Cosmic Savior: (A Space Opera Adventure) (Interstellar Gunrunner Book 3), page 5
“Ras’tahf,” she said merrily, settling down on the other end of the sofa with her own glass in hand. “A traditional inustrazan liqueur.”
Much as I wanted to decline the foul-smelling brew, I was in no position to do so. Untold days spent in the Contrition, bereft of my favorite drugs or drinks, made any substance seem appealing. Hell, I would’ve guzzled a liter of turbine oil if somebody had left it lying around. And so, despite my reservations, I took a hesitant sip.
It was shockingly good.
“What’s this made of?” I asked.
Amodari took her own sip, then said, “A select blend of fruits and herbs… but mostly crushed insects.”
My throat seized up a little, but after a moment’s pause and an inner shrug, I kept drinking. Life is short.
“That’s it,” Amodari said encouragingly. “It will settle your stomach until mealtime.”
“By meal, you don’t mean living humanoids, do you?”
“Of course not, darling.” She smiled. “Such delicacies are reserved for my people.”
“Oh. That’s, uh, good, I suppose.” I cleared my throat, not quite sure I wanted to ask the questions lingering in my head. But I’d have to rip the bandage off sooner or later. I figured sooner was preferable. “Amodari, how long was I in there?”
She arched a brow and looked at the ribcage-adorned ceiling, chewing the question over. Inwardly, I braced myself for the news. How many years had gone by? Decades, perhaps?
“If my sense of time is accurate,” she began, “I’d say about two months.”
“Two months!?”
“Yes?”
“There’s gotta be a miscalculation. It felt like—”
“Eons,” Amodari finished. “Yes, I’m well aware. Grand Mediator Kemedis was rather liberal with her use of the chrono-dilator settings.”
Two months. Despite knowing that short span of time was a possibility, it didn’t seem real. All of that misery, that dehumanization, compressed into just over sixty days? Then and there, I understood that time was nothing more than a convenient illusion. Experience will always supersede “real” time.
Don’t misunderstand me—I was thrilled to discover that all the non-modified mortals I knew were (likely) still alive and kicking out there among the stars. Yet I couldn’t shake the distinct sense that I felt far, far older than I should. I looked down at my hands, wondering where all the wrinkles and scars of age were.
“But don’t trouble yourself with that,” Amodari said, I presume in an effort to get me out of my rather obvious rumination. “You must have innumerable questions about the state of the universe.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Go on then, darling. I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”
I blinked at her for a while, trying in vain to dredge up a single question that could assuage my existential doldrums. In the end, I started with the simplest line of inquiry.
“Why did you come back for me?”
Amodari took a long sip before replying. “I would have recovered you far sooner had certain… political shifts… not interfered.”
“Go on.”
“That’s quite a loaded topic,” she said. “Let me address your question at the surface. I came back for you because I love you, Bodhi Drezek. Each day and night without you, I longed for you. It pains me to think that you spent a single day in Kemedis’ clutches.”
“Oh, it pained me, too.” I paused, considering my flippant reply. “I’m trying to say thank you, Amodari. In a roundabout way.”
“I sense your love, dear. Don’t trouble yourself overmuch with the words.”
With a nod of thanks, I returned to my seemingly endless pit of questions. I’d had so much to ask while languishing in the Contrition, but out here, nothing came to mind. Perhaps while in the grips of torture, all of my mental conjuring had merely seemed more robust. A single coherent thought was a true mercy in that place.
But gradually, sluggishly, concrete questions bubbled up.
“My crew,” I said at length. “Where’s my crew?”
Amodari’s face wilted somewhat, as though she were disappointed with my line of questioning. It appeared she’d been waiting for me to ask about our future matrimony arrangements.
“I’ve nothing to offer in regards to that lot,” she said quietly. “Following the confrontation over the Promised Place, they vanished from the Hegemony’s sight. And thus, from mine.”
I pulled in a shallow breath at that, only to remember a time-honored proverb: no news is good news. Especially when your torturers were the sort that would delight in telling you the moment your crew was caught and killed.
