by Robert James
Not that there was very much force outside the Supreme House. The dozen or so city states that made up the New World had conventionally armed foot and air cycle police. Between them, they had six conventional T.T.V’s, which were unarmed, along with a relatively static defence military, whose main function was to effectively created a thin, but quite impenetrable defence perimeter, around each of the city states’ borders. Much as they might want to, the people who lived in this world’s ‘uninhabited wilds’, with nothing but hand made tools and weapons, could not even make their existence known to the totally insulated city state dwellers. Zoran had been told about them by my equally wayward siblings and I, on our return from our ‘hunter gatherers trips’.
“All these folks do is hunt, copulate and fight off animals” We had told him. When they weren’t defending their very existence from my Brothers and I that is. Willow Vale wasn’t quite the way it was presented, according to Zoran, who, after eight years there, had reached the ‘leadership committee’ who decided on whether to “Play tennis, bridge, bowls or some other intrepid activity” Zoran snickered, with a note of distaste “You have no idea how nasty people can get, when they get old Sire” Zoran told me. We were all soon to find out how true that was for ourselves. The Supreme One was supremely old, and supremely nasty! The odd thing was, Zoran’s Son and Daughter lived there now, their kids now worked in house service, but not in mine.
Our twenty eight sleeping Red House staff and the six T.T.V crew, all had their folks living out here. Zoran and Susan drifted off to sleep eventually, while I lay back comfortably and considered the task ahead. One thing was sure; defeating that citadel of power would take a lot of intimate knowledge. That was information which I looked forward to getting, from the fifty or so folk who had spent their working lives in there. As dawn’s first light glowed in through the cabin’s windows, I got up and entered the control cockpit, closing the door quietly behind me. Willowvale was still very much asleep, only a wisp or two of smoke came from a couple of the many chimneys. We were parked just two hundred metres outside the drawbridge that led into Red Willowvale.
I saw the door of the other T.T.V open and four or five young men spill out, as, behind me, I heard other excited youngsters. Opening both the pilot’s window and the control cabin door, I yelled
“Off you go, tell them I’d like a chat before we go” And away they went, Zoran and the six crewmen awaited me when I got back into the main cabin “I do believe with these I can protect our ships gentlemen” I told them, as I brandished my two laser ray devices. The crewmen, in their thirties and forties, thanked me and withdrew, anxious to see their loved ones.
“You should go see your kids shouldn’t you?” I asked Zoran.
“No Sire, I’ll let them come to me” He replied smiling.
Susan and I watched the old man pacing back and forth, in front of our T.T.V. We sat up in the four-seater, VIP cabin. There was seating for eight on either side below us and, of course, the three-crew cabin in front of us. The first thing we heard was gunfire! Pistols, then sub-machine gun fire. Then, the first of our staff, mostly girls, came screaming across the bridge and towards us, behind them, our crews and the armed household staff, were firing into the walled and moated village as they retreated. Most of the girls were almost to our T.T.V’s when five T.T.V’s, from the Supreme House, lifted vertically, from behind the other side of the eight sectioned community. All five began spraying machine gun fire at our fleeing and essentially defenceless young people.
Two missiles hit our other T.T.V and something clicked on in me. I rose and walked quickly to our T.T.V’s still open door
“Zoran, get inside” I ordered and raised my arms. The two tiny laser rays shot out from my outstretched hands and connected with the front two T.T.V’s. They immediately ceased firing, glowed an increasingly deeper red and, in a few seconds, imploded into grey clouds, that showered black rain onto the ground below. The other three T.T.Vs quickly spun around, dropped low and took off across the treetops at full speed. Zoran and Susan ran down to help the injured, I stayed at the top of our T.T.V’s entry gantry, making sure our unwanted guests didn’t return. The grief on the faces of every one of them spoke of something beyond the ambush, though that was bad enough.
We’d lost six lives, one a crew member, and had eight more badly injured, and, one of our two T.T.V’s was, at the very least, damaged. But all that paled into in significance, when the true horror of this day’s doings was unveiled. Everyone in Red Willow Vale had been murdered! Along with the parents of my six crew members. Our people had caught them by surprise, but not in time. I left Susan in charge of our well supplied triage and Zoran, with his laser weapon, along with the six uninjured young women behind. Then with the five crewmen and eight newly christened guardsmen, I cautiously approached the damaged drawbridge, even though all was quiet. When we entered Red Willowvale, we found six of the Supreme Household Guards. Four dead and two left for dead when they were injured.
Before long, crowds of people had begun to mass around the bridge-ways to the other seven, water surrounded sections of Willow Vale. My thirteen man, heavily armed troop was enough to keep the restive crowd peaceful at least. I climbed the steps of a raised Dias, in the centre of Red Willowvale, so that I could be seen by everyone over the heads of my ‘house guard’. As soon as I raised my hands, the multi coloured sections fell absolutely quiet. Once again, my automatic voice seemed amplified, even though I spoke as if talking to a room full of people.
