Olde Phoenix Inn

Omoikane - 41 Oly Oly Oxen Free


We were at a concert. Tysig and Bendarri Musicians were washing us away with heartfelt waves of music. It was great.

It felt like a costume party. The event was formal, but the Omoikane was mostly shut down, so we were in Bendarri formal dress. We could have gone in dress uniform, but I figured hey, why not?

Afterwards, there’d be a reception. I’d stand back and watch Li’ira network, and try various treats.

We were with the Governor, in her first public outing since she was shot. I expected her to take an early night. Along with us was the Bendarri Local Forces Commander, and the Station Administrator for Kajadoro.

The music was winding down. It felt right, it had been a couple of hours.

The Governor’s communicator started flashing red and making an urgent noise. Looking around, I saw Bendarri government and military people in the audience were getting the same message.

The Governor got up and left in a hurry, followed by the General and the Administrator. Li’ira and I were right behind them.

We all piled into a wide hallway outside the main auditorium. One of Kellen’s administrative people was opening up a briefcase-sized communications station there.

We all looked over her shoulder.

A message played. It showed a Bendarri destroyer against a dark cloud. Possibly the dark nebula we were looking at earlier.

Inside the cloud, actinic white flashes. It looked to me like high-speed asteroids hitting shields. Then some sort of Pyramid looking thing pushed out of the cloud.

“Hail them,” The Bendarri captain said

“No response. I’m not reading anything from that thing. It’s like a black hole of sensor beams.”

“Shields up.”

The black pyramid grew a purple energy sphere around itself, and from that sphere, a bolt of purple lighting. The purple lighting hit the Bendarri destroyer and instantly chewed it into garbage. The destroyed remains of the Bendarri ship thought about it for a second and a half and then detonated from a warp core breach.

We heard a different Bendarri voice “Evasive!”

The screen changed to show a more distant scan. A third Bendarri ship, well out of weapons range, at the edge of short-range sensors. The Pyramid flashed another purple lightning bolt and two seconds later there was a bright flash. Another warp core detonating.

The repeater on the new screen showed a force of one light cruiser and 4 destroyers. The Icons for two of the destroyers were red.

“Keep our distance. Have the Shiirna hang back to look for escape pods. We and the Gravanta will shadow the unknown.”

The black pyramid stopped for several menacing minutes. Then it lept to warp. It was really moving.

The two Bendarri ships flogged their engines and didn’t lose any ground, but it was a near-run thing. Was the Pyramid running dilithium warp drives? Or was it playing with the Bendarri ships? I had no idea.

It was heading straight for Bendervar, the Bendarri homeworld.

Then came the Imperial seal and the Emperess herself “All units, go to alert, and take appropriate action. Pull all forces back to defensive position and stand by for further Information. The intruder is unknown and his intentions are unknown. But we will stand fast and protect the Empire.”

I turned to Li’ira “Round everyone up. We have to go.”

She looked grim: “The Omoikane’s not ready.”

I gestured towards the screen “We have got to go. We go with what we got. We’re wheels up in six hours. I’ll head to the Omoikane and see about buttoning things up.”

Governor Kellen looked at me “Do you think your sensors will help?”

“God, I hope so. Can we bother you for shuttles? My crew is pretty spread out.”

Kellen nodded towards the Panther-like General “Get these people to their ship.”

He came to attention and saluted.

I ran for the runabout. All of the Omoikane crew and several Bendarri folks came with us.

Sure. The more the merrier.

-*-

“We’re leaving dock in five hours and forty-five minutes,” I told Zola-Major. “Lives are on the line and we cannot be late.”

Zola-Major said “Captain, We have diverted all crews to finish the frame members and the power distribution system. We can have the ship mostly functional in twelve hours.”

“More people are coming in behind me. Put them to work. The deadline has no give to it. Let's make it happen.”

Zola-Major shook his head “We will do what we can.”

“I have faith in you and your people, Zola-Major. Maybe the crew will have better ideas about how to kludge stuff together.”

He sounded dubious “Perhaps.”

