The Plasma Master

by Brian Rushton

  Chapter 24

  General Marnax held a council of war immediately following the battle, but this time Ned was not asked to attend. Ned supposed he understood this; the meeting was much longer than any Ned had yet attended, and Ned would not be able to aid in, or benefit from, discussions on military tactics. Still, it seemed strange that after so significant a battle Marnax would not involve Ned in such a major discussion. After all, Ned’s experiment with Dragon Force had been a tactical success. He did not intend to repeat it, at least not unless it was necessary, but Ned did feel that he had learned a great deal in the process. In any case, Ned believed that he had proven himself to be a very useful asset to StarBlazer.

  Smardwurst was not at the meeting either, so he came aboard Galactron to talk to Ned. They spoke for a long time. At one point, Smardwurst asked Ned was how he felt about X and Jenara’s sudden departure.

  “I definitely had my priorities wrong with Jenara,” Ned explained. “She and I weren’t just on different warp phases like X feared; we were in two different galaxies. I had no idea she placed so much importance on our relationship. I should have seen it, but I didn’t.”

  “And what about your friendship with X?” Smardwurst asked.

  “I enjoyed his company, but I never had that much in common with him. He did a lot for me, but now that I think about it we weren’t really that close. We never talked about anything real except for him training me as a pilot, and you know how that was.”

  “So you think it was good that they left?”

  “I’ll miss them both, but yeah, I guess they were right to go. I probably shouldn’t be socializing much anyway; I have to build up my power so I can face Dark Viper. I never thought this moment would ever come, but here it is.”

  “Are you saying you’re ready to face the Emperor?”

  “No. Not yet, but it might not be far off.”

  “Your experience at Moldrona Kren helped?”

  “I learned a lot about building up power. If I had enough time, there might be no limit to what I could absorb. I know Dark Viper can do that too, and he’s undoubtedly better at it than I am. But still, the Shield Plasma is automatic. He can’t hurt me. If I can prepare myself awhile longer and then get to him, I’m sure I’d find a way to win. I did with Rax and Dren.”

  “You don’t sound completely convinced, Ned. Is there something wrong?”

  Ned shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, yeah. There is. A couple of things. First of all, it really bugs me that I don’t know the slightest thing about Dark Viper’s power. There were four Plasma Crystals: one for attack, one for defense, one for transportation, and one for something else. What? What’s missing from the first three that the Plasma force could do? I have no idea.”

  “One for invisibility. Don’t forget that.”

  “Yeah. That’s the other thing that worries me. If the Shadow Master found out about me trying to attack Dark Viper, it could just find me and nail me, and I’d never even know what happened.”

  “But its power is not strong enough to pierce your battle suit, is it?”

  “Not as far as I know. But it doesn’t really matter. It could find me here, when I’m not wearing my suit, and then I wouldn’t have a chance.”

  “But surely it has been to Galactron before. And you were not wearing your helmet when you met it. Surely it wants you alive for some reason.”

  Ned let out an exasperated breath. “I know! I hate knowing so little about my enemies. I don’t know Dark Viper’s power, and I don’t have the slightest idea what the Shadow Master’s up to, or what it even is. It’s obviously on the Emperor’s side; it told the Emperor about Marnax’s weapon. I’m sure it’s leaked all sorts of other information too, but it wasn’t as obvious. And then all of a sudden it reveals itself and tells us about Nemesis. Why?”

  “Actually, Mirana Kelar found out about Nemesis by herself.”

  Suddenly a light clicked on in Ned’s head. “I wonder if she knows anything about Dark Viper. Or even the Shadow Master. She seems to know everything else.”

  “I doubt it,” Smardwurst said. “I would think she would have told you about it if she did.”

  “Why? So far she’s kept pretty quiet except when she has information that applies directly to the current situation. Up to now, information about Dark Viper wouldn’t have helped anything.”

  “It couldn’t hurt to ask. At least, I don’t think it could; she’s not very friendly. In any case, she’s not here. As far as I know she’s still on Nemesis. The StarBlazer crew came back, but she wasn’t with them.”

  “You mean she’s there alone? One person to run an entire starship?”

  Smardwurst merely shrugged his shoulders. There was a moment of silence as they both pondered the vast array of questions that had arisen recently.

  “Ned, if Marnax could find a way to get you into Viper’s fortress without the Shadow Master finding out about it, would you go? Let’s say it had to be next week or never.”

  “Well in that situation I don’t see that there would be much of a choice. Yeah, I’d go.”

  “Would you win?”

  “I’d hope so, but how could I know? Why do you ask?”

