Defying The Alliance (Novokin Alliance Invasion 1) (9 page)

“The son of a Gulurian bitch! He sold us to the Novokin butchers! A
year
before the invasion. A whole year! If only we’d known. We could have prepared ourselves. We could’ve won. So many lives. So many. Dead.” I carefully took aim and incinerated another one of the sheeteck’s expensive furniture pieces with my plasma pistol. Some kind of antique handcrafted, Floturan, petrified hardwood, purple footstool or something. He sold his people out for a praking footstool. Skeck. I used to like purple.

“He did all that, just so his traitorous, puny ass could sit in a nice pracking, comfy chair with his feet up and call himself the prime minister,” I yelled into the air while blasting the stool’s matching chair.

“I mean, I knew the Senate was soft, a bunch of bureaucractic cowards with over inflated egos. But I never thought of them as backsliders and recreants. I never thought to doubt their patriotism, their commitment to protect the people of the Protectorate.”

I couldn't stop myself, blood throbbed in my temples as I took aim, shooting at random pieces of furniture around the room and kicking down modern sculptures. I was vaguely aware of Trex and Julie standing silently, somewhere near the door. I hoped.

"Not the entire Senate, Captain. The majority of them were killed during the second wave." Anya, as always, refused to hold a strict adherence to tact and timing. Staying in character, she had swept into the room and insinuated herself into my conversation.

“What do you want Chief?” I growled at her.

She sauntered around the debris like she was a model on the runway. She handed me a data pad. “Here is the quick inventory of the spoils. As you requested Captain,” I caught a note of pride and satisfaction in her voice. Her eyes sparkled, and she smacked her lips expectantly.

I held the data pad for a few seconds, struggling not to smash it against the wall. My fury was amped up to cataclysmic. No release. I clenched my fist and ground my teeth, before I handed her the pad back, unable to focus on anything, well anything but the lamp I just melted to slag. “Just give me the gist Chief. Was it worth the risk?”

“Captain, we hit a gold mine. We'll strip the plasma circuits and data wires from the walls if we have time. The water and reactor coolant gel is being drained as we speak and fuel cells are being disconnected, cooled and ferried back to the Razor. The armory has been emptied, and we scored enough Novokin rifles, phasers, and amunition to trade up for the good stuff.”

I was pretty sure my chief engineer hated the cheap, unreliable Novokin technology even more than she did the actual Novokins.

“We found two food resequencer's and one synthetic resequencer, for clothing and the like. Sexy over there can finally have himself some proper pants.” She licked her lips, tossing a lustful look toward the door.
Toward Trex?
I felt the rage starting to rise again.

Unable to form a cohesive sentence, I hoisted a heavy, metal, serving tray off a small nearby table and flung it at the glass of the bar in the far corner. The resounding symphony of the shattering glass barely scratched the sharp edges of my soul.

Anya held her ground. She didn’t wince. She didn’t recoil. Only her big eyes went wide with concern, when she asked, “Are you all right Captain?”

My abashment was beyond words. I prayed for the God of lightning, if such an entity existed to strike me dead. I’d never lost control like this before.

“I...I’m sorry Anya. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. And no, I’m not all right,” I admitted, my voice strained and my body trembled from the pure unbridled hatred festering in my chest. “But I will be. Carry on with the scavenging and...good work Chief,” I managed a twitch of my facial muscles in my attempt to a smile.

“Sure, no problem Captain,” she hesitated and stood there for a minute, worry etched in her pretty face, before she finally turned and started re-configuring the panel near the main exit door.

A small, gentle hand touched my shoulder and Julie spoke in a soft voice at my side, "You have his confession now Captain. He spoke in great detail about the plans he made with the Novokin Alliance, months before they entered your sector. He not only ensured that he and his family would be safely off planet, but they paid him handsomely and then set him up as the new Prime Minister."

