Time Commander (The First Admiral Series)

by Benning, William J.

  He may have taken his duties as Grand Adjudicator just a little too seriously for his wife’s particular liking, however, deep down, Bellor did enjoy entertaining, and as a Showman, his natural humour and exuberance shone through.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give for your entertainment two finely matched Kla’tharans!” Bellor beamed as the Ballroom was suddenly bathed in a brilliant white light.

  Instantaneously, a gasp of delight was followed by a loud rustling and swishing burst of applause. Extracting himself from his latest dance partner, Billy made his way towards Grand Adjudicator Bellor at the platform by the Ballroom entrance, where Nicx, Lokkrien, and Sownus had gathered once again. As Billy headed towards the platform, two powerfully-built, young Ganthoran men bounded and sprang from opposite edges of the dance floor like acrobats. The two young Ganthoran males sprang and somersaulted their way to the centre of the dance floor in front of the platform, whilst the rest of the Ganthoran audience formed a rough semi-circle on the dance floor behind the Kla’tharans. On the balconies overlooking the makeshift stage, the Ganthorans stretched and peered to get a better view of the action down below.

  Stripped to the waist; wearing tight black breeches and ankle boots, each Kla’tharan wore a different coloured sash around his waist; one was bright white, the other a dark silver-grey. They wore silver sashes that would open out to the traditional nobleman’s weapon of the razor-sharp circular sword called the Kla’letha.

  “What on Earth is going on?” Billy asked Bellor.

  “This is a very ancient Ganthoran custom. Centuries ago, when two warriors got into a dispute, the local chieftain would mediate their problem. However, if the warriors decided not to agree on the chieftain’s judgement, they had to undertake the Kla’thar ritual.”

  As Bellor spoke, the rustling sound of applause broke out drawing everyone’s attention to the two acrobats. The two acrobats had taken the sashes from their shoulders and had opened them out into the Kla’letha circular swords. They were now parading around the semi-circle of audience and to the balconies, cutting through strips of material to indicate how sharp the weapons were.

  “The Kla’thar ritual was a form of trial by combat, the one who succeeded in defeating the other was considered to have the valid case,” Bellor said.

  “A trial by combat?” Billy’s mind started to recoil in horror.

  Back on Earth, there was a tradition of trials by combat. The old adage of “might makes right” was never more visible than in days of old, when the better warrior was said to display the favour of whichever deity was worshipped by that culture.

  “Yes,” Bellor said, “the first one to draw blood from his opponent wins.”

  “What!?” Billy looked at Bellor in horror. “You have to stop this! Someone could get very badly injured or killed…”

  “Be calm, First Admiral,” Bellor said, “it isn’t a real fight, they’re just pretending.”

  The two competitors began the ritual by holding their circular Kla’letha in front of them and bowing to all four corners of the room. Then, they proceeded to bow to each other, and began the ritual.

  Like caged wild animals, the two fighters began circling each other. Billy Caudwell, still unconvinced by Bellor’s reassurance watched anxiously as the two fighters jabbed their circular weapons at each other; feigning attacks and cuts to each other. Back on Earth, a crowd at a trial by combat would have been hollering and shouting their support to their particular chosen champion. Here in the Ballroom of the Imperial Palace in Ganthus City, there was an expectant silence To Billy Caudwell, it was a horribly oppressive silence. The trial by combat, to his mind, was something primitive and barbaric, and his mind recoiled in horror at the prospect. Two people fighting, with razor sharp weapons, for the entertainment of a large crowd of aristocrats reminded Billy too much of the barbarism of the ancient Roman Arena, with the Gladiators fighting for their lives, as sport.

  As Billy watched anxiously, he noticed that the fighter in the white sash nodded quickly; almost imperceptibly to his opponent. The opponent responded with two blinks of his eyes, and then, after a pause, let out a loud battle-cry, and lunged at the warrior in the white sash. The white sash warrior neatly side-stepped the onrushing opponent, and pushed him away with a shoulder charge. Lethra had, thankfully, been right; the whole thing was being staged. With a massive sigh of relief, Billy settled back to watch what was going to be a neatly choreographed piece of theatre.

