Chapter 23: Chapter 23

MIKHLAS

As the light of the teleport dimmed, Mikhlas felt his grav-lifters engage and looked around. In the presence of the future queen, just being here amped up his tension.

~Unascended as she is, she has no idea of her fragility.~ A dark uninspiring alleyway, stinking of rotten food and the accumulated waste of multiple species greeted his senses.

“Prime, where did you place us?” he asked.

“Cap…near…main…lard…receiving me?”

~Shit.~ The interference in communications with Prime meant that whatever area she’d ported them to contained a number of nanite jammers in near proximity.

His level of stress and awareness increased as he realized that right now, there would be no way Prime could take Izzy and Amy back to the ship.

“Mikhlas,” Izzy whispered, “talking to Prime is going to blow your disguise. In fact, we should probably refer to each other by different names just to be sure.”

“What should we call you?” Silian asked.

“We can use our middle names,” Amy said. “Call me Maria, and Izzy’s middle name is Jane. What about you guys?”

“We don’t have any,” Mikhlas said. “But Amphibians use names like Anagnos, Nanci, or Tawanna.”

“Somehow I don’t see you as a Nanci,” Amy said, grinning at him.

“Anagnos then,” he said, noticing how the light of the street ahead of them cast dark shadows. He looked up and the light of the Great Nebula barely penetrated the narrow confines of this cheap plascrete walkway.

“Guess that makes me Tawanna,” Silian said with a grin in his voice.

“Focus, Tawanna,” Mikhlas said. “We’ve got a job to do.”

“Understood, Anagnos,” Silian said, stepping in front of the women and walking using an intimidating strut toward the sounds of what passed for Arkadian nightlife.

As the women hurried after Silian, he shook his wrists, feeling the weight of the Cantian force projectors on his forearms and increasing their brightness.

He wanted the citizens to know he could be ready to defend Izzy in a moment and would not hesitate to use deadly force.

As they came out of the alleyway, he almost bumped into Izzy and Amy, who stood rooted in shock, staring at the view.

Within sight he could see more than a dozen different races, going about their lives. ~It seems Prime put us down near one of the main market plazas.~

A confusing array of goods, of all sizes and colors, vied for attention. Gallobarean spices, watched over by a hunched and shrouded figure smoking a long stick of bliss, smelled like sweet candy.

His eyes remained sharp and focused, although his blue skin held an unhealthy sheen.

Next to that, a metal table almost groaned under the weight of suspect weapons and guarded by an unsavory-looking Night Seer with half his teeth rotten and black.

Within sight, he could also see a dozen beggars of various races, dressed in scraps and holding placards with entreaties on them.

Three of them were laser branded with the mark of the Dark King, the luminescent ink impossible to hide.

~I’m sure it’s confusing for them,~ he thought before tapping Izzy on the shoulder. “I believe the arena is that way, Jane.”

“What’s that thing on his face?” she whispered, nodding toward the nearest, an Orbanite. “It looks like someone cut his face up with those strange lines. None of the crew have that.”

“It means he committed a class-two crime, Lady~ Jane~,” he stressed.

“Everyone will recognize the symbol of the Dark King and know his punishment. At least he didn’t lose a limb,” Mikhlas whispered. ~Come on, we can’t draw attention to ourselves like this.~

“Can I have some money please, Mikhlas?” she asked in a soft tone.

“My name is Anagnos, remember?” he said, slipping a low-value credstick out of his pocket and handing it to her.

She took a few steps toward the beggar and dropped the credstick into the bowl at his dirty feet.

“A thousand blessings of the Sentinels be upon you, my lady. May our long-awaited new Monarch reward you for your generosity of spirit.”

Izzy knelt, and he had to stop himself from grabbing her away instead shaking his arms and flaring the force projectors to make sure the beggar knew he would not tolerate any movement toward Izzy.

She held out a hand and placed it on the beggar’s shoulder, leaning forward to whisper at him. Only his hearing allowed Mikhlas to understand, “Stay strong. Change for the better is coming.”

Izzy straightened, and he stepped between them, giving the beggar a double nod of warning, but the old Orbanite only had eyes for Izzy, and clutched the credstick as if it contained all the hope in the world.

“Let’s get out of here,” Izzy said, her jaw tightening and staring straight ahead as if she didn’t want to see any more.

Mikhlas nodded, ushering her toward Amy and Silian and moving toward a more major thoroughfare than this cramped little alcove.

As they turned the corner at the top of the street the outline of the battle grid blacked out the Nebula, hovering in the sky several hundred meters off the ground.

He saw the constant traffic of small tujs ferrying people back and forth to the docking area. He looked around and spotted a brightly decorated tujs only a half block away.

“Silian, on the left, the blue tujs. Let’s get up to the battle grid,” he said sub-audibly. “The sooner we’re off the street, the better.”

AMY

Amy settled into the strange blue conveyance with difficulty. Her skintight leggings wanted to ride up into new and interesting places.

She sat with a frown, looking at the colorful yet somehow depressing first view of an alien city.

As Mikhlas exchanged words with the purple-skinned driver, she looked across at Izzy and smiled at her while clutching at Silian’s hand. ~I’m here for Izzy, that’s the important thing.~

She tried to rub the back of Silian’s hand, but the glowing armor-thing he wore got in the way.

She didn’t want to rub his knee—well, she did, but didn’t want to distract him too much—so she folded both hands around the little clutch Prime made for her to hold her Glock and tried to make sense of her confusing surroundings.

She didn’t know what she’d expected—sleek futuristic buildings with everyone smiling, maybe—but the stark reality left her feeling bewildered.

Strange aliens begging on the street with limbs missing and smelling of piss certainly hadn’t entered into her mental picture. Yet there remained an undeniable exotic beauty to the place.

The cloud-free sky showed the beauty of the Nebula in all its glory, and below it, sprawled out like a poor reflection in a lake, the city tried to compete. Everywhere you looked, color and movement greeted the eye.

There were some tall buildings, painted in the lights of the surrounding streets, and they were beautiful, yet somehow, they reminded her of Las Vegas.

Flashy, but no substance to them. Just a facade to impress while hiding a dirty underbelly.

“Look, Lady Jane. You can see the whole battle grid now,” Silian said, pointing out the open window of the geriatric and sputtering vehicle as it cleared the top of the buildings.

~It looks made of frosted glass,~ she thought, staring in wonder. Shaped like an enormous bowl, it hovered above the city, with floodlights shooting out from it as if proclaiming its existence to the Universe.

~It’s got to be at least five city blocks.~

She looked at the direction the little vehicle took, joining a row of similar flying machines all making for the same spot, an alcove set into the side where she could see an assortment of alien passengers disembark.

It didn’t take long before they touched down with a slight jolt and stepped out, Silian helping her down as she negotiated dress and heels.

She expected walking on the glass would be like, well, walking on glass, but surprisingly the alien material gripped her pumps. ~It feels like asphalt. Where to now?~ she wondered.

The answer was apparently some kind of ticket booth where a half-woman, half-squid smiled and nodded her full head of red hair at them as she spoke with Mikhlas.

Behind the strangely aquatic woman, a screen showed a series of images.

Intimidating-looking aliens scowled at the camera with a list of incomprehensible symbols that she worked out were the scheduled fights for the evening and current betting odds.

A constant stream of vehicles behind them disgorged more passengers, and Silian maintained a careful watch.

Just as Mikhlas turned away from the booth with tickets in hand, he stiffened, holding out the tickets to Izzy in still hands.

Izzy needed to tug on the silvery things before he snapped out of whatever grabbed his attention.

Amy took a careful look over her shoulder to see a tall alien, undeniably female with a shock of bright-red hair, but of a race she hadn’t seen before, flanked by half a dozen heavily armed male Homeworlders.

~She’s almost as tall as Silian. Is she a fighter?~ she thought, looking at the elaborate armor that graced the impossibly svelte figure.

The woman’s face held an unattractive sneer across her shockingly blue lips that contrasted with her pale-orange skin tone.

Amy turned back and caught Silian focused on the tall female, as was half the crowd in the entry room. “Who is she?” she whispered.

