Gar complained as the
Shadow Squad sat in their chairs waiting for the speech to begin. “This is SO BORING!”
“It’s
only for a few more minutes,” Aaron said.
“But
it’s SO BORING!”
“Gar,
quiet down, people are looking at us.”
“I
actually agree with him,” Nax said, “this is a waste of valuable time which we
ought to be spending on our assignment today.”
“Look,”
Aaron said, “this is the Scorpionians’ ceremony of release. This is an incredibly important event. This is when a species has lived out its
sentence and is released back into the Galaxy to be allowed to make its own way
as it did before. This ceremony, and
what it represents, is a core part of what it means to be the Devine Ones’
appointed judges, what it means to be a Conduit! Now shut up and appreciate the honor of being
invited to attend such an important event.”
The
speech began: “Greetings, to both those servants of the Devine Ones here and
the Scorpionians being released by them.
Approximately one-hundred-thirty-two years ago, the Scorpionians invaded
and conquered both the home world and the single colony established by the then
young Virgonian Republic. The Scorpionians
successfully enslaved the Virgonians.
This enslavement was
intended by the Scorpionians to be permanent but, because of Conduit
intervention, lasted only about three and a half years. During this time there were four instances of
Virgonians being forced to participate in large-scale gladiator sports and
countless instances of Virgonians being forced to participate in small-scale gladiator
sports.
After the
aforementioned three and a half years, Conduit forces successfully retook both
of the previously conquered planets and returned them to the Virgonians, whom
they freed from enslavement. The
Scorpionians were charged with two counts of illicit conquest of a planet, one
count of illicit enslavement of a species, four counts of illicitly forcing
innocents into large-scale gladiator sports and over
one-thousand-two-hundred-eighty counts of forcing innocents into small-scale
gladiator sports. For these crimes, the
Scorpionian Species was sentenced to one-hundred-twenty-eight years of
enslavement to the Conduit Empire.
This sentence was
carried out in full, without noteworthy incident, and ends tonight. Once I have declared you free, you will be
released onto this planet, which we are standing on right now, the original
home-world of the Scorponians. Houses,
roads, factories, and other structures of all sorts have been built all around
the planet. Over the next five years,
you will be gradually weaned off of Conduit support, and at the same time
gradually be given access to your old colonies, except for those obtained
illicitly either in this incident or any other.
With the exception of
those forbidden to do these things for reasons not contingent upon the
continuation of the sentence ending tonight, individual Scorpionians are
permitted to move about as they please, both on their own planets and those
controlled by any other species that are willing to accept their doing so. They may enjoy all other rights free persons
not in a state of punishment are entitled to.
With that said, with
the authority granted me by Holy Ordainment and appointment unto this task, I
pronounce the Scorpionians’ sentence to one-hundred-twenty-eight years of
enslavement officially completed as of this moment.”
“Finally!” Gar said, “We can go!”
“No
we can’t, we’re staying for the party”
“AAAAAWWWWWWWW”
“Do
I need to give another speech about how important this is? Besides, this is an entire species being
released from enslavement. It’s an
occasion worth celebrating.”
*****
After
getting back on the ship, The Shadow Squad entered the showers. Mat spent over ten minutes scrubbing the dye
out of his fur. A Conduit’s fur coat was
usually completely white, but on special occasions they often decorated their
coats in colorful patterns. Kron had had
the sense to merely line his back with a few forest green stripes. Mat had colored nearly half of his coat the
same yellow shade as his armor. He still
knew he was getting it easy, though. As
soldiers, the Shadow Squad was expected to put on something simple that they
could easily wash off; in this case, a
single pigment of a type that was known to be more washable than most of the
people there had what could only be described as paintings across the entirety
of their fur.
Mat
exited the showers and put on his armor.
He met with the others in the briefing room.
