by Frank Carey
"Changing course, aye."
Harm leaned back in his seat. "ETA to landing?"
"One hour seven minutes to planet surface."
"Good. Wake me when we're on final approach."
"Wake on final, aye."
Harm fell into a deep sleep.
###
"Where the hell am I?" Harm looked around and saw four, twenty-something, identical Logash--two girls and two boys--watching him intently.
"You're neos, right? I thought you only came in singles and twins."
"Who are you?" the neo standing closest to him--a girl--asked.
"Depends on the time of day. For now, you can call me Harmon."
Four chest crystals flared bright blue. "Harmon Aymar, a.k.a. Lucien Irithyl, Son of Lawrence and Lenora Irithyl. We know of you."
"Really? Damn, I'm honored. Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my dream?"
"My name is Anne, and this is my brother, Nels, my sister, Jewel, and my other brother, Randy. We are your siblings."
"Excuse me? Did you just say you four are my siblings? Mother only gave birth to two children."
"Yes, you and your sister, Losira. We were created by Muntz using the same genetic material he used to create you and Losira. Thus, we six are siblings."
Harm woke up at the sound of an alarm. "We are on final approach," the computer informed him.
Harm was drenched in sweat, again. "This shit has got to end. Clones, siblings, genetic manipulations. Muntz has to be stopped." Harm prepared to land. "Though it is cool to have more siblings, assuming I'm not hallucinating."
He looked down and saw the building complex. Near it were several saucers parked in a line. "Change of plans. Computer, disengage cloaking fields."
"Disengage shields, aye!" The ship became visible as it passed over the landing field. Harm turned and banked, steering the Vixen so it circled the complex twice before landing next to one of the saucers. He powered down the systems while watching armed Alue swarm from buildings and saucers alike. Soon, the Vixen was surrounded.
"Computer, defensive level five. Ring the ship with cats. All weapons set to stun."
"Def lev five. Cats. Stun. Aye! FTL to standby."
Satisfied, Harm opened the port side hatch, allowing the cats to escape. After waiting a moment, Harm grabbed the IWU and headed outside, leaving two cats to watch the interior of the ship.
"Stop!" one of the Alue ordered as Harm reached the bottom of the ramp. He set the IWU at his feet, raised his hands, and stood there, silent.
"At ease, Lieutenant," An Alue ordered as he walked over to where Harm was standing. "Harmon, welcome to Alura. You can put your arms down."
Harm lowered his arms, then handed the robed one the sack. "Hey, Malaki. We missed you at the last office party."
Malaki grimaced as he took the sack from Harm. "What's this?"
"A mark nineteen portable InterWeb unit."
"A what?" Malaki asked while zipping the cover open so he could peek inside.
"A planetary InterWeb in a box. This baby can handle in excess of five hundred million simultaneous connections. As configured, she can store twenty four copies of the League database and serve them up in real-time."
Malaki started to shake. "This is... This device is..."
"A freaking Alue nursery which sleeps approximately one Alue generation. I've got another one stored inside the Vixen." Harm glanced behind him and saw a small group headed up the ramp. "By the way, those cats are robots equipped with blasters. The ship is set to explode if anyone but me breeches the doorway."
"Stand down and return to your posts!" Malaki ordered. "Why are you here?"
"To stop a war."
Malaki looked at the IWU, then Harm. "Follow me. Lieutenant, no one enters that ship or bothers those robots without my express permission, understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
Malaki turned and walked back to the building with Harm and two guards in tow, cradling the IWE in his arms as he would a child.
###
Malaki led Harm to a room deep inside the complex. After instructing the guards to wait outside, Malaki walked over to a small dispensary and returned with mugs of something. "Tea?"
"Yes, thank you."
"First things first. How did you get here," he asked while pacing the room. "We've been told that it would require a great deal of energy to open a gateway big enough for even a single ship."
"A few weeks ago, I would have agreed with you, but things change. I have developed an add-on for a standard FTL drive which allows it to bridge the universes."
