Chapter 134: Fill The Void
Midnight followed the droid down the quiet corridor, marveling over how much his life had changed in such a short period of time.
It was quiet in a way that his ship was never quiet, and the beast inside of him seemed to calm down as a result. On his ship, he never knew when one of his people might turn out to be an assassin. He had almost lost count of the number of times someone tried to sneak into his room in the middle of the night and kill him.
Here, there were only the two of them, the rest of his men returning to the ship and flying alongside of Jun Li, and it was like with every step he took, his tense muscles loosened.
"Star is in here," said the droid as it came to a stop in front of a set of doors.
"Star?" asked Midnight, liking the name.
"Yes. Her name can be translated into Beautiful Star, so some of us have taken to calling her Star for short," reaching up, the droid tapped his claw on the door. "She also appreciates it if we do something called knocking and wait for permission before entering the room with her."
"Understood. Thank you for letting me know," smiled Midnight.
"You are welcome," replied the droid just as Mei Xing’s voice called out for them to enter. "Please." Opening up the door, the droid waited for Midnight to duck his head and enter before closing the door behind him.
"You’re here," said Mei Xing, looking up at him from where she sat in front of a table. "I thought you were going to be going back with the others."
"See, I am trying to convince this female to take pity on me and keep me close to her side. Any idea how I might be able to do that?" smiled Midnight as he gingerly lowered himself into a rickety-looking chair. Thankfully, it was able to hold his weight, and he relaxed.
"I heard that some females react favorably to bribes," smirked his little one, and Midnight couldn’t help but return the look.
"Any suggestion on what bribes to use?" he pushed a bit further, enjoying the push and pull of the conversation. He had had the dubious pleasure of interacting with females before, but it was never like this, never on an equal level.
"Nope, that is something for you to figure out," she laughed. "But I could use your help."
"I live to serve," smiled Midnight, standing up and bringing his chair over to her side. Putting it down so he could see the screen in front of her, he took a seat again.
"You might regret saying that," she said. "I am to destroy the Alliance," she continued like it was no big deal, but to Midnight, her words set something off inside of him.
"Are you sure?" he asked, studying her face. If it were anyone else, he would have thought they were stupid or insane, but not coming from her.
"Of course," she continued. "It’s really not that hard if you know what you are doing."
"And you know what you are doing?" said Midnight, more than a little shocked.
"After a fashion. My species had a long history of overthrowing governments, deposing leaders, and/or completely destroying things that should or should not be destroyed. All I have to do is implement a few strategies and sit back as the world burns," she shrugged like it was nothing. But Midnight didn’t have the same faith as her in her plan.
"You know a lot of species have tried to take down The Alliance, my own included. Why do you think you will succeed where the others have failed?" asked Midnight.
"Because you failed before you even took your first step," replied Mei Xing, leaning back in her chair. Midnight quickly wrapped an arm around her just in case she fell off the chair.
"Explain," he said, intrigued at this glimpse into her mind.
"You only thought about yourself," she answered, looking up at him with a smile. "The way to pull The Alliance off their throne is not to go against them by yourself, but to combine your strengths with that of their other enemies and attack them en mass."
Mei Xing stood up and walked to one of the back walls, searching through the shelves until she came across a particular book. "Here, you probably won’t be able to read it, but it is by a famous military strategist named Sun Tzu. Not all of his theories will work, but just understanding his thinking will go a long way. There was also another empire halfway around the world from Sun Tzu called the Roman Empire. They were able to conquer most of the world at the peak of their civilization. They were the first ones to come up with the term; ’Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei,’ which roughly translates into ’my friend, the enemy of my enemy."
Midnight cocked his head to the side and thought about what she said. "My friend, the enemy of my enemy..."
Passing the book over to him, she sat back down in her chair. "Over the years, the phrase has been tweaked to mean ’the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ I am going to gather up all the enemies that The Alliance has created over their years in power, turn them into friends, and use them to completely destroy The Alliance."
"While you sit back and watch?" mused Midnight as he flipped through the book. His visual translator was not working, and he wondered if he could ask Jun Li for an upgrade to his system to translate Mei Xing’s language as well.
"Hardly," she scoffed. "There is an important lesson to be learned from organized crime groups, bikers, and drug dealers," she continued. "And that is, as soon as you take one group down, there will always be another group hiding in the background, ready and willing to come forward and fill that void."
"And you will be the one to fill the void left by The Alliance?" smiled Midnight as he marveled at how her brain worked. Most males that he knew would never be able to think like that.
"And I will be the one to fill the void," she replied, the smile on her face becoming bigger and bigger.