“Hello
Shadow Squad,” the briefer said. “Your
mission today is not to assassinate anyone, but rather to kidnap a young
girl. Your task is to find a way into
the palace of the Universal Monarch of Humanity and kidnap his daughter,
Princess Maria. At night she will be
sleeping in her bedchamber. You must
get her, alive, and bring her back to the ship.
Once she’s here, Nax, as he requested, will be primarily responsible for
her care until she is transferred to a more secure facility. Having her as a captive will be of massive
strategic benefit. Any questions?”
Aaron
gestured in the negative.
“Good.
Then, get moving Shadow Squad.”
*****
The
Commander marched into the Monarch’s palace.
He marched into the throne room, and bowed before the monarch.
“Please,
stand,” the monarch said almost immediately.
“Thank
you, sir,” the Commander said.
“The
Palace guard has been vastly increased,” the Monarch said. “Every entrance and
exit is incredibly well guarded. You’ll
have a lot of help with this. Please,
defy your reputation and use that to your advantage.”
“Of
course,” said the Commander.
“Now
then,” said the Monarch, “they’re not expected to attack until tonight. So feel free to enjoy yourselves so long as
you’re at your posts by 1700.”
As
they walked down the hall, they split up to enjoy their brief time in the place
before five o’ Clock. John headed for
the museum of human history. Mike for the game room, Tim and Crystal for
the garden, and Molly and the Commander for the library’s section devoted to
warfare history and tactics.
In
the beautiful garden, Tim whispered toward Crystal in a voice quiet enough that
none of the cameras were likely to hear, “You know, this is pretty romantic,
the numerous colorful flowers, the peaceful little creeks, the pond over there
in the corner, and the various marble pathways.”
“Shhh,
you know it’s forbidden for soldiers to be in relationships with other
soldiers.”
“Crystal,
we’ve been at this for six months, you have been unable to play that game since
you kissed me on The Girak’s home-world”
“Yes,
but the cameras.”
“They
can’t hear us, not as quietly as we’re speaking.”
“None
the less, let’s not risk it.”
“Fine.”
“May
I ask another question though?” said Crystal.
“What?”
“What
happened?”
“What
do you mean?”
“At
the Glistening Guardian, one of the Shadows mentioned something about your
parents.”
“Oh,
that…”
“It’s
fine if you’re unwilling to talk about it.”
“No,”
Tim said “It’s just… I’ve been ashamed of it ever since, paranoid that I might
repeat--”
“You
don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“No,
I’ll explain it.” Tim took a deep breath “My parents were merchants, and on one
occasion they needed a military escort through a pirate infested region. The Commanding officer at the time wanted to
send someone else, but I convinced him I could do it. I won’t go into exactly what happened but, I
couldn’t. I failed horrifically. My parents were killed, most of the rest of
the crew enslaved, and the cargo stolen.
There were half a dozen things I should have known and been able to do
differently that could have led to a safe delivery, but I didn’t do those
things. I did what I did, and the only
person who came out unscathed, was me.”
Crystal
couldn’t think of anything to reply with.
“It’s not your fault,” she finally came up with.
“How
would you know?” Tim asked, “You weren’t
there. You didn’t see how obvious my
mistakes were. At the time I was even
thinking, ‘I should be doing this’ but I didn’t. Had I done those things, my parents would
still be alive.”
“It’s
not your fault,” Crystal said, “It’s the space pirates’.”
“I’ve
heard those words dozens of times, and they’ve always been trite and
unsatisfying. I failed to protect my
parents. The evil of the space pirates
shouldn’t have been enough. I’m a
failure, and other people are dead or enslaved as we speak because of it.”
“There
there,” was all Crystal had left.
“I’ve
had this conversation thousands of times, by the end, the person trying to
cheer me up has reduced themselves to that exact phrase. People fail, Crystal, and sometimes when they
do it really is their fault. And
innocent people suffer because of it.”
