Chapter One
Landon sipped at his coffee, absently glancing at the star charts ahead of him. They were just entering unexplored space now, where the charts became more like guesswork than anything actually plotted, which was how he liked it best. Exploring the galaxy and beyond not only paid the bills but suited his wanderlust just fine. He could wish for something slightly larger than the two-man Aerial ship he was piloting, though. Being in space for months at a time inside a ship that could comfortably be called a ‘tin-can’ got old after a while.
The ship abruptly yanked to a stop, spilling his coffee and nearly him out of the chair. Swearing, Landon grabbed the edges of the console panel to catch his balance. “Baby, what the hell?”
His AI seemed just as alarmed as she responded, her warm contralto fraying along the edges, “An unknown source of energy has attached itself to our rear port. It is dragging us directly into something that appears to be a blackhole.”
“EXCUSE ME?!” he spluttered, not able to wrap his head around what she was saying. No, he could, actually, that was the entire problem. “Can we blow the back hatch?”
“Negative. The energy has now come up to mid-ship. Firing repulsors.”
“No, don’t,” he corrected, snapping around, his fingers flying over the console. “Getting into a tug of war will just drain our energy cells. Charge the panels, let’s give it a static charge and see if we can shake it off. Maybe a reverse polarity can get us free.”
“Charging,” Baby informed him but she didn’t sound happy.
That was nothing new, really. His AI rarely agreed with him. He’d programmed her that way on purpose because having only one other intelligence for months on end that always agreed was boring as hell.
The ship was jerked again, harder than last time, and he caught himself an inch away from dashing his nose against the eject button, which he was very grateful for because that would been very, very problematic. Then another hard lurch, this time sideways, and everything on board went staticky, the lights flickering like a bad horror film. “Baby, tell me we didn’t just enter the black hole.”
“We didn’t just enter the black hole,” she responded drolly.
“You are such a troll, I don’t know why I put up with you, and are we seriously in the black hole?”
“Affir—”
The entire ship went abruptly dark, as black as sin, so dark that not a sliver of light was to be found anywhere. Even the emergency lights and power failed to come back on, leaving him with only the oxygen that was in the cabin, and the sensory depravation scared the living shit out of him.
Mostly to have something, anything more than the absolute silence wrapped around him, Landon started talking. “Well. That’s not unnerving or anything. Sure, I like being in a hunk of metal, hurtling through a blackhole, in complete darkness. What guy doesn’t? Baby? Baby, talk to me. You know I love you, right? That guy I hooked up with on the last planet, he didn’t really mean anything, he just had a nice as—ah, butt. I really liked his butt. You know you’re my one and only. Baby~ Talk to me, lovely, I’m pining for you. Right here, right now, totally pining.”
The ship jerked again, but this time in a different way, as if it had just landed. Hard. He jostled in the chair, but despite the fact he had no power, he suddenly had gravity. And that…that might or might not be a good sign. Gravity meant planet, or moon, which was fine and dandy if it had the right oxygen mixture to breathe for the puny human on board the ship. He had a spacesuit with twenty-four hours of oxygen in the tank, but it would be hard to put the thing on in complete darkness and pretty much pointless if he couldn’t get either of the hatches open. The spacesuit was more like battle armor—well, actually, it was battle armor as it was a legacy of his time in the Forces—but this ship had been built to withstand charging rhinos. Even in the armor, getting the hatch open with brute force would take a while and it would leave him with a damaged hatch he had no way of repairing.
Yeah…he’d leave that for Option D.
Sinking down under the console, he pulled up the side panel and hit the reset button, flicked off the main power grid, counted to ten, then flicked it back on. He hit the reset button again, then lay there, waiting anxiously to see if that had done the trick.
The ship hummed as electricity kicked back on, the vents blowing air again in a gentle caress against his body, running lights along the bottom and top of the ship flickering back on, bathing the narrow confines of the ship in white light.
“Yesss,” he hissed, replacing the panel and scooting back out so he didn’t slam his head against the bottom of the control panel. “Baby, my dearest one, you with me?”
“Affirmative,” she purred, then stopped. “Landon. We have sixteen hostiles surrounding us on all sides.”
“What?!” He threw himself back into the chair, calling up the main displays. “How do you know they’re hostiles—oh. Yeah. That’s pretty obvious.”
It took three seconds for him to get his bearings, because even though he’d seen and been in some pretty strange situations during his time, this one might well take the cake. He was on a very lush planet with plenty of vegetation on all sides, with recognizable dirt and stone forming up the small canyon he was in, the hues of both informing him that the oxygen and carbon ratio on this planet should make it breathable for humans. That was the good news. In fact, that might well be the only good news.
Directly in front of him was an altar, and considering the young girl strapped down on top of it, he was going with evil altar. On all sides were four men in black robes, their hands raised in a chant, the man in the middle with a bloody dagger in his hand that he’d obviously already used once and probably would again on the young sacrifice in front of him. To either side were more men in robes, also chanting, two girls sitting beside the altar on their knees with their hands bound in front of them. If any of the girls were older than sixteen, Landon would eat the spinach paste moldering in storage.
