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*Rise of the Warspite*
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by HappyTarget: [QB] Here's my slightly modified Chapter 2. Didn't change much, but changed it for the better IMHO. CHAPTER 2 [Later that week, Admiral's quarters, Superdreadnought HMS Killdeer] Thad stood at attention ramrod straight, his eyes boring into the bulkhead above the Admiral's left shoulder. He awaited with dread the verbal storm that was coming. Knowing his CO, and the after action report he had submitted to him, there would be no avoiding it. Admiral Thanguae was seated behind his desk, with a hint of a out of place smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Thad wondered what that was about yet kept silent, staring at the wall. "I take it from your report that you thought you did everything you could to complete your mission, Lt. Cmdr.?" "Yes Sir! I DID do everything I could. The results, I think, speak for themselves." "I say your wrong. It was your personal negligence that caused the loss of that merchantman! You're lucky you're not before a courts martial board now, lord knows you deserve it!" Thad nearly exploded at the lies and insults laid out by his commanding officer. He choked back his initial hot retort that that rose to his lips. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, he grudgingly followed military protocol. By the malevolent sparking of the Admiral's eyes, he had been hoping to set off just such an outburst. When his plan failed anger flashed onto his face. But only for a moment, the serene mask falling back into place rapidly. "Request permission to speak freely, SIR!" The grudging response finally came. "Permission granted." "There is no way that either my crew or myself can be held accountable for the loss of that merchantman. If there had been more ships assigned to escort those merchantmen, as dictated by the book, we would have lost none of them! It was your orders that allowed their destruction to occur. You and you alone are responsible for assigning only one destroyer to a mission normally carried out by THREE CRUSERS! Your orders placed my ship and crew in that position. We saved them. It was no fault of theirs or mine that we lost one of the merchantmen. "What do you mean it wasn’t your fault!" Rear Admiral of the Red, Sir Peter Thanguae exploded from behind his desk. "You lost an 8,000,000 ton merchant ship, plus its cargo, one quarter of your ships company and got your ship shot to hell! She'll be at the yard for almost a year for repairs. All this and you have the gall to sit there and tell me that it wasn’t your fault?" Since day one, almost, Thaddeus and his most recent superior hadn't seen eye to eye. Thad had never understood the sudden animosity that had come over his CO one day. It almost seemed that from that point on, Admiral Thanguae was out to get him. That was why only Thad's ship had been attached as escort for the three superdreadnought sized merchant men, when the book dictated that at least two destroyers and a cruiser should be used. "Sir, it was you who ordered that only my ship be used for the escort mission. You knew that the Peeps had been stepping up their commerce raiding in the surrounding systems. It's not like you didn’t have ships to spare, there is a whole squadron of the wall here with all their associated escorts. Surely a few could have been added to the escort. If there had just been a cruiser or another two destroyers along, we would have wasted that Peep without even breaking a sweat." Thad could see it now, his CO would finally get his wish. He had set Thad up for failure just so he could get rid of him. Thad new that was what he had done, he just wanted to know why. "Why in HELL was my crew and the crew of that merchant ship made to suffer just so you could get me out of here?" Thad had hit that nail on the head hard. Sir Peter turned a shade of purple that would seem comical had it been in a different time and place. "You want to know why… I'll tell you WHY! It’s the scum like you that drag down the human race. I know what you really are, Robert 48589 . . . you and all the other monsters created by Manpower Inc.!" Thad couldn’t help it, his jaw dropped wide open. He thought he had left his past dead and buried, yet this sorry excuse of a man had found out his deep dark secret. You see, Thaddeus had not been born in the traditional sense, he had been grown. Someone custom designed his genes to fit buyer's desires. Manpower Inc. even had its own world on which to do its dastardly deeds. To his owner, he was nothing more than a set of desirable traits and something to be used for her entertainment. Thad was not your average human. He had higher than normal intelligence, for one. For another, his muscles were stronger than any normal human's had a right to be. He also would have had killer good looks, if not for a scar that ran down the side of his face from above his left eye to the middle of his cheek. His short hair was raven black, and he sported a goatee. His eyes were baby blue, what in older times would have been called dreamy. Modern medicine could have removed the scar, yet he wanted it as a reminder. Thad had been grown to be the confidant, guard and bedmate of a spoiled Solarian League aristocrat. Of course, such things were illegal in the Solarian League, illegal in every civilized system in human space. Yet that didn’t stop the flow of human slaves to out of the way places. Robert 48589 had been programmed to love, obey and protect his mistress even at the expense of his own life. She had made more than a few enemies from her wheeling and dealings with the seamier side of the planets populace. It was in defending her that he had gotten that scar. An assassin made an attempt on his mistress's life. He saved her and killed the assassin, yet a round from a needler had nicked his face, leaving a nasty wound and destroying his left eye. Upon seeing this, his mistress had promptly said that he would have to be taken back to Manpower. She only wanted the most expensive and perfect items in her possession. Anything less would be beneath her dignity. She would have to get one of those newer models that the Manpower contractor had been telling her about. To be so callously tossed aside by the woman he was programmed to love broke his heart. He finally saw though the blinders that had been placed on his mind by Manpower's heartless geneticists. She didn’t really love him. He was just a thing to her, something to be used and cast aside when no longer needed. Then the reality of his situation set in. Manpower Inc. would be coming to 'dispose' of the evidence that could link them to their customer as well as to keep him quiet. Manpower prided themselves on being discreet. All the programming Manpower had stuck in his head was telling him to obey his mistress and wait in his room; yet, long dormant survival instincts took over. Once night fell, he stole his mistress's credit card and proceeded to the nearest bank machine to withdraw a large amount of money. He would need it all to fix his eye and book passage off system. He had to move quickly, Manpower goons would soon come to remove his mistress's imperfection problem. Thanks to his mistress' dealings, he had been exposed to the seamier side of the planet's populace. It was to one of these people that he fled -- a surgeon that would do anything if the money was right. And, for a little extra, he would keep his mouth shut. The doctor hid him for the week it took to replace his damaged eye. The new one was virtually indistinguishable from the original. Thad didn’t ask where it had come from, he most likely wouldn’t have liked the answer if he had. The doctor offered to remove the scar on his face as well, but Thad was adamant that he leave it. Thad wanted it as a reminder of how low mankind could stoop. He then proceeded to book passage (using fake documents under the name Thaddeus Armstrong to hide his identity) on a ship bound far away from his mistress and Manpower Inc. -- to the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Eventually, Thad chose to enlist in the Star Kingdom's rapidly expanding Navy. He hoped there he could make a fresh start and protect himself from Manpower's long reach. Even Manpower would not draw attention to itself by killing a person in the Royal Navy. They were considered outlaws by much of the civilized galaxy already and didn’t need to give the Star Kingdom an excuse to come down on them and ruin the nice business they had going. Thad had surprisingly good grades at Saganami Island (the major training center for naval personnel in the Star Kingdom), and had graduated top in his class. He had proceeded rapidly up the chain of command until he got his first hyper capable command. That had been HMS Victory. He had fallen in love with that ship the instant he had seen her gleaming white hull from Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus. For the first time, he wore the white beret of a starship captain, instead of the black of a crewmember. He had made doubly sure his creases were straight in his gold on black uniform that day, both out of personal honor and desire to make a good impression on the crew… no, HIS crew. Now all his dreams were shattered. Victory was being taken away from him and a commander who had some grudge against him was transferring him to a dead end desk job. The air seemed to grow thick as Thad assimilated what his CO had told him, he KNEW what he really was. "It was monsters like you that killed my wife and unborn child!" The anger was still present in the Admiral, but it was hand and hand with great pain. "The police said that it was a home robbery gone bad. That they were just a couple of addicts needing money to get a fix. They left out the fact that they were evil creations designed by Manpower Inc. They left out the fact that they were part of a group that escaped Manpower's control and were on a crime spree just for the hell of it. They were caught and brought to justice, but that wasn't enough. I have made it my personal mission to expose all of these abominations in our midst for the evil they really are!" Thaddeus could only stand there stunned for a few seconds. Then he replied, "But Sir, I'm not like them… "Silence! You are no longer in a position that concerns me. Imagine giving a monster like you control of a star ship!" "Sir I am going to appeal this to the Lords of the Admiralty, what your doing . . . it just isn't right." "And have what you really are plastered on the front page of every news service in the sector? I think not! You don’t want that to become common knowledge or else you wouldn’t have lied on your citizenship request. No, no, you'll keep quiet and be stuck where you can do the least damage. Now get out of my sight you sorry excuse for the Queen's uniform!" Thad knew that his past would not matter to the Admiralty, he could have his command back and have all black marks on his record expunged. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to admit his shameful past to what would amount to the entire Kingdom. He saw his past as highly dishonorable and was not willing under any circumstances to admit that he was a product of Manpower Inc. genetic engineering. He accepted the lesser of two evils as long as it kept his origins a secret. He could live being Thaddeus Armstrong, fall guy. He couldn’t live, being known as Robert 48589, a Manpower created monster. "You are dismissed Lt. Cmdr.!" Robert 48589, AKA Thaddeus Armstrong, cast his eyes on the floor, turned, and walked out of Admiral Peter Thanguae's office. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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