*****
John
marveled at the various historical exhibits in the museum. They began with the birth of Christ about
4300 Years ago, and worked up through the current era. There was an exhibit dedicated to each Pope
as well as many major historical events and persons. As he walked through, he noticed the dazzling
special effects as the text attached to various exhibits told the story of
Humanity. There were exhibits on World
Wars One, Two, Three, and Four. There
was one on the first interstellar space flight and Humanity’s first contact
with the Draconians in the 2300s. There
were exhibits dedicated to the falls of all of the major false religions. As the walk through the museum progressed, it
eventually came to the 3900s at which point the story of the rise of the
current monarchy began.
Like most governments,
the monarchy began as an illicit land grab.
The first Monarch of humanity rose to power by conquest. He slaughtered many in the process of gaining
control of humanity. But a single brave
hero rose up against him. This man, now
a called Saint Michael the Resister, after whom Mike was named, fought to
defeat the First Monarch’s plan. But he
failed.
When a bounty was put
on his head and it was clear that all hope of stopping this regime in the short
term was lost, he made a deal with the First Monarch: to willingly turn himself in to be executed in
exchange for two things. The first was
that his family, including his pregnant wife, be exiled, rather than killed as
they would have otherwise been. The
second was that the Church would face no government persecution of any kind.
Due to this condition,
neither the first nor second monarchs could do anything at all when the Third
converted. The Third Monarch of Humanity
was inspired by his Catholic faith to rule justly, and with particular
compassion; though it is believed that a good deal of his compassion came from
his wife, now Saint Crystal the Kind, after whom Crystal was named.
The Fourth Monarch, in
response to the demand of an increasingly converted public, made the Universal
Monarchy of Humanity an officially Catholic state. The Fifth Monarch was the first to put into
practice the extremely popular doctrine of Human Dominion. That all non-human species, including sapient
ones, were tools created by God and given to humanity to be used in almost any
way they saw fit.
The rash of conquests
that then occurred resulted in the Conduit Empire, with whom humanity had no prior
important relations sentencing Humanity to extinction and launching the
planetary attack that began the war with the Conduits, which had continued
throughout the over one-hundred years since.
*****
Molly
and the Commander both eagerly searched the shelves for books that would be
difficult to find elsewhere. They each
found their own copies of “Combat Tactics in a Space-faring Age” by Eric
Clarkson, an eighteen-hundred year old book.
They had of course, each read it from digital copies before. And much of what it said was outdated, but it
was a simply amazing experience for them to hold such a great guide to war in
their own hands. They each finished
their own copy and two other books by five o’ clock, when it was time to report
to their stations.
*****
The
Shadow Squad waited until the palace reached the dead of night before
attempting to enter. Under Kron’s cloak
they took their drop-ship down to the surface, and into the garden. Still cloaked, they grappled up the wall, and
Dany sprayed something onto it before they dropped back onto the ground.
“What
do you do when every entrance is guarded to the point that it’s not feasible to
use any of them?” Dany signaled to the rest of the squad in Sai.
“What?”
Mat signaled.
“You
make a new one,” Dany said. The wall
then exploded due to the compound that Dany had applied to it.
The
Shadows quickly grappled into the palace.
*****
Crystal,
upon hearing the explosion, ran quickly with the rest of her squad to the
hallway where it had occurred. She
looked to the left, saw the hole in the wall and then ran quickly in the direction
of Princess Maira’s room. She saw the Shadow Squad ahead of her and the
rest of the Photons following behind her.
She caught up to and tackled Aaron.
She activated a mechanism that had been added to her suit for this
mission and wormholed herself and Aaron to another planet. As she did so, the rest of the Photons did
the same. The Commander tackled Kron,
Tim tackled Mat, Mike tackled Gar, and John tackled Dany, each taking their
respective Conduit to a different planet.
Molly also tackled Nax, but he reached behind his back with his gun and
shot the device that would make a wormhole.
