FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
The next day, Cedric woke up to find Neko gone from her spot at the foot of the bed. Cedric pulled on a pair of grunge pants and a rumpled t-shirt and, yawning, made his way to the door. It slid open before he got there, revealing Irina.
“Oh good, you’re up. There’s been an emergency.” She said, turning and walking quickly away.
“What happened?” Cedric asked, jolted awake by the news. He hastily fell into step beside her.
“The main hangar was penetrated by a group of Caffrean soldiers. We think there was a homing beacon on our shuttle, and that they tracked us here that way. We’ve gotten some of them, but Jack says that eight is not enough to make up a unit.”
“Uh, no.” Cedric’s military training brought the words out of his lips smoothly, without his having to think.
“There’ll be ten of them, plus a sergeant and two pilots. So, five more left to catch. Has the hangar been sealed off?”
“Yes, we think we got to it in time, but there’s the possibility that some slid through.” Irina told him. Cedric nodded absently, his brain processing the information at lightning speed.
“How many units are down there?”
“Five units total, two of them are in body armor and are searching the hangar for the strays.”
“Tell two of the others to spread out in the nearby corridors and search for them there. Tell them to bang on floor panels and bulkheads, that the soldiers may have hidden behind there.”
“In a wall? There’s hardly enough space.” Irina said quizzically. Cedric smiled grimly.
“You’d be surprised.” They had reached the lift, and climbed in. Irina pressed the hangar bay button, and motioned Cedric to press the recreational level button.
“Neko’s waiting for you at the arcade. She says she has a surprise for you.” Cedric raised an eyebrow, but Irina just grinned from ear to catlike ear.
“I’m not spoiling it for her.” She said with a smile. Cedric groaned.
“I have never met such a family of secret-keepers.” He moaned. Irina smirked at him. The lift buzzed as it reached the hangar bay, and Irina stepped out and waved to Cedric.
“I’ll see you later.” She promised.
“See ya.” Cedric agreed. The lift continued on to the recreational level, and Cedric got out onto a deserted floor. It was a weekday, so the children would be in school, and adults would be at work. The littles would be in the nursery at this hour, so he and Neko would have the floor to themselves. Was that what she had planned for? Cedric wondered. Had she taken the kiss last night as some kind of indication that Cedric was ready to go farther? He hoped not. He wasn’t ready for that level of commitment yet. He rounded the corner and came into view of the arcade- which was empty.
“Neko?” He called, stepping into the room, wondering if he had missed her hiding behind some corner. “Ne-” His voice choked off into a gurgle as someone jabbed a needle into his backside. The room went dark, and he could hear voices arguing above him as he was dragged off to dreamland.
When Cedric woke, his head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton. His mouth was dry, as if he had slept for days. His eyelids were crusted shut. Gradually, painfully, he managed to open his eyes and turn his head. He was in a cell of some sort, with bare grey walls and a sturdy metal door. He groaned. Slowly, he contrived to raise himself into a sitting position. From there, he could see the rest of the cell, and his breath caught. Neko lay on the other bed, not a meter away. Her chest was still, her ears limp.
Cedric scrambled off the bed and fell to the floor, banging his shins on the metal bed frame. He struggled and pushed himself upright, where he dragged himself to the other bed. He felt frantically for a pulse, and found none. Quickly, he folded his hands together and began chest compressions. But he was weak from the drugs he had been given, and after a quarter of an hour gave it up as futile.
Searching Neko’s body revealed the charred flesh at her stomach, sure evidence of a blaster wound. A gut shot was a horrible, painful way to die. Die. Cedric’s mind finally grasped the word. He scrambled up and began chest compressions again. After an hour, when the tears were running freely down his face and soaking her shirt, and his arms were too weak to continue pumping her chest in the futile hope of saving her, the door opened. Cedric turned his head, face grimy and wet from his tears. A pair of soldiers in the royal blue and gold Imperial Guard uniform stepped through. Cedric vaguely recognized one of them from his own service to the Emperor. The one he recognized- Adam, he remembered- stepped forward and caught his arm. Cedric clambered off the bed obediently. After all, what was the point of resisting? Neko was dead. Dead. His body shook as the other soldier grabbed his other arm and the pair walked him through the very familiar prison.
The Caffrean soldiers guided Cedric into a lift, where Adam pushed the button for the Emperor’s reception chamber. Cedric steeled himself for a confrontation. He stood straight, military posture returning without bidding, and threw his shoulders back. He tried to wipe his face, but neither soldier would release his arm. The lift buzzed and opened into a well-known level. This was the reception hall that had been converted into a dining room for that fateful dinner with Jack DeSon and his daughter, so many weeks ago. The floor and walls were done in mosaics of priceless gems, and the ceiling soared high above the viewer, held up by airy buttresses and covered by Sistine-like paintings. At the far end of the ornate greeting chamber stood a heavy throne, made of pure steel and plated with gold. On it sat the new Emperor of Caffre, Jack DeSon’s nemesis. He was scarcely older than Cedric, but with black hair instead of blonde and cold, hard black eyes.
“So this is the infamous Cedric Gellers.” He drawled. Then his voice changed. “Why have you not reported back to us?” The boy-emperor demanded.
“What?” Maybe it was the drugs, but Cedric was confused. “Was I supposed to?”
“Of course you were!” The Emperor snapped. “We made everything possible for you, from the fake discharge to sending couriers to pick up your report.”
“I wasn’t scanning the Imperial channels….” Cedric’s voice trailed off.
