Milor! Read online

  Copyright ©2003, 2010 by Thomas J. DePrima

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal, and punishable by law.

  No part of this novel may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This version of the printed novel has been formatted for presentation on Amazon Kindle devices and various other electronic media. The requirement that the text flow freely to accommodate different mediums may at times result in unusual display arrangements. Every effort has been made to ensure that the document is free of spelling and grammatical errors. If you find an error, please report it on the author's website so that a correction, if appropriate, can be performed immediately. Thank you.

  Cover art by Martin J. Cannon

  ASIN:

  To contact the author, or see additional information about this and his other novels, visit:

  http://www.deprima.com

  An appendix containing technical data pertinent to this series is included at the back of this book.

  * * *

  Many thanks to Ted King for his technical expertise and encouragement, and to Michael A. Norcutt for his suggestions, proofreading, and for acting as my military protocol advisor. And kudos to Martin Cannon for the fantastic cover artwork that features Lord High Space Marshall Gulqulk of the Milori emperor's Imperial Cruiser Reguffa.

  * * *

  This series of Jenetta Carver novels include:

  A Galaxy Unknown

  Valor at Vauzlee

  The Clones of Mawcett

  Trader Vyx

  Milor!

  Vroman Castle

  Against All Odds

  Other novels by this author include:

  When The Spirit Moves You

  When The Spirit Calls

  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Appendix

  Product Description

  * * *

  Chapter One

  ~ January 11th, 2275 ~

  The sound of his footsteps echoed hollowly off the dark-gray granite walls of the splendiferous palace and raced fleetingly ahead of his shadow as he walked in determined silence. Magnificently attired potentates and prime ministers eyed him jealously from oversized portraits lining the hallways. Their time had faded, and Nadeil Marueck now held the high office of Prime Minister on Arrosa. He had steadily climbed, some would say clawed, his way up during decades of government service, and he now stood at the pinnacle of political accomplishment on his home world. The planet still supported a royal family, but the King and Queen functioned merely as figureheads to an adoring populace. Marueck held the real strings of power, and he held them tightly, lest someone as ambitious as he, try to wrest control from his vise-like grip.

  As he entered the large outer office with his usual arrogant gait, the people hoping for an audience rose quickly from their seats. Without so much as a glance in their direction, he crossed the room and disappeared into his large and lavishly appointed inner office. Pausing briefly to prepare a steaming cup of Gyxorna from a beverage synthesizer, he continued on to his desk and sat down in the ostentatious chair that was just one more symbol of his supreme power. The seat back rose at least two feet above his head, strongly but silently proclaiming its occupant to be a person of unparalleled importance. It's not that the sixty-three-year-old ruler was short. At four-foot five-inches, he was actually taller than ninety-seven percent of a planetary population where the average height for males was three-foot one-inch. Arrosian women, at three-foot five-inches on average, were usually taller than their spouses. Marueck just felt that the stately chair made him seem even taller and more imposing to the people privileged enough to visit his office.

  Marueck prepared his mind for the day ahead while he sipped at his Gyxorna and listened attentively to his computer as it read off his appointments. Suddenly he yelled at the computer to stop, put his cup down so quickly and forcefully that the beverage sloshed over onto his desk, and jumped to his feet.

  "Mirva," he yelled in a loud and angry voice as he strode purposefully into the outer office to confront his secretary. "I told you that I didn't want to see that idiot Tiksetti under any circumstances. Why is he listed on my appointments schedule?"

  "I'm sorry, Prime Minister, but the King made the appointment for Professor Tiksetti. I couldn't very well say no to His Majesty."

  "You can and will when I've given you instructions contrary to one of his eccentric whims. Now contact Tiksetti immediately and inform him that the appointment has been cancelled."

  "Yes sir. Right away, Prime Minister."

  As she stretched out a hand towards the com unit on her desk, the entire room suddenly shook violently! Plaster dust fell thickly from newly opened cracks in the ceiling and filled the office with a dense, choking, white cloud that all but obscured visibility. Decorative objects, dislodged from the walls, crashed noisily to the floor. Waiting visitors in the outer office, having again jumped to their feet in the presence of the Prime Minister, went stumbling into one another before falling. Marueck, unable to keep his footing, wound up sprawled on the floor like the others.

  As the shaking ended, Marueck got to his feet and staggered to the doorway leading to his inner office. Pushing open the door, he saw that his massive desk was now a dozen feet closer to the door than it had been just minutes earlier. The wall immediately behind his desk was completely gone. Large chunks of masonry, wood, and plaster covered the floor and everything else in the room. The blast had pushed his magnificent chair against his heavy desk with sufficient force to smash the chair to kindling. The room was in total disarray. A breeze, flowing in through the new floor-to-ceiling hole, prevented plaster dust from settling, and kept loose papers swirling about the office. All color drained from Marueck's face as he stared at the carnage. If he hadn't lost his temper and rushed to the outer office, the blast would have killed him for sure.