-*-

It was five and a half hours of madness. Most of the “Get broken stuff out” was done. Most of the new stuff to put the Omoikane back together was present.

So we had to look at what we had and what we needed and get just the bare minimum together to get moving.

The more we patched in a hurry, the more complex things got. I wound up in Engineering, grabbing things for Galaglan and her people, rounding up non-engineering people to be gofers and movers getting things in the right place.

We had to route around things and make up solutions on the fly. It was horrible. It was wonderful. I never want to do that again.

I was back on the bridge getting ready to go when Zola-Major approached me. “We have taken a poll. Most of the worker units will stay on the job and go with you. Launch, and go to warp. They have been backed up. If they get damaged or destroyed, they will live on in Damyip 17.”

I blinked. Zola meant to launch and go to warp with Damyip worker drones still mending our hull.

Being on a starship hull as it goes to warp and being outside looking at the warp bubble is something very few people can claim to have done. The environment might be benign. Or it might not. Extremes of heat, cold, and radiation are not uncommon. If the warp field impacted a body, then inside we’d see a rainbow streak. Outside you’d experience every band of radiation as the grain of sand or the pebble was converted to energy.

It was a suicide mission. They were artificial life forms. They had backed themselves up. But it was a suicide mission. It didn’t FEEL right. As I wrestled with the idea, it occurred to me that the Damyip had, indeed won me over. But I still had an intercept to accomplish.

Li’ira spoke to me quietly “Is Mi’ira right? Are you going soft?”

I glared at her. It felt like being pushed. I didn’t like it. Would my decision be mine or me reacting to Li’ira’s push?

“They volunteered. We trained for something like this to get our command rating,” She said.

I turned away from Li’ira “Galaglan, fire up the warp power system and run a level 5 diagnostic, please, state readiness for warp drive,”

The Omoikane’s warp drive systems came to life. I watched the diagnostic run on the bridge engineering panel.

**Warp drive system green across the board.** Galaglan said.

“Make a public countdown to launch,”

Varupuchu set it up. Ten minutes.

“When ready, release umbilicals and clamps. Request permission from Damyip 17.2 to undock and disengage.”

Varupuchu said, “Permission is granted.”

I looked at the strategic map displayed on the bridge. The unknown was still driving straight for Bendervarr. Our map showed an impromptu task force maneuvering to intercept in three hours.

“All departments, Signal readiness to undock and engage engines.”

Varupuchu repeated each department head's report.

At minus five minutes I said, “Begin undocking.”

The Omoikane unhooked the umbilicals one by one. Then the docking clamps released in a careful sequence. If one clamp hung the mass of the ship and the single clamp might come into conflict. Both sides would lose. The docking clamps released without incident.

The Omoikane was no longer physically connected to Damyip 17.2

“Back us away from the station, maneuvering thrusters only.”

Tarla carefully backed the Omoikane away from the masts and arms. The sun shades were reefed in, out of our way. I could see insect-like worker-type Damyip units crawling along the mast.

Once we were far enough away I said “Hail Tysig space control and request a course for the edge of the system.”

Varupuchu did so.

Tysig control immediately cleared us and gave us a path out of the Tysig system.

“Set course and engage, full impulse.”

The Omoikane turned and accelerated along the indicated path. Smooth as silk. I could feel a faint vibration of the deck.

I looked at the ships condition display. The top was still an angry red, where we were open to space. The main frame members were there. The workers were struggling to get enough of the infrastructure mounted so the structural integrity field could cover the open area and act like a virtual hull for the duration. I could see various bits of the affected area turn from red to yellow as the Damyip and drones worked.

On a different screen, I could see traffic in the Tysig system. It was different than when we arrived. Civilian ships were in a closer orbit of Tysig itself. The Bendarri military ships were in orbit around the gas giant, ready to intercept and engage any invaders. Convoys of supplies for the front were formed up, but were holding in position to see what would happen.

I took a deep breath. “Go to warp. Make warp one and then hold for five minutes and then increase to warp two. Continue that way until we’re at best speed to intercept the unknown ship.”

That way, if something stupid happened, we had a little time to hit the brakes.