“Nothing?” I prodded. “Not a peep? A carrier bird?”
She shook her head. “Some of our intelligence operatives claim that a woman matching the trollop’s description was spotted working with the insurgency on a barren world… but you can’t trust such reports all the time.”
“Trollop? You mean Chaska?”
“Yes. Her.”
Now that put a little fire in my heart. I tried to keep it free of my mind, however, on account of Amodari’s thought-prowling capabilities.
“Right, so my crew’s MIA, except for maybe Chaska,” I said, thinking aloud, scratching my chin. Then a lightning bolt of a thought struck me. “Back up to you and Kemedis for a minute. When Miss Malicious was about to feed me a five-course Kruthara meal, she told me that you and your ‘ilk’ had been branded traitors. She was spotty on the ilk part, but I gathered she meant, you know, everybody you’ve ever associated with. Gnosis, your species… I’m not quite grasping how things soured between you.”
“As I said, Bodhi, it’s a complicated situation.”
“So uncomplicate it for me.”
Her eyes darkened as she set her glass down. “Put simply, things are changing with the Hegemony. The war has seen to that.”
“I didn’t ask for simple, Amodari. Just uncomplicated.”
“You ought to dine and rest before we traverse such intricate ground.”
I sighed. “Can’t we just put on our boots and forge ahead? I’ve spent several lifetimes without answers.”
“Then what will a few more hours matter?”
“My sanity, I’d wager. Come on. Spill it.”
After a few more infuriating seconds of indecision, she spilled. “Things are dire in the cosmos. Day by day, more worlds disappear. Factions devour one another. Entire fleets go missing in the void. Those who are wise have already fled to the furthest reaches of the Nogo and beyond, hoping to outrun that which cannot be outrun.”
“Stirring. But get to the Hegemony part, please.”
“Very well. It would seem that leaders of their military wing recently came to the conclusion that they could not defeat Kruthara in combat. Especially not with Kruthara being aided by a sizable number of species that have already allied themselves against the Hegemony. Thus… a deal of surrender was forged.”
“And I was the bargaining chip?”
She shook her head. “Not just you, darling. The Hegemony agreed to surrender all of its knowledge to Kruthara in exchange for sparing their citizens. Foremost among their demands was the knowledge held by Gnosis.”
In case memory eludes you, Gnosis referred to the Hegemony’s esoteric inner circle. Its dark, scary, ancient secret holders. Amodari’s mother, Tanu, was part of this circle. Most of the top-tier inustrazans were, I’d gathered.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You didn’t turn it over willingly.”
“No, nor did we lose control of it. Gnosis has always maintained an oral record-keeping system to prevent situations like this from occurring. All of their secrets are held in the minds of those who discovered them.” Amodari took a long drink, looking more distraught by the second. “Grand Mediator Kemedis has, in effect, become the leader of the Halcius Hegemony. And they will stop at nothing to procure the information Kruthara seeks.”
“But what is it they want?” I pressed. “And why turn me over? I don’t know anything about anything!”
“Evidently Kruthara disagrees. You must remember that it’s already consumed the mind of Thamok and anybody else aboard the Ouroboros. Perhaps the assimilated minds believe you are a threat.”
I’ll admit, I was somewhat puffed up by this concept. It’s hard not to feel honored when you’re such an object of desire for a galaxy-consuming superorganism.
“Which is why it’s imperative that you tell me anything I ought to know,” Amodari finished.
“Are you sure I’m not in a simulation?”
“I’m certain.”
“Okay. Because, you know, if I were in a simulation, this is exactly how I’d have sensitive information pried out of me.”
Amodari smirked. “You are, for better or worse, free of the Contrition’s illusions. This is the time to make use of whatever revelations are stored in that succulent mind of yours.”
I combed through my rattled memories, trying to recall what Kemedis—and by extension, Kruthara—could possibly want to know. Anything I’d seen, Thamok had also seen. Then again, it was feasible that Kruthara merely believed I knew more than I did. That I was some font of knowledge about everything in the known universe. Well, that was half true, but no matter. It also struck me that Kruthara might’ve heard about Center, my self-aware hyperdimensional AI-turned-god. If it managed to consume Center, well…
Game over.
