Nascent Decay (The Goddess of Decay Book 1) (12 page)

When the corridor finally cleared somewhat, the figure picked her up again, and continued to work his way through the maze of hallways as silently as possible, avoiding the guards. Occasionally he had to set her down and crouch when the activity in an area picked up. Some places seemed to be more crowded than others, and they were now sweeping the areas with sticks, poking in the corners with them, searching for something they couldn’t see.

“They know we’re here,” he whispered in her ear. “But they don’t know where. We’re almost out.” Rhylie simply nodded her head in response. “Once we’re outside, there will be a ship waiting for us.”

The figure picked her up again and carried her through another series of tubular corridors. Her vision was still slightly blurred, and shadows seemed to shift across the walls. She was having trouble making out details, and trying to focus just gave her a dull headache. She kept her eyes closed as much as she could, and rested her head against his chest as he carried her. She probably could have fallen asleep like that if he had let her.

“Can you walk yet?” he asked after they slipped through a door as it swirled open to allow guards to pass through. For the first time in a long time, Rhylie felt a brush of real wind on her face. She shivered, naked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I don’t think I can.” Her rescuer set her down on her feet, keeping his arm around her for support.

“We can move faster like this,” he said, supporting her as he headed down the street. It was full of Siirocians. Not a single other race was present. He pulled her into a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

“Where is the ship?” he asked, and then waited a moment. “We’re almost there,” he responded.

“Who are you talking to?” Rhylie whispered. It seemed like a very important question.

“You’ll know soon enough,” the figure responded. “You’ll know everything soon enough.”

They slipped from the narrow passageway, across the street and down another alley. It was a gradual process, with Rhylie dragging her feet every other step. Eventually, after crossing several streets her rescuer helped her up the loading ramp of a waiting ship.

The bay door slid shut behind them, and the ship lurched slightly as it lifted off. Her rescuer half-carried Rhylie to a large cockpit before strapping her into a seat secured against the back wall. The ship tilted backwards as her rescuer strapped himself into the seat beside her. He reached over and touched her bracelet, and she was visible again. He touched his own bracelet and became visible as well. His visor retracted from his entire head, seeming to vanish. It almost appeared as though spiderwebs were withdrawing into the collar of his jacket, like shadows in recoil from the morning sun. The flat black covering him head to toe began to recede as well, from his hands, and then his arms. Rhylie realized it was all being sucked into a small device on his belt. Underneath he was wearing a crisp, white shirt with a black vest over it. Several devices hung from the vest, giving it a very utilitarian look. His pants were black and his shoes were non-reflective gray. Around his waist hung a utility belt with a holster for a handgun and several more devices.

He had a slender, delicate visage, with long, curved, pointed ears. His skin tone was deep, navy blue and his hair was shock-white, hanging down well below his shoulders. His eyes were a solid, dark red with a bright golden ring in the center where the irises would be. Rhylie’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of him.

“That was too easy,” he said, eyes fixed ahead.

“I agree,” came a voice from the front of the cockpit. That was when Rhylie realized that there were four other people with them. They all sat in swivel chairs with their backs turned to her, except for one. “They’re not even asking for the authorization codes…they’re just letting us run with her. It’s like they want us to get away.”

“I was told that we would be receiving no assistance from our benefactor,” her rescuer said thoughtfully. “This is not good.”

The person speaking with her rescuer didn’t bother turning around. The other one that was already facing them unbuckled himself once the ship had stabilized. She hadn’t had enough time to take in what was around her, and she turned her attention towards him as he stood up.

His skin was sagging, wrinkled and carried a patina of age. The tone of it was a deep, blood red; the shade of congealment. His fingers were long and slender, almost like spines, but they moved deftly as he pulled something from his pristine white uniform. His hands were gloved and long sleeves covered his arms. As he approached her, held up the palm of his right hand toward her. A small silver bubble formed in his palm and flattened across the glove. As he got closer, she took a good look at his face.

