Red Queen Rising (3)
By JVN
A centurion at the gate fans the flames of war, challenging military strategies, revealing ancient bloodlines, and mobilizing a Royal siege.
After the Thiniel Exodus, the Houses of the Galactic Imperium devolved into rival factions, scattering into the remoteness of interstellar space. Resettling on the far edge of a neighboring supercluster, several noble families coordinated with surviving Imperium Elders to establish the Luminescent Imperium, preserving their culture and philosophy around a new queen on a small group of uninhabited Class M planets.
Despite the rise of Ranielle Analaxian IV, it wasn’t long before a dissenting voice in the Imperial Court challenged her authority, countering her birthright with claims of his own through his ancestor, the High King of Thiniel, a lineage stemming from the House of Garturiand, also known as the House of Clubs. Leaning into his ancestry, he taunted the elders, dismissing their fealty to the Red Queen.
Although Ranielle Analaxian’ stood equal to the dissenter’s ancestors through her great grandmother, Empress Ranielle Analaxian I, nothing guaranteed her victory more than sealing the Interdimensional breach. Unfortunately, despite her political triumph, Analaxian knew only the dead had seen the end of war and began to move pieces into place to protect her ascension.
The Awakening
A screeching siren reverberated through the marbled halls of the Grand Imperial Hospital, sending security teams rushing to the exits, restraining citizens, and locking down the building. Although it’d only been 48 hours since the royal guard had departed in pursuit of the mysterious frog assassin, the capital city remained on edge, nothing of this magnitude had ever happened, but an intangible foreboding hinted it was only the beginning.
On a secured private floor of the hospital, a unconscious man blinked back to life, awakened by the commotion gasping for breath and thrusting his hands out to shield himself before testing the tension of hospital tubes protruding from his body.
“Where am I?”
Several nurses burst into the room, gaining control of the machines and calming the patient as the hospital alarm blared in the background. Despite several attempts at settling him back into his bed, the amnesic patient resisted their every action, “Relax, Your Grace, everything is fine. You’re safe and sound in Lerenia at the Imperial Hospital.”
The confused patient quirked an eyebrow as he dissected the nurse’s words, “Your Grace? What’s happening?”
After deflecting the rehearsed speech, the patient stared past the hospital staff at a shadowy figure standing in the doorway, covering his sword and holstering his pistol as he approached his bed.
“Apologies, Your Grace, I believe I’ve caused a bit of a stir with your security detail,” a deep baritone voice spoke as the nurses’ eyes flinched as the visitor loomed over them.
As suddenly as they had begun, the sirens fell silent.
“Sixteen,” Blade shouted as he burst through the door, gun drawn, aiming at the cloaked figure standing at the foot of his cousin’s bed.
“WAIT,” Sixteen shouted.
Pivoting toward Blade, the intruder clasped two hands together, bowed his magnificent head and spoke. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Derringer, and I’m an emissary of the Mutant Cartel,” the towering cloaked figure replied.
During the Great Interdimensional War, Blaksoot and the Mutant Cartel had fought alongside the Royals, sealing a friendship in honor and sacrifice, but then retreated into an unknown subspace.
Despite rumors of their disappearance, the main storyline fell along the lines of a Top-Secret initiative centering around Trans-warp Technology, but privy only to the Joker Council and the Red Queen. Everything about Joker Council, the Cartel, and the allied forces had fallen silent during peacetime until Sixteen’s return.
Remembering the debriefings from his Queen, Blade holstered his pistol, flashed a practiced grin, and welcomed Derringer, “Greetings, Traveler. We’d not been informed of your visit. Does Blaksoot still live?”
Derringer nodded. “Given the circumstances we thought it unwise. In fact, my presence must be kept to the Queen’s inner circle. And yes, Blaksoot lives.”
“So, you heard of the attempted assassination?”
Derringer quirked a brow. “We did. And we know the assassin.”
“Aye, it was the bloody Notorious Frogs,” Blade chirped.
Sixteen choked a countering response, “Don’t attack the Frogs!”
“What?” the two visitors replied in unison.
“They’re wading into a civil war, and there’s no telling who opened the contract on me. And the Mayor, aside from aligning himself with DarkFang, a renegade group of Goblins, and the Feds, is trying to turn the entire population of Frogland against the Imperium,” Sixteen explained as he rose from his hospital bed, motioning to the confused pair to help remove his heart monitor and breathing tubes.
Derringer snorted a laugh, “You’re well informed.”
“If there was intelligence pointing to who my assassins were, then the Court launched a counter-offensive,” the Prince said. Then pulled a shirt over his head as he got dressed. “Have the Eternals returned?” Sixteen asked, looking at Blade.