But the thing that bothered him the most were the two fire-breathing, nasty pieces of work chained directly ahead of him, beyond the altar. The chains weren’t of metal, but glowing ropes of fire, and they looked like a horrendous cobbling of dragons, orcs, and nightmares.
It took another three seconds for him to accept that he was in something rather like a Lord of the Rings film. Monsters, priests, virgin sacrifices, the works. But he hadn’t been a soldier without learning how to roll with the punches, and right now, he had to prioritize the threats and neutralize them before he could get around to asking questions about where the hell he was and what was going on.
“Baby. I don’t think I like them. In fact, they’re scaring me, I hate their guts, and I think we can safely assume that everyone but the girls are bad guys here. You with me on that?”
“Affirmative.”
“Great, I love it when you agree with me. What’s the air quality out there?”
“Optimum levels.”
“You’re full of good news.” His hands flew, already checking the condition on the outside of the ship, a rough plan forming together in his head. “I say we take out the black robe guys first, snag the girls, throw them in here and then take on those ugly motherfuckers in the chains.”
“Plan success rate 75%.”
“You are a doll. Alright, weapons hot, let’s do this.” An adrenaline surge kicked in, something he hadn’t felt in four years, not since leaving the Force. But it was an old buddy, adrenaline, it and him went way back. His attention sharpened, his nerves sang with it, and there was a feral grin on his face as he put the crosshairs directly on the four men hovering about the altar and pulled the trigger.
After that, well, after that there was a lot of screaming.
The four priests went down like the useless bags of shit they were, and the very smart girl lost no time in rolling off the altar and ducking under it for cover. He had a feeling he was going to like her. Landon immediately turned the guns to face the priests holding onto the other girls, because he absolutely did not want hostages, and took them quickly down. The girls scrambled to join the one under the altar, which made his life easier, and he appreciated their quick thinking.
“Baby, fire us up.”
“Thrusters active.”
He had perhaps fifteen seconds to get the girls secure inside before those things at the end broke free. Landon maneuvered the ship up and off the higher perch it was on, his eyes on the firey ropes binding the other two…demons? Monsters? He wasn’t sure what they were, but the restraints on them were splintering quickly. Apparently taking down the black robe guys meant the nightmares had nothing holding them down. Maybe he should have tackled the priests last.
Too late to question it now. They were all dead. Turning the ship sideways, he set her gently down three feet away and scrambled out of the pilot chair, popping the side hatch up. “Hey. Hey girls, quick, get in!”
They peered at him from under the altar, taking him in from head to toe, then blinking in surprise. Landon wasn’t quite sure what they expected. Some kind of monster, maybe? Something that would look like the other ones that were roaring death and pain? But whatever it was, they didn’t know what to make of him.
Landon was aware he wasn’t the most handsome man in the galaxy. But still, he did alright for himself. His nose was a little crooked because he’d broken it and it hadn’t set quite right, but his face was nice enough, and people seemed to like the combination of his Asian features with his chestnut hair, even if they did assume he had colored contacts in to make his eyes green. But he wasn’t used to being stared at by young girls like he was some sort of messiah.
“Come on, come on,” he urged, beckoning them in with a sharp wave of the hand. “Get in. Shit, do you even understand me? Baby, the universal translator, is it working?”
“Affirmative.”
“Are—” one of the girls took in a breath, tried again, “Are you a demon? Are you human?”
Was he what, now? “I’m, ah, human. Why?”
She didn’t answer. Apparently that was all she needed to hear, because she grabbed the hands of the other two and pulled them all into motion, scrambling up the two feet clearance and into the ship.
Landon decided not to question anything right now, he didn’t have time for the questions or the fallout of the answers. Instead he closed the hatch and took two seconds to grab one of the longest belts he had, strapping them in against the floor. “Do not move, it’s likely going to get rough.”
The girls nodded, all of them looking up at him strangely. They were all dark haired, pale skinned, with brown eyes but they didn’t look like sisters. What they wore worried him more, as they were in clothes that reminded him of peasant clothes, like something from a fantasy movie. That did not speak of an evolved technology level.
Shaking the thought off, he dove back for the pilot seat, his eyes automatically going to track the monsters. In the twenty seconds he wasn’t paying attention, they’d broken free of their restraints and were shaking themselves like wet dogs. “Yeah, that don’t look good. Baby, those things look as tough as tanks to me.”
“Muscle density unknown. Plating on the front, back and sides register as an unknown substance.”
“That is supremely unhelpful. I swear you tell me stuff like that just to make my eye twitch and it’s already twitching, thank you very much. Give me something I can actually work with.”
Tartly, his AI informed him, “Ordinance includes anti-tank 890 rounds.”