"Impossible. I've been told by..."
"Muntz? Muntz is a poser with just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Sure, he could build a gateway using a bunch of megarouters, but who can't. I prefer to do the job on a ship-by-ship basis."
"You're not kidding, are you?"
Harm raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "Scan the Vixen. You'll find an additional energy signature just aft of FTL units."
"And you brought it here? We can easily replicate it and use it to invade your universe."
"Sure, decimate your forces by throwing them up against over forty star systems? Hell, why didn't I think of that?"
"The Alue saucer ships are superior to yours in every way. Our warriors work best when outnumbered."
"Is that why a hundred of your ships bought it when they attacked the Vengeance? Hell, I took our six of them using an unarmed freighter."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Pirate Ship Vengeance under command of Admiral Mitrell and her husband, my clone, Atmar. He opened a gateway and your ships attacked while the gate was stuck open. I can show you the pictures of the wrecked saucers."
Malaki fell into a chair and downed his tea in one gulp. "My gods, that's what happened to Task Force Eight, assuming you're telling the truth."
"How long have we been working together? Have I ever lied to you or any Alue? Malaki, you may not be aware of this, but I broke all the Alue out of confinement and had them delivered to the Smuggler's Cove where they are safe and protected by a number of friends of mine. Buddy, right now I'm the only friend the Alue have on the other side."
Malaki steepled his hands and placed them over his nose and mouth in a decidedly human/elf fashion. Then he stopped and raised his eyes to look at Harmon. "Atmar opened a gateway from your side?"
Harm nodded. "Yep. It overloaded and the gate grew big enough to pass saucers through. All the saucers were destroyed and their pilots killed. As for the Vengeance, it was ripped apart and a large number of the crew are missing and presumed dead."
"What of your clone? May I assume he is dead as well?"
Harm shook his head. "Atmar is here, on this planet. His pod is about two miles from here. As for my clone, my sensors indicate he's probably somewhere in this complex."
Malaki shot out of his seat. "What! He's here? For what reason?"
"To kill Muntz, to kill me, then take over things and invade the League. Shit, I forgot to tell you. My clone is going mad and unless I can find him, the two of us are going to die in a few days." Harm stood up and looked the Alue in the eyes. "Take the IWU, shut down your invasion, and let me take care of Atmar. You can keep Muntz, assuming Atmar hasn't gotten to him, but you need to do something, dammit!"
Without a word, Malaki stood up and walked out, leaving Harmon alone in the room. "OK, that didn't go as planned."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Harm got up and walked around the room. Stopping at the door, he pulled a hacker ball from his pocket and placed it against the doorjamb, causing the door to open onto an empty corridor. "Ooooh, this is cool," he said as he walked out and looked around. "No terminals. Damn Luddites."
Picking a random direction, Harm started walking down the corridor until he came to a bulletin board. Stopping, he thumbed through the clutter until he came to a lab-cleaning schedule. Only one lab was marked off-limits for the cleaning crew. "Found you," he said as he looked a
round for a facility map. Taking it, he reversed direction and ran toward the center of the building where he found a massive steel door with large power conduits passing through the wall around it.
He knocked.
The door opened, and a Logash woman stuck her head out. She smiled when she saw him. "Hello, Harmon."
"Hello, Jewel. How do I know you're Jewel and not Anne?"
"You are our brother. Of course you can tell us apart," she answered enigmatically.
"OK," he said as she led him inside, closing the door behind him. Harm stopped and stared at a structure at the center of the lab.
"Wow," he whispered as he walked around it. "Are those biocrystals?" he asked.
"Yes," Anne said. "The four of us donated a small sample of our crystal from which our father grew the four crystals," Anne explained.
Harm whistled. "Those four crystals are twenty feet long. And each one is from a separate donor?"
"Yes," Randy continued, "this allows for a fourth order resonance to be set up between the four crystals, thus enhancing the field output by..."