The Omoikane went to warp. No problem. I could see the internal systems adjust to work around and protect our compromised area.

I watched like a hawk. As if I could do anything.

Radiation came and went. The temps never varied much machine terms. The warp field fluctuated a little, as it always does.

As we came to our best speed, somewhere north of warp 9, on our scale, I could see the signals of our synthetic dock workers blink red one by one. Some subspace ripple or blast of radiation got ‘em.

As we flashed across space at amazing speeds, I just watched them work. A race against time.

With a little more than half the Damyip left, they completed the work. The structural integrity field rearranged itself to cover the compromised section of the hull. They were now, functionally inside.

They kept right on working to finish up the work. I guessed the Damyip processed trauma differently than we did.

Omoikane 42 - Race Against Time

“Hail the Intruder,” The Commanding Officer said. A regal Lioness woman. She had a lot of credibility.

“Hailing. The Intruder is responding. Civilian code, unencrypted.”

“On screen.”

We saw her screen’s view.

A Wizened old blue man sat on what looked like a mix of command chair and throne. He was wearing black robes and some jewelry, “I am Momra. Who are you?”

“I am Admiral Kedzaj of the Bendarri Space Navy. You have fired on us, Mister Momra.”

He laughed “Yes. It was a good real-life test of my ship's systems. They are perfect. You cannot stop me.”

I couldn’t see anyone else around him, but the view was arranged to focus on him.

“We’re willing to talk if you have demands.”

“Demands? Demands? I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender. I have come to take my rightful place as your ruler. Your people and your worlds are rightfully my property.”

“I am no one’s property, Sir. We don’t do slavery anymore.”

Momra nodded sadly “Your ancestors have always had this delusion. I blame myself. I was so focused on getting the physical parts correct, I didn’t do enough work on the psychological. So much easier if I had programmed loyalty into you. But that wasn’t to be. So I had to resort to other methods. Cults. Building up a state focused on me. Making a religion out of myself. And I’ll do it all again. I have power that you do not know, Admiral. I am just this side of being a God. And once I have the power stones, I will finally ascend.

But right now, I have all the power I need to sweep away your navy and your monarchy. The entire Bendari Space Navy cannot stop me. I will take the throne, and assume rightful command.

Now, you have a choice. Throw away the lives of yourself and your crew, or submit to the inevitable. I dislike wasting resources, but not enough to let you slow me down.”

“I think you may be surprised. In any case. I reject your claim to authority. Behave like a civilized being and we can talk rationally. Attack, and we will defend,” Kedzaj replied.

“So be it. The cats are always so independent-minded. Pretty, but stubborn. Tell your Emperess. Stand down and hand the throne to me, and the bloodshed ends. Until then, I will brook no opposition.”

Kedjaz cut the channel, “Set up attack plan Omega,” She said

-*-

The whole battle was broadcast as it happened. The Omoikane was too far away to affect the fight.

The Bendarri task force matched speeds with the pyramid and then cleverly combined their warp fields and fought the Pyramid’s warp drive. Their sensors showed that the energy of the Pyramid's warp drive was excessive. No one ship could match it. But the Bendarri task force acted as a team, using leverage to bring the Pyramid out of warp.

It stopped for a few minutes and then reset its warp drives, and created a static warp bubble. The power expressed was terrific. I didn’t know any single object in the Federation that could match that, Maybe the builder stations, but they’d be melting things and causing problems for themselves.

The Pyramid warp field did something. A sort of internal mobius twist. It did this hard. The Bendarri ships that were close had their warp drives forced into compliance with this insane configuration. Three of the ships had the conflict expressed as heat. Their warp nacelles glowed and melted in moments. Two others just exploded. Everyone nearby had their warp drives wrecked.

The Bendarri who could turned and made a maximum impulse burn away from the Pyramid.

A Bendarri destroyer at blazingly high warp slammed into the front of the Pyramid. The collision turned the whole destroyer into energy. It made a pulse of heat and light of astronomical proportions. Anything I knew of would have been mangled by that, at best. At worse they’d have joined the explosion of light and energy. It was an impressive feat of bloody-minded destruction.

