by Ben Winston
“Screw that, I want these assholes to know exactly how I feel about this,” Ariel replied. She thought he was about to say more, but Sean was asking her the next question.
“Do you swear to protect the common people, and uphold the laws of the Empire?”
“I swear to protect all of our citizens except those that prey on others for profit. I swear to uphold Imperial Law to the letter,” Ariel replied. By now there was a soft murmur from the gathered crewmen.
Ariel saw Sean fighting a grin at her answers. Ariel was throwing down the gauntlet.
“Do you swear to protect the Empire, to sacrifice even your life if necessary, to save her?”
“I swear to excise the cancer that is killing the Empire and enslaving her people. I swear to heal the Empire, to repair what damage I can. If necessary, I will stand between the Heart of the Empire, and anyone that tries to kill or enslave it,” Ariel replied.
Getting a good look into her eyes, Sean knew the woman meant every word. “Then I name you Guardian of the Empire; may you protect us well!”
As Sean made that pronouncement, Thorn stepped forward, and set the leather shoulder guard on her left shoulder. No straps or anything were used, but it stayed in place.
“Did you bring Cr’ale’s crest?” Sean asked in a whisper.
Ariel nodded and handed it to her. Taking it, Sean moved to place it over Ariel’s heart. “On the neck guard, like a rank insignia, please. I haven’t earned the right to wear it over my heart yet.”
Finished, both Thorn and Sean stepped away from Ariel. Sean turned to the gathered spectators. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Princess Guardian Lady Ariel Parker.” She led the crowd in a round of applause for Ariel.
Smiling triumphantly Ariel held up her hands to quiet the crowd, when it worked, she said, “I will do everything in my power to protect the Empire but most importantly, the diverse peoples that are the true body of the realms. Guardian Admiral Hs'ean asked me to keep my comments short because we have a couple of new space craft to commission. Guardian Admiral?” Ariel stepped back and to the side.
Sean stepped back up. “Thank you, My Lady.” She addressed the crowd. “I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the two craft to the left. They represent a new direction in small space craft design.
“Today we christen the Tides of Mars, and the Spear of Athena. While these names probably don’t mean anything to you, I encourage you to look the information up in Earth’s history. Guardian Lady Ariel has chosen the Tides of Mars as her ship, and the Spear of Athena has been assigned to Guardian Commander Tho’ren.
“All the latest advancements have been incorporated into this design. In fact, just minutes ago, the techs finished installing a temporal tracking module that will allow these craft to track slavers even with their new cloaking technology.
“These craft, while in flight are all but invisible to all known scanning methods, they are certainly invisible to the naked eye. They carry all the armament of the original Guardian Scout craft, and more. These craft are not only very capable in a ship to ship fight, we’ve also ensured that they function better than the marine ground assault shuttles for ground fire suppression.
“Although the ships are classified Ultra-secret, it is now impossible to keep them hidden from the crew at large. We ask that you treat this as you would any other secret you’ve been entrusted to keep; once you leave this room, don’t communicate this knowledge to anyone in any form. Violation is considered treason punishable by immediate spacing. Now, would anyone like to ask any questions?”
Chapter Twenty
The next few days were pretty interesting on board the Divine Light. Within thirty minutes of the ceremony in the hanger, security and communications, aided by the ship's powerful AI, had captured forty-eight attempts to open private, secure, comm-lines.
A few of those were legitimate; data feeds to Cole and Tewney, three calls were crew members calling home due to a family emergency, and four more were routine priority comm-links from Divine Light himself. That left thirty-nine unauthorized communication attempts for security to track down.
Of course, neither Ariel nor Thorn had stuck around for the party; they had their own work to do. Thorn and Tewney took off with a small fleet of shuttles to join the team of engineers already out by Saturn, while Ariel and Cole returned to the planet to begin the process of recruiting.
Without doing an in-system jump, the trip out to Saturn was roughly a week long. During that time, Tabitha and Tewney were supposed to run the new hull through a shake-down. However, the new temporal sensors almost immediately began detecting cloaked ships.
Thorn ordered the shuttles to continue on to Saturn, while he investigated the tracks. Tabitha also talked him into asking the Divine Light to send an escort with the shuttles, and to place her old squadron on stand-by.
The Space Defense Command of the Divine Light agreed with Tewney’s new sensors, and was actually scrambling three full wings of fighters to intercept, identify, capture or destroy the intruders.
It was surmised that, given the mentality of the slavers, they had no real-time means of tracking each other, so if one was destroyed the others simply wouldn’t know about it for at least a few minutes. That theory was about to be tested as one of the supposedly invisible ships was hailed, and told to stop.
Of course, it ignored the hail, so the fighters fired a warning shot across its bow. The new temporal missile locked on to the time signature of the target, and disappeared once free of the launch rail.
The detonation scared the slaver crew so badly, they shut down the temporal cloak, and turned to make a run for it. Which, considering they were in a freighter, and being chased by high-performance fighters, was a testimony to slaver mentality.
When it became obvious, even to the slavers, that capture was inevitable, they destroyed their ship. It was unclear whether another small cloaked ship actually self-destructed or was affected by the warning shot. There was no wreckage or bodies available for examination.
Since the Admiral wanted prisoners, the lead distance of the warning missiles was adjusted to detonate further away from the craft. The next test subject was a large, slow-moving, heavily loaded ship.
Shortly after the warning shot detonated, the ship materialized but it was clear it no longer had main power. The Imperial Marines boarded her, and took the fifteen man crew prisoner, but also captured five-hundred earth-born humans in cryo that had been headed for the slave market on Reflan IV.
The Marines also seized ten metric tons of marijuana. While not yet outlawed in the Empire, it was listed as a banned substance in the Ophucci Cluster. Exposure to the smoke rendered the natives highly susceptible to suggestion. However, the drug did have a desirable medicinal quality that was needed. Therefore, unlicensed possession was punishable by no less than eighty years hard labor.
Since Earth-grown Marijuana brought a premium price on the black market, Sean had no doubt at all where this shipment had been going.
Sean did order her techs to board the captured freighter and learn all they could about its cloaking generator, and any other system that might be of interest. There was no shortage of volunteers, which prompted Sean to re-run background checks on all the techs. The last thing she needed right now was to try to explain to Ariel and the Emperor how she let a captured Slaver ship be destroyed.
Satisfied that the new sensors worked, Sean ordered the Spear of Athena to resume her primary mission. Surprisingly, Tabitha didn’t grumble at the orders. Sean suspected Thorn was going to be a tired man by the time they reached the new base.
Before she left, Ariel had Master Chief Bri’tell transferred to the Tides’ small medical bay. She figured she’d better authorize him to be moved, or he’d find a way to do it himself.
One of the surprises Sean had for Ariel was that she’d sent a shuttle for Alex so she could be there for Ariel’s graduation. Ariel didn’t know she was there until after the ceremony, and she was overjoyed. Ariel fina
lly got a chance to sit down with Alex just before liftoff.
“So, how are things down on Earth?” Ariel asked.
“It’s getting to the point that I need you down there. The crews know something strange is going on, but so far they’re sticking with our story. However, I can tell they would like an explanation,” Alex replied.
Ariel smiled at the sound of Alex’s voice. “Well, we’ll be heading out in just a few minutes. Is there a place for us to land?”
“Yes, I made sure there was a large clear place right next to the cliff that Estelle had marked for Cole’s new hanger. But it’s morning there, won’t we be seen?”
“I’ll leave the cloaking generator on until we’re almost down. The only ones that’ll see us are the staff and the work crews we want to recruit anyway. You might want to warn them ahead of time, but I think actually being able to see the ship landing will go a long way to them believing what we’re going to be telling them,” Ariel replied.
“Well, I think they more than half expect something like this anyway; the foreman even asked me when he should have his people ready to move. It’s kinda weird if you think about it. They act like they already know we’re going to be asking them to move on to another project, and that the project is going to be something amazing.”
“How’s the house coming along? It should be almost finished by now, right?” Ariel asked.
“Yeah, they’ve got about a week left, but I’ve had the foreman keep all the workers there doing make work. Hell, I’ve been adding everything I could think of; we’ve even got a fountain in the front yard now.” Alex giggled. “It is beautiful though. Those guys and gals do some awesome work. A lot of the married guys have had their wives come out and help with the decorating, and the finish work inside.” Alex said. “From listening to some of the spouses, they’ve all either quit their jobs, or gotten their own homes ready to be moved. A couple of the ladies even set up a temporary daycare to watch the little ones.”
“Wow, it sounds like I should start ordering the shuttles, but the problem is, we don’t have a place for them to live yet, and I don’t think Sean has the room aboard the Divine Light.”
“Have you given any thought to a lunar or maybe Martian transient colony? You could also use it as a Marine training base.” Alex suggested.
“You know, that does sound like a good idea. Maybe I should ask if a crew can be spared to build something like that. I’ll get with...”
Alex interrupted her daughter. “Why don’t you let Betty know what you need, and let her worry about the details? This is right up her alley, and I think she’s starting to feel a little left out of things.”
“Okay, I’ll ask her once we get down there. How about John? How’s he dealing with everything that’s happened to him?” Ariel asked.
“Oh, he’s in his element there. He has daily fights with all the landscapers; I was afraid we were going to have to restrain him once when one of the idiots suggested using rock for the back yard. He’s doing great and loving every minute of it.”
Ariel had Cole land on the place indicated by Alex. It was perfect, and easily large enough to handle a ship twice the size of the Imperial Cutter. As promised, it was right beside the cliff so Cole’s remotes got to work as soon as they’d landed. He sounded excited about the project, and Ariel suspected that he would have preferred going on the base building expedition. In a lot of ways, she agreed with him.
Landing out in the open, during the work day, had the expected result on the construction crew. They all gathered as close as they felt safe. Even a lot of the wives and a few of the older children came to see what got out of the ship.
Alex, Ariel, and Ariel’s new shadow; mKail, exited the ship first. mKail was wearing light armor, and carrying obvious weapons. They turned and headed in the direction of the construction foreman as the guard, in full armor and weapons exited the ship to form a defensive perimeter.
