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Monthly prompt for January 2019. Please scroll down to read the story if you don't want to open the pdf.
In this story, I deal with a complaint, we improve our engine efficiency and someone pulls my tail.
Word count: 3046
Prompts available:
Resolution
Cold
Snow
"That's awfully late"
Legs
Acorns
Explosions
Eclipse
Beginning/Fresh Start
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Prompts used:
"That's awfully late"
Beginning/Fresh Start
Change
“So you’re telling me that he’s running a genocidal dictatorship….and wants to join us?” I remarked, looking up from the mission brief.
Talorath nodded. “That’s right. He runs the planet and he sent us that message a few hours ago. High Command sent that and his profile to us.”
“You’re joking. This is going to look catastrophically bad for us if we have anything to do with this crackpot!” I snapped, placing the tablet on the table.
Talorath snorted as he placed his own tablet next to mine. “That’s what I told them, but protocol requires that we entertain his request at least. We do have discretion.”
I nodded. “Better than nothing. Well, set a course. Says here that the Alliance isn’t too fond of him either. How bad?”
“They have a small fleet on his borders at all times.” Talorath replied, glancing at his copy of the mission brief.
“Right. Have you looked through his file?” I replied, tossing my tablet into a drawer.
He nodded.
“Good. You brief the senior staff. Might let you hit your quota as well.” I replied, “I need to read it for myself. If I remember right, Captain Ytal dealt with him before and he demanded no less than the captain, right?”
“Aye, that he did.” Talorath replied, “You will go?”
“Not much of a choice there. While I’m gone, the ship’s yours. Keep it in one piece.” I replied as I got up. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment, captain, other than the clogged toilet on deck seven.” He replied, getting up too.
I nodded. “I’ll go and chase maintenance up on it. It’s been a week already. You may go, Lieutenant.”
Talorath saluted and I returned it before he went off to do my bidding.
I spent the next ten minutes trying to explain fixing a clogged toilet wasn’t something that could be ignored to the maintenance chief. Good crew are hard to get these days and this one male was definitely from the bottom of the garbage dump. I wondered how someone so stupid managed to make his way through the ranks to make sergeant at all…
I pulled up the file on the dictator of planet FR-7T and looked through it. The man was quite a piece of work. He shot anyone who he thought disagreed with him and if you actually spoke up about him, he would have you killed in the most imaginative and painful manner that struck his fancy. This was before I got to the section about the forced labour camps and such. I didn’t really what to read it per se, but it had been used for years to justify not having anything to do with him. He had a bloated sense of self-worth too, despite ruling over a planet with nothing of value. We would have invaded years ago just to teach him a lesson, but we had bigger things to worry about. From what we could see, the Alliance didn’t seem to want his sorry little planet either.
As a result, no one wanted anything to do with him. Not us, not the Alliance. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that we would both entertain his claims and do nothing about it. After all, both sides had standards and this tyrant had no place in either of our societies. I could respect the Alliance for that at least.
The High Command had sent the exact same orders to me as the last three times the tyrant had tried to demand things from us. They basically boiled down to ‘Hear what he has to say and say no’. They mentioned that he had insisted that he had an extremely important deal for us, but judging from the last three times he had said that, it was probably just nonsense.
We set a course for the planet and were on our way. The orders had mentioned explicitly not to rush there and that if something else happened in the meantime, we were to attend to that instead. As such, instead of my usual orders to engage at maximum speed, I told the helm to go for maximum fuel efficiency. Perhaps we might even break the fleet record if we worked on the engine enough. In fact, the Engineering Department actually took the hint and took the opportunity to recalibrate the engines to squeeze a bit more efficiency from them.
“Right, comms, resume monitoring the usual frequencies. You know the drill.” I remarked, shifting in the chair. “What’s our eta?”
“About an hour or so, sir. Might be less if the engineers manage to keep their promises.” Came the reply as we all settled in for the voyage.
“Got it,” I replied, settling in for the wait. “Continue with the usual sensor sweeps and whatnot.”