But the idea was quickly ejected from consideration. Center was beyond time and space now—inhabiting its own universe, if memory served. There was no conceivable way for Kruthara to reach them, let alone consume them as part of its mental buffet.
So what could it be?
“What about that marvelous little creature of yours?” Amodari prompted. “Perhaps its link to Kruthara was greater than Seeker Palamar let on?”
Creature. Sloth-thing. Tusky. It hit me in a flash—just after Kruthara’s fateful awakening, Tusky had quite literally eaten one of those red slugs off Ruena’s armor, seemingly without any ill effect. Was Tusky the missing link here? The key to formulating an antidote or, fingers crossed, a weapon I could sell for obscene profit?
“Not a clue,” I said, hoping Amodari wouldn’t be capable of dissecting my consciousness so swiftly. This, dear reader, is a lesson in “playing dumb.” If you know something of tremendous value that others might exploit, you would do well to hold onto your sacred realization until you can profit by your own hand. “Say, Amodari, maybe if you brought me to Chaska, it would jog my memory even further…”
Wrath crept into her eyes. “I’ve sacrificed so much to get you back in my embrace, Bodhi. Do you really think I would return you to that harlot so readily?”
This seemed ironic, considering Amodari was nothing short of a succubus herself, but I held my tongue.
“It could win us the war,” I pleaded.
“If I lose you, I have lost everything.”
“A touch oversentimental, no?”
Amodari regarded me with cold, cutting eyes for a moment that stretched on far too long. “You will remain at my side until the end of days. That is the definition of love, Bodhi.”
“Is it really, though?”
“Yes. You and I can live beyond the Hegemony’s blind obedience. Beyond Kruthara’s terror.”
“But for how long?” I countered. “You said it yourself—nothing outruns that thing. Sooner or later, we’ll be in for a bad time.”
“Then let’s opt for later. We could have ten thousand years of ecstasy…” She dragged an ice-cold, yet still enticing, finger along the curves of my collarbone. “Wouldn’t you like that, Bodhi?”
Truthfully, I would have. Would’ve died for a smattering of such ecstasy right then, in fact, had my mind not been occupied by concern for my loyal crew. And it was. It was overloaded with worries. Despite my best intentions, I’d gotten them into this mess, and I owed it to them to provide some measure of salvation. Even if that simply meant securing them an ark that could flee Kruthara until the end of their mortal existence.
“Please, Amodari,” I whispered. “Just take me to Chaska, let me know she’s okay. Then we can do whatever you want. And I do mean whatever. My body is ready.”
In a supreme act of transmutation, all the seduction in Amodari’s face burned away to spite. She stood, stepped back, and folded her arms. “You would do well to divert your mind away from that lustful glob of insurgent flesh. You wouldn’t want to disappoint my mother when she sifts through your mind, would you?”
“Your… mother?”
“Yes, Bodhi. My mother. You’ll be standing before her in a matter of hours.”
I swallowed so hard I worried I’d ruptured my throat. “Why would I be meeting her?”
“Because we’re currently en route to a detachment of Gnosis’ fleet. They will be escorting us to the hive-world. Did I neglect to mention that?”
“Yes?”
“Consider yourself informed, then.” Her face hardened with Kemedis-like scorn as she headed for the door. “Make skillful use of your time. My mother is not as patient as I am.”
The fatal flaw in the human mind is that struggling against a fixation doesn’t destroy it—it feeds it. You’ve probably noticed this phenomenon if you’re the sort of person who likes to indulge in a few too many cookies. No more cookies, you tell your mind. Maybe you even set up holographic motivational posters and a self-shocking bracelet to teach your mind that no means no. And ten minutes later, like clockwork, you still find yourself covered in cookie crumbs.