“Now we’re talking.” Little in the world could go against that without any damage. Well, little in his world. He was about to test if it would do anything here. Flipping the sequence over, he changed guns, then shifted to the co-pilot seat so he could line up better. With his right hand still managing the flight controls, he sat on the edge of the seat so he could reach everything he needed to, his left hand taking the joystick and lining up the crosshairs.
Aiming for the center of the chest, he fired one round and held his breath. Please go in, please go in, please go dead.
The round hit, the monster screaming with pain as it was struck, staggering under the impact. But it didn’t go down, its legs finding their balance again, that ugly snout coming around to fixate on the ship bearing down on it.
“Of course that didn’t work,” Landon grumbled, already lining up another round. “Because of course when you’re yanked onto an alien planet through a fucking wormhole, the strongest bullet you’ve got in the arsenal won’t take down a giant lizard. My luck doesn’t run that good. Baby, give me a vulnerable spot. Eyes, mouth, something.”
“Belly,” tremulous voice offered behind him.
Landon spared the girl a glance. “What? Belly?”
“That’s how the warriors always defeat them,” she informed him, voice gaining confidence. “They aim for the belly.”
“Now that’s good intel. Thanks.” Although how he’d get to the belly, that was another question entirely. These things sat low to the ground, like a crocodile would, although it would make sense that the most tender and vulnerable part to them would be on the underside.
They were also now aiming directly for him, moving quicker than they should with that much mass to shift.
Not knowing what else to try, he lowered the ship to where it hovered a mere two feet off the ground, then shot a round at their feet. One of the monsters jerked up, lifting his feet up and away, and it gave a narrow opening of three feet, just a sliver of a chance. Landon immediately fired but missed, the distance closing almost as soon as he saw it. But the tactic had worked, and he grimly knew he had enough ammo to try this again.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and it was tempting to just fly off and ignore this problem. It wasn’t exactly his, after all, he didn’t make it. He just landed in the middle of it. But he had a feeling the three girls were locals, which meant their homes were somewhere nearby, and turning a blind eye on two monsters in their neighborhood wasn’t something he could do in good conscience. Besides, he’d already pissed these things off. They were likely going to hunt him down if he tried to duck out of the fight now.
He’d just have to be really quick on the trigger.
“Alright, round two.”
Baby helpfully gave him a chime, like a boxer stepping into the ring.
Grinning, he gave her a salute. “Thanks, Baby. I can always count on you for the comic relief.”
“Excuse me,” the AI retorted primly, “I’m not here for your entertainment.”
“Coulda fooled me, doll.” The banter was automatic, he paid no attention to it as he lined up again, changing the ship’s location and backing them up another three feet because the monsters were now lumbering for him. Praying this worked, he kept his eyes fixed on the crosshairs, aiming for the feet once again, but a little higher this time. He pulled this time in a double-tap, the trigger barely releasing before it sank in again, releasing two rounds in quick succession.
The monster reared at the first blast that hit its ankles, just enough that the second bullet burrowed past the scales and found soft flesh. With a screech of pain, loud enough that it cracked the heavens, it reared all the way back, flailing, and landed on its companion. The other monster screamed as well, trying to escape the death throes, but unable to throw off that much weight quickly. Landon took the opportunity and immediately fired, finding another soft spot of belly just under the arm.
Without waiting to see if he’d hit a vital spot or not, he sent the ship sharply backwards and up, hovering safely out of reach.
The monsters screamed in pain, legs working and twitching, their bodies flailing, then they gave a long death rattle of a sigh before slumping silently to the ground. “Baby, scan for vital signs.”
“None found.”
“Bless the gods, angels, saints, and pink hippos,” he sighed in relief. “Any other monsters out there?”
“None found.”
“About freaking time something went my way today.” Landon took a second, just one, to catch his breath. He needed that second for his sanity, to calm his racing heart, then he climbed out of the chair and went first for the food compartment. He was parched, the girls were certainly thirsty after screaming and crying, and it would show a little kindness to offer them water. He fetched out four bottles and closed up the compartment before sinking down on the floor with them, giving them his best smile. They smiled tentatively back, which was good, cause he couldn’t deal with more screaming right now. “Hi. I must say, it looks like we’ve all had a really bad day. You thirsty?”
He got nods, so he handed out the bottles, then had to take them back again when the girls tentatively turned them over in their hands, bemused on how to open them. Oh boy, if they didn’t even know how to twist a cap off, he was really in the dark ages. He took a gulp from his own bottle, and they followed suit, the youngest draining hers dry in one long pull. At least, she looked like the youngest, about twelve or so. The other two seemed closer to fifteen-sixteen territory.
Scared teenage girls that had been sacrifices not ten minutes ago. Landon was really lucky they weren’t screaming or crying. In their shoes, he would be. “I’m Landon. What’s your names?”
“Bridgitte,” the eldest introduced herself with a shy smile, both hands clutching the bottle so that it made crinkled noises of protest. “This is Aimee and Devona.”
