The Blood Empress (10 page)

Lord Vac got to his feet, followed by the others in his party. He dared look at her with weary eyes and a troubled brow.

"My Empress, welcome to Vac One. We are honored by your presence."

Nykostra was in no mood to dance around with political banter.

"I have come to ensure that this Kastra provides the Empire with its share of warships for the war effort. What is the delay?"

Lord Vac looked back and forth at his aides and then back to her. His demeanor was condescending and she hated him instantly for it.

"My Empress, we can't afford to send you any spare warships. We are at constant war with the Benzotii. It is all we can do to replace our own ships lost in that conflict."

Nykostra shook her head and took a step closer to Lord Vac. He physically leaned away from her.

"You will provide five warships or suffer the consequences."

He glanced at her hip and exhaled in disbelief. She knew he didn't think she had the ability to harm anyone. Not with her single warship or her ancient Imperial sword.

Nykostra took another slow step towards the old Kastra Elder. This time he did not flinch. With her warship surrounded and his city safely ensconced in rock cliffs there was little he feared from this little woman. This girl.

She kept her black eyes locked on him without so much as a blink. As her anger grew her eyes began to redden. The Vac Elder was startled by their sudden change. For one quick moment he looked scared. That was when she struck.

Her knee flew up into his crotch which caused him to bend at the waist in pain. She pulled him down to the sandstone floor in a head lock maneuver that ended in a thin metal blade being pushed against his throat just enough to cause him to freeze.

The closest guards drew their weapons and pointed them at her.

"Back off or I'll slit his throat!" she hissed at them.

The lead guard looked to the Kwerza-Ni for confirmation. He nodded and waved them off. Nykostra eyed him suspiciously. She was getting nothing from him. Not the usual ill feeling she got from senior Soothsayers.
Something was wrong
.

"Give me my ships or I'll kill you in front of your entire Kastra," she whispered so that only Lord Vac could hear. Her eyes were on the Kwerza-Ni. His face was old and wrinkled but he showed no sign of hearing her through the Elder's mind.

The Kwerza-Ni is not here, that man is a front.

Nykostra peered into the Elder's feeble mind and searched for the Kwerza-Ni. There was nobody home inside. This body was not even the Elder Vac. The entire greeting party was a fake. She understood that now. What she needed to do was find them as quickly as possible without letting on that she was aware of the stunt.

The ground began to rumble followed quickly by alarms warbling far and wide. The city was under attack. Most of the attendants fled the chamber in a panic. A handful of loyalists stayed, their weapons pointed relentlessly at the Empress and Captain Verrad.

Nykostra noticed one of the attendants that stayed looked suspicious. He was well groomed and seemed to be eying her more than anyone else. She dropped the fake Elder and moved towards the man who suddenly bolted backwards in a panic. Her lithe form was on him in a flash and she had drawn her falchion so quickly nobody was close enough to help the man. She forced him to the ground and put the edge of her blade against his throat.

"Stand back or I'll kill him!" she growled at the security guards who had closed in on them.

Verrad slowly moved to cover her back but nobody seemed anxious to stop the wild Empress.

"How did you know?" the Elder asked. His voice was shaky as the falchion's blade dug into the skin below his jaw.

She looked down at him as a child to a bug. "Where is the Kwerza-Ni?"

Lord Vac's temples began to sweat as he mumbled incoherently.

She ignored him and pushed her way into his mind. He was so full of fear that he couldn't think straight. His eyes reached back over his shoulder to someone standing nearby. Again she resorted to simple body language and followed his stare.

It was a man wearing the armor of a guard, his face and hands hidden beneath gloves and a masked helmet.
The Kwerza-Ni.

She withdrew her falchion from Lord Vac's neck and stood up. The guard had no weapon that she could see. A dead give away that he was not a Votainion soldier. She pushed at his mind behind the mask and found that she could not penetrate his thoughts. The helmet was acting like a psychic shield.

She raised her falchion and screamed at him. He did not move away or act to defend himself. He was a well disciplined Soothsayer. He met his fate without resistance.

