Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7

by Vanessa Ravencroft

  Now Mother Superior removed her mask. “You and Richard are the only ones outside this post who have seen my face and know my true identity. While I trust the old administrator, experience of a very long lifetime has shown me it is always good to keep the numbers of those who know all about you to a minimum.”

  “I don’t completely understand this need for secrecy on these levels, but then you know more about this than probably anyone.”

  “Richard Stahl is integrity personified. He would not hesitate to lose everything, including his life, to stand for his principles. Admiral McElligott is a good man, too, but I have seen him put agendas before convictions and accept policies.”

  She sat down and motioned me to do the same. “Consider this a first lesson as I tell you about a time when a Kermac-controlled political party gained control over the Assembly and enforced the Pacifist Movement. The 2nd Galactic War had just ended, the enemy came close to winning, and the final victory had been costly in lives and properties. The Union was a fraction of the size it is now and the citizens were war weary.

  “The Pacifist Party accused Richard Stahl of being a warmonger and questioned why Immortals were still in positions of power. It escalated into false accusations and Richard Stahl was placed on trial for war crimes against the Kermac and found guilty. The argument was that he and most of the old admirals and senior officers prolonged, even caused, the war with their aggressiveness and that peaceful negotiations would have been a much better alternative than war. Many had forgotten the real reasons for the outbreak of the 2nd Galactic War and most citizens did not believe that Immortals really existed or should be in positions of power. They were, after all, originally from Earth and did not represent anyone else.

  “They actually arrested Stahl and sent him to a penal colony until he could be handed over to the Galactic Council for trial and execution. Stahl managed to flee with about 200 loyal friends and marines and disappeared. All other known Immortals were evicted from their posts and two of them were placed on trial and executed.

  “Only after Aaron Mendelsohn and a certain Saresii woman you know exposed the Pacifist Party and their use of Kermac mind control on the Assembly did they lose power.”

  I had heard about Stahl’s exile but never any details. It was not taught in school and no classes were held on this at the Academy.

  She nodded as she saw me thinking. “Yes, it was a shameful period and those Assembly members freed from the mind control realized what they had done. Of course, the Kermac operated very delicately and managed to do it slowly and without controlling anyone who would have noticed the psionic influence, but all they had to do was control a small portion of opinion makers and key figures. Do you know that there was one Immortal who kept his post and position throughout the entire time?”

  I whispered, “McElligott?”

  “Yes, no one called him a warmonger and no one could find any incident where he got involved in politics, other than accepting the decisions the Assembly made. That he was an Immortal never seemed to come up. For one, you could say that is exactly what he is supposed to do and you would be right. In this regard, he is as steady as Stahl, but on the other hand, one could say that a man in his position should sometimes question orders and decisions, just as he asks every one of his officers to do. So, you see, while I trust McElligott to a certain degree, I would never reveal all my secrets to him.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I trust him, too, but I have the feeling that he sometimes envies Admiral Stahl for his reputation.”

  “Your feeling is not so wrong on that one, my Soja. The reputation of the Eternal Soldier has slowly seeped into the consciousness of our Union as a whole and, while some don’t even think he is real, they trust him and his name. His legend is told in countless stories from one end of the Galaxy to the other, while no one really talks or remembers McElligott unless you happen to be in the Fleet.”

  “What about Cherubim?”

  “She is an enigma even to me, but I know for her Earth comes first and the Union second. She probably told you she is the Hunter, but she has more often than not also been the Executioner.

  “There are others like you and me; some have kept their existence well concealed but as I said, beings with such long lives always have a mission and a purpose that transcends the plans and goals of those who only share this reality with us for a limited time.”

  “What does all this mean to me then?”

  “This, my Soja, is for you to find out. Make your own observations and come to your own conclusions. What I see with my eyes might not look the same when you look at it. Just keep your eyes and mind open and realize that nothing in this Universe has only one side.” She then laughed silently. “Except perhaps Richard Stahl.”

  I returned to the ship and changed back into my usual black leather outfit.

  Deepa, aka Mother Superior, had talked to Shea alone. I was just slinging the weapon belt around my hips when the door announced her.

  She, too, had changed and now wore a Saresii-type, midnight-blue, velvet one-piece suit that modelled her gorgeous curves without creases and like a second skin. She hugged me. “Mother Superior told me a few things, and I know you have been accepted as a special member to the Order and since you do belong to the Avenging Angels are subject to stringent secrecy rules. She said that one day we both will be able to share all our secrets.”

  I held her warm body and the incredibly soft velvet made an especially pleasurable experience that stimulated glands and animalistic instincts that did not fit my outer appearance or the wish to be female at all.

  “I would like that very much, if we can work out our relationship while we are serving on the same ship. I am sure we will be able to overcome every obstacle in civilian life later.”

  She grabbed me by the hair and pulled my face into hers and we kissed passionately. I was not sure where this would have led us but SHIP interrupted. “I am so sorry, captain, but I have to disturb you, there is an urgent and serious development that needs your attention.”

  I let her go with a fleeting kiss on her nose and we both rushed to the bridge.

  Elfi had the Conn. “Captain, the patriarch of the Donheer Clan wants to talk to you. He is standing by on a channel. It’s about Har-Hi, I think.”

  Shea handed me my mask and I put it on. “Get him on!”

  A fat Humano-Shiss hybrid man sat behind a massive desk. “Ah, the mysterious Captain Black Velvet. Let me welcome you to Sin 4 and discuss a little business proposal I have for you.”

  “And you are?”

  “Oh, forgive me. I am Duke Donheer and I run much of this planet. I was told you have a Dai Than in your crew. It just happened that I captured one, along with a little Golden and a Human. Should you miss those three then I have a proposal for you.”

  All blood left my face and my stomach cramped. “What kind of proposal would that be?”

  “You accompany me tonight to the fight arena. You will be my guest and after the fights, we discuss how you can exchange money against those three. A skimmer will pick you up at Three Hour tonight, and do dress nice. You just might appear on GalNet. Just in case those three aren’t that important to you, I let you know that two Loki torpedoes are aimed at your ship, and I don’t give a hoot if half the town goes with it. Dare not to show up and see if I am bluffing or not.”

  Chapter 14: Death Fight Arena

  I was still sitting in my chair, feeling stunned by what I just heard, thinking hard what I could do to save my friends. How did they manage to capture a Narth? Was I dealing with the Kermac and the Worm?

  That there were groups out there on Sin 4 wanting to capture a Narth, I knew from the time I had been here before.

  I somehow knew he was still alive but I could not feel anything else and that was more than disturbing.

  TheOther, who held the security post, came over and said with a low voice, “Captain, we now have an asset inside the Donheer compound, and we should be able to make
contact any time now.”

  I turned and looked at the Y’All. “An asset?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Lt. Neugruber authorized additional personnel for Mehedi Senhadji’s. mission and two of the NWC officers volunteered. Mehedi managed to trace the weapon deal to the Donheers and our tiny friends managed to follow one of the suspected mil-tech dealers onto the Donheer Compound Island.”

  I could not completely keep my anger out of my voice. “While I appreciate initiative, I sure would like to be informed who is sent outside on a place like this.” Then I put my hand on his arm and added, “Thank you Mr. TheOther. How soon can we make contact?”

  Elfi said, “They are calling now, captain.”

  The main screen changed, and we looked at an office from underneath a desk. We saw feet and the support projector for an old system hover chair. “Lt. Bergdorf reporting, captain. I managed to infiltrate the actual office of Duke Donheer. My associate, Ensign Sahlhof, is on his way to the security center of the island for detail assessment. We believe a Union Fleet officer or perhaps a former one is the source of the stolen mil-tech, and he seems to be in the employment of this syndicate leader.”

