A Song and Ale

by M E Wolf

  EPILOGUE ONE

  Brigaat was a commander of the Nemish fleet on the planet Nem. The Nemish fleet contained mainly airborne units that could reach multiples of the speed of light. Although some carriers contained smaller one man flying units, ground troops and some machines built to travel upon the land and the sea. He had worked his way up through the ranks during his last ten thousand years of military service, his first years of service were spent in the ground units.

  All Nemish prided themselves on their advancements in technology, Brigaat was especially proud because he had a hand in inventing a fair amount of that technology. With the invention of technology came the burden of using it. Long debates regarding the use of new technology were held at the best auditoriums, but those meant nothing when the patriarch had the final say. Most things that were invented for a certain purpose never had that purpose fulfilled, like the timer for a heart used to set off a bomb or something as simple as the sprinklers in the backyard or the runway lights of your driveway.

  Everything that Brigaat knew or saw was linked to some sort of machine, himself included. After all, everyone alive was a Mechanaar from birth. Without the machine side of himself he and the rest of his men could not and would not travel at the speed of light or faster. It had something to do with the body or mind not handling the steps to go the distance. When they do travel the human side or what is left of it, goes into stasis till reformation once the traveling is complete. Today was like any other day, but for the fact that he had to see the patriarch.

  Only one other time he had met him, it had been a few weeks before he was to become the patriarch. That was more than three hundred years ago when society was so different from what it was right now. The new patriarch had instituted laws that not only affected the poor as it was for so many patriarchs before him, but also affected all other classes of society. Brigaat, who was in titanium grade hand and leg irons at the moment, feared the worst. These new laws made him accountable for more than a million actions and commands that he had done or had people under his command do in his past ten thousand years of service, each of those charges were punishable by death or exile.

  In front of him was an old print of Vangoe from the renaissance era, an era where most of his alleged crimes were committed. It was a painting of a small town where he happened to grow up or at least it was similar to where he had grown up. He did not like the painting, just like he did not like the stone bench he now sat on. Two guards, one on either side of him, looked more like they were made out of stone than the bench. They each had a bolt action eight-oh-six erect with a semi-auto nine-millimetre handgun in a holster just out of reach as his hand and leg irons were bolted to the floor.

  Brigaat was still groggy from being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. He did not even have time to take his boosters, which would have allowed him to snap the titanium irons as though they were twigs. Normally Brigaat would have been allowed to get into his dress uniform, but not this time. With only his pajamas under a heavy cotton robe he feared that he would not get a fair trial. Without knowing exactly what he was being charged with made this hearing with the patriarch even worse. While Brigaat waited to be called into the conference room of the Patriarch, the patriarch and the dignitaries that were analyzing Brigaat’s case files were discussing and going over every accusation against him.

  The patriarch was tired. Him and various dignitaries were discussing the records of General Brigaat, a highly decorated member of military staff whom was also well known for his scientific discoveries, for the last three days. Just as they thought that their discussions were coming to an end a stack of documents were found lying in a corner. They had already called the general down to the conference room and they knew that he had been waiting outside for the last ten hours.

  At the start of all of the inquisitions that he had started up he did not realize that so many prominent citizens would be caught up in it and the general was the worst of them. It would be hard for the general to beat over one million charges against him. Each and every one would exile him or put him on death row. The armies and air forces respected him or used to respect him. Some still would, but how many was uncertain. Even the patriarch was uncertain of how he felt about Brigaat.

  One thing that the patriarch was certain about was that the four men and two women in the room with him were against the general in every way possible. Most of the facts were laid out on the long meeting table before him and each accusation was recorded and documented into a state program written for the purpose of tracking events and the program was loaded in the notebook computer in front of him.

  Each case would have to be verified with the general’s testimony of each case against him. It was understood to take time for each case. Days, maybe months would go by before any of it was fully resolved. Finally after long deliberation, it was time to call General Brigaat in for his testimony. Brigaat was tired from having to wait so long. He was not even offered something to drink.

