Third Player

by Warren James Palmer

  ‘I find it distressing that one who has spent so much of his working life in the Imperial service, understands so little about the Empire,’ Polesy retorted in a cold voice. ‘Without the firm hand of the very system that created you, the planet will descend into complete anarchy. You and your naive girlfriend should remember that, the next time you have dealings with your traitorous friends!’

  ‘I’m afraid Hillmead is correct,’ Moss intervened firmly. ‘There will be no assistance without a guarantee of democratic elections. You and your colleagues on the council still seem to be under the delusion that Imperial might is still impregnable. Well, my friends, the sooner you realise you are all living in a dream-world, the sooner we can put the real world to rights!’

  ‘Please, I beg of you! There is so little time for us all, before the dark soul descends. You must agree to our assistance,’ the willowy seer thought at them, her hands spread imploringly. ‘We shall furnish you with computer files of all the data which prove our statements. These files explain in detail how we can all co-operate together. Please read them and reconsider your position, but please…do not take too long!’

  Chelekov looked at all the faces around the table. The meeting was over. They’d got the information they were looking for; it was time to leave. He rotated his chair and stood up. Polesy and Tylosk followed suit, the fat general grunting as he hauled his mountains of flesh out of his chair. Chelekov nodded to their aides, who stood in a line at the rear of the conference room and together, they left for their shuttle.

  Moss watched them leave, his expression stony. The meeting had gone pretty much as he had expected—short and badly. It had been too much to expect the military junta to give up their power just like that. But Moss wondered if Chelekov and his cronies had any intention of ever giving up their tenuous grip on the planet without a fight. He doubted it somehow…

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Hillmead whose face was still red with anger. ‘Do you think they’ll listen to reason?’

  ‘No, I don’t think they’ll listen at all. They’ll try any means possible to get the technology that’s on these ships for themselves, and if they do, they’ll turn it against anybody who opposes them. Sure, they’ll pretend to play along with us—string us out for as much aid and advanced technology as they can get their hands on. But at the end of the day, they aren’t going to give up their positions of power without a fight, ‘ the ex-gutter cop said sadly. ‘The whole planet is descending into open civil war and I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do to stop it!’

  Chelekov lay back in the heavily padded lounger, enjoying the benefits of artificial gravity as the Imperial shuttle descended back toward the planet surface. There had been some benefits to the secret research into the technology found on the Dominator, and this was one of them. In fact, the new artificial gravity units being fitted to all the remaining Imperial navy ships were about the only practical result of that research. Gulag had stolen the Dominator before they’d had a chance to really get to grips with any other aspects of the ancient technology.

  He still couldn’t believe that the tables had turned against them in such a dramatic manner. A few years ago the Imperial navy was embarked on the beginnings of an interstellar empire. Then they’d been thrown off Earth by a youth and a few renegades. Somehow, they’d lost their advantage, but with the building of the new battle-station and the secret restoration of Dominator, the military were set once more for conquest of the stars. Now all that had been dashed and they were being forced to negotiate with the enemy. What had gone wrong?

  Chelekov sighed and stared out of the view-port at the swirling white clouds and blue oceans of Dyason. It was strange, he thought to himself, but from up here there was no visible indication that the planet was dying. Except for the vast areas of dirty yellow that marked the ever-increasing desert regions.

  If he were honest with himself, he knew what had gone wrong with the people and the planet Dyason. It was just that being honest meant admitting responsibility to an extent that he’d rather not. Abuse, corruption, incompetence, and that bitch Nimue—those were the reasons they were facing extinction.

  ‘Why do you sigh so Admiral?’ Polesy asked from the ornate lounger opposite. The tall and wiry member of the military council had been watching Chelekov carefully for quite some time. ‘Do you think matters are going so badly?’

  Chelekov turned his head and looked at the head of the secret services with almost open hostility. He wasn’t in the mood for games and stupid questions. ‘As a matter of fact Polesy, I do think matters are going badly. We have nothing with which to negotiate with the enemy, the air on our planet is poisonous, our society is collapsing into civil war, there are two powerful alien battle-cruisers in orbit, and we may be facing invasion from thousands of bug-eyed monsters. I think it’s fair to say that things are going against us at the moment. Don’t you?’ He gave his counterpart his most withering stare.