  To the delight of many in the crowd, it did turn out to be a massively entertaining piece of theatre. The two fighters began to circle one another once again.

  Suddenly, the white sash warrior lashed out with a massive backhand sweep, which his opponent countered with a two arm block. Sparks flashed vividly as the two razor-sharp metal edges clashed with a loud CLANG. The audience gasped at the ferocity of the attack, unaware that it was all very carefully staged. Time and again, the two fighters clashed swords, showering the air with sparks and the clangour of metal on metal. They swerved, ducked and skipped around the make-shift arena on the ballroom floor like ballet dancers; lunging, thrusting, parrying and slicing at one another. At times, the viciously sharpened blades would pass within fractions of a centimetre of the opponent’s skin, drawing gasps of alarm and excitement from the audience as the two evenly-matched combatants carried on with their display.

  At one point, the two protagonists had clashed swords; which had become locked together, and were trying to push each other away. The two fighters struggled, strained and pushed against each other, trying to find the advantage that would push the other off balance. The grey sash warrior took a half step backwards and found himself slipping on some drops of sweat that had fallen onto the polished dance floor from one of the guests. Having lost purchase with his soft sole boots, the grey sash found himself losing balance. Reacting, as most trained soldiers do in such a situation, he tried to roll to his side in an endeavour to evade the opponent’s blade. The white sash fighter; seeing and feeling his opponent move away, went into the next movement of the routine, which was an upward cut to the body with the left hand.

  Unfortunately, the plan had been for the grey sash to be stepping backwards to the right, away from the blow. Having been unbalanced, the grey sash was rolling forwards to the left; directly into the path of the swinging Kla’letha. More by instinct than any judgement, the grey sash threw himself into the roll and twisted his body to avoid the incoming blade. With the white sash realising that something was going wrong, he swiftly pulled his shoulder back to re-direct the swinging blade in a wide arc to the left.

  Not a moment too soon had the two combatants reacted. The Kla’letha blade swept forwards, catching grey sash on the abdomen as he tucked into the roll. When he emerged from the roll, his sash had been cut almost clean through by the viciously sharp blade. The audience gasped in alarm and excitement as the two stunned and shocked fighters stood staring at the remains of the sliver-grey sash that lay on the floor between them. Their bodies glistening with sweat and their chests heaving with the exertion, they faced each other, wide-eyed; knowing that millimetres had separated them from a tragic accident.

  Second Adjudicator Tiba was first to react during the stunned silence. The fight had to be stopped; neither fighter was in any fit state, psychologically, to continue. Their nerves would be shattered almost as badly as their confidence. If they continued, there would be another mistake, which would likely see one of them killed.

  “The sash is torn, honour is satisfied!” Tiba began to rub his hands vigorously in applause.

  Tentatively at first, other Ganthorans took up the applause, which, in a few seconds, rose to a crescendo of rustling and swishing, as the crowd reacted to what had been an excellent contest.

  To the sound of applause, the two fighters bowed to the four corners of the room and then each other, both Kla’lethas held out straight in front of them. They both bowed deeply to Adjudicator Tiba before retrieving the torn sash and walking slightly
unsteadily out of the ballroom. With the sound of applause rang in their ears, both of them were just grateful that it had not ended with an accidental fatality.

  As the lights dimmed and the dancing resumed, Billy watched the two fighters leave the ballroom and wondered if the Time Warrior ritual that he had signed up to was just another Ganthoran diversion.

  Chapter 15: The Lightning Fields, Planet Ganthus

  Out on the Lightning Fields, deep in the western continent of Ganthus, a strange machine was speeding over the dry, broken ground. The brooding depths of the night sky looked ominous from afar, and three powerful lights shone from the front of the machine, casting a bright, blinding glow onto the pale brown, rock-strewn ground. The machine made no sounds as it zipped relentlessly towards its destination. Overhead electrical storms raged, as they did every day in the Lightning Fields. The great bursts of electrical energy snaked across the dark orange sky, casting shadows from the dark grey clouds onto the ground below.

