“No deal,” he said. “You ended a whole outpost of ours. Women, children, all gone in an instant. This is unforgivable.”
My pulse rifle lifted in the air, and I fought back the instinct to fire at the old unarmed Bhlat leader. “What do you mean, no deal?”
“Blel, this isn’t your decision!” the Empress yelled in English for my benefit before shouting other words in her language to him.
“You sit in your palace as your mother did before you, barking orders and rewarding us for killing worlds, and now you have a heart?” His voice was loud and gravelly. “You don’t get to decide any longer. I’m taking charge.”
I kept my gun up and glanced to Leonard, who was sweating profusely down his brow. The officers on the bridge looked torn, deep colorful swirling eyes looking to each other for an answer on what they should do. Who did they side with?
“How dare you think to speak to me like this, Blel? I’m your Empress, and you will address me as such.” The Empress started to walk forward toward him, but I held her back. If this was going to get ugly, I needed a hostage. That would only work if the crew sided with her.
A noise carried from his small mouth, and at first, I thought it might be a cough, but quickly realized it was him laughing. “Empress, I care as much about what happens to you as I do this one’s mate, Mary.”
He said the sentence, and I stood there blankly, body exhausted from the last couple of days, my mind taking a minute to catch up to the translation.
“Stand down, crew! Blel, you’re now relieved of your duty to the Empirical Core, and are hereby declared a traitor, and you will die like one.” This time, I did let her loose, while Mary’s name still echoed in my head. She moved to him, her hand raised, red power glowing from her palm.
I spotted at least three armed crew coming from the edges of the room, and knew one of them would fire at her before she killed Blel.
“Stop!” I yelled, pulling my tablet from the small pack strapped to my chest. It sat beside my small Kalentrek, which would decimate the bridge and the ship’s crew at a touch. It was a last resort, but one I’d be willing to use to save my friends.
Maybe Blel was right: we weren’t so different. I left the Relocator and mini-Shield inside and flipped to the image of the powerful device sitting in the ceiling back in the palace. “Let’s just say I brought more collateral.” I held the tablet up for Blel and the others to see. “This is the same device I used on your outpost, and it’s sitting in your capital on your homeworld now. I have a switch to activate it, and a friend on the outside has one too. If you don’t leave in fifteen minutes…” I let the bluff linger without finishing it.
Some of the crew looked around nervously, clearly having family back at the capital city.
“What’s it going to be, Blel?” I asked.
The Empress was still standing between us, and she was clearly ready to do some nasty business to her turncoat military leader.
“Do it. We sacrifice the old to build the new.” Blel’s voice was grim, and I almost panicked when he called my bluff. But the Empress didn’t. Her palm glowed a fierce red, and she moved to attack him, only he pulled a small handheld gun and aimed it at her with unexpected speed.
He fired, but not before being tackled by a female officer next to him. It all happened so fast, I nearly didn’t see it. The Empress dropped to the floor and I rushed to catch her, narrowly avoiding letting her head strike the hard surface. Her daughter, now free of Leonard’s grasp, ran over to her.
Two groups of Bhlat were forming around the now disarmed Blel. He was being held by the woman who’d taken him down. Tension was thick as they yelled back and forth between supporters of their military leader and the Empress.
I knelt by the Empress, who was breathing. A wound in her side smoked where the ray had blasted her.
“Can you translate?” I asked.
She nodded with a grimace.
“The battles can stop. I’ve already made a deal with your Empress.” I waited while she translated into their rough language. A few kept shouting at each other, but most stopped to listen.
She must have asked them to listen, because soon the room was silent; only Blel’s labored breathing whistled across the bridge.
“I have a way for your people to have water and other resources, and I’ve offered it to her on the condition that we’re no longer enemies. That you stop the genocide of other worlds and take what I can offer you.”
The words translated. Many of them looked relieved or intrigued.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be with your families, instead of fighting and mining planets with resistance?” I had them, I knew it.
Blel started to spout something off in Bhlat, but when they wouldn’t listen, he spoke in English. “Mr. Parker, we are Bhlat. This will never be. We are…” His words were cut short as the sound of a pulse coursed through the bridge. Leonard stood there, pistol raised, hand trembling.
“I’m sorry,” he said shakily. The young man dropped the gun and stood there, mouth open, tears falling down his face. “I’m sorry.”
No one attacked him as they let Blel’s dead body slip to the ground.
One crew member said a phrase in their language and came to help the Empress up. They moved her to the captain’s chair and kept saying it.
“What does it mean?” I asked her.
“Long live the Empress, we bask in her eternal light.” She smiled through sharp teeth, the red galaxies in her eyes twinkling as she looked at me.
Alarms sounded, and I raised my gun in defense, but they had nothing to do with what was happening on board. The wide viewscreen turned on, showing an image of Earth below, and something in the distance. One of the helmsmen ran to a console and zoomed in.
New Spero’s fleet had arrived. They were going to attack this ship.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“What trickery is this?” the Empress asked. Medics ran onto the bridge and started to work on her.
“No trickery. We sent them ahead months ago, as backup. Wouldn’t you have done the same?” I asked, knowing she would understand. “You have their leader, Magnus, on board here. Where are the prisoners?”
She said something to the crew member beside her, who I took to be the first officer, judging by the way the rest of the Bhlat responded to her.
“Tres will lead the way. Dean, you must prevent a war today. I can feel hope in my people. A veil has been lifted. I’ll keep them from attacking your ships for as long as I can. Stop them from coming any farther.”
“We will. It’s best if your fleet evacuates the system. Give me a few minutes to leave the ship first.” I reached and took her hand. Cool slender fingers met my sweaty palm, and she gave it a squeeze.
“Until we meet again, Dean Parker.”
I smiled at her, then at her little daughter, before grabbing Leonard.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and he followed along wordlessly.
We moved closely, with Tres leading the way. No one came to stop us, but I still kept my gun close at hand.
We raced through the ship, the odd Bhlat looking confused as we moved along following their first officer. She held a lot of power, so none questioned her.
We entered an elevator and lowered into the belly of the vessel. When we got off, the surroundings were much different than they had been on the main levels. It was dingy, cold metal walls and floor, with less than ideal lighting. We were in the barracks.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I was extremely anxious to see my friends, but worried that I would find out Mary really was gone. What was I going to do without her? I’d already gone through losing someone I loved, and this time, it was even more different. Our shared trauma and situation had put us in a pressure cooker, and we’d come out together so strong and bonded.