The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (23 page)

As quickly as it had started, the fire was
doused over the entire bridge, wisps of smoke the only trace of its
flames. On the ceiling levved a dripping Eikhus, his stun gun
pointed at the supine, still figure lying at our feet.

“Pallas! Nissos!” Sarion broke into a broad
grin as he saw his friends had just M-fanned behind the charred
panels on each side of the bridge. “Thank the stars you are
alive!”

Eikhus floated down. “Thank Nephil Stratum.
She anticipated their … ejections, and we were ready with
spacesuits the nanosecond Gary pushed them out the airlocks.”

Spud had knelt next to Gary’s lifeless body.
“You did not fire,” he said to Eikhus. “What happened to him?”

“Nephil Stratum has learned many things since
we last talked.” Eikhus nodded out the windscreen, where we
glimpsed wisps of Nephil Stratum’s tendrils floating around our
ship. “With her talents at shadowing communications.”

Setsei M-fanned into the bridge and drew out
his Geryon.

Eikhus continued, “Nephil Stratum was able to
observe Gary removing his E-shield to escape. And that gave us the
cue to get in.”

“If the E-shield was down, then why didn’t he
make it out?” I asked, equally curious. “Why is he, uh, dead?”

Nephil Stratum M-fanned on the bridge. “Same
reason as the first time. Not enough momentum to push through.”

“Through what?” I asked. “A second
E-shield?”

“Through the portal,” Spud explained
softly.

“This system apparently has several,” Eikhus
nodded. “I’ll bet we’ll see that the radiation belt around Al
Najid
^xxvi
just got quite a bit
stronger.”

I whistled. “You mean he was trying to go to
another dimension? Here?”

Nephil Stratum nodded. “But he was bounced
back by the brane. He thought he’d have enough power in that
machine to make the crossing, but … someone,” she turned a light
golden blush, “tapped into and drained his energy source, and he
didn’t get very far.” We looked at the shattered remains of what
had been the shoebox scattered along the floor.

“Nephil Stratum,” I cheered, “I could hug
you!” I stopped. “Wait a minute. You said like the ‘first time’?
What first time?”

Eikhus nodded at Setsei, who walked over and
pierced Gary’s skin with his Geryon. An astounding transformation
occurred. Gary’s skin, in its deathly pallor, slowly dissolved, and
a charred body appeared in its place underneath. With a ringing
tinkle, Gary’s gold ring, now too big for his burnt finger, rolled
off his hand and came to rest on the floor near my feet.

Spud smacked his forehead. “Of course. What
an ass I have been!”

Matshi chuckled. “Yeah.”

Spud glared at him for a second and then
continued to me, “At Roswell, we saw Gary, remember?”

“Yes,” I said, puzzled. “He turned towards
the woods and we saw his face.”

“That was very clever of Benedict, I must
say,” Spud responded with a tone of admiration.

“That was Benedict? But the face we saw was
Gary’s.”

Nephil Stratum interrupted. “
Gary
was
the unlucky traveler who made that test run and burned to a
crisp.”

“Benedict Ergaled to look like Gary at
Roswell--a brilliant move on his part,” Spud acknowledged. “He may
even have muted down to his DNA. By pretending to be Gary for a few
weeks, Benedict could cover for their failure without raising
suspicion, and buy time to get Gary anastasized.”

Eikhus nodded. “I agree.” He turned to us.
“But His Highness would never have approved anastasis through
Nejinsen Medical Center after a capital crime.” He ran a finger
across his neck. “Looks like Benedict took Gary outside of Zygfed
to get it done.”

Nephil Stratum looked down at the burnt
corpse, and tsk’ed. “M81 anastasis techniques do still have a few
bugs.”

Shaking my head, I bent down and picked up
Gary’s ring. “Crossing to another dimension. I never figured our
Gary for the type to take those kind of risks,” I said, my voice
cracking.

Nephil Stratum placed a comforting tuft on my
shoulders, cooling my burned skin. “There is always another
dimension to those we think we know.”

I nodded and relaxed into her arms, letting
my tears flow.

Chapter 16

Orion, for real this time

We placed Gary’s charred body, wrapped in a
protective latex shroud, on the Nautilus’ autopod
^xxvii
and launched it on
course for Zyga. Eikhus instructed the autopod’s nav to take the
body to Aheya, just in case Nejinsen’s medics wanted to do a
post-mortem study of the anastasis work of their M81
colleagues.

