Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (6 page)

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“
Supreme
Commander
Kuvlar
,
I really think that we should wait until the battle cruiser arrives.”  
Tuvok
said with
some hesitancy. Sub-
commander
Tuvok
had been studying the languages of
E
arth and right n
ow he felt like using one of it
s more commonly used clichés. He felt he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was one thing to openly disagree with your commander, even if he was only the interim commander, that could still get you killed
though
. But it was quite another to launch a campaign against a planet without proper provisions and lose, that could get your family killed and you imprisoned for life. Neither had its plusses.

“Sub-commander
,
do you really want to orbit around this swamp hole for another
two years
?”

“Sir
,
the hu-mans have proved they are not willing to just
lie
down and die, they are a
resilient
species.

“They are nothing more than high monkeys
,
S
ub-commander
.
R
eally your cowardice is beginning to shine through.”

The sub
-
commander couldn’t help it
,
he growled a low savage warning. The commander
merely laughed at his underling’s
discontent.

“We have crushed their armies, reduced their societies to empty shells of what they used to be. In another
two years
when our reinforcements
get here
,
there’d be nothing left for them to do. They would show up and the glory and prestige would be
theirs
. I will not let that happen. I will claim this victory myself.”

“Sir
,
we are a scout ship, it is our duty to find conquerable planets and call in the battle cruisers. That is what we do.”

“Did
—
that
is what we did! Sub-commander, I didn’t get this job by being timid and weak.”

“You got this job because you allowed our commander to be kidnapped.”

Now it was the commander’s turn to snarl. “Be careful
,
S
ub-commander.” He more growled than spok
e. “You are walking a fine line.
I
f I remember
correctly
,
it was your team that scanned the
E
arth vessel
and deemed
it safe. These hu-mans are weak-minded, weak-spirited and weak-
bodied, when we send our first wave of Devastator troops down they will be more than willing to
lie
down and die, as you say.”

The sub-commander didn’t really believe that but he wasn’t sure how far he should push his stance. “Sir
,
I’m not saying we can’t take this planet
,
but we just don’t have the troops to cover enough ground. With only
ten
million devastators and a couple of thousand ships operational
,
we won’t be able to suppress any true fighting.”

“When I succeed in taking this planet before the battle cruiser arrives I will be sure to let our emperor know of your temerity.”

“And will you also tell him of my opposition should the alternate happen?”

Had the commander been capable of expressing his anger in the rush of blood to his face he most assuredly would have been the blood red color
of
a
sun
on the eve of a great storm.

“Sub-commander
,
prepare the troops for the launch the day after the hu-man champion is
killed
.
W
e’ll
give them a little time to grieve their loss.”

The sub-commander wasn’t quite so sure of that outcome either
,
but he had pressed his luck far enough and he still valued his life to not go any
farther
.

