by J Palliser
Jacen walked up to the security force field over Kalvek's cell. "Kalvek, give me one good fucking reason not to vent all the atmosphere in your cell and vaporize your sorry excuse for a corpse. You have five seconds." Kalvek actually recoiled at the intensity of Jacen's glare.
"What have I done now, human?" he asked in astonishment. "You've already killed my brothers and are keeping me prisoner. I am a Drac warrior!" he shouted.
"You're a baby killing psychopath!" Jacen shouted back. "You knew those babies were aboard your fighters when you engagd us! There deaths are on your head!" Jacen moved to the cell controls.
"Wait! What did you say?" demanded the Drac. Jacen, even through his rage, heard the desperate ignorance in Kalvek's tone. He turned towards the large warrior and said, in a voice that could barely be heard "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
"I may be a lot of things, human. But I am ' not' a killer of children!" Kalvek said in something resembling a normal tone of voice... for a Drac.
"Where were you flying out of, Kalvek?" Jacen asked, reaching for the cell controls again. "Near Titan V, there's a small space station that looks abandoned. Look, I'm just a mercenary. If I had any idea what we were transporting, I would never have signed up for it! I do not harm children." He had a sickened look in his eyes as he realized what he'd done.
"Okay, Kalvek. I believe you. Thanks for the heads up about that station. You're the Drac High Council's problem now." Jacen turned and left.
Out in the hallway, he found Rachel and Delaara. "He didn't know, and he's telling the truth," Jacen said. "He gave us some intel to check out an abandoned space station in orbit around Titan V."
Rachel thought for a second. "Titan V sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?" Delaara knew about all of her grandmother's missions and all congruent missions. "Captain, Titan V was home to Ali Hassan after Captain Hans Gruber and the Prinz Eugen marooned him there. He hijacked the Jaguar and was killed by Admiral Gruber 20 years after," she said with deadly accuracy. "My grandmother was serving onboard the Prinz Eugen as a trainee at the time," she said with a wry smile.
"Could whoever's been doing this have found Ali Hassan's work in bioengineering?" Rachel wondered out loud. "Well, whoever's doing it is genetically engineering babies for God knows what. Whether they're artificial or not, they're still children." Jacen said.
"Well said." Rachel tapped her combadge. "Weiss to Bridge. Set course for Titan System, maximum gravity-drive. Engage."
"Titan System, maximum gravity-drive, aye ma'am", came back the reply and confirmation. "Weiss, out", she turned to Delaara and Jacen. "Let's go. We need to get a mission briefing under way." She turned and walked towards the turbo-lift, Jacen and Delaara following closely.
As they got on, she said "You two go wait in my Ready Room. I'll grab Rash and get him up. I want the entire Wing on this one. Condor, Red, and Blue. Jerov will be running this operation, so let's do it right", she said.
"Yes, ma'am," they said in unison. They got off at the Bridge and went straight into the Ready Room. Rachel got to her quarters and watched Becker sleep for a few minutes with a loving smile on her face. Then she steeled herself and roused him. "Come on, Rash. Rise and shine!" she said loudly enough to wake him.
"What's up, Captain?" He asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "We're on our way to the Titan System. The entire Wing is going to be in on this operation, and I need you awake." She laid out the details for him.
"One moment," he said, walking naked to the replicator. "Computer. One cup of double espresso, medium hot", he said. The small cup materialized and he grabbed it, gulping it in one slug. His eyes shot open and grabbed a spare flight suit from his half of the closet, dressing quickly and grabbing his com-badge from yesterday's uniform before shoving it in the laundry chute. He went into the fresher, combed his hair, shaved, and was ready to go.
"You're great after you've had your morning coffee", Rachel kissed him lovingly. "Thanks," he said just as lovingly and kissed her back softly. "Now, let's go kill us some sick bastards!" He ran out and down to the turbo-lift.
*** The entire fighter wing was assembled in the hangar briefing room, with Captain Weiss in front of them all with Jerov. She laid out the assault plan and had a platoon of Waffen SS special ops standing by for the boarding action. Condor, Red, and Blue wings would deal with any and all station defenses and fighters that launched, giving the drop ship the chance to dock and capture alive (if possible) any suspected 'criminals', as Becker had put it. In other words, anyone onboard that station was to be captured alive if possible, or eliminated if capture proved impossible. The second primary objective was to find and seize any and all bioengineering and cloning equipment, as well as destination intelligence. The last primary objective was to rescue any infants or children found onboard the station.