*****
Crystal,
still on top of Aaron from having tackled him, quickly rolled off of Aaron and
put about twenty feet of distance between them before he could recover and get
up. She looked around. There were crystals as far as the eye could
see. It was night, but the light of
seven small moons made the crystals shine around them. If she had not been in combat she would have
spent time marveling at the beauty of the scene. As it was, she drew her gun and fired at
Aaron. Aaron saw the fire coming and
managed to deflect fire with his armored forearm.
“Interesting,”
he said, “where exactly have you taken us?”
“If
I told you,” Crystal said, “you could wormhole back. As it is, you don’t know where we are
precisely. But I know we’re on a human
controlled world, whose inhabitants are mostly non-human slaves. Meaning that if I win my allies will be here
to pick me up. And if you win, they’ll
be here to capture you, and get some info from you. Maybe put you to some use while they’re at
it.” She fired several more shots, which
Aaron was able to evade by his constant motion.
“Clever,”
Aaron said, “I suppose this isn’t, say, 10483 a?”
Crystal
fired several more shots before concluding she was wasting ammo. “I’m not that stupid,” she said, “If I answered
I’d either confirm that you’re right or eliminate a possibility. You do, after all, have two-hundred-billion
stars to guess from.” That’s what she
said out loud, but Aaron was right. She
had no idea how he may have guessed it.
“No,
no, that must be it,” Aaron said, “Human slave planet, has seven moons, entire
plains made of crystal. It’s definitely
10483 a.”
Crystal
grabbed one of the jagged stones and threw it at Aaron. Aaron dodged with ease before finally
grabbing his gun and firing a stream of extremely hot discs at Crystal. The gun he was using, a Firespreader, was
standard issue for all Conduit soldiers, and carried by everyone in his squad
along with a plasma sword and a secondary weapon of some sort. It fired several extremely hot discs, of a
synthetic material, in a fully automatic fashion. The spacing between escaping discs was so
small that they had the illusion of stacking against each other when they were
fired without moving the gun from side to side or up and down, such that it was
as if one were firing a literal stream of them.
Crystal ducked to dodge
the discs and quickly shot Aaron in the hand, wounding him and causing him to
drop his gun. Aaron quickly retrieved
his gun with his other hand and fired at Crystal’s hands and feet. Once he had rendered her unable to move or
shoot, Aaron drew his Plasma sword. The
thing was held by a base, which generated plasma, and also generated a magnetic
field to contain it. Attached to this
was a blade made of a heat-resistant synthetic material with holes drilled
therein to allow some of the heat to escape.
Aaron walked toward
Crystal as she attempted to roll across the field of crystals. He caught up to her, kicked her onto the
ground, and restrained her with his legs.
He was about to decapitate her when she sent for a wormhole to the ship
that was stationed nearby just in case of such an eventuality.
Aaron, using a small,
wrist-mounted wormhole generator not large enough to send a Human or Conduit
through, sent a beacon to the Righteous
Judgment asking for a proper wormhole.
Estimating his position on the planet by the fact he was in a crystal
field and the position of the seven moons, along with a tag that could help to
pinpoint his exact location once his general one was known, he was able to get
it to generate a wormhole about two feet away.
There was no hope of
getting a drop-ship past the Anti-air around the palace without Kron’s cloaking. So, once he got back onto the Righteous Judgment Aaron could only
wait.
*****
Mat
and Tim ended up on a forest on 22495 a.
The ground below them by about one-thousand feet was flooded with
lava. Despite the lava, a forest of what
were commonly referred to as platform trees was growing beneath them, and
indeed they landed on such a thing. The
things were typically about one-thousand feet tall. And, rather than having leaves, had no
branches until the very top where there were two large structures strong enough
to effortlessly support a human’s weight, and that performed photosynthesis. The trees didn’t need much water and their
trunks were made of a substance that could survive lava flows for extended
periods of time.
Tim
wasted no time. He quickly drew his
knife and went to stab down on Mat. Mat
elbowed him in the side, causing him to reel back long enough for Mat to get
out from under him. Mat quickly hopped from platform to platform
until he was about thirty feet away from Tim.