  Several bodyguards, brandishing laser weapons, burst into the outer office from the corridor and ran to the Prime Minister, identifying the plaster-dust covered ghost-like figure solely by his height. Fearing that there might be additional danger, they grabbed his arms and pulled him away from his position by the inner office door. One guard then cleared the way ahead as the others half-pushed and half-dragged Marueck out of the office to a special elevator. Within minutes, the prime minister found himself down in a bunker deep beneath the palace. A number of other ministers and deputies were likewise collected and brought down to the War Situation Room.

  "What's happened?" Marueck demanded of the young officer in charge of securing the room as he shook his head to dislodge some of the plaster dust that caked his hair and made him seem older than his years by turning the light brown to snow white.

  "W
e don't have all the details yet, Prime Minister. We know that there was a large explosion outside the building near your office, but we don't know what exploded. It could have been a missile, a mortar round, or a transport bomb. We're still investigating the matter. Colonel Dejemnik ordered that you and the other ministers in the palace be brought here until we can determine if there's any additional threat."

  Marueck paced the underground room restlessly until word came that there didn't appear to be any additional danger, then walked from the room with a trail of ministers behind him. The lift only accommodated six at a time, leaving room for just two others in addition to Marueck and his three main bodyguards for the first trip. Pulling his Minister of State Security and the Minister of Intelligence into the car, he nodded to a bodyguard to close the door.

  "Listen to me, both of you!" he said loudly and emphatically as the lift began to rise from the underground cavern. "I want to know who is responsible for this within one hour! I'll expect you to report to me by then! Understand?"

  Both men nodded vigorously. You didn't say no to Prime Minister Marueck when he was in this kind of mood, regardless of how absurd his command. As the lift stopped spasmodically at the main floor of the palace, Marueck stepped out, followed by his three guards. Walking directly to his offices, and finding only his secretary in the outer office, he said, "Cancel all my regular appointments for the rest of the day."

  "Yes sir. I reached Professor Tiksetti and told him that I had to cancel his appointment. He said that he had just heard about the explosion on the news, and asked when he might reschedule. I told him that I would call when you found time to see him."

  "Good. Of course I don't expect to ever find the time."

  The door to his inner office opened suddenly. Several maintenance workers emerged, steering 'oh-gee' dump carts loaded with pieces of broken building materials. Inside the office, bots were still sweeping up, and filling more carts. Security forces observed all work and insured strict adherence to security procedures for the loose papers and documents.

  Marueck walked into the office and observed the cleanup effort. Other maintenance workers soon arrived and began directing bots tasked to cover the hole with temporary, prefabricated wall panels. Marueck, still covered in white plaster dust, quickly tired of watching the banal activity and walked to his quarters in the palace to take another shower and change into clean clothes.

  When Marueck returned to his office an hour later, the maintenance people were just finishing up and his Security and Intelligence ministers were waiting nervously to give their reports. He motioned to them to follow him into his inner office and take seats in the informal conference area. He paced the floor in silence until the last of the maintenance people left, and the door to the office closed.

  "Well, Minister Lisaul?" he said, looking at the Minister of State Security.

  "Excellency, the blast was caused by a ground transport filled with explosives. The explosion left a crater over two meters deep, and there is little left of the vehicle altered to appear like one of our own grounds maintenance vehicles, but we're attempting to learn its origins.

  "We found the real transport parked at the recycling plant, and our investigator discovered the body of the driver beneath a tarp in the rear. Someone murdered him a few hours before the incident, and whoever took his place appears to have been an exact duplicate. The impostor even knew the names of the guards on duty at the gate and joked with them before driving to a place opposite your office. He must have known that you were in the building and normally at your desk at that hour. But on the off chance that one of the visitors in your outer office notified the perpetrator of your arrival this morning, we're— interviewing them. It appears that the bomber was able to walk off the grounds in all the confusion. That's all we've been able to learn so far. My people are continuing to follow up leads."

  Marueck nodded and looked at the other man. "Anything to add, Minister Deruuw?"

  "My people are tracking down all known and suspected dissidents. No one has claimed credit for the attack yet, but as soon as they do, we'll move in and arrest everyone associated with that group. We'll find out who perpetrated this attack, but it will take some time. In the meantime, security has been doubled and everyone entering the grounds must now submit to the retinal test that we've only required of people entering the palace."