Rachel had contacted the Reich Ministry through the Kriegsmarines, and they had given her the go-ahead for the operation.
"Any questions?" asked Rachel with a glare.
Nobody said a word. "Good. We drop from gravity-drive in 5 minutes. Get to your fighters and drop ships. Good luck people," she said and strode from the hangar.
Jacen got with Commander Thorne and Commander Sumner to coordinate. Condor Legion would take any fighters and defend the drop ship, while Red and Blue would take any station defense turrets.
"Let's go to war," Delaara said as they broke into pairs and mounted up. "Condors, any fighters that launch get disabled if possible. They may have more infants aboard when they launch," Jacen told every member of his squadron. Comm acknowledgments came across loud and clear. "Blood and Honor."
"BLOOD AND HONOR!" The Graf-Zeppelindropped from gravity-drive about 200,000 kilometers from the space station and preliminary scans showed 44 life forms aboard. Most were adults, but 6 of them were classified as infants. No outward defenses could be seen, but they did have a full squadron of fighters in the docking bay. Strike Wing launched and went to full fusion burn immediately, closing within 30 seconds to the station. Condors started shooting as soon as the defending fighters launched, and knocked 7 Raptors out of the sky in 3 seconds, disabling them. The remaining 5 fighters managed to slip past, but were quickly taken out by the Condors.
As Jacen and Delaara banked hard left and came in behind the last Raptor, firing in a trapping pattern that caught the Drac fighter cold, disabling its engine. Engineering had modified their sensors to scan through the sensor resistant containers, but even with that, no life signs were found aboard the disabled fighters other than their pilots.
They gave the go-ahead for the drop ship full of Waffen SS to come in and hit the facility. The SS landed and began a pitched battle with the inhabitants. They managed to rescue all 4 infants found, as well as confiscate all bio engineering and cloning tech and research. They downloaded the destination logs for each delivery of genetically created infants, and when he got a patch on some of the data, Jacen figured it out.
"Ace toZeppelin,we have a problem." Jacen was shaking with rage.
"Are you ok, Ace? What's going on?" Rachel asked over the comm. "These infants are being genetically engineered and sold to the highest bidders. Quite a few of those bidders tend to be Brens, and they have a very exclusive list of some very powerful Bren." He laid it all out. "That was just a patch of info I got from the SS. They'll have more intel when we get back. They're launching now."
The drop ship launched and the Condors escorted it back to Zeppelin. By the time the mission was over, they had rescued all 6 babies, who were safely being cared for by Doc Tavok in sickbay, and security detention had filled up with Dracs.
Jacen, Delaara, and Becker were seated in the Ready Room in front of Rachel as she went over all the data recovered from the op, shaking her head and looking disgusted. "You were right, Ace. This goes deeper than we thought. The Bren are doing some horrible things to those babies, and some of the culprits are high placed government officials."
"Wipe the scum from the
galaxy," said Delaara as she heard more and more about the atrocities the Bren were perpetrating. Rachel said "I'm with you on that. Unfortunately, it's now up to the Reich Ministry and the Kriegsmarine on how to proceed." She shook her head sadly. "I don't know about you guys, but I could sure use a good war right now. I just feel the need to launch my boys and girls at some Bren and watch those bastards die in fire and pain."
"I'll drink to that," said Becker in a serious tone.
"Rash, you'll drink to anything," said Rachel with a chuckle. "Yes, ma'am, I most certainly would, but I would drink an entire jug of Centauri ale after blasting some of those scum to dust," he said with a nod.
"I'll buy you all the Centauri ale you want, little brother," said Delaara, hugging him with a smile. "Hey hey, my new sis has connections! Woohoo!" Becker grinned and moved around to sit on Rachel's lap. They all laughed, since Becker could defuse even the most dire of situations with his own unique brand of humor.
8
Seven
The Honeymoon... After the Graf-Zeppelin delivered its cargo of prisoners, evidence, and babies to the Wulfgar, they headed back to Belarus IV to wait for further orders.
