Ereshkigal’s War (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 5), page 4
And with her ex-boyfriend, she earned the title “Bitch Queen” because she got into a heated argument with him and threw a kitchen pan at his face. Just by thinking about it.
LeBoeuf descended the ladder, stepped into the cargo hold, walked past the transport and rover, and drew Maxwell’s attention as she moved closer. Maxwell had stood ahead of the doorway to the ship’s armory, chatting with the person inside.
“Yo, Maxwell,” LeBoeuf said, waving her left hand at him.
Maxwell nodded to her. “LeBoeuf, you still awake?”
“It was game night in Chang’s quarters,” she said. “Not that it mattered because . . .” LeBoeuf held up the package of brain medication.
Maxwell did the same. “Yeah, I got my refill earlier. My fucking head was thumping last night.” He spun back to the opened armory door. “So anyway. Hey, Miles, you still there?” Maxwell walked into the armory. “Ah, there you are. So yeah, that’s when my ex-girlfriend started freaking the fuck out, all because I fucked her twin sister, not realizing it was her. Yet, I was the bad guy? Like fuck, her sister tricked me! She should have been throwing shit at her, not me!”
“Heh,” Lieutenant Jacob Miles said simply.
LeBoeuf followed Maxwell into the armory where he rambled on about his ex. Miles kept his attention on the pistol he had taken apart to clean, one of many firearms spread out across the table. The marine was in the middle of maintaining the ship’s lockup of guns and his exosuits. On the wall were various rifles recharging and spare battery packs for them also getting a recharge. Once finished putting the pistol back together, Miles reached for an assault rifle, activated its internal computer, and calibrated its targeting scanner.
“So did she throw all that stuff at you with her hands or mind?” Miles asked Maxwell.
“Mind,” Maxwell said. “She was a psionic, easier to use telekinesis than your hands.”
“I can attest to that,” LeBoeuf said, laughing.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if my ex got the idea from you, LeBoeuf,” Maxwell said. “So, thanks for that, Witch Queen.” Maxwell eyed the firearms in the armory’s lockup. He whistled. “I never realized we had so many weapons locked up here.”
“Yeah,” LeBoeuf said, glaring at seven assault rifles slotted into the wall. “Foster keeps insisting that this isn’t a warship, but fuck this is a lot of firepower we’re packing. Earth weapons, Radiance weapons, Foster’s Draconian tachyon rifle, our psionic rifles.”
“And now.” Miles thumbed backward at a set of neatly lined plasma rifles plugged into the wall for recharging. “Hashmedai arms from our last adventure.”
And below the plasma rifles were Hashmedai plasma swords and pistols plugged into a multi-tap charger designed for Earth, Radiance, and Imperial tech. Somewhere in the back was Tiamat’s breastplate, an old piece of power armor once worn by an ancient psionic alien. The Johannes Kepler had gathered quite the collection.
“Hey, Miles,” LeBoeuf said to him. “Chang plans to make game night something we do every Friday. You in?”
“No can do, love, it’s the playoffs,” Miles said, gesturing to a small holo screen in the corner. There was a live baseball game broadcasting via QEC. “Chang always plans those things when the game is on.”
LeBoeuf’s psionic mind sensed something that made her stagger as if the universe underwent a sudden shift. Miles and Maxwell eyed her closely with concern.
“What’s wrong?” Miles asked.
It felt like the walls and floor were moving. But only for a second.
“We just dropped out of FTL,” LeBoeuf revealed.
Miles raised his ginger eyebrow. “How’d you know?”
“I can sense it . . .” She tapped the side of her head. “My powers are more sensitive these days.”
“After effects from Antoir’s poison?” Miles asked.
“The antidote, actually,” Maxwell said. “We were fine for the first few months of our recovery, and then just a few weeks ago, bam! My head felt like it was about to explode. Hmm, we dropped out of FTL, you say? Thought we weren’t due to arrive at that Hashmedai colony for a few more days.”
LeBoeuf felt another shift pulse through the ship. “Kepler’s back in FTL . . . And . . . I think we changed directions.”
