Never Surrender

by Michael Anderle

  “Captain,” Kiel reached out to shake Kael-ven’s hand before the four-legged Yollin reclined on a couch made for his body type. Kiel turned back to his side of the table and reclined in his chair.

  “As the humans would say,” Kael-ven muttered, “God, it’s good to be called Captain again.”

  “What, Plenipotentiary Leader Kael-ven isn’t to your liking?” Kiel asked.

  “No, but King Kael-ven, andTraitor Kael-ven are the ones I hate to hear the most because I expect to see one of the Empress’s Bitches show up when they say something bad about Bethany Anne.”

  Kiel shrugged, “They can’t be everywhere.”

  “Well, they are certainly watching me closely enough,” Kael-ven agreed.

  “Trust issues?” Kiel asked.

  “What? No.” he waved the thought away, “They are concerned my,” Kael-ven pointed to the door, “security isn’t up to standard.”

  Kiel looked towards the door, “They seemed fine,” he scratched a mandible, “perhaps it would have been better if they had come in here and checked under the table.”

  “Trust me, he wanted to.” Kael-ven reached for the drink that was waiting for him, “but I told him if you were in here, not to disrespect the Yollin Mercenary leader that way.”

  Kiel shrugged, grabbed his own drink and took a sip, “It wouldn’t have bothered me, as many times as John, Eric, Darryl or Scott would practically pick me up and look under my feet before Bethany Anne would come in.” He chuckled, “Like I had a chance to hurt her, either.”

  “You could have had a bomb on yourself,” Kael-ven pointed out.

  “Uh,” Kiel stopped a moment, “yes, I guess you are right. I hadn’t considered that.”

  “No matter, Eric came down yesterday and tore all of my people new assholes about their sorry abilities. Then he showed them their mistakes. One person chose to be offended by Eric.” Kael-ven paused, “He’s not with me anymore.”

  “What, Eric killed him?” Kiel asked, not surprised.

  “No,” Kael-ven chuckled, “but he is in the hospital recuperating. He is allowed back on the team if he wants to come back. However, no one cares to give any of the Empress’ people lip anymore. By the time Eric was done with my guard, the guard was apologizing and saying over and over again he was happy he was learning the lesson from Eric, rather than from John.”

  Kiel chuckled, “Eric does like to make it seem like the beat down he is delivering is, ‘only half the shit John would do to you, so you better tell me thank you for not letting John teach you this stuff.’”

  Kael-ven nodded, “Right after he broke my guard’s leg, that human is amazing.”

  “No,” Kiel corrected, “he just makes John seem that much worse.”

  Kael-ven lifted his drink in Kiel’s direction, “Good point.”

  A moment later, one of the security guards knocked and stuck his head in to announce the waiter was here. Within moments, the two Yollins had ordered, and the door was shut once more.

  Kael-ven reached into a leather bag and pulled out a small tablet. He logged in and chose an app that would block all known bugs. He looked up to Kiel, “Physical?”

  “Checked the place out, clean.”

  “Ok,” Kiel-ven accepted his assurance, “What do we have?”

  Kiel brought out his own tablet, “ADAM?”

  The AI spoke from his table, “Yes, Kiel?”

  “I’m in a secure room with Kael-ven. Would you transfer the recordings from today into his implant?”

  “Certainly,” ADAM confirmed. A moment later, Kael-ven’s eyes became a touch distant, as he focused on the conversations he heard in his ear, due to the implants he had received from Bethany Anne. His mandibles started grinding together.

  “Idiots!” He finally ground out.

  “Finished?” Kiel asked, and Kael-ven nodded his head.

  “Ok, thoughts boss?”

  Kael-ven tapped his fingers on the table, “Oh, it doesn’t surprise me. They are going to waste a lot of good Yollin blood trying to bring back the old aristocracy system. I’ve seen the latest reports and spoken with the head scientist on the Yollin population challenges here on our planet.”

  “What did he say?” Kiel asked. It was no surprise that the biggest issue facing Kael-ven was how to deal with the burgeoning population. It was the reason Yollins had been going to space for decades and had become the aggressive species they were.

  “He said we have no damned population problem!” Kael-ven spat out. “It seems King Yoll made it all up, purposefully keeping our capabilities with population engineering in the past. We could bring back all Yollins to our own planet, and have centuries more growth. Hell,” he waved towards the ceiling, “those on the Space Stations could come back down and not be so damned crowded.”

