Revelations: Judgment Day: Kingdom of Sand - Book 1

by R. E. Graham

Prefecture: Siimon

  Planet: Destiny

  Location: Aboard the Silverbolt, outside of Cavan

  The smoke from what was once Cavan still lifted high into the sky. It would certainly be easily visible from far, far away. Aboard the landed Silverbolt, Inquisitor Cyrus and Aries continued to search through the data given to them by the Colonel.

  “Sir,” the female comms officer called out to the Tribune. “We are receiving a transmission from Samson. Colonel Felix would like to speak with the Inquisitor.”

  Cyrus turned around to her and nodded. “Could you please display it on the main screen?” He looked over to Aries. “Now we will discover how much the Colonel is hiding.”

  The main screen changed to show an angered looking Colonel Felix. He did not wait for the Inquisitor to speak first. “There are reports from drone footage on the stream of an attack on Cavan. What happened down there?”

  Cyrus stood up straighter but kept his hands on the holotable. “We conducted a raid and discovered that residents of Cavan were part of a smuggling operation. They had stolen cargo intended for Marie which suggests to me that they were pirates.”

  "I see," Felix said.

  “Colonel, since I have you, do you mind telling me why you were concealing the information about Cavan?” the Inquisitor asked studying the Colonel closely.

  “You think that I would attempt to hide information on a small group of pirates from an inquisitor? You must think I am a fool,” he retorted, obviously annoyed at the question.

  Cyrus pointed a finger in the air. “Well, the way I see it you are either lying about your efforts to conceal information relevant to my investigation, or you were unaware that you had pirates operating straight out of Destiny. Either way, you are a fool.”

  Felix’s face turned bright red. “I may not be an enlisted officer, but I am intensely loyal to the Republic and have no interest in breaking any laws.”

  “Ah, so you are saying you and your people were blind to the operation here?” Cyrus asked as Aries tried to conceal the amusement he felt toward the situation.

  “What I am saying, Inquisitor, is that a world like Destiny is difficult to monitor every single aspect of. We are doing the best we can with the tools we were given.”

  "I see Colonel. Well, we will continue to look for more holes in the reports you sent us. Thank you." Cyrus motioned with his hand to cut the feed, and the screen went blank.

  “That should rile him up,” the Tribune said with a smirk.

  "My thoughts exactly." The Inquisitor pressed a few digital buttons on his gauntlet's screen and turned up his earpiece listening in on the Colonel's office.

  “Gah! That man is insane to think I can observe an entire planet with what the Republic gave us to work on,” Felix said to someone else in his office.

  Some other voice responded. “What would you like us to do sir?”

  “About what?” the Colonel asked with an annoyed tone.

  “Should we attempt to assist them in their investigation?”

  "No, for now, we need to just stay out of their way. If they find out about…" the voices of the people in the room became distant as they exited and walked down the hall.

  Aries was watching Cyrus, waiting to know if he learned anything useful. The Inquisitor shook his head, and the Tribune got back to work.

  “I can have my intel people dig through these files too if you would like, Inquisitor.”

  Cyrus nodded. "Yes, that would be helpful. The more eyes we can get on this data the better. Odds are there are at least several other criminal elements operating here."

  “How long before we should continue the investigation off world?” Aries asked with the blue glow of the holotable projection illuminating his face.

  Letting out a sigh, the Inquisitor shook his head. “We’ll give it six more hours and then we’re leaving. We only have about two more weeks before the media could catch wind of the Senator’s death. We can’t waste time digging through this simpleton’s mistakes if we don’t have a strong lead to go off of.”

  "Aye, sir."

  “If we can’t find something solid here, we may need to look for a bigger fish to catch to give us some good info somewhere else. May need to pay a visit to one of the Five Skulls.”

  The Inquisitor massaged the bridge of his nose. His eyes were burning from staring at datapads and holograms for the past couple of hours. Despite his best efforts, along with multiple of the 12th’s intelligence officers, they didn’t come up with any new information. Not a single lead to follow up on.

