I raised my gun and fired. The young Captain’s face exploded outwards in a spray of blood and gore. The Princess shrieked and fell backwards into a pool of blood from one of the guards. Jumping at that she stumbled up to her feet, eyes going wide bloody hands over her mouth and tears in her eyes.
Pulling a knife from my belt I offered it out to her, “Would you like to sheath the dagger Juliet? It’s about your only way out at this point.”
She jerked towards me, grabbing the knife away from me.
Juggling it in her hand she lunged at me the weapon held so loosely in her hand that Talza even in full protective mode didn’t feel the need to jump in front of it. I grabbed her arm and twisted, pulling her up against me and grabbing her other hand I pulled a set of ties from my belt and clamped them over her hands.
“Unhand me!”
Turning around I pushed the girl towards Belza, “Don’t harm her unless you have to. Once we’re on the ship take her to the Doc. What’s the time since Key activation?”
“Five minutes, eight seconds.” Said Belza. It was impossible for her to be wrong.
“Time to go then, if we reach ten minutes and we’re not on the Patch kill her.”
“What!?” shouted the Princess.
I ignored her and leaning down entered a new course into the ships computer, to send it back towards Sol. A very large part of me wanted to send it out towards Delta Pavonis. The Factions would tear into the ship with glee, and the Humans of Sol would get what they deserved.
But the Factions would also tear into the Helianites, kill the bodyguards and use the 04 for their experiments. The Faction’s had for centuries been attempting to duplicate Sol’s stratified society, and their methods were horrific. All the Factions cared about was raw power, naked aggression and the 04 couldn’t even comprehend fighting.
I straightened up, “Let’s go, the ship will jump as soon as the reactors power back up and they’re at the jump point.”
The Princess continued to shout at me as we rode in the elevator back down to the reception hall where the party had been taking place. I ignored her as the blood started to pound in my ears and my sense of balance began to fluctuate.
The elevator doors opened and I stumbled out, only managing to stay on my feet by grabbing at Telza’s arm.
The Helianite were all frozen in place, their eyes wide watching as their Human masters tried to move the contents of the fountain. Telstrate was all over the floor beading up and rolling along as if it were on a hotplate.
Pitchers, cups, and anything that looked like it would be able to hold liquid was stacked up near the hatch. Several humans were off to the side yelling at the Helianites to accomplish the task, and those who were moving the cargo looked as if they were about to fall apart. Ten minutes of labor, and they were ready to drop dead if their complaints were anything to go by.
I raised my wrist and keyed my Comm, “Urch, how much Telstrate did the Ophanim eject from her cargo bays?”
“They just ejected twenty-five tons of the stuff! Can we fit all of that?”
“No.”
The room began to wildly spin and I collapsed up against Telza. “Vaporize all of the Telstrate in this hall get us back to the Patch, sedate the Princess, and get me to Selassas.”
“Understood.”
She raised her weapon and the world went black to the twanging of plasma bolts.
“Holy!” I sat up from the floor as the adrenaline continued to flow through my limbs and everything went cold.
Selassas smacked a tentacle over my head, forcing me back down where another wet tentacle cushioned my head before it smacked into the metal.
“You were dead, almost could not fix.” Reprimanded Selassas.
I groaned and put a hand to my head, “Couldn’t I have stayed dead. Oh, my head.”
She harrumphed and slapped several tentacles on the deck, “Severe neurological shock to your system,” she held up the key, “You had it on too long, I told you the more it was used the less time you would have.”
I grabbed it away from her and sat up again, “I’ll live.”
She grabbed my arm, stopping me from standing. “You will be catatonic if you continue to use the Key. If you want to use it again, you must take the neural regrowth formula. I would not be surprised if you have lost memories from youth with this last use!”
“I don’t really need them Doc, and I’ll take the neural regrowth pills. We’ve got more than enough Telstrate to make them.”
She crossed several of her tentacles and glared back at me with her beady eyes, “Yes, because you will report to me every morning to take them.”
I winced, and she slid her first set of transparent eyelids shut squinting at me. “Or I will assign Belza the task.”
I raised my hands in surrender and we both stumbled as the ship jerked and the familiar feeling of space folding in twisted my left knee and the back of my eyes into knots.
“Did Urch just execute the jump?”
Selassas wobbled in place concerned, “It must have been her. Hensa gave her authorization codes so she could assist him in the loading of the Telstrate.”
“How long was I out!?”
“I put you in stasis while I treated the Royal. You could have told me she was second in line! I had to extract 90% of her pheromone excretion pores to render her impotent! Then we all had dinner, and Belza shouted at you while you were in stasis for the entire night, I had breakfast and then I woke you.”
I opened my mouth to say something then snapped it closed. The smug pile of slime just smiled back at me, her tentacles rippling in mirth.
Pushing past her I stomped down the central corridor towards the bridge, “Urchin!”
Someone screamed, and something crashed into glass.
“Again?!” shouted Hensa.
I stepped into the bridge to find Urch once again on the middle of the holodisplay, cracked glass spidering out from where she had fallen.
“Why are you letting her plot jumps? Fix that.” I pointed at the table.
Urch rolled over unconcerned with her casual destruction, “You’re alive!”
She scrambled to her feat unconcerned with the broken glass and threw herself at me. I barely managed to raise my arms in time as she slammed into me and forced me to the deck. She was small, but dense in more ways than one.
“I don’t plan on dying in anything but an enormous explosion.”
Urch laughed and wrapped her hands around my neck, “You looked all messed up, you had blood coming out of your eyes and ears! It was nasty!”
