right now.

My friend’s name was Karaat. He was six feet tall, super muscular (growth hormones, remember?), with broad shoulders, blond hair, and blue eyes like mine. And just like me, he was a fighter pilot, only he used to fly space fighters for another alien race’s fleet (I kept forgetting their name; it started with a Z) as a mercenary before his capture. We had watched each other’s backs during the last three hellish years and saved each other’s butts more times than I could remember.

“Three years!” I hear you gasp.

Yep. I’d been a prisoner of war for three long years. Definitely not a picnic. Truth be told, sometimes I wondered why I didn’t kill myself and get it over with.

Once upon a time, my life was freaking perfect. I loved my career (since as far back as I could remember, I’d always loved flying), I was rich and famous, and I was in a loving relationship. Then, out of nowhere, an alien invasion (of all things!) started, and all that went up in smoke. Now I was nothing but a forgotten POW who had to fight for survival day in and day out. 

“Life is like a box of chocolates,” said the voice in my head. “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

You want to know how I’d survived all this time? I could give you a list of reasons. I was in tip-top shape. I was smart. But above all, I was motivated. I still had the faint (hell, impossible) hope that one day I’d escape this place and get back to her.

I was engaged to the kindest, most caring, most passionate, and most beautiful girl I’d ever laid my eyes on. Her name was Liz, and I could’ve spent a few paragraphs describing her, but you aren’t going to meet her, so what’s the point? I proposed after living with her for two incredibly happy years—I did the whole getting-on-one-knee-with-a-ring-in-your-hand thing, super romantic—and she accepted. We were planning our wedding when the frakking insects appeared in orbit and everything went to hell.

Was Liz still waiting for me after all this time? It was highly unlikely. Everyone on Earth probably thought me dead. She’d moved on, marrying some rich, fat, bald businessman with a big belly and small penis. The smaller, the better, in fact.

But one could always hope. What else did I have to cling to? And I didn’t have anyone else waiting for me. My parents were both dead (not that we were very close when they were alive), and I didn’t have any siblings. I used to have a best friend, Kurt, who was like a brother to me, but I’d heard he was killed by Earth’s security forces (he was the leader of the Resistance, long story) while I was trapped here. The day I heard that news from a new prisoner arriving from Earth, I ended up killing five other inmates (all aliens from various species) in the camp. In my defense, they were trying to rape a woman. I was a Southern gentleman, so it was normal for me to interfere to save the lady, and once the fight started, it was either them or me, but the intense fury I experienced was nothing like I’d felt before. I killed all five with my bare hands (yeah, I could do that, I was super buff), and by the time I was finished, I was completely drenched in blood.

Was I proud of doing that? No. Would I do it again in a similar situation? Probably.

Before you ask, no, I hadn’t lived like a monk for the last three years, hoping to get back to Liz one day. When you are constantly one step away from death, inhibition goes out of the door, and you try to enjoy every single pleasure life has to offer in whatever short time you have got left. Liz was a practicing Catholic and believed in absolution. If I ever made my way back to her, I’d confess and ask for forgiveness. She’d understand.

“Do the Akakies seem more vicious than usual to you?” asked Karaat casually.

I wrinkled my forehead. “They do look a bit jumpy.”

“Yeah. I wonder what’s going o—”

His chest burst open in an explosion of blood and gore. Hot, purple blood splashed all over my face. It was only after I blinked a few times to clear my eyes of the blood that I saw the tip of the spear protruding from his chest like it was the Chestburster jumping out of John Hurt’s body.

He stared at me in utter astonishment, opened and closed his mouth, took a couple of jerking steps toward me, and crumbled onto the ground. I was too shocked to even try to catch him. Not that it would’ve made a damned difference. I just stood there, completely motionless, and watched my friend let out a death rattle and draw his last breath.

A Super Akakie appeared from behind the trees, threw back his head, looked up to the sky, and howled in a terrifying scream. He was huge, even by the monsters’ standards. At least twelve feet tall, with shoulders wider than a city bus and fangs longer than a butcher knife.

The insect stared at me with four huge, blood-red bug eyes. “I know you, human. You killed my husband.”

My blood turned to ice, and all I could do was stare back.

“Snap out of it, Jim,” said the voice in my head. “You’re about to get brutally murdered ... wait a minute. This creature is a she?”

That last thought made me chuckle. I’d always used humor to fight off trauma, and It worked like a charm.

I raised my right hand like a schoolboy asking a question. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Was that a same-sex marriage? You don’t strike me as a woman, you know.”

The insect glared at me.

“I’m not judging,” I continued. “Whatever rocks your boat. I’m asking purely out of scientific curiosity. Didn’t know you guys are so, eh, progressive.”

“Are you done?” the Akakie drew herself up, her voice outraged. “Because this woman is about to cut your head off.”

I just couldn’t let it go. “Maybe you’ve had a sex-change operation? You know, like all those male athletes who compete in women's sports and wipe the floor with them?”

She didn’t answer.

“OK. Let me ask you another question.” I showed her a necklace I was wearing under my jumpsuit. It was made of the Akakie fangs that I’d collected from the ones I killed (I know, very Predator of me). “Which one of these do you think belongs to your dearly departed husband?”

There was a good reason for me taunting her: the Akakies were super quick to anger, and when they lost their cool, they made stupid decisions. It would hopefully give me a small advantage.

The Akakie’s four eyes widened so much that they merged into each other, and her two front antennae stood erect, which I knew showed extreme rage. She reached behind her back with both hands and unsheathed two ridiculously long swords. Then she stood on her hind legs and drew two more swords with her two other feet. Now she looked like General Grievous, or that Indian warrior goddess with several hands whose name I couldn’t remember.

“Huh,” I said, entirely too casually. “That’s new.”

I looked at the dagger in my hand, then threw it away, whispered, “Sorry, brother,” gritted my teeth, and drew the spear out of Karaat’s body, feeling sick to my stomach. More blood splashed on my previously white clothes, but at this point, it didn’t matter. I had one last look at my friend’s corpse and pushed away the sorrow assaulting my heart. This wasn’t the time to mourn. There was never any time to mourn in this frakking godforsaken shithole.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. I looked up at the now cloudy sky(it was sunshine just a minute ago!) and figured a storm was coming. They were very frequent in this place. I wondered if I’d live long enough to see it. Probably not.

The Akakie came at me with terrifying speed, arms moving so fast the swords were nothing but blurs. I dodged under her right arm, rolled a few times, and jumped to my feet behind her. She attacked again. Holding the spear with both hands, I managed to block her strikes a few times, stepping backward. Then I tripped over a stump and fell on my ass.

The Akakie’s next strike sent my spear flying just as another sword opened a shallow wound across my chest, sending a sudden, hot agony across my upper body. Blood flew freely from the gash. Then a kick to the chest, right under the fresh, bleeding wound, sent me soaring. I rolled over on the ground a few times before coming to a halt. Feeling dazed, I spat out some mud and dirt and looked up to see the giant walking toward me.

Her eyes burning with anger, the creature raised her right hand and the sword it was holding over my head, showing rows of sharp fangs like a hungry werewolf.

“Now I kill you,” she announced, rather unnecessarily.

So, this is where I’m going to die.

My head pounded, and my body ached. I didn’t even have time to get scared, and just in case you were wondering, no, my life didn’t flash in front of my eyes. For a fleeting moment though, I did think about my nice home in Nassau County, my beautiful faience, and my happy and successful life before all this shit started. Regret burnt through my soul with such intensity that I was actually relieved it’d be over soon, like in the next ten seconds or so. I was too tired, too dirty, and too freaking lonely to care anymore. My never-give-up-never-surrender attitude had carried me for three long years, but my strength had finally run out. I just couldn’t do this anymore. It was time to let go.

