Steven Gordon 3: The Modloch Empire (25 page)

‘
Do you really have
to talk about such things over a meal?’ Jane asked them.

‘
Of course, forgive
us ladies,’ Rannalld apologised. ‘We could change the subject
Sergeant.’

‘
If you wish
sir.’

‘
From what I have
been hearing, you have met the Emperor a number of
times.’

‘
He has become very
curious about our training methods sir, but it’s not me he talks
to. It’s Charlie.’

‘
I don’t think I have
met him.’

‘
It’s all a bit
strange if you ask me. He will just appear, or ask us to meet him
somewhere, and then afterwards we escort him to the palace where we
are all thrown out except Charlie, who makes him a cup of
tea.’

Rannalld shook his head, ‘He throws
everyone out?’

‘
Yeah. Me, his
guards, everyone.’

Rannalld held up a hand, ‘He throws out
his guards. He is alone with this Charlie?’

‘
It is a bit annoying
really. The guards won’t even talk to me, hell they don’t even look
at me. When Charlie comes out they go back in.’

‘
I find that
unfathomable. I have never heard of the Emperor being alone with an
alien.’ He turned to Mya, ‘Do you know this Charlie,
Mya?’

‘
Yes, he is very
nice.’

‘
What about you Lady
Jane?’

‘
I haven’t had much
to do with him. I don’t think I have even talked to him. I do
believe he and the Captain were childhood friends. During the
assault on the city ship, I believe Charlie acted as his escort.
After the battle was over, he was transferred as a permanent member
of the crew. I believe he normally acts as the Captain’s escort.
That is as much as I know.’

Rannalld was feeling panicked. ‘Is he
reliable? Is the Emperor safe with him?’

‘
Completely safe.’
Kelly answered offhandedly. ‘Probably far safer than he is with his
own guards.’

‘
I doubt
that.’

Kelly looked him in the eye, ‘Look, I
have no idea what the hell is going on between Charlie and your
Emperor, neither do I give a damn. I will tell you something,
Charlie is one of the best soldiers I have ever met. If you have
any more questions on the subject, take it up with your brother or
Charlie.’

‘
Kelly, we are guests
here and you are being rude.’ Jane snapped.

Kelly’s eyes turned cold and she felt
them drill into her soul, ‘The point I am trying to make to the
Grand Marshal is that he should find out the facts before he starts
hurling insults.’

‘
I don’t believe I
insulted you Sergeant.’

Kelly’s cold eyes turned on him, ‘I
told you the Emperor was safe with Charlie. You said you doubted
that. Which means you called me a liar, and brought into question
the character of a friend of mine. I was not joking, I was not
speculating, I was being truthful.’

‘
Gentlemen please.’
Mya stood and reached out, placing a hand on each of their arms.
‘This is not good.’ She felt the tension ease between the two a
little. ‘Rannalld, Kelly is a man of great honour. He would not
lie. Charlie too is a man of honour. Both are highly decorated,
both war heroes.

‘
Kelly, Rannalld is
concerned for the safety of his brother, a brother he loves very
much. I do not believe he meant to insult you. I myself have never
seen the Emperor with less than at least half a dozen guards
surrounding him. I am sure Rannalld was as surprised as I was to
hear that he trusted himself alone with just one man, let alone
someone from a different race entirely. I am sure he did not mean
to call you a liar, it was simply a statement of
surprise.’

Kelly shook off his irritation, ‘I
suppose... when you put it like that. I am sorry Grand Marshal, I
didn’t mean to go off half-cocked.’

‘
I am not quite sure
what that means Sergeant, but I think I get the general meaning.
For my part, I did not mean to give offence.’

Mya sat back down, the crises averted.
They settled down to eat some more. Rannalld was still having a
difficult time with this new information and began playing with his
food rather than eating it. Kelly eventually got fed up watching
him.

‘
With respect sir,
either piss or get off the pot.’

The saying translated well enough and
Rannalld barked a laugh. ‘I am sorry Sergeant Kelly, your
revelations are praying on my mind. What is it exactly you and this
Charlie do?’

‘
We simply train
soldiers sir.’

‘
It cannot be that
simple.’

‘
Nothing ever is.
After the battle for the city ship, I detected some areas where
much of the training we give our soldiers could be adapted. I got
no real satisfaction through the normal channels, so with the help
of Captain Gordon I put an idea into action. He gave me one of his
big freighters to play with. I turned it into a training ground. We
have different kinds of assault courses and close quarter battle
training facilities. We made an entirely new floor that we can
adapt at will to simulate different ships and ship
types.’

‘
So the soldier
doesn’t get used to the layout and use that to his
advantage.’

‘
Pretty much. If they
know where the pitfalls are then they can adapt to them. Every time
they hit that floor the briefing is different, the scenario is
different, the layout is different, and they have to adapt quickly
to the unfamiliar environment. If we think they are doing too well
then we throw them a curve ball, something unexpected like cutting
off the gravity, or simulating a hull breach so they have to go on
emergency oxygen. We have a panel we can blow out which can toss
them into space.’

‘
Isn’t that very
dangerous?’

‘
We have very strict
safety procedures. If so much as a single suit isn’t sealed then it
doesn’t work. The troops love it anyway. We open a pinhole. That
activates the warnings and they seal their suits. Once they are all
sealed we simulate an explosion and open the hatch. The hatch locks
back out of the way at high speed, and there is a net to catch them
so they don’t get to far from the ship. If they hit the net before
they regain control, they fail the scenario.’

‘
That might be
interesting to see.’

‘
It is normally quite
funny, that’s for sure.’

‘
Do go on
Sergeant.’