“So, we’re not on course to the colony?” Maxwell asked.
LeBoeuf shook her head. “Nope.”
Miles leaned back and folded his arms. “I wonder what’s up.” Then he eyed the baseball game. LeBoeuf wondered if it was a good idea to perform weapons maintenance and watch a playoff game simultaneously.
She activated her HNI and contacted the bridge. Foster’s face appeared in LeBoeuf’s vision. It looked like Foster sat on the captain’s chair and was using her wrist terminal to speak with her.
“Hey, did we change our heading?” LeBoeuf asked.
“We did,” Foster replied. “We’re heading to the distress signal after all.”
“The one that died suddenly?”
“The very same,” Foster said. “If you haven’t checked out for the night, LeBoeuf, I’d really appreciate it if you could linger around for a bit, just in case there’s trouble.”
“Understood.”
And with a quick thought, LeBoeuf ended the link, and Foster’s image vanished from the small holo screen that appeared over her eyes.
“Just in case?” LeBoeuf laughed. “Fuck me. Hey, those guns good, Marine?
Miles held up the assault rifle he was calibrating, eyed the digital ammo counter, then gave her a nod. “Aye.” He gestured to the psionic rifles on the wall receiving a recharge. “Same with yer psionic toys over there.”
LeBoeuf grinned at a psionic rifle, the one covered with skulls, roses, and the stencil spray-painted letters spelling the words “Witch Queen” across the rifle’s barrel.
4 PEIUN
Mountain Range
Unknown Habitable Planet, Unnamed System
Unable to Retrieve Date, Unable to Retrieve Time
Psionic energy slowly reconstructed the Rezeki’s Rage and its crew atom by atom. The Imperial frigate rematerialized back into the universe after an unknown amount of time in space bridge limbo. Though it only felt like seconds had passed since Peiun Starblazer and his crew were in the Ueijelico system and performing a perilous space bridge jump. A jump that worked. He’d celebrate, but somewhere outside the ship’s hull were five Draconian battleships and dozens of wyverns that had transitioned with them into Omega Centauri. At least, he hoped they arrived within the globular cluster hanging at the edge of the galaxy.
“Location?” Peiun asked, both hands clenching the arms of his captain’s chair.
The viewscreen updated, and Peiun saw what the Rezeki’s Rage’s external cameras captured, blue skies and a snowcapped mountain dead ahead, covered in a lush boreal forest. The blind space bridge jump placed the Rezeki’s Rage in a planet’s atmosphere. He was right not to celebrate.
Peiun accessed his HNI, synchronized it with the crew, and sent out a wide broadcast. “All hands! Brace for impact!”
The Rezeki’s Rage had plunged for the snowcapped mountain ahead. At the last second, it shifted to the side and grazed the rocky terrain with its shields. It came at a cost. The Rezeki’s Rage crashed through a smaller mountain. The impact was devastating enough to shatter what little shield strength they had left, preventing the ship’s destruction and launching dozens of pine trees, dirt, and animals into the sky.
That was the danger of a blind jump. One never knew what their ship might end up inside. Peiun considered himself fortunate that the Rezeki’s Rage didn’t materialize inside a star. Omega Centauri had a lot of them, and they were relatively close to each other.
The Rezeki’s Rage passed through the mountain, punching a hole through it, and continued onward, casting its shadow on the forested landscape below.
“Shields down!” Uemsu reported.
Nadevina eyed the many warnings appearing as floating holo screens near her station. “We’re losing altitude!” she revealed.
“Keep us in motion,” Peiun said to Nadevina. “The Rezeki’s Rage wasn’t designed for atmospheric travel. It will be difficult to get into space again if we hit the surface.”
Nadevina panicked. “Trying my best, Captain!”
“Where are the Draconian ships?!” Peiun asked as the Rezeki’s Rage moved aside from another mountain. He spotted a Draconian ship cratering the mountain’s side. “I see.”
“Several others are falling around us,” Alesyna reported, having broken from her psionic ESP trance. “Same with the wyverns.”
“Falling? As in, they are not moving?”