I whirled on her, ready to release the fire of my rage. Elated to have a target. Instead, I was caught off guard by her calm demeanor and steady, open gaze. It was disarming. The girl was so young and she spoke in earnest. My fire fizzled out like a match in the Wind Caves of my home planet’s southern continent.

"She is correct, Captain." Trex chimed in. His voice was deep and husky, his hazel eyes penetrated my heart.

Him, I wanted to be pissed at, I just didn't know why.

"I know she's correct, but now what?” I snapped at him. As if all this had been his fault. Not fair, I know. But I couldn’t help myself. His mere presence simultaneously excited and infuriated me like nothing or no one else before.

“The Prime Minister may have admitted he colluded with the Novokin Alliance spies to destroy the Senate and undermined the Protectorate but who do we go to with this information Trex? Who do we tell, Julie?" I looked from the one to the other.

Jaxx's voice buzzed over the comm, almost as raw as my own. I'd forgotten the channel was still open. "We tell people that the majority of the Senate wasn't killed in the Novokin raid, we tell them, the truth. They were murdered by a traitor.

"We have the taped confession." Julie’s hopeful look flashed a spear of light piercing my darkened soul. I turned to her and squeezed her hand on my shoulder tightly. Tears threatened to spill over. I couldn’t have that. I had to be strong. My crew depended on me.

Then I felt the familiar caress of a large hand on the curve of my lower back and a familiar prickling sensation rode up and down my spine radiating to every part of my body.
And I mean every part.
My muscles relaxed and I leaned my head onto his impressive, golden chest. His arms folded around me into his sweet embrace, making me feel safe again as the rhythmic, slow beat of his heart coaxed mine to slow down and cool off. We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity. I breathed in his natural scent, a musky mix of summer with a hint of apples. He felt like home. I haven’t felt peace like that since my father died, since my family died. And just like that, the anger melted off me like a winter’s frost in the glow of the spring sunrise. I'd be angry later about them getting me unangry, but that was later.

I lifted my head looking first at the golden barbarian and then at Julie. "Thanks guys,” I beamed at both of them, taking a deep breath. “Really, thank you all so much for your support,” I said louder making sure to include both Jaxx and Anya. “But what we have is a confession under duress, during an act of piracy. The Alliance will spin this like a child's top."

Julie's eyes widened and her mouth fell open looking like she had just swallowed a Itaxian farting bug. She spun on both of us. "What about the Prime Minister's own personal files? The holo-recordings his aide mentioned during the second part of the interrogation. Apparently, his boss recorded all of his meetings, including his dealings with the Alliance’s advance scouts. We surely can use those."

Anya didn't bother to turn from the power coupling, she was in the process of dismantling, but was nice enough to grace us with her opinion anyway. "Those are on New Astoria honey, which is ground zero of the Novokin Alliance. It's their Central Command, if you will. There's no way an entire fleet of Protectorate Warbirds at their prime, let alone one Warbird with a handful of crew members, half of which are untrained refugees, are getting through."

Julie's shoulders sank. I pulled her to me, and squeezed her in my arms. I'm sure, it's because she needed a hug.

Jaxx piped up over the comm line again. "Then what are you going to do with the Prime Minister, Captain? Especially now that he knows, who you are and that you're out here. Plus, with the information you extracted, you're now an obvious threat to him and his position. Should we kill them? Kill them all? Blow up the ship?"

I shook my head, rubbing my aching temple. I knew it was my first officer’s hormones speaking. He'd never been a violent man. Quite the opposite really. He held life, all life sacred, above all else. But he posed a valid question. Everyone around me stopped working. Eyes on me, waiting for an answer. An answer, I didn't have.

"I don't know." I blurted, palms up.

My comm squawked again. I don't recall having this many conversations over an open channel, before I had to take my ship rogue.

"Captain, it looks like we've got a bigger problem on our hands. I'm reading six Alliance signatures, headed our way and fast," Jaxx’s frantic voice filled the prime minister’s now broken apartment.