  “We have reached the six-hour mark Inquisitor,” Aries said as he returned to the bridge carrying two cups of kava. He gave one to Cyrus and walked around the table. “Would you like to extend the clock, or should we depart?”

  The strong smell of the caffeinated drink made the exhausted Lawman feel somewhat better. He tried to take a sip, but it was still too hot. “No, extending our stay here isn’t going to benefit us at the moment. We can still dig through these files while we are heading for our next destination.”

  The Tribune set his drink on the holotable and then placed his hands in a resting position atop it. “Where is that, sir?”

  Cyrus changed the projection from the data to a map of the Siimon prefecture. He pointed at Destiny. “Well, we could continue to go planet to planet in the area and eliminate the possibilities of where the attackers originated from. Or, we could go for the head of the snake and see what we can learn.”

  “Where would that be, sir?” Aries asked as he studied the map.

  "I have some intel that the Onyx run underground operations on most of the worlds in Siimon. They do not currently have any holdings here on Destiny, but their big setup is said to be on Noire."

  “That isn’t more than a two day hop from here.”

  “Precisely. We can probably do some better digging there than anywhere else for now. Set a course.”

  “Aye,” the Tribune said before he turned to his bridge crew. “Set a course for the planet Noire. Inform the Dogma and Jade that we will be joining them in orbit shortly.”

  “Yessir,” called out the comm’s officer as she got to work transmitting the information.

  Let’s see what rodents we can find hiding in the shadows. Now is my chance to truly disrupt the pirate operations in Siimon.

  Chapter 15

  Cycle: 434 Month: 2 Rotation: 17

  Corre Republic Space

  Prefecture: Siimon

  Planet: Destiny

  Location: In orbit, heading for Largo

  The Only Hope continued its descent down to the surface below. Mikhail sat in his captain’s chair waiting for the turbulence to subside.

  As they cleared the thick clouds of the upper atmosphere, they finally could make out the massive dry landmass where their home laid.

  “It’s nice to be back,” Joker said as he guided the large cargo freighter in for the landing pad on the edge of the town.

  The Only Hope’s landing gear flipped out and eased the weight of the ship to rest on the stonecrete beneath it. Patrix, the ground chief, signaled for his people to get to work as usual. They rushed in and began connecting tubes and helping to offload the supplies.

  Mikhail and the rest of the bridge crew stepped onto the surface of Destiny with a bit of happiness restored within themselves. Hern wore his typical grumpy face, but even he was excited to return to the pirate’s home.

  “Welcome back Cap,” Patrix said with a nod. “Looks like your latest trip brought back quite a bit.”

  "Hopefully this will be the last trip for a while, my friend. How were things here?" he asked as he stepped off the loading ramp and onto the stonecrete.

  The Ground Chief shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s been pretty quiet around here.”

  Mikhail patted him on the shoulder. "Good. Glad to hear it. Once you get everything cataloged, please radio me," he said before he walked off.

  “As always Captain,” Patrix calle
d out. He shook his head but smiled at the sight of so many rations and supplies.

  Mikhail took a deep breath of Destiny’s chilled air. “Ah, it feels so good to be home.”

  Mayor Tipso was among the small crowd of family awaiting the arrival of the Only Hope. He made his way through the commotion and smiled widely. “Looks like your latest venture was a successful one Captain!” he said with a joyful expression.

  “Aye, it turned out to be very good for us.” Mikhail’s expression turned a bit somber. “I uh…need to speak with you later this evening about somethin’.”

  “Sure, sure. No problem. I cleared my schedule to spend time with my son, so come over whenever you are free,” the older man said with a smile.

  How am I going to tell him about Lenny Jr?

  Mikhail was shaken from his thoughts at the sight of his wife Leesa and Coral making their way through the crowd.

  "Please excuse me, Mayor,"

  “Of course,” the other man said with a smile and nod.

