But this is not a boy’s adventure tale prepared by a stuffy old man in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. This is the sort of story that a boy might imagine for himself, filled with action, mystery, a red-hot space queen, and nary a whiff of precious moral instruction.
Well, maybe there is some moral instruction. But this is Reversed Black Maria. Nothing is as it seems, and the thread is very fine, indeed.
###
“Inna! Inna!! INNA!!!”
Oskar charged up the gangway, shouting as he went. The floor was littered with debris, and the walls and ceiling were scarred from missiles driven by the storm wind of the brief decompression. Long stretches were unlit, for the lights were smashed. In the dark intervals his imagination peopled the dim salons on either side with moving shadows. But no one answered his cries.
When he came to the operations center, he thrust himself inside. The compartment was empty as a saloon at dawn. There was no sign of Inna. But something had changed. An unsecured magnum of whiskey had toppled and burst on the deck. The stout neck was intact, but the shoulder of the former bottle was a grim coronet of jagged shards. Oskar scooped up the ready–made weapon. It was useless, of course, but it bolstered his courage. Now, if he could only find Inna.
Galley. Aunt Karina had mentioned a galley where Inna might go to bury her bloodlust under a mountain of meat. If he found it, he might find her. But Oskar’s grasp of Galaxia’s layout was poor. During his brief tour, he’d paid more attention to the view outside the windows than the deck plan. If he wanted to find the galley, he’d have to explore.
He left the ops center behind. The gangway widened into a promenade complete with chandeliers and a holographic fountain. The only open door was a heavy pressure hatch. It led to a safe room lined with orange emergency suits. A bundle of dark cloth tucked beneath a bench caught Oskar’s eye. His heart skipped a beat. It was Farfar Hendrick’s clothing.
Oskar carefully disentangled the little pile to reveal Farfar’s jacket, shirt, pants, and shoes. He’d even left behind his treasured Legionnaire’s gorget. Oscar wasn’t sure he ever removed it, even to bathe. But here it was, abandoned. Oskar’s gaze moved to the line of neatly maintained suits. Sure enough, there was a vacant spot at the end of the rack. One was missing. Oskar was baffled. Why had his grandfather abandoned the cutter and stolen a spacesuit? Where was he?
Goaded into haste by his discovery, Oskar continued forward. The promenade opened on a magnificent atrium. He counted the ivy-draped balconies of six decks overhead, topped off with a magnificent skylight. Ghostly wisps of glowing gas and a few small stars shone down from above. The Imperatrix Galaxia was huge, and Oskar hadn’t a clue where to search. He drew in a deep breath, but he bit off his cry, the first syllable of Inna’s name frozen on his tongue.
What if this is her doing? I’m trapped in deep space with a man-eating goddess!
Oskar suddenly felt very, very exposed. He took a step backwards toward the mouth of the promenade. Movement flickered off to his left. He spun to face it. There was nothing there, except his own reflection in a mirrored elevator door.
A breath of warm air tickled the hair on the back of his neck.
He whirled around, hefting the bottle like the hilt of a sword. Again, he saw nothing but his own visage in half a dozen mirrors. But why did his reflection look so thick..?
The blazing green blade of a plasma knife ignited millimeters from his windpipe.
“I surrender!” Oskar squeaked. He dropped the bottle. It smashed into a million pieces at his feet.
“You’re adorable when you’re scared,” the Empress purred, quenching her knife. She crouched close behind him, a coiled spring of smooth, hard muscle in a sleek spacesuit.
“How long have you been stalking me?” Oskar quavered.
Inna relaxed, and sheathed her weapon. “I’m sorry, Oskar. I’ve been tailing you since you left the ops center. I wanted to be sure of your motives, because I don’t know what’s going on. But you’re obviously as in the dark as I am.”
“You don’t know what is happening, either?”
“No. Something took control of my ship. The executive network is down, so the intrusion must have come through the root console on the bridge. That’s where I was headed when I saw you. What are you doing here? The cutter was ejected.”
“There was trouble aboard the Cutter. Aunt Karina sent me to get you.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Farmor was injured, and Farfar vanished. I don’t know where he is, but I found his clothes aboard Galaxia, in the safe room.”
Inna’s eyes narrowed. “Hendrik snuck back aboard? He must have walked right past us while we were...distracted. But it doesn’t seem right. He struck me as a guileless man.”
“He is. I don’t understand what is going on.”
A series of faint clangs echoed down from above, followed by the sound of rushing air and a blare of klaxons. A stiff breeze kicked up.
“Somebody’s dumping our air! Go!!” Inna cried, her dark hair whipping.
“Go where?”