“Why not? As an Imperial soldier, surely you were aware that it was your solemn duty to report back on the rebels’ resources and plans?”
“I…I thought the discharge was real.” The boy-emperor snorted.
“We don’t discharge our soldiers for being captured. It was meant to fool the rebels.” But it hadn’t, Cedric realized. Irina’s watchful eyes, Jack’s seemingly-innocent jokes…they had known what a danger he presented. But still they let him stay, for Neko. Who was dead. Cedric’s mind shied away from the thought.
“Getting onto the rebel ship was difficult, but once aboard, our soldiers were able to complete the mission you failed at.”
“What mission was that, again?” Cedric asked dazedly. The Emperor’s nostrils flared.
“Getting an accounting of the rebels’ resources and killing the rebel whore.” Cedric’s head jerked up.
“You sent them there to kill Neko?”
“Or any of the DeSon family. It was a stroke of luck that they found his precious daughter waiting for you in the arcade. Her death will distract DeSon until we can launch our main attack.” Cedric took a deep breath.
“Her death….” The Emperor looked at him quizzically. Cedric gulped in air and tried again. “Her death….” He bowed his head and clenched his hands into fists. Her death…I love her. The two soldiers had been waiting impassively this whole time, hands loose on Cedric’s arms. Cedric took advantage of that relaxation to shoot his elbow into Adam’s gut.
As Adam doubled over with the wind knocked out of him, Cedric grabbed his rifle and smashed the butt against Adam’s head. He fell to the floor unconscious. Cedric jabbed the end of the rifle into the other soldier’s face. As the man tripped, trying to move backward away from the attack, Cedric swung it into firing position and pulled the trigger. The soldier fell, his head crushed by the bullets. A spray of bullets destroyed priceless mosaics as Cedric swung the rifle around without releasing the trigger. The boy-emperor stiffened, and then died without a sound. Cedric advanced on the body, still firing blindly into it. When he stood on the steps to the throne and stared down at the lifeless corpse before him, only then did Cedric release the trigger and drop the rifle atop the body.
“I love her. I need her.” Cedric whispered to the bullet-riddled corpse. Then practicality set in and he hastened to get out of there before someone investigated or a stray servant stumbled upon the scene. Cedric stripped Adam of his uniform and dressed himself hurriedly. His pass codes still worked, since the Caffreans had believed him to be on their side. He probably could have gotten himself out of the prison cell. On his way through the palace, he passed countless soldiers and servants. Saluting the former and ignoring the latter got him by them. As he rounded a corner, he almost tripped over a unit of rebel soldiers. He recognized the sergeant and saluted.
“Cedric! Praise be to the Trinity, you’re alive!” The sergeant exclaimed. Tears welled up in Cedric’s eyes as he remembered a girl that wasn’t, but he blinked them back firmly and nodded.
“The Emperor is dead.” He announced.
“Oh good, that’ll buy us enough time to get out of here. Where’s Neko?”
“Prisons. She’s…she’s dead.” The sergeant gave Cedric a startled look, but deployed half his unit to find her, and the other half to escort Cedric back to the shuttle. The rest of the time was a blur. He vaguely remembered meeting Jack and Irina at the hangar, but he pushed past them without a word and made his way to the lift. He still had clearance for the top level- it amazed him, in a hazy way, how many people thought he was on their side, when really all he wanted was to be on no one’s side but his own…and Neko’s. He found his bed and tumbled into it without bothering to remove the Imperial uniform. Cedric stared at the ceiling for hours, memories of Neko tumbling through his head. Neko smiling, Neko laughing, Neko promising, “I love you, Cedric.”
“I love you too, Neko.” He whispered after hours of torture. As if his brain had been waiting for him to say that, he dropped off to sleep.
Irina shook him awake. He had no idea how long he’d slept, and he wanted more, the bottomless sleep of despondency, but she was insistent.
“I have a surprise for you, Cedric.” She told him. Her catlike ears were standing straight up, perky as a jaybird. Her catseye pupils were wide and radiated cheer. Cedric had no idea how she could be so happy when her daughter was dead, but he let her drag him out of the apartment and down to the lift. She pressed the button for the medical level.
“I’m not sick.” He told her drowsily. “Just drugged.” Irina shook her head and smiled, no, smirked. The lift buzzed and let them out into the medical bay. Irina dragged Cedric over to a plexiglass window where Jack stood vigilant. The rebel leader looked up when they approached, and smiled.
“Look.” Irina commanded, pointing to the window. Cedric dragged himself over and looked through. Neko lay on a hospital bed, still as she’d been in the prison cell. Water welled up in Cedric’s eyes and he was about to turn away when he noticed the heart rate monitor. It was beeping softly, not buzzing angrily as it should have done for a lifeless body. The tears vanished.
“How…?” He asked, staring at the girl.
“Apparently,her physiology is different from our own. Neko was able to withstand the shock of the blaster bolt, and our physicians were able to revive her.” Suddenly, the grief and despair that had taken control of Cedric snapped. He slammed himself into the wall, hands groping for a door release panel. A full meter away, Jack smiled and pressed the door release. Cedric flung himself through the door and hurled himself to Neko’s side. He gently, reverently placed his hand on her breast. It rose and fell, softly but steadily. Cedric scooped her up into his arms and nuzzled her long black hair.
“I love you, Neko.” He whispered into the nearest cat-shaped ear.
“I love you too, Cedric.” She murmured softly.
Kitty Cat Fangs is officially my most popular story ever! Since you got this far through it, why don't you take the time to push the submit review button and say "I loved it," "I hated it," or "Your characters are flat,"?
