Rig aborted the startup sequence before it could re-initiate for the seventh time. After it fully shut down, he bent forward, placed his head on the instrument panel, and cursed the manufacturers of his little escape ship. Then he cursed their associates, their friends, their families, and any person they might’ve met during their lifetimes. Not wanting to stop, he moved on to swearing at the fates, the stars, and the universe in general. It took several minutes to get through them all.

When he had run out of things to swear at, he managed to pull himself together enough to climb out of the cramped cockpit and into the empty cargo bay. He felt terrible. A sick fear had churned his guts and made his head ache.

His safety net was gone. And it had failed at the worst possible moment.

When Rig was promoted to XO of the Ultor, one of his first projects had been to surreptitiously purchase a collapsible, concealable, two-seater escape craft with enough power to get him to a neighboring system if he ever found himself in a no-win situation. Knowing the Ultor and the guy who commanded it, this was an almost guaranteed prospect. And knowing her crew as he did, Rig had no doubt that every one of them would have made their own escape plans for this exact eventuality.

Maybe there was someone willing to let him tag along? Some groveling might have to be involved. It would be humiliating, but it was better than dying.

A new wave of anger washed over him. The ship had cost him nearly an entire year’s wages. Scammed? Sabotaged? It made no sense. All systems showed green, and the meager onboard AI was as flummoxed as he was. He released another torrent of curses until he managed to calm himself again.

Not sure what else to do, Rig began folding up the wings so he could slide the small craft back into its hidey-hole again. But as he was securing the covering panel, a new idea came to him. Wait a minute. Since every diagnostic comes up clean, maybe there’s no scientific reason for launch failure. This left only one possible culprit. It was something he should’ve considered in the first place. It made sense. And he could prove it as well.

Of course, confronting the culprit might get him killed even faster—you never knew where Elgia was concerned. But what other choice did he have?

Exiting into the passageway, he halted in the corridor. 

Uh-oh. 

His sixth sense began twinging. It told him he would have to run a gauntlet to get to Elgia’s quarters unscathed. You don’t serve aboard a mercenary ship like the Ultor for long without recognizing panic in the air: a sour yet electric scent that was equal parts adrenaline mixed with cold sweat. If Rig could capture it in a perfume bottle, he’d call it Impending Doom. Cautiously, he began making his way to the lower decks.

A few moments later, he spotted the bobbing blond head of Pora, the Ultor’s navigator, hurrying in the opposite direction. Rig secretly fancied her and believed there was a chance she might’ve felt the same way in return. (He held on to this faint hope despite the fact she had once threatened him with a plasma torch after he had denied her shore leave. Typical Ultor attitude; great to work with, but don’t cross certain lines.)

“Hey, Pora,” he called, feigning nonchalance. It sounded fake to his own ears, but Pora didn’t react. More accurately, she didn’t react to him at all, walking briskly past him with a preoccupied, anxious look in her eyes.

Huh. Interesting.

Other crew members he passed carried the same expression, confused and deeply troubled. He caught whispers of “What do you mean it wouldn’t work? I thought you checked it?” and, “He owes me big time and is worth a rescue sortie out here, but I can’t raise him on the comms at all. I just get dead air…”

Okay, that pretty much clinches it.

He began jogging like he was going somewhere vital in order to do something that could save their asses if he could only get there in time. He’d used this act before. Everyone was rattled now, but that could worsen fast, especially if they spotted someone in authority to blame, like a young, arguably inexperienced XO. So what if everyone knew the Captain was solely to blame? No one would be able to get to Drooghelm, who would be barricaded in his quarters by now, hiding behind blast-proof hulls and reinforced bulkheads. Their fearless captain always pulled this maneuver when he royally screwed up.

Rig managed to reach the sub-fifth deck without incident. He turned and headed down a corridor.

He was getting close. Familiar, telltale scents filled his nostrils; wafts of strange herbs, roots, and unrecognizable concoctions hovered thickly in the air. The light was dimmer here. The lighting covers were coated with grime, and the deck plates as well. Nothing had been cleaned in months, but Rig never scolded the cleaning bots, knowing full well that they were too nervous to venture around these parts. Even the mechies had enough intelligence to stay away. But what did that say about himself? 

It pretty much says I’m an idiot.

Ahead, a flickering yellow light spilled from an open hatchway. The bulkhead around it was covered in crudely painted runes and symbols. A beaded curtain made from rough, fibrous strands covered the opening and two bleached skulls from odd, bird-like creatures hung in the upper corners. He swallowed nervously.

Approaching the doorway cautiously, Rig raised his hand to knock.

“Enterrrrrr…” croaked a wizened voice from the other side.

He shuddered and thought: I hate it when he does that, before entering the room.

Suddenly, a green specter appeared from nowhere, floating in mid-air before Rig, moaning piteously. It was a ghastly phantasm of a male technician with torn overalls which glowed with an unearthly, sickly aura that matched his emerald, sore-riddled skin. The specter’s eyes and mouth were as black as the darkest singularity, no pupils or tongue visible as he groaned at Rig: “Deaaaaaaaaaath!”