“You all know who I am” I began “You who have so loyally and unswervingly served the houses of the Supreme One and his family” I began my ‘automatic’ address
“Yet today, you see the terrible reward for that service. All forty six of your life long neighbours, in Red Willowvale, have been executed, because their offspring chose to stand with me” There was a shocked gasp, I saw some older men, around Zoran’s age, trying to push their way to the front of their groups, but I continued “I know that you believe in the Divine right of the Supreme Family, but I’m telling you it’s a myth” That brought several outcries of protest. But I forged on “I have eight men in front of you that actually watched Lady Margaret kill Lord Peter” I told them, adding “Then she herself was killed, by falling debris”. There was a spontaneous wail of grief, from both the green and yellow sections of Willow Vale.
“That’s why I’m going to leave one vehicle and some guards here” I told them “To defend those two groups and the rest of you in the event of another attack by the Supreme Family”
“We don’t want your protection Lord Robert” The voice came from a tall thin old man with a green bow tie “You should keep your family squabbles inside your own home, not fight your battles out here, using us as shields” He added, expecting imminent death.
Perhaps emboldened by my failure to punish the first man, another man, solid and short and no more than fifty, crossed the bridge from Yellow Willow Vale and called out.
“If you leave your people here, the rest of us will become targets” He yelled at me “Why don’t you just go, we all know what you people really are” He added knowingly smug.
Still no response from me, though my thirteen men were getting edgy. Suddenly one of my own crew men spun around, aimed his machine gun point blank and fired, while he began screaming
“My folks are dead because of you, you’re not…” He stopped firing and his voice trailed off, because the bullets had dropped off me, I was completely unharmed. Two of his colleagues pointed their guns at his head, he was already dead in his own mind. I motioned them to stop
“There will be no more killing in my name” I decreed “You of Willow Vale have my personal protection. I will see to it that my family does you no harm out here” I told the almost entirely stunned crowd.
However, it seems the burly chap who had been so disrespectful a moment ago, was quite sure that was some kind of pre-arranged trick. He managed to burst past my still confused guards, draw a large p
istol from under his shirt and shoot while yelling
“You’re a fake Lord Robert!” He had time to fire twice, right at my head, without any effect on me, before a crew member knocked him flat. Again, I had to stop my men from reprisal.
“Oh my God” The man cried out “What have I done?” Then he tried to shoot himself.
“Nothing” I replied, telekinetically whipping his gun from him. “There is nothing wrong with scepticism” I told them him and all the rest of the stunned crowd.
“You must all learn to discover and accept the truth as it is. No longer can you afford to simply blindly believe” I added. If there were any more like my would be assassin, who thought that the crewman’s gun was loaded with blanks, his little number and my own telekinetic finale, put an end to any doubt. Completely distraught, the man was helped away by others from Yellow Willow Vale. My momentarily murderous crewmember sat crying his heart out at the bottom rung of the Dias steps, his twelve colleagues in uniform faced the now docile crowd with pride, despite their own personal grief. A group identified themselves as the leadership committee. I told them to come see their old friend Zoran, when they had the body collection and clean up teams set.
With that situation under control, I took my twelve armed and one disarmed and still crying ‘house-guard’ back out, across the bridge to a waiting Zoran, he was standing on the bottom step of our T.T.V’s doorway. The grief throughout our little encampment was palpable. Only Susan, among all of them, had no reason to grieve. As the sun rose in the morning sky, I pondered my next move. It was clear my presence placed all these people in danger, yet I had no idea how to do what I had to do, without, at least, Zoran, Susan and some armed men. I had no idea when, or if, the laser weapon would run out and although I seemed just about as bullet proof as you can get, that was clearly not so for everyone else.
After long discussions with my two aide-de-camps and even longer talks between Zoran and all his old colleagues on the leadership committee of Willow Vale, it was decided that the damaged but still operational T.T.V, two crewmen, the eight injured, which included Jarrat and the six uninjured women would stay behind at Willow Vale. I gave Jarrat one of my two laser weapons very discreetly, only Zoran and my ever observant Susan knew that I had done that. Now, with the three crew, nine men and one woman in uniform, Susan had decided to don the dead crewman’s uniform and assume his responsibilities, along with the ever faithful Zoran, I was ready to head out, but to where? It was not simply a matter of going back to the Supreme House and dealing with the rest of my dysfunctional family. I might survive that, I seemed to be indestructible, but no one else would!
Nothing would be achieved by doing that anyway. Zoran had positively seen Lord Edmond during our attack and thought Lord Elton was commanding one of the other five combat craft. With at least four laser weapons between them, not useable from inside a T.T.V., which was most fortunate for us in our last encounter, no direct attack, with our T.T.V could even be contemplated. The outsides of the mountain which housed the Supreme House communities’ crater were well and truly wired up.
“Nothing can move on those slopes without them knowing it” Zoran pointed out, adding “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure that our coming out was the right thing to do, yet” He told me. The first thing we needed to do was set up an alternative to the blind belief in the Supreme One and his family.