  EPILOGUE TWO

  Feeling like he was crawling in the trenches in the first war that he was ever in did not help as the guards unbolted his irons from the concrete floor. They roughly hurried him into the conference room and sat him in a chair across from the patriarch, who was sitting at the head of the table. Everyone in the room, but the patriarch, glared at him as he came in and sat amongst them. Most of his accusers were very young including the patriarch with one exception, Admiral Maria Gonzalez, who was in most of his military sessions over the last ten thousand years.

  It felt odd that someone that he had grown up with would be against him. Each one had a number of case files in front of them and the patriarch had a notebook computer in front of himself. A pile of papers was shoved in front of Brigaat. Brigaat thought to himself that they should have given him the pile of papers while he was outside waiting to be present for this hearing because he had no time even to look at the first page when the patriarch started to speak.

  “Everyone here, I am sure, is familiar with you general, but I don’t think that you have met any of these six prosecutors set up by the state to review and prosecute your case.

  “On my immediate right is Dr. Richard Johnson, next to him is Lt. General Frederick Islov and next to him is Admiral Maria Gonzalez. On my immediate left is Dr. Sarah Holmes, next to her is Dr. Harry Smith and finally next to him is Admiral John McAllister.

  “Each accuser will bring up their cases against you and refer you to a page on the document in front of you and you will explain your actions as each case is brought up. Admiral Gonzalez will start us off.”

  The patriarch could see that the general, General Brigaat, was looking into Admiral Gonzalez’s eyes. He was not aware that they had known each other, which was evident by her reaction and how she stared at the general. He hoped that she would still conduct her part in the hearing with her usual professionalism. The general and admiral both saw him looking in their direction and the admiral cleared her throat with a cough. She opened up one of the many files in front of her and began reading it and addressing the general.

  “General Brigaat, the first case has to do with a routine operation that took place more than seven thousand years ago. You were stationed in Base 97650 near the star nicknamed Nebula 505.

  “It says here in this file that you disobeyed a direct order to observe the enemy formations and await further orders whether they were in fact the enemy or just some friendlies.

  “General, you did not wait for a confirmation on their hostility status and opened fire later to find out that they were civilians. I think what we are all getting at here is that you have been involved in genocide to the extreme.

  “More than one thousand civilizations were annihilated, including our greatest ally, the Fenshians. Please, can you tell me . . . us why you would do this?”

  Each and every accuser said their bits and added more and more genocide to General Brigaat’s list of crimes totaling the civilizations lost at a staggering fifty milli
on, which happened to total the fatalities at three trillion men, women and children of various species and races. It was time for him to speak up for his actions and his commands. He realized then that the people that he had done these things for had become sheep. Things like these are what made his life sad.

  They wanted the whole story, so he might as well give them all one. Brigaat stood up to his full height snapping the chain that linked the hand irons, and leg irons while the irons still remained intact. The sound of chain links being ripped apart alerted the guards outside of the conference room. Both of them came in with rifles leveled on Brigaat. Rifles were always meant for killing your target from afar, the closer the target became the less effective the rifle was.

  The guards did not have as much experience as Brigaat and had underestimated his strength, intelligence and ingenuity. In one quick motion Brigaat strained at the hand irons enough to break the locking mechanism and disarmed the closest guard of his rifle striking a fatal blow with the butt of the rifle to his right temple. He barely got out of the way of the muzzle of the other guard’s rifle barrel as it was fired in his direction. The bullet passed through the notebook computer screen and into the patriarch. Brigaat was not sure where the bullet entered into the patriarch, but from his angle it did not look good.

  He was close enough to grab the dead guard’s semi-auto nine millimeter handgun, which he used to kill the other guard with. It was a headshot considering the man was covered in Kevlar, the kind of bullet-proof armour you may mistake as cloth. Brigaat got into this Kevlar armour and strapped both gun belts crosswise over each shoulder. Killing his accusers was easy, all except Admiral Maria Gonzalez. Her, he had to ask some questions after he checked on the patriarch.

