Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

by Ronald Wintrick

  “Is that possible?”

  “Only by trial and error.”

  That could mean years. Were the Alartaw even now besieged by the treacherous leaf eaters? Would there be an Alartaw Empire to return to when we had finally worked out the course? Would Meerla and I, not truly Alartaw at all, be the last mating pair of the once great Alartaw Empire, destined to rebuild it from our productive loins? Alartaw who weren't really Alartaw! It was all too much to contemplate.

  I went back and got my bottle.

  I expected to wake to ringing alarms and death and destruction (hadn’t that been the norm), but when I groggily cracked open my eyes all I found was my darkened bedroom and Meerla’s sleeping body next to my own. It wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see her flawless, unmarred eyebrow. She seemed to be smiling in her sleep.

  I got up, made myself a hot jolt, and steaming cup in hand, walked into my Bridge, which was now abandoned. If Houdar had left the post unattended . . . !

  “Display.” I ordered, and almost dropped my hot jolt as the surround view activated; all around us were Fleet ships of the line in seemingly endless numbers, an actual collage of massive Capitol Ships so deep I couldn’t see space anywhere around us.

  I think I took the first confident breath I had taken in a great while right then and there. Deep and relaxing and safe. If the Kievors hadn’t already destroyed us, they would be trebly pressed to do so now.

  “Emperor?” Said a face in a box that popped up on the fore wall, startling me. I didn’t remember the name but I remembered the face. It was the High Commander I had appointed (upon the deceased Naagrotod’s advice) to take my vacant post in the military hierarchy when I ascended the Throne.

  “Tell me something good.” I told him, causing him to pause, mouth halfway open, ready to tell me his news, but now afraid to do so.

  “Spill it.” I said resignedly.

  “The Kievors attacked us on the edge of the black hole. Their attack was timed to mop up whatever was left of our forces that weren’t caught by the black hole. They were unprepared for the reception we gave them, though there were losses on our part. I think they expected more of us to go down the black hole. Your early warning saved us that.”

  “That’s what happens in war.” I said.

  “Three Kievor Trade Stations attacked us. We destroyed the first and damaged the other two as they fled. They’re cowards. They thought to find easy prey and ran when it wasn’t what they thought. We salvaged the debris from the destroyed Kievor ship and are analyzing it now, but I’m told it will take time. Entirely different systems. I also ordered a blockade across the Alartaw frontier, in case they thought to attack our worlds, but to all appearances they’ve left every sector in this area.” He sounded competent to me. So why was I feeling uneasy? What could the Kievors do? I wouldn’t underestimate their treachery for a moment, however.

  “Oh, and Sir,” said the High Commander, “we captured a small ship of strange aliens escaping the wreckage of the Kievor Trade Station. They’re only a curiosity, but we kept them alive until you could see them. They’re nearly our evolutionary twins, though not as technologically advanced. We downloaded their data and were able to build a translation program to speak to them. They say they were prisoners.”

  I’m pretty sure I did the Guppy. Could it be Last Chance? It had to be, but how could I engineer keeping them alive without arousing suspicion? I had to keep them alive. There was no other option.

  “Yeah I want to see them.” I said. “Transfer them to Vengeance.”

  Vengeance had been quietly re-staffed while I had slept. Houdar had done the impossible and found our way home, and was now sleeping himself, or I would have been parading him around as our Savior. Wide eyed, awed new crew members made way for me as I made my way around Vengeance, taking in the activity.

  The stories of my exploits had raced through the Fleet at light speed (and I had already been held in near mystical awe as the madman who’d fought and killed old Krazdop with only an ornament knife) so now I had neared Godhood with my subjects. I didn’t feel Godlike, however. I felt hung over.

  I had made my way back to my Bridge and was working on my third hot jolt when they brought the aliens aboard. I watched on my surround view screen as the shuttle craft, a little bubble of shiny trans-metal, melted into Vengeance’s side, leaving no mark of their passage after they had gone through.

  When I thought I was going to die of anticipation ten Troopers finally marched the four aliens into my presence and roughly made them kneel before me. There was no look of recognition on their faces that they might suspect who I was, but then, they hadn’t seen me in my Alartaw guise before I left them, either. Even if they had, I doubted they would recognize me now. I had been through the grist mill, and then some.

  Bren looked terrified. Manuel and Janice were calm and watchful. Melanie looked, well, like the calm before the storm, but she had been a slave before and knew what she could expect from her male masters. The Troopers were keeping wary looks upon her even though she looked the least dangerous of any of them. Smart boys.

