by Lea Tassie
Charger R/T had had enough of this fight and responded with unrestrained violence. He reversed the containment field, instantly causing soldiers close by to be drawn into the blue plasma field. Their bodies were torn from the foxholes and flung into the force field, which instantly obliterated them. Charger R/T then reversed the field again while compressing time and space around him, causing the snipers' neutrino fire to bend and hit human targets. The total energy output of the planet ship was fired back at it and, with that added to Charger R/T's own violent outburst of power, small portions of the planet exploded and tore away from it.
In the command center, General Pursing was frantic. He ordered the planet lasers to fire directly down on Charger R/T in an attempt to kill the beast, ignoring Abarth's orders of capturing it alive.
Charger R/T was quick to take advantage of this. He redirected the planet ship's laser fire to hit every tank that blinked into the battlefield.
General Pursing was enraged as he witnessed all his soldiers and weapons being destroyed by this demon. Half crazed, he commanded the planet ship to ram Charger R/T where he stood. The crew recognized the insanity of such an order and refused to carry it out. They instead commanded the remaining members of the armed force to retreat and get clear. They would try what science called a false jump.
Scientists had discovered, quite by accident, that if the engines were reversed at exactly the right moment, the planet ship wouldn't jump, but instead send out a wave that would cause any object it hit to jump to the desired location. The engineers picked a point in deep space and locked onto a quantum entangled particle near a pulsar. They then spooled up the engine again and did the false jump.
A wave of energy emanated from the planet ship directly at Charger R/T and when it struck the surface of the frozen wastes of New Eden, a fifty-mile square chunk of the planet, with Charger R/T attached, was jumped to a distant pulsar.
A war that lasted just a few hours with a god of incomprehensible power ended not only in many dead or missing personnel, but in a chunk of the planet New Eden being ripped out and hurled through space. A council of the people was convened in the following days as General Pursing and Abarth were placed in confinement to answer charges of genocide.
In the end, it was determined that Abarth was ultimately responsible for this debacle and he was sentenced to having the blink mechanism removed from his body and being incarcerated in a containment field for the rest of his natural life. Even though this could mean eternity, it was considered by most as a kind punishment.
Charger R/T, on the other hand, felt only amusement when he realized where he was. He sat there on a broken piece of the planet New Eden, circling the pulsar and mesmerized by its steady blinking. At times the freezing temperature of space would make his planet chunk very cold and he would be encapsulated in a block of ice. Then it would swing close to the pulsar and heat up, creating a balmy day or two for Charger R/T to enjoy the warmth. There was no other movement. There was no sound.
He really appreciated the peace and quiet.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
No, I didn't tell you much about repairing the damage the Grays inflicted during the Night of the Black Rain, did I?
You want to know how we removed iron shell that covered all of Earth? Well, we thought of using a can opener, but actually, we peeled it like an orange.
Ha ha, I'm just kidding.
No, seriously, we made it rain for forty days and forty nights. Water and air quickly turn iron into rust, or iron oxide, which is flaky and crumbly and much easier to gather and remove than solid iron. Iron in the oceans and lakes was no problem either. Just so you know, there are more than two dozen types of bacteria that eat iron.
Then we repaired the soil and water and seeded the planet with plants and animals. You can be sure we did right by our old world, Reader, for at the core of every human who ever lived, no matter their job or their wealth, is a heart that holds dear our original birth place.
What's a Goldilocks zone? Didn't I explain that? It's the orbit around our sun which is the most conducive for the survival of life.
Yes, I agree, it's wonderful. We move planets around now!
Chapter 11 Abarth attacks humanity
Crime in this time had dwindled to nearly nothing, so Abarth's prison held only two other prisoners. One was called Jet, the other Spyder.
The place they lived was nothing like the prisons of old, for it had no provisions for rehabilitation or diversions to alleviate the quiet solitude. It had no judges, no lawyers, no psychologists. This prison was a containment field, an existence divorced from normal experience. The technology that created such living hell was an offshoot of the Grays' own black projects, as different from the time-lock as could be imagined. Humanity's modern judicial practice was to place the offenders in the deepest, blackest hole in existence and forget about them.
It was easy to understand why Abarth was imprisoned, for he had driven humanity to a needless war based on his vanity. Jet had also destroyed many humans. Spyder, a tall man with dark hair and eyes, a cold smile, and a voice like warm honey, was a psychopath who had killed his entire family and been caught only because he'd overlooked one very minor detail. He was also a member of Abarth's church.
Jet was constantly disappointed by humanity, for he held it to very high standards. "We achieve ever-increasing heights on the evolutionary ladder," he often said, "but we fall right back into the cesspit of human arrogance. We always do." A New Eden native, he dressed the way he thought scientists of old had done, with a white lab coat and dark-rimmed glasses. He'd tried the Einstein look, but wild hair hadn't worked for him, so he wore it shoulder-length and smooth. This made his gaunt face look thinner than it was.
