Timestar

by Robert George Mertens

  "Then you don't believe that it was Frank's own work?" Michelle asked.

  "I believe he did the work, and he was brilliant enough to understand it. Certainly given enough time, he might have come up with all of this on his own. But not in the time he did."

  "You're suggesting that there might have been a higher-order intelligence at work?" Sandy asked.

  "There had to be," Suni replied.

  "Then he is the Shadow Rider," Sandy replied.

  "He is the newest one," Suni said.

  "Then what are we?" Michelle asked.

  "An error," Suni replied.

  Twenty-Five

  The new Emperor Wellum of Iskol had always felt that he could be a better ruler than his cousin, Deetknarl, could. It was obvious to him now, given the efficiency and effectiveness of his new government. It bothered him though, that he had so much difficulty getting many of his new laws and edicts advertised, circulated and enforced. He had threatened, screamed, cursed and stomped about. Even a few heads had rolled, but nothing seemed to work. Now, there was open talk of freeing the slaves. While he had not entirely gone along with this crazed notion, it seemed he might, before it was done with, have to give in to popular demand.

  The old emperor Deetknarl, along with his nephew Tolrash, still remained deep in the bowels of the Imperial Palace, imprisoned in dark, dank cells barely large enough to walk in. Wellum still did not have enough support among the Iskolian lords to have him executed, and it was still too early to arrange an accidental death for him. So long as Deetknarl lived, he remained a threat to Wellum’s power.

  Many of the Iskolian Lords were unhappy about talk of freeing slaves, and now there were rumors of subversive talk about democracy on Iskol. This would have to be dealt with quickly and harshly. But there were few folk around that he could trust anymore. There were so many new faces in his government. All of them were dependable and amazingly efficient. But these new faces held positions of power and he could not replace them easily. Right now, he needed efficiency in his new government, otherwise, he would not hold this seat for long. So long as the people were happy, he was safe.

  Amoca, his senior aid, entered the Imperial throne room from the back and came to his side.

  "Your Majesty, the General of the Okofani land forces wishes an audience," he said.

  This was another problem he would have to take care of. The Okofani forces he employed in his takeover of Iskol were still here, and still sufficient in strength to defeat anything left of not only his own forces, but the Imperial forces as well. They were the true power brokers on Iskol right now.

  Thus far, their orders had not changed, and they appeared subservient to him. But that could change in a day. The General of the Okofani land forces had not made audience with him in quite some time. He almost expected the hammer to fall at any moment. He knew that the conversion of Iskolian industries to supply the Okofani with ships, weapons and supplies was the only thing that kept them at bay.

  "Clear the audience chamber. I will speak with the general alone. Only my most trusted bodyguards will remain," Wellum replied.

  "It will be done, Your Majesty."

  And in short order it was. Lords, ladies and everyone else in the Imperial audience chamber were sent out. A few moments later, Okofani General Unok entered the chamber, haughty and contemptuous as he could be without being downright offensive. He walked in as though he owned the place. He could of course, if he wanted to.

  "Wellum," the general said in his hissing voice, "I and many of my troops are called to battle and will be shipping out. My lieutenant colonel will remain here with 50 garrisons to maintain security of this world."

  "You go to war, General?"

  "Two-thirds of my forces will go with me. We will take two-thirds of the starships orbiting the planet as well. Your forces will have to take up the positions we will leave unprotected."

  "Our forces are insufficient to take up those positions, General, and we certainly don’t have the starships."

  "Wellum," he said, insolently, "I know that you have been building up your forces. Don’t take me for a fool. We are the masters of war and espionage. Your forces will take up those positions. After we have completed our mission, we will expect you to maintain those forces. I and my forces will be sent to new conflicts and will not return soon. As one of our primary material suppliers, your business will be to continue to supply us with war materials. Thus far you have been rewarded handsomely. So long as this relationship is to our mutual benefit, things will go well for you and your people. It is in our interest to protect your world. Have a care that this does not change."

  "And who will be in command of our forces, General Unok?"

  "You will be in command of your own forces. We will monitor them to insure that they do their job. Fail us, and we will start looking for a replacement for you. And it need not be one of my people."

  "You threaten me, General? Perhaps you don’t really understand our society very well. The people won’t accept a pretender to the throne."

  "Your people will accept whomever we put in your place. And I’m sure we understand your society well enough to choose a proper successor. Many of your Lords vie for power on your world. Some, we believe, can suitably perform your duties."

  "Even you, General Unok, have masters, and I shall be direct in lodging complaints to them about your insolence and disrespect towards me. I am the rightful Emperor of this world, by ascension through succession."

  "You really mean insurrection, Emperor. We placed you on the throne. My masters can hold your complaints against me, but only so long as they live."

  Twenty-Six

  Frank and Gronk turned as the first noises came from behind them at the mouth of Gronk’s cave. Gronk started towards the noise as Frank trailed him. They got within ten meters of the cave entrance and stopped. One of the Relmish natives came forward and spoke to Gronk in his native tungue.

  "Shaman, the day sky fills will lights of many things falling from the heavens. What should we do?"

