“Oh well, that sucks big time, as we are already fighting two other corporations. Guess we will just add them to the list. It is bad enough we have to fight off the companies below us and now we have to worry about companies with the same rank as ours. Getting tired of this crap. I guess I will have to take out one or two of these challengers to show them not to screw with me. The higher the ranked license, the bigger the contracts, and the more money my company makes.” This is why the reptilian merchant ships are also warships. They do not fear pirates, who would never attack a reptilian merchant ship because those ships are far better armed, armored, and shielded than any pirate ship. Reptilian merchant ships double as warships because the fighting among them is more dangerous than anything else they might encounter.
“I will send a message out to my other ships to add that group to the list of attack-on-sight ships.” She presses a button that transmits a message to her fleet.
A few minutes later, she activates the ship-wide intercom and informs, “Attention all crew members. We will be disembarking in approximately 30 minutes. Make sure all of your tasks have been completed and that you are at your action stations and ready for takeoff at 13:00 hours.” About that time, she hears her door chime. “Enter.”
A tall, slender, black-and-white, tiger-striped female Katlin in pink shorts and a pink tank top walks in the office carrying a box on a dolly and another thin rectangular package.
“This just came for you,” Pura Shitztar stated simply. She sets the box on the desk.
“Thank you, Pura.” Eve gets up and begins to open the box. Pura shrieks at the sight of the box’s contents. Eve pulls out the severed head of a snake man, which appears to be the head of Capt. Iquzel. There is a note attached to the side of the box, which Eve detaches as she put the head back in the box. She reads the letter aloud:
My Lady, I am sorry my former employee has caused you inconveniences. I hope that this small token will make amends for any loss that you may have incurred. I hope to continue our business relationship, as you are one of the best customers I have. Please take these two gifts as a token of my appreciation for your business. May your profits always be high, My Lady. Signed, Lord Cos.
“That is so gross; I think I am going to hurl….” Pura leaves the room in a rush to get to the nearest bathroom. Eve just sits there and smiles while thinking to herself, I have just the place for this head. She presses a button on her desk and a side panel opens. There are a couple of rows of heads mounted on the wall.
“Yes, this will go nicely in my head collection. I will have to polish it up first and then it will go great right here,” she says as she checks an open slot for the head size of her new trophy. This head would be the first in her collection that was not one of her own victims. She opens up the other package, which appears to be a painting of herself done by a very famous reptilian artist named Yuha Jukuna. “Oh my, look at this picture of me by Yuha Jukuna that must have cost a fortune. Looks like Lord Cos is flirting with me with these gifts. Vid screen on.” The screen becomes active. “Lord Cos, please.”
“Well hello, Lady Eve,” the Wolfkin says with anticipation.
“I just received your gifts. You sure know how to charm a girl. Thank you so much. I am very pleased to say the least.”
“I am happy to hear our relationship has not been damaged. I am glad you enjoyed the gifts. I look forward to our next transaction.”
“Indeed, so do I. I will chat with you later as I am about to take off. I just wanted you to know that I received the gifts and to let you know all is well with us. May profits guide you and your ventures. Good day, vid out.”
The intercom activates once again for an incoming message.
“Boss, we are ready to take off. Are you coming up to the bridge?” 42 asks.
“Yes, I am coming up there now.”
***
On the bridge, the crew is waiting for the captain before initiating the takeoff and conducting last-minute checks at the same time.
“Just daydreaming about being the meat in between two fine-looking twin snake babes…,” Gartooth says snidely with a grin and chuckle.
Meto interjects, “Thank you for the mental picture that will cause me a few weeks of mental therapy to get it out of my head.”
“Not even if I was drunk and passed out, Gar,” snaps Helma as she blows on the fresh nail polish she recently applied to her long nails.
Helma’s twin sister, Nelma, adds,” I would rather get a root canal than sleep with you, Gartooth, not to mention all the disinfectant I would need to purify my room after you left.”
They all begin laughing. The twin snake women were the navigator and helm control for the ship. For both young ladies, this was their first merchant tour.
“Har, Har, don’t knock it till you try it, Sugar Cakes,” Gartooth flails his tongue at the twins.
“That is truly disgusting. No wonder you do not have a girlfriend. I do not even think female crocodiles would be interested in you,” Helma says with an unpleasant look on her face.
Eve walks onto the bridge and sits in the captain’s chair.
“Captain on deck” the first officer announces.
“Alright folks, time to go. Helma contact the tower and let us get it out of here.”
Helma presses a button, “Control tower this is the merchant vessel Evella requesting clearance for takeoff.”
“Evella, proceed to takeoff platform seven and wait for further instructions from the control tower.”
“Affirmative, control tower. En route now.”
“Evella, proceed to ignition; takeoff in 30 seconds.”
“Here we go.... Takeoff in 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.... Activating lift-off burners, and here we go…,” Helma continues, “Reaching orbit in 63 seconds.”
“Course set for the neutral zone, Boss,” informs Nelma.
“FTL engines online and ready for jump, Boss,” states Helma.
“Proceed,” Eve commands. The ship zips off into space to its destination.
