Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

Four of them answered the messenger—Misha, Betelgeuse and Edith from the front truck, and Voke from the next truck over.

Queen She's messenger visibly relaxed once she witnessed the four of them assembling beside the front truck. Betelgeuse, Edith and Voke wore gas masks that obscured their features, but their heights made it impossible to mistake their origins as Earthians. On the other hand, the MDES suit was two sizes too large for Misha even with its automated vacuum-seal, although it didn't look too weird, given that her vest strapped down much of the excess fabric.

All four of them had armed themselves with fully-loaded ZWEN Mark 566 railguns.

The dune loomed right in front of them. Misha took the lead, guiding them toward the leeside, where the messenger waited, her gaudy banner jutting high above her head.

"You are the leader of these Zungu?" the messenger asked, staring into Misha's featureless visor, raising her head so that her yellowed eyes could be seen by the light of the crimson moon.

"We answered the hail," Misha said simply, speaking with an authority she was not used to affecting.

The messenger glanced at Betelgeuse, who met her stare without shirking. Fear and suspicion were rolling off her body in powerful waves, buffeting Betelgeuse' keen sensibilities. She was an Ash grade, for sure.

"... And who are you?" the messenger asked ambiguously.

"You should know who I am," Misha returned, a little too hastily.

"No… I meant him," the messenger shot back, raising a gloved hand to point at Betelgeuse.

"My second-in-command," Misha said, sounding very unsure of herself. Betelgeuse lowered his gaze deferentially.

The messenger narrowed her eyes, glancing between Betelgeuse, Voke and the slightly unsteady Edith.

"Queen She will meet you over the shelf," the messenger said, thumbing behind her to the upward slant.

Betelgeuse nudged Misha, who turned to him. Get her to come down, Betelgeuse was trying to say, but Misha cocked her head. She couldn't tell what Betelgeuse was saying.

Clenching his jaw, Betelgeuse regarded the messenger and said: "The Colonel's will is that the Queen must come down to meet us."

"No, no," the messenger snapped, her yellow eyes glinting in the dimness. "Here's what's going to happen. You will follow me up onto that shelf."

Betelgeuse nudged Misha again, and this time she got what he was trying to say.

"Have the Queen come down to meet us about there, in full view of our vehicles," Misha said, her voice inflecting deeper. Betelgeuse fought the urge to roll his eyes. It sounded unnatural and a little ridiculous.

"No," the messenger said emphatically, pressing her thin brows together and stabbing her finger at the top of the shelf even more violently. "Queen She will receive you up there."

Silence.

They stood there a little awkwardly, the four of them facing the messenger. Misha shifted her weight from foot to foot, and though her features were obscured by the visor, Betelgeuse could feel her nervousness. Of course, she wasn't about to give into the messenger's demands without Betelgeuse' concurrence, but the messenger didn't seem willing to back down either.

After several seconds, Edith nudged Betelgeuse in his side.

Danger.

"Let's compromise," Betelgeuse said, lacing his words with compulsion. The messenger coughed strangely upon hearing his words. Her emotions whipsawed, her fear overtaking even Edith's. Betelgeuse turned down the intensity of his compulsion, until it was nearly imperceptible. Only then did the woman's emotions begin to peter out.

"We have our convoy follow us, we meet halfway, yes?" Betelgeuse said, addressing the woman directly.

"... What does your master say?" she shot back, looking askance at Misha.

"We meet halfway," Misha asserted.

At this, the messenger stepped back several meters and muttered something into her wrist-transceiver. After some seconds, she raised her head and nodded to Misha.

Betelgeuse turned and gestured to Private Altunis through the windshield, and he nodded back and started the truck's engine.

"You can go back inside," Betelgeuse said, turning to Edith.

"I'm fine," Edith replied, though she didn't really look fine. Betelgeuse raised an eyebrow and glanced surreptitiously at Voke behind her. Voke placed a hand on Edith's upper arm to support her, but she shrugged him off and grunted as if she was insulted.

The messenger took them around the dune with the trucks trundling after them at a distance, and after several hundred meters the ground evened out. To their right was the shelf of sand, looming almost 10 meters above them, and Betelgeuse was curious as to whether there was some kind of rocky outcropping supporting the whole structure.

As they continued walking for another fifty to a hundred meters, the army of Queen She was revealed. Hundreds of figures swathed in rags and brandishing melee weapons, cadaverous women that looked uncivilized and thoroughly barbarous, decked out in bone trinkets and carrying shrunken male heads hanging from their belts.

At its head was a contingent of unusually tall, masked women armed with carbines. Betelgeuse suspected that the carbines were just for show, because Desert's oxygen-deficient air made the combustion of gunpowder problematic.

Of course, unless those carbines were loaded with expensive modded projectiles.

