Galaxy of Empires- Merchant Wars Episode #1 (7 page)

“Patience, my pretties. Not that one, but
there is probably one on the ship that you can eat so just wait,”
Eve assures her daughters. She sees the intruders go down the other
hall.

“Let’s go,” Eve whispers. They pile into the
airlock and go across. When they emerge on the other side, there is
a human male about 25 years old standing in robes and guarding the
door. The young sorcerer, probably an apprentice, is caught off
guard, but before he can react the daughters have plunged their
claw hands into his chest and back. They began to suck his life
force out of him in a frenzy. His face and body shrivel up like a
dried prune as the girls snap him into two pieces in the same
fashion as dogs fighting over food. The others freak out over what
they just witnessed. They back away from them in fear. Eve feels
the satisfaction her daughters felt.

“It’s okay guys. They only eat sorcerers and
undead, so relax. They are just as hungry as we are, and they just
eat different food. Let us move,” Eve states as she de-attaches the
airlock bridge. She then destroys the controls so they cannot be
activated again.

“Here is an access panel. I am plugging into
the computer, getting the maps for the ship, and um…this is a
prison ship: 16 prisoners and 14 crew. Seven are on the other
vessel, and four flight crew and two others are still here,
considering we just killed one,” 42 says.

“Let’s go up to the bridge first and get
control before they figure out they have been duped.”

They head up to the bridge. Upon entering the
bridge, the flight crew figures out something is wrong but it is
too late. Eve grabs all five of them using telekinesis.

“Bind them. Gartooth, Pura, and Doc, find the
last one. 42, figure out how to fly this thing. Helma and Nelma,
take navigation and helm stations,” Eve commands quickly.

“I am linked with the ship computers.
Fortunately, they did not have time to lock us out. I am changing
all the command codes to ones that only we know. We have complete
control of the ship now.”

“Good. Back us away from the other ship, and
blow our ship up using their weapons.”

“Roger that,” 42 says.

Helma moves the ship away and fires all
weapons at the other ship. The ship is destroyed.

“Plot a course back to Reptilian space and
let us get out of here.”

Nelma says, “Plotted.”

Rulu says, “Jumping to light speed now.
Should be home in 14 days.”

Downstairs on the cell levels, Gartooth’s
party sees some cells with prisoners in them and then spots a human
guard who bolts down some stairs at the other end of the hallway.
They begin to chase after him. They go down a couple of flights of
stairs to the bottom level and then an alert begins blaring.

“Danger! Prisoner escape! Isolation cell
red!” The message continues to cycle over and over again.

Gartooth goes down the corridor with the
others following behind him. They come down to two doors at a ‘T’
intersection. One door is red and one yellow.

“Special cells that look like they are
magical. And that peckerwood we are chasing decided to let
something out,” Gartooth presses his com badge and says, “Boss, the
dude we were chasing let something mean and nasty out of a special
cell down on the bottom level.”

42 replies, “Looking it up on the prisoner
roster. Says ‘Classified, level one clearance needed to access.’
Sorry, can’t help you.”

“Bah.”

“Um, I think I know what was in that cell,”
Doc says peeking down the other hall. The others come and look as
well.

“Yeh…I am pretty sure it is an arachnid.”

“You think?” Gartooth stares down a hall
filled with huge spider webs. “I hate arachnids. Haha, looks like
we don’t worry about that human.” As he knocks on the humanoid
cocoon in the center of the webs, he also notices that a corpse has
been sucked dry.

“Yeh, the webs harden when contact is made—a
silicon-based material. Keeps the food fresh until the arachnid is
hungry,” Doc says.

“I could have gone all day without picturing
that in my head,” Pura says with a queasy stomach.

“There are two types of arachnids: sorcerers
and warriors. Sorcerers cast webs to catch food, and warriors can
go invisible at will and enchant weapons like swords and then track
down and kill their prey. It appears this one is a sorcerer, I will
inform the Captain,” Doc states. She presses her com badge.

“It appears we have a sorcerer arachnid
running loose down here, Captain.”