The rapidly annexing tension stole everyone’s breath around me. The room went still and silent. After finding my own breath, I asked evenly, "How long?" and held it, once more.

"Less than three minutes, Captain."

"… continued travesties. We will not consent to be treated like this."

The pest’s squeaking voice was getting in his nerves. Captain Asmot gave a placid smile then signaled his communications officer to cut the audio.

The face on the view screen yelling and gesturing at him was from the moon his ship now orbited. It was markedly different than his own. The man's coloring was a deep cerulean blue, with a fine white quilting of what looked like feathers in place of hair. He was small and reminded Asmot the morning birds he and his fellow trainees used to take practice shots at behind the barracks as a youth.
Disgusting
.

Asmot had little time for other species. He was lucky enough to have been born and bred on the Novokin home world. While growing up he wasn't forced to suffer the impurity and low intellect of species of such substandard genetics. It wasn't until he joined the guard that he was confronted with the true depth of the ugliness, the universe had to offer. An ugliness that he was willing to rectify, if he was given the chance. If the decision were his. Unfortunately it was not. He was but one ship in the indomitable Novokin Alliance fleet. But his was a powerful ship, and his exemplary service and dedication to the Alliance allowed him a certain leeway to his actions.

The man on the screen had gone still, finally done with his frivolous rant. Asmot gestured to his communications officer to reengage the audio. "So let me make sure I understand what you're saying Magistrate Ohaka. You will not allow any Alliance ship to dock on your world until your demands are met?"

"Not...not demands Captain. Basic sentient being rights." The blue man bristled then let out a nervous squawk. He seemed taken aback by the captain's choice of words.

"So Magistrate, you're denying us access; a Novokin Alliance vessel to dock on a Novokin Annexed world." Asmot uttered the words in a low, deep tone, fixing his cold, flat eyes on his chosen victim. He meant to intimidate and terrorize while entrapping his prey, before he struck with precision and often lethal force. He lived for the thrill of the hunt. It made him feel powerful, in control.

The blue man now seemed confused. Sensing he had already lost somehow and yet unable to contemplate the magnitude of his misstep. "What would you do in our situation Captain?"

The audacity of this particular vermin attempting to plead with him further irritated Asmot.

"I'd fight," Asmot offered, hardly able to contain his excitement.

Stumbling over his words the man from the small moon below spoke. "Then that's what we’re doing here. I guess your request to land is denied? Captain Asmot?"

Asmot chuckled to himself,
This blue abomination didn't even have the fortitude to make a proper stand
. He tented his fingers in anticipation. His body started to tingle.

"Excellent." He sneered and turned to his crew to make sure that everything was ready. He wanted this executed with symphonic precision. He nodded and gestured commands to his bridge crew. He made sure to drag out each agonizing second, so that the last thing the blue skinned man on the moon below would hear was his single final command. Captain Asmot relaxed back into his chair, then threw a finger forward, pointing at the confused alien.

"Fire," he shouted letting all his abhorrence for this male and his species to finally show in his face.

During the entirety of his conversation with the feathered man, he had given command to his crew to seed the stratosphere of the moon with MagnesiumXeflate particles, mixed with a fine red Veridzium ore. The key concentration point of the particles in the stratosphere already targeted and locked, his ship fired a single torpedo high above the central city of the moon's surface.

The resulting explosion ignited the MagnesiumXeflate particles and was in a word, spectacular. Even more so, the resulting red fire that tore through the sky was Asmot's own personal signature. This dramatic flair had long ago earned him the nickname, Red Sky. Once the stratosphere was destroyed, the atmosphere of the moon would be pulled into space.

He slid back into his chair, as he watched red waves encircle the moon. It was much smaller than the worlds he usually destroyed, only about 22,000 inhabitants, if he could recall correctly. Within minutes it was merely a mass grave for 22,000 corpses. A twinge of sadness at the display being over tugged at him, until he remembered his special orders from the supreme commander. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"Helm, take us to sector 23. I believe we have a party to attend."