Galaxy Under Siege Read online

  Finally, they came to a mutual agreement. Every six days one of them would sacrifice themselves by offering themselves up as food. The other would be forced, out of necessity of survival, to eat their partner in a cruel and gruesome act of cannibalism.

  And like clockwork, once they’d died and the other had consumed their partner’s flesh, a few hours would pass and the unlucky victim of the ritual would wake up in their cell, all the horrors of what had transpired fresh in their mind.

  This gruesome ritual had gone on for 278 days. Although the number of times they’d cannibalized one another before the terrible reset slowly blurred in their minds, it went largely undiscussed, it was still a cruel fact of their existence in this place.

  The rest of the time they tried to find things to preoccupy themselves with: throwing pebbles; sparring; telling each other jokes or riddles; and, of course, sex. Sex was, by far, the most readily available distraction. But today neither of them were in the mood for much of anything.

  “Do you think...” Callestra began before cutting herself off.

  When Dakroth realized that she wasn’t going to finish the sentence, he let out another sigh and then asked, “Do I think what?”

  “That we’ll ever get out of this dismal nightmare?”

  “Come now, we’ve discussed this a thousand times already. It doesn’t serve any good to talk about the purely hypothetical. What we need to do is try and focus on finding a weakness in this place so we can exploit it and, with any luck, escape.”

  She shot him a frustrated look. “What are you talking about? We can escape. We’ve gone outside the walls; there’s an infinite jungle out there to explore.”

  “Yes. A jungle with poisonous vines, acid rivers and lakes, and grass made out of crystalline needles that paralyze you. If anything this H’aaztre has a very morbid sense of humor.”

  “We’ve never made it to the end, though. If escaping is our goal then all we have to do is try to—”

  “We have tried!” Dakroth grumbled. “We walked for days. I died, woke up back here. You made it slightly further, but if you didn’t find the end to this trap, then maybe there isn’t one.”

  “So, we just sit here for all eternity, fucking and eating each other, until all we know is this ritualistic madness?”

  Dakroth pushed himself to his feet and dusted himself off. He didn’t answer her question but took a few steps out into the arena and looked up at the domed ceiling.

  They were in some kind of biosphere, a menagerie of sorts, that much was sure. It stretched on for dozens of miles in every direction, but as they had discovered, everything beyond the walls of the arena was viciously hostile: barbed plants that stung like wasps; vines that wrapped themselves around your legs with razor blade-like leaves; patches of quicksand everywhere.

  The trees had sap that acted initially like morphine but always proved fatal, no matter how little you imbibed, and the rivers of pure acid were virtually impossible to cross without some kind of raft—which you couldn’t fashion because it would require you to cut down trees that responded to attack by shooting paralyzing, multi-needled darts.

  It was one giant death trap. The creation of a sadistic deity that found the torment of other beings amusing. In all his years exploring the galaxy, Dakroth had never encountered a world as lethal as this one which gave him the sneaking suspicion that it had been engineered this way.

  The first time Dakroth had been immobilized by a needled dart in the forest, he had to endure agonizing pain, lying there in a crumpled heap of vegetative consciousness, waiting to starve to death so he could reset.

  That was the one good thing about this place. As long as they were here, they had immortality. If only he could figure out how to adapt such a technology to the outside world.

  Callestra stood up and broke a wooden spoke off from the battered wheel of a weathered and toppled chariot. The chariot had been there when they’d arrived and it always was there to greet them, and it always filled her with dread. Every time she saw it, she was reminded of where she was and the fact that there was no getting out of this place.

  A week earlier they’d grown bored and decided to have a full-on gladiator match. Under the sun that never set, they took turns whipping one another as they yelled, “Faster, faster!”

  They had exhausted themselves to delirium, running in circles, shuttling one another around in that chariot, and laughed in their madness as they set fire to it and danced in the euphoria of their sunbaked lunacy. But given enough time, even madness becomes a bore and they set it aside for another time.

  Now everything was stuck in a lull. They had exhausted all meaningful conversation. They’d shared their most intimate secrets. Bared their souls to one another. And Callestra felt that Dakroth probably knew her better than anyone ever could and she felt she knew him better than anyone else ever would. But, in this place, she wondered if that meant anything.

  That is what a year of being trapped with a person will do to you. Forge an inseparable bond. A kinship of sorts. And although, over the course of weeks and then months, she had learned that Dakroth was nothing like the man she used to idolize. But, at the same time, she knew she’d spend the rest of her life with him. Either as a servant or as a mistress, it didn’t matter to her. She was a part of him now, whether he liked it or not. And he was a part of her, too.

  She brought the spoke down on her leg and snapped it in half. Bringing up a jagged end, she held it out to him. “If you want, you can kill me.”

  Dakroth waved his hand and rescinded her offer. “I’m afraid we’re beyond that now, my dear. All we have left is to find a way out of this place.”

  “You keep saying that,” Callestra said.

  “So?” Dakroth shrugged and turned to her.

  “It’s getting a bit old.”

  “Says the woman who clicks her jaw like it’s a...a...”

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know...the word escapes me at the moment.”