The Pyramid just sat there.

The Bendarri ships that could, turned around and burned back at the Pyramid.

When they got into range, they unloaded every weapon they had into the Pyramid.

It just sat there.

They formed up and focused their attack on one face of the Pyramid.

It just sat there. No visible effect.

Ten minutes after the kamikaze attack, the Pyramid flickered in purple.

It started to move. Slowly at first but gaining speed.

Then it shot Admiral Kedzaj’s flagship with a purple lightning bolt. Blew right through her shields and wrecked the ship.

The Pyramid killed two more ships before they backed off.

The Pyramid flew faster and faster and then re-entered warp.

-*-

Sitting on the bridge watching all this, I rubbed my face.

“It’s Wolf 359 all over again,” Varupuchu said.

“Yeah,” I said. We all sat there and absorbed that idea.

“When do we intercept that damned Pyramid?” I asked

“It’ll be just outside the Bendervarr system.”

“Let them know we’re on our way,” I said.

“Aye, Sir.”

The Omoikane drove on.

-*-

The King of Radipaka was built wide. He was huge. He looked like a mix of lion and tiger, but as a humanoid. He was on the bridge of a starship.

“I am Nyankapon, King of Radipaka. I now go to the Bendervar system to defend my Emperess HowaKi.” He raised a large sword “Besides my fleet and my warriors, I bring the Sword of Omens. With its power, we will triumph over Momra once again.”

The strategic screen showed a group of ships flying from Radipaka to Bendervar. Some of them were in Military formation. A lot were just in a jumble.

They’d get to the system about six hours ahead of the Pyramid.

A magic sword for fuck’s sake.

-*-

As we got close, we could hear. Everyone with a comm system was trying to contact the Pyramid. Mostly it was people yelling at Momra. Others were trying to be reasonable.

We watched everything with a gun on it in the Bendervar system arrange itself for the coming battle. Rings of ships prepared to go down fighting.

Waiting and watching the distance close was agonizing.

-*-


The Pyramid was minutes away from the edge of the Bendervar system.

An alarm on my control panel beeped. We were within long-range active sensor range.

“Scan him, Tillean.”

“Scanning.”

The Pyramid dropped out of warp immediately.

“Power signatures halted. The Pyramid is going inert, Captain.”

I lowered my head and said, “Thank God.”

“Do you want to continue at this speed?” Li’ira asked

“Yeah. Let’s get in there and resolve this before the Bendarri freak out. Their responses are liable to be pretty randomized.”

Omoikane 43 - Anti Climax

We arrived at the Pyramid. It was floating, passively.

“I am reading tertiary power systems. The Pyramid has life support and some basic systems working. Everything else is dead,” Tillean said.

I went to look over Tillean’s shoulder. The power supplies were reading as El-Aurian auxiliary power generators. “Huh,” I said “How many life forms?”

Tillean scanned “Eighty-seven. Most are faint and fading.”

Varupuchu reported “Ships heading this way from Bendervar. Three dreadnoughts and escorts.”

“Share our scans of the Pyramid with them. How long till they get here?”

“About 3 hours, at their current speed.”

“Alright, rescue stations everyone. Let's see if we can stabilize these guys long enough for them to stand trial. Li’ira, Stephanie, you’re with me. Harksain, you have the conn.”

“I have the Conn,” Varupuchu repeated.

We went down to the Transporter room and checked out away team gear.

Dr. Hobolisk was there with his medical teams.

“We’ll beam in first, Secure the beam in site, and then your crews can follow.”

Hobolisk nodded, grimly. He was in some sort of action-scrubs, ready for fieldwork.

Li’ira, Stephanie, two Security guys and I took out our phasers and beamed to the Pyramid.

-*-

We materialized in a transporter room. Lizard folk from the Bendarri empire were down all over. Scans showed them to be riddled with now dormant nano-tech. Some of the Varsanah folk were there, too.

We met a group of three people still up and functioning. When they saw us they said “We surrender! Help us, our friends are dying. Our God is dying!”

“I need you to be very sincere and very thorough about your surrender,” I said.