"A thousand-fold," Harm whispered. He looked at the cables coming through the wall and ran mental calculations. "Nels, what is your father planning to pass through this gate?"
"Alura," Muntz answered as he walked into the room flanked by two guards, all three of them heavily armed. "Wait outside, please."
Harm turned to Muntz, his anger flaring. "You megalomaniac. You can't shift a planet from one universe to another."
"Why not? It's a small planet in a large universe. No one will notice. We tested it with the grange's help and everything went swimmingly."
Harm sat down on a crate and rubbed his temples. "Josiah, what happened with the grange, exactly?"
"Lorq persuaded his people to allow us use of their network for the Alue's last breeding. In return, we gave them one of the Alue's weapons platforms."
Harm lay back on the crate and closed his eyes. "What was the platform on?"
"A large asteroid, about a hundred miles long, why?" Muntz said.
"And you used this device to move it to their universe?"
"Actually, a smaller prototype, but one of a similar design, yes."
"Have you heard back from them?"
Muntz frowned. "Come to think of it, we haven't. I've been so busy..."
"Anne, is that a League commlink on the table next to you?"
She nodded. "Yes, it is."
“May I borrow it?” Harmon asked.
She glanced at Muntz who nodded.
"What are you doing?" Muntz asked as Harm tapped commands into the device.
"Josiah, I'm a scientist, engineer, hacker, and smuggler; I am not a biologist, a doctor, or even a passable prince."
"What does that..."
"I don't do brain surgery because the patient would die. All my ships are equipped with a full package of research probes. The Vixen's transdimensional adapter can be adjusted so I can open tiny gateways into other universes like Lorq's or Nochmar's. I've programmed it to open a gate into the grange universe. Is there any way I can route the probes data feed into something resembling a computer?"
Muntz nodded to Jewel who rolled a League standard terminal over so they could watch. Harm typed a command into the commlink, but stopped and flexed his hand. "Muntz, you got an HB I could borrow? My arthritis is acting up."
Still holding his weapon on Harm, Muntz reached into his pocket and pulled out an HB. He threw it to Harm.
"Thanks." Harm place the ball on the commlink, and the tentacles emerged, embedding their tips in the device. The terminal's screen lit up with a view from the Vixen's launch bay.
"Harmon, this is a waste of time. They're probably busy invading some continuum."
"Josiah, that continuum, and the grange's, contain sapient beings. I find your flippancy to be disturbing. Launching in three... Two... One... Gateway holding... Launch!" The probe left the bay and flew straight into a glowing disk.
Readings--temperature, radiation, pressure, gravimetric--appeared on the side of the screen. They were all off the scale for a moment before the screen went blank. "Probe destroyed. The readings indicate..."
"The grange universe has contracted to a diameter of approximately ten thousand light-years," Randy explained. "According to the contracting universe model of Al Tor of Orta, a big bang event will occur within the next one hundred thousand years. This conclusion may change with a more stringent analysis and/or more data."
Harm did a double-take before continuing. "Josiah, you are the first person in League history to kill another universe along with billions of inhabitants."
"No, no, no! My calculations are flawless! We can do this and I will show you."
Harm pulled the HB off the commlink and threw it at Muntz. As the Tralaskan dodged the device, Harm grabbed the weapon and turned it on the ex-director. "Anne, you and the others need to leave, now." Keeping his weapon trained on Muntz, he picked up the HB, held it between his index finger and thumb, and squeezed, causing the ball to flash red at half-second intervals. "Run! This is an EMP grenade on a thirty second fuse..." He stopped as the gun and grenade were torn from his grip by an unseen force. As he watched, both devices were crushed to dust just before he was thrown into a wall and rendered unconscious.
"Good work, Anne." Muntz looked down at Harm. "I wish you could stick around and watch Tralaska arise from the ashes. Anne, drain his brain of every byte of data, then dispose of the body."
"Yes, Father. Where will you be?"
