Infinity (7 page)

The vessels that
Cruise sent did not need to land on Cassiopeia. As soon as they were close
enough to be certain that their message was received they did a U-turn.
Rendezvousing with the vessels Daxu Korth sent, that were already closest to
the border, they headed back to join their fellow citizens of the kingdom.

Needless to say,
the Quantum Cyber Interstellar caught wind of the story and it was transmitted
to every planet in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. One particularly interested
party is sitting alone in a tavern on the edge of the kingdom on the far-flung
planet of Eniam 22.

Lem Nesbig is a racketeer. He’ll stop at nothing to
get what he wants. Not overly successful, he has had his good days too. He
calls his girl Shorene, and is looking to team up with a few infamous
characters. His bloodshot blue eyes dart back and forth, up and down as he
reads the news on his quantum tablet. “I just wonder,” he ponders, “if pay day
is not just around the corner.”

Wathesan-Fla-Fla was the leader of Planet Eniam
22; a world where merchants came to trade and space criminals came to roost.
The law was bought and paid for, to keep order and to protect Wathesan-Fla-Fla.
Every morning he slicked down his black hair with pomade, waxed his handlebar moustache
with facial hair wax, and had his beard trimmed short. He ran his rounded beady
eyes over the news flashes on his hand screen and caught the headlines of the
latest news in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster.

“Huh,” he grunted to his sweetheart
Ladledee, “So the prince has flown the coup eh?”

“Oh...news, news, news...that’s all it is.
They want to sell subscriptions that’s all,” responds an indifferent Ladledee,
moving her eyes around his face from his thick greyish hair that was combed
straight back but stood up in the middle. It was short enough so as not to
cover his pointed ears, which stuck out on both sides. His eyebrows were
slightly bushy. He had a tough, bully’s type of nose and his mouth was turned
down in a perpetual frown to match his moustache and the lines on his face. It
seemed his forehead was always wrinkled up in worry. The magenta morning sun
came through the window turning his normally light purple face an eerie red.

“There must be a way to cash in on this.
It says Dekkonia is a mining planet with all kinds of precious ore,” replies
Wathesan-Fla-Fla.

“Dumb...very dumb I think,” says Ladledee.
“You don’t really wanna actually go to a hellish place like that do you? Look
at the bags under your eyes.”

“Not to do the mining, my dear, but to
steal the ore; as much as we can,” snickers the gleeful leader. “We just need a
few powerful allies, and we can go halfizees. Uh...I need more sleep.”

“Look, my bulbous he-man,” says Ladledee.
“It says The Subjugator’s pirates were killed. The rest were taken to a prison
planet and dropped off there by Prince Cruise Liberty. You do
not
wanna mess around with
him
, dearie.”

“But he’s only a man and can die,”
contradicts Wathesan-Fla-Fla.

“I know you’re crazy, big boy,” replies
Ladledee, “but he’s not just a man. You can’t kill him.”

“We’ll see...we’ll see.”

Wathesan-Fla-Fla
calls up some characters that owe him favours; Lem Nesbig is one of them, Trag-Yurphma
is another. Then he calls the infamous and slimy
Niv-Yecaps and Nam Nitsud
,
who are partners in crime. They all gather for a meeting at a nightclub called
The Black Hole owned by Trag-Yurphma and plan to gather their cronies together
to form a mob. At the meeting they agree to recruit some of the planet’s strongest
prize fighters and mercenaries. The Marshal and Chief of the Law Squad want
their share too.

“If you
don’t cut us in, you get no protection,” dictates Bor Mukim, the head of the
law keeping squad on Planet Eniam 22. “After all we need some incentive to keep
the bounty hunters off you.” The lawman glowered at the leader, thinning his
black eyes as he half sneered, half snickered, part of his very thin lip raised
on one side.

Trag
looked up at Bor, his thick brownish-purple eyebrows raised. His long jaw fell
open as he held his narrow head up in his hand with his elbow on the table.

“It’s
been a long night, Bor. “You’ll get your cut. Just like the rest of us. Just
don’t try anything funny.”

Bor
turned his head down towards Trag. “Just gotta make sure I don’t get double
crossed. It ain’t very nice to be double crossed.”