  “Pathetic.” I said. “Ten Troopers and all that steel for two girls, a boy and an old man.” I stared scorn at the Officer.

  “Commander Druepak’s orders, Sir.” Said the Officer, uncomfortably.

  “Does the Commander think I am afraid of two girls, a boy, and an old man?” I growled menacingly at the unfortunate Officer. The other nine Troopers, though actually not moving, appeared to distance themselves from him. I could see that none were envious of his position at that moment.

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “What do you know?” I asked scornfully, my best poker face in place.

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “Of course you don’t.” I said. I wasn’t berating him simply out of sadistic pleasure, though I certainly have my share of that, but to set up parameters by which to give my old crew a certain freedom on my new ship, starting now.

  “They’re kindred. Take off those manacles.” I ordered. Nearly all the Troopers tried to jump forward at once to do my bidding, pulling little scanning devices from belt compartments which, when waved over the manacles, turned them into flexible ropes which were then put away in other little compartments. Now my four old crew mates stood before me, unrestrained and wearing surprised looks.

  “Get out.” I told the Troopers.

  “Sir?” The Officer sputtered.

  “Get out. Do I look like I need assistance with the likes of these?”

  “No Sir. Very well, Sir.” Wearing looks of astonishment and even shock, the Officer led his nine Troopers out of my Bridge, and at the last moment, cast a side wise look in my direction, as if he thought I might change my mind if only he gave me the opportunity. I suppose I understood his predicament. I wasn’t even armed, not even my ornament knife, and it was possible I was still thinking foggily after my ordeal, so if I were to be attacked and killed the blame would undoubted fall on his head, even though in reality it wouldn’t have been his fault. I ignored his look and they left.

  I also watched Melanie’s eyes follow the departing Troopers and then swivel back to find my own locked on hers. She met my look with unflinching fierceness disguised by her Asian reserve. If any of them would make trouble it would be her. Her expression tightened a bit under my scrutiny but my Bridge’s surround view screen showing the massive Fleet surrounding us could leave little doubt in her mind the chances of escape.

  Manuel and Janice just appeared to be relieved to be out of their manacles while Bren was now looking at me with an intent, calculating look on his face. I remembered the look from our hours of card playing. It always meant he was holding. What was he holding now?

  “What do you want with us?” Melanie demanded in Galacta, which Vengeance translated imperceptibly in my ear. Since we were now able to access Last Chance’s data base, did that mean we would be able to use that same data to calculate a route home? Home to Human space? If Humans still exis
ted and was there really a point? I was now an Alartaw with obviously no chance of ever being returned to my human form, had I wished, and I wasn’t sure now that I did. What did I have there that I didn’t have better here?

  “You were aboard an enemy vessel.” I said in Alartaw, and though I couldn’t hear the translation, as Vengeance repeated it inside their ears, I saw by their startled looks that they did receive it. I let that thought settle a moment before I went on. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  “We were prisoners.” Bren said. “They kidnapped us to study us, they said, because we were like some great enemy of theirs. We don’t even know how far from our home we are. We’re not your enemy. We’re the same as you.”

  I almost smiled, I swear. That was an excellent story. If I wasn’t me I’d probably believe him, too. We really were similar. The likeness was uncanny.

  “Brune.”

  I looked back at the doorway to see a wide eyed Meerla staring at my guests.

  “Strange aliens captured from the destroyed Kievor Trade Station.” I told her quickly. “Ugly things, aren’t they?”

  Meerla grinned and nodded, probably thinking they knew who I was, but Vengeance must still have been translating, because Melanie’s expression turned furious, which Meerla noticed, and her grin dropped away.

  “What are you going to do with them?” She asked finally.

  “I thought they might make nice pets.” I answered maliciously.

  Melanie’s face turned ugly.

  “Vengeance is translating in their ears.” I told Meerla, who scowled at me and told Melanie;

  “He’s only joking, so don’t do anything stupid.” Melanie’s look eased slightly when I grinned at her; if a showing of my eyeteeth could be considered a grin!

  My own ship was my worst enemy at the moment. What would Vengeance do if she knew I wasn’t really an Alartaw? I sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

  “Vengeance.”

  “Yes Emperor.”

  “I’m going to let these creatures live among us. We might want to form a union with them, their race, since they seem so similar, so we must be good hosts, but I want them monitored. Understood?” They didn’t know who I was so there was no telling what they might try.

  “Understood, Emperor.”

  “Where’s their ship?”

  “Storage, Emperor.”

