The Chronicles of Benjamin Jamison
Book 3
No More Lies
Written by Thomas A. Wright
Edited by Rosa J. Saba
Copyright © 2016 Thomas A. Wright
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
This book is dedicated to my daughter Rachel Elizabeth McCall (Wright). I will always remember how she ripped across the floor in her little walker at two years old, when the narration (Patrick Stewart) would start and then the music for Star Trek: TNG would play. The Enterprise moving through space, until the stars stretched and it warped off to new worlds. It should have been no surprise later when she wanted to paint her room dark blue and put glow in the dark stars on the ceiling then attend space camp.
I would like to thank Rosa and Jesse for the editing and proof reading, I write like Benjamin fights and it’s not really easy to make that into something everyone can understand.
Chapter 1
I heard the footsteps and turned to watch the door. Imelda didn’t say who, only that she was here. A smile crossed my face when she entered the bridge.
“Nedra! You're coming with us?” Surprised and happy, for Harry mainly, I stood and hugged her. Harry walked in next, looking like a very hairy man with four arms instead of a Sasquatch. It looked like a horde of marine barbers had jumped him with their shears. His facial features and head were squarer, with a wide nose and chin that looked like a piece of granite.
“Damn, Harry! I don’t know what to say. How do you feel about the new look?”
Harry thought for a second. “Nedra likes it.”
“Alright, as long as you’re happy, buddy,” I said.
The Claymore was moving easily through the atmosphere of Allond. I had things to do and some things to face up to. I had decided to give some of Andrea’s things to Natalia as keepsakes. For a short time, she had been the closest thing to a mother the girl had known. I had a few things for E'Aria of Andrea's as well, and I thought Aisling might want something.
Except for Nedra, most of the females were close to the same size, and her clothes could be divided between them or disposed of. I looked around at the faces on the bridge and my heart ached, but these were good people, and I still had Natalia. I needed to spend time with her now that the fog of grief was lifting some.
I felt the tiniest shudder from the ship as she broke away from the gravity and upper atmosphere of Allond and entered the darkness of space.
“Lorelei, have you given any thought to what we will do for additional crew, since we lost half of them in the mutiny?” I asked.
“Prime Minister Aok likes you for some reason,” Lorelei answered, “and she said she would have some volunteers if we wanted her people on our ship.”
“We have one, isn’t that enough?” I was being a smart ass. Binda, the only Trillond who had stayed with us after E'Aria, up and left with no explanation. She was really great but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
Lorelei got stern. “Look, her people are smart and follow orders. They are far better at what they do than the space rats we may find between here and Athena. Besides, we already have two of your space rats from Anubis.”
“Three, counting my captain,” I said.
Lorelei fired back. “And proud of it.”
“We have Nedra and Harry, who should count for three,” I said. “Maybe we could take on a few Trillond. There should be a retired male about her age somewhere we could pick up for her.” I gave her a big smile. She didn’t return it.
“You're so kind, Benjamin, to think of my needs. When I tell you to mind your own damn business, I mean exactly that.” Binda said.
I could see she wasn’t angry, but she was definitely serious. “Sorry,” I said. “If you change your mind just let Lorelei know.”
Natalia jumped into the conversation. “Dad, stop talking,” she scolded me. “I like Bin and I don’t want her to bail on us the next time we stop.”
Binda smiled at Natalia. “Thank you, child. I like you too. I even like your father . . . when he is sleeping.”
Everyone was involved in the banter; hopefully we would all gel and enjoy ourselves. I raised my hands like I was giving up. It was time to get down to business.
Lorelei stood. “I will be right back,” she told us all. “I have to check on something. Binda, take the helm ‘til I return.”
I felt a little left out. “Why can’t I take the helm?” I asked.
She didn’t stop to explain. “Because,” she said and kept on going.
“Harry, help me out here,” I asked.
He was stretched out, half lying in his seat. “Sorry,” he answered lazily. “I have spent some time studying, and Nedra has helped me to understand some of what it means to travel on a starship.”
“Okay, and?” I said.
“Lorelei is the chief of this flying village, and I must obey what she tells me.”
“I need some new friends,” I muttered.
“Dad, really, enough already,” Natalia said “Harry is your friend and you're gonna make him feel bad.”
“Okay,” I gave in, “you win. I'm just stir crazy. We sat for weeks waiting to leave.”
“We know,” she said. “We lived it with you, and you’re still driving everyone crazy.”
“Benjamin,” Binda broke in, “what your daughter is trying to say is, we all sat for the same amount of time with nothing to do.”
I looked at Binda and frowned. “I know what she’s trying to say is that I am and have been a pain in the ass. I agree with her, Binda. You don’t need to try and soften the blow.”
