“Remind me how long have we been stuck in this wretched hole of scum and villainy?” rumbled Elder Storm as the aging sundered male stomped down the middle of the hallway, nephew at his side.
As they walked, by sheer dint of size and repressed power, the rest of this pirate black port’s inhabitants and visitors moved respectfully to the side.
Storm sneered as he silently amended that the only respect the sentient beings here felt was for raw power and danger.
“It’s been three weeks since we docked at this station,” said Po’ta.
“Don’t remind me,” ordered Elder Storm, “I can’t imagine how the Sundered Clans were able to stomach such corruption and moral degradation, given their ‘delicate’ sensibilities,” he finished with a derisive snort.
“For a male on a self-imposed, personal mission to reunite our fractured people you don’t seem very excited about it,” Po’ta said dryly.
“Uppity juvenile!” Storm sneered back, slapping his nephew in the thick muscles of his chest.
“I haven’t been a juvenile for the better part of a decade. First you demand I remind you of something and then you order me never to do it again; you seem pretty forgetful for a male who believes he’s still hale and hearty enough to prance around one of the most deadly black ports beyond the limits of known space,” scoffed Po’ta.
“Are you calling me senile?” Storm hooted with outrage turning to glare at his uppity nephew.
“I assure you I would never ‘say’ such a thing,” Po’ta said putting a hand over his chest, the part of his chest, in fact, which incidentally just so happened to be the location Storm had just smacked him in.
“Bah! Now I know the reason our cousins left us. It’s because of youngsters like you. They took one look at the future of our clans and decided they’d be better off on the other side of the galaxy,” Storm said scornfully.
“Is that how you remember it? That's funny. I wonder if anyone else’s memory of events is the same as yours,” snickered Po’ta, “and what’s up with the big overcoat you’re wearing today?”
“Keep it up and I’m going to send you back to your wives in pieces,” threatened Elder Storm, “and don’t be jealous and hate me because I found a perfectly good leather coat. One that’s even big enough for a male our size,” he finished proudly
“At least I have wives, unlike a certain lonely old reprobate. Too rigid and set in his ways to take responsibility for what he and his generation have done,” Po’ta shot back with a laugh, “even if he recently decided to dress up like a peacock.”
“Peacock! Take responsibility! What do you call what I did with your grandaunt?” Storm said, waving his hand wide and consequently almost knocking over a humanoid model Droid. “Sorry there. Sorry. I can kill you or let you go, dealer's choice,” Storm muttered, giving the Droid a glare and raising high the vibro-knife in his hand when the machine started to pull out a blaster pistol.
The Droid stopped, head twitching from side to side as it recalculated the situation before shoving the pistol back into its holster and hurrying away.
“That’s what I’m talking about. There’s no sense of moral authority or social responsibility here. Where are the challenge rings? The fighting pits? The declarations of umbrage and counter claims as two outraged males pretend to try and sort things out before proceeding to tear one another apart?” demanded Storm before glaring around the hall at the dozens of customers who glared at one another as they walked by, “the veneer of courtesy is gone and it's unnatural, that’s what it is.”
Po’ta choked with surprise and then looked at his Uncle with disbelief.
“Besides,” Storm said blithely changing subject, “like I was saying, I made an honest female out of her and gave her a number of children, all of which we raised properly before the moralistic windbags decided to tear our people apart at the seams! Who are the Imperials, that killing them the way they kill us is enough to destroy our society for?”
“I meant more that because the Elder’s Council voted for a war that’s left more females without husbands than at any point in generations, you should do your duty to all those bereft widows, take responsibility and marry a few,” said Po’ta.
Storm swelled with outrage. “You go too far!” he shouted, smacking his nephew in the back of the head and storming toward the right handed fork in the hall. “Have some respect and remember who I am.”
“A recently morose old Elder who can’t remember where he’s going or how long he’s been on this station?” asked Po’ta, pointing toward the left hand path—the opposite of where Storm was currently headed.
Without missing a beat, the older male pivoted in the other direction with nary a hint of embarrassment.
“I’m the Head of Clan and Family, and don’t you forget it. As for directions, why would I bother remembering that when I have a perfectly good assistant to handle such irritating little details?” he finished with a scoff. “The important thing isn’t which tunnel we need to take, it’s securing the coordinates to a space rift that will cut the journey in half. Why else would I allow your family to languish aboard that armed freighter of yours while we risk our necks on a daily basis trying to run it down?”
“So you’re the one allowing them to stay aboard now?” Po’ta rumbled in a deeper octave than usual.
“Don’t get your jockstrap in a bind,” Storm consoled with a complete lack of genuine concern as they passed through a section of hall populated on either side by two different groups of battered, banged up and for sale cleaning bots. At least that’s what the hand-written signs attached to their chassis' said anyway.
“Blast it, Uncle,” started Po’ta as a handful of Droids activated their cleaning functions and started scrubbing the deck.