I wished I could at least spit in the monster’s eyes, but my throat felt as if it were coated with salt, and she was too tall for that anyway, so all I did was raise my right hand in front of my face and waited for the final blow to come, hoping for a quick, painless death.

Then the ground shook as the sound of sudden explosions filled the air.

I looked up and saw the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my entire life.

Four Akakie space fighters (called Vipers) were flying overhead. A blood-red rectangular space fighter (which next to the sleek, triangular-shaped Vipers looked kind of outdated) swooped in and engaged them. Thirty seconds later, nothing was left of the four fancy, top-of-the-line, super-advanced Akakie vessels but flaming debris flying in every direction.

My opponent’s jaw hung open, and so did mine. I never thought I’d see a day when the Akakie space fighters were annihilated so easily. For a second or two, I wondered if this was a weird hallucination, my brain playing tricks on me right before death to save me from the agony that was about to come, but I got over my shock a little bit faster than the female Akakie in front of me. I drew a knife I’d hidden in my right boot, jumped to my feet, and slashed her throat open with one smooth strike, creating a sudden river of blood.

The insect blinked a few times; then she stared at me blankly with four bulging eyes. She opened and closed her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but with that deep cut in her throat, no sound came out. She fell to her knees, blue blood pouring out of the gaping wound, dropped her swords, and clutched at her throat, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood.

I smiled at her, as sweetly as I could manage under the dirt and mud covering my face. “Say hello to your husband, bitch,” I said before kicking her to the ground, not feeling bad about hitting a woman despite my Southern upbringing. She thrashed and convulsed in front of my feet for a few seconds, her faltering heartbeat still pumping blood out of her body, until she finally lay still, her eyes glazed over, her mouth slightly open.

The crimson space fighter landed between me and the edge of the cliff. Its cockpit opened, and the pilot climbed out. Only when he removed his helmet did I realize this was a Xortaag.

Xortaags came in two models: they either looked like Hitler’s master race, as did my dead friend Karaat, or Conan the Barbarian. The newcomer was the latter model (olive skin, long, straight black hair gathered back into a braid, and black eyes, plus a very un-Conan-like bushy beard), and since I was certain Conan didn’t have a space fighter, it was obvious he was a Xortaag.

He walked towards me, a ferocious scowl twisting his features, carrying himself with the confidence and pride of a man who was accustomed to being in charge. He was pretty tall, and still his shoulders looked too large for him. Somehow, this man reminded me of a lion—and not a newly-fed one. A hungry lion who would tear you to pieces if you happened to be in his way.

Lightening flashed, and then another one, this one closer.

“Hi, Jim,” he said, his voice booming and deep. “I never thought I would see you again. You look a lot more muscular than what I remember.”

My eyebrows flew to my hairline in surprise. I definitely would’ve remembered seeing this guy before. Then I wondered if I suffered from amnesia on top of OCD.

“Who the frak are you?” I growled.

End of Chapter One. Please click here to buy the book.

THE CRIMSON UNIVERSE

The Crimson Deathbringer Book Eight

(Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2)

previously in the crimson deathbringer series part I

The Aax’ods, a race of immortal, omnipotent beings who entertain themselves by pulling the strings from behind a veil and meddling in the mortals’ affairs, are responsible for a lot of the things that have happened to our heroes (the Xortaags’ initial invasion, the Volts discovery of time travel, Klatzo inventing a time machine, the Akakies turning into Xenoakakies by Evil Tarq, etc.). Xornaa suspects their existence, but she has no actual proof, and most people don’t believe her.

After staying in the shadows for eons, some Aax’ods, led by their charismatic leader Alestra, have decided to reveal themselves and rule the galaxy as deities.

Alestra introduces herself as a god to a reptilian race, the Zuuvreils, gives them a fleet that can’t be defeated by the weapons of the current era, and sends them out to conquer the galaxy. That plan is foiled by Xornaa and Klatzo, with some help from Jaggex, another Aax’od who has taken a liking to the mortals, specially the humans.

Moreover, a monocle-wearing Tarq from another universe visits our heroes and reveals that the multiverse consists of four parallel universes. Three of them are more or less similar (and in one of them Jim had a Xortaag friend,  a fighter pilot called Karaat, who was killed saving Jim’s life). In the fourth one though, it appears creation has taken a major left turn. There are no planets there, and no space either. The whole universe is one limitless flat field, covered by a visible barrier above the sky, like a snowglobe. The entire place is filled with billions upon billions of monsters, most of which can fly, and all they do is fight, kill, tear one another up, and reproduce and multiply at an incredible rate.

It is called the Crimson Universe.

previously in the crimson deathbringer series part II: the                    SCARLET QUEEN’S (book 5) EPILOGUE

Ican’t believe I lost the bet again, said Alestra, sounding frustrated.

I’m positive you’ll win one day, replied Jaggex graciously, but he had a hard time concealing how triumphant he felt.

How was I supposed to know the Zuuvreils would be defeated so easily? complained Alestra. I gave them a fleet for crying out loud. One significantly more advanced than the current technological level of this era. All you did was whisper into the ears of that scientist who invented the time machine. Why did you block his memory of the rebellion though?

I was just messing with him, said Jaggex. I just wanted to see the look on his face when the elders told him about it, and he didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Also, please allow me to point out I have been doing this for several millennia, but you are new at this. You'll get the hang of it.

I am not sure that I want to.

That statement surprised Jaggex. Up until that point, Alestra was very keen on learning how to play the game, even though she kept losing. What do you mean?

Alestra paused before answering. This was interesting for a while. A nice diversion. But it gets boring quickly. I have bigger plans.

Dare I ask?

We’re gods by all intents and purposes. Maybe it's time we started acting like them.

Jaggex didn’t like the sound of that. And how exactly do gods act?

They rule. They subjugate. They demand worship. They enslave people. They do whatever they want.

You did that already, Jaggex pointed out, hoping to change her mind. The elders wouldn’t like what she was talking about, and there might have been severe consequences if she openly challenged them. The Zuuvreils worshiped you. You even made them sacrifice all those kids in your name.

I wanted to see how far they could be pushed. Speaking of the kids, why did you save them?

With no food and shelter, they would’ve certainly perished if I left them on Zegides. There was no way KP and Xornaa could take care of several thousand starving children.

I know that! said Alestra, sounding annoyed. I mean, why did you bother to save those insignificant creatures?

It cost me nothing, and I figured those poor children had suffered enough.

Sometimes, I really don’t understand you and your infatuation with these beings. At any rate, I don’t want to do anything from behind the scenes anymore, but in the open. Maybe it’s time people got to know us.

I can see a problem with your plan already, said Jaggex.

Really? What's that? she asked with obvious contempt, as if she didn’t care for Jaggex’s opinion, which he already knew she didn’t.

Knowing you, I bet you’ll get bored of it in a few millennia.

And when it happens, who's to say we can’t destroy this entire universe and start creating our own from scratch? asked Alestra.

THE CRIMSON UNIVERSE

Prologue

Sitting on the small and uncomfortable bridge command chair, Captain Jedron looked at planet Pucholla through her ship’s main viewing screen and felt her heart swell with a mixture of happiness and pride.