But to do that, we had to head out into the so called New World.
“Only these Supreme House T.T.V.s have the ability to reach all of the New World and anywhere in the wilds” Our T.T.V Captain advised me, as he, Susan, Zoran and I sat in the very comfortable cabin, in the middle of our soon-to-take-off T.T.V. “The State’s T.T.Vs are for local harvesting and personnel transportation” He added. The Supreme One’s forces had the big advantage of communication; we couldn’t even listen in, without being located.
“As we have these” Zoran held up the laser weapon in his hand “I don’t think they will risk more T.T.V’s by coming after us. And, if they try to hit them here again, young Jarrat will cost them yet another ship or two” The old man chuckled mirthlessly
“But that will still leave them with far too many combat T.T.V’s and troops for us to take on” Zoran added, looking curiously at me.
“I wasn’t necessarily planning to attack the Supreme House Zoran” I told him “At least not yet anyway” I added..
“There is no other way to end the false truths of this world Lord Robert” Zoran’s resolute old face looked totally convinced.
“Perhaps, in the end, you are right Zoran” I replied slowly, choosing my words carefully “I have great respect for your wisdom old friend. However, even if everyone in Willow Vale were armed and all could reach that mountain, and be prepared for certain martyrdom, we would still not conquer that place, you know that” I looked into his old eyes and saw that he did.
“We must first empower the people of this world with the truth” I told him “Then, the ramifications of that knowledge will let all begin to find their own way. That is when we will be able to return here and dispose of a no-longer-needed Supreme Family” I went on, all three in that cabin had their eyes glued on me, their attention wholly focussed on my words “One cannot rid the ground of weeds by cutting them down, they must be dug out at the roots” I continued “Belief in the true spirituality of every human being must be rebuilt, before their false idol can be brought down. Right now, if we are seen to be the enemies of the Supreme One, we will find no acceptance anywhere” I added.
Perhaps because the three of them still had only a limited perspective of the whole still-confusing scenario, albeit each of them quite a different view, none of them saw my point.
“Look, he couldn’t exactly have admin broadcast what’s just happened now could he?” I asked the three of them, as understanding slowly dawned, first on Susan then Zoran, the pilot still didn’t get it “There are still four of them” I told him “In an impregnable fortress, from which they have run the world for almost one and half centuries. So, Lord Robert has run off again? Big deal” I went on “This time he’s taken his household and two world range T.T.V’s. What’s he going to do? They know we can’t attack them” I pointed out.
“So, maybe he wants to go somewhere and set up his own community, the further the better, far as they are concerned” I laughed hollowly. “Why should the Supreme One tell the world anything about all this?” I asked the pilot.
“Then what is the whole point of what we are doing Lord Robert?” The now fully awake, but still confused pilot asked, looking from Susan to Zoran, then back to me.
“When the enemies of truth are too powerful to defeat” Zoran intoned, priest-like “then the protector of truth must be unleashed upon them” The old man looked at me purposefully.
“Lord Robert I can only speak of Centropolis of course” Susan spoke formally, like the administrator that she was “But even if everyone in that State could be convinced to join us, there is not the physical means to even get them there” She advised me.
“And the States couldn’t conspire together, without the Supreme House intelligence people knowing” The pilot chipped in “Then they would really cop it” He added with complete certainty..
“That’s why they feel so secure my friends” I told them “Because it would appear to them that they are invincible” I grinned at the three of them rather smugly “Fact is, as we very well know, they are not invincible, but I am” I sat back and watched them digest that reality. Zoran was the first to grasp the potential of my words, but Susan was the first to speak, she had not actually seen lasers and bullets bouncing off me, she’d only heard of such things.
“If all the others in the Supreme Family can, in fact, be killed, but you can’t, then, you must indeed be a real God Lord Robert”.
Susan made no attempt to correct herself, she just sat on the edge of her seat looking over at me strangely.
“I can assure you that I am not a God” I told Susan bluntl
y “I have simply been given certain extraordinary powers, in order that I may accomplish my mission here” I told her.
“So you are not the same Lord Robert I’ve known all these years” Zoran’s stated curiously.
“Yes and no Zoran” I replied “Let’s say part of me left and another part of me has taken its place O.K.!” That answer seemed to satisfy him personally.
“Often wondered how my young Lord Robert was going to achieve his destiny” Zoran mused to no-one in particular.
“You knew all along?” Susan asked, surprised. Zoran nodded
“First saw the old woman when I was a teenager” He chuckled.
“Do you think we should start in Centropolis?” Zoran asked her. I was surprised that he asked her, changes were already afoot.
“Well, I know my way around there that’s true” Susan agreed “But isn’t it a bit too close to the Supreme House?” She asked us both.
“I want to know about the other States before I decide that Susan” I answered her “It’s more a case of which one will be the easiest to be the most effective in” I explained to the three of them. I knew that Susan Proust was an excellent companion, for travelling with or otherwise, now she showed why she had become a member of my team.