Heir Neekay
By
Shane Griffin
Smash Words Edition Published by Poupichou Press
Copyright Shane Griffin 2005
Cover Art by Jai Green-Barber 2012
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Neekay walked casually along the street, the pink spike of hair that sprang from the very top of his otherwise bald head wavered gently, reflecting his relaxed mood. His unusual hairstyle would have made him stand out just about anywhere, except a space-port. In particular a port like Baal, where anyone even vaguely humanoid qualified as blasé. It made for a perfect place to start over again with a clean slate. In his experience the best places to hide were always the busiest ones.
As he approached the entry to his apartment block something particularly gruesome scuttled past him in the opposite direction. He tried not to give it a second glance as it passed him. He found he slept better at night without the knowledge of exactly what was walking the streets, or for that matter what was living on the same floor of his building. With his next step he realised that this time he should have been paying attention. His boot squelched down into the bubbling trail of blue-green slime the thing had left behind. He looked down and winced as he lifted his boot from the sticky trail. It stretched out like chewing gum between his steel shod soles and the grey plasticrete footpath.
"Great, and I bet I'm out of all-in-one alien goo remover too! I really wish someone would pass a law about things cleaning up after themselves!" he thought.
After several failed attempts to wipe the slime off his boot he gave up.
"Damn! There goes another perfectly good pair of boots," he mumbled angrily to himself and looked up to the sky towards whatever deity might be listening. That was when he saw it, a dark blue air car latched onto one of the parking hooks at the upper entry level of his apartment block.
"Just great," he groaned. His spike of pink hair suddenly slumped forward and hung down over his forehead limply. It was a Varkian government car, which meant only one thing. They had tracked him down again and they had sent someone.
"If I had any sense I'd just keep on walking and move on," he thought to himself. It was a fleeting thought. The possibility of a little bit of revenge always drew him into the inevitable confrontation. With his mind made up his spike of hair suddenly went rigid and began a set of sharp jutted violent movements. He walked grimly through the front entry of his apartment block and headed directly for the antigravity shaft. He stepped out into the empty shaft and was instantly weightless.
"Five," he spoke to the computer screen on the inside wall and was gently whisked up to the fifth floor. The shaft doors hissed open and he stepped warily out.
Neekay's apartment was at the end of the hallway and the door looked untouched. He mumbled something under his breath in the ancient tongue and waved his right hand over the inside of his left forearm. The skin glowed pink for an instant then dissolved away to reveal a small touch screen. He tapped one of the symbols and live readings of various bodily functions traced across the screen. He quickly checked they were all ok then selected voice mode. He wouldn't have the time to play with a keypad if it came to a confrontation.
He whispered another command in the ancient tongue and a layer of filtering cells slid down over his eyes like a second eyelid. As he expected there were large humanoid type finger marks glowing orange on the door. The chemical that he had sprayed on the door only reacted with Varkian skin secretions.
As he blinked the filtering cells away he let out a short sharp frustrated sigh. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had hoped that the car had just been a coincidence. There was no turning back now, since whoever was in his apartment had no doubt sensed him already.
He waited at the end of the hallway to see if whoever it was might get impatient and make the first move. Ten minutes of waiting produced no result, except to confirm that his foe was patient and meant business.
Keeping a careful eye on the door he prepared himself. With another whispered command he triggered his artificial adrenal gland to maximum production, a second later he initiated several other glands to release various performance enhancing chemicals and yet another to get all of the nerve endings in his body firing like crazy to heightened all of his senses.
His spike of hair thrashed about madly for a few seconds as a sharp pain burst though his head. It always took a second or two before the artificial interface between his brain stem and the rest of his body kicked in to regulate the increased flow of information to his brain.
He tried not to get too carried away with the buzz that the adrenalin, hormones and steroids gave him. He had to try to keep focused, in case there was still a chance to talk his way out of the situation. With determined concentration he bent down and unlaced his boots, his eyes never leaving the door to his apartment. He slid them off and placed them neatly against the wall. One final command and thousands of microscopic suction pads slowly opened on the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands. He was ready.
He moved silently to the door, swiped his access card across the lock and pushed it open, but remained outside. Sure enough, sitting casually in a chair, in the far corner of his living room, next to the only window in the apartment was the very person he least wanted to ever meet again. His little spike of hair fell into a depressed heap along with the remainder of any hope of avoiding a confrontation.
"Well, well, well, if it is not Neekay, Heir to the throne of Sangakara. Such a sight for sore eyes," said the Varkian sarcastically.
"It’s my eyes that are sore, from the disgusting sight of a Varkian worm like yourself, Reebak," replied Neekay, acid in his voice. At the same time he subtly drew a deep breath, trying desperately to smell the presence of any other Varkians close by. He smelt nothing, beyond the foul stench of Reebak.
Reebak began to chuckle.
"I see you have lost none of your zest. Please come inside, it is your apartment after all. You don't have to worry, as I am sure that you have already sensed, I did not bring anyone else to our little…reunion."
Neekay was not totally convinced of that, but could not sense any other beings, Varkian or otherwise, in the apartment so he stepped inside. As he did so Reebak casually stood. Reebak was a hulk of a being. Like most Varkians he was well over six feet tall, bulging with muscles, his dark grey skin giving the appearance of a granite statue. In contrast the dark mane of hair, that ran the complete length of his spine, gave him the look of a fierce beast.
"I will tell you what I have told all of the others, you are wasting your time. I will never tell you where the technologists are hiding," said Neekay, his eyes firmly on Reebak, watching for the slightest sign of movement.
Reebak shook his head and rolled his yellow eyes.
"Why do you still fight so hard for such a lost cause. The war is long over, the Sangakaran empire destroyed, your home planet nothing but a mined out shell and your people slaves for the Varkian technology machine."
"My people may be slaves, but I’m still free."
A broad smug smile broke across Reebak's face.
"You assume too much Neekay. My government no longer cares about your technologists. The Varkian empire is the main supplier of superior technology to the entire federation of planetary systems.”
“Then why are you here?” asked Neekay, preparing himself for Reebak’s first move.
“I’ve come to offer you a full pardon and your technologists the chance to work with us. No more running Neekay, provided you hand them over.”
“Yes and I’m sure you will guarantee our safety the same way you guaranteed Guanra before you killed him!” spat Neekay his anger rising like a tsunami.
“Come now Neekay, your older brother made the first move. Such a useless sacrifi…”
At tha
t moment Reebak’s muscles tensed, almost imperceptibly, even to Neekay, and he struck. Reebak thrust himself full body at Neekay like a granite meteorite.
Neekay sensed the move just in time and pounced to one side narrowly avoiding Reebak. Reebak crashed into the wall behind where Neekay had just stood. The wall buckled under the force and chunks of ceiling fell to the floor. Before Neekay could strike back, however, Reebak had extracted himself and flung himself into a flying kick.
Neekay blocked the blow. His metal bio-polymer re-enforced bones withstood a collision what would otherwise have broken his arm. Another rapid kick from Reebak sent Neekay backwards onto the floor. As soon as his back had hit the ground he kicked his feet down hard flipped onto his hands and flung himself up onto the wall. There he ran along it as though it were the floor, the suction cup cells in