At that moment, Edith appeared to be in the grip of a panic attack. She whimpered, clinging to Betelgeuse's vest, muttering about "danger, danger". Betelgeuse grabbed her collar and leaned in, his voice low and firm in her ear:

"Get back in the truck. Now."

Biting her lip to stifle her own protest, Edith turned and hobbled away. The rest continued on.

As they got closer, the contingent parted to reveal an imperious looking woman with another of those bizarrely perfect faces, except this one had a large mole above her lip. Her skin was albino-white, and her nose was delicate and upturned.

She sat upon a throne wrought from skulls, attended by muscular, thong-clad men who—despite their outlandish attire—appeared far healthier (and happier) than the cadaverous horde shuffling in behind them. Queen She wore a blacksteel breastplate and a transparent mask that wrapped round into opaque facets that reflected with mirror-like clarity the both sides of her face, so that her features were reflected back an infinite amount of times to those she granted an audience.

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"Doug would say it's overkill," Voke muttered under his breath, and Betelgeuse agreed.

There was very little doubt in Betelgeuse' mind that this was Queen She Who Castrates.

Caught at the nexus of several hundred screaming intentionalities, Betelgeuse clenched his jaw. There was no chance that he could take control of all of them at once.

But he could see within them. Discern the contours of obsession and mutual hatred and—

"Colonel Dog Balls is a woman," Queen She said, flashing her teeth at Misha. Some of the men around her peacocked and smiled handsomely through their transparent masks. The Queen snapped her finger and the honor-guard of women hefted her throne of skulls above the striated sands so that she could look down on the Colonel and her Zungu minions.

The messenger fell to her knees silently, then lowered her gaze to the sand. Betelgeuse felt her intentionality flare strongly—it felt like… attachment, infatuation, attraction. But to whom?

"Of course," Misha said, pointing out Betelgeuse and Voke in turn. "My second-in-command and my logistics man."

Betelgeuse bowed his head deferentially.

"Earthian men," Queen She cooed. She held out her arm, alabaster skin glowing softly under the crimson moonlight, and her manservants raised their arms above their heads to support that limb as though it were a piece of the divine. It looked so ridiculous Betelgeuse had to bite the tip of his tongue to keep from laughing out loud.

"You have… something about you, my good Colonel," Queen She continued. "Something very unlike what I was expecting. I can't quite put my finger on it."

"All we want is safe passage," Misha said, turning her visor in Betelgeuse' direction.

Betelgeuse could feel her eyes on him. Like she was looking for guidance. Stop looking at me.

By now there was no denying it. Queen She's band felt to Betelgeuse on the verge of implosion. A hidden hysteria pulsed across the sands and became infused in the light wind that blew into Betelgeuse' face. The environment was clogged with intentionality. His mind felt full to bursting.

"I'm glad to see a sister," Queen She said, her eyes straying toward Betelgeuse, her voice breaking out in mannish laughter. "Thank Ahman it's not another small-dick manmoid unequal to my breedlets."

"It's good to see a sister," Misha nodded, a little too enthusiastically. "We're en route to Gehen, and we'll really appreciate it if you let us be on our way."

'Really appreciate it?' Betelgeuse thought, feeling his blood pressure rise. What the hell was Misha saying?

"Gehen…" Queen She stiffened perceptibly. "What for? I see you have transport."

"For…" Misha turned her head in Betelgeuse' direction.

"For trade, Your Highness," Betelgeuse said.

"Your Highness. I like that. The quality of your men, dear Colonel, makes me jealous… Grokin!" Queen She barked, kicking at the head of one of the tall women holding up her throne with her metal boot. "You are to address me as Your Highness from now on!"

"Yes, my Queen," Grokin rasped. Though her mask concealed the lower half of her face, Betelgeuse could tell from her eyes that she was likely an attractive woman.

"I said, Your Highness!" Queen She shrieked, snapping her boot forward again to smash it into the back of Grokin's head with a loud thunk, causing the tall woman to collapse. Grokin's skull audibly cracked as she face-planted into the sand, her body convulsing.

Queen She's throne of skulls rocked, causing her to scream shrilly as one of her manservants—a particularly handsome and smokey-eyed individual—took the place of the collapsed Grokin. The other manservants yelped and flared to the sides.

"Oh, my darling Rafayel, don't hurt yourself!" the Queen squawked, her face turning suddenly worried, her expression reflected ghostly and crimson in the polished facets flanking her head. "Charla, get over here you stupid whore and take over Rafi!"

The messenger's name must have been Charla, for she immediately shot upright and removed the sign sticking out her back, then stumbled forward past Grokin's still body and hastily took over holding the edge of the Queen's throne, her thin body substituting the muscular manservant Rafayel.

A curious look passed between Rafayel and Charla, before the former distanced himself and took his place beside his male brethren. Charla was shorter than the other women off the Queen's guard, so that she had to tip-toe in order to even reach the edge of Queen She's throne.

An intense feeling of vertigo assailed Betelgeuse.

