Mong continued to stare down Follee with that avuncular look. It was a look of grave concern, one I remember all too well back on Trellian when he blew my hand off and plugged acid in the stump for kicks. The memory, burned indelibly in my brain, was one I wished to erase. Follee seemed to freeze, as if hypnotized by Mong’s mesmeric stare—caught like a deer in the headlights.
“Shoot him, you idiot!” I croaked.
Follee gave his head a vigorous shake then his hand twitched as if to make a move with the bulb.
“Don’t—” Mong’s warning came too late.
The nearest gunman pegged Follee’s nasty little bedroom surprise, blowing off some of Follee’s flesh, maybe a finger or two. He sagged with a thin-mouthed squeal. The shifty-eyed gunman whipped up his gun, firing more warning shorts. He leveled blasts at me and Blest when we started to inch forward.
The shattered bulb clattered to the floor like a Humpty Dumpty egg.
I watched spellbound. It hissed, imploded, suddenly sagged inward and rippled, as if bubbling with hot lava. For Christ sakes. It then burst in a splatter of red and green pap, spraying the nearest gunmen with acid, sizzling his leathers and flesh. “What the fuck—?” cried one.
A winged cricket, or some other unnameable horror, burst out of the mash and flew around the room, buzzing and hissing above the gunmen’s heads. They ducked, cursing in bewilderment. They swatted and fired at it, but it evaded their shots, hissing like an angry serpent. Without warning, it dive-bombed, burying itself in the face of the first gunman who’d fired at it. He gave a wild shriek and clawed at his face, beating at his nose until it was a pulp of blood and gore in what was left of his disintegrating face. The thing burrowed deeper into his mouth and nose like a termite.
The other gunman gave a cursing yell and rained fire into his comrade, frying both man and winged thing.
“Bloody hell,” moaned Follee, staring at the crimson ruin of his palm. He stared around him from one horror to the next, then back to his maimed hand. Fumbling for his R3 which he’d dropped and lifted it to pepper Mong and crew, he gasped, but Mong uttered a hypnotic word and Follee seemed to suddenly freeze, as if beguiled by the Star Lord’s impending powers.
“Shoot! What are you waiting for, you dumb fuck?” I cried.
“Try.” Mong mouthed the word as if blowing a bubble to a baby. I could see the snicker of triumph curl the lip on his swarthy face. The sightless eyes penetrated into a person’s soul. The man’s presence was what awed one most. Terrible, unwielding, irresistible. He flicked out a hand in an almost negligent gesture. Follee suddenly flew across the room as if propelled by an invisible force. I heard a snap, then a neck bone break as Follee’s back thudded hard against the panels. He slid to the floor, a straw puppet, gazing up in dumb fascination, his spinal cord snapped in two.
I closed my eyes. Now I shook my head in despair and mumbled a prayer, something I hadn’t done since my youth.
The other bulb at Follee’s side hadn’t hatched. Though maybe such a horror could have saved our asses—if only Follee’s desperate plan had worked.
Maybe we all should have died back in that Skug tomb of the space station…
Mong turned his feral gaze to me huddled under the nav console; his gunmen’s wide-barreled R6s trained at me and Blest.
“I knew,” Mong spoke in a sudden raspy voice, “you’d poke your meddling nose forth sooner or later, Rusco. So here we are, each with our unique purposes, though they be vastly different.”
“So what’s your plan, Mong? Your grand vision?”
“To conquer the habitable worlds, what else?”
“And then?”
“I’ll conquer more. To achieve what no other visionary has done in the history of time. Outdo all the warlord chiefs. Even Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan.”
“I’ve heard of those dumb bozos. Good luck. Seems as if you didn’t study your history. Look at where it got them, holes in the ground.”
“You’re a funny man, Rusco. But a keen sense of humor won’t save your skin, especially in so disparaging a position. I should keep you around—sharpen my wits, trading jokes with you. But I feel the gods have punished you in a far crueler way.” He stared off into space, as if in some trance or other. “Yes, I believe the gods have chosen a much more grievous fate.”
He licked his lips and made a loud smacking sound with his mouth. Blest tried to get up and charge the nearest gunman while Mong was occupied with me. It was a brave but foolish mistake. The gunman twisted and smacked his gun barrel into Blest’s head and sent him flying into the rubble.
Mong trudged over and clicked his tongue at him. “Poor fool.” He shook his head in sad reflection.
Blest moaned in a sprawled heap. Clenching a fist, he shuddered as delirium took him. His eyes rolled back in their sockets.
Mong studied the flap of plant material curled up high on Blest’s leg with new interest. “This creature appears to be an epiphyte of some sort, perhaps a symbiotic lifeform forming a strange and rare bond with its host.” A frown graced his leonine face. “I doubt if Mr. Rusco’s colleague is getting much benefit.”
“It’s a fucking parasite,” sputtered Blest. “Get it off.” He had for a moment drifted out of his delirium.
“Oh, no,” chided Mong, “we mustn’t interfere with Mother Nature. Such singular phenomenon are examples of a reaction to a super-charged environment.”
“You fucks are a real scream,” croaked Blest.
I cautioned Blest, shaking my head. “Watch it, Blest.”
The gunman who’d fired on his comrade made as if to cut off
