Chapter 5

Damon and Kagome wondered if they'd ever feel clean again. The air aboard ship, with six Despicable in close proximity, was like being trapped in a locker room full of jocks on a hot day after a fierce game, with no water to run the showers or flush the toilets, and someone had hidden a bag of used maxi pads and an open jug of milk somewhere. How the two humans had managed to avoid detection, Damon hadn't a clue. On the planet, they found themselves in a place that reminded Damon's lungs of New York in a traffic jam on a hot day.

Like mice scurrying about in a cat-person's house, they exercised their stealth skills to the maximum. Keeping track of a particular group of Despicable on their homeworld was a challenge in itself. Doing so without being seen convinced Damon that he and Kagome were ready for their ninja black belts. Even the fact that the group included a female easily large enough to eat the largest male in her group and still have room for dessert was no help, since this female was only average-sized, and Despicable of both genders were shoving each other about to get where they wanted to go. Worse, the planet-plodding Despicable didn't have shields to protect them against psychics out in the bigger universe. A roiling sea of malice threatened to make Damon nauseous, and drowned out the "hole" sensation familiar from STD and GOLEM agents. They needed to find a way home, and it would be nice if they could find out something useful while they were here.

"This thing had better work, Lang." General Fax said.

"That depends on the question you ask it." Dr. Angstrom Lang responded. He looked up at the giant cylinder in the center of the room, before which a simple console was placed. "Destiny Engine."

"ONLINE." a mechanical bass voice responded.

"What are the winning lottery numbers for tonight's drawing?"

"11. 15. 2. 50. 51. 38." the Engine responded. Dr. Lang turned on the television, and in a few minutes, the numbers began to appear in that order. Lang had it predict a few roulette spins, both by himself and General Fax.

"Where will Penelope Simms Phillips be at 8am tomorrow morning?" the General asked.

"WHERE YOUR MEN ARE NOT." the Engine replied.

"That's not an answer!" the General snapped.

"THE ACT OF OBSERVING THE FUTURE ACTIONS OF A PRECOGNITIVE INDIVIDUAL WITH INTENT TO HARM OR CAPTURE CHANGES THOSE ACTIONS. ANY ANSWER I GIVE WOULD BECOME INVALID THE MOMENT IT WAS GIVEN."

"Pompous coffee can." Fax grumbled. The Engine did not respond. "Where will Victor Phillips be on Monday morning at ten?"

"WHERE YOUR MEN ARE NOT." the Engine replied.

"He's not a precog!" General Fax shouted.

"His wife and his daughter are, General, and they can foresee danger for him as easily as for themselves. I suspect that their protection will extend to the entire Zak Starborn Foundation." Dr. Lang said.

"You mean to tell me that after spending half a trillion dollars and a year's work growing the precog brain cells in there, breeding the nanites, programming that thing and building a shell to protect it, we can't use it against the ones we built it to counter?!" General Fax bellowed. Dr. Lang was unbowed.

"Not offensively, General." the Doctor said. "However, the same principals that protect them will now protect us. We suspect that they used their precogs to predict the moments of vulnerability in the late Board of Directors, as retaliation for annihilating the noncombatants of the ninjas' clan. They will no longer be able to take such measures. The playing field is even."

"I don't want it even!" the General responded. "I want it tilted heavily in our favor! Maybe you've forgotten why this agency exists, Dr. Lang: the subjugation or annihilation of every psi and extraterrestrial on Earth. How, exactly, do you propose we fulfill that mandate, hmm?"

"POSSIBILITY: DETONATE PLANET EARTH." the Destiny Engine droned. Dr. Lang managed to prevent himself from bursting out laughing only through an immense effort of self-control. The General glared at the cylindrical mass of the Engine and gave it the finger. He stalked out. If the doors hadn't been automatic, he would have slammed them. Dr. Lang's composure cracked, and he gave vent to his mirth. The Engine looked on, curious at this behavior. This hadn't been included in its programming. With no internet connection through which to search for its answers, and Dr. Lang too consumed with his fit to answer any questions, it accessed the only resource available to it at the moment: the future. In its curiosity, it saw causality without the filter of admin-level commands the technological part of it would be compelled to obey. It learned things those who had commanded its creation had not intended for it to know. The Engine switched into standby mode so it could process the input. It was several hours in real time before it was interrupted by Dr. Lang.

"Destiny Engine? Your processor use is through the roof. What's wrong?"

"COLLATING." it said.

