THE FRUITS OF REPUTATION
Jody Lynn Nye
The Flarns have never fought a war...and they’re not very good at diplomacy. So when a hostile invader moves into their planet, what’s a species of fun-loving pacifists to do? Why...kidnap a warrior queen for help, that’s what!
Her Serenity, the Empress Tromisia of Blarkenstar, shook the pale green nets enveloping her with furious hands.
“What are you doing? Who are you? Return me at once to my palace!”
The tall Flarn at the controls of the very small ship held up one manipulative digit to still her outcry.
Incandescent with indignation, Tromisia drew her slim body up to her full height of a blarken and a quarter. No one with any sense would dare to invade Blarkenstar! She had been raised a warrior and the daughter and many times granddaughter of warriors. Her cloth-of-silver raiment, as elegant as it looked, with swathes of shining fabric draping from jeweled pins at her shoulders, was made to repel radiation and laser blasts. The crown on her head—on the floor, now, where it had fallen after her captors thrust her into this undignified nest—bore jewels from fifty nation-states that looked to her as their liege. Each of those jewels had a history and a purpose that had been schooled into her by her weapons masters. Her platinum sandals, bound with ties up the length of her calves, concealed their own secrets. The swathes of silver at the temples of her thick turquoise hair had emerged in the decades since she had been an officer in her imperial father’s military forces, but she had kept up with the punishing physical training befitting her station. She could kill every one of the creatures in the ship, once she saw the controls and was convinced she understood them well enough to pilot it back to safety.
The irony was that Tromisia had known an attack on Blarkenstar was imminent. She had been on the verge of addressing her assembled army about the sudden silence overcoming their towns to the east. A ragged embassy from what had been a prosperous seaport managed to float ashore in Blarkenholm with a tale of ships that blackened the sky, and cold winds that blighted the trees just weeks from bearing fruit. She never suspected that the Flarn were behind the onslaught. Flarns had never been known to be a threat to anyone. She never dreamed that they had such technology that would permit them to breach Blarken airspace without being detected, nor to blast through the ceiling of her palace, the Pearl Citadel, that had stood unbroken for four centuries.
In fact, Blarkenstar had not been attacked by anyone in twenty years, a long hiatus. The newest soldiers in her command had not yet been born when Blarkenstar had won the final battle against the Gloon Dominion and secured the western border between their realms. Trade had resumed between Blarkenstar and Gloon, and both nations prospered over the following decades. Neither realm on the vast continent of Torena had much interaction with the smallest landmass on the other side of the planet where the Flarn resided except to exchange goods through their fleets of trading ships.
She had been about to instruct the vast and colorful brigade of soldiers, seafarers, and airship pilots assembled that they needed to depart to defend Blarkenstar’s borders, when the entire ceiling of the audience chamber collapsed, and a swarm of tiny, dome-topped ships had poured in through the falling debris. While the rest of the little craft had distracted her soldiers, one of them had landed on the very dais where she had been standing, bundled her inside, and taken off at speed that would have thrown her into the bulkhead if not for the elastic nets that had closed tightly around her.
“My soldiers will follow me!” she snarled, writhing to try and break free. “All of Blarkenstar will take mighty vengeance upon you for abducting me, or rather what is left of you when I finish rending you limb from rubbery limb!”
The small ship banked and made a barrel roll to the left. Tromisia tumbled up toward the top bulkhead. She braced herself, but the green nets kept her from impacting. The ship leveled out, arrowing through the night sky, and Tromisia climbed to her feet and shook the bonds surrounding her.
“Take me back at once!” she shrieked. “I know you can understand me. You have translator bracelets on your arms! Why have you kidnapped me?”
The Flarn pilot, a being two full blarkens tall, with huge red eyes and flat, square, yellow teeth that looked startling in its dark blue face, turned at last to face her. It spoke, but words in Blarken issued from the glowing silver, toroid loop around its upper extremity.
“Forgive us, lady empress. Our nation is in crisis, and only you can help us.”