‘
There isn’t much
more to tell sir. It was pretty slow to start off with. I got the
guys who I assaulted the city ship with to go through it, and after
that word began to spread. A few NCOs came over on their days off
and had a go. They persuaded their officers. Now one puts all his
recruits through it first, before he allows them to join their
unit. Like an extension training course. We are really quite busy.
It was why I asked Charlie to join me.’

‘
Why him?’

‘
We are on the same
page, that’s why. I am an expert in conventional warfare, small
unit tactics, and he is an expert in unconventional warfare. We
make a great team. He doesn’t have the same battle experience that
I have, but he has enough. He is also more up-to-date with modern
gadgetry and weapons.’

‘
He works for
you?’

‘
I am in charge sir,
yes. I also get help from other members of my crew. They just love
to play enemy.’

‘
I think I would like
to see this for myself.’

‘
We have a full
training program going on now. Feel free to pop in. Just tell Mya
when you want to come, she will let me know.’

CHAPTER 31

‘
Emperors, Kings,
Heads of State, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. My Name is Michael
Montgomery, and I am the elected representative of the people of
Earth. I wish to welcome you all to this event. First and foremost,
I would like to thank the Emperor of the great Modloch Empire, for
allowing us to hold this event within his great palace. As a people
we are humbled by your consideration.’ He bowed to the Emperor who
waved a hand in recognition.

‘
As you already know,
this is a bid to win enough support to sponsor an application to
join the Galactic Brotherhood of Races. To even reach this point is
a milestone for the Human race. A few short years ago, we didn’t
even know there was life on other planets.’

This brought forth a great guff of
laughter from the audience.

The President also laughed, ‘I know. It
all seems so stupid now. I for one always believed there was life
in the great expanse of space. As did many other Humans. Very few
of us, however, believed that the technology existed to travel the
great distances involved. We were wrong. I was wrong. In fact we
were very, very, wrong. Our first encounter of alien life was not
another species but two self-aware ships in dire need of a crew.
Those ships picked their own captains, two people they thought
worthy of them. As it was, they were not only worthy of the ships
but of the whole Human race.

‘
They led us into the
depths of space where they came upon what we called the Black
Planet. It harboured a sinister secret. On the planet’s surface
they found a building, and within the building, thousands of our
fellow citizens. These people were being held there for
experimentation.

Our sun is deadly to all other races
from this side of the barrier. For anyone here but a Human, to
cross the great barrier is a death sentence. A race called the
Albany, however, lived long enough to discover our home world and
the untouched wealth of our solar system. Their greed led them on a
quest to try and bind the genetics of both our races together, so
they could live in our solar system. They succeeded, though it cost
the lives of thousands of Humans. Men, women, children, even babies
were sacrificed in this quest. They have the audacity to call us
filthy animals, but I will not linger on this matter.

‘
You are all aware of
Grand Admiral Gairloch’s story, how he came to our planet, of how
we welcomed him in to our homes and hearts, and his joy at what he
found. He called Earth “the crown jewel of the Galaxy.”

‘
If it wasn’t for
Gairloch, none of us would be here now. It was he who encouraged us
to make this journey to your part of the galaxy, to cross the great
barrier.

‘
You may ask yourself
why would he do that for a race of meat-eaters. What we wish to
impart upon you is the knowledge that he gained. There is as much
diversity in the Human race as there is life on our planet’s
surface. Not all Humans eat meat. Indeed, my own daughter is a
vegetarian: a Human being that refuses to eat any form of meat. But
I am not going to try and gloss over this point. We do eat meat, I
eat meat, yet what most of you don’t realise is that meat only
makes up a small portion of the Human diet.

‘
Tonight we invited
you to a feast, of which all here partook. We watched carefully
what food each race tried. You all sampled the grasses we provided.
There were heathers which some of you tried. Some loved it, some
hated it. Many of you tried the fruit, but not only tried it, went
back for seconds. The mango, coconut, pineapple and lychees were
devoured. A dozen different varieties of apple disappeared. You all
loved the nuts, especially the walnuts, and let us not forget those
mushrooms in jelly.’ There was a grumble of agreement from his
audience.

‘
It is a delicacy you
will be glad to hear that Humans cannot partake of. You may have
them all.’ That brought forth a polite ripple of
laughter.

‘
We knew you would
like them because Gairloch and his crew loved them. These fruits,
vegetables, nuts, berries and grasses are only a miniscule portion
of what our planet produces. Yet this miniscule portion is still
more than all of your planets can produce put together.’ That
brought forward a grumble of discontent.

He held up a hand. ‘We know that in
order to survive your races had to take to the stars at a far
earlier age than ours did. Your planets were as once diverse. Yet
to sustain yourselves, you were forced to reduce your crops to one
or two types of grasses. You were forced to give up delicacies in
order to feed your masses, to build high to save as much soil as
possible. On each world you terraformed you did exactly the same
thing.

‘
We Humans have never
had to do that. We have been able to preserve that which you lost.
The reason we have been able to do that is twofold. To begin with,
we cannot eat grass. The second reason is that we have to preserve
the environment for the animals we do eat. Many of those also eat
the same fruit and vegetables that we do.

‘
However, mankind has
gone much further than simply preserving the species we depend upon
for our survival. Years ago we discovered that there were many
species on our planet that were going extinct. We were destroying
vast tracts of our world to produce areas that would sustain our
domestic livestock, areas where there were animals that could only
survive in that part of the world. They had adapted to eating
vegetation that only existed there.

‘
We decided to
preserve those areas, to protect those habitats and the animals
that depended on them for survival. We protected millions of square
miles of wilderness where no domestic animals were allowed to go,
where many of the species were actually dangerous to
man.