Infinity (5 page)

Cruise
gives the command for two thousand five hundred crewmen to suit up in full
battle gear and to be battle ready.
G
arza
grabs all the portable equipment he could and goes to suit up also. Caleo is
right behind him. Cruise grabs the portable
Universal
Language Decipher Unit and prepares himself for battle.

Cruise’s
orders his warriors to engage the Ergaddis with the intent to take prisoners.
That means to wound and not kill unless there is no other option. Each
crewmember had a wrist locator device leading him or her to the coordinates of
the mines and Ergaddis they had been assigned to respectively. They used Infinity’s
Bio Teleporter to get to the planet surface.

After
being teleported nearby the Ergaddi base of operations, Cruise and his team of
two hundred and fifty warriors navigated their way to the target point where
the base of operations was set up. It was in a small canyon. A team of commando
engineers set up a device on a tripod. It was called the Beam Porter Module.
The function of this device was to project life-like holograms of commandos
running from place to place sporadically to deceive the enemy into targeting
the holograms instead of real commandos. They would only use it if the fighting
came to the outside of the bunker.

If
the battle escalated to the point of Cruise having to surrender, they brought
along another option. Two exact android replicas of Cruise; mechanical copies
that would pass for the real one once they were activated. In the past they had
been used to confuse and confound the enemy so as not to tell which Cruise was
the real one. That gave Cruise a slight door in which to make his move and take
the vantage. There were ten altogether, but he only brought two to the surface.

There
were also mechanical commandos with the prime function of being decoys. These
also could be used to enter a place impossible for humans or humanoids without
being killed.

Cruise
eyes the compound where the leaders are. “So far they have no idea what is
about to befall them.”

“Are
you ready to communicate, Captain?” Asks Geyruk. “The
A.I. Broadcasting Piercer Projector will use the frequencies inside the
bunker to project your hologram and voice. If you use the Universal
Language Decipher Unit, you can speak normally and
the unit will simultaneously translate what you say into their tongue.”

“Yes,
I know that, Geyruk,” frowns Cruise. “At times you can be a little over
explanatory, you know.”

“Sorry,
Captain, I just wanted to be sure you understood the process,” glowers Geyruk.

“I
understand every infinitesimal gadget in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster,” responds
Cruise. “If I didn’t I would not be capable of commanding Infinity. She is, in
reality, an artificially intelligent entity herself, and will instantly correct
any miscalculation on my part. Now keep your details to yourself as far as I am
concerned and continue briefing the other crewmembers who need your help.”

Geyruk
was not happy with Cruise’s reply, but he didn’t press the issue any further.

Garza
gives the order to set up the Combat Trauma Pulsator, which creates an
invisible pulse that will knock out the front line of commando guards rendering
them unconscious. They all watch as Garza and his assistants take care of the
guards, which are spread out within a radius of one hundred hectons, or about a
hundred meters.

*Har: A
universal measure of time in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster equal to an Earth
second, but slightly longer.

“Now
that the guards are out of the way,” says Cruise as he stands there with arms
folded, “Let me speak to those Ergaddis in that bunker. I hope that 4-D
A.I. Broadcasting Piercer Projector is ready.”

Standing in front of the
projector so that the camera can catch his image, Cruise gives the signal by lifting
his right hand and dropping it like a blade coming down fast. “This is Prince Cruise
Liberty, supreme commander of all of the forces of the Kingdom of Twelve
Galaxies Cluster. You are surrounded. Your pirate warriors have been engaged
and have fallen inside and outside of the mines. Your spacecrafts have been
rendered powerless to respond and are being boarded by hundreds of my troops.
Surrender now and no one needs to die. Resist and we will reduce you and your
spacecrafts completely into ashes.”

The message was
simultaneously interpreted into the Ergaddi tongue. All they could do was wait
for a reply.