“Pleasure, girls. As you can see, I am not from here.” Understatement of the freaking century, right there. He kept a smile on his face with sheer willpower because curling up in a corner and crying for his mother was not manly. Even if he was tempted to do it anyway. “And to be honest, I have no idea how I got here. I was cruising along in space, my ship went dark, I got sucked into a black hole, and the next thing I know I’m here. I don’t suppose you have any idea of what happened?”
“You were summoned,” Bridgitte informed him, her face screwing up in a sad grimace. “The Priests of Eldr were doing a summoning of multiple demons. When they called Beyond, they got you.”
Landon blinked at her. She seemed perfectly sincere and the other girls were nodding along, so odds were she wasn’t lying. Or all three of them were the worst trolls in the universe, he wasn’t sure which. “I was…summoned.”
“Right,” she agreed, her eyes focused intently on him. “Like the demons you killed.”
“But I’m not a demon?” he offered although why he posed it as a question, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t really questioning his humanity. Maybe. He didn’t think.
“I’m confused by that too,” she admitted. “But I heard once that a demon was summoned that was made all of metal. Maybe the summoning was more for your…friend?” she pointed to the ceiling, indicating the ship in general.
“Oh. Ah,” he drew out the sound, thinking it over quickly, “I guess that makes sense. As much as anything else makes sense, at least, which is not at all. So you’re saying they did a summoning spell and I appeared as the demon.”
“But you killed the priest before they could complete the geas,” Bridgitte informed him, and this time she looked relieved, “otherwise you’d be forced to do their bidding.”
Yes, because being bound by magic he didn’t understand to follow the bidding of evil priests that liked to summon demons sounded like a peachy idea and didn’t scare the living daylights right out of him. Landon had to take a second and let all of this shift through his head. Before today, he’d thought magic was in novels and movies. Sure, he’d heard some interesting stuff in the Forces, and he didn’t have a problem with divine intervention from various religions, but magic? Wave the wand magic? Not something he’d seen or really believed in. He enjoyed fantasy but didn’t have faith in it.
Not until he was forced to look two monsters right in the eye. Not until he was pulled in through a black hole via a spell made with dark magic. That sort of thing messed with a man’s world views.
Landon let his head flop to his chest and he focused on breathing. Breathing was good. Breathing would keep him from passing out. He couldn’t afford to pass out, and it wouldn’t solve anything, so he just kept breathing.
“Landon,” his AI started in her oh-so-calm voice because being summoned like a demon didn’t ruffle her metaphorical feathers, damn her, “are you able to understand what they are saying?”
Now that was an odd question. He quirked an eyebrow at the camera in the corner. “Yes, why?”
“I cannot.”
Landon blinked. He’d assumed that he could communicate with the girls because of the translator link in his ear. “Wait. You can’t understand them? The language program isn’t working?”
“I am collecting data now, but their language is not in any known database.”
And that was saying something. Baby’s linguistic database was the best in the universe. It had to be, as she was the piloting AI to an explorer’s ship.
Aimee finally decided to join this conversation and offered, “I think its because of the spell the Priests of Eldr used on you. They have to be able to command the demons they summon, so they always put a spell on them.”
So…he had a language spell of some sort on him. Something that worked like the linguistic program, apparently, as he understood the girls as well as if they’d been speaking native English. Something that only worked on him and not Baby, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “That’s…helpful. I guess. Do I actually want dark magic spells on me?”
“It’s not dark magic,” Aimee hastily assured him. “The other Orders use it too. The summoning of you, that’s the only dark magic you’re under.”
“Oh. I guess that’s alright.” Landon scrubbed a hand over his face because ‘alright’ was not how he’d describe any of the events of the day. He dearly wanted to know how he could get home again but he had a feeling the girls likely couldn’t tell him. No harm in asking, though. “Um, how do we anti-summon me? I mean, how do I get sent back?”
“You can’t,” Bridgitte answered with a sympathetic wince. “At least, not that we’ve ever heard of. They always have to kill the summoned demons.”
“You know I was really, really afraid you’d say that.”
“Sorry,” she whispered, eyes falling to the bottle. “I’m so sorry. It’s so very unfair to you. You even rescued us.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about that,” he responded, lips twisting in a mimicry of a smile. She looked so heartbroken, he couldn’t restrain the impulse and patted her gently on the head. “I was a soldier, once. Protecting people is just a thing I do. Now, I think its high time I get you girls home. Where’s home from here?”
Devona lunged up onto her knees, catching his sleeve, her dark eyes earnest. “Wait. My sister. Can we take my sister too?”
Alarmed, Landon demanded, “Did I miss someone?”
“No, she’s…” Bridgitte trailed off with a grimace. “She was the first sacrifice.”