Jet felt that the mind was the root cause of humanity's inability to better itself and he aimed to change that. He had started small, meddling with the intellectual powers of animals at first, creating mutations in the genetic structures that favored genuine logical thought rather than mindless instincts or emulation of others. Jet made monsters of simple animals that seldom seemed to favor intellect over their base needs. He had house cats which spoke and interacted, but were unholy terrors toward prey. He had smart raptors that astonished in their willingness to torture and oppress the offspring of other raptors merely to make their own genes dominant.
When Jet finally graduated to working on humans, the scientific community rejected his proposals. The establishment felt it was too dangerous to genetically alter the natural ability to learn, and they put a stop to his work. Jet was left with only one option. He enhanced his own mental powers to prove the value that his achievement would bring to all mankind. This did not convince the scientists.
Jet then decided humanity did not deserve to exist. He accused humans of being controlling, reckless, domineering, and petty, all traits he despised but which described him accurately. Jet decided to put an end to his imperfect species, and the means he created almost succeeded.
The tool was a violent strain of bacteria, enhanced with a rudimentary brain, and the ability to learn and adapt. Like a quantum computer, Jet built smart microbial molecular brains and filled them with rage, then inserted them into strains of bacteria lethal to human life. When he released them, they hunted in packs, using air, water, and time as methods of transport.
Great cities were brought to their knees with this pestilence, as millions of nearly immortal humans rotted and decayed in excruciating pain. It was Abarth's bid for power that resolved this crisis, for he promised the people that if they followed his church, and made him world leader, he would defeat this apocalypse. And he did defeat it.
So it amused Jet that Abarth now found himself in prison with the one member of humanity he had actually fought and defeated. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Jet sang out to torment Abarth.
"Shut the hell up!" Abarth would snap, but Jet just droned on.
"Shut up!" Abarth snarled as he covered his ears, never re
ally able to block out Jet's comments.
"All I wanted was to make us better and smarter, able to realize our mistakes and correct them, but not you. Oh no, not the great leader, Abarth! You wanted power and complete control, but I nearly got you and you know it," Jet continued in his monotone voice.
"God damn it, shut up!" Abarth snapped repeatedly.
Spyder sat back, watching and listening, but saying nothing.
"I should not be in here," Jet went on, polishing his horn-rims on the tail end of the lab coat. "I am not a criminal like you. All I wanted was to help my fellow man, to lift him intellectually. You are one who deserves to be in here, you're the real villain."
Jet's droning was driving Abarth insane.
It was true that Jet wanted to help humanity, but rejection had driven him to near madness. When Abarth had finally achieved enough power, he set out to end Jet's plague. So, with voodoo mystic religious overtones, and a big supply of rattling chicken bones, the great Abarth ordered his followers to hunt down and capture Jet. He created a containment field and placed Jet in it. Then he tortured Jet until the man revealed the method necessary for stopping the bacteria. Now he found himself in the same prison, much to Jet's delight.
Abarth tried to manipulate and deceive both Jet and Spyder. Jet believed Abarth was a loyal friend. Spyder knew what was happening but pretended to be fooled. He flattered Abarth by admiring his work as leader of the church and learned far more about its operation than Abarth realized. A year passed, during which Abarth created a plan to escape. That year felt nearly as long as the hundreds they'd already spent in this place. Abarth requested a toy from the council, something to pass the time as a reward for good behavior. What he wanted was a small Korean hand drum, from a forgotten world in a long past forgotten time. It was a simple drum with a handle, looking much like a frying pan. On each side of the drum head was fastened a string with a heavy knot on the end. When the handle was rotated between two hands, the knots struck the drum head and beat out a tone. His request was granted. The toy became his weapon.
Abarth began beating out a hypnotic rhythm with the drum, repeating the pattern endlessly, every moment of every day, until the warder stormed into Abarth's room threatening to kill him. Abarth kept the toy from the grabbing hands of the guard until he was close to the man. Then he struck.
There is a point on the human body, a point never shown to the martial artist, a point too vulnerable for common knowledge. From the same place as the hand drum had come thousands of years before, great masters of death knew the point one must strike with vicious intent in order to kill a fellow being. No matter that humanity was close to immortality, this one point on the human body, if struck with precision and sufficient force, guaranteed death. Abarth had no difficulty in killing the guard. Now, holding the device that controlled the containment field, he had access to freedom. He released Jet and Spyder. He had plans for both of them.
"You are positive this will work?" Abarth asked as the three slipped away from the area where they had been confined.
"Absolutely! Just get me to the world ship and I will prove it," Jet replied, his voice less of a drone but still mesmerizing. With the help of Abarth's devout followers, the three men eluded detection long enough to have their blink mechanisms surgically reinstalled and to board the world ship in orbit around New Eden. Though it had been made difficult to gain entrance to the ship, with Abarth's followers as lackeys, Abarth and Jet got to the engine room. Spyder was set to guarding the door.
Jet's idea turned out to be brilliant, to Abarth's surprise. From the engine room, he created a false jump inside the ship which emitted a wave that bounced every crew member aboard out into distant space. Then, under his guidance, the world ship jumped from its orbit, leaving chaos in its wake. The stolen ship traveled along the route Dayton had created once before, to the Grays' home world.
Dayton had made only one mistake those many years ago. He found no evidence nearby of warlike Grays, never realizing the vastness of the Grays' empire. But Abarth explored the universe in great detail with his mind, searching for humanity's ancient enemy, and he had found them. In a small corner of space, orbiting the star in an insignificant solar system, distant from the Grays' main empire, existed one planet with technologically advanced Grays.
These Grays were clever, devious, and careful. They had answered the call to help the home world against the Dinosauroids' attack, but quickly realized the futility of the effort. Instead, using containment fields, they had captured the few remaining reptoids and, with these abhorrent beasts, began the long process of genetically blending the physiology of the two species, thus eliminating the effect of the reptoids' deadly virus. What Abarth found, in his bid to avenge the mistreatment of his family and his church, was a community of horrific creatures. They were perfect for his needs, primitive and violent, yet intelligent. Their society was a highly structured, savage hierarchy designed to benefit the strong and powerful.
Abarth's approach was to misrepresent himself as a god, configuring his appearance to the Grays' mythology to ensure full compliance. He had Jet perform apparently magical feats using advanced technology. He had Spyder mesmerizing them with words spoken like a soft but insistent drum beat. With his two acolytes, he brought down thunder and lightning, fire and brimstone, until the creatures fell in line and followed him as their new deity. The blending of the Grays' synthetic anatomy with that of the hybrid and violent reptoid created a highly intelligent, but superstitious life form twice the size of their ancestors.
Abarth now had his army. He just needed to get these creatures back to his own solar system to get his revenge. With Jet's help, he would find a way to use the world ship.
Although Jet wanted to help humanity, he had never found a single friend willing to help him when he needed it. His intelligence had been well above that of most people, even before he experimented on himself. But, because he had no friends and didn't like interacting with people, he didn't understand emotions and was therefore gullible. Abarth preyed on this weakness of Jet's, twisting and contorting the truth until it suited his needs. So, when he asked Jet to remove the DNA safety lockout that Dayton had employed to ensure that no alien life forms could ever board the world ship, Jet was only too eager to comply.
Spyder understood emotions, though he felt none himself. He knew that Abarth was vindictive and that Jet was naive, just as he knew those qualities would someday destroy both men. He bided his time, observing and learning as much as he could. Sooner or later, his time would come. Sooner or later Abarth would step into his web.
Jet spent the better part of two years reconstructing the world ship into a weapon of awesome power, while Abarth trained his mutant Gray army in the secrets of killing humans. Like a madman willing to beat a dog to ensure its savagery, Abarth made certain that his new Gray army would prove worse than savage.
"I need only a few more weeks to complete my work on the world ship's neutrino system, so you must be patient," Jet said to Abarth, as they stood at the balcony window of the temple created by Gray drones at his command. "It has to be completed if we are going to destroy humanity without destroying the infrastructure of the cities."
"You told me two months ago that you were almost ready!" Abarth snapped as he paced back and forth in front of the balcony window. Abarth was careful to always appear in the guise of a Gray god before his army, but here alone with Jet, he appeared as his typical impatient human self.
"Well, I never expected to have to do all the work alone. You could have given some of the lesser Grays fingers without claws. Having delicate equipment shredded by easily frustrated beasts is not helpful!" Jet replied firmly. His willingness to help was being strained hard with Abarth's impatience.
Abarth always seemed to recognize the magic line that he must never cross, and would sweet-talk Jet back into compliance every time he neared it.
"That’s all right, Jet, I know you're trying. Remember that what we do here is bigger than both
of us. Humanity needs to pay for what they did to you. If only they had been willing to at least try what you were proposing, then it wouldn't be necessary to punish them." Abarth whined the same way he always did when he wanted something. "I don't blame you for seeking revenge. I think they deserve it and that's why I am so willing to help you."
This was Abarth's way of making it seem like Jet was the one leading the venture. "When we get back to the home worlds and have subdued those who stand in the way of progress, you can decide who will live and who will die. That's what you want, isn’t it? Remember, we do this for science!" As Abarth spoke, he hovered around Jet, trying to reassure him with gentle touches. These always made Jet feel uncomfortable and threw off his focus on logical reasoning.
Abarth's tactics were designed to do more than encourage Jet to do his bidding. He needed to be able to approach Jet and make physical contact a routine matter, because one day he would no longer need the man and being near enough to touch meant killing him would be easy. "You must have much to do, so I should let you get back to work. We will leave when you are good and ready." Abarth returned to the balcony that overlooked the crowds of Gray mutants below.
The neutrino weapon was very necessary, for though Abarth had many Grays at his disposal, the four worlds contained billions of people. The neutrino weapon was a brilliant piece of technology. What Jet had created was a method of using the sun's own energy, in the form of impossibly small and almost undetectable neutrinos. These would disrupt the molecules of living beings and, by breaking the bonds that held them together, scatter to dust all within the weapon's range, leaving the cities intact.
Jet was horrified by the weapon he'd created, so Abarth promised to use it only as a last resort. It should, perhaps, have been obvious to Jet that Abarth had every intention of using the weapon, but his desire to help humanity blinded him to Abarth's manipulations.