It reminded me of the Velorian slave transporter. It was cleaner, bigger and better maintained.
The rows of steel link cages with lock doors and the perforated reddish painted floors, shimmering wet from the last hose down; the chains and the neatly stored rows of prods and whips made this vessels purpose all too clear.
A half-naked leather clad, oafish looking Oghr stepped out of an overseer guard room right before me and stared in my masked face with wide open yellow eyes as my old fighting knife buried deep into his guts. He gargled and drooled blood over my arm as I twisted the blade and pushed him aside and went on to the ships main elevator shaft.
The elevator access was coded and secured, but it took Shea less than a minute to hack into the Ships system. Narth stood behind me while she did her thing and said.
“There are nineteen individuals aboard. Three of them are on the bridge.”
I said. “Alright, Circuit and Krabbel neutralize them. Narth, Shea and I take care of the bridge crew.”
Circuit pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “You want us to take care of them like that?”
I did not feel any guilt and said. “He startled me and besides he was a slave master, he probably whipped and maltreated thousands in his career. Neutralize them as you see fit, as long as they can’t interfere with our plans.”
I heard Krabbel say to Circuit. “Remind me never to startle the Captain; she’s awful quick for a human.” Circuit responded with something and then they were out of range.
That this was not a Union ship became very apparent. There was no way intruders would have found it so easy to reach the bridge, not even intruders as talented as my friends.
We made it unchallenged to the bridge. A big Oghr, a Drak and to my surprise a human being were present. The Oghr reclined in the command seat and made snoring sounds, while the human who I saw only from behind had her feet on the console before her and was dozing. The Drak manned what I assumed was the helm position, saw us come on the bridge and jumped out of his seat. I drew the Colt, because Narth was still carrying my blaster and fired without a seconds hesitation. The projectile hit the Drak in the left shoulder. A spray of dark blood gushed over his console, while he spun around and went to the floor.
The Oghr and the human bolted out of their seats, looking into the three inch bore holes of my friend’s TKU blasters. Only now as she stepped more into the light I noticed the light blue skin and the coppery hair of the human, my trigger finger started itching, she was a Thauran.
Shea said. “I suggest none of you make any sudden moves, our Captain is in a bitchy mood today.”
I said slightly irritated. “I am not in a bitchy mood or anything.”
She didn’t take her eyes from the completely perplexed looking beings and said. “Tell that to the Drak or the Oghr below.”
The Oghr growled angry. “What is the meaning of this?”
I focused on him and said. “Your vessel is now mine. Your cooperation would be welcome, but isn’t really needed.”
He said. “I am Heaz Xford, the Asgruhr of this ship. You must be out of your mind. You instigators may have had a few good days in the plains playing with the weak Drak, but your silly revolution is coming to an end very soon. Put down your weapons and surrender and I will make sure you…”
He didn’t get further; I fired and perforated his ear. He was a tough Oghr but having an ear pierced that way was driving the point home. He yelped and reached for his injured ear. Shea raised the gun and the muzzle glimmered in pre discharge mode.
He froze in his move.
I nodded. “That’s better.”
Narth stepped forward and disappeared along with the Oghr.
This frightened the Thauran woman even more and she made a step away from us and said. “Who are you?”
I said. “I am your worst nightmare, Thauran slaver scum. Now lay down on the floor, arms spread, face down. Hesitate even for a heartbeat and I’ll drill holes in you in places you would find very unpleasant.”
She dropped to her knees, the muzzle of my gun trained on her forehead. All I had to do is pull the trigger and the Universe would have a Thauran less.
Her eyes looked up and found mine. Whatever she saw made her lips tremble and her small chin quiver. She was young, perhaps my age.
How I disliked these blue skinned traitors! Where ever I went I met one of these bastards and almost always doing something despicable. I took a deep breath, remembered my Thauran officer and thumbed the safety and slowly de cocked the hammer of the antique weapon and said. “You are right of course. We are not executioners.”
The Thauran woman knew how close she had come to dying and she started sobbing and went to lie down as I asked her to do.
Just then there was a soft soundless voice inside my head. At first I thought it was Narth, but the voice was different. It did not have the same warm and brotherly, affectionate quality. It was a cold, inhuman voice. I heard it for the first time at least consciously and it was not the voice of a stranger or some outside influence, it was the voice of my own thoughts utterly familiar and inside my mind it said. “Yes I am the Executioner. I am the devourer and I am the wrath of death, life is chaos. Death is order, I am Darkness Eternal.”
With all my anger I yelled back. “This is not me! I will not go down this path and judge beings by their origin. I am a Union Fleet officer. Look for someone else to possess. I didn’t ask you to mess up my life!”
There was no response. It was no foreign influence, no external voice, but I swore to myself I would not become the slave of some kind of entity that decided to make me its tool. Whatever I would become, it was my decision.
Shea looked at me as if I was a stranger and she said. “Are you okay?”
I straightened my shoulders and said. “Yes I am.”
I took a can of stick and fix and glued the blue skinned Thauran to the floor plates.
“I am curious Thauran, what are you doing here?”
She could not move very much as her hands and feet were bonded to the floor, but she tried to move her head to the side and she said.