Though he had been expecting this, Rig still cried out like a tween-aged schoolgirl and almost jumped out of his skin. “Augh! For pity’s sake, Franz, it’s me.” His hand accidentally passed through the creature, which immediately turned ice-cold. A deathly chill ran up his arm.

The hovering creature abruptly stopped wailing and straightened up. “Oh.” The voice was fairly ordinary now, though disappointed. “Sorry, XO. Didn’t know it was you. Thought it was one of the regulars.”

Rig exhaled slowly, consciously. “Forget it,” he grumbled. “There’s a crisis. I need to talk to Elgia.”

Franz pivoted mid-air and called into a back room: “Sweetie!”

“Coming, Franzie,” came back a creaky voice.

The eyeless face turned back to Rig and smiled pleasantly. “She’ll just be a minute. Please have a seat if you wish. Help yourself to some tea.” And with that, he vanished.

Since the only seat in the room seemed to be made from the pelvic skeleton of some unknown, large creature, Rig chose to stay standing.

He looked about. Elgia’s lair hadn’t changed much since the last time he was here. The same wooden drawers were set in ancient cabinets, each holding a pungent cache of herbs and roots from far-flung corners of the galaxy, the same cauldron bubbled lightly over a stone brazier with a smoldering fire in the middle, and the same dust and gloom coated everything, all of which likely concealed a thousand arcane and mystical items that would bring horrible, painful death or a lifetime of humiliating curses if you touched them the wrong way. On the far wall, a framed piece of cross-stitching depicted a grey tabby kitten playing with a ball of pink yarn. It was definitely the creepiest item in the room.

Finally, Elgia Jossinah Wrigglia, Black Mistress in the Everlasting Sisterhood of the Shadow, hobbled her way in from the back room with a gnarled wooden cane, looking like a pale prune that had spontaneously sprouted limbs. The stuff on her head was either hair or sentient cobwebs, a tangle of wispy vagueness, the strands occasionally moving of their own accord. Two squinting eyes, each pale blue-white, were set in her crevassed face and were not easy to gaze into when you were sober.

Most non-magic spacefaring folks—Rig included—tended to avoid mystical objects or beings as they would the black plagues from the swamps on Golgotha Prime. Why Drooghelm had decided to hire a terrifying creature like Elgia to be part of their little “spacefaring family” baffled Rig.

The ancient woman smiled cheerfully on her way to the cauldron, yellow and grey teeth peeking through dried lips. “Hello, Ducks. How’s tricks?”

“Good evening, Sister Elgia.” Best to start formally.

“Oh, relax, Ducks. You’re one of the ones I like.” She peered at him briefly. “You look very upset, you poor thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve been better. Do you… er… mind if I ask you something?” Elgia’s assurances notwithstanding, Rig’s tone was polite and calm. He wanted to scream his question, but you never annoyed members of the Sisterhood without having your head examined first.

Elgia leaned over the bubbling cauldron, sniffing. “Of course, Ducks. Always willing to help the deputy leader in our little home in space.” She took a few sticks from a nearby pile and placed them into the smoldering fire in the hearth below. (Open flames on any spacefaring vessel were, unsurprisingly, completely forbidden. Unless, of course, you were someone like Elgia, who would take your copy of the Spacefarer’s Trade Union Safety Book and burn it in her hearth in order to make her point clear.)

Clearing his throat, Rig explained how his small escape craft, for no apparent reason, wouldn’t work. He also added that similar malfunctions seemed to be happening all over the ship, including communications. “So…” he paused, attempting to compose his question carefully, “Did you…?” Nothing came to mind, so he stretched his hand out and waggled his fingers suggestively.

Elgia made a disgusted noise. “Ugh! Is that how you ask if I employed my sacred arts? The ancient craft of spell crafting, handed down through millennia and across star systems innumerable?”

“Sorry—”

“Well, yes, I did. His Nibs ordered it, naturally. He wanted to make sure nobody could abandon ship behind his back. Apparently, some job he recently accepted requires a full crew.”

Rig exhaled, then scowled. “Did you happen to ask about it? The job, I mean.”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. He’s the boss.”

“Oh, you should care. Let me fill you in. He—”

“Hey, no, belay that, XO!” The deep voice came from the back room. A second later, Captain Drooghelm’s imposing bulk stepped into the room. “Rig, her Unholy Sisterness here doesn’t need to be bothered with the details of ship’s business.”

The Captain looked shockingly awful: disheveled, sallow, and drawn, with massive bags under his eyes and ugly splotches and stains all over his shirt. Rig spied some mysterious things stuck in his beard that might have been flecks of vomit. A while back, he had managed to peek at the Ultor’s accounting sheets and was amazed to learn how much money a supposedly hard-as-nails mercenary Captain could allot for a private publicist and hair care products. If Drooghelm had allowed himself to look this bad in front of anyone, then he was very shaken indeed.

Elgia nodded in agreement. “Captain’s right, I don’t need to be bothered. How he runs his ship is none of my concern. I’m just a Mystical Consultant, after all, I don’t do policy.” Elgia hobbled over, pulled open one of the drawers, and began sorting through the contents.

Rig’s patience began to wear thin. “Oh, sod this. Elgia, you need to know the truth. This jackass—”

“Check your tone, Rig! You know how I deal with insubordination.”

