by Gray Lanter
Then again, without that situation, I’d been out of a job. Not that I would have minded unemployment... I picked up the binoculars.
“Can the drones take off?”
“Yes, sir,” Rab said. “Mr. Ritter and I are rather proud of our work. At your command, major.”
I looked through the binoculars. About two dozen guards remained on the wall. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought they looked a bit apprehensive. But you’re not in a positive frame of mind if you just watched three of your armies wiped out.
“Conbor, you violated one of the immutable laws of the galaxy. Don’t screw around with Ryvenbark’s Raiders. Now you face the consequences.” I turned to Rab. “Release the drones.”
Three dark jets and three dark mini-bombers soared toward the castle. Six drones of black death against the stunning blue sky. They moved almost silently toward their target. We heard a slight hum, nothing more. In films, an attack was always accompanied by gripping music. Drums and trumpets accompanied the jets or the army. But the drones moved in silence when they were on their deadly trek. The guards on the castle’s wall jerked and pointed to the sky. An officer barked an order to his men. A minute later the Soltarians brought up what I guess was an anti-drone battery. Two lone, long barrels that spit fire. Bolts of yellow flame came from them and shot toward the dark drones. I had no worries. Our technology was better than Conbor’s. White-hot flames exploded when it hit a drone. The drone sailed into and out of the flames and headed undeterred on its deadly path. Two other yellow bolts hit drones with the same effect. The drones didn’t even slow down.
Panicked, several Soltarian soldiers ran from the wall. Two others stood silent and just stared into space. I guessed they knew they had no place to run. When the drone hit the wall and exploded, they were tossed into the air, head over heels. When they hit the ground, they didn’t move. The drone took out half the wall.
Other explosions blew the defenders apart as fire and smoke rose up from behind what was left of the castle’s wall. One Soltarian, staying in his post until the last second, was blown over the wall. Surprisingly he wasn’t killed. He slowly got to his feet again, then stumbled away.
“Rab, get about six men. When it simmers down we’ll go over and check the damage. I also want