Come to Jesus Meting - Part 3
16 Jan 2018MMMMMalcolm
Okay Malcolm, if that’s the way you want to play it. It was bad enough you stopped sending the reports itemizing your financial activity. Now you’ve gone and made yourself a celebrity. This was the fifth Galnet article he had seen, not to mention the two holo-vid interviews. And if he had seen it, he was certain his superiors had seen it. He had just fallen out of hyperspace into the HIP 8758 system, when the decrypted message appeared on his comm panel.“Eliminate Ikem Abaez. He is more a liability than an asset. Bonus given for any associates he may have spoken to.” ACCEPT or DECLINE
He chuckled at the question; like he had a choice.
Flight control contacted him as he neared the station.
“Zorgon Heavy, Delta-Echo-Alpha-Tango-Hotel, this is an Imperial controlled station. Please submit all Royal Mandated requests before accessing this station.”
“Firsoff Orbital, request permission to land on pad X-ray Foxtrot, access code CHARLIE-One-UNIFORM-BRAVO”
“Standby Commander… Access granted. The Empire welcomes you Your Majesty. We are clearing all traffic for your approach.”
“Thank you. Please notify Colonel Gilbert of my arrival. Zorgon Out.”
The Fer De Lance landed on the private Ahaut Front pad. Col. Gilbert, Capt. Hines, and ten armed soldiers met the ship.
“Prince Lenze, what an honored surprise,” the colonel offered to the tall gentleman in the grey tailored suit. It would be an even greater surprise if he knew the Lenze family, minor royal family that they were, did not really exist. It was just another balanced creation that allowed The Club access to places they did not belong.
“Spare me the formalities Lieutenant.”
“Forgive my impertinence sir, but there’s no lieutenant here.”
“There is now. Colonel Hines, you are now the manager of the faction both here and the HIP 8444 system. I trust you will do a better job than your predecessor in choosing the company you keep.”
Hines shot a quick glance at Gilbert before answering. “Without question sir.”
“Good.” The “Prince” turned back to Gilbert. “Lieutenant, Colonel Hines and I will personally supervise as you apprehend the spy and his accomplice you have housed in your midst.”
“Spy sir? What sp…”
“Don’t make things worse by lying Lieutenant. Ikem Abaez and Crystal Cross are known criminals against the Crown. The fact that you have housed them and allowed them to undermine the stability of a loyal Imperial system, you should be grateful I don’t have you executed for treason. Something I may do if you continue to waste my time.”
Gilbert was stunned. He took pride in gathering rare intel on those he did business with. For instance, this pompous wind bag that had the nerve to demote and threaten him was only a prince by marriage to some very distant cousin to Emperor Arissa Lavigny on her mom’s side. Little good it did him now. But how did he miss the intel on Abaez? Other than his Federation heritage, there were no records of his involvement in any anti-Imperial activity. He planned to find out what was really going on. He spun away from Lenze and addressed what used to be his personal guard.
“Squad, to me!” He barked, and led the way to the guest wing. Colonel Hines and Prince Lenze trailed the armed procession.
That was fast, I thought. But there was no mistaking the voice I heard over the stations hacked communications network. It easily woke me from my sleep because I was never relaxed around him. It was 0500 hours. I woke Kay.
“Huh?” she mumbled as she rolled away from me.
“He’s here,” I said, shaking her again. “Hurry, we don’t have much time.”
She shot upright in the bed, and then we both scrambled to get dressed and exit the suite. It would be close but we calculated the time and mapped out the route back to Warm Embrace the same day we moved into Ahaut Front headquarters. We knew this day would come.
After we dressed, Kay grabbed our gear and kept watch on the hall. I positioned the wireless micro-dot cameras and the body doubles I asked her to get. Certain all was as good as time would allow, I closed and locked the door to the bedroom. I prayed they didn’t just come in shooting and it bought us a couple extra seconds. We left the suite, turned right toward the service elevator that led straight to the more menial areas of the station like the docks, and thanked the Empire for their vain dependence on slaves.
As soon as we boarded the ship, Kay began flight checks and requesting approval to exit the station. I jumped back on the black-market Galnet computer and brought up the camera feeds. There he was as calm as ever; confident as ever. I wanted to finally show Kay who had been tormenting me all these years, but she was busy sliding the huge ship through a tiny slot. I stared at the screen. Everything, like his suits, carefully chosen, carefully manipulated so nothing was out of place. Well that was all about to change.
The squad was already past the main door of the suite. They were approaching the bedroom door, when he and Captain Hines walked through the main door. Funny, why was Colonel Gibert personally directing the armed detail instead of the captain? I didn’t dwell too long on the thought. When the detail got through the bedroom door, and everyone’s gun including his was pointed at us, I keyed in the final command sequence.
The squad had surrounded the queen sized bed and aimed all ten of their repeater rifles at the sleeping forms. Lenze strode into the room. He drew a blaster from inside his suit and aimed it at the pair.
“Wake up Malcolm!” He yelled. Glbert and Hines exchanged puzzled looks before staring at Lenze. “I told you my visit would not be pleasant. You’re not going to die in your sleep. I want you to experience this. Wake up!”
The stirring from the bedding was expected. What was strange was the mechanical whine that preceded the movement. Suddenly two androids, a male and a female popped out of the covers with paper notes attached to their foreheads. Someone shot the female android before they could stop themselves. The words “Consider This” were pinned to the female android and “My Retirement” were pinned to the male. By the time Lenze had read them and recognized what they meant, a big flash erased the message and everyone in the room from memory.
I didn’t look away from the screen until the feed went black. Then I asked Kay to turn the ship so I could see the station through the canopy. I promised her I would set the plasma bomb so no one outside the suite would get hurt. For the secondary charge I set in the maintenance panel below the private pad, I offered no such promises. It was timed to go off five minutes after the main blast. In the unlikely event he escaped the first blast, he had enough time to run back to his ship, but not enough time take off. I set the device to destroy not only the pad but the core power plant of any ship sitting on the pad. Hopefully, everyone would be running away from the pad and toward survivors of the first blast by then.
As the ship turned and the station came into view, I could see a large blue flame erupt from the location of Ahaut Front’s headquarters. A couple emergency vessels and a system security vessel flew toward the burning pad. No other ship left the area.
I turned to Kay and just stared at her. For the first time in a long time I could go where I wanted, do what I wanted and I didn’t have a clue what to do. She asked the question I couldn’t answer.
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Surprise me. Just make sure we’re far away from here.”