“Are you bloody kidding me?” Rig yelled, the last pretenses of decorum falling away. “We’re all dead! You’ve screwed all of us, and then you make her cut off the exits!”

“XO, a crew has to pull together in times of—”

“Save it. You might as well tell her now, Captain. If you think I’m pissed off, imagine what she’s going to feel like once we get there if you haven’t told her.”

Elgia cocked a blue-white eye at Drooghelm. “Oh?” She looked back at Rig. “Okay, boy, you’ve got my attention. What did the drunken bastard do this time?”

“I was not drunk,” protested the Captain weakly.

Rig laughed. “I literally had to cart you onto the ship in a wheelbarrow.” He turned to Elgia. “He had the signed contract lying on his chest when I went to collect him. Our newest client had it notarized, too. Ironclad. PO Crandall was there when I read it, so now the whole bloody ship knows as well.”

Elgia looked at him expectantly.

Rig took a deep breath, then spoke as calmly as he could manage. “There are suicide missions, and there are suicide missions. And then there’s this job.” Rig paused. “Drooghelm has agreed to kill a god.”

A sudden silence filled the room. Elgia just stared at him for what was probably a few seconds but felt like an hour.

Finally, she yelled: “I quit! Franz?”

The green ghost popped back into view. “Sweets?”

“Pack our crap! We’re outta here!” She began to gather up objects around her.

Drooghelm groaned. “Look, Elgia, it’s not that bad—”

She spun on him. “Not that bad?” she growled, more infuriated than Rig had ever seen her. “A god?” She threw her arms up in exasperation. “You drunken sot! Why not just say you’ll eat a planet in one gulp? At least a fat bastard like yourself has a chance there! We’ve got no chance against a god.”

“Okay, yes, I had had a lot to drink…”

She laughed mirthlessly and continued packing.

“… and when they named their price, well… er… I don’t remember much after that. I think I might’ve agreed right there and then.”

“Think? There was no thinking involved, that’s for certain. Move, you great moron!” she spat as she pushed past him to grab a sickle hanging on the wall behind him. “Franzie, where’s my satchel?”

“Back of the closet, I think,” the ghost replied. “Next to that cursed halberd, the one Rennazi de Winterstorm owned back in 12574 from the Karrakos Era. Or was it the Spon era?”

“Elgia,” Drooghelm interrupted, “this is an unusual situation.” He shot a nervous glance at Rig.

In a flash, Rig knew what his Captain was about to do and took a cautious step back.

Drooghelm continued, “And I would hate to have to contact the Sisterhood—”

Elgia spun on him so fast it made Rig start. The effect it had on Drooghelm was like a freezing ray; he became an instant statue.

“You would hate to do… what, exactly?”

Sweat began to bead on Drooghelm’s forehead. “To…” he faltered.

“Yessssss?” she hissed. Her tone was colder than space.

“C-c-c-contact… the… Sisterhood…” he stammered.

“You sure you want to do that, Captain?”

The mercenary Captain was silent for a moment, his eyes as wide as saucers. Finally, he managed to say very quietly: “Yes?”

By this point, even the ghost was holding his breath.

Elgia stared hard at him and said nothing. Then, abruptly, she swore and seemed to deflate into the pelvic bone chair. Pulling a pack of cigarettes from a table drawer, she retrieved one and lit it. “Well,” she said in a resigned tone, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “Life was fun while it lasted.”

Rig and Franz exhaled at the same time, but only one of them created a breeze.

Elgia produced a hip flask from under her robes and took a swig. She looked at Rig. “You said it was notarized?” He nodded. “Wonderful,” she growled.

“This,” she said after another healthy swallow, “is technically known as a state of ‘screwed three ways to Sunday.’ If we run, the bailiffs are after us for breaking the contract. And they do not mess around. If we try to carry out the contract, we’ll surely be flattened by a bloody god…” she yelled this pointedly at Drooghelm, “and if I were to fry our beloved leader here into a charcoal brisket and do a runner, the Sisterhood would be on my tail like a rabid weasel who had just spotted her mortal enemy.” She shuddered at the thought.

Rig rubbed his temples, trying to stop his headache from worsening. “Okay, okay,” he began grasping at threads, “Maybe there is a way to… well, do it. Complete the contract.” He couldn’t bring himself to say it directly.

Elgia scowled. “Do it? You mean off the Holy sonofabitch? Ha!” Nevertheless, she turned to Drooghelm and asked: “Well, tell me about this god at least. Which one is it?”

The Captain mopped his brow with a rag from a tabletop. “Uh, well, he’s new. Named Zaxxos or something. Just attained godhood a few years ago. Some mystical accident, according to the client.”

“Who’s the client?” Elgia interrupted.

“These dark cult guys on a planet about ten light years from here: Universalis Sancta Subiugatio, whatever the hell that means.”

Elgia made a guttural sound of disapproval.“Ugh, those arseholes. I know ’em. Charming lot. They sometimes sacrifice virgins by pushing them into underground lava streams, stuff like that. Boys and girls, mind you; very progressive not to discriminate, eh? So, it’s these asswipes you decide to go into business with, Droog?”