Seeing as we’d lost our ship, Spud and I
decided to keep Gary’s for the trip to Orion. Lykkos had the power
grid up and working in no time, and Setsei and Suthsi’s Geryons
helped to regenerate bridge equipment and repair the fire damage
within hours. Nephil Stratum used her polyhedron to locate where
Gary had secreted our vanished Ergals, and we were each soon
re-united with our most valuable tool and weapon. Unfortunately,
none of us had any luck in putting back together Gary’s shoebox.
The pieces had shattered and burned in the fire. What was left
formed an empty shell that had no discernible internal parts we
could put in some kind of order.

Luckily, the backdraft radiation from Gary’s
ejection had been minimal. Nephil Stratum’s shield hadn’t let Gary
get far enough on his journey to create a significant blowback.
Scans showed that Al Najid had had only a slight augmentation of
radiation belt levels, and our own ship only demonstrated a trivial
ring of electrons that was quickly decaying. We would be quite safe
with simply the ship’s shielding for at least a week. But even that
small amount of blowback energy had unfortunately been fatal to
Gary’s anastasized cells. Pity he hadn’t realized that another
effort to cross into a different dimension would be deadly after
his M81 anastasis.

I caught my reflection in the nav panel, and
was surprised to see a few tears bead from my eyes. Gary had been
my first real mentor. I would miss the man I thought he was.

I remembered that I still had Gary’s ring in
my pocket, where I’d stuffed it after picking it up from the floor.
I took the gold band out and held it up in my hands. It was smooth,
hard, and cold, and surprisingly heavy. I saw my tear-streaked face
reflected on its outer surface, and quickly shifted the ring’s
angle. My eyes caught some unusual tiny characters etched on the
inside. I didn’t recognize the symbols. Even my Ergal could only
identify them as resembling letters from an obscure language in a
distant sector of M81. Translating them was a task that could keep
me, Spud, and our Ergals busy for the next leg of our trip.

We set course for Orion Alpha, Ulenem’s home
planet, this time with Matshi’s vessel in the lead. Matshi was
well-known among the residents of Madai, Ulenem’s town near the
equator, and he was expecting a warm welcome.

The best laid plans…

Two patrol ships fired on Matshi’s warship as
soon as he ID’d himself. Matshi was an expert pilot and easily
avoided their fire. And, fortunately, Eikhus and I had hung back
out of their range. But that hostile reception certainly wasn’t
part of our plan. Shaken, we all retreated to Rigel II to decide
our next moves.

* * *

Rigel IV, Orion—present day

Rigellian halaropols are known for their
healing properties. I for one was glad for the break and a chance
to soothe my singed skin in the spa. To avoid looking creepy, Spud
and I had Ergaled our surface burns and injuries away. But Spud,
wincing every time he was touched, was obviously still feeling the
pain of his now invisible head wound, as well as his underlying
toasted skin.

We got ourselves some R and R, and then,
refreshed, met up with our cohorts in the Elgebar, a popular
watering hole, to feast on some universe-renowned fusion cuisine
and Aldebaran brandy.

We opted to gather in one of the Elgebar’s
private suites, large chartreuse egg-shaped chambers that resemble
giant cocoons. Our cocoon was spacious and we levved into
comfortable positions as we enjoyed our food and drink. Only
Matshi’s appetite seemed dulled.

“You don’t think the Madais know how Ulenem
really died?” I asked the Chidurian as he sat, morose, on the floor
of the cocoon.

“I’ve told only you all,” he said listlessly,
his eyes roving from one to another of us.

“Maybe Ulenem spilled the beans himself,” I
wondered, taking another sip of the tasty liquid.

Matshi grabbed me with three arms and pulled
me to the floor. “What does that mean?”

I brushed him off and crouched defensively
out of his reach. “If he could M-fan to us and start talking,” I
gestured towards Spud, “he could appear to his relatives, too. And
blame you for his death.”

Matshi grabbed my mug of brandy, still
floating by his head, drank it almost empty, and threw the cup
across the chamber. The mug bounced off the edge of the cocoon and
landed on Eikhus with a splash.

“Hey!” The Kharybdian looked at us,
annoyed.

“Chidurian Ale is better,” Matshi complained.
“He
did
try to kill me,” he added, referring to Ulenem.