  "You should run far into the hills and hide your people," Gronk replied.

  "But Shaman, you and the Chosen One…"

  "The Chosen One and I are not weak and delicate, Gamorf. We are both powerful and dangerous, no matter what the people believe."

  "But what of the lights in the heavens?"

  "Those are dangerous enemies. They will come here and slaughter your people if you try to stand with us. You cannot fight against them."

  "But we must defend you! You must not fight our enemies alone. They will take you, or kill you!" Gamorf replied, desparately.

  "We will hide in this cave. So long as we stay here they cannot find us. If they do find us, we have great and powerful weapons, the like you have not ever seen. You and the people must leave, Gamorf. These enemies will swat you like dinka. Your spears will be useless against them. They will bounce off the skins of our enemies and they will stain the ground with your blood."

  "We cannot… must not leave you to those barbarians! Our spears will stand against our enemies."

  "Show me your spear, Gamorf."

  Gamorf held his spear proudly, showing it to Gronk.

  "Now throw it hard against that wall," Gronk said, pointing to a point on the wall of the cave.

  Gamorf did as he was directed, casting his spear skillfully at the wall, choosing a single point, aiming it deftly and striking the exact point he had chosen. The spear struck the wall, leaving a small scratch where it struck.

  "Frank," he said then, "that little pea shooter of yours, can it do better?"

  "Frank pulled his energy weapon out of its holster and set it for medium power, aimed it at the point where Gamorf’s spear had struck the wall, and pulled the trigger. Where the beam struck a small, continuous explosion of rocks and dust emerged, sending Gamorf running for cover. After a moment or two, Frank stopped firing, and what remained was a three-meter wide crater in the wall of the cave.

  "You see, Gamorf
," Gronk said, "this is one of our toys. We have weapons that can destroy this entire mountain in a few moments. Your spears cannot help us. Our enemies will fall upon your village and burn your people into cinders, as does the fire to the trees."

  Gamorf was visibly shaken at this.

  "You must preserve your people for the Change. It was never your duty to protect us. It is our duty to protect you. It was my duty, but I am going away forever. Frank Jameson has come here to take my place."

  "You… protect us?"

  "Yes. It was always this way. You must tell your people. You must pass the word to the other villages too. You must not battle against these enemies. Soon, help will arrive and these enemies will be driven from your world. After that, all of your people will be freed. But now, you must run. Promise me you will do this, Gamorf."

  "We will do as you command, Shaman."

  Frank and Gronk left the native and went back to Gronk’s living area in the back of the cave.

  "I sure hope you weren’t kidding about those weapons. This little pea shooter won’t hold them off for ten seconds," Frank said.

  "As it turns out, you’re in luck. That’s not bad, though, what you have there. I’ve got some stuff in this closet back here that we can use, in case your people don’t get here in time."

  Gronk led the way as Frank followed him to a small closet, carved out of the stone. He pulled out some suits that appeared to be made from neutronium-armored material.

  "These’ll protect us from almost anything, but they’re not full-body protection. Your eyes and certain other places on your body won’t be protected. I have these goggles, but they’re not as strong as the body armor."

  "What are these?" Frank asked, as he lifted what appeared to be a fat lasing rifle.

  "Those? Those are backup. We’ll want to use these," Gronk said as he reached into the closet and pulled out four small, hand-mounted glove-weapons. "You slip this on your hand, aim it and fire whichever weapon you like. Each finger fires a different weapon, even the thumb, I see you still have an opposable thumb. That’s good." Gronk grinned as he said this.

  "It’s how we make tools," Frank bantered, then grinned back at him.

  "Now here’s how they work. The goggles have a built-in heads-up display. You don’t even have to stick your head out to see the target, or your hand. A remote does that. All you do is line up what you want to shoot at by looking at it. The goggles will track your eyes, identify the target and when you pull the trigger, it’ll fire and go after whatever target you’ve selected."

  "What if the remote gets shot down?"

  "You have four remotes. If they all go, you can use the glove to see with—you still won’t have to stick your head out to see the target, but you will have to stick your hand out. If that cam gets taken out, then you’ll have to stick your head out."

  "What are all these weapons?" Frank asked, looking at the glove. It was an armored glove, but on the back of the glove was mounted a module with a series of weapons in it.

  "The main and most powerful weapon is the micromissile. That’s the one you can fire from around corners. It’s faster than the eye can see, and it’ll hunt down an enemy hiding behind almost anything. Next is your lasing weapon. That one is line-of-sight. It’ll aim itself with the heads-up display and a remote. The next one is an unguided projectile weapon—you call it a ‘gun’ where you come from. The next one I call a ‘mole.’" Sometimes the enemy will be wearing armor, in which case, depending on how good it is, the micromissile won’t pierce it and the lasing gun won’t burn it. But a mole will settle on the armor and start burning its way through. It takes a little longer, but it works where other weapons won’t."

  "What about this one?" Frank asked, pointing at one of the submodules.

