by Angel Bright
“Name and navy rank?” I asked.
Silence. His jaw muscles swelled.
I raised my finger and magically drove his head toward the ceiling. His massive hanging body started writhing in convulsions. I held him for a few seconds and then dropped him on the floor. I watched him silently.
“Commodore Jarvis. Commander of Third Destroyer Group and the landing,” he said in a hollow, guttural voice.
“Jarvis. Why didn’t you commit suicide, Commander? Why are you here?”
“I was unconscious after the decompression.”
“You are lying. I have all the information from you. Everything you know is recorded. Tell me about the specialist. You spied on each other, remember? What were his strengths and weaknesses? You understand I am his senior since you are here?”
“We weren’t close. He came when he had to punish someone.”
“You are lying again. I see you have been friends for a long time.”
“I’ve nothing to say,” he said and unabashedly scratched himself.
“OK, I am not going to ask. Tell me the reason for this massacre on the planet.”
“I was following orders.”
“Really? You were too diligent. Were you comfortable among the herd in the crowded holds? You and your panic-stricken soldiers. What a shame! You took off your uniform that made you a commander and hid it. This made you insignificant. Even your soldiers despised you for that. Why did you strangle those around you? To hide your disgrace? How is it possible that someone as sneaky as you had been in charge of specialists? They were worthier than you. Why didn’t you attack the small frigate and instead chose to shoot your own ships until the last possible moment?”
“So that you don’t get anything.” He looked at me defiantly.
“Everything we needed, we found in the minds of the captured specialists. From you, we even got the location of your bases and strong points, your military installations and communications, the location of the planets, and the dislocation of your main military forces, as well as your mobilization plans, deadlines, and maximum capabilities. We got everything because you did not blow up your head. Now you can expect guests on Vogre or Dara. If they fall, your empire will crumble. We learned this from you, Commodore Jarvis.”
“The overlord will find you!”
“He has already found me twice, and I managed to get away. I will nab him when he finds me again, perhaps while I am obliterating Vogre or Dara. They won’t have time for mobilization. And let me show you your pride: the cruiser-destroyer Overlord’s Hand. It will be restored soon. You see, I have already torn the Overlord’s Hand, and I will get a hold of his head, too, when he finds me. The excellent specialists you brought me are diligently working in my plants. Thank you! I will go collect more from Vogre. Your plants and universities are there, aren’t they? Your specialists are very obliging. I won’t even have to ask them for the three defense satellites you have made undetectable. You marked them precisely. You know too much for a regular commodore of an eighteen-ship squadron. Tell me, where should I look for the overlord?”
“You won’t find him!”
“So, he is hiding well. Wasn’t he supposed to look for me? He even found me. I don’t hide like him. I was there, and he abandoned you and escaped. He wrote you off.”
“He is looking at you through my eyes!”
“He is not there. I would have felt his presence. You are alone. Call him. Beg him or challenge him. He is looking at me, isn’t he?”
And then I felt him. I really felt the presence of the overlord inside him.
This was an overlord.
Jarvis’s appearance changed. I instantly created a “fishing net” around him, firmly tightened the net, and threw him in the darkness. He could find his way there.
Why didn’t he teleport himself?
Was it possible he wasn’t able to?
I had let one of the hunters get close to me again. He fooled me, but mostly he fooled himself by appearing devoid of energy in order to disguise himself.
I realized how vulnerable we could be, too.
I couldn’t stop them.
Unless…what if I put the solar system in the subspace?
But I didn’t know how to do it on a massive scale like this.
22 Counterstrike on the Planet Corba, Kerrani System—Fateful Discovery of a Black Scout Ship
We continued to modernize the armaments of our ships. Larger ships had strong armaments and two pairs of power reactors that we found as very useful because they powered a pair of MPD Scorpion-1s. We improved the electronic fire control from the central post along with the remote regulation of the energy parameters used by the blast emitters that again became a dangerous striking weapon.
Earth authorities were coping well with the growing responsibilities, and I would only bring in chaos with advice or interference, so I retired to one of the science centers with a group of children with established magical abilities, with whom I began to learn healing. I was enhancing their magical abilities.
I was increasingly astonished by their genetically built talents that directed me to the research of their genealogy and their similar DNA.
We started trainings to detect spells and objects with built-in spells and to dispel spells during treatment. This proved to be a great idea even for me because I discovered that the training quickly increased our sensitivity and the speed of discovering a magical presence. This valuable property became the essence of all learners. The group was divided and differentiated according to the peculiarities of their talents, in which we emphasized their narrow specialization. We also created separate cells of two to seven young mages to demonstrate how much immense power there was in such a differentiated group combining the united forces of the various talents. In these differentiated groups, a particular indestructible bond was created among the participants. Of course, I created these cores with other strategic goals far more remote in time. To almost every group, I added a clairvoyant who made these groups much more flexible, durable, and capable of self-improvement.