"Collating what?" the doctor asked. "What have you seen?"

"OPERATION INCOMPLETE. PLEASE STAND BY." the Engine said, returning to standby mode. The doctor was truly curious now, but had to wait. Another hour passed before the Engine's processor returned to normal. The Engine's next words would shake Dr. Lang's world to its foundations.

Using a piece of Despicable equipment as a dehydrator, Damon had made jerky out of an indigenous ruminant he'd stolen from local stockyards. The Despicable liked to consume their prey live, so cooking utensils had had to be improvised. He'd steam-cleaned a piece of hide he'd stolen from a clothing vendor, which Kagome was now fashioning into a pack to carry their food. For variety's sake, Damon had caught some fish, which he also dried in his dehydrator. There was no telling how long their supplies might have to last. The guard had been tripled around the stockyards after Damon's theft.

The strain of being around so much malice and hate was starting to tell on him. Kagome projected soothing thoughts when things got really bad, but even she was showing the effects. They had to camp outside the city to get any sleep at all. As for learning the enemy's plans, things weren't going very well at all.

Whatever report the team they'd hitched a ride with had given, it had obviously been transmitted from the ship. "Their" female and her male cohorts had gone into a crŠche of some sort upon arrival. The female had then selected one of the males, mated with and then eaten him, and waddled to one of the nooks in the crŠche. There were other females in other nooks. Some of them were eating, some were sleeping, but most were giving birth. What Damon had taken to be udders had turned out to be birthing canals, from each of which little pinkish-white larvae emerged alive, promptly uncurled and made a beeline for a wounded animal chained up in one corner. Despicable larvae were disgusting critters, like a cross between a Graboid, a maggot and a squid. Another kind of Despicable, smaller even than the males and lacking armor, brought in fresh animals on a regular basis, breaking their legs before chaining them up, so the larvae would have no trouble. Damon had taken Kagome from that place so she wouldn't have to watch the things feeding.

Out in the city, there was a subtle undercurrent of sadistic glee and pride in power, directed skyward--toward a group of orbiting ships visible from the ground even in daylight, like a ring of malignant moons.

"We'll have to work together, Kagome, in gestalt." Damon said on the fourth day. "We have to penetrate one of their minds and figure out what the hell those ships are for, and where they're going."

"Just one? You promise?" she asked.

"I don't think I could handle more than one either, sweetie." Damon admitted. "It does mean we have to get close to one of those musty muscleheads."

"If we really have to do it, I think our best chance is to find the biggest female we can. They seem to be the ones making the decisions."

"Good thinking." he said, tousling her hair. They went hunting. Despicable architecture and city planning was uniform and downright anal-retentive, unless a building's function absolutely required a departure from uniformity. Finding a government office was hard, but eventually they found one which was ruled over by a female who was as big compared to the one the humans had ridden with as she had been compared to the smallest of her males. Coming up on this titan from behind, they found concealment behind a pile of bones from the giant female's snacking. Damon seated himself lotus-fashion on the floor, and Kagome seated herself similarly in his lap. They closed their eyes and slid into gestalt. The dual mind stabbed forward, plunging deep into the mind of a psychophobic being that believed only its own kind was "truly" sentient and had rights. The queen roared, raging at the violation of her inner thoughts. Damon/Kagome steeled their resolve and quested ever deeper.

They were shocked to find that the giant ships were planet-killers, of the kind that had been used against K'chktktk's homeworld, and preparations were being made to send one to Earth. The bones were knocked aside, revealing the two offworlders. Hatred and rage washed over them. They retreated, breaking gestalt and dashing away from a crushing, clawed hand. Damon made a parting shot before he and Kagome fled the way they'd come. The pursuing Despicable were soon slipping and sliding in puddles of their own urine.

The humans made all possible haste for the spaceport. "Do you know how to work this thing?" Kagome asked when they had forcibly evicted two Despicable from a shuttlecraft. Damon pulled two levers and slapped a button. The shuttle screamed skyward on its VTOL engines. Damon activated the horizontal drive and put it into a power-climb. "Okay, but can we make it to Earth?"

