“And he stood out because of his size. Where is Brel Edd Senn getting them from?”
“There are enough people of that size in the population to form a group, but most of them get snapped up by the guzzball teams. They may come from an isolated colony where conditions have favored larger, stronger people and where the population is small enough that a degree of inbreeding takes place. Both of those two had a slightly unusual gait, as did Tarb Af Ack.”
“That sounds like our aristocracy. Only the conditions there have favored the venal, the cunning and the self-seekers. I wonder what they will find to do when I’ve abolished the aristocracy and thrown them out of court? I suppose they’ll find another sewer to float to the top of.”
“It would be more productive to concern yourself with what happens next. There is a possibility that you won’t live long enough for the fate of the aristocracy to matter to you. Given that you don’t want to escape, what do you plan to do next?”
“You are overestimating me if you think I have a plan, Zarb. I had a plan to get me here, I’m not sure what to do next.”
“You were brought here as a prisoner, bound and blindfolded and led around by the hand. You are now free, you can see, and you are armed. That positions you very differently to Brel Edd Senn. You can approach him as Hess An Sur, First Born of the First Family of the Herassan Federation of the Five Planet, here to discuss the future of the aristocracy and the transfer of power to the people.”
“OK, that works. All I need now is for the guards to come to take me to Brel Edd Senn.”
Chapter Thirty Six
The End
The wait took longer than Mike anticipated. It was well into night-time when she heard the whirr of the lock. She was sat on the floor leaning against the wall behind the door and now sprang up, knife in hand.
Light flooded the room as the door opened, and the rebel soldiers at first didn’t realize that the room appeared to be empty and strode straight in. As soon as they were in the room, Mike slammed the door shut and bracing her back against it, kicked the second soldier in the back with both legs, shoving him into the soldier in front and sending them both sprawling to the floor. She grabbed the stun stick they had dropped and gave a quick jab to the soldier now on top, then for a longer period to the soldier underneath. Satisfied that he wouldn’t be moving for a while she applied it again to the soldier on top. With them both incapacitated, she picked up the cord she had cut from her wrists, and tying the two parts together, quickly tied the hands of the first soldier behind his back, then levered up his legs one at a time, bending them at the knee and tucking his feet behind his hands. Trussed up with his hands and legs behind him, he couldn’t move. She rolled him on his side and punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. As his mouth opened to expel the air from his lungs, she shoved the folded up bag into his mouth as a gag.
Turning her attention back to the second soldier, she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, then pulled him to his feet. Wrenching his thumb back and holding his arm firmly, she held her knife to his throat, nicking his skin so that he could feel the blood trickling down his neck.
“There’s a slight change of plan, soldier. You’re still taking me to Brel Edd Senn, but now I’m in charge.”
“You’ll die for this!” the soldier hissed at her.
“Maybe, but if I even think you’re going to step out of line, you won’t live to see it. Don’t make any sudden moves, I really don’t want to get covered in your blood, so slowly turn around and open the door.”
Not wanting to have his throat slit, the soldier slowly and carefully did as he was told. They moved down the corridor, deeper into the building. Ahead of them, a junction led off to the right and left. “Which way do we need to go, and remember, no sudden moves.” Mike said.
“Straight across. There’s another turning twenty meters after this which leads to the war room – that’s what Brel Edd Senn calls it.”
As they moved slowly along the corridor, a squad of six of the large armed rebels came out of the corridor leading to the left. Almost as soon as they saw them, one of the rebels shouted, “Drop your weapon and release the soldier!”
Mike paused for a moment while she thought of the best response. It was a moment too long. Another of the soldiers opened fire with a KE weapon and bullets thudded into Mike’s hostage in front of her.
“Fat lot of use you were!” Mike said to him, though he was already dead.
Dropping his body she turned and ran, weaving back and forth across the corridor to make her a more difficult target. As she ran, she shouted out, “Come and get me!”
Bullets hit the walls and floor around her as she ran, when she was ten meters from the entrance, one hit her. The bullet caught her just below her right shoulder, clipping the edge of a rib. She staggered across the corridor and bounced off the wall, but kept on running. She saw a dark shadow flash across the doorway and a loud thump as if something heavy had fallen to the ground. Bullets continued to snap and whine around her, and she wasn’t moving so quickly now. Another bullet hit her right thigh knocking her to the floor. She heard the heavy tread of the soldiers getting closer as they ran towards her, firing as they ran. Another two bullets hit her, one in the lower back, one on her ankle, smashing the bone and almost severing her foot. The pain was excruciating. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her teeth together to stop herself from crying out. She knew it was all over now, but she would die like a soldier. She was damned if she was going to show those bastards any sign of weakness.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Plan B
A hand grasped Mike's uninjured left arm while another scooped underneath her waist and lifted her off the ground. She opened her eyes and saw the soldiers mere meters away and coming up fast, still firing – but even at almost point blank range their bullets weren’t finding their mark. She saw someone run past her towards the soldiers and explode into a blur of kicks and fists, then grabbing one of the KE weapons and using it as a club. Mike looked up to see who was holding her and saw Mark.
