by Saxon Andrew
“If you say so.”
Embree leaned back in his seat and said, “And is commanding the scanning team the only thing you do?”
Shelly stared at him and started to lie but decided against it, “I’m a Captain and third-in-command on my ship.”
“Do you like your Commander?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. And you?”
“Leonidas is the reason I’m here. He’s the best man I’ve ever met.”
Shelly smiled, “I think we have something in common. However, I hated my commander most of my life.”
Embree’s head went back, “Why is that?”
Shelly shrugged and began telling Embree about her father. By the time they arrived on Jester, Embree saw that this young woman was much more than he thought. As they stood to leave the shuttle, Embree said, “I’m three years older than you.”
Shelly’s eyes narrowed and her head went back, “And just how do you know that?”
“I’ve learned from observing small details about women over the years how to determine about what their age is. I’m thirty-one years old; am I wrong?” Shelly stared at him and Embree smiled, “I’m sorry. It’s not polite to ask a woman her age. He stepped aside and said, “after you.”
Shelly walked ahead of him and smiled just before she stepped off the shuttle, “No, you’re not wrong.” Embree smiled and followed her into M’s. Once they entered the tavern, Shelly walked away toward the members of her crews. Embree stopped and watched her go and shook his head. She was a real knock-out. He turned and walked over to join Leonidas and Desiree as Gem and Ana entered the room. He sat down at a table next to them and after a few moments saw John Blakely walk through the entrance. He was hard to miss; he was a head taller than most of those present. There was a taller black colored being that entered just behind Blakely that was six inches taller than him. That one must have come from one of the other ships. He’d never seen a being like him before.
He didn’t see the woman with Blakely until he moved closer to the table and he was startled by her beauty. She was quite impressive and knew that Ana and Desiree now had some real competition in the beauty department. He glanced across the room and looked at Shelly talking with the crews gathered around her. She was also tops in that department as well. He settled in and started listening to what was being said. Tonight should be really interesting. He adjusted his ear-piece to focus in on conversations taking place around the room. He didn’t want to miss anything of importance. He found himself focusing on the blonde-haired beauty named Shelly a lot. After a while, he didn’t care if he missed other conversations. He changed his focus when the Commander of the nine warship entered the room. He needed to focus on him so he could help Leonidas later. He still kept glancing across the room at Shelly.
Chapter Nine
The room was loud and getting louder as Sam entered M’s. Leonidas saw him come through the entrance and stood up to go and greet him. “Welcome to M’s Commander. Our table is right over here.”
Sam nodded and followed Leo across the floor. He saw Jek and Shelly staring at him and he waved them over. He saw that there were six humans sitting at the table he was headed toward. He arrived at the same moment Jek and Shelly arrived. He looked at Leonidas, “Do you mind if my Command Staff joins us?”
Leo smiled, “Not at all.” Leo looked at the table next to them and said, “Embree, please join us.” Embree smiled and moved over to the table. He hesitated slightly and took a chair next to Shelly. She looked at him and smiled. Embree returned her smile and sat down.
Sam sat down and Leonidas said, “This is my wife Desiree and the handsome couple next to us are Gem and Ana. They command one of our ships. The tall man sitting next to them also commands one of our ships and…” Leonidas hesitated and John said, “This is Fredrica O’Donnel. She is my date for the evening.”
Sam smiled, “It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. My name is Sam Oliver and this tall handsome being sitting beside me is Jek. He is one of the thirty-three different species that live on my planet. Sitting next to him is Shelly Stevens, who is the Team Leader of my Scanner Team. Jek is my second-in-command and Shelly is my third.”
Leonidas smiled, “The young man sitting next to your Third is Embree. He is my second-in-command.” John was staring at Jek and after a moment he looked at Leonidas. Leonidas said, “Why don’t we take a few moments to get to know each other before we delve into serious subjects. Tell me a little about the planet you call home, Commander.”
“Call me, Sam.”
Leo smiled, “And please call me, Leo.”
Sam nodded and said, “I come from a planet that has a little more than thirty different species living on it. Our planet is named Heaven and the name was taken from a human ship that crash landed on it more than a five-hundred years ago. Jek is a Guyton and his species also lives there. If you look around you will see that many of those that serve on my ships are from many of those species.”
Desiree smiled, “That’s pretty unusual. I’ve not run across any planets with anywhere near that many different species living together.”
Sam smiled, “We’re proud of our home and all of us love our planet and each other. There has never been any strife or war between us and for most of our history, we lived in peace.”
Gem looked at Sam, “Did something change that?”
Sam looked at Gem, “Yes. Heaven was attacked and invaded by an aggressive civilization named Huddes. They enslaved the cities and forced our people into slavery for almost three decades. Millions of our people managed to flee into the wilds around our cities with small arms while the Huddes destroyed our fleet.”
“I though you lived in peace. Why did you have a fleet and weapons?” Ana asked.