As Tim pursued, Mat drew his firespreader and fired it at Tim, sweeping
it from side to side to make it more difficult to dodge. Tim ducked under the spray. Mat responded by firing again, this time moving
side to side and up and down. Tim
quickly raced to another platform, but was unable to avoid several discs which
pierced through his armor and burned his back.
“Why
is it I constantly defeat you when we encounter one another?” asked Mat.
“We’ve
faced off once,” Tim said, getting back up despite his wounds. “I was
destroying you until I was distracted by an explosion.”
“Perhaps
that isn’t a sufficient sample size,” said Mat drawing his sword. “I guess
we’ll have to repeat the previous results here.”
“This
is coming from the guy who tried to pin me without restraining my arms in our
last encounter,” Tim said, drawing his own gun.
“Like
you just did seconds ago?” asked Mat, as he hopped from platform to platform
towards Tim.
“Perhaps
I made a mistake,” said Tim, “but you’re clearly afraid of me. In fact, I think your fur is turning
yellow.” Tim drew his own weapon, a
standard issue simi-automatic rifle, and fired at Mat’s head. Conduits were typically hard to hit as they
moved about in random zigzags. When they
had no need for their arms, they were known to do this on all fours, at which
point they could scurry upwards of twenty-five miles per hour.
“This
is actually from a party I attended this morning,” Mat said, racing toward Tim.
“It was the Scorpionians’ ceremony of release.
Unlike you, when we enslave a species we do it for a valid reason and
release them once their sentence is done.
And to think you claim to be in the right.”
“Indeed,
the entire Scorpionian population, including its abolitionists, deserved what
was coming.”
“We
consider that,” Mat said, “the public opposition to the offense was deemed
negligible.” He finally reached Tim and
slashed at him with his sword. Tim
rolled out of the way and shot Mat in the foot.
Tim stepped back and aimed his gun a Mat’s head. Mat threw his sword at Tim. Tim ducked and caught its handle.
“Thanks
for this,” he said, “I’m sure we’ll find a use for it later.” Tim drew his gun to fire at Mat. Mat couldn’t roll away, because if he rolled
off of this platform, he would fall into the lava below. Mat pulled out an energy shield from his belt,
activated it, and hid under it.
“You
can’t hide under there forever,” Tim said.
Tim called for a ship to come pick them up. It appeared overhead. As Tim turned around to signal their exact
location Mat looked closely and took note of the serial number. He searched his database. It was a slave control ship. Conduits almost
never attacked slave planets, so it was not that surprising the humans had been
negligent enough to allow the Conduits to hack into the relevant database and
know what planet it was stationed at.
They were on 22495 a.
Mat
sent in for a wormhole. He was able to
get one, so close he would merely have to roll off of his platform. He drew his gun, and quickly deactivated his
shield. He shot Tim in the back of the
knee and rolled into the wormhole before he could recover.
Tim
was also wormholed up to the ship, and back onto Domination, also too injured to be of any help back on the ground.
*****
John
felt the cold air against his back.
“What were they
thinking?” he thought. They’d dropped
him off on 290485 e, a notoriously cold planet.
In an ice cave no less! While he
was freezing to death from being dressed for the mid-spring temperate climate
of the palace, Dany, or any other conduit, would be nice and warm due to his
fur.
He quickly rolled off
of Dany and drew his gun. As he tried to
get up, he felt himself falling back onto the ice. It was too slippery. He settled for shooting Dany while sliding
backward. He then understood why this
location might be chosen. Dany was as
helpless to move on the ice as he was, taking away the biggest advantage a
conduit had, speed.
The bullet hit
Dany. John quickly fired several more
times until he remembered his knife.
After shooting Dany ruthlessly in the feet and legs, John pushed against
the cave wall he was by then laying against, and slid toward Dany, who was
immobilized, but not unconscious.