There was a chorus of affirmatives as my orders were carried out. It turned out to be a rather uneventful cruise. We did, however, stop to look at a comet and take a few scans for archival purposes. Otherwise, the ship cruised nicely and the engineers did manage to squeeze a bit more efficiency from the engines. We didn’t quite break the fleet record, but we were close.
As we put into orbit above the planet, a transmission came in from High Command and the planet’s surface. Of course, High Command got priority and I had the transmission patched through to the main screen on the bridge.
The screen in question flickered on to reveal Admiral Hector. Once the saluting was taken care of, he pulled over a tablet. “I have just received this news, captain. The Alliance has finally run out of patience with Weyal. They’re assembling a full-on invasion fleet as we speak.”
“We have just arrived in orbit of his planet, sir,” I replied, “Any changes to the orders?”
“No, you may proceed. The diplomats have managed to strike a bargain and they have agreed to let us finish our business before moving in.” Hector replied, before glancing down at his tablet again and sighing. “We suspect that he knows this and will try to draw out the encounter. We want this to be resolved quickly so please don’t let him waste your time.”
“Aye, sir. Got it.” I replied, rubbing my chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Whatever it is, do it faster. May probability favour your success, captain. Keep me appraised. The Alliance ambassador wants to know the moment we’re finished there. I’m told that their fleet is….less than patient. We’ve agreed that they can have his little planet, so you know what to do.” Hector replied, before saluting once more. “Hector out.”
I returned the salute and got up. “Well, put the ship on stand to. You all heard the news.”
“Sir, there’s still the hail from the surface. They’ve hailed us a total of fifty times now.” The comms officer groaned, glancing back at her screen, “Make that fifty-one.”
I sighed. “What is wrong with him… Didn’t you tell them I was talking to the boss?”
“Yes. I told them twelve times before stopping because it really made no difference, captain.” She replied with a similar sigh. “Shall I put them through?”
I stood up straight and did my best to look as official as possible. “Yes. I don’t want them to hail us another fifty times.”
Weyal’s face filled the viewscreen, his massive beard taking up half the pixels. “You’re awfully late! What do you take me for? A coffee shop owner?!”
“We had you on hold, Mister Weyal,” I replied, folding my arms, “High Command was just on the line and protocol requires that I give them priority.”
“Bah! I offer you the deal of a century and you dare treat me so!” He spluttered, bits of spittle flying everywhere, “You offworlders are all the same! Tactless!”
I had to make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes. “I am Captain Tano’rath, commander of this vessel. I will hear your proposition now.”
“Nay! I only deal in person!” He exclaimed, tapping furiously away on a keyboard as he spoke, “I have sent coordinates. We will meet there as soon as possible.”
Before I could say more, he terminated the connection. At least this let me sigh and roll my eyes freely. “Assemble an away team. Two guards, if you will.”
“Aye, sir.” Talorath replied, tapping away on his tablet. “Just the guards?”
“Yes. Let’s not inflate his already overinflated ego.” I replied flatly, as I turned to walk to the lift. “I’ll meet them in the shuttle bay. Ship’s yours till I get back.”
Talorath nodded as I walked into the lift and whizzed down to my quarters to throw my armour on before heading to the shuttle bay.
The two guards were already waiting next to the shuttle we were to use. They were both already in their armour too and were presently leaning against the shuttle itself and having a chat. Of course, they both saluted as I approached and I reciprocated. “Right, you two ready?”
“Yessir, our rifles are already inside.” Came the reply as I walked to the shuttle’s airlock which stood open.
I nodded. “Good. Load up, then. Let’s get this done quickly.”
They nodded and entered the shuttle with me. The pilot was lounging in his chair inside, reading an ebook with his feet on the navigational console which had been deactivated. I had to stand behind him and tap his shoulder. He muttered something about being halfway through a sentence as he turned around, then nearly fell off the chair in his haste to salute and sit up straight when he realised who was behind him.
He muttered a few apologies and I said it was fine just so long as he paid more attention to what was going on in future...and also to clean his claw-prints off the console, which he did immediately with a handkerchief from a pocket. As he went through his pre-flight checks, I sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. One of the guards asked if I wanted anything to drink, since he was getting himself a bottle of tea and I declined. The last thing I wanted was to have to go to the toilet while there. From what I had read in the file, Weyal was extremely proficient in the art of wasting other peoples’ time and I had no intention of staying any longer than strictly necessary.