  “Because even in the situation I just described, there would be another option, one you may not have considered for a long time.”

  “What’s that?”

  Smardwurst looked directly into Ned’s eyes. “You could go home.”

  “Go home? After everything that’s happened?”

  “Ned, you came here to learn control of the Plasma force. You have already accomplished that goal. You also came here to aid the StarBlazer Alliance, and you have done that as well; you have destroyed the powers of two enemy Plasma Masters and brought back vital information regarding an Imperial spy. Also you have rendered a squadron of Palandoran pilots invincible for an entire battle, enabling them to destroy far more enemy ships than they would otherwise have been able to do. And you probably saw them all safely home. If there is nothing further you can do, then no one will condemn you for leaving now.”

  “You’re right; I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I should just go home. I’m sure my family would like that, and I’d like to see them, too. It’s kind of scary, but I haven’t even thought of them in a while.”

  “You haven’t thought of much of anything in a while, remember? You’ve been training.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Training. That was putting it mildly. “Well, I’ll think about it. I’d better get to bed, Smardwurst. Thanks.”

  Ned walked back to his room and thought. The prospect of going home was tempting, but Ned considered it to be a last resort. Whether or not others would condemn him for the choice, Ned did not feel that he had truly finished what he had come here to do. For one thing, he neither understood the Plasma nor controlled it as well as he would like. He had lost control of himself again on Brenaria while fighting Markan Dren, and that in itself was enough to give Ned strong doubts about the wisdom of returning home this soon.

  Another motivation for staying was the prospect of leaving Dark Viper without even a potential rival. If Viper won here, he might find the hyperspace vortex and attack Earth – but even if he did not, Smardwurst, X, Jenara, and everyone else this side of the vortex would suffer tremendously. Ned decided that he could not abandon them as long as there was even the slightest possibility of defeating Dark Viper.

  Perhaps Mirana Kelar would be able to shed some light, but what if she couldn’t? Ned wished there was something more he could do, something that would give him an extra edge. Right now Dark Viper had a very distinct advantage over Ned; the Emperor presumably knew all of Ned’s powers, and Ned knew none of Viper’s. If only there were something Ned could learn to do that no one else knew about. Maybe then Ned would be able to catch Viper off guard somehow. Then Ned thought of something. His powers had grown beyond the intended use of his Plasma Crystal, so might not Dark Viper have the same ability? In addition to his Crystal’s power, would Vip
er be able to use his Plasma to attack and defend? What about teleportation?

  What about teleportation? Ned thought about it for a moment. If Viper could do it, then maybe Ned could also. But what if the Emperor had not mastered it? Certainly Vortex Plasma was more difficult for Ned to understand than Blast Plasma was. Perhaps, even if Dark Viper could use his power as a weapon, he would be unable to use teleportation. And if that were true, then if Ned could learn to use Vortex Plasma, he just might gain the advantage he would need to beat Dark Viper. It made sense that it would be possible for Ned; after all, Ned had recently absorbed a great deal of Vortex Plasma, and presumably that was not true of the Emperor.

  Ned decided to try, but he knew that he must keep his attempts secret. If the Shadow Master somehow discovered what Ned was doing, it would undoubtedly inform the Emperor. Ned glanced around the room cautiously, looking for something he might try to teleport that would not arouse attention, even if the Shadow Master were in the room with him at that very moment. It would have to be something small enough to fit inside his hand. The Shield Crystal? No, Ned did not want to risk accidentally teleporting it into oblivion somehow. What about his battle suit’s activator pin? No, same problem. Ned remembered that he had brought along some money from home, just in case he ended up being dropped off somewhere on Earth other than his house. He rummaged through his belongings and pulled out a quarter. It seemed a little paranoid to even consider the possibility of the Shadow Master being in the room, but he had to account for the possibility. He closed his fist around the quarter and sat down on his bed. Hopefully, if the Shadow Master were there, it would believe he had pulled out the quarter to remind him of home, and that he was now resuming whatever thought process had been going through his mind previously. He closed his eyes and searched out the quarter, just as he had done with Jenara’s hand on the way to Brenaria. He tried to imagine a tunnel connecting it to his other closed hand, but that did not work. Ned was able to link his hands with a line of Plasma, but it was just the kind he had always used, and he was no closer to teleporting the quarter.

  Then he thought back to his first few days of experimentation with the Plasma. The way he had first used the Plasma for something other than protection had been to study how it worked when the Crystal controlled it and then recreate what he had felt. He had felt the Plasma’s motion when the Crystal protected him, and then he had recreated that motion between his fingertips. Ned had believed that the only example of Vortex Plasma he had to work from was the Plasma that Markan Dren had used against him, but now he realized that he had been mistaken. He did have something that used Vortex Plasma. My activator pin!

