Galaxy of Empires- Merchant Wars Episode #1 (10 page)

“Ha-ha, I don’t mind. It is uncanny how much
it resembles me. You are very good with art, it would appear,
Xaqu.”

“Thank you for your kind words, ma’am. I do
not mind if you keep the prototype as they can always make more and
would like to keep working on perfecting the design, if you do not
mind. I like making androids.”

“Certainly, by all means. I know this
maintenance bay is not exactly a research and development
laboratory, but I will give you a computer that links to our
R&D department on home world that will give you access to more
stuff you can experiment with. They always welcome gifted minds
like yourself, especially when it comes to developing
Androids.”

“Now that would be excellent,” Xaqu says with
excitement. The Empress leaves the room.

“Let us check on her sister and see what she
is up to,” Eve suggests.

“She was practicing her telepathic abilities
earlier and I am not sure what she is doing now,” Xaqu says and
turns to Gothica. “I look like a real mercenary or pirate with all
those weapons.”

Gothica smiles, “Yeah, just need an eyepatch
or parrot.”

“Or a cowboy hat, then you can be a space
cowboy,” their mother interjects. They all laugh as they walk out
the door and go down some halls looking for Chaca. They walk into a
room where Chaca is training with another telepath. They stop and
sit in the observation seats above the training area. Chaca is
about to be tested.

The female snake instructor says, “You must
be able to find your targets under any circumstances by using all
of your senses because there may be a time where one or more of
your primary senses, such as sight or hearing, may be impaired.
This test we going to blindfold you and make you use your hearing
to guide you to your targets. Begin!”

Some balls start flying around the room in
random directions. Chaca is blindfolded and is concentrating to
release a lightning bolt in the general area that would take out
the balls. Two more come flying toward her from behind and she
ducks and fires a wideband electrical charge that strike both
targets. A bunch of balls come flying out at one time from her left
side and she hear those and launches a large cone of ice shards
that fly into that direction and destroy all of the targets.

The instructor says, “Splendid, Chaca. I see
your mother is here and so we are done for the day. Put all the
gear up while I talk to your mother.” She walks over, sees her
other pupil, Xaqu, and gives her a hug.

“Your daughters are very gifted and are the
strongest telepathic students I have ever had. They are very smart,
and so I guess they take after their mother.”

“Perhaps, but I give them a lot of credit for
being their own selves.”

“I am sorry that I never got to work with
you, Eve. Empress Dracka wanted to work with you directly, and
besides, I think your abilities are far beyond anything I could
teach you.”

“Yes, Dracka is definitely an odd one to
figure out, but she is very knowledgeable when it comes to
telepathic abilities, though.”

“Your daughters have basic telepathic
communication abilities like all telepaths have along with some
telekinesis abilities. These are not as strong as yours are,
though. Xaqu can manipulate intelligent beings on a mass scale like
I have never seen before. She has mass chaos mind, mass charm, and
mass hallucination and fire attacks. In contrast, Chaca can control
the weather with a massive gust of wind and electrical and cold
attacks as well.”

“That is good to know. Thank you for working
with them and you’ve done a marvelous job.”

“Thanks for letting me work with them. Now,
they are done as far as what I can teach them.”

“I will stay in touch with you. You have been
a good mentor to them,” Eve smiles.

Chaca finishes putting her training materials
away, and then she joins her mother and her sisters.

“You did well today, Chaca, and I am very
proud of you,” Eve says with honesty. She gives Chaca a hug. Okay,
girls, wait in the limousine outside. I have to make a detour to
another room here to meet with someone. I will be up there in a
little bit. You can watch the vid for news or other programs until
I come up there and meet you. Just tell Henry to wait and I will be
there in a minute.”

The girls disappear and go upstairs and out
the front door where Henry is waiting and get into the limousine.
Eve goes up a few levels and gets off the airlift and starts
searching the halls try to find the temporary quarters. After
wandering around for a bit, she finds a hall with the sign above it
that says temporary quarters. She walks over to the front desk and
says, “Excuse me, is Capt. Zach Blem staying in one of these
rooms?”