Now was the time to get the honeymoon rolling as they had some real downtime for a while. Putting Rash in charge of Condor Legion, it was time for Jacen to take two weeks of leave back to Earth with Delaara. They borrowed a Warthogclass bomber for the trip, as it had two seats, a spacious crew compartment, and enough room for their baggage. Plus it would fit in the landing pad at Jacen's house in Walker Lake.
Walker Lake, was a small beach from village only a few miles from what used to be the California/Nevada line... as, over a hundred years ago, California suffered the largest earthquake in known human history... a 14.5 on the scale that saw more than half of the State collapse off the costal shelf into the Pacific, killing over 25 million. What remained, became incorporated into Nevada and Lake Walker becoming a beach town only miles from the new coastline.
"I hope you love it. My old house where I grew up, that is." he said with a huge grin. "I have a lot of good memories there." Delaara moved up and put her arms around him from behind as she leaned over his pilot's chair. She kissed his ear and said "You have ugly ears. It's a good thing the rest of you looks great enough to overlook those rounders." She giggled as he said "Hey!" and turned to kiss her passionately. They were only 2 hours from Earth now, and it had only been a 22 hour trip one way at maximum fusion-drive.
*** The Warthog landed on the old landing pad and Jacen cut the engine. He got out, helped Delaara down, and stretched in his blue t-shirt and black denim shorts. Delaara was wearing a short pink tank top that showed her toned bare midriff, and a pair of blue denim short shorts.
"You are going to make me the envy of every guy on the block here", he said, kissing her neck from behind and moving up to her ear. She shuddered and moaned. "I love you," he whispered.
"Mmmmmm, I love you too, baby," she replied.
"Jacen?" came the high pitched questioning yell from Mrs. Schmidt. "Is that you?"
He waved. "Hey, Mrs. Schmidt!" He smiled.
"Who's your lady friend there, Jacen?" she asked, walking towards them slowly.
"Mrs. Schmidt, this is Delaara, She's my wife," he said warmly to the little old lady.
"My my! Aren't you lovely, dear! How old are you?" she asked. "Why thank you, Mrs. Schmidt. I'm 60 years old," Delaara smiled warmly, and Jacen had to keep from laughing at the look on Mrs. Schmidt's face.
Without another word, she turned and mumbled her way back to her house. Delaara was giggling nearly uncontrollably.
Jacen looked at her questioningly. "What was she mumbling?"
"She was calling me everything from cradle robber to pointy eared bitch," she grinned. Jacen covered his face in shame. "I was kind of hoping she would have... moved on up to the great beyond, if you know what I mean," Jacen said with a world weary look. "I'd been hoping to get us inside before she showed up, to be honest."
"It's okay," she said as she kissed him. "I'm used to it, but what I found really funny is that she thought I was Centuri!" Jacen laughed at that, and caught the attention of another neighbor. "Oh, my God, Jacen!!!" Shouted Beth Kinski . She ran up and jumped onto Jacen, wrapping her legs around his waist and screaming as she hugged him hard. Jacen gently but firmly pried Beth off of himself, and set her on the ground.
"Beth, this is my wife, Delaara. Delaara, this is my exgirlfriend from school, Beth Kinski", he said by way of introduction. Beth's eyes got wide when she saw Delaara's striking features and that she was Centauri.
Delaara smiled sweetly. "Hello there, I'm Delaara. Jacen and I have been married for nearly 4 weeks now, and this is our honeymoon."
"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't even know he was seeing anyone," she said with an apologetic smile. Jacen sighed. "Beth, that was one of the reasons we broke up in the first place. You never listened when I told you stuff," he said. "I introduced Delaara as my wife after you came running up."
"I'm sorry, Jacen. I didn't mean to intrude like that," she said.
"It's okay, Beth. I know it's been a couple years since we last saw each other, and a lot has changed since then," he said.
"I heard about your folks. I'm sorry," she said and hugged him. "Thanks, Beth. Well, we need to get this ship unloaded and get unpacked for our vacation. Bring Samuel by later if you want, and we can all catch up," he said with a smile.