“What is happening?” the
Ergaddi commander says with widened eyes. “Why are we seeing this image? Where
is it coming from?” The Ergaddis fire their death ray weapons on the image, but
only succeed in blasting a large hole in the wall.

“Drop your weapons and
come out with your hands in the air or else,” warns Cruise. “Any more
resistance will end badly for you.”

The pirate commander
inside the bunker tries communicating with his warriors but to no avail. “We
have no choice,” he wails. “We have to surrender to these creatures who should
be our slaves.”

“I heard that remark,”
said Cruise, the translation still going on. “You have ten time hars* to come
out or we will storm the bunker you are in.”

“Wait,” shouts the voice
of the commander from inside in his native tongue. “We’ll come out.”

“Our instruments show
that there are fifty two of you here at this location. Thirty of them were your
guards. They have been rendered unconscious. I want to see a head count of
twenty two.”

The Ergaddi come out of
the bunker without their weapons with their hands up. Their cat-like eyes
search the faces of Cruise and his team as the commandos lined up with their
weapons ready to fire at the slightest command from their leader.

The Ergaddi pirate leader,
recognizing Cruise from his hologram image inside the bunker, starts to walk
straight towards him as he descends from the hill he was standing on that
surrounded the location. Cruise’s guards act in an instant and put themselves
in the path of the pirate leader.

He is stopped in his
tracks. “Captain. The Subjugator will only send more vessels and keep sending
them. How long do you think your one vessel can withstand the onslaught of one
thousand of ours?”

Cruise steps closer to
the Ergaddi leader. “Where is the Subjugator?” The leader refused to tell. Cruise
gestures to a team of specially trained interrogators. “We’ll be doing the
interrogation here inside this bunker.”

While the rest of the
guards waited outside to guard the bunker and surrounding area, they could see
people marching towards the bunker location. “Captain,” shouted one of the
commandos. “The rest of the troops are coming. They’re marching the Ergaddis in
front of them.

“Let the interrogators
begin the questioning,” commanded Cruise. Just as a trial had to commence
immediately after apprehending the suspect, so it was with every military move
or decision. There was no beating around the bush or waiting. The questioning
commenced right away. The warriors that were marched in were questioned too.
All of them were given injections of a truth serum drug by the science officer
and his team of Bio-technicians. The drug caused dizziness and grogginess as it
worked to explore the brain for pertinent data. Every bit of information
contained in the brain from birth to the present, every memory, every word or
thought heard, would spill out of his or her mind. Once injected by air
pressure syringe, all biological data would be recorded as it circulated
through the body. All information would be transmitted and archived in Infinity’s
database, which had unlimited storage space. This was how information about
each hostile species was acquired.

The workers from the
mines were brought too. Cruise’s troops, every one who also had been trained in
interrogation techniques, carried their own supply of the Neurone Synapsis
Recall drug. The process took only several of Earth’s minutes called a “letime”.

The Ergaddi pirates had
been holding the whole population of the main city hostage. Cruise’s commandos
were successful in freeing them. The planet’s sovereign leader, Queen
Millennia
Tsuyajah led the procession that
followed the parade of the commandos marching the pirates out of the city
towards the mines.

When thousands of
grateful citizens from both the mines and the city of Polendaris had gathered
in the area near the bunker, Millennia approached Cruise.

“This is a glorious day;
a wonderful day when the inhabitants of Dekkonia are free. Dekkonia has been raped
by this hostile race of pirates.”

“Are there no armies or
even marshals on your planet?” Asked Cruise, taken at once by her beauty. Her
long flowing and wavy platinum blonde hair dropped down to her waist. Her ears,
slightly pointed, were dainty. Her lovely eyes seemed to change color depending
on which way she moved her head. “No one to protect you from further attacks
from these pirates? I don’t know your name, but your beauty and grace I can see
in your movement, which to me is like a living song.”

“They were killed trying
to defend our planet,” answered the monarch, lowering her head in sorrow, but
obviously pleased with Cruise’s words.