Just two years ago, Pucholla was decimated by the White Republic’s Navy—or more accurately by its Foreign Legion, led by Prince Mushgaana—who had mercilessly bombarded the planet for hours and turned several major cities to rubble. But her people, the Talgoinians, had come together and rebuilt their home in a massive effort. And now, the planet was once again a major commerce and economic hub for the entire system.

And by Gods, she is beautiful.

She was well aware that those majestic patches of blue and green in the planet’s otherwise white atmosphere were in fact poisonous gases, but that did not take away from Pucholla’s beauty, and neither did all those enormous glaciers, ice walls, and frozen forests that she could discern even from orbit.

Jedron had spent most of her adult life as a spacer. Years ago, she had started as a crewwoman second class aboard an old military freighter, and now, after decades of hard work, she had her own ship, Serendipity. The ship was but a small, old, dilapidated freighter, but it meant the world to her. And throughout all these years, Pucholla’s magnificent elegance had never failed to take her breath away while taking off the planet or entering the orbit after a usually profitable trip.

More importantly, Pucholla was her home. Hers and her family’s: her husband of twenty years,  Bololn, who was a college teacher (and had not even once left their planet), and their three lovely kids, who weren’t technically kids anymore. She had been away for less than two weeks, and she had already missed them terribly. Returning from a trip, however short, had always been a big occasion for them, celebrated by a family gathering and a sumptuous meal. And tonight would not have been an exception, specially given how successful this trip had been. She had used a tiny percentage of her profit to buy gifts for her family; still, she could picture Bololn complaining about how extravagant they were. The poor man had not gotten used to being married to a successful woman with a prosperous business.

“Captain?” said the communication officer with a look of surprise on his face. “We have an incoming message ...”

His voice trailed off as if he were not sure how to finish what he was about to say.

“Who is it from?” asked Jedron.

The officer looked up from his console, scratched his head, and stared at her. He chewed on his mustache for a second or three before saying, “It is Chancellor Harrison.”

All the Serendipity’s bridge crew (there were only six of them, and the bridge was small enough for everyone to be within earshot) stopped what they were doing and looked at him in surprise.

Jedron felt her eyes widen. Chancellor Harrison? The Chancellor of the entire galaxy? What could he possibly want with a small civilian freighter’s captain?

“Is this a joke, Tacala?” asked the captain firmly, making a point that she was far from being amused. “Because if it is, it is not funny.”

“See for yourself,” said the communication officer and touched a screen in front of him.

The image of a meeting room appeared on a VR screen hovering next to the command chair. There were several people in the room, sitting around a table. Jedron immediately recognized the tall man with baby-blue eyes, curly light brown hair (which he apparently colored), and a square jaw as Chancellor Harrison. President Kurt von der Hagen, the president of Earth, was also there, a wiry blond with cold gray eyes that looked troubled right now. There was also a beautiful Afro-Hispanic woman, Elizabeth something, Chancellor Harrison’s fiancée (Jedron had seen her in photos), and an astonishingly gorgeous babe with flowing golden curls and piercing green eyes whom the captain did not know.

There was a third woman in the room, standing next to the table. She was very tall and very large, not fat, more like a professional wrestler, with muscles bulging out of the crimson tunic she was wearing. She had rich black skin, fiery-red hair, which was in sharp contrast with her skin color, and—

Wait a damned minute. Is that a third eye in the middle of her freaking forehead?!

“Captain Jedron,” said Harrison, both his voice and his expression tense. “Do you have eyes on  Pucholla?”   

Jedron looked at the bridge’s main screen, feeling uneasy. Something very unusual was going on. “Yes, Chancellor.”     

Should I have saluted? she wondered.                                      

“Does everything look normal to you?” asked Von der Hagen, frowning and looking a bit pale.

A murmur swept through the bridge crew, and Jedron’s unease grew. “Yes. Why would it not? What is going on?”

“Please share your ship’s visual feed with us, Captain,” instructed Harrison, ignoring her question.

A part of Jedron’s brain wondered if this were about yet another mass suicide. Harrison had stopped the last few big ones, much to the chagrin of her people, who considered those a sacred ceremony.

Jedron nodded at the communication officer. “Done. Please let me ask again: what is going on?”

Harrison glanced at the big, red-haired, three-eyed woman, and Jedron could plainly see the burning hatred in his eyes. His stare could best be described as poisonous. “Captain, there’s no easy way to say this: this ... creature here claims she’s some sort of a god, and she wants to destroy your planet all the way from here to prove her power.”

Taken aback, Jedron drew in a sharp breath, blinked a few times, and felt she was at a loss for words. That answer was so unexpected, so unreal, that she simply could not wrap her mind around it.

“Maybe it is a prank?” whispered Andot, her second in command. “Harrison’s affinity for the Akakies is well-known.”

Jedron doubted it, but the alternative was too unbelievable to even consider. “Please tell me you are joking, Chancellor.”

The crimson-clad woman smirked. Her lips peeled away from her very white teeth as something dark and dangerous flamed in her ink-black eyes, all three of them. “No, Captain, I am afraid he isn’t joking.”

“Alestra, if you do this, I swear I’ll find a way to make you pay,” said Harrison, his voice shaking, his expression dark.

She sneered, raised her right hand to shoulder height, waited for a second or three, and snapped her fingers.

Pucholla imploded.

The planet (Jedron’s beautiful, beloved home) did not blow up or anything like that. In front of the captain and her crew’s incredulous eyes, it simply collapsed onto itself, shrinking rapidly, and a second later it was gone. There was nothing left, not even a small piece of debris.

All around Jedron, the crew screamed, gasped, clawed at their faces in disbelief, fell to their knees, or fainted. Sudden, terrible terror plunged Jedron into an ocean of horrible confusion and sent a brusque bolt of shock right through her. The captain jumped out of her seat, her stomach twisting in shock and horror, her heartbeat thundering in her ears, and gaped at the screen with bulging eyes.

“Do our readings confirm what we see?” asked Andot, his voice calm.

That man always had ice-cold water in his veins, she thought vaguely, and he did not have anyone waiting for him on Pucholla anyway.

“Yes, Commander,” someone replied with a shaking voice. Jedron thought it was probably Tacala, but she was not sure of anything anymore. “And it is not only us. Comms is flooded with messages from the other ships in orbit, asking what the hell just happened.”

“Captain, for what it’s worth,” said Chancellor Harrison, his vice anguished, “I’m sorry this fucking bitch—”

His image disappeared from the screen.

“We have lost the connection,” reported the same person who was talking a second ago.

Jedron could not have cared less. Her planet had just vanished right in front of her eyes, and everyone she had ever loved was gone in an instant. She shook her head in denial, but her feeble attempt to avoid facing reality did not last long. Her belly twisted and her chin and lips started trembling as she realized with nauseated horror that she was now all alone in this world.

“Captain,” said Andot, who right now was probably the only person on Serendipity’s bridge who had kept his wits about him. “Did that woman just destroy our planet with a mere snap of her fingers all the way from Earth?”

Jedron, to her own surprise, pulled herself together, at least enough to answer, “It does appear so, does it not?”

And people used to criticize us for our ceremonial mass suicides. Where are they now when our entire planet is destroyed?

That last thought told her what she should do.

Jedron tried to remember how content she was just a few short minutes ago, but her brain was too numb to bring back those last few happy moments of her life. She contemplated the irony of thinking about mass suicide merely a minute ago, took a few steps forward, and stood in front of the main screen.

“It has been a privilege to serve with you all these years,” she announced solemnly.

“Likewise, Captain,” answered Andot.

“Eyes on the screen,” she ordered.

