Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (75 page)

Jophiel tapped the inside of the needle until it closed its pouch and leaped between the stars to the place which had been its original destination. The marsupium slipped open. Jophiel sat up and ripped off the oxygen mask, thankful to be out of the claustrophobic coffin. Above her stood Major Klik'rr, her Mantoid second-in-command and, until just three seconds ago, the de facto commander of the
Eternal Light.

"It is done," Klik'rr said.

"How many followed us?" Jophiel asked.

"About one-third," Klik'rr said. "The rest have already been offloaded to 288-Glauke."

Jophiel's mouth tightened into a grim line. So few…  She had hoped there would be more.

"We will make do," Jophiel said. "It's enough to run the ship, and it will minimize our resource-needs so we can go longer before we have to put down for supplies."

"Where are we going?" Klik'rr asked.

Jophiel pulled out the star charts and pointed to the broken section of the Monoceros ring. Whatever lay out there, it had cost Pravuil her life.

"Set a course for
this
location."

"Yes, Sir."

~ * ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.12 AE

Earth Orbit: Prince of Tyre

Special Agent Eligor

Eligor

Eligor sat in the staff lounge on the
Prince of Tyre
, wings pressed against the wall so he could watch the comings and goings of the other crewmen. He could have watched the video from his personal quarters, but like all men on a deep-space mission, the emptiness of space began to eat at you until you found yourself using
any
excuse to seek out the company of other men.

That didn't mean he wanted to socialize, not by a long shot! He just liked to keep an eye on people. It wasn't like he kept hoping Lerajie would come in and blabber about what words the women in the harem had spoken that day! Naw. If Lerajie came in, he'd plop right there, in that empty chair which sat between him and the movie, his big, pink-speckled wings blocking the video, as the idiot blabbered on and on about how smart the human females were.

Yeah … right. Humans were frail creatures, not strong enough to withstand the treatment Lucifer subjected them to when he took them against their will. When
he
got one, he'd take her as far away from this place as he could, like Abaddon had done for his wife. Now
that
was a woman he looked forward to finding. One who was smart, like Lucifer's mother had been.

He closed his eyes and remembered how awestruck he'd been the day the dark-winged Seraphim had stepped off of her diplomatic shuttle. He'd been younger then, still an idealist, who'd shadowed the woman, memorizing the soft curve of her features, until he'd convinced himself he was in love with her. He'd pushed her out of his mind for years, but lately he'd been thinking of her a lot. He'd always wondered why Shemijaza had asked him to accompany her back to Haven-1 to retrieve his son
.
Shemijaza must have
known
he'd had a 'thing' for his wife. Why appoint
him
to babysit her?

The sound of Ruax and Procel arguing roused him out of his merry side trip down fucked-up memory lane. He prayed they'd go away, but they headed straight for him, blocking his view of the movie screen.

"What do you two want?" Eligor scowled.

"We just came back from checking on that male you had us stash in the empty room next to the harem," Ruax said. His off-white wings fluttered with worry. "Boss … he ain't doing so well."

Eligor studied the man through a hooded gaze. Ruax was a hard man, the kind of man you'd find on remote colonies, far from the influence of
either
empire's legal systems. If Ruax said the guy wasn't doing so well, he must be far worse than the sorry condition he'd been in when they'd dumped him there in the first place.

"It's been five weeks and he still hasn't woken up," Procel said. "We keep pumping fluids into him, but he ain't eaten nothing and now his catheter's filled with blood. Maybe we should bring him down to sick bay?"

Both men's wings drooped with a hint of despondency. He'd told them they could
sell
the human man to the highest bidder and keep the profits if they could manage to keep the guy alive. Eligor figured he'd wait until the good twin was in residence and then con Lucifer into giving the man a new home.

Shit. Eligor had told Zepar he'd shot the man out the airlock. If the puppetmaster found out he and the good twin
had been lying the entire time, or heaven forbid, Lucifer's alter ego, they'd
all
be screwed. Classic case of split personality, Zepar claimed. The good twin was always clueless, while the first thing the evil twin did whenever he reappeared was to drill him about what the good twin had been up to in the brief time they'd let Lucifer sleep off his medication.

Speaking of which… 

Eligor glanced at his watch. It was almost time to go pick up the syringe and give 'the princess' his daily dose of antipsychotic meds. He threw out the first excuse he could think of.

"You know Doctor Halpas is bound by law to turn the Prime Minister in for plying a protected species with illegal drugs," Eligor said. "That what you want?"

They
thought the man had an adverse reaction to some kind of magic mushroom, the illegal drug most of the crewmen believed was the source of Lucifer's odd behavior. Only Eligor knew it was
him
shooting Lucifer up with that shit Zepar had concocted to keep the puppet-prince pliable … and fucking psychopathic as hell!

"Why does
he
get to tell the truth while you and I are expected to keep our mouths shut?" Ruax growled.

"You see any doctors floating around in the uncharted territories growing on trees?" Eligor said.

Procel's feathers rustled while Ruax glowered at him. "No."

"You and me," Eligor said. "We're just a bunch of losers. Halpas? Halpas is a bona fide doctor. You want him shot out of an airlock because he took some oath to squeal on all the weird shit that's been going on around here? Or would you rather the Doc be here the next time you drop an impulse engine flight panel on your foot?"

