Page 71 of The Commander

Bastian used his private P.I. system uplink while in stasis to break into the ship’s data logs and discover which high caste house badge from Control crafted the plan and set it in motion.

That female became his personal enemy. Her shining status was so high up in the Sarrian hierarchy that her feet never touched the ground. The woman used an actual personal hover device that allowed her to float everywhere and artificially lifted her to the height of all the Sarrian co-species. Debtrocid Nectuis Eld, an inbred child of House singled out as a priestess and daughter of the goddess. Her father engineered the red hats as house guards, and she had made them into armies, much to her family’s benefit.

She also happened to be the Arch Prima of the Anciadrimda, the cruiser that deployed Bastian on Earth. She was the reason he’d chosen that ship. The reason he’d constantly agitated Control, questioning directives, killing each new batch of hairy assholes they sent to him. The reason he’d made himself a target.

He’d never thought he’d find a reason to live. He hoped that the DNA seed twisted into Kitten’s cells helped her understand he’d become her weapon, her battler.

He frowned at himself in the hazy, cracked mirror as he dressed. All this fucking foolishness. He’d been right in his prediction—mating made him soft and squishy. That was the first time in his life he’d ever wanted someone to understand him.

Well. Fuck.

After his fun game ofbop’n slicegrunt, the only ones left alive were 48001 and five others who had no discernable contact with the insubordinate 56983 or 5654. They shuffled their feet outside the building, waiting for instructions, greasy fear wafting off their hairy backs like pig cooking in a pan.

Eliminating enemies was a distinct pleasure. The splash of hot blood over his hands took him back to better times, simpler ways, when everything was natural, and he didn’t have to deal with Control or the grunts. He’d inhaled deeply when he walked out of the showers past the fresh gore of spilled guts on bleach cleaned cement and had to swallow the extra saliva.

Did he need to feed again already?

Outside the sleeping barracks, Bastian called 48001 over. “Write this down.”

Its eyes bulged. “Ssir?”

Bastian took a deep breath.Don’t kill it.“I need you to make the report on the base personal interface. You must input only the data I say. Nothing else. You are an office duty, aren’t you? Can you write?”

“Yes, sir.” It licked its lips, twitching all over, afraid to get too close to Bastian.

“Get something to write on.”

It pulled out its pocket manager. The little rectangular device carried all the daily orders, regulated by the base P.I. It had three buttons suitable for grunt fingers.

“That will work. Hit record. Report the decommissioning of the base duty and ask for more. I’ve been short for a while. I need a new complement. Requisition the replacements. Do you understand?”

48001 nodded.

“Report: Make a note that the tax quota for this period will be less than the previous period.”

The grunt nodded again as it took the information.

“Do not attempt to answer any of the P.I.’s extraneous questions or explain. I’ll scan the goods loss as I load the truck.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you take care of that sick prisoner? The human in Corrections?”

“Yes, sir. Leg. Respiratory. Infection. In recovery.” The red hat shook its head up and down in an enthusiastic humanish nod. “I need him able to walk.” The grunt’s eyes bulged.

For Bastian’s plans, that prisoner needed to be able to move. “Break out the H-5 regnator from the health supplies and have that ready for me. Did you feed and water him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do both again, now. The regnator will make him hungry. File the report. Have the prisoner ready to talk with me. Do not give the base interface any extra information. Tell it you are under orders to be precise. Do you understand what that means?”

“Say what you tell me.” The grunt’s head bobbed up and down, shaking spit onto Bastian’s shoe.

“Yes. Regular procedures only. They will note the death of the duty and the release of the storage locks and will expect the request.”

“That’s right, sir.”

Bastian’s own P.I. last downloaded twenty-eight days ago. His base and the town taxes ran on an assembly line format. An automated shuttle arrived, dropped off requisitions and standard goods, then picked up the logged taxes while the base data happened through an umbilical uplink. But not always. More than once, Control had sent an inspector badge, or an engineer crew with one excuse or another.

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