Oh. Right. Two other demons meant there were sacrifices. Shit, why hadn’t he done the math earlier? He’d been too rattled, handling every other emergency, he hadn’t put two and two together. Looking at Aimee’s crestfallen expression, and Devona’s eyes swimming with tears, he didn’t have the heart to ask them for any details. “Sure. You show me where they are, we’ll strap them onto the runners. I’ll take you all home.”
The ship abruptly yanked to a stop, spilling his coffee and nearly him out of the chair. Swearing, Landon grabbed the edges of the console panel to catch his balance. “Baby, what the hell?”
His AI seemed just as alarmed as she responded, her warm contralto fraying along the edges, “An unknown source of energy has attached itself to our rear port. It is dragging us directly into something that appears to be a blackhole.”
“EXCUSE ME?!” he spluttered, not able to wrap his head around what she was saying. No, he could, actually, that was the entire problem. “Can we blow the back hatch?”
“Negative. The energy has now come up to mid-ship. Firing repulsors.”
“No, don’t,” he corrected, snapping around, his fingers flying over the console. “Getting into a tug of war will just drain our energy cells. Charge the panels, let’s give it a static charge and see if we can shake it off. Maybe a reverse polarity can get us free.”
“Charging,” Baby informed him but she didn’t sound happy.
That was nothing new, really. His AI rarely agreed with him. He’d programmed her that way on purpose because having only one other intelligence for months on end that always agreed was boring as hell.
The ship was jerked again, harder than last time, and he caught himself an inch away from dashing his nose against the eject button, which he was very grateful for because that would been very, very problematic. Then another hard lurch, this time sideways, and everything on board went staticky, the lights flickering like a bad horror film. “Baby, tell me we didn’t just enter the black hole.”
“We didn’t just enter the black hole,” she responded drolly.
“You are such a troll, I don’t know why I put up with you, and are we seriously in the black hole?”
“Affir—”
The entire ship went abruptly dark, as black as sin, so dark that not a sliver of light was to be found anywhere. Even the emergency lights and power failed to come back on, leaving him with only the oxygen that was in the cabin, and the sensory depravation scared the living shit out of him.
Mostly to have something, anything more than the absolute silence wrapped around him, Landon started talking. “Well. That’s not unnerving or anything. Sure, I like being in a hunk of metal, hurtling through a blackhole, in complete darkness. What guy doesn’t? Baby? Baby, talk to me. You know I love you, right? That guy I hooked up with on the last planet, he didn’t really mean anything, he just had a nice as—ah, butt. I really liked his butt. You know you’re my one and only. Baby~ Talk to me, lovely, I’m pining for you. Right here, right now, totally pining.”
The ship jerked again, but this time in a different way, as if it had just landed. Hard. He jostled in the chair, but despite the fact he had no power, he suddenly had gravity. And that…that might or might not be a good sign. Gravity meant planet, or moon, which was fine and dandy if it had the right oxygen mixture to breathe for the puny human on board the ship. He had a spacesuit with twenty-four hours of oxygen in the tank, but it would be hard to put the thing on in complete darkness and pretty much pointless if he couldn’t get either of the hatches open. The spacesuit was more like battle armor—well, actually, it was battle armor as it was a legacy of his time in the Forces—but this ship had been built to withstand charging rhinos. Even in the armor, getting the hatch open with brute force would take a while and it would leave him with a damaged hatch he had no way of repairing.
Yeah…he’d leave that for Option D.
Sinking down under the console, he pulled up the side panel and hit the reset button, flicked off the main power grid, counted to ten, then flicked it back on. He hit the reset button again, then lay there, waiting anxiously to see if that had done the trick.
The ship hummed as electricity kicked back on, the vents blowing air again in a gentle caress against his body, running lights along the bottom and top of the ship flickering back on, bathing the narrow confines of the ship in white light.
“Yesss,” he hissed, replacing the panel and scooting back out so he didn’t slam his head against the bottom of the control panel. “Baby, my dearest one, you with me?”
“Affirmative,” she purred, then stopped. “Landon. We have sixteen hostiles surrounding us on all sides.”
“What?!” He threw himself back into the chair, calling up the main displays. “How do you know they’re hostiles—oh. Yeah. That’s pretty obvious.”
It took three seconds for him to get his bearings, because even though he’d seen and been in some pretty strange situations during his time, this one might well take the cake. He was on a very lush planet with plenty of vegetation on all sides, with recognizable dirt and stone forming up the small canyon he was in, the hues of both informing him that the oxygen and carbon ratio on this planet should make it breathable for humans. That was the good news. In fact, that might well be the only good news.
Directly in front of him was an altar, and considering the young girl strapped down on top of it, he was going with evil altar. On all sides were four men in black robes, their hands raised in a chant, the man in the middle with a bloody dagger in his hand that he’d obviously already used once and probably would again on the young sacrifice in front of him. To either side were more men in robes, also chanting, two girls sitting beside the altar on their knees with their hands bound in front of them. If any of the girls were older than sixteen, Landon would eat the spinach paste moldering in storage.