Quickly, Dany pulled out his backup weapon, a grenade launcher, and
fired. John was forced back across the
ice by the explosion which hit nearby.
“Ha,
missed,” John said.
“No
I didn’t,” Dany said.
John
looked behind him to see the hole in the ice he was headed towards. He did not know what was at the bottom. He tried, in vain, to stop. He went to take a few more shots at Dany
hoping at least to take the conduit with him.
But Dany took another shot with the grenade launcher, this time blowing
off John’s hand and accelerating him back faster. John called for a wormhole. There was no reception in the cave. He was back to wondering who could possibly
think putting them here was a good idea.
John continued frantically calling again and again until he finally made
a connection. He requested a wormhole.
“My
hand has been blown off!” he shouted. He
was wormholed back up onto the ship above him and then onto Domination.
Dany
was in a pickle. He was full of bullets,
and on some human controlled planet, but which one he was on was a
mystery. He almost lost hope but then it
occurred to him, “they wouldn’t really let me die. Too much would be gained from my capture and
interrogation.” So he was perfectly free
to just wait.
After a few minutes, a
squad of six soldiers came in. Dany
quickly grabbed his firespreader and shot one.
The others drew tranquilizers. He
shot four of the others. He pulled out
his grenade launcher and fired between the last one’s legs. The explosion behind the human made him lose
his balance and slide forward. Dany
grabbed the human once he reached him.
He drew his sword as he held it up to his neck.
“Where
are we?” he asked.
The
human didn’t respond.
“Where
are we” Dany repeated.
The
human just struggled and begged.
It
occurred to Dany that this human may not understand him. He got out his multi-lingual keypad and set
it to translate his speech into written English. He repeated his question, “Where are we?”
“290485
e” the soldier said.
“Where
exactly on it?” Dany asked.
The
soldier gave him coordinates.
“Good
little human,” Dany said.
Dany
sent for a wormhole, he received one.
Before going through, he warned ahead about the human, who was placed in
the brig to be interrogated later.
*****
Mike
quickly rolled off of Gar, stood up, and observed his surroundings. He was in some kind of boiler room. It was extremely hot. These conditions were unpleasant for him, but
would be miserable for a conduit. He saw
Gar bolt away from the furnace in the center of the room towards the cooler
edges.
Mike quickly hid behind
one of the tanks of water for cover.
Mike poked his head out of cover, and was met with fire from Gar’s weapon. He was able to duck back in time, but Gar’s
shot hit and burst a pipe behind Mike, causing it to begin spewing hot boiling
water. Mike was forced to leave cover as
the water pooled on the floor. He ran
behind another boiler. Gar refrained
from shooting this time.
Eventually Mike was
forced to hide behind the furnace in the center of the room. Gar shot the furnace causing it to rupture
and stopping the heating of the water.
Now that the temperature was slowly going down, Mike was slowly losing his
most important advantage. Mike drew his
weapon and ran toward Gar, attempting to dodge fire as he hit him. Gar fired a spray or Firespreader rounds,
which Mike ducked under. Each round went
behind Mike and hit the pipes and tanks, speeding up the flooding process with
the now merely warm water.
*****
The
Commander and Kron were in a blazing desert, of just the sort that would
disadvantage the furry conduits. One
could taste the sandy thirst that enthralled the desolate place. They landed near a large amount of wreckage,
which the Commander knew very well and could navigate easily as he used it for
cover. This was all according to his
design, of course.
The Commander ran away
from Kron and made a dash for the cover. He did not know what Kron was capable of, or
what the limits to his power were. He
knew that he could turn things invisible, and surveillance tapes from the
Glistening Guardian had made him suspect that he was also the reason that the
base’s wall had been tossed so far with such ease; as though he could lift
extraordinary weights. The Commander was
not sure what else he was capable of, thus, he ran to cover before the conduit
was able to get up.
