Steven Gordon 3: The Modloch Empire (6 page)

‘
That is another
thing we are going to have to address: non-meat products that will
give our people the nutrients they require to function efficiently.
The longer we are here, the longer we walk a tightrope.’

The Admiral agreed, ‘Aye sir, right now
we are at the mercy of the Emperor and his goodwill.’ He shook his
head, ‘I don’t like it one little bit. I wouldn’t trust the bugger
as far as I could throw him. He has nothing to lose and everything
to gain if our people fall foul of these intergalactic laws. To not
submit to this galactic police force could bring Dante’s Inferno
raging down round our ears. I don’t see any reason for the Emperor
to give us fuel or rations, certainly not for free. Neither have we
any way of paying for those supplies.’

The President sighed, ‘We are in a
bind, with no real way out. Right now we have fuel and provisions
for a number of months. By the time they begin to run out we had
damn well better be prepared for what comes next.’

The President reached out, took a large
pad from a pile, and looked around the gathering of top officials
and officers. ‘I am going to write out orders and have them
delivered to each of you. I want nothing discussed here, nor do I
want any paperwork being put into any electronic device. Any plans
from these orders shall be made on paper. Our friends and foes are
far more technically advanced than we are. As far as we know they
could be roving through our databases right now and we would never
even know.’

He looked around at everyone to make
sure he was being taken seriously. ‘Gentlemen, I want an escape
plan. I imagine our food stocks would run out first, however I
sincerely doubt that it would be in the Emperor’s best interests
not to convoy our freighters to us. Nevertheless, I wish for this
plan to be triggered by either our food or fuel resources reaching
a level that will leave us vulnerable. I need your best men to
calculate in the fact that we may well have to fight our way out.
We know the Emperor is not shy about sending forces beyond the
great barrier in pursuit of an enemy. The Burning Wind is a prime
example of that. From my end I will have teams of lawyers and
politicians look for loopholes in legislation that will give us a
foothold in this part of the galaxy. I will also approach the
Emperor and other heads of state about the position we find
ourselves in, and we will see what solutions they offer. There has
to be some form of limited access to banks while a legal
application to join the alliance is being considered.’

‘
Sir, if I may?’ It
was an Australian General who had interrupted him.

‘
General Crombie,
isn’t it?’

‘
Yes sir, commander
of the Australian First Division.’

‘
Please, go ahead
General.’

‘
How close are we to
making an official application sir?’

‘
This is what these
celebrations are all about General. We require the support of at
least half a dozen heads of state to make the application – half a
dozen different races out of hundreds. The more support we garner
the more chance we have of gaining access to this galactic family.
We would need the support of over half before we could actually
gain galactic status, and I suspect that day is a long way away. In
the mean time we have to court those the Emperor puts in front of
us; I suspect they will do as he guides them to do.’

‘
So our first
priority is to win over the Emperor?’

‘
That’s right. We
need to impress him on every level. Make him believe he can’t live
without us.’

‘
Dazzle him with
bullshit sir.’

The President laughed, ‘Exactly. At
this moment in time our biggest asset is the British King. They
seem to be able to communicate as equals. He in turn is taking
directions from us. He can approach the Emperor on an informal
level that no politician possibly could. We deal with the
politicians on an equal level and inside the Royal residence we
have the King working on our behalf. That doesn’t mean it is going
to be a cake walk. We hope for the best and plan for the
worst.’

‘
I can’t argue with
that sir.’

‘
Good, any more
questions?’

There were a stream of them and the
President worked his way through them.

When the meeting was over the President
took Steven to the side. ‘Do you have the latest reports from the
King?’

‘
Yes sir,’ Steven
produced a memory stick and handed it over.

‘
Thank you Captain
Gordon. I think I really need to meet with him soon.’

‘
According to Lady
Jane he wishes to talk to you as well sir. It seems he has grave
concerns about some of the problems that were brought to light in
this meeting.’

‘
That’s great
Captain. It’s good to know we are on the same page. I have to admit
I wasn’t sure about bringing the King on board at first, but he has
proved invaluable. He would have made a helluva
politician.’

‘
He is a very
intelligent man with the benefit of the best education Earth can
provide sir.’

The President studied Steven for a
moment, ‘Of course that is exactly true. Thank you for reminding me
of that. Your ship must have exhaustive data on galactic laws and
treaties.’

‘
Yes sir, she
does.’

‘
We need that
information. Everything you have.’

‘
There are terabytes
of information sir.’

‘
I don’t care, we
need it all. Would you be able to sift through it and sort it into
categories for us?’

‘
Of
course.’

‘
Thank
you.’

CHAPTER 9

Mya stood in the entrance hallway of
the grand house frightened to go any farther. Two rows of servants
lined the great hallway with their heads lowered. The giant at her
side touched her gently on the shoulder.

‘
Please enter Lady
Mya, this is your new home.’

She took a deep breath, ‘It is too
much. I can’t.’

‘
Not to accept would
be to dishonour Gairloch’s memory and last request. That would
upset the Emperor greatly. The last thing you want to do is upset
my brother.’

Her head came up and she had a tear in
her eye. ‘What on Earth will I do with it?’

General Rannalld laughed aloud, ‘You
live in it. When you are on planet of course. This is your home
now. You will receive Gairloch’s pension until you pass away.’

‘
You mean like his
widow?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
But we were not.’
Her face took on a pained expression.