CHAPTER EIGHT
-
Mike Journal Entry 3

With mortality dangling in front of your face one begins to scan over some of the low
lights and high
lights of one
’
s life. And with my impending fight and the boredom of my enclosure I had plenty of time. At
twenty
,
I
was fee
ling greatly cheated, a life cut short, so many wrongs un
-
righted, so
many deeds undone. So much life
unlived
.
S
ure I was being a little dramatic, but I
figured
that at this point I had earned it. One of the biggest
things
I couldn’t seem to hurdle was the semi-hidden hostility that my mother and I had shared. From the age of
five
on I had felt it, I was her burden. She no
more wanted me than a dog wanted
fleas, she often referred to me as her mistake, not quite Dr. Spock
-
ish. Her way of dealing with me was to either ground me to my room or leave me alone altogether
.
I
f I was to live longer
,
I was probably going to spend a lot of money
on therapy. There were times that I wanted to ask her to let me be adopted by another family, I never got the nerve, now I wished I had.  Beth was another matter I had hoped to resolve before my untimely demise. The way she had looked at me when we had finally made it home after our escape was an image that still hau
nted my dreams, when I had them
.
T
he
pity, the disgust, the love
—a
ll
co-mingled on her ethereal face. She had crushed my heart as
effectively
as if she had cut it out with a spoon and stepped on it
in
the dirt. I don’t know that she had loved me or ever truly would have, she was light years ahead of me in the relationship game. I was like a high
school basketball player walking on to a pro court. To her I was probably just the flavor of the month
;
no it had to have been more than that,
didn’t it? How could I possibly
justify the injustices I had committed if it wasn’t for love
?
But did love qualify as a justifiable accounting of my crimes? There were times when the two of us
had been
alone
that I could feel that racing of her heart, the flush of her face, the glow of her skin, the twinkle in her eyes
;
those were all clues to love, weren’t they? And even if it wasn’t quite love
,
then it most assuredly would have developed into it. But not now, not
ever
—she reviled me for what
I
had become. I was the monster in the closet,
under the bed
—
hell I was an amalgamation of every monster from every
Brothers
Grimm
tale to her. If I was such
a
monster how could I possibly feel the way I do
?
And then there was Debbie, a girl who had loved me with all her heart, something I was not capable of reciprocating. I knew deep down that she was dead, her
ghostly
appearance
at the French Hospital
could
have
only mean
t
one thing. I would most assuredly burn in hell for my treatment of her as I would for any and all of the crimes I had committed thus far.

“I have to get out of this chamber! I’m going stir crazy. I’ll think myself to death long before Drababan seals the deal.” I had briefly pondered the thought of kicking the glass out by my feet
,
but I was as of yet still uncertain to the status of my broken shin or ribs
,
for that matter
.
M
ovement like that could cause me to blackout or worse. I placed my hands on the glass by my face to shield
my cons
terna
tion, after a brief pause a sharp hiss broke the silence
.
I thought a new ‘guest’ had arrived.
I
t was
merely
the
change in air pressure as the ‘glass’ dissolved underneath my touch.

H
ad I known it was that easy to get out I would have done it…..what days ago? Naw probably
minutes ago
. No
,
the
healing capabilities
this machine
had
were
far t
o
o important to my well being to have discarded it that long ago. Self-preservation was still a far stronger drive than pity. I cautiously began to
exhume
myself from the confines of the chamber and surprisingly
,
I was greeted with very little pain
.
T
here was some
twanging
in my side from the broken rib, but almost everything else was devoid of pain
,
even my jaw. I wasn’t sure if the chamber had been masking my more basic needs, but the moment my feet touched the floor I was famished. Broken jaw be damned
,
I wanted to eat. My departure from the chamber must have tripped some signal
because
an attendant showed up almost immediately
.
S
ure he
had two armed escorts with him, but he was an attendant none the less.

“Food
,
” was all I said
.
H
e didn’t look chatty anyway. He quickly turned to leave, the guards stayed a little longer, to me it seemed they were contemplating how
much trouble they would get in
to if the captive was ‘shot trying to escape
’
. I
couldn’t
say I blame
d
them.
I would have wanted to exact a little revenge on the
person
who had killed my brothers in arms. I wasn’t truly a military man
,
but I knew enough to know that soldiers don’t fight for their God or their country or their commander, they fight for their friends, they fight for the safety of the man beside them. Their fingers scratched on the outside of their trigger guards and for a brief moment I thought that sweet release was within my grasp, but as if
by
an invisible
gesture
they both turned and left, apparently the punishment they wou
ld receive was more unsavory tha
n
killing the man that was responsible for the deaths of their kinsmen. They knew in less than a week that Drababan would finish what they wanted to
do
. I nearly collapsed when they left, the tension seemed to be the only thing that
was keeping me
up
. My heart had finally stopped hammering by the time the food arrived
, I was able to brush away the anxiety like so many
l
eaves on a long forgotten picnic table when the smell wafted up towards me.

“
It’s cow
,
”
I muttered to myself as I greedily shoveled the mystery meat into
my mouth. Pondering on the meat
’
s origin would have most assuredly led to the decline of my salvatory moment and I was only in the mood to quell my seemingly insatiable appetite
, not think
.