by TylerRose.
“What of the Droghers and the rest of the Knaves?” she asked.
“A lot of them died trying to fight back. There was a grassroots force, but it was very small and lacking in firepower. They didn’t have a chance against machines that could fly and foot soldiers with energy weapons and personal shielding. Many tens of thousands of people were turned into their mechanical foot soldiers as well. And tens of thousands more were forced to become living foot soldiers. If they refused, they were beaten to death on the spot.”
“How many people died?” she asked quietly, one arm crossing over her chest and the other hand going up to rub her forehead.
“About twenty million total, including military personnel and civilians. They are counting those who were turned into machines as dead.”
“How are they treating those who were forced to be soldiers?”
“A lot of those have committed suicide,” he told her. “The shame of it is just too much, so they are killing themselves, unable to live with it. These soldiers didn’t just march through and kill people. They raped every single woman of breeding age. They took some of them up to the ship in orbit. Since that ship blew up, no doubt they died there.”
“How many foot soldier babies are there going to be?”
“Well, let’s just say that the abortion clinics are very busy this week. What shall I tell Earnol your response was when I told you this?”
“The truth. I’m all kinds of pissed off. Have that K’Tran assignment waiting for me when I get back. I don’t intend to spend more than one day on the station before going there.”
“Okay. They’ve suggested I go with you,” he said. “Keep an eye on you.”
“I’ll find out more on my own.”
“Yes, but you need a male escort.”
“No, I don’t,” she denied.
“You don’t know what K’Tran are like,” he persisted.
“The hell I don’t. Didn’t you notice the K’Tran who left as you were coming in? He’s my Security Chief. I deal with a macho K’Tran male every single hour of every fucking day. I don’t need a male escort. You’d only get in my way and spend all your time being insulted by him, trust me.”
“Okay, I believe you. Have you an idea how much longer you want to be here?”
“A few more weeks at least. I have a replacement in the works but he can only be part time. He’s not going to be fully available for another year. So I have to make sure the station is stable enough to be run by one of the girls in the interim.”
“Earnol knows you’re angry. I’d be angry too if it was my home,” he said.
“It was your home, Alen! All of Earth is our home,” she snapped in an instant fury.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. Why don’t you explain it?”
The door opened, Arran coming in. “Is there a problem, Lar Tyler?”
“I’m going up for a while. Give my regards to Julian,” she said to Alen, and teleported to the penthouse.
“So I’m not the only one who can piss her off in the span of five minutes,” Arran said.
“Everyone pisses her off right now,” Alen sighed, and teleported himself back to his place in time.
“Well?” Earnol demanded the second he appeared.
“Whoa, yeah, she’s still beyond furious. She said to tell you that she will be on the station only a single day when she comes back. She’ll take the K’Tran assignment and go there and you won’t even have to look at her.”
“Good. Julian.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Ask the Rosaas to select a host for her and tell them we will have a date for her arrival shortly.”
“I will settle it tomorrow. It is already a late hour for the Rosaas.”
“Just get it done,” Earnol scowled and walked out.
Julian waited for the door to close again.
“How is she? Really?” he asked Alen.
“Furious. She says she needs a month to be sure the station is stable before she turns it over to someone else to run.
Music up loud, Tyler jammed hard to get out the anger and be in a better mood for the evening’s business. Song after song, each one harder than the last. Enter Sandman; Let It Go and then three more Def Leppards from the Pyromania album; AC/DC; You’ve Got Another Thing Coming; five Whitesnake songs; three from Ratt’s first album.
“MISS ROSE!” shouted behind her so that she turned at the sound with vengeance in her eyes.
“WHAT?!”
Jeera flinched, hating to interrupt as much as Tyler hated to be interrupted. “I’m sorry. You didn’t answer my call. Landers are in your office and they’re not happy.”
“When are they ever fucking happy? I’ll be there in a minute!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I’m not mad at you, Jeera. I’m mad at the Universe.”
“I know, Rose,” Jeera said, and closed the door.
Tyler shut down the machine, put her pipe in her shirt pocket and took her glass to the kitchen before teleporting herself to her office.
“I’m here, Niu. Let them in.”
A few seconds and the Lander from whom she’d stolen the ship came in. He glared angrily at her, having been severely punished for allowing himself to get so drunk and break however many rules he broke. Most of the Landers looked at her like that, knowing she’d caused him to be so punished.
Behind him was a mechanoid being some seven feet tall, looking very much like one of those machines that had invaded Earth. Matte gray/silver metal. Mostly featureless face, articulated fingers
“What’s this?” she demanded, lighting a cigarette.
“Tyler, this is Im Reesana.”
Eem Ree-sah-nah, meaning Chosen One in the Language of the Landers.
“He is from a planet called Taverages, in the far outskirts.”
“Skip the pleasantries. What do you want?” she cut him off.
“You have a person named Steinach here on the station?” Im Reesana asked.