“Okay. I am on my way, so wait there.”
Minutes later, Eve appears at Gartooth’s location.

“The ship’s diagram shows a cargo area down
this corridor and to the left. Let us proceed with caution.” They
to go down the hall and turn to the left and creep through the door
that leads into a large cargo chamber. It is filled with huge webs
that cover the entire cargo bay. The party is standing there in
astonishment at the size and density of these webs.

“I sense something, but it is not magical,
not a sorcerer. It is a familiar presence telepathic in nature. Not
picking anything up on sensors with these hand-held devices, but I
feel it,” Eve whispers quietly. She goes into the cargo bay slowly
and cautiously.

“I know you’re in here, as I feel you. I
sense your fear. I am not here to harm you. I feel your pain,” she
says transmitting a telepathic message. She receives images of an
arachnid in a laboratory being tortured and experimented on in a
horrific manner.

“42, recall that lab data from your memory
banks and do a search for arachnid experiments,” Eve says.

“Yes, Boss,” he says using his com badge.
“Yes, it appears they captured a young female arachnid warrior and
did many experiments on it. They made it undead and used its
physiology as a baseline for the disease that was created to
destroy the undead. They also injected PSI enzymes from your DNA
sample to see what would happen to a non-telepath. The creature is
immune to the undead disease but is still a carrier. The PSI
injections had some unusual effects on the arachnid, such as being
able cast webs like a sorcerer arachnid. The eyes were altered as
well. The subject has the ability the fire energy beams from its
eyes that cause catastrophic damage as well as area-of-effect
knockback to things that are close to the target. Her eye beams are
similar to the main cannon on a battleship. An eye device was
created to modulate and control this effect and placed on the
creature. I would advise proceeding with caution as this ship was
not designed to take hits from a battleship cannon.”

“Understood,” Eve, acknowledges.

“Geez, you gotta to be kidding me—freaking
laser beam eyes?” Gartooth says with concern as he and the rest of
the party back out of the room in fear. Eve has the same concerns
but stands there in the middle of the cargo bay in the midst of all
the webbing. She switches her sensor scanner to translator mode and
a setting for reptilian-arachnid.

“I know that you are hurt and scared. We have
captured this ship, and the people who did this to you have been
captured or destroyed. The laboratory that you were in was also
destroyed. We are here to help you, not to harm you. Please trust
me. I can remove the control collar around your neck, but I cannot
do it unless I can see you,” Eve reassures. “The sorcerer with the
controller for your collar has been destroyed as well.”

A bluish-purple arachnid appears, hanging
from the ceiling webs. She has a human female’s torso with black
spider legs and a large red hourglass on her stomach. She is
wearing a visor over her eyes and has a control collar around the
neck. She also has short bright orange hair on her head with
matching orange lips with protruding fangs.

“There you are…you are so pretty,” Eve says
as she unlocks the collar, and lets it fall to the ground. “Come
down here and let me get a look at you.” The spider slowly comes
down the webs and moves toward Eve. Eve gestures with her hands to
come forward. She could still feel the fear coming from this poorly
treated creature. Eve walks up to the arachnid.

“You are truly beautiful. What is your name?”
Eve asks.

“Gothica,” she replies.

“That is a good name for an arachnid. I like
your hair,” Eve says, running her fingers through the short orange
hair. Eve could feel the fear dissipating somewhat from
Gothica.

“I want you to meet some friends of mine.
They are little scared of you, but it is okay.” Eve gestures for
the rest of the group to come inside. The doctor comes inside and
the others follow shortly at a slower pace—not too thrilled about
meeting in arachnid.

“My name is Doctor Farshe Mezeenabark, but
calling me ‘Doc’ is okay. Pleased to meet you, Gothica. I never
actually met one of your race. Are you hurt in any way?”

Gothica hears the word doctor and suddenly
fear takes over.

“Gothica, Doc is not like those people in
that laboratory. She is not going to harm you. She actually keeps
me and the crew from getting sick or hurt. She just wants to make
sure you are okay. This is Gartooth and Pura.”

“Um, high. Can I go to the bridge and check
on the prisoners?” Gartooth says, just looking for any reason to
leave.

