Chapter 11

“Now we just have to hope I can catch Fleet Admiral Paki in time,” I commented to nobody in particular. “Is Minister Paki aboard one of our ships?” I asked Ramina aloud. She immediately sent guards to accompany him to the bridge.

He was nervous when he arrived. I showed him Nardu’s accusation and the noble’s confession. “Shit,” the minister hissed.

“Will Fleet Admiral Paki be aboard one of the ships?” I asked.

“He should be aboard the flagship,” Minister Paki replied.

“Do you think there is a chance we can stop the attack?” I asked.

“The only way to stop the attack is to convince the Emperor,” he replied.

“Do you think the admiral would be willing to delay the attack long enough to go with us to speak with the Emperor?” I asked.

“He might, especially knowing that you and your ships are still here. He told me how powerful your ships are.”

I commed Fleet Admiral Teryawe and updated him, letting him know that I hoped to defuse the situation before any shots were fired.

“Good luck, I’ve heard that the Emperor doesn’t always listen to reason,” he replied.

Several minutes later, Ramina announced that the sixty-two-ship Gorokian fleet had just exited their jump and would be here within the hour. “Fleet Admiral Paki, this is Captain Parker of the Terran ship Phaunos. We need to talk before you attack,” I greeted him.

“Captain Parker, I was told that you wouldn’t be here,” he replied. I could hear the nervousness in his voice.

“Yet another bit of misinformation from your sources,” I replied. Then I broadcast the noble’s confession.

“Whether or not I agree with carrying out the attack, I have my orders,” he replied.

“I am hoping to convince you to accompany me to speak with your Emperor. Your brother is here with me voluntarily and says it’s the only way to stop the attack. I guarantee your safety if you come aboard for the trip. Otherwise, I have forty-six of my own ships in orbit waiting for you. Each ship is cloaked and shielded like this one, and has similar weapons. It would be a shame to shed so much blood for no reason,” I commented. While I didn’t say it outright, it was implied that all or most of the shed blood would be theirs.

“May I speak to my brother?” the Admiral asked. I motioned the minister over and had Ramina widen the view to show the entire bridge.

I knew why the Admiral wanted to talk to his brother as soon as Minister Paki spoke. Rather than a normal familiar greeting, he used an older, formal greeting that translated roughly to, “May you be blessed.”

Their conversation was brief since the formal greeting said everything the Admiral wanted to know. “I agree to accompany you,” he said.

Leaving the rest of my ships in orbit, we headed for the Gorokian fleet that had stopped where they were, still outside of the system. The AIs guided his shuttle into the fighter bay and I met him when he climbed out, shaking his hand.

“Ramina, jump to the Keewong system and take us to Keewong. Make sure all shields are up and all weapons are charged, but don’t fire unless it’s necessary,” I ordered.

The Admiral stared in shock when we entered hyperspace, and then jumped. “How?” he gasped.

“Karkallian technology, their military has shared a lot with me lately,” I replied.

Eighteen minutes later, the shaken Admiral gawked as we sped into the Keewong system, headed for the capital. He commed the capital and asked for the Emperor.

“Why are you still here?” the Emperor shouted angrily when he saw his Fleet Admiral on the viewer. I stepped next to the Admiral.

“He was entering the Toolondo system with his armada less than an hour ago. I showed him proof that your noble lied about Karkalla’s intent to seize Toolondo,” I said as I had the confession played.

“Still, you couldn’t possibly have been in the Toolondo system less than an hour ago,” raged the Emperor. I played the recording of my greeting to Fleet Admiral Paki when he arrived, highlighting the data feed across the bottom of the screen showing our position when I made the transmission. I played it until it showed me greeting the admiral as he exited his shuttle, showing that we passed several planets on the way out of the system, and showing the positions of several of the Gorokian ships relative to the system.

“I tell His Most Imperial Majesty the Emperor that the jump from Toolondo to Keewong took less than twenty minutes, on my honor,” the Admiral swore as he knelt. Minister Paki did the same.

After listening to them, the Emperor turned towards me. “Why do you care what happens? You will still be able to sell your goods,” he said tersely.

“I care because I have made Toolondo my home. My fiancées are from there, as are their families. You would be attacking my home and I will defend it with my life, if necessary,” I replied a lot more calmly than I felt.

“And if I agree to call off the attack?” he asked.