“I can’t be expected to know the name of every person who comes onto my station,” she glowered up at the matte silver mechanoid-looking thing. “Let me look. Who is he and why do you want him?”
She typed into her computer while he answered.
“He murdered an archaeologist on Taverages. He was convicted and escaped transport to prison. I have come to take him back to fulfill his sentence.”
“He arrived two days ago. He’s in room 2819 and he’s alone. I’ll go with you,” she said, on her feet and around the desk to lead the way.
Into the lift, locking out other floors so no one else could get on. At level 22, she stopped the lift.
“Taverages. I have heard of it. How big is your ship? How many people can it carry?” she demanded quickly.
“I can carry ten people. Why?”
“With all the supplies to feed them?”
“Yes. I repeat: Why?” Im Reesana said.
She pressed a button to get the lift moving again. “I have passengers for you. You take care of your prisoner and I’ll get the girls and meet you at your ship.”
The Lander and the mechanoid walked out onto the floor and she teleported to the Rolcha rooms to get the three girls from Bomars.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked them.
Unanimous yes.
“Then pack what you want to take. I have a transport for you right now.”
They squealed with joy and ran to their rooms to pack their few belongings into small travel cases. Five minutes and she was taking them down to the hanger, to the ship of unusual configuration. Im Reesana saw them and one of them recognized him and hugged Tyler tight as could be.
“Thank you, Lar Rose!”
“Just go and have a life,” Tyler replied.
The three girls ran into the ship.
“What is this about?” Im Reesana asked her.
“The former owner of this station liked to have women stolen from all arou
nd the quadrant, to work as whores. Once I took over, I gave those three jobs as waitresses or housekeeping instead. I couldn’t find where they came from. So here you are and there they are. Promise to send them home fulfilled. I have a question for you. Why are you going to go to Earth? Did you already know Adamantine was going there?”
“I don’t know what an Earth is. Or an Adamantine. Why would I?”
“Because he’s going to have an army of mechanoids that look remarkably like you. When he landed on Earth, he had some sort of energy that came out of his hands and shot him around almost like flying on it. He’s going to be on Earth in about five hundred years. That’s in Alpha quadrant. It’s going to take him some time to get there, so you’re going to know all about it well ahead of time. Kill the fucker before I have to.”
She teleported back to the penthouse to soak in the tub and try to relax before…Before nothing. She was taking the night off, and called down to Jeera to tell her to take care of everything.
“You’re not going to perform?” Jeera asked.
“Not tonight. I need a break.”
A break she took with movies on the video screen and her journal. She’d not written in it in a few days. There was a lot to catch up on. Arran came in after his shift, bringing a tray piled with covered dishes, and she turned off the video in favor of quiet classical music.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she finished a sentence.
“Writing in my journal. Writing down things I’ve done here, the rules I’ve instated, how things are going.”
“Your anger?”
“Of course,” she replied, picking a piece of something to put onto her small plate.
“May I read it?”
“No. It’s for me, no one else,” she said, and the book vanished into her psionic vault.
“Our Gars have a type of journal. It is the philosophy of the House, called the Mondragoon. Every day, the Houseman sets the book to a page. Residents and visitors are free to read the page, and the entire Mondragoon, as they choose. They can turn to another page and leave it for the next to start from.”
“What goes in it? Not last night I fucked this chick or that chick,” she said.
“No, not usually. The Gar is the only one allowed to write in it. He writes the lessons learned. Thoughts on life and business, relationships, rivalries. When he dies, the next writes his first entry and the Mondragoon is put back in a ceremony called the Installation.”
“K’Tran is big on formality and ceremony, isn’t it?”
“Very much. I have a copy of my family Mondragoon. Each son of the House copies it by hand and then continues with his own thoughts and lessons as he passes through life.”
“So while it starts as your ancestor’s House philosophy, it ends up becoming your own,” she said.
“Yes. In that, it is very much like keeping a journal.”
“I would like to see it.”
He left the bed and went to his room and came back within a minute with a square book fourteen inches across. It was easily three inches thick.
“My goodness. Can I make a copy?”
“I think that would take you more time than you have,” he said seriously.
She stared at him, one finger on the book, and made a copy appear on her lap. He looked at the book she touched, the book on her thighs, at her face.
“You know no one in the known galaxy can do such a thing, don’t you?” he asked too quietly.
“I know I can do a lot of things no one else in the known galaxy can do. What I don’t know is why I’m not being taught how to use my abilities; and why I have to be hidden away while my world is attacked. I don’t know why I have to be kept away from the important men doing important things.”
“I would say because they know you are more important than they are and they don’t want you to know it,” he said.
“But why?”
“You will have to ask them.”
“Yeah, the one most threatened by me gets mad when I start asking questions. That’s why I’m here, 500 years out of his sight,” she groused.
“Stewing in your own anger? What are you going to do about it?”