“The ship that first encountered the Huddes on a filament that crossed the intersection close to Heaven sent a warning before it was destroyed that they were moving our way. We were forced to start building defenses against their finding us. Unfortunately, our ships were no match for theirs and all of them were destroyed without damaging any of theirs.”
Gem interrupted Sam, “Is that why you’re out here looking for advanced weapon technology?”
Sam turned to him, “No, it isn’t.” Sam saw them looking at him in confusion. “Everyone of us in this room fought against the Huddes in the forests and jungles outside our cities for years. I was born in the forests on Heaven and fought against the Huddes with my family. We made them pay in blood but we were nowhere near defeating them.” Sam looked around the table and said, “Then one day, the Huddes boarded their warships and left Heaven. They told us that their home world was under attack and they were going to resolve that issue. They promised that once it was done, they would be coming back.” Gem started to speak again but Sam said, “They never did. After fifteen years, I took a small squadron of ships out to find their home world. We finally managed to find it and discovered a planet that was blasted down to bed rock. It appears that they lost the war to the civilization they attacked.”
Leo lowered his eyes, “If they are no longer a threat to you, why are you looking for advanced weapons?”
Sam turned to Leo, “Another civilization attacked Heaven a little more than a year ago and they make the Huddes look like small children in comparison. We are no match for them and they are coming back to attack us.”
John asked, “What caused them to attack you?”
Sam looked at him, “I assisted a Colony Ship with more than thirty-thousand beings on it to escape one of their warships. They came back to kill that ship and my planet for assisting them to escape.”
Gem stared at Sam, “Did I hear you correctly that there was just one ship?”
“You did. We have more than six-thousand warships in our fleets but that single ship was capable of destroying all of them. That ship is more powerful than any warship I’ve ever seen and one of them could destroy all three of those you are flying.”
Gem scoffed, “You have no way of knowing
that. You don’t know the power of our ships.”
“I’ve scanned your ships and see that you have fifty blasters on the hull.” Gem stared at him for a moment and then nodded. “The Tronan Warship that attacked Heaven had more than two-hundred blasters on its hull and I really believe they are more powerful than the ones you have on your ships. It was also faster than any ship we’ve ever recorded.”
Embree looked at Sam and asked, “How fast was it?”
“It was capable of boosting to more than a thousand-light years a minute above the speed of the filament.”
Gem stared at Sam and shook his head, “I find that hard to believe.”
“If you doubt it, I’ll take one of my ships and allow you to see if you can catch it.” Gem’s eyes narrowed and Sam said, “The colony ship we saved was actually slightly faster than the Tronan Warship and we duplicated its booster system for forty of our warships; ten of them are with me here. We can currently travel at better than twelve thousand-light years a minute. However, our speed is no help if we can’t get near their ships to attack them.”
Desiree looked at Sam and asked, “You say that they attacked you over a year ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Why haven’t they returned before now?”
Sam looked at Desiree and lowered his eyes, “The Tronan chased the colony ship for a year at those speeds.”
The table was silent and Embree said, “That means they came from outside our known universe.” Sam nodded. Embree looked at Leo and then said, “May I assume you managed to destroy that single ship and when it doesn’t show up where it started from, you expect them to investigate what happened?”
“I do and they’ll be coming back with a lot more than a single warship.”
Leo looked at Sam, “How did you manage to destroy it?”
Shelly said, “Would you like to see how we did it?” Everyone at the table looked at her. “I recorded the battle with a series of eight passive probes and I have the recording on my communicator. If the establishment won’t mind hooking me up with one of their monitors, I can play it.”
Embree stood up, “I’ll go and ask the manager.”
Embree stood up to leave and Leo looked at Sam, “Is this new civilization like the one that invaded your planet before?”
Sam looked him in the eyes and said, “No. There will be no survivors if they successfully invade Heaven.”
“Why not?” Ana asked.
“They consume all the intelligent life on the planets they invade.”
Gem lowered his eyes, “What do you mean consume? Are they carnivores?”
Sam shook his head, “Not in the literal definition of the word. They round up the populations and force them into giant machines that convert them into food and fuel for their warships.”
John’s head went back, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why do they need to kill intelligent life? They could just use the animals on the planet instead.”
“It’s easier to take intelligent life.”
Gem started to protest but Leo said, “We have a saying that originally came from Earth. A really difficult task is often described as herding cats. Getting animals into holding pens would be a lot harder than directing intelligent beings to follow your instructions.”
Gem stared at Leo and after a moment said, “I understand.”
Embree came back and said, “The manager has given me the code for the large monitor over the bar.”
Leo looked around and said, “Well, let’s go take a look.”
Everyone stood up and walked toward the bar. The crewmen at the bar saw their officers approaching and stood up from their chairs. The ten leaders moved to the bar and took a chair. Embree looked at Shelly, “I’ll make the connection if you want.”
Shelly started to say no but she pulled up the recording and changed the display, “Enter the link numbers on the display and it should link to the monitor.”
“I’ll give it back to you once the connection is made.”