The two Varsanah and the one lizard-person looked back and forth and came to an agreement. “We request asylum from the Federation.”

“Denied,” I said shortly “Let's get this mess stabilized before we over-complicate things.”

“That’s fair, I guess.”

We started beaming in the medical crew.

“Show me to Momra,” I said.

They took Li’ira and me to the command center.

On the way, I made sure my gear was recording everything.

Momra was slumped in his command couch.

“Momra?” I said

He struggled to move his head

“How?” He asked “You’ve neutralized all my tech. I thought I had safeguards. I thought I had defenses.”

“Not all of it. The El-Aurian stuff is still working.”

He looked at me for a second and then wheezed a laugh “I’d forgotten I had any of that left.”

I scanned him with my tricorder. He was mostly inert nanotech and defunct devices. I watched his heart-beat and blood pressure decline. Not good.
“We’re going to try and save you,” I said “Medical people will be here soon.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” He said

“Why?”

“It’s quiet. It’s the first time it’s been quiet for I don’t know how long. I’m tired. Probably the loss of the Rishan tech. But I find, at this moment, quiet sounds lovely. That’s what I really want.”

“What was this all about? I’m struggling to understand.”

He grew more animated “The Power Stones. Five Rishan devices. They were power packs of some kind intended to drive larger machines. The Rishan devices… they listen to you, you know. Your brain, your mind. They’re telepathic. That’s what drives people insane. They reflect your own subconscious back to you. Combined with an image of reality that seems impossible. It’s nightmarish.”

“But not you…”

“Oh, I went mad. I was bark-eating crazy a number of times. I was brought back by the voices of the ancient spirits. They guided me to my purpose.”

“What was your purpose?”

“With all five power stones in one place, I could install them into a machine that could rip open reality, allowing access to higher dimensions. The Higher dimensions are like the Rishan tech, but worse. You can use your mind to reshape reality.”

“So you were after power,”

“Oh, Yes. With the power to bend reality to my will, I’d have been a god.”

“You hurt a lot of people.”

“People! Feh! I made them! I have a Rishan people maker, you see. Hidden in that nebula I came from. Only Rishan tech can get in and out of there. I created all these creatures to be labor. To belong to me. As my pets and farm animals. They’re not people.”

I stared at him. “Wow.”

“My people, the El-Aurians. They didn’t believe me. They wouldn’t support me. I had to make a support infrastructure as I went.”

“Support you, how?”

“I wanted to study the Rishans! I wanted to discover what made them tick. Along the way I got sidetracked into becoming a God. You know how it goes.”

“And the El-Aurians declined to support your project because…”

“There were some incidents. Lots of insane researchers and occasional bad activations of Rishan devices. They grew afraid and cowardly. And then, they turned into a race of lotus-eaters. They withdrew from reality to meditate on the voice of the universe or whatever. I couldn’t be bothered. By then I was on my way.”

“What did you find out about the Rishans?”

“On Earth, when I was there, there was a common misunderstanding. They saw evolution as proceeding as if directed towards a goal. Life starts as a slime, and then painfully, over vast stretches of time, Life climbs, as if climbing a mountain from simple, rude, and insufficient, towards a goal. Each step gets better and better, until at the pinnacle of evolution, its goal. Its perfection. Mankind. The peak and aspiration of all life everywhere,” Momra wheezed a laugh “The Rishans are that attitude with godlike powers.”

“They’re like us?”

“More than you’ll ever know. Physically they’d be indistinguishable. But they’re so full of themselves, so self-confidently wrong. This is why trying to understand them drives sane people mad. The Rishans operated in their own self-contained context and utterly failed to conceptualize that other people might exist, or see things differently. It’s like an operating system made of in-jokes from a lost culture. Each device is shaped by the self-absorbed thought process of the Rishan it last interacted with. So when a human, or a Vulcan or an El-Aurian wanders by, the device interacts and expects what it last saw. It does this so hard that your mind breaks trying to reach the pedals.”

“They sound like assholes.”

“Oh, yes. You can see their level of assholery from Andromeda.”

“But you wanted to be like them.”