The flight to the surface was mostly uneventful and the coordinates turned out to be in the middle of the capital city’s main square. On approach, it was already evident that a crowd had gathered, but they had at least kept an adequately large landing zone clear for us. One figure stood in front of the crowd, seemingly addressing them. That was probably Weyal. I didn’t know what he was trying to achieve here and I didn’t really want to know. The pilot set us down easily just as I saw the crowd begin to applaud.
By the time the airlock had hissed open and the ladder deployed, Weyal, who had indeed been addressing the assembled crowd, was already waiting at the base. The two guards went first, as per protocol. He glared at them as they basically ignored him while they did their jobs. I walked out soon after, once they had cleared the landing spot.
Weyal himself was…smaller than I had expected. He stood a full head shorter than me and was fat. He also smelt like stale cheese. However, I had a job to do. As such, I walked up to him and nodded to him. “Mister Weyal.”
He broke out in what was quite possibly the fakest grin I had seen in the past decade as he looked up at me. “Captain! Welcome to our humble world!”
“Aye. My thanks.” I replied, glancing at the crowd. “Have I come at a bad time?”
“No, they are here to welcome you! See their smiling faces!” Weyal exclaimed, gesturing to the crowd.
I glanced over at the crowd for a moment then turned my attention back to the diminutive figure before me. I had to bite back the urge to let some sarcasm into my tone as I replied. “I’m flattered. However, I am not here to look at a crowd. You mentioned a deal?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He replied, rolling his eyes. “You Drakonians are all the same. No time for anything but business!”
I didn’t bother to rise to the slightly racist jibe, and seeing that I had simply continued standing there and waiting for him to go on, Weyal finally got to the point.
“We would like to join your Empire! Doubtlessly, we would bring many boons! We have raw materials for your forges and people for your workforce!” He replied, gesturing to the crowd again. I wondered if he genuinely thought the crowd would really sway me in favour of this.
I couldn’t help but cock my head a little at the proposition. I hadn’t expected this. However, Hector had already said that we would let the Alliance have the planet. Still, there was the matter of how to say no, but how does one say no to a planet on a silver platter?
I simply shook my head. “My orders were clear. Due to current circumstances, we must decline your offer.”
The smiling demeanour of Weyal suddenly fell away as he heard what I said. “What?! I offer you my planet, my home that I have ruled after walking a journey of a thousand lives and you say ‘no’?! That’s it? How dare you! I have never been this insulted in my life!”
“Sir, my orders are what they are.” I replied flatly as my two guards shifted closer, sensing trouble.
Weyal shook his head. “No! This won’t do! Come! I’ll show you the land and it’ll change your mind!”
“Unfortunately, I can’t go with you, Mister Weyal. I am due to return to the ship.” I replied as on my cue, the guards began to lead me back to the shuttle.
However, my walking was cut short when someone grabbed my tail and yanked it, trying to drag me away. They nearly succeeded too, nearly tipping me off my feet and onto my back and wings. By the time I had pulled it free and turned around, my guards already had their rifles up and safeties off. I drew my own sidearm with a growl to find Weyal backing away slowly in the face of three guns.
“You have no idea how inappropriate that was, Weyal,” I snarled, “Back away.”
Weyal raised his hands, but the wrong part of him was moving: his mouth, not his legs. “No! We just need a fresh start! Please! I…I apologise for that!”
I fired a warning shot in front of him, the orange energy bolt making the tubby little man jump as it left a black burn mark on the concrete in front of him. The moment this happened, the crowd cheered. It was slightly surprising, but judging from the fact that he had a nasty little habit of dumping anyone who remotely disagreed with him into various corrosive liquids or molten metals, it was really not too huge a surprise.
“Back away!” The guard roared, “You will receive no more warning shots!”
Weyal’s mouth worked and I gestured at him to walk with my sidearm. He tried to turn around, but I interrupted him. “No! Walk backwards! Now!”
