Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

by Ronald Wintrick

  “I guess next you’re going to demand I participate in destroying my father?”

  “No!” I laughed. “You’re going to volunteer!”

  CHAPTER 12

  The Kievors had erred. The Alartaw didn’t travel by worm hole (though I didn’t know we couldn’t). There seemed to be numerous ways to circumvent traveling through normal space, but whatever means our Hyper Space method used, it was fast.

  In a matter of only hours we were circling Ertiga in low orbit. Ertiga was to the Alartaw what One was, or had been, to the Kievors, the Home Planet of the Imperial Alartaw Empire, the place where we had begun our expansion and what was now our furthermost rearward post, the whole expansion zone between it and the newest races we had been genocidally eliminating just to steal their worlds.

  Floating below me on the floor of my Mini Bridge was the image of our most prized possession (and to think I had seriously considered vaporizing it!) Ertiga is a beautiful blue and green world, like many of the human worlds and especially like man’s own Home World, Earth. It appeared to be about ninety percent water and boasted only one continent. Now that ocean was covered with floating cities that were hardly discernible from the continent itself. It was covered with them.

  In some ways the Alartaw weren’t very smart at all. The Loyalists had no chance at all yet they refused to surrender. I discussed a plan of attack with Naagrotod, a plan I basically ordered him to devise, and we were ready.

  “O.K.” I said when Puguta gave me the message. They had refused surrender. No one was surprised. “Then they die.”

  “They’re also demanding our unconditional surrender.” Puguta said, an amused smile twisting his fanged mouth.

  “Tell the Emperor I didn’t know he was a comedian.” I said. “Add that, sadly, we must decline.”

  After Puguta delivered my message to Emperor Krazdop and his forces, yellow white bolts of fusion energy began pouring up at us from the Imperial City in the middle of the continent. We were immediately struck numerous times, the weapon discharges striking up at us from the image on the floor beneath us, startling both of us as we stood over it and watched, but the energy was too dissipated at that great range to do us real damage and the majority of the energy was bled off into space in a surge of crackling power that was briefly visible as a corona of lightning bolts around us (somewhat like the static when you pull two socks apart, but much, much more powerful), violent but entirely harmless to us.

  The ground batteries immediately concentrated their fire on my Flagship but it was all over in a brief moment. Thousands of Fleet Ships poured their fusion fire down on the Imperial City’s gun emplacements, nearly instantly overloading their shields, and then blossoming in huge orange balls of fire that were visible even at this distance.

  We began descending towards the planet before the last of the orange blossoms had even died away, but I wouldn’t exactly call my role leading the troops into battle, because a thick screen of Fleet Ships soon amassed and interposed themselves between us and the planet below, so thick there was no chance of even seeing the planet longer.

  “There’s no excitement in this.” Meerla complained.

  “You can transfer to one of the lead ships, if you want.”

  Orange flame erupted below us, but it was several layers of ships lower and we only just got the slightest hint of the flashes that must have signified death and destruction for members of my forces.

  “No thanks.” She said.

  “Small arms fire.” Captain Puguta’s voice said from the forward wall, but I didn’t look up to acknowledge him because more eruptions were blossoming below us. None came near my own ship though.

  “Those are some pretty large small arms.” Meerla mused.

  A ship below us suddenly erupted in orange flame, the eruption blasting through the ship, the flame reaching all the way to us, but when the flame washed away the ship seemed unharmed and the blast hole was already resealed. The ship never budged from its position.

  What we couldn’t see from above was what damage my own ships were inflicting on the beleaguered planetary defenses, but it couldn’t have been pretty and I didn’t need to see it. Alartaw were dying all around.

  “Looks like there won’t be much left of your city when you’re finished.” Meerla said with a smirk.

  “It’s worth it,” I said, “to kill your father.” Captain Puguta had been on screen but his face disappeared after this exchange, and Meerla and I exchanged amused glances.

  “If they thought you were a maniac previously they haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Words of endearment from the woman I love.” I said, then realized what I had said. Meerla didn’t act as if she had noticed.

  We seemed to have eliminated most of the pockets of resistance. The return fire dwindled to almost nothing as each discharge just gave our gunners targets. Whatever resistance was left was saving itself for the ground battle. It was enlightening to have seen what devastation the big blast rifles could produce without having had to find out the hard way, but though the ships themselves could reseal themselves around the damage, there was no reanimating the Alartaw Troopers and crewmen who had also been caught in those blasts. Personally I thought my first instinct had been the correct one, or at least as far as leveling the entire Imperial City. Cities could be rebuilt, lives couldn’t.

  My men were soon on the ground. We couldn’t see the ground from our vantage but we had the feeds from the lowest ships and the helm cams the Troopers themselves wore to show us our progress. Almost instantly every available spot on my walls were covered with images of battle and mayhem from the ground below. It was a sobering thought to think of all the lives that were being given today in my name. Being given gladly! The real Brune must have been an awe inspiring figure. I wondered if I would be able to continue filling his shoes. What a joke that would be for my forces if they ever found out they had been fighting in an imposter’s name!

  The Loyalist forces were fighting ferociously, too. They knew there would be no surrender, no survival except through victory, and though they had no chance at all they fought with a crazed desperation, taking many of my men with them, but the outcome was preordained. I had men numbering in the trillions and trillions at my beck and call, while Morgata Krazdop only retained that handful of super loyalists whose loyalty had been purchased, not earned, but old school fanatics who’d fight to the bitter end, no doubt about that.

  Most of the fighting tapered off as my insurgents infused the Imperial City and converged on the Royal Palace. Despite not leveling it from space most of the city had still been left in smoking ruin once my men had cleared it. The battles tended to be brief but devastating. My forces were overwhelming. As we closed in on the Palace the last of the Loyalists pulled back and blockaded themselves inside the massive, armored fortress that is the Imperial Palace.

  Its armor proved ineffective against our weapons and in no time my forces were pouring through the gaping hole where the front gates had been. The last battle was brief but furious and soon we were in complete control of the Imperial City.

  Yet the Emperor himself had not been located. The last thing I wanted was for the Emperor himself to escape and be free to foment trouble from some hidden locale, but my worries were short lived as a ship we had somehow missed detached itself from the roof of the main chamber and flashed through the massed ships below me, the pilot flying her showing uncanny skill in avoiding the fire rained down at her. I thought immediately that the ship would attempt to jump to hyper space and escape me but it had no intention of attempting to escape. It came straight up at us, my Flagship now among those lower ships because we had thought all resistance quelled. It came straight at us, throwing yellow fire as it came.

  Meerla was leaping for a Gunner’s Station when the first shot struck us (don’t ask me how she thought she was going to operate the strange controls) but I stood confidently, trusting in Puguta and the thousands of other crewmen aboard my ship to handle it. Feet
spread wide and ready for the blast, I was still thrown to the floor when the blast exploded. Three more times we rocked to the massive fusion fueled explosions before the little ship was blown apart by the crossfire of the thousands of ships targeting it. The little ship rained back to the ground in a million pieces, no one piece larger than a scrap of metal confetti and my problems with Emperor Morgata Krazdop were finished.

  “That was the Emperor’s private yacht.” Puguta crowed, as if he thought I was going to praise him. If he did he had another think coming.

  “We were almost destroyed by a yacht!” I screamed at him. “How do you explain that?” I was definitely enjoying my new role as Emperor.

  “That ship had no chance of destroying us.” Puguta whined.

  “Was hull integrity breached?” I demanded.

  For a moment Puguta couldn’t respond. I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he sought some way out of answering that question with the only answer available.

  “Yes. Hull integrity was breached.” Puguta admitted. He looked terrified, as well he should. I let him bask in my unblinking stare while I considered options. In all my years captaining Last Chance I had never once allowed a loss of hull integrity. It didn’t matter that it did not mean the same thing on these ships, or that with the weaponry being used any strike meant loss of integrity, Meerla or I could have been killed in those strikes!

  “Do I need to pilot this ship myself from now on?” I turned and asked Meerla but clearly for Puguta. I could see by her expression that she was just as pissed as I was. We were two individuals who had great love for our lives and did not want to see them thrown away frivolously. It was why I had always flown Last Chance myself, or Tanya if it became necessary.

  “We’ll take shifts piloting her ourselves, since we can’t count on Puguta.” She snarled and I wasn’t sure she wasn’t serious.’

  “You’re right.” Puguta said. “I am completely at fault. May I say goodbye to my family before I receive my punishment?”

  I looked at Meerla and she looked back at me. As if we were considering his request, but we were thinking of the absolute loyalty of the Alartaw. Puguata expected to be put to death for his blunder. It was obvious the real Brune would have carried out the sentence, but I wasn’t the real Brune. I was Marc Deveroux.

  “Sentence will be delayed for now. Don’t let it happen again,” I said, “or the punishment will be too unspeakable to consider. I hope I’m understood.”

  “Sentence is . . . delayed?” Puguta stammered. “Who will you appoint as Captain?”

  “You will remain as Captain.” I said. “Until such a time as I deem appropriate to carry out sentence.”

  “Yes Sir.” Puguta nearly choked, unbelief written on his features. “Is there anything else, Sir?”

  “I am especially not happy that you deprived me the opportunity of making Meerla kill her father, Puguta. I thought I had been clear about that!”

  Puguta’s eyes flickered to Meerla and back to me. I think the shock on his face now was trebly what it had been before. “Yes, Sir, sorry Sir.”

  “Don’t let it happen again.”

  “No Sir.” The screen went blank.

  I felt a cold emanation at my side. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  CHAPTER 13

  Less than two days after waking up an Alartaw bartender, I now ruled the entire Alartaw Empire. Brune the Brute the people started calling me, a name I had someone to thank for circulating. I was pretty sure I could guess who. I rather liked it though, I thought.

  I was already Emperor in name but it wouldn’t be official until I was Coronated, a simple procedure of accepting the Royal Scepter from the departing Emperor (the system dated to before rejuvenation) but since the departing Emperor had been reduced to confetti sized particles and wouldn’t be around to do the passing, the ceremony would have to be conducted without him. It wasn’t as if he would willingly pass it, in any case, so no harm done. I would march alone down the center of the Imperial Palace’s Throne Room and take my place upon the throne itself, where the Royal Scepter resided in a special socket designed for it. Once there, Royal Scepter in hand, I would receive the acclaim of the people.

  That had been the plan, anyway, as I stalked down the middle of the Royal Throne Room towards the Great Throne, surrounded by thousands of cheering Alartaw subjects who were only held back by flimsy shock barriers that were here and there throwing sparks into parts of the crowd who had pushed too close. The shocks traveled as far back into the crowd as bodies were touching one another, so the system had been explained, and worked rather effectively. The rear of the crowd quickly gave way when they forced the front of the crowd too close, because they took the shocks, not the very front.

  I was adorned in barbaric splendor, actually wearing the same Royal Garb Morgata Krazdop had worn when he had ascended the empty throne his father had vacated by dying on the field of battle. Morgata’s father, Sneadon Krazdop, had ruled for over eighteen thousand years (an Alartaw year was a half month longer than a Standard) and was overwhelmingly considered to have been the fiercest Alartaw to have ever lived. Morgata had later had all his legitimate brothers and sisters and all of their offspring put to death when rumors of assassination plots surfaced and now Meerla was the only legitimate heir (and she wasn’t getting the throne either, ha ha.)

  Part of the Royal Garb I wore was a long purple train that Meerla had to walk behind me and hold up from dragging the ground (it was demanded by Alartaw custom or Meerla would never have done it). Behind her Cearba walked and held Meerla’s lesser train. Suffice it to say we looked the parts we were playing, though this was no play. This was the real thing.

  As we approached the Throne itself the cheering became thunderous. I could hardly hear myself think, nor was the prodigious amount of Harcled I had drunk helping either, so when the Great Throne I was walking towards began to lift itself from the floor, and all the cheering in the huge Throne Room came to a crashing halt, I was still moving forward, unaware.

  It didn’t take awareness long to settle in, but part of that was that Meerla had dropped my train and its dragging on the floor brought me back to consciousness. A spectacle I could hardly credit now occurred. The Great Throne finished lifting itself up, rising on telescoping metal legs, and revealed a staircase leading down to somewhere not visible to me, but a black maw I didn’t want to know what was going to come out of. The maw did not seem to want to allow in the light of the Throne Room, as if evil resided therein and was repelling the light.

  Nothing happened for a long moment, but no more. I had come to a complete halt, standing transfixed and seemingly unable to act. The Alartaw in the Throne Room, numbering in the tens of thousands, had effectively drawn and were holding their breaths. The Troopers lining the aisle all drew their weapons, at some signal from an Officer, and we all stood and watched the opening in the floor to see what was going to happen next. Time stretched.

  Moments of eerie silence passed. I was just beginning to delude myself that nothing was going to happen when I heard the footsteps climbing the subterranean staircase in what I had to admit was a martial, dignified tread.

  I reached for my weapon but it wasn’t there. The only weapon I was wearing was a bejeweled dagger that was part of the coronation regalia I had been instructed I must wear. How could I have been so stupid! I had never gone anywhere anytime in my whole entire adult life without a weapon on my person, yet here I was, facing I knew not what, with only a costume dagger as my only armament.

  First only the outline was visible in the induced darkness of the staircase, then the face became visible, then the whole Alartaw to whom belonged the resounding footsteps. He strode from the darkness full of purpose and imperious dignity. His face was scarred and livid with hatred and fury. He was the most hideous Alartaw I had ever seen, and that in a culture that considered scars gained through battle to be marks of courage, the highest honors in a society of warrior people. One scar crossed down from the
side of his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, down across his cheek and jaw bone and down into his neck. His nose was a misshapen lump of re-scarred tissue, unrecognizable as belonging to an Alartaw. He had taken a laser shot through his cheeks (probably losing most of his teeth into the process). Part of the left side of his head had been burned by something, plasma or its equivalent, and hair didn’t grow there. His left eye had been cosmetically repaired for functionality because the burn on the side of his head stretched far enough to have covered the eye, leaving the area just around the eye a hideous mess, and those were just the visible scars, but this Alartaw had ruled his people through three thousand years of bloody turmoil. Who, really, could blame the poor son of a bitch for being tired of fighting! Hell, I was tired of fighting myself, and I was only thirty-nine.

  Krazdop glared at me, and then dismissing me contemptuously, turned to glare around the chamber and upon the thousands of spectators. They wilted under his gaze. Finally he turned his look back upon me. I glared back as evilly as I could, but I immediately felt as if I was losing the battle. Again, contemptuously, his gaze moved away and turned to Meerla, but if he thought she was going to flinch under his glare, he was mistaken. The only look of uncertainty I saw cross his face passed and was gone as he glared at who he thought was his daughter and she glared back, just as ferociously. Maybe he wasn’t surprised that his own progeny could be as evil as himself, even if it was a new development, or one previously well hidden from him. He probably thought the latter.

  “Thought you’d killed me, hadn’t you, upstart!” Morgata told me venomously. “No, upstart, you’ll have to do that yourself, if you can. You know the Law.” I wished I did, but I didn’t.

  Krazdop was wearing a blaster in a holster on his hip and a short sword in a scabbard that had not been designed for decoration. He unbuckled his belt and snatched the short sword from the scabbard as the belt, blaster and short sword's scabbard fell to the floor. Very smooth. Krazdop would be very hard to kill.