Silian gestured toward the large double doors, ducking his head close to hers as he ushered her away. “Her name is Kasana. See the glowing tattoo around her neck?”

Now that she knew what it was, it reminded her of the mark she saw on the face of the beggars, but far more elaborate, and only on the neck, from what she could see. “Yeah, I see it.”

“She’s the lady of justice, one of the most powerful nobles in the Realm. She reports directly to the Doge and oversees the Fleet.”

Amy watched as Kasana crossed the room, everyone making a path for her, and she strutted forward like she expected it.

Amy rarely got what the boys in the office called the “cop twinge.” That instant gut instinct hunch about someone, but she’d learned to trust it when it happened.

This woman made her knuckles itch. ~And she’s a highly placed authority in the Realm. Third in charge, if I have that right. I wonder what she’s doing here?~

While Kasana walked toward the entry, as if tickets were for the lesser peons, accompanied by her ring of muscle and steel, Amy decided she thoroughly disliked the bitch.

The group waited off to the side while she passed through the elaborate double doors and disappeared inside.

After her dramatic exit, Amy walked next to Izzy, flanked by Silian and Mikhlas and followed, offering their tickets to a purple-skinned Cyanok who took them in his cyborg hands, scanned them, and then passed them back.

They stepped into a wide room, the walls full-sized screens with detailed images of fighters and stats.

In this room, she could hear some kind of commentary being broadcast. Male voices discussing the merits of the next fighters to appear.

She tuned it out, trying to focus on the crowd, which ambled toward three sides of the room.

Incomprehensible doodles above the doors appeared to guide the crowd, and Amy found herself joining a queue of brightly dressed aliens headed for the east door. “Where are we headed?” she asked Silian.

“Lady Maria, we’re going to the upper deck bar before we find our seats for the next match,” he said.

~Alien booze? Nice. Let’s hope we don’t get poisoned.~

Silian lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s also where we are most likely to find Vayth. Everyone knows the Clulph are prodigious drinkers. They are siphonovores with two noses, and their tails grow their entire lives.”

“What’s a siphonovore?” she asked as they shuffled along with the crowd.

“A creature that feeds by siphoning edible materials out of the air.”

“When you say edible materials…”

“Dead skin cells, hair, you name it,” he said as they stepped onto a moving walkway that also functioned as an escalator.

~So, he’s basically a vacuum cleaner? That’s kind of weird.~

It didn’t take long before the moving walkway stopped, and they headed for a flashing neon sign.

As she stepped through the door, eagerly wondering exactly what a Clulph looked like, she clutched at Silian’s hand hard enough she felt one of her fingernails buckle. ~The floor is see-through!~

The entire floor of the huge bar was one large pane of clear glass. Some fifty feet below her shoes she could see a circle of tan colored sand, flanked by rows of seats in an auditorium. The view swam as vertigo hit her.

“What’s wrong, Lady Maria?” Silian asked.

Amy flinched as she felt Izzy’s small hand on her back trying to comfort her. The Carillion behind her ear writhed and made a small sound.

She glanced to the side to see Silian’s hand between her and Izzy’s face and a minuscule dart embedded in his thick glove.

“Calm down, Lady Maria. Your Carillion thinks you are under attack,” he whispered, picking the small dart out of his glove.

She shut her eyes, taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart, and felt a gentle squeeze on her hand. Silian took a small step closer to her, and as he did, the floor gave a tiny bounce.

Amy squealed as goosebumps ran track and field events up her spine, shaking her head. “Don’t move,” she said breathlessly.

A tremble ran through her body as her knees felt weak and her legs shook. ~Don’t look. Just don’t look down.~

Silian spoke quietly, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Lady Maria, why are you so afraid?”

She shook her head, her eyes still shut tight and frozen in place.

“She doesn’t like heights, S-Tawanna. Aims,” Izzy said quietly next to her. “Hey, babe, take my hand. Keep your eyes closed. I got you.” Izzy gently took her sweating palm.

Amy felt a soft tug from Izzy and tried to force her legs to move, but they were anchored to the glass.

“This floor can hold a thousand Simev bulls. It will not break,” Silian said.