Lorelei walked in and took her seat. She looked around the bridge at everyone, seemingly taking our temperature. We were good; no one was walking on eggshells or broken glass.
She looked over her shoulder at me. “We have a number of stops to make, thanks in part to your pet back there. You should eat and get some sleep; you have the night shift with Grubb and Buddy.”
“Lorelei,” I warned, “she may not like you calling her my pet. She was the queen of the spiders, and next to that crazy queen of queens Taz, probably the biggest bad ass of them all.”
“We have some stops to make and things to deliver, so hopefully we can find a place to let her stretch her legs,” Lorelei answered. “Now get out of my seat. I would really like it if you didn’t sit in it at all. You made me the captain. If you want that seat, then
you be the captain and I'll be the first officer again.”
“Captain.” Binda said. “We have company. I have two Cjittan ships approaching at high speed. They are private vessels but heavily armed.”
“What the hell do they want?” I asked no one in particular.
“How are we supposed to know?!” Lorelei asked giving me a look.”
“The lead ship is hailing us.” Natalia said.
Nedra had already started looking at our best options on her screen and had them targeted before being ordered too. I thought that was great but not sure how our captain would take it.
“Captain Lorelei I have targeted both ships and have the weapons online.” Nedra said.
“Good job.” Lorelei answered. “Binda reduce speed and turn us around I want to be facing them when they catch up.”
“Captain? Could we increase speed once we have turned around. Let’s approach this like a lion instead of a mouse if you don’t mind.” I asked.
“I do mind,” she answered. “We don’t even know what they want.”
“You don’t chase a ship down at high speed just to talk. They could’ve sent us a message, but no I think this is going to be something else altogether.” I said. “I hope it’s not Taz trying to catch us I’m not ready for that.”
“It’s not, now be quiet and I will answer them and find out.” Lorelei scolded. “Natalia put them on the screen.”
“Who are you and what have you done with our Queen?” Suitor number one asked. Pink lines crisscrossed his face where he had healed from the broken glass.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. We haven’t seen your queen in weeks.” Lorelei replied sounding bored.
“I am sure she is on your ship because of him!” He yelled and pointed his finger at me.
“I don’t think so dumb ass. She is probably mad at me for something I haven’t seen her in weeks. You better turn around and look elsewhere you’re wasting your time here.” I said irritated at his tone.
“Captain we are fully charged and I have weapons lock.” Nedra said. She made a point of being extra loud with her report. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“I’m sorry I am not sure how to address you as you didn’t offer your rank or name but it doesn’t matter. We will leave a beacon at your wreckage so if anything remains, like your bodies, they can be recovered.” Lorelei said. Her tone matter of fact.
Our shields lit up on Nedra’s screen. The second ship fired on us Captain with little effect. Our shields down five percent.
“It seems you want to do this the easy way which is fine with me.” Lorelei said. “Natalia cut the com but monitor their transmissions.”
“Nedra fire on lead ship. I’m not sure who is in charge of ship two but I’m sure they were following orders. They may want to negotiate on their own in the next few minutes, but if they fire on us again then you don’t need my permission to retaliate.”
I kept quiet while they worked. No one missed a beat. Nedra’s hands moved over the console as she alternated firing different weapons from various parts of the ship. Facing them gave us the opportunity to do so allowed others to charge and none to heat up from over usage. I saw our shields on her screen as both ships fired at us. Binda had them set at an eighty twenty with the heaviest coverage in the front.
“Natalia are they communicating with each other.” Lorelei asked.
“Wouldn’t call it communication, more like screaming, yelling, begging. It seems ship one told ship two this was going to be easy.” Natalia answered with a smirk.
“Captain the shields failed on ship one and I disabled two of three drives, the hull is breached.” Nedra reported.
“Ship two is changing course and it’s not towards ship one.” Binda reported.
“More screaming from ship one and it seems ship two has turned off communications.” Natalia added. “I couldn’t understand some parts of the transmissions anyway, not sure it matters.”
“Let’s drop a beacon and continue on our way. I think that is all that is required and they’ve earned no favors from us.” Lorelei ordered.
“Beacon launched and transmitting.” Binda said.
“Binda damage report.”
“I think we have some burns on the hull near the rear of the ship. No breaches or damage. Systems all check out, no alarms.” She answered.
“We’ve been gone . . . what an hour tops?” I said looking at the time. “We should notify someone on Allond and let them know there is trash on their lawn.”
“What’s a lawn?” Nedra asked seriously, she must have known who to contact.
“Forget it, just let them know what happened and I’ll explain later.” I said. “That seemed easy and quick, why would they do something like that and why do they think she is with us. It’s been weeks since she last set foot on our ship.”
