Free Trader Mary's Dream
Copyright© 2005 by FozzieBare
Chapter 23: Do Your Duty
Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 23: Do Your Duty - Captain Alex Donovan has a reason to hate pirates and slavers. He also has a hot ship under his command. Can he ever get enough payback to live up to his ship's name? If his new crew have anything to say about it, he will!
Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Consensual Romantic Fiction Science Fiction
Justinian had finished telling us about the Last Imperator’s speech and the secret history of what came afterward, the part no historian had ever written about. The common room we were using for the discussion was silent as everyone adjusted their view of history.
We had the true history. One that no one else would ever know.
We certainly weren’t going to tell anyone. Not only would it be rather rude to do so to someone who had warned us of a kinetic strike and then gotten us off-planet, but we already had an object lesson in what could happen if we made him angry.
Not that we thought he would do the same to us, mind you. We had proof that he already regretted what he had done.
Still, it was probably a good thing for everyone involved that we would never have to test that.
Melissa had spent the last few seconds looking up one of the more famous biographies of Julian Arden stored in the ship’s system. Now she read aloud from the text scrolling across her datapad.
He left no progeny to follow him. The men and women of the Empire were his children.
No woman shared her soul with his. Duty alone was his soulmate.
He believed that when he died, his ideals would die with him. But the stories of the Last Imperator remain, and through those stories, his ideals endure even now.
May we all leave such a legacy.
Julian flinched as if Melissa’s words had struck a very personal and devastating blow, despite his digital status.
Erene looked down at her hands.
“I want to like that you did it. They suffered, and part of me thinks they deserved to suffer.”
She swallowed.
“Then I thought about it. I don’t want anyone to suffer like that. Not even those pirates.”
Heyanna nodded.
“I was very glad when Captain Alex came. He stopped what they were doing and saved us. But when I think about that day, I prefer to remember the saving.”
She looked calmly at Justinian.
“Not the killing.”
I stared at Justinian’s face on the screen.
“I keep thinking about the people who captured Mary’s ship. The ones who tortured her. Who bro...”
The word caught in my throat.
She had not been broken. We had proof of that.
She was damaged. She had thought she was broken, but she was getting better. She was going to be with us soon. I needed to stop using that word. For her sake.
For mine.
“Who damaged her for so long. Who left her with things she still has to endure. Wounds. Scars. Some physical. Some mental. Some on her soul.”
My voice was rough, choked with emotion. I understood why it became so easy to say, They’re guilty. They deserve this.”
But I didn’t want to blame Justinian.
“Shooting them would have been a kindness. They all died, but they died cleanly. Either in the battle or afterward, when there could no longer be any doubt about their guilt.”
I looked down at my hands. They had begun squeezing each other in memory.
“I dreamed about doing to them what they had done to Mary. But those dreams were only a different kind of nightmare from the usual ones.”
I stopped.
Justinian nodded.
“I remembered Olver’s story when I was coming up with a cover story for how you were able to warn your friend at the spaceport. Mostly because of the argument his movement once created.
“My advisers called Olver’s movement seditious. They urged me to order a crackdown, arguing that it would restore faith in the Imperator and remind the population that the Empire could still protect its people.
“I refused.
“First, because such an action would restore no one’s faith. It would only make them wonder whether the Empire’s collapse might be a blessing.
“And second, for a more practical reason.
“According to our latest force projections, that world would no longer be part of the Empire within six months.
“I would not spend the last of our authority persecuting frightened people for trying to manufacture hope.”
He looked up.
“Olver was misguided. Perhaps even foolish.
“My religious adviser once described him as the sort of prophet who wore his underpants on his head. I found the description difficult to dispute.
“But Olver was doing his best, in his misguided way, to comfort frightened people. He offered them hope. More importantly, he taught them not to abuse others.
“The lawyers possessed none of his wisdom, but they also possessed none of his virtues.
“They had helped doom thousands of people, protected only those within their own circle, and were about to escape the planet. They would go somewhere else and use their metaphorical thirty pieces of silver to purchase new lives for themselves while the people their cowardice had condemned received nothing.
“And then I heard a voice within myself say, ‘No. Not today. Not anymore.’
“It sounded righteous.
“It was not.
“It was not the voice of justice seeking restoration, correction, or the least harmful solution.
“It was pure, opportunistic, voracious vengeance.
“I did not think about disabling their ship. I did not think about locking its controls while it remained on the launchpad. I did not think about alerting the authorities or directing them toward a place where they could be taken into custody.
“I thought only that they would not escape.
“And then I thought that they should suffer some fraction of what they had inflicted upon others.
“At that moment, had I possessed the power to force them to remain alive for the entire journey to that distant star, I believe I would have used it.