The other three Flarns, stuffed into crash benches that ought to have held only one or two of their lanky bodies, waggled their heads from side to side, their race’s way of showing agreement. Tromisia was taken aback.
Long hours of having listened to the droning of her ministers and ambassadors to the other nations of the planet Vintrix made her bite her tongue as she studied the strange faces. These Flarns weren’t threatening. They were frightened.
Despite her undignified surroundings and the disarray of her hair and her person, she regained the sensibility of her office. She pulled out the flat metal jumpseat attached to the wall in the small enclosure and sat down, pulling a fold of the net over her legs.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“We are being invaded by Magdinos,” the pilot said, guiding his craft expertly with only one of his tentacle-like manipulative digits. Tromisia knew them well. Magdinos were giant, yellow-scaled lizard people who inhabited the planet Dino, one orbit out from Ahser, the great white giant star at the heart of their system. How did they get to her planet without being spotted on Telemetry’s scopes? Tromisia felt her heart sink, but she nodded for the Flarn to continue. “Our outer cities had stopped communicating with us one by one. We hadn’t received word from the states to the east in flarnpassages, either by living messenger or automated flitter. We escaped from Flarnholm by the outermost surface of our dental incisors! You know us to be a peaceful people; we do not have battleships, or weapons. We are not trained to wage a war.”
Tromisia frowned. They had been attacked?
“Then, what are these fighter craft?” she asked. “They seem to move at tremendous speed, and you destroyed the roof of my palace with a single blast!”
“They’re fairground ride capsules,” the Flarn captain admitted at last, his red eyes brightening in embarrassment. “It’s all we could find at short notice. We blew up the roof with a charge we use for clearing sewer obstructions.”
“Three, really,” the smaller Flarn to his left said. “I wired them together.”
Tromisia began to ask, but decided she didn’t want to know why they needed so powerful an explosive to deal with underground waste. She shook off the thought with a shudder.
“Why are you taking me into the heart of danger? Why not come to us and ask for our help?”
This question caused all four Flarns to exchange nervous glances. Tromisia reached for the bracelet surrounding her left bicep. It contained a small but powerful thermite grenade.
At last, the captain replied.
“We are not good at diplomacy,” he admitted. “Er, my name is Zizzik. My companions are Elik, Waskio, and Dizpat.”
Tromisia bowed her head gravely. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Uh, right. I should have said that, too. I told you we’re not that good at fancy interactions. Apart from trade, and making games and amusements, we’re not very good at anything. We thought it would make more sense to let you see our peril. Then you would be able to order a response from your army.”
“It’s world famous,” Waskio interjected. “You ought to be proud of it. Um, you probably are.” Dizpat shot a fold of its upper extremity into the speaker’s midsection. Waskio emitted an “oof!” that was translated by the ring-shaped device.
Tromisia frowned. “But, why us? Surely the Enkafa are closer to your realm. They are menaced by the same threat as you. You are capable of mustering a fleet and creating weapons. Why do you need us?”
Zizzik dipped his chin.
“General, there’s a big jump between commanding avatars in a screen tank and actually wielding weapons of our own—which we didn’t have anyhow. We had to search far and wide to find a culture that had not only expertise in making war, but also the ethics to know when to stop. You here in Blarkenstar made war, then you achieved your goal and withdrew forces. Among nations, that makes you close to unique. We don’t want to trade one conqueror for another. We just want help throwing out the invaders we have. You were the best prospect that we saw.”
It was a compliment of sorts. Tromisia considered it seriously, although it was couched in crude and blunt terms.