  Polesy leant forward, glanced to check that the obese Tylosk was sleeping off his food and wine on the other side of the cabin, then smiled conspiratorially at Chelekov. ‘Not necessarily,’ he purred. ‘Not necessarily…’

  The admiral of the remnants of the Imperial fleet sat upright and gave Polesy a hard stare. The sly little bastard was up to something and he wanted to know what it was. ‘You’d better explain yourself,’ Chelekov demanded. ‘What do you mean by saying that?’

  ‘Let me summarize the situation,’ the head of the secret service began. ‘The Heligsion and the Terrans are in league. They were behind the theft of Dominator, and the assassination of Nimue, and the old relic supposed to be the emperor. Correct so far?’

  ‘We both know this already Polesy! Get to the point!’ Chelekov snapped, his patience wearing thin.

  Polesy held up a hand saying, ‘Patience admiral, patience.. As I was saying, the Terrans and Heligsion are in league together and have been for some time—certainly since soon after our forces left Earth. This telepathy bit, and the threat of another alien species invading Dyason, is all part of their plan to destabilize our government. Also true?’

  This time Chelekov said nothing, he simply continued to stare hard at Polesy, who obviously wasn’t about to be rushed. He might despise the cold-blooded reptile, but he knew the head of the secret service was a shrewd operator. No matter how abusive and irritating he may be, if Polesy spoke then it was worth listening to.

  ‘While we’re preoccupied with civil war, they offer to send teams down to the planet surface to help “rejuvenate” our environment,’ the head of the secret service continued with growing enthusiasm. ‘Meanwhile, we agree to their demands for ‘democratic’ elections and before you know it, we’ve been replaced by a puppet government. A government that is in their pay. The Terrans and Heligsions are attempting invasion through the back door, with the minimum of casualties to themselves.’ Polesy paused and stared at the admiral, his eyes locked with his counterparts. ‘Would you say that’s a reasonable assessment of current events?’

  Chelekov resisted the urge to break away from the wiry Dyason’s penetrating stare and held his ground. ‘You know it is—we discussed it in the war rooms only yesterday!’

  Polesy nodded his head slowly, holding the admiral’s eye, then said in a barely audible whisper. ‘So why is Excalibur preparing to leave orbit and search for survivors on the Heligsion home-world?’

  Chelekov looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. Excalibur leave the orbit of Dyason? It didn’t make any sense; the much modified ancient starship was now the most powerful battle-cruiser of any of the three races. The Imperial navy could have taken her on with their battle-station but that had been destroyed. The Dyason now had nothing that could match Excalibur and her remaining Flyships. Moss and his crew had an overwhelming advantage over the Dyason. If push came to shove, they could finish the Imperial forces. So why would they contemplate moving the starship? The Heligsion’s ship, Valvia, was unmodified and, as they had just witnesse
d, was run by an incomplete, inexperienced crew. It didn’t make any sense—unless of course Moss actually believed the witch’s story?

  ‘How do you know this Polesy?’ Chelekov snapped at the head of the Imperial secret service, leaning forward in his seat. ‘What do base your assumption on? It doesn’t make any sense... They’d be mad to move Excalibur before negotiations are complete!’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t have any option.’

  ‘Explain yourself damn it!’

  Polesy had his counterpart just where he wanted him. All he had to do was carefully reel the big fish in.

  With a smile on his thin lips he began, ‘Remember our programme of bringing Terran telepaths to Dyason for medical examination?’ Chelekov nodded slowly. ‘The majority of them died in medical experiments. However, a few survived. We found one such survivor with a latent telepathic brother serving on-board the Excalibur. We allowed the telepath to contact her brother, then forced her brother to supply us with information in return for her life. This particular officer has been supplying us with information ever since!’

  ‘Why was I never informed of this?’