“Incommunicado,” the senior royal replied.
“Your Grace, if you will allow me to speak,” Derringer said.
Sixteen motioned the security detail to close the door. Then, turned to Derringer, “What news do you bring?”
“We recently captured and interrogated one of DarkFang’s top lieutenants with knowledge of the secret pact among elements of the Notorious Frogs and Goblins to seize control of Lerenia, “ Derringer whispered.
Blade snorted a laugh. “Then it was the Frogs? Those bastards, they’ll pay.”
“No, they’re just a distraction. I’m afraid the treachery runs deeper than you can imagine. The mastermind was once a highly revered member of the Akuriand bloodline.”
“That’s impossible,” Sixteen retorted.
Derringer shirked a smile. “They pledge allegiance to the High King of Thiniel and are determined to see his heir put on the Imperial Throne, not Your Grace’s, Red Queen.”
Although the hospital sirens had been silenced, a heavy contingent of royal guard remained encamped around the facility, waiting until the prince had been transferred as per imperial protocol. With the heightened sense of doom enveloping the city, citizens remained indoors waiting until news of victory could ensure their safety.
Sixteen fastened his pistol and sword to his waist and turned wide-eyed to Blade as if a revelation had popped into his head. “During my last semester, our host took us on an expedition to explore the remote planets of their local star system… Skipping to the point, I got separated from my group and found myself alone in an unchartered area of the Drexlarian star system. I landed on a remote moon outside the fifth planet, and as I wandered across its surface searching for any sign of life, I encountered a Divine Centurion from the fabled Monkeyverse named Secura Duodecimo. He told me he was part of a forward operating base for a group of Celestials, something about charting a new subspace through the multiverse.”
Derringer listened with a furrowed brow, interjecting, “And you think he knows something about your assassination?”
“On the contrary, I think he’s the answer to our dilemma.”
Blade quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”
“The Drexlarian star system sits adjacent to the Ochsussen Wormhole. And the centurion’s had front row seats of whose been coming and going through the quadrant,” Sixteen replied.
An explosion sends a fireball down the hallway outside the prince’s room, ripping terrified cries from the nurses and guards. Recovering from the blast, Blade and Derringer drew their pistols and eviscerate the frog assassins leaping through the smoke-filled corridor.
“Sixteen, LET’S GO,” Blade shouted as he led his cousin and Derringer out the emergency exit, blasting, and slashing as the swarming amphibians fell by the wayside.
Arriving on the ground floor of the hospital, the trio came to a heart-stopping halt as they saw a barrage of missiles flying over the city wall, decimating the surrounding shopping malls and bridges, nothing was spared and the emergency sirens wailed.
Blade checked his office then turned to his companions, confirming the news, “It’s the Mayor. And, he’s brought reinforcements.”
“Then the chatter was true, DarkFang and his minons have traversed the tunnels and escaped into the multiverse. Blaksoot must be warned,” Derringer fumed.
Blade sighed. “And we’ll need all the reinforcements we can get.”
As several more explosions rocked the hospital, the Royal Air Patrol arrived, providing cover fire as Blade jumped into a police hovercraft and evacuated Sixteen and Derringer through an underground tunnel.
Blade looked sideways at Sixteen, “It’s time to assemble the Joker Council.”
“I wish it was that simple,” Sixteen replied.
“They’ll come if you’re the messenger,” Blade said.
Sixteen rubbed his wound as the hovercraft zoomed through the underground tunnels, massaging his wounded shoulder as he pictured the unfolding scenario, “They’re like the ancient Ronin, divided and leaderless,” Sixteen replied, pausing a long moment. “I’m not sure they’d rally to any banner at the moment, but they may be persuaded to play the ‘kingmaker’.”
As the hovercraft pulled into a heavily fortified passage, a dozen guards and several tanks surrounded them requiring biometric identification before they were ushered into the reinforced bunker.
“This is new,” Derringer said as the towering pillars of Leridium rose from floor into the endless blackness above.
When the elevator doors opened, the men were greeted by the Red Queen and her personal bodyguard, all standing within arm’s length of the sovereign.
“Enter, you’re perfectly safe here,” the queen said in an assuring tone.
Blade shook his head, “Has the attack been quashed?”
The queen blinked a smile and stretched out her arms toward the adjacent room, “Come let’s have a seat. We’re safe, but we need to discuss the next steps. And if my information is correct, we have a visitor in our midst.”
“The Red Queen returns,” Derringer said in a whisper.
Sixteen smiled as he led the reluctant hound inside, “Relax, she’s not the enemy.”
#GAME ON