Since everyone knew Alex they didn’t run, but they did back away as mKail got closer. Although she was obviously human, what she was wearing marked her as an alien. mKail smiled slightly at the reaction.
After introductions, Ariel asked if there was a place everyone could talk out of the sun. She made it obvious she meant the whole crowd of workers and spouses.
Alex grinned and winked at the foreman, who grinned back and said he thought he knew of a place. He led the crowd back to the house, and through the front door. The great room was more like the huge audience chambers for kings you see in movies.
Ironically it must have had the same acoustics since everyone could be heard easily.
Ariel could see that most everyone was inside the house. But with this many bodies in one room, she expected that the air conditioner might be overworked shortly. She looked for something to stand on so she could see everyone, and more importantly, so they could see her. One of the closest workers saw what she needed and moved a chair from the dining table for her to stand on.
“Alex tells me that my landing just a few minutes ago wasn’t as big a surprise as it could have been, and that more than half of you expected something like this. But, before anyone gets worried, I was born right here in Las Vegas in fact. However, my mother, although human, wasn’t from around here.” She grinned as she heard a couple of chuckles from the crowd.
“I did ask Alex to let you folks know there was more work for you if you wanted it. What she couldn’t tell you at the time is that a good share of it won’t be on Earth. I don’t plan, however, to send any of you out of the solar system, so you’ll be able to come back and visit almost as often as you like.
“I could tell you how much it pays, but without a knowledge of Imperial money, it wouldn’t mean a thing to you. What I can tell you is that you will have free medical, optical, and dental care that makes our current technology look like witch-doctors and voodoo. We have an education system that is amazing, it’s not just available to the kids either; if any of you decide that you’re tired of this, we can retrain you into something else. Finding work is never a problem in a galaxy this size.
“I won’t lie to you, we do have poverty, and we do have poor people. Usually the reason is they don’t want to work, or can’t work, and we simply haven’t identified them yet.”
She went on to talk about the threat of the Kragen, and the trouble with the slavers and smugglers. When she finished, she saw faces full of wonder, fear, and challenge. She knew that most of the crew would be joining.
A large man in the middle of the crowd raised his hand and Ariel nodded to him.
“Forgive me for being an ass, and I know you’re rich and all, but who are you that you can make promises like this? Also, I’m more than a little leery of this Empire of yours. Every ‘Empire’ I’ve ever heard about was oppressive and evil. Look at Star Wars!” He said grinning. The crowd chuckled too, but the question was a valid one.
Ariel took a deep breath, “You all have heard me called Ariel Janis. My full name, with title is Her Imperial Highness, Lady Guardian Ariel Janis Parker Moran. Duchess of Aldus Forward, Steward of the Horon-A sector, and Heir Apparent to the throne of the Empire.
“I currently have no way to prove any of that to you, and besides, I’m still just a person, like any one of you. However, if you do agree to join us, you will get to see the Imperial task force that is in this system; but they’ll be leaving soon,” Ariel finished.
Another person raised their hand, this time it was a woman. “When will you be wanting us to leave?” She asked, unconcerned that she was actually talking about leaving the planet.
“At the moment, I don’t have any place for you to go. I’m sure we could find berths for all of you on the different ships of the fleet, but I don’t want to split you guys up. So, gimme a bit, so I can get something built either on the moon or Mars. It wouldn’t hurt for you to make suggestions to your architects since I will be calling on them to help design it,” Ariel said, seeing a few shocked people.
“What’s keeping
us from just running out, getting’ the authorities and coming back here?” One man asked.
“Absolutely nothing. If you think you can convince anyone of any of this your welcome to try. But, I should warn you, by the time you get any of those authorities out here, there will be nothing left to verify your claim. It’s a simple matter to hide the ship, and the rest of the people here probably have a good idea what the US Government would do with any advanced technology it might recover, so I don’t think any of them would validate your story. The question is, how would you convince them that a respected business woman is really an Alien Princess with advanced technology, if you couldn’t show them any?” Ariel replied, and saw a lot of folks nodding agreement.
“They’ve already been out here once. They suspect you anyway because of the buildings of yours in town. It would be simple to get them back out here,” the same unpleasant man said.
“Can it, Bill! I know for a fact that you aren’t so stupid as to believe they won’t kill you just to ensure the secret if they actually did find something out here. Hell, they’d kill all of us, and blame it on an industrial accident or something. There is no way in hell would I tell anyone about any of this stuff. You’d be dead if they did believe you, and discredited and shunned if they didn’t. So get the idea right out of your thick head!”
“So, about that move... How much time do you need?” another person asked.
“I’d guess about a month. But I don’t know for certain. We’ll get started on it right away. I would like to mention though, if any of you would like to change professions, or need to see one of our doctors, please let Alex or I know immediately. Also, until then, I will continue paying all of you as if you were still working out here.”
When Ariel stepped off the chair, the worker who had moved the chair to begin with, offered her a hand to get down. She smiled at him as she accepted his help.
“Bill Tolett isn’t known for bein’ much of a thinker. However, he does like to stir up trouble from time to time. I’d watch ‘em were I you, Ma’am,” the man said.