Surprisingly,
the conduit did nothing but look around confused. The Commander realized that the conduit did
not know what had just happened. Judging
by Kron’s body language, the conduit had figured out within a few minutes that
he had been sent to another place, though he knew not where. Gun drawn, Kron headed toward the wreckage,
but then stopped.
The
Commander wondered why, but soon got his answer as he saw some of the wreckage
lift in response to Kron’s hand motion.
This was a lighter piece of wreckage, but the Commander did not know if
that was needed for him to be able to lift it.
As a few more pieces of wreckage were lifted, some after the conduit
briefly touched them, the Commander began running farther back into the
wreckage. He drew his gun, knowing that
he would need to kill the conduit fast.
He fired a shot from his grenade launcher. Just before hitting the conduit, the shot was
sent back at him and he was barely able to get away it time. Cover near him suddenly started flying about. The Commander ran, but the cover continued to
disappear.
*****
As
the water filled the room it occurred to Gar that either Mike, or someone else,
probably knew a way out. In order to
force Mike’s hand, Gar shot as many more pipes and tanks as he could until the
water was rising by about one foot every thirty seconds. This worked, as Mike signaled for a hatch on
the roof to be opened. Gar followed him
out into the facility above, as did the rising water, now lukewarm.
The facility seemed
abandoned, but its name, part of which was the name of the Planet, was painted
on the walls at regular intervals. Mike
ran down the hall toward the stairwell.
Gar shot more pipes, some of which were along the tops of the walls, to
keep the rate of the water’s rise growing.
Gar followed Mike up the stairs.
Mike didn’t dare turn around to shoot back. Once he got to the top of the stairwell, Mike
attempted to seal the door, but Gar burst through, knocking Mike down. Gar took this opportunity to disarm Mike
while he was down, but then let him go so he would lead him out.
Gar continued to pursue
Mike up stairwells, shooting pipes along the way. Eventually the two reached the ground floor,
the rest having been below ground, and exited the facility. There was a crowd of humans waiting outside
to capture Gar.
Gar carefully sealed
the door behind them. He welded the door shut with his firespreader and
waited. Mike tried to warn the others of
the water. But before he could, the
water had filled the building, and the pressure from the water burst through
the door, washing them all away. In the
Chaos, Gar was able to get to a dry place, summon a wormhole, and get back onto
the ship, with only the water that was clinging to his fur coming through.
*****
Kron
knew there was a human somewhere in this wreckage, and it was just a matter of
clearing away the cover. As he did so,
he eventually caught a glimpse of the human as it ran. He now knew where it was, and moved on to the
position, clearing away the nearby cover.
Kron had his firespreader drawn, but in fact planned to rip the water
out of the human and drink it in case he had to survive in this desert for a
while. He had worked out that he had
been wormholed to another planet, though not which one.
As
he contemplated, Kron realized that he needed to prioritize escape over killing
the human. As a result, he looked around
for some indication of where he was. He
found it on the wreckage, a planet name, 23987 a.
Looking
it up in his database, he was actually able to find the coordinates of this
wreckage. He was now in a position to
wormhole out, but decided to kill the human first. He cleared away as much of the cover as he
could before he saw the human enter the main body of the wreckage. Kron placed some of the wreckage over the
entrance and welded it shut, then spread out the sand below the wreckage,
slowly enough that it didn’t free-fall and kill the human. Once it was in a hole deep enough to bury it
well underground, Kron did just that. He
then summoned a wormhole and left, returning to the Righteous Judgment.
*****
Back
at the palace, Nax kept his mind on his mission. He threw Molly off of him and began running
toward the princess. The explosion had
awoken her. Molly was shooting at Nax,
but to no avail due to the pattern in which that Nax moved. Molly finally got out a knife and threw it at
Nax, piercing his skin and causing his blood to leak out. Nax continued running. All he needed to do was get to the princess’
room. He was starting to encounter a few
additional guards, but he was easily able to pick them off.