Weyal tried to stammer something while he reached into his pocket. I saw him grasp a handle of some kind and start to draw some form of metallic object.
I pulled the trigger and the gun discharged, sending a bolt straight into his chest. The weapon was set to stun, but the shock still sent him spinning lazily to the ground, which he hit with a dull splat.
The crowd roared and gave me a standing ovation as one of my guards went up and pushed his arm aside to reveal some kind of ceremonial dagger. The blade was polished metal and the handle was covered in jewels of some sort. There was no way he would have gotten to any of us with that before one of us shot him too…
I half wanted to warn the crowd, but I suspected that they already knew what was coming.
What I ended up doing was returning to the ship, leaving Weyal face down in the middle of his own parade square. If his own people didn’t deal with him, the Alliance would.
I found myself back on the bridge soon after, where Talorath was waiting. Of course, we had streamed the entire encounter via the cameras on the guards’ armour. “Did he really pull your tail?”
I nodded. “…yeah. He did. It wasn’t pleasant.”
“Quite a character he was, captain.” Talorath quipped, as he vacated my seat. “Orders?”
“Get us out of here. Return us to our own space.” I replied flatly as I sat back in my chair. “Quite a character indeed, but had the charisma of a flaccid penis.”
“Aye, sir. Breaking orbit now.” The navigational officer replied, as the view screen showed us moving out of orbit. “Another of Fenrir’s quotes, captain?”
“Aye, he was complaining about a new technician or something in the pub during our last leave.” I replied, chuckling.
“He always has the most colourful of expressions.” The navigator remarked as the ship jumped to Trans-light.
We returned to our own space and I made my report to High Command. The Alliance fleet did indeed turn up and find that the locals had basically stabbed Weyal to death while he had been stunned. They offered to send photos as proof, but we declined. However, as a gesture of goodwill, the Alliance instead liberated them from the oppressive regime, including the secret police and left after two years once they had established a stable government. Their new Prime Minister actually sent me a note formally thanking me for shooting Weyal, which was a tad awkward to reply to. However, they chose to remain neutral in our conflict and eventually developed into one of the few places where members of either faction were welcome.
In this story, I deal with a complaint, we improve our engine efficiency and someone pulls my tail.
Word count: 3046
Prompts available:
Resolution
Cold
Snow
"That's awfully late"
Legs
Acorns
Explosions
Eclipse
Beginning/Fresh Start
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Prompts used:
"That's awfully late"
Beginning/Fresh Start
Change
“So you’re telling me that he’s running a genocidal dictatorship….and wants to join us?” I remarked, looking up from the mission brief.
Talorath nodded. “That’s right. He runs the planet and he sent us that message a few hours ago. High Command sent that and his profile to us.”
“You’re joking. This is going to look catastrophically bad for us if we have anything to do with this crackpot!” I snapped, placing the tablet on the table.
Talorath snorted as he placed his own tablet next to mine. “That’s what I told them, but protocol requires that we entertain his request at least. We do have discretion.”
I nodded. “Better than nothing. Well, set a course. Says here that the Alliance isn’t too fond of him either. How bad?”
“They have a small fleet on his borders at all times.” Talorath replied, glancing at his copy of the mission brief.
“Right. Have you looked through his file?” I replied, tossing my tablet into a drawer.
He nodded.
“Good. You brief the senior staff. Might let you hit your quota as well.” I replied, “I need to read it for myself. If I remember right, Captain Ytal dealt with him before and he demanded no less than the captain, right?”
“Aye, that he did.” Talorath replied, “You will go?”
“Not much of a choice there. While I’m gone, the ship’s yours. Keep it in one piece.” I replied as I got up. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment, captain, other than the clogged toilet on deck seven.” He replied, getting up too.
I nodded. “I’ll go and chase maintenance up on it. It’s been a week already. You may go, Lieutenant.”
Talorath saluted and I returned it before he went off to do my bidding.