"We can do that!" she said and walked back towards her house. Jacen started grabbing their bags and Delaara grabbed two as well. Luckily, they'd packed light and were able to get everything inside in one trip. Jacen went back out to make sure the bomber was locked down, and found Stephen Winston looking at it with a critical eye.
"Hey, Steve. How's it going?" he asked.
"Holy shit! Jacen! How you been, man?" Stephen asked with a grin. "Not too bad. Got promoted to Lieutenant Commander, got shot down, marooned, fell in love, got rescued, and married a Centauri fighter pilot." Jacen said with a smile.
Stephen laughed. "Yeah, right!"
"Baby, who's your friend?" came the sweet smokey sound of Delaara's voice right on cue. Jacen grinned.
Stephen turned to look and his eyes about bugged out of his head. "Shit, Jacen! You were telling the truth?" Delaara came down the steps and walked to Jacen, slipping her arm around his waist as she held out her hand. "Hello, there."
"Umm, hi," said Stephen, shaking her hand in stunned silence. "Stephen, this is my wife Delaara. Honey, this is an old friend of mine. Stephen Winston." Jacen made the introductions.
"Is everything Jacen just told me true?" he asked. "Yes. All of it. We first met nearly 6 months ago, and the circumstances of our meeting were unusual, to say the least." She smiled.
"Well, it's an honor to meet you, Delaara", he said, recovering from his initial shock nicely. He turned to Jacen. "Do you mind of I bring Cindy over later and we can catch up? I know she's been dying to see you, and she's going to love Delaara here."
Jacen looked at Delaara. She said "Sure. When we retire, we're going to be living here, so I don't see why not. So far, you're the most normal of Jacen's friends."
"Yeah, we're not all as bad as Jacen's neighbors." Stephen shrugged.
"Well, we're going to watch the sun set, but we should be back after dark," Jacen said.
"Sounds good. See you both then, and I'll ask Cindy to make some cookies." he said and walked down the block to his house.
***
After making sure the fridge was stocked and the furniture uncovered, it was getting pretty late in the afternoon.
"Would you like to go watch the sun set?" Jacen asked, slipping his arms around Delaara's waist from behind.
"Yes!" she jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around him, kissing him passionately.
"We can walk down to he beach and watch the sun set on the sand," he said with a grin. They left the house and crossed the street to walked down to the beach. The surf of the Pacific lapped
against the shore, and Delaara loved the feel of the sand between her toes. They sat on a dune and cuddled as the sun dipped toward the horizon.
"You're wrong, my love. These sunsets are better than on the island," she said with a smile and kissed Jacen lovingly.
"I was hoping you'd say that. I love you, Delaara."
"I love you too, Jacen. Is Stephen your only normal friend?" She asked with a laugh. "In this neighborhood, pretty much, yeah." Jacen shrugged. "Beth is a straight up airhead, who keeps bouncing from boyfriend to boyfriend in hopes that some guy will take care of her for the rest of her life. Mrs. Schmidt is about 150 years old and is too mean and evil to die. Heaven won't let her in, and Hell is scared of her."
Delaara laughed musically and leaned her head on his shoulder. "I missed this, Jacen. Sitting on the beach with you as the sun set."
"So did I. This is our time. We were in need of this honeymoon since we got rescued", he said. "I agree with that assessment, my dear husband," she said and kissed him again. The kiss was long and lingering, passionate and sensual. Jacen closed his eyes and lost himself in her as their mindmeld gently took effect. She could see his childhood and his memories of Mrs. Schmidt being nasty to everyone around her. She could see Beth Kinski trying to take advantage of him, and Jacen finally shutting her down.
Jacen could see memories of when Delaara got promoted to Centurion, and the ship's executive officer had propositioned her. She had slapped him, drew a dagger, and placed it to his throat. Her commanding officer had stopped her from killing the man, but had relieved the executive officer of his duties and had him court martialed. The mindscape was gentle this time, instead of extremely intense like the times before.
They finally broke the kiss and smiled at each other. They finally knew the full depth of their love, and realized that they had each other through everything. They walked back to the house and got to the door as they heard Stephen and Cindy Winston on the sidewalk behind them. Jacen turned and waved, inviting them up to the house. "Got some beer in the fridge, Steve." Jacen said.