As the Kwerza-Ni's head flew away, she turned and swung her falchion into the nearest attendant. He tried to run but was caught across the body in a blow that cracked his chest and knocked him down with Nykostra on top of him.

Nobody was brave enough to take a shot at her as she bounded back towards Verrad. He had used the surprise and shock of her attack to shoot several more guards. He considered killing the Elder who was still prone on the floor and paralyzed with fear.

Nykostra addressed the remaining Vac Kastra members in her rich, mind influencing voice. "I have killed your Kwerza-Ni and spared your Elder's life. Don't defy me again or I'll return with a vengeance."

She looked directly at the two Elder aides whom she knew were related to Vac. They nodded solemnly. Another nearby explosion caused sand and rock to fall from the ceiling. Verrad looked at the Empress and motioned to leave. She nodded.

Others fled the room quickly to take cover but not Nykostra or Verrad. They walked with ease over the dead and debris to the corridor that led to their shuttle.

In the landing bay their shuttle was untouched, at least by the Vac Kastra. But crumbling rock had fallen onto it from the pounding going on by the Benzotii attackers. Verrad went aboard immediately to see if they could leave in it. Nykostra walked slowly to the bright sunlight outside the bay. Bits of rock and sand fell onto her as she stood and looked out at the deep valley below. A warm wind blew against her face. It was a very dry and hot world.

Dozens of starfighters were chasing Benzotii aircraft. Their sand colored wings and blotchy brown camouflage a blur against the canyon walls. It was a beautiful sight. She had never seen Votainion forces engaged in combat before. Her pulse quickened and her hands itched. She wanted to join them, despite not having the slightest idea how to fly.

Dust fell on her head as she stepped away from the edge of the landing bay.

"My Empress, we must leave now," Verrad hollered over the din of battle.

She turned to run back to the shuttle just as a huge wedge of rock broke off the ceiling and crushed the back of it. The dust and debris knocked her to the ground. Verrad exited the shuttle and reached down to pull her off the ground.

"We'll have to get out some other way," he said. He was already trying to raise his ship on his communicator.

She walked across the largely abandoned bay and saw a KiV-3 parked by itself. It was a two seat trainer, with a double nose. "Captain, can you fly one of those?" she pointed towards the tan colored plane.

He closed his communicator and followed her over. The KiV looked like a broken bird, half collapsed on its main landing struts. Verrad did a hasty walk around looking at certain key parts of the fighter. He ran his hand over the leading edge of a wing and came back to her near the nose. Pilot and student sat in identical cone shaped cockpits that were connected to a double fuselage and ended in two engines.

"It looks flyable. But it's incredibly risky, my Empress. Let me call for another shuttle."

She pointed to the battle raging outside. "Do you think they'll get through all that? We need to get out of here now and this thing is our only hope."

His face was drawn and his brow furled. Clearly he hated the idea of flying a craft whose condition he was unsure of. He reluctantly helped her enter the second seat.

The seats in the KiV were sloped backwards so far it was like lying on a day bed. There was no wiggle room inside, especially after the clamshell canopy was lowered.

"Put this helmet on. It will allow us to talk to each other. Please, don't touch any of the controls my Empress," Verrad said.

She nodded and pulled the helmet over her head. It was too big for her, even after cinching the chin strap down all the way. He pulled her canopy down and locked it in place. Then he hustled around the twin noses to climb in the pilot's side.

Nykostra looked out at the battle raging and wondered if it would be over before they took off. The power came on inside the cockpit and her dash lit up. A low throbbing sound began rising from the back of the fighter. She couldn't even see Verrad in the pilot seat not an arm's length from her.

"Can you hear me?" Verrad's voice said in her ears.

"Yes," she replied.

"We have to wait for the engines to warm before attempting to take off. If this doesn't work, my Empress. I want you to know that I've always stood with you. It has been an honor to be your servant."

She looked at the reflection of her own canopy in his. There was an honest truth in his voice. He was not just being polite with her.

"Thank you, Captain. I appreciate your loyalty. Now get us up to your ship."