Drooghelm managed to look even more pale and uncomfortable. “Oh. Er, Eglia, in my defense, I had no idea they did stuff like that when I signed…”

“As drunk as you were, I’m surprised you could remember your own name in order to sign it,” said Rig.

Drooghelm glared. “As I was saying… These Subiugatio guys were fiddling with spells to obtain godhood. Your typical dark cult stuff. Then one of their lesser acolytes, some old guy who had been toiling at the problem for his entire life, stumbled on the solution.”

“So, that is the so-called target?” Franz asked, trying to be helpful. “This lesser acolyte you speak of?”

“Eh, no. It’s his fourteen-year-old grand-nephew, actually. This spell was generational, so one of the caster’s heirs was going to have to take up the family tradition. The acolyte guy was trying to get the kid interested in it as a career choice.

“And then something screwed up, and the spell suddenly worked. The guy was so stunned that he didn’t notice his nephew had walked up to the spell circle and got, um, ‘godded’ instead. Reportedly, the guy was pretty pissed and said some, you’d say, ill-advised things to the kid. Things did not go well for Mr. Uncle, and now they’ll never know how the idiot managed to successfully cast the spell in the first place.”

“How long ago was this?” Elgia asked.

“A little more than five years.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. We’re going to get flattened by a god whose balls just dropped.”

“Great Herald!” Drooghelm cried, a slight manic tone creeping into his voice, “There has to be a way to get it done!”

“That’s another thing,” Rig said, “when the hell did we become contract killers? When I signed up for your crew, you swore assassinations were off the table.”

“Oh, grow up,” Drooghelm scoffed. “A mercenary crew has to find work where they can. Besides, gods aren’t people. You ever watch one of their kind in an interview? They all think they’re better than everyone else. Buncha pricks.”

Rig put his hands to his face. “Sure… what better argument for murder could you get?”

Drooghelm ignored him. “They must be able to die. In the stories, myths, stuff like that… With the staggering amount these guys are paying us to complete this job—”

“How much?” Franz and Elgia asked at the same time. Rig told them and they whistled appreciatively in unison.

“Exactly,” exclaimed Drooghelm. “So, what if—I dunno—we get the biggest, baddest plasma cannon on credit and—”

“Forget it.” Rig shook his head. “According to what I looked up, there’s this inherent principle to godhood that says ‘a god can only be slain by another god’s hand.’”

The Captain looked at Elgia. She nodded, adding, “Clumsy phrasing, but he’s basically right. Most religious scholars and philosophers would back that up. I wouldn’t call it a universal law or anything, but it’s pretty close.”

“Okay, fine. We hire another god to do it.”

Elgia laughed. “Gods—you great oaf—don’t care about money! They’re beyond monetary or material needs. Besides, there’s only a handful around. It’s incredibly rare for gods to be created. I can only think of a couple off the top of my head that are in this region. Once they master their powers, most leave our universe to create their own dimension. It’s like moving to the coast to build your dream home, but on a quantum level.”

“And just for kicks,” Rig added, “I tried reaching out to the few gods she’s talking about, the ones that are still in our dimension.”

“And?” Drooghelm asked hopefully.

“They won’t return my calls.”

Elgia rolled her eyes. “That tears it.”

This declaration seemed to be the final straw for the Captain, who fell against a wall and slumped to the floor.

Rig went over and squatted down to his level. “Look, Captain…” He tried to put a friendly spin to his voice, “I know you’re in a tough spot here. But the only thing to do now is, well, you have to order Elgia to let the crew go. You signed the contract, not us. The noble thing here…” It was ridiculous to try the nobility angle with Drooghelm, but he had to give it a shot. “The noble thing to do would be to let us bail. Besides, you always said you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. What better way than to take on a god? Single-handedly! Talk about epic! They’ll be talking about it for… well, forever.”

Elgia snorted. “Sure. Hey, did you hear about that putz who got punched into the next galaxy?”

Rig winced. He was about to try a different tack when he noticed a strange expression had formed on the man’s face. It took him a few seconds to realize what his Captain was doing. He was thinking.

This was not good.

“Hey,” Drooghelm began slowly. “That gives me an idea.”

Zaxxos the Magnificent was in a bad mood.

He was pensive. Grumpy. Cranky, even. This whole ‘being a god’ thing was not panning out like it should have.

Long ago—five years to be precise—he thought he had hit the ultimate jackpot, and everything was going to be totally jackballs awesome for all eternity. Even though it was by accident, he had achieved what quadrillions had dreamt of since magic was first practiced in the galaxy. He was a mother-loving God.

Supposedly, he could do whatever he wanted, make whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted, and nobody could say boo. If anyone gave him any backtalk or static, he’d just smite the little turd. Plus, there’d be as much sex as he could handle. Hotties, he figured, should be mega-stoked to make it with a god. Things would be the best forever and ever; all praise himself.

But it hadn’t turned out that way at all.

The smiting was still okay, at least. The first guy he smited—or smote, whatever—was his great uncle, Warringanor. Sure, who wouldn’t be pissed if your family had been casting this meta-complicated spell for about two hundred years, and then your niece’s grandkid trips over it and ruins it for you? Yeah, okay, anybody would be upset. But then his great uncle said some really hurtful things, and he got angry, and… Well, it wasn’t pretty.