He glanced down at Procel's boot where the man was missing a couple of toes. It had been Halpas who'd patched his foot back together after the dumbass had nearly severed it.

"It's a long way to the nearest modern hospital." Eligor gave him his coldest
'I don't give a fuck'
glare.

"Maybe we could stick her in the harem with that new one?" Procel said. "Let
her
tend to him. Lerajie said she's some sort of healer. Maybe she can figure out what we're doing wrong?"

"The new-new ones?"

Eligor knew damned well which 'one' they spoke of. Lerajie'd been blabbing all over the ship how smart the woman was and how she'd kept the lizard demon alive. He'd already had to cover for the do-gooder once already this week, claiming it had been
him
who'd swiped antibiotics out of Doctor Halpas' stash after the ship's doc had gone on the warpath. Their medical supplies, just like everything else on this three-ring circus of a ship, was a finite resource. They needed to conserve what little they had until they reached someplace the
Prince of Tyre
could resupply.

"The one who came onto the ship already pregnant," Ruax said. "She's a real looker."

"Yeah," Procel said. "I keep bringing her presents, trying to get her to talk to me the way she does Lerajie and Uzza, but every time I try to sweet talk her, she won't give me the time of day."

Uzza was smart enough to keep his fucking trap shut, but Lerajie? One of these days, he
swore
he'd shoot the man out the airlock!

"Let me think on it," Eligor said. "The only time I la
id eyes on her she was still unconscious."

"But if he dies we won't get our money," Ruax protested.

"Shit happens," Eligor shrugged. "You knew when we stashed him we were taking a risk. If he croaks? We ain't lost nothing but a little bit of our free time."

He glanced at his timepiece. He was overdue to give the puppet prince his daily dose of poison. With a groan, he rose from his seat, stretched his wings, and abandoned the two crewmen to sneak a peek at the movie, pretending he didn't know they were
supposed
to be in the kitchen gathering supplies to bring for the women's supper.

He worked his way through the stark, white hallways
,
wondering as he often did what the fuck Shemijaza had been thinking as he'd designed the interior of the
Prince of Tyre.
The ship wrapped around inside itself like the entrails of some wild animal instead of nice and square the way a command carrier was built. This ship was luxurious beyond measure, but efficient? Nope. It took forever to get from one end of the ship to the other.

He paused outside the door of Zepar's private research laboratory, emptied out his mind of all the frustrations he'd left behind in the staff lounge and focused on his more mundane duties, anything but the very troubling matter of the dying human male.

He knocked twice.

"Come in," Zepar said.

The dirty-winged Angelic did not glance up from the robot he'd been building for the past six weeks, recognizable as humanoid even though he'd yet to graft on an external skin. The device stood perhaps sixteen feet tall, taller than a Cherubim, with burly shoulders, a thick neck, muscular arms and legs, and an animalistic head, though Eligor couldn't quite make out what creature the robot was supposed to resemble. Zepar was up to his elbows in what appeared to be a miniature cryogenics chamber built into the robot's middle.

"You are three minutes late," Zepar said. He touched the soldering iron to the delicate electronics. The scent of melted lead filled the room. Eligor knew better than to ask what Zepar was building, but whatever it was, the device was nearly finished.

"My apologies, Sir," Eligor said. "I was waylaid by a stupid question on my way back from the staff lounge."

Zepar's eyes narrowed into the sloe-eyed gaze he used whenever he tried to fuck around with Eligor's mind.

'Movie was just okay,' Eligor filled his mind with nonsense, 'starlet was alright looking. No tits, but she had a nice ass, and very pretty wings. Speaking of ass, would like to try out that modification to the shuttle Captain Marbas suggested. He thinks it would get me an extra quarter light-year of speed the next time I have to bug out and avoid a Sata'anic patrol.'

Zepar swiveled to face Eligor and rose, stretching his wings, the closest the cold fish ever came to demonstrating any regard for his body. He paced over to the small, wooden box which contained this afternoon's dose of Lucifer's medicine and handed it to him.

"Thank you, Sir," Eligor said.

He turned to leave.

"Not so fast, Eligor," Zepar said.

Eligor's wings froze mid-flap. He took a breath and filled his mind with nonsense thoughts.

Zepar picked up a keycard and handed it to him, colored red with large black letters and a
danger
symbol plastered over both sides. A chill rippled through Eligor's feathers. He knew what this keycard belonged to, and he suspected he knew why Zepar handed it to him.

"Sir?"

Zepar sniffed the air. His mouth curved up into a cruel smirk.

"You gave me your word you would reach an understanding with your friend," Zepar said.

Eligor's hand trembled as he took the key to the airlock out of Zepar's hand.

"I tried, Sir," Eligor said. "I've been so busy, I haven't had a lot of time to talk to him, Sir."

That wasn't true. He'd railed Lerajie up one side of the third degree and down the other, trying to impress upon the man to shut the fuck up, but Lerajie was an idealist.

"I've had complaints," Zepar stalked towards him like an executioner, "that Lerajie has been threatening to break into the communications room and send a subspace message to the media outlets about his perceived mistreatment of Lucifer's wives."