He had no eyes, and no brow, only a smooth expanse of skin stretched across his forehead from his nose up. He was covered in long, fine, sparse hairs that were graying with age. On either side of his head were large, bat-like ears that twitched about, as though they were seeking something.

She struggled to free herself, horrified, but she didn’t know how the restraints worked. Her rescuer placed his hand on her thigh, and for some reason, it calmed her. She stared down at it numbly.
Was any of this even real?
she thought.

“I need to scan her directly,” he said in a withered voice as he ambled over to her. She looked up her rescuer. He nodded back at her.

“This is something we need to do, for our safety as well as yours,” he said, trying to reassure her. She still felt weak and the thought of more prodding made her uneasy. She nodded reluctantly, and cast her eyes down at the floor so she didn’t have to look at that eyeless face. She felt him rub around on her head, running his fingers through her hair and then down, cupping the back of her neck. He held it there for a moment before pulling away.

“And we’re done,” the other alien said. Rhylie hadn’t felt a thing. “She has a neurochip implanted.” He sounded concerned.

“We knew she probably did,” her rescuer said. “Vorcia wants us to rescue her and take her back to the outpost…” his voice trailed off into silence that stretched on for a long moment before he spoke again, softly this time. “You know what we have to do now,” he finished solemnly.

“Yes sir,” said the pilot. Rhylie could sense the tension that hung heavy in the air. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable, as though she were intruding on a personal and private moment.

“It was an honor serving with you all,” her rescuer said. This was confusing to her. “I regret the way it ended, but we all knew the risks we were taking.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Rhylie.

“We’re setting a trajectory for the nearest singularity,” he responded sadly.

“Why are we going anywhere near a black hole?!?” she barely managed to squeak out. Humans still knew very little about them, only about their destructive qualities. She was beginning to freak out.

“The Masters have implanted a cyberbionic chip in your spine, at the base of your skull. The fibers have probably extend themselves the entire length of your nervous system. They can monitor your location, your thoughts, everything you see, hear, say, smell, and touch.” Rhylie’s mouth dropped open. She felt violated again. Even once she was beyond the Chamber’s reach, it was still inside of her. She was never going to escape it. “Unfortunately we don’t have the technology to remove it without killing you,” he finished sadly.

“You rescued me just to kill me?” she shrieked. “Why didn’t you just kill me in the Chamber?” She began to struggle against her bonds. None of this made sense.

“It was just a chance I had to take. Vorcia cannot be allowed to use you to start an extinction event,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” Rhylie questioned, beginning to struggle against her restraints. She couldn’t figure out how to open them. She began feeling confined again, just as she had so many times before, bound to all of those various tables. She broke out into a cold sweat. Maybe she hadn’t escaped the Chamber at all. Maybe this was just another one of Vorcia’s tests.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” he said. “But none of that matters now.” He reached over and grabbed Rhylie’s wrist. She tried to stop him, but he was stronger than her, and she was still weak and sickly. He placed a small drop of silvery liquid on the back of her hand. It was absorbed instantly, and the effects followed within seconds. The last thing she heard before she blacked out was:

“What’s the ETA on that singularity?”

“Approximately 1.2 nanocycles.”

Ashes of Asylum

Vorcia

Rhylie’s signal had vanished into the singularity, utterly consumed by it, before Siirocian ships could intercept the craft she had been taken away with. Vorcia regretted the decision to not send ships after them sooner, but only a little. She had hoped they would be incompetent enough to lead her directly to their base of operations.

She highly doubted Isaar, Reskle, and whatever motley crew of simpletons and castoffs they had assembled would have actually killed themselves along with Rhylie. That wasn’t Isaar’s modus operandi. He would never sacrifice what he perceived to be innocents in order to achieve the objectives of his endeavors, a weakness of his race. The Siirocians should have eliminated his kind from their arm of the galaxy long ago, even though they had their uses. Some of their greatest inventions had come from Fetullian science; they had an affinity for both form and function that she could easily appreciate.

