My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire (27 page)

Jaenna blushed. With her pale skin, it was impossible to miss. When she spoke again, she was a little tongue tied. “I’m honored that you would trust me with feelings like that. Most people have them, but would never admit to them, even to a close friend, much less to a girl.” Ruoni popped into my mind then and I almost missed what she said next.

“I was scared, too, when we went in, both here and on Gar and I know the price that was paid. But when it was over, and I was okay and I knew we had a great victory, it felt good. It still does. It was worth the price. I need you to understand why I feel that way.”

“Well, I’m trying, Jaenna, but it’s not easy. At least with the ship we have now, I don’t see that it should be a big issue. There should be no problem anymore getting you home to Kaaran, and after all of this, I’m sure you will get that station.”

The expression on her face told me instantaneously that I hadn’t told her what she wanted to hear.

“Danny, I’d prefer not to go back to Kaaran just yet.”

Boy, did I have the feeling I was being set up!

“Care to tell me why?” I asked.

She attempted a smile and achieved little more than a quick twitch of the lips. “I told you that my brother, Valaria, will eventually come to power on Kaaran and that what I really want is to be his chief advisor. Kaaran is an important world, very influential in the empire, especially among the worlds that give their allegiance directly to the Emperor. But Valaria is neither going to make a tie nor succeed my father right away. He promised me a position once he makes his tie, and then more when he succeeds Father. I promised him that I would be ready when it happens. Valaria keeps his promises; I have to keep mine. If, by the time I come back, I have a lot more practical experience, have really proven that I know what I’m doing, it will be that much easier for Valaria to rely on me openly. Running that station was just going to be a start anyway, I would need to do a lot more than that if I want the position Jerny held. The experience I can get here is the type of experience I’ll need, and it will make me that much more valuable to Valaria. Kaaran
is
an important world. With it as a base, we might be able to make a real change in the empire. Isn’t that worth it? To do something for the empire?”

All of which sounded like a grandiloquent way of saying she wanted to stay out late with Danny and the Raiders, instead of going home. Unfortunately, hanging around a freebooter was not a safe way to pass the time. As for that part about the empire …

“Jaenna, I couldn’t care less about the empire, and I think you know better than to believe what you just said. This empire is dead; it’s fossilized. It just hasn’t realized it yet. I doubt it could change under any conditions. Even if you can’t tell from Kaaran, all you have to do is look where we’ve been. Look at Thjonarodni; a whole planetful of people sacrificed just to boost someone’s trade for a while. Look at Gar. Life is better on Earth, where we never had the empire and haven’t gotten a crewed ship past our moon. The empire is useless for taking care of people and it won’t change, so why should I care about it? But I do care about you, and you’re safer on Kaaran.”

She blushed again, this time more deeply. “I know you care, Danny. It’s a nice feeling, and it’s not one that I’ve had a lot. So, maybe what I’m saying is that I want to stay with you and be a freebooter. It may be safer on Kaaran, but it is better here. It will work. I can run your strike force. It’s something I have found I can do and I’m good at it and you know I’m right.”

The intensity in her voice was almost enough to make me melt. Almost.

“You realize,” I said, “that this means becoming, what was the phrase? Ah, ‘a murdering thief’ it was. Just like the rest of us?”

Jaenna grinned wryly at the echo of her words. “Maybe the empire can’t change, but I can,” she said.

Danny Troy, in times past, had been accustomed to women asking him for many things. Anything, I might add, from a car to an autograph to me. This one wanted a strike force, not your usual stocking stuffer. I’m not sure which was crazier, her asking or me agreeing.

T
hat was how the Francis Drake was born. (I couldn’t see flying around space in a ship named the Heavenly Blossom.) The name caused some comment, because the empire has no tradition of naming ships after people, but the idea of naming the ship for a famous freebooter eventually caught on.

Franny was one powerful ship. She was about six centuries old, which the Imperials assured me was a good age for a starship. Ships much older than that had usually been bashed around too much, although there were a few ships still in use that had been built as long as two millennia ago. (An Imperial year is about ten percent longer than an Earth year, as best I can figure, but I’ve paid no attention to the difference.) None of the Imperials would have been anxious to fly on a vessel built much more recently, either—deteriorating quality control. Franny Drake carried an amazing amount of weaponry including beams, railguns, multiple missile launchers and space-to-planet torpedoes. The wonder was not that the Flower had been so thoroughly pulverized, but that we had survived as long as we had.

Our most immediate problem was a familiar one. Crew. Most of the Imperials did elect to stay with us. However, they had, as Blahar had predicted, been badly understrength to start and Jaenna’s berserker squad had decimated them. All of the line officers died fighting, with the exception of Ferens, who might as well have. Even in the support services like Engineering and Supply only a few officers survived. We had barely enough crew left from the Flower for a decent-sized wedding party. We got under way thanks to a couple of young Imperial trainees and a lot of help from the automatics. Recruiting wasn’t much of a problem, though. We had no constraints on our cruising, so we hit several different worlds, picking and choosing among the applicants. There was no lack of those, not with a ship like Franny in orbit, not to mention the stories planted by the crew about Captain Danny a Troy and the way he took out an Imperial cruiser.