The women shuffling behind Queen She were a roiling mass of emotion. Many of them were clearly infatuated with Rafayel—the pureness of their intentionality was undeniable—and many of them teetered on the cusp of violence.

'This must have triggered Edith's sense,' Betelgeuse thought. Not only Rafayel—many of the women were deeply obsessed with the Queen's manservants, and almost all of them bore a mortal hatred for the Queen herself.

"I apologize, my dear," Queen She said, returning her attention to Misha and looking not at all apologetic. Charla's legs were shaking, and she wasn't going to be able to hold up the edge of the throne for long.

"It's… fine," Misha breathed, gazing at Grokin's jerking body.

"It's been so hard for us lately," the Queen continued, her red lips quivering vulnerably. "General Rabid has taken up east of here. You see, we've lost too many sisters defending Gehen from him, and just yesterday he captured one of my darlings…"

General Rabid. Rolf is here. I wasn't counting on that.

"... Oh I can't believe it!" the Queen suddenly broke out in sobs. "My darling, darling Zorro, my love, my life!"

The sobs went on some seconds. Betelgeuse had had it. Every second they spent out here wasted oxygen.

"Your Highness," Betelgeuse interjected. "You General Rabid is in the vicinity? What's he doing here?"

"Fool!" Queen She hissed, her plaintive tone curdling into fury in an instant. "You dare speak out of turn?"

Misha and Voke assumed combat stances. A bolt of compulsion—comprised of pure hysteria—lanced out from the body of Queen She, striking Betelgeuse directly but unable to twist him to her control. Betelgeuse' body tensed.

Are we fighting? Queen She's women, they're tired and close to tearing themselves apart. I don't have to compel them all, just inject enough confusion that they start to fight each other—

But the rage was gone in a split-second, to be replaced by a quiet and contemplative expression.

"Curious," Queen She said, scrutinizing Betelgeuse closely and realizing that he must have some affinity for the compulsion.

"Safe passage to Gehen, you say?"

"Yes," Betelgeuse said flatly, clasping his hands behind his back. Seeing this, Voke and Misha began to relax. "Which is why we need to know why General Rabid is in the area."

"What's there to know? I'm Gehennite myself. Most of us are," Queen She said, swinging her arm to indicate the ragged masses. "That scourge kidnaps women and raids Gehen's southern districts with unmatched rapacity. I've come to bring justice to that rabid bastard!"

"... You've fought him and lost," Betelgeuse stated.

"What audacity! Colonel, you let your manservant speak out of turn as a matter of course?" Queen She shrieked, her face contorted into black rage.

"His counsel is invaluable," Misha returned, shrugging. "Lieutenant, do you have a proposal?"

"I do," Betelgeuse said, staring straight into the Queen's dark pupils. "You should escort us to the southern districts. In return, we'll fight General Rabid with you. Strength in numbers."

Queen She licked her lips. It was difficult to tell if she was thinking about Betelgeuse' proposal or Betelgeuse himself.

"Put me down," Queen She commanded, and her honor-guard let her throne down gently upon the sand. Charla sighed with relief. Grokin hadn't stirred, and it was possible that she was dead.

Charla stepped aside, and Rafayel moved forward, slipping through the cluster of fellow manservants to hover near her.

"I want more," Queen She said, taking to her feet, keeping her gaze on Betelgeuse. It was almost like this Zungu was the leader, and not the Colonel. "You have stuff. I want stuff."

"We can spare some food and water. Maybe some fuel," Betelgeuse said. "But no oxygen."

"I want one of your trucks," Queen She said slyly. She raised her hand and one of her manservants, a man with a scruffy shin and an immaculate jaw, bowed and supported her by her hand. "And you'll need to throw in some oxygen."

Betelgeuse thought for a moment.

"You can have a truck. But we can spare no oxygen," Betelgeuse returned.

Queen She clicked her tongue irritably. To her right, Charla and Rafayel had retreated several steps. They kept in oddly close proximity.

"Rafi," Queen She called, pouting cutely. "Come and hold my other hand."

Rafayel was instantly beside the Queen, smiling and doing as she had bade him. She gestured to her right, and her two manservants led her gracefully across the sand.

Betelgeuse watched on as Queen She stepped daintily toward Charla, smiling amicably. As if struck by a sudden premonition, Charla dropped to her knees and gibbered quietly.

Without warning, Queen She kicked upward, the tip of her blacksteel boot smashing into Charla's face with incredible force and causing her brains to vomit out onto the sand. Rafayel cried out, an expression of shock and consternation flashing across his fine lineaments. Charla's lifeless body flopped sideways and quivered.

Betelgeuse felt the intentionalities around them falter and waver—the murderous resolve of Queen She's horde receding at the brutal show. They were cowed.

"Colonel, I like this one," Queen She said sensuously, turning and pointing at Betelgeuse. "Give him to me."