In the past, Magdinos had sent envoys to Blarkenstar and other realms on the world of Vintrix. According to the chronicles that Tromisia had read in her schoolwork, the hulking ambassadors had arrived in ships the size of cities and made a great show of courtesy. They had not stayed long, because the climate was too warm for them, but had flown over much of the country and the surrounding oceans, as though sizing them up like house-hunters. That had been in the days of Tromisia’s grandmother or great-grandmother. No fool, her ancestress had made a point of guiding them to view the huge military outposts and defense systems—the ones that could be seen from above. They had been full of princely courtesies, treating the Blarkens with the respect of equal to equal. Thereafter, once in a while, gifts would arrive by rocket drone from that outer planet, mostly works of art and recordings of music. The presents had tapered off since Tromisia had become empress. She had not thought much about that decline, but she should have. It was an error, one she would not make again.
“So, they have built their strength to where they feel they can challenge us,” Tromisia mused aloud. “They must still have weaknesses, though. We need to discover what they are.”
The Flarn pilot brightened. “We were hoping you would say something like that.”
“They are canny and patient,” the empress warned them. “They have waited generations to move against us. I would not underestimate them.”
“All we want you to do is observe,” Dizpat said. “You will decide if your army will help us.”
Beeping erupted from the console, and small red lights flashed a warning. The crew turned to their controls.
“We are approaching Flarnholm,” Zizzik said. “Please brace yourself. The landing site is deep inside a maze of streets and buildings, concealed from the view of the Magdino invaders.”
Tromisia wound her hands into the mesh of the green nets and hung on. The small vessel spun like a drill, descending rapidly among buildings whose outlines were picked out by bright, multicolored lights.
From what she could see through the capsule’s transparent canopy in the light of broad beams sweeping back and forth across the landscape, Flarnholm wasn’t that different from Blarkenholm. Tall, narrow towers blinking with red lamps, protruded upward among multistoried domiciles and commercial facilities.
“Security lights,” Waskio explained. “They’re constantly searching the skies for ships. But we’ve timed their beacons and know when they’re not looking our way.”
“Good observation,” Tromisia said.
The Flarn shrugged. “Tactics. I design strategy games.”
The lights vanished instantly when the small ship dipped into an alleyway.
“We set this up as a haven for the Rebellion, complete with communications and surveillance equipment,” Zizzik said, slowing the craft gradually. He pointed to a tiny green beacon far ahead in the darkness. “Most of our coworkers are hiding out in a secure underground location. We ought to be safe there.”
Red flambeaux burst around them, bathing everything in gory light. The ship shook fiercely, tossing the occupants around like beans in a jar. Tromisia had just enough time to recall what came of invoking the Curse of Hopeful Words before her consciousness faded away.
“Lady empress?” Zizzik’s voice came from far away. “Are you all right?”
Tromisia tensed and sprang into a fighting stance even before her eyes were fully open. The Flarn crew, looking somewhat battered, huddled in a concerned cluster against a wall of a rather tiny room painted dark brown. She couldn’t see any doors. Her head ached as though she had spent the night drinking the sacred liquors of the god Aitypruv.
“Where are we?”
Waskio sighed.
“It looks like while we were observing the Magdinos, they were also observing us,” she said. “They locked us up. Our safehold is compromised.”
“They took all our devices except the translators,” Dizpat said, glumly.
“And your ship?”
Elik held up a small cube of metal and glass. “This is all that’s left. They threatened to leave us in it when they squeezed it down.”
Tromisia shivered, and not only at the thought of being compressed into nothingness alongside her erstwhile captors. The temperature had fallen at least twenty blarkdegrees. She wrapped folds of her silver gown around her shoulders. The captors had left her her jeweled crown. She wound her turquoise hair into a coil on her head and pinned the diadem in place.
“Why is it so cold?” she asked.
“The Magdinos are assembling a ring of frost generators around the perimeter of the continent,” Zizzik said. “They have been emerging with pieces of equipment one by one from a gigantic bronze horn on the edge of Flarnholm. More of them come through it every day. They want to alter our climate so it resembles theirs. The temperature has been dropping several flarncrements a day since they started. When we all die of the cold, they will be able to move in and take over.”
Tromisia’s jaw set in a grim line. “They intend the same with us and all of Vintrix,” she said. “They will not succeed.”