“You will be saving the lives of everyone aboard your ships, and a great many lives throughout your Empire when the Karkallian navy and my ships defeat your navy and then arrive here to conquer it,” I replied.

“Fine, I order the fleet to return, Fleet Admiral Paki,” he said.

“There is one more condition,” I interjected.

“What?” the Emperor barked angrily.

“I insist that you abdicate and live in exile. You have shown that you are too willing to take military action without thoroughly documenting claims by your agents. If you remained in power, I would constantly wonder when the next unprovoked attack would occur,” I replied.

His face turned crimson and he clenched his fists in rage as he glared at me. I took the fact that he didn’t flatly reject my demand as a good omen.

“And where will this exile be?” he finally demanded.

“That I do not know. I will have to speak with the Karkallian, Dubanian, and Terran governments to see which will accept you. If none agrees, I will provide you with a beautiful habitable yet uninhabited planet of your own. I will provide a beautiful, spacious home, and plenty of android servants to pamper you. If you go to your own planet, you will be allowed to take any family members who choose to accompany you and any close supporters who wish to join you,” I explained.

“You know of uninhabited planets?” he gasped.

“I recently sold six to the Terran government, and just sold another six to the Karkallian government, and have thousands more to choose from,” I replied. “The planet the tall trees come from is in the territory I sold to the Terran Government, as are numerous other uninhabitable planets I claimed before selling them the territory. One of those planets is where the diamonds come from.”

Grudgingly, the Emperor agreed to my demands. While we waited for the Emperor, I spoke with Princess Jolana. She told me her name after completing another enthusiastic lip lock and tongue-wrestling match.

She was surprised by my suggestion that she rule Goroke as Empress until we could hold open elections and establish a stable government. I was surprised when she looked to Hedvikka and then the fourth woman in her entourage who she introduced as Kaja, her personal seer.

“It was foretold at your birth that you would rule a foreign empire, and never Duban,” Kaja said. Jolana’s eyebrows shot up.

“We do not tell people about predictions concerning them except to protect a member of the Royal Family,” Kaja explained to me.

“I have contacted your mother and she gives her permission and her blessing,” Hedvikka told Jolana.

“How can you contact someone so far away?” I asked.

“Our best telepaths are able to instantly contact anyone they have a link with, no matter how far away they are,” Aneta explained.

“I agree if two conditions are met,” Jolana said to me. “The first is that you agree to have me as one of your wives which will make you the Emperor.” She put her hand up to stop my protest. “Hedvikka has already informed me that you have no patience for politics. You will merely be a figurehead, one the Gorokian people will love and adore because you freed them from the tyranny of the Emperor. I will ask your opinion occasionally, but I will not ask you to assist in the governance of the Empire.”

I looked to Tiyya. “We already agreed to accept her and Aneta as wives if you agreed,” Tiyya said.

Jolana was grinning victoriously when I turned back to her. “Agreed, but you need to remember that I have absolutely no idea how to act or what to do,” I warned her.

“You will act like you do every day, and do whatever you would normally do. The Gorokian people will love you even more for being a normal person,” she said.

“The second thing is that the Karkallian government will have to allow you to marry these women immediately. They will need to come back here with us when we return to rule,” she said.

“I don’t have anything to do with that, but I’m willing to ask. I’ve wanted to call Tiyya my wife almost since I met her, as well as the others as they joined us, but we were waiting until Nafisa was old enough,” I explained.

An hour after agreeing with my demands, a contrite and subdued Emperor boarded the Phaunos with his family, staff, and concubines. I was surprised that he came without further protest, and that the scans as he entered showed no weapons. After shaking his hand, I had androids guide him to the suite I had built for the Princess.

In the suite, a gift awaited him. The noble who started this whole mess was shackled and suspended in the middle of the room. Off to the side were a number of painful toys the Emperor could use to play with him.

Evidently, the Emperor didn’t have any supporters willing to join him in exile. While the Emperor played with his noble, I interviewed his family and staff. Only his biological family joined him in exile, and only because they were afraid of retaliation by the people. None of his palace staff or the eleven consorts he brought had any interest in staying with him. I promised that we would return the consorts to their families as quickly as possible, and the staff could serve us when we returned--or they were free to leave.

Once the Emperor was aboard, my android troops took control of the Palace. They took several of our shuttles with the blended AIs and blended shields. More of our blended AIs would be installed to run everything, supplanting, or joining the current Palace AI. A shield would be installed over the Palace. The shuttles would provide a last ditch defensive position, were it needed before we returned.