Shelly nodded and handed him her communicator. Embree took it and pointed it at the monitor. The monitor went dark and he handed the communicator back to Shelly. She took it and began pressing buttons, “I’m going to start this by showing you the colony ship as it was fleeing the Tronan Vessel.”
Everyone in the establishment gathered around behind their leaders and stared at the giant monitor. They heard, “Captain, I have a giant blip on the edge of my scanning range moving toward us at high speed!”
“How fast?”
“It’s moving faster than we are capable of matching, Sir.”
“How long before it arrives at our position?”
“About two hours.”
“Connect me with Fleet.” The Communications Officer pressed several buttons, looked up at him, and nodded. “I’ve detected a fast moving vessel moving on the filament toward our intersection. It appears to be more than a hundred times the size of our largest warship and is moving faster than we can fly. It will arrive at my location in about two hours.”
Shelly fast forwarded and they saw the giant ship blow past the Heaven Warship at incredible speed. She continued to fast forward and eventually they saw the giant Tronan Warship blow through the intersection at an unimaginable speed. Everyone was silent and Shelly said, “I’m going to fast forward to when the Tronan Warship returned looking for the colony ship.”
“Why did they come back to your intersection?” Embree asked.
Sam answered, “It was the only one that had filaments where the colony ship could possibly divert and execute a radical turn and not have to slow down so much that it would be detected by the Tronan Vessel.” Embree nodded and Shelly started the recording at the moment when the colony ship opened fire with a giant missile barrage.
While the recording was running, Gem pointed a device at the monitor and looked at it numerous times while the battle unfolded. At the end, when the giant warship went up in a horrific blast and the monitor went dark, everyone watching the monitor was silent. Leo stared at the monitor and then turned to Sam, “I understand your need now.”
Sam shrugged and turned to them, “Why don’t we move back to our table.” The ten leaders stood up and the crews began talking among themselves. Leo looked at Desiree and saw her expression. He didn’t need to ask what she was thinking. They arrived at the table and Sam said, “Now you see what we’re up against.”
Leo stared at him and looked at Gem whose expression was fixed. Leo turned back to Sam and said, “We need some time to discuss what we’ve just seen. Would it be alright for us to do that in privacy?”
Sam nodded and stood up as Jek and Shelly joined him. They walked away from the table and Leo looked at Embree, “If you will excuse us.”
Embree nodded and headed toward the bar. Leo looked at the other five and began speaking.
• • •
Embree walked up to the bar and ordered a glass of ice. While he waited, Shelly walked up and said, “What are you drinking?”
Embree started and smiled, “Oh, nothing.”
“I saw you order something from the waiter behind the counter.”
“We call him a bartender.” The bartender returned with a glass of ice and Shelly saw Embree look around, take a bottle out of his pouch, and fill the glass.
“What’s in the bottle?”
Embree smiled, “Water.”
Shelly’s head went back, “Are you serious?”
“I learned a couple of years ago that I can’t handle liquor like those around me. I use water to make it appear I’m drinking and no one is the wiser.”
Shelly laughed, “Clever, I’ll have to remember that.”
Embree raised his glass and said, “Here’s to your success in finding what you need.”
Shelly bumped her glass against his and said, “You don’t think your Commander is going to assist us?”
Embree took a sip and slowly shook his head as
he looked over at the table where they were in a heated discussion, “There’s more going on here than you know. I don’t think he’ll be able to do it.”
“Do you think he should?”
Embree stared at her and, after a few moments, nodded, “I do. But I don’t think the technology from our ships would make any meaningful difference.” Shelly opened her mouth and Embree quickly said, “Your Commander was right about the power of that ship’s blasters. Ours might be close to it but the numbers they have to use would overwhelm our ships. I’m sorry. You also need to understand that if that ship is as fast as you say it is, and I do believe it is, then our ships couldn’t threaten it.” Shelly’s expression showed her sorrow and Embree said, “I’m sorry.”
“What about the missiles you use?”
Embree’s eyes narrowed instantly, “How do you know about them?”
“I’ve scanned your ships, remember and your missile ports are incredibly small. That has to mean they pack a mean punch.”
Embree tilted his head, “Touché. But they would still have to have a clear path through those blasters and I just don’t see that happening.”
Shelly sighed and then smiled, “Well, let’s enjoy the evening and talk about less drama.” Embree raised his glass again and smiled.
• • •
Sam looked at Jek, “What’s going on?”
“They’re discussing helping us but that one named Gem is not having any of it.” Sam shook his head and Jek said, “He is not really a human.” Sam’s eyes widened. “He was a kind of insect creature at birth but deliberately changed his DNA so he could be with the woman named Ana. I don’t have all the details but he does not identify with us. He comes from a different species.”
“Are we wasting our time here?”
“We still need to discuss Daniel’s recording. Perhaps we’ll learn something from allowing them to see it.”
Sam nodded and ordered a drink. “We need to get on with it.”
Jek turned to him, “Sam, you need to back off on your impatience. They’re paying for the evening and our crew needs more than just a few hours to relax. You also need to relax; you’re wound up tighter than a blaster coil and it shows.”