She would also miss playing with Rhylie, but at least now she knew who the new face of the Siirocian Opposition Movement was, two of them anyway. They were the weakest they’d been for several millicycles, a steady decline brought about by her relentless pursuit. To even allow one of them to exist was a blight on her authority.

She had given up her favorite toy for the opportunity to wipe out that nest of vermin once and for all, but it was a small price to pay. She was genuinely surprised that Isaar hadn’t walked away from it all after his former lover had been killed when they had been caught stealing the Chamber’s tech and secrets. This time she would make sure he couldn’t walk away from anything ever again. The rumors she had heard about what had been done with the tech he had stolen was unnerving, to say the least.

She lifted herself up from the egg-shaped seat she was lounging in and drifted over the floor using her gravity well. She dressed herself in loose, flowing robes with a simple cinch around the waist. She wasn’t concerned with her nudity. Shame and dignity were notions that were archaic and meaningless to the Siirocian; they generally only dressed for pomp and decorum. The other races seemed impressed by it, and were even uncomfortable around nude Siirocians, despite how androgynous their bodies were.

She crossed the room to the oval crib in the corner, and reached in, gingerly lifting out her favorite pet. He cooed softly in her arms, and she was very careful not to scratch him with her scaly skin. She nestled him in the soft folds of her robe, cradling him to her breast. She offered him her nipple to nurse, and he took it hungrily. Once he’d began developing teeth he became rougher with her when he was feeding. He was more demanding. She could see that their aggression began at an early age. They seemed to want to fight and feed whenever they could, as opposed to needing to be threatened or hungry. Her nipples were supple and soft after the genetic alteration that she’d undergone to provide him with her own milk, and he would sometimes bite down harder than she would expect he could be capable of. His strength could sometimes be surprising. More often than not her nipples were tender and sore, something wearing clothing only exacerbated. Still, he was weak and vulnerable, with his soft pink flesh and tuft of downy black hair. He was going to look just like his mother one day with his little button nose and dark eyes.

She’d never had children of her own; successors were dangerous in her line of work, and taking another mate would mean she would have to share her authority over the Siirocian Empire. She had a long life yet to live, perhaps even another few centicycles. There was no reason to shorten it by creating heirs to her title. But this little one would never threaten her life. Humans didn’t live long enough to pose any credible threat to her or her people. And soon there wouldn’t be any humans remaining, save for this tiny, precious one, a thought that greatly pleased her. One of the few things that still made her happy was her collection of unique and exotic things.

Even though they were no threat to her or her empire, she still could not allow humans to take their small offshoot away from the Siirocian arm of the galaxy. It would be a stain on her legacy, and the buffer zone between her empire and the Siddish Commonwealth, which was strategically important. If humans chose to side with the Siddish in political matters, it would be demeaning, an embarrassment.

Soon she would remove two threats to the dignity of her people and the credibility of her rule. And after that, she would be able to focus on undermining and weakening the Siddish again.

She slowly drifted away from the crib as the child continued to nourish himself on her breast, whilst she rocked him gently in her arms. He was getting heavier quickly now; he seemed to grow larger every few microcycles. She positioned herself in the middle of the room and held him, watching him nurse intently. He was so precious and innocent, so vulnerable and in need of nurturing. He stirred feelings in her that she hadn’t known she was capable of.

“Chamber, fabricate Moos’san’dai,” Vorcia said as she rocked the child gently in her arms.

“Yes, Empress,” came the disembodied reply. It was a masculine voice, confident and reassuring. It was no coincidence that it sounded like the former Emperor, with whom she had shared the throne. That had been a short lived partnership, she had seen to it.

The room around her changed, altering itself to the ancient nursery for highborn Siirocian nobility. The walls were curved and shiny, carved from dark red marble deep beneath the ground of her homeworld. There was a soft and subdued light cast over the room, giving it a comforting feel. The temperature was a bit cooler and less humid than it would have been in the real nursery, for the child’s sake, but around her were dozens of eggs nestled in swaddling.