  Going over to the patriarch, he noticed the grapefruit sized entry wound that had been made by the assault rifle’s discharge and wondered what it would have done to himself at close range. The patriarch’s eyes were glazed over and he obviously had died when the bullet had made the hole through his chest and the wall behind him, which he could see the streets below through. Obviously, this would alert more guards and it also meant that a new patriarch would have to be chosen and this could mean that he would be facing the same charges that had brought him to this mess in the first place.

  This left him with only one choice of action and that was to become patriarch himself. It was unfortunate that those already dead in this conference room would have to be brought up on charges of treason and heresy. Now, he wondered what he would do to Admiral Maria Gonzalez because her new role was not quite apparent.

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  Here is a Sample Chapter of the third book in this series.

  SAMPLE CHAPTER OF: Tears for What is Lost: Book 3 of The Immortals of Scar

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Kalima felt the earth and sea of Sevle half done. She knocked over Daren’s table as she ran to Desiree’s cabin and opened the book that she was looking for to page three thousand and eight. Grabbing random materials from around the room with the door wide open, she threw them on the brazier. Kalima had no time to worry about the fact that Daren followed her and became a part of her incantation.

  A whirlwind of emotions swept her and Daren up together in an ecstasy of pleasure and pain. An eruption of shear pleasure went off in both of their brains and it was hard to focus on what she was suppose to do. Her and Daren Reese were taken from Sevle one moment before its total destruction and sent who knows where. Kalima felt sore all over like she made love to Daren non stop for an eternity.

  It was not suppose to happen that way and she was not sure of what did really happen. All of the books and objects were absorbed by her. Where did Daren Reese go she did not know? Everything that was her was not even ten to the negative sixty seven nano meters and thus no one that ever existed could find her within where she was. Where was she, was her thought and her senses screamed at her as she found that she was within one of the eggs of an unborn female child? To her this seemed to be an impossibility that all of her essence and the essences of all that she had consumed was within the egg.

  She had no form, but knew that the jewelry that made her immortal was part of her and thus she would always be immortal and still be able to have children of her own. Her mind reeled at the pain that she felt as the child whom would one day be her mother was about to be born. A winter chill crept through the log cabin walls sending a shiver down Nishontai's spine.

  Her belly was swollen and she only just made it to this abandoned one room cabin that was cold even when she had put logs in the pot-bellied wood stove and set them ablaze. Nishontai lay on a hastily dusted cot with moth eaten, moss grown and mildewed sheets. Cobwebs intricately woven from ceiling to floor in a spiral pattern separated the room with a fog of silk. The cot, wood stove and dry rotted door were on one side while the cupboards and table with two chairs missing one and two legs were on the other side. Her feet were black with frostbite and she could not feel her feet anymore.

  Gripped in agony with her hands locked onto two of the wooden bars, she screamed. A wolf howled and a baby cried. Kalima sensed that her mother was born, but the howl of the wolf kind of scared even her. Who was the father of her mother, she did not know. One thing that she did know was that both mother and father of this child was and is Navaho through and through. Martin, a trapper by trade, heard the screams. He was not the father, but he was better than the hungry pack of wolves that were circling the cabin. Drawn to it by the smell of the mother’s blood as her life drained from her they would not leave any time soon. Martin wrapped the baby in a deer skin blanket, got on his horse and headed for the hills with the baby as the wolves were occupied in the eating of Nishontai.

  Upon arriving at the abode of the greater chief of the Navaho, Chief Adolf Neshanto, he presented the child to him. The girl child was received with joy and great adulation, but also with grief as the mother could not have been saved. Kalima felt her mother grow in age and wisdom as the years passed by. The egg that she was in was chosen when her mother conceived with some Russian guy of Romanov descent.

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