She opened her mouth to make a smart-arse comment, but the agony of her wounds got the better of her and she howled out in pain.
Mark turned and ran to the lander that waited a few meters from the front of the warehouse. Touren ran toward them and jabbed an injector tube into Mikes neck. The pain started to fade as the color and light drained out of Mikes vision until everything went dark.
◆◆◆
Mike blinked her eyes open and turned her head. She saw Touren standing next to her with an injector tube in her hand.
“You made it in time.” Mike said to her.
“Were you in a hurry?”
“Not really, I was having a quiet afternoon being chased by a bunch of freakishly big Herassan soldiers who were shooting the shit out of me, but it was good of you to turn up. Mark picked me up. Was that Sally that went after the bad guys?”
“Yes. She wasn’t going to leave it all to Mark,”
“Is she OK? They must have shot at her too.”
“She said they were still shooting at you when Mark got to you. His People’s armor stopped their bullets and they were too busy trying to shoot you and Mark to worry about her. That was a bad mistake. She’s fine, but you’ll be pleased to hear that she didn’t kill any of them, though they won’t be fighting again for a while.”
“I would have been quite happy if she had killed them. The bastards shot one of their comrades that I was using as a shield without any hesitation. Can I get up now?”
“Of course. You’ve been treated with Mark’s ship’s tech, so you should be at least as good as new now.”
“It’s not that good. I’m thirsty.”
“The synthesizer is over there.” Touren said, pointing.
“Aren’t you going to get a drink for me?” Mike said, sounding surprised.
“I’m not your nurse and you might be royalty in Herassan space, here, you are just one of us. But I have g
ot you a jumpsuit and boots.” Touren said, handing them to her.
“I would have preferred water.” Mike said, sitting up and swinging her legs off the bed.
Touren sighed. “You get dressed; I’ll get you a drink.”
“Thanks. I need a workout to see how good a job the tech has done fixing me up. You can come to the gym with me and we can have a session of unarmed combat.”
“You’re out of my league.” Touren said as she came back with a flask of water. “I don’t need you beating me up thanks.”
“No, we’ll do a training session. I won’t hurt you. Ask Mark. I’ve managed to resist the temptation to beat the crap out of him, and I’ve spent a lot of time training him. He’s starting to get almost competent. At least, he doesn’t hurt himself anymore when he’s fighting.”
“OK, but if you hurt me, I’m out of there.”
Mark and Sally blinked into the room.
“Just in time.” Mike said. “Touren and I are off to the gym.”
“We wanted to make sure you’re OK, that everything is working properly.” Sally said.
“Yeah. It would have helped if you’d got there a bit quicker, but what are a few bullet wounds between friends. Touren, Sally, you go on ahead. I want to have a word with Mark.” She looked at Mark and scowled at him.
“But I wasn’t… oh, OK. Come on Touren, let’s leave them. I’ll come back later and pick up the bits.” Sally said, and she and Touren blinked out.
‘Oh shit.’ Mark thought, “What’s she going to do now.’
Mike waited until they were gone, then walked over to Mark, slid her arms round his chest and hugged him tightly to her. “Thank you Mark, I thought I was going to die.”
“Uh, I wasn’t expecting this.” he said.
“If you ever tell anyone about this,” she said, still holding onto him, “I’ll find a way through your People’s armor and kill you.”
“Fortunately, it doesn’t work like that. There is no way through it.”
“In that case I’ll make your life so miserable that you will turn it off and beg someone to kill you.”
“I thought you’d been doing that ever since I met you.”
“I can try harder.”
“What’s your next plan? You’ve tried talking to the rebels, there’s clearly no negotiating with them, so are we going back to the Palace now?”
Mike released her grip on him and stood back. “No, I’m going back to the rebels. There is something wrong there. I learned a lot from the three that kidnapped me, the three surviving ones.”
“How did you manage to kill one of them, and why did you go with the others? The message you sent didn’t explain what happened, just an instruction to clean up after you – that would have gone down better if you had asked - a location, and another instruction not to intervene unless you requested, which you almost left too late.”
“You made it in time. Anyway, I didn’t kill him; the leader of the group who snatched me did. The dead one kept poking me with a stun stick and the group leader was nearly as pissed off as I was, she shot him while I was still blindfolded. He was part of the same group of thugs that were shooting at me. They are under the control of Brel Edd Senn, the new rebel leader. He is taking the movement into a militarized direction, according to Sha Ast Ral. She was leading the team who were told to kidnap me, he is picking off anyone who speaks out against him.”
“So what are you planning? Do you want the team to go in with you?”
“No, I have to go in by myself. I can’t have anyone but Herassan’s involved in this.”
“I think I see where you’re coming from. You want this to be a Herassan thing, a people’s movement, not something you’re forcing on people with outside help.”
