Ellyne gazed out the ship’s window, staring at the ground below, the clouds above, and another massive Golgolonar ship floating nearby. She wasn’t sure how the craft she was on compared to the size of the other ship, but she surmised it was much smaller. Maybe the one she saw out the window was their capital ship … if they had one. It certainly was enormous. To her, it seemed like overkill.
“How could anyone possibly fight against something so large? How many dragon people are in that thing? And how many are in this ship?”
As always, she had an idea but no plan. She loaded her gun and slipped it back in its holster at her hip. There had been little resistance thus far, but she suspected that was about to change. Certainly, the lizard beasts and Kithrak wouldn’t let her simply roam around their ship and escape without a fight. After all, they’d worked hard to capture her in the first place.
“I need to find the bridge,” she muttered, turning to the door. “Or the control room or whatever they want to call it and kill everyone and everything on this floating monstrosity. Surely, they’ve got some master control thing where they all stand around and issue commands or something.”
She turned from the window and slowly approached the door, inspecting the various panels and consoles as she passed. For perhaps the first time, she was almost glad not to have a plan of any kind. Sure, she wanted to make her way to the main control center, but she also wanted to hunt down and slaughter every last Kithrak and smelly lizard thing she could find. Her thirst for revenge was great.
And she was fairly confident nobody could stop her. By bringing her to their ship, they’d brought about their downfall.
Two Golgolonar looked shocked as the door opened, apparently unprepared to find Ellyne standing on the other side. Instinct took over and she put a bullet in each one, dropping them before they could act.
“Time to move,” she grunted, leaping over the bodies and charging down the corridor with her gun gripped tightly in her right hand. “No idea where I’m going, but I can’t sit around.”
She briefly wondered if Marik was still aboard somewhere and, if he was, if she should seek him out. The urge to tear the entire ship apart to find him was strong and she believed she could do it—if flocia cooperated, of course. Something told her, however, if he knew what was happening, the coward would’ve already jumped ship. That may have been the only smart thing the man had ever done.
She startled five Kithrak as she rounded a corner, nearly colliding with them. They jumped back and thrust their hands in front of their faces. Ellyne braced for the barrage of spells to collide with her but gave pause when she saw them cowering. Though she couldn’t understand what they said, she knew pleas when she heard them.
“You’re … afraid?”
At first, Ellyne kept her weapon pointed at the floor, watching the Kithrak as they slowly backed away. Two of them shook their heads and sobbed, tears streaming from their multiple eyes.
“You are afraid!” she laughed, grinning madly. “Good. You should be.”
She gunned them down, emptying the remaining six chambers and sliding in a new cartridge immediately thereafter. There was no witty catchphrase or gloating. She spat on one of them as she ran past, unsure of where she was going.
She ducked into a room, waiting for a sizeable group of Golgolonar and Kithrak to pass, then continued her journey, remorsefully letting them go unscathed. They all deserved death, but she had now set her sights on the larger prize, believing she might have just devised a plan to kill them all without having to hunt for them one by one.
A plan!
Several times she encountered groups of Kithrak and, each time, the result was no different. The few Golgolonar she fought met the same fate. If she had to kill every last one of them, she would. And she would enjoy every moment. But, right now, she only cared about those who stood in her way.
“Focus, Ellyne,” she whispered to herself, picking a random direction. For all she knew, she was traveling in circles, but the lack of bodies in the corridors convinced her otherwise.
Each encounter ended the same—with Ellyne wandering the corridors and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. She almost felt like she was once again fighting in the Flocia Wars. The two circumstances weren’t much different except, this time, she knew which side she was on.
“Why the hell do the golgolowhatevers need such large ships? And why can’t they have clear signage pointing me where I need to go?” She turned down a corridor and caught sight of at least two Kithrak as they fled around a corner. “It’s like they don’t want me to kill all of them or something.”
Ellyne sprinted until she caught up with her quarry, ending their lives without hesitation or remorse. She left the bodies behind, turned a corner, and channeled flocia as several spells pelted her. She staggered forward, letting the effects wash over her, and unleashed a stream of energy from her fingertips, striking the three Kithrak mages. Their screams were brief—cut short as their bodies were partially incinerated by the blast.
Ellyne laughed, kicking one of the partial corpses as she moved on. She fully expected to hear alarms by this point and was surprised by not only the lack of flashing lights and ear-piercing sounds, but also by the relative emptiness of the ship. She wondered if there was some sort of silent signal based off magic that only they could detect. It seemed feasible but it didn’t matter to her whether they were alerted. She would fight through as many Kithrak and lizards as she had to.
The ship’s corridors were sleek and smooth, and Ellyne noticed few doors during her rampage, which was why she gave pause when she found herself standing outside a closed door at the end of a hallway.
Like all the doors on the ship, it was a sliding mechanism but, unlike all the others, this one stubbornly remained closed.
“Really?” she laughed. “A locked door? I guess it’s a good sign—maybe I’m finally in the right place. It’s about damn time.”
Using flocia, she poked and prodded the door. The metal creaked and groaned as she pressed harder until, finally, the door gave way and fell inward, slamming onto the floor.
The room beyond was filled with panels, screens, and several odd-looking chairs, all situated in front of large windows that offered a full panoramic view of the sky, the city below and, fortunately, the massive spacecraft ahead.
Four Golgolonar and ten Kithrak stood between her and the ship’s bridge. The hulking scaled brutes each held a crackling stun baton, ready for combat. Drool dripped from the fangs of one of them as it grinned and pointed to Ellyne, grunting and snorting. It motioned for the Kithrak to attack.
The Kithrak paused, however, looking at one another. It appeared none of them wanted to be the first to act. Ellyne could read the fear on their faces as clearly as a screen on the Karnascus streets. She herself hesitated, curious to see how it played out.
Several Kithrak muttered to one another while a few others appeared to back up—slowly retreating or at least looking for cover. All four Golgolonar grunted, pointed, and growled but the Kithrak apparently refused to act.
The Golgolonar didn’t appear to be in a hurry to start a fight either, but the Kithrak’s refusal to engage left them in an even more awkward position.
For several moments, nobody acted or reacted. Ellyne wasn’t sure what the aliens were planning, but she herself was determining the best and most efficient way to kill them all, preferably without damaging the equipment in the room. She stayed her hand, however, still gripping her gun but making no move.
One of the Kithrak fled—running for a door to Ellyne’s left but, before it got far, a Golgolonar lashed out with its baton, knocking the convulsing alien to the floor. The brute shouted something, then pointed at Ellyne again.
Another Kithrak made a run for it but it, too, didn’t make it far and was grappled by another of the hulking lizards. This time, however, its punishment was a broken neck.
Ellyne emptied her gun into the four Golgolonar—two bullets for each. They must not have had any defenses because that was enough to drop all of them. Even their thick hides couldn’t stop her bullets this time.
The remaining eight living, conscious Kithrak were stunned and confused—both frightened and grateful at the same time. They murmured in their alien tongue both to one another and to Ellyne. The moment she thought they were going to attack her, she found herself embraced by several sobbing Kithrak with at least two others trying to get in on the hug.
“Oh,” she said, unsure of what was happening, “hey, you’re welcome … I guess?”
Using flocia, she violently ejected them, smashing them into the walls repeatedly. When she was sure they were all dead, she dropped them to the floor.
“Okay, now to do what I came here for.”
With flocia, she reached out to the ship’s controls and felt them acquiesce. Once again, all the lights in the room went from red to green as she connected and brought them under her command.
She sifted through a myriad of different functions, quickly scanning until she found the door controls. With barely a thought, she used flocia to create a barrier sealing off the bridge since she’d quite obviously destroyed that particular door.
“That should keep out unwanted guests,” she muttered, activating the locks on all the ship’s doors. “And keep everyone on board. At least for a little while. Now, then, how about weapons? Surely this monster ship’s got some.”
She searched again until she found the ship’s weapon systems and brought them online. “The two main cannons ought to suffice,” she mumbled, activating them. “I just hope they’re beefy enough to take down that monstrosity.”
She brought both cannons to bear, aiming them at the massive Golgolonar ship ahead of her, waiting impatiently as they spun up or heated or whatever. She didn’t know what they were doing, just that they were taking their sweet time.
“Twenty percent … come on, can’t you go any faster? It’s tough to gain the element of surprise when it takes an hour and a half just to activate a couple of weapons.”
As the two massive cannons warmed up, Ellyne thought she could feel them drawing flocia—like a massive fan in front of her, sucking the air past her and threatening to take her with it. It felt like an enormous amount being drawn and Ellyne couldn’t help but grin, eager to witness the result.
“Thirty-five percent. At this rate, I’ll be here all day just waiting. I seriously thought Golgolowhosit technology would be better than this.” She tapped her foot and approached the front window, staring at the larger ship in the near distance. “I wonder…”
Ellyne focused on the flocia pouring into the weapons. Instead of letting them pull it, she pushed power into them, adding to the flow. “That’s more like it,” she laughed, sensing the power level jump to fifty percent.
She pushed harder, forcing more power into the guns and sensing the energy levels rise even further. As she powered the guns, however, she noticed the larger ship start to move.
“Oh no you don’t,” she laughed, forcing even more flocia into the cannons until they were at one hundred percent charge.
But she didn’t stop there.
She pushed more flocia into the weapons systems, apparently overcharging the cannons but, as she did so, she sensed alarms and warnings from the ship. She ignored them, completely unconcerned about possible repercussions.
“Good,” she spat. “I’ll damage two of their ships at the same time.”
Just as the cannons signaled a critical failure, she fired them. The ship rocked and groaned, violently shaking and knocking Ellyne to the floor as dual explosions filled her ears.
“That was awesome!” she shouted, getting to her feet in time to witness two explosions tear into the other Golgolonar ship. “That’s right! You want some more? No? Tough shit!”
She focused again, intent on powering up the cannons but was met with crushing disappointment. In her elation and thirst for more power, she’d indeed damaged the weapons and they ignored her commands.
“Damn it,” she swore, bringing her fist down on one of the consoles. “Even your ship can’t handle me. Fine, then, I don’t need weapons. I can still end this.”
She powered up the ship’s engines, urging it forward at maximum velocity.