The Android replies, “Let me check one
second…yes, I have him registered here.”

“Could you contact him for me and tell him
Eve is waiting at the front desk?”

“Sure, one second.” The Android presses a few
buttons: “Capt. Blem, there is a woman named Eve waiting for you.
Okay, I will tell her.” The Android disconnects and says, “He says
to go up to his room; he is in unit 43.” Eve nods and goes down a
few halls until she sees room 43 and knocks on the door. A few
moments later, Zach answers the door.

“Well, hello, Beautiful. What brings you to a
slimy dump like this?” Zach says with sarcasm.

Eve pushes inside the room and begins hugging
and kissing him. They have not seen each other in a couple months,
and she is making sure he knew it.

“How’s my stud been?” Eve says with
curiosity.

“I have been fine, Sweetheart. What have you
been up to?”

“Just boring merchant stuff, nothing
exciting.”

“Why do I doubt that. You just don’t want me
to worry. I think I might have been missing you too much. I thought
I saw an Android in the lobby who looked just like you. I must be
losing my mind,” Zach laughs.

“But, of course, my evil Androids were
getting ready to take over the universe,” Eve smiles and winks
while running her hand through his hair. If he only knew, she
thought to herself.

“Sit down for a minute. We need to have a
serious conversation.”

Zach could sense the mood changing, so he
went and sat next to Eve on the sofa.

“So it is up?” Zach inquired.

“I found that laboratory where I was created.
I went there and found some other discoveries that you might find
interesting because they have to do with you. I destroyed the
entire place after I obtained a few items. Remember when the
telepath police captured you?”

“Yes.”

“They took a sample of your blood, several
samples, as a matter of fact. They shipped them off to that secret
lab where they were doing experiments with telepathic DNA that had
high PSI ratings.”

“I do remember them taking blood samples and
never knew what they were for.”

“Well, they combined my DNA with your DNA and
created two half-breed girls—our daughters. They were doing
experiments on them that involved torturing them.”

“What…that is horrible…well, I don’t mean the
part about the daughters, I mean the torturing part. What happened
to them?”

“I saved them and they are with me. I only
found out yesterday that you were their father. They are very
intelligent and have extremely powerful telepathic abilities. They
also have other skills, for example, they are both good engineers.
Their names are Xaqu and Chaca. They are very well educated and
speak many languages. And you did see the Android who look like me
created by Xaqu. She has a gift for creating Androids.”

This was a lot for Zach to absorb all at one
time. He sat there motionless and not knowing how to react to this
news. Then there was a pause of deadly silence when no one
spoke.

“Well, that is a lot for me to absorb at
once. On the bright side, it appears that we can make babies, so
that means we get to play Doctor more often, right?” Zach says in a
humorous manner to break the tension that appeared to be building
up.

Eve laughed and said, “So you are okay with
this? They are 17 and 18 years old.”

“Of course, I am okay with it, why would not
I be? Two awesome daughters with the woman I love. I am just kind
of upset that we did not get to play Doctor to make them the
old-fashioned way…wink-wink, nudge-nudge.”

“You are so silly sometimes,” Eve giggles.
“There is more.”

“Oh my goodness, there is more?”

“Yes. There was a young female arachnid
warrior who was being experimented on in that laboratory as well.
They injected her with some of my PSI enzymes to see what would
happen to a non-telepath with a high dose of my enzymes. It had a
couple of unusual effects on her, and she survived only because of
her high regeneration ability that she got because they made her
undead.”

“Well, that is really creepy, as that place
sounds more like a dungeon than a laboratory. Is she okay? You
don’t see arachnids too often in this part of space.”

“She is fine; I adopted her as my daughter.
She is a very skilled warrior with weapons. She is my little space
cowboy. I was hoping you would accept her as she is.”

“Sounds intriguing for sure,” Zach states. “I
was going to wait to do this later, but now seems to be a more
appropriate time.” He pulls out a small box and opens it, and there
is an enormous ring made out of diamonds. “Eve, I love you, and I
want to marry you, no matter what.”

Eve was caught off guard, not expecting this
scenario in any fashion. A moment of silence took hold in the room.
Zach was getting worried that she was not responding in any
way.

