Lust for War (Part 4 of 4) [18+]

Posted on 23 Aug 2015 @ 12:47am by Queen Regent Lirha Saalm & M'Ressa & Commander (La) Flektor Stace & Lieutenant (Sogh) Andreus Romar & Warrant Officer ('etlh Suvwl') Tinaro Cyi
Edited on on 23 Aug 2015 @ 12:56am

1,813 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: IKS Saalm - Deck 10, Briefing Room
Timeline: MD 01 - 1705 hrs

Previously, on Lust for War (Part 3 of 4)...

Scrutinizing him closely, Lirha took a deep breath and frowned. "Perhaps next time...you will voice your final thoughts before you are unable to?" It was what a proper warrior would do, after all. At least, she thought so.

With a slow nod Jynn replied, "Yes, Queen." He then rolled back to the center of the table with a depressed look on his face. He felt most glum for failing his master had no longer felt the need for further words. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to get lost once more in all the other emotions throughout the room, whisked away from his own.

Fel shook his head slightly. Tyrion was certainly going to get himself killed soon, for his weakness. The Deltan might not be too far behind, though the Queen Regent seemed to like him a whole lot more. It was hard to tell at times where her favour lay. Fel was confident, however, that he had once again impressed her and in the end, that was all that mattered.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

M'Ressa waited until the others had finished their reports. Stepping forward, she knelt on one knee for Regent Saalm. "Rregent. I have news of Nesh. It seems she is a slave of one of the Empirre's officerrs and herr husband."

And as if things couldn't get any worse, Lirha now rose from her seat and clenched her fists, her sharp nails cutting into the palms of her hands. "...What...?!? My sister??"

There was not much that would put Saalm into a pure rage, but this was one of them. She briefly glanced around the room and looked for someone to kill, someone to take out her despair upon, but there were no expendables present. Her mind began to wrack itself with personal thoughts of frustration, failure, and utter hatred for everything the Human disease did in the galaxy. How dare her younger sister -- a child -- be taken and treated as a slave. Words couldn't express what was racing through her mind right now. Scorched Earth was the Final Solution for the Human parasites.

"Where is she?? Aboard what vessel??" she demanded with a loud shriek.

"My sourrces tell me Rregent that she is aboarrd the ISS Galileo. The couple that hold Nesh arre a Min Zhao and Jarred Nicholas. She is apparrently a carregiver to Min's bastarrd child, and she has not been abused by them, she was rremoved frrom a POW camp soon afterr herr arrrival."

Fists trembling with anger, Lirha wanted to know more from the cat-lady. "And where IS Galileo? That fool of a Terran general -- Holliday -- is the commander of that vessel...and he now has my sister?!" Her green fist pounded hard onto the briefing room table sending a startling sound which echoed throughout the room. "Where is he?!!"

M'Ressa bowed her head. "That I do not know Rregent. I lost one of my best people getting the information you now posses. Perrhaps one of those assembled herre would know."

It took much of Andreus Romar's efforts to remain still. He forced his body to remain still, willed his facial expression to remain neutral. He knew nothing about what had happened to Saalm's sister, and that rankled him somewhere deep. While it was no secret Romar was on secondment from the Obsidian Order, Romar's current responsibilities were tactical, rather than intelligence-based. It still concerned him that his handler from the Order had sent no communication about Nesh. And so all Romar could do was be still and be quiet.

Grasping her dagger and moving towards the Caitian, Lirha stared into M'Ressa's silver eyes. The Orion quickly thrust her blade into the side of the fur-coated-woman's neck and twisted the blade before violently extracting it from her flesh. Several severe squirts of blood fueled by the pressure from her arteries ejected from her veins and spewed her fluids all across her shirt and onto any nearby crew member.

"Perhaps YOU should know," Lirha replied while she now watched M'Ressa die slowly for her failures.

M'Ressa said nothing, merely pressing her paw against the ragged wound in an attempt to stem the blood loss. She could feel her vision blurring as her life force flowed between her fingers, her brain slowly starving for oxygen.

Thankfully the knife hadn't severed blood vessels on the other side of her neck, otherwise she'd have died extremely quickly. She looked up at Lirha, "Regent, Please. Permit me the chance to redeem myself. Let me recover her when we find the ship."

"If you wish to redeem yourself..." the Orion cocked her head to the side, "you will fall on my knife with honor. Perhaps then, your own sacrifice will vindicate you." Her menacing words cut through the air and she waited impatiently for the woman to take her own life.

"Yes Regent." was all M'Ressa responded, her face downcast. Taking her ceremonial dagger and kneeling, M'Ressa pointed it at her belly and thrust it into her lower gut. Slicing upwards to her rib cage, M'Ressa felt a hellish pain as the dagger sliced through her organs, sealing her fate.