He
was intrigued by the fact that Molly had made no attempt to taunt him. He supposed she was merely focused; this was
one of her species’ children after all.
He supposed he should be too, but perhaps a distracted enemy is worth
the cost of a distracted self. Between
that and how much fun it would be, he decided to give into the temptation and
taunt.
“You
shouldn’t feel bad,” he said, “it’s not like we’re going to kill her. Yet.”
There
was no response. He couldn’t risk
turning to look if he has provoked a facial expression. All he could do was carry on.
“I’m
the one who her care has been entrusted to, and I’m under strict orders not to
kill her. But I promise you this, I’ll
make her hate that rule even more than I do.”
This
evoked a one-word insult, but not much more.
Nax was getting close to the room and was running more than fast enough
to ensure that no human could ever hope to catch up. Finally, he reached the room. He saw the little girl in her bed,
screaming. Molly was still running in,
but all Nax had to do was activate a wormhole and take Maria onto the Righteous Judgment, and that is
exactly what he did.
“Nice
talking to you!” he shouted at Molly as the wormhole close behind him,
clutching the struggling little girl in hand.
Molly
went back onto Domination, feeling
defeated.
*****
“Where
do you want her?” Nax asked, ignoring the child’s kicking and screaming as the Righteous Judgment exited the
proximity of the palace, and the human home-world on which it was located.
Aaron
turned to a nearby member of the ship’s crew. “Put her in cell 8, Nax will, as
he requested, be responsible for her care.”
“Yes,
sir,” the crew member said.
“Alright
then,” Aaron said, “I think it’s time we ate a well-earned dinner. Nax, you will be feeding the girl afterwards,
okay?”
“Okay,”
Nax said.
*****
Molly
would normally be punished for failure, but not today, because the Commander
was not there. And by the time he would be,
he’d probably not have that on his mind.
Molly always got special treatment of course. The Commander had always favored her. She knew not why, though she suspected lust. If this was the case, the feelings were not
mutual. Molly may have been in her late
twenties but the Commander was well into his forties. She had higher standards than that for a
lover, though not for a pawn, and she had always seen her friendship with him
pay off.
Right
now, she had to get her mind off of this failure. It was in some ways fortunate that the
Commander was not available to be berated by the Monarch since he had the
potential to, in his rage, cut the funding of the squad. That may not sound ominous, but it would
spell death. Without money, most groups,
organizations, and persons are rendered largely ineffectual. A cut to funding corresponding to the failure
to protect the Monarch’s own daughter, given while he was feeling all of the
emotional turmoil of the situation no less, would be a disaster.
Molly
wasn’t doing much to help free the Commander from the sand. Of course she wasn’t, she was a soldier. That was the job of crew members managing
packs of slaves to do the manual labor.
Speaking of slaves, she
headed into her quarters and sat down.
Reflexively the slave meant to be her personal assistant, a member of
some obscure Chihuahua-like race they had conquered before it had gone into
space, began massaging her shoulder.
“Harder and to the left,”
Molly said.
The slave obeyed.
“Yes, like that,” she
said.
Indeed, all she had to
do was sit back and wait, they’d be done by well into the next day, meaning
that the Shadows would have a head-start on their mission. But it was of the sort that would take a
while for them, so that didn’t matter too much.
*****
Nax waited about thirty
minutes after the little girl had eaten to collect her plate. It might seem strange for a soldier to accept
such a venial task as caring for a prisoner, even for the short time that she
was in transport to a more adequate facility.
However, Nax had made all of the arrangements. He would be overseeing how she was treated
there, too, and without anyone except his contacts knowing. She cowered in the corner as he came into the
room.
“You know, I made a
promise to someone,” he said. “You see, they won’t let me kill you. I see why. You are worth an awful lot, but I still wish
I could have the satisfaction.
Nonetheless, my promise was this; I would make you hate that rule as
much as I do.” He pulled a strange device from his pocket. “And that is a
promise I intend to keep.”