This may explain why, despite my best efforts, I found myself thinking of Chaska rather than Amodari. You must believe me—I really didn’t want to think about that wily woman. She’d left me for dead multiple times, she was part of a failed insurgency, and, worst of all, she represented a death sentence if discovered lurking in my subconscious.
But dammit, Chaska was my cookie.
As the hours slipped by and the pinch wore on, I found myself pacing Amodari’s empty quarters and thinking more and more about my femme fatale. The mere idea that she might be alive filled me with glee. Terrible, forbidden glee. And if she was alive, she might have a lead on the rest of the crew. Then we could get the gang back together, make a few sales…
No, I reminded myself. That was the old world. The pre-Kruthara world. It was gone now, having burned itself down to cold ashes while I rotted in the Contrition.
Yet Chaska was still my guiding star. She was a nostalgic expression of the world I’d once known, an ember in the metaphorical firepit of the universe. I wondered if she’d ever gotten the last message I sent to her. In it, I’d told her that I loved her. That I wanted a quiet life and children with her. That someday, somewhere, we’d meet again.
Yet Amodari was right. If her mother sensed even an inkling of this scandalous love, I might face a fate worse than the Contrition.
So I did what any self-respecting, morally dubious arms dealer would in a time of crisis.
I prayed to Halcius.
That’s right. No facetious remarks or underhanded jabs at faith here, folks. I knelt on Amodari’s boar-hair carpet, closed my eyes, and did my best to appear devout.
“Hey, Halcius,” I whispered, feeling foolish from the onset, “it’s me, Bodhi Drezek. Remember me? The one who blasphemed your name… and pissed on your symbol… and spent years mocking your followers? Yes, well, surprise! I mean, you’re omnipotent. You probably already knew I’d pray to you someday. And you probably also know what I’m about to say. But let’s just get down to brass tacks, shall we? I love this woman, Chaska, but I can’t have her right now. And I’d like to change that. So if you can find some way to bring me back to her, even for a moment… well, I’d be grateful. Maybe not join-the-Hegemony grateful, but grateful enough. Oh, and, uh, please don’t let Amodari’s mother know I love her. Thanks. Amen.”
Not quite sure how to finish my half-assed prayer, I hummed for a few seconds and then stood up. Good enough, right?
Not two seconds after I’d stood, the door chimed. In my post-prayer fervor, I couldn’t help but wonder if Halcius had gone for a slam-dunk by manifesting Chaska behind that door. Hey, they say the green geezer works in mysterious ways, right?
This temporary (and absurd) hope was quashed a moment later when the door opened to reveal Amodari and a pair of her armor-clad inustrazan commandos.
“Seeing clearer now, are we?” Amodari asked with a bloodcurdling smile.
I nodded. “Crystal clear!”
“Very good. Come along, my love. We’re nearly at our rendezvous point… I’d hate for you to miss the grand display.”
Seeing as I was in no position to reject Amodari’s offer, I joined her (and her armed entourage) in heading back to the bridge. Along the way, I’m certain I heard no less than six human screams emanating from somewhere deep in the vessel.
“No, that will probably not be your fate,” Amodari said, breaking the silence as we walked.
I flinched. “Come again?”
“The screams… you presumed you would come to the same end.”
“Me? Presume? Of course not. That would be—”
My fumbling reply was cut off by the sight of a naked, emaciated man worming himself through a nearby doorway and into our corridor. We all stopped dead in our tracks.
“Free!” the man croaked. “Free from that hell!”
Just then, no more than three-quarters of a second after proclaiming freedom, the man was dragged back into the same room by a pair of unseen yet powerful hands. He went kicking and screaming, raking his nails along the floor panels the entire way. Then the door hissed shut and locked.
“Pay no attention to that,” Amodari said in a sweet, airy tone. “I’ll just have to discipline the crew for playing with their food.”
“I didn’t see a thing, Amodari.”
“Good. Let’s proceed, shall we?”
“We shall.” Casually tiptoeing around the furrows the man had carved into the floor, another one of my delayed questions came to mind. “Why do we need to rendezvous with Gnosis?”
“Hmm?”
