Chương 199: Nova Wars - Chapter 155

Noting makes a person crazier than being victimized by a system they cannot strike back against. - Dreams of Something More, Mantid Diplomatic Services, Post-C3 Wrixet followed the Telkan in the fancy dress uniform into the office. The Telkan he'd met the day he'd suffered from severe psychic shock was sitting behind the desk, hands on top of the desk and folded, his eyes careful and calculating.

He sat down in the chair and for a moment he had a vision of the Telkan behind the desk drawing a pistol and shooting him between the eyes.

"Relax, Wrixet, I just have a few questions about Telkan," the other one said. Wrixet's retinal link finally returned the information. General Traxrek, First Telkan Field Army, TerraSol Born: Telkan-2, Creche 761653, Feb - 24 Solarian Mean Age: 75 - First Longevity Treatment Not much else. Not that it helped Wrixet.

"Before I ask any questions, do you have any?" the General asked. Wrixet shook his head.

"No, sir." The General waited a moment, then nodded. He tapped the top of his desk and Wrixet could see the spray of light that meant a hologram tuned so only the General could see it had popped up.

"You transport ship hit a shade patch, leaving only three survivors. The three survivors then banded together with a digital sentience aboard the non-orbital massive logistics base to attempt to restart the anti-shade protocols. While that was happening, the non-orbital massive logistics base was boarded by enemy units. During that time one Telkan was killed by enemy action but taken by the Crusade of Fire and Beauty and remade into a Warbound.

After that, you found yourself with Captain Decken, who is currently advocating for a massive troop and ship moment to stop the Hellspace 'fence'. Did I miss anything?" the General stated, his cadence slow and even, without guilt or accusation or judgement.

"No, sir," Wrixet said.

"Following that, what happened is less clear. Captain Decken was called up by the Iron Dominion Admiralty and I doubt he confided much in you about his plans," the General stated, then waited.

"He wants to take the fight to the Crumblies and the Bugs, sir," Wrixet said.

"I don't know why, it sounds crazy, but he says that the Bugs are our actual enemy. That the Crumblies, the Starfish, the Spaghetti Monsters, they're all tools of a bug the size of my boot sole." Wrixet shook his head.

"I don't know how that bug is our real enemy or why the bug made the Captain immediately stop everything to rush back here, but he's the Captain and he's never steered me wrong or done me wrong in the few months I've known him." The General nodded.

"Wrixet, I can transfer you to the Telkan Iron Dominion First Field Army and process your separation papers. I've talked to Senator Ba'ahnya'ahd and the Honorable Senator has agreed to give you political refugee status as well as protections if you wish to emigrate to the Hamburger Kingdom and reside in his district," the General said.

"How did you manage that?" Wrixet asked.

"I'm nobody. I've got no money, nobody at my back, no juice, no leverage. Why would a Senator care about me?"

"It was simple, I bribed him with an advance copy of Total Telkan Warfare VII - Iron Dominion Edition." Wrixet blinked.

"Bribed him?" The General nodded.

"Indeed. Indeed. A long standing Hamburger Kingdom tradition, up there with handing out species specific pornography to supporters and stabbing the supporter of your rival," the General said.

"Senator Ba'ahnya'ahrd has exquisite tastes in bribes and understands the various tiers with impeccable natural instincts." The General leaned back, folding his hands over his stomach.

"Up here in the rarefied heights of Staff Officer, we have to do politicking as well as leadership," he nodded slowly.

"Right now, since you don't qualify for First Telkan Marine Expeditionary Force, Captain Decken has agreed to let my unit represent your interests." The General looked uncomfortable for a second, the expression gone so quickly that Wrixet wasn't even sure he had seen it.

"Private Imna stated that you had never been close to a Broodcarrier before," the General said.

"No, sir," Wrixet shook his head.

"Not even on public transport. Anyone where I lived had a broodcarrier, they didn't say anything and kept it close."

"Is there some kind of shortage? Disease? Birth rate discrepancy?" the General asked. Wrixet shrugged.

"I don't know, sir."

"The worship of the Digital Omnimessiah is no longer practiced?" Wrixet shook his head.

"No. After the civil war, nobody would admit to it even if they did," he sighed and looked up.

"Saint Brentali'ik, Warfather Vuxten, were all just propaganda after the Precursor War. We went to one of the last church's when The Bag opened and woke up the Warbound, which were all hidden. We didn't really believe any of it had happened or any of those people existed." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The General nodded.

"He was real. I never met him personally, but I did see him at a distance once or twice. I remember reading about him in the Corps newspaper," the General chuckled.

"I saw Brentili'ik more than once on the Tri-Vee and saw her signature more than once." Wrixet just nodded back, unsure of what to say.

"But it's been forty-thousand years for all of you and only fifty for us. Civilizations have risen and fallen in that time," he pointed at a map of the galactic arm.

"The only thing this has in common with the map from when The Bag closed is most of the stars are there." He shook his head.

"Of course the Mantid, Treana'ad, and Lankies are all there. Sure, they've changed a little, but not too much," he gave a small laugh.

"I have discovered, during my time on TerraSol, that my Lanaktallan counterparts are suspicious of things younger than the life of a star."

"I never saw them too much," Wrixet said. He shook his head.

"That's not true. A lot of a stuffer shacks were run by Lanaktallan behind armaglass, overcharging for fizzers or alk. Saw some on TV for a competitive video game competition, but when I realized they were only two hundred hours into what they believed would be a three month competition I kind of tapped out and went back to watching the Gleeful Shrub Buddies." The General just nodded.

