Stargazer Maxima (Cosmic Justice League Book 1) Read online

  MIKKA’S CHRONICLES: THE LAST JOB

  The Galaxicon Story (2)

  By Al Scott

  Copyright © 2016 by Ad Scott

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Mia Petrovic

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Author’s e-mail: [email protected]

  Blog: http://galaxicon.blogspot.rs

  Twitter: @AlAlscott1202

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2 The New Assignment

  Chapter 3 Zalirus

  Chapter 4 The Last Job

  Chapter 5 The Investigation

  Chapter 6 Questions

  Chapter 7 Mikka’s Trip

  Chapter 8 The Call

  Chapter 9 Who is She

  Chapter 10 All Together

  Chapter 11 The Humanoid

  Chapter 12 The Search

  Chapter 13 The Doctor

  Chapter 14 The Truth

  Chapter 15 The Loss

  Chapter 16 The Trade

  Chapter 17 Planet Pluk

  Chapter 18 The Hearing

  Chapter 19 Back In the City

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The nightmare that got Senator Sulivaro Virkon from the house of Higgins out of a week-long sleep felt too real to ignore. He jumped out of his bed, breathing heavily with full lungs, the taste of own blood in his mouth . He tried to shake the guts and parts of the men dying next to him covering his sleeves and legs, and take a cover before the next blaster had a chance to cut him down as well. Their screams blinded him, but he could not keep his eyes closed.

  Monstrous creatures, dark and metal-skinned, inhabited pathways of his brain, advancing on him from all sides, ready to sink their praying fangs into him, to take him apart, and eat him.

  He jumped up and looked nervously around, searching for weapons. But he looked and only saw a familiar ambassador’s suite in which he always stayed during his campaign trips.

  He blinked, not understanding…Everything was there just as he remembered. Dim lights, were slowly awakening and sensing his presence were already illuminating the shapes of his bedroom, revealing walls covered with antiques from all corners of the empire. There was a blue ceramic plate from Sirinus, a pink wine bottle from Lanna period, an oil painting showing a man fishing dated over hundred and twenty thousand years ago of an unknown origin and of unknown culture…

  He tasted the blood in his mouth again realizing he bid his tongue too hard.

  He looked at his sword hanged above the bed post and felt a bit better. He felt at home and looked at his watch. It was 54d of the 2025th year of the Emperor Saris, counting 15058 years of the House of Lios. Eight full clicks were still missing from reaching the planet of Zalirus which on his ship translated to two full days using the Capital’s standardized time.

  The dream that ended with a heavy sense of a premonition was all too strong and overpowering, and the taste of fear all too present in his head for him to turn around and go back to sleep.

  He realized how quiet it was in his suite, the loudest being the beating of his own still racing heart.

  Insecurely, he tumbled over to the second rest chamber, his legs hardly listening to him…

  There on a bed, a young girl with a long blond hair, not older than 10, lay motionlessly…and his heart ticked a little slower, a little bit calmer, and he felt a whole lot better.

  Those dreams of mine…what do they mean, if anything, are they echoes of the past or drifting energies of things yet to come? He thought for a second having to accept that he was not even fully awaken yet. Actually he was quite uncertain if he was still dreaming or not.

  Suddenly appeared a distant zooming sound in his ear would just not stop.

  As he moved, his feet seemed to be made of lead, his mind all clouded and unable to focus.

  Throwing cold water on his face did little to change that, so he reached for an awakening pill inside his kimono pocket. He remembered last few times he took trips, and everything seemed effortless back then.

  For a second he stopped and looked around, at the front door which seemed firmly locked, at the girl sleeping in the back, at his communication pod waiting with the news he missed, and decided to swallow the pill even though that probably meant he would not be able to return to sleep for the rest of the trip. That could cause nausea and space sickness every time the ship would make a click, but he would risk that.

  How much worse can it be from living those dreams? How much worse can it be from feeling the way I do now? So, to high space with those who says not to use these! To high space with feeling bad…So, I’ll stay up.

  I’ll find something to do. Plenty of news and work to catch up on. I can keep my mind busy, anything other than dreaming again…He thought as he waited for the pill to start doing its magic.

  But even as he set down to go through the latest news, he just could not shake off the dream. Even though Planetary elections were not being held for another 500 Capital days, a lot of dust was already being raised, and all of that should have been important for him to know…but it was not. Somehow, suddenly all politics seemed unnaturally unimportant. All of that made no sense to him at all.

  He thought that maybe putting some food into his stomach would do the trick, so he logged into the ship’s server to find which food court was working. Something had to be open even if most of the passengers were still under.

  But the server had all the restaurants and bars in dark, and not a single blinking name appeared on his pod, no live feeds to see who was cooking what, not even menus or their scheduled working hours.

  I would not mind sitting down with the crew…they must be eating something someplace. A talk with others might balance my mind.