We played the video of the Emperor’s resignation nonstop for two hours, and then every half hour, along with the coronation ceremony making Jolana their new Empress, and me the Emperor. We left instructions for them to carry on normally with their daily lives until we returned. I told them that we would eventually hold elections, allowing them to choose people to govern them the way Karkalla did.

I hated to conquer and run, but I had things that I had to do elsewhere. I was surprised when Hedvikka insisted on staying in the palace. She said she could warn us if something happened and would act in our stead until our return.

It took about an hour to leave the system and make a hyperspace jump to Toolondo. As soon as we were underway from Keewong, Jolana practically dragged me to my cabin and eagerly pulled off her clothes, although both she and I had lots of help. I noticed that Olyinka was now among my growing menagerie and I smiled at her to let her know she was welcome.

“You’re my first man,” Jolana sighed, and then pulled my face down and kissed me fiercely. While she was kissing me, her hips were urging me to pick up the pace. I found it odd that only one of my previous partners had ever been virgins, and it never bothered me. In fact, I was glad that I wasn’t the one to cause them the pain of their first time.

The way Aneta was kissing Jolana told me these two had been intimate many times before.

We lay together afterwards, both happy. If Jolana hadn’t giggled at that point, I would have thought she was asleep. I gasped when she opened her eyes and smiled at me. Her beautiful blue eyes were now a brilliant shade of violet. Aneta also gasped when she saw it, bringing Kaja who looked over my shoulder. “Good,” she said, and then stepped back.

“What?” Jolana asked anxiously.

“Your eyes turned violet,” Aneta whispered almost reverently.

“Kaja?” Jolana called out questioningly.

“As I foretold before your birth,” she replied proudly. “The First Princess will be both a powerful telepath and seer and she will briefly rule a foreign empire, but never Duban. Her chosen husband will be from a race not her own. His children and grandchildren will rule many empires, and will peacefully unite all of those Empires,” she spoke in a monotone with her eyes closed.

A smile broke out on Jolana’s face when she finished. “Really?” she asked.

The almost exasperated look Kaja gave her answered the question for me. “When have I ever been wrong?” she asked.

“I could tell that there was something special about you when I first saw you today,” Jolana said to me.

We started to get dressed, but a naked Nafisa stopped me. “Now me,” she insisted.

“But,” I started to protest until she touched my lips with her free hand.

“What did the cargo manifest say was in the cargo that you picked up before leaving Toolondo?” she asked.

“Thirty thousand and some odd slaves,” I replied.

“Did you sign the manifest?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then you acknowledged accepting a shipment of 30,000 slaves. I was one of them. I’m almost two years older than the minimum age for a slave to be used for sex,” she said proudly. My own quick mental review of Karkallian law reached the same conclusion. Still, I commed an android to have him warn her parents of what was about to happen. Their agreement was transmitted back and minutes later, Nafisa had officially joined my harem.

We had just finished showering and dressing when we completed our jump back to Toolondo. Fleet Admiral Paki quickly commed all of his ships with orders to return to Keewong immediately, and to begin preparations to serve their new Empress. I stopped him when he tried to bow. “Don’t even think about bowing to me,” I growled as I reached out to shake his hand. “I task you with making sure everyone in the military knows that rule, too,” I ordered as he boarded his shuttle.

Ramina had contacted Fleet Admiral Teryawe as soon as we exited the jump, informing him of what happened. She also included the video record of the Emperor’s abdication and arrival aboard the Phaunos, as well as Jolana’s demands.

The Prime Minister and top government and military officials were waiting for us when we landed on Toolondo, along with everyone who had been aboard my other two ships. Since the other two ships had remained in orbit around Toolondo, they landed quickly and let everyone out when we exited our jump and transmitted the results of our trip.

“You’re in for it now,” Riif laughed at me, pointing out the hundreds of reporters waiting for us, at the front of the huge crowd that contained the same five men I met with previously to discuss my concern.

Before exiting the ship, we unloaded all of the civilians aboard the Phaunos. The girls and I used the time to dress in formal clothing. Yuck.

When our hatch opened, the roar was deafening, and I knew that there were far more people here than the thirty thousand people who lived here, especially since many of those had just debarked from the Phaunos. “There are nearly two hundred thousand people here, with many more on the way,” Ramina informed me mentally.

Great.