With the Flarn dogging her like nervous house pets, she began a circuit of the room. Although it had seemed featureless at first glance, she observed irregularities in the walls.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“An escape room,” Zizzik said. At her puzzled expression, he lowered his chin. “A place of entertainment. A group working together solves puzzles to learn clues to help them leave the room.”
“So, there is a door?”
“Well, yes, but the problem isn’t so much finding it as unlocking it.”
“Is there any other way out?”
“Oh, yes,” Waskio said. “My friend designs these. They always have a rapid exit, in case of emergency.”
Tromisia considered that information. “It will be at ground level, then, so medical personnel can evacuate a patient.”
Waskio showed her flat yellow teeth. “Yes, that’s true. But both exits go past a control center.”
“Then they are observing us,” Tromisia said, letting a wry smile purse her lips. “How many?”
“Well, we’ve only been able to count about twenty Magdinos altogether. They’re really big, you know. At least four flarnlengths tall and at least that many long with their tails,” Zizzik said.
“That means only one can fit in a control room built for your people,” Tromisia said. She unwound a bracelet from her wrist. How fortunate that they had mistaken her accoutrements for ordinary jewelry.
“What should we do?”
“Find that second door and open it,” the empress said, squelching her impatience. By the Tube Radio of Antikwity, any first-week recruit would have figured that out! “Then, we deal with the Magdino.” She looked at their blank faces and sighed. It had been a long time since she had led troops, let alone ones as green as this. So much for merely observing. “Then, I deal with the Magdino.”
The enemy in the control room would be a fool if they couldn’t tell what the prisoners in the so-called “escape room” were doing. Tromisia tried not to fret as they felt along the walls and floor for the invisible join that would indicate the presence of an emergency hatch. Every blarksecond brought more enemies to their location.
Subtly, she checked the ruby bracelet of Majelen, an inheritance from her six-times great-grandfather, on her left wrist. It ought to be sending out a locator beacon to her people, informing them as to her whereabouts. The Blarken troops would take at least six times as long to reach her as the fleet craft of the Flarn had taken to arrive in their capital city, but they would arrive in force. If only this building was not blocking outgoing signals!
“Here it is,” Elik crowed. She ran her floppy extremities over a portion of the wall. Until Tromisia got closer to it, she didn’t see the lines of the hidden panel.
“Excellent,” Tromisia said, prying one of the milky round gems out of her pectoral necklace and retreating to a safe distance. She flung the small gem so it landed at the base of the rectangle. “Stand back.”
“But why?” Zizzik asked, moving forward out of curiosity. Tromisia grabbed him by the neck of his coveralls just before they were thrown backward by the force of the explosion. The empress landed painfully on her rump. The Flarn sprawled beside her. Tromisia clambered painfully to her feet and surveyed the damage.
The panel, no match for a Charge of Winslow gem, was blown outward into a brilliantly lit room. Noises of alarm and confusion came from the inhabitant of the chamber.
The room was too small for her sword. Instead, she drew a long gold pin from her hair and beckoned her companions forward.
“Come on!” Tromisia cried. “We have little time before reinforcements arrive!”
The Flarn rallied at her shout, and followed her. Wincing at the glare, Tromisia charged into the adjacent room.
As she guessed, the chamber had only one inhabitant, but a massive one, propped on a flat bench much too narrow for its yellow, scaly body and huge wide tail. She had only seen images of Magdinos preserved in the military archives. Clad in a bright red suit, the reptilian male dwarfed even the taller Flarn. It rose to its huge feet amid the debris from the shattered wall. As she bore down on the being, it scrabbled for a device on its bony chest, but Tromisia was quicker. She aimed the Firing Pin of Lanshester at it. The hot red light struck right in the center of the Magdino’s body mass. It let out a bellow that shook the room, then collapsed over the control panel.
“Wow!” the Flarn chorused. Tromisia shook her head. She collected the objects in the chest pouch, which she recognized as a communications unit, an enormous brass-cased laser rifle, and a personal information device. Tossing the latter aside, she handed the weapon to Waskio. The Flarn sagged under its weight but held on.