“What do you think I am doing? CID and Federal Police are all over the Thauran kingdom, ever since it became known that our King had dealings with the Worm. I did do a few favors for the Worm. I have no desire to end up on a Federal Penal colony or worse. Good Navigators are in demand. I don’t care what the freight is, as long as I have a job.”
I knelt down and put a generous helping of Stick and glue across her mouth.
Whatever she responded turned into a mumbling sound consisting almost entirely of the letter m, intoned in various ways. I patted her head and got up. “Maybe I’ll even let you up after a while, but right now I like you the way you are.”
Krabbel and Circuit came on the bridge and Circuit reported. “We got everyone, the ship is ours. My Archa friend produced a few more of those packages. ”
Just as he said that Narth also returned along with the Oghr captain of the ship.
The Oghr captain said to me. “How do you like this get-up? I really look like an Oghr. That Auto Dresser of yours is quite the machine.”
I grinned and said. “You look just like him, Mao, how about the Mind Dump?”
The disguised Mao touched his big teeth and said. “I am in direct contact with SHIP and should be able to answer all questions and know every code and procedure. Just tell me what these tusks are for?”
I laughed and padded his green shoulders. “Maybe it is better we don’t know.”
Narth pointed to the injured Draak and the incapacitated Thauran woman.
“Do you want them to remain here or can I take them to Cateria?”
I nodded. “Take them of course; we don’t want to mess up our schedule.”
The solvent can floated all by itself around the Thauran woman and freed her and Narth added. “Who are you going to be, the Thauran or the Drak?”
Mao sat in the Command Chair and I was sitting wearing blue skin
and coppery hair, in the seat of the Navigator. As much as I disliked the Thauran, she was human in shape and form and the disguise was more comfortable. Narth impersonated the Drak and Shea remained out of the Visual sensors.
A high ranking Drak officer was hailing us just moments later and he said. “Our mighty friends requested that we transfer the criminals we have right away. Prepare for lift off, while we herd the scum into your freight bay.”
Mao responded with the correct codes and acted his part. Every one of this slave transports crew was now one of ours and the local authorities kept their word and herded almost ten thousand slaves into the freight bays. Stacked in inhuman little cages, filling the Cargo bays, there was the occasional sigh and I could hear pleas of mercy. The smell of ten thousand naked unwashed beings, along with the sharp stench of excrement wafted through the open doors and made me gag. To see the sad eyes from behind the cage bars and the hopelessness was getting to me. It reinforced my commitment to end this practice where ever I could.
Everything went just as I had planned and with the first light of day, we lifted off. Shea was certain that the orbital sensor grid was still offline and the Drak had no means of tracking the Slave transport once it was in orbit. Har-Hi who was flying escort in one of our Wolfcraft in full cloak, verified that there were no sensor activities detectable.
I still took the ship down as fast as I dared and landed it among the other wrecks close to the Tigershark. Rebels under the lead of Ninety came aboard and started opening cages and removing the control collars. At first the slaves and prisoners did not believe and trust their own luck, but they recognized Ninety and the lethargic acceptance of their fate, most of the prisoners displayed changed instantly into a joyous frenzy. It took us some time to get the former slaves clothed and fed. Cateria and her team worked hard to check them over. I noticed that my med team was no longer alone. I saw Ithe wearing Med-uniforms who helped triage and treat the mostly minor injuries.
One of the Ithe in med uniforms waved at me and said. “I know you have a hard time recognizing individuals, I am Naroma. I was just a seamstress but I know a little about first aid. As soon as we are Union, I am going to join the medical services.”
The half-naked former slave she was treating looked at the Derma-Patcher on his arm and he said. “I was a Drak doctor and sent to the Smelter moons because I treated Ithe with the same care and with medicine reserved for the Drak. I too want to help as soon as I can.”
He took my hand. “Thank you for my freedom, Captain Velvet. Is it true we are going to be Union members?”
I sighed and said. “That is a question you need to answer once this planet is united. It is not something I can decide for you.”
Naroma pulled the Derma-Patcher and the Drak doctor stared with amazement at the barely visible patch of lighter skin. Then his fingers grazed over it and he said. “How could we possibly decide otherwise? What good could I do with technology like that, this is a surgeons dream.”
I let them be and looked for Ninety, finding him standing with a large group of Ithe. To him I said. “We don’t have too much time, do you have enough volunteers?”
He wrinkled his snout and showed me his formidable teeth. By now I knew it was a Togar smile.“We have enough to fill ten ships.”
A Karthanian pushed himself to the front of the group and he said. “Remember me Captain Velvet?”
I said. “I am sorry but I am not able to differentiate between Karthanian Individuals.”
He said. “I am Grtonner Icylemh; I knew you would not turn your back on Ithe. I am here to help and I am here to go with you to the Smelter Moons and then to Karthania to wake the First Engineer.”
I said to him. “Mr. Icylemh we need to do things one at a time. I hope we can free the slaves on the Smelter Moons and get the ball rolling, but I don’t think we have the resources or the time to go to Karthania itself. Besides the First Engineer wasn’t too friendly towards the Union while he was in charge. What makes you think he will change his mind even if we manage to wake him?”
