For the Good of All

by Marc Stevens

  I felt a little jittery as I headed to my cabin. It was a toss-up between anticipation and nervousness. If I did not find what I was expecting, it would be disappointment. I had just stepped out of the lift tube on the bridge level when my IST transmitter gave me a secure beep. I cringed and slapped my hand to my forehead. I was going to strangle that old witch.

  “Nathan, did you recover anything of interest during the operation?”

  “Who wants to know, you or your council?”

  “Surely you realize I purposely kept my troops and myself out of your area of operation, so there would be no repeat of my council’s actions. I have already explained why I must cooperate with their deceitful directives. Your continued anger is unwarranted.”

  I had more than one reason to be pissed at the Operative but was not going to break it down for her.

  “We captured one of Lashmos’s siblings and enough credits to buy a planet. I did not take a slave count, but I believe there was more than a thousand.”

  “Excellent! I was hoping for this outcome. Now that you have a legitimate source of information, I no longer have to worry about breaking a direct order not to reveal certain intelligence we gathered on our last mission.”

  “Sael, we can compare notes when I can meet with you in person. We will be at the rally point shortly.”

  So much for all the sneaky crap we thought we were going to pull on the Chaalt. It seemed like Sael was a step ahead of us and her superiors. The witch was a master of manipulation. The Operative I had come to respect was still with us, but she was being forced to weave multiple layers of subterfuge to mask her true motives.

  The signal went dead and I once again headed to my cabin to see what might await me there. The hatch opened and Tria was sitting on the edge of my bed putting her uniform on. My timing was absolute shit and for that matter so was the Operative’s. I did not know who was more disappointed, me or Justice. I started to apologize but she cut me off.

  “Justice, opened my IST channel so I could hear your conversation with Sael. It will be interesting to hear what she has to say.”

  I gave her a hug and a kiss. “Sael will eventually have something else to do besides meddling in our affairs.”

  “I tolerate Sael’s interference because she is a means to the end of our technology gap. I want you to know that Sael is drawn to your strength and warrior instincts. She may pretend you are undesirable, but I know that she is hiding her true feelings. Your aura draws us to you, though she states otherwise. There are very old customs on my worlds that are generally wrote off as history. One of them is to fight to the death for the right to take a superior life mate.”

  I stood with raised eyebrows, digesting Tria’s words. She had the most alluring smile on her face, but the look in her eyes said she meant every word. My legs suddenly turned to rubber and I almost collapsed. She caught me in her arms and held me close; her new weaponized strength was noticeable.

  She whispered in my ear, “I have made my choice. Sael must find another.”

  With that, she kissed me lightly and left my cabin. I thought I heard her laugh but wasn’t sure. The strangest thought went through my head. Tria said she went ahead with the weaponization because she feared our continuous mission profiles would interfere with her ability to get the procedure done in a timely manner. Now I wondered if she did it so she could kick Sael’s ass if she had ulterior motives. I did kind of wonder what made Sael have her battle scars repaired. It might be a healthy choice on my part to keep the Operative at arms-length. What I considered innocent acts of friendliness towards Sael might have her thinking something else. I was giving myself a headache trying to figure out what part of being human would attract another species to me. I did know that I was very much attracted to Tria, so this was not a one-way street.

  “Justice, what is our ETA to the rally point?”

  “Sixty-three minutes, twenty-nine seconds. There is time for you to take a rest period, should I alert Tria.”

  The thought had actually crossed my mind, but I found the intention behind Justice’s statement irritating. I chose to ignore him. “What was the total on the credits we recovered?”

  I was heading to the down tube and it had been more than a couple of minutes since I made my inquiry. Just when I determined Justice was ignoring me back, he answered.

  “In excess of six-hundred and ninety billion.”

  I guess I really didn’t need an exact count — it was a crap load of credits. The Scrun will be feeling the pinch of our latest attacks. A lot of slimy slaver palms were not going to receive their normal greasing. The uncertainty and unrest this would cause the Scrun underlings made me smile and forget all about the spite Justice was sending my way.

  “Justice, when you are done being vindictive, I hope you have a briefing for us on the intel recovered from the data cubes.”

  While he decided to not answer me, I knew he was not likely to display his less than admirable human traits in front of the rest of the crew. I entered the galley and saw that Klutch was already eating. Tria and Coonts sat two tables away quietly talking. They were trying their best to pretend they could not hear the less than palate pleasing noises coming from Klutch. By the look of Klutch’s tray, the rations we purchased from Tam Lin were taking a hit. I sat down next to Tria and Coonts cued me in on their discussion.

  “Commander, Tria and I believe it would be wise to question Omarro before we meet with the Operative. It might uncover additional information that both Omarro and the Operative might try to conceal. It could also serve as a way to verify what both might divulge to us.”

  I had to admit it would be a good way to see if Sael was leveling with us on the information she has access to.

  “Justice, do you have a briefing for us?”

  “Yes, it appears the Scrun and most undoubtedly the Murlak are trying to improve their security. The decryption method they now use is much better than when we first encountered both races. It took additional time to decipher the information. The vast majority is communications with Scrun motherships and other spacecraft assets. After our recent engagement with their forces, seventeen Scrun ships and five Murlak ships that the base was in contact with, no longer respond to communication traffic.”