“Oh, Gods, no. That would be crazy. I wanted to use their technology to surpass physical reality and become a god.”

I just had to process that one for a moment. Then I asked, “Why are you blue?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. It happened one of the times when I was mad. I can cover it. That’s how I’ve been able to move around. Old man Mo and his beat-up scout. I’ve been coming and going for years. But the blue seems to have been written into my genes, somehow. I told myself I’d fix it when I was god.”

He wheezed some. I could see him fading.

“You there, fetch me the Sword of Plunder,” He told the functional cultists.

They looked at me nervously.

I nodded.

“Oh ho! You have a cult now. Let me tell you. It’s not always all it’s cracked up to be.”

“So you were going to tear a hole in reality and ascend to godhood. But you’re not crazy or anything,” I said.

He took a deep breath “It does sound a little insane when you say it that way. But that’s not going to happen now. Now I get to rest.”

Dr. Hobolisk and his med crew came into the control center. “Eighty some odd people are down. I don’t know how many of them I can recover. We don’t have the resources to support all of them.”

“They’re not people,” Momra insisted.

“How about this asshole?”

I thought about it for a moment “He’s put in a DNR.”

Hobolisk nodded slowly. He turned to one of his medics. An Anelilog, “Did you want to do that thing?”

The Medic glared at Momra **No. Not him. He doesn’t deserve it.**

“Focus on the people you can recover. We’ll ask the Bendarri for help when they get here,” I said.

“They’ll eat us. Some of them are carnivores. No point in wasting a free meal,” Momra said.

“We get it. You’re racist. Lighten up on that shit,” I said.

“It’s not racism,” Momra said “It’s biology.”

“Now I wonder why Neiterkob didn’t stab you with the Sword of Omens,”

“He did! He wrecked me. Only the Rishan tech and my own sword got me through that. Once you let up on the control, the animals run wild. It’s constant rebellions, uprisings, and insurrections with them. So we fled to safety to regain our strength.”

“Gee. I wonder why anyone would rebel against your benevolent rule,” I said.

“You don’t understand. You’re coming from a place of civilized privilege. You don’t realize how savage these animals can be. I lifted them up, and their gratitude stopped as soon as the food plate was empty.”

The cult members came back with a stupid-looking sword. It had wings on the hilt. It looked more like a Halloween decoration than a practical tool. The cultist handed it to Momra reverently.

With a wheezing laugh Momra took the sword. Then he stopped laughing “It’s dead,” He complained. His arm slowly drooped down. He couldn’t hold the ugly decorative sword up. “How? It's the most powerful artifact here. With it dead…. Without it…”

Momra slumped down. “This is one of the Power Stones. Without it, I’ll never ascend.”

He deliberately let the sword go and it clattered to the floor, “I’ve been working for generations to get to that end. I’m so tired. It’s been my focal point for so long. I’m tired of all of this.”

He looked at me “Human. Take care of my animals. Watch them, they can be a handful. But they need someone to care about them.”

I restrained myself from slapping him, barely. “Everything will be taken care of properly.”

“So tired…. So tired.”

Momra fell into semi-consciousness. Occasionally he’d mumble.

Omoikane 44 - Royalty

The Dreadnoughts roared up to the Pyramid ready for a fight. They were monsters. Two Bendarri and one Radipakan.

“Request permission to beam aboard.” A voice said over my Comm-badge

“We have about eighty people down here. They need medical attention. Send medics,” I said.

“Understood, Bendarri Security coming aboard now.”

Bendarri troopers beamed aboard the Pyramid. All sorts of folks. Elite troopers. They secured the control center, checking each downed cultist.

They saw the cultists who’d surrendered “UP AGAINST THE WALL. NOW!” They were pointing very serious phaser rifles at the cultists

“Hey, hey,” I said “They’ve surrendered. They’re with me.”

The bear-like Special Forces Officer looked at me very thoroughly. “As a courtesy, I won’t stun everyone in here. That’s as far as I’ll go. I repeat, cultists, get against the wall or get stunned NOW.”

The cultists backed up against the wall with their hands in the air.

