We were just about to button up the ship to leave when I
noticed a group of ten people approaching the ship, all of them armed. Not
being an idiot, I got Jaynie and Cali to join me with our own weapons, and
stopped at the edge of the cargo ramp. Raven had the shields up, and was
quietly warming up the ship weapons, as well, just in case.
I put up one hand to stop the group before they could reach
the shield line, and said, “That’ll be close enough. Who are you, and what is
your business here?”
The leader of this group didn’t look like he cared for being
challenged, but kept his head about him, at least. “Captain Teague sent us,
from the Smuggler’s Alliance. You’re the ones that caught Olona, right? Well
Cap’n Teague wants her. He was the one who owned two of the last three
harvesters she hit, and wants to explain her mistakes to her.”
When I didn’t say anything, the leader continued. “Now, the
Cap’n understands you had a chance to sell the bitch to the Alliance, and
decided not to. But we’re hoping you’ll make a better decision this time
around.”
“And why should I do that? I’m perfectly happy having the
kitty where she is.”
“Because the Cap’n is the head of the Alliance, and all
unofficial business on kisArra goes through him, eventually. See now? He’s like
the President of the criminal world here. And what he wants, he gets. One way
or another.”
I narrowed my eyes at the man, and said, “You know, a lot of
people have been throwing their weight around, trying to impress me with how
important they are. More than a few of them are dead now. Since you don’t know
me, I’m willing to give y’all a pass this once. You go on back to Captain
Teague, and have him ask around about what Captain Mollen did to the Yakuza in
Sol and Alpha Centauri.”
The leader growled, and said, “That ain’t gonna work for me.
See, I’m to get the girl. Whether that means handing over some cred or killing
you and taking the girl and your ship, I don’t much care. So you gonna be smart
about this or—“
BZZAP!
The leader, unfortunately, never got to finish his threat,
as I gave the command to Raven, and she shot him in the face with the weapons
we used against other ships. His head just… wasn’t there anymore, and it took
the body a second to realize that, before it fell to the ground. The rest of
the group stepped back, and I heard one curse out loud.
“You lot stop right there.” Not surprisingly, they got very
still. “Now, you’re going to be good kids, and lay your weapons down. Bracers
too.” When they complied, I said, “Good. Now, as I was telling the idiot, I’m
quite happy with having Olana where she is now, and she isn’t going anywhere.
So, you lot, you are going to go back to Captain Teague, and you’re going to
tell him that Captain Mollen said he ought to ask about what I got up to in Sol
and Alpha Centauri before he starts making threats.”
“I’m a Nomad, which means I can, and will, walk a fucking
nuke into his house and blow everyone to hell, just to make sure the bastard
dies if he tries and pushes this further. Sure, I’ll lose a little bit of XP
because of the death, but you natives will lose a helluvalot more. Are we
understanding eachother?”
When none of the thugs spoke, I shot the ground in front of
one of them. She yelped, and said, “U-understood!”
I smiled. “Good. Now, you’re going to turn around, and walk
out of here. Leave your stuff. If you’re lucky, some of it will still be here
after I leave. I see any of you before my ship lifts off, and you’re going to
go the same way as your friend, there. Now get!” Another shot in the dirt sent
them scurrying off.
Once they were gone, Jaynie and I began sorting through the
loot, while Cali kept watch to make sure no one got stupid ideas. I drained all
the funds on the bracers, of course. That got us 1,234,545 credits, most of it
coming from the bracer of the dead guy, probably from Captain Teague to
negotiate for Sana. Oh well, his loss is my gain! The weapons were mostly crap,
at least compared to what we already had, so I left most of them. I did grab a
pistol for Nyna and a knife for Sana, when she earned it. It was a really nice
knife, too.
Shortly after, we buttoned up the ship, and lifted off
kisArra. I’d probably have to avoid the planet for a while if I didn’t want to
go and kill this Teague guy, but that was no big loss, since I wasn’t planning
on coming back here any time in the foreseeable future. There was a lot of
universe out there to explore, after all.
As we left the atmosphere, I started thinking about our run
to Jagloth. The news reports we’d been able to get never said whether it was
just the planet that was blockaded, or the entire system. It would be a lot
easier to blockade a planet than trying to set up a net to catch anyone
entering the system. But it had apparently been in place long enough that the
Navy could have set up probes to watch for ships entering the system in
hyperspace.
I decided that the safe bet would be to assume that there
were probes checking for ships entering the system, with fast response craft to
check out breaches, away from the planet. Then, you use ships in orbit to both
keep people out and keep them from leaving. That would take a lot of ships. If
they were doing even half of that, then something big must be going on down on
Jagloth.