Alesyna nodded. “See for yourself, Captain.”
Peiun’s HNI received a request from Alesyna offering to share data with him. He accepted the request, and a projection appeared over his eyes displaying what Alesyna’s ESP sensed outside in conjunction with the ship’s sensor scans. The tactical hologram displayed the location of five crashing Draconian vessels, including the one that hit the surface, and multiple wyverns. Peiun didn’t count how many wyverns were falling from the skies.
One Draconian ship was about to fall on the Rezeki’s Rage. A quick turn to the right pulled the Rezeki’s Rage away from the crashing bioship. A second turn to the left carried the Rezeki’s Rage aside from another crashing Draconian ship, then another, each impact shaking the planet’s surface and adding new craters to the landscape. One could say it was raining Draconian bioships and lifeless wyverns. So many wyverns fell it left the Rezeki’s Rage with no choice but to dive closer to the surface and fly under the tumbling, winged creatures to escape. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the Rezeki’s Rage had been designed for atmospheric operations. Had the ship not been equipped with an MRF to reduce its mass, they’d be helping the Draconians add another crater to the planet.
Peiun didn’t want to risk striking the falling wyverns without the shields active. According to his HNI, the wyverns had reached terminal velocity. The last time he checked, the Draconians augmented their wyverns with cybernetics that enabled them to breathe psionic plasma. He wasn’t sure what else might have been inside the wyverns, but a wyvern slamming into the Rezeki’s Rage at terminal velocity without shields active would cause significant damage to the hull. His suspicions proved him right seconds later when scans detected multiple detonations juddering the landscape. The wyverns hit the ground with enough force to make the technology within them explode and incinerate trees to ashes. The tumbling wyverns were nothing more than organic bombs dropping from the skies.
“Nadevina?” Peiun said to the helmswoman.
“Trying to recover!”
The Rezeki’s Rage kept in motion to prevent gravity from pulling it down. Keeping it moving straight wasn’t an easy thing to do. There were too many wyverns falling around them. Pointing the Rezeki’s Rage to the skies and using the sublight drive wasn’t enough. Nadevina would end up slamming the ship into the last plunging bioship. Or space debris. Or more wyverns. The Rezeki’s Rage had to clear the falling wyverns and the last bioship first, then scan ahead to ensure that increasing speed to half the speed of light would be safe.
“Why are the Draconians falling?” Uemsu asked from his station.
“It looks like their ships aren’t active,” Alesyna said. “As for the wyverns, I do not know.”
The young bridge officer looked at the viewscreen. “I wonder what happened to them?”
“Let us figure that out later!” Peiun cut in. It wasn’t the time for wonder or speculation. It was time for survival because their fight in the Ueijelico system was not over.
The last Draconian ship was falling ahead of the Rezeki’s Rage. This time, the Rezeki’s Rage pulled up and over it, darkened the bioship’s fleshy hull briefly with its shadow, then propelled toward the blue skies devoid of clouds and limp wyverns.
Nadevina eyed a holo screen to her left that flashed green. “Captain, we should be clear now!”
Peiun adjusted his posture. “Get us out of here, Nadevina!”
“Yes, Captain!”
The Rezeki’s Rage flashed out of sight when it entered sublight, leaving the planet’s atmosphere in seconds and propelling through the vacuum of space once again. An alarm blared suddenly while an HNI notification pulsed to hook Peiun’s attention. Radiation warning. With no shields active, the crew was in the perfect position to expose themselves to elevated levels of cosmic radiation. Nothing major for the time being. Hashmedai, unlike humans, were more resistant to radiation. Nevertheless, the close proximity of the stars in Omega Centauri created a region of space where radiation was much higher than the levels found in the inner Milky Way.
“Full stop,” Peiun ordered.
Nadevina complied. “Disengaging sublight, Captain.”
