Read My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire Online

Authors: Colin Alexander

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Space Opera

My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire (21 page)

BOOK: My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire
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Quickly, she straightened up. I could see that she was carrying one of the two medium blasters we had available. In a single motion, the blaster came up and Jaenna fired. Orange-yellow flared at the terminal. From the upper corner where the heavy blasters were situated, a dark object fell across the front of the building. Jaenna dropped flat the instant she fired. Return fire scorched the car in front of her. Jaenna rolled away to her right, then popped up and fired again. There was no more heavy blaster fire.

Jaenna rolled away again, coming out of the roll on her feet. She fired two quick bolts at the entrance to the terminal. Then, waving the blaster over her head, she darted around the overturned car and sprinted for the terminal. A beam flashed against her shoulder, but I could see half-armor under the cloak and she kept going. Behind her, it was as though a spell had broken. Her charge pulled the crew up to pour fire into the building. Armed men raced across the pavement after her. Two of them went down hard, but the rest gained the entrance. Meanwhile, more followed them across. Within minutes, the field in front of the terminal was quiet and empty, except for the garbage and the dead.

Within twenty minutes one of the boats called in to report that the terminal building had been taken. The equipment had been located, apparently intact, and there was an even greater quantity than we were expecting. It was then only a matter of waiting for the cargo sleds to float across to the terminal, pick up their loads and return to the boats. Once again, we had to run a shuttle service with the boats. The machinery took up too much room to bring it, and the Strike Force, up at the same time.

The first boat up brought explanations along with the spare parts. We’d had no link to the Strike Force because Sligo had deliberately silenced his communications when they landed. Whether he had done this out of concern that his signals could be intercepted, or to avoid interference from me, was unclear. It would never be clarified because Sligo had fallen victim to one of the heavy blasters.

His death canceled one of the confrontations I was expecting. The other one had to wait until Jaenna came up with the last boat. My bridge crew was worried and with good reason. It was clear that somebody was making an effort to relieve the defenders at the port. The clouds had cleared enough to expose their movements to us, which left them open to Ruoni’s bombardment, but not until the boats had lifted off the last of the Strike Force did I quit worrying that some of them would slip through. When Jaenna’s boat docked, I was waiting in the corridor outside the lock.

Jaenna popped through with a grin on her face. It broadened when she saw me. She was wearing half-armor that was too big for her, marred by a scorch mark at the right shoulder. “Ho, Danny!” She waved. “It worked! We got everything.”

“I know. I saw. What I want to know, though, is how you got there.”

The grin vanished. I think she was surprised by my lack of enthusiasm. “Your friend Angel arranged it.”

“Angel? Angel got you onto the Strike Force?”

“Yes.” The grin was back in place. “He wasn’t going, so I told him I wanted to go, and he let me take his place.”

Somehow, I doubted it had been that simple. “Jaenna, the whole idea has been to get you back to Kaaran, not for you to get killed on some lousy junkyard of a planet.”

“Well, I didn’t get killed, did I?” she retorted. “Danny, I told you I had to do something to earn my passage and this seemed like the best way to do it. I wasn’t worried. Old Haranyi taught me how to shoot and how to take care of myself under fire.”

“Who is old Haranyi?”

“Commander of my father’s guard. He’s the one who really saw to my education.” Her face looked impish. “It’s nice when the things they teach you really work.”

I let out a sigh. I couldn’t stay mad at Jaenna. Besides, she had undoubtedly saved the operation.

“All right. Jaenna, your debts are long since paid, and you don’t need to worry about earning your passage. Without that stunt of yours, none of us would be going anywhere. Can we call it even? Just take it easy until we reach Kaaran.”

“Sure, Danny,” she laughed. “There is one more thing, though.”

“What might that be?”

“That Strike Force of yours needs a lot of work if you want to hit anything with real defenses.”

“Tell me something new, Jaenna.”

“I told you I had a thorough education. I know how Haranyi trains his small units.”

“Jaenna, are you trying to tell me you’re some kind of military expert?” I hadn’t intended it sarcastically, but it made her defensive.

“Expert, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t claim that. But you saw that action. You don’t need an expert to know what happened.”

She was dead right on that score. I wasn’t prepared, however, for what came next.

“I want to see what I can do with your Strike Force.”

I stared at her. “You’re telling me that you want to train the Strike Force?”

“Yes, I am. Didn’t you tell me, Danny, that where you come from male and female do the same jobs?”

Lord bless a fool. She was right, I had said that.

“My home is a long way away,” I countered, “What matters is whether they will listen to you here.”

“Don’t worry about that. After what happened down there, they’ll listen.”

Maybe so, but still … “Jaenna, I told you that you had earned your passage. It’s certainly true from my point of view and I think it should be from yours, too.”

She had an expression and a posture that, except for the blaster at her side, would have suited a teenage daughter trying to wheedle her way to a rock concert.

“This has nothing to do with my passage,” she replied. “I agree that I’ve earned it. This has to do with what happens after we reach Kaaran.”

Ah! I saw what she was driving at. “You’re saying that doing this will help your standing with your father and brother when you get home. Is that right?”

“Of course it is. Danny, I did well today. You said so yourself. I need to show them something when I get back, otherwise, I’m even worse off than when I left.” She still sounded like that teenage daughter, trying again after two rejections.

Jaenna was still set on clawing her way into an Imperial system that was rigged against her. Frankly, it seemed more reasonable to have Ruoni set us both down on Earth and see if we could live happily ever after there. It was a decent idea, much better than having Jaenna play coach for an expansion team in the Galactic Piracy League.

Even as I thought about taking her to Earth, part of my mind wondered: Was it really possible to put a young girl in charge of a group of pirate fighters? The idea was almost as screwy as an ex-jock running a starship. What the hell, West Point gave kids a degree and put them in command of combat troops. Wasn’t that just as crazy? Jaenna, at least, had already done well under fire. Maybe old Haranyi knew his business.

“Tell you what,” I said. “From here to Kaaran, they’re all yours. Do we have a deal?”

“From here to Kaaran,” she repeated.

Chapter 12

F
rom Gar to Kaaran was not going to be a short trip. Our engineering crew was able to make some repairs with components brought up from Gar. Others couldn’t be made without the equipment at a depot. Before we could try for Kaaran, we would have to make a pit stop.

“We figured that would be necessary,” Ruoni commented unhappily. “Navigator Blahar and I went over the repair depots within our range. I eliminated those that I know won’t barter with us.”

“Are you telling me we can’t reach one?”

“No,” Ruoni said, “there is one.”

“What is it?”

“Yttengary.” There was distaste in Ruoni’s voice.

“Tell me about it,” I said. “You don’t look happy.”

“It’s an Aalori world.”

Aalori. The second most common species in the empire, panther-like beings. I had seen one on Orgumuni.

“Is there a particular problem with Yttengary, I mean are they thieves or do they do lousy work? Or are we on the outs with the Aalori?”

“No, from what I know, they are quite competent and there has been no fighting between Srihani and Aalori.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“It is an Aalori system.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Species do not mix well,” he said.

“You mean we’re forbidden to go there?”

“No, not at all. Think, how many Aalori have you seen since you came into the empire.”

“Only one.”

“I tell you for a fact that there are a third as many Aalori systems in this sector as there are Srihani, but you don’t see them, nor do they see us. We are not comfortable on their worlds and they are not comfortable on ours, so we don’t mix unless it is essential.”

Wonderful, I thought, apartheid goes interstellar. Was there anything the empire had managed not to screw up?

“You have two interstellar civilizations in this empire that barely acknowledge each other because it’s uncomfortable?”

“Five. There are three others.”

“That’s silly.”

“It’s true.”

I had lived in Texas so I knew I wasn’t going to win that argument. “Look, Ruoni, I don’t care whether it’s comfortable or not. This is essential.”

“I know that. I just don’t like it.”

It was not a happy ship that set its course for Yttengary. The only consolation was that with the limited repairs we were able to make on our own, although she still groaned, the Flower no longer sounded like she was going to come apart in transit.

Aside from the general gloom over our destination, the most unsettling part of the trip was the Strike Force. I had promised Jaenna that she could run the Strike Force, but making the promise was simpler than delivering on it. I had good reason to be nervous about this. I was very new at the captain business. I had barely survived a mutiny and my one operation, to date, had come close to disaster. Putting a girl in charge of my Strike Force might be the last straw. Now, before you grumble about this ship full of petrified male chauvinists, think about this for a minute. You’re stretched out on the couch to watch the Super Bowl and the coach of the team you’ve bet your paycheck on puts a rookie in at quarterback. On top of that, the rookie’s a girl. Tell me it wouldn’t bother you. Liar. It would bother me. This was certainly going to bother my crew of strutting, macho wannabe pirates.

I broke the news first to my bridge crew and Angel since they were my most loyal supporters. Angel was the only one who didn’t seem to care. Judging from the expressions on the other faces they were not pleased, but no one said a word. It was only when I cornered Ruoni privately that he expressed his skepticism.

“I don’t like it, Danny,” he said. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because there will be trouble with the Strike Force. We don’t need that.”

“What sort of trouble?” I asked. “How much more trouble can we have than we had on Gar before Jaenna got them moving? She says she knows what she’s doing, it looks like she does and I certainly don’t have anyone else here who knows better.” Having promised Jaenna the position, I was trapped into using her argument with Ruoni. Since, deep inside, I agreed with Ruoni, I felt like I was arguing against myself. It was a frustrating feeling, and I couldn’t have sounded very convincing.

“I saw what happened on Gar the same as you did,” Ruoni argued. “That’s not the point. The question is, will they take her orders when they are not forced to do so by external events?”

“You mean when they don’t need immediate saving and can give their prejudices free rein?” (We all know where I fall on the prejudice scale, but I was stuck with the position so I had to argue it.)

Ruoni looked uncomfortable. “That is more or less true.”

Jaenna thought they would listen to her. At least that was what she told me. I couldn’t simply say that to Ruoni, though. I had to say, “I think they’ll listen.”

At that, he just shrugged and said, “At your order.” Maybe I should have sent Ruoni to argue with Jaenna.

Having won over my bridge crew (sort of), I then had to figure out how to announce it to the rest of the ship. After all it wasn’t as though I could just give out the starting lineup to the local paper. Even if we had a newsletter, most of the Strike Force wouldn’t have been able to read it. While I was debating my options—that is, procrastinating—Jaenna told me that there were really no choices at all. It would have to be announced to the troops face to face. That did nothing for my nerves.

BOOK: My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire
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