  “Keep it there. These people might want it back.” I said. I turned to Bren. “So you don’t know where you are in relation to your own space?”

  “No.” Bren replied.

  “We might be able to help.” I said. “We’ll do what we can.”

  “Thanks.” Did I detect a hint of mischief in his eyes?

  “Otherwise you’re now guests of the Alartaw.” I said. Then looking at the two women, but Melanie in particular; “This is a male dominated society, so I suggest you keep your behaviors civil and within boundaries, until we can find a way to return you to your homes.” She had no answer but there was hope now on her face. I’m sure they hadn’t thought their chances too good before now so they would have to see some freedom to believe it. I wished I could tell them who I was, but that was, of course, absolutely out of the question.

  I had a crewman, not a Trooper, show them to quarters, Meerla said;

  “I wonder if there is any jewelry on their ship?” I glared at her.

  “Don’t even think about it.” I snarled. The look she gave me in return was by no means reassuring. Then her eyes swiveled to the walls.

  I followed her look, not really seeing, at first, what had attracted her attention, but then I saw it. All the ships around us had spread out, and I thought, though I wasn’t positively certain, that we were accelerating. I looked down on my console to see for sure but was interrupted by the white flash that signified a jump to Hyper Space. Yep, we were moving.

  “Emperor?” Commander Druepak was on my wall.

  “Where are we going, Commander?” I asked. Meerla came over and stood at my side, a look on her face I would have a hard time describing, her intuition working overtime, I guessed. It had saved me before.

  “We’ve received a distress signal from the Anaurgese Sector. Elbany claims to be under attack, but I have no idea how the Kievors could have located us. We thought our home worlds perfectly hidden. We’re on our way there.” I could only nod and his face disappeared.

  The pieces were all very clear now. I wondered how long the real Brune and Meerla had held out under the Kievors torture, expecting a rescue attempt or at least an attack and destruction of their tormentors and themselves, but it had never come. Tanya and I had made that possible for the Kievors. I wondered what that had felt like for the real Brune and Meerla? I didn’t want to imagine. Now the Kievors knew all our secrets and were even now attacking our lines.

  I thought of all the Trinium they had been buying.

  “Vengeance.”

  “Yes Emperor.”

  “Scan for gravitational anomalies.” I said. “I think we’re going to see more black holes and I don’t want to lose any more of our ships than is necessary.”

  “Yes Emperor.”

  “What are you thinking?” Meerla asked quietly.

  “I’m thinking that the Kievor’s treachery will know no bounds.” I said, just as quietly.

  “I hope you’re wrong.” Meerla said, but I don’t think she thought I was.

  CHAPTER 22

  Elbany was many hours distant even at terminal velocity within Hyper Space, an indication of why we had thought our worlds safe. We were able to detect the massive gravitational anomaly long before we arrived, even in Hyper Space. Where Elbany used to exist, now nothing existed; not her hot blue star, not the six other planets of the system and not one living soul. I couldn’t stand to look into the nothingness that was the black hole and turned off my screens with a heavy heart.

  Commander Druepak wasted no time, but almost everywhere we checked the Kievors had already been and gone. In the end, we only saved twelve worlds, planets that had somehow slipped through the Kievor net.

  “It’s all of our faults.” I said. “Krazdop. The Council. Me. You. Everyone. We should have been mobile like the Kievors, but we didn’t understand, only a prey animal could truly comprehend the need to be ready to run, anytime and anywhere. In our arrogance we thought we were inviolable” I paused a moment in thought, then said;’

  “Evacuate the twelve worlds.” I ordered. “Leave a breeding colony and one Battleship on each, but hidden, with orders that the population shall never exceed the capacity of the ships present needed to escape.”

  “Evacuate all those people to our warships?” Druepak asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Now.”

  “Yes, Emperor.” Druepak responded and saluted, hand over chest. His image blinked away.

  “What do you intend now?” Meerla asked me. Her usual state of unruffled calm was broken by fatigue and stress. She looked as bad as the rest of us.

  “Follow the Kievors.” I answered her.

  “Who will win?” She asked.

  “I don’t know.” I answered her truthfully. “But we’ll never be safe as long as they live.”

  “And there is vengeance.” She said, steel in her tone.

  We followed the Kievors. We knew we were on the right trail because every race we met came against us, forewarned and armed by the treacherous leaf eaters. We wiped them away and salvaged their raw materials for new ships, and we grew and we followed, and we left small colonies along the way. A rebirth on the trail of vengeance.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  CHRONICLES OF A SPACE MERCENARY

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

/>   CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 22