by Saxon Andrew
Sweets stepped around her again and Cami saw her expression was almost pure rage. Cami moved in front of her again and Cami said, “SWEETS, I LOVE YOU LIKE A SISTER BUT IF YOU DON’T PUT THAT BLASTER AWAY, YOU AND I ARE OVER FOR GOOD!!” Sweets looked into Cami’s eyes and saw pure steel in them. She holstered the blaster and yelled, “COCO, GET OVER HERE NOW!”
Coco jumped off the bench and ran to her mother. Sweets wrapped her arms around her as Cami turned to Stoney, “I thought we killed you last night. I didn’t keep my promise to keep you safe.”
Stoney shrugged, “Sometimes, promises aren’t kept due to the actions of others outside your control.”
“What are you doing here?” Cami asked.
Stoney looked at Sweets glaring at him with a malevolent expression and asked Coco, “Is this your mother?” Coco nodded. He turned back to Cami, “I almost left with my ship but after a lot of thought, I decided that I couldn’t leave with the issues confronting me.”
“Why not!”
Stoney blew out a breath and raised his shoulders, “I looked at all the evidence and I was forced to agree that you are right about the Prime Minister cutting off communications. If that is true, he’s trying to start a war against you without justification. I decided that you and I needed to discuss this further. My question to you is what do you intend to do about it?” Cami stared at him and Stoney asked, “Are you planning to attack the Colonies to stop the war?”
Cami forced herself to take a deep breath and release it slowly. Then she answered, “No. I intend to do everything within my power to prevent the war from happening. Attacking the Colonies is not something I would consider except in self-defense. All other avenues would have to exhausted before I considered that, and I’d probably just surrender to them before I would allow that to happen.” Stoney stared at her and Cami said, “Like I told you yesterday, I don’t believe in needless killing.”
“Cami, this man is a Colony Agent and he could have taken Coco and used her as a hostage to escape back to the Colonies. He would have forced her to go with him and I would have lost my daughter.”
Cami looked at Sweets and Coco said, “Mom, he would never do that; he’s a good man.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT COCO!”
“Yes I do, Mommy. Besides, he could never harm me.”
“Yes he could Coco.”
Cami looked at Coco with a puzzled expression, “What do you mean he could never harm you?”
Coco shrugged, “I would prevent him.”
Sweets and Cami stared at Coco and Cami asked, “How would you do that?” Suddenly, Stoney’s face turned red and his eyes were wide open. He was clearly in distress and he fell over on the bench unmoving. “RELEASE HIM COCO!!”
Stoney started coughing and taking deep breaths. Coco rushed over to him and said, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Stoney was pale and he said, “I was paralyzed and couldn’t breathe. What did you do to me?!”
Coco shook her head, “I stopped your body from working.”
Sweets eyes were wide, and she stared at Coco in shock. Cami went to Coco and knelt down in front of her, “Coco, you must never do this to anyone; do you understand?”
“I won’t, Aunt Cami. I would only do this to protect me and my family.”
Sweets was still staring at Coco and Cami stood up and went to her, “I told you when you were pregnant with Coco that she was going to be an extremely powerful telepath. You need to get a grip and not try to stop her development. This talent is something she was born with and you will have to accept your daughter is unique among all of humanity. Don’t fear her Sweets! You know her heart is made of gold.”
Coco was crying, “I’m sorry Mommy.”
Sweets took Coco in her arms and held her tightly. It’s my fault; I made you prove you can defend yourself.” Sweets looked at Stoney, “I apologize for any discomfort you experienced.”
Stoney sat up and said, “But you still want me dead, don’t you?”
Sweets stared at him and said softly, “How can I not? You’re an agent of the Colonies and you and the ones you report to want to cause the deaths of many people on Britannia to take control of us.”
Stoney looked at Sweets and said, “There’s no love like a mother’s love. I don’t blame you for your feelings.”
“So, what do you intend to do?” Cami asked Stoney.
“I intend to help you in any way I can to prevent this war from happening.”
Coco said, “He’s telling the truth, Aunt Cami. He’s no longer misdirected.”
Cami looked at Coco, “Can I trust him?”
Coco shrugged, “I don’t know…but I trust him.”
Cami stared at Coco and asked, “Are you sure?” Coco nodded. Cami turned to Stoney and said, “I’m opening my mind to you. Before we take another step beyond this point, you need to know the truth.”
Sweets shook her head, “Cami, you don’t know if he’s not using you.”
Cami smiled, “I don’t, but Coco does and that’s good enough for me.” She turned to Stoney and said, “Look at my thoughts.”
Stoney entered her mind and after a long moment he started shaking his head, “I was right. You are hiding your advanced warships.” Cami nodded. Stoney continued to look into her mind and said after fifteen minutes, “You are capable of destroying the Colonies.”
Cami nodded, “We’ve been able to do that for more than eight years, but we would never, ever, do it.”
Stoney stared at her and finally said, “I can see that.”
“So what’s it going to be Mr. Stone?”
“Call me Stoney. I will work with you to prevent harm to any humans. I thank you for trusting me with this information.”