  I could not help myself and said, “Be careful, you are not small enough to be invisible!”

  “Your concern is duly noted, captain. However, we are wearing Atlas battlesuits and we are both cloaked.”

  He stepped from under the desk where he was currently hiding and flew to a shelf unit with art objects and sports trophies. There, due to his size and perspective between gigantic-looking trophies, he looked down into the room and I saw the fat white man behind his desk.

  Shea said, “I got the scan data from the DNA residue Mr. Bergdorf gathered under the chair of Donheer. He looks almost Human but most of it appears to be Kermac and there is also Shiss DNA. It looks like he is related to our friends at Brahma Port as some of the markers match with the samples we collected there.”

  I looked at the man who sat behind his desk and a communications terminal. He had white, finely scaled skin. His head was hairless, and he had reptilian Shiss eyes above a small nose with flaring nostrils over a wide mouth that was filled with small, needle-sharp, fish-like teeth.

  While I served on the Hyperion and under a Shiss captain, Captain Zezzh managed to show warmth and compassion in his completely alien reptilian face. There was not a hint of friendliness in this face.

  I wondered if this is how things were going to be. Instead of chasing through space and using the ship and all its amazing technology we once more saw what a spy of ours observed. My best friends were caught by this bastard, and he was blackmailing me. I had a good mind to simply take my marines and raid his place, right through the front door. Of course, he had captured Narth, Har-Hi, and the Golden, so a frontal assault could endanger my friends’ lives. I could not rely on the old Eric and jump in the middle of things. The main problem of it all was that I had a ship and it had to come first, even before my best friends. We had a mission that also came before the personal safety of my crew.

  Something happened on the screen. An old man came into the study and he looked much like Donheer did, only the Kermac features were much stronger.

  “Are you dreaming again about expanding our empire?” he asked the younger man. “You know the other families are getting nervous and a syndicate war is never a good thing, son.”

  Donheer got up. “It is my empire, old man. Mine! You are old and weak. You were content with a quarter of a dirty planet. I will soon be strong enough to take them on, all of them, and then will I wipe them out!”

  The old man replied, “You are part Shiss, part Kermac, and your grandmother was a Saresii slave woman but you inherited none of their wisdom or their psionic powers. Yet you certainly know how to be arrogant and self-inflated. You like eating of the finest things yet you have no class. The balance of the four families has served us well and made you rich. Maintain what we have and expand slowly and into areas that we know.”

  The duke slammed his fist on the table and pointed with his other hand toward the window behind him. “Sin 4 is a speck, an unimportant speck. There are bigger powers out there, and I intend to play a part in the big games. I want all casinos under my control. I don’t want a miniscule share of the Sojonit business. I want to control that whorehouse temple and all the profits. I am going to destroy the other cartels and then we’ll build a new spaceport on the southern continent and mine the riches of our moons. Once I have put this system under my control, I will announce that we are part of the Shiss Empire. The White Nestling himself has told me that there could even be a position for me in the Royal Nest.”

  The old man wrung his hands. “The Death Fight Arena is our crown jewel; we make more money with the advertisement deals and the merchandising than with all the casinos and business of the others together. Leave those world-conquering dreams; this is not what we do. Your plan with the Nul is madness. You speak of powers out there and try to play on their level and yet you do not comprehend.”

  “Silence, old man. The White Nestling will give me much control and I will be an important part of a galaxy-spanning empire, not just a measly planet and the plan is perfect! The Shiss have abducted the Nul, who is very important to the Nul Empire. He will fight in the arena tonight and die. I will claim I purchased him from Black Velvet, a notorious pirate. I’ll have her confess that she worked under direct orders of the Union and that will hopefully start a war between the Union and the Nul.

  “Of course, the Union will win but at a high cost. I am almost certain the Kermac will not let an opportunity like that pass and will attack a weakened Union, perhaps join the Nul in the fight.

