by Mark Zubro
“Like what?” Mike asked.
“The complete destruction of all life on Earth, or maybe the enslavement of Earth, or Earth peoples and a faction here teaming up together to conquer us. People can be very frightened very quickly.”
Joe asked, “Does any of that make much difference to us right now today?”
Snek smiled. “Not much.”
Mike’s mind reeled with possibilities. Then he pulled himself back to reality. “I agree with Joe. We can think about galactic implications tomorrow. We can be responsible for the galaxy when it comes calling. We need to think about today. Our lives. Our colony. How do we take advantage of this?”
Snek said, “If Bex used it in his initial attack on you, then we should be able to replicate what he had or even improve on it.”
“Okay,” Mike said. “What about trading? Making money? Becoming independent?”
Snek said, “It’s a hell of a thing. See, the rules of our worlds apply to all of us but not to you.”
“Huh?” Mike asked.
Joe said, “I think he might be right. I’ve been thinking about this. See, all of us are stuck here. You are a special case. You’re not from here and the rules are different. Remember in the Senate. They could take my implants, fuck with me. You had special rules on treatment of aliens to protect you. It’s the same with findings like this.”
“You mean I’m not a prisoner?”
Joe looked around. “Well, yeah, see, but not the same kind of prisoner as the rest of us. All that zukoh and the wealth it represents could very well be yours.”
Snek nodded. “He may be right.”
“This cannot be real,” Mike said. “I’m the most powerful person in the galaxy, and now I’m the richest? Because I blasted a hole in a mountain. Bullshit.”
Joe asked, “Could someone land a ship up there and start siphoning it off the planet?”
“Doesn’t work like that. They would need to set up an immense factory. Just like we would to use it.”
“How long would it take them?”
“As far as I know, years.”
“Us?”
“How long would it take us?” Snek gave a benign chuckle. “Forever. We don’t have the equipment.”
“Could I just scoop up some of it from that lake and use it as a weapon?”
“I’m not sure what you could do. The stuff is volatile. It hasn’t been opened up to the world for probably a billion years.”
“Is there anything you can do with it?”
“I can try. The work would go faster if I had some help.”
“Are there other scientists?” Mike couldn’t remember the backgrounds of all the new arrivals.
“We got several batches of colonists while you were gone. I think a few might be qualified. Do I swear them to secrecy?”
“I don’t see the point. We have to assume Bex will find out sooner rather than later.”
“If Brux has all intergalactic communications monitored and in hand, he might be able to keep the news from getting off the planet. After the news spreads, and we have to assume if Bex has spies, other factions might have as well, they all might know. The knowledge of what we had would set up an enormous fight among the wealthy. It might even lead to civil war among them. This much money available all at once would be a great incentive. Stock markets might crash. Whole systems could go bankrupt. Once they’ve all got the zukoh and developed it into weapons then equilibrium would return, I presume. Until then there could be war unprecedented in millennia. When there’s that much cash involved, they could go very nuts very fast, but getting it from us would be a slight problem. It’s preventing each other from getting it that might give us a breathing space.”
They left him to his scientific musings about possibilities and got to their work. Mike stopped to see Cak. The man was sitting on his pile of garbage. He looked bored. Mike wasn’t interested in a fight, so he just observed him from a distance and went about his duties.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
A week later a regular supply ship arrived. All had been quiet in the colony.
Mike greeted the captain, Nek, their most regular supplier. Mike knew Joe would be with the men unloading, making deals for black market goods.
Nek said, “I have more new colonists for you.”
Mike looked at the ship. He didn’t think it was large enough for an influx of thousands. He’d feared a major prisoner drop since the first surprise inspection.
Nek said, “I’ve got two hundred forty-seven.”
“Why two hundred forty-seven?”
“Why not? I just bring what they give me.”
“We’re supposed to get an influx of thousands in a few months.”
“Well, now you’ve got two hundred forty-seven. I don’t make the bureaucratic fuck-ups. I just deliver.” He leaned close to Mike. He smelled like stale spaceship. “I think there’s absolute chaos in the Religionist faction.” He glanced around making sure, Mike thought, that they couldn’t be overheard. “They’ve got sabotage from the people who don’t think this is a right thing to do, rounding you all up. And speaking of rounding people up, transport is a bitch. It costs a fortune. I hear rumors people are going broke.”
“Broke enough to stop them?”
“If somebody’s going broke, somebody else is getting rich.”
“Oh.”
Nek tapped on the front of his communicator. He announced, “They’ll be disembarking now.”
In a few moments, a line of passengers began to file from one of the storage bays. Mike tapped his own communicator and called Brux, told them they had new colonists, and to activate the assimilation plan.
In a few minutes Mike saw the group of colonists, led by Brux, stream across the bridge away from the hangar.
Nek whispered, “I hear they’re trying to get more legislation passed in the Senate.”
“Now what?” Mike’s question was almost cynical and snarky.
Nek’s answer wasn’t. “Extermination.”
Mike said, “You’re kidding? It must be just a rumor.”
“You know how it is. Rumors in space get exaggerated by the number of light years they are from the source.”
Mike slumped in depression. “But they just sent more colonists. How can they do that and then just exterminate them?”
“You’re asking me to explain bureaucracy again?”
“And hate.”
“Whatever.”
Nek wasn’t one of their spies or even particularly on the colonists’ side. He was in it for profit. Transport and black market deals could lead to mountains of cash. The colonists might not have a lot to trade now, but the central government could be duped out of a lot. Mike figured Nek looked on his trade with the colony as an investment.
Later Mike and Joe sat together in their cubicle. The new people had all been settled. They would start their jobs in the morning. Brux was babysitting.
Mike told him about what Nek said.
“Nothing we can do about rumors,” Joe said.
Mike said, “And nothing if they vote for extermination.”
Joe pulled him into a fierce embrace and said, “It’s not time to worry yet.”
Mike wasn’t sure if the words made him feel better, but he knew being in Joe’s embrace did. If it came down to the worst, Mike hoped he’d spend his final moments in his husband’s arms.
Their embrace turned to wild passion. The tingle he always felt at Joe’s touch, as usual when he was inside him, turned to fire. As Mike pounded into Joe while his husband lay on his back, the sensation engulfed and encompassed him more than at any other time. He sent blast after blast of hot cum up Joe’s ass.
They exploded at the same moment, Mike deep inside Joe, and Joe all over his stomach. Mike licked up all his husband’s cum and then kissed him, both of them tasting Joe’s sweet nectar. Mike still found it the best-tasting cum he’d ever had.
Minutes later when they had finally caught their breaths, Mike wasn’t feeli
ng rich and powerful. He felt warm, sexy, safe, satisfied, and loved.
When finished, endearments uttered, and their clothes rearranged, and their psychic angst eased, Joe smiled and said, “And speaking of the mundane, and we weren’t, we also got four ground transport vehicles.”
“That’s a start. What kind?”
“All-terrain type vehicles. It goes to more terrains than an Earth one would and much faster over rougher terrain. The tires can go from rock hard, to pillow soft and anywhere in between. They’re great. They can float on wild rapids or cushion themselves around rocks like melting marshmallows. They could be used for racing, but not, of course, in marshmallow mode.”
“How’d we get them?”
“Accident. The lesbians were supposed to get them.”
“They’ve started their colony?”
“No, nobody’s there. So the transport guy who is a friend of ours decided we might be able to put them to use.”
“Set up a rigid schedule of use. People are starting to have to walk for miles to get to their work stations.”
“Already done.”
Mike thought for another moment. “And let’s send Hok and Kench back up to the zukoh with one of them. They can see if there’s a surface road back up toward that mother lode, or an easier way than we took. They won’t be able to climb the sides of mountains like we did or get over that damn ridge?”
“Not quite, but the ATVs can do amazing things.”
The next morning they met with Hok and Kench who immediately agreed to a second expedition. Mike told them, “I don’t think we need guards, but I’d rather have somebody up there.”
Hok said, “We can check with Snek for more scientific information and then I’ll go over the maps. Now that we know exactly where we have to get to, we can hunt for other access points.”
Mike said, “And we’ll be digging in that direction with each new person that arrives. We still only have those first fifty machines. And we’ve got two repair guys who keep them in top shape. With the arrival of the new colonists, they’ve been running almost around the clock. It will be months before we get to it, but we’ll be nearer each day.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Later that evening, Mike strolled to the communication room. In the hall just before the entrance, he heard Brux’s voice.
“What was I before I was collected? Honey, you don’t want to know. It’s too vile to be repeated, and you won’t believe me anyway.” Brux was at his airiest.
“Oh, come on.” Rix was the other voice. “You know you want to tell. I bet it was really a big nothing. You were probably a hair dresser on some third class world, frying people’s hair in some back alley dive.”
Mike stood in the doorway. The two of them ignored him.
“Now, young man, you have gone too far.” Brux gave a spectacular harrumph, gazed out the corner of his eye at Mike.
The boy was grinning, “Well?”
Brux began, “Do you read sports history books?”
“No.”
“Ignorant child. Are you even literate?”
“I can read, but I bet you weren’t in any sport’s history book. Anyway, why read it when everything in the books is on old sports videos?”
“Did you watch them at least?”
“Well, no.”
“Ah, ha,” Brux gave a triumphant crow. “If you had taken any interest in your world at all you’d know who I was. Thirty years ago.”
“That’s ancient history,” Rix said. “I wasn’t even born.”
“You’re treading on thin ice, buster,” Brux snapped. “You don’t say ancient to an aging beauty.”
Rix grinned. “Sorry. So tell.”
Standing with his back to the communications console Brux composed himself for the story. Rix sat on a stack of newly delivered electronics equipment.
With some asperity Brux inquired, “You have heard of the game Death Ball?”
“Of course,” Rix responded. “My dad and I watched games together when I was little. It was the only thing we ever did together, besides him fucking me in the ass from when I was five. Go on with the story. You used to go to the games, right.”
“Go! My dear boy. I used to play.”
“As a professional?”
“Of course.”
Rix was astounded and awed. “Were you a quarterback?”
“No, no, my dear, look at my figure. After I stopped playing I went on a strict diet. Back then I weighed almost twice as much as I do now. Six-foot-eleven and enough poundage to smash the opposition through the ground at my whim. That is not what a quarterback is made of. I was Center Trencherman, Attacker I.”
“Wow.”
“I know, a tough position to play, some say harder than quarterback, but not quite as lethal. I managed it in the midst of all those hulking sweaty bodies. It was glorious.”
“Wait,” Rix said. “You’re not Brux the Head Crusher?”
Brux smiled. “You betcha.”
People still talked about the play. In the championship game thirty years ago, Brux the Head Crusher, had single handedly, crushed to death an opposing quarterback.
“How?”
“You mean, how did I stop the enemy quarterback, permanently, on my own, and not get a penalty?”
Rix nodded.
“Nothing to it. He was this gorgeous number, and I wanted to be first to pile on him all day. Besides the joy, distinction, and honor of being First Piler, I wanted to sniff his crotch. The score was tied with time running out. They decided to try the Suicide Horde Reverse.”
“Gosh!” Rix sounded awed.
Even Mike knew it was the play that was most likely to result in multiple deaths.
Brux went on. “A dangerous play. One that, if successful, has destroyed opposing teams, but if it doesn’t work.” Brux let a dramatic pause linger then resumed. “Well, on the fateful play, so to speak, the quarterback faked everybody out, even his own team, which was a mistake, because I suspected something was up from that handsome stud who was too pretty for his own good. I wasn’t named All-Galaxy Center Trencherman, Attacker Level I five times for nothing. So any way, they all went one way and he and I went another. He knew his mistake as soon as he saw me. He knew my reputation. It was too late by then so he rushed straight at me in a full bulldoze. I’d have been a trifle kinder if he hadn’t screamed ‘fucking queer’ as he rumbled toward me. This old queen, young queen then, got pissed. He never swerved an inch in his rush toward me. He thought he could just run me over. I stepped lightly to my left at the last instant. He rushed by me. I reached in, grabbed his prick and balls through his shorts. He stopped, rather abruptly I might add. With one hand I lifted him by his nuts, with the other I grabbed the back of his neck. I thought I would try and see if he was flexible enough to suck his own dick. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t. I slammed his body to the ground back-of-his neck and head first. Being dead, of course, caused him to drop the ball. My teammates recovered and using our famous cyclone formation, scored what proved to be the winning points.”
They both glanced at Mike.
“Are you telling stories again?” Mike asked.
“They’re all true,” Brux said.
“Did he really?” Rix let the question dangle.
Mike pointed at the computer console. “You can find it in there in the old sports records if you look.” Mike had. It sure looked like Brux, albeit much heftier, in all the game pictures.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Mike was in his cubicle ready to start for his work station. He was reading the latest report from Hok and Kench. They hadn’t quite made it to the zukoh even in all the time they’d been gone. They’d been going back and forth finding terrain for the ATV. They’d found a circuitous, but less dangerous way to get to the cave. Mike’s communicator binged on the emergency blip from Brux.
Mike rushed into the communication room. “What now?”
“Identify yourselves,” Brux demanded. He was speaking into
the broadcast microphone and staring at the image on the screen.
“Unidentified,” was Rix’s terse reply.
“Well, God damn it, find out who it is.”
A few moments later Cem said, ”It’s an Imperial battle cruiser.”
Brux turned to Rix. “Haven’t you established communication with them yet?”
“I’m trying,” the frustrated youngster continued pressing buttons. “They don’t respond.”
Cem said, “If it’s not help and not an attack, what is it?”
Brux snarled, “A visit from my mother.”
Rix said, “If the guard buoys aren’t sounding an alarm and the usual guards around the solar system aren’t interfering, it’s gotta be someone known to them.”
“I presume,” Brux said.
Rix said, “Admiral Pav on another visit?”
“For what?” Cem asked.
“The view,” Brux snapped.
They watched the battle cruiser in silence as it neared the planet.
“They’re going to crash land if they don’t call in soon,” Rix said.
The speaker crackled to life. “Planet 6743-0A this is the battle cruiser Star Crusher requesting landing instructions.”
“Clear them for landing,” Brux ordered Rix then turned to Mike, “Your buddy Pav is back.”
Mike walked down the ramps to the road through the agricultural sector. He waited at the bottom for the ship to land far off beyond the fields.
Brux was with him. Joe was in the fields helping to repair the damage from the rains and to make adjustments and prepare for the next ones.
Brux said, “I saw the way Pav looked at you on his previous visit. He’s not my type at all. Although I do admire that slender, compactly-muscled body. The blond hair and blue eyes are a bit much. He’s one of us. You can’t pull the wool over this queen’s eyes.”
The usual panoply of outriders, hangers on, and guards emerged from the ship’s airlock and formed two lines, down which a moment later strode a richly robbed man carrying the symbols for the High Admiral and the Senate.
“You’re an old queen’s wet dream,” Brux murmured. The two of them began the trek across the plain to the visitors. As they drew closer, Mike saw it was the same gaudily dressed, elderly factotum, Orl, who’d accompanied Pav on his first visit. The man looked to have aged fifty years and seemed to sway under the weight of all the paraphernalia of his office.