Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 54 - Blockade
- Bert-Oliver Boehmer
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
Rige Khuksos felt like the old man had looked—defeated.
Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa had ruined her moment of glory, the culmination of her careful planning and delicately woven intrigues. She blamed him, as if he had crossed her plans by counter-conspiracies. She sighed. All he had done was being right, and that was his most unforgivable crime.
“Assembly Member?”
Her driver twitched when she had kicked the divider wall of her personal hover speeder in frustration.
“It is nothing. Keep going, and fast.”
The driver mumbled a confirmation and re-focused on the high priority hover ways of Omech Krreng that her speeder blasted along, blurring the city blocks they passed.
“I stopped underestimating her,” had Rrupteemaa said, just before she had him detained by security forces. He beseeched her to join him, leaving the Assembly World, to reach safety outside the effective radius of the causality bomb. He was agitated, shaken, and fearful. Rige could not remember him being that emotional, and it did not feel like an act. Rrupteemaa was genuinely scared of what he predicted came next.
Linuka Omga. Her mind had been read out and fully transferred into the HAVEN system. How did she recover from this? Regained control of her body, overwhelmed a significant force of security units, and vanished without a trace?
Rige shook her head. Focus! The how did not matter for now. She needed to predict what Linuka Omga was going to do next.
She tapped her temple implant.
“Yes, it is me, and I heard. I am on my way back to the spire. Has the girl arrived?”
She listened to the important parts of the response, then tapped to cut the connection. The new Assembly Member Vriishany Omga, the youngest inductee into the Assembly of Oorkuu by a large margin, had safely arrived at her private residence. A security force had taken positions to lock down the spire.
Linuka Omga would not waste time trying to retrieve her cloned aunt. If Rrupteemaa’s scenario played out and she detonated the causality bomb after leaving, there would be no more Assembly, no center of power, nothing to influence by way of a gullible girl. Vriishany Omga’s key role in galactic politics had lasted only half a rotation.
What a waste of immortality.
Linuka Omga was going to leave Omech Chaa as quickly as possible, get herself to a safe distance, not be ‘causally disconnected’, according to Rrupteemaa’s utterances. Rige still struggled to understand what that really meant, but it was clear time was a critical factor. The more time the Assembly had to react to the threat, the less impact would Linuka’s disaster device have.
But how would the Assembly react? Almost no one knew; most of the Members were slumbering in their spires, bedded on cushy ignorance, unaware of the events.
Rige had set out to defeat Linuka Omga alone, with her plan, her preparations, and her will. She and her plan needed to adapt, and fast.
She tapped her implant again.
“High Inspector. You need to transfer the 10-X3 anomaly you secured onto the fastest freight transport you control. Seize one if you must. Fly the device into orbit and have the ship warp away from the system into interstellar space; do not use a darkstring connector. The crew? Obviously use someone up for the task, but expendable. Look, if I wanted to discuss details, I would have talked to some cargo manager. Now be a High Inspector and get this done! Fleet inspections? Once you have the device onboard, send me the ship’s transponder code, and I will guarantee you safe passage through Levy Fleet patrols.”
Rige cut the connection through a forceful tap. Her temple hurt. The conversation was annoying, but the High Inspector’s question about fleet patrols gave her an idea. Space travel to and from Omech Chaa was highly regulated, but what if it was blocked?
Calling the High Inspector back and grounding all outbound flights was not enough. Linuka Omga could find a ship or have one waiting for her already. All flights needed to be stopped. Out of one of the busiest transport hubs in the spiral arm.
She thought of Foyash, the benevolent-looking elder from her Intelligence committee, sharp-minded and well-connected. She tapped her implant once more.
“Foyash. The situation is developing. No, not in a good way. Yes, she has escaped, and we do not know how. We need to keep her on the moon. You need to contact your fleet committee friends and have them enact a full blockade of outbound flights. Nothing leaves orbit. Yes, I understand. They will have to figure out how to do that. Use their patrol craft; scramble all of them. Move the fleet into orbit. Nothing gets through. Notify me when the blockade is active.”
***
The familiar sight of her spire reaching into the demi-dawn sky of Omech Krreng did not calm Rige down. She had rushed inside, ignoring concerned stares and well-meaning questions, and took the elevator to ascend to her quarters near the top of the building. If her world continued on, if the dooming causality device detonated far enough away, the young Omga girl was still going to be an asset. But Foyash had not reported back yet, and life as she knew it was still in the balance.
The elevator door opened. Her core staff surrounded Vriishany Omga in the foyer.
“Assembly Member, thank Iihe Et you’re here. New Member Omga has refused all our food offerings, despite the cravings. What should we…”
Vriishany Omga looked like she had cried, but appeared unharmed otherwise. “Where is my sister?”
Rige took a deep breath. “Your… sister had forgotten about some important business she needed to take care of. Adult business.”
Why was it more difficult to lie to a child than to a room filled with galactic power brokers?
“She will be away for a while.”
Vriishany tilted her head.
“You should really eat something,” said Rige. “The rite leaves everyone hungry. You will feel so much better.”