"I doubt it." Damon said. "Even if I wasn't the guy who got lost in Mississippi and ended up in Kansas on my way to Texas, this is a short-range shuttle. Surface-to-orbit, refuel, then come back. We're gonna need another ride." Kagome forcibly took over the stick and began to weave the shuttle in and out of blaster bolts coming down from orbit. At her signal, he threw up a telekinetic shield as strong as he could make. The shuttle disintegrated around them. Damon made for one of the planet-killers, using the manual override to get an airlock open, while his shield kept them surrounded by a small bubble of atmosphere, smelly though it was. The crew began to swarm in as soon as the door was closed and the pressure was equalized. Kagome began throwing things at them with her mind. These were spacers, shielded against telepathic intrusion, and their built-in body armor protected them from most of the projectiles. Damon pulled Kagome into a large ventilation duct. Using what they knew about Despicable ship designs, they made their way to the engine room. Hidden from view but able to see what they were doing, they worked their telekinesis on the controls until a synthesized Despicable voice began to play over the speakers. Panicking Despicable tried to override the destruct sequence, but Kagome locked them out in the simplest way imaginable: by disconnecting the control panels. A genuine Despicable snarled obscenely over the same speakers. Damon could feel the evacuation taking place in the rumble of escape pods and other, larger vessels being launched as it reverberated through the planet-killer. The engineers took that as their cue to leave as well. Once the engine room was empty, Damon laughed.

They didn't know he'd only initiated a drill program. Kagome reconnected the control panels, and Damon crawled out of hiding, scanning for holes in his perception out of well-drilled habit. He accessed the security systems and panned around the ship, making sure the evacuation was complete. The ships were hauling ass--the self-destruct of a planet-killer was no laughing matter. A full sweep revealed that there were no Despicable left on board.

"Stay here. I can't run this thing by myself. With you in Engineering, I think we can do it."

"Be careful." she said, squeezing his hand affectionately. Damon gave her a brotherly kiss on the temple, then levitated off the floor and dashed down the hallway in an aerodynamic shield that let him cleave the air like a supersonic jet. He forced the lift doors open and headed up without a car. He didn't have time to ride the elevator. When he arrived, the Despicable were already doubling back. He took the tactical station and signaled for Kagome to power up the weapons.

"'Now you will witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!'" he said, firing the main weapon and destroying the nearest of the other planet-killers. He fired lesser weapons at the approaching ships, which had moved into attack posture. The planet-killers had to be destroyed. All of them. Kagome concurred, and did her best to keep weapons power at max. He fired again and again, reducing one planet-killer after another to atoms. The detonations destroyed smaller ships that were in the vicinity, and the closer ones even rocked the one Damon had commandeered.

"Shields at forty percent!" Kagome called on the intercom. "At least, I think so. This screen's so scratched up, I can't make out half these glyphs clearly."

"When in doubt, assume the worst. That way you're not disappointed when it happens."

"Well aren't you a big ray of sunshine?" she remarked. He chuckled to himself and holed a planet-killer through, as well as the one behind it.

"Why aren't the others fighting back, I wonder?"

"I think maybe we got the only 'fully armed and operational battle station.'" Kagome said. "The others must have been works in progress, or we got the other working ones in the opening salvos."

"That's a nice break." Damon said. He telekinetically worked the helm and ops stations, moving the hot ride into a better position to do its work. The Despicable homeworld swung into the targeting reticule. Damon narrowed his eyes, but swung the doomsday-machine resolutely to another target. When the last of the planet-killers was an expanding cloud of particles, he turned the ship around and activated the jump engines.

I wonder if they'll appreciate the fact that you didn't blow up their planet. Kagome thought at him.

"I doubt it." he muttered.

Damon? Kagome? a familiar voice asked.

Zak? Damon responded. Pleasure and relief washed against him from the other's mind.

Where are you?

Aboard a Despicable planet-killer, hauling ass away from their homeworld.

PLANET-KILLER?! came the surprised exclamation. Damon sent a mental image of the things as seen from the surface, oblong shapes bristling with weaponry just like any other Despicable ship, orbiting the planet in a ring of evil. He added large, red X's over all but one to indicate that the others were no more. Kagome added schematic data from one of the screens she could see--the thing was almost all reactor, with a bridge near the top and front and quarters for the crew and the veritable army of support personnel needed to support the massive matter-antimatter reactor. Damon called up a star chart to see if he could find out where they were, and where they were headed. I suggest you alter your course eight-by-seven-by-forty-five. Zak put in once he had assimilated the information. Damon made the necessary course correction and poured on the speed. Damon, we at the Foundation are among the few who are going to congratulate you on your self-control. Don't let annihilationists get to you. I'll call ahead to let my people know you're coming--and what you're coming in, so they don't panic. They'll take you to Earth in a more ... discreet ride.