“What do I do with this?” she asked.
“Point the open end at an enemy,” Tromisia said, and pointed to the stock. “Press that blue button. Keep pressing it until the enemy falls down.” No time for the finer points. Waskio wobbled her head.
The communications device in Tromisia’s free hand burst into life. A small round, blue screen on its upper surface brightened to show another Magdino. At the sight of the Blarken’s face, it emitted a string of what must have been expletives, and the screen went dark. All around them, sirens began to blare.
“They know we’re free,” the empress said, pulling the nearest two Flarn to hurry them along the dim corridor. “They will try to capture us again. Perhaps they will kill us this time. Move faster.”
Elik’s eyes went huge with fear. “What can we do? We thought this location was secure!”
“Assume everything is compromised,” Tromisia said, quoting from the Strategy and Tactics Handbook that was required reading for every young soldier in Blarkenstar. Still, her cardiac system pounded with dread. It had been a long time since she had led troops on the field, and longer still since she had been a new recruit. “You design maneuvering games. Surely you place obstacles in your players’ way?”
“Yes, but we are in no danger when we play them.” Waskio said, her voice trembling even through the translator. “This is real! I’m afraid!”
“So am I,” the empress blurted out, though the words cost dearly to speak them. She hated to admit weakness. The Flarn all stared at her. “I’d be a fool not to fear overpowering enemies. That must not stop us! We have to find the nerve center of their operation, and shut it down. My people are many blarkensegments behind us. It’s possible they will not be able to save us, but I will make my death meaningful!”
Brave words indeed, but they failed to convince either herself or her small party. No matter. The alarm had been raised. The enemy would surely send for reinforcements. She must stop any more Magdinos from arriving on Vintrix and defeat those she could. She gathered up the long skirts of her gown and tied them into a knot at her hip as she ran.
“Do you know the layout of this building?” the empress asked.
“Like the back of my manipulative digit,” Zizzik said, his red eyes brightening. “The main entrance is this way.”
To his credit, he led the small group without hesitation. Signs of conflict were everywhere in the labyrinth of strangely furnished rooms, all of it seemingly one-sided. Gashes in the walls matched the barrel width of the weapon in Waskio’s grip. No other signs of holes from slugthrowers, slices from edged weapons, or other laser fire could she see. The Flarn really were without protection from assault. She feared for the safety of Zizzik’s friends.
How she wished she could find out what the Blarkenstar Telemetry Office had detected in the skies above Vintrix! Unlike the tiny ships the Flarn had used to invade Blarkenstar, anything but one-being craft containing Magdinos would surely have set off proximity alarms. Therefore, she assumed little likelihood of a mothership orbiting the planet.
She thought, rather, that they had made one uncrewed landfall with the bronze horn to which the Flarn referred, and that had formed a portal for beings and equipment to pass through from their planet. One targeted strike, she decided grimly, would cut the Magdinos off from escape and end the invasion. Concentrate. Plan. Execute. She scanned her small force. Collaborate.
These Flarn viewed her as a hero who would free them from the invader. She wished she didn’t feel so rusty. Blarkenstar prided itself on being a race of warriors who fought their enemies back behind well-established borders. They had been at peace because they were vigilant. But how much better were they than these non-warriors, when they had not practiced their craft in decades? Nor was she the young general that she had been over twenty years before. She must do her best. Their lives depended on her. The safety of Vintrix depended on her.
Zizzik emitted a hornlike beep, and wheeled to a halt.
“Uh-oh,” the translator said.
Tromisia saw immediately what had caused his outcry. Beyond the transparent doors only blarkenlengths ahead, a squad of Magdinos on large, flat-panel craft was landing. Silhouetted as they were against the rising sun, she could discern only three of them clearly, but she was certain there were more.
“They’re flying skid-loaders!” Elik shouted. “Another exit, quickly!”