  Ned’s battle suit was not constructed of anything having to do with the Plasma, but when he deactivated it, what happened to it? Koral had never really explained it, but Ned suspected that Vortex Plasma somehow stored it somewhere. The pin was in Ned’s pocket, where he had been keeping it recently. He put down the quarter, then reached into the activator pin with the Plasma and turned it on. Paying close attention to what happened within the pin, Ned noticed that the spark of Plasma he felt as the suit formed around him was definitely unlike anything he had ever caused. It was not, however, unlike what Markan Dren had done. Ned flicked the suit off and on a couple of times, and each time he got a clearer concept of what was happening. He tried replicating the phenomenon with the quarter, but nothing happened.

  Ned was not sure how normal turning his suit on and off repeatedly would look to anyone spying on him, but it was a risk he had to take. If only he could flood the room with gas like Marnax had started doing in his meeting rooms… Wait! I don’t need gas! Ned stood up and sent out a faint blue mist that filled every corner of the room. There was nothing there. Great! Now I can do this all night!

  At the rate he was going it seemed as though it would take at least that long. The activator pin was helpful, but after half an hour Ned stopped learning anything new from its use. It was too detached; it worked on the suit and nothing else. Ned could study what it did, but not how it did what it did, at least not as closely as he needed to in order to replicate it. When he reached an impasse with his pin, Ned once again probed his memories of Markan Dren’s hold on him on Brenaria. He thought about how it had felt to be in his grip, what the Shield Plasma had done to block Dren’s power, and what had happened with the Plasma force when the Crystal had exploded.

  It was about two hours before Galactron’s designated “dawn” when Ned formed a tunnel between his two hands and the quarter slipped through it. At first Ned just sat there and stared. Was he just way too tired, or had he finally done it? He did it again just to make sure, and then he started teleporting other things. The Vortex Plasma worked with larger objects as well. There were a few plants in his room, and he teleported them without harming them. Then Ned decided to teleport himself. Perhaps there was some risk of doing something horrible to himself, but Ned was content to activate his battle suit and call that protection enough. He stood at one end of the room, closed his eyes, and sent the Plasma out to the other side of the room. He enveloped himself in Vortex Plasma, created a portal across the room, and then he opened it. Suddenly he was facing the spot where he had been standing just a second earlier, from across the room. Ned had to restrain himself from laughing. He had done it. The Vortex Plasma was his. He was going to defeat Dark Viper soon. He was sure of it. But first, he was going to collapse on his bed and instantly fall asleep.

  An hour and a half later, Ned awoke to the incessant beeping of his intercom. “Ned! Are you there? It’s Marnax! Ned?”

  Ned awoke feeling a little uncomfortable – he was still wearing his battle suit. He deactivated it, crawled out of bed, and groggily answered the call. “Ned here. What is it?”

  “Ned? Did you get any sleep? You sound awful!”

  “I was up thinking. What is it?”

  “I need you in my office as soon as you can get here.”

  “I guess so. See you in a minute.”

  Ned took the time to shower and eat a quick breakfast, but he was in the General’s office inside of twenty minutes. He was surprised to see Mirana Kelar there as well. There was no one else.

  Marnax beckoned for him to sit down. “Ned, as you’re aware, I’ve spent the last several hours talking with the Allied Council about our future plans. In fact, we’re in recess right now, and we’ll be continuing them soon. Moldrona Kren was a significant victory, but if we do not take advantage of it quickly we may lose some irreplaceable opportunities.

  “Let me tell you what we’ve decided on so far. We have several attacks on Imperial outposts scheduled, and we’re going to heavily fortify some of our more vulnerable bases. In addition, though, we’re going to be calling several ships to the planet Nembis Four. I didn’t tell the Council why, just that it was necessary. The planet is completely devoid of any life at all. In fact, the only thing there besides rocks and metal is a thermonuclear detonator placed at its center, which is strong enough to blow the entire planet apart. Now, I’ll let Mirana describe what I haven’t told anyone else but Major Harvey, and you’re not to tell anyone else either. No one. Understood?” Ned said yes.

  Mirana fixed him with her steel gaze. She seemed to be looking right through Ned, but he couldn’t figure out why. “Well, Shield Master, I must say I’m impressed. I’m not sure even Kayleen Rax and Markan Dren developed their powers as quickly as you have, and they had help.”

  “Thank you,” Ned managed. “I should congratulate you as well – on taking Nemesis I mean.”