“I don’t want to,” said Vriishany. “I want to talk to my sister.”
Rige never considered having children, and this conversation reminded her why.
She looked at her staff. “Feed her somehow. Then bring her to bed.”
“Assembly Member?”
“Just do it. Use my bed. This will be a long night, anyway.”
Her temple implant kept buzzing. It showed a priority conversation and an incoming data packet overlaying Rige’s field of view.
“Yes, Foyash? Brilliant. The blockade has been initiated. Remember, no one leaves, with one important exception. I just received transponder codes for a freighter that needs to go off-world. No, they need to let it fly through unchecked, unbothered. It is imperative for this ship to leave the system.”
Another incoming stream popped into her field of view, vying for her attention. The main entrance? What could possibly… ?
Guards, furniture, security doors—everything visible in that stream got pushed through the air and out of sight by an unseen force, as if a spaceship interior had decompressed violently. In its stead, the silhouette of a young woman appeared.
“Assembly Member, we got an intruder alert.”
Rige gasped. “Foyash, get that freighter off this world, now! And send help to my spire, Linuka Omga is here.”
She cut the connection and rushed into the dining room. Vriishany Omga sat in front of a mountain of a meat-heavy buffet, arms crossed. Rige stepped toward her, grabbed her arm and pulled her off the chair.
“Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
“Come with me,” said Rige. “You, guard, give me your gun.”
“But, Assembly Member, we… “
“Give me your gun!” The shrillness of her voice shocked her. The guard slowly offered his sidearm to Rige. She grabbed it like a drowning person being thrown a lifeline.
Voices from the main foyer. “The elevator is coming up.”
“Impossible. We blocked all access.”
“It’s still coming. Get ready. Assume hostile whoever is inside.”
Linuka Omga. She had come for the girl. Rige shook her head. The child immortal was useless now. Omga were not known for being sentimental with family. Linuka’s grandfather ordered to kill the original Vriishany, and in turn, got assassinated by Linuka’s mother.
“I guess your sister is a special kind,” said Rige.
“My sister?” asked Vriishany, “Is she here?”
“Yes,” said Rige, “let us greet her together.”
Rige did not relent her grip, but the girl followed her into the foyer without resistance and seemed too excited to notice the cold gun muzzle pressed against her head. Vriishany had been a bargaining chip her entire life, and now she was Rige’s. If Linuka Omga would waste time to collect her before leaving, she most certainly did not want to see her harmed.
Rige swallowed hard. The elevator door opened. What if Linuka Omga did not care about the girl, but was here for Rige, the woman whose trap she narrowly avoided?
What stepped out of the elevator did not appear to be driven by sisterly concern. Knees bent, hunched forward, rapid head movement, flickering eyes, flexed muscles, a predator ready to strike.
Three guns, two aimed at the intruder, one at the girl’s head. None fired. The foyer was frozen in fear and silence.
Shoot her, she screamed in her head, but no words left Rige’s mouth. She wanted to aim her own gun to meet the stare Linuka gave her, but the weapon fell to the floor, the metallic bounce breaking the silence. Her hand, her arm. Gone.
“In most realities you are deformed. This is your lucky one. Well, it was, until you crossed me.”
The voice resembled Linuka Omga’s, but the monotone coldness gave Rige shivers. Her robe’s wide sleeve hid the damage, but rustled with spasms, motions of a boneless stump, trying to control limbs no longer attached, amputated by will alone. There was no pain, except for loss.
She could only watch as Linuka Omga took Vriishany away from her, gentle, caring, like an obbaa hunter would collect their stray young.
The ‘sisters’ turned to leave, then Linuka stopped, turning her gaze back to Rige. The eyes. It hurt. The space port. A ship, modern, almost too elegant for a freighter. A cargo container, sitting lonely in its cargo bay. The crew, idle, waiting for instructions. So clear, if Rige still had her hands, she could reach out and touch the scenes racing through her mind. Was this how Linuka Omga saw the world? So much power. A voice. 234234-8114242. A code. A transponder ID. Clearance. It hurt.
The images faded. Rige sank to her knees. There was no sound in the foyer, except for her strained breath. Her right arm was a short stump only, without a hand or even an elbow. Her left arm was missing altogether. Her staff lay strewn out on the floor, mangled and lifeless. The elevator door was closed. Vriishany Omga was gone. So was her sister, Linuka.
Rige could not wipe off the tear rolling down her cheek. Neither could she tap her temple implant, requiring her fingerprints. No one would warn the spaceport that Linuka Omga was coming.
Whose mind had seen the only ship destined to leave Omech Chaa safely. Whose mind had heard the code required for safe passage.
Linuka Omga would commandeer that ship through the lines of an unknowing Levy Fleet, onto her next target, wherever that might have been.
“You destroyed the Assembly,” had Rrupteemaa said. She had indeed.
If the bomb Linuka Omga was leaving behind would not bring Rige death, maybe irrelevance would bring her peace.
Goddess of the Galacticide continues on this website with new episodes each Tuesday.
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