When he realized he could kill someone so easily, it was really unnerving. At first. But then he discovered how creative he could get with it.

Turns out, there were a crap-ton of different ways you could smite someone. Exploding ’em, crushing ’em, or just making ’em fall over dead. That last one was the coolest. Plus, you didn’t get all that horrible mess or smell.

However, doing other godly things was tricky.

If he tried creating something from nothing, for example, he had to be real careful, or it’d go all wrong. Especially if it was a living thing. Yikes, that became a horror show real quick. Good thing he had been practicing all that smiting before he tried creating life.

Objects, so long as they were simple or straightforward, were easy enough. A giant chair, for example, for his recently-resized giant body was okay. But when he tried making a spaceship, the problem was he didn’t know how they worked. He had no clues about the basic FTL drive principles, for example. So, they tended to blow up. Actually, they always blew up.

Magically-infused objects were tricky, too. There was this time he was going to be a War God and tried conjuring this really bad-ass sword as the central part of his ‘look,’ with a big, red gemstone in the center, which would shoot out these awesome, kick-ass red lightning bolts whenever he unsheathed it: Boom! Pow! Zap!

It blew up as well. Most of his stuff tended to blow up. It was one of the main reasons for his bad mood.

Plus, there were those loser clowns who had started worshiping him after he ‘ascended.’ He was glad he changed his name to “Zaxxos the Magnificent” after the transformation. Nobody would worship at the Church of Kevin Fenward, right?

At first, it was cool having people literally singing your praises; how amazing he was, how they were so insignificant next to him, et cetera, set to music, no less. This must be a perk, for sure.

But the whole thing got unbelievably annoying when he discovered that he always—always—heard his worshipper’s prayers. He couldn’t turn it off. What was this crap? Here he was, a guy who could turn a starliner into a goat—yeah, it would be a weird-looking goat that would blow up before too long, but he could still do that little miracle—yet somehow, he couldn’t turn off the speaker in his head that heard all those whinging little complaints.

So much of it was about money! I’m so poor. I can’t pay my rent. I need a new transport. My kid needs medicine. Petty, petty, crap all the time. It got so bad, he started conjuring gold bars just so they’d shut up. Then word got around that prayers to him actually paid off, and it became so much worse so fast. Money prayers began flooding his head. Not surprisingly, it became ‘smiting time’ once again. That finally shut ‘em up real quick.

So: his powers were hanky, his worshippers were jerks, and his creations kept exploding. But the worst part was the sex thing.

Instead of cartloads of Vestal virgins (something he’d heard from history—he wasn’t sure what it referred to, but they sounded seriously hot) lining up to service his every whim, chicks avoided him like he was a chess club president covered in cold sores. He listened in on some of the conversations the novice priestesses had in the convents so he could understand why they weren’t showing up in droves, boobs out, legs open. The words he heard were along the lines of: terrifying, death sentence, and ick.

This was the most depressing part. Incredibly powerful, immortal, feared… and he still couldn’t get laid. 

As Zaxxos sat brooding, leaning against a mountain, he absentmindedly scratched his cheek with a finger the size of an eight-story apartment building. He didn’t have an itch—his body never suffered from aches, pains, or even the minor unpleasantness of dermatitis anymore—it was strictly from habit.

Bored and frustrated, he decided a year ago to make himself two thousand feet tall.

Why? Firstly, it was fun. Secondly, it pissed off the Subiugatio cult that ruled his home planet big time. The priesthood had kept pestering him about an alliance in order to take over the galaxy. The idea sounded like work, so he passed.

Then they tried convincing him to make this big weapon that would give them the conquering power they required. To get them off his back, he did it. But—sigh—it exploded, killing a big swath of their priesthood in the process.

He did the ‘bigging thing’ soon after that so he could avoid their whining. He rose above it all.

The bonus benefit was how he terrified the priesthood by stomping around their grounds. Their planet was mostly a series of archipelagos surrounded by a giant, plant-spanning ocean. The biggest island, where Zaxxos currently lounged, was where the top echelon of the priesthood lived. He liked the idea of looming over them. What could they do about it?

But this, too, was getting pretty boring. And he was getting worried about shrinking himself down to normal size because he wasn’t sure how to do it.

It was all so unfair. Why couldn’t he catch a break?

Then, something caught his eye. Instinctually, his brain said it was just some flying insect pestering him.

But then that would mean the bug was the size of…

“Ahem,” said a voice in the air in front of him. Zaxxos narrowed his gaze. It was a ship, hovering before his eyes. And a crappy ship, at that.

“This is Captain Cicero Drooghelm of the starship Ultor.”

The Captain’s voice quavered a bit as he spoke into the microphone; the braggadocio attitude he had been projecting for the last few weeks melted away once the moment arrived. He sounded pale and sweaty again, and all those reassurances of “trust me, this’ll work,” Rig could hear puddling at the man’s feet. The giant speakers they’d strapped to the hull amplified Drooghelm’s voice—but also that quaver—a thousandfold.

“We respectfully request the attention of the great and mighty Zaxxos the Magnificent,” Drooghelm continued.