He responded by throttling up and edging the fighter closer to the open bay. Nykostra gripped the dash in front of her. The lateral movement felt foreign to her and she braced herself for the inevitable fall.

The engine noise in the cramped cockpit reached a crescendo and suddenly she was thrust back into her seat as the KiV blasted free from the landing bay and out into the brilliant sunlight.

They rose up instead of falling down and her stomach tightened in response. Verrad worked the controls and the KiV rolled over as it skirted out of the path of incoming alien fighters. She watched them zip by and wondered which control in front of her worked the wing canons.

In a very short time they were out of the canyon and ascending rapidly. The battle was getting further behind them. Nothing in her field of view but blue sky and wispy white clouds.

That was easier than she had thought it would be. Apparently they did not make a suitable target. Warning buzzers sounded and lights blinked on her dash. She had no idea what it all meant.

"We're loosing thrust in the secondary engine. I'm shutting it down. We can still get to orbit on one," Verrad said.

The noise level dropped as he powered off the engine on her side of the fighter. They continued to soar upward into the thin air.

Nykostra thought she was beginning to see stars popping out of the darkening blue skies when the KiV started shaking hard. The second engine went out and her cockpit got very quiet.

The view shifted and she saw nothing but the brown, blotchy surface of Vac One. They were falling back down with no power.

"I've raised the ship, they are sending a squad to cover us. I'm going to try and set us down clear of the fighting."

She nodded, forgetting that he could not see her.

The tiny KiV dove down hard and she watched the gauges swing backwards until the cockpit lights winked out. For the first time she became worried that they would not make it down alive. The desert was spiraling up at them fast as Verrad struggled to right them.

She could no longer hear him in her ears. Just the hollow sounds of air whipping past her canopy. Finally the KiV leveled out as they made a wide turn tipping his wing to see where he could put them down.

Nykostra cinched her seat belts down harder and grabbed the tiny dash again. It would not be a smooth landing.

The KiV fighter slammed into the desert sands and skidded across a giant dune. It finally came to a halt with her side up in the air and Verrad's side buried in the sand. Nykostra hung in her seat belts for a few minutes before she realized how warm it was getting inside her cockpit. She unlocked the canopy and pushed it open. A wave of dry heat hit her like a wall.

She unbuckled herself and climbed out. It was a short drop to the sand that had piled up around the fighter. Sliding down to Verrad's cockpit she struggled to open it before the sand completely buried it. She managed to get a crack open and pulled up with all of her strength. He was inside but not moving. She worked to get the sand out of the way for a while and started to get weak from the exertion. The sun was burning bright overhead and the heat quickly sapped her strength.

After several tries at opening his canopy, she finally got it wide enough to attempt to pull him out. Drenched in her own sweat she stopped and started pulling off her royal gown sleeves and ripping away at her skirt. She rested under her cockpit in the shade. The heat was unbearable and she considered leaving him inside until sundown. She rested her head back and took deep breaths. She was alone on a hostile alien world far from her home. A satisfied smile played across her face. It was what she had always dreamed about, a real life adventure where it was up to her to save herself. At least until the rescue shuttle arrived. She crawled back over to Verrad and started pulling him from the cockpit. At one point he stirred and pushed himself out and into her arms. Together they slid down the dune until they were out of the direct rays of the sun.

She brushed sand from his face and tried to wake him, but he was gone again. Nykostra lay there in the sand beside Verrad for a long time, her strength dwindling. Her head began to swim like when she sat up too fast from a long stint on her throne. Eventually her eyes closed and she drifted off to sleep.

***

A thunderclap awakened her. She opened her eyes to the harsh glare of the sky in time to see a ship pass overhead.
Was it the shuttle?
She sat up and looked over at Verrad. He was still unconscious. She began to make her way up the dune side to get a clearer view. When she made it to the fighter she heard another engine scream. Looking out across the desert she saw that it was the shuttle but it was being attacked by Benzotii fighters. She watched the shuttle slam into the desert nearby and the bird shaped enemy fighter shoot off into the sky with a victory roll.