Scarlet
“Pyrr, you don’t really want to stay back on Farseek while your company continues on the mission,” I said. “You were traumatized seeing me shot down. Believe me, it hurt like hell, and I don’t care to do that again. But, can we really stay on Farseek while so many of your people are enslaved?”
“No, probably not,” he admitted. “But, this is not the kind of life I want for us. Who knows how many years this could take? Don’t you want us to make our own family?”
“More than anything,” I told him. “I want to have children with you and watch them grow up together. Why don’t we stay stick with your company for a while and see what progress we make?”
The AI team from Dread One had uncovered several large groups of Farseekans in a cluster of systems on a circuitous route that would take us back to Farseek. Harper had told us Degatu and Maktu intended to fill the Kurellis as we made our way back to Farseek. It only made sense. Depending what we found along the way, they might only have resources for one pass.
So far, we had taken the Sargus Empire by surprise, it wouldn’t take long for them to find out who we were. We would need most of the Dreads for backup on Julconi. It would also take a lot of shuttle trips to get thirty-three hundred people off the planet, and those were just the Farseekans.
During the four days it took to get to the Sedak system, we kept busy taking the former slaves to sickbay to have their implants removed. The AI team couldn’t find a way to disable the implants before we pulled out of Teglia station. They had to disconnect from the station’s AI system when we left it to keep the Sargans from backtracking into our systems. Once disconnected they lost control of the implants, and once we left the station, they no longer had control either.
The Uatu were left in a stupor as if they were drugged. They could follow verbal commands and answer direct questions, but couldn’t quite function normally. However, with the removal of the implants, and an injection of nanites, they returned to normal within several hours. Within a day enough of the Farseekans had recovered to help bring others to have their implants removed. We even discovered a couple of trained medics among our rescues capable of performing the procedures to help. Even though the AI medic was highly efficient, he could only treat about six patients an hour.
The AI droid’s advantage was that it didn’t get tired and would work round the clock for several days without recharging. I was fascinated by how versatile it was. It really didn’t look all that human nor did it have legs. It also had four to six arms some of which retracted when not needed. Considering all the people were collecting, I was glad we had found some human medics among them. Even with three medics, we still only had about half the implants removed from our rescues.
It was heartwarming as they responded and found loved ones and friends among the groups from Teglia station. Most had few memories of their internment at Teglier Station, but some remembered the destruction on Farseek and being captured or seeing their loved ones killed. Those traumas would be addressed with therapies as we continued our journey that would eventually take us to Farseek.
The move to the Sedak system left the Sargans behind at least for the time being. Dreadnaught Seven was able to procure what they needed for repairs without the Sargans finding them, so they were able to make the rendezvous a day or so after we did.
While we maintained a large orbit around the gas giant, the two dreads on recon at Julconi reported back. They had been down on the planet to assess the situation there. The inmates who numbered in the millions pretty much ruled the planet outside the walled community where the slaves were held until they could be transported to the slave markets on other worlds.
The place was a fortress and had a full detachment of three hundred militaries guarding it. That worried me, but it didn’t worry the warriors. They wouldn’t be approaching from land, they would be approaching from the sky in the dead of night just like the mining colony with enough dreads in the sky for reinforcements.
Chatter over communications they’d intercepted seemed to indicate the Sargan’s had lost our trail. But the Farseek mercenaries didn’t let down their guard.
Four days after we arrived at Sedak, Pyrr and I shuttled back to Dread One with Harper, Nora, and her mate Sahvin. It felt like going home. I guess I started to think of it like that when I mated with Pyrr and moved in with him. It was like being back in the military in some ways, but strangely not as scary as driving through stretches where we could be hit with roadside bombs at any time.
We were freaking in space lightyears from Earth traveling on a mercenary dreadnaught, and I was happy to be back! We had a nice reunion with our friends at second meal in the mess hall, and I realized I was right where I belonged. I would always miss Billy, but I decided that a dog as good and smart as he was had to have found a new home. Maybe I would never see him again, but I had come to realize that my life had turned out for the better, so maybe Billy’s had too.
PYRR
Just after second meal, Commander Maktu commed me that he and Harper were hosting a little celebration in the main conference room for third meal. While our ground force was fighting the Sargan warriors at the docking bays, some of our other Dreads forces were liberating anything and everything, we might possibly use from spare parts and torpedoes to luxury food and drink. They also liberated goods we could trade or sell to finance our mission.
The first hour there were just eight of us, Harper’s friends and their mates. The official celebration that included everyone would start later with drinks and finger foods.
Our celebration was more personal. It seemed clear that this was something the commander was doing for Harper to celebrate with her friends. Scarlet said they would have called it a dinner party.
