Blood Impulse

Part 34.1 - THE ROACH

Mississippi Sector, Midwest Station

"I invoke your wrath."

Those four words turned the Jayhawker's blood to ice. He raised his hand, a call to his bodyguards on the tip of his tongue. Kill him! But a claw wrapped around the back of his neck, and a second stilled his hand. 'Too late,' a hot, rancid breath washed down upon him.

Stars. The vice on his neck tightened, near choking him. Its talons were cold and sharp, each a knife poised to slit his throat. Still, none of the guards had moved. They can't see it. Terror crawled up his spine. It's going to kill me, and they can't even see it. Their gaze was focused out the windows behind him, mouths agape with shock.

'Dismiss your guards,' it growled into his ear, splattering his skin with hot saliva.

A panic rose in his body, an irresistible urge to flee – to run as fast and far as he could from the thing that held him in its clutches. But its grip tightened even further, claws stabbing into the skin on his arm. 'Say it.'

"G-guards," he said shakily, "you're dismissed." They stared at him strangely, but he paid them enough not to hesitate.

'Good little roach,' the voice behind him crooned.

Calm as ever, the Admiral watched them go, even as the opening and closing of the door allowed the cry of alert sirens to spill briefly into the room. The Lieutenants on the couch in front of him were fixated on something behind the Jayhawker, jaws hanging open. The Admiral glanced to them, then to Cinderella as she stood on the other side of the room in her evening dress. "Knock them out."

There was no force in the words, just a simple instruction, but to the Jayhawker's horror, he saw the two Lieutenants deflate like a plug had been pulled. They simply collapsed onto the couch. Cinderella was slower to fall, but soon enough she was sprawled on the floor, unmoving. Only then did the Admiral move, stepping across the room to stand beside one of the hand carved tables that held a decorative, rod-iron lamp. He studied the Jayhawker for a long moment, reading the depth of his fear. "You can release him." The man was no longer a threat.

'Hmph.' With a sigh of amusement, the talons disappeared from the stationmaster's neck.

Coughing, the Jayhawker staggered over to his daughter. Trembling, he rolled her limp form over and tried to rouse her. Her chest shifted with soft and shallow breaths, but she didn't wake. "Bastard," he snarled at the Admiral, "what did you do to her?"

At least he cares about his daughter. Regardless of whatever else he was, even what she had become, they were still family. "She will not be harmed," the Admiral told him, "but she will remain unconscious for now." Cinderella was a notorious assassin, but she mainly worked in the underworld circles. Their infighting wasn't something the Admiral concerned himself with.

The Jayhawker set his daughter down carefully, unnerved by her unresponsiveness. Still, on the other side of the couch, he could see that the Admiral's men had suffered the same fate. Interesting. Slowly, he stood and dusted off his white pants.

Beyond the windows of his office, death sat and waited, long gun barrels raised and aimed. The Jayhawker could see their massive shadows from here. A seething anger radiated off the Singularity's scarred hull. Wrath, yes, that was the word for such an emotion. The feel of it awed him as much as it terrified him. "A subspace jump." That was the only explanation for her sudden appearance. "That's impossible." No ship could make that jump. The station's coordinates were constantly changing. "How?" How had he managed to summon the ship here?