Placing the knife down as blood poured from her body, M'Ressa recited a short word of prayer to the Caitian deity, asking for forgiveness. Eye's glazing, M'Ressa died on her knees, her body collapsing as she died.

Reaching down to retrieve her knife and wipe it clean on the dead lady's pant leg, Lirha then took a deep breath and returned to her seat. "Clean that up," she instructed to the nearest person. Perhaps there needed to be a permanent body-disposal team at these briefings in the future.

Tyrien tugged on his robes a bit, making sure they were in order before entering the room. He hated the dark ship he was on; the horrible smells from the Klingons and other aliens, the constant intrigue from the officers trying to gain favor with the Queen Regent, the assassination attempts. Tyrien deactivated his personal shield and told his bodyguards to wait outside the door. He knew it was bad form to go in front of the Queen Regent with them in place. Besides, it was probubly the safest place on the ship. No one would dare kill him in her presence, at least not without her permission, and if she wanted the boy dead, the security and the shield wouldn't help much anyway.

Tyrien squared his shoulders and strolled in. His father was well placed with the Queen Regent so that gave him cover. He glanced around the room at the others. He knew most of their faces and names from the constant memorization his father required. Know your rivals, for they are your enemies. He side stepped a headless corpse and walked towards the Queen Regent and knelt. "My Queen Regent." He said trying to keep his youthful voice from shaking.

Lirha didn't bother to look up at the new arrival, Tyrien. She was much too preoccupied with the current conversation and failures of her crew to crush the rebellion and save her sister. "Yes?" she asked of the man.

"I have an report for you from fath.. from your 'etlh Suvwl' Tinaro Cyi." Tyrien pulled the device with the encrypted message on it and held it out, his head still lowered in perfect form. "It details the success of his infiltration and an update on the location of the Terran Forces."

After the recent fatalities in the past few minutes, Lirha was now relieved to hear of such good news. Well, she hoped it would be good news. And by any indication of its contents -- the Terran forces' location and the hideout of General Holliday -- Lirha's green ears now perked up and she looked up with bright eyes. "Show me," she said, then took the data pad from the man and began to browse through it.

"...Nimbus sector...grid 305-104..." she mumbled to herself. She suddenly slammed the pad on the briefing room table and began to bark orders, much at her own pleasure. "They are here! In the Nimbus system. Commander Stace, set a course for the coordinates listed in this file. And..." she turned back towards Tyrien, "if you and your people are wrong..." her voice trailed off.

Tyrien nodded humbly and expertly controlled his anger at the suggestion that his father's information was anything less than perfect. Knowing it would be suicide to point that out, Tyrien merely nodded in humility. "The information is accurate, Ma'am. The infiltration mission you ordered has proved information where others have failed. I congratulate you on your vision and foresight. We live to serve, Queen Regent." Tyrien knew it wise to give the credit for his father's brilliance and subterfuge to the Queen Regent, as his father had instructed, but the words still tasted bitter in his mouth. He knew the plan was constructed, implemented, and carried out by his father, knowing that failure meant death at best. Still the Queen Regent only cared about results and he knew she would reward those who gave them to her, if only to spite those that failed.

Stace leered over to the side of the queen regent and as he did so, he nodded his obedience and took the data padd from her to walk it over to the bridge. The cool touch of the padd lingered on his fingers as he left the table and walked over to the doors. "And Tyrien," he called back over his shoulders as the heavy doors peeled open, "the queen regent won't even have to look in my direction if we get to these coordinates and find Holliday nowhere to be seen. I'll take your life myself. Is that clear?"

Without listening for a reply, Stace walked through doors and made his way to the bridge.

"Dismissed," commanded Lirha who was now ready to begin the hunt for Holliday and avenge her sister's abduction. "Report to your stations and prepare for battle!"

[OFF]

--

Queen Regent Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Saalm]

SohHom Naois Mercy
Interrogator
IKS Saalm
[pnpc T'Vanna]

Tyrion
Hirad's/Grayson Jones' Servant/Slave
IKS Saalm
[pnpc T'Vanna]

M'Ressa
(dead)
IKS Saalm
[pnpc Min]

Sogh Andreus Romar
Gunner
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Kohl]

SoghHom Jynn
Chief Flight Control Officer
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Jynn]

Commander Flektor Stace
Second in Command
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Stace]

LCmdr Gerrin illm Warraquim
Military Observer
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Allyndra]

Tyrien Cyi
Son of Tinaro Cyi
IKS Saalm
[PNPC Charles]

Beaumont
Telepathic WMD
IKS Saalm

Cyrin Fel
Weapons Designer
IKS Saalm

Taliesin Cynwrig
Terran Empire Officer & Captive
Dead

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