The Rezeki’s Rage flashed back into existence and orbited at a distance where the planet’s magnetosphere protected the ship from radiation. The stop allowed the crew to collect their thoughts and Peiun to review the newly updated tactical map. He accessed data regarding the system they arrived in and compared it with all known star system maps cataloged by the Hashmedai Empire. There was no correlation found. He accessed known stellar data about star systems humans had discovered. No correlation. Lastly, Peiun viewed information about all known star systems that Radiance had discovered and explored. His holo screen projected the same message. Peiun found no correlation with their current system.
The Rezeki’s Rage had indeed traveled to the edge of the galaxy and was orbiting a planet within an uncharted star system.
“Damage report,” Peiun requested of his bridge crew.
Uemsu tended to his station. “Sending it to your HNI now, Captain.”
The damage report appeared on a screen before Peiun’s left eye. There were a lot of ruined compartments, and not having shields active wasn’t helping their situation. One shot through the Rezeki’s Rage’s reactor or bridge and their voyage would be over instantly.
“It would appear that we have made it to Omega Centauri,” Alesyna said.
“Yes . . . but where?” Peiun said, snarling at the three-dimensional map of an unknown star system. “Contact the Kepler. I imagine Foster would like to know that she has an ally here.”
Uemsu nodded, spun to his terminal, and attempted to access the Rezeki’s Rage’s QEC. He looked at Peiun with a disappointed expression. “I can’t reach them.”
“Try the empress.”
The officer shook his head after a minute. “I cannot reach the empress either, Captain.”
Peiun faced the young man with a raised eyebrow. “Is the QEC damaged?”
“It is working fine, Captain,” Uemsu said. “There is no network to connect with.”
“Strange . . .” Peiun steepled his fingers and narrowed his eyes. “How long have we been in limbo? Is it possible we’ve been gone so long that the QEC network underwent changes?”
“I shall telepathically reach someone when my mind has recovered,” Alesyna offered.
Nadevina studied the three-dimensional map of the system closely, her eyes wide in appreciation of its sight. “We are the first Hashmedai to explore this system then.”
Peiun nodded to the helmswoman. “And the first to fly through that planet’s atmosphere, in a ship not meant for atmospheric flight at that. Excellent work, Nadevina.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“In honor of your skills, I believe we shall name this planet Nadevina’s World after you.”
She gasped. Nadevina spun her chair around and looked at her captain. “Naming this world after me?”
He nodded to her. “It was your skills that allowed us to survive. This is now your planet.”
Nadevina stood up, put her hands to her side, then bent her torso in a deep, respectful bow. Coming up from the bow, she added. “I accept the honor.” Then she gave Peiun a flawless Imperial Navy salute. He returned the salute.
“Now,” Peiun said, accessing footage of the crashing Draconian ships and limp wyverns.
A reply of their escape played in his vision as multiple holo screens showed what the various external cameras captured. Draconian wyverns and bioships falling from the skies. None had spun to move after the Rezeki’s Rage or fire their tachyon weapons. They simply rematerialized in the planet’s atmosphere and fell. Current sensor scans of the planet’s surface informed him that the five crashed ships didn’t move either. They just idled in the craters their crash created. There wasn’t anything left of the wyverns after they slammed into the surface at terminal velocity. Peiun looked away from the data markers pointing to the impact locations of the dead wyverns. He would not be getting any answers from them.
“Why did the Draconians go inert?” Peiun said to himself. Eyeing the data wasn’t giving him the answers. “Helm, bring us into a synchronous orbit of the Draconian crash site.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Uemsu, have a team of warriors and a guardian accompany me to a transport.” Peiun stood and strode to the bridge’s exit.
“Assuming we have anything left that is functioning,” Alesyna snorted.
“Then get engineering to prepare a transport for me.”
“You’re really going to the surface?” Alesyna asked, her gaze following Peiun as he moved across the bridge.
“Yes, Alesyna.”
“Why?”
“Because we might have just discovered the Draconians’ weakness, something we can exploit to end this conflict.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, her head tilted to the side.
“They operate bioships,” Peiun said, spinning to face her. “What are the chances bioships would suffer mechanical problems like the ships we use, let alone mechanical problems across several ships all at once? Let us not forget what happened to those wyverns. They seemed to have gone inert at the same time the Draconian ships did.”