  The machine sped along at a height of three feet from the ground, eating up the vast distance involved like a hungry predator. It had been eleven minutes since the two passengers had arrived on the western continent from a stealthed Universal Alliance Personal Transport Vessel that had landed fifty kilometres away from the intended destination. And now, the dark green Fleet Infantry Hover Bike was tearing along at two hundred kilometres per hour to reach a small Ganthoran settlement in the Lightning Fields. It puzzled the second passenger as to why they did not just simply Tele-Port down to the settlement. However, the Thexxian officer in charge of the mission had been concerned about the level of electro-magnetic radiation in the storm, and had ordered the use of the Hover Bike.

  Turning around to see where they were going, the second passenger saw a cluster of lights in the distant darkness; this would be the settlement they were after. From what he understood about the Ganthorans, these people would be farmers, scratching a living from the dry, dusty soil of the Lightning Fields. As the Hover Bike slowed down further, the second passenger became more alert. Calmly, he removed the safety catch on his seven-barrelled pulsar-rifle and scanned the terrain for any sign of threat. As the Hover Bike drew to a halt, the second passenger jumped nimbly from the saddle and beyond the anti-gravity plate. Pulsar-rifle poised, he scanned the area, and more importantly, the flat rooftops of the mud brick built settlement. They had stopped next to a large two-storey building that loomed out of the darkness at them from the surrounding single-storey dwellings. No lights shone from the circular windows of the building as they did from the single-storey dwellings. The wind, whipping up the dry and dusty soil made visibility difficult. Hearing anything untoward was almost impossible.

  Yes, this Thexxian officer knew how to work cloak and dagger operations, the second passenger considered.

  “Try not to kill anyone unnecessarily, eh, Trooper?” The Thexxian officer nodded at the second passenger, having dismounted from the Hover Bike, as he passed by, heading for what appeared to be a door in the two-storey building.

  The mission brief he had been given was that he was to escort and protect the Thexxian officer. Deadly force was to be a last resort. However, the Landing Trooper was well aware that protecting the Thexxian officer meant using every technique at his disposal to keep his charge alive and out of unfriendly hands. The Thexxian may not have been prepared to admit it, but the main reason for selecting this trooper had been a willingness to shoot first and ask questions later.

  Convinced that the area was secure, the Landing Trooper followed the Thexxian officer towards the large building. With the pulsar-rifle poised, the trooper walked carefully; pivoting and spinning slowly every ten steps to ensure that no one was following or aiming a weapon at them.

  Following the Thexxian officer over the few metres to the large building, the Landing Trooper was happier to get within the shadow of the high walls of the building. Pressing himself against the pale yellow sand-coloured mud bricks of the building, the Trooper scanned the terrain in front of him whilst the Thexxian officer pushed open the large metal door with a soft grunt.

  Surprisingly, nothing seemed to be threatening from the darkness. The lightning flashes offered up no strange or unusual shapes that might indicate an assailant. So, the Trooper considered it safe to follow the officer into the building. Inside the building, it was peaceful and calm. Closing the heavy metallic door, the trooper blotted out the sound of the wind and the constant bombardment from the dry, dusty soil.

  Acclimatising his eyes quickly, the Trooper slipped down the hood from his homespun robe. He exposed a green, scaly, reptilian face; with no hair on his head. He had a circle of small, white horns that slightly resembled a crown above the level of his small, circular ears. Two broad ridges of dark-green horn stretched from the centre of the back of his neck over his skull, to terminate just above his pale-green eyes. He was a Pharron; the flat, broad horn-ridged nose above his thin-lipped mouth indicated that he was a male of the species. The females had no horn ridge on their noses. His chin was granite-like and square, set over a short, muscular neck. The top of his homespun robe descended in a shallow “V”, to expose the collar of the black one-piece uniform of a Universal Alliance Landing Trooper.