  “Apparently, so do your manners.”

  “Watch your tongue, girl. I’m still your emperor!”

  “And you’re still a giant ass too!”

  “Now who’s lacking in manners?”

  “I don’t know, ass-face, you tell me.”

  “Bitch!” he growled.

  “Bastard!” she shot back.

  A fiery rage compelled them to come together and, before either of them realized what they were doing, they’d torn the rags off of their haggard bodies and began to give into their baser instincts.

  They tumbled to the ground, rolled around in a violent embrace, and soon, dust sticking to their sweaty blue bodies, he was on top of her, hands at her throat.

  “Yes,” she said, grabbing his wrist with her hands and forcing him to choke her even harder.

  She gasped as he penetrated her, the granules of sand rubbing her tender flesh raw. But she didn’t care. It couldn’t be pleasant for him either, but at least it was something that caused them to feel. Caused them to remember that they were still alive.

  “You like that?” he asked in a low tone, a crooked grin forming on one side of his mouth.

  “Harder,” she pleaded, “squeeze harder!”

  The next thing Callestra knew was she was waking up in the dank, dark holding cell beneath the arena.

  “FUUUCK!” she screamed, taking a massive gulp of air. As the world came back into focus, she realized that she’d died and reset once again. And once again she staggered to her feet and made the bothersome walk up the dreadfully long corridor.

  When she arrived topside, she saw the emperor sitting in the shade of an archway that led to the lower holding deck for waiting gladiators. The only place in the arena that had any ounce of shade.

  She went over to him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. He startled and reeled around, only to stare up at her with an awestruck expression on his face; a face that hadn’t shaven in months. In fact, Dakroth’s grizzled beard had fully grown in, and she
couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.

  She could sense something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked him. He swiveled around and, wrapping his arms around her mid-section, clasped onto her waist and held her. His sobbing only grew more profound and she did her best to not let it get to her. She’d never seen him like this. “Please, tell me.”

  “You died,” he said.

  “I know. You strangled me to death.”

  “No,” he said, looking up at her, his face serious. “You don’t understand. Afterward...you didn’t come back. At least, not right away. Not like before.”

  A puzzled looked came over her. From her point of view, everything had happened just as it always did. She died. She came back. When he died, he always came back too. What’s so different about this time? she wondered.

  “I’m back now, though,” she said, stroking his hair.

  “You say that as if a hundred days hadn’t passed.”

  “A hundred days?” she echoed, drawing back. She looked down at his forlorn expression with a startled one. “Are you saying I’ve been dead for over three months?”

  “I survived off your remains for as long as I could,” he said. He nodded at the weapons rack which had what appeared to be strips of beef jerky strung up on it. When she realized the flesh was her own, she suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  “What’s going on? Why can I see my dismembered, withered flesh? How can I have been gone for so long? What has changed?”

  Dakroth started laughing manically. “Don’t you get it?” he said. “Nothing has changed. This place’s very design is to torment us. And that’s precisely what it’s doing!”

  “No!” Callestra said, sinking to her knees and grabbing the sides of Dakroth’s face, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t let him get into your head. You’re the Emperor of Dagon. Never forget that.”

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me,” he said. He began sobbing again and she brought his face down to her bosom. She coddled him, rocking on her heels and soothing him like a mother would a small child.

  “I promise,” she answered.

  It pained her to see him this way...weak and sobbing like a baby...but, at the same time, her heart was warmed by the fact that he had revealed how deeply he cared about her.

  Maybe now she could finally tell him that she had, in fact, found a way out of this place that fateful day they’d become separated in the noxious jungle.

  She had been biding her time, unsure whether to reveal this secret, because the one thing she knew above all else was that Dakroth was ruthless. As ruthless as they came. And he needed to be broken down before she could rebuild him and make him into the emperor she had always known he could be.

  That was the one good thing about this place. It had given her the ability to gradually shape and mold Dakroth into the man of her dreams. And to her pleasant surprise, it had only taken a year to get him to treasure her more than even his own life.

  Not even the empress, Jegra Alakandra, could claim as much. Callestra smiled to herself as she stroked the emperor’s silver hair. No, the emperor didn’t belong to anyone but her. He was hers and hers alone.

  “I promise,” she consoled. Running her fingers through his hair, she added, “I’ll never leave you again.” And then she kissed the top of his head and smiled at her own cunning.

  6

  Shade of night settled across the white desert sands of Thessalonica as the last sliver of warmth faded behind the distant dunes. A purple veil settled across the landscape as far as the eye could see. And to the northwest, the city lights of Arena City lit up the valley while to the east the diffused glow of Mardok could be made out, to one with a keen eye.

  Desert fireflies caught Jegra’s and Danica’s attention and they decided to watch the flickering dance of the luminous insects for a while longer before turning in for the evening. That’s when they heard the barely perceptible sound of soft footsteps sneaking up behind them.

  Alerted to the interloper’s presence, Jegra spun around to face down whoever it was that was interrupting their romantic moment. When she saw that Raphine had returned, however, her aggravation quickly melted away, giving way to a welcoming smile. “Raphine? You startled us.”