“You said we’re proceeding to a meeting point… then heading to your homeworld. Hive-world. You grasp my meaning. My point is, why not simply go there directly?”
Much as I wanted to decline the foul-smelling brew, I was in no position to do so. Untold days spent in the Contrition, bereft of my favorite drugs or drinks, made any substance seem appealing. Hell, I would’ve guzzled a liter of turbine oil if somebody had left it lying around. And so, despite my reservations, I took a hesitant sip.
It was shockingly good.
“What’s this made of?” I asked.
Amodari took her own sip, then said, “A select blend of fruits and herbs… but mostly crushed insects.”
My throat seized up a little, but after a moment’s pause and an inner shrug, I kept drinking. Life is short.
“That’s it,” Amodari said encouragingly. “It will settle your stomach until mealtime.”
“By meal, you don’t mean living humanoids, do you?”
“Of course not, darling.” She smiled. “Such delicacies are reserved for my people.”
“Oh. That’s, uh, good, I suppose.” I cleared my throat, not quite sure I wanted to ask the questions lingering in my head. But I’d have to rip the bandage off sooner or later. I figured sooner was preferable. “Amodari, how long was I in there?”
She arched a brow and looked at the ribcage-adorned ceiling, chewing the question over. Inwardly, I braced myself for the news. How many years had gone by? Decades, perhaps?
“If my sense of time is accurate,” she began, “I’d say about two months.”
“Two months!?”
“Yes?”
“There’s gotta be a miscalculation. It felt like—”
“Eons,” Amodari finished. “Yes, I’m well aware. Grand Mediator Kemedis was rather liberal with her use of the chrono-dilator settings.”
Two months. Despite knowing that short span of time was a possibility, it didn’t seem real. All of that misery, that dehumanization, compressed into just over sixty days? Then and there, I understood that time was nothing more than a convenient illusion. Experience will always supersede “real” time.
Don’t misunderstand me—I was thrilled to discover that all the non-modified mortals I knew were (likely) still alive and kicking out there among the stars. Yet I couldn’t shake the distinct sense that I felt far, far older than I should. I looked down at my hands, wondering where all the wrinkles and scars of age were.
“But don’t trouble yourself with that,” Amodari said, I presume in an effort to get me out of my rather obvious rumination. “You must have innumerable questions about the state of the universe.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Go on then, darling. I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”
I blinked at her for a while, trying in vain to dredge up a single question that could assuage my existential doldrums. In the end, I started with the simplest line of inquiry.
“Why did you come back for me?”
Amodari took a long sip before replying. “I would have recovered you far sooner had certain… political shifts… not interfered.”
“Go on.”
“That’s quite a loaded topic,” she said. “Let me address your question at the surface. I came back for you because I love you, Bodhi Drezek. Each day and night without you, I longed for you. It pains me to think that you spent a single day in Kemedis’ clutches.”
“Oh, it pained me, too.” I paused, considering my flippant reply. “I’m trying to say thank you, Amodari. In a roundabout way.”
“I sense your love, dear. Don’t trouble yourself overmuch with the words.”
With a nod of thanks, I returned to my seemingly endless pit of questions. I’d had so much to ask while languishing in the Contrition, but out here, nothing came to mind. Perhaps while in the grips of torture, all of my mental conjuring had merely seemed more robust. A single coherent thought was a true mercy in that place.
But gradually, sluggishly, concrete questions bubbled up.
“My crew,” I said at length. “Where’s my crew?”
Amodari’s face wilted somewhat, as though she were disappointed with my line of questioning. It appeared she’d been waiting for me to ask about our future matrimony arrangements.
“I’ve nothing to offer in regards to that lot,” she said quietly. “Following the confrontation over the Promised Place, they vanished from the Hegemony’s sight. And thus, from mine.”
I pulled in a shallow breath at that, only to remember a time-honored proverb: no news is good news. Especially when your torturers were the sort that would delight in telling you the moment your crew was caught and killed.
“Nothing?” I prodded. “Not a peep? A carrier bird?”
