Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (21 page)

“And I wound up thrown in the dungeon because of it.”

I tapped the crate and the guns.

“But now… all that is behind me. For a thousand years I sat on this rock, and gathered this collection of cosmic firepower, with no way to get it or myself to the City. Now I have the means to travel there and the means to enforce my will when I arrive. The Golden City will open its gates to me once more, and Baranak will beg my forgiveness for daring to impugn my name, or—”

The hand laid gently on my arm brought me up short, and I halted in mid-rant, mouth hanging open, and looked at Evelyn. She simply shook her head.

“Settle down,” she said. “Get a grip.”

My eyebrows were thunderclouds, my anger building unabated, until… it abated. Just like that. It was the strangest thing. I worked my jaw a few times, but could no longer work up the righteous indignation within which I had been reveling only moments earlier.

“You simply want to get them to listen to you, to give you a fair chance to prove your innocence in the murders,” she said evenly. “And you want to help me find my friends and get us home. That’s what you want to do.”

I stammered a few unintelligible words, then stopped trying to speak altogether. Leaning back against the wall, I ran my hand through my hair and stared at the floor, dumbstruck.

This was simply unacceptable, if not utterly inconceivable. How dare she? I had carefully laid plans over ten centuries and, despite completely blowing it the first time, I intended to do things right this time. Who was this woman to stand in my way?

“So,” she was saying, “what do we need to do with these weapons?”

My anger, godlike and terrible, flared brighter within me, and my wrath grew to a terrifying and overwhelming pitch, and I said to her then: “Um… Help me find the forklift.”

# # #

Still in a daze, I roamed the aisles, alongside Evelyn. Soon enough, we found the forklift.

It was actually a gravity-defying device that could hold quite a load of crates. We managed to secure ten of them on board before the stack grew unwieldy. That totaled fifty rifles, with an equal number of pistols. A nice start, I thought. And, given the drastic reduction in the—you’ll pardon the expression—manpower that Baranak would be able to bring to bear, quite possibly more than enough already.

With a grim sense of satisfaction I had not felt in quite some time, I activated the controls and steered the hovering platform down the aisle and to the warehouse exit. Unlatching the door, I slid it upward, and Evelyn and I stepped out into darkness.

Nighttime in Mysen City. For a place I had called home only days earlier, it could have been the far side of the galaxy to me. What a difference in outlook the Power made, as it moved through the body and energized the muscles and heightened the consciousness—and amplified ambitions.

Evelyn walked alongside the forklift, clearly uncomfortable. I had found her an ill-fitting but nondescript gray coat within the warehouse, to cover her bright blue flight suit with its golden Terran Alliance markings and insignias. I hoped it would prevent any further incidents and forestall uncomfortable questions from any who happened by us. Evelyn, though, could not possibly have been happy to walk the streets of a world she considered distasteful at best and rebellious at worst.

I looked at her then, studying her as her own attention was drawn to the darkened buildings and the few people moving about the streets. I had to admit I found her quite attractive. Though battered and bruised by all we had endured since our escape, she carried herself with a natural grace, an inner strength and beauty that radiated beyond the surface. And those eyes, blue to the point of luminosity, held a power of their own, subtle but distinct. Then I remembered my earlier admonition to myself about involvement with mortals, chuckled at the outrageousness of the thought that I should even need such a warning, and put the entire subject out of my mind.

Soon enough, we reached our destination. A big, square building, windowless, it boasted another broad door like the one we had just exited. By habit, I started to reach out and touch the identification pad, then laughed and exerted a tiny fraction of the Power instead. The lock cycled and the door slid upward.

We led the cargo lifter inside and I pulled the door closed behind us, then hit the lights. Evelyn gasped.

The entire space of the building’s interior was hollow, and only one object sat within it: my personal spacecraft. About thirty-five meters long, and nearly as wide, it resembled a giant bird of prey, its forward cockpit section curving down, its metal wings spread in graceful, curving arcs. The overhead lights shone down, rippling over the slick, smooth surface.

I stood back, admiring my favorite toy.

“That’s… that’s… wow,” Evelyn stammered. “That’s beautiful.”

Evelyn walked forward in a daze, reached out, and ran her hand along the synthetic resin and ceramic surface.

“It looks like a Viggen-12, but there shouldn’t be any of those out here in the Outer Worlds.”

She walked around the side, her eyes moving over the big, silvery bulk.

“And it really isn’t even that, is it? It’s something new…”

“Very new,” I said. “One of a kind. Based on the Viggen, yes, but heavily modified by the best engineers and designers to be found on Mysentia.”

“You must have found some good ones,” she said, envy obvious in her voice.

“It is quite remarkable what one can accomplish, given enough time and resources,” I replied.

“And power,” she added.