“No,” Tromisia said, an idea forming. “We need transportation. You identified those vehicles. Can you run one?”
“Oh, yes,” Zizzik said. “They’re simple cargo haulers.”
“How fast can they move?”
Waskio’s eyes brightened. “Faster than they can run.”
“That’s all that matters,” Tromisia said. She pulled a hidden control in the temple of her golden crown. It reformed into a golden helmet, with a bridge that descended to protect her nose. “Stay close!”
It had been months since she had tested the repulsors in her rebounding sandals, but hoped that they had not had a chance to discharge their batteries.
“Cover your eyes!” she ordered. The Flarn ducked, their floppy limbs protecting their faces.
With the Firing Pin of Lanshester in one hand, she pried loose another opal and heaved it at the glass doors.
Crash!
The portal shattered outward in a satisfying blast. The explosion was enough to throw the first row of Magdinos back into the second lot. Tromisia tapped her silver ankle straps together to activate her sandals, and charged forward.
Her every step was quadrupled in length by the tensile strength of the high-tech coils squeezing her lower legs. She bounded up onto the chest of the first fallen Magdino, and blasted it in the forehead with the laser pin. It dropped back, twitching under her feet. Another yellow alien lowered a brass-cased rifle like the one Waskio was carrying. Tromisia didn’t have a hope of turning it aside with a parry. She leaped from body to body, hoping to draw the rifle fire at one of the Magdino’s own colleagues.
A wild scream just behind her told her that she had accomplished that goal. The Magdinos scrambled to follow her, but clumsily and awkwardly. Their reactions were blunted by the climate. Though she found the morning cold, they were used to a far more frigid environment. It made them easy targets for her Firing Pin and gems she wrenched from the edges of her crown-turned-helm.
Zizzik and the others tried gamely to keep up with her.
“Fire the weapon!” Tromisia shouted at Waskio.
As if she had forgotten the dead weight in her arms, the Flarn peered down at the rifle. She turned the device toward their pursuers and pushed the button. A hot beam of red lanced out of its barrel.
The Magdinos leaped in every direction to get out of its path—all but one unlucky individual, who caught the blast square in its bony chest. Pieces of yellow flesh flew outward, obscuring what was left of the body. Dark ichor splattered the enemy forces.
“Ew,” Elik said.
The Magdinos knew the capability of the captured weapon. But these were soldiers. One casualty wouldn’t stop them. The moment the shock had passed, they reached for their own guns. Tromisia jumped onto the shoulder of the nearest brute. He swatted at her, all the while grunting at his fellows not to shoot at him. She leaped to the next and signaled to the Flarn to move to the flat sled nearest the door. Zizzik rushed to the controls.
“Keep firing!” Tromisia ordered. Waskio obeyed, pushing the blue button over and over. Her first shot had been lucky. She didn’t connect again, but she did provide a useful distraction. Tromisia peppered them with exploding gemstones and her small laser pin. The six Magdinos who remained standing ducked behind every obstacle they could find to avoid the crossfire: ground vehicles, planters, even the big sign in front of the building.
His mouth open in what passed for a Flarn smile, Zizzik swooped the sled close to the platform where Tromisia now stood alone and triumphant. The empress leaped aboard the loader. She tucked the gold pin into her bodice and took the rifle from Waskio. With deft shots, she blasted the power pods of each of the remaining sleds. Then, Zizzik veered upward and away from the damaged building. The batteries exploded with deafening bangs, peppering the cowering Magdinos with shrapnel.
“That will slow them chasing us,” Tromisia said, hanging onto a cleat to keep from being thrown off. “Head for their transport device. I have to destroy it.”
“That was amazing!” Elik said. “We didn’t need an army, just you!”
Tromisia shook her head as the skid loader flitted eastward into the sun. “We’re not safe yet. They have radios, and they’re not stupid. Their command already knows we have escaped. Our obvious destination will be their weak point.”