She shook her head. “Some of our intelligence operatives claim that a woman matching the trollop’s description was spotted working with the insurgency on a barren world… but you can’t trust such reports all the time.”
“Trollop? You mean Chaska?”
“Yes. Her.”
Now that put a little fire in my heart. I tried to keep it free of my mind, however, on account of Amodari’s thought-prowling capabilities.
“Right, so my crew’s MIA, except for maybe Chaska,” I said, thinking aloud, scratching my chin. Then a lightning bolt of a thought struck me. “Back up to you and Kemedis for a minute. When Miss Malicious was about to feed me a five-course Kruthara meal, she told me that you and your ‘ilk’ had been branded traitors. She was spotty on the ilk part, but I gathered she meant, you know, everybody you’ve ever associated with. Gnosis, your species… I’m not quite grasping how things soured between you.”
“As I said, Bodhi, it’s a complicated situation.”
“So uncomplicate it for me.”
Her eyes darkened as she set her glass down. “Put simply, things are changing with the Hegemony. The war has seen to that.”
“I didn’t ask for simple, Amodari. Just uncomplicated.”
“You ought to dine and rest before we traverse such intricate ground.”
I sighed. “Can’t we just put on our boots and forge ahead? I’ve spent several lifetimes without answers.”
“Then what will a few more hours matter?”
“My sanity, I’d wager. Come on. Spill it.”
After a few more infuriating seconds of indecision, she spilled. “Things are dire in the cosmos. Day by day, more worlds disappear. Factions devour one another. Entire fleets go missing in the void. Those who are wise have already fled to the furthest reaches of the Nogo and beyond, hoping to outrun that which cannot be outrun.”
“Stirring. But get to the Hegemony part, please.”
“Very well. It would seem that leaders of their military wing recently came to the conclusion that they could not defeat Kruthara in combat. Especially not with Kruthara being aided by a sizable number of species that have already allied themselves against the Hegemony. Thus… a deal of surrender was forged.”
“And I was the bargaining chip?”
She shook her head. “Not just you, darling. The Hegemony agreed to surrender all of its knowledge to Kruthara in exchange for sparing their citizens. Foremost among their demands was the knowledge held by Gnosis.”
In case memory eludes you, Gnosis referred to the Hegemony’s esoteric inner circle. Its dark, scary, ancient secret holders. Amodari’s mother, Tanu, was part of this circle. Most of the top-tier inustrazans were, I’d gathered.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You didn’t turn it over willingly.”
“No, nor did we lose control of it. Gnosis has always maintained an oral record-keeping system to prevent situations like this from occurring. All of their secrets are held in the minds of those who discovered them.” Amodari took a long drink, looking more distraught by the second. “Grand Mediator Kemedis has, in effect, become the leader of the Halcius Hegemony. And they will stop at nothing to procure the information Kruthara seeks.”
“But what is it they want?” I pressed. “And why turn me over? I don’t know anything about anything!”
“Evidently Kruthara disagrees. You must remember that it’s already consumed the mind of Thamok and anybody else aboard the Ouroboros. Perhaps the assimilated minds believe you are a threat.”
I’ll admit, I was somewhat puffed up by this concept. It’s hard not to feel honored when you’re such an object of desire for a galaxy-consuming superorganism.
“Which is why it’s imperative that you tell me anything I ought to know,” Amodari finished.
“Are you sure I’m not in a simulation?”
“I’m certain.”
“Okay. Because, you know, if I were in a simulation, this is exactly how I’d have sensitive information pried out of me.”
Amodari smirked. “You are, for better or worse, free of the Contrition’s illusions. This is the time to make use of whatever revelations are stored in that succulent mind of yours.”
I combed through my rattled memories, trying to recall what Kemedis—and by extension, Kruthara—could possibly want to know. Anything I’d seen, Thamok had also seen. Then again, it was feasible that Kruthara merely believed I knew more than I did. That I was some font of knowledge about everything in the known universe. Well, that was half true, but no matter. It also struck me that Kruthara might’ve heard about Center, my self-aware hyperdimensional AI-turned-god. If it managed to consume Center, well…
Game over.