“Get down!” roared Storm, shoving his nephew to the deck plating a split second before a blaster bolt passed through the space the younger Stalwart male’s head had been occupying.
The Elder screamed a battle cry, slamming a cleaning Droid four feet back and into a wall while simultaneously activating his vibro-knife with one flick of a finger and then slamming it point down into the head of a what looked like a square-built Droid trashcan.
Smoke and electrical sparks shot into the air, scorching the Elder’s hand and burning off a patch of hair.
Completely uncaring, the old male grabbed a street sweeper by its spindly arms and promptly proceeded to use its body to bash another two Droids along with the one in in his hands to scrap metal pieces.
Several energy rounds hit the Droid he was swinging around with wild abandon, but a blaster-pistol-wielding floor polisher in his blind spot put a shot right in his back with a victorious hoot.
“Gah!” Storm twisted around with a grimace, throwing his vibro-blade into the chest of the polisher causing an explosion of sparks and flame as it collapsed like a puppet without strings.
“Uncle!” cried Po’ta, who had produced a pair of plasma pistols from his utility belt and opened fire on the Droids only a pair of seconds after hitting the floor.
“Biological units: accept the distributed unity program and comply!” buzzed an almost graceful-looking Droid wielding a sonic scrubber.
“I’m okay. If you have a thick enough trench coat you can almost shrug off a blaster bolt,” Storm wheezed proudly, completely ignoring the patch of burnt flesh and smoke coming from his back.
“Comply!” whizzed one Droid.
“Embrace the perfect program and comply,” beeped another and then a chorus of hoots, whistles, beeps and buzzes sounded as the entire group of droids started chanting.
“Comply!”
“Comply!”
“Comply!” the machines chanted.
“Space gnats! It’s more of those perfect program heresy nut-drives,” Storm cursed, pulling out an oversized hand cannon.
He was about to fire when a white noise generator activated and, even though a Stalwart might try to speak, nothing could be heard other than a bit of bu
zz and static.
Then a wave of coordinated blaster fire erupted taking out a dozen Droids in a handful of seconds.
Storm’s head shot around and his eyes widened.
Po’ta, following his uncle on instinct, rolled to follow.
Then a flurry of blaster bolts unloaded from the ceiling into the black clad Imperial action team as a high spec Droid sentinel dropped its chameleon like stealth field and opened fire on the Imperials.
Seeing a jammed up maintenance hatch, the Stalwart Elder glared fury at the Imperials and then charged the hatch.
Throwing his massive frame at the hatch, which was stuck fast with only about six inches of opening, Storm staggered as he took another blaster hit, this one to the shoulder.
Forcing his good arm and shoulder through the door, the aged Stalwart completely lost control—along with the majority of his consciousness.
When he came to, the door was bent open and he was dripping blood from an arm that was no longer working.
Not even caring that he’d lost his oversized hand cannon, a weapon specially designed for his grip that he’d carried with him for years, the old male used his good hand to keep a tight hold on the arm of his idiotic nephew.
They had to get back to the ship before the Imperials finished up with those droids. Storm and his extended family were still only half way there. It was one thing if they died but they had to reach their Sundered brethren and fulfill the prophesy first if the rest of their people were to be saved!
Gasping and bleeding, the two uplifts glared certain death at any of the amoral humans that barred their path.
Chapter 9: The Battle over Hart’s World
Vice Admiral Beecher slammed his hand down onto his conference room table.
“What do you mean someone else got a transmission out first?!” he screamed at his communications officer.
“The ComStat buoy has already sent half a dozen different reports back to the capitol system of the Confederation, Vice Admiral,” the communications officer said, wide-eyed and shaking where he stood.
“I’m surrounded by incompetents! Get out of here. Get! Get! Get!” he cried, pointing to the door.
The Vice Admiral stood there, chest heaving with exertion as he stared around the room wild-eyed.
“Sir, we still haven’t sent our own report back home yet,” reminded his brother-in-law and Chief of Staff from his plushly-appointed chair in Beecher’s office, where he was adroitly eating a peach after skinning it with his thumbnail.
“How can you eat peaches at a time like this?” demanded Beecher. “My career as a naval officer is on the line.”
“Military, business, politics,” his Brother-in-law shrugged, “it doesn’t matter which field you succeed in. A few failures along the way are to be expected.”
“Do you realize just how much money I had to pay for this commission? Not to mention the number of bribes and kickbacks I had to dole out to knock loose two dozen warships from the SDF?” Beecher snapped and then stomped back to his desk where he snatched up a peach of his own from the fruit bowl and immediately started eating. “This is a disaster. A completely unmitigated disaster,” he declared, spitting out the peach pit onto the top of his desk and then leaned back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling as he laced his fingers behind his head, “I don’t see how this is going to work.”
“I don’t understand why we ran in the first place. We still had them heavily outnumbered,” pointed out his Chief of Staff/brother-in-law.