He laughed again, ‘No one thinks you
were, woman. Gairloch never married. I remember he told me that one
day he would find a woman worthy of our bloodline. When he did he
would marry her.’ The giant sighed, ‘He never did. I think he was
married to the fleet. Then in one of his final messages he changed
his will. No one was more surprised than we were. Leaving
everything he had to an unknown alien woman he hadn’t even married?
But he had finally found a woman he deemed worthy of our great
blood line’

‘
Would I be able to
request that the Emperor takes it back?’

‘
You could, but why
would you wish to do that?’

‘
I do not deserve
this. I did nothing to deserve this honour.’

‘
You must have done
something?’

She shook her head, ‘Nothing I can
think of.’ It was very hot and Mya flicked her hair round the back
of her head to the other side. Rannalld found himself mesmerized by
the action.

‘
We did no more than
talk.’

‘
What did you talk
about?’

‘
Everything. My home,
his home. Our family. He talked a lot about the planets he had
visited, and sometimes the battles he fought in.’

‘
Were you not bored?
Gairloch could be very long winded.’

‘
I loved listening to
him. He was very good at describing things.’ Her head canted to a
slight angle, ‘He had to be good. Before I was abducted I had never
left my home island. We had no electricity. We worked in the fields
and collected fruit from the jungle to survive. We thought the
stars were the souls of our ancestors. I had no idea they were suns
like ours or that people lived on planets around them. I could not
read or write until I joined the crew.’

Rannalld stared in wonder at her for a
moment then shook himself. ‘Let us enter.’

Mya shook her head, ‘Please, I don’t
want to.’

He reached down and gave her a gentle
push, ‘Don’t be frightened. I will contact the Emperor and convey
your misgivings. It may take a while and it is cooler inside.’

‘
I am sorry, of
course.’

He guided her through to the living
room. Rannalld ordered refreshments, but Mya only asked for water.
She sat on the edge of an enormous couch and looked around the huge
room. It was much cooler inside. The room was spartan, almost
bereft of furniture apart from the large seats. The central wall
was obviously some form of viewing screen. A small table was
produced from somewhere and a huge glass of water placed in front
of Mya.

‘
Thank you.’ Mya had
to use both hands to lift it and the servant stared in horror at
the contrast.

Her eyes sought out the only decorative
piece in the room. A large statue of the Emperor. ‘Is that the
statue you all dropped when you were drunk?’

Rannalld who had also been staring
turned his head and suddenly burst out laughing. ‘That is the
replacement.’

‘
Yes of course. You
all glued it back together and made a mess of it. In panic you
decided to simply order another from the sculptor.’

Rannalld was still laughing at the
memory, ‘It was Gairloch’s house warming. Would you like to see the
original?’

‘
You still have
it?’

‘
It is hidden in the
cellar. Come.’

Mya followed him down. The cellar was
well stocked and almost full. Behind the many wine racks, hidden
under a dust cover, stood the statue. Rannalld whipped it off with
a flourish and the two of them howled with laughter at the sight.
In the end it had turned into a competition to see who could make
the statue of their elder brother more hideous.

‘
I swear if he ever
saw this we would all be exiled.’

‘
Gairloch said he
never had the heart to get rid of it. Anytime he felt a bit down he
came down here, took the cover off, and had a good belly
laugh.’

‘
All of this, of
course, was a gift from the Emperor. We all received one once we
had passed military academy. We had got drunk in the officers mess
and returned here; the statue was waiting by the door and we
decided to simply carry it in. I’m still not sure who tripped, but
the statue went tumbling. It is made from a very brittle stone and
must have shattered into hundreds of pieces. To deface anything
with the Emperor’s face on it is a serious crime – smashing a
statue of him is a disaster. We were all much younger then and
panicked. Gairloch sent out for a dozen packets of glue and we
tried to piece it all back together.’

‘
He told me you
raided the cellar here and were each sitting with at least a couple
of bottles of wine at your side.’

Rannalld’s laugh echoed around the
cellar. ‘That’s right, and the drunker we got the worse it got. We
all fell asleep after it was finished. When we woke in the morning,
we couldn’t believe what we had done. So we snuck it down here and
ordered another. It cost us a pretty penny too.’

‘
A secret shared
among loving brothers.’

Rannalld felt his heart soar, ‘It
certainly is.’

By the time the Emperor had replied,
Rannalld had shown her around the house and the private garden. Mya
thought she could have built four villages in the space.

‘
You have to
understand that everything belongs to the Emperor. We can decorate
the house however we wish and the gardens are our own private
affair. The rest of the land belongs to the Emperor and is none of
your concern. Of course you are free to wander over it as much as
you like. The boundaries of this estate are easy to see.’ He swept
his hand round in a large circle. ‘They are bound by the hills you
see surrounding us. There is a small villa on the edge of the
mountains for when it gets too hot. We don’t have seasons as I
understand you do on your planet but there are times when our sun
goes through periods of higher activity. When this happens it can
become quite unbearable at this latitude. That’s the best time to
live in the highlands.’

‘
The heat here
doesn’t bother me. I lived in a jungle all of my life where the
temperature was much hotter than it is here now. What bothers me
most is the longer days. At home we have twelve hours of sunlight
and twelve hours of darkness. Here it is eighteen hours of
both.’

‘
Ah, you mean Earth
hours.’

‘
Yes. What are
those?’ She pointed to some strange plants that ran down the
walls.

‘
I did some research
and the nearest Earth equivalent would be trees. They convert
carbon dioxide into oxygen.’ He saw her frown. ‘Air you can
breathe.’

‘
Ah, I get it. I have
heard people talk about that. I am afraid I have almost no
education. To you I must seem a strange primitive.’