“Site Secure! Beam in Alpha,” The Special Forces Officer said.

The Transporter effect glowed, sparkled, and hummed and there were HowaKi and Nyankapon along with various assistants.

I blinked and shivered. I looked at the Special Forces officer. His poker face was perfect.

So much could go wrong, here. This was such a terrible risk.

They came over to where I was standing next to the fading husk of Momra.

They were HUGE. They made the bridge of Momra’s Pyramid look small.

Momra snorted awake. Awake-ish. “Oh, fuck me, they’re big,” he slurred.

“This is Momra?” HowaKi asked softly. Her voice still rumbled. She was the size of a grizzly bear.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said “With his Rishan technology disabled, he’s dying. He’s asked not to be resuscitated.”

She thought about it “Yes. Yes, I think that’s for the best.”

“Don’t eat me,” Momra wheezed.

That stunned the Bendarri people present.

HowaKi recovered quickly “You’re far too old, tough, and stringy to eat, Momra. “

Momra turned to Nyankapon “Oh, look. Another Lion guy with the Sword of Omens. Haven’t seen that thing since Neiterkob stuck me with it. You’re even bigger than he was.”

Nyankapon said, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be here. In your black pyramid, holding the Sword of Omens. It’s like something out of children's stories.”

Momra nodded “I liked the cartoons. The actor who played me really chewed up the scenery. Hey, show me the sword. Is yours dead too?”

Nyankapon held up the sword in a ritual salute “Yes. It went to sleep about three years ago. We don’t know why.”

“You brought it anyway.”

“I hoped that it would reawaken at our moment of desperate need.”

Momra wheezed and laughed. Then he pointed at me “How did you do it? How did you shut it all down?”

With the empress of an allied empire and the king of an allied planet in the room, I didn’t have much space to evade. “We don’t know. We know that if Federation sensors scan anything Rishan, it shuts down. Permanently, as far as we’ve been able to tell. We encountered some of Momra’s guys at Tysig. That clued me in that his powers were Rishan in origin. I was hoping the effect would work on his pyramid here. Luckily it worked out in our favor.”

Momra glared at me “You don’t know? You don’t know. Fuck me, you’re as bad as Neiterkob.” He collapsed into a coughing fit.

Nyankapon looked at me “You’re as bad as Neiterkob,” he intoned as if it had more significance.

“Look, this pyramid is full of people who are dying because their cybernetics have shut off. I don’t have the resources to support them all. Let’s save the lives we can and then debrief?”

HowaKi turned towards her Special Forces Commander “We rescue all the cultists we can, please begin.”

He turned away and started speaking orders into his comm gear.

“What do we do with them?” One of the Bendarri operators indicated the cultists who were up against the wall.

“They’re with me,” I said quickly, “They’ve asked for asylum and I granted it.”

HowaKi looked at me. Boy, she was BIG. It felt like forever. “So be it,” She huffed “You three are banished. You are forbidden from setting foot in Bendarri territory for life.”

I turned to Li’ira, “Get them out of here before it gets worse.”

Li’ira quickly went over to the cultists and had them beamed to the Omoikane.

Medical crews started beaming in and grabbing downed cultists.

HowaKi turned to me again “One more point of business.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“I claim this pyramid for the Bendarri Empire. The Federation may send anyone they want to examine it or conduct any scientific investigation they like. But this object belongs to the Empire.”

I hadn’t considered it. There was no point in making waves. “Yes, Ma’am. This vessel belongs to the Empire.”

“He’s dying,” Dr. Hobolisk said, indicating Momra.

We all watched in silence as Momra wheezed his last few breaths. It took both longer and shorter than it seemed like it should have.

Once Hobolisk pronounced him, I said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get more of his story. I am very happy he can’t hurt anyone else anymore.”

Nyankapon said, “That’s the last of Momra.”

HowaKi said “We can’t afford to take that for granted. He may have clones, or android doubles, vengeance-motivated descendants or some other cartoonish back-up plan. We must stay vigilant against something colorfully stupid.”


I winced at the thought, but she was right.

We began the clean-up from the neutralization of the Pyramid.