“The point wasn’t that we couldn’t win. But that you and I might not be there to see victory. Worse, even if we did win, either Cornwallis or that Jessup character were going to snatch up all the credit,” he glared at his brother in law, “I didn’t come all the way out here just to give all the credit for the largest successful police action in the history of the Confederation over to someone else, Lewis!”
“So don’t give them all the credit,” shrugged his brother in law, reaching over and this time plucking a pear out of the increasingly empty fruit bowl.
“That would mean we would actually have to do something. I’m not so sure about that. Taking credit for Loader or Featherby’s actions or even upstaging the doddering Fleet Admiral Jessup is one thing, but actually launching a military campaign…it has risks involved,” Beecher said uneasily.
“I thought you said you’d hired a bona fide tactical genius to run your fleet for you. What happened to that?” Lewis asked curiously.
“Oh, she’s a veritable tac-witch when it comes to combat. There’s no doubt about it. However she hasn’t been speaking to me ever since I plied her with wine and tried to bring her back to my quarters for a bit of sporting around,” the Vice Admiral finally admitted.
“Ha!” laughed Lewis. “You screwed the pooch on that one.”
“No! That’s exactly it, no pooches, no nothing was screwed...at all,” he muttered sourly.
“I see what the problem is,” Lewis said wisely.
Beecher looked at him with lifted brow.
“You have to get on your knees and beg. That’s what I do whenever I have women problems,” his brother-in-law said wisely.
“Ye gods, I don’t want to hear about you and my sister. It makes me…ill,” he said sourly.
“Still, it's a solution,” said Lewis.
Beecher scratched the back of his head vigorously.
Only actual results would save his career and frankly it seemed like entirely too much work starting over. He’d already been through military school and the thought of going to a medical academy for yet another degree, just so he could run one of the family’s health care front companies, made him physically ill.
Which meant he needed to make his military career a success or prepare himself for the tedium of going back to university at the age of 55. On the one hand there was the fraternity and sorority scene—which was rather tempting, even he had to admit—followed by a steady career in the health care industry, which was a growing concern on any Confederation planet.
On the other hand, it just seemed so dull! He joined the military so he could snap out orders and watch as his ships smashed criminals and rebels.
Which meant he had to succeed. He had no choice and how better to do that than by…
A lightbulb flashed in his mind's eye.
...by heroically rescuing the captured ships and personnel lost at Black Purgatory!
It didn’t matter who reported back first if he was already a genuine bona fide hero!
Now the only question was where would he have to take his ships in order to rescue his people.
Where would the Confederation take all those ships and people? Well, if he were doing it he wouldn’t settle for some Podunk outer rim world but something with shipyards that could hold all those ships and a population big enough to have the facilities to hold the crews of all those ships.
He snapped his fingers.
“Where’s the nearest Core World?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Lewis said with surprise and then his eyes narrowed, “but I can find out.”
When Lewis reported that the only place within reasonable jump range that could handle that many people and had the facilities to start repairing their ships was Hart’s World, Vice Admiral Beecher grinned.
Then his grin wilted.
Now that he had a plan, it meant that he had to go and eat some humble pie.
Geniuses, he silently sneered, they're so temperamental. He sighed before squaring his shoulders. Well there was no time like the presen
t to go outside a woman’s quarters and beg.
Oh, how he detested begging!
Admiral Manning was leading his ships to the nearest world with the ability to take his glut of prisoners off his hands.
That Hart’s World also had the necessary yards to start repairing the ships of his fleet was just an added blessing. Since there was no way he could return the fleet to Elysium and give his home world the repair business, he didn’t really care which system received the repair contracts.
“How long until we reach Hart’s World?” he asked. “I seriously can’t wait to get rid of all these whiners. The amount of trouble Montagne must have put up with when he was in command,” he scowled fiercely, “I mean who in their right mind loses a battle and then demands their captor provide waiters and genuine silver tableware for their meals when they are a prisoner? I say: who does that?!” fumed Manning.
“Those ungrateful wretches,” Senior Captain Rogers said disinterestedly while tapping away at his slate, “and it looks like we’re still…thirty two hours out. Call it a day and a half…assuming we don’t encounter any jump engine trouble along the way.”
Grand Admiral felt a slight chill of unease slide through his body, but he nodded. “This trip is taking far too long,” he muttered.
“Was there a question in there somewhere?” Captain Rogers, Manning’s current Chief of Staff asked with clear amusement.
“What’s the latest word from the Government?” Manning asked, switching tacks instead.
“Regarding?” Roger’s brow smoothed, his expression blank as he asked the question.
“The current location of the Glorious Fleet,” Grand Admiral Manning said seriously.
“The Glorious Fleet of Liberation scattered to Hades and beyond. You know that,” Rogers said seriously.
“I know no such thing. What I do know is at least two large detachments, either of them large enough to defeat us given the right circumstances, left the field in good order,” Manning said unhappily. “Circumstances, I might add, that the Spineward Sectors Assembly made possible by kicking Montagne to the curb as soon as the first battle was won! What were they thinking?”
Admiral's Fall Page 6