“You will stay around me until you get up to speed. Do you see anything I’m not doing that might make a difference in preventing this war?”
“I don’t. I believe that you’re going to have to exhaust all political avenues before you take direct action.”
Cami eyes narrowed, “I will not kill the brave sailors in the Colony Fleets no matter what happens. They don’t deserve it and most of them are good people.”
“Then lets see what we can dream up to keep that from happening.”
Sweets stared at Stoney and sighed, “There are sometimes I wish I was a telepath. I don’t want to trust you Stoney, but it appears I’m in the minority.”
Stoney smiled at Sweets, “I often wish I wasn’t a telepath and I envy you for not having to deal with the constant noise around you. But this much I can tell you for certain, you have a very remarkable daughter and you’ve done an outstanding job in raising her to be a wonderful person. You should be very proud of her.”
Sweets made up her mind, “I am. And welcome to Britannia.”
“Thank you.”
Cami nodded toward the elevators, “Come with me to my office and we’ll take a look at what you can tell me. I also need to teach you how to stop hearing the telepathic roar.”
Stoney’s eyebrows came down, “I didn’t know that’s possible.”
“It isn’t for most telepaths, but you can do it.” Stoney nodded and wondered what else this young woman knew. Well, the die was cast, and he had attached his boat to her ship. Time would tell if this was a good decision.
• • •
“Sir, the telepath we sent to Britannia has been killed.”
Admiral Bellemy looked up from his console with an angry expression, “How did that happen?”
“Sir, it appears he attempted to make an escape from Britannia and his ship was detected.”
“I thought he was going to send a telepathic message to one of our scouts on what he uncovered?”
The Commodore hesitated and then said, “My staff believes he must have been uncovered and he was not in a position to use his telepathic communicator without being detected. He attempted to leave the planet on his ship and was detected. His ship was destroyed while it was still inside Britannia’s
atmosphere.”
“I thought his ship was undetectable?”
“Sir, it was.”
“Then how…”
“They must have detected it moving through the atmosphere,” the Commodore interrupted. “His ship left a trace in the air it disrupted lifting from the planet. We knew getting on the planet could be done but leaving it required the ship to use its gravity drive; the ship’s acceleration left a clear disturbance behind it.”
Bellemy stared at his assistant and asked, “And the pilot was on board when the ship was destroyed?”
“One of our scouts scanned the debris and it detected residue from the suit the telepath used on the ship. He died on the ship.”
“It appears Britannia now knows we’re scouting them,” Bellemy mused.
“Sir, the staff thinks we should send a message to Britannia and tell them one of our pilots was charged with murdering his commanding officer and managed to escape on one of our scouts. We’ll tell them we’ve been unable to find him and that they should keep their eyes out for him on the off chance he tries to escape to Britannia.”
Bellemy thought about it and leaned back in his chair, “Do you think they’ll buy that story?”
“Sir, they have no idea we’re scouting them. We believe they’ll appreciate the warning.” The Commodore hesitated and added, “They have no reason to suspect we’re not telling the truth.”
Admiral Bellemy thought about it and then said, “We won’t contact them. If they send a message to us asking about the ship, we’ll act surprised and tell them the story you’ve concocted.”
“Yes Sir.”
The Commodore left the Admiral’s office and Bellemy shook his head. He knew sending the telepath to Britannia was a risk that should have been avoided but the prime Minister insisted it be done. He wondered if the Prime Minister insisted because it was good strategy, or he wanted to get that powerful telepath away from him. Either way, the plan failed; it was a waste of a good warrior. Stone believed in the cause and it was just paranoia by the Prime Minister in sending him to Britannia. Should he notify the Prime Minister about the failure? Ummm…maybe later. He might insist on sending another telepath and there weren’t enough good telepaths to waste. Besides, the ship used to send him to Britannia would have to be replicated; it was the only one built and building another would take a lot of time. He decided to send a written report to the Prime Minister and wait for him to respond. The Prime Minister never read the military reports so it could be weeks before he found out. Besides, it appeared Britannia represented no threat to the Colonies according to the scouting reports. He had no doubt that wouldn’t make any difference to the Prime Minister; he was determined to remove Britannia’s military power even if it wasn’t an issue. He shook his head and turned back to his console.
Chapter Three
Cami looked out of the window in her office at the city growing around it. It was growing by leaps and bounds and would soon rival the size of the former capital of Britannia. She just read the reports on the number of Colony Scouts in Britannia’s star system and saw the numbers weren’t increasing. The same couldn’t be said about the Colony’s number of warships; they were continuing to build up their military forces. The Prime Minister was using the aliens in Andromeda as an excuse for the continued construction.
She turned around, went to her desk, and pulled up the current fleet report. The Colonies were building at an extreme pace, but Britannia was also building more warships. The Britannia Colony and the Triangulum Planets at the core were now building the advanced warships and the three thousand planets at the core made a huge difference in the fleet’s growth. But it still was far outnumbered by the Colony Fleets. They now had four hundred Carriers and it would take a long time to match their numbers. But, the longer the Colonies could be delayed in moving on Britannia and Earth the better.