  "This one I call a ‘thunderblinder.’ It sends up a shower of projectiles that fly over the enemy. When they get above the enemy, or wherever you want them to be, they explode, making loud thunder noises and bright flashes that momentarily alarm and blind the enemy. You use them for cover when you want to change position."

  "What about this ‘thumb’ weapon?"

  "Ah. That’s in case of emergency."

  "So how does it work?"

  "When the time comes, you’ll know."

  "I guess it’s time to send out the landmines," Gronk said. He walked over to a standing floor console, fiddled with a few gadgets and then a large section of the cave wall slipped upward, revealing a large electronic control console, with screens, monitors and rows of switches and buttons. He tapped a few of the buttons, tapped a switch and another panel on the other side of the cave opened up, ejecting hundreds of little electronic crawlers, eight-legged minimachines that headed out of Gronk’s living space and headed out for the opening of the cave.

  "How long have you been here?" Frank asked.

  Gronk caught his inference and said, "Oh," he grinned. "I guess I’ve been here a while."

  "What about air defense?" Frank asked.

  "Have that." Gronk looked back at the weapons console, examined a monitor that showed myriad objects in the sky. "But I don’t want to use it yet. Let them find us first. It could take them a couple of days just to figure out where we are. Once they do, then they’ll start airstrikes against this position. If needs be, we can go deeper into the mountain, but there are escape hatches in case we’re overrun and can’t stay here any longer."

  "So we defend from here, then?"

  "Oh no. When they search this cave, it’ll be empty. We’ll go this way." He tapped another button and a small hatch at the far back of the cave opened, revealing a small, dark tunnel.

  "We go that way now?"

  "No way. It’s miserable uncomfortable back in there. We wait here until they come, then we’ll go that way."

  "Everything here is just to stall them."

  "Oh yeah. There’s no way you and I can defend this place. This is just enough to hold them off until your friends get here."

  "Okay, but how will my friends know where to find us before the enemy does?"

  "By all the activity. When I crank this baby up, all hell’s gonna break loose."

  "You really have been here a long time," Frank said. "How did you know you were gonna need all this stuff?"

  "Well, sure… uh… I knew. And someday you’ll know too. Once you figure that out. And you will. It may take a while, but you will. Or die."

  "So what now?" Frank asked.

  "We wait. It may take them a few days to find us, but I have lots of games and entertainment stuff. You wouldn’t believe all the really neat stuff I’ve found across all the galaxies. Oh, and I need to give you the coordinates of my ship, just in case…"

  Twenty-Seven

  The entire crew was on the bridge of the Butterworth as they approached Relm. It was nothing that could be seen from transpace, but it would come into view as soon as they dropped to sublight speed.

  "Prepare for debreak," Suni announced.

  The bright white of transpace, decorated with a multitude of colorful stars enveloped the ship as a point directly ahead began to grow, getting larger and larger. In a moment, the dark of realspace swallowed them, and a spectacular array of bright stars illuminated their forward view screen. At this velocity, they had some slowing to do, which went quickly with the new, powerful engines they had built and installed.

  "Debreak completed," Dyna announced.

  All of the crewmembers were dressed in battlesuits, neutronium-armored suits that carried a multitude of weapons systems, power-assisted motion and defensive systems. Even Sahn had donned one, taylored for her build and physique. She had learned all of the systems and practiced with them, as had all of the crewmembers.

  "Battlestations," Suni ordered, but she didn’t need to, since everyone was already at their particular station, having prepared for this battle for some time. They all had some idea what to expect.

  "We will be at the battle scene in three minutes and twenty seconds," Dyna announced.


  They waited for three more minutes before Suni gave her next command.

  "Twenty seconds to Relm," Dyna announced.

  "Launch the remote battle cruisers," Suni ordered.

  At that order, more than three hundred larger battle cruisers broke away from the hull of the Butterworth and charged ahead, fanning out as they went. Half of them went upward and the other half went downward to the left. Each was operated by a ship computer and had several bots to handle mechanical operations. Along with each battle cruiser went a compliment of projectile weapons, missiles and lasing weapons.

  The attack would be three-pronged. One group would come in on the northern pole of the planet. Another group would come in along the equatorial region above the continent. These two groups would form-up and pinch-off the enemy ships caught between them. The Butterworth would take advantage of the ships caught between the two groups, forming a third part of the pinch-off.

  "Enemy sighted," Michelle announced, and at that, they saw the armada.

  "We have tacticals of their formation," Anna announced, and displayed the positions of all of the known enemy ships above the planet in a three-dimensional image at the center of the bridge. In the very center of the image was Relm. Around it shown images of all the enemy ships in red and the images of all the friendlies in green. Some of the ships were large enough to be visible in the image.

  "Oh my Gawd," someone said. "Look at the size of those things."

  "They’re as big as us."

  "Enemy ship count is six thousand, four hundred and ninety-one," Dyna said. "Forty-three are battle stations, two thousand, one hundred and twenty-two are battle cruisers, eight hundred and eighty-three are destroyers and the rest are small to medium-sized attack craft."

  The first sorties were already headed their way, along with multiple volleys of smart missiles. Equal numbers of sorties and missiles were headed for the two other battle groups.