  “Apologies, Your Grace,” she said, giving the Dagon salute and bowing slightly. When she looked back up, her eyes were distant. “I’m afraid I bring bad news.”

  Danica noted the girl was standing frozen, as if in terror, unable to spit out whatever it was she was holding inside. She merely stood gazing at them both with deeply sorrowful eyes, which prompted Danica to ask, “What is it, Raph?”

  “I-I don’t know how to tell you this, but...” She choked on her emotions, which made the words almost impossible to get out, but she pushed through it the best she could. Looking the empress in her eyes, she said in a faltering voice, “Earth has been destroyed.”

  After grappling with the weight of the information for a moment, she cleared her throat and asked, “H-how?”

  The news was so implausible that the shock hadn’t even really begun set in yet. Then, all of a sudden, it hit her like a ton of bricks and she quickly felt weak in the knees. Reaching out, she grabbed Dani’s arm and they slowly sank to the ground together.

  “Let me guess,” Danica said, looking up at Raphine, her face creased with a broiling rage even as hot tears streamed down her cheeks. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  Raphine nodded solemnly. She waited a moment then cleared her throat again. When both women’s attention returned to her, she informed them, “Long range sensors are picking up a distress signal emanating from the fourth planet in your solar system. It simply repeats the same message: S.O.S.”

  Jegra looked up with a hopeful expression. “Mars?”

  Raphine looked to Danica for confirmation, who merely gave her a mystified look and a shrug, then back to Jegra. “The red one.”

  “That’s the one,” Jegra said, rising to her feet. She brushed the sand from her white dress and then, arching her back and craning her neck, peered up at the stars. “We’ll need a ship.”

  “Even assuming we had the fastest ship in the fleet,” Raphine informed them, “we’d still have to get past those blockades. And I’m afraid, first, we’re fresh out of ships and second, that blockade isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Umm...that’s not entirely true,” Danica said a bit sheepishly, as though she were keeping a vital secret.

  Both Jegra and Raphine turned toward Dani with inquisitive looks.

  “Well, spit it out,” Jegra demanded. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “After we lost the Shard, I had Raven dedicate all of the shipyard’s resources to building you another ship. If her team is on schedule, the new and improved Shard should be in orbit as we speak. It was going to be a welcome home surprise for you when you woke up.”

  “I’m up now,” Jegra said. She looked up at the sky, wondering if she could make it out if she gazed long and hard enough.

  That’s when she looked over at Danica, who had tapped something into her holovid bracelet. No sooner had her eyes settled onto Jegra’s inquiring gaze, than the yellow beams of light came down and danced all around them.

  Mouthing the words, “I love you,” Jegra smiled at Dani.

  Danica smiled back, mouthing the words, “I know.”

  In a flash of golden light, they found themselves standing on the bridge of The Shard, minus Raphine, who stayed behind to oversee the palace and act as power of authority in Jegra’s absence.

  Once fully materialized, Jegra looked down and noticed her white dress had been replaced with traditional, form-fitted black leather armor with silver ornaments detailing the breastplate which, in turn, depicted the Imperial seal of Dagon Prime.

  If Jegra wasn’t mistaken, it was the armor of Dagon Prime’s liberating emperor, Cirius Ra’hallek, only tailored to fit her full-bodied, undeniably feminine figure.

  “Armor of the King of Kings,” Danica said, looking
Jegra up and down with admiration. “I must say, it looks rather impressive on you.”

  “Thanks, Dani. But, just a quick question. Why am I wearing the armor of the emperor?”

  “Because our emperor,” she said in a blasé tone, “went missing over a year ago.”

  “Again?” asked Jegra, her hands poised disapprovingly on her hips.

  Of course, it wasn’t like him to give up power or, for that matter, abandon his people during their time of need. If Dakroth was missing now, she thought, then something was terribly wrong.

  Danica nodded gravely, signaling that, although she had no love for Dakroth, she, too, was bothered by his disappearance.

  “Which means,” Danica added as she reached out and ran her fingers along the edge of the armor next to Jegra’s shoulder, her fingers brushing Jegra’s flesh unintentionally, “in a time of war, you’re the Dagon Empire’s officially sanctioned ruler. The Empress Regnant.”

  Not only was the armor symbolic of Dagon Prime’s first emperor, Cirius Ra’hallek, but it also now symbolized Jegra’s rise to ascendancy as the first fully female supreme ruler of the empire.

  It was a little overwhelming to think that she was the first female ruler in five thousand years of Dagon history. Before her just a string of ambitious, power hungry men, from Dakroth Rhadamanthus to his father before him, Loki’Alloran, Rhadamanthus the Second, to his father before him, Loki’Alloran the First, all the way back to Emperor Ra’hallek.

  Now the name Empress Jegra Alakandra would join them in the annals of history as one of Dagon’s great rulers. And she was nervous to her core with butterflies fluttering about inside her stomach.

  “Imperatrix on the bridge,” a voice announced.

  It took everybody a few moments to realize it was her, then her presence on the bridge caused a flurry of chatter to break out.