The Reign is Over – Part 7
I’m not gonna sugar-coat it: that was a heck of a break.
I journeyed across the state in horrible physical discomfort and illness, celebrated a holiday with the in-laws, missed my mother terribly but not painfully, and played video games for a number of hours that would give even the most devoted gamer cause for concern.
I crawled through a surge of depression, bulldozed through professional fears of apocalyptic scale, and in total crammed a lifetime of doubts and anxiety into the span of two days of utter despondence.
2018 has been one long nightmare, and it refused to leave without throwing one last hurrah.
New job has been acquired, however, and new promises and promotions are on the horizon. The new company seems to really care about having good employees and a good workplace environment, and although I expressed the same joys at the start of the old job the fact remains that this is supported by strong ex-employee word of mouth and the fact that every single member of middle and upper management started out at the bottom of the company.
All of them. All the way to the top. Promoting from within isn’t just the empty mouthing of words long-since robbed of meaning. It is the living litany of a thriving populace dedicated to nurturing those willing to put in the extra effort.
That is so far past comforting that it’s insane. My old company treated me as the most disposable part of a disposable industry whose sole function was to make money for those at the top. This new job is a collection of men and women who are determined to reward those who stand out, all the while providing something necessary and helpful.
I do nothing in half-measures. Jobs included. I am more than willing to put in the work to be noticed. I have hundreds of posts, hundreds of thousands of words published, and several manuscripts which point to this very fact.
It’s simply nice to know that my actions will not go unrewarded this go around, and that I’ve got a reason to show up each day and give it my all. I am very much a carrot and stick motivator, so such things mean the world to me. Just ask my old job, where I mailed it in rather consistently once it became clear how little they cared.
Transition! You aren’t here for the desperate ravings of the middle-aged. You’re here for a story. So, let us continue to tell the tale of justice, for…
The Reign is Over – Part 7
Lieutenant McNamara’s breath came and went in sync with the steady beating of her heart. The habits instilled by ten years of very active military service were impossible to shake, and she could still hear the shouted instructions of her boot camp Sargent echoing down the corridor of years. So she remained calm and poised as she stood upon the precipice of danger.
Her assault team stood with her, a collection of men and women gathered from all corners of the two systems humanity called home. They moved with the calm competence of those who have been here before and seen how things will go. There were no fresh recruits present because McNamara had no simple arrests to be made under the watchful eye and freakish power of Lieutenant Armsworth’s twin-barreled plasma cannon.
Lieutenant McNamara had one job, and to that end she had been given thirty-nine battle hardened veterans. She grinned, the smile one of fierce confidence, a wolf scenting prey which was sure to fall. Her pack was just as eager to begin the chase as she.
Lieutenant Armsworth and his second-in-command had taken their charges to the left half of the mansion, the space which lead towards the living quarters and the attached business offices of the sprawling complex. The right half had been left to Lieutenant McNamara. It was the more dangerous of the two by far, for it contained Lazlo Reignover’s shrewd genius in all its dark glory.
Attached to the mansion and office complex was a dense, highly armored, extremely well defensed catacomb of storage bays that led to a fully functional (and extremely busy) spaceport. He had bypassed most shipping and customs inspections that he couldn’t otherwise circumvent by the sheer expedience of making his own. It was exactingly built to interstellar standards, and was also within spitting distance of his private offices.
The capital required to pay the bribes to receive building permits ahead of schedule, and the sheer audacity of building a spaceport of sufficient quality to pass final inspection by Earth officials outside of the normal shared-cost of a trade-hub on a ring colony, was simply unbelievable. Billions of credits, some whispered of trillions, to make everything happen with such speed and competence.
The investment had paid off. In spades. No one could resist how quickly and efficiently the Reignover shipyard could operate. Nor could they stay away from governmental quality storage without the pesky governmental oversight. With no competing agendas or politics to navigate, and with an eye towards profit over civic convenience, Reignover made a killing. Sometimes literally, as having your own storage system attached to the unavoidable bustle of a spaceport in full swing at all times of day made putting out a hit and hiding the body child’s play.
The ISF Hidalgo was playing goalkeeper during the assault, however, and between the enormous ship body-blocking the spaceport and the extraordinary cunning of the ISF Hidalgo’s Captain, the shipyards were nearly abandoned. Hidalgo’s Captain, forced to take a supporting embargo role during the primary engagement, had done the assault crew proud. He had flagged a tight-beam wave directly to the Grand Admiral herself after the first strategy meeting, and within minutes of receipt, he had received full authorization to blast anything attempting to leave the Reignover shipyard into slag.
A copy of the authorization had been beamed directly to the Dockmaster and all ships in the air once he had taken position. Along with the ultimatum, it was customary to fire a warning shot across the bow of those present. The Hidalgo wasn’t one to waste an opportunity, and instead of a simple shot into empty space, the Captain had used a planetary bombardment salvo that turned the spiked long-range communications array next to the Dockmaster’s Office into a smoking crater.
Ships that had been attempting to leave once the ISF Hidalgo had shown herself immediately changed course and beat it for the illusory safety of the myriad docking bays, many spewing cargo into the void as they did. Such actions were common among those who dealt in smuggled goods with only marginal competence to rely upon, and the drifting flotsam did more to suppress any escape attempts than the Hidalgo ever could. Reignover would not be making any daring aerial escapes this day.
Lieutenant McNamara had been given everything she needed to succeed, and as her team left the confines of the shield projected by the landing vehicle and made their way towards the shipyards and Reignover’s personal offices, she went with the collective might of the Imperial Space Force at her back and the steady hands of her hand picked assault team at her side.
Who could blame her for smiling?
To be continued….
Dockfully,
The Unsheathed Quill
