Chapter Four: Xenocides
Mooncake was waiting for him outside the sickbay, chirruping in concern, and Gary took a long moment to snuggle the squishy green alien.
"Yeah, that was scary, buddy," he admitted, not sure which of them he was trying to comfort. "Like, super-scary. I think Mr. Whiskers just cashed in three more lives. Where's Nightfall now?"
Mooncake lead him to the Crimson Light's small storage bay where Nightfall was waiting with Chuckie at her side. One of the storage rooms had been emptied and the naked Scoti now glared at them from behind electronic bars. Now that he wasn't fighting for his life or the life of his best friend, Gary got a look at the assassin. His first impression was this guy could have stepped off the cover of any cheesy comic book that called for an evil green alien. He fit every stereotype – bald, pointy ears, fangs, sharp eyebrows, three fingers, powerful build, snake eyes, clawed feet. All he needed was a tail and he'd be a perfect b-movie lizard man.
"I had to shoot him again," Nightfall reported calmly, sounding very self-satisfied and ignoring the grisly site Gary's blood-soaked clothes made. She stroked Chuckie's shaggy pink hair as she causally added, "I told him next time the gun won't be on stun."
"Sounds reasonable," said Gary, trying to sound tougher than he felt. It was kind of hard to be mean when Mooncake was bobbing around being adorable and Chuckie was on the prowl for a belly rub or any crumbs left on the floor, but then, he wasn't the one decorating the inside of an improvised cell. He gave their prisoner a hard look, asking, "So, what's your deal, pal?"
"Why should I tell you anything?" demanded the Scoti. Gary noticed he refrained from tagging 'humanoid trash' to the end of that statement, and felt a little smug.
"Because I'm the captain and I'm the one who decides if we kick you to the curb right here or somewhere with a breathable atmosphere." He gestured, surprised to realize he genuinely didn't care if the assassin complied or not. "So, talk or don't. Your choice, your problem, but it's real cold out today and you're not dressed for anything outside of a nudist colony."
He was rewarded with a hearty green scowl, but no argument. There wasn't much the Scoti could protest, all told.
The Scoti huffed a sigh. "You won't believe me, but I'm from the future."
Nightfall rolled her eyes, thoroughly unimpressed by this big reveal. "Welcome to the club. How far in the future?"
"Twenty solar years."
Her eyes narrowed sharply. "You figured out how to control temporal worms, didn't you?"
"To an extent. It's not exact. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts. But, yes. We planned on coming to a point in time where we knew General Avocato would be couldn't engage him directly, but we knew the Sitronu would ambush his fleet. We've been waiting here for the better part of a full cycle for the Kalibar to arrive."
"So, what's your deal?" pressed Gary.
"We're here to kill General Avocato before he can destroy my planet."
"Kanopis?" he wondered. He had the impression Kanopis had happened pretty late in Avocato's service to the Lord Commander. Besides, the Scoti didn't look anything like the beings he'd encountered on Kanopis . . . if they had even been real. Or natives. Phil and his pocket peepers had been decent, at least. Weird, but decent. Had Avocato destroyed another world?
It was odd to think of xenocide - the destruction of an alien race - in such bland turns, and it took all of Gary's compartmentalizing skills to even consider the subject dispassionately, especially when applied to his best friend. Gary knew that as the Lord Commander's second in command, Avocato was responsible for slaughtering billions. As a bounty hunter, he had called Mooncake a planet killer, but that title was just as applicable to Avocato himself. The Ventrexian took no pride in what he had done, but he never denied his responsibility. Gary knew he would think far worse of his friend if he himself had not wiped out several hundred ships of the Lord Commander's deep space fleet when he blew up the Galaxy 1's lightfold engines, taking tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives. And then the whole not managing to save the earth from the breach thing. Not his fault, but still something he carried around everywhere.
There was a distinct and rather odd sense of detachment that accompanied such actions, and it was almost as if he had watched someone else do – or not do - those things. It was too big, too overwhelming and awful, to comprehend. Gary knew he had done his fair share of killing, intentional or not, but he believed his cause to be right and good and ongoing, and so he slept at night . . . most of the time. So while he could not condone General Avocato's actions, he could relate, and he would not judge when his own hands were so dirty. It was, perhaps, an overly simplistic view, but it worked for him. Through thick and thin and thinner and nothing, Avocato was his friend – and for the first time, it occurred to Gary that perhaps he was the only person alive who could understand the state of Avocato's conscience.
The Scoti frowned at this display of ignorance. "No. Scotia Majoran. He destroyed our entire planet and our outlying colonies. The only Scoti left are the ones who were off planet when the attack came."
"Why would he do that?" Gary asked carefully, needing to understand the intent and the motivation of the situation. He ignored the undignified bulk that was Chuckie as the huge flying beastie rolled over to scratch his back on the floor plates.
The Scoti snorted. "Because he's a psychotic murderer." At their combined glares, he changed his tune. "He had orders. Or so he said. Scotia Majoran had minimal interaction with the Tera Con empire until Avocato showed up unprovoked and wiped out my civilization."
"That you know of," Nightfall corrected with a smirk. "You weren't banking on us getting yanked back in time along with you."
"No," he snapped, unwittingly answering the unasked question. "And now everything has gone straight to hell, thanks to you. My crew is dead, I have no means of getting the worm back to my own time, and . . ."
"Avocato's still alive," she smiled.
"How could you put yourselves out to save that monster?" he demanded, punching the wall in frustration, an aggressive move that impressed no one.
"Monster to you, friend to me," said Gary. "He still has a lot to do for this universe."
The Scoti hesitated, frowning as he considered this statement and staring hard at Gary for a moment as if trying to remember something important. "He's a killer! A xenocide!"
"And you're so much better than that?" asked Gary, his anger leaking back. "What happened to the crew of the Kalibar? There must have been four or five thousand people on that ship alone. Don't they count?"
"An insignificant number of lives in comparison to Scotia Majoran!"
"And that makes it okay? Right. Answer the question," ordered Gary, refusing to be sidetracked.
"We . . . we obtained a Death Knell."
Gary frowned, unfamiliar with the weapon, but a quick look at his companion was answer enough. Nightfall drew back, her eyes wide as she let out a small sound of horror.
"He's no saint," she said sharply, jerking her thumb at the Scoti. Her tone sent Chuckie scrambling out the door. "Death Knells are banned by all civilized beings for a damned good reason. They work on microwaves and will pretty much explode your brain and cook you from the inside out. Nothing can survive a Death Knell, not even viruses or bacteria, they're too powerful. The fact that you even had one would be enough to condemn you, let alone using one."
"And you think General Avocato wouldn't have used one, given the chance?" hissed the Scoti.
"No," she snapped, done with him. "Avocato wouldn't need to."