“Well, maybe he left that part of the story
out, you know,” I said.

Eikhus levved towards us. “Orion Alpha is
only one planet. We can go back and take a closer look at the
phenomena in the Betelgeuse and Bellatrix systems.”

“No,” Spud said forcefully. “Ulenem told us
to ‘save Orion’. I think he meant Orion Alpha.”

“Or Orion, the star,” I added.

“Or Orion, the constellation,” Sarion jumped
in. “Sorry,” he added as he caught our frowns.

“This isn’t helping,” Matshi said bleakly.
After a long pause, he sighed. “Much as I hate to admit it, I’m
inclined to agree with Escott.” His tone became more assertive.
“Orion Alpha is where we have to go.”

* * *

Reluctantly, Matshi consented to park his
ship on Rigel and have his team join me and Spud on the Sportstar.
Spud was right. Ulenem had likely been recruited by Benedict on his
home planet—which meant that Benedict had probably been nosing
around Orion Alpha and its largest city Madai.

It was clear that Matshi had somehow been put
on Orion Alpha’s “no-fly list.” If we wanted to follow Benedict’s
trail on Orion Alpha, we had to try another approach.

“Spud and I can Ergal down to—”

“But I know Orion Alpha like the back of my
hands,” Matshi interrupted me. “Besides, who’s to say your comrade
Gary hasn’t ID’d you two as traitors to anybody who’s still clean
at Zygint?”

He did have a point. Had Gary put us on
Zygint’s Most Wanted List? Just to be on the safe side, I commed
Everett at Core.

“Not surprised to hear from you,” his holo
image said between open-mouthed bites of a shedding submarine
sandwich. “Gary raced out of here chewing nails this morning.
Wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“Smart man …,” muttered Spud, in a low voice
that I prayed Ev couldn’t hear. My kick landed unfortunately on
Sarion’s shin, and the Megaran cried out with a terrifying
“Yaaiii!”

Everett, oblivious as always, asked, “Is he
around?” Tomato juice ran down his chin and dripped onto his shirt.
“Got a message from His Highness.”

“Not exactly …,” Spud whispered with a not
very benign grin. “Ow!” I aimed better this time.

“If I see him, I’ll let him know. Thanks,
Ev,” I signed off with a glare at my partner. At least we had some
good news. If Ev was clean—figuratively anyway—we were still in
like Flynn at Earth Core.

* * *

As much as Matshi was eager to lead our team
to Orion Alpha, we all finally convinced him it would be more
productive for less unwelcome visitors to be part of the first
landing party. Spud and I, as Zygint catascopes, would probably
have no trouble sailing through customs, and, as Sarion put it, we
could “catascope out” the territory and help Matshi sneak through
after us if needed. Lykkos had a distant cousin in Mitanni, one of
Madai’s suburbs, and would also have no trouble getting in. Setsei
and Suthsi, to my surprise, volunteered to join us. I was all for
it; you can always use a Geryon or two, even if it’s in the shaky
hands of a terrified Ytran.

Eikhus and Nephil Stratum followed us in the
Nautilus and offered to monitor critical communications from orbit.
Sarion finally ended the discussion with his remark, “The Madai is
cast.” We all groaned politely. The pun was even worse in
Zygan.

We left Matshi and the other Megarans “on
call” at the helm of the Sportstar, and Ergaled down to the
starport on Agri Dagi. Orion customs officials do have a reputation
for being terribly obnoxious bureaucrats, but we did manage to get
through planet entry in a remarkably short three hours.

Lykkos insisted that we had to
try out the sidirodrome, a picturesque elevated train down the
mountain to Madai, which would give us glimpses of the Orestians,
the renowned Orion giants in the Spire City of Tegea. The
hundred-foot tall Orestians were pretty impressive, but Suthsi was
more awed by the pink and verdigris leaves of the Adrakne trees in
the lush forests that lined our path.

We arrived in Madai by moonslight [sic] and
made our way to a comfortable inn to reserve rooms. Unfortunately,
we’d probably have to spend at least one night in the city. Orion
Alpha was one of the few Zygfed planets that had had E-shields
around it for years, requiring all travelers to go through Customs
to exit and enter planet territory. It was very annoying not to be
able to freely Ergal back up to our ship whenever we wished. But,
considering that the planet had spawned both fearsome giants and
assassins, maybe the tight border controls were all for the
best.