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  Their necks were very short and some almost had no necks. They had no hair whatsoever on any part of their bodies. The pigmentation of their skin was yellow with brown and green strokes and contours and their eyes were like the eyes of a cat. The detector was set to the proper specifications in order to locate the Ergaddi species.

  “The total number of Ergaddis is seven hundred and fifty two, Captain,” answered Geyruk as he looks down at the device’s screen. “Looks like they are scattered among all of the mines as guards to ensure they work hard.”

  “Scan their spacecrafts now,” said Cruise, still staring at the tiny indications of Ergaddi presence on the planet. “I want to know how many of their crews are still on board their crafts.”

  Caleo retrieves the data and Geyruk responds. “Out of all six spacecrafts, Captain, fifty crew members on each one.”

  “So their total numbers are one thousand and fifty two,” responds Cruise. “The fifty two are most likely commanding officers. Each one has a certain amount of soldiers working under them. They probably already have a base set up somewhere. Can you locate that?”

  “Sorry, Captain,” replies Caleo. “This is merely a biological detector. It doesn’t give the ranks of the entities.”

  “For that,” says Garza, “We’ll have to activate the Radio Diagnostic Sensing Analyser and lock it into their frequency. Then we’ll be able to see where they have the largest concentration of emitting frequency waves.”

  “Are you sure that won’t give our position away?” asks Cruise.

  “They’ll know they’re being scanned, but will not be able to trace it,” replies Caleo, “because we only need to send a signal for a few seconds, since we are using Earth’s terms of measurements. To them it will look like their vessels are still trying to communicate with them.”

  The commander of the Ergaddi pirates is notified that a communication signal had been sent down to earth from space. “It must be our spacecraft attempting to communicate.”

  “How much longer with this whole process take?” Demands the impatient commander.

  “We will be completely finished and ready for transport to the cargo vessels in three miscils.”

  That conversation was enough for Tactical Officer Garza to locate the central base of operations of the pirates. “We got it, Captain. Here are the coordinates.”

  “Captain,” speaks up Caleo, “according to the Biological Organism Detector, the base seems to be located a great distance from the mines.”

  Garza turns towards Cruise. “That gives us a chance to wipe out all of their leadership in one fell swoop, Captain. We may never have this chance again.”

  “No, I won’t do it that way, Garza,” replies Cruise. “We are not heartless mercenaries who kill first and ask questions later. I, unlike many of the ruthless dynasties that fill the limitless universe, believe in taking prisoners.”

  Cruise gives the command for two thousand five hundred crewmen to suit up in full battle gear and to be battle ready. Garza 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.

  Chapter 5 Queen Millennia

  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 instru
ments 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 inte
nsity 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.”

  “W-what?” Cruise turned his head towards Caleo.

  “Explosions,” the physician said, “came from the ships in orbit.”

  Cruise looks up to see a gigantic fireball falling towards the ocean in the distance.

  “Where’s Geyruk? Where’s my first officer?” He was nowhere to be seen. The first explosion was followed by another and then another until there had been six explosions in all. Five more giant fireballs enter the atmosphere careening and spiralling across the sky in bright yellow, surrounded by pink balls of radiant white light. They follow the first one in their death parade into the crystal sea.

  “What’s going on?” Cruise shouted. “Those explosions were the pirates’ vessels. Our troops had boarded them; one thousand troops.”

  Cruise stood there in shock, but was brought back to reality by Millennia as she places her soft hand on Cruise’s strong shoulder. “My Commodore’s agents saw your first officer. First he was there and then he was gone.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Graciousness. I must return to my vessel right away. I think someone just started a war.”

  Chapter 6 Soul Mate

  Attempting to teleport back to Infinity, Cruise found that the Teleporter had been shut down and locked. Even Infinity’s controls cold not override it. He tells Caleo to scan Infinity and locate Geyruk.

  “Scanning now, Captain. There he is, on the control deck. He seems to be giving orders to the crew.”

  “Thanks, Caleo,” Said Cruise. “I’ll use the teleport function on my wrist band to get there. He can’t lock that down.”

  Cruise appears on the control deck behind Geyruk. He’s not noticed. Drawing his Exust brand Star Flash Blaster, he stuns Geyruk before he even knows what hit him and calls security. “Get him to the borstal.” He then orders Infinity back to real-time and she brings all mechanisms and instruments back to standard. “Infinity, give me a damage report.”