Shearah was waiting for me in my cabin when I had secured
the bridge for the long travel through hyperspace. It seems that the girl has a
sense of humor, and maybe a bit of a sadistic streak in her as well, since
she’d taken the time to use the fabricator to make cat ears and a cat tail
plug, both of which she was in the process of forcing Sana to wear. I was
amused to see that she had matched Sana’s hair color perfectly. Shearah had
even made a full-sized ‘cat bed’ for Sana to curl up on, placing it at the foot
of my bunk, and included food and water dishes, with Kitty printed on them.
“Kitty, stop resisting. From now on, you will purr with
happiness when the girls play with you. Understand?”
“M-row.”
“Good pet.” I turned to look at Shearah, who was busy taking
pictures of the new ship ‘mascot’ which she posted on the ship net. “So,
Shearah, did you just come by my cabin to play dress up with my new kitty cat?”
I chose to ignore Sana’s annoyed chuff at the idea of putting on cat ears and a
tail plug being called ‘dress up’. Well, mostly ignore. I played with the tail
plug a bit, before turning the vibration and articulation on, making it move
like a real cat’s tail. Sana yowled in surprise before beginning to purr,
despite herself.
Shearah giggled, and said, “Well, Master, you remember that
you promised rewards when we got back to the ship, right? We were busy before
now, with resupplying and getting everything squared away with the new mouths
to feed and all. But we’re in hyperspace now, and I thought maybe I could get
my reward before the other girls got here?” As she said that, she once again
did the ‘girl next door’ thing, since she knew it always got my motor running
when she was cute like that.
With an exaggerated sigh, I said, “Fine, fine! Don’t ever
say I never do anything for you!” I pulled her to me, my hand coming to rest on
her rear, and kissed her. “What do you say we give the kitty a show, hmm?”
“Oh, Master!”
“Mrow!”
(Imperial Winter Palace, Interlaken, Switzerland, Earth)
Emperor Travis I was not pleased. His victory should have
been complete by now! The plan should have worked, would have worked if not for
the interference of those damn Nomads helping the Princesses to escape. Of
course, Merida would have to be dealt with. He couldn’t allow a potential rival
to try and take his victory away from him. She and her rebel fleet would have
to be crushed.
It was a shame about Sheila, though. He had hoped that she
could be conditioned to serve him as part of his harem. Not to produce
children, of course. That would not do at all. But he wanted to possess her,
and bend her to his will, like he had done to so many women before. But she had
escaped, and fled to the Confederacy, nearly starting the war before he was
ready.
Now in the War Room of the Winter Palace, Travis looked down
on the reports on fleet readiness. Seventy percent of the fleet had fallen in
line with the new Emperor. The rest had either been destroyed, or had sought
out Merida and her Rebel Fleet. According to the last reports, they had fled to
a cluster of stars near the edge of Imperial space. The area was poor in the
resources one needed to keep a fleet running, only having a major shipyard in
the area, but it held several agricultural worlds that combined represented 35%
of the Empire’s agricultural output each year.
Unfortunately, the strategic importance of the ‘breadbasket’
worlds was well known to the military for years, so they had gone to great
effort in building fleet bases in the area, and building up weapons caches to
help with supply problems. Even worse, there was a Gateway in the area, which
made cutting off necessary supplies to the rebels all but impossible. That also
left open the idea of sending spies and assassins through the Gate network to
undermine Merida’s fleet, but the last few attempts had ended badly, as the
rebels had been expecting such things, and captured the spies.
The Admiralty had concluded that the only way to remove
Merida from those systems would be to go in force and wipe out the rebel fleet.
But the losses would be crippling if they simply invaded. The Empire would be
open to attack by its enemies in the Confederacy and the Ihm Imperium. The Free
Worlds Alliance might even join in. They needed something that could weaken the
rebel fleet’s forces.
That was when one of the researchers in the room happened to
mention that if only the Skynet Project had been successful, none of this would
have been a problem, since they could just throw Skynet at the Rebels, and let
it take down the fleet from inside.
Travis looked up at the researcher as he abruptly shut his
mouth, realizing he had spoken aloud in front of the Emperor without leave.
That fear was lovely, but now he sensed a potential answer to the problem of
Merida. “Speak! What is this Skynet Project, and how would it be able to fight
the rebels?”
The researcher gulped, and said, “Your Majesty, the Skynet
Project was originally created to identify, track, and deal with hackers within
the Earth and Sol information networks. By creating a sentient AI who could use
the networks as its underlying architecture, it could seek out criminals
anywhere within the net, and combat them with cyberwarfare tactics.”
“I see how that would be useful against the Rebels. You said
the project was unsuccessful. What happened to it?”
“At last record, Majesty, the project was trapped on the
Venusian colonies, where it couldn’t do any more harm.”
“Interesting. Tell me more.”
Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):
Into the Black (Sci-Fi LitRPG):
LitRPG facebook group:
