Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 3: Vengeance (26 page)

Leethea
wasn’t quite finished with the Kievor just yet however so wedged herself into a nook and opened up on the impossible to miss target. Though it was many dozens of kilometers distant by this point her blast-rifle bolts crossed the span in almost less time than it took to think about it. The explosions didn’t seem to be affecting the kernel ship much- at least not from this distance- as they marched across the now distant sphere but the other half of the Station did.

Chapter 62

“Those are Vaes’ ships.” Serrath bumped her helmet against mine again to tell me the moment the Fleet of ships sailed over the lip of our section of Station and into view several dozen kilometers distant below our vantage. There was little doubt they had seen Leethea’s stream of blaster bolts which had just ceased erupting from the end of her weapon, a rope of them still on their way to the kernel ship and pointing out our location unerringly. Then the kernel ship ran into the other half-shell of the Station.

Lifeless trans-metal shattered at contact and the entire ke
rnel ship broke apart. Without its life-giving electrical spark the trans-metal shell was structurally unable to withstand the impact and shattered like an egg dropped on a plas-crete sidewalk. Everything spilled out but at this distance I could see little more than a smudge around the outline of the shattered ship. It was good enough to know that the Kievor themselves were now doing their spasmodic space-swim in the vacuum of space but I wondered if they had brought their suits. Wondered if they would have ever thought they needed them. One of the Vaes ships immediately turned in our direction while the remainder angled for the shattered Kievor kernel ship. Salvage was never far from a reptile’s mind and this was the mother-load of them all.
We
immediately vacated the opening and only just in time as the explosions began tearing at the cutaway face of the slice where we had just been. Clearly they had recognized who we were with their scan so they knew we were Fsyth but did they know which Fsyth I was and if so how badly would they want me.

The explosions tearing apart the face of the cutaway seam
strangely ceased almost as quickly as it had begun but it was long minutes before our curiosity got the best of us and the oxygen level in my suit dictating that I just had to go and see what was going on. I had no idea how much oxygen recycling time I had left and didn’t want to find out the hard way. Twice in just a short time I received a stunning shock upon reaching the lip of the cutaway corridor but I actually received it before I got there because the new Kievor Trade Station which floated into view and hovered over the wreckage of the kernel ship came into view long before I reached that lip. Then suddenly it was just gone. The ship vanished and all I saw was just a faint trail of blur teasing my vision for a moment and then that was even gone.

“What the hell?” I said though of course no one could hear me.

“What the hell is next?” Serrath asked as she bumped my helmet.

“Where did the Va
es go?” I responded though the answer to that was quite clear. The Vaes had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and even though this wasn’t their doing they had paid for it.

“How are we going to get the hell out of here
is what I want to know?” Leethea said as she bumped her helmet against mine on my opposite side, but I had already figured that out. My Alartaw Fleet was here and clearly also why the Kievor had left. One moment nothing and the next an Alartaw Fleet stretching for as far as the eye could see, even in its diminished state. “Never mind.” She added before moving her helmet away and severing our contact. A tender arrived only moments later- less time than it took to convince the remainder of my reptiles to board the tender- but finally I got them all aboard and moments after that we were safely aboard my Flagship. After dropping my reptiles aboard one of the numerous but empty Fsyth ships still docked to the shell of the Station we were back in hyper-space and once again at least temporarily safe from the Kievor.

“But w
e accomplished nothing.” I said as we gathered in a lounge.

“Not true.” Bren contradicted.

“Absolutely correct.” Serrath corroborated, though I couldn’t tell who she meant was correct.

“What’s absolutely correct?” I asked tiredly as a servant brought me my first drink. Tailor designed for reptiles, this time.
I was going to drink myself to death and be reincarnated as an Alartaw. I poured the drink down my neck and handed the empty tankard back to the servant with a
keep them coming
motion of my fingers.

“
Bren
is absolutely correct.” Manuel said.

“Who would have ever thought?” Leethea said.

“You astound me sometimes Marc.” Janice said.

“I astound myself more often than I astound you.” I assured her. “Fess up
with what the hell-ever you people are talking about or go away and leave me to my funeral.”