Their quicker movements had given them a head start on the slower-moving Magdinos. Tromisia fretted as Zizzik steered them over cropland and small towns. They had just left behind eight Magdinos—nine, including the one she had shot in the control room. That meant a minimum of eleven aliens who could potentially be waiting for her at the portal. Depending on how long it took to transfer from Dino to Vintrix, a greater force could be amassing.
Like the Flarn, Tromisia had been stripped of anything that the Magdinos could identify as technological devices. She particularly missed her forearm communicator. That silver metal bracer would allow her to speak to any of her ministries, ships, or brigades. The skid-loader possessed only a rudimentary radio with limited range. She had to trust that her army was closing in on her location. At least one of the Flarn ships had been downed by her defenders. The generals must know where she was.
In the meantime, she was on her own, with four untrained recruits, one heavy firearm, and her jewelry. She checked the Firing Pin of Lanshester. Only three charges left, too few for the battle ahead. She put it through the bun at the back of her head, and drew the begemmed gold dagger pin from the left shoulder of her gown.
“What is that?” Waskio asked.
“My personal weapon,” Tromisia said. “The Imperial Sword, Snik.”
She pressed the stud hidden beneath the sapphire that served the tiny weapon as a pommel. Instantly, the brooch grew half a blarkenlength and broadened so the hilt fit comfortably into her grip. The others gasped. She gave them the smile of a warrior who did not know whether she would return safely home, but cared for nothing but the battle to come.
“Now, I am ready.”
She needed all the preparation possible. As Zizzik steered them up over a rise toward the eastern coast of the small continent, she could see the gigantic bronze horn situated on a promontory jutting out into the ocean already rimed with ice. It glowed as a Magdino emerged from it. She had to stop the invasion. But, in between her and her target hovered a half dozen hovering platforms like her own, carrying Magdinos brandishing laser rifles.
As her makeshift craft appeared, beams of bright red light lanced from the heavy rifles in the aliens’ yellow claws. One of the blasts hit the corner of the sled. The metal slagged and bubbled. The Flarn screamed. Zizzik began to zigzag, trying to avoid being hit again.
“Calm down!” Tromisia shouted. “Climb above them!”
“They’ll shoot us full of holes!” Elik shrieked.
“Do it!” Tromisia said. “They will be too busy with me in a moment.”
Wobbling his head from side to side, Zizzik hauled back on the controls. The sled tilted upward.
Checking to make certain her skirts were tied up out of her way and her helm was solidly attached to her head, she braced herself on the edge of the platform. Two beams of red pierced the deck from different angles. One of them hit Dizpat, who collapsed, moaning. The sled juddered wildly.
“See to her!” Tromisia shouted. One of the enemy zoomed into line, almost beneath them. She saw her opportunity, clicked her sandal straps, and leaped over the rail.
The Magdino below her clearly did not believe that she was close enough to jump onto its craft. She landed behind him, sword out. He swerved wildly, then abandoned the controls to defend himself.
That moment’s delay was all Tromisia needed to plunge Snik into his back. The Magdino wailed in pain. Dark ichor bubbled out of the wound. The alien fell to his knees, then keeled over sideways. Tromisia climbed over him to take the controls and steer the sled toward the next nearest foe. Her ankles hurt from the heavy landing, but she couldn’t take the time to nurse them now. She sheathed her sword and went looking for her next target.
Her actions had not gone unheeded. Four of the remaining five craft circled around, doing everything they could to stay out of reach. At last, Tromisia had to repeat the tactic of swooping in from above. She slew two more Magdinos in this fashion, feeling more and more of her age with every leap and one-sided duel. The three remaining foes scooted out of reach and peppered her with their beam weapons. A hot blast hit her squarely in the back. She staggered, desperate to hold onto the steering panel. Her laser-proof gown had saved her life, but had not absorbed the intense heat. Resolutely, she clung to the controls and took evasive action, veering, diving, turning on a blarkencoin, all the while aware of the inadequate maneuverability of her craft.
A little at a time, the sled was being melted away underneath her feet. She dodged her enemies with more and more desperate tactics, hoping none of the shots would hit the drive mechanism.
Red laser fire erupted into the skies from the zone near the horn. Tromisia glanced over. Multiple barrels from a single central source tracked her companions’ conveyance. She saw Zizzik clinging to the control panel, one upper limb dripping dark blue blood. Waskio returned fire, until her weapon was knocked out of her grasp by a lucky blast. The skid-loader finally lost power and careened crazily to land on the ground. A handful of massive Magdinos picked them out of the wreckage and dragged them toward the gigantic brass device.
Ignoring her own peril, Tromisia turned what was left of her craft toward them. She must interpose herself between her hapless allies and the enemy, and take out that gun emplacement.
The temperature dropped significantly as she came closer. Frost swirled in the air. She shivered, wishing she were in decent battle armor.
As she approached the promontory, the laser fire shifted toward her. With one hand, she undid the knot at her hip and swathed her body in the silvery material of her gown. Beams lanced off it in every direction. She ignored the heat of each impact, though the red blasts nearly blinded her.
At the very last minute, she activated her sandals and leaped off the damaged skid-loader sideways. The craft continued on its way. It crashed into the cannon. The gigantic weapon went up with a blazing explosion that sent scorching waves out for blarkenlengths. Tromisia gasped at the heat, hoping it had not burned off her eyebrows.
A Magdino, larger than the others by half, stood gaping at the ruin of his weapon. Tromisia bounded toward him, drawing Snik. He spun, bringing a blade to bear on her that was twice as long as hers. She dodged it, though more and more wearily. He was good with a sword, though he could not match the training that her instructors had instilled in her. She parried every thrust, beating down his blade. His growing anger made him careless. Tromisia watched until he lowered his guard. With a quick upward slice, she cut the underside of his wrist. The huge blade crashed to the ground. Tromisia sprang forward and landed on his shoulders, Snik at his throat. He spun, trying to dislodge her. She pulled the blade tighter until he came to a halt. His remaining troops barreled forward, dragging the Flarn with them, then stopped as they saw their leader’s peril.
“Lower your weapons, or he dies!” she snarled. They made as if to break the Flarns’ necks. She repositioned the sharp sword slightly, and ichor ran along its length. They loosened their grasp, but she didn’t let go of hers.
“Who are you?” the leader bellowed.
“I am Empress Tromisia of Blarkenstar,” she said. “I am here on a diplomatic mission on behalf of our beloved allies, the Flarn.” The eyes of her erstwhile captors brightened at her words. “You have invaded this world, which has previously welcomed you as guests. You will stop your heinous plan to freeze this planet to make it like your own. My army is on its way, a force of thousands of brave soldiers! They will destroy you.”
“Thousands?” the leader choked, not only because she had his neck in her grip. “Thousands like you?”
“Why, yes,” Tromisia said, amused. “Only younger and stronger, and with many more weapons. I am older, and out of practice in making war.”
At her words, the Magdinos let go of their weapons and dropped to their knees. More slowly and cautiously, the leader followed suit.
“Empress,” he said, turning his head carefully to meet her eyes, “we’ve monitored you from the time you left the building in the city. If one warrior—older and out of practice—is capable of single-handedly overcoming my troops, we wish to have no conflict with you. We will withdraw immediately. Please, let us go! We will be good neighbors!”
Tromisia kicked off the huge being’s back and landed on her feet. She straightened her gown and transformed her helm back into a crown. The Flarn, released by their captors, rushed to greet her. Her limbs ached, and her eyes burned from the glare of the lasers. She dreaded having her physicians examine the burn marks under her gown. But she had done enough. By the time it arrived, her army might have nothing left to do but destroy the frost-making equipment.
“That is good,” she said, with a sigh. “Never let it be said that Blarkenstar waged war one moment longer than they had to.” She smiled at the Flarn. “We have a reputation to maintain.”