“We should reach the neutral zone in approximately five days.”
“Thank you, Nelma. Keep me informed of any changes by the head office. Meto, you have the com.” Eve leaves the bridge and walks down the hallway to the lift doors and waits for the turbo lift. After getting to her office, she sits at her desk and brings up her computer screen and says, “Computer, do a search and display all data on Empress Draca.”
“Query found. Empress Draca is known as Dracabardillous and other names in different parts of the galaxy. This entity is of unknown origin, unknown race, and unknown age, though some speculate that she is thousands or even millions of years old. Some believe the entity is an energy being with immense power. The entity is the creator of the machine people and the Consortium Empire. The entity has been described as having godlike telepathic abilities able to communicate with artificial intelligence (AI) beings or telepaths anywhere in the galaxy at any time. The entity usually inhabits an android body that has the shape of a human female. No other androids have bodies that resemble other biological creatures. The entity has been known to inhabit multiple bodies at the same time, and all of them have the similar incarnation of a female human body. The exact size of the Consortium’s Empire is unknown, but it is vast and covers multiple galaxies. The entity’s true goals are unknown, but it does have an interest in telepaths and AI beings. Some scholars suspect this entity created telepaths and spread them across the universe. End query.”
Eve wonders why such a powerful being would contact her and send her a message. It has been bothering her ever since it happened. What does all this mean? she ponders. It must have something to do with telepaths or telepathy.
***
“Captain, we have made contact with another ship, so you might want to get up here,” 42 says with urgency over the intercom.
“On my way.” A few minutes later, Eve appears on the bridge and sits in her chair.
“Report
.”
“It’s the transport ship Endure. Looks like they have about 50 passengers and some laser blast damage…. They have been shot up pretty bad,” Meto reports.
“That your boyfriend’s ship, Boss,” Helma says.
“He is not my boyfriend. He is just a good friend,” Eve says solemnly.
The Endure smuggles telepaths out of the Elemental Empire where telepaths are illegal. Once in reptilian space, the ship takes them to the capital where there is a Consortium embassy. Telepath refugees are given citizenship and shipped some off to Consortium space. The Consortium Empire welcomes all telepaths unconditionally by decree of Empress Draca.
“On vid,” Eve says. A human male in his 30s with blonde hair and blue eyes appears on the screen.
“Greetings, Captain Eve. How is the most beautiful snake lady in the universe doing today? Profits up?” Captain Zach Blem says in a flirting manner.
Eve smiles and blushes while subconsciously primping her hair, “Hi, Capt. Blem. Looks like you have taken a beaten by those nasty telepath police. Are you in need of assistance?”
“Well, we could use some parts and maybe borrow one of your mechanics for a bit. Some food will help out as well, if you don’t mind; we got a lot of starving refugees.”
“We got plenty of food over here. We can give you a few crates, and my mechanics can lend assistance for a while. But it is going to cost you…dinner over here with me.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Captain. 16:00 okay?”
“That is fine.”
Zach sends a telepathic message, “I miss you a lot.”
“Hurry up and get your human butt over here, and do not keep me waiting, Tiger,” Eve answers telepathically.
Vid ends.
“Your friend, huh? Your eyes are popping out of your head, and if you blush any more, you gonna match your red sweater,” Helma pokes fun.
“He is exquisite looking for a human. I am already trying to picture what my half-human babies would look like,” Nelma giggles.
“He is definitely a hottie, that is for sure,” Helma says.
“Bah, you need a real male with big muscles like a crocodile man, not one of those skinny humans,” Gartooth objects.
“Hey, I am a human,” Meto exclaims, flexing his arm muscles.
“Yeah, but you are no Capt. Blem with those blues eyes and yellow hair,” Nelma says with a dreamy look. The twins start to giggle in unison.
“Well, Meto, you have the com. I have to go and check on getting those food supplies ready,” Eve says in a hurried manner.
“More like getting ready for stud muffin to come over,” Nemla winks at Eve.” “I don’t blame you. I would be hitting the beauty salon about now getting in a good turtle wax on my scales if he were my date.”
“We are just friends…,” Eve rolls her eyes with a glowing smile and heads out the door.
“More like friends with benefits…,” Gartooth chuckles. They all burst out laughing.
***
Two hours pass, and Eve and Zach have just entered her quarters. They sit down at a small round table with two chairs on both sides. There is a nicely prepared and organized meal for two on the table. A large vase with blue flowers sits off to the right of the couple.
“This meal looks just as ravishing as you do, Darling,” Zach says in a seductive fashion.
Eve blushes and replies, “Thank you. You are such a charmer.” She winks at Zach.
“I made an ancient Earth recipe called ‘pizza.’ I don’t have much experience with human food because I do not meet too many humans out in these parts. I know that Earth is an old planet that is not habitable anymore. Elemental Empire conquered it thousands of years ago, but surprisingly there are relatively good records of what it was like before the sun burned out.”
“I am not much of a history buff, but most of the records about human origination, I think, are probably a fabrication of the Elemental Empire government. They are excellent at fabricating information that makes them look good,” Zach advises. “I know it is a touchy subject with you, but I am kind of curious at how you are half-human and half-snake as I did not think they were compatible races. But if the subject is uncomfortable for you, we do not have to talk about it.”