Elgia had suggested this approach. You don’t want him thinking about swatting us until we’ve got everything lined up. Appeal to his ego. Distract him from the real threat.

The giant god’s eye narrowed on the ship, a relative housefly, and seemed unimpressed. Yet he hadn’t vaporized them right away.

“Well, this is different, at least,” the god smirked. “I’ll give you that.”

Rig found the god’s voice terrifying. The Ultor trembled a little as if they were being buffeted by a storm. He swallowed hard but kept his hands steady on the flight controls.

Drooghelm’s voice broadcasted again. “Er… well.” He coughed nervously. “We, the honorable and brave mercenary crew of the Ultor, are deeply honored to be in the presence of such a… a magnificent being as Zaxxos the, er, Magnificent.”

Rig glanced down and checked their alignment. So long as the big bastard doesn’t move…

“Get to the point. I’m a busy god,” the giant grumbled.

“Er, right…” fumbled Drooghelm. “Well, honored as we all definitely are to be in your presence, the regrettable task has fallen to us to… entreat you to…” he coughed nervously again, “leave this dimension.” After a pause, he added: “Or else.”

Silence hung for a moment in the space between the ship and the giant god.

It was broken when Zaxxos began to laugh uproariously, the force buffeting the ship like a category two hurricane, forcing Rig to compensate heavily to keep the craft steady. “Settle down, settle down,” he whispered. Drooghelm would have to readjust his aim now.

“Or else?” the god cackled. “You gotta be kidding me.”

Rig could hear Drooghelm swallow hard over the speakers as he straightened the ship. His palms were sweating heavily under the hand controls. Risking a split second to wipe them on his shirt, he could feel his heart pounding.

“What can you do, little ship, to a God?” Zaxxos growled, the final word reverberating through the ship like it was made of tin.

Drooghelm, to his credit, redoubled his efforts and threw more gravitas into his voice. “We are very serious, oh, honorable Zaxxos. We have a weapon at our disposal that could dispatch ye.”

Rig looked over at Pora, who was manning navigation, who looked back at Rig. She mouthed “ye?” at him, her expression incredulous.

“We have no desire to do this.” Drooghelm was definitely warming to the dramatics now. “We respect and admire your magnificence and are loath to risk the wrath of any gods who… er… aren’t down with the whole, you know… killing a god thing. So, what is your response, Zaxxos? Leave? Or face oblivion?”

We’re all dead, thought Rig.

But, incredibly, Zaxxos seemed to be considering something. His enormous, youthful face seemed to go slack for a moment, and his cavernous mouth hung open like a dullard who had been given an algebra equation to solve.

Then his mouth closed, his eyes hardened, and he spoke a single word.

“Bull.”

Bloody hell, take the shot!

This was Drooghelm’s great plan:

A few years ago, Drooghelm had come across a story about a holy relic, a scepter, that was stored in an ancient stone temple on a planet called Vargran Six. The scepter’s rod reportedly contained the hair of an old god who had left our dimension for good. Drooghelm admitted he’d briefly considered stealing it at the time but decided it would be too difficult to fence.

But if the follicle was still attached, that made it god-flesh, right? And if it took ‘a god’s hand to kill a god,’ then, he reasoned, all you needed was to get ahold of part of a god, god-flesh or something similar, fasten it to a giant projectile, and fire it into the bastard’s brain.

Everyone else thought this was the kind of plan a six-year-old would come up with. However, they also had no other ideas.

So, they raced over to Vargran Six, opened negotiations with the jungle natives who had worshipped the holy dude for the last thousand years, gave their best bribe to the head shaman, then hit the lot with a stun-burst when they realized the bribe was gloriously backfiring, and ended up stealing it after all. Afterward, half the crew had to be treated with anti-toxins because of poison darts.

Luckily, there was, indeed, a follicle attached to the hair inside the scepter.

Elgia did her best to bolster the god-essence in order to maximize potency, whatever the sod that meant. Then they attached the holy follicle to the tip of the sharpest, biggest, hardest titanium-ultrasteel bolt they could find.

The Ultor, hovering before Zaxxos’ face, was merely a distraction.

Drooghelm’s voice was being transmitted to its exterior speakers from Rig’s heavily cloaked escape craft flying below them, pointing upward at a steep angle. Drooghelm had decided to fire it up Zaxxos’ nose, reasoning it was the best route to hit gray matter without striking his skull, which would likely be impenetrable. A makeshift cannon barrel had been installed on the underbelly, along with the best cloaking system they could afford, which wasn’t very good and would almost certainly break down after the shot was taken.

Both Rig and the crew felt they had next to zero chance of succeeding. Wills were updated, and goodbye letters were sent.

Rig heard the shot. Even though it came from about a half-mile below them, it was that loud.

Zaxxos’ head snapped back as if he had been punched with a mighty uppercut to the schnoz.

Blood!

Amazed, Rig saw a great red droplet appear before Zaxxos’ face. It hung almost motionless in the air for a split second before falling. Zaxxos’ gigantic body slammed against the mountain behind him with a crash that even Rig could feel through the ship’s hull. His heart leaped, daring to hope he might survive this. Everyone on the bridge held their breath.

Then, a moment later, the god sat up.