But the thing that bothered him the most were the two fire-breathing, nasty pieces of work chained directly ahead of him, beyond the altar. The chains weren’t of metal, but glowing ropes of fire, and they looked like a horrendous cobbling of dragons, orcs, and nightmares.
It took another three seconds for him to accept that he was in something rather like a Lord of the Rings film. Monsters, priests, virgin sacrifices, the works. But he hadn’t been a soldier without learning how to roll with the punches, and right now, he had to prioritize the threats and neutralize them before he could get around to asking questions about where the hell he was and what was going on.
“Baby. I don’t think I like them. In fact, they’re scaring me, I hate their guts, and I think we can safely assume that everyone but the girls are bad guys here. You with me on that?”
“Affirmative.”
“Great, I love it when you agree with me. What’s the air quality out there?”
“Optimum levels.”
“You’re full of good news.” His hands flew, already checking the condition on the outside of the ship, a rough plan forming together in his head. “I say we take out the black robe guys first, snag the girls, throw them in here and then take on those ugly motherfuckers in the chains.”
“Plan success rate 75%.”
“You are a doll. Alright, weapons hot, let’s do this.” An adrenaline surge kicked in, something he hadn’t felt in four years, not since leaving the Force. But it was an old buddy, adrenaline, it and him went way back. His attention sharpened, his nerves sang with it, and there was a feral grin on his face as he put the crosshairs directly on the four men hovering about the altar and pulled the trigger.
After that, well, after that there was a lot of screaming.
The four priests went down like the useless bags of shit they were, and the very smart girl lost no time in rolling off the altar and ducking under it for cover. He had a feeling he was going to like her. Landon immediately turned the guns to face the priests holding onto the other girls, because he absolutely did not want hostages, and took them quickly down. The girls scrambled to join the one under the altar, which made his life easier, and he appreciated their quick thinking.
“Baby, fire us up.”
“Thrusters active.”
He had perhaps fifteen seconds to get the girls secure inside before those things at the end broke free. Landon maneuvered the ship up and off the higher perch it was on, his eyes on the firey ropes binding the other two…demons? Monsters? He wasn’t sure what they were, but the restraints on them were splintering quickly. Apparently taking down the black robe guys meant the nightmares had nothing holding them down. Maybe he should have tackled the priests last.
Too late to question it now. They were all dead. Turning the ship sideways, he set her gently down three feet away and scrambled out of the pilot chair, popping the side hatch up. “Hey. Hey girls, quick, get in!”
They peered at him from under the altar, taking him in from head to toe, then blinking in surprise. Landon wasn’t quite sure what they expected. Some kind of monster, maybe? Something that would look like the other ones that were roaring death and pain? But whatever it was, they didn’t know what to make of him.
Landon was aware he wasn’t the most handsome man in the galaxy. But still, he did alright for himself. His nose was a little crooked because he’d broken it and it hadn’t set quite right, but his face was nice enough, and people seemed to like the combination of his Asian features with his chestnut hair, even if they did assume he had colored contacts in to make his eyes green. But he wasn’t used to being stared at by young girls like he was some sort of messiah.
“Come on, come on,” he urged, beckoning them in with a sharp wave of the hand. “Get in. Shit, do you even understand me? Baby, the universal translator, is it working?”
“Affirmative.”
“Are—” one of the girls took in a breath, tried again, “Are you a demon? Are you human?”
Was he what, now? “I’m, ah, human. Why?”
She didn’t answer. Apparently that was all she needed to hear, because she grabbed the hands of the other two and pulled them all into motion, scrambling up the two feet clearance and into the ship.
Landon decided not to question anything right now, he didn’t have time for the questions or the fallout of the answers. Instead he closed the hatch and took two seconds to grab one of the longest belts he had, strapping them in against the floor. “Do not move, it’s likely going to get rough.”
The girls nodded, all of them looking up at him strangely. They were all dark haired, pale skinned, with brown eyes but they didn’t look like sisters. What they wore worried him more, as they were in clothes that reminded him of peasant clothes, like something from a fantasy movie. That did not speak of an evolved technology level.
Shaking the thought off, he dove back for the pilot seat, his eyes automatically going to track the monsters. In the twenty seconds he wasn’t paying attention, they’d broken free of their restraints and were shaking themselves like wet dogs. “Yeah, that don’t look good. Baby, those things look as tough as tanks to me.”
“Muscle density unknown. Plating on the front, back and sides register as an unknown substance.”
“That is supremely unhelpful. I swear you tell me stuff like that just to make my eye twitch and it’s already twitching, thank you very much. Give me something I can actually work with.”
Tartly, his AI informed him, “Ordinance includes anti-tank 890 rounds.”
“Now we’re talking.” Little in the world could go against that without any damage. Well, little in his world. He was about to test if it would do anything here. Flipping the sequence over, he changed guns, then shifted to the co-pilot seat so he could line up better. With his right hand still managing the flight controls, he sat on the edge of the seat so he could reach everything he needed to, his left hand taking the joystick and lining up the crosshairs.
