Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 10 - Time to Repay a Debt

Episode 10

Linuka Omga knew they wanted to get rid of her.

“Lady Omga, we’re here to escort you to the spaceport.” The uniformed woman smiled, but her dead eyes and the two armored enforcers of the government’s security service betrayed her intentions.

Linuka needed to stall them. Nreedz. She had several rotations to plan her next steps, and now needed to rush. She couldn’t risk letting them into the apartment. The Assembly wanted to ship her off to an unspecified location—or worse.

“I need to pack,” said Linuka into the door comm. “I got my belongings littered all over this place.”

Linuka had no possessions in this galaxy. Even the re-purposed sleepwear on her body was government-owned and came with the apartment they assigned to her. You are a being of purpose, her mystic teachers had always said. It felt easier while living in a palace. Now, there was nothing else. Just Linuka. She needed to regain that purpose.

“You’ll miss your flight to orbital. The connecting shuttle to the darkstring convoy won’t wait for you. Let us in and we’ll help you pack.”

No, you won’t, thought Linuka. The trio outside fixated on the front door. There was no adjacent reality in which Linuka could dodge their stare. How else could she get out? She had expected some sort of guarded detention housing, a comfortable prison for safekeeping the rogue child of Kel Chaada, until the Assembly had figured out what to do with her. Instead, they moved her to this large inner-city apartment on the edge of the government district.

“Lady Omga, don’t make this difficult. We’re coming in and help you.”

An armored man advanced, using a small device on the door panel. Linuka saw the door unlock. An override. She ran down the corridor, hearing the door sliding open behind her, heavy boots stepping on the tiled floor.

“Halt!” said a voice, filtered by a helmet face guard.

Curses, then the heavy steps quickened. She dodged right. The kitchen’s balcony panel was the only other exit. The separator fence was only chest high, and she could climb it and slide down a short drop into the access alley.

Magii. The outline of a security guard helmet peeked over the fence. They had anticipated this escape route. Steps filled the corridor, catching up. Three pursuers there versus one guard who might not expect her yet. She pushed the door panel, stepped into the triple star-lit outside. Half-blinded, she saw shadows in the kitchen. She inhaled. The realities split. A sound diverted the alley guard; prompted him to tilt his head. No time to see more. Linuka threw a balcony chair over the fence to her left, then climbed over, jumping down to the right, landing on both feet, one ankle crooked, pain shooting up her leg.

She bit her tongue, limping down the alley. The street corner was within reach. The guard was briefly distracted by the chair scraping the alley floor, giving her almost enough time to escape.

“Halt!”

Almost. Nreedz. A security speeder parked in the street around the corner, with two more armored guards running toward her.

Let me guide you. Linuka knew that voice inside her head. Her Uurmi sensed danger and longed to take over, control her body. Linuka had no interest in waking up in some sewer tunnel with security guard blood on her hands, missing spins of her life. Do your job and fix my ankle, she scolded the overeager symbiont.

A crowd. A busy wall of people flocking out of the government district. The Assembly session had ended and all the people who kept the government running boarded transport loops, leaving the center of power. She darted away from the armored pursuers, left, another right, and there was the crowd, just as the splitting realities had promised.

Her back tingled from a stun slug, but the Uurmi had widened her local blood vessels, re-routing the stun current, using fast-acting agents to reset nerve and muscle cells, negating the paralyzing effect of the weapon.

The guards did not attempt a second shot, either aghast at how she shrugged off the slug or concerned about creating a panic by firing into an unsuspecting crowd. Linuka became one with the people, covering her movements all the way to the transport loop.

The visuals of all these peoples’ world lines made the situation unbearable for her mind, so she shut multi-awareness off. The guards were plowing through the crowd behind her—she knew this without consulting the multiverse. She reached a loop pod, pushing herself inside and onto a vacant seat, ducking under the windowed sidewall. Let’s go. An eternity passed, then the pod doors swung shut, and the transport started moving before any of the guards could board it.

***

She straightened her upper body, ignoring the stares of her fellow loop-riders. Sweat pearled from her forehead. A small price to pay for the biochemical overdrive the Uurmi had put their shared body into.

The transport loop took her out of the government district as she hoped for—but she had no idea where she was going, or where to get off. Her ride resembled the state of her plan. She had one. Well, more of a grand strategy. The last time she had a concrete plan, brilliantly crafted and executed, someone died for that plan. Her father. Or did he? A chain of fringe events may have led to his survival. Having clear memories of the serious man who had volunteered loading the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders hinted that not every causal connection to Kel Chaada had been severed. If there was causality, there was a way.

Linuka could not see that path, however. A problem related to the diin they found. Not only was her father remembered, but also the aliens who caused his death. The Assembly declared victory, yet the war continued. Not all the causal connections to the Võmémééř were cut. The extra-galactic menace was still out there, preying on humans and their allies through space, time, and across realities.

She didn’t know how to search for her father, but she had a plan for finding surviving diin. At least one still had to exist, helping the Võmémééř to re-populate their ranks back to threatening levels. The realities appeared calm, like a treacherous body of water hiding its strong currents that could pull one to their doom. She had thought about all the options. The most likely was a young diin, a pre-mature alien mini-lord, hidden away somewhere in the multiverse, waiting to grow up and restart the Galacticide cycle with willing females.

Linuka had to find that diin—and end it. When the realities would turn predictive, gloriously boring once more, then Linuka had fulfilled her purpose. She needed help, however. Linuka couldn’t do this alone. She lacked the means for anything beyond planning.

Linuka could contact Raar or Me-Ruu. Even the smallest chance of finding her father would make the silicate follow her to the edge of spacetime, and Me-Ruu would support searching for the epicenter of a re-emergence of the Võmémééř or die trying. And that was the problem. Her plans might get them killed.

No. Enough with the sacrifices. Her mother could have easily commanded her fleet away from the invading Võmémééř, instead of heading for the center of the battle. Her father could have easily stolen that alien sphere-drive and taken it to a safe hiding spot, instead of flying it straight into the enemy’s home galaxy.

She would only welcome help from individuals who stood to gain by aiding her, individuals with nothing to lose, for whom the most dangerous task was a step up from their suffering.

Loyal Cha Dzeeny. The holy warrior, who stole a battle cruiser because his Shaajis asked him to.

The Assembly had arranged for Cha Dzeeny and his marines to be executed and then generously commuted the sentence to a lifetime of abuse by unhinged experimenters.

Linuka would leave the government world, but not alone. Time to repay Cha Dzeeny and his team—and break them out.

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