Grinde Galaxy Chapter 6

 

Chapter 6

I, of course, won the game. It was what happened afterwards that really almost killed me.

The person betting against Draw and Ranger was a squire to a high-ranking space marine. After I won, the squire and a couple of his goons surrounded us.

“Um …” I looked between the five thugs who were stepping closer to me. While one or two thugs wasn’t enough to make me worried, five thugs was too much to handle. I had to figure out a way to get out of this.

One of the thugs rushed Draw and grabbed her by the shoulder, pinning her to the ground. He began knocking her around, landing blow after blow on her face.

Ranger rushed two of the thugs, landing several hits before a single strike to his chin toppled him to the ground.

I held up my hands. “Hey, man. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Well you’ve got trouble.” One of the thugs, a hulking man with a leather jacket on, socked me in the stomach hard enough to make me spit blood. I collapsed over on myself, coughing. “Seriously—” The thug kicked me in the chin and my head was knocked upwards. I collapsed to the floor. “Look, here—” The thug landed a kick square in my balls. I vomited. “I just—” Two more kicks to the face ended the experience. The thug grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and looked me in the eyes, breathing on me with his onion breath. “We’re the ones in charge now.”

The other thugs had retrieved the speakeasy keys from Draw. Once they had kicked her a couple more times, they left, leaving the three of us bleeding on the ground.

“Ugh.” Draw coughed. “Not fun.” She turned over on her belly to look at me. “You got another plan to get them spaced?”

Your species never fails to amaze me with its pettiness. Allen spoke in my mind.

Yeah? Were the Tolk any better? Before I realized what was going on, several of the boxes next to me floated up into the air, hovering for a couple of seconds before crashing onto the ground.

“Whoa.” I stood up, still clutching my stomach.

Draw got onto her hands and knees. “What just happened?”

Looks like you awakened your psychic powers. It usually takes an event like this for that to happen.

I’m a psychic now? I rubbed my chin, which I thought was probably broken. With a snap I set the bone and used a piece of scrap metal to hold it in place.

“Hey, can I get some attention here too?” Draw rolled onto her back. “I think a couple of my ribs are broken.” She spat out a tooth.

It appeared that Draw was the only one to notice my psychic awakening. Ranger was out cold, and no one else was in the room. The hovering boxes shuddered, shimmered, and then fell back to the ground.

“Welp.” I could barely speak through my broken jaw. “That was interesting.”

“Do you think you could use those new psychic powers to help us get revenge?” Draw stood up, wobbling. She braced herself against the wall.

“I don’t even know what I’m capable of.”

You’re now a level one psychic. Not very powerful, but capable of growing. Allen’s voice echoed through my head.

You’re going to have to tell me more. I could now speak back to him using my mind.

I could hear a whispering, a devious cacophony just outside the walls. It started to grow on me.

A deep crimson red voice echoed out to me. Come to me. Come dance with the fires of chaos.

I clutched my temples. “No, no, no!”

Draw hobbled over to me, grabbed me, and pinned me to the wall with surprising strength given her condition. “Hey. Snap out of it. The warp is infiltrating your mind. Push it away.”

I shook my head to clear it. The whispering faded away, though it was not gone entirely.

Your psychic power is budding, but at the moment it is not very powerful. You perhaps qualify to be a hyperspace technician, if you are trained properly.

Oh. I rubbed my jaw, which was hurting like hell. I had a lot of experience dealing with pain, however, so I just pushed through it. I looked at Draw.

She nodded. “I know. Tell no one. I’m used to keeping secrets.”

Ranger pushed himself to his feet. He wiped blood off of his face. “Aw, hell.” He staggered to the wall and leaned against it. “This is the first time I’ve been whacked in a long time.”

Draw coughed. “No kidding.”

“So what are we going to do?” Ranger heaved vomit onto the floor.

“We’re going to get revenge, obviously.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can come up with anything close to the plan I had before.”

“What makes you say that?” Draw swallowed hard, and spat out a tooth.

“Well, those guys look a lot more dangerous than Dereck.”

“So? Can’t you just figure out a way to deal with them anyways?” Draw set her broken nose with a twist. “Gak.” She spat out blood.

I sat down against one of the boxes I had lifted moments ago. It was surprisingly sturdy against my back, considering the fact that I had lifted it six feet into the air.

The order for a cleanup echoed from the intercom system.

“Not now!” Draw coughed, and turned to the door. “But we’ll get spaced if we don’t show up.” She walked towards the door.

Allen: I’m starting to think we may have trouble escaping this ship.

Me: Yeah, I’m kind of stuck here. It wasn’t my choice to leave my home.

Allen was silent.

Draw, Ranger and I left the speakeasy and rushed through the ship to get to the cleanup scene. It was, again, the bloody mess of someone who had been purged for heresy. At this point I wasn’t even surprised anymore. I eyed the inquisitor as he passed by us but didn’t say anything.

