Galaxy of Empires- Merchant Wars Episode #1 (9 page)

“Ma’am, someone is here from the Consortium
consulate and has requested your presence at the consulate to have
a meeting with their administration.”

“Okay, Henry, tell them we will be there
within 30 minutes.”

“Excellent, ma’am.” Henry walks down the hall
back to the front door and tells the representative the lady will
be there within 30 minutes. The Android leaves. Just as Henry
begins to walk down the hall again, he sees Eve emerge from her
room.

She says, “Bring the hovercraft around the
front. I need to get the girls up and dressed.”

“Excellent, ma’am.” Henry disappears outside
and goes to the garage. Eve goes to the back part of the house and
wakes up the girls and tells them to get dressed as they are
leaving in 10 minutes. After a few minutes, the group of four women
emerges out of the front door and climbs into the hovercraft
waiting for them. After a quick 10-minute flight downtown, they
come up to the Consortium consulate and land at the drop-off point
at the front gate. Henry pulls the hovercraft around to where the
other limousine drivers are waiting at the consulate. The four
women go through the main entrance after being scanned for weapons.
They continue through the courtyard into the main building. They
see androids all over the place, some of them working as employees
and some trying to get different types of documents from the
government.

“That is a whole lot of Androids, but the
Consortium has about 20 billion citizens, I’d guess,” Eve remarks
to her daughters. They take a number and sit down among the
hundreds of androids and other people trying to get service. A few
minutes later, an Android comes up to Eve.

“Lady Noctu, you do not have to wait here.
Please come with me. The Creator is expecting you. Follow me.”

Eve thought to herself,
who
is the Creator?
They got up and followed the Android down a
few halls and onto an airlift that was going down. Eve notes that
the airlift has no floor buttons on it and thought this is very
odd. After descending downward for several minutes, the airlift
stops and opens up. They get out and turn left and go down the long
hallway. In this hallway, there are soldier Androids walking
through the corridors and posted at each of the doors. A big sign
on the wall indicates the restricted area in several languages.

They walk down to the end of the hall and
take a right. Then they go down another long hall and take a left.
The door opens up into a large grand hallway with two big doors at
the end. The grand hallway is lined with soldier Androids who are
heavily armed. They go down to the end of the hall and the two
large doors open slowly and they walk inside a vast chamber that
has the Consortium symbol in the middle of the floor. The chamber
is empty of people but does have pictures of various places and a
huge vid screen that covers most of the north wall in front of
them.

“Wait here,” the Androids instruct and then
leaves the room in the same manner that they came in. After the
Androids leaves, there is a pause of silence. A couple minutes
later, two big glowing eyes appear on the screen.

“Greetings, Evella Noctu,” an ominous voice
says with a slight echo ringing. “Thank you for coming as we have
much to discuss you and I. I am Dracabardillous, created and leader
of the Machine People or better known as the Consortium.”

“Yes, I believe we have met before. You
contacted me.”

“Indeed I did.”

“What are you doing here in this place. This
is just a consulate.”

“I am in many places all over the universe at
the same time—multitasking, if you will. Consortium space is vast
and extends to many regions and galaxies. Thousands of worlds have
our citizenry. It might be hard for you to understand this concept.
I am an energy being with different limitations than what you can
probably comprehend.”

“I see. What do you want from me? I am just a
mere mortal woman.”

“On the contrary, you are not simple at all.
In fact, that is why you are here speaking to me now. You and your
daughters will play a fundamental role in bringing this region of
space under control and unified as one entity. That is one of the
reasons I saved your daughters.”

“Um, I think you’ve got me mixed up with
someone else. I am not a hero by any stretch of the imagination.
And what you are talking about is a little above my ambitions in
life or should I say way above my goals in life.”

“The hero is not what is needed to
consolidate the intelligent life forms in this region of space. A
leader is needed who would be willing to make the tough decisions
with wisdom and not heart. Deciding to sacrifice thousands to save
millions or millions to save billions, and not everyone can make
these types of decisions. Sometimes things need to be done that are
not ethically correct but the ends justify the means.”