~Don’t talk about the floor breaking, you idiot.~

A loud shout erupted from the other side of the room, and the floor bounced more as people jumped and cheered. She squeezed Izzy’s hand tightly and pulled her back. “I can’t.”

“Lady Maria,” Silian’s quiet voice said close to her ear, “you cannot stand here like this. I’ll carry you if I must.”

While the idea of being picked up and carried by Silian held a lot of appeal, it couldn’t overcome the unreasoning fear in her head that ran around screaming and waving its arms in the air.

“Mmm, darlings, you smell fabulous, come stand next to me, I insist.” She didn’t recognize the voice at all, which held some kind of whistling quality, almost like a lisp, but sounding effortless and cultured all the same.

The soft background sound of pipes or some fucking woodwind instrument stopped as the voice said this, which was a pity because she needed every distraction she could get.

“Where did that voice come from?” Izzy asked.

~I don’t care. Whoever decided on a clear floor should be strung up by their private parts.~

“Come quickly, dearies. I have four nice comfy chairs right next to the bar.”

As Amy stood there shivering, the voice continued, “Oh just pick her up already, beef cheeks, and bring that delectable ambrosia over here before I change my mind.”

~Nonononono.~ The weightless feeling as Silian lifted her into the air was like a nightmare, but a half-second later, she wrapped her shaky arms around his armored shoulders.

Here within a circle of protection, her racing heartbeat began to slow, and she finally opened her eyes, staring into the black leather of his jacket as he moved with a careful tread to the other side of the room.

The relaxing pan pipes, or whatever they were, started up again, and with a few dozen strides, Silian bent over to place her in a large, soft chair that felt like a bean bag, yet far more supportive, conforming to her shape.

“Mmm mmm mmm, you are just delicious. All that fear of sweet death does wonderful things to your aroma. And between you and me, your bodyguards are juicy too.”

Amy looked up from her knees into a pair of beautiful green eyes with strange rectangular pupils. She couldn’t tell what the rest of the creature looked like just yet.

She still felt jittery as hell after her scare. She tried to compose herself as Izzy stepped forward with a hand outstretched. “How do you do? I am Lady Jane J’Selnik.”

The eyes flicked downward for a second. “Crixy’s bum you are, or you’d know we Clulphs are poisonous. Besides, I can smell two tasty homies, yet these two man buns look like the Fishies.

“And you two. I’ve never quite smelled anything like you. Trust me, anything as tasty as you two, especially this one, I’d set up shop there in a heartbeat. Tsk, tsk, lying to a priest.

“Tell you what, buy ol’ Vayth a drink to make up for it, and tell me what’s the deal is with the disguises, and we’ll call it even.”

A whole new level of fear that their disguises were utter failures enveloped her, and she heard a deep intake of breath. “Oh, that’s nice, but you don’t need to be afraid.”

“But you’re talking out loud and people might hear,” Izzy said.

“Nah, no one will hear us over the ass-music,” Vayth replied.

Amy finally summoned the courage to take a good look at their host. Tucked into the end corner between the bar and the frosted wall, even sitting down, Vayth was short enough to be at eye level.

Yet what he lacked in height, he made up for in length.

Extending along the wall behind him for six or seven feet was a large, wide, pulsating tail. Fleshy and yellow, it vibrated and contracted and she realized that his tail was the source of the music.

~It must also be his way of getting around,~ she thought. Vayth didn’t have legs and possessed a very rudimentary set of four short arms that looked like the pseudopods of caterpillars.

In fact, he was very reminiscent of a caterpillar. Running up his pink-and-yellow striped torso were more of the same holes that covered his tail, and his head was really just an extension of his body.

His features were odd, too, with a set of astonishing green eyes surrounded by spiky eyebrows, a large protruding nose, and a tiny mouth.

“So basically, we’re breathing in your farts just being here?” Amy said, trying to distract herself.

Vayth laughed, which did strange things to the music, his tail inflating and contracting rapidly.

“Oh, I like you already, sweet stuff. Seriously though, you’re breathing in the cleanest air in the whole city right now. I’m basically a big, talkative air filter. Now, how about that drink?”