“I had no access to the Power during much of my exile.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of power,” she said. “If you really were close to unifying the Outer Worlds, before you abandoned it all to go running back to your City, you must have commanded a great deal of power and influence out here.”

I shrugged, no longer terribly interested in discussing the political matters of this plane. When Mysentia had been my only home and refuge, I had devoted considerable effort to bettering its position and power. Yet, as concerned as I had become over the plight of the Outer Worlds at the hands of the Terran Alliance, it had all become much less important to me the moment the Power had returned. Surprisingly, I found I did still feel something of a slight attachment to and a concern for Mysentia, but I dismissed this as pure sentimentality manifesting itself upon my return. Casting such thoughts aside, I returned my attention to the huge gleaming vehicle in front of me.

My beautiful spacecraft filled almost the entire available space, but, in truth, it did not seem terribly bulky. Indeed, it appeared sleek and streamlined and ready to hurl itself into the void of its own accord. Its smooth, blue-gray flank sparkled and rippled with a light that could not entirely be accounted for by reflection of the building’s own illumination. Even the four landing pads upon which it sat spoke more of sculpture than cold mechanics. How proud I was of it. To think I might have remained in the Golden City, had I been welcomed there, and never thought to revisit this grand machine again! Perhaps seeing it again represented something good to have come from my travails. I surely couldn’t think of anything else that had happened so far that fit that description.

Recalling the security codes from my memory, I gestured with one hand and exerted a touch of the Power. The cargo hatch unlocked and slid open. Maneuvering the lifter around, I pushed it up into the cargo bay and closed the door.

“This may seem like a dumb question, given that you’re loading your weapons onto a spacecraft, here,” Evelyn said, “but: We’re flying somewhere?”

“Yes.”

She bit her lip, thinking.

“You don’t have an army to go with your guns. Planning on doing some recruiting?”

“Soldiers are not all I need before I can assault the Golden City.”

“Okay…” She waited a few seconds, until sure I would not volunteer any further information. Then, “So, what else do you need?”

“You will see soon enough. When we reach Candis.”

“Candis?”

She frowned, puzzled.

“Is that rock even inhabited?”

“Your prejudices are showing again,” I pointed out, only half-seriously.

She snorted.

“Some do live there,” I said. “Not many, fortunately.”

She nodded slowly.

“And… we can’t just zap our way there?”

“You may have noticed,” I replied, “that I cannot ‘zap’ our way everywhere, else our legs would not presently be so sore. Travel via portals requires conditions conducive to opening them, unless one wishes to exert enough overwhelming energy to bludgeon one open—something I generally prefer to avoid.”

Walking around to the front, where the ship’s long nose section angled down, I motioned again and another hatch opened, this one leading into the passenger cabin and from there to the cockpit.

“There are simply no good spots to open a portal on the surface of that world,” I said, “or even in the vicinity of space around it.”

She took all of that in, then returned to her original point.

“So what do you want there?”

She climbed through the hatch, and I followed her, closing it behind us.

“You will see soon enough,” I replied.

I took my place in the cockpit and Evelyn slid easily into the seat opposite me. She took a quick inventory of the controls and indicators and seemed comfortable enough.

“It looks close enough to a Twelve that I know where everything is,” she said with a tight smile. “I could fly it.”

I smiled back, settling into the cushioned seat.

“By all means, then,” I said.

Her eyes widened, then quickly she leaned forward and began touching control surfaces, bringing up the holo display and starting the engines.

“Not a problem,” she said, taking the unified control stick in both hands.

A faint shiver ran through the deck, and then the engines started and the craft vibrated with a steady throbbing.

I waited for her to look up through the overhead window and ask the inevitable question, and she did so soon enough.

“Do I just turn the guns on the roof, or—?”

I laughed and touched a control to my left. Above us, the ceiling retracted silently, leaving a clear pathway to a starry nighttime sky.

Evelyn smiled and pulled up on the stick.

With a sudden surge, the ship lifted cleanly up and lofted out into the air above the city.

I was impressed. She confidently and comfortably manipulated the controls as if she had spent days in a simulator. Soon enough we were in orbit, then moving away from Mysentia at a brisk pace. The blue-white marble of my adopted homeworld receded to just another sparkling point in the spackled velvet curtain of space, and I reversed the viewscreen to show the path ahead.

“Very nice,” I commented. “Very smooth.”

“I’ve been flying ships like this one a long time,” she replied. “Though it has some improvements I’d love to examine in closer detail.”

“Maybe later,” I said with a laugh.

Her hands moved to the navigational console, activating the tactical display.

“So, do you already have the course we’re taking laid in? I assume you’ll want to jump to subspace as soon as possible.”

“No need,” I said. “There are no good points for opening a portal near Candis, but I can still get us close enough for only a short trip after we arrive.”