“Yes, of course, I will, Darling.” Eve hugs
and kisses him. “Oh, I forgot our daughters are waiting out the
limousine. Need to go, are you coming?”

“Sure, let’s go. I want to meet my children,
even my adopted one.”

They collected themselves and went outside
and got in the limousine with the girls.

“Xaqu and Chaca, this is Zach Blem. He is
your father.”

They are both surprised. Eve could feel their
excitement. Even Zach could feel their excitement.

“My, my, I have such beautiful daughters and
never knew it. Your mother has said that you are smart as well. I
always knew that we would have beautiful children,” Zach says as
the girls blush.

“They are a little shy at first, but they
will grow on you. Speaking of shy, Gothica you can stop hiding now.
She is super-shy around new people.”

Gothica slowly appears and sits next to
Xaqu.

“Wow, invisibility, and super cool. I like
your orange hair, it’s neat. I guess instead of high-fives it will
be high-20s with you. I wish I had four arms, then I would get so
much more accomplished. You are a cute little arachnid,” Zach
remarks, trying to lighten the mood. They all giggle.

“Zach has asked me to marry him so all of you
will officially have a father,” Eve says with much joy.

Xaqu says, “Oh, that is fantastic. When is
the wedding, Mom?”

Chaca asks, “Can I be a bridesmaid?”

Gothica says, “I’ve never been to a wedding
this will be this fun. Can I bring my blasters or is that
inappropriate? A real father was something I have never had before
and I have always wanted one.”

“We will work all that stuff out later,
girls,” Eve assures them. “Henry, go to the house.”

After a short trip, they pull up in front of
Eve’s house. They all get out and start toward the door. Zach
notices a reflection from a shiny object out of the corner of his
eye. He turns his head and sees the end of a rifle protruding out
of the bushes next door. At that exact moment, the sniper fires as
Zach lunges forward to block the beam from hitting Eve while at the
same time yelling, “Ambush!”

Zach is hit in the side and knocked backward
into Henry, who was just closing the door of the limousine. In a
split second, laser fire was coming from all directions—too many to
count. The girls instantly put up force fields surrounding
themselves.

“Henry, get him in the car and get out of
here,” Eve yells out as heavily armored men come running around
both sides of the house and from across the street firing different
types of weapons at the four women. The force fields absorbs the
energy beams and make their shields stronger. Realizing the energy
beams are having no effect, the leader yells out, “Change to
projectile weapons!” The complete front side of Eve’s house has
huge blaster holes in it.

Eve sends out telepathic instructions to the
girls. Xaqu decides to make the mercenaries on the right side of
them her friends. Suddenly, all of them start firing at the other
men in front. She has mass charmed them. Chaca releases a huge cone
of dagger-shaped ice shards that fly straight at the large group of
men in front of them. The ice daggers slice through the armor they
are wearing as if they were butter. They scream in agony as they
fall to the ground.

On the left side, there are about 20 or so
mercenaries rushing from various positions and firing their
weapons. Henry got out of there with Zach, fortunately. Gothica
turns to the right and changes into arachnid form with her spider
legs sprouting out into the ground. She blankets the entire right
side with a gargantuan size web that encases most of the soldiers
who were advancing. She dodges the bullets from the few who were
left as she pulls out her blasters and fires back with all four
guns blazing.

Eve turns around when machine gun fire starts
coming from her rooftop. She sees men tossing explosives. She grabs
the devices in the midair with telepathy and sends the explosives
back to where they came from. A huge explosion rips up large
portions of the roof, causing it to collapse along with the men
standing on it.

Eve sees four armored hovercrafts coming in
their direction above the top of her home. Their twin-cylinder rail
guns are firing through her home at her and the girls.
Large-caliber bullets rip through the house as they fly over it
firing down at Eve’s location. Eve lifts her house from its
foundation and crashes it into two of the armored hovercrafts. The
entire mesh of hovercrafts and house parts gfall to the ground and
began sliding off the back side of the edge of the hill. As a ball
of flame crashes down to the bottom of the hill, it causes more
explosions.