“Well, I am not following you, as this seems
to be above my head.”

“To put it in terms that you can understand,
you are the only one in this region who can conquer or persuade all
of the empires in this area of space to become under one rule, your
rule.”

“Whoa…back up there, buddy. I know you’ve got
the wrong person now. I definitely do not want to be some Grand
Empress over the galaxy. I can just imagine all of the enemies I
would have trying to kill me on an hourly basis. I think I will
pass.”

“You already possess great personal power; it
is highly unlikely that anyone knowing this would challenge you.
You do not need armies to get what you want. You just need
intelligence, wisdom, and tactics. You have the intelligence
already, and I can help you with wisdom and tactics. I will also
educate your daughters and teach them many languages, history,
science, mathematics, politics and how to use their telepathic
abilities on a master level. I can show you what powers you possess
and how to use them skillfully. We have technology that can
accelerate the education process.”

“That sounds intriguing, but why are you
doing this? With your vast military and your personal power, you
can quickly consolidate this area of space.”

“Unfortunately my resources are being used in
other galaxies far away from here against invaders who are vastly
more powerful than anything you can imagine—even I have limits.
This is why I chose you to help with this. There will be a time in
the future where invaders such as the ones I am fighting now in
another part of the universe will come here. This region must be
prepared for that day by being unified as one instead of several
squabbling empires fighting against each other as they are
now.”

“Hum…that sounds very scary. Very well, let
us proceed then. About this educational technology, how fast does
it work exactly or should I say how does it work?”

“Works similar to the computer to download
information into your brain and sections at a time will take about
30 days. I will also show you how the telepathic concepts that you
will learn are used in practical applications. Also, I have four
special telepathic suits created for each of you that will graft to
your body. They are thin and lightweight pieces. They absorb
magical and energy attacks and convert them into PSI energy. The
more you are attacked, the stronger you get, and the more powerful
your telepathic abilities are. You will not need to activate
devices for shields any longer, as you can generate your own PSI
shield from mere thought. The more PSI energy you have, the
stronger the force shield becomes. These suits will help you
achieve your goals. This is the best I can do for you under the
circumstances.”

“That will be adequate and thank you for your
help. I can hear your thoughts. Thirty days that will be fine.
Okay, girls, follow me to the educational room. We are going to be
there for a while.” They leave the room and go to a different level
where there are a bunch of chairs and a large chamber with wires
connecting to a huge headset. They sit in the chairs, put the
helmets on, and lay back. The helmets activate and start the
education modules.

***

Over a month passes by as Eve and her
daughters learn many things during this period. They also practice
many of the skills they have discovered that they possess.

“Yes, most impressive indeed, Lady Eve.
Gothica is the finest example of an arachnid warrior I have ever
had the pleasure of training. Most warriors master one or two
weapons during their lifetime and she has mastered three,” Weapons
Master Jazrath says as they both stand watching Gothica practice on
the weapons range.

“That is awesome,” Eve says with
enthusiasm.

Jazrath yells out, “Show your mother what you
can do, Gothica.” The Weapons Master is a male arachnid transported
here by the Consortium to train Gothica. She runs through some
moving targets and whips out her four swords and slashes the
objectives with blinding speed and accuracy.

“Excellent,” Eve shouts and claps in
approval.

Next, the arachnid hurls several throwing
daggers from a bandolier of daggers into several targets with
pinpoint precision. Both of the observers clap vigorously. Then she
moves down to the rifle and hand blaster range. The range activates
and five targets that shoot up in the sky. Gothica quick draws four
hand blasters out of their holsters and rapidly fires all of them,
easily dispatching all five targets, then twirls her blasters and
shoving them back in their holsters. She winks at her mother in
rodeo fashion.

“Ha-ha, you show-off. You just need a cowboy
hat now!” Eve teases. All three of them laugh. An Android comes on
the practice field and walks over to Eve in an efficient manner. It
was one of the educational instructor Androids working with her
other two daughters.