Zaxxos pressed one of his giant hands against his bloodied nose and said: “Ow.”

Rig swallowed hard. When he saw the look in Zaxxos’s eyes, he tried to swallow again but found that his mouth had gone completely dry.

“You little bastards are so dead,” snarled the god.

Rig spied the muscles tensing in Zaxxos’ shoulder a split second before the huge arm whipped out in an impossibly wide arc. His reflexes responded immediately, yanking the ship controls and twisting the Ultor into a downward spiral.

On the monitor beside him, he could see that Drooghelm had the same idea—but he wasn’t quite fast enough. The giant hand clipped the wing on the smaller craft, sending Drooghelm spiraling in a chaotic tumble off into the neighboring sea, where his ship crashed with a rather sad little ‘splot.’

Crew members on the bridge were screaming at Rig to get them out of there. As if he needed to be told that. Rig swung the ship landward. Maybe he could hide in the mountain range? His mind raced. An orbital path makes the most sense. But switching to escape velocity thrusters would take ten precious seconds. Besides, could Zaxxos fly? Could he just kill them with a thought? How did this guy smite people, anyway?

As if to answer his thoughts, a mountain peak next to the ship exploded in a conflagration of stone and crimson light. Rig screamed in shock and yanked the ship away from the shower of boulders. “Crandall,” he yelled, “Give me a view of the bastard!”

A second later, the bridge viewscreen had a window inserted showing what was happening behind them. They saw a colossal figure climb over the mountains with shocking ease, two ruby-red dots glowing in the center of his face. Zaxxos’ eyes were literally ablaze with fury. Going off-planet was no longer possible; initiating the engine shift would leave them sitting ducks.

Rig spotted a fogbank to port and veered that way.

That was a mistake.

The fogbank was only a small one, maybe two kilometers wide, with a major city on the other side. Rig suddenly found himself hurtling towards a menagerie of towers, buildings, and a hundred other handy structures for them to crash into. He swore as he almost struck a huge temple spire, then narrowly missed another one that seemingly sprang up in its place. For the next few seconds, every spire, tower, or ziggurat he managed to dodge would be replaced by a new one behind it.

Worse still, this was the capital city, which had been built next to the biggest mountain on the whole planet, a behemoth of ten thousand meters in height and easily the same in circumference. It effectively cut off half their maneuvering space, and Rig was forced to violently adjust course away from it. This, naturally, placed him right in the path of more spires and towers.

It took all of Rig’s concentration to fly the ship. Behind them, Zaxxos was still firing crimson energy bursts from his eyes, burrowing charred furrows in the streets, his giant body smashing through buildings like a pimply kaiju from hell. The client was going to be super pissed.

A warning light flashed. The ambient energy from that last eye-blast had melted part of their wings. At this rate, they weren’t going to last long.

“Elgia,” he cried into the comm, “Bolster ship’s integrity!”

“I’m doing my best, you little—” The rest was cut off.

Movement caught Rig’s attention on the rear viewscreen.

The main Holy Temple of the Subiugatio was behind them, a huge structure with banners and flags flying everywhere. Each had a symbol at the center: a silhouette of the enormous mountain that dominated the skyline to the stern.

“They sometimes sacrifice virgins by pushing them into underground lava streams…”

The idea struck him like a bag of hammers, unpleasant but effective. Especially unpleasant because of what he had to do now.

“Hold on,” he yelled and threw the ship into a tight spin, effectively turning them 180 degrees. They were now facing Zaxxos.

“Rig,” cried Pora. “What the crap!”

He accelerated the ship towards the god like he was attacking. Several gasps of terror surrounded him.

The unexpected move made Zaxxos pause. Was it because he had felt pain for the first time in several years? Maybe the experience re-awakened his sense of vulnerability? It didn’t matter. It gave Rig the few seconds he needed to fire all the Ultor’s forward guns right at the god’s eyes.

The energy weapons didn’t hurt Zaxxos at all, but the brilliant volley blinded him for a few seconds, enabling Rig to fly directly between his legs. “In for a penny…” Rig murmured, making a beeline for the giant mountainside.

The shout of fury behind them was, in a word, epic.

Rig glanced at the rear viewscreen. Zaxxos was running full tilt toward them with eyes that had gone pure white, almost too bright to look at.

Now!

Rig rammed the Ultor into an impossibly tight turn to starboard, skirting above the colossal mountainside by mere meters. G-forces pushed against him to the point where he thought he might pass out and puke at the same time. Behind them, he could see a blast of white energy ripping into the stone just behind them. Granite disintegrated like it was papier-mâché, dust clouds billowed, and tens of millions of stones exploded in their wake. Somehow, Rig managed to hold the ship on course and not crash as it curved around the mountainside.

What followed was a mammoth explosion, not unlike a supersized volcano that had suddenly burst into full eruption, which is exactly what it was.

It was a very, very unnerving sound.

After a second or two, Rig curved the ship skyward and dared to check the rear viewscreen. There was nothing but dust.

Then, from within the cloud, a massive hand burst towards them, reaching out to catch the ship and crush it like it was a bug.

Well, crap, Rig thought.

Then, there was another explosion that made the previous one seem like a sparrow somewhere had a bit of a cough. The ship buckled wildly, threatening to shake itself to pieces, and the rear viewscreen filled with black smoke and a hellishly deep, red light. The giant hand that was only a few feet away from grasping the ship was suddenly yanked back into that cloud as if Zaxxos had been attached to a tremendous bungee cord.

Then came the screaming. It was horrible. But they could barely hear it over the concussive sounds of many more explosions behind them.

Rig eased the Ultor into a gentler curve. Blessedly, she held together.

Silence settled on the bridge as all eyes turned to look at the rear screen. Below, the newest god in the galaxy was writhing in agony, the lower half of his body submerged in a growing pool of molten lava that flowed from a gigantic fissure newly carved in the mountainside.

Not wanting to see any more, Rig aborted the orbital engine shift and pointed the Ultor back to where she came from.

Drooghelm reluctantly opened his eyes.

Everything hurt, even his eyelids. It hurt to focus. It hurt to breathe. He closed his eyes again. His entire being felt like one giant bruise that had been kicked around for an entire season of galactic footie. He groaned.

“Ah, there he is,” came Elgia’s cheerful voice somewhere beside him. “How you feeling, Ducks?”

“Not dead,” he managed to murmur.

“Give the boy a prize, his brain ain’t broken either.” Drooghelm heard her stand up and walk around his bed, which he realized was in Ultor’s sick bay. This confused him a bit. Shouldn’t the ship have been destroyed?

“You get to fill his Nibs in, Rig. You’ve earned that, at least.”

“Much appreciated.” Rig’s voice had come from somewhere down by his feet. He heard the sick bay door open and close.

“The patient,” the ship’s medical AI chimed in, “should get as much rest as possible. Excitement and agitation is not advisable.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Doc, thanks.” There was a tired amusement in Rig’s voice. Rig asked: “Talk now, or later?”

“Now. How…?”

“After your ship took the biggest bitch-slap in the history of history, it crashed in the ocean. By sheer luck, the cabin seals weren’t fully broken. We sent down two mechies who found you floating in an air bubble. Touch and go there, but, obviously—”

“Zaxxos?”

“Dead.”

Drooghelm’s brain boggled. “It… worked?”

“You mean the bolt up the nose?” Rig laughed. “No, no, that failed. But then I got this idea.” He felt Rig sit on the bed. “Elgia mentioned our clients liked to sacrifice people in lava flows. That giant mountain is on all their iconography, so it had to be part of the religion. Cultures have done similar things in the past, dumping virgins into volcanoes and so on. I reasoned that made it a holy mountain.”

“I gambled. Zaxxos’ eye beam thingies were destroying everything around us. If I could make him mad enough, he’d fire everything he had into that holy mountain and hopefully trigger an eruption. Even if I was wrong about the mountain being a sacred instrument or an actual god, I figured that anyone taking a dip in a giant lava pool would not fare well. Turns out I gambled right.” Drooghelm could hear his XO smile.

“Holy… we did it? Hit the jackpot?” Drooghelm exclaimed with as much energy as he could muster.

Rig sighed. “No, we didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“Between the incredible amount of destruction that Zaxxos carved through the capital and the torrents of lava from the volcano, the city was obliterated. Our clients, the entire Subiugatio cult leadership, were wiped out in a few seconds. What’s more, once the planet’s populace realized what had happened, they immediately revolted. None of them have been too happy about those guys and their religious practices for a long, long time. The whole place is a revolutionary battleground, and the cult itself has filed for bankruptcy.”

If it were possible, Drooghelm felt worse. “So?”

“So, no money. Plus, that titanium-ultrasteel bolt wasn’t cheap, nor was the cloaking device, which got fragged along with my escape ship. Our accounts are so far in the red, it’s not funny.”

Rig stood. “On the plus side, the Doc system says you should be up in a couple of weeks. We installed a physio chamber next door, but, ah, all we could get was a second-hand version. The anesthetic system is on the fritz, so, unfortunately, you’re gonna feel everything.”

He could hear Rig walking towards the door and pause at the threshold. “Two weeks off, Captain. I guess you could look at it like it’s a vacation.”

“Wonderful,” Drooghelm groaned.

The hatch closed, and Rig found Pora leaning against the bulkhead beside him. “You,” she said with a wry smile. “You enjoyed that, you naughty boy.”

Rig tried to look innocent. “Who? Me? Nah.”

They walked together toward the bridge. Pora asked, “Are we really that screwed? Financially, I mean.”

Rig shrugged. “Financially speaking, yeah, pretty much. But, hey, we’re still alive, and that’s not nothing. There are other positives, too. Killing a God and still standing at the end is doing wonders for our reputation.”

“Minus the fact that we destroyed the client in the process,” she added.

“Uh, yeah, minus that,” Rig admitted. “Not a slam-dunk, as the ancient saying goes, but not a total loss either. Regardless, it will probably get us some new work before long. Probably insanely dangerous work that no one in their right mind would take on, but—”

“Not at a total loss?” she suggested. He nodded, grinning.

Then Pora gave him a wicked look and slipped her arm around his waist. “And I’ll admit this much: being next to an actual god-killer is one serious turn-on.”

Definitely not a total loss.