Aiming for the center of the chest, he fired one round and held his breath. Please go in, please go in, please go dead.
The round hit, the monster screaming with pain as it was struck, staggering under the impact. But it didn’t go down, its legs finding their balance again, that ugly snout coming around to fixate on the ship bearing down on it.
“Of course that didn’t work,” Landon grumbled, already lining up another round. “Because of course when you’re yanked onto an alien planet through a fucking wormhole, the strongest bullet you’ve got in the arsenal won’t take down a giant lizard. My luck doesn’t run that good. Baby, give me a vulnerable spot. Eyes, mouth, something.”
“Belly,” tremulous voice offered behind him.
Landon spared the girl a glance. “What? Belly?”
“That’s how the warriors always defeat them,” she informed him, voice gaining confidence. “They aim for the belly.”
“Now that’s good intel. Thanks.” Although how he’d get to the belly, that was another question entirely. These things sat low to the ground, like a crocodile would, although it would make sense that the most tender and vulnerable part to them would be on the underside.
They were also now aiming directly for him, moving quicker than they should with that much mass to shift.
Not knowing what else to try, he lowered the ship to where it hovered a mere two feet off the ground, then shot a round at their feet. One of the monsters jerked up, lifting his feet up and away, and it gave a narrow opening of three feet, just a sliver of a chance. Landon immediately fired but missed, the distance closing almost as soon as he saw it. But the tactic had worked, and he grimly knew he had enough ammo to try this again.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and it was tempting to just fly off and ignore this problem. It wasn’t exactly his, after all, he didn’t make it. He just landed in the middle of it. But he had a feeling the three girls were locals, which meant their homes were somewhere nearby, and turning a blind eye on two monsters in their neighborhood wasn’t something he could do in good conscience. Besides, he’d already pissed these things off. They were likely going to hunt him down if he tried to duck out of the fight now.
He’d just have to be really quick on the trigger.
“Alright, round two.”
Baby helpfully gave him a chime, like a boxer stepping into the ring.
Grinning, he gave her a salute. “Thanks, Baby. I can always count on you for the comic relief.”
“Excuse me,” the AI retorted primly, “I’m not here for your entertainment.”
“Coulda fooled me, doll.” The banter was automatic, he paid no attention to it as he lined up again, changing the ship’s location and backing them up another three feet because the monsters were now lumbering for him. Praying this worked, he kept his eyes fixed on the crosshairs, aiming for the feet once again, but a little higher this time. He pulled this time in a double-tap, the trigger barely releasing before it sank in again, releasing two rounds in quick succession.
The monster reared at the first blast that hit its ankles, just enough that the second bullet burrowed past the scales and found soft flesh. With a screech of pain, loud enough that it cracked the heavens, it reared all the way back, flailing, and landed on its companion. The other monster screamed as well, trying to escape the death throes, but unable to throw off that much weight quickly. Landon took the opportunity and immediately fired, finding another soft spot of belly just under the arm.
Without waiting to see if he’d hit a vital spot or not, he sent the ship sharply backwards and up, hovering safely out of reach.
The monsters screamed in pain, legs working and twitching, their bodies flailing, then they gave a long death rattle of a sigh before slumping silently to the ground. “Baby, scan for vital signs.”
“None found.”
“Bless the gods, angels, saints, and pink hippos,” he sighed in relief. “Any other monsters out there?”
“None found.”
“About freaking time something went my way today.” Landon took a second, just one, to catch his breath. He needed that second for his sanity, to calm his racing heart, then he climbed out of the chair and went first for the food compartment. He was parched, the girls were certainly thirsty after screaming and crying, and it would show a little kindness to offer them water. He fetched out four bottles and closed up the compartment before sinking down on the floor with them, giving them his best smile. They smiled tentatively back, which was good, cause he couldn’t deal with more screaming right now. “Hi. I must say, it looks like we’ve all had a really bad day. You thirsty?”
He got nods, so he handed out the bottles, then had to take them back again when the girls tentatively turned them over in their hands, bemused on how to open them. Oh boy, if they didn’t even know how to twist a cap off, he was really in the dark ages. He took a gulp from his own bottle, and they followed suit, the youngest draining hers dry in one long pull. At least, she looked like the youngest, about twelve or so. The other two seemed closer to fifteen-sixteen territory.
Scared teenage girls that had been sacrifices not ten minutes ago. Landon was really lucky they weren’t screaming or crying. In their shoes, he would be. “I’m Landon. What’s your names?”
“Bridgitte,” the eldest introduced herself with a shy smile, both hands clutching the bottle so that it made crinkled noises of protest. “This is Aimee and Devona.”