I spent the next ten minutes trying to explain fixing a clogged toilet wasn’t something that could be ignored to the maintenance chief. Good crew are hard to get these days and this one male was definitely from the bottom of the garbage dump. I wondered how someone so stupid managed to make his way through the ranks to make sergeant at all…
I pulled up the file on the dictator of planet FR-7T and looked through it. The man was quite a piece of work. He shot anyone who he thought disagreed with him and if you actually spoke up about him, he would have you killed in the most imaginative and painful manner that struck his fancy. This was before I got to the section about the forced labour camps and such. I didn’t really what to read it per se, but it had been used for years to justify not having anything to do with him. He had a bloated sense of self-worth too, despite ruling over a planet with nothing of value. We would have invaded years ago just to teach him a lesson, but we had bigger things to worry about. From what we could see, the Alliance didn’t seem to want his sorry little planet either.
As a result, no one wanted anything to do with him. Not us, not the Alliance. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that we would both entertain his claims and do nothing about it. After all, both sides had standards and this tyrant had no place in either of our societies. I could respect the Alliance for that at least.
The High Command had sent the exact same orders to me as the last three times the tyrant had tried to demand things from us. They basically boiled down to ‘Hear what he has to say and say no’. They mentioned that he had insisted that he had an extremely important deal for us, but judging from the last three times he had said that, it was probably just nonsense.
We set a course for the planet and were on our way. The orders had mentioned explicitly not to rush there and that if something else happened in the meantime, we were to attend to that instead. As such, instead of my usual orders to engage at maximum speed, I told the helm to go for maximum fuel efficiency. Perhaps we might even break the fleet record if we worked on the engine enough. In fact, the Engineering Department actually took the hint and took the opportunity to recalibrate the engines to squeeze a bit more efficiency from them.
“Right, comms, resume monitoring the usual frequencies. You know the drill.” I remarked, shifting in the chair. “What’s our eta?”
“About an hour or so, sir. Might be less if the engineers manage to keep their promises.” Came the reply as we all settled in for the voyage.
“Got it,” I replied, settling in for the wait. “Continue with the usual sensor sweeps and whatnot.”
There was a chorus of affirmatives as my orders were carried out. It turned out to be a rather uneventful cruise. We did, however, stop to look at a comet and take a few scans for archival purposes. Otherwise, the ship cruised nicely and the engineers did manage to squeeze a bit more efficiency from the engines. We didn’t quite break the fleet record, but we were close.
As we put into orbit above the planet, a transmission came in from High Command and the planet’s surface. Of course, High Command got priority and I had the transmission patched through to the main screen on the bridge.
The screen in question flickered on to reveal Admiral Hector. Once the saluting was taken care of, he pulled over a tablet. “I have just received this news, captain. The Alliance has finally run out of patience with Weyal. They’re assembling a full-on invasion fleet as we speak.”
“We have just arrived in orbit of his planet, sir,” I replied, “Any changes to the orders?”
“No, you may proceed. The diplomats have managed to strike a bargain and they have agreed to let us finish our business before moving in.” Hector replied, before glancing down at his tablet again and sighing. “We suspect that he knows this and will try to draw out the encounter. We want this to be resolved quickly so please don’t let him waste your time.”
“Aye, sir. Got it.” I replied, rubbing my chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Whatever it is, do it faster. May probability favour your success, captain. Keep me appraised. The Alliance ambassador wants to know the moment we’re finished there. I’m told that their fleet is….less than patient. We’ve agreed that they can have his little planet, so you know what to do.” Hector replied, before saluting once more. “Hector out.”
I returned the salute and got up. “Well, put the ship on stand to. You all heard the news.”
“Sir, there’s still the hail from the surface. They’ve hailed us a total of fifty times now.” The comms officer groaned, glancing back at her screen, “Make that fifty-one.”
I sighed. “What is wrong with him… Didn’t you tell them I was talking to the boss?”
“Yes. I told them twelve times before stopping because it really made no difference, captain.” She replied with a similar sigh. “Shall I put them through?”
I stood up straight and did my best to look as official as possible. “Yes. I don’t want them to hail us another fifty times.”
Weyal’s face filled the viewscreen, his massive beard taking up half the pixels. “You’re awfully late! What do you take me for? A coffee shop owner?!”
“We had you on hold, Mister Weyal,” I replied, folding my arms, “High Command was just on the line and protocol requires that I give them priority.”