Everyone sat quietly in thought. No one offered up any explanation. I figured I had better go. Some food and a nap sounded good. I doubted I could sleep eight hours, though, since I hadn’t done anything in weeks but work out, eat and sleep. I would relieve whoever was next and stay until they told me to leave.
Adam made me a salad with some of the exotic greens we stocked from the market on Allond. We had meats and fruit as well. He was serving up the perishables and said we would be eating them for the next week while they were fresh and before they went bad. He pounded a small cutlet of some kind of meat flat to sear and used it to make me a sandwich.
We had some work done on the Claymore before we left. There was a long narrow box welded to the belly with a hole cut in the top that lined up with a hatch door. There was another cut into the bottom on the other end. Inside it were bodies wrapped in spider silk and frozen solid, thanks to the deep dark black we called space. Whenever Imelda wanted to eat, we would get one out and give it to her; or at least, that was the plan.
There was no way we could keep enough food for her in our freezer and have enough for ourselves. The bigger problem, though, was cleaning up a giant pile of spider shit. The best solution I could come up with was to lower the cargo bay door and let her poke her ass out into space and let go. She said she could do that, thankfully, and it wouldn’t hurt her for the amount of time she needed to relieve herself.
The other idea was that she could spin a web blanket and go on it, then bundle it up and push it out. She wanted to be here with me, so I was determined to make something work. Buddy was our cargo master, and after the weeks he had spent with Imelda he liked her. He talked to her while he worked and I think she enjoyed his company.
Dinner was good. Adam cleaned up the small mess and washed my plate and utensils.
“You doing alright?” I asked him.
“Yeah, it’s a little boring right now, and we have less mouths to feed,” he answered, “but it will get better.”
“It will,” I told him. “If you want to pull some watches on the bridge, I am sure you could find volunteers to train you.”
“I could make up a bunch of self-serve lunches and work after breakfast ‘til an hour before dinner, or after dinner ‘til early morning then make us breakfast and sleep,” he offered.
“Get with Lorelei or Binda now, they should be working on it. Nedra gave us an extra body we weren’t counting on,” I told him. “Hopefully we will pick up a few more crewmembers and you won’t have to worry about it for long.”
“It’s okay,” he smiled, “I wouldn’t mind learning, it might come in handy someday.”
“That’s true. Just don’t work yourself to death.”
I stood, handed him my glass and headed to my room. Halfway there, the little voice in my head started talking.
Have you seen her? Has she brought any harm to you?
I am fine. I've seen her, she’s with Harry.
That’s good. He will be harder for her to injure.
I hope she doesn’t. I think they like each other. I am going to rest. I will come see you later and we will talk.
I turned
on the light and put on some music. During our time waiting to leave, it was recommended that I listen to music to possibly soothe my soul. I wasn’t sure it was working, but I had found some that I liked, and so I bought the player and the crystals. I dropped a crystal into a slot and it lit up, glowing softly.
I headed to the shower, leaving it playing, the water washing away more than just the dirt. After about ten minutes I shut it off. Drying and putting on some boxers, I sat in a chair, feet up on the table, watching the light dance to the beat. I'm not sure when I fell asleep, but waking up felt really good.
The fog lifted slightly as strong hands massaged my shoulders and my neck, kneading the muscles ‘til my neck felt like rubber. My head bobbed as I fell asleep but woke up just as quickly. Teeth began to nibble on my ear, and that brought me to a more aware state of mind.
I jumped up and turned around. In the glow of the light she stood there, wearing a gown that left nothing to the imagination. This wasn’t good. Oh shit no, this wasn’t good at all. I had to admit that she looked damn good, really damn good, but I couldn’t go there. My body would always be willing but my mind just hadn’t caught up.
“Are you not pleased to see me?” she said softly as she walked around to stand in front of me.
“You shouldn’t be here on my ship or in my room,” I answered shakily. “How did you get here, and why didn’t someone tell me? I'm going to go kill them now. Be gone before I come back.”
I was out the door in my boxers and on the bridge a minute later. I decided on clean clear communication: yelling.
“What the hell is she doing on my ship and in my room? Someone better answer me in the next ten seconds or we are about to have a bloodletting.”
Lorelei stood up and got in my face. “It’s your own damn fault,” she said.
“My fault? How is it my fault? You knew this and didn’t bother to tell me. Did you all know?” I looked around at the faces and no one seemed to care.
“No one here is going to feel guilty,” Lorelei said. “They did nothing wrong. Just you, you are the only one to blame. Now go get some sleep.”
Natalia walked over and took me by the hand. “C'mon dad, let’s go. I’ll protect you.”
The Chronicles of Benjamin Jamison: No More Lies (Book 3) Page 1