That all took a couple weeks. I stopped to see a very pregnant queen and her sensei. Seems he and The General had been having some spectacular matches. Once a week. So far one to one, the rest were draws. I also found a happy ‘x’ reporter who was now the owner of the TV station and a beautiful girl that helped customers while half naked on 5th Avenue. Doc was my Aawasa away from home.
I dropped off My Captain and picked up Big Guy and his three wives.
We went to the new system. A lovely little planet named Bonita Casa, about one and a half million people. I think Rodel said the name meant Lovely Home. Strikingly pretty women. They reminded me of Koteck. Different color hair, more in the auburn, and eyes were more rounded with assorted colors, but the golden brown skin made them stand out.
We were there two days and Big Guy’s Number One wife, Helawasa, had three Courtesan’s under contract for him. My pickups were signed sealed and delivered. Doc just smiled, “No waves. They aren’t under contract.”
Big Guy was here to see if we could use their skills with a small thrown weapon like a dart but tossed with a long wooden hand launcher in an overall invasion plan of the Blood Sabers’ home planets. We now had dropped enough Seekers all over the place that we felt the planets we discovered so far were protected, but there were still hundreds of GCs not found and other humans the Firsts made. It is a big galaxy we live in.
Standing rules now had us drop two Seekers and two jumpers and one searcher on folds not having any.
We bid our farewells and moved on to Jebedalous. Doc went to work; we worked about three weeks. The unknown STDs actually turned out to be an airborne virus that had escaped from the communist’s secret labs no one had mentioned to us when we took over. They attached themselves to female saliva and sweat and entered the body where they were transferred to the male, causing plugged tubing and extreme pain, and was resistant to all their anti-viral medications.
She whipped up a cure in two weeks with Rodel’s help and we mass inoculated two of the five continents. We isolated a whole mess of people with help of the seers and the Queens and Kings. All who knew about the labs and had kept silent before, lost their heads. People were learning you don’t mess with Camelot. We actually stayed out of most local politics since our objective was not domination of the people, but control of certain aspects of production and fighting units. Our appointed rulers had stiff limits. Most duties fell to their council members. Maybe we needed to rethink those basic ideas.
Some financial shenanigans had been going on in the capitalist country, discovered by Rodel. A few dozen government and financial wizards found all their magic couldn’t put Humpty together again, nor reattach their heads. Several admitted they didn’t expect we’d ever return. Some well along Queens had various official functions but I told Doc to get us out of there. We were off to some new planet just in.
Seekers, searchers and jumpers were already in place. They were into rockets but short of the speeds needed to reach orbit.
They were already a stable, constitutional monarchy of several billion peoples. Rock solid economy, and a healthy fear of the Blood Sabers. We got a look at our first separated bridge module.
I had Rodel run scans and they showed us what equipment they retrieved from it and the dead Blood Sabers.
They came from space two years prior, a huge fireball appearing from nowhere. They crashed where it sits and one hundred of them came out and just walked around and took mothers, babies, men and boys, and sawed their heads off. Over one thousand, before they were stopped. The screams still haunted them today. They went from a horse and buggy agrarian culture to almost space on their own.
Rodel gave them enough information they could jump another hundred years ahead in one. They agreed to join the Coalition against the Blood Sabers so long as, when it was over, they could freely withdraw and live in peace. All was in their contract, which they signed.
We added one of our Seekers to the four already there. All the info we could gather was forwarded to Camelot and Earth.
I wanted to head to Camelot but we would go by New Earth in route.
Not Humans,
Not Blood Sabers
The second jump we received an abort. It was a small ship so we went through. Another of the missing early explorers from NASA. This guy hit a double jump head on. Almost everything rear of the pilot’s seat was gone. We got the platinum and gold and other items from the stash, and I found one chem generator. That was about all. I recorded his info. He didn’t suffer much, his air tubes were cut during the jump. I pointed it to the nearest star and away he went.
We jumped again and immediately received another alert. A ship had popped in, then back out. Not one of ours, NASA’s, or anyone we knew. Rodel said he got a blink of humanoid off the scanner but the ship popped back out too fast. We sent two searchers and followed it through four folds. It was a hair faster than we were, more because we slowed more than it had. We’d jump in, it would be there a second or even a minute, then be gone. We were in an area with a lot of close T/S folds and each time we saw it Rodel hailed, scanned, and searched.
We jumped and it was there. Apparently it had been doing pure random jumps, and it hit an empty pocket. A part of space that had no folds for a long way, it had to turn around and at the speed we were both going, very near a quarter light, it would take a while. Rodel kept hailing, mass frequency bands. The ship was of no design we had ever seen or even imagined. The commonality was we used grav rider type engines. We did emergency deceleration; max Gs for two days, and looped back to the fold. We sat there and circled. It had three choices, run forever to nowhere and die, self-destruct, or it could talk. Like us, it knew it wasn’t going anywhere. We blocked the exit.
We set two Seekers and they were active, two searchers were set as well. Rodel was working every frequency and light band.
“Got them! Long wave, very long wave. This is going to take awhile. I have a computer link. We are working through standard recognition signals and math now.
“Very complicated language. It appears to be a random intermix of different languages. Like Earth English, but it appears almost totally gender neutral or random. Give me a couple days. I do sense equipment damage, maybe radio.”
They stayed far away.
A day of relaxation passed.
Rodel downloaded a basic composite of their DNA: carbon based but not compatible. Origin still unknown. Ship heavily damaged. One male and two female alive, eleven others dead.
“Can we send a real com gear set to them?” I asked.
“They are afraid, very afraid. Reason unknown. I am doing a bit by bit data transfer to their comp of you and Doc.”
Second day Rodel said, “They will accept better gear, they agree this is too slow, but we can’t take it to them, they don’t trust us.”
“See if they know what our searchers are,” I asked.
“Yes, the little bugs that chased them.” Rodel laughed.
“We will put the gear on the outside of one. Tell them if we had intended harm the Seekers would have killed them long ago,” I said.
“They know. Their minds say so but their bodies refuse the mind sometimes,” he said.
“They are scared silly?”
“Yes, Sire, they are,” Rodel said.
The gear was sent. They recovered it. But it wasn’t compatible to anything they had. Rodel used it to start language transfers and picture recognition. We got a look at them. Tall, thin, with large teardrop eyes, like early UFO drawings, but these had eyelashes. Noses were a little shorter, less pronounced. Hair was long and pure white. They looked like albinos except the eyes. These pupils were brown. It was a male picture.
“Except for the eyes they are very close to human,” I said.
“I sense, rather than know. I have seen these before, before I was Rodel, maybe when I was a First, not sure,” he said.
After another day he said, “I have com link. The translations are still a little coarse in some areas.”<
br />
“Video?” I asked.
“Not yet, they don’t trust us. But I will send our video anyway.”
Doc and I sat there. I had the shorts on, she wore a dark yellow battledress.
The link was established.
They asked, “Why the different colors of skin and hair.”
Rodel explained we had a lot of different types of humans. Some good, some not so good.
One of the new girls came into view and a few seconds later all feed was cut.
Rodel worked for a while and finally said, “They know Koteck! Our girls are Koteck, evil killers.”
“Send them a picture of our Koteck and one of the girls side by side. Not the same, just similar, like me and doc, similar but not the same,” I said.
“We’re not the same?” Doc said.
“Lucky me, huh.” I smirked.
“Oh, those parts.” she smiled.
“You show them the videos of the Koteck?” I asked Rodel.
“Working on it.”
“They know the Koteck torture cross and recognize you in the end. They will try to trust.”
“Is there anything they need we can help with?” I asked.
“Well, they know humor. He said a new ship would be fine. Other than that, no, they have no place left to go. Between the Koteck and the beasts they think they may be the last still alive of the seven planets,” Rodel said.
“Rough guess, they defeated the Koteck and now face our Blood Sabers,” I said.
“Was there any doubt?” he quipped. “They say there were two Koteck planets they fought against and almost three billion of these people were destroyed,” Rodel said.
“Ask them in for tea when they come by. I really need to get some sleep,” I said.
I asked Doc if she wanted to nap but she was more interested in these new people.
Rodel woke me up. “They said they would send the spare female over to talk if we could come get her. Their suits have no more power.”
“Can she get aboard my saber tooth with me? Show them a picture and ensure they see the claws not hands or feet.”
A few minutes, “She will try.”
“Our atmosphere and food acceptable?” I asked.
“Yes, Sire,” Rodel said.
I slapped up my armor, went to the hatch, and cycled through. When outside I brought up my mount and farted to the ship. A lone suit was tethered outside. I came alongside and removed the tether; I took her hand and moved her to sit in front of me. She caught on.
We went to the ship. I dismissed the mount, she watched.
I cycled the hatch and took her inside. The lights were a bit bright for her. Rodel shifted them a little to the red and dimmer.
Rodel told her that our air was the same. She slowly took the suit off. She was naked. She had small hips and thin legs and arms for her height. Her breasts looked firm and well formed and she keep putting her hands up over them and forcing them down.
I asked Rodel, “‘when in Rome’?”
“Yes, they don’t, a lot like Earth.”
I tried to put an earpiece on her; she jumped back at first. Rodel said we were not going to harm her, it was to speak/hear us.
She let me attach it.
She heard me in hers, I heard her in mine.
I had doc get her a battledress, a few pins here and there, and she was covered.
She said, “What a curious idea.” She twirled. “Nice.”
She started first. She was here because she lost her mate and she was expendable, but they really think it doesn’t matter because there were no more left, so they would soon be extinct anyway.
We received her story. “Billions died fighting. Many were hung from crosses. They came in the day, we were unable to function in the day, too bright, a lot of pain. One of ours made light filters (sunglasses) and it helped but still they killed. We captured a ship and we went to them at night. We killed and killed and so it went. We won, but barely.”