“Bah! I offer you the deal of a century and you dare treat me so!” He spluttered, bits of spittle flying everywhere, “You offworlders are all the same! Tactless!”
I had to make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes. “I am Captain Tano’rath, commander of this vessel. I will hear your proposition now.”
“Nay! I only deal in person!” He exclaimed, tapping furiously away on a keyboard as he spoke, “I have sent coordinates. We will meet there as soon as possible.”
Before I could say more, he terminated the connection. At least this let me sigh and roll my eyes freely. “Assemble an away team. Two guards, if you will.”
“Aye, sir.” Talorath replied, tapping away on his tablet. “Just the guards?”
“Yes. Let’s not inflate his already overinflated ego.” I replied flatly, as I turned to walk to the lift. “I’ll meet them in the shuttle bay. Ship’s yours till I get back.”
Talorath nodded as I walked into the lift and whizzed down to my quarters to throw my armour on before heading to the shuttle bay.
The two guards were already waiting next to the shuttle we were to use. They were both already in their armour too and were presently leaning against the shuttle itself and having a chat. Of course, they both saluted as I approached and I reciprocated. “Right, you two ready?”
“Yessir, our rifles are already inside.” Came the reply as I walked to the shuttle’s airlock which stood open.
I nodded. “Good. Load up, then. Let’s get this done quickly.”
They nodded and entered the shuttle with me. The pilot was lounging in his chair inside, reading an ebook with his feet on the navigational console which had been deactivated. I had to stand behind him and tap his shoulder. He muttered something about being halfway through a sentence as he turned around, then nearly fell off the chair in his haste to salute and sit up straight when he realised who was behind him.
He muttered a few apologies and I said it was fine just so long as he paid more attention to what was going on in future...and also to clean his claw-prints off the console, which he did immediately with a handkerchief from a pocket. As he went through his pre-flight checks, I sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. One of the guards asked if I wanted anything to drink, since he was getting himself a bottle of tea and I declined. The last thing I wanted was to have to go to the toilet while there. From what I had read in the file, Weyal was extremely proficient in the art of wasting other peoples’ time and I had no intention of staying any longer than strictly necessary.
The flight to the surface was mostly uneventful and the coordinates turned out to be in the middle of the capital city’s main square. On approach, it was already evident that a crowd had gathered, but they had at least kept an adequately large landing zone clear for us. One figure stood in front of the crowd, seemingly addressing them. That was probably Weyal. I didn’t know what he was trying to achieve here and I didn’t really want to know. The pilot set us down easily just as I saw the crowd begin to applaud.
By the time the airlock had hissed open and the ladder deployed, Weyal, who had indeed been addressing the assembled crowd, was already waiting at the base. The two guards went first, as per protocol. He glared at them as they basically ignored him while they did their jobs. I walked out soon after, once they had cleared the landing spot.
Weyal himself was…smaller than I had expected. He stood a full head shorter than me and was fat. He also smelt like stale cheese. However, I had a job to do. As such, I walked up to him and nodded to him. “Mister Weyal.”
He broke out in what was quite possibly the fakest grin I had seen in the past decade as he looked up at me. “Captain! Welcome to our humble world!”
“Aye. My thanks.” I replied, glancing at the crowd. “Have I come at a bad time?”
“No, they are here to welcome you! See their smiling faces!” Weyal exclaimed, gesturing to the crowd.
I glanced over at the crowd for a moment then turned my attention back to the diminutive figure before me. I had to bite back the urge to let some sarcasm into my tone as I replied. “I’m flattered. However, I am not here to look at a crowd. You mentioned a deal?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He replied, rolling his eyes. “You Drakonians are all the same. No time for anything but business!”
I didn’t bother to rise to the slightly racist jibe, and seeing that I had simply continued standing there and waiting for him to go on, Weyal finally got to the point.
“We would like to join your Empire! Doubtlessly, we would bring many boons! We have raw materials for your forges and people for your workforce!” He replied, gesturing to the crowd again. I wondered if he genuinely thought the crowd would really sway me in favour of this.