“Oh for
the love of starlight,” blurts Niv-Yecaps, his orb shaped eyes half closed.
“Let’s not destroy a good thing even before it gets started now.”

“Gentlemen,”
speaks up Wathesan-Fla-Fla, “Are we here for business? Or are we here to fight?
If you like a good fight, there’s one tonight at the Nova Arena. Good fighters
too. My money will be on The Nailati Noillats himself.”

“You mean
Boa Skcory?” Nam Nitsud jumps in. “You gotta be kiddin’ me. He almost killed
the other sucker in his last fight.”

The bloody
fight did take place that night, which attracted quite a crowd of betters. Boa
Skcory went up against the “Magnificence of the Arena” Nach Eikaj. Boa was
bigger and stronger, but Nach was faster and better skilled. The match turned
out to be a draw, and everybody was angry. The crowd started attacking the
fighters and they had to fight off as many as they could before a vehicle
pulled up to take them away. It was Trag the mobster club owner.

“Got a
proposition for you two,” he said. “Wanna hear it?”

Boa
looked at Nach and made a long-faced puffy-lipped smug face tottering his head
back and forth. “Well, why not?”

Nach,
smaller and stocky, slits for eyes, tightened them even more and smiled with
all of his fifty teeth and moved his round head in a circular motion, causing
his long ponytail to shimmy. “I see...I see...no, I don’t see. What
proposition?”

“You join
us for a real job. We’ll cut you in on a share,” replied Trag. “I’ll explain
later. We just gotta know you two are with us on this deal.” Trag twirled his
Gufu Cigar and put it in his teeth and smiled, with one eyebrow up and one
down. He pulled his collar up closer to his neck, and left the meeting for his
office, all the while looking back and smiling.

The club
was bubbling with business. That part of Planet Eniam 22 had six distinct
seasons; Damp, Boil, Scorch, Blossoming, Emerald and Snowy in that order, and
then it repeated without fail. It was Blossoming now, which meant a lot of
showers and wind. Occurring right after Scorch, it was still quite warm but
when the winds and showers came, that cooled it off considerably.

No one
noticed who was coming and going so much. Most of the customers looked like
regular customers, except for a dark cloaked-hooded female who entered in the
middle of the band playing and the dancers dancing on the dance floor, which
was separate from the rest of the bar.

Glasses
were clicking as the best ale on the planet was being served along with exotic
interplanetary wines, whiskeys, and liqueurs from all over the Deltanaff-Nizz
Galaxy. The Deltanaff-Nizz was at the uttermost quadrant of the Twelve Galaxies
Cluster. It was also the most ignored and neglected because of its distance and
disreputable reputation.

Planet
Eniam 22 was in the solar system that had one gigantic orange sun. It was the
sixth planet in that solar system of twelve planets. The planet Dvora had been
sentenced to was the eighth planet from the sun and thus it was colder. Only
two seasons prevailed on Gingat; Blossoming and Snowy.

The
vessel that was taking her and fifty other prisoners there had been attacked by
the
  
Xiattodians, which was their prerogative as keepers
of the Yuhenia Star System. The prison transport spacecraft was on their way to
Gingat, but was intercepted by a Xiattodian Bird of Prey.

The Xiattodians themselves were a tall and strong
species and totally indigenous. They hated the Kingdom of Twelve Galaxies
Cluster and often tried to raid vessels on their way to and from the Cassiopeia.
They were often not so successful due to the makeup of the vessels they were
attacking being made of Platainium.

The prison transport, however, was an older vessel
and was not made of Platainium. It was an easy target for the Xiattodians, and
when they boarded the vessel they killed all of the guards, and most of the
prisoners too.

During the ensuing battle, one of the guards who had
been beguiled by Dvora’s charm and had favoured her could not bear to see her
butchered by the barbarian attackers. He released her from her cell, unlocked
her wrist cuffs and gave her a weapon in hopes that she would use her strength
and influence to persuade the Xiattodians to leave.

Dvora not only possessed seduction charm, but as the
Queen that she had been, but also being a full-blooded Quewythian, she acquired
the strength of ten warriors due to the orange sun. She not only out shot the
Xiattodian intruders, but also wielded their own blades against them with
outstanding skill and veracity. The guard who set her free had not been
fortunate. He was beheaded by one of the attackers, who Dvora ran through with
one of their own spears.