"Finding out how the plark he got in here."
Muntz walked out, leaving Harmon to his fate.
###
Harm opened his eyes and looked down at his right arm in time to see it set itself. He could see the ends of the humorous move to align under the skin while the pain of the break disappeared. "That is so cool," he whispered.
"A simple procedure," Jewel noted. She was holding his arm just below the break, her crystal pulsing. "There, all healed."
"We are sorry for the damage. We were unprepared for your outburst," Randy said from his perch on a crate.
"Josiah has lost it worse than I have. I can't allow him to destroy my universe. I know you think of him as your father..."
"Your father, Lawrence, kidnapped you and gave you to Muntz," Anne said. "What do you think of him, now that you know this?"
Harm looked at her with eyes wide and mouth agape. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We read Father's files on his 'Perfect Assassin' project. Did you not know?”
Harm leaned back against the wall and wondered if things could get any worse. They did.
"According to the project file, Father gave you to the Aymars so they could apply stress to you at the appropriate time."
"You can stop now. Really."
"We have to know." Randy said.
"Know? Know what? Know how much of this I can take before I snap. I know exactly how much of this I can take because I did snap, which is how Atmar formed in the first place. I'm sure that's in the file!"
"Yes, the part where Marta served you divorce papers, pushing you to thoughts of suicide," Nels noted. "Somehow, Atmar stopped you. Everyone in the room worked for Muntz. Their reports of the incident, along with the secretly recorded vids were very specific. How do you feel?"
"Why are you doing this?"
Anne explained, "We have to know if Father still controls you and this is just another one of his tests."
"You see, Father is still unsure of our loyalties," Randy explained. "If this is a test, then we will do as instructed and drain your mind, killing you in the process."
"And if I don't have a plarking clue what you're talking about?"
"Then we, as you put it, will put an end to this bullshit," Jewel said. "Though we call him Father, we know what kind of monster Muntz is. The four of us lack certain social skills; one that we do not lack is the aversion to unnecessary mass murder. So, how do you feel about Muntz?" Anne said as she to
ok Harm's hand in hers.
"My God, you're linking with me?" Harm whispered. "Only Losira can do that."
"We can do many things," Anne replied as she stared into his eyes.
She smiled as she released his hand. "You'll do."
"Did I pass the audition?"
"Yes," Jewel said as she sat down and grasped his arm.
"What are you doing?" he asked as her hand and crystal pulsed.
"Stabilizing your mental deterioration. I cannot prevent your demise, but I can stop the symptoms from getting any worse. You are not Father's best work."
"Thanks. Just a suggestion, but you need to work on your bedside manner."
"I will take that under advisement. Do you have a plan?"
"A plan? A plan for what?"
"Stopping Father." Randy replied.
"Damn, you four remind me of my kids."
The four of them smiled.
"Got any blasters around here?"
"Cabinet, top shelf, but they won't do you any good..." Anne informed him.
Harm retrieved a weapon and fired at the gate generator. The beam was stopped two feet before reaching the device.
"There's a force field around it," she continued.
Harm bit his lip. "Where are the gate controls?"
Jewel hooked a thumb toward a console nestled away in a back corner. "It's locked."
Putting the blaster in his belt, Harm went back to the cabinet and pulled out a box of hacker balls from the back. They were covered in dust. "Father use these much?"
Anne shook her head. "He said they gave him a headache."
Harm pulled one out and examined it "First generation. I think this is the box someone stole from my home way back when. No wonder he got headaches." He walked over to the console and pressed the ball on the console. Eight jointed legs emerged and contacted the console top. Immediately, the console came alive with the message "Good morning, Dir. Muntz."
Anne walked over and gaped at the display. "How did you do that?"
"Old school hacker ball versus brand new console still set to defaults. Hacker ball for the win. Now, let us wreak some havoc. Anne, is the force field on a circuit separate from the gate?"
"Yes, it is actually there to act as containment."