I couldn’t help but cock my head a little at the proposition. I hadn’t expected this. However, Hector had already said that we would let the Alliance have the planet. Still, there was the matter of how to say no, but how does one say no to a planet on a silver platter?
I simply shook my head. “My orders were clear. Due to current circumstances, we must decline your offer.”
The smiling demeanour of Weyal suddenly fell away as he heard what I said. “What?! I offer you my planet, my home that I have ruled after walking a journey of a thousand lives and you say ‘no’?! That’s it? How dare you! I have never been this insulted in my life!”
“Sir, my orders are what they are.” I replied flatly as my two guards shifted closer, sensing trouble.
Weyal shook his head. “No! This won’t do! Come! I’ll show you the land and it’ll change your mind!”
“Unfortunately, I can’t go with you, Mister Weyal. I am due to return to the ship.” I replied as on my cue, the guards began to lead me back to the shuttle.
However, my walking was cut short when someone grabbed my tail and yanked it, trying to drag me away. They nearly succeeded too, nearly tipping me off my feet and onto my back and wings. By the time I had pulled it free and turned around, my guards already had their rifles up and safeties off. I drew my own sidearm with a growl to find Weyal backing away slowly in the face of three guns.
“You have no idea how inappropriate that was, Weyal,” I snarled, “Back away.”
Weyal raised his hands, but the wrong part of him was moving: his mouth, not his legs. “No! We just need a fresh start! Please! I…I apologise for that!”
I fired a warning shot in front of him, the orange energy bolt making the tubby little man jump as it left a black burn mark on the concrete in front of him. The moment this happened, the crowd cheered. It was slightly surprising, but judging from the fact that he had a nasty little habit of dumping anyone who remotely disagreed with him into various corrosive liquids or molten metals, it was really not too huge a surprise.
“Back away!” The guard roared, “You will receive no more warning shots!”
Weyal’s mouth worked and I gestured at him to walk with my sidearm. He tried to turn around, but I interrupted him. “No! Walk backwards! Now!”
Weyal tried to stammer something while he reached into his pocket. I saw him grasp a handle of some kind and start to draw some form of metallic object.
I pulled the trigger and the gun discharged, sending a bolt straight into his chest. The weapon was set to stun, but the shock still sent him spinning lazily to the ground, which he hit with a dull splat.
The crowd roared and gave me a standing ovation as one of my guards went up and pushed his arm aside to reveal some kind of ceremonial dagger. The blade was polished metal and the handle was covered in jewels of some sort. There was no way he would have gotten to any of us with that before one of us shot him too…
I half wanted to warn the crowd, but I suspected that they already knew what was coming.
What I ended up doing was returning to the ship, leaving Weyal face down in the middle of his own parade square. If his own people didn’t deal with him, the Alliance would.
I found myself back on the bridge soon after, where Talorath was waiting. Of course, we had streamed the entire encounter via the cameras on the guards’ armour. “Did he really pull your tail?”
I nodded. “…yeah. He did. It wasn’t pleasant.”
“Quite a character he was, captain.” Talorath quipped, as he vacated my seat. “Orders?”
“Get us out of here. Return us to our own space.” I replied flatly as I sat back in my chair. “Quite a character indeed, but had the charisma of a flaccid penis.”
“Aye, sir. Breaking orbit now.” The navigational officer replied, as the view screen showed us moving out of orbit. “Another of Fenrir’s quotes, captain?”
“Aye, he was complaining about a new technician or something in the pub during our last leave.” I replied, chuckling.
“He always has the most colourful of expressions.” The navigator remarked as the ship jumped to Trans-light.
We returned to our own space and I made my report to High Command. The Alliance fleet did indeed turn up and find that the locals had basically stabbed Weyal to death while he had been stunned. They offered to send photos as proof, but we declined. However, as a gesture of goodwill, the Alliance instead liberated them from the oppressive regime, including the secret police and left after two years once they had established a stable government. Their new Prime Minister actually sent me a note formally thanking me for shooting Weyal, which was a tad awkward to reply to. However, they chose to remain neutral in our conflict and eventually developed into one of the few places where members of either faction were welcome.
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Western Dragon
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 140.3 kB
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