CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SAHVIN
Nora and I savored our reunion into the night, such an enchanting way to delay telling her of my injury on the job. I didn’t want to tell her at all because I knew it would only upset her. I hoped she would take it better after I made love to her at length. But the only reason I ever needed to make love to her was meomee. She is mine.
“How did it go, down there, Sahv?” she asked much later in the wee hours. “I heard there was a skirmish.”
“There was, and I took a hit with an armor piercer… In my left shoulder blade and I fell down the embankment. My suit and the nanites healed me by the next day.” I admitted.
“Oh, God!” she gasped. “You could have been killed.”
“Not that easily,” I assured her. “That’s why we wear the suits. We surely didn’t expect inmates to have armor piercing weapons. Even those can’t entirely pierce our armor. It hurt a lot when it happened, but I’m okay now.”
She grinned at me, and I was relieved. “Oh, you are more than okay, meomee. You are fantastic.” She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her body against mine, kissing my neck and nibbling my earlobe.
Needless to say, we didn’t get out of bed until late morning as it was our day off.
Command decided to send the Kurellis on to Farseek with a two-dread escort once they got the final tally of 9757 people aboard plus the crew. Our next target for rescue had over 2000 people. They didn’t want to wait for the Kurellis to make the round trip of six months to get those people out of bondage.
The only thing for us to do was find another ship to steal. Actually, we were going to steal another ship to transport our teams in to take possession of the transport. After the theft of the Kurellis, the com operators intercepted chatter over Empire frequencies that they had identified the mercenary ships in connection with the theft. They were sending notices out that we were all wanted for piracy, which was no great surprise.
The Sargan military caught us in the act. But the small force they sent to Tegliar Station was no match for us. We kicked them where it counted and took off with the goods.
After we got away from Julconi two dreads struck out to locate the ships we would need to complete the next part of our mission. Dread Five found a small freighter docked into Falcola Station to be serviced and leave off supplies for the station. Dread Five dropped into the system just long enough to launch one of their shuttles carrying the team assigned to liberate the freighter while it’s crew was recreating on the station.
Dread Five went on past the station to hang out on the back side of a small planet on the edge of the system to pick up their shuttle and escort the liberated ship to the next rendezvous point. Meanwhile Dread Eight headed to the Nadoo system where 2000 Uatu had been sent to work the massive farm complexes there.
Instead of using machines to do the back-breaking work of crop farming and tissue farms, they used slave labor to plant and harvest crops and raise livestock for food. The machinery they did use was reminiscent of that used on Earth. All of it required humanoid operators. But there weren’t even enough of those machines to go around. Much of the planting and reaping was done with hoes and sickles by hand.
I couldn’t figure the sense of it. Why would a society support their economy with slave labor? It couldn’t be cost effective. On the other hand, it was easier to keep the people subjugated under their totalitarian regime. They didn’t have resources or time to organize a rebellion. There was too much to do just to survive.
It wouldn’t get any easier when we took back their Farseekan slaves. Then the Sargans would have to plant and reap their own crops. Commander Maktu and Admiral Degatu polled the crews of all the dreads to see if they wanted to accept defectors from the worlds where we rescued the slaves. The majority agreed since Nadoo was not a member of the Sargus Empire by choice.
Admiral Degatu introduced Argen Trametu at the post-mission debriefing---Lieutenant Commander Trametu a Dreadnaught pilot who was certified on several classes of starships and shuttles. He had been at Farseek on leave when the Sargans attacked. He was strolling through the farmers market with his mother. They were knocked unconscious by a blast and scooped up in the aftermath.
Trametu had no idea what happened to his mother. None of the Sargans could or would tell him what happened to her. He had ended up a prisoner on Julconi for “crimes against the Empire.” He was trying to start a revolt. One of the advanced team had recognized him as a Uatu and invited him to rejoin the Brigade.
He said that was a fortuitous day for him because he not only got the opportunity to escape the hell hole of the prison but also found his solmatu, Zoe Addison.
I found him reasonably likable, a good thing since it seemed Nora’s good friend was considering accepting him as her mate. Nora said she was pretty sure Zoe would, because of the way she looked when she talked about him. But that is Zoe’s and Trametu’s story to tell. As Zoe’s mate, he would be included in our social circle.
There would be time for them to become thoroughly acquainted as we were embarking on a two-month voyage to Nadoo. That meant short work days of physical training and weapons maintenance. It also meant more time to bond with my sweet Nora.
Dread Five entered the Falcola system just in time to discover a massive slaver ship take off from the space station, heading for Nadoo. When command got that notification, they ordered Dread Five to follow them instead of liberating a smaller ship to steal a bigger ship. Although the ship was reasonably heavily armed, Command thought three dreads could subdue it and send in combat teams to overcome the slavers so one of the mercenaries’ starship pilot teams could take control.