Chapter 34

Year 4, Day 14, Endeavour, Terra Prime

"So what do you say now?" Alexander asked his three main advisors, a silly grin on his face as they finished reading the report.

Clayworth frowned, "Wipe that smirk off your face boyo, or I'll do it for you."

"Now Mark, is that anyone way to do talk to our Lord?" Matt asked chuckling.

"Not only that, but he's a demon now, aren't you worried about your eternal soul?" Viriathus asked in a perfectly straight face.

They had just received the latest report concerning the interrogation of the Kromagg officer captured on Earth 29; it had taken a surprisingly short amount of time to break him, between the sensory overload, sleep and telepathic deprivation, he'd cracked in just over a week. Koth, as they'd learned he was called, was telling them everything they wanted to know.

The report contained a goldmine of information on the Kromagg's plans for Earth 29, including a large list of assets, both human and Kromagg, that had already been sent to their contacts on Earth 29.

However what really tickled Alexander's fancy was the information about himself. News of his visit to the Kromagg military world had filtered out, as military gossip was known to do, at an astonishing rate, and had been disturbed just as much. Alexander knew for a fact he'd only killed a few dozen Kromagg soldiers, nothing to sneeze at of course, but nowhere near the thousands that the Kromagg gossip network was reporting.

The telepath claimed that he'd heard that 'Uhuhiel the Imprisoner, a figure from Kromagg myth, had personally attacked the Kromagg MHQ and wrecked bloody havoc. Of course the Telepath hadn't believed it, but the name had stuck, and more and more Kromaggs were referring to the white and red clad figure as 'The Demon'.

Apparently one of the key reasons for story becoming popular was the grisly fate of the one survivor who had faced Alexander and lived. In Kromagg culture they took the "the eyes are the window to the soul" to extremes, so extreme that the blind were reviled as 'the cursed', beings who couldn't enter the afterlife, their souls trapped in their bodies for all time. When Alexander, high on combat stims and painkillers, had gouged out the eyes of a Kromagg officer at one of the barriers during his mad rush he'd apparently sentenced him to a fate that the Kromaggs reserved for their most heinous criminals. In Kromagg myth Uhuhiel had been noted for his preference to cut the eyes out of his victims.

Alexander had never been much of a fan of the Halo series, but he wondered what the Master Chief would think about him nicking his nickname.

Year 4, Day 24, Nar Shaddaa, Star Wars Universe

Alexander frowned slightly as he glanced at the clock on his personal HUD. He detested power games, they were wasteful in the extreme, and it seemed like the person he was meeting was playing one. His appointment was due to start almost a quarter of an hour ago.

The ongoing low-key war against the Kromaggs was showing a weakness in his personal empire, manpower, or rather it's lack. He simply didn't have enough people to do what was needed. And those he did have in general lacked the skills he needed. Ninety percent of the population of Terra Prime were former slaves, purchased and transported from the 'Roman' world, good hardy people, but they ate up a lot of resources when it came to educating them; the remaining ten percent were recruited from 21st century Earths, either contemporary ones or a handful of post-apocalyptic worlds, they had skills and were very when it came to run the more advanced infrastructure. However three thousand adults weren't enough. Not if he wanted to take on an empire with a population in the hundreds of billions.

That was why he was currently waiting on a hard bench. Terra Prime needed more people, skilled people. He had considered doing more recruiting on contemporary worlds, but that was always hard. People, at least the people he wanted, from 21st century Earth tended to have ideas he didn't want around; chiefly democracy. Like he often joked; he didn't have a problem with the concept, when he wasn't the dictator.

So in the end he'd fallen back on old patterns, as much as it disgusted him, purchasing slaves. Oh he planned to manumit them once he got them to Terra Prime, but the very idea of human chattel disgusted him on a very deep level. This time it wasn't slaves from a pre-industrial society, this time he was buying slaves from a inter-stellar civilisation.

Alexander was jerked out of his thoughts when the droid manning the reception desk called his name and directed him to the office for his meeting.

Alexander strolled into the office, and glanced at the man he was meeting, he wasn't very interesting looking, just a standard human, tall, blonde, with scraggly beard. Alexander remembered his name was Jacern Antilin.

"Mr. Harlow?" Antilin said, standing up from behind his desk and moving over to shake Alexander's hand.

Alex repressed a shudder and pasted on a smile. "Good to meet you Mr. Antilin"

There was the standard smalltalk, offer of drinks, and other such nonsense before finally Antilin got down to business.

"So, you're looking for a fairly large shipment?" Antilin said.

Alexander nodded, "Yes, for the first purchase I need approximately five hundred adults, all humans"

Antilin nodded as well, "Unusual, but we can handle that, no problem, I understand that you have some other special criteria?"

"Yes," Alexander said, "They need to be educated, at least to the equivalent of Galactic Secondary," The local equivalent of a high school diploma, "with no children or pairbonds, at least none that will be broken by the purchase"

"Odd, and expensive" Antilin interjected.

Alexander shrugged, "They are going a very long way out into the rim, and we don't want people with emotional attachments trying to escape" It was actually Alexander's morals interfering again, he simply didn't want to break up families.

"Our slaves are all properly trained, there will be no escape attempts" Antilin said angrily.

"I'm sorry but the details aren't up for debate, if you can't handle it" Alexander started to stand, only to be waved down.

"No need to be hasty, usual, yes, but I suppose we can handle it" Antilin said grudgingly, "What other special details do you need?"

"No-one from any planet with a democratic tradition, only people from feudal societies or monarchies" Alexander said firmly.

Antilin raised an eyebrow, "Doable, but it will drive up the expense, true monarchies are rare"

Alexander shrugged, "My superiors understand that are willing to pay for the extra expense"

"Well, so long as that is understood" Antilin said with a smile, "Anything else?"

Excerpt from Alexander Harlow's Personal Journal. Year 4, Day 30, Solitude, Terra Prime

I'm finally done moving our new citizens to Terra Prime; at least I can hand them off to the others and they can get them use to their new world. We moved them onto the bulk cargo freighter we'd purchase for the arms shipments and headed out into deep space, before I started moving them a group at a time, same as we did with pretty much everything we'd purchased from the SWU.

It took a while, even moving groups of ten at a time, as I had to limit myself to under my maximum just incase I was needed back on Terra Prime or on Earth 29.

We'll have to see how this group settles in before we do it again; at least we've got housing for them, I knew keeping the building projects going was a smart move. Most of them are living in apartment blocks, but giving each of them their own room has done wonders to convince them it's not a trick.

Even after all this time the look of shocked disbelief on the faces of former slaves when you announce they are free still gets to me. Sure they might be trapped in a completely different universe, away from everyone they've ever known, and they might be subject to the laws of an absolute monarchy, but at least they are free. No shock-collars, no whips, no beatings, no rapes.

I wonder sometimes at night though, am I doing the right thing? Sure I'm freeing slaves, but am I really freeing them or just taking away their physical shackles? Am I really better than the Kromaggs? At least they are honest about using people.