Chapter 20

The Admiral was gone, and so was the Devastator so the Silver Swan was once more on her way to its next destination.

Roy was back in his suite, Cara sat next to him on his balcony. They had both watched the Devastator accelerate and go to trans light in a flash. Even though there was no sense of size in deep space as there was no reference. The immense ship had dwarfed the Silver Swan to insignificance hanging next to her and then as the most famous ship of the entire Galaxy accelerated they could see her in its entirety for a brief moment. Roy swallowed and somehow he could understand how an enemy would feel seeing this ship appear.

Cara said. “You see you judged him to early.”

“Yes I think I did.”

She then changed the subject. “Thank you for helping me with the Wurgus,”

He scratched his chin. “Not that I have any idea what this was all about and why the President was at Harper’s Junction, but aren’t you some sort of bodyguard and now you are a diplomat, who are you for real?”

She pulled of her right glove and from under her fine skin just above the wrist a glowing badge became visible and expanded to a floating Federal ID Card and she said. “I am Cara Halvagh, Colonel in the United Stars Army- PSI Corps – Chief of Security for the Alpha Wolf Detachment protecting the President of the United Stars in this role and on behalf of the Assembly and the State Department I also act as Diplomatic envoy and adviser to the President. I am also a Gray Cat and an operative Member of NAVINT.”

She pulled her other glove and deactivated the ID projection and then added. “I am telling you this because I trust you and because I think your ordeal is not over yet, the Admiral is right. Your best place is to be on Sares and go to school there until we can unravel that pirate mystery for you ... This is a job for professionals and not a college student fresh away from home.”

He wanted to say something but she wasn’t done. “I want you to trust me too and that I have your well being in mind. I know you are a formidable individual and you are eager to find out what this is all about, but hunting pirates and investigating conspiracies is what trained specialists need to do for you.”

Roy nodded. “You won’t get an argument from me about that one. I would not know where to start and the most recent events clearly showed me that I am like a Stomper that went for a swim. It’s all a number too big for me and I am out of my environment, but what I don’t understand why you do this?” Her female face was as perfect and as beautiful as can be but also somehow quite alien and she lowered her long lashes and said. “When I first touched your mind I felt sorry for you but that is only part of the reason. We at the PSI corps take our oath and duty very, very serious and we are sworn not to just protect the president but the Union and more so its citizens from all dangers domestic and foreign. You are an citizen and you are in danger and it’s my sacred duty to make sure you are safe. All this is of course underlined by a growing friendship I hope you feel for me as well.” He had to agree.

He did feel comfortable around her and he said. “Will you tell the rest and what the deal is with those chicken heads?”

She grinned. “You did real good with the Wurgus and it seems they do prefer the naked truth but if you can don’t call them chicken heads.”

“I won’t do that again. I am sorry.”

She dialed herself a cup of tea from the Serv-Matic integrated in the small table and said. “Let me begin with the Wurgus. They are a nomadic race because as you seemed to know they did make their own sun go super nova after luring a big part of the Y’All Armada there and destroying it but at the cost of their own home world.

They are very gifted solar engineers and their tech level is generally believed to be TL 9 and reaching even TL 10 in some areas ... They are able to repair suns, alter suns and even make and ignite suns. They know how to make and understand quasars, fix unstable suns, change their radiation output, and make them go supernova if they want. Making a sun go supernova is a terrifying weapon as you can instantly destroy an entire solar system and everything in it.”

She paused to sip on her tea and it smelled interesting so Roy called up the tea menu and ordered the same.

Cara approved of his selection with a blink of her eyes and slow nod and she continued to educate Roy about the Wurgus, “Our intelligence has found out that the Kermac approached the Wurgus to make them a bomb, a device that the Kermac could use to make any sun go supernova. We don’t know if they actually delivered such a weapon to the Kermac or not, but such a device was found virtually in the last moment only a few months ago hidden aboard a civilian freighter approaching the sun called Sol, that is the Terrans home system. The device and the freighter was destroyed before the device could be analyzed and the three agents who found the bomb paid with their lives. The detonation of the device also killed 20,000 Mercurians by destroying the surface domes of two towns and wounding many more.”

She paused and watched as Roy suspiciously eyed the delicate egg shell thin porcelain cup that was shaped like the flower end of a Terran Lilly out of its filigree silvery holder and carefully sipped hot liquid. It tasted strong and had a tangy bitter herbal flavor.

She leaned forward and pointed at the top of the Saresii Tea set and then took the smallest porcelain cup and said. “The tea tastes much better if you put a few drops of Calum fruit sugar syrup in it.” He did and the tea became much more palatable and had now an added minty sweet flavor and the bitterness was gone.

