The Prize: Book One (6 page)

“Here, you might want these for your next prisoner.”  Penn gave him a lop-sided grin, and moved back to the center of the cargo bay and stood there waiting.

For a moment Captain Carras didn't know what to do, and stood there blinking.  Looking down at the cuffs, he swallowed in fear.  How long had the prisoner been free?  He looked around at his men, suddenly understanding just how useless they were, if this human become lethal.  That he hadn't, prompted him to do something he'd never do under any other circumstances.  He walked down the ramp toward the roof entrance, deliberately presenting his unprotected back.  It wasn't bravado.  If this human wanted to kill him, he would have done so already, or when he walked up to him after they landed.  That he hadn't, meant he probably wouldn't.  Not much to hang your life on, and he killed the urge to look back, despite the itch between his shoulder blades.

“Follow me,” he said over his shoulder.  Penn followed, the guard squad trailed behind, unsure what else to do.

Most were still in shock and trying to figure out how the prisoner managed to get out of a pair of magnetic cuffs.  Like most people, they considered it impossible, and a lot of people had tried.  Now they just felt stupid, and like their officer wondered how long he'd been free.  Long enough to have killed them all was the General conclusion.

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"At ease, Captain.”  General Tandy muttered as Carras entered the office, his hand moving in a half hearted salute, his eye locked on Richard Penn.

"Yes, Sir.”  The Captain Carras stuttered, not relaxing an inch, a little in awe at being in front of such illustrious company as the General, and a high Var.

The General's continued to gaze at the human, feeling a little uneasy with an unshackled human standing just a few feet from him.   The fact he was unshackled was also a little un-nerving, seeing the cuffs in Captain Carras’s hand instead of around Richard Penn’s wrists.  It was the human's unblinking yellow eyes that grabbed his attention, like some bird of prey eyeing up a potential meal.

"My name is Tandy, General Tandy.  Have you been treated well Mr. Penn?”  For a moment, Penn didn't answer, then shrugged his shoulders slightly. His expression didn't change, yet General Tandy could feel the bitter hatred emanating from him.  In probably any other situation, this man would have killed him on the spot, and damn the odds.

"I know who you are Tandy,” he said at last, “you're one of the Director Markoff's pet Var bitches.  Go tell him from me to go screw himself.”  Penn felt his anger rising, and quickly push it back down, and relaxed his stomach muscles.  This wasn't the time or the place to let it get away from him and go berserker.

“Watch your mouth, Penn…”  Tandy felt his face reddens hearing, and understanding himself being referred to as Director's Markoff’s Var bitch, clenching his fist impotently.

Obviously, Penn knew something about the class distinction, and what felt like to be a Var and subservient to a Surl.  The Captain gasped softly in shock at the sheer impudence of the human.  Any citizen that spoke to a member of the elite class that way would be stunned on the spot, and publicly flogged to death.  So why didn't the General do it?

"I'm not here to listen to you shoot your mouth off, you degenerate pile of brak shit!  You keep it up, and I'll make you wish you'd kept your mouth shut!”  That didn't stop the shadowy memories of that bight sunny day seeping to the surface, feeling a coldness grip his stomach.  He knew exactly what these madmen were capable of.

"Then why are you here, and come to that why am I?”  Penn asked flatly.

"Because I have an offer for you, and the possibility of a pardon if you accept.”

"Not interested.”  Penn answered, his voice full of cold contempt, brushing the offer of a pardon aside with a cutting motion of his hand.

"You haven't heard my offer yet.”  General Tandy bit back on his anger.

"Still not interested, send me back to my cell.”

"I…  I can't do that.”  The General stammered into the silence.  Cursing Markoff and his underhanded scheming.

Penn closed his eyes and shook his head slightly.  For a brief moment, he felt a spark of sympathy for the General.  He was in as much of a trap as he was.  The spark died.  Tandy had made his choice, and still had one.  There were places in the galaxy he could run where the Empire, or IMPSEC couldn't reach him, but Tandy liked doing the Director's dirty work.  He liked his position of power.  With IMPSEC behind him, he could commit any crime, no matter how base, without fear of retribution, so why should he run.

"Tell me your lies then.”  Penn said at last.  General Tandy cleared his suddenly dry throat, sounding as if he had something stuck there.

”There is a planet we wish to investigate, Sigma Alpha Prime.  So far we haven't been able.”  To Penn's ear, the General's voice held an odd note, one he was trying to conceal behind his nervousness.

"You want me to infiltrate another unsuspecting planet, and set them up for an invasion, right?”  Penn growled, not bothering to try to hide the bitterness in his voice.  The ghost of one million men, women, and children he'd condemned to death the first time he’d refused stood at his shoulder.  'How many more?' came unbidden to his mind.

He'd lost count of the assassinations he'd carried out to keep the rest of humanity alive.  Killing some poor unsuspecting schmuck because he'd pissed off the Director, the Emperor, or both.  He'd lost count of the number of planetary presidents, commanding generals, and top officials he'd murdered to destabilize the government to aid the Empire in its conquest.

"No, nothing like that.  As far as we know the planet is uninhabited.”

”What aren't you telling me?"

"A ship can land… well, crash land to be more precise, but due to some sort of gravity anomaly can't take off again.  We need to know why.”  Penn felt depressed looked at the tacky green walls of the office, and said nothing, digesting the information.

"We believe there is a device causing this effect inside an unusually large building on the surface.  Your mission is to go down there, get to the building, find the controls, and turn it off.  If you can't turn it off, destroy it.”