But the idea was quickly ejected from consideration. Center was beyond time and space now—inhabiting its own universe, if memory served. There was no conceivable way for Kruthara to reach them, let alone consume them as part of its mental buffet.
So what could it be?
“What about that marvelous little creature of yours?” Amodari prompted. “Perhaps its link to Kruthara was greater than Seeker Palamar let on?”
Creature. Sloth-thing. Tusky. It hit me in a flash—just after Kruthara’s fateful awakening, Tusky had quite literally eaten one of those red slugs off Ruena’s armor, seemingly without any ill effect. Was Tusky the missing link here? The key to formulating an antidote or, fingers crossed, a weapon I could sell for obscene profit?
“Not a clue,” I said, hoping Amodari wouldn’t be capable of dissecting my consciousness so swiftly. This, dear reader, is a lesson in “playing dumb.” If you know something of tremendous value that others might exploit, you would do well to hold onto your sacred realization until you can profit by your own hand. “Say, Amodari, maybe if you brought me to Chaska, it would jog my memory even further…”
Wrath crept into her eyes. “I’ve sacrificed so much to get you back in my embrace, Bodhi. Do you really think I would return you to that harlot so readily?”
This seemed ironic, considering Amodari was nothing short of a succubus herself, but I held my tongue.
“It could win us the war,” I pleaded.
“If I lose you, I have lost everything.”
“A touch oversentimental, no?”
Amodari regarded me with cold, cutting eyes for a moment that stretched on far too long. “You will remain at my side until the end of days. That is the definition of love, Bodhi.”
“Is it really, though?”
“Yes. You and I can live beyond the Hegemony’s blind obedience. Beyond Kruthara’s terror.”
“But for how long?” I countered. “You said it yourself—nothing outruns that thing. Sooner or later, we’ll be in for a bad time.”
“Then let’s opt for later. We could have ten thousand years of ecstasy…” She dragged an ice-cold, yet still enticing, finger along the curves of my collarbone. “Wouldn’t you like that, Bodhi?”
Truthfully, I would have. Would’ve died for a smattering of such ecstasy right then, in fact, had my mind not been occupied by concern for my loyal crew. And it was. It was overloaded with worries. Despite my best intentions, I’d gotten them into this mess, and I owed it to them to provide some measure of salvation. Even if that simply meant securing them an ark that could flee Kruthara until the end of their mortal existence.
“Please, Amodari,” I whispered. “Just take me to Chaska, let me know she’s okay. Then we can do whatever you want. And I do mean whatever. My body is ready.”
In a supreme act of transmutation, all the seduction in Amodari’s face burned away to spite. She stood, stepped back, and folded her arms. “You would do well to divert your mind away from that lustful glob of insurgent flesh. You wouldn’t want to disappoint my mother when she sifts through your mind, would you?”
“Your… mother?”
“Yes, Bodhi. My mother. You’ll be standing before her in a matter of hours.”
I swallowed so hard I worried I’d ruptured my throat. “Why would I be meeting her?”
“Because we’re currently en route to a detachment of Gnosis’ fleet. They will be escorting us to the hive-world. Did I neglect to mention that?”
“Yes?”
“Consider yourself informed, then.” Her face hardened with Kemedis-like scorn as she headed for the door. “Make skillful use of your time. My mother is not as patient as I am.”
The fatal flaw in the human mind is that struggling against a fixation doesn’t destroy it—it feeds it. You’ve probably noticed this phenomenon if you’re the sort of person who likes to indulge in a few too many cookies. No more cookies, you tell your mind. Maybe you even set up holographic motivational posters and a self-shocking bracelet to teach your mind that no means no. And ten minutes later, like clockwork, you still find yourself covered in cookie crumbs.
This may explain why, despite my best efforts, I found myself thinking of Chaska rather than Amodari. You must believe me—I really didn’t want to think about that wily woman. She’d left me for dead multiple times, she was part of a failed insurgency, and, worst of all, she represented a death sentence if discovered lurking in my subconscious.