Jordan drew her sidearm, trying to control the tremor in her hands. She did not have to look to know everyone else was doing the same thing.

I was looking forward to meeting my family tonight.

She listened to the sound of her heartbeat thrashing in her ears for a few seconds; then, in a swift motion, she put the barrel on her temple and pulled the trigger.

Chapter One

Idarted through the hospital’s waiting room door. “She’s still inside?”

Liz was already there, sitting next to Jeff on a sofa and holding his hand. She was spending the night with one of her sisters (well, the original Liz’s sisters, who, just like me,  had embraced her as if she were the same person), and her home was closer to the hospital. There was no one else in the room—it was a super-expensive private hospital (judging by the luxurious furniture and the paintings on the wall, one would be forgiven to think this was a seven-star hotel) and at this hour it was practically deserted, but I knew Kurt and Pat were on the way.

“Yes,” she said. “The doctors have assured us everything is perfect.”

I kissed her on the cheek and squinted at Jeff. “Shouldn’t you be with her?”

“She kicked me out,” replied Jeff with sadness in his voice. “She said I made her nervous.”

I looked him up and down and decided Xornaa was right. The burley, heavily muscled Marine who resembled a Native American warrior from an old Western movie looked decidedly agitated.

“You’d be agitated too if your partner was giving birth to a half-alien creature,” said Venom.

Shut up! Xornaa is a humanoid alien. The doctors are positive it’s all normal.

“Say that to John Hurt,” said the useless parasite.

How is that even relevant to our current situation?

“You’ll find out when the alien jumps out of Xornaa’s chest and kills all of us,” he said, which made me think maybe anthropomorphizing the OCD-induced stream of constant negative thoughts in my mind in a vain effort to control them hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

“Did you just compare my newborn baby to a freaking Chestburster?” said Xornaa’s angry voice deep inside my brain.

Oh shit.

“It wasn’t me,” I protested, not realizing that I was talking loudly. “It was Venom.”

Jeff looked at me in surprise. “What?”

“Are you talking to Xornaa?” asked Liz. “Ask her how she is.”

There was no need for me to ask though, because the door opened and Xornaa entered the waiting room, wearing a green hospital gown and carrying a tiny human (oh, thank you God!) baby. She was slightly pale, and her hair was just a tad unkempt, but other than that there was no indication that she’d just given birth.

The three of us ran to her and the small bundle of joy she was carrying. Jeff, positively beaming,  kissed her and held the baby, and I could honestly say I’d never seen someone this happy.

“Should you be walking right after childbirth?” I asked her.

She gave me a sideway look. “Wonder Woman here, or did you forget?”

“How are you feeling?” asked Liz.

“Pretty good, actually. It was a lot less painful than what I’d imagined.”

Accompanied by a team of stony-faced Secret Service agents, Kurt and Pat rushed in, their faces slightly red, partly due to excitement and partly because they’d been running. It was four A.M., so everyone was more or less disheveled, even Madam First Lady, but with his blond hair and beard trimmed perfectly, Kurt looked like he’d just walked out of a barbershop, and one could smell his expensive cologne from the other side of the hospital.

“Have you chosen a name for him?” I asked.

“We’re going to call him Thomas,” replied Xornaa, “after his godfather’s dad.”

Kurt beamed with a mixture of joy and pride. Xornaa and Jeff had already asked him to be the baby’s godfather. I was a tad jealous that they hadn’t asked me, but the two former assassins had been as thick as thieves forever.

“Also, you’re all invited for dinner tonight,” she continued.

“You just gave birth,” said Pat, surprised. “You’re being released already?”

“Wonder Woman,” I reminded her.

“Jeff’s cooking,” added Xornaa.

I rubbed my hands together. Had he not decided to be a Marine, Jeff could’ve been a professional chef in a five-star restaurant.

“Are you going to take Thomas home too?” asked Kurt and, not having gotten used to calling the baby Thomas yet, for a brief second, I thought he was talking about his dad.

“We probably could,” replied Jeff. “Him being half super-hero, half First-Nation warrior. But we decided to keep him here a few days.”

“Good call,” I agreed.

“Was the baby cute?” asked my hover car, Max, as soon as Liz and I got on. Max was originally a BMW, but I’d turned it into a cool hover car using the Akakies’ technology a few years ago.

“It’s a baby,” I said. “They’re always cute.”

“That’s not always true,” said Liz. “Did you see the one with the devil eyes that kept staring at me?”

I chuckled. “Yeah. I felt bad for the poor parents.”

“You guys are terrible,” said Cordi. “Max, I’ll show you a video.”

Liz put her head on my shoulder, closed her eyes, and whispered, “I want one.”

Yeah, me too.

This had been a bone of contention between the two of us during the last few months. Liz, in her mid-thirties now, wanted a baby, and so did I (I’d always wanted to have a child, a family, since I didn’t have any siblings and wasn’t close to my parents before they died when I was a teenager), but I was freaking scared, and who could blame me after what had happened to Ella and Byron? And that wasn’t even the main reason I was terrified.

Here was the thing: the last two years were the happiest in my entire life, hands down.

Liz and I had dated a few times before she moved in with me (again!) and we were planning to get married soon (yes, I know, for the second time—I even did the whole going down on one knee and proposing again). It was kind of a weird situation. Everything we did together felt like something we’d already done. Still, that took nothing away from our happiness.

On the galactic level, we’d rebuilt our fleet, using mostly the space fighters we’d confiscated from the Foreign Legion fleets and the White Republic’s Navy. In a strange way, surviving the evil Akakies made the Federation stronger, because now everyone understood the necessity of our unity. Even several alien nations in Andromeda signed up. We were completely ready for the next bad guys who would show up, trying to mess with us.

Closer ties between various races meant commerce and sharing technology, which had led to unbelievable advances all around. We even had a new Federation member in our galactic neck of the woods. The Khozils, a race of dog-like humanoids, built their first SFD-equipped ship. Imagine their surprise when they found an Akakie starship waiting for them as soon as they left their solar system.

I looked outside the window, marveling at how much everything had changed. The inclusion of the Akakies’ so-advanced-that-it-looked-like-magic technology in our society had sped up in the last couple of years, and now New York wasn’t recognizable compared to five years ago. Flying vehicles hadn’t been mass-produced yet, but I could see a few (mostly small-sized eVTOLs) overhead already. There was a skybridge, which housed multiple residential and commercial buildings, visible on the horizon, an enormous hyperloop system was under construction, and I knew we were driving over an underground residential complex which had recently opened its doors. And just the other day, Liz and I visited a modular building system that brought together residential and commercial living with public facilities and parks not thirty minutes from our house.

So, there was peace and prosperity in the galaxy, and I’d gotten Liz back. What else could I have wanted?

Well, I wanted a child. But that would make my happiness absolute, and after everything that had happened, deep down, I was scared that if I ever were truly happy, another galaxy-ending gigantic catastrophe with annihilating-all-life-on-Earth consequences would come our way, as it had the last time. So, no kids for me, even though both Liz and I wanted one.

“Listen,” I told Liz. “We’ve had a great couple of years. Let’s just wait a little bit longer. If nothing happens in the next two years, or once we overcome the next galactic disaster happening to us, we’ll make babies.”

“It’s almost unthinkable that we might go four full years without a disaster,” she said sleepily, “so it’s probably going to be the latter. You promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I said.

*****

Through a large window facing the hospital corridor, Xornaa looked at her baby boy, sleeping peacefully in a bassinet in the newborn nursery among a dozen other newborns, and wondered how this much joy was even possible.

