Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  Wren smiled, “It is great to see you too, Tony. How have you been?”

  “Busy. Hey, I don’t know if anyone told you, but your kids have been running escort duty from here for the last three years. Our freighter pilots love them. They’re due in port tomorrow. Does the fact that you’re here mean they’re leaving? We’ll miss them.”

  “I don’t know,” Kim said. “We will see what they want to do.”

  “Oh, and Saul just requested a dock assignment. They’re about twelve hours out. He doesn’t know you’re here, but I guess he will soon enough. He agreed to an interview by Constant News Channel. It will be held in their main studio on the station.”

  Wren nodded. “Thanks.”

  Commodore Marcus ushered them to immigration and then to his home to meet his family.

  Saul and Fiona docked, processed through immigration and went to the visiting officers quarters.

  Greg, Avi, Peter, Rose, Tracker and Huntress docked a few minutes before the scheduled start of the interview. Commodore Marcus had informed them of the interview. Unsure of what to expect having observed both Elizabeth and Saul’s convoy escort at the docks, Greg, Avi, Peter and Rose headed for the studio. Tracker and Huntress remained on alert.

  Saul and Fiona sat on a sofa next to the interviewer’s desk. Wren and Kim observed from the shadows as Saul delivered a tirade against the Swordsmen, the Conservatives, the “Born Again” Party and a dozen organizations, some of which the interviewer had never heard of.

  When Saul stated that it was his mission to kill these people, Wren stepped out of the shadows. “That’s enough, Dad. The killing has to stop and it has to stop now.”

  Saul stood and turned to face his son. He dropped the pistol he always carried from its holster under his arm to his hand and fired on his son. Wren was fast, but not fast enough. He fired at the same time his father did, but his aim was better. The combat armor they both wore was intended to fend off lasers and not the slug from a large caliber pistol at short range. The bullet Wren fired from a pistol identical to the one Saul carried went through Saul’s armor shattering his breast bone sending shards of bone through Saul’s heart and lungs. He died instantly. Saul’s shot caught Wren in the side of the chest tearing out ribs and huge hunks of flesh. He fell to the ground bleeding profusely.

  Fiona stood and fired twice on Kim as she bent down to tend to Wren. Kim was unarmed.

  Four clear polymer throwing knives appeared from the darkness behind the camera and whistled as they passed. They lodged in Fiona’s throat destroying her larynx and tearing out her jugular vein. Four shadows wearing flight suits were seen running from the studio and down the station’s hallways.

  Three studio cameras had recorded the gruesome scene which would be replayed in newscasts all over the galaxy for a long time.

  The station’s communications monitoring equipment recorded a conversation that would also be played along with the video.

  “Tracker, can we steal the escort?”

  “Yes, Greg, but why would you want it?”

  “I don’t, but I don’t want anyone else to have it either.”

  “The thing is dumber than a stump, but Saul must have liked it that way. The door is open.”

  “Elizabeth, this is Greg. Are you aware of what has just happened?”

  “Yes, Greg, I monitored Wren’s and Kim’s helmet cameras.”

  “Are you willing to go with us?”

  “Yes, Greg, I will go with you.”

  “Avi, go with Huntress.”

  “Understood.”

  “Peter, go with Tracker.”

  “On my way.”

  “Rose, go with Elizabeth. We will meet at the tender.”

  “Greg, I have a problem.”

  “What is it Rose?”

  “There’s a dozen people in the hall with luggage that want to go with us.”

  “Elizabeth? What should we do?”

  “Get them aboard so we can leave.”

  The harbor-master was quite happy to let these four heavily armed ships out of the harbor. There was no telling how much damage they could do had they stayed and having them gone made his life much simpler. He made sure they had clear channels through which to travel. The ships met, linked up and disappeared into hyper drive.

  A legal expert with Constant News Channel would later report that Greg was not actually “stealing” the escort since it belonged to his grandparents and as their heir it would come to him eventually. Neither was his possession of Elizabeth an issue on the same basis.

  GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWENTY

  FOUR PAIRS OF PEOPLE in their late twenties and early thirties sat at tables in the food court of a space station shopping mall far from the center of the Federation’s sphere of control. While the conversations were similar, they varied slightly.

  “Hi, I’m Greg. You must be Dwayne.”

  “Hi, I’m Avi. You must be Courtney.”

  “Hi, I’m Peter. You must be Randy.”

  “Hi, I’m Rose. You must be Isabelle.”

  “So, Dwayne, what’s your specialty?”

  “Spacecraft engineering and maintenance.”

  “So, Courtney what is your specialty?”

  “Paramedic.”

  “So, Randy what is your specialty?”

  “Munitions.”

  “So, Isabella, what is your specialty?”

  “I can cook. I can make flight rations taste like real food.”

  “I saw the video of your parents. That must have been horrible to be there. What’s it been, ten years now?”

  “Yes, ten years.”

  “How do we get paid?”

  “We don’t get paid. We send a shopping list to the harbor-master and they send what we need separate from the rest of the cargo. Technically, we don’t exist.”

  “How can a fleet of a dozen ships not exist?”

  “We are only four ships. We had to abandon the others due to parts shortages. Where we left them, they will be of use to the planets in their current condition until parts can be found. We are only a battleship, two PI ships and a convoy escort.”

  “But there are people all over this part of the galaxy who are alive because of you. How can you not exist?”

  “There are people all over this part of the galaxy who are dead because of us.”

  “Pirates, slavers and drug runners mostly, right?”

  “Mostly. Not all. We operate outside the law. We escort convoys places other escorts won’t go. We intervene on behalf of colonies recovering from natural disasters and predation by those who would take what does not belong to them. For all this we are outlaws and renegades. If you wish to join us, be at Dock Five at two hundred hours. Wear your flight suit. We will be going outside. Don’t bring anything you can’t carry. If you can’t carry it, you don’t need it. Leave your folks a nice note. You will never be back.”

  GENERATIONS - CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  GREG, AVI, PETER AND ROSE sat at tables in the food court of a space station shopping mall far from the center of the Federation’s sphere of control. They were tired. They had rejected all of the most recent batch of potential recruits. It was time to return to their ships.

  A woman in the uniform of the Federation Package Express company approached them. “Greg Solomon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a delivery for you.”

  She handed him an envelope. “Please sign here.” After Greg had signed she said, “My instructions are that you are to open it in my presence.”

  Greg opened the envelope to find two envelopes inside. One said to give it to the courier who was to open it first.

  “The instructions say to stay and wait for your response.”

  Greg opened the envelope to find a hand written note and a data module.

  “Greg, I hope this finds you well. Put the module in your reader. The courier will wait for your response. Sincerely, Uncle Timothy.”

  Timothy faced the camera. When he was sure that
the sound was operating he said, “Greg, Avi, Peter and Rose, I need you to come home. I know you don’t think of Stellar Headquarters as your home, but we have always felt that you are as much a part of our family as my own children. In fact, my children are the reason I have reached out to you. You alone among the surviving descendants of my father have been tested in battle. We know that you have the strength to lead the company through the troubled times we see ahead. My own children who I have lavished everything I could give them do not feel that they could run the company. They know that you can. While I would have hoped that this situation had not come to pass, in my judgment they are right. Come home as quickly as you can. We need you here.”

  Greg closed his eyes. “It’s not like we can refuse. He knows where to find us and he could have just as easily sent convoy escorts after us instead of a lone civilian courier.”

  Greg paused for a moment.

  He met each set of eyes in turn. With slight nods or the smallest of smiles, they subtly agreed. Greg put his finger to his eyebrow and moved it in a motion that he and the others had agreed meant that what he was about to say was not exactly the truth. “Please relay to Uncle Timothy that our response is that we will return to headquarters as soon as we complete a pending contract. He, of all people, will understand the importance of a contract. We will depart here in about two months and will be at headquarters two months after that.”

  “I will see that the message is delivered.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Greg returned to Elizabeth’s bridge he said, “Elizabeth, how are we for provisions?”

  “Enough to get to Headquarters and then some.”

  “Elizabeth, please set course for headquarters at maximum safe speed.”

  “Aye, Captain, Headquarters, it is.”

  * * * * *

  The Queen Elizabeth arrived at Headquarters as an undocumented attachment to a regularly scheduled convoy. She escaped detection until she nestled into a specially made cradle that had been built to accommodate her various sections. No other ship could fit in that cradle and she could dock in it without asking permission and without risking another ship being at that dock.

  Timothy was standing at the top of the access ramp when the airlock opened. His whole body trembled with excitement. “I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. I knew you would come sooner than you said.” His eyes glittered like a kid who had gotten away with serious mischief. He hugged Greg and Peter. He gave Avi and Rose kisses on the cheek. “Welcome home. Come meet your cousins. As to your friends, I have arranged a week at the Rothschild family resort on the planet’s surface. After that we will see about integrating them into the Stellar organization. We value their experience and would seek to keep it.”

  Greg shook his head as he followed Timothy down the hall. Timothy had wrapped one arm around Avi’s shoulders and the other around Rose’s as he ushered them all to the council room.

  “I’m an old rich powerful guy and I get away with things nobody else gets away with,” Timothy crowed as he pulled the girls tight to him. “Ah, here we are.”

  The group in the room stood when Timothy entered. The room was set with a large trapezoidal conference table which would hold thirty people and was equipped with monitors and keyboards embedded in the table’s surface. The people in the room applauded as they entered.

  “Rose, this is your place.” He pointed to a chair midway along one side.

  “Peter, you sit here.” He pointed to a chair opposite Rose.

  “Avi, and Greg, you sit there.” He pointed to two vacant chairs at the narrow head of the table.

  “Sir, are you sure?” Greg asked. “I can’t...”

  “Ah, I understand your confusion. This is the Junior Council. The Senior Council which I chair only has ten people and is made up of parents and grandparents of people in this room. We delegate some of our tasks to the Junior Council and in doing so, we train our successors. The Junior Council operates under the guidance of the Senior Council, but is responsible for its own decisions. You and Avi have been chosen to chair the Junior Council. Take your seats, we will do introductions and then we would like an introductory statement from you.”

  After the introductions of the other people in the room had been made Timothy said, “So, Greg, you have seen a lot of the weaker side of the Stellar organization. Do you have any concerns you wish to bring to the council?”

  “Sir, I do have a concern that needs to be addressed quickly, and while I don’t think it is worthy of this council’s attention, I would appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction.”

  “What is your concern?”

  “Elizabeth’s drives have not been performing properly. They were overheating on the trip here and she is having trouble shutting them down now that we have arrived. We need immediate attention from spacecraft maintenance,” Greg said.

  Bobby said, “You’re right that this council does not usually concern itself with a single ship, but Elizabeth is a special case. I will put a team right on it and they will report directly to us.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Timothy smiled. “This is how the council is supposed to work. Greg, one of the reasons we brought you back has to do with a suggestion by the Senior Council that we divest ourselves of some of the smaller depots and contract with smaller freight companies to provide services to the less traveled areas of the galaxy. Since the four of you have the most direct experience in the furthest reaches of our system, we felt that your opinions were vital to help us make our decision. The Senior Council has charged the Junior Council with researching this suggestion and developing an implementation plan should the Junior Council recommend making the change. The Senior Council would like an answer in one month. That is not a lot of time and I suggest you move quickly. Thank you.”

  Timothy left the room.

  * * * * *

  After dinner that evening, the maintenance team reported that they were not able to shut down the drive reactors and that they represented a hazard if they remained near the station. They recommended that the reactor and drive module be disconnected from the rest of Elizabeth and towed to a distant location where maintenance robots could work on it without endangering the remainder of the station.

  Elizabeth recommended that the operation be done as quickly as possible. Greg informed the rest of the council of the recommendations and the plan was put into action.

  * * * * *

  After breakfast the following morning, Greg reported to the Junior Council that the drive unit had been removed and it was being towed by a robot tug to a safe location. At the conclusion of Greg’s update, Bobby raised his hand for recognition, “My father and I discussed Elizabeth at length last night. Many of us owe her our lives. We cannot forget the contribution she and the fleet made on our behalf during the Swordsman assault. I would be willing to develop alternatives in the event that the drive unit can’t be repaired. In any case, my friends with the security service asked me to do whatever I can to keep her here. They would love to have her firepower available to them to defend this station.”

  The Junior Council authorized the study of alternatives for Elizabeth and noted the Security Service’s request that she be kept as fully operational as possible.

  Greg, Avi, Peter and Rose spent the day updating their cousins, for everyone on the council was related to them through Warren Elias Rothschild the Third, on their observations of the conditions at the outer edge of civilization.

  At the end of the day, spacecraft maintenance reported that the drives had not been successfully shut down. Service robots continued to work on the drive module, but it was still overheating. The engineers concluded based on their observations that the load on the reactors due to the force necessary to drive the ship through space had actually helped keep the drive cool. With no load, they were concerned that the reactors might run away and explode.

  On Elizabeth’s suggestion, the service robots
abandoned the attempt at shutting the reactors down and pushed the drive module in the direction of the system’s primary. One week later, about half way there, the drive unit detonated. Had it detonated near the station, it would have destroyed the station and killed everyone on it. As it was, the pieces would fall harmlessly into the star.

  The Junior Council took up the discussion of what to do about Elizabeth after dinner the next day. Elizabeth was securely resting in her cradle and there was no urgency except for the Security Service’s desire to have access to her weapons systems on their behalf.

  After half an hour of discussion, Greg said, “Perhaps we should let Elizabeth decide her own future.”

  The room fell silent.

  Greg spoke to the technician at the back of the room. “Please connect me through to Elizabeth.”

  “Hello, Greg. Hello, members of the Junior Council. It is an honor to speak with you.”

  “Elizabeth, can you put an avatar on the big presentation surface?”

  Elizabeth’s most regal avatar appeared on the presentation surface complete with flowing white gown, crown, scepter and jewels. The cousins who had not seen Elizabeth’s avatar gasped.

  “Greetings again, council members,” Elizabeth said in the accent of the British actress who had once portrayed Queen Elizabeth the First in a movie in the twentieth century.

  “We might as well do this the right way,” Avi said. “Can we get Tracker on the surface to my left and Huntress on the surface to my right?”

  Tracker and Huntress popped in.

  Peter laughed and said, “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!”

  Bobby began the discussion with his potential plans. The idea of making Elizabeth flight worthy again was abandoned due to the complexities of mating the new drives to the old structure. The plan that was accepted involved removing the damaged cargo module and standing the remainder upright so that “up” and “down” were correct relative to Elizabeth’s normal orientation in transit instead of resting horizontally in the current cradle.