“Planning to drink yourself to death?” Serrath asked with an interested note and a wave to the servant to begin bringing
her drinks as well. We could drink ourselves to death together in celebration of having lived. We would be reincarnated and forever after known as the God Emperors of the Alartaw, but for the moment my curiosity had been piqued. There was something they knew that I didn’t and it was beginning to bother me, so I just kept my mouth shut to their baiting and waited them out. I didn’t shut my mouth to the four drinks I put down before I won the contest of not caring and they just simply couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“We won the war.” Bren said.

I just continued looking at him. As far as I could tell we had won nothing and would spend the remainder of our long lives running from the Kievor. His smile was telling me other things however. “All right. I’ll bite. What gives?” I asked.

“Do you have any idea of what a monstrous plague you have unleashed upon the Universe when you gave humanity all that technology?”
Manuel interrupted asking.

“Does this have any bearing on what I’m waiting for Bren to tell me?” I asked as I put down my fifth and handed the empty tankard back to the servant. I did have an idea but I didn’t want to think about it at that moment.

“No but the look on your face was sure something to see.” Bren answered for himself with a triumphant smile and then laid it on me; “Your real mission aboard the Kievor Trade Station was to deliver the virus I wrote.”

“Virus?” I asked.

“That was our real mission.” Serrath agreed as she poured them down just as quickly as I. Never mind that she was only two-thirds my mass she could polish them off with the best of them.

“We were carrying a virus all along and
not
on a mission to steal the Kievor data-base?” I demanded incredulously.

“We already had the Kievor data-base.” Leethea said.

“You don’t remember all those Kievor ships we salvaged over the decades?” Serrath asked.

“Well yeah…” I began and seeing quickly where it was going turned to the only thing that really worked in these types of situations; you turn the blame back on them;
“This
plan
could have gotten us all killed!” I said indignantly.

“There was no plan, remember.” Janice said.

“Serrath was right.” Leethea said with a toothy laugh. “If you had known the plan it wouldn’t have worked.”

“If you had known the
real plan,” Serrath interrupted, “we would have failed.”

“I’m the one that came up with the plan.” I objected. “It was my plan from the beginning.”

“We did a little improvising ourselves,” Leethea said, “once you had come up with your plan, that is. We learned that from you.”

“You really aren’t a very successful planne
r,” Bren said with triumphant smile in place, “but you are the best improviser I have ever met. The one thing I have learned from you is that everyone has their strengths and that it’s perfectly acceptable to manipulate them in any manner to get what you want.”

“What I am is ready
to get out of this body,” I said as I downed another and ignored their baiting, “and I can’t do that until I’m dead.” I thought of the human race which I was abandoning…but only for a moment. I was the Emperor of the Alartaw and ruler of the known Universe. Why in the hell would I give that up! I was the dominant reptile here.

It was just about then that I felt the reptilian teeth lock on my ear. It was Serrath and she immediately began dragging me away. “Not without that ultimate high you’ve been craving.”
She said with a growl around locked teeth.

Who was I to object!

……….

“Did you know why the Kievor were always so nice to reptiles?” Serrath asked
me much much later. “I picked up this little tidbit in the
Fsyth
data-base.”

“I don’t have a clue.” I said. I was sure I didn’t care.
I was in another dimension altogether.

“The reptilian races knew the Kievor’s secret from the beginning. They smelled it in their pheromones- the one thing the Kievor couldn’t hide.”

“Which secret is that?” I asked with my interest growing. If she was leading up to it like this there must be a good punch-line coming and nor was I wrong. “I like secrets.” I added.

“They’re generally not so secret once you find out, but this one is already out of the bag.” Serrath said. “The Kievor were domestic animals a mammalian race much like both humanity and the Alartaw used to ride like humans used to ride horses.”

“The Kievor were horses?” I asked incredulously. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Not this time.” Serrath said with a laugh as she leapt upon me once again. She was luscious bare green skin and venom dripping claws. She pierced me as I pierced her.

Who was I to object?

Epilogue

It was a grisly duty but it was a necessary duty nonetheless. I would take no chances. My Fleet with myself back at the helm visited every known Kievor Trade Station location and destroyed the powerless Stations we found, but we did not find them all. They had not all been infected! Some had run fast enough.

Every Kievor Trade Station which avoided the virus plague vanished without a trace but had we seen the last o
f them? It was a wide Universe and with rejuv and an endless life ahead- if I wasn’t murdered somewhere along the line- and Time being something that just passed but had no effect- who was to say our paths would
never
cross again.