Beyond the Shroud of the Universe (20 page)

“What is this all about?” Nightsong asked as he was greeted outside the palace by the captain in charge of the palace guard.

“I don’t know,” the captain replied. “You know the rules,” he added, all business, “I must search you.”

“I don’t have any weapons,” Nightsong said, “but you are welcome to look.” For all the good it will do you, he added silently.

Confident the Aesir was unarmed, the captain led him into the palace. Nightsong hated the palace, and he avoided it whenever possible. Partly because it smelled. Badly. On a good day, the Efreet smelled like Terrans after they worked out. When their pheromones were running high, like today, it was worse. Much worse.

The stench was suffocating as he walked into the waiting room, accompanied by four Efreeti troopers with flamecasters. They looked like they expected him to be trouble, he thought; they had their armor secured and looked ready for combat operations. He expected a large number of troops armed with tasers would accompany him into the queen’s presence.

On any other day, he would have welcomed the opportunity to display his superiority by killing them all…
but today he was busy
. He focused on that truth as the desire to kill started to get the better of him.

Another reason for hating the palace was this room. They always made him wait, as if their time was more important than his. He knew this was part of the queen’s protocol, but it only served to infuriate him further. Focus, he thought to himself. He drew several deep breaths to let some of the anger go. It didn’t help much.

The captain came into the room. “The queen is ready to see you now,” he advised.

Nightsong walked past the troopers, ignoring them, and into the queen’s audience chamber. It was unlike any other audience chamber he had ever been in, and he had been in more palaces over his lifetime than he could count. Every other audience hall was designed to impress its visitors, with huge, vaulted ceilings, ornate stonework and tapestries, and other grandiose displays of wealth.

The Efreeti version was much different.

While the Efreeti audience hall still had the displays of opulence any palace-goer would expect, it was overdone, with ornamentation and felt-like material covering all the walls, the ceiling and the floor in garish patterns of blue and orange. Nightsong had decided long ago the Efreet must have a different visual acuity to appreciate it; the display just made his head hurt. Worse, the audience hall was a miniscule 10-foot square, which focused all the smells and the riot of color into an inescapable putrid collection of nauseating sensory overload.

The Efreeti race had developed in flooded subterranean chambers and passageways, and they were more comfortable in smaller areas. This queen felt the agoraphobia more strongly than any of the previous queens, and had shrunk the size of the audience hall to the minimum required; it was not much larger than herself.

More than anything else, she was the reason Nightsong hated coming to the palace.

Larger than the male Efreet, the queen looked like an overweight eight-foot long sausage with the ends of her arms and legs sticking out from the central mass of flesh. While the males had some vestigial webbing between their claws, the queen’s hands and feet were fully webbed, and she still had a fin on the top and bottom of her over-sized tail. From the additional odor, she had also laid eggs recently; that stench, when added to the stink of the taser troops in the room, made him want to vomit, and it took all his self-control not to.

The bowl of Efreeti flesh the queen kept nearby to snack on didn’t help.

All-in-all, every visit to the palace was an event to forget, and he couldn’t wait to begin forgetting this one as soon as possible.

“How may I be of service to you?” he asked in Efreeti. Meetings with the queen were things to get through; being polite accelerated the process, so it was something that had to be done, despite his real feelings for the queen and her underlings.

“You may serve me by taking your prisoner and going to the starport, where you will meet a group of people called Terrans. You will turn yourself over to them, so they will leave our system. That is how you may serve me best.”

“
The Terrans are here?
” Nightsong asked. “How did they get here? They shouldn’t be able to make the jump to this universe with the equipment they have available.”

“I don’t know,” the queen replied, “but here they are, and their one ship destroyed my entire space force and all the facilities on the moon. You will go meet them at the starport, and you will do so now.”

“I see,” Nightsong said. “So this is how you repay me for all my help through the years. Despite everything I have done for you, you are willing to turn me over like a common criminal.”

“While we appreciate your prior service, there is nothing else we can do. The Terrans will bomb our towns until they get you and your friend.”

“I know the Terrans well. I seriously doubt they will indiscriminately bomb your cities. They don’t have it in them to kill to get what they want.”

“In this case, you would be wrong,” the queen replied. “They obliterated our base on the moon…the one you said was ‘impregnable.’”

“Nothing is impregnable. If I used that word, it was only in relation to the Sila’s capabilities, which are laughable. I never expected it would withstand a concerted Mrowry or Archon assault. If you had listened to me and built what I said, though, it would have at least held off the Terrans.”

“What’s past is past,” the queen replied, “and it cannot be changed. I am not interested in speaking of past events, only in moving forward. And for that, you must leave, and you must leave
now
. No further delays will be tolerated.”

“Indeed,” Nightsong said with a sniff. “So be it. I will go to the starport and meet with the Terrans, although I must go back to my house first. There are things there I will need for my journey, and I will also need to get my companion, who is, I’m afraid, not in very good traveling condition.”

“That is acceptable,” the queen replied.

“Then I will be on my way,” Nightsong said, as he turned and walked out of the audience chamber. As he passed through the door, he saw a flash of movement to the right and dove away from it. The taser leads went over him, missing by several inches; however, his dive took him into the path of a second taser attack, and both leads penetrated his skin. He fell to the floor, twitching, as the electricity coursed through him.

While he writhed on the floor in agony, two of the queen’s ‘shock troops’ grabbed his arms with thick rubber gloves and placed metal cuffs on his wrists and irons on his ankles. Once secured, the Efreeti trooper turned off the taser, allowing Nightsong to lay on the floor and catch his breath.

“I will…kill you…for that,” Nightsong said when he had control of his muscles again.

“Queen’s orders,” the captain said. “She knows you are smart and tricky, and she wanted to make sure you followed through with your promise.”

“I promise if you take these cuffs off, I will go with you and turn myself in,” Nightsong said. “I just need to go by my house first.”

“I don’t think so,” the captain said. “I’m sure you have any number of weapons in your house, and I don’t want them used on me. We will all just walk nicely to the starport, where you will be turned over to the Terrans. And then
they
can then go get the other person they’re looking for.”

The Aesir’s comm went active. “
Nightsong, this is Lieutenant O’Leary,
” the voice said. “
I’m coming for you…We have some things I want to discuss before I send you back to Santa like the naughty little elf you are. By the way, once I get there, please feel free to resist…I’d like it a lot if you did.
”

Nightsong didn’t reply as he took stock of his situation, although he did turn off his implant so he couldn’t be tracked by it. Getting tased was the worst possible thing for him. He would have done or said anything to avoid it; the electrical current fried his nanobots. The life ‘bots were low power because they had to be sensitive to the electrical current in living organisms; he had lost well over half of them. His combat ‘bots were hardened against attack so he had considerably more of them left; unfortunately, without the life ‘bots, he lost the element of surprise. He could do a few things with what remained, but didn’t have anywhere near enough to disguise himself as an Efreeti. Growing a tail, in particular, was right out.

And he hated having a tail, in any event. They were just gross.

The Efreet were right to tase him, but were wrong in thinking the cuffs could hold him. And only five troops to guard him? Laughable. The two flamecasters were next to useless against a fire-based Eco Warrior, and the captain’s over-confidence would be easy to use against him. The two shock troopers were the only ones who concerned him; both were alert and had the ability to damage him. They would be the first to go.

The walk to the starport was only about half a mile, and he used most of that looking for an opportunity. The problem was all in the timing. He needed to break free before they came in range of the Terrans, but not so early the Efreet could put out an alert on him. His ship was at the starport, so he was at least headed in the right direction for an escape. Losing Calvin would be an annoyance, but he knew there would be opportunities to reacquire the Terran. More annoying would be the loss of his Progenitor’s Rod; that was something he was seriously considering going back to the house to get, especially since he only needed one more system to find out what it did. He had a pretty good idea where the last system was and had been practicing the skills he’d need to blend in there. He
would
be the first to figure out the riddle of the Progenitors; he was sure of that.

As they neared the starport, he saw the Terran shuttle coming in to land, and knew his time was growing short. He wouldn’t have time to go back and get the Rod, after all. He didn’t know why the gods had chosen today to laugh at him, but he would laugh at them on the day he took the Rod back. There was no doubt in his mind he would recover it eventually; the Terrans were simply too gullible to prevent it.

Adrenaline and other natural stimulants flooded his body, speeding his reactions. With a thought, he grew a lump on his leg and used it to push the only thing in his pocket, a coin, up to the lip of the pocket, where he palmed it with his walking motion. As they passed an alleyway, he stumbled, and the coin flew from his hand into the alley.

“My lucky coin!” he shrieked, stumbling ahead of the Efreet into the alley. He lurched as his feet withdrew into his legs, allowing him to step out of the leg irons, while his arms elongated and slimmed. The hand cuffs fell off. Spinning, he found the two shock troopers close by, as expected. One was already aiming his weapon, and Nightsong had to dive past him to avoid the leads fired from it.

Nightsong touched each shock troopers on the neck as he passed, turning the dive into a forward somersault that brought him up and running on his stumps between the two flamecaster troops. He mentally thanked his former team leader, Landslide, as he ran a hand under the tanks on the flamecasters’ backs.

With a small ‘bang,’ the nanobots in the shock troopers’ necks exploded, blowing out their main arteries. The detonation wasn’t strong enough to completely decapitate them, but was more than sufficient to kill them.

Nightsong swung his hand in a chopping motion as reached the captain, and the knife-edged bone Nightsong extruded slashed through the captain’s throat in an explosion of blood and gore.

Spinning, the Aesir found both flamecasters being slammed into the wall by the propellant spraying from one of the tanks on their backs; fuel puddled on the street as it poured from holes in the other. He sent a command to the earth nanobots that had eaten the holes to shut down, while triggering the fire ‘bots. Both troopers ignited in a ‘whoosh’ of flames. He could hear their screams through their helmets and shivered in delight.

He looked up to see the black, oily smoke rising above the alley. That would serve as a nice distraction, he decided. His legs grew feet again, and he loped out the other end of the alley. He had wanted to use one of the flamecaster’s armor as a disguise, but didn’t have enough time to put it on. He also found that he couldn’t stand the smell of roasted Efreeti.

It was even worse than how they normally smelled.

Lieutenant O’Leary led the platoon down the ramp at a jog. As befit a hostile landing, all the troops were in their suits and armed to the teeth; their weapons were out and ready. With a truce ‘sort of’ in place, they didn’t aim their weapons directly at the three Efreet who met them; however, it wouldn’t have taken more than a split second to do so.

The ‘welcoming party’ was led by an officer in black leather, with two flamecasters in sealed black combat armor accompanying him. Apparently, they weren’t ready to let the hostilities go, either, as their weapons were carried in a similar manner to the Terrans. Ready, but not quite aimed at their foes.

“I am Lieutenant Sllleeekss,” the Efreeti in leather spat. “I would welcome you; however, the manner in which you come is hardly a welcome one.”

“I’m Lieutenant O’Leary. For my part, I’d say I was sorry for how we arrived, but having already fought you guys on two other planets, I’m really not in much of a sorry mood.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” the Efreeti said. “We are at the end of our communications chain; we are unaware of any conflict prior to you appearing and attacking us.”

“Well, that’s something for the higher-ups to discuss later, I guess,” O’Leary said. “As of right now, I just want to get the two foreigners you have.”

“I would love to give them to you,” the Efreeti replied; “however, there has been a problem.”

“A problem, eh?” Lieutenant O’Leary asked. “Why does that not surprise me?”

The Efreeti hissed. “This is not a problem of our making, but of yours. The person you asked for killed five of our soldiers, including my captain, and escaped. Had you not come here, my captain would still be alive.”