It had been half an Earth year since they had been taken from their world by slavers. Then the commander walked in like a superhero from one of Scarlet’s stories and took them away from all that. Each of them had a whirlwind courtship and were now mated to aliens whom they all loved beyond their wildest dreams.
We had not only changed their lives for the better, but they changed ours as well. Just like our mates, we had lost everything we had ever known. Our world was destroyed by treachery, and they were stolen from theirs by the same ones who stole our people. I can only think that fate brought us together to make us see there is still good in the universe.
The Farseek Mercenaries were more than capable of taking revenge against the Sargus Empire for what they did to our world. Every one of our dreadnaughts had weapons that could lay waste to whole planets just as the Sargans had done ours. That might yet be our course after we retrieve as many or our people as possible.
It had been clear to us from the beginning that expending our resources by destroying Sargan worlds in revenge would do nothing to free our people from slavery. The better course would be to free our people. That’s the course we have chosen.
While we were chatting over our meal and drinks, Harper offered a suggestion that made us all stop and think.
“What if, instead of trying to destroy the Sargan Empire from without, sow the seeds to destroy it from within,” Harper said.
“How would you do that?” Commander Maktu asked clearly interested.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe start a revolution? Give them a dream of something better that they’ve probably never had---freedom.”
“That’s a nice idea, but we’re warriors, not revolutionaries,” Maktu said.
“Aren’t you?” Nora said. “This quest we’re now on is a bit rebellious don’t you think? You told the Consortium to go fly and withdrew.”
“On Earth, we have countries that sound a lot like the Sargus Empire. Not everyone in them wants to live under their rule where it means they have no individual freedoms,” Scarlet said. “From the time we were kids, we were told that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was our right---that it was worth fighting for. Isn’t that what you all are doing in the name of the Farseek people?”
“In all the worlds they rule, there must be people who don’t agree with their control,” Harper said. “For a start, maybe just tell them your story or make a story about oppressed beings rising up to fight for their freedom. We have some stories we could tell.”
“Sure, we could do it in our spare time then you could have the AI team sneak it into their systems,” Scarlet said.
“I know the stories of your Revolution and Civil War,” Sahvin the Narovian. “They were inspiring.”
At that point, the Commander’s com beeped, and he tapped the device in his ear. “Yes, we’ve finished the meal. Now is as good a time as any.”
Scarlet and I had our backs to the entrance of the conference room. Maktu gave me a slight nod as the door opened and closed. Sahvin had found something unexpected in his travels around Tegliar Station. I had only learned of it just before our gathering, and the commander had sworn me to secrecy.
No one really paid attention as the door opened and closed. Droid carts had come and gone with each course of our meal from the mess hall. Harper and Maktu were facing that direction, and her reaction let me know it was that secret I had kept from Scarlet. Harper sucked in an excited gasp, and her eyes widened and lit with pleasure. I swiveled my chair and turned to look. It was a little white-furred animal with big brown eyes and a pink sash or something tied around its neck.
“Scarlet, look at that,” I told her and I couldn’t hold back a smile.
She turned her chair, and gasped, “Oh my God, oh God!”
“Not God,” Harper said, “Dog, Scarlet. It’s a D-O-G. Your dog.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she started to cry, as she got up and went to the forlorn little creature and squatted down to pick it up. “You sweet little baby, where in the galaxy did you come from?”
She picked the little dog up and rubbed her cheek against the top of its head. It immediately started licking the tears from her cheeks. Scarlet was laughing and crying at the same time. I loved to see her so surprised and happy with this funny looking little animal that Sahvin had found in an exotic pet shop at a vendors’ lane at a remote docking arm of the station. There had been six of the creatures, two adults, and four babies. He and Nora had collected them all and smuggled them onto the Kurellis.
While Scarlet was helping get people to sickbay, Sahvin took me to see what they had found. The little female that Scarlet was cooing over seemed to pick me, so I figured that was the one for her. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to get one for Scarlet. I had Harper to thank for talking the commander into letting us have it.
It just broke my heart for her when she would wake up from the dream about being ripped away from her dog, Billy. This little one wouldn’t replace him, but it might ease the pain of loss.
We were all looking at her when she turned around and faced us beaming with the little dog in her arms. “You all knew, didn’t you?”
I glanced around, and everyone was nodding. It was the main reason we set up this little gathering before the rest of the crew came in. I got up, went to Scarlet, and put my arms around her and the baby dog---puppy. She reached up to put her arm around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth. “I sure love you, warrior man!” she whispered.
So I kissed her again and whispered into her ear, “Wait until I get you back to our cabin…”
“Ooooh,” she gasped, “I guess this means I’m really going to get it!”
“It does,” I assured her. “And so am I.”
THE END