  He tried contacting the cruiser stuff on duty, but their lights were out as well.

  Maybe, he thought, his connection to the info server was not working right… Sulivaro tried to remember if, on any of his prior planetary trips, he ever experienced anything similar. Nothing came to mind.

  Something was wrong, he knew it, he felt it with every new breath…He tried to log into ships schedule, an officer’s chat, Zalirus weather report, tried to establish a link to the Capitan’s private station…Nothing.

  Must have been my connection, he thought again.

  He looked at the front door, and walked a few steps toward it. Hardly audible he heard unrecognizable distant sounds coming from behind it.

  The sounds that came from the outside seemed so low frequency yet indisputably present, indisputably weird. It was inhuman-like ticking-tacking, yet didn’t seem mechanical at all.

  So wrong, so strange… he thought.

  He walked as quietly as he could toward the door, pressing his ear on its smooth surface. Tickling-tackling sounds were moving even further away, disappearing slowly in the distance.

  When he could hear none of it, he unlocked the door, opening it up just an inch.

  Nothing seem to be visible other than an empty passageway carpeted with the pearly coat of a Samaran wool.

  He opened the door further, looked to the other side of the corridor which was empty as well.

  So wrong, so quiet , he thought again now not able to hear any sound at all, not even a relaxing instrumental music which was always present in the passageways, which was always trying to provide for the right atmosphere.
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  He stepped out, closed the door behind him and decided to walk to his left. He knew that the viewing deck was not far away, and there was a little bar always open next to it.

  Somebody should be there. Maybe I could even get a drink…Maybe a cup of tea would wake me up, or something stronger…wash my blood, shake my mind up, erase this weirdness I feel.

  But still, as he got closer to it, there were no noises, no sounds, nobody, nothing…Yet everything seemed in perfect order until…A few drops of red liquid were clearly visible, in the contrast to the pure whiteness of the soft floor. It was still wet, unsoiled yet, and by touching it, he knew it was blood.

  He thought what that might mean, but could not make any sense of it. If he could only fully wake up, clear his mind…

  He walked further, and just a few feet away, he faced a wall, painted in desert-gold color. The wall was sprayed with so much blood that it ran down all the way to the floor.

  He knew, right then, instantly, what that meant.

  Too much blood, violence. He knew somebody died there. A life was lost, forever, right here…

  He saw things like that too many times before, during the years he spent in the Vendar War, then Voz war, fighting for the future of the empire. It was very much the same sort of thing he saw during his recent dream.

  He went forward to the entrance of the bar. A human hand lay there, on a floor, severed, with blood still flowing out.

  He looked around, but nobody else was there. Not even a distant sound was there. And suddenly, looking at his bare hands, he felt very vulnerable. He thought about the girl sleeping in his quarters, and realizing his stupidity, raced toward his suite, not caring how much his steps were echoing down the empty passageways.

  He reached his suite in seconds, and shut the door, slamming it unintentionally too hard with the noise slicing the air.

  Could it be a dream, could it all be still a dream? He thought as he waited motionlessly next to the door, not ready to make another sound. His mind went to the old sword he above his bed…He carried no guns of any type, a thing to regret at that moment. When was the last time I yielded it? Would it come out if needed, was it still razor sharp?

  Few inches away the ticking-tacking sound changed frequencies and pitch, twisting, echoing, and grew louder.

  Sounds of the beast. Now he was sure of it. But the origin of which beast he could not guess. Even though his life spanned more than five hundred years of existence, he was sure he never heard it before. He was very sure of it now.

  “What’s wrong daddy? “ His daughter set up in her bed, confused. What could have awoken her up? She was supposed to sleep…

  He turned his head, panic forcing his eyes to almost pop out.

  “Daddy…” she whispered, but whispered just a bit too loud, and the beast zeroed in on the noise, and roared with the devilish ferocity that shook the inch-thick wall, then slammed into it.

  Senator instinctively jumped backward.

  He didn’t want to stare at the beast which came through, didn’t want to know that the beast was taller than him even though it walked on four legs with thick, black leather skin, black as space, covering its entire body. Raptor-green-and-red eyes hunted and long bloodied teeth were shown ready to bite into him and his daughter.

  He flew toward the beast throwing the ceramic vase at its face fully knowing it will not hurt it. But the very next second, he was already on top of his bed and the ancient steel sword with the silvery smooth blade was already out of its say…

  But he had no time to strike as the beast was already on top of him. The only thing he could do was to try and protect his face from the fangs which were already closing to swallow his entire head. He lifted the steel in front of his face and the beast’s teeth came closing down.

  For a moment it seemed that the beast had almost swallowed the entire sword, its teeth reaching past tsuba, millimeters from his knuckles. But then, instantly, it became soundless as its dark red blood ran over his hands, down his arms, and on top of his head

  He showed the beast to the side, start yanking the sword out, fighting it lose as it got stuck between the hard skull bones.