  Mirana simply nodded. “With his opposition growing so significantly, Dark Viper will be growing tense. That is why we have announced such a major increase in military activity. Viper undoubtedly wants to get back to the kind of fighting he’s good at, which is head-to-head, without Plasma Masters or commando missions. He still has the advantage in numbers, and he will see our increased efforts as a means to exploit that advantage. The StarBlazer troops will take heart at the news as well. After t
he victory at Moldrona Kren, many of them will indulge in a sense of invincibility – at least for a while. That brings us to the matter of Nembis Four.”

  Ned raised an eyebrow. “Nothing there but a bomb.”

  “Correct. Of course, rumors have already started to spread. Some creative minds have concluded that Nembis is a massive starship production facility, others that secret weapons are being produced there. Still others believe that Gerran has found a way to make biological warfare feasible again, and that he’s planning on infecting every planet in the Anacron Empire with a deadly virus.”

  “And a few others,” Ned concluded, “must think the whole thing’s a trap, some sort of decoy.”

  “Absolutely. But Marvis Harvey is quite capable of making the whole thing look quite authentic. As a matter of fact, for several months we actually had been planning to set up a hidden starship production facility there. It is only now that the plans have changed.”

  “Then I’m right, aren’t I? It’s just some kind of a trap.”

  “Not a trap, really. When the Anacronian forces reach Nembis Four and we detonate the planet, the explosion will undoubtedly take out several Imperial ships, but not enough to matter in the long run. ‘Decoy’ is actually more accurate. We simply want to take the Emperor’s attention away from our real goal.”

  Ned could not help smiling. “Then you’re going to do it! You’re going to attack Venom!”

  Mirana eyed him quizzically. “You sound like you’re planning a vacation.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that, well, I guess it’s like this whole thing’s finally reaching the end. It’s almost over. So how are you going to do it?”

  Mirana glanced back at Marnax. “You sure you don’t want to explain it yourself?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “All right.” She turned back to Ned. “As you know, the outer shell of Venom is bristling with weapons. Any ship that comes even close gets vaporized before it can even turn around and try to escape. The only way you get through the doors is if you have clearance from the Emperor, which no StarBlazer ship does.”

  “What if you’re invisible?” Ned hazarded.

  “Not going to work. The same methods Marnax has taken to keep the Shadow Master out of these meetings will work just as well on Nemesis.”

  “So you’re saying there’s no way in?”

  “No way to get past the wall,” Mirana corrected. “But think. What if the wall did not exist?”

  “That would be great, but how are you going to destroy it if you can’t even get close?”

  “We’re not going to destroy it. Marnax said that Smardwurst explained the principles of hyperspace to you.”

  “Yeah, but … Wait! You mean that since the shell doesn’t exist in hyperspace you can just warp in and attack from inside?”

  “Almost, Ned. That concept has been known for a long time, and even the smallest space stations have means to keep warped objects out of their shield bubbles. Objects at warp can be easily detected, and missiles and other weapons can travel at warp speed to intercept them. In fact, a static warp field can be generated around phase space objects, and then they have substance in hyperspace.”

  “I see. So you can’t warp in, unless Viper doesn’t see you coming.”

  Mirana exhaled a little more audibly than normal. “Again, not quite. Viper always has a static warp field in place around Venom. Not even Nemesis can get through.”

  “I’m going to stop guessing now.”

  “Here’s the plan, Ned. You and I board Nemesis. I have been inside Venom many times, and I am confident I can get us inside, with Nemesis. I haven’t even told Gerran how, but I’ll let you know when the need arises. When we’re in, we will plant mines over one of the generators for the static warp field. I can’t extend the ship’s shadow field that far, so they will be detected as soon as they are set. That means we’ll have to act fast and get out before they explode. The generator is only one in billions, and the fields from the others overlap. As a result, the hole we punch in the field will be less than a mile in diameter in warped space. It will last for maybe a minute, and then the Anacronians will redirect power to patch it up. In order to get any significant number of ships through the gap in that amount of time, they’ll have to enter simultaneously at multiple warp phases – some at warp thirty, some at the same time at warp thirty-one, some at thirty-two, and so on. Theoretically, we could get thousands of ships inside Venom’s bubble in this way, assuming nothing goes wrong.

  “Meanwhile, Marvis Harvey will have completed his plan to lure Anacronian ships to Nembis Four, fully a week away from Venom for most ships. The bulk of the Anacronian fleet will be on its way there as we attack, so we should have minimal resistance.”

  “Assuming nothing goes wrong,” Ned repeated.

  “You look skeptical.”