She turned over the prison vessel to the leader of
the prisoners, Shad-Arg-Thui. Since the Xiattodian vessel had docked and was
locked onto the prison vessel, Dvora easily found the transfer exit and boarded
the Xiattodian Bird of Prey. Once on board she made short work of the remaining
alien crewmembers, disposing of their bodies through their own torpedo tubes.

Shad-Arg-Thui took command of the prison vessel and
along with thirty-three survivors took to the stars. They did not dare land on
Planet Eniam 22; prison
vessels were well known and would be attacked by anti-spacecraft weapons upon
trying to land.

The
Xiattodian Bird of Prey, however, was welcome. Dvora was able to enter Planet
Eniam 22 air space without incident, navigate to a remote clearing and land.
From there she took one of the vessel’s hover shuttles to make her way into the
city. Once in the city, she hid the shuttle in an old abandoned storehouse, and
took public transportation to The Black Hole.

She was
seeking retribution and knew that she could find like-minded individuals who
shared a common goal; bring down The Kingdom of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster.

   
Captain’s Chronicles: The
search for Earth and Arthos was more intense than ever. We searched to the ends
of Galaxies, followed the trails of comets and rogue asteroids. They traveled
at common speed as well as Super Hyper Speed. Infinity could read and instantly
record every bit of data on every planet to where we do not need to actually
land anywhere to gather information.

   
Cruise and Millennia
searched together, commanding all who they came in contact with and following
every lead. Many different races of beings had attacked Infinity and the
vessels following. However, the superiority of Platainium coupled with their
invisible force shields repelled any and all would be assassins and assailants.
They were leaving behind a string of new additions to the kingdom.

They
skimmed through the universe galaxy to galaxy and star system to star system in
search of the planet many had called “The Blue World”. Some said it was only a
legend, and some said it was a real place; the world where everything began. Cruise
and Millennia both had lived a long time. They had been thirty earth years in
searching, now bound together by their eternal vows; no longer two people in
goals, but one person in one heart. Cruise had found his soul mate and she
hers.

They kept
in touch with “home” which they considered Cassiopeia and Dekkonia, by sending
back vessels from time to time. The spacecraft would be full of messages and
data from Cruise and Millennia, but it took years before they were within range
of the Kingdom’s communication cyber matrix.

They
travelled far and fast. The original one hundred spacecraft had increased to
one thousand after Daxu Korth sent them. Since then, three hundred had been
ordered to stay on planets that had joined the kingdom to help them and to set
up communication. The new communications system would connect Cruise and Millennia
to their home bases. Many of the planets they visited had been without
protection and had been overrun by pirates mostly sent by The Subjugator.

Between
sending the communication vessels back and stopping to help needy
civilizations, they spent a great amount of time, energy and riches on others. Thanks
to Infinity’s scanners, Cruise found productive and friendly planets where he
could start leaving the data and information. He hoped that the Twelve Galaxies
Cluster vessels would be able to come further now and find them to transport
the data back to Cassiopeia and Dekkonia.
 
Sending messages billions of light years through space just wasn’t
happening yet. Cruise hoped to set up a Quantum Connection between Earth and
The Twelve Galaxies Cluster after arriving on “The Blue Planet.” By his plan to
add planets and their galaxies to the kingdom, he and Millennia hoped to make
the Cyber Interstellar communications system truly interstellar, by bouncing
Quantum frequencies off of neighboring stars.

There was
no Quantum Cyber Connection deep into space where they ventured. The only thing
that mattered now was finding the Milky Way Galaxy, and the solar system that
contained Earth, in hopes that Cruise’s brother would be there by some
inexplicable miracle.

Measuring
time by Earth’s calendars, a hundred and seventy three Earth years had passed,
which to Cruise and Millennia seemed like only a few years. By that time Dvora
had rescued her daughters from the clutches of base and lewd fellows on Planet
Eniam 22. The Black Hole nightclub was no more. The very unstable Xiattodians
had retaliated for what Dvora did to their warriors and stealing their vessel
by bringing devastation to the planet surface and all living things on it. Planet
Enaim 22 was now a desert wasteland. The trickle of survivors that were left
struggled to make their way.