“Oh yeah? Well the little cookie maker took my commanding officer hostage. I’ve got my own score to settle with him.” O’Leary paused. “Where would he run to on this planet? Where could he get aid?” A thought struck him. “
Where is his damn ship?
”

“I will ask,” the Efreeti said. He spoke into a circular box on his uniform. “He maintains a house in town, but his ship is at the far end of the starport. Let’s go; we can be there in five minutes.”

The Efreet and the Terrans set off toward the end of the landing area, but had only gone halfway when a familiar silver shape rose from a building in front of them. It rose several hundred feet into the air and disappeared.

“Mother
fucker
…” Lieutenant O’Leary muttered. “I am
so
going to kill that little tree hugger when I get my hands on him.” He switched to his comm. “Vella Gulf,
Nightsong just lifted off and jumped back into our universe.
”

“
We saw him go. The CO says to get back here ASAP so we can go after him.
”

“
Don’t wait for us; go get him! You can come back and get us afterward.
” O’Leary looked at the Efreeti lieutenant and decided he would probably be okay until the
Gulf
got back. They now shared a hatred of a common enemy as a bond. And the Terrans had better weaponry, if it came to that.

“
You don’t have the ability to get back to our universe on your own. Shag ass to the shuttle and get back here ASAP.
”

“
On our way!
” O’Leary turned to the Efreeti. “We’ve just been called back to our ship, but I’m sure we’ll be back.”

“I’m sure of it too. You said you wanted the other person with the Aesir. I understand he is still back at the Aesir’s house although he is not in very good shape.”

“
What?
”

“It appears the Aesir was operating on him; he has been cut open.”

“Take us there. Right
now!
” O’Leary switched back to his comm. “Vella Gulf,
disregard our previous intentions. Lieutenant Commander Hobbs is still here on-planet. We are going to try to rescue him. The Efreeti here says Nightsong was experimenting on him, and he is in bad shape. If he’s bad enough the Efreet can recognize he’s messed up, we’ve got to get him now!
”

“
Roger, the CO says to get Lieutenant Commander Hobbs. We’ll wait.
”

The Terrans followed the Efreeti lieutenant at a jogging pace out of the starport and into the city. The Efreeti “run” involved a lot of side-to-side swaying that would have been humorous under other circumstances. As it was, O’Leary just wished they could run
faster
.

After about half a mile, O’Leary could see what had to be the Aesir’s house; it was surrounded by Efreet in combat gear who were obviously guarding it. As the Efreeti lieutenant leading them slowed to a pace not much more than a walk, O’Leary sprinted past him.

He immediately slowed as all the Efreet in sight leveled their weapons at him. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he muttered.

After a couple of seconds, they lowered their weapons, and O’Leary sprinted the rest of the way to the house. Not knowing what he’d find inside, he kept his weapon ready as he entered.

The first room was some sort of sitting room. He gave it a quick scan and continued on as the rest of the platoon followed him through the door. The second room was equally unimpressive, a bedroom, and he continued into what had once been the kitchen. Now, however, it was some sort of weird lab, with a number of apparatuses and monitors along the walls. The object of his search was strapped down on the room’s sole piece of furniture, a bed in the center of the room.

The Efreeti had been right; Lieutenant Commander Hobbs was a mess. His stomach was cut open, and all his organs were exposed. At least he was unconscious as the pain would have been excruciating.

“
Medic!
” he commed as he started taking off his suit.

“Holy shit!” Corporal Shaun ‘Lucky’ Evertson exclaimed as he arrived in the kitchen. He switched to his comm. “
Everyone stay the fuck
out!
I don’t know if the germs here will infect him, but I know ours will, and he is extremely susceptible right now!
”

“Stay with us, skipper,” he said as he gently closed the flap and sprayed some liquid skin over it to hold it in place. Without looking up he said, “We need to get him into your suit ASAP, sir, and back to the
Gulf
even faster. Is there any way we can get the shuttle closer?”

“I don’t know,” Lieutenant O’Leary replied, “but they’re damn well gonna try.”