"Back to business. I've got several choices for you. If you want to stay with Captain Decken we'll move you to the Nell of Night's Telkan Lancer team, transfer you to the Solarian Dominion," he smiled, a sharp toothed baring of teeth that had the unnatural regularity of someone with extensive dental work.

"That will keep you the safest. The Solarian Dominion is not in the habit of turning people over by threats or demands. I doubt Captain Decken is going to turn over one of his Lancers when, from what I hear, Dominion might give him permission to go after the Bugs as he sees fit." Wrixet was silent. The General sighed.

"That means, son, I'm going to transfer you to the Nell of Night permanently. Don't get killed." Wrixet nodded.

"I can do that."

"Any questions?" the General asked. Wrixet nodded.

"Just one. I'm not sure if I want to hear the answer though."

"Shoot your shot, kid." Wrixet looked out the window.

"If I come back, if I survive the war..." he let his words trail off for a long moment.

"Will you help me?" The General nodded.

"When you come back, if I'm still alive, I'll do my best to get you acclimated to civilian life," he paused.

"Family life, with a wife and at least one broodcarrier." Wrixet was silent for a long moment. When he spoke it was barely above a whisper.

"I would like that." 0-0-0-0-0 He was in a good mood. He was a Pagrik, a species that he wasn't even sure existed any more. His home planet had been destroyed while enemies then unknown used hellspiking and gravitatic lensing to create a hellspace infused 'fence' across the galactic spur. Almost everyone else in his family had died. But he refused to give in to the overwhelming depression. He had saved his mother. He had saved his sisters. He had saved his nieces. He had saved his nephews.

Yes, the Captain and the robots had helped, but it had been him. He had made a difference then and he believed he could make a difference now. There was another reason he was in a good mood. He was on TerraSol. Home of the Mad Lemurs of Terra. Home of The Builders.

"Mister Hetmwit," a high ranking NCO said, nodding to him as they passed each other in the hallway. People saw him. Not only that, they remembered he existed when he wasn't in view. Compared to his entire life before he had met Captain Decken, it was like every Terran knew where he was at all times. The automatic door in front of him opened up as he approached and closed after he went through. His ID was accepted first try. He got his food on the first punch through on the context menus.

Hetmwit took that as a sign. He was smiling, ears up, nose flared, mouth closed, eyebrows raised, when he moved up to the table and sat down across from Captain Decken.

"Good evening, Number One," Decken said after he swallowed his mouthful of food and took a drink from a glass.

"Mmph," Hetmwit answered, shoveling more food into his mouth. Captain Decken pitched his voice in such a way that it sounded aggressive, like some kind of strange creature.

"Can't talk! Eating!" then laughed as Hetmwit shoved another mouthful of noodles and beef and vegetables and sauce into his mouth.

"EATING!" The Captain went back to his own plate as Hetmwit powered through his entire plate, then took the plate back to where one was supposed to drop it if they were so inclined, then got a refill on his fizzy. When he sat down he saw the Captain had a cup of kaff and was relaxing.

"How's your crew, Number One?" Decken asked.

"The Robots are good. I coaxed them out of hiding with a Confederate Naval Forces Lancer Enlistment," Hetmwit said. Decken shook his head.

"Spontaneous sentience isn't unheard of but it isn't exactly common either."

"They passed their Hellspace contamination checks," Hetmwit said. He tapped the table.

"I had to fight with engineering and maintenance when they replaced the rewind drive. They wanted to purge our coordinate history too." Decken cocked his head wordlessly.

"I eventually got it through their heads that I'd rather we kept running with a damaged rewind drive than lose those coordinates," Hetmwit said. He laughed.

"Two hours later there were guys from Dominion Intelligence going over our rewind drive data."

"Two front war, we have to figure out who to knock out first. The Spodders or the Mar-gite Coalition." Hetmwit nodded.

"Spodders have less territory and people. They've only got about twelve hundred settled star systems. The Mar-gite, well, common word on the street is they have the rest of the galaxy."

"I've heard the same. They sent a few tough as nails admirals and generals to the Spodders. Command had it at 80% that the Spodders would betray us," Decken said.

"Detonating starships on the pads and attacking, even killing, diplomats, is pretty much a declaration of war." Hetmwit shook his head.

"I can't see how your people can just take that in kind. A betrayal like that would shock my people to the core. People would even be arguing whether or not that was a declaration of war, a legitimate attack, or some kind of show of force but not a declaration of war."

"Meanwhile the Spodders snap off pieces of your species's homes," Decken said. He shrugged.

"We have a long history of dragons attempting to grab pearls. If its a show of force or a demonstration of strength or a declaration of war, it doesn't matter. It's how we view it." He sipped his coffee and set it down.

"As soon as the repairs are finished, the Admiralty will give us orders," Decken said.

"I wanted to tell you that they've sent a triple strength task force to your home systems to try to save what they can," he tapped the top of the table and the kaff refilled.

"Your star nation still has roughly fifteen systems as of this morning and it looks like our attack on the Hellspace station stopped or slowed the enemy." The Captain took a sip and stared over the rim of the cup. Hetmwit breathed deep, knowing that the Captain was about to hit him with something rough.

"Your family arrived here two hours ago. They'll be through processing in an hour," Decken said.

"It'll take you thirty minutes to get to where they are by aircar. It will take you fifteen minutes to run down and get a taxi." Hetmwit stood up, his ears straight up in shock.

"You're officially on shore leave until further notice," Decken said. Hetmwit saluted and as soon as Decken returned the salute he rushed out of the cafeteria. Decken sipped at his coffee then looked at the cup.

"This is pretty good."