  “That’s an understatement. Even if we get inside, there still could be thousands of Anacronian starships waiting for us. And even if there aren’t, there are bound to be weapons on the inside, just like there are on the outside. Not to mention shields – stellar powered shields, so you can’t take out their power source unless you blow up Venom’s star.”

  “Well technically, stars are always blowing up. That’s what makes them stars. But don’t worry. It gets worse.”

  Ned was a little shocked. Was Mirana trying to be funny?

  “You and I will leave Nemesis and travel into Dark Viper’s fortress. We will lower the shields around his fortress, allowing the fleet to destroy it. We won’t be able to communicate with the fleet from inside, so Gerran will have to be waiting for us. And that means that if we can’t get the shields down in time, it’s all over.” Mirana swiveled in her chair so that she was facing Marnax again.

  Ned turned to the General as well. “And then what?”

  “And then,” Marnax said, “we win. The shields come down, and we destroy Viper’s base.”

  “But you’ve left out the most important part! How do we get the shields down?”

  “Mirana knows her way around. She says she can do it, and I believe her.”

  “I don’t want to give out too much information,” Mirana said. “It’s best that each person in this knows only what he or she needs to. That way we don’t get distracted.”

  “But Marnax is the leader!” Mirana did not respond. Ned said, in almost a whisper, “You don’t know, do you? You haven’t figured out how you’re going to do it.”

  Mirana’s hand knotted into a fist. “There’s no way I can predict every detail until I’m there, inside the fortress. I’ve been there before, but I haven’t been very far inside, and the computers there don’t have maps for most of it. I’ll just have to get in quietly and then think fast.”

  Ned thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I won’t do it. Not unless you can give me a better guarantee that it will work. And there’s another thing.” Ned brought his eyes up, and his gaze was almost as hard as hers. “You haven’t mentioned what I’m there for. If you’re going to sneak into the fortress, then you don’t need my Shield Plasma, so why bring me along?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Obviously, so I can fight Dark Viper. So why haven’t you even mentioned that?”

  Mirana studied him carefully before speaking. “Ned, remember what I said about not being able to know exactly what to do before I’m there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the same is true of you. No one knows exactly what Dark Viper’s power is. No one but you can really understand what yours is. Because of that, you are the only one who can judge how to confront the Emperor, or even whether he should be confronted at all. When Gerran, Marvis and I formulated this plan, we left you out of it because Marnax did not want to rely on something he couldn’t understand. The plan was to rest primarily on my skills and on Nemesis’s shadow field. But I insisted on bringing you along. Since you don’t have an assigned mission here, you will follow me until you see the opportunity you need, and t
hen you will act.”

  Ned was taken aback by that. All of a sudden the entire responsibility for confronting Dark Viper had been thrust onto him. “And what if I don’t come with you?”

  Marnax replied, “Then we go on …”

  “Then StarBlazer dies!” Mirana interjected.

  General Marnax jumped back in his seat. “Mirana, please! Ned, if you do not come, we will carry out the plan anyway. I cannot imagine how the Emperor could possibly survive the destruction of his fortress, and if he does then he certainly will not be in a position to threaten us, at least not for a very long time. With Viper gone, we will quickly take control of Venom, and then the war will be ours.”

  Ned could tell that Mirana had more to say, but she stared at him silently.

  “The attack must be perfectly coordinated,” Marnax said. “The latest Mirana can leave with Nemesis in order for this to work is a week from now, according to her.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ned said. He did not at all want to end this meeting here. It was all too unstable. He felt that if he could not get a better sense of what was happening, he would not feel right trusting himself to such a risky plan.

  “That’s all I have to say,” Mirana announced. “I have work to do.” With that, she rose and left the room.

  Ned watched her go, then turned to Marnax. “If I don’t come, will she still go through with the plan?”

  “She doesn’t want to. But she has promised me that Nemesis is at my disposal until the war is ended, so if she does not carry out the mission she will have to let someone else take her place aboard Nemesis instead. But she would never do that. She doesn’t trust anyone else enough.”

  “So she’d go through with it, even though she thinks it won’t work?”

  “I think so.” Marnax looked upward, thinking. “You’re not coming, are you?” He made it not so much a question as a prediction.

  “I don’t know,” Ned replied. “I … I don’t know. Give me some time.”

  Marnax nodded, and Ned left the office. He had to go back to his room and think.

  “Target on sensors. Closing, rilteen minutes to intercept.”

  “And the ships behind us?”

  “Twenty-six minutes. You’re going to have to make this quick.”

  “Don’t worry. I can be very persuasive. Besides, I don’t intend to give Princess Trennon much of a choice.”