The inquisitor approached me. I held up my mop.

“Can I help you, your lordship?”

The inquisitor raised his hood to show me his deep crimson eyes and pale face. “You. What is your name?”

“Mythe, your lordship.”

The inquisitor waved his hand. “Do not call me your lordship. Call me Thran.” He rubbed his hands together. “I have sensed a great power coming out of you. Come with me.”

Obviously I had no choice. I gave Ranger and Draw my best “I’m sorry” face and followed Thran away from the cleanup site.

“Your lordship—”

“Inquisitor Thran.”

“Inquisitor Thran. Where are you taking me?”

“Ask another question and I shall purge you.”

“Yes, Inquisitor Thran.”

“Good boy.” Thran led me to a part of the Atlas I had never seen before. “Your jaw is broken.”

I did my best to smile. “Um, yeah, I got into a bit of a fight.”

Thran gripped my chin and pulled my head sideways. “May the power of the Emperor course through you!”

My broken jaw healed itself in less than ten seconds. Thran let go of my face.

I rubbed my newly healed chin. “What …”

Allen: Ah, I see not all advanced technology has been lost.

Me: What the hell? They can do that?

Allen: It wasn’t too uncommon in the era of my birth.

Me: But …

Thran led me to a small room in the officer’s quarters of this section of the ship. He closed the door behind him. “Under the command of our Lord Emperor, I bless you with a promotion. You are now the squire of Good Sir Isac Bredford.” Thran’s lips curled up. “And you are my ward. I have a task that I need you to perform.”

“Okay?”

Thran opened up a drawer, taking out a sheet of paper. “The marines have a mole among them. The Synth cult has extended its tendrils into our very midst. I need you to be my eyes and ears among the space marines of this ship.”

“So I’ll be your spy.”

“You pick up quickly, young Mythe.”

“Thank you, your lordship.”

“Thran. Again, call me Thran.”

I grimaced. “Inquisitor Thran.”

“Very good.” Thran reached for me with his hand, brushing aside my bangs. “Young boy. Such youthfulness. You will be part of something so much bigger.” He turned around and cut open his finger, spilling blood on the paper. He turned to me, holding out the knife.

I knew to hesitate would be death. So I cut open my own finger and pressed my blood seal on the paper.

Allen: Yeah, about right.

Me: What do you mean?

Allen: Oh how far humanity has fallen. Allen was silent.

Thran held the paper up and it burned in a flash of blue light, leaving behind a single sigil of metal. He turned away from me. “You will report to your duties now. I will give you map to your destination.” Thran rummaged through a bin and handed me a simple map of this level of the Atlas.

I took it with both hands. “Thank you, Inquisitor Thran.” I tuned and, breathing a sigh of relief, left the inquisitor’s quarters.

It took me ten minutes to arrive at Isac’s room. I knocked.

The door slid open. Isac was sitting at a chair, typing into a console. He stopped and turned to me. “You look ragged.”

“I got into a fight.”

Isac turned back to his console. “I heard you were assigned as my squire.”

“I was.”

“Good.” Isac continued typing. “My last squire was killed in action by a synth destroyer. I needed someone with guts to replace him.” He turned to me. “You have guts. But you don’t have the strength.”

“But—”

Isac clicked off his console. “You’re weak. Other Rhymarchi don’t bother training their squires. But I’m different. A good, well-trained squire could mean the difference between life and death in the field.”

Rhymarchi was the official name of the space marines.

“Okay. I’ll work hard.”

Isac handed me a data crystal. “This has your workout routine. You’ll find an abandoned strength training center according to the map included.”

“An entire strength center was abandoned?”

“This ship is old, Mythe. Older than any of us understand.”

Allen: He’s got that right. Of course Isac couldn’t hear the AI.

“So why do you want me to work out there?” I frowned.

“You’re not popular among other Rhymarchi. I’d like to keep you from getting on the bad side of some of them. They’d probably be annoyed just looking at you, considering your background.”

“Ah, yeah.” I rubbed my newly fixed chin. “I understand that.”

“Oh, and you probably shouldn’t associate with any friends you made as a cabin boy. You outrank them now and it’s not good to fraternize.”

“Nothing at all? I can’t even tell my friends what happened?”

Isac rubbed his temples. “Look. I don’t know exactly how things are down there. But I do know that cabin boys do not hold squires in high regard.”

I sat down. “Okay.”

Isac pointed to a small door on the starboard side of his cabin. “Your bunk is in there. You may find the accommodations a bit better than what you had as a cabin boy.”

I entered the room attached to Isac’s cabin. It was about the size of the cabin boy’s bunk, but it was designed for a single person. The bed looked quite comfortable. I nodded, left the room, and closed the door. I stretched. “I’ll be going to the training center now.”

“Good.” Isac returned to his console.