Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 15 - High Shear
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- Aug 12
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 19
“How much gravitational force can a human withstand?” asked the Traaz smuggler.
Linuka Omga’s euphoria about the successful lab-prison break dissipated quickly, realizing Oonzu’s meat transporter still had to dodge orbital patrols and screening vessels of the Levy Fleet.
“I have no idea,” said Linuka. “Commander Dzeeny, what is the human tolerance for g-forces?”
Cha Dzeeny had settled in the cockpit, along with Linuka and the alien skipper. “Preferred environment: 1–3 oyik, blackout zone: 4–6 oyik, crush zone: 7 or more. My marines are trained to operate in 4.5 oyik for up to one shift.”
Linuka attempted to translate for Oonzu, but struggled to find a Klikchaa equivalent for the units Cha Dzeeny had rattled down.
“This does not tell me much,” said the smuggler. “You said you studied at the court of Zihriik. He didn’t teach you our unit system?”
“Zihriik cured me of Fractured Consciousness Syndrome. He did not give me physics lessons.”
The vessel Oonzu called Hikshuur cut through the Assembly moon’s cloud layers, the chemical thrusters rattling the ship. A song of sorrow chimed into the grumble of the ascent—the true power source awakened: the fusion reactor warmed up to torture their ears with the eerie choir of high-pitched child-like voices.
“Why is he asking?” said Cha Dzeeny. “The dampeners and stabilizers seem to work just fine.”
“Are we not going straight for the darkstring connector? You can outrun the Levy Fleet units, right?” asked Linuka.
“With this freighter?” asked Oonzu. “No. Not at all.”
“What? You must have done this before. How do you usually escape?”
“I fly risky maneuvers, high-shear swing-bys, outside stabilizer specs. Puny humans cannot follow. Sometimes it costs me my cargo, but I escape.”
“Well, Oonzu, assume the puny humans on board can tolerate what your cargo animals could. Not more. And remember: just like with the dead Dzaamsaa you tried to push on that restaurant owner, there is no payment if we turn into smears along your hull!”
“I understand. Tell your fellow humans to secure themselves inside the cargo hold. There are mechanisms to strap animal cages to the inner hull. Use these straps to tie your bodies along the wall lining. And hurry. We need to make a hard burn for the gas giant as soon as we get out of this world’s magnetic tail.”
Linuka didn’t understand, except the Traaz expected a pressing need for some crazy maneuvering. "Why are we doing this?"
“To outrun the two patrol craft following us. Now go to the cargo hold and secure your humans. And yourself.”
Linuka wanted to argue for staying in the cockpit. But how could she help the Traaz? There were no instruments or screens for human eyes to monitor, no tactical controls to link to. She could still converse thinking in Klikchaa from some place else inside the ship, should the realities grace her with usable insights.
Linuka looked at Cha Dzeeny. “To the cargo hold. Everyone needs to strap in!”
The marines were efficient in securing not only their unstable comrades and themselves but also in fastening any loose items they spotted in the cargo hold. The wall straps looked functional, but were coated in grime and worse, as if they had been run straight through the animal cages, accumulating Oonzu’s involuntary passengers’ droppings for orbits. No one else complained, so Linuka bit her tongue, but the stench stung in her nose like acid fumes.
“Ready or not, we need to burn.” Oonzu’s voice in Linuka’s head sounded concerned, and the underlying feelings flickering through the Klikchaa vocabulary conveyed fragments of regret. The smuggler feared he had taken on a task too great.
Linuka closed her eyes. Is this how her father felt when he led his strike force into the Dark One’s home galaxy, only to realize the alien’s primary warlord knew where to intercept them?
A roar. The straps cut deep into Linuka’s skin. She couldn’t breathe. The burn had begun. A Mural of Blessing for the marines who secured all the objects they could find. No doubt anything loose would cut right through their bodies now.
Kii Yots’ head tilted onto her chest, the young woman’s arms and legs flailing uncontrolled away from the improvised strap harness. She was the only marine brave enough to tell her Shaajis her first name. Kii. Old Galactic. Short. Pretty. There could be no reality her thoughtful parents had foreseen her daughter getting mangled in this scenario.
Tiny particles of an unholy mixture of animal food dust and dried feces puffed out of every tiny crack and seam inside the cargo hold. Linuka seemed to have lost control of her jaw. How long was this burn? She could not only smell but taste animal. Retched. Stop the burn. Make it magiis stop!
Linuka opened her eyes. She was still in her straps, and a quick look around confirmed everyone else was, too. The burn must have knocked her out. Her skin was still sore from where the straps cut. She couldn’t have been out for too long. Kii Yots was moving, thankfully, but her face was a pained grimace. Linuka should have given the Traaz pilot a lower tolerance than ‘treat us like your food stock animals’. The Uurmi would heal her body within a few passes, but the marines’ bones would remain broken, and they’d carry their bruises for many spins.
Her mouth was dried out from the terrible dust cloud, slowly settling toward where the ship’s stabilizers defined ‘down’. “It tastes like metal.” Linuka felt the urge to spit out, but could not muster enough saliva to do so.
“Radiation,” said Cha Dzeeny, rubbing his knee. His lower leg looked blood-soaked.
Linuka nodded toward the wound. “How bad?”
“Something cut through. No idea what. Been worse. How are you, Shaajis?”
“What did you mean by radiation?”
“Ionized radiation. Leaves a metallic taste in most people’s mouths. I guess our skipper is taking us close to one of the stars. Most ships are shielded against it, but maybe this one isn’t. Or we are really close.”
Linuka reached out to the cockpit. Feelings were tense, but no longer filled with the dread she had picked up earlier. The Traaz seemed to believe they had a chance. “Oonzu, where are you taking us? When you mentioned swing-bys earlier, I assumed you meant around the gas giant.”
“Oh no, my human, we flew straight through the planet after the initial burn.”
“Through the gas planet?”
“There are no ‘gas’ planets, only planets. Some have thin atmospheres; others enormous ones. If you know which layers to navigate, they make good passages for the brave, trying to shake off the timid.”
“And is the brave Oonzu heading for the darkstring now?”
“We lost most pursuers clinging to the planetary plane of this system, where the Levy Fleet seeks transient equilibrium zones to hold their positions without wasting fuel. We swung out of that plane, and only a few destroyers are still on an intercept trajectory.”
“Only a few?”
“We will lose them here. Omech Chaa Alook 2 and 3 will give us the speed and vector we need.”
“The binary star?”
“Yes. You humans should check your straps again. We will fly a high-incline parabola between the two stars, in the balance region. The destroyers will all have to commit to a course early, but we can wait until the last moment. Then we escape into the darkstring.”
Linuka sank into her strap harness. She didn’t understand what Oonzu was planning, but she took solace in the confidence he radiated when talking about their escape. One thing was clear, though: when Linuka sensed deception in Oonzu’s introduction, the rare undercurrent of Traaz thoughts was not malicious.
Oonzu was not a deceiver—Oonzu was insane.
Copyright © 2025 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.
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