“The safe room!”
Oskar needed no more prompting. He took off down the promenade at a dead run. The breeze swelled into a howling gale filled with grit and small missiles. Oskar faltered and stumbled in the stinging teeth of the storm wind. All at once, it died. The scream of the klaxons faded away. Icepicks of pain stabbed at his eardrums, and prickly, frothy fire rose in his chest. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. But there was none.
Immeasurably strong arms lifted him from the floor. It was Inna. With a silent yell, she sprang through the hatch of the safe room as it closed. So great was her leap that she sailed the length of the compartment. When she hit, her ankles snapped. But her grip never failed, even when they came to a crushing stop against the bulkhead. Inna cushioned Oskar’s impact, but her ribcage shattered beneath him like a nest of dry twigs.
Oskar slid to the floor, gulping huge draughts of metal-flavored air. He watched while Inna removed her boots and straightened her feet, tears of anguish leaking from her clenched eyelids. When she was satisfied with her handiwork, she stretched her arms above her head and sucked in a deep breath. Her crushed chest snapped back into shape with an audible pop. She coughed, and dabbed her eyes dry with the back of her glove.
“That’s better,” she announced. “How are you?”
“I’m okay, thanks,” Oskar rasped. Every breath burned. “I’m sorry, by the way.”
She blinked at him. “What for?”
“For misjudging you. I was afraid you’d kill me and eat me. Instead, you saved me.”
Inna stared straight ahead. “I don’t blame you. My reputation isn’t altogether undeserved, and we’ve only known each other for a day. If you weren’t scared of me, I’d question your sanity.”
Oskar thought he heard a rebuke in her comment. “I’m sorry for that, too.”
“Sorry for what?”
“That I kissed you.”
“I’m not,” she said, hauling herself onto her feet. “We need to suit up. I’m not a technomancer, so I have no idea how safe this room is. Our hijacker might try to open the door.”
“It wouldn’t kill you if he did, would it?” Oskar asked, marveling at how easily Inna walked to the spacesuit rack on ankles she’d broken only moments before.
“No. It’s you I’m worried about,” she replied.
“I’m worried about Farfar. He’s somewhere aboard this ship. I hope he got his suit working,” Oskar said, joining her.
“There’ll be time to worry about him later. What’re your suit parameters?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never worn a spacesuit,” Oskar admitted sheepishly.
Inna fetched a hand scanner from a holster on the wall. “No problem. I’ll measure you right now. Strip naked.”
Oskar gulped uncomfortably. “Naked?”
Inna rolled her dazzling mirrored eyes. “Yes. Nude. Raw. Free of all clothing. What’s the problem? You’re from the Nordrom. To hear your aunt talk, the whole lot of you are nudists.”
“Where do I...”
“Oskar Winter!” Inna interrupted sharply. “This is no time for modesty! Peel out of your damned clothes this instant, or I will rip them off for you!”
His shirt hit the floor before she finished her sentence, followed by his shoes and pants. Oskar stood before the Empress of the Galaxy clad only in his briefs.
She smirked. “You can’t wear underwear. For the urine and GI pickups to work, the suit liner has to be in contact with your skin.”
Oskar did as he was told. Inna was quick and professional, running the scanner over his entire body without comment.
Well, not entirely without comment.
“Hmm. Neat as Kari. Must run in the family,” she murmured when she reached his pelvis.
“What...what do you mean?” Oskar asked.
“Nothing, nothing. I always thought she shaved it, that’s all.”
A blush the size of a solar flare engulfed Oscar’s cheeks. Inna finished her work without noticing his discomfort, unless it was the reason for her coy little smile. “Show and tell is over,” she said at last, plucking a suit from the rack and thrusting it into his hands. “You put it on like a pajama onesie. Now, hurry up!”
Oskar wriggled into the suit. Though the lining was studded with a mass of pads, filaments and contacts, it was soft and comfortable to the touch. When he zipped it shut, the suit shrank to conform tightly to his body, just like Inna’s did to hers. To his surprise, his awareness of it decreased. It fit like a second skin.
Next came the headset, and lastly the bubble helmet. It snapped smartly over Oskar’s neck ring, and immediately filled with frigid air that tickled his nose. Inna donned an identical helmet. Her voice crackled in his ears. “Your pressure’s green. Come with me. We’re going hunting.”
Adrenaline sang in Oskar’s veins. He’d expected her to command him to stay put. Instead, she was offering him the chance to fight. Not once had Oskar ever imagined fighting alongside the dreaded Empress of the Galaxy. Her confidence in him was immeasurably inspiring, and almost overpowered his terror.
But not quite.
###
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
