Disclaimer: All characters are mine. This is a sequel to Master's of Violence.
Master's of War
by
AJ Marks
Part 3
Admiral Charlie Schuppe walked own to the interrogation room the next morning to see if there was any new information. He was met as he walked into the room by the head of intelligence who looked like he had some news.
"Admiral, I'm glad you're here." He said excitedly. "We were able to break one of them last night, one of their commanders."
Charlie smiled when he heard this news. There would be some great information that could come out of him.
"It was quite easy, the Kalliki are not used to pain, so just the threat of a simple broken bone was enough to make them squeal like a dog." The man said with some pride. "We learned quite a bit, but we are still in the process of gathering the information, but we did learn that several humans were taken off world to a planet he called Xeti, which he called a type of prison planet. He says that it is heavily guarded."
"Hmm, I wonder what they mean by heavily guarded." Jack said rubbing is chin in thought. "What has our allies said about this world?"
"Only one of them has been there, and he said that to him it was hell, he did not know how heavily guarded it was, but it was a place for rebellious slaves to be set for retraining. They were making room for human slaves for training." The man said.
"Drill all of them about this Xeti, I have a feeling that it will be our next target." Charlie said knowing that he had to go talk to Jeff about all of this. "Keep me informed."
"Yes sir! I should have the rest of the report on your desk by the end of the day." The man replied and watched as Charlie walked out of the room.
Sammie landed her fighter in the landing bay of the North America as her patrol was coming to a close. She had not been able to concentrate the entire time, she was still worried about Angie and her connection to her cousin was not helping things.
When she got out of her fighter she was met by Kevin who was waiting for her.
"Hey, how about something to eat, I bet your hungry after the patrol." Kevin asked her knowing that after patrols they were usually hungry and had to go to the bathroom.
"Okay, sounds good, just let me make a pit stop, then I'll join you in the mess hall." Sammie told him.
"Okay, I do have some news to tell you when you get there." Kevin said having heard the news from a crewman earlier in the day.
"Can't wait Kevin." Sammie said as she quickly walked down the corridor towards the bathroom.
Several minutes later Sammie entered the mess hall and glanced around for Kevin. She spotted him already sitting down at an empty table. She quickly went and grabbed a sandwich and joined him.
"So what's the news that you wanted to tell me?" Sammie asked him as she sat down.
"We think that we know where they took the human prisoners." Kevin said to Sammie knowing that she would be interested in the news.
"What!" She said as her head snapped up to look directly at Kevin.
"Well it seems that one of the guards that we captured is some sort of commander and is talking." Kevin said trying to sort out the rumor from facts. "There are a lot of rumors going around about it. The one thing they all have in common is that they have a prison planet for quote 'slaves' unquote who are unruly." He said looking at Sammie's face and seeing the look that was there.
"Is that where they took the them?" Sammie said referring to the humans they had taken off the planet. Sammie had been hoping that Angie's mother and father were among those taken off the planet.
"We don't know much about it yet, but from what he's said a good number were removed from the planet and could account for a lot of the missing and presumed dead." Kevin said knowing that it could be a long shot, and he knew that she knew it also.
"It's a shot in the dark, I know that, but it might bring Angie out of this funk she's in. It's depressing me as well." Sammie said referring to their link between each other.
"I figured that it would." Kevin said.
"I'll give her a call when I find out for sure." Sammie said. "Thanks for telling me."
"You're welcome." Kevin said.
Iccol stood outside of the building feeling the humidity rise as the sun evaporated the rainwater that had fallen earlier in the day. He loved the feeling as it reminded him of his home world. Earth was a nice place, but most of it was to dry for him. The humans off to his right were complaining about the humidity and the rising heat.
Toncor looked over to his left to see a group of aliens who were now free start making a shelter for themselves. The local human inhabitants had approached them to see if they wanted any help, but they had politely refused saying they wanted to do something on their own without anyone's help. Iccol could not blame them, he would want to do the same thing, and most were still a bit wary about the humans.
Iccol remembered his first encounters with the violent side of humans. Toncor and him were in a hotel room and they were watching what the humans called television. A human later explained what they had been watching was a mock battle of a real battle that took place in what they called the Napoleonic Wars. From what he saw their battles were bloody and violent. Both he and Toncor wondered what type of race the humans were and how friendly they were going to be toward them.
Iccol was quite surprised that given the humans violent nature, that they were so peaceful in so many other ways. Their art and designs were absolutely stunning and their music was both peaceful and emotional it brought tears to their eyes. They both could not believe that such beautiful art and music could come from a race like the humans.
Iccol walked over to where the aliens were working to see if there was anything he could do for them.
One of the aliens noticed Iccol's approach and walked to meet him. Iccol recognized him as one of the leaders that had emerged from the group of aliens.
"Hello Hulre, how are things going?" Iccol asked him as they met and shook each other's hands.
"Things are looking pretty good right now. We have put up most of the walls and the main supports for the roof are just about up." The short red skinned alien said looking, back at the building.
Iccol looked over at the building and had to admit that they were progressing quite rapidly. A small part of Iccol wonder if they would be happy here along side the humans. His people had adapted but he knew that if it were possible, they could chose to go home.
"Where are you from?" Iccol asked the red skinned alien.
"I'm from a planet called Ranir, a long way from here." He said a bit sadly. "The Kalliki came in and completely destroyed my world, forced us to work as slaves to harvest crops for them. Most of us died doing that, my mom and dad died during that time, I hate them." He said and Iccol could see it in his eyes. "I hope that these humans don't stop with just defending themselves. So many others need their help."