  ‘There simply hasn’t been time, what with recent events and so many matters that have taken precedence,’ Polesy answered blandly, knowing how much this would irritate Chelekov.

  ‘Are you sure about the information supplied by your informant?’ the admiral demanded. ‘This could change everything.’

  Polesy nodded his head in confirmation. ‘I wasn’t sure until we boarded the Valvia,’ he said. ‘There I saw that quite a substantial number of crew have been transferred from Excalibur to Valvia. The Heligsion genuinely don’t know how to control their craft properly and need Terran help. There’s every indication that the Valvia was launched in a hurry without proper preparation. Hardly the sign of a race that has been working with the Terrans toward the downfall of the Empire!’

  Chelekov turned and looked thoughtfully out of the window as the Imperial shuttle slipped into the upper atmosphere. If Polesy were right, then it meant that Moss really did believe the witch’s story and felt compelled from a misguided sense of duty, to look for survivors. With Excalibur out the system, they had an opportunity to even the score a little. He knew what Polesy was hinting. The Valvia contained all the technology they’d lost when Dominator fled the system. Now they had a second opportunity to win back all the advanced technology the ancient starships contained!

  He turned to face Polesy again and said, ‘You’ve obviously had a chance to think this through already. What do you suggest we do? Is there any possibility that we may really be at threat from whatever attacked the Heligsions?’

  His counterpart shrugged, ‘Maybe, maybe not... But what really concerns us is the winning the looming civil war back home, and getting our hands on the technology that’ll save our environment, without admitting defeat to the Terrans!’

  Polesy stared Chelekov hard in the eye and said in a hard voice that broke no argument, ‘You stop your scheming against me, and I’ll work with you to win back a technological advantage over the Terrans. It’ll need both the Imperial Navy and the special forces to succeed in this operation. This is the time for mutual co-operation, not dissension. At least as far as you and I are concerned!’

  Chelekov carefully looked at his colleague on the military council. It only took him a moment to make a decision. He wasn’t about to give up his privileges in the name of democracy!

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ he asked.

  Moss wandered through the biosphere deck of the Valvia, marveling at the lush vegetation that originated from the Heligsion home-world. Huge trees soared up toward the distant artificial sky, their red and orange leaves rustling in the breeze. Flowers that reached up to shoulder height turned their heads toward the artificial sun, and insects not dissimilar to bees busily went about their business. Here, in the artificial biosphere and below in the DNA store-banks, was the very best Heligsion had to offer. Moss wondered just how much of the planet’s natural flora Dauphne and her team had managed to save from destruction. When they returned to look for survivors, what would they find?

  He entered a copse in the woods and found Paul Jenson sitting by a small pool, watching the multi-coloured fish dart about. Moss smiled to himself, he was pretty sure this was where he would find his old friend. Whenever Jenson had something on his mind, he always disappeared to the biosphere deck on Excalibur for a few hours. It seemed logical that he would seek out Valvia’s nature deck also.

  Jenson heard him approach, turned and said with a smile, ‘Hey kid. How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m okay boss,’ Moss said sitting down next to the group captain. ‘There hasn’t been a chance for us to talk together in a long time. I figured it was time we caught up with each other a bit. It’s beautiful here isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure is,’ Jenson nodded in agreement. ‘I like the reds and golds. It reminds me of autumn back home. Apparently, their trees and vegetation remain this colour all the year round, except for in the tropics where their rain forests are more green, like those on Earth.’

  ‘Notice how similar it all is to our own vegetation?’ Moss commented, lying on his back and breathing in the heady perfume released by all the trees and flowers. ‘It adds credence to the belief that we all evolved from a common origin. The theologians back home are going to have a difficult time explaining everything we’ve learned in the past weeks.’

  ‘How’s Myrddin?’ Jenson asked changing the subject.

  ‘There’s no change,’ Moss answered shaking his head. ‘Dauphne is overseeing his move from Excalibur’s medilab to the one here on Valvia. They have a lot of experience in telepathic medicine which we don’t. Her medics will be able to monitor his thought patterns carefully and hopefully find a way to bring him out of the coma.’

  ‘Jennifer was saying his mind is vacant, as if his soul has gone wandering. It’s a bit like your own mind after the Observer crashed knocking you out,’ Jenson said getting up on one elbow.

  ‘I’m not sure what happened Paul,’ Moss replied staring up at the clouds scudding across the holographic sky. ‘The conflict with Nimue was a massive trauma for him. No matter what she did, she was still his sister and he killed her. I’m not surprised his mind has gone walkabout. All we can do is care for his body and hope he’ll find his own way home eventually.’

  Jenson looked searchingly at the face of the younger man. Myrddin was like a father to the lad, the two were incredibly close. Moss was playing it cool, but Jenson was in no doubt that he was desperately worried about the ancient. However, if the lad didn’t want to talk about, he wasn’t going to push it.

  ‘What about Dominator?’ the fighter pilot asked changing the subject once more. ‘Do we have any clue as to what happened to her? I take it we’ve had no sub-ether communications from her?’

  Moss sat up and casually threw a small pebble into the pool, watching the ripples spread toward the shore. ‘No, we’ve heard nothing,’ he replied. ‘Black’s had Excalibur’s scanners sweeping this whole sector of space, but there’s no sign of her. I know that Gulag used his mind to warp the space-time continuum—I could feel it. He managed to create his own wormhole and drop Dominator in it’s entirety into it. Where they ended up God only knows!’

  ‘I guess we’ll have to accept the possibility that they may not have made it back into normal space,’ Jenson said with resignation. ‘I find it hard to shed tears for Gulag and his crew, but Colmarrie, Josh Brabazon and some of our marines were on-board when Dominator disappeared. It looks like we’ve lost them.’

  ‘I know boss, I know,’ Moss replied sadly. ‘But what can we do? We don’t know where to initiate a search, even if we had the resources to carry one out. We’ll just have to carry on without them. One day there’ll be a chance to grieve for all those we’ve lost in these struggles, but the war isn’t over yet.’

  ‘I just wish I knew what we’re fighting for, or who the real enemy is,’ Jenson said with a big s
igh. ‘When we were fighting the Dyason in the resistance the situation was clear. There was no doubt who the enemy was and why we were fighting them. We were fighting for our survival! Now, the rules of engagement seem to change every day. We’re being dragged into Dyason politics and losing our own people for no apparent good cause. The arrival of the Heligsion and their horror story just adds to the confusion.

  ‘Somebody’s yanking our strings and I want to know why!’ he added with venom. ‘We have a real enemy out there and I want to know who they are!’

  Moss stared into the water of the pool and said quietly, ‘I think you’ll get your wish very soon now Paul, I really do.’

  Jenson turned and looked at the younger man with a quizzical expression. Moss continued to stare into the water, but offered nothing more. Despite his curiosity, Jenson knew better than to push him, so he asked no more. Moss would explain what he meant when he felt the time was right.

  ‘I’ve made a note in the log that you’ve been given a field promotion to Group Captain and Captain of the fleet,’ Jenson changed the subject once more, finally broaching the subject that really bothered him.

  Moss turned and looked straight at his old friend. ‘Look Paul, this isn’t necessary. I mean, it’s silly..I’m…’

  Jenson held up a hand to silence the young man who stuttered to a silence. ‘Look Moss,’ he said, ‘ I haven’t made this decision lightly. But the truth is that you deserve the promotion. Without even realising it, you’ve become a natural leader, as we always knew you would. In terms of years, yes you are young, but in terms of attitude you’ve matured beyond all belief.

  ‘In this mad chaos we find ourselves, we need a strong leader, someone who everyone will instinctively follow without question. You are that person Moss—not me! Besides, you’re making the mistake of believing I resent the manner in which people of all three races follow you without question. I promise you, that’s a responsibility I simply couldn’t handle. You deserve this promotion Moss, and we’ll all follow you to the end. So let’s not have any false modesty or pangs of guilt. I’m behind you one hundred percent!’ Jenson said, slapping the young man gently on the back. ‘Okay?’