All her life, she’d wanted to be a mother with consuming passion, and it had finally happened, thanks to her dearly departed friend Tarq, who had a team of Akakie doctors “fix your lady parts so that you can have a bunch of gross, ugly human babies” as he’d so eloquently put it.

She’d spent a long period of her life as a mercenary and an assassin, which brought her that shameful nickname, the Scarlet Queen. That wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life, but the circumstances of her childhood and teenage years, during which she, being dirt poor, weak, and all alone, was constantly abused in every single imaginable way by various people, forced her to do whatever necessary to survive, and to make sure no one else ever dared to try to harm her.

After all those years of killing people right, left, and center, now that she’d given life to someone, she found the very idea of taking a life revolting. She wondered how many more times she had to help save the galaxy before her guilty conscious left her alone.

Maada’s conscious did it, even though the general killed way more people than me, she told herself, feeling jealous.

That was true, but Maada had never been a paid assassin. He was a military man following orders, and whatever he’d done was to save his people from certain extinction. In a strange way, his ledger was a lot less bloody than Xornaa’s.

Well, she’d been a force for good for a long while now, and she planned to be one for the rest of her life. Hopefully, one day, she’d feel all the blood was washed off her hands. Also, her past sins gave her wealth and power, both of which she could now put to good use to raise and protect her son and make sure he would have a bright future in front of him.

My son. I still can’t believe it!

Jeff appeared on her side and pulled her into a side embrace. She had to bend her knees a little to be able to put her head on his shoulder (the Marine was tall, but not that tall) and said, “This—you and the baby, I mean—is far more than I deserve.”

Jeff smiled. “Did you just read my mind again?”

She turned to place a slow, gentle kiss on his mouth. “Can you believe we made this little miracle together?”

“Looking at him takes your breath away every time, doesn’t it?” asked Jeff. “And now that we have a child together, can we please get married?”

Xornaa scoffed. “Come on, Jeff. You know I don’t believe in that crap.”

“But my parents do. It’ll make them very happy, specially now that they are grandparents.”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “But can we at least not waste a ton of money on this stupidity?”

Jeff beamed. “What money? I’m but a poor Marine, woman. In fact, I must confess I want to marry you only because you’re filthy rich, since you apparently looted a star system or two back in your hitwoman-slash-mercenary days.”

Xornaa laughed and punched him in the arm. “And I’m not taking your name.”

“Mum's the word. Mrs. Dances with Wolves would just be silly.”

Xornaa’s smile widened. Jeff always knew how to make her laugh, which was probably a reason why she’d fallen in love with him to begin with. The fact that he looked like Klatzo probably played a role too, albeit an unconscious one.

“Joking aside, it’s not a waste of money. Seeing you in a wedding dress is worth a million dollars. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” said Jeff. “We have to do this first.”

He went down on one knee, took out a ring box from his pocket, and opened it, revealing a sparkling diamond ring. “Will you marry me?”

Xornaa gave him a sideway look. “How long have you been carrying it?”

Jeff grinned. “Since I was eighteen, waiting to meet the right girl.”

“Ok. Ok. Yes,” said Xornaa with a twinkle in her eyes. “Get up. You look silly.”

Jeff got up, kissed her, and gently put the ring on her finger.

Xornaa examined the diamond. “This is huge. It must’ve cost a fortune. Didn’t you just say you’re poor and want to marry me for money?”

Jeff nodded. “I am, but my family isn’t. And this is a family heirloom with a fascinating story. Apparently, my ancestors got that gigantic diamond from a bunch of Yankees they slaughtered and scalped a few hundred years ago.”

Xornaa rolled her eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking. Talking about scalping people on the day our son is born can’t possibly be a good omen.”

“It’s good I didn’t tell you about the time my ancestors wiped out an entire settlement of French immigrants then,” replied Jeff, deadpan. “Let’s go. We have guests tonight.”

Xornaa turned and looked at the sleeping newborn baby. “But I don’t want to go.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” said Jeff. “I promise.”

*****

“You didn’t bring Sophie?” I asked Kurt, slightly disappointed. I loved that little girl.

“It’d be way past her bedtime,” answered Kurt. “But drop by and see her sometime soon. She misses you.”

“Don’t mind if I do. Maybe tomorrow?”

Kurt nodded. “But, Jim, we’d appreciate it if you stopped teaching her dirty words.”

I widened my eyes in feigned indignation. “I would never!”

“You remember I can read your mind, right?” said Xornaa. “You aren’t getting anywhere near Thomas until his eighteenth birthday.”

We were sitting around a round wooden table in Xornaa’s dining room, drinking wine and waiting for Jeff to bring the food. One could plainly see she and Jeff had spared no expense in decorating the room. The seats were super comfortable, covered with upholstered tactile fabrics, the dining table was a we-are-so-rich-we-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-our-money statement-maker, and the lighting, provided by a golden halo chandelier the price of which could feed a normal family for a year, was reminiscent of a deluxe eatery.

“How is the chess game going?” I asked Kurt.

“Cordi’s kicking my ass, as usual,” responded Kurt.

“I gave up playing with Cordi a long while ago,” said Xornaa. “It’s hopeless. I’ll never understand how Tarq managed to beat her several times in a row.”

“Well, he was the best strategist in the galaxy,” I said sadly.

Kurt’s smile was equally sad. “Toward the end, he was upset that you seemed to come up with all the good plans.”

“None of which we could pull off without his help,” I pointed out. “Or Maada’s, for that matter. Speaking of old friends, guess who came to see me the other day.”

Kurt looked at me questioningly.

“The Talgoinian ambassador. He wanted to personally thank me for stopping his people’s latest attempt to arrange a mass suicide.”

Some six years ago, Maada faked my death to use it as an impetus to unite the entire galaxy. Unfortunately, before I “came back from the dead with a message from God”, a thousand Talgoinians committed mass suicide in my honor. When I heard the news, I was so outraged that I vowed to put an end to this practice—“screw the Prime Directive,” said Venom—which sometimes required sending a unit of Marines to Pucholla, their home planet.

Kurt smiled. “They really like their mass suicides, don’t they?”

“He brought me a gift,” I said, wondering when the food would be ready. Jeff had been in the kitchen for a while, and I was getting hungry. “A gorgeous sword that he said was made of a metal that was unique to their planet, and no one else had it in the entire galaxy.”

Kurt nodded. “Athrihan. I’ve heard of that, but it’s too expensive to extract to have any commercial use, so they just use it to make souvenirs and trophies. What did you do with the sword?”

“I put it up on our bedroom wall, right next to the Gladiator poster.”

“Your bedroom sounds very romantic,” offered Xornaa.

“You don’t know the half of it,” complained Liz. “Whenever we make love, I can swear Deadpool is staring right at us.”

A young Native American woman, wearing a flashy purple cocktail party dress with floral and polka dots prints, entered the living room and curtsied politely in front of Kurt and me. “Mr. Chancellor; Mr. President.”

“Miss Ambassador,” said Kurt formally, then his face lit up with a warm smile. “Hi, Varma. Long time no see.”

Varma was only a few years old, but for an Akakie, it was the equivalent of someone in her mid-twenties. She shared not only her grandfather’s love for pranks but also his fondness for us humans, which was why she’d pulled some strings to get herself appointed as the insects’ ambassador on Earth.

