End of the Innocent by Clark Graham

Author:Clark Graham [Graham, Clark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2015-06-26T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty Four

Deep Space

When the space destroyer finally slowed down, Zedra looked out the narrow window in the engine compartment. There before him was a massive station floating in mid space. It was round with domes on the top and the bottom. Long arms stretched from the central core and along these arms were docked many military ships. Zedra saw how small his ship was in comparison. There were massive star battleships and space plane carriers. There were also a lot of ships that were just larger than the star destroyer he was on; he guessed those were the star cruisers that the master had talked about.

“Impressive; isn’t it?” came a voice from behind.

Zedra turned to see the engine room master behind him. “I thought you said that the Admiral had sold off his fleet. There are a lot of ships here.”

“Prince Rignar has brought his fleet here to keep it from getting destroyed in a surprise attack. If another fleet comes to this sector they will have to come a long way to find it. The admiral fled when he heard Rignar was coming. We got all of this from our communications.”

“Is the emperor dead then?”

“No, but he barely lingers. Two of his sons keep him alive artificially. They have the most to lose and are in league together. They gather their forces in preparation for the day they let him die. They will be the first to know.”

“It’s all very bad.” Zedra shook his head. “I should not even be a part of this. Why was I stolen from my home and brought out here to face an imminent war?”

The old master smiled. His yellowish teeth briefly appeared under his grey mustache. “It is the way of the Empire. It is always hungry and eating planets as it spreads across space. One day, however, it will find a more advanced space going race and they will thrash it. For now, it hungers for food, manpower, and metal. It will attack any planet that can supply those things.”

“Did your communication say how the war is going on my home planet?”

“The Empire has withdrawn for now. It owns most of your planet and controls the space port that we built. The war is on hold until the Empire figures out who is going to lead it over the next few decades. You planet is doomed however. It will suffer the same fate as all of the other planets that were gobbled up, stripped of their resources and then abandoned. You will find those types of planets all around you, especially in the edges of the galaxy, where we are.”

Zedra just shook his head. A few minutes later there was a clunk and the whole ship shook slightly.

“Ah, we are docked,” the engine room master said. “I have taught you all I could about engines on the journey over here. Now you will have to become a soldier of the Empire. You will learn the rich, but cruel, history. You will drill and drill until you are sick of drilling and then you will be reassigned to another ship.

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