“Four life cycles went by, peace, almost normal, then they came in the day, different. They cut off heads. Babies, mates, they didn’t care, all die.”
She was upset. I heard her sniffle, moist eyes. “No tear ducts as we know it, just moisteners. I think she is crying,” Doc said, and held her against her while the sobs went by.
“Sorry, I am a weak one. Feel pain and suffer.” She just stared.
“I know, I cried more than once myself,” I said.
“Men don’t cry, they feel no pain, don’t really care, just like to fight and make babies,” she said.
Rodel showed her the death of Queastra and the final days of the great slaughter. “He cried almost three days.”
She told us how they had been studying this Koteck ship and were six couples when the Blood Sabers came. They put it on the auto thing and it jumped and they finally figured out how to go back, but all were dead.
“Heads cut off, some shot by little dart things from space, we all got sick, then one ship came back, so we jumped and jumped and it still followed and we finally lost it. By then we had no idea where we were. We jumped some more then flying rocks holed the ship all over.”
Rodel explained that four of them were in the lower stern of the ship. Her mate was outside the door, she got him in, but an arm and other parts were missing. He died a few days later.
Best Rodel figured, it took them almost a year to patch it enough to make jumps again. “They pretty much just waited to die,” he said.
She rested on the front crew bed, had covers, and the dress was hung up. Rodel boosted the inside temp a bit, their normal body temp was 101F.
She was awake when I went to take a shower with Doc. While I combed Doc’s hair and made tea she just watched us. I asked the visitor her name. It was Mill or Mi-LL; I went with the Mi-LL.
“Have some tea and bread, I am told it will not harm you,” I told her.
She sipped it carefully then gulped it down. I told her no, just sip, and refilled it and showed her how to dunk the bread. She ate it in a few bites. She loved the dried fish. They had paste, green or brown.
I asked her if they showered, she said they use to but so little water now. I told her she could use ours all she wished, but I wasn’t going to change my habits on my ship. She understood. She talked to Doc a bit and basically was told nakedness was not our normal way but it was not shunned either. We were products of our culture and refused to hide ourselves to be civil. We didn’t care either way, I was a king of many worlds and had three quarters of a million females chase me all the time on Camelot and none wore little more than a battledress unless it was cold.
Turns out her warm water was our scalding.
I gave her a bar of our perfumed soap and she loved it. Still very shy, she dried off and put on a green battledress without underwear.
I went to the back and got her some new green silk panties. After she put them on she kept rubbing them and looked at me and bowed, and said, “Thank you.”
She and Doc started talking mating habits. She was sipping tea and eating a lot of bread; Doc said yeah she’d probably get a tummy ache.
Mi-LL bolted when I started combing her hair but we explained it was just something I liked to do.
A little later Doc and she went to the stern; the medical remotes were all there. Mi-LL was scared but Doc explained it all.
“Her plumbing is the same basically, but her DNA is not compatible. I suspect, even if it was, their higher body temperature would bake the human males sperm before they got to the eggs.”
“They are religious. Only the Universal way is allowed,” Doc said.
“Universal way? There isn’t any,” I said.
“How do all mammals except man mate?” she asked.
“Dog style,” click, “they only do it dog style?”
She nodded. “She has no idea what an orgasm is, yet she is equipped correctly. They only mate once a month. Somehow they got off on evolution’s wrong track.”
She asked Doc some question
s and wanted to know if that wasn’t how we made babies too. Doc tried to explain. Told her to wait until later, Rodel would show her. Our visitor was most curious.
Rodel said he had about all he could get from the other ship without computer access.
We ate and had tea, she ate and drank a little more sensibly.
I had Rodel ask her if I wished to have the other woman come over also, would she?
Mi-LL spent two hours talking and pleading but her mate would not allow her to do so.
I called a halt.
After Rodel showed her how humans mated, she said, “Our religion forbids such things.”
“Then your religion is false. Look around and show me where your religion helped you at all, ever,” I said.
She couldn’t of course.
I asked if they ever heard the harp.
“The music of our Gods? Yes, but only when they are most pleased.”
I told her when it played last and how long. She remembered. “What were your gods pleased about? The Koteck killing them or roasting them for their damned zoos?” I asked.
She had much to think about. I told her about our God, there is but one, and the music played for him. And two of ours played it.
The girls came in and she got to talk to them about mating as well. They both told her how wonderful it was.
I told her not to worry her friends, we’d fix the problems tomorrow.
We all slept. In the morning I told her we were going to her ship. I told her the guy could fight and die or surrender and live. Since his race was dying I didn’t care, his choice. We intended to try and find any more alive and if not, to return them to one of our worlds and see if we could help.
She told them we were coming and bringing real food.
I got her to the hatch along with Rodel’s robot and some food and tea.
I tied the tether to Rodel. He carried the metal boxes with tools and food.
Blood Sabers Page 38