Dvora had
rescued her daughters and was long gone and on her way in the Xiattodian bird
of prey vessel to another star system, the
Kreapis Empire
and the prison planet that had no name but Planet-X. They went from planet to
planet seeking refuge. Much time had passed for these who were now travellers
and vagabonds in the
Deltanaff-Nizz
Galaxy.

The technology aboard the vessel she commandeered
guided her to Planet-X, as the location had been stored in the vessel’s
computer database. Once within range of the planet she locked into orbit around
it. The mining prison Planet-X had no spacecrafts and no need for many guards,
only armed ones. There was virtually no escape. Those who attempted to escape
only ended up in the land of volcanoes, or the dark, dead swamplands, which
bred giant snakes that swallowed them up whole. Escape only meant a horrible and
tortuous death.

Dvora now had
her seven daughters, but her powers would not be complete unless she had the
Great Sorceress Caratrah
Shadowfire. With “The Bird of Prey” vessel, Dvora’s
oldest daughter
Vaneza locked onto
Caratrah
Shadowfire’s
coordinates deep in one of the
Xetronium
Mines. A long and tedious life had taken a serious toll on her. Any normal
being would have died down there in ten years just from the dust eating away at
their lungs. But Caratrah’s magic only grew stronger with each task she was
made to perform.

With her sorcery
she had been seducing guards and arranging for them to bring her certain herbs
and roots difficult to find, but were common to that area of space. With the
herbs and roots she conjured up potions that gave her more favour with the
guards and freed her from having to work on the lowest levels. She found favour
in their eyes as she bewitched them. However, her powers were weakening and she
grew older. She was not the young vibrant woman that she used to be. The
lifespan of her Fretharian race was much less than that of the Quewythians.
Dvora knew she had to work faster if she was going to salvage what was left of
the Great Sorceress.

Having locked on
to her coordinates, Caratrah
Shadowfire was teleported from the
planet’s inner caverns, to the one-man teleporting room. Dvora was there to
greet her.

“I am truly sorry for all the years you
had to spend in the belly of that wretched planet, Caratrah.”

“Why did you not just let me die down in
that infernal place?” The old woman asks.

“But you live, and the Queen of Twelve
Galaxies Cluster needs your help to reclaim her throne. You shall be yet the
greatest sorceress in the Quadrant,” replies Dvora.

“But I am old and wretched. What could I
do?” Caratrah replies.

“I will take care of that. You shall be
youthful once more.” Replies Dvora. She instructs Vaneza to land the Bird of
Prey on the fourth planet of a two-sun solar system. The planet had three moons
and was temperate in climate and atmosphere. Vegetation grew over much of the
planet. Bodies of water were also detected by the Bird of Prey’s computer
system.

They let the vessel down next to a fresh
water lake surrounded by mountains with mixed colors of purple, brown and grey
trees. The landscape was decorated with fields of violets, lavender, roses of
every kind, green grass with hills covered with a myriad of colored flowers.

“A perfect hiding place so we can explore
without fear of our vessel being violated,” Dvora said. Donning what female
clothing they could find from what the former occupants left behind. Finding
only uniforms, they changed into them. Taking what weapons they could gather
up, the Quewythian fugitive women from Cassiopeia ventured outside the vessel
in search of the herbs and roots they would need to restore Caratrah’s youth
and health.

They no sooner stepped into a nearby
forest when Sarita, the fourth oldest, or quadra-aeon as they said, noticed
something moving not far from them.

“You always did have the eyes of an
Evening Hawk, that searches its prey at twilight,” said her mother. “Be
careful, Sarita; you may be nearly invincible on our planet and in the orange
sun of Planet Enaim 22 you’d be ten times stronger, but here on this planet we
are weak. It’s the two red dwarf suns. Large and hot as they are, the
electromagnetic plasma radiation is weak.

“I understand, Mother,” replied Sarita,
holding her disintegrator pistol tighter. “I’ll be careful.”

Dvora and the others keep searching for
the herbs and roots. They scavenge what they could for Caratrah’s time was
short.