  He chopped many heads with that sword, cut bones like they were made of straw. But the bones of the monster seemed almost stone-like.

  “What, what was that daddy?” The voice of his daughter brought him back.

  The dreams he had of late, the dreams that got him up, they were all too real.

  “I do not know…I do not know what is going on. But you have to stay calm. Carry this!” He said, shuffling a metal briefcase that lay next to his bed into her lap.

  “What are we to do now?”

  “We have to get off the ship Velisa. The ship has been compromised, and we have to reach rescue pods and get off. “ The thought of dark cold space scared him, yet he knew there was no other way.

  Luckily some of the closest rescue pods were located only a corner away from his premium ambassador’s suite.

  But all his luck ended there. As he walked out holding his child with his left hand, he saw three beasts already there, waiting for him and blocking the passageway. To the back of them, behind them was a creature that walked on two, covered in a long brown cloak, spikes antenning out of its head, staring at him with beams of burning-red light, and waiting...

  He suddenly knew what it all meant. His dreams, the beasts, the creature. It all instantly made sense and pure terror seized him at once, the fear that screamed how he and his daughter will not make it past the corner to the rescue pods.

  Is it real, or is it a dream? He wondered again. Blood covering his hands was sticky, sticky and real, yet how could it all be?

  There, facing death, in an instant of an eye blink, he remembered something that happened centuries ago…

  He remembered his grandfather holding him in his hands, on his lap. He was a boy not older than seven and suddenly was hearing old man’s familiar calming voice…

  “You do not need to cry; you do not need to worry. Whatever other boys did to you…You do not need to worry. They cannot hurt you. You are a Higgins,

  Haven’t I tell you the stories of the house of Higgins? Do you know that grandfather of my grandfather was one of the twelve who walked with Silth himself at the land of Sartha when the empire was forged, when eternal life was found, and blood flew like rivers and men lost their lives with no count?

  That blood, the blood of old, the same blood runs through you…So, you see, you don’t need to worry for pain is nothing more than a fleeing wind, and death, death…even if it comes, cannot erase your existence.

  Chapter 2 The New Assignment

  “But why us? I mean did you stop to think why we are the ones that are being sent?”

  “What?” Val answered without much thought. He was actually sorting things out in his mind, and was really not paying much attention to what exactly his young apprentice was bubbling about during the last few minutes.

  They walked in the tall hallways of the Emperor’s Palace, and their firm steps hitting marbled floor reverberated through empty space.

  “Well, from what I heard, your last few assignments didn’t work out very well for you, you know…You know what I mean…It even got you demoted, right? Everyone at the station was talking about it. I mean, you certainly must know that you are not one of the liked investigators there, to say the least.” Val eyebrows got raised higher and higher as Timor continued to run his mouth.

  He glanced at the guard who took his hand off his plasma rifle to salute him, and nodded his head.

  “And I, well, I might have highest scores on my APO exams but I, I am new here, and I really never worked any case like this before.”

  Val decided he really liked his new apprentice, especially because of his awkward wording and unfiltered points of view. He was sure he didn’t make a mistake when he picked him up as his helper only a few days ago. He felt like Timor, young, naïve and innocent like a little child, and unspoiled yet by the
ways of the Capital, was a life-saving breath of fresh air. It made Val wonder for how long he will remain that way exposed to all the temptation of the city in the hearth of the entire empire.

  “Also, I mean, this is one of the most importance cases right now, the first time that the transporter got lost in the last 10 years. One thousand souls on board! And it was Krypticus type cruise, very luxurious and expensive. I bet many of them were very important people.”

  “Are…Are important. We still don’t know what happened to them. And there were supposed to be 983 people on board to be exact, including staff,” Val said without blinking, realizing how Timor had made a very valid point indeed.

  When it came to the assignment, a lot of it actually, he had to admit, really didn’t make any sense.

  “I bet a lot of people, and I mean very important people, are screaming for answers, their families and business partners.”

  “You are right about that.”

  “And I bet they want to have them right now…And you say that we are the only ones that are being send? Shouldn’t there be a whole group of investigators flying over there right now?”

  “Maybe, but I think we can manage it. The Capitan, as always, is trying to save money, and you know how expensive those trips are.”

  They passed another two guards and entered a stadium-sized lobby where hundreds of people were moving around. Timor could not help but look up again to the ceiling which was completely covered by the screen showing the stars and space of the entire thirty one planets which made up the empire.

  “You also tend to forget, I worked some big cases before.” Val added more as a way to shut Timor down from running his mouth too much rather than persuade him in his own capability.

  “Besides, we are not the only one working this case. There is a whole team here in the Capital that is going to be working the case from this side here. And, let me not remind you, we are being sent almost forty click stations away from the Capital. That comes about 10 days travel time for a regular cruise ship.”