On the surface the mission sounded simply, yet what wasn't the Tandy telling him.  More importantly, why come to him with the problem.  There were a lot of people in the Empire willing to do the Director's dirty work, including other human's, so why him?

"And if I can't turn this device off, or destroy it?”

"The planet is similar to your own.  Oxygen, nitrogen atmosphere, animal life, jungle.  If you can't turn it off, you would be no worse off there, than if you were in prison here.”  If the General thought that was a telling point, he was wrong.

“Captain.  Ask the Sub-Major to come in.”

“Yes, Sir.”  Captain Carras answered.

While they waited, Penn thought about Tandy’s words.  Here, he had a chance to escape, and escape meant he could do more damage to the Empire before they killed him.  If the General was telling the truth, which he doubted.  Once on the planet surface there would be no escape.  But, how did he know that was true?  The one constant in all this was, the Empire would lie, steal, cheat, kill, and do anything in its power to get what it wanted.  It still left the question of why him, unanswered.  Penn brought his attention back to the door, hearing footsteps, light ones, and his nose detected something…  Whatever it was it compelled him to turn, feeling as if his system was going into combat mode.  Penn sucked in a breath of air as a human female in her early twenties walked into the room.  One look at the uniform was enough to bring a savage snarl from Penn.  For a moment, he clenched his fist before forcing himself to relax.  General Tandy's eyes narrowed, seeing Penn's reaction to the woman as she walked across the carpet toward him and came to attention.

"Sub Major Ellis reporting as ordered, Sir!”  The Sub Major snapped a smart salute to the General, who returned it with a dismissive wave, feeling even more uneasy with two humans in the room.

"At easy Sub-Major.”

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Sub Major Ellis took the at ease position, still ramrod straight, her eye fixed on the wall.  Not that she was unaware of the other two people in the room.  The moment she walked in, she identified the odd scent that bothered her while standing outside waiting for the General's call.  Another human, and two males.  She dismissed the Oxian Captain, both as a threat, or a friend.  Her acute senses of smell locked onto the human.  Pheromones can be a bitch, and the one thing she didn't need in her life right now, was some stiff prick macho male asshole sniffing around her like she was a bitch in heat.  The fact her body responded to the siren call of the pheromones was something she was fully aware off, promising herself a heavy workout in the base gym as soon as possible.  Some poor soul was going to get the crap beaten out of him just so she could work off the surge of energy she felt.

It was bad enough having to put up with non-human asshole's like General Tandy eyeing her up as if she were a piece of meat for them to use.  General Tandy's appraisal of her body didn't go unnoticed.  Knowing Var and senior officers as she did, she suspected the thoughts behind it.

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“Penn, this is Sub-Major Ellis, the ground Commander for this mission.  Sub-Major Ellis, this is Penn, the man you will be… escorting.”  He added as if unsure how to phrase it.

Penn's overly keen senses detected her before she entered the room, and it accounted for his unconscious reaction as she walked in.  Even with his instant dislike, Penn assessed her quickly with a soldier's eye.  An inch over six feet tall, neat, trim figure, small feet, short reddish gold hair, cut short in a military fashion peeking out from under her side hat.  Her Imperial undress grays were immaculate tailored to fit her trim body to perfection.  The decoration on her ample breast told him that she had a lot of combat experience, more than he would have expected for someone so young.  That spoke to a lot of combat experience.

Obviously, Sub-Major Ellis was a hardass who'd worked her way up through the Imperial Military ranks to her present position on talent.  It told him a lot about her, and he felt an odd sense of pride that a human, and a woman to boot, could survive in the harsh reality of the Imperial Military establishment, and do as well as she'd obviously had.  Unless of course she'd worked her way up on her back, with her legs spread.  Looking at her again he decided no, she'd done it the hard way, doubting many men got into her panties.  Penn pulling his mind back from the intriguing thought.  Her face smooth, clear, olive skin pulled tight over angular bone, square jaw and a small pug nose.  All in all, an uncommonly strong face from Penn's point of view.  The one thing detracting from her beauty was the harsh stress lines around her mouth, and the almost permanent frown lines between her light gray eyes.  She was definitely pissed off about something, and had been for a very long time by the look of it.  Combat stress could do that, but Penn felt there was a deep anger, barely suppressed, not unlike himself in some ways.

“And what is Mr. Penn's function, General?”  Sub-Major Ellis asked in a crisp tone.  General Tandy looked at her a moment, deciding how much to tell her.

“You are the Ground Commander for the mission, and Penn will act as… your scout… your guide and point man.”

“And his expertise in this area?”  She asked.  The subtext was that he wasn't military, and therefore suspect.  She also made it sound as if she were addressing a subordinate, instead of an Imperial General.

“Mr. Penn has... shall we say, a lot of experience in the type of terrain you will encounter.”  Ellis cocked a questioning eyebrow at the General.

General Tandy gritted his teeth.  What was it about these damn human's that they needed an explanation for everything?  Why couldn't they be like other good little indig soldiers and just do what they were ordered, without a lot of questions?  Even so, her attitude, and tone of voice intimidate him.  Humans called it 'command voice', and it was something he noted before.  He wondered for a moment if it was something humans were born with.   Penn wasn’t the one eyeing the Sub-Major’s breasts, and even as the General’s eye dropped from her face, they slid sideways to the ribbons.  Like any soldier he could read them like an open book, and the story they told, brought home to him again just how dangerous these damn humans were.  As young and sexually appealing as she looked, forcibly trying to seduce her would probably be a painful, if not deadly experience.  Getting a grip on himself, he brought his attention back to the mission, expelling his vagrant sexual fantasy, back to the depth where it belonged.