“Pleasure, girls. As you can see, I am not from here.” Understatement of the freaking century, right there. He kept a smile on his face with sheer willpower because curling up in a corner and crying for his mother was not manly. Even if he was tempted to do it anyway. “And to be honest, I have no idea how I got here. I was cruising along in space, my ship went dark, I got sucked into a black hole, and the next thing I know I’m here. I don’t suppose you have any idea of what happened?”
“You were summoned,” Bridgitte informed him, her face screwing up in a sad grimace. “The Priests of Eldr were doing a summoning of multiple demons. When they called Beyond, they got you.”
Landon blinked at her. She seemed perfectly sincere and the other girls were nodding along, so odds were she wasn’t lying. Or all three of them were the worst trolls in the universe, he wasn’t sure which. “I was…summoned.”
“Right,” she agreed, her eyes focused intently on him. “Like the demons you killed.”
“But I’m not a demon?” he offered although why he posed it as a question, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t really questioning his humanity. Maybe. He didn’t think.
“I’m confused by that too,” she admitted. “But I heard once that a demon was summoned that was made all of metal. Maybe the summoning was more for your…friend?” she pointed to the ceiling, indicating the ship in general.
“Oh. Ah,” he drew out the sound, thinking it over quickly, “I guess that makes sense. As much as anything else makes sense, at least, which is not at all. So you’re saying they did a summoning spell and I appeared as the demon.”
“But you killed the priest before they could complete the geas,” Bridgitte informed him, and this time she looked relieved, “otherwise you’d be forced to do their bidding.”
Yes, because being bound by magic he didn’t understand to follow the bidding of evil priests that liked to summon demons sounded like a peachy idea and didn’t scare the living daylights right out of him. Landon had to take a second and let all of this shift through his head. Before today, he’d thought magic was in novels and movies. Sure, he’d heard some interesting stuff in the Forces, and he didn’t have a problem with divine intervention from various religions, but magic? Wave the wand magic? Not something he’d seen or really believed in. He enjoyed fantasy but didn’t have faith in it.
Not until he was forced to look two monsters right in the eye. Not until he was pulled in through a black hole via a spell made with dark magic. That sort of thing messed with a man’s world views.
Landon let his head flop to his chest and he focused on breathing. Breathing was good. Breathing would keep him from passing out. He couldn’t afford to pass out, and it wouldn’t solve anything, so he just kept breathing.
“Landon,” his AI started in her oh-so-calm voice because being summoned like a demon didn’t ruffle her metaphorical feathers, damn her, “are you able to understand what they are saying?”
Now that was an odd question. He quirked an eyebrow at the camera in the corner. “Yes, why?”
“I cannot.”
Landon blinked. He’d assumed that he could communicate with the girls because of the translator link in his ear. “Wait. You can’t understand them? The language program isn’t working?”
“I am collecting data now, but their language is not in any known database.”
And that was saying something. Baby’s linguistic database was the best in the universe. It had to be, as she was the piloting AI to an explorer’s ship.
Aimee finally decided to join this conversation and offered, “I think its because of the spell the Priests of Eldr used on you. They have to be able to command the demons they summon, so they always put a spell on them.”
So…he had a language spell of some sort on him. Something that worked like the linguistic program, apparently, as he understood the girls as well as if they’d been speaking native English. Something that only worked on him and not Baby, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “That’s…helpful. I guess. Do I actually want dark magic spells on me?”
“It’s not dark magic,” Aimee hastily assured him. “The other Orders use it too. The summoning of you, that’s the only dark magic you’re under.”
“Oh. I guess that’s alright.” Landon scrubbed a hand over his face because ‘alright’ was not how he’d describe any of the events of the day. He dearly wanted to know how he could get home again but he had a feeling the girls likely couldn’t tell him. No harm in asking, though. “Um, how do we anti-summon me? I mean, how do I get sent back?”
“You can’t,” Bridgitte answered with a sympathetic wince. “At least, not that we’ve ever heard of. They always have to kill the summoned demons.”
“You know I was really, really afraid you’d say that.”
“Sorry,” she whispered, eyes falling to the bottle. “I’m so sorry. It’s so very unfair to you. You even rescued us.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about that,” he responded, lips twisting in a mimicry of a smile. She looked so heartbroken, he couldn’t restrain the impulse and patted her gently on the head. “I was a soldier, once. Protecting people is just a thing I do. Now, I think its high time I get you girls home. Where’s home from here?”
Devona lunged up onto her knees, catching his sleeve, her dark eyes earnest. “Wait. My sister. Can we take my sister too?”
Alarmed, Landon demanded, “Did I miss someone?”
“No, she’s…” Bridgitte trailed off with a grimace. “She was the first sacrifice.”
Oh. Right. Two other demons meant there were sacrifices. Shit, why hadn’t he done the math earlier? He’d been too rattled, handling every other emergency, he hadn’t put two and two together. Looking at Aimee’s crestfallen expression, and Devona’s eyes swimming with tears, he didn’t have the heart to ask them for any details. “Sure. You show me where they are, we’ll strap them onto the runners. I’ll take you all home.”