As I exited the ship followed by the stately procession of my beautiful fiancées, the Prime Minister greeted me. Beyond him, the leader of each of the two houses of their Parliament did the same, as did Fleet Admiral Teryawe, and the General in Chief of the Marines.

I was too busy to watch at the time, but when I saw video of the procession later, each of the women looked as regal as Jolana did when they exited the ship.

The Prime Minister explained briefly to the reporters about what had happened, something everyone assembled already knew. Much of the report that Ramina sent the Admiral had already been released to the news stations. Riif had even filed her final report while we were in transit, along with her immediate resignation. When each of the men finished making me sound like some sort of hero, they motioned me to the podium.

I added a very few details in my thirty-second speech. When I finished, the reporters erupted, shouting questions. Before I had time to react, a loud, shrill, deafening whistle sounded from behind me. When I turned to look, Riif had a shit-eating grin on her face. “Ramina taught me,” she explained, grinning.

When I started getting nothing but previously answered questions, I called a halt to the news conference and we all escaped inside the Phaunos, inviting the five leaders.

Once we caught our breath and had a stiff drink (I learned early on that Karkallians loved a good aged whiskey), the Prime Minister presented me with a declaration allowing me to marry any single female age fourteen and a half or older. They and the Dubanians regretfully declined to have the former Emperor living here in exile. I assured them it wasn’t a problem and I hadn’t really expected them to.

I paid to have more of the huge engines built, intending to buy or build a couple more cargo ships for myself, and I was going to retrofit the Gorokian Navy. I asked Yuka to send the Toolondo shipyard what they needed to upgrade four military ships at a time.

Since we wouldn’t have much time before the wedding, I had a jeweler from Toolondo make copies of the red diamond necklaces and engagement rings. My mini-harem had just exploded with the addition of Jolana, Aneta, eleven more concubines of the Emperor, and the noble’s five former slaves. None of the former slaves had families to return to since the noble bought them (illegally) from Gorokian orphanages.

He toured the orphanage on each planet when he was there on business. If a young girl struck his fancy, he negotiated a deal with the person operating the orphanage. Everyone involved knew it was illegal, both to sell someone into slavery if they hadn’t been convicted, and to sell someone so young, but they also knew the Emperor didn’t care.

The Former Empresses chose to stay with me, worried that people would attack them, thinking that they were getting even with the former Emperor. At least that’s what they told me.

Now I had twenty-four women to arrange a wedding for, I thought. In actuality, all I had to do was approve the details and show up. The rest was being taken care of on Kveton, the Dubanian capital planet. Throughout the day, Jolana would ask me seemingly random questions someone on Kveton asked her mentally.

We had to go to Kveton to meet the families of Jolana and Aneta. Technically, it was all one big extended family. All the telepaths and seers were members of the extended Royal Family, so Aneta was Jolana’s sixth cousin once removed or something like that.

Upon reaching Kveton, for three days, I met members of the Royal Family and was bedded by enough female relatives that they left me almost no energy to crawl out of bed. I made it to meals, and saw a panoramic view of their capital Kvetonski from the tallest building in the city, but that was about it. The girls were bedded by the same women. I lost count after the first day, preferring to use my remaining energy to breathe rather than think--not that I’m complaining, mind you.

From Kveton, we made a jump to Terra where, like I expected, the Terran government also declined to allow the former Emperor to live there in exile. They were worried about retaliation from factions that remained loyal to the Emperor.

After our meeting with the government, the girls insisted on dinner at the Spacer’s Grill again. The waitress from last time that I tipped with ₮10,000 saw us and jumped on me, burying her tongue halfway down my throat. The girls giggled about it. While we waited for our food, several of them visited the powder room. They were grinning conspiratorially when they returned.

“You need a Terran wife, too,” Tiyya announced. “We think Sonja will be a good fit, but she wants to see how well you fit tonight before agreeing.”

Sonja, our waitress, accompanied us when we went to my parents’ place. They were stunned at the news. “Good, lots of grandchildren to spoil,” Mom said proudly once the shock wore off. Sonja evidently liked the way I fit because she and her family went with us when we returned, along with all 297 members of my extended family. I left androids to help the family’s hired hands tend the crops and livestock, knowing that we’d be gone for a month.

I also took eleven of the Karkallian slaves my brothers were using to make porn videos. They chose the eleven least enthusiastic of the women. I gave the former Emperor the eleven slaves to replace his former concubines. I also noticed that the noble was still alive, although he looked well abused.