“I haven’t decided how to go about it, but I have to find the truths. Why he wants me out of the way. Why he wouldn’t let me be there to fight the invasion. Will you do me a favor and stay until Gannon takes over the station? That’ll be after he’s no longer President of Ryli.”
“You said you wanted me to go back to K’Tran,” he reminded her, accustomed to her sudden shifts in topic.
“Yes, but it can wait a year. Unless you want to take a week off and go back and then come back here. Or can you just send a message? Will they take that seriously? Or will you need to be in front of them to plead for the future?”
He debated those options. “I will have to be there. It could take me two weeks just to get an audience.”
“Is there any way you can get in faster?” she asked.
“One has an audience with the Rosaas when the Rosaas desire, not the other way around. There is nothing I can do or say to make it happen sooner.”
She refilled her little plate and sat back to think. “You K’Tran are rather a blustering lot,” she eventually thought aloud. “I think if you went crashing into the office and pushed your way through and demanded to be heard, you’d get their attention a lot more quickly than being patient and waiting your turn. Waiting your turn doesn’t seem to be the strong suit for you, which tells me it’s even less so for those higher than you in the society.”
“It could also see me on a gallows, thank you,” he protested.
“I don’t think so. Not if you can make them see that you are correct. Who knows. It could open up whole new avenues for you. Have you traveling with a diplomatic corps or something rather than watching over the head Madam in a brothel.”
“Casino resort that happens to have comfort women,” he corrected.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she teased.
“Is there something I can do to put you in a better mood? Your every word is tainted with unpleasantness.”
“Eat me out for an hour and then fuck me for two,” she said. “That might help some.”
Chapter Ten
No long speeches. In fact, no speeches at all. Tyler announced at the beginning of a morning meeting that she was turning over daily operations of the station to another person who would come to take the position soon enough.
“Until then, Jeera will step in as interim manager. That means she’s running this meeting and I’m leaving right now. Thank you all for your cooperation in getting this station going. I know you’ll continue to uphold the standards I’ve put in place.”
With that, she teleported to her already packed bag in the penthouse. She’d said her goodbye to Arran the night before and he was not there to see her off. It was easier for both that way. She turned on the teleport booster she’d been given to come here with. Hand on the suitcase, she activated the return path.
Arriving in an empty transport room, she then teleported directly to her own room and electronically signed into the station’s personnel log. Holding the booster, she stared at it for a very long minute. Could she get away with hiding it in her psionic vault? She hadn’t been the one to sign it out but she had used it to come back.
She hid it in her vault for future use and would say nothing about it unless someone asked. She could go back right now with it, but that wouldn’t help anyone if she didn’t have enough of the information to go along with it. Knowing Adamantine was going to be there was the least of it. She needed to know more about his force, more about the group that went to Earth to help.
Looking up and around, the room was strange to her. She’d been gone for so long it didn’t seem like hers anymore. Especially after the comfort and space of her penthouse.
“Nimrod, what date is it on Earth?” she asked.
“In what time zone?” Nimrod asked back.
“Fucking
anal retentive machine,” she muttered. “I will always mean the United States of America.”
“Noted. Today is May third.”
“What year?”
“The year is 1993.”
At least Earnol hadn’t set the thing for her to come back three years later. She unpacked and hung up the fancier dresses. She’d repack tomorrow after checking the current K’Tran fashions. Next, she sat to read a report of Crecorday station’s progress.
Gannon did take over. He oversaw the installation of all the new generators and passed the job of Administrator on some ten years later. He began a tradition of “selling” the Administrator’s position. She had no problem with that. Her name was still on the deed. They could not change that. She could go there right now and take ownership if she wanted; but preferred to keep silent on that for now.
The small amount of money paid into her bank account every week had grown stupendously. The ATM-like card stored in her psionic vault, she’d leave that alone as well. Maybe she’d need it in the future. She liked having a backup plan. She like having money not be an issue. If Earnol knew about the account, surely he’d try to take it away.
“Nimrod, when I ask you for information, who is alerted that I have asked?” she sked out of the blue.
“No one is alerted.”
“Does someone check the logs of what I’ve searched for?”
“Administrator Earnol has checked the logs twice since you first came to the station.”
The doorbell rang, stalling Tyler’s inquiries. Alen was on the other side. She went to the door to open it rather than call him in.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was a jerk.”
“Julian tell you to say that?”
“No, Prince Shestna did. You were right. All of Earth is our home. I didn’t lose anyone and I wasn’t there to see it happen. You did lose people. A lot of people. I was a complete and insensitive jerk. Forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“Come have supper with me,” he suggested.
“It’s that late here?” she glanced over to the clock she’d not looked at before now.
The end of the common dinner hour, stretching into late evening, they got a table in the open seating area and in the middle of their meal, Baener from Deek’Trai IV joined them. A little while later, Julian came to the table. Then Shestna and the Balnaatrus Junior Congressman and she was having a welcome back party. Thankfully, the rest of the Earth telepaths stayed away.