The Divine Sedition [Complete]

Chapter 47 A Challenge to a Duel.

Alicia White was sitting on the abandoned Moreno outpost in the asteroid belt. The Moreno outpost had served as a hotel, bar, and brothel for workers on the nearby asteroid mining facilities, but as they were mined out of minerals, they have shut down and thus there was no longer any business operations for the outpost. She realised that she was in a pickle and there was only one way to redeem herself, by bringing Keila Eisenstein’s dead body to the Terran Council. That would shift focus from Bjorn Muller’s allegations against her to Bjorn’s failure and accusations of him working with the rebels.

Alicia was still shocked that Bjorn had acted the way he did. In hindsight, her actions were unacceptable but the conventional method of solving issues within the Terran Council was to settle them behind closed doors, away from the media’s and the public’s knowledge. Bjorn had done the opposite. By publicly accusing Alicia of r**e, and issuing a warrant for her arrest, he had created the most significant diplomatic crisis since the death of Hans Muller, five years earlier.  The alliance between House White and House Muller was dissolved, and it was only a matter of time before skirmishes started taking place, as the balance of power had shifted.

Alicia White was considering her options. She could come back to Earth to stand trial, but that was a considerable risk. Even if she got away with what she had done to Bjorn, a hearing still risked spreading light on the atrocities Alicia had committed and hidden throughout the years, and that was the last thing she wanted. Another way would be to convince Bjorn to drop the charges. This option was unlikely though as he already had made his accusations public, which had drawn him into a corner. The third option was the best: To find and kill Keila Eisenstein and bring back her body to Earth. That would make Alicia a hero on Earth and humiliate Bjorn. The only problem with that was that Keila was hiding on a well-armed battle station with her advanced technology and soldiers, and Alicia could not expect to be welcome back there again now that she did not have the Terran Council behind her.

No, to find Keila, she needed to provoke her to come out from her base and face her on this outpost. Alicia White recorded a provocative message and sent it to Eden. It was a risky move, because if Keila was smart, and she knew of Alicia’s court ordeal, she could just send the message anonymously to the Terran Council to let them deal with Alicia. But Alicia counted on Keila coming after her. Alicia was the one who had used synthetic viruses to kill everyone in Keila’s hometown on Mars, the City of Pamshal. Alicia sent the message and was full of anticipation for the upcoming battle. She dragged a rat out of a cage, crushed it with her bare hands, while it squealed in fright and blood splattered all over her face, and then greedily, she licked the blood off her face and slurped it up ravishingly.