"I don't know what their plans are." Iccol said not wanting to meet the alien's eyes.
"Perhaps we can help them." He said, his eyes taking on a far away look.
"They asked for our help when we first arrived at their homeworld." Iccol said not knowing what else to say.
"Angie, you have a call." Amy's mother said to Angie.
"Thank you." Angie said to her friend's mom as she took the phone and was pleasantly surprised to see her cousin's face.
"Hey squirt!" Sammie said calling Angie by her nickname that Sammie had given Angie. "I have some news for you that you might want to hear." Sammie said and watched, as Angie's interested picked up.
"Yeah, what is it?" Angie asked, patience never being one of her strong points.
"We've learned from our prisoners that several human prisoners were taken off world to a special prison planet, your mom and dad could be among them." Sammie said watching as hope sprung into her cousin's eyes.
"Do you really think so?" Angie said not able to keep the hope out of her voice.
"There is a chance, I only know that plans are underway to liberate them." Sammie said to her cousin.
"That's the best news I've heard in quite a while, thanks cuz." Angie replied. "Let me know if anything else comes up, please." Angie said.
Admiral Charlie Schuppe stared at the screen waiting for the call to Jeff Cerial to connect. He had received some more information about the prison planet that he thought Jeff would want to know.
"General Cerial here." Jeff said as his image appeared on the screen in front of Charlie.
"General?" Charlie said a bit confused by the comment.
"Admiral, good to see you." Jeff said glad to hear from his top commander. "The council decided that I needed title to go along with my post, and what better than general." Jeff said with a bit of pride in his voice.
"Well, general, I have some information that you might find interesting." Charlie said using Jeff's new title.
Jeff sat back and waited quietly for Charlie to say what was so important. Jeff figured that it would be about the Kalliki that they had captured, and some new information had been acquired that could be useful.
"You remember that prison planet that I told you about?" Charlie said and watched as Jeff nodded his head that he did remember. "Well, we've learned that it is more than just a prison planet, this planet could be the key to defeating the Kalliki."
At this comment Jeff became really interested in the conversation. He had been trying to think of a way to get Boris to side with him on the thinking that the Human race needed to attack the Kalliki, and not just play defense. They needed to defeat the Kalliki if peace was to ever be achieved in the universe.
"It seems that the planet is one of six of the prison planets. Their job is 'reprogram' slaves, but they are also the major military installations of their empire. In both ships and troops stationed there, but also in training and building of their ships and crews." Charlie told Jeff.
Jeff looked like he had just been handed a present, which he had, on Christmas day. Instead of trying to liberate each planet, which would be costly in both men and material, they could concentrate on six planets and force the Kalliki into surrender.
"That's wonderful news, I need to talk to the president right away, do we have the coordinates of these planets?" Jeff asked Charlie.
"Not all of them. We have for sure the one that they our people to, and everyone wants to hit that one first, before they get a chance to scatter them anymore." Charlie said. He left out the overwhelming pressure that the crew had been giving him to just head there without orders. Charlie had promised them that he would first talk to Jeff, now general, about it before the crew took drastic measures. Charlie also knew that the reason for the pressure was that most of the crew was made up of people who had family or friends that live on NewSol.
"I think that I can convince the government to allow this, we already have two races that have contacted us for protection from the Kalliki, and our planet, even with NewSol won't be large enough to support the influx of aliens to our world." Jeff told him.
The latest group of aliens had appeared at first to warn us, but after listening to Toncor they asked for protection. Jeff had learned that this new group of refugees had been running for the past four hundred years. None of the current survivors had ever lived on a planet and they were beginning to get desperate for a new ship and a home.
Jeff could not blame them though, if he were in the same situation he would want the same thing.
"When should I expect an answer?" Charlie respectively asked so that he would sound demanding.
"Hmm, give me a six hours, as the president has a meeting first thing this morning and I'll try to catch him after that meeting.
"Okay, I'll be waiting for it then." Charlie said as Jeff signed off.
Toncor sat back watching Jeff Cerial talk to Admiral Schuppe. So far the reports from Iccol made Toncor think about some things. He knew that the planet they were on, Earth, and NewSol, could not accommodate an influx of aliens. Earth's resources were already at the straining point, and like many other races were starting to explore the space around them for more room.
Iccol also said in his report that a lot of the aliens who had been freed had never even seen their home planet. Most had been slaves all their lives and a few of them had parents who told them tales of their home planet. There were a few that could remember their freedom and they wanted to help the humans in any way that they could.
Toncor asked Iccol to gather as much information as he could before he told Jeff. Toncor wanted to wait to see what the humans would do and how far they wanted to go. He did not think that the humans wanted to fight a war for all of them for not much of a reward.
Toncor noticed that Jeff had finished his conversation with the admiral and was now thinking quietly. "What are you thinking about Jeff?" Toncor asked breaking the silence.
Jeff looked up at Toncor's voice before responding. "I have relieved some interesting news that I think that I should bring up with the president. It seems that the prisoners gave us some information that could make this war against the Kalliki shorter. There are about six targets that could end the war and defeat the Kalliki." Jeff said relaying what Admiral Schuppe had told him.
"Well, it seems that this could be some good news." Toncor replied wondering in the back of his mind if this would allow him to go back home. "So when are you going to talk to the president?"
"He's going to be busy for the next couple of hours, but later this afternoon I have a meeting with him, so I'll talk to him then about it." Jeff said. "Want to get something to eat?"
"Sounds good." Toncor said as they got up and walked out of Jeff's office.
End Part 3
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