“You’re not as stupid as you look. Though to be fair, if you were as stupid as you look, you’d probably forget to breathe. But you’re right. This has to be an entirely Herassan driven movement. The problem is, I have no allies, apart from the three that kidnapped me, and they have all told me that they are not soldiers, they couldn’t stand up to Brel Edd Senn’s armed thugs. The main rebel movement was all about winning over people, peaceful demonstrations, explaining what they wanted to achieve and why. The most dangerous thing they did was to put up posters in the city during the night.”
“They put up posters! Do people really do that in an advanced civilization?”
“Yeah. They can’t be blocked from being delivered to you, they attract attention when they are first put up and people get curious about what’s being removed when they’re being taken down.”
“So they’re deadly with a paste brush, but not so good with a weapon.”
“That sums it up.”
“In that case, you can’t go back by yourself, you’ll get shot as soon as you walk in there.”
“Not if I’m wearing armor and carrying a weapon. I didn’t see any of them wearing armor and even if they’ve got hold of some Herassan military armor, it won’t stand up to more than three shots from a Mark 8 pulse rifle, and they have multiple weak points where a blade will go in. And I’ve taken on bigger bastards than them on the front line. I’ll be fine. I just need to clear it with Sally.”
“Why don’t you message her to meet you now?”
“Do you think she’ll agree to me having army equipment? I’ve pissed her off recently and she seems a bit unpredictable lately.”
“She is, uh, a bit more crazy than usual. She won’t refuse you, but if she did, I’d get you a non-army weapon and armor, even though I’m unsure of the wisdom of you going in alone.”
Mike rolled her eyes. “You really are an idiot. But Sally won’t will kill you until after I’m armed and armored, so that’s OK. I need to arrange a meeting between you and Sally, Colonel Drad Ki Jass and Major Bryd Sa Dett. The Colonel is the Major’s boss and she’s an old friend of mine.”
“I didn’t know you had any friends. I’ll speak to Sally.”
“About me having a friend?”
“About the meeting, and you called me an idiot? The meeting Mike. Where and when?”
“Here. The Swift should impress them, and I’ll let you know when, but as soon as possible.”
Mike blinked out, Mark sighed and blinked to see Sally. He told Sally about the planned meeting. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t take it well.
“I can’t make that meeting. Take someone else with you.”
“Who should I take with me?”
“Take a bar bot with you for all I care! And if you see Mike before I do, tell her to remember who the boss is!”
“How will I know if you’ve seen her before I have?”
“Because she’ll either be in the hospital or the morgue! I’m going for a run.”
Sally blinked out, leaving Mark by himself.”
‘If all females are like Sally and Mike, I think I’ll become celibate again.’ Mark thought. But then he thought of Seltet and Touren, even Bekkreshan. They all seemed to be rational and polite. He shook his head. Maybe it was just Sally and Mike.
Chapter Thirty Eight
The Meeting On The Swift
“So she’s planning on going back to the rebel HQ by herself?” Major Bryd Sa Dett asked.
“Tomorrow at first light.” Orange answered. “A lander will drop her off five hundred meters from the entrance to their HQ. She will walk the rest.”
“No, I can’t allow it. If you won’t go with her, I’ll have an assault team take the rebels down and a Palace Guard squad will accompany her to interrogate the leader. She is too valuable to risk. Give me the coordinates and I’ll get back to you with a time and date for the operation.”
“We have cloaked surveillance drones throughout the headquarters which her AI also has access to, so there won’t be any surprises and we’ll know exactly what is happening at all times. We will keep you appraised of the outcome.” Orange continued, ignoring Major Bryd Sa Dett’s objections. “I think we’re done now Major, unless you have any ques
tions.”
The Major stood up and banged the table with his fist. “She is not going in alone! I order you to give me the coordinates of the rebel base and postpone this operation until we are ready to provide military support!”
Colonel Drad Ki Jass reached up and put her hand on the Major’s shoulder. “I’ll take this Bryd.” she said, gently pulling the Major down on to his stool. “Now Orange, I realize the First Born is very willful and somewhat stubborn,” she smiled, “but I am sure there is room for us to reach an agreement. You will understand our concerns for the wellbeing of the First Born. I have a small personal interest in her, as well as my concerns for the future of the Empire. I remember her well when she was a child at the palace. She has a reputation of being a rebellious and strong willed youngster, always in trouble with her guardians, frequently escaping their care and trying to run away.” she chuckled. “I was a young lieutenant in those days, on Palace guard duty. We spent more time looking for the First Born than we spent guarding the First of the First. When we found her, she was always polite and respectful. There were a few times when I found her by myself and we spent an hour or two walking or chatting, and sometimes – not a word of this to anyone Bryd - if we were well away from anyone else, we’d play skipping stones across the lake, or climbing in the trees in the wood at the north end of the Palace grounds. She persuaded me to show her some basic self-defense too. She was a fast learner. So you’ll understand why it would be difficult for me to agree to her being exposed to danger under any circumstances, least of all going up against what you have described as heavily armed rebels who have already tried to kill her.”
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