  "A little late for beefing up security."

  "We've never had an attack on the palace grounds before, and the ID badge was always adequate. I apologize and offer my resignation, Excellency."

  "I'll tell you when I want your resignation, Deruuw. Right now, all I want is the head of the individual or individuals behind this attack on my person. But make sure that we've drained every bit of useful knowledge from the head before separating it from the body. Understand?"

  Both men nodded and replied, "Yes, Excellency."

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  ~ January 14th, 2275 ~

  Jenetta Carver stepped from the lift and walked confidently towards her offices in the Headquarters section of Stewart Space Command Base, cheerfully greeting everyone that she passed. As always, her passage generated stares from base personnel, resident civilians, and visitors alike. The stares aren't because she has a face and body like that of Aphrodite, nor even because of her five-foot eleven-inch height. Well, perhaps some are, but most are for the pair of huge cats that walk with her, one on either side. Black as space, with large yellow eyes that seem to glow, their gaze is usually more than enough to halt any pedestrian in his or her steps.

  The huge cats never stray more than half a meter from Jenetta's side unless she's threatened. Should that unusual situation arise, the virtually identical pair of hundred sixty pound Taurentlus-Thur Jumakas will whirl to face the threat, prepared to spring at the potential attacker. Only one person had been foolhardy enough to attack Jenetta since she acquired the pair in a deal with an Alyysian trader. He had died violently, within minutes, from the trauma of having his throat ripped out by Cayla, while the powerful jaws of Tayna snapped the arm holding the laser pistol. At the time, there was some speculation whether he died from asphyxiation, or loss of blood as his carotid arteries continued to flood the deck until his heart stopped.

  Although she appears to be only about twenty-one years of age, Jenetta wears the four wide gold bars on each shoulder that proclaim her a captain in Space Command. Moreover, she's the base commander at this vital military installation.

  Housed inside a giant asteroid almost five-hundred light-years from Earth, Stewart Space Command Base is hundreds of light-years from its nearest counterpart. In permanent orbit around a Type F5 blue/white MMK class IV star with an asteroid belt but no planets, the asteroid shell protects the base from both enemies and natural celestial phenomena.

  How one so young as Captain Carver appears to be, has reached such an elevated position in Space Command is a story in itself. Appearances aside, Jenetta Carver is actually thirty-eight years of age. As base commander of a StratCom-One designated base, a position heretofore only occupied by two-star admirals, Jenetta's supreme authority extends for hundreds of light-years in every direction from Stewart SCB. Her position even permits her to overrule the patrol routes and mission orders established by Space Command HQ for any ship in the sectors of space that she administers, with the understanding that such overrides must be proven to have been 'correct and proper actions' during a subsequent review. In the words of one junior officer, she's the "closest thing there is to God within four-hundred light-years."

  Jenetta reached her office suite and entered with her cats as the doors opened automatically. "Good morning, Lori," she said to her chief aide, Lieutenant Ashraf.

  "Good morning, Captain," her aide said, smiling. "You look very cheerful this morning."

  "I am, Lori, I am. I received a very important communication from Space Command Supreme Headquarters just before turning in last night."

  "Yes, ma'am. I saw the Secure-Messa
ge entry in your queue."

  "Would you arrange for all senior officers on duty to come to my office this afternoon at 1500 hours?"

  "Of course, Captain. Is there a topic which they should be prepared to discuss?"

  "No, it will just be a quick meeting to announce what I learned from Supreme Headquarters."

  "Very good, Captain."

  Lieutenant Ashraf wondered about the content of the Secure-Message, but knew that if the Captain wanted her to know, she would have informed her. Although her position required her to know the details of most communications, some remained sealed until Captain Carver chose to reveal them.

  Jenetta turned and walked into her office. The large cats hadn't moved from her side during her discussion with the Lieutenant, but once behind the closed door of Jenetta's enormous private office, they headed for their favorite resting spots. From their vantage points near the side walls, they could see everything in the room, but were barely noticeable unless they moved. They had already spent an hour in the base gym running alongside Jenetta as she enjoyed her morning workout, so they were content to relax.

  Jenetta prepared a steaming mug of rich, black, Colombian coffee at her beverage synthesizer before moving to her desk. The floor to ceiling SimWindow behind her desk was displaying an image of the large colony at Terra Meridiani on Mars and she changed the view to see a real time image of the base's port. Special sensors and cameras, mounted throughout the large cavern, altered what would appear like a dark void to the naked eye, into an image that made the sixty-kilometer by thirty-kilometer interior of the asteroid look like the well illuminated interior of a giant warehouse.