But dammit, Chaska was my cookie.
As the hours slipped by and the pinch wore on, I found myself pacing Amodari’s empty quarters and thinking more and more about my femme fatale. The mere idea that she might be alive filled me with glee. Terrible, forbidden glee. And if she was alive, she might have a lead on the rest of the crew. Then we could get the gang back together, make a few sales…
No, I reminded myself. That was the old world. The pre-Kruthara world. It was gone now, having burned itself down to cold ashes while I rotted in the Contrition.
Yet Chaska was still my guiding star. She was a nostalgic expression of the world I’d once known, an ember in the metaphorical firepit of the universe. I wondered if she’d ever gotten the last message I sent to her. In it, I’d told her that I loved her. That I wanted a quiet life and children with her. That someday, somewhere, we’d meet again.
Yet Amodari was right. If her mother sensed even an inkling of this scandalous love, I might face a fate worse than the Contrition.
So I did what any self-respecting, morally dubious arms dealer would in a time of crisis.
I prayed to Halcius.
That’s right. No facetious remarks or underhanded jabs at faith here, folks. I knelt on Amodari’s boar-hair carpet, closed my eyes, and did my best to appear devout.
“Hey, Halcius,” I whispered, feeling foolish from the onset, “it’s me, Bodhi Drezek. Remember me? The one who blasphemed your name… and pissed on your symbol… and spent years mocking your followers? Yes, well, surprise! I mean, you’re omnipotent. You probably already knew I’d pray to you someday. And you probably also know what I’m about to say. But let’s just get down to brass tacks, shall we? I love this woman, Chaska, but I can’t have her right now. And I’d like to change that. So if you can find some way to bring me back to her, even for a moment… well, I’d be grateful. Maybe not join-the-Hegemony grateful, but grateful enough. Oh, and, uh, please don’t let Amodari’s mother know I love her. Thanks. Amen.”
Not quite sure how to finish my half-assed prayer, I hummed for a few seconds and then stood up. Good enough, right?
Not two seconds after I’d stood, the door chimed. In my post-prayer fervor, I couldn’t help but wonder if Halcius had gone for a slam-dunk by manifesting Chaska behind that door. Hey, they say the green geezer works in mysterious ways, right?
This temporary (and absurd) hope was quashed a moment later when the door opened to reveal Amodari and a pair of her armor-clad inustrazan commandos.
“Seeing clearer now, are we?” Amodari asked with a bloodcurdling smile.
I nodded. “Crystal clear!”
“Very good. Come along, my love. We’re nearly at our rendezvous point… I’d hate for you to miss the grand display.”
Seeing as I was in no position to reject Amodari’s offer, I joined her (and her armed entourage) in heading back to the bridge. Along the way, I’m certain I heard no less than six human screams emanating from somewhere deep in the vessel.
“No, that will probably not be your fate,” Amodari said, breaking the silence as we walked.
I flinched. “Come again?”
“The screams… you presumed you would come to the same end.”
“Me? Presume? Of course not. That would be—”
My fumbling reply was cut off by the sight of a naked, emaciated man worming himself through a nearby doorway and into our corridor. We all stopped dead in our tracks.
“Free!” the man croaked. “Free from that hell!”
Just then, no more than three-quarters of a second after proclaiming freedom, the man was dragged back into the same room by a pair of unseen yet powerful hands. He went kicking and screaming, raking his nails along the floor panels the entire way. Then the door hissed shut and locked.
“Pay no attention to that,” Amodari said in a sweet, airy tone. “I’ll just have to discipline the crew for playing with their food.”
“I didn’t see a thing, Amodari.”
“Good. Let’s proceed, shall we?”
“We shall.” Casually tiptoeing around the furrows the man had carved into the floor, another one of my delayed questions came to mind. “Why do we need to rendezvous with Gnosis?”
“Hmm?”
“You said we’re proceeding to a meeting point… then heading to your homeworld. Hive-world. You grasp my meaning. My point is, why not simply go there directly?”