  Scanning the dimly lit room, the Pharron Landing Trooper saw a high ceiling to the room. Made from the same pale-brown mud bricks as the rest of the settlement, the room had six small circular windows down each side, each one standing around three metres from the floor. Between the windows, large dimly-lit electrical lamps provided the gloomy illumination for the building. Around the edge of the room, mud bricks or earthen benches provided a perimeter, whilst two columns of six rows of similar benches took up most of the floor area. A central passageway through the benches ran from the door to a large mud brick pedestal or table, over which a long off-white cloth stretched to the ground. On the table, the most outlandish piece of sculpture the Pharron had ever seen held pride of place in its centre.

  The centre of the sculpture resembled a humanoid figure stretching its arms to the sky. The figure was in what appeared to be a spherical cage of irregular bars and geometric shapes, whilst around the spherical cage six cylindrical bars held the sculpture clear of the pedestal top. The image of an idol on an altar sprang immediately into the Landing Trooper’s mind. Then, it dawned on him that this building was a temple or religious site of some kind. However, in a previous incarnation it had been the Central Water Pumping Station for the Garmaurian climate control mechanism for the planet.

  The Thexxian officer was beginning to walk down the central aisle towards the altar, when a small, reedy voice punctured the still, almost reverential silence of the temple.

  “Hello there...” The voice came from the shadows behind the altar.

  Instantly, the Pharron Landing Trooper was alert, and poised behind the aimed rifle. At the same moment, the Thexxian officer held up his left arm, hand opened, fingers spread, to prevent the Trooper from firing. Down the barrels of the pulsar-rifle, the Trooper could see a small female Ganthoran child in a short, pale-brown homespun sleeveless smock that reached down to her knees. She wore no footwear and carried a crudely carved doll in her arms. With no sign of fear or nervousness, she stood behind the altar and watched the two strangers who had entered the temple.

  “Hello,” the Thexxian officer replied to her in a friendly voice, “and what’s your name?”

  “My name is Thrigla,” the child said, “what’s your name?”

  The Thexxian officer speculated that the child was probably the daughter of the priestess of the cult. She would be well used to strangers appearing in the temple, and would have no fear of them.

  “My name is Sownus.” The Thexxian officer smiled at her. “Thrigla, that’s a very pretty name!”

  He had to get information from her quickly in case they were discovered by adult Ganthorans.

  “Thank you, Traveller.” The little girl gave a small bow to acknowledge the compliment. “Where do you come from?” />
  “From far away, little one,” Sownus said, “we came to pay our respects in your temple. Is your mother the priestess?”

  “Yes.” The little girl became entranced with the doll in her arms. “But she isn’t here right now, old mister Priamus is going to join the goddess soon, and mummy has to be there to help him cross over.”

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry...What about your father?”

  “He went to join the goddess before I came along.”

  “Oh, that is sad.”

  “My father was a brave warrior, so brave that the goddess herself called upon him to protect her.” She continued to clutch her doll tightly.

  “Well, I’m sure he’s doing a good job keeping the goddess safe. Is this the goddess here?” He pointed to the sculpture on the table.

  “Of course it is! Don’t you know anything, stranger?”

  “Well, you see, where I come from, the goddess appears in a different form. Doesn’t your holy writing tell you that she appears in many forms to different people?

  “Anyways, we call our goddess T’glamra,” Sownus said, being careful to mispronounce the name of the deity while walking slowly towards the altar.

  “Her name is T’glamara actually.”

  “I hope the great goddess will forgive me.” Sownus smirked and bowed with an open arm gesture to the altar as he approached it.

  Yes, this was the place all right, Sownus thought. Anything with a “T” and a “G” in the first syllables had Garmaurian written all over it. Either a Teg or a Tega from one of the Garmaurian military-aristocratic families had, at some point in the distant past, set themselves up as a god or goddess to keep the locals under control. Now, the remains of that cult were sitting in a temple above the huge underground Central Pumping Station.

  “You walk funny.” The little girl smiled innocently, noticing the awkward waddling gait of the traveller. “Did the goddess punish you for being bad?”