Merker's Outpost

by I. Christie

Decker was being too cocky. Alan knew when he was too sure of himself, the man was hip deep in chicken shit, and Alan hated chickens.

  When Decker hung up, Alan sat in his chair to think. It would be useless to throw his little figures for they only made sense when he was not on his meds. He checked his scanners impatiently looking for the channeler's ship. Nothing. He looked at his timer. Not for another standard hour. He had got here early as the channeler requested. More than likely to make sure Alan was not going to set a trap around him. Why would he? He had the man's family hidden away.

  "Spinner's Tale, this is Alan Fermin on the Rouster, come in."

  "Spinner. This is Martinez, Alan. Come on in."

  "What's going on Martinez?"

  Alan got an earful, which had him pacing his small cabin again. He also talked to Captain Miller being interrupted as he tried to enforce his will on the man. He had problems buying Miller and not just because he was Lord Chaney's man, but also because he was a Spartan…a Black Rose Spartan. Not even his metrasoldiers could better the Black Rose troop. Killing them off like Lord Chaney did the Degas troop he had already found out…was not possible without him losing his own life before the plan was even put into effect. He had already received his warning. Too many exBlack Rose soldiers would carry out the order willingly…to exile him on a planet that was not inhabited by an intelligent species. He began to panic at the thought of being closed in…nowhere was safe in Committee space. Collective space was out of the question…they would send him to a rehab center. It was not like the Weild prison world where inmates were as dangerous as the planet. It would be worse because they would kill him with kindness, making sure he was on his meds and taking care of himself. It terrified him at the thought to never be able to have a mad moment and to be watched all the time.

  Frantically Alan pulled out a book that he kept hidden for disasters, fumbling with it until his shaking hands grasped the book firmer. Things were not looking good. He had slowly built up his own army. They were from quality warrior stock 'procured' from closed planets that still practiced brutal warfare. They were his muscle to carve out an empire on a planet that was so far away, it would take a little over a year to get there on the fastest ship money could buy…except if you traveled in a portal. His expeditionary forces found that there was a portal on his planet that connected to Merker's Outpost. He had never heard of a portal until then. Since neither he nor any of his agents could use it, the connection had to be terminated. Thinking of his planet, safe and away from the over explored galaxies, calmed him. He just had a few things to do before he could leave.

  He looked back at the meaningless writing in his book. He turned the page to a diagram. That he could understand. It showed how his army was divided into four groups. A fingertip touched the first circle. That was his first group that was preparing an assault on HinterWield. He moved his finger to the second circle. That group was in sleep stasis hidden on Merker's Outpost. He tapped the third circle. They were testing the defenses of the guardian computer on the outpost while the last and largest, was waiting for him on his planet, Arnica. Perhaps it was time for a slight adjustment to his plans.

  "What do you want Fermin?" a weary voice came over his ship's intercom.

  Alan jumped, dropping his book on the deck. A smile appeared on his face.

  "I want to make sure you do as we have agreed upon."

  "I don't back out on deals I close."

  "So I've heard. However, I like to take out insurance. Am I understood?"

  "You are."

  Alan cut the communication. He had made sure the channeler got the message that his family was missing, as he was halfway to their meeting place. Alan rubbed his hands together. "Let the games begin." He smiled gleefully and then frowned. "If you are dead Lady Harriet Montran, have no fear. I have a remedy for that. I own you!" He slammed his palm down on the hard surface of the console, letting the sting of the surface pass before moving onto his next plan.

  "Computer on for coded communication."

  "On," the voice told him.

  "To Santeeies aboard the Shadow Fox. There's a change in plan. Move to plan Sigma." He thought again about the plan before ending the message. It would leave one ship at HinterWield to assist the four prisoners he originally wanted free, to join him on Arnica. The other ships would be deployed to the seven planets his agents told him also had portals. If one was destabilized, one of his agents had told him the others would also be. "Find the portals and destroy them. Send."

  He smiled. He was going to go out of this planet system with a very big bang. He reprogrammed his ship to head for MageWield. His codebook to release the soldiers he had on Merker's Outpost and the coordinates for his next destination were hidden there. He did not like to keep all his plan books in one place.

  He was a day from MageWield when in his idle time, he scanned the news channels. He was brought to his feet while watching a rebroadcast of the major scandal that shook Committee space. According to the newscaster, it forced a major reorganization to the elected galaxy group, the GCFC. The very thing that had been whispered for over ten generations had finally come about.

  As he scanned the other channels, he found the same news adnauseum, with two exceptions…one was that Gustaf Fermin, one of the wealthy heads of family, had died from a heart attack in his swimming pool and his oldest son was wanted for banishment. The other was that Lord Chaney's death brought out heirs claiming a piece of his vast estate. As pictures of the various claimants flashed across the screen, interspersed with the non-grieving widow and his angry daughter, Lady Varina Chaney, who was making accusations against the claimants and their legitimacy, Alan ceased to listen as he fell back into his seat. His bios rose and as they teetered toward danger to his health, the medibot became activated and administered a sedative to the unresisting patient.