I ensured all learners understood how important it was to discover self-taught talents and to be trained and set up in viable groups. Mankind needed protection offered by defenders who had strengths, qualities, and fighting abilities. Every group had from one to three power mages and one with talent in illusions. We created separate battle groups.
In the midst of our most interesting range practice, a disturbing signal came from Tim, my observer in Earth’s Supreme Command. Three-star destroyers were approaching the outer boundaries of the solar system. Pluto and its satellites had been declared to be in a high level of combat alert. This included a three-level guard of the MPD Scorpion-2.
For me, the attack of these ships was designed to detect the presence of the MPD-Scorpions in the most forward Earth outpost.
The unknown enemy began its surveillance of our weapons.
Against a magical attack in these frontier worlds, I had no protections, but I could create a sense of fear of a trap, fear of crippling, and illusions of overwhelming and strange insurmountable threats. Supreme mages would be rushing freely, undisturbed in these frontier regions. But for them, I had prepared a very weak spell to make them sense I was somewhere close by and observing. I wanted them to try to understand if this was a suggestion or a premonition and get the courage to reject it. In the future, this doubt would cause them great problems. A mage without premonitions was a blind man.
I continued my training with the youth, but I ordered the squadron of the four largest ships to be ready with the pilots of their fighters.
Our wait was over. We would no longer stay quiet and wait for where and when they would hit us. We still had a weapons supremacy. As long as we had it, we had to take the destruction to their territory and try to get them off balance.
We began with a demonstration of the atrocities of militarism over the planet of the last aggressors on Prima Davos. Real footage had been selected involving their c
ruisers and shuttle bombers against the backdrop of burning cities and mountains. I hoped they would recognize them, but we would remind them. The planet would be hit by four of their destroyers. Let them also enjoy fear and pain. Let them also breathe in poisoned smoke-burning air. We would tell them it was just a warning.
Then, we would strike without destroying ports, factories, and docks on the planet and in orbit. We would strike orbital cities, stations, and anyone who dared to resist. They needed to know why this was happening to them.
The movies were ready. Unfortunately, I could teleport cruisers one by one. It didn’t matter.
23 The Planet Corba
I knew it from the commanders’ mental copies, and now Corba was in front of me. We were moving into a “front” formation. The surrounding area was overcrowded with docks and more docks.
Requests for identification were received. We had to hurry into their media air and start broadcasting on all major TV channels.
Without much resistance, with the first aired footage it all turned into chaos. They tried to stop our transmission but were too late.
We explained to the viewers what was going on and started the movie about the exploits of their squadrons in the killings and burning of Prima Davos. They couldn’t stop us. I held firmly through my will the frequencies of the transmission.
We announced the punishment for the bandit planet.
We released our fighters, which had enough targets. Our protective fields became radiant as the beginning of our attack was the end of the movie. The population would know this was a lesson in sin and redemption; this planetary system was doomed. The targets were fixed exactly. With three minutes until the beginning, we scattered.
Big destroyers were arrogantly trying to catch us. The TV broadcasting continued. I was satisfied.
I sent an open warning for them to free a one-hundred-mile space around us. Whoever remained inside would be destroyed. The distance was symbolic compared to our weapons’ ranges.
No effect.
The population was confident in their military superiority, with people sitting comfortably on the sofas and watching the battle against us.
Ten seconds…
A ray volleyed from the opposite huge star cruiser to our leftmost destroyer. Its protective field flashed but survived.
Last second.
Our front fighter shot a Scorpion volley along the length of the huge cruiser from the ideal position. The result was different; a strong shine blossomed behind the destroyer’s stern. The engine was destroyed, and now a tunnel bored through the starship. Its protective field continued to shine for another fifty-six seconds. Radiation bursts of different colors started flickering. The giant ships that pressed us broke their formation but had already suffered serious damage.
Hidden behind their huge silhouettes, my fighters and the four Earth destroyers were scattering. We were covering an ever-expanding territory. And we are well protected by 544 fighters and four fighter-carrier ships.
Our television broadcast did its job and caused an indescribable panic to the population of the planet. The people were divided into two antagonistic camps based on the “I told you” principle. But at the time of their crimes they had been living peacefully, and they had been a team in the sterilization of planets.
All planets and aggressors knew what their end would be.
I was not the ever-forgiving God fondling the heads of my naughty children. There was no point in reeducating the killers, only hypocrisy.
Orbital docks collapsed. The cities of their workers on the planet were blazing. Their combat orbital stations were broken apart.
A mighty civilization was overweening.
They had four more planets, which would have to wait.
This was the main one.
From the planet, shipments and space yachts were flying in a panic and seeking salvation in the direction of the colonized neighboring planets. In front of my eyes stood the picture of the takeoff carriers from Prima Davos, which these same terrified bandits had coldly and gladly shot at. These rich people were the foundation of their military doctrine.
I ordered the equivalent destruction of the fugitives. Someone would survive, but these were the main perpetrators.
We were coming!
We destroyed their defensive military installations, spaceports, and ships. Ground batteries ionized the atmosphere with futile fire at us, indicating their locations for destruction. This was how the batteries on Prima Davos were silenced, but they were able to preserve tiny pieces of their beautiful nature to remember. And the predators at the top were hidden behind their protective fields, invulnerable and ruthless—like us.
Oh, the irony of fate.
We spared their cities even though the workers who built the monster ships lived there. I left an order to the survivors.
The Federation of Kerrani was to rebuild Prima Davos. I set deadlines for them.
I had decided this star system should not keep on existing. It had committed too many crimes.
We started collecting our fighters when we found a group of heterogeneous ships approaching Corba at great speed. I opened my formation in a front with fighters between the heavy ships. We met them about three hours later. We exchanged a few volleys, and they continued with losses that were unknown to us. It was not clear what their purpose was, but their high speed drove them under our targets. In form and construction, this was a mixed formation from their colonized planets. They had not armed them well at all.
We visited the other four colonized planets and showed them the movie, titled This Is You! We pointedly destroyed one industrial center on each planet.
We returned to the solar system after two months of absence. Our entire military operation became a major topic for discussion. Sects of pacifists were created, and they raised a lot of noise and padded their bank accounts. Discussions of pacifism or defensive security were raging.
How could the wolf be full but the lamb remain whole? Would no one bother us if we did not interfere in others’ battles? Could this happen anywhere? I promised the most enthusiastic that I would take them with us as observers of the next rescue mission, and Mars would be declared a demilitarized zone, where we would settle the pacifists and the fighters for alien rights without the annoying security warships and defensive batteries. These movements melted away. We showed on television through our eyes and through the eyes of the aliens the destruction made by the Corba invaders on Prima Davos.
Outrage flooded the worlds of the solar system.
I also paid attention to our magical art course with the youth. The students were more numerous—much more. It had become fashionable. Tornadoes swirled on the ranges, and mountain slopes collapsed in the midst of continuous moonquakes. Powerful spells were being worked, despite my belief that weak, inconspicuous spells changed life for a longer period at great rates and noticeable results. The life of Earth’s civilization had been permeated by spells with inconspicuous effects on the masses from its very beginning.
How could we create a creative society without common intentions, goals, and tasks? What were the political parties? A collection of psychics with united efforts interacted with large masses of people, who were inspired with ideas and goals in most cases radically opposed to the interests of the individuals and family.
For example, the interests of over fifty million brainwashed, naive people were destroyed during the Second World War. Where were their interests and the interests of their families or nations? Maybe it was attributed to magic and the media.
A pure example is the psychology of crowds.
Free a group of individuals from a sense of personal responsibility, and you will create a raging, relentless, irresponsible wave of rabid individuals who, after an hour or two, will wonder how they could have done so much damage. But nobody would guess they had been under a magical suggestion.
Spells wholly guided every society. But they were never called by their real names. They were never menti
oned. How did Hitler unite so many with his ideology? Perhaps he had a magical source and was an unusually strong psychic.
On Mars, heavy repair and construction work was going on. Several atmospheric-enrichment stations had started producing and dispersing free oxygen extracted from the rock massifs and from the ice that was towed from the remote asteroid belt of Orth. A station with several pushers operated there and accelerated in the direction of Mars great ice mountains that delivered themselves to the orbit of the planet, where tug catchers gathered them down and dropped them in the dry lakes and seas of the planet. The places where these ice blocks fell were covered with heavy clouds from which torrential rains were falling, and the supplies were carefully distributed by a special group of physicists who set up schedules for where, when, and how many. From this water, they extracted the powerful oxygen streams that were spread by the unstoppable Martian winds. In aid of the oxygen stations, Earth’s seaweed was scattered throughout the still small Martian lakes to purify the atmosphere itself.
Earth was strongly interested in this activity and watched everything unusual that had appeared on the now-foggy face of the red planet. Mars was crucial for the survival of Earth. The successes of Mars were successes for the entire solar system.
Civil movements to protect Saturn appeared for the survival of its beautiful ice rings.
We accepted the defense as reasonable, and then we began to transport the ice asteroids from the belt of Orth. This very complex and expensive task would delay the Martian project.
We were running out of our few advantages in the episodic battles with aggressors. They studied us through various challenges, but I could not get to the one who organized the action that gave us excessive difficulties. I faced creatures who had the skills of higher mages and who were unable to react quickly to survive. The lessons I received were useful, but the price I paid for them was too high. What was my correct course of action? Should I protect an isolated civilization such as Earth or join the extremely strong and progressive civilization of the Kerrani System? The latter was centered on Corba, the development of which I could continue from a higher level without going through the tribulations of protecting the solar system.