“Greetings, Lady Eve. I am here to give you
the progress report you requested. Xaqu has shown an extremely high
aptitude for engineering, most notably in weapons design. Chaca,
oddly enough, also has a great skill in engineering. She has very
impressive designs for starships. They both can speak Arachnid,
Elemental, Wolfkin, Reptilian, and Katin at a master level. They
scored very high on the IQ tests, just as you did. One other thing
we discovered is who their father is—if you want to know.”

“Yes, I want to know.”

“The lab use DNA extracted from Capt. Zach
Blem when he was in captivity.”

Eve was surprised by this news and was unsure
how to react to it. He probably has no idea he has two daughters,
but was he going accept them, as they were, mutant experiments?

“Where is Capt. Blem currently?”

“He came in this morning from the Consortium
home world. Right now, he is at the consulate in our temporary
lodging.”

“Thank you for your information.”

“No problem, my lady, good day.” The Android
walks off and disappears into a hovercraft waiting for him on the
other side of the field.

“Is she about done for today?”

“Yes, this is her last day with me, I cannot
teach her any more than she has learned,” the Weapon Master says,
with a hint of sadness.

“Don’t worry. We will stay in contact with
you. She doesn’t have a lot of arachnid friends.”

“Yes, I look forward to talking to her again.
Here she comes.”

“So I guess we are done for today?”

“Yes, this is your last day, so make sure you
keep in contact with me, young lady. I want to hear about all of
your adventures. I am an old person who does not get out much.
Contact me whenever you get to the arachnid space. We will go out
and do some shooting or something.”

“Oh yes, definitely, and thank you for all of
your help and I would never have done this well on my own,” Gothica
says and leans over and hugs the Weapons Master.

Eve says, “Okay, Hun, lets go.”

As they depart from the field, they see Henry
waiting with their limousine. They climb into the limousine and
dart off into the distance toward the consulate. After a short
flight, they get out and go inside the consulate. The consulate is
busy, as a lot of travelers are going in and out. The pair goes
down to the lower levels to check up on Xaqu and Chaca.

After searching for a few minutes, they find
Xaqu in a room that appears to be an assembly area for Androids or
is perhaps a maintenance bay. There are two other Androids in there
with her. They are standing and looking at what she has
created.

Eve and Gothica go over to see what all the
commotion is about. As they walk up, they see a sleek, shiny chrome
female Android who looks very similar to Eve.

“She looks like me!” Eve says with
amazement.

“Yes, Mother. I was working on a new Android
design and I decided to make it look like you. Doesn’t it looked
neat?”

One of the Androids says, “Your daughter is
very talented not just with weapon design but with Android design
as well. I believe this is the most advanced Android that has ever
been constructed to date. She took the concept of the suits that we
designed for you to wear and altered it to create a material that
absorbs cosmic radiation such as solar power and converts it into
energy that can recharge an Android’s battery. With this new
exoskeleton, an Android can run indefinitely without ever having to
recharge. Your daughter’s grasp of chemistry and electronics is
astounding.”

“I am so proud of you, daughter,” Eve says
and hugs her tightly.

“You are just about to turn it on to see if
it works…knock on wood,” Xaqu says, nervously hoping not to fail in
front of her mother. “Here we go.” She flips on the switch in the
back of the neck. There is some noise inside of the Android and it
appears to be active. Suddenly, the eyes began to glow as a large
bolt of energy arcs from the computer they are standing next to
hits the Android.

“Hmm…very interesting design,” Draca says
with intrigue. “Sorry for hijacking your Android, as I have been
observing your progression and was curious as to how it turned out.
I was looking at the schematics yesterday and wondered how the
practical application would function. You have done very well,
Xaqu. You have created a next-generation Android with this design
and my citizens are in your debt. It is only appropriate that we
call this the Xaqu model. I would like to use this prototype model
for myself, if you do not mind—unless your mother objects, as after
all it might make her feel uncomfortable having a metallic Eve
walking around.”