She appeared satisfied with his reaction and leaned back again.”What do you think would happen if the Wurgus decided to join the Union and then tell us that the Kermac tried to blow up Sol, and that after the Blue intervened for them during the last Cease Fire Treaty?”

Roy thumbed over his shoulder and in the general direction the Devi disappeared and said. “Even a backwater Greenie like me can figure that one out and I did pay attention in School when we talked about the Blue and their intervention. It would mean war and Stahl and his Devi would do what the Blue prevented, eradicate all that is Kermac.”

She nodded. “Yes the Terrans are already suspicious and only the lack of proof is keeping them from openly screaming for war.”

Her eyes looked past Roy into the eternity of deep space and then she said. “Yes we would win I am certain, but the Shiss and the Nul might very well get involved too and the Kermac are not an easy opponent and they have many Slave and Thrall species. Your new friend Stahl argued for many centuries that we should simply get it started and get it over with, but war is a terrible thing Roy and they are very easily started and almost impossible to stop.”

She put down her cup. “Things are very simple to the Eternal Warrior but McElligott the other old Admiral says that the worst peace is better than the best war.”

Roy also put his cup back into the holder and said, “But would that not be a reason for us, I mean our side to not want to have the Wurgus join?” She shifted in her seat and looked at Roy, “That is a very keen question and one I don’t know a straight answer. The Union does not go out and recruit new members usually. It is the other way around, potential new members must go to Pluribus and meet many criteria and agree to conditions before they are accepted as Union members. Everyone is welcome, even the Kermac if they would decide to join tomorrow but it is them who must ask.”

She paused. “However in this case the State Department was asked to make the case to the Wurgus and offer them membership.”

“Who asked them?”

“It was an official Assembly decision but not without controversy.

A few month ago the Wurgus said they are accepting first talks but under greatest secrecy. They insisted on a remote, little known world to meet and talk.

Harper’s Junction was chosen because it is a very little known mining community and it is more or less halfway between Pluribus and the Wurhh Nebulae, the former Wurgus Solar System.

So the President and a delegation of Assembly representatives including two Klack Diplomats went more or less incognito and without much fanfare aboard the Silver Swan to Harper’s Junction. The Wurgus arrived as well and the entire conference lasted four hours when the Wurgus you met demanded to travel around the Union aboard a civilian ship to gauge how much anti Wurgus sentient there is. The Patriarch said there was little hope he would endorse Wurgus Union Membership, but it appears you changed that.”

“He was just one Wurgus, don’t they have like millions?”

“That Wurgus is one of the most influential patriarchs if our Intel is correct and what he says is more or less law.”

Roy asked. “Is he aboard now too?”

“No after the Assassination attempt you stopped, he went back on a military ship.”

“And the Kermac sent the assassin?”

“We don’t know yet. The door security was disabled and we found that a space port employee was influenced to disable the door security systems. This is why you could so easily walk into the lobby we thought secure and that is why the assassin was able to come in right after you.”

She opened her purse and retrieved a silvery cylinder and sprayed something in her mouth. “Saresii Tea can stain your teeth very easily. This prevents it, care to try?”

She handed him the little atomizer and then said. “The Kermac are great spies and schemers and it is very likely that they are behind it, but the Union has other enemies, and the Shiss are perhaps even better when it comes to manipulations. It’s not Nul style but they too are an intelligent advanced species who could easily change their tactics. We are working on finding out who is behind it all and trust me, we will. That is something we are good at.”

Roy sprayed the stuff in his mouth and his teeth and gum begun to tingle in a refreshing way.

She reached out and pressed a tiny little jewel like stud on the spray and a mirror field established itself. His teeth looked almost as if there was a light in his mouth, so white had they become.”Wow, with this I don’t need a flash light in the jungles. All I have to do is smile and I got all the light I need.” He bend over and said. “Partner, you are about to have the whitest killer fangs this side of the Orion Arm.” Roy sprayed some of it into Partner’s jawing maw and laughed as partner blinked surprised. The he handed the thing back. She too giggled as Partner licked its chops and revealed his truly terrifying rows of dagger like teeth. Roy had never noticed that Partner had three rows of teeth side by side on both his upper and lower jaw and back in his throat was the same bright red glow he had in his eyes, but Roy leaned forward his head almost inside the maw and inspected the teeth. Then he patted the beast and said. “I don’t think the spray worked as well on you as it did on mine but they are nice and clean.”

Partners answer was a dry lick right across Roy’s face.

She lowered her voice and now she sounded more like a girl than a woman and she said. “You look so innocent and young but you fight with confidence and resolution. I never sensed any doubt, fear or panic in you and I thank you for saving my life as well.”