“Sure,” Eve frowns at Gartooth.

“Hi, there, I think you’re an adorable
spider-person,” Pura says with a wink. She notices Gothica looking
at her jewelry. “Oh, you must like jewelry? Here, take this
necklace as it matches your hair.” She offers her the necklace.
Gothica hesitantly accepts the gift. Pura helps her put it on.

“Pura, stay with Gothica for a bit, if you
don’t mind. I need to get back up to the bridge,” Eve says. “Doc,
come on.”

“Sure, I think we will get along just fine,
cat and spider—we are both predators, ha-ha. Besides, I want to
paint her nails orange to match her hair. I wish I had four
arms—that is so cool,” Pura says, getting out her nail kit. “I
never leave home without it,” she giggles. Gothica feeling a lot
more comfortable and begins laughing with Pura as she begins
painting the nails of one of her four hands.

As Eve and the Doc walk up to the bridge, Eve
says, “Just remember that she was in a laboratory being
experimented on so lay off the poking and prodding if all possible.
I know you are curious just like all doctors are, but around her
you are probably going to have to explain everything that you do,
including touching her or poking or whatever. The poor creature has
been tortured enough.”

“I know. I’m just exciting about having an
arachnid on board, even though she is undead. I do not think she
really understands what being undead means. Everyone is going to
hate her. Being an arachnid is hard enough. What about your two
daughters? They are worried about being around an undead, are they?
A word of caution, this particular undead is not one that your
daughters would want to feed off of as it will probably kill them.
Just make sure they understand that. This is a mutant undead. Also,
I noticed she still has many injuries; she will need to feed on
live subjects to heal all of the damage that was done to her. She
is probably not susceptible to ultraviolet light like the regular
undead are.”

“I will inform my daughters when I get up to
the bridge.”

As they continue down the corridor and walk
into the bridge, she sees the five prisoners bound up and sitting
on the floor.

“Take the prisoners down to the cargo bay,
Gartooth.”

“You mean down where the….?”

“There is more space,” Eve interrupts, “One
at a time.”

“Yes, Boss.” He does not like this
assignment.

Eve says telepathically to Gothica, “Gartooth
is bringing some food for you. They are some of the people who
captured you.”

When Gartooth brings the first one down into
the cargo room, the prisoner begins to scream when she sees the
arachnid. Gartooth tosses the human female into the webs and exits
the room to get the next one.

Gothica sees the prisoner and scurries over
to the struggling prey. She wants to feed but hesitates and turns
around to Pura.

“Whatcha waiting for? I don’t mind. Eat and
remember I am a cat and we cats eat the same way. There is nothing
to be ashamed of” Pura reassures her.

“I am not used to eating in front of people,”
Gothica says. The human is screaming in terror by this time.

“Go ahead.”

After hoisting the body up with her four
arms, the arachnid plunges her fangs into the human. The body goes
limp after a few minutes, and Gothica feels much better as her
wounds heal.

“I feel much better now. I guess I will wrap
the others up in a cocoon and eat them later.”

“Yeah, after I eat, I just feel sleepy. Come
back over here and let us finish painting your nails. They will
look so cool, and they going to match your hair.” They both
giggle.

Back on the bridge, everyone is feeling more
at ease now that they are on the way home. Everyone is eating food
from the galley.

“We have plenty of food for us, but I am not
sure were going to have enough food for all those prisoners,” Doc
says, trying to calculate food consumption.

“Let us get rid of some of the prisoners
then. Pull up the prisoner roster and see what we got,” Eve says
unconcerned.

42 pulls up the list on the main vid
screen.

“Looks like we have 16 prisoners. Eight are
telepaths on charges of being a telepath. Four are captured
telepaths or collaborators. One is a political prisoner. Three are
just psycho serial killers who need to be killed.”

“Keep the telepaths and the collaborators
alive. That has to be the most stupid law I ever heard of: Being a
criminal just because you are a telepath. I mean, seriously, that
is retarded. We will let the telepaths and the collaborators off at
home world. Do you have enough food to include the political
prisoner?”