  An evil smile crossed my face. E.T. was never going to phone home this time around. The looks on my crew’s face said they were thinking the same thing. I refocused on the briefing.

  “A call was sent out for reinforcements to investigate, but most all of those requests went unheeded. The three Scrun motherships that the Sig encountered were part of a larger rescue mission to the system they had set as a trap for us. They were delayed several hours by business transactions. When they attempted to rendezvous with the rescue force that had already entered the system, they could not establish contact with them and chose to come directly to the Scrun base instead of reconnoitering what may have happened to their cohorts.”

  Klutch thumped his large hand down on his table, making us all jump. “HAH! It sounds like the missiles we left behind found some worthy recipients.”

  His loud exclamation liberated several pieces of partially chewed food from his mouth and some found their way to the floor beside me. I pretended not to notice. The galley bots would have to work a little harder after the briefing was over.

  35

  After Klutch’s outburst, Justice continued with the briefing. “I have several communications that resemble encryption techniques that we encountered on Drayen’s outpost. I have yet to find the proper primer, but it is just a matter of time. I speculate that Omarro might have knowledge of a primer key that will assist us. The proper application of stratagem might get him to reveal the access code.”

  Coonts gave me a startled look. “Commander, my internment on Drayan’s outpost revealed that the most sophisticated encryption was used exclusively for communications with Drayen’s closest allies. In this case only one comes to mind — Eiger!”

  To even hear that son of a
bitch’s name got the beast in me stirring. Tria reached over and grasped my hand, but I still felt murderous intentions lurking in the back of my mind. We had already uncovered questionable intelligence that had Eiger recuperating on one of the Murlak home worlds. We might be jumping to conclusions, but now I wondered if that was a smoke screen to hide his true location. I would love to get another crack at the sewage sucking Throgg. As far as I was concerned, shutting down the slavers and bringing Eiger to his final reckoning, took precedence over investigating an old pile of garbage, someone left corroding in the armpit of the galaxy. Now that I had the allies to pull it off, we should be able to go toe-to-toe with anything Eiger could bring to the party.

  “Klutch, get Omarro out of his cage. We need to have a talk with him.”

  The Tibor jumped up and started to leave, but at the last second, in a small display of irritation at having his meal interrupted, he grabbed a handful of food and shoved it into his mouth. I was glad that he made no comment as he rushed by.

  “Justice, what is our current ETA to the rally point?”

  “Seventeen minutes, eleven seconds.”

  “If we have to kill a little time to get the answers we’re after, you have my permission to take as long as you like to intercept the Operative’s ship.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Tria, Coonts and I made our way to the hangar. Klutch had put his combat armor on and was walking up the shuttle ramp. The slave crate containing Omarro came bouncing end over end out of the cargo bay landing on its side. Klutch stomped his way down the ramp and righted it. He jerked the door open and yanked the slaver out onto the deck. Without a word from me, the hangar door opened so we could have a view of hyperspace through the atmospheric retention field. When the Scrun turned and noticed this, he attempted to crawl back into the crate, but Klutch blocked his path. He looked over at me with a pleading look on his cyclops face and extended his hands out, splaying his fingers upward. I could feel no pity for the slaver piece of shit because of the pain and suffering he had no problem bringing to others.

  “We have many reasons to put an end to your miserable existence, so you should give us a lot of reasons not to. Some of the information on the data cubes is heavily encrypted. I want you to supply my A.I. with the key. If you do that, we will not kill you.”

  I was gambling the Scrun were smart enough to have different encryption codes for each facility; if not, the next part of our ruse would be exposed. Omarro’s less than forthcoming silence told me he was calculating exactly what to say. It was an expected response, but not one he should be using, considering his precarious position.

  Turning to Tria and Coonts, I shook my head. “You both were correct, he is of no use. Judrow values his life more than this fool. We will find other ways to verify the information he has given us.”

  Coonts took his cue and held his hand up to Klutch and made a shooing motion toward the open hangar door. Klutch, grabbed Omarro and started to drag him to the opening, but stopped when the Scrun yelled out a string of code.

  Justice confirmed its authenticity. “I have access, Commander.”

  Klutch let go of the slaver and he scampered across the deck on all four of his gangly arms and legs. He wedged his lower half back into the slave crate. It was ironic that he would think he could find shelter from his fate by trying to hide in a prison of his own making. Anger flashed through me like a torch at the thought that this is what the slaves must have done when they were in the same situation. Tria sensed the change in me and gripped my arm tightly. I tried to calm myself but felt the beast stalking the fringes of my awareness. If I let my anger, and then the beast, control me, I could possibly reveal that we did not have Judrow to question — or, even worse, kill our only source of information.

  Justice pinged my implants. “Commander, we will be exiting interdimensional space in one minute. Do you still intend to meet with the Operative upon our arrival?”

  I took several slow, cleansing breaths to clear the homicidal thoughts from my mind along with the instigator that was goading me.

  “Yes, make the rendezvous. We will give Sael a chance to prove she is not screwing us over to benefit her council.”

  I felt the small discomfort of our transition back to normal spacetime. There was a static-like discharge that was visible through the open hangar door and the sudden appearance of a normal star field. Coonts took my distraction as his cue to continue our interrogation. He approached Omarro and the Scrun attempted to retreat farther into the slave crate. I was surprised by the Grawl’s reaction. He stepped forward and grabbed the sides of Omarro’s faceplate and hauled back on it till the Scrun stopped his retreat. He then leaned his face down till it almost touched the thick composite.

  “Judrow claims that you know where Eiger hides. He has given us certain information to justify his claim. I advise you to think carefully about the next words that come out of your mouth. If they do not match what we have been told or are verifiable by your communications, my fellow crewmember will crush your appendages and reinsert you back into this crate. When my Commander determines you have suffered enough, we will start the questioning process once again.”

  The Scrun started pleading with Coonts and tried to lean over and touch him. Coonts batted his hands aside and reached inside of his uniform and pulled the Grawl-sized Tibor pistol he now liked to carry concealed on his person. He stepped on one of the Scrun’s hands and pushed the pistol against it.

  “We do not necessarily have to crush your appendages — we can remove them one at a time.”

  The Scrun was easily four times larger than Coonts, but he was terrified of the little Grawl’s menacing behavior. Apparently, he had never witnessed such aggressiveness from a Grawl before. I had to admit: the look on Coonts’ face was sinister and served its purpose well. The Scrun started talking fast.

  “Eiger hides with the last of his fleet in a dense dust nebula near outpost 6854. He has several siblings who operate the outpost and he sells our slaves there.”

  Justice pinged our implants with a startling disclosure. “Commander, that is the location where the Zaens informed us about a large number of Murlak inquiring about battle armor. There is now the possibility that the Zaens may inadvertently supply Eiger with the armor we took from his clan siblings. If he is able to identify the armor, the Zaens could be in great danger. Eiger would most assuredly torture them into revealing where they acquired the battle armor. Their disclosures could prove to be fatal.”

  SHIT! I had put that piece of information on the back burner to address at a later date. We may have had a way to find Eiger all along if we had prosecuted the data before we went after the Scrun. My lack of urgency was going to bite me in the ass and may have cost the lives of my Zaen friends. I’m sure if that is what has come to pass, it would not sit well with Felix. If it became known that I cannot protect those who are willing to help me, then no one would take the risk of doing so.

  Justice pinged me again. “Commander, we have come alongside the Operative’s ship, and I expect she will join us shortly.”

  I was not in the mood to discuss current developments with Sael. I looked out the hangar door and her battleship suddenly filled the opening. I could see a small speck standing in the massive opening on the Chaalt ship. As we drew closer I could make out Sael in her combat gear preparing to jump across. I was miserable at the present situation, and the beast was transforming my despair into anger and revenge. I walked over to the Scrun.

  “You are most fortunate that salvation has arrived. The Chaalt that is preparing to board has agreed to take you.”

  Tria, Coonts, and Klutch all gave me an incredulous look. They could not believe what had just came out of my mouth. For that matter, neither could I. The Scrun wriggled himself free of the slave crate and started hobbling toward the open hangar door. I waved my crew off before they could stop him. They again gave me looks of disbelief. I saw Sael leap from the deck of her hangar and hurtled across to ours. As
she landed she unfolded her helmet and her face took on a look of confusion as she saw the Scrun heading directly at her. I did what any slaver-hating species would do in my boots. I yelled a warning.

  “SAEL! WATCH OUT!

  The Operative did what she has probably done thousands of times. She drew one of her swords and in one smooth motion slashed the Scrun’s legs off just below his torso. The slaver’s upper body did a single cartwheel off the deck and bounced out into the void. Sael leaned down and wiped her sword off on one of the legs and then kicked both out to join the rest of the carcass. Klutch thought this was a hilarious turn of events and broke out in raucous laughter.

  Coonts looked a little miffed. “Commander, I might have been able to extract more useful information from him.”

  Tria gave me a raised eyebrow but refrained from any comments. Sael walked up to us with a frown and slid her sword back into its scabbard.

  “Has the Tibor lost his mind? Why is he laughing, and what was that scat about? You can’t let a Scrun run loose on your ship. I hope you had a chance to question him.”

  I got right to the point. “Sael, why did your council order you to confiscate the shuttles along with one of Lashmos’s siblings? Were they trying to keep information from us concerning Eiger’s whereabouts?”

  Sael’s frown deepened. “Did you not question the Scrun before you were foolish enough to let him escape?”

  My thoughts where swirling with conspiracy theories, but the most prominent one was probably correct. The more I examined the situation, the angrier I became. This was another not-so-subtle manipulation on the part of the Chaalt council.

  Tria stepped close to me and whispered, “Nathan, calm yourself. Let’s not dwell on the past, but instead focus on the future. We now have a means to stop the machinations of my people’s ruling caste. As Sael has pointed out, now that the experimental ship is in our hands we have the advantage.”