Roy petted Partner and said.”I had no time to panic. I was pissed at the pirates and got really angry when he said those things to you!”

She smiled. “I noticed and you sure showed them.”

“Once I started to pick a fight, I could not stop until it was done, besides I could not have done without a certain black Sleepy Hound of mine”

“I think it might be because you have been raised on Green Hell were everything is dangerous and deadly. In order to survive there, you had to be even more dangerous and deadly.”

He sighed deeply. “No not really. That’s what all of you Non Greenies don’t understand. Yes everything is dangerous but that doesn’t mean everything kills everything constantly. It is more like a balance, if you don’t disturb the balance and become part of it you survive just fine without killing everything in sight. A Marine in a five ton destroyer suit is much deadlier than I am, but he has to blast and shoot everything because he disturbs it and that is his doom. Energy will go down, a mud grabber will pull you deep below, one false step and your gun hand is glued to a Tantalus Oak. That’s what my parents and all the Off-worldviews never understood.”

“There is a deep truth in what you said.”

She got up.” It is late and I think you experienced more in one day than anyone should, maybe you are able to find some rest. Tomorrow is hopefully less eventful and we can attempt to have another nice dinner maybe this time uninterrupted.”

Celyciia

Celyciia was thankful for the break when her Interrogator was called to the door by a voice. The man stumbled back and collapsed. Someone came in. She raised her weary head, she was so thirsty and hurt all over. All the torture and mistreatment could not make her scream but now she screamed on the top of her lungs, Phil Decker was standing before her holding the controls to the Prisoner suit and said. “There is time for screaming later, Kid, but now we really need to scramble. This place is about to blow and we still need to get Riddick!”

She stumbled after him out the room where she saw a half a dozen dead or unconscious guards on the floor.

Riddick reacted differently; he smiled and said, “So that’s how the afterlife looks like. Strange I still feel like shit!”

Phil said, “If you don’t follow me very fast we’re all going to meet in the afterlife for sure.

The ancient detective pushed and shoved the two stunned police officers before him and up a short flight of stairs. Then he simply grabbed Celyciia and put her across his shoulder and ran while he cheered Riddick on to move faster.

Celyciia was sure she had passed out, because the next thing she noticed was the cold dry air of Blue Moon and the coarse sharp grass she had noticed only briefly before poking in her skin all over. She was completely naked; the prisoner suit had remained behind. Phil threw himself over her and almost at the same time a deafening explosion roared and rolled over them and she could feel the stinging heat and the air sucked out of her lungs. She passed out again...

She coughed and spat and noticed Phil had performed CPR on her, He was covered with sod and his suit was in shreds, the old Detective was bleeding from little cuts all over and she noticed a fresh looking scar the size of a fist right above his left chest nipple.

She sat up while Phil was fighting to get Riddick to breath, she looked around and noticed them sitting on a vegetation strip of a wide street, while across the street she saw a smoking crater and several collapsed buildings, three more were burning.

She could hear the wailing sirens of first responder flyers.

He said, “We need to leave, we can’t trust the Police. Can you help me with Riddick?”

The Sergeant stirred and got up, coughed and said. “I am so far down the rabbit hole, I don’t know right from left and now I am talking to a ghost.”

Phil led them down an alley way and to an old looking freight flyer. “Get in and no worries Kiddos. Everything is going to work out.”

Celyciia could still not believe he was alive but she climbed into the flyer and Phil sat behind the controls, looked nervously around and then steered the flyer into the night sky, The flames of the burning buildings creating an orange glow behind them.

Riddick wiped his mouth. “You really are immortal aren’t you?”

Phil turned and nodded. “More or less, I received this gift of immortality not from the Guardian like most of the others, but from an entity I only know by the name of Dark Cloud. I heal very fast.”

Celyciia started to cry simply because she was at the end of her nerves.”What is all this, and why are we running? Is the entire Union gone mad or has it always been a lie?”

He touched her hand. “Please try to relax, Kid. The Cavalry is on its way and we can start bagging the bad guys and muck out the stable.”

Roy

She was right, he was more tired than he realized and barely made it to bed. As he woke everything seemed like a bad dream and for the first moments he thought he was in his own bed and soon Charles would call and breakfast be ready. But as he opened his eyes he saw Partner’s giant head on a pillow next to him, in the huge bed, blinking at him still sleepy. Roy boxed the beast in the side and said.” Now I know why your former owner threw you out. He wanted a ferocious beast and all he got was you sleeping all the time!” Partner sneezed and closed its eyes. Completely content. Roy was hungry and got up.

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