Cami thought about what the Elder said to her and Robert in Andromeda; it kept running through her mind; preventing a war is far better than stopping one. But how could she do that when the Prime Minister was determined to rule all of humanity? She could only prepare for the worst and pray for the best.
Thank God she had her family to help her deal with the stress. She had no personal life; there just wasn’t time for that. She often went to the cave in the mountains Taffy had shown her for alone time to decompress and get away from everything. Visiting her family also helped but the constant fear for Britannia’s freedom wore on her constantly. It didn’t help that Earth had decided that Britannia would lead in any coming conflict. Fleet Admiral Martov insisted that Britannia knew this new enemy better than Earth and should lead the way.
Cami sighed. If she had never spoken to the Elder in Andromeda, she just wouldn’t worry about the Colonies. She’d just wait for them to do something stupid and go in and kick their asses up around their necks. But humans would have to die, and she just couldn’t live with that. They had to be stopped before any armed conflict erupted.
She doubted Britannia’s forces would attack the Colony Fleets with the intent to destroy them. Too many of them had fought along side the Colony sailors against the Core Aliens and Fagan. But…they may not have a choice. She hit her desk with her fist and decided not to do that again; it really hurt.
• • •
Stoney walked in and Cami forced a smile, “Have you got a minute?” Cami nodded. “I’ve been working on developing my telepathic talents and I’ve finally been able to find a particular person in the telepathic roar. What should I work on next?”
“Start looking for a particular person further out from the planet. You can start with the defensive fleet above Britannia. See if you can find the commanding officer.” Stoney nodded and started to leave. “Before you go.” Stoney turned around and looked at Cami. “Since you joined me, I’ve not had the opportunity to find out some things about you.”
“Such as?” Stoney asked.
“I find it odd that you decided to join Britannia on such short notice and walk away from the Colonies Military. Most people wouldn’t be able to do that because of their ties to the Colonies.”
Stoney shrugged, “If you’re asking if I have family that would prevent me from doing this, I don’t. My mother and father pretty much disowned me when I was a teenager. Being a telepath made them uncomfortable; we’ve not spoken for years.”
Cami stared at him and said, “Go on.”
“Are you asking if I have a romantic relationship in the Colonies?”
“Do you?”
“Well, not really.”
“What does that mean?”
“I was in a sort of relationship.” Cami’s head tilted. “Well, what I mean is, I was attracted to a woman that I knew would never work out,” Stoney added.
“Why not?”
“Well, on the surface, she appeared to be an incredible catch. She was beautiful, intelligent, and fun to be around.” Cami stared at Stoney with a neutral expression. “I enjoyed her company and spent a lot of time with her.” Stoney paused and then asked, “Do you know what fool’s gold is?”
Cami nodded, “Iron pyrite.”
Stoney nodded, “On the surface it looks identical to gold. It’s bright, shiny, and beautiful. But underneath, it’s worthless. I knew from the moment I met her that she was a user and obsessed with herself. I had no doubt the time we’d have together wouldn’t be very long.”
“So why did you spend time with her?”
“Because she was beautiful and fun to be around.” He paused and added, “I don’t regret the time I spent with her; even though I knew she was simply using me to keep from getting bored. I knew she had numerous others she was seeing before me that she kept from me. I just didn’t allow my heart to fall into a trap and made sure that when she walked away, and I knew she would eventually walk away, that I could handle it.”
Cami shook her head, “I don’t think I could be in a relationship with someone like that.”
Stoney shrugged, “There wasn’t
anyone else that interested me, and it also kept me distracted from the stress of being in the military. However, I had no hesitation to join you in preventing this war and I haven’t missed her. I’m certain she just found someone else and moved on without missing me in the slightest. There’s nothing holding me to the Colonies other than my allegiance to the Colonies protection.”
“But you know Britannia may be forced to attack the Colonies?!”
“I do. But the Colonies will be far better off in the long run if you can stop that Prime Minister that’s lusting for power. I guess my loyalty is to my species now. Humanity must be kept safe and right now that means protecting it from itself.” Stoney paused and then inquired, “Why do you ask?”
“Coco said you can be trusted but there were some questions that have bothered me that I needed you to clear up.”
“Have I done that?”
“You have and I won’t be interrogating you again.”
Stoney smiled, “I wondered if you were going to question me on my background. I understand why you have, and I don’t mind you asking me any questions.”
Cami stood up, “Want to take a trip?”
“Where?”
“Britannia settled a Colony prior to the Core Aliens attacking. I want to go have a discussion with them.”
“I’d certainly like to go.”
Cami nodded and walked toward the door, “Then follow me.”
• • •
Cami led Stoney to the elevators and pressed the LL button. “What is that?” Stoney asked.
“It’s the lowest level the elevator goes. We’re going to the underground carts.”
“Where will that take us?”
“We’re going to the construction facility located in the mountains next to the city. We can’t just fly away in one of the warships located on the planet’s surface.”
They boarded one of the carts and it accelerated smoothly away from the station. Stoney looked at the lights flashing by and Cami said, “We’re traveling at two-hundred-and-fifty miles-per-hour.”