Liz and I had finally managed to talk her out of using that weird Liz-like hologram, and just like Tarq, she’d decided to go with a Chief Bromden (or in her case, Pocahontas) look. She’d also inherited Tarq’s tendency to wear flamboyant clothes, which more often than not had caused stirs in various formal meetings. Unfortunately, though, another thing she shared with her deceased grandfather was his fetish for interspecies sex. She’d kept shamelessly hitting on me until I asked Xornaa to have a word and put the fear of God in her.

Varma had taken Tarq’s place in our hearts, and seeing her was a constant reminder of how my alien half-brother had sacrificed himself to save my human brother, and I knew I owed every second that I spent with Kurt to Tarq.

“I miss him too,” said Venom. “And Maada. Even Allen and Mushgaana. I hope they’re all doing well in the other universe. I wish Tarq hadn’t cut the connection between the universes so that we could’ve stayed in touch with them, or even go visit.”

“Me too,” said Xornaa deep inside my brain. “Well, not Mushgaana, obviously. I still hate him and hope he dies a horrible death.”

“What’s with the, eh, entourage?” Kurt asked Varma.

Varma looked back at the six men who were following him. They were carrying a huge chest, too big to pass through the dining room’s door. “That? Nothing. Just some presents for the newborn baby.”

“What’s in the chest?” I asked.

She counted with her fingers. “Gold, platinum, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. Nothing too fancy.”

Jeff, who had just entered the dining room, carrying a tray containing a steaming-hot roasted rack of lamb, stared at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

The delicious smell of the food made me forget the big chest filled with jewelry, but I was the only one.

“She’s an Akakie,” Liz, who was a vegetarian and wasn’t distracted by what Jeff was carrying,  reminded him. “The box might be empty for all we know.”

Varma looked hurt. “I would not joke about a newborn baby’s presents.”

“We’re going to have a baby ASAP,” I told Liz.

She chuckled. “You can’t even count all the money you already have.”

She was right, especially since one of my first acts as the chancellor of the galaxy was making sure the publishers who published my books on the other planets paid royalties. My Ace Fighter Saga hexalogy had now sold more copies than the Bible, the Book of the Mormon, and the Quran combined, and that was not mentioning the movie rights, where most of the money came from. I’d even managed to get a big piece of the Fifty Shades of Kingslayer series (yes, that was a freaking series now, which Liz had read and used as inspiration with the same zeal Ella had done, subjecting me to new nightmares in the bedroom).

I was still donating half my income to old Liz’s orphanages (there was one in every major city in the world, now supervised by the new Liz), but at this point, I could probably buy parents for the orphan kids. And that was not mentioning the fortune the other Liz and Tarq had stolen from Zhang and his cronies, which after some wise investments, was enough to run a small country for a few years.

“You really didn’t have to,” Xornaa told Varma.

She shrugged. “It is the least I could do, and it is not like it is coming out of my pocket. Where do you want the chest? It weighs a ton, and these guys are getting tired.”

With glee in his eyes, Jeff put the tray down. “Dig in. I’ll bring the rest in a second.”

I didn’t wait for a second invitation while he went to deal with the men carrying Varma’s present.

Varma pulled herself a chair. “What did you get her?”

“Not precious metal and expensive gemstones,” I answered after gulping down a heavenly piece of perfectly cooked lamb. “That’s what.”

She grinned at me with the same cheekiness Tarq used to, only cuter. “Do not be such a cheapskate.”

“Thomas is a baby,” I protested. “What’s he going to do with all this money? Plus, I’m sure Xornaa is loaded.”

“He will grow up,” Varma pointed out. “And Xornaa will not be around forever.”

“Gee, thanks for this positive outlook,” said Xornaa, who’d taken a piece of lamb smaller than a postal stamp.

“Not dark at all,” added Kurt.

Varma looked around the table. “Charles isn’t joining us?”

Vice Admiral Charles Stone, the commander of Earth fleet (when I wasn’t around) and Invincible’s captain, had officially joined our gang after helping us defeat the Xenoakakie invasion. It was fun to have him around because, like Liz and me, he was a movie buff who could understand our movie references and come up with funny comments of his own.

I shook my head. “Charles is aboard Invincible, supervising some upgrades. He can’t make it.”

“Did you think about my suggestion, by the way?” Varma asked me.

“What suggestion?” inquired Kurt, curious.

“You remember Tarq had installed a remote receptor connected to MICI in his brain, which allowed him to download anything that he wanted remotely?” I asked Kurt before turning to Varma. “Thanks, but I won’t do it. It’s a bit too cyborgy for me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a sci-fi fan?” Varma asked me. “I expected you to jump on the opportunity.”

“I’ll do it,” said Kurt immediately. “You know how much time it’ll save me?”

Varma smiled at him. “OK. Drop by the embassy whenever you have the time. It will take about an hour.”

Jeff returned, this time carrying an even bigger tray that contained amuse-bouche, soup, salad, fish, dessert, and mignardise.

“You might’ve served some of these out of order, dear,” Xornaa pointed out.

“You guys should’ve waited a minute!” he responded.

As I bit into the delicious piece of lamb on my plate, surrounded by my loved ones (Liz, the love of my love, Kurt, the brother I never had, and even Xornaa, who despite our initial clashes and that one time we beat each other up, had turned out to be a dear friend), I felt I had no cares in the world. A sense of serenity took over my mind as I savored the food while I listened to them engage in our customary banter. Thanks to us, the galaxy was finally at peace, the United Federation of Planets was at the height of its power (under yours truly’ s chancellorship), and Kurt, as the United Earth’s president, had used the Akakies’ magical technology to fix all of Earth’s various climate crises (which wasn’t even a challenge once we had access to the Akakies’ clean energy sources), and humanity’s numerous socio-economic problems like poverty, the rich-poor gap, and lack of healthcare for all. Now that we had our first colony (called Eden) and three more being terraformed, we didn’t even have to worry about overpopulation anymore. Even Gene Roddenberry couldn’t have predicted that things would turn out so well.

Life was good.

I poured a glass of Red Zinfandel for myself and took a sip, feeling at ease with the world, and smiled at Liz, who had barely touched her salad. She noticed and smiled back, her eyes sparkling, and shook her empty glass in front of my face. I poured a glass for her too.

“All this is a clear indication that some world-ending catastrophe is right around the corner,” said Venom, the ray of sunshine that he’d always been.

Oh, for crying out loud, shut the frak up!

A look of concern passed Xornaa’s face. “Your Spidey senses are tingling?”

“No, it’s just Venom being Venom,” I growled. “And for the millionth time, stay out of my brain!”

I hated it when she read my mind, an ability she’d developed when we “meditated” together for a few weeks when I was trying to get over Ella and Byron’s death (which was kind of my fault) without putting a bullet through my brain.

And then the strangest thing happened: without any conscious thought, my hand moved, brought my glass to my lips, and I gulped down its content.

Astonished, I stared at my own hand. “What the hell?”

Xornaa giggled. “Sorry, Jim. I was just experimenting. It seems our mental connection has grown so strong now that I can even control your thoughts and actions.”

I glared at her. “If you keep doing this, you and I are going to have a problem.”

“I won’t, promise.” She winked at me. “Unless absolutely necessary, in my judgment.”

Kurt, who’d just finished arguing with Liz about their favorite football teams (Bayern Munich and Liverpool, respectively), looked at me. “I want to get some fresh air. Jim?”

“Come back quickly,” Liz, whose sexy British accent always got sexier when she had a drink or two, told Kurt. “I haven’t heard you perform in a long while, and Xornaa has had the piano tuned specially for you.”

We each took a bottle of Paulaner and walked to the balcony. It was a quiet, beautiful night. I felt the cool of the evening wash over me as the perfume of the summer blooms replaced Kurt’s strong cologne.

