Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 40

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.”

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Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):

Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT

Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):

Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB

Volume 2 - Beginning the Journey https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VR7M41/

Volume 3 - Wyrmwood https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072QKVBYV