  ***

  Alan spent a few days making sure it was safe for him to land on MageWield to secure his book. Due to the restructuring of the Committee, activities by various cartels that operated outside of the law thought to take advantage of what they thought would be slow response from law enforcement. So finding him was not their priority, or so he thought. But to make up for it, the Committee had exposed to the public, via the news media, not just his father's illegal businesses under the Fermin name, but his crimes against the society that had granted him a stay of banishment a little over nine stan years ago. Therefore, he had to use his hidden accounts and credits as he moved on with his plans.

  Hours before he arrived at MageWield, he received more bad news. One of the guards he had left to watch over the channeler's family reported that their prisoners had disappeared. While he was shouting at the soldier, the intruder alarm went off on his control panel. He hit the scan but nothing showed up. Wiping the back of his hand across the scraggily beard, Alan paused to take stalk of the situation.

  "Why did the alarm go off?" he muttered confused. Aggressively he punched in the key combination for system diagnostics and while it ran, he paced in the small space in the cockpit. His thoughts filled with fear that it was the ghost of his recently deceased father. He shouted in rage, pulling at his beard and long hair in agitation. He would have to leave his plan book.

  Suddenly smiling he remembered he had everything under control. He had a back up plan. He stopped at a small waystation, where he kept his new ship, The Trojan Horse. He sent his personal ship, The Rouster, on a preplanned evasive flight. Once he was safe in his new ship, he was able to focus again on his plans: capturing Lady Harriet Montran and then escaping out to the frontier, to Arnica. Just knowing what his future was going to be gave him a feeling of peace.

  Chapter 29

  "Major."

  Both Alexandra and Zohra looked up from the map they were studying with some of the unit leaders. Major General Aglauros was off planet in a conference with Rear Admiral JoCastao, Commander Ironsides, Admiral J'mai and a monk from Bea.

  "This came in from Commander Mora. A confirmatio
n of Naboths Vine's suspicions of Alan's movements in another sector in another galaxy."

  Zohra took the hand held message unit and laid it on the table so everyone around could read it.

  Goddess! How far is his sickness going to reach and infect others? Alexandra looked up at the profile of her lover, worried.

  Dark eyes looked into hers, as if knowing what she was thinking.

  "He has landed five regiments of metrasoldiers on a planet out that far?" Lt. Malchi asked unbelievingly. "That was labeled off limits for settling since it is already inhabited by various civilizations that are still developing their technology."

  "Just his type of place," Major Zohra mumbled as she returned her attention to the data unit. We're going to have to end his reign of terrorism here, on Merkers. "I wish I knew where he redirected his troops from HinterWield. I guess he decided to let go of the plan for a mass prison escape."

  "That's a relief," one of the officers muttered.

  "Ten ships have been intercepted and Naboths Vine has a group of seasoned soldiers encircling them."

  "A battle is planned?" Alexandra's asked softly. What if they get through as they did the other times?

  "That is the way of metrasoldiers. They are programmed killers. They will also kill themselves to avoid capture," the major answered. Death is their only way out of this servitude, Love. I wish for your sake that there was another.

  "That first message is probably from an investigation launched about one stan year ago by Naboths Vine. They had sent a battle cruiser out towards this planet in the frontier space, to see just what he's been doing out there." One of the others added. "Hopefully they don't have too much damage to undo."

  "I hope they realize that Alan will have set traps along the way that only he knows the passwords to," Alexandra forewarned. It's like he's everywhere. This will have to be brought to an end…but how, without perpetuating this practice of killing to avoid more killing?

  "Alan Fermin has been studied by Naboths Vine for a long time. If they have learned anything else, it's not to trust him," one of the others nodded.

  "The Vine has figured out how Alan's group has been slipping by them and now with that trick no longer working, they are in the process of herding his metrasoldiers here." A finger pointed at a place on the map where there were no jump gates to destabilize and no nearby planets they could crash land on and disappear into the wilderness or mass populace. "Then they will engage them in battle. It is regrettable to lose so many lives when they don't have a choice in their destiny," Lt. Hai remarked.

  Death, to all those that had not chosen to be drawn into his madness. Will this really help? Am I putting more of those I love and those that I don't know in jeopardy by just being here? Maybe it would be better if I were on a ship out in space instead of on this living planet, endangering everyone. Would Alan go after the portal if I left?

  Major Zohra could feel uneasiness in her lover's body. It seemed the more they were around each other, the easier it was to pick up on each other's mood shifts. She guessed it had to do with both her genetic makeup and Alexandra's empathic side. What a pair, she thought.

  Looking up at the others, the Major suddenly realized she was tired and by the looks of the other women, they were too.

  "Let's call this meeting to an end." She turned to one of the serving women who were refilling water goblets, "D'ea, can you get the commander and me something light to eat from the kitchen that we can take back to our quarters?"

  "And Cha tea," Alexandra added quickly.

  The two women left the hall with their dinner and a hot pot of tea…alone…after much discussion with the women who wanted to carry their food and drink back to their quarters for them. The halls were busy with activity as shamans and soldiers moved at all hours on business that never seemed to end.

  After the door closed behind them, Alexandra laid what she carried on the table turned to Zohra who laid her burdens down.

  Hold me, Geri, as if this were the last, please.

  JG opened her arms and let the orange haired woman nestle close to her.

  Please have faith, my Love.

  They stood in quiet embrace for a long moment until JG finally ended it. "Let's eat then get some sleep," she suggested, tenderly touching Alexandra's face with her finger tips.

  Tiredly they both sat and ate not passing much conversation back and forth. Tiredly, JG rose, kissing Alexandra on the head, as she remained seated, wondering if her lover had the energy to make it to bed.

  "Come on. A quick shower then bed," JG coaxed, pulling her up.

  Sharing the shower was not so bad, both found. JG seated the protesting Alexandra on the seat in the shower.

  "When is Guardian and Charles, I mean L'uenbeng and Charles going to be fully merged with their biological bodies?" Alexandra mumbled as she felt the warm water cascade over her.

  Alexandra leaned forward as Zohra's lathered hands spread soap in her curly hair then ran soapy hands down muscular shoulders and around the back of her head eliciting a groan of pleasure from both of them.

  "Another week. They need to go through a psychological round of sessions to be sure that they are not traumatized or resentful, otherwise known as suicidal, at going from being ubiquitous to just like any other bio…needing sleep, food, getting rid of bodily waste as the rest of us, and having to read some material more than once to understand it." She leaned over and kissed Alexandra's forehead. "Come on. Let's get some sleep," Zohra told her partner as she finished rinsing off. She took Alexandra's hand and gently tugged her out of the shower.

  Both fell into bed holding onto each other as they slept.

  Chapter 30

  Alexandra's inner alarm went off and in reflex, she was crouched at the side of her bed before she was completely awake.

  Alan?

  She could feel Major Zohra's split reaction to her movement following her to her side of the bed using her body to shield her from the front room doorway.

  Where?

  Alexandra became acutely aware of the body she pressed against.

  He's not here.

  Something's not right.

  "We need to dress, now!" Alexandra whispered.

  Major Zohra let out a small breath of hair in exasperation at the unnatural stillness. The lights in the room had not come up as their bio readings increased into a wake state, only the outlines of the doorways could be seen due to the soft glow of light that always marked the exits.

  Both women moved to the closet, which they had to push to open.

  "Nothing is coming on," Alexandra remarked as she continued to glance around her, pulling her second skin out. "I hope I'm not putting this on backwards," she muttered. She extended her senses, tentatively reaching out into the front room then around their sleeping area. Nothing. If the lights in the room had come on she would have thought she was imagining something was wrong.

  Both pulled some clothes down in the darkness hoping whatever it was would match the boots that were directly below the suits.

  "Hmm. Let's move over to the bathing room. It has a separate life support and a few places we can escape in until things get back to normal," her partner whispered.

  "Sounds like an ideal place to sneak in and out," Alexandra chuckled as she followed JG. "Hopefully we won't have any visitors taking the same advantage."

  "Yeah, by now everyone knows about it," the major whispered back as she moved to the bathing room door that did not open.

  "Hey. We can't be going into those places without our outersuits." Alexandra went back to grab the two suits that were hanging on the back of the closet door. Both women quickly donned them on, grateful when they were able to see in the darkness through the helmet's visor.

  "Disengage your camera," the major ordered through the mic.

  "Good idea," her lover agreed.

  They closed the bathing door behind them and with the aid of the outersuits helmet found the small bot hatch.

  Hera's tits! "The latch is�
��not releasing," JG grunted as she moved her body into another position nearly knocking Alexandra off balance.

  Don't waste time with that. Alexandra grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her over to another cleaning bot's storage. She moved the small cleaning bot out of the way and was about to crawl in when the major stopped her.

  "Hey, I go first," she whispered.

  A muffled explosion came from the other side of the bathing door, then more. Alexandra followed JG into the small space, going in feet first so she could close the door behind them. It was not a dignified exit as JG impatiently, pulled Alexandra out of the bot chute by her feet and pushed her into the maintenance tunnel.

  "Too dangerous to stay in these conduits. We gotta get outta here." the major signed with her hands. Alexandra nodded and followed her figure as she started a fast pace down the tunnel, her footsteps barely making any sound. Alexandra accessed her own internal map and realized that they were heading towards the travel tube.