“You should totally do it,” said Kurt.

“Do what?” I asked, surprised.

“Have a child. I know how much you want it, and trust me when I tell you it’ll change your life, all for the better.”

I sighed. “You know why I’m hesitating.”

“You’re being silly.”

I twirled my engagement ring. “Oh yeah? You remember every time I feel happy, every time I think I finally made it, some terrible galactic disaster happens and millions of people get killed?”

No, I wasn’t being silly. Kurt himself had shown up the night I wanted to propose to the first Liz, ruining everything. When Ella got pregnant, the Black Fleet invaded our universe. When I got Liz back, she very nearly got herself killed fighting the Xenoakakie fleet. I had every right to be paranoid. Happiness wasn’t on the cards for the likes of me, I guessed.

“Jim, my dearest friend, I assure you the universe is not waiting for you to be happy so that it comes up with a devious plan to ruin it for you.”

I took a sip from my bottle. “There’s this old TV show called Angel. It’s about a vampire who, if he’s ever truly happy, will cause the destruction of the entire universe. I can’t help thinking I’m just like that. The universe will end if I’m truly happy one day.”

Kurt shook his head incredulously. “Dude, you’ve lost your mind.”

I chuckled bitterly. “Did you just notice? Have you been living under a rock the last ten yours?”

He smiled. “Nope. I’ve been right here by your side from day one, Mr. Chancellor.”

I raised my bottle. “I couldn’t have asked for a better partner-in-saving-the-universe, Mr. President.”

We clanked our bottles.

“How’s everything with you?” I asked.

He sighed theatrically. “Boring. As you know very well, I’d dreamed of a united, prosperous Earth since I was a child. Now that I’ve achieved that, and thanks to the Akakies there are no more social or environmental challenges to face, I feel kind of useless.”

I chuckled. “Never thought I’d see a day when someone complains about having created a utopia. Next thing we know, you’ll be bitching about being the most popular president in human history.”

“I can’t take credit for that. All I did was put the Akakies’ technology to good use.”

I patted him on the back. “And you did a great job. Your dad would’ve been so proud,”

Kurt’s father, Thomas von der Hagen, was the first president of the United Earth, until he was assassinated and killed (along with Kurt’s mother) in a coup by General Zheng.

Kurt stared into the distance, tugging at his beard. “He would, wouldn’t he? And speaking of a utopia, didn’t Kirk and Spock leave one, complaining that it was boring?”

I laughed. “You’re becoming even more of a nerd than me. Well, don’t worry. Venom tells me some new baddie will show up sooner or later. In fact, I distinctly remember the Volts appeared right after you gave a ‘mission accomplished’ speech a few years ago, telling everyone on Earth how great everything was going for us and announcing the terraforming of Eden.”

“And we’ll be here to kick their asses once they show up. It’s kind of our thing.” He pulled at his beard thoughtfully. “Do you realize from those of us who’d started this journey together way back when, only you and I have survived?”

The original Liz and Allen. Tarq. Keiko. Oksana. Mathias. Lilli. Sergey. Hell, even the bad guys, the original Maada and Mushgaana, were dead, and with the connections between the three similar universes severed (compliments of the monocle-wearing Tarq from the third universe, who was worried the Xenoakakies might attack them next), there was no way for me to find out if their doppelgangers had survived their trip to the White Republic’s universe.

“You really didn’t need to remind me,” I replied. “Plus, Xornaa is still alive too.”

“Yes, but she wasn’t with us in the beginning. She was a double agent working for Tarq at the time.”

“Be that as it may, the three of us have outlasted the Xortaag Kingdom, the Volts, Father, and the Xenoakakies. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

It was his turn to raise his bottle. “Amen to that, brother.”

chapter two

Abcit fluxed through the portal he’d just opened. In his incorporeal form, he didn’t need to do anything specific for each action to happen. He willed it, and it was done. Easy-peasy.

So, we’re in the Crimson Universe. Now what?

It should be easy enough to get in touch with the Aax’ods who rule this universe, said Nazulu, who had followed him to the unfamiliar universe through the portal.

Unless they’re all dead, Abcit pointed out matter-of-factly. Why else would they stop all communication for eons?

“Come on, Abcit. We’re immortal. How could they all perish?”

It took Abcit a second to realize she’d uttered those words. He turned his head to find Nazulu standing behind him in her corporeal form, which was a tall, skinny woman with blonde hair and dark brown eyes.

“Why are you in your corporeal form?” he demanded.

She eyed him coldly. “Why are you?”

Shocked, Abcit looked down at his hands and the rest of his body; then he realized the fact that he’d just turned his head should’ve been his first clue. “I have no idea. I certainly didn’t do this. Did you?”

Nazulu frowned. “No, of course not. We’re in an unfamiliar universe. We could be in danger in this form.”

Abcit couldn’t suppress a bitter chuckle. “For a pair of gods, we’re pretty clueless, aren’t we?” Then he felt his eyes widen. “Where the fuck is the portal?”

Nazulu looked behind her and scratched her head, looking surprised. “Well, open a new one.”

Abcit raised his right hand and pointed at where the portal used to be, but nothing happened. He frowned and tried to concentrate, but still nothing.

“What about you?” he asked.

“No. It seems I’ve completely lost my powers.”

Abcit looked around. “Do you think it’s because of this place?”

“No, certainly not. Both of us simultaneously lost our powers because we ate some bad mushrooms right before we came here. Oh wait, we didn’t, because we were in our incorporeal form and couldn’t eat anything! Of course it’s because of this place.”

Nazulu’s outburst brought a fleeting smile to Abcit’s lips.  “Not to worry though.  Alestra will come looking for us when we don’t report back. We just need to—”

Abcit stopped mid-sentence as his companion’s three eyes widened in bottomless horror and she stared at something behind him.

He turned to see what she was looking at, and when he found out, his breath caught in his lungs and refused to come out.

From the distance, something that looked like a black, angry cloud was moving towards them like a tidal wave, closing in on the two Aax’ods with what felt like malevolent intent.

“What the hell is that?” asked Abcit.

“Is it smoke?” said Nazulu.

“It’s moving against the wind!”

As it drew closer, Abcit could see shapes in the cloud. Monsters. Demons. Deaths. It was a horde of monsters, millions of them, big and small, flying so close together that they looked like a single, giant creature.

Nazulu grabbed Abcit’s arm so hard that it hurt. “But they still can’t kill us, can they?”

“I wish that they could,” he replied bitterly. “If we’re really powerless in this universe, we’re going to spend eternity in a vicious circle, most of it in these creatures’ digestive systems. We’ll get pooped out, put ourselves back together, just to be eaten again. A quick death would’ve been a mercy.”

His last thought before the monsters were upon them was, at least now we know what happened to the Aax’ods in the Crimson Universe!

End of Chapter Two. Please click here to continue reading.

The gray emperor

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Seven)

Would you travel to a parallel universe to find someone you love?

General Maada leads his fleet to the universe where the Xenoakakies rule with an iron fist. There, he’s surprised to meet a few old friends as well as some new foes, including the Death Angel, the legendary enemy pilot who’s killed the general’s doppelganger.

While Maada has been through his fair share of hopeless battles, this particular conflict is on another level altogether, even for him. The insects’ hold on this universe seems unshakable, and their fleet dwarfs the general’s in both numbers and power by no small margin.

Pick up The Gray Emperor, the seventh book in The Crimson Deathbringer Series, and get ready to say goodbye to one of science fiction’s greatest anti-heroes!