Cruise studied her from head
to toe, suspicious at first, but very pleased at her shining beauty thinking it
to be more beautiful than any star in the universe. “It seems very strange to
me that any strong army could be so easily overcome by the inferior
technology...uh...if you want to call it that, of these planet strippers.
Perhaps it is your beauty that has overcome them?”

“You are liberal with
your kind words. My people have always followed the way of peace,” She replied.
“Yes, there was an initial show of force, but our defence force was easily
defeated. We had no choice but to succumb.”

“They call their leader
The Subjugator,” Adds Cruise. “We
will
find
him and we
will
stop any further pirates
from ever attacking this planet again.”

“I and my people are
grateful,” replies the Queen. “Thousands have accompanied me here to give our
gratitude to you. I invite you to join my people and I in celebration at the
city of Polendaris.

Cruise asked for a little
time to confer with his team. The Queen graciously stepped back, walking
backwards while spreading her arms and bowing, while Cruise’s troops finished
up the interrogation.

The prisoners would be
temporarily paralysed for a half a day. He ordered them to be teleported back
to their ships and to be bound and held under armed guard. All of the pirates
who were still on their spacecrafts were to be also bound and under guard. Their
leader was to be kept under special guard until it was determined what to do
with them all.

He could not kill them,
as that would accomplish nothing. Their leader, the Subjugator, had no regard
for life; even the lives of his own subjects. Cruise marvelled at the contrast
of cultures. They were pirates not because they chose to be, but because they
were born into a pirate society. Infinity was processing the bio-neurone-data so
she would soon know everything about this species of scavengers in hopes that
there may be some way of salvaging them, or at least some of them.

Queen Millennia held a
feast of all the best foods and wines. All native Dekkonians were vegetarians, yet
had the ability to cook delicious and scrumptious meals with many various exotic
flavors.

“You have rice and corn
on this planet and many other vegetables grown on Earth,” remarked Cruise. “Were
seeds brought here from Earth?”

“Yes, Captain,” She
replied. “That’s right. Those who came from far far away many thousands of our Solar
Orbits ago colonized Dekkonia.”

She called on the best musicians,
singers; dancers and illusionists; they even had comedians. The comedy was much
like that which Cruise had learned about the ancient Greeks on Earth, and also
some of the ancient twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

While they ate and
conversed, Infinity was already downloading every database on the planet. Soon
they would know everything they needed to know about the Dekkonians from A to
Z. There was a mysterious beauty about Millennia that had Cruise almost
mesmerized. He was so concerned about it he took his science officer aside and
asked him to search the biological readouts from Dekkonia that had been
transmitted to his Bio Diagnostic Probe from Infinity. He wanted to see if there
was anything in their DNA or cell structure; anything at all that would
indicate any ability to manipulate other beings through mind control or sorcery.

“I checked Captain,” Says
Caleo after a complete scan. “There’s nothing. None of the other officers seem
to be affected by any strange power. They’re just having a good time. The
guards are still vigilant, so it must be just you.”

“Just me?” Cruise was
astonished. “What in the cosmos do you mean?”

“Call it what you like,”
replied the calculating officer, “but in my book it’s either a chemical
reaction, infatuation, attraction of the opposite sex, or—love.”

“Your opinion is noted,” Cruise
replies, all the while admiring the Queen from a distance. He felt as though
his eyes could just reach out and touch her whole being. He moved from her long
wavy yellow hair to her rosy red cheeks. Then he ran his eyes over her ruby red
lips and down to her body, which had a thin sheer silky gown clinging to her
frame in all the right places. The gown was split half way to the right of her
shimmering belt, which looked like it had been spun from threads of gold. Then
down again and up until he caught her multi-coloured eyes. He was riveted by
their beauty and looked deep into them. She seemed happy to return the gaze
with such intensity that he could almost hear her heart crying out to him for
love.

“Captain...captain...”
Caleo had his hand on Cruise’s shoulder shaking it. “Snap out of it.”