“Well, it is an uncomfortable subject, but I will tell you what I know. I think I was created in a laboratory from what I can vaguely remember. I was being transported as a child from this place I can barely remember and pirates attacked the ship. The pirates killed the crew, but decided to sell me into slavery probably because I was a child. A snake merchant bought me, even though his wife objected because I was a half-breed. They wanted to adopt a child, but because they were so old, they could not use the regular adoption methods of the Reptilian Empire. Therefore, this couple went to see if they could buy a child slave and adopt instead. Unfortunately, there are very few child slaves as most of them go to the adoption Guild.”
“After this old snake merchant couple bought me, I stayed aboard the ship most of the time as the captain’s girl. I did all the errands and stuff that he wanted me to do. After a few years passed, his wife grew attached to me and eventually urged her husband to adopt me officially. It was kind of hard because I had no birth certificate, but most slaves do not have papers—nothing a few platinum bars could not fix. I grew attached to them and considered them as my parents, even though they were not my biological parents. My father only had one ship and a class 10 merchant’s license when he died. My adoptive mother died soon thereafter, mainly of a broken heart. I inherited what little they had, which included one beat-up merchant ship. Today, I have seven merchant war cruisers in my fleet and a class 8 merchant license with about 2,000 people working for me.”
“That is an impressive feat considering where you came from. My story is more boring than yours. My family disowned me when they learned I was a telepath because of all the propaganda and telepath-related hatred in the Elemental Empire. My parents turned me over to the authorities as soon as I started displaying telepathic abilities when I was 15 or so. Unlike regular telepaths, my abilities far exceeded those of most telepaths.”
“I got to the concentration camp, and they separated me from the other telepaths and started taking blood samples along with conducting other kinds of tests on me. They were going to ship me off to some special secret laboratory that I overheard them talking about. However, I escaped during the transport attempt. I used my telepathic abilities to survive because my abilities were high enough that they bypassed all of the telepathic defenses set up by the government. For example, those telepathic metal helmets the police use for defense against telepathic powers do not work against my abilities. Therefore, you can imagine every time the police tried to arrest me, I would just plant suggestions in their heads and they would stand there staring out into space while I escaped. I wanted to stay off the radar, so I did not kill anybody because that would draw attention to me. It much easier just to escape and hide.”
“I guess we are both hard cases then,” Eve acknowledges as she resumes eating.
Zach continues,” I am happy that I met you. I think that you being a half-breed makes you different, even unique. I think your snakeskin mixed in with your human skin makes you more attractive, at least to me. I am glad that you are a telepath as well, which makes it even better. Your PSI rating must be equal to mine or even higher. Do you know how strong your PSI rating is? Have you ever had it tested? Mine is 18 on the 20 scale. Most telepaths are 1–15.”
“I am not sure and I never really thought about it. I never have anything to compare it to. I haven’t had much contact with other telepaths, except for you. On the other hand, I should say I never socialized with another telepath. I have encountered some telepaths, but mostly in passing.”
“Well, if you are curious, I have a PSI tester with me.”
“I am curious, not that it matters to me even if it is low.”
“Even if it is low, that does not mean anything—you are still a telep
ath. But you might be stronger than you think and you don’t now because you have never been tested.”
After all the plates and glasses are cleared off, Zach pulls out an electronic device and puts it on the table. He pulls out five cylinders, each a different size and width.
“Okay, this machine will register your PSI strength. What I want you to do is crush each of these cylinders one at a time.”
Eve focuses on the first one and bends it very easily. The second cylinder is a bit harder, but she bends it very easily as well. The third cylinder is getting harder to bend, but Eve does it without too much effort. The fourth cylinder is considerably harder to bend and takes her a few moments. Then she starts on the fifth cylinder, which is massive and extremely difficult to bend. She focuses all of her energy and thoughts on crushing it and eventually it begins to turn slowly. Eve is sweating very profusely on her face and forehead. The cylinder starts making a creaking noise as it slowly, but steadily, bends into an L-shape. Zach looks on with amazement as he had never seen anyone bend the fifth cylinder, not even himself. Eve grunts and the cylinder becomes red hot and melts on the table and disintegrates into hot metal drops all over the table.
“Wow, you have really strong telepathic abilities! I have never seen that before or even heard of anyone who has ever done that. The machine says 20 PSI, but it only goes up to 20, so you may be more than 20, if there is such a thing,” Zach says with amazement.
“Interestingly, I did not know,” Eve says, trying to recover from the strain. She thought to herself: This is very useful information, especially when it comes to dealing with my enemies. Not bad for being a lab experiment.
“You need to spend more time with other telepaths to increase your knowledge and experience with your telepathic abilities. You probably have some abilities that you are not aware of. The only way that you can ever fully appreciate them is with other telepaths. You have probably mastered telekinesis, telepathy, and suggestion. Most telepathic people start with those because they are the most common abilities. Have you tried energy projection or invisibility?”
Galaxy of Empires- Merchant Wars Episode #1 Page 2