The Karthanian said. “That is not true and there is much misunderstanding. It is not the Union the First Engineer objected to, quite the opposite is true. It is the Mega Corporations, especially Schwartz Intergalactic that he objected to. We are engineers and builders and the Union is a huge market where we could sell our products, but as long as SII and the others manage to paint us as an outsider and an enemy we can’t.”
Har-Hi who had joined us said. “We don’t even know who or what this First Engineer is.”
Icylemh turned his bony head to Har-Hi. “The first Engineer is the minds of two-thousand Guild masters, linked to a Computronic and melted into a new being over the thousand years it has existed. It is your famous Mothermachine who helped creating it, long before the X101 became Union Members.”
I said. “Somehow I expected something like that, especially since we met those towering war machines with brains of Karthanian soldiers.”
The Karthanian space dock owner said. “Space ships need very advanced Computronics and we are not as successful creating completely artificial AI components as your Union tech are. We always used biotronic components based on living minds.”
Har-Hi gave me a long look and then said. “Well as it may be, I am ready to take on the local weapon mystery. Shea, Narth and I need to go and meet the Chauffeur.”
I wished him luck and I wanted to join them, but I had an appointment with the Overseers on the Smelter Moons.
The End
Beginning of Book 4:
Eric Olafson: Neo Viking
Prelude
One of my oldest friends suggested that I tell my story, the story of my human life. To put it down in words so others can read about it.
At first I objected to the idea, but then it grew on me, because it is not just a story about me but about the many beings and individuals I had met during my journey. Some became friends and a few became so much more; elevated to a state of relationship where the word friend simply is not adequate to describe the bond that had been shared.
Others became enemies and most simply played their part. It is to their memory I decided to dedicate my memoirs.
Every tale needs a beginning and this one begins not so long ago on a planet called Nilfeheim, where I was born as Eric Olafson, son of Isegrim Olafson and Ilva Ragnarsson at Union Standard date 0107-9999.91. However this way of timekeeping using Galactic years and fractions thereof had never really caught on. Many worlds of the United Stars of the Galaxies, especially on worlds settled and colonized by Terran Humans, still keep time the old Terran way, it is way time is kept on Nilfeheim. My day of birth using Old Terran Time was October 7th, 4999.
Now as I look back, sitting here in my old tower room overlooking the oceans of Nilfeheim, the Union writes the year 5500. The Decision, the reason I reincarnated has been made and The RULE has been restored.
The United Stars of the Galaxies, an amazing diverse coalition of sentient beings and civilizations simply known as the Union has grown in this time. Old enemies have joined and others have perished and disappeared. Now five hundred years are less than a proverbial eyeblink compared to the time periods galactic events and cosmic history are measured, but it is this time I was privileged to experience.
I will leave this plane of existence. My journey in this, your universe has reached its end. My last vestiges of human existence fade away and I became what I have always been,
As I look back and recall what occurred; I realize how blessed I was to have met them all; the ones that called me friend. The ones that had it within them to love me and teach me the true meaning of this most powerful emotion and condition of all. It will be a testament to their ability to overcome the greatest challenges and teach even am entity such as me that there can be light in the darkest night.
I am getting ahead of myself and speak of things that will only make sense if you indeed follow my tale to the end. As I have mentioned before, it all began about 5
00 years ago on a very cold water world called Nilfeheim. I decided to tell you my story as I have experienced it, but at times I will borrow the voices of others; to introduce their parts and illustrate their role in this saga.
I am known as The Dark One. There are those who curse me and fear me as the incarnation of Death and Anti Life itself. Some try to categorize me as a God or Demon. Some do not believe I exist and explain what I am is nothing but the hand of nature. I have no need for categories born in the feeble minds of mortal beings. I demand neither faith nor worship. What is it to me when insignificant mortals chant my name, sing or bring sacrifices, if they build effigies in my likeness?
I have experienced the real meaning of sacrifice as my human mother gave her life to safe my mortal shell. I have seen true Soldiers and heroes paying full knowingly the ultimate price so others might live.
I have met true faith in the brutish form of a Y'All warrior. The very incarnation of unwavering righteousness and honor in an old Pre Astro Marine and most of all I am blessed with the friendship from a small band of the most remarkable beings and the greatest gift of all, unconditional,pure love.
What I am cannot be understood by minds trapped in space and time, by beings able to perceive just one plane of existence. No words that could be understood by by all who are mortal describe the true essence and reasons that make me what I am.
It matters not what I am now. For the purpose of this tale it matters only that those I am privileged to call friends know, that I have been and always will be their ally and friend.
The Dark One
Union Citizen-
Chapter 1: Nilfeheim
Union Planet – Solken System
Nilfeheim is the 2nd planet in the Solken System, a Type 4D Garden world. The planet is on an elliptic orbit around its sun. A second failed sun, a supermassive Gas giant is the cause for this unusual orbit and the reason for long cold winters that can last up to seven standard (Terran) years. This long season is locally known as Longnight.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 6 (The Galactic Chronicles Series) Page 153