A secondary problem was the landing boat we’d stuffed into that bay during the battle. There was no way to extract it and repair the damage without the services of a full shipyard. Since that took money, we flew for a while with the doors jammed open.

It didn’t take long, however, before we caught a merchanter off the Harloon system. Franny ran the target down with ease and Jaenna’s force swarmed all over the merchanter crew before they’d realized what had happened. With the loot from that strike, we went back to Yttengary to have the landing boat yanked out like a bad molar. (We went back to Yttengary for the same reason you would return to any service station that had done a good job.)

Since the area under repair was small in relation to the rest of the ship, it was possible to seal off the work area. This allowed the Aalori to work without coming into contact with the crew while, at the same time, not requiring us to evacuate the ship as we had the previous trip. The arrangement seemed satisfactory to both sides. The one individual of either species who appeared to have any interest in what transpired on the other side of the sealed corridors was me. Since I was the captain, I could follow my curiosity. I did.

Llynardroorookoi was the “overseer” of the Aalori construction crew that rebuilt our boat bay. I have no idea if that is how he would have spelled his name, but that’s how it sounded. At least, I’m certain of his gender. At first, he was unsure what to make of my presence in his work area but I was determined to have a relaxed conversation with him and, eventually, my persistence paid off.

Talking shop was easy. We both had an interest in starships, he by choice and I by necessity, and when they were the topic of conversation we understood one another without difficulty. When our talk drifted to other matters, however, I often felt that we were talking past each other. I understood then why Ruoni, on the previous trip, had warned me to stick to business. We were speaking the same language, but the
intent
of the words seemed to slip out of our respective mental grasps. I don’t know if the expression on the Aalori’s face meant frustration. I know mine often did.

Our entire relationship almost foundered one day when he made a comment about our “diseased” ship. “Diseased” is a strong epithet for Srihani, the equivalent of the Earthly “fucked-up.” I’d been around Srihani long enough by then to react to it as a personal affront. I stiffened, gave him a sharp look, and then realized that my expression was meaningless to him. That was fortunate, because had he read my face there might have been trouble. As it was, it gave me a chance to decide that he had meant the word literally. I hastened to reassure him that, in spite of the sealed corridors, there was no plague on the ship.

“This Aalora never suggested there was any,” he said by way of reply.

“You referred to disease, however,” said I.

“What this Aalora referred to is not transmitted by microorganisms.”

The feeling that I had been insulted returned again and I asked him to tell me, precisely, what he meant.

Skin ridged alongside his muzzle in an expression I couldn’t understand. “Rrr. This Aalora meant the Srihani disease.”

I had the helpless feeling that I was blundering my way to an unavoidable confrontation. From habit, I looked to his face for some sign that he was readying for a fight and saw nothing but a big cat. It occurred to me that Ruoni would probably have a good laugh and say, “I told you so,” if I ended up with my eyeballs clawed out. I decided to stay as concrete as possible.

“What is the Srihani disease?”

The Aalori made a sound between a hiss and a bark. It may have been a derisive laugh. “You don’t know?”

“No …” I strangled on my sentence to avoid saying “I.” Then, I swallowed and started again. “No, this Captain does not.” Damn that third-person construction! Why did the Aalori do it? Ruoni had said that he didn’t know. Did anyone? In ten millennia had anyone bothered to find out?

Llynardroorookoi ignored my sputtering. He just started talking as though there had been no tension at all. Maybe, from his perspective, that was true.

“The Srihani disease is not an organism,” he said. “It is the insanity of your kvenningari, forever turning on each other, clawing for any little advantage. That’s not the purpose of kvenningari. They ought to be a natural part of government, the same way the combination of orbital velocity and gravity keeps a planet in a stable orbit. Aalori should know; our kvenningari are among the oldest in the empire. It is Srihani kvenningari that cost them their homeworld and will likely cost them their empire, too.”

“Homeworld?” That jolted me.

“You do not know about that either?”

“No.”

“Rrr. Srihani have selective memories. They cut on them the same way they would on a cancer. Odd that it is for this Aalora to tell you. The Aalori know so little of Srihani. Where do you think the word ‘Srihani’ came from, but from the world Srihan?”

When I said nothing, he continued. “About seven hundred years ago, there was a time of great tension among Srihani in the empire. This Aalora cannot tell you why. The kvenningari were building up their armed strength, perhaps, the time would be about right. Regardless, the Sri’Andor, as they called the Fleet then, opposed the actions of a number of the Great Kvenningari and threatened to intervene. A goodly number of the Sri’Andor officers, however, had secretly given first loyalty to kvenningari. The emperor tried to assert his authority, or maybe it was only rumored that he had done so, but the result was that fighting broke out among the units of the Sri’Andor stationed at Srihan. It rapidly went out of control. Three days later, Srihan was a dead world of slag and ash. Since then, the Fleet has avoided conflict with the Great Kvenningari, at a cost I do not need to explain.”

The Aalori’s story sent chills running up and down my spine. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“It didn’t matter much to Aalori,” he continued. “Aalori had little to do with Srihani before and less since. There have even been some Aalori who say that when the Srihani disease finally kills the empire, there will be a Galactic Empire of the Aalori. But this Aalora thinks not.”