I shoved the excitable girl off me and leaned up against the hatch entrance, “Yes well I’m fine.”
Hensa carefully moved over to me, fixing one eye on me he rolled up a foot talon and tapped me with it. “I’m glad I don’t have to find another captain to serve under. Most do not like me.”
I smiled and touched his talon, “I have no idea why.”
He cocked his head to the side and raised his feathers.
I sighed, “Why did you give Urch jump control?”
“Once she deigns to complete a task her results are never wrong. I was busy elsewhere, and she accepts bribes to increase her task execution speed.”
Urch emphatically started nodding her head, “He’s been giving me nanites!”
I glanced at the engineer, “You divided up the Telstrate?”
“Belza refused to let anyone have more than 10% of their cut until you woke. Even so, I have never had so much to spare. I am considering upgrading the reactors to match the Ophanim, we got detailed enough scans.”
“The Telstrate for that will come out of the ship’s cut, you don’t need to pay for upgrades.”
Hensa’s feathers went up and he cocked his head to the side, “What else should I spend them on? I have enough food to last three years.”
I raised my hands, “You can use them however you wish.”
The birdlike creature nodded and quickly stalked out of the compartment.
“I’m going to grow!” said Urch, “If I convert my cut to nannies, I can grow up and still have some to spare!”
I smiled and patted her on the head, “You don’t want to grow up too quickly.”
She cocked her head to the side “That’s what Belza said.”
“She’s a smart lady, do you know where she is?”
“Your quarters.”
“Thanks, go and bug Selassas see what she’s going to spend her cut on.”
Urch’s eyes widened, “I hadn’t thought of what she would get.” Darting around me the girl ran off into the bowls of the ship shouting for the Doctor.
Shaking my head I turned and walked the short distance down to my own quarters, pulling the crank on the ancient door and swinging it in I breathed in the familiar scent and relaxed. The wood paneling was from Earth, ancient and cracked, it still held the spirit of the world in it.
A spirit that the forefathers of the Princess chained up in the corner of the room had killed.
“You bastard!” growled the Princess, she stood up making the chains rattle. She winced and collapsed onto the wall. The skin around her wrists and ankles where she was restrained rubbed raw. She was dressed in a Helianite auction uniform, little more than a formless bag that fell from her shoulders down to just above her ankles.
“What did you do to me?”
I pulled my 1911 from its holster, “Make another sound I shoot you in the leg.”
Her eyes widened, and she backed up into the wall the chains clinking.
Dropping the gun into it’s holster I turned to the opposite corner of the comparatment, Belza was reclined in her favorite chair an old book in her hands.
Setting the book aside she stood and moved over to me, reaching out I grabbed her around the waist and hugged her close to me. Belza, never very modest quickly pressed her lips to my own for a sizzling kiss.
She broke the kiss and ran a critical eye over me, “You, all right?”
I slowly nodded, “For the most part. Some neurological damage.”
Belza took in a breath and pulling me over to the chair sat me down in it, “How bad?”
I rubbed at my neck, “Reading between the lines, I shouldn’t use the Key again until I have my replacement.”
Pulling the Key out of my pocket I held it up. Belza looked at it and then at me, and shook her head.
“Talza should hold onto it. She’d be impartial if you ever need to use it.”
“You’d also hate her afterwards. The last thing we both want is you falling under the sway of a Royal like Princess here.”
Belza took the Key and tucked it into her belt, “So now we need to find another Human.”
“Yep.”
Belza sighed and shook her head, “First we need to ransom miss bratty. You think you’ve got a headache.”
“I was going to ask, why is she chained up in here?”
“Urch was overexuberant in her cargo collection. She crammed all of the Telstrate into the ship by filling up sections like the brig with it.”
“She fit all of it?”
Belza nodded, “And I had to find a place to keep her, this seemed appropriate.”
Slowly I turned to the Princess, she was glaring back at me.
“You’ve still got all of your limbs, Belza has been nice.”
Her face reddened, “What did you do to me? Why doesn’t the Helianite obey?”
I froze for a moment as the idea formed in my mind, “She doesn’t obey, because Princess your Human now. You’ve always been Human, but our good doctor removed the little extra things you had. Like the pheromone pouches.”
The Princess’s eyes went wide and her face flushed, “What?”
“If you want to command people, you’re going to have to earn the right.”
The Princess shook her head, “No, this is impossible! You can’t do this, it’s impossible!”
“Obviously it’s not.”
The Princess stepped forwards, and winced as the chains rubbed on her skin again. “My Father said it was impossible. He was not wrong, he was never wrong!”
I shrugged, “Did he tell you your journey would be safe?”
She narrowed her eye at me and remained quiet.
“If he lied about that what else could he have lied about? Perhaps the fact that the Helianite deserve what their fate?”
“Their ancestors nearly destroyed Sol!” hissed the Princess.
“Their ancestors lost the war, and paid for it with their lives. Your people are the ones who were vindictive enough to desecrate their graves and twist their genes to serve you.”
“It was retribution! It was the right of the victor!”
I blinked, “I beat you, why don’t I get the same right? I could have had the Doc try and make you into a Helianite.”
The Princess’s eyes widened, “That’s impossible! I’m a Royal.”
“I’m Human, you’re Human.”
I blinked, and spoke in a whisper, “she’s Human.”
Belza quickly shook her head, “No.”
I grinned, “We could at least try.”
Belza opened her mouth to argue and then closed it.
I turned to the Princess and bowed my head, “Good night, Princess. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”
Belza groaned and smacked a hand to her head.