  The Captain wanted to run up to his wife and give her a huge hug, but he knew that he needed to try and control his affection in public. He needed to maintain how he appeared to everyone else.

  “Welcome home Mik,” Leesa said with a glimmer in her eye. “I was starting to get worried.”

  “Daddy!” the young Tarvus exclaimed happily.

  Mikhail rustled his son’s hair with his right hand while he placed his left at the small of his wife’s back. “Things didn’t go entirely as planned. We had to make a stop at Noire to offload the cargo.”

  Mrs. Tarvus’ face turned to a look of concern, but Mikhail gestured to ease her thoughts. “Everything turned out alright. Nothing to be worried about right now.”

  “Meaning it could be a problem later?”

  Mikhail realized he may have said too much as one of the ground crew carried a plasti-crate by them. He leaned in close to his wife’s ear and whispered. “We can talk more at home.”

  She understood that whatever happened he wanted to keep it secret. "Okay, my love." Leesa was just about to make a suggestion when she noticed a trail of dust rising in the distance. The Captain followed her eyes and saw the cloud that appeared to be heading toward their town.

  Why are the mercs coming here today?

  “Is that from the Razors?” Leesa asked.

  Several other people nearby started to notice the cloud as well, and a low volume murmur filled the air.

  “Did something happen while we were gone?” Mikhail asked as he turned back to his wife.

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Take Coral and get home.”

  “But Mik…”

  “Please, Lees. Something is off.”

  As Leesa carefully picked up her son and snuck out the back of the work zone, the Captain stepped to the edge of the group. He headed for the entrance of the makeshift landing pad to see two armored Chariot combat vehicles pull up led by a large pickup truck. The doors on either side of the full-sized truck popped open as the group of mercenary vehicles came to a halt. Out stepped the local merc leader, Captain Tyler Geeson, a pudgy snobby type fellow.

  Geeson tugged up on his military fatigues, pulling his pants upward. He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his uniform as he approached Mikhail and most of the people of Largo.

  “Howdy Mik,” he said with a smug grin.

  “Captain Geeson. Your visit is a bit unexpected.”

  "We spotted your descent on the sensors, and I figured I would swing by to make a visit myself. Especially after last time."

  Everything in Mikhail cringed every time they interacted. He had heard plenty of Geeson and his way of maintaining the peace on Destiny’s southern hemisphere from other towns. Largo had been able to negotiate pretty well with the loot from off-world, but Geeson always asked for a little more in each transaction.

  "We were planning to make a trip out to meet with you in Urk tomorrow. As you know, we just arrived, so we have a lot of work ahead of us" Tarvus said as he motioned to the Only Hope and the steam still rising off of it as the ship continued to cool.

  The mercenary captain shook his head. “Yeah, plenty of time for you to stiff us again.”

  “I’m sorry?” Mikhail asked for clarification.

  "You heard me, boy," Geeson said as he spit some nasty dark goo from his mouth. "Last time your shipmate sold me some sappy story about not getting much on the last run. Well, the Colonel wants to be compensated for the last run coming up short."

  Mikhail bit his lip as he looked away trying to calm himself from bashing Geeson right in the face. “We didn’t make the story up Captain, we really didn’t bring back much. That is why we had to do another run so soon.”

  The merc surveyed the people of Largo as they stood still watching the discussion between the two leaders unfold. While Mayor Tipso was technically the one with authority around here, Mikhail was the one really in charge if push came to shove. However, as if on cue, the jolly Mayor came bustling onto the scene with his cheerful tone intending to greet the mercenaries with excitement.

  “My dear Captain Geeson, what a pleasure it is to see you again.” Mayor Tipso’s shoes crunched the loose gravel beneath him with every step. His crisp gray suit seemed out of place compared to Mikhail’s outfit.

  “As I was sayin’, the big boss wants you to compensate us for the lack from last time,” Geeson said as he spat again.

  “Tell the Colonel that we will make it right,” Tipso said boldly.