Start Reading Now!

The crimson Universe

(The Crimson Deathbringer Book Eight)

How can a mere mortal fight actual gods?

The Aax'ods, a race of immortal, omnipotent aliens who have been pulling the strings from behind the scenes for ions, have decided to crawl out of the shadows and rule the galaxy.

Now Jim and his friends must face their ultimate challenge, a threat more perilous than anything they’ve ever faced before, but how can they defeat cosmic beings so powerful that they can destroy planets with snaps of their fingers?

Jim is no stranger to defeating the odds: he’s already vanquished alien invaders, an enemy fleet coming from the future, an omnipotent AI, and the Xenoakakies from an alternate universe, but how can a simple fighter pilot possibly fight gods?

Don’t miss The Crimson Universe, the explosive penultimate book in The Crimson Deathbringer series. Pick it up today and witness Jim’s most epic adventure!

(Please click here to buy the book)

About the Author

This is Jim Harrison, your favorite flying ace. If you’ve read my series, you know these books are autobiographies, and Sean Robins is just a pen name. If you haven’t, well then, SURPRISE!

*****

Sorry about that, guys. I could never resist a good meta-joke.

So, this is me. The real me, Sean Robins. Unfortunately, my life is nowhere nearly as interesting as my main protagonist’s. I’m a university/college-level English teacher, and including Canada, I’ve lived and worked in six different countries. I’ve met people from all around the world, which is probably why my characters look like the bridge crew from Star Trek (they are from the US, Germany, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine, plus a couple of aliens and an AI).  One of my female characters even impersonated Uhura once, albeit posthumously.

I’m a huge Marvel (plus Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate) fan, which shows since my novels are loaded with pop culture references. If you are a sci-fi fan (I assume that you are), you’ll enjoy them tremendously. Moreover, while the books aren’t comedies, I can guarantee a few laugh-out-loud moments. Case in point: the “good” aliens are a race of pranksters, whose main goal in life is pulling other people’s legs (they have four legs, hence the slight change in the idiom).

My favorite author is Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), which is probably how I ended up writing in a first-person POV with the same lighthearted, funny tone as he does. The fact that my MC’s name is Jim is purely coincidental though, and it has nothing to do with James Kirk either.

Moreover, check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings (Please click here)!

Before I go, please let me get something off my chest: I do not have a political agenda, and if I did, I would never use my books to preach it. I firmly believe books and movies are for entertainment, a form of escapism, if you will, and I personally don’t like it when people use them to push their political views. Still, it seems like a lot of readers keep looking for some hidden agenda in my books and then get angry about it.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been accused of being fatphobic (because Jim’s friends pulled his leg when he gained weight in Book 3), homophobic (the reviewer said the fact that I had a gay character who was in the military somehow meant that I had an issue with the gay community), racist (because all the black characters died in the first book), far-left Democrat (because Earth was ruled by one government in the first book, so globalism) and far-right Republican (because Jim and Liz made fun of Hollywood). Someone even got mad at me for the title of my third book—I told her I had to call it The Black Fleet because The Pink Fleet was already taken.

My books are about funny prankster aliens, time travel, and space battles, and they are meant to entertain. That’s it. And I honestly think people who try to see everything through their political views and keep looking for things to get offended by can’t enjoy reading a book or watching a movie.

Ok. Rant over.

I hope you enjoyed reading The White Republic as much as I enjoyed writing it (her?). If you did, don’t forget to read the next book in the series, The Gray Emperor. Also, please follow me so that you’ll be the first to know whenever I write a new book (which sadly isn’t that often, maybe once a year—I tend to rewrite everything fifteen times before I’m satisfied). I think the easiest way is to follow me on Amazon (please click here), but Goodreads (please click here), BookBub (here) Twitter (@seanrobins300) and/or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) are also good options.

Author’s Note

Alot of people have asked me why I’d decided to publish a prequel (The Scarlet Queen) in the middle of an ongoing storyline. I couldn’t have answered this question before without spoiling anything, but if you’re finished with The White Republic, now is a good time to do that.

The first few books in the series are rather straightforward alien invasion stories (“Straightforward”, says Venom. “With time travel and alternate universes thrown it? Yeah, right.”). The final book is also kind of an alien invasion, but here, as you have noticed by reading the epilogue for both The Scarlet Queen and The White Republic, the aliens are literally gods, who can destroy the galaxy with a snap, with no need for the Infinity Gauntlet.

After I finished writing the fourth book, I figured introducing literal gods as the antagonists out of the blue would mean taking a major left turn in the series (I know Star Trek does it all the time, but still), so I decided to write the prequel first. The Scarlet Queen introduced us to Alestra and Jaggex for the first time, and made it clear they’d always been lurking in the shadows, pulling strings from day one. It’s kind of like what Specter did for James Bond, but hopefully less ridiculous.

So, yeah, our favorite ace pilot is going against literal gods in his final adventure. Will he succeed? Well, what do you think?

Please don’t forget to check out my audiobooks (please click here). My narrator, C.J. Grey, is a true artist and has done a wonderful job. The audiobooks are amazing, and two of them right now have 4.8 and 4.9 ratings!

Before I go, please let me get something off my chest: I do not have a political agenda, and if I did, I would never use my books to preach it. I firmly believe books and movies are for entertainment, a form of escapism, if you will, and I personally don’t like it when people use them to push their political views. Still, it seems like a lot of readers keep looking for some hidden agenda in my books and then get angry about it. In the last couple of years, I’ve been accused of being fatphobic (because Jim’s friends pulled his leg when he gained weight in Book 3), homophobic (the reviewer said the fact that I had a gay character who was in the military somehow meant that I had an issue with the gay community), racist (because all the black characters died in the first book), far-left Democrat (because Earth was ruled by one government in the first book, so globalism) and far-right Republican (because Jim and Liz made fun of Hollywood). Someone even got mad at me for the title of my third book—I told her I had to call it The Black Fleet because The Pink Fleet was already taken.

My books are about funny prankster aliens, time travel, and space battles, and they are meant to entertain. That’s it. And I honestly think people who try to see everything through their political views and keep looking for things to get offended by can’t enjoy reading a book or watching a movie.

Ok. Rant over.

I genuinely hope you enjoy reading this book, and if you do, please drop me a line and let me know. Few things in life make me happier than hearing from the people who like my books.

Also, don’t forget to follow me (preferably on Amazon (please click here), but you can use Twitter (@seanrobins300), BookBub (here), or Facebook (facebook.com/seanrobins300) if you want) to be informed as soon as my new books are out!

Book Review Request

So, here we are again.

I put a very formal and professionally written “book review request” at the end of my first book. That obviously didn’t work. While several thousand people read my book, I barely got 350 reviews across Amazon and Goodreads. So, let me try a new tactic:

I’m an English teacher, and my career leaves me with very little time to write. If you like my books, imagine what I can do if I write full-time. I promise I’ll entertain you until the day I die. And writing reviews goes a long way in helping me realize my dream of being a full-time author.

And if you didn’t like the book? I still would like to hear from you. Constructive criticism will help me in my future projects, or even revising this one. Here is an example: when several people mentioned they’d found mistakes in The Crimson Deathbringer, I put the book through yet another round of edit, and we found some thirty mistakes (some English teacher I am!), and I also took the opportunity to change a few other things based on my readers’ feedback.

That said, between you and me, I really hope you liked the book! My books are my babies, and it literally hurts when someone doesn’t like them.

(Please click here to leave a review.)