Sarita sees something else move. Moving
closer in the thickness of the forest with trees higher and with thicker trunks
than they had ever seen anywhere before, Sarita once again spots movement. She
fires her pistol at a boulder fragmenting it to pieces. She sees pieces of rock
fly in all directions, even straight at her. She ducks and puts up her arm to
protect herself, but the rock debris seems to pass right through her leaving
her unharmed.

“Sarita,” calls Dvora, “Are you all
right?”

“Yes, Mother, but I think you should come
here and see what I found,” responds Sarita.

Rushing over to her daughter, Dvora also
is awed by the size of the Fir trees, Pine trees, Oak trees and many more kinds
she had never seen before and marvels at the massive width of their trunks.

She stops next to Sarita and observes.
Standing where the boulder was just an instant before is a short of stature blonde
female dressed in a flowing purple dress hanging on her hips. A purple sheer scarf
covers her breasts. Both are ornately decorated on the edges with tiny leaves
made of silver and gold. The purple material is also speckled with small golden
abstract sequins. The rest of the sisters also rush over and gather around.

“I am
Salocina Gasette,” she
chirps, in a voice that sounds angelic. “What are your names?”

After all the introductions
are made, Salocina Gasette speaks again. “Where are you from? Why did you come
here to our planet Shalaramya?

Dvora steps a little closer,
but bumps into a force field that knocks her back. She falls backwards and
lands on the grass. The seven sisters are alarmed.

“Do not worry, little
ones,” smiles Salocina. “Your mother is not hurt. The grass is very soft here.”

“She’s right, says Dvora,
picking herself up. I’m fine.”

“Let’s get acquainted shall
we?” She moves her hand gesturing for Dvora and her daughters to follow her.
“Tell me why are you here?” She motions for them to sit down on tree stumps
that have been made into seats. They surround another much larger tree stump
that is a table. The table is decorated with ornate tableware and eating
utensils, cups and glasses. “You must be hungry and thirsty. Please eat and
drink.” Salocina claps her hands and eight servants looking similar to
Salocina, except for the arrangement of their hair and color, carry trays of
food and drink and place them on the table in artistic fashion.

There is no meat, only
fruits, salads and herbs, and some cooked root plants. Dvora sees the herbs and
root plants recognizing them; that they are exactly what she needs to restore
Caratrah to her youth. “May I take some of these as medicine for someone on our
vessel? She needs these desperately.”

“Why, these are the youth
giving herbs and roots Trilia and Formuya,” chuckled Salocina. “They only good
for restoring the youth of someone very very old. How would you know about
their powers? Did a sorcerer or sorceress tell you?”

“The Great Sorceress
Caratrah
Shadowfire was at the prison planet
working in the
Xetronium Mines for many
solar cycles. I rescued her and brought her here,” replied Dvora.

Salocina and her
maids looked terrified. “Why did you bring her here?”

“To restore her
youth,” was the reply. “But we have to work fast.”

Using the
weapons, Dvora, her daughters following her lead, all drew their blasters and
pointed them at Salocina and her maids. Salocina raised her hand and the
weapons were jerked out of their hands and up into the trees behind them.

“W-what kind of
power do you have?” Dvora asked, dumbfounded.

Salocina’s tone
of voice changed to a very stern one. “I am a shape-shifter. I am the Queen of
all imps, pixies, fairies, elves, will o’ the wisps, dwarfs, and sprites; and
also the creatures of darkness.
Sorceress
Caratrah
Shadowfire
is a creature of darkness and has done much harm to creatures like us. If you
have her in your vessel, she should not be allowed to live.”

This statement outraged Dvora. At once she
lunged for the bowl containing the herbs and roots she needed and darted away,
still master of her speed. Her daughters were stunned and when Salocina saw
this. She took advantage of the instant to bind their hands and feet with
living vines from the Dikol Tree. They tried to break the vines, but could not.

   
Then the sisters witnessed
an awesome sight. Salocina shape-shifted into a large bird and flew after
Dvora. Just before Dvora was about to jump onto the Bird of Prey and administer
the herbs and roots to the dying Caratrah, Salocina, still in the form of a
bird, dropped right in front of her and then morphed into a wolf in all of its
fierceness and rage.

Dvora backed up, still holding the bowl.
“No...no...do not do this.”