  Mikhail crossed his arms but didn’t say a word.

  The mercenary captain looked back and forth between the two men then pointed at Mikhail. “Make sure it gets done. We’ll be back tomorrow at midday.”

  Before the pirate captain could speak, the Mayor cheerfully jumped in. “Rest assured, you will receive your share.”

  Geeson twirled his finger in the air as he headed back for the truck. The rest of the mercenaries loaded up in the Chariots, and the caravan left.

  “Mayor, I don’t know how our own reserves are doing. We can’t just go and hand them more than we can spare,” Mikhail said uncrossing his arms.

  The senior Tipso took a deep breath. “Mik, we have to do everything we can to ensure that our relationship with the mercs stays strong. You don’t know about this yet, but we saw on the stream that yesterday there was an attack at Cavan.”

  “An attack?” the Captain asked, his eyes growing wide.

  “From what the media has released, the entire town is gone. No details what happened yet though.”

  Mikhail exhaled deeply. “Have we sent anyone over to check it out?”

  The Mayor shook his head. “There isn’t much point. What’s done is done.”

  “Yeah but…” Mikhail started before Tipso spoke over him.

  “What is important is that those paid goons don’t get the wrong idea about our town and they start shooting the place up. We may have resorted to piracy, but we aren’t savages.”

  Mikhail shook his head and started to walk away.

  “I know it isn’t fair Mik, but we have to do what we go to do. I’ll see you later this evening!”

  The Captain stormed off and headed back for the landing pad.

  The Mayor’s a fool. We have to take care of ourselves first. Then the mercs get their cut. Only after our people are fed…

  Rhonda noticed the Captain’s angry look and headed him off before he got too close to the unloading zone.

  “Problem Cap?” she asked as she dusted off her hands on her cargo pants.

  “Kinda. The mercs want us to reimburse them for the shortage from our previous run.”

  “Meaning they want extra this time?”

  Mikhail nodded. He watched several of the ground crew who continued to offload the food rations they had hauled back from Noire.

  “Sir, with respect, we have to take care of our people first,” Rhonda said as she crossed her arms.

  “I agree. But the Mayor has already promised
we would obey.”

  She threw her arms in the air but caught herself before she got too loud. “He doesn’t have the authority to give away our people’s food.”

  The pirate Captain shrugged. “He was elected Mayor.”

  “Yeah, well, if you ask me, you are the real leader around here.”

  "Thanks, Rhonda," he said with a tired smile.

  Hernando helped carry a large crate with a skinny teenage boy. Suddenly the boy dropped the heavy box, and it slammed down on the gunner's boot. Hern started cursing in a different language, and Mikhail and Rhonda chuckled to themselves.

  “Tomorrow will worry about itself sir,” she said turning her attention back to the Captain. “We got things here, why don’t you go see your family.”

  “Thanks. Call me if you need me.”

  “Will do,” she said before she turned back to the offloading and got to work.

  Mikhail walked back to his home like he usually did, but this time his mind was caught up in their last run. He couldn't shake the sight of the family on the ship getting gunned down by Lenny. Their deaths replayed over and over as he tried to think about what he could have done differently.

  What’s done is done. Have to keep moving forward.

  He tucked his hands in his jacket pockets before he finally reached his street.

  Am I going to tell Lees? Dammit Lenny, why did you have to go and kill those folks?! Who knows how this will all play out now…

  While he argued within himself, before he knew it, he was standing at his screened door. It had been propped open with an old decorative sculpture since the doorknob was still missing. He came to his senses and took a deep breath to push the thoughts away.

  Just as Mikhail opened the front door, Leesa poked her head out from around the corner leading to the kitchen.

  “Hey, what was that all about?”

  The Captain closed the door behind him and slid his boots off on a small rug where a pile of other shoes was. They plopped to the wood floor in a heap. "It was Geeson."

  Mrs. Tarvus’ face looked confused. “Why would they be here today? They know that normally we visit them the day after you return.”