  “No matter who wins, the Kermac, the Nul or the Union, one of them will be gone and the others weaker than ever before and the Galaxy is ripe for the taking by the Shiss. We will have a front row seat and riches and power beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.”

  The old man sighed. “You are a fool. These things aren’t as simple as dealing with other cartel families, and these things are way out of your league.”

  “Be silent and be careful, old man. I just might have you thrown in the arena for monster bait. I have a great show lined up for tonight.”

  The old man walked out and slammed the door behind him.

  I was losing time watching this. I needed to find my friends; nothing so far had told me how he managed to capture them and where he kept them. I was about to get up and call for a conference to hatch a plan when something happened on the screen that shocked me deeply. The next man who walked through the door was my former friend Wintsun.

  Our tiny spy, still invisible in the room, said, “This is the Union officer we followed.”

  Donheer greeted the green-skinned man. “You have been successful in capturing the Dai warrior and I appreciate men who get me results, but then, you used to be a Union officer and they do train their people well.”

  Wintsun was the same and yet he had changed. He seemed much older than he was and his face had a lost all the openness it had before. What was he doing here on Sin 4? Did he recognize Har-Hi?

  Wintsun said, “That is why I was able to use the P4 Paralysator to get that Dai. He had his clan glyph removed so he is most likely an Okthi, a renegade, and not associated with any clan anymore.”

  “Wonderful, we have a nice full program for tonight. The Terror Hammer will make his great comeback tonight and die heroically as I must punish him for deceiving me and running off, playing dead for so long.”

  Wintsun grinned. “I think he is a Saturnian. I never liked these brutes anyway.”

  Donheer nodded. “You will enjoy the big fight tonight and I see a great future for you, Wintsun. You have risen fast in my organization since you came here.”

  Wintsun sat down. “I am your man, Mr. Donheer.”

  “Have you activated the Loki torpedoes?”

  “Yes, I have, and they are the full-sized Type IV. One will be more than enough to destroy that pirate ship and level most
of the city as well.”

  “Are they that powerful?”

  “Four of them will buckle the shields of a battleship and the 16 you got would be enough to take on anything short of the Devi.”

  “Splendid, the Kermac are very interested in those and made a generous offer and since you activated them and made them useful, I think I will give you a nice bonus as well.”

  I didn’t hear what Wintsun said as just then I felt Narth’s presence in my mind.

  “Eric, I am all right, but we were surprised by a paralysator shot over a distance. Since there are so many minds out there, I must have missed them. The person who captured us for the duke is Wintsun.”

  I felt a wave of relief and responded, “I know, I am watching that bastard right now. Where are you?”

  “We are held in a prison underneath the Donheer fight coliseum. It is a state-of-the-art containment facility to hold all kinds of life forms. Unfortunately, there is a very strong Kermac Psi screen, effectively neutralizing most of my psionic abilities.”

  “Do they know you are a Narth?”

  “No, they did not recognize us or me. I am not even scheduled to fight. They think I am a weak scholar and I am to be sold as a slave.”

  I was deeply relieved to hear my friends were not harmed and then I called my senior officers to a conference in the Den and said, “Here is my plan—”

  ***

  Shea was brushing my hair out and said, “I am not sure if anyone has told you, but you are very beautiful, and tonight you look quite stunning.”

  Her comment touched the vanity of my female persona as I looked at myself in the reflection field. The long blonde hair had the same color as that of my mother and suddenly I was reminded of her and I felt guilty for no longer having nightmares or thinking much about that event. But now I saw her. Right there in the mirror. Not that my mother would have worn something like this. I wore the low-cut clingy gown of thin black Saresii silk and black velvet I had purchased during our visit at the secret NAVINT base. It was hanging on thin straps from my shoulders. To it, I added a shiny black fur stole, gloves, and a tiny purse. Shea was finally done with the hair and Elfi handed me a feather domino with a veil.