  “So…”

  “Furthermore,” Kael-ven continued his tirade, “that sphincter plug of a King created useless engineering requirements that hampered our ability to produce bigger buildings. Which, when you see some of the structures we have created, makes no sense. The only times when we built to our capabilities, the engineering went through the King’s group. In those instances, amazing feats of intellect occurred, and no one cared to question the King about how only a few of the buildings made it so high.”

  “And…” Kiel tried to interrupt once more, unsuccessfully as Kael-ven continued.

  “May that rat-faced-finger-fucked-shit-goblin forever be tormented in the acid belly of a Deer’ghlock!” he hissed as he slapped the table.

  Kiel waited a moment to see if Kael-ven was finished.

  “What?” Kael-ven asked, rubbing his hand.

  “Ok, just wondering about that tirade. I seem to have noticed a little Bethany Anne inspired motivational conversation there at the end.”

  “Oh yes,” Kael-ven tapped the side of his head, “I took to memorizing some of the colorful language she used on multiple occasions.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?”

  “Not a damned clue. For instance, what’s a rat?” Kael-ven started chuckling, “I have no idea.”

  “Something ugly, I’m sure. I imagine in the future, whole university classes will be based around some of her colorful language, and tearing it apart to find the nuggets of wisdom each contains, no doubt making up complete stories about the true meaning when really she just meant they were fucktards.”

  “Another one of my personal favorites,” Kael-ven admitted.

  “OK,” Kiel got back to the problem at hand, “Straiphus?”

  “Talk with the Empress, find out what they know, and how we might help if she needs us.”

  “That simple?” Kiel asked.

  “I would think you need to worry more than me.” Kael-ven pointed out, “You are the mercenary in her employ. My job is to help run Yoll. She is responsible for the rest of Yoll’s territories in her Empire.”

  ADAM interrupted, “Do you want me to patch Bethany Anne in at this time? She has left a meeting and has a few minutes.”

  “Yes,” Kael-ven answered.

  Both Yollins had waited a moment before ADAM came back on, “Bethany Anne, Kiel, and Kael-ven are on the other side of the line. They are discussing the situation with Straiphus and want to make you aware of what they know.”

  “Hi guys,” Bethany Anne’s voice popped in, “Sorry, no video.”

  “That’s a shame,” Kiel spoke up, “My muscles have muscles now.”

  “How the hell can a human tell?” She asked. “You guys have that chitinous armor, so aren’t your muscles hidden?”

  “That is why he is saying he has more muscles,” Kael-ven answered, “There is a favorite tactic of military focused Yollins to implement that strategy.”

  “Which strategy?” she asked.

  “The time-honored strategy called lying-through-our-mandibles to get a female to touch us in appreciation,” Kiel answered.

  “Same shit, different species,” she muttered, but there was humor coloring
her voice.

  “Yes,” Kael-ven answered. “I don’t want to continue taking up your time with Kiel’s attempts at humor.”

  “No, it’s ok, I find it funny,” she replied.

  “Ok, may I admit I didn’t want Kiel taking up more of my time with his attempts at humor?” Kael-ven ignored Kiel’s smile at her catching his lie.

  “Mmmhmmm,” her voice came across the tablet, “Now, that I believe.”

  “I didn’t think you could read minds at this distance?” Kael-ven questioned.

  “Same shit, different species,” she retorted once more.

  “That wasn’t a full answer,” Kiel pointed out.

  There was silence on the line.

  Kael-ven got the message, “Alright, we asked you to join this call to discuss new information Kiel has found out related to an effort by those Yollins in the Straiphus system to attack here in the home system. They are formulating a plan both externally in the Straiphus system and seeking support here.”

  “I understand,” she replied, “we are aware of some questionable maneuvers in their system from a few spy ships we have over there. However, we haven’t pushed into the system because we needed to get the damaged ships from the first fight completely fixed. Also, I’d like to have additional weapon capabilities tested and online.”

  “They have three capital ships over there, right?” Kael-ven asked.

  “Yes, but that is our biggest concern, Kael-ven,” she replied, “we can only find two.”

  “How the hell do you hide a capital ship?” Kiel interrupted, “It’s not like you park the SonofaGro’lick in a barn somewhere.”

  “Well, on the other side of a moon, works,” Kael-ven started before Bethany Anne added.

  “We looked behind everywhere we could think of. While it should be around, it isn’t.” There was a pause before she added, “Suggestions guys?”

  Kael-ven tapped the table, then answered, “Why don’t we talk with the Defense Minister?”

  Executive Prison, Planet Yoll

  E’kolorn had been considering the implications since his wife had been to his cell, with the promise that she would be back in a week's time. That she spoke of what amounted to better conditions under the aliens, not worse, had been very surprising.

  No one had come to get him, and no one had changed the routine, but inside himself, something had changed.

  He had hope.

  Hope that he hadn’t made the wrong decision to stop King Yoll, to force him to fight the Alien Empress. He hadn’t expected the King to fail, and therefore for his people to fall into the hands of the aliens.

  No different, he supposed, than the Yollins forcing other people to be under Yollins.

  Except, the Etheric Empire was making the Yollin world better, at least according to his wife.

  He was pondering these things when continued knocking on his door finally grabbed his attention. “Yes?”

  “You are requested to clean up and meet with the Etheric Empire’s agent. Do you consent to this meeting?”

  “I have a choice?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m told you do,” admitted his guard from the other side of the door. “But I can tell you that if I were you, I’d go.”

  E’kolorn stood up from his bed and walked to the door, and spoke through the slot. “Why is that?” he replied, his voice normal since he wasn’t yelling from his bed.

  The slot opened, his jailor stared at him, “Because the alien is offering you a choice, and I confirmed, you saying ‘no’ is just that, no. They want you to come because they have questions you can answer. If your heart isn’t in it, I’m told to have you stay.”

  “What is ‘it’?”

  “Above my responsibility,” the guard replied.

  There was a moment as E’kolorn softly tapped his mandibles together in thought before he answered, “I’ll go.”

  —

  It had taken only a short while to shower, fix his face and put on the clean badge of office which had been brought to him.

  When walking out of the shower room, the guard was waiting, “No locking devices?” E’kolorn asked, expecting to be cuffed before they left the prison.

  The guard shook his head, “No.” The guard looked around and then stepped up closer to the ex-Defense Minister, “But if you want to take some unasked-for advice?”

  E’kolorn nodded, “Sure, I’ll listen.”

  “The one here to escort you is one of those aliens that stays around the alien Empress. These guys don’t play around. They are professional, and they take care of business. I watched one go into a building this week and wipe out everyone in there trying to kill him. He was blown out the damned building from the fifth floor, and he never hit the ground. Just flew back to the fifth floor and finished his job. Not one of the those who were killing other Yollins made it out alive.”

  “He just killed everyone?” E’kolorn asked.

  “No, he spared some stupid youth who thought he knew how to operate a set of armor.”

  E’kolorn grimaced, “How bad did the fight go between the two?”

  The guard looked at him, “You really have been out of touch. What fight? He knocked the kid out of the window. Dropped down from the third floor, yanked something from the back of the kid’s armor then walked back into the building.” He shrugged, “He just ignored all the idiots thinking they were joining a grand riot.”

  E’kolorn shook his head, “How bad are we overmatched?”

  “What overmatched?” The guard asked, “The aliens are bringing good changes to our planet. Sure, there are some hotheads, but so far, I’m thinking the leader is doing a better job than the King ever did.”

  “Their Empress?” E’kolorn asked, surprised.

  “No, Leader Kael-ven, the Yollin Captain that had been sent by King Yoll to spy on their system.”

  Now, E’kolorn knew he hadn’t asked enough questions of his wife. However, he was willing to forgive himself. He had needed the companionship, the knowledge and reassurance his family was safe.

  He had needed her time, her affections, her respect, and love. She had provided all of that and more.

  He nodded to the guard and the two of them started heading out of the prison, to what future, he wasn’t sure.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Skaine Slaver Ship Kalifo - Eudos System (Etheric Empire - Yollin Territory)

  “What do you mean, we need to keep our heads down?” The five-foot-tall, blue skinned, large head, bulbous blue eyes and thin bodied Skaine yelled at the communications device.

  The space station manager’s voice was annoyed, “Keep yelling at me, Gyrm, and I’ll forget to warn your ass, and you can suffer your ignorance.”

  Gyrm looked down and made a note, taking ten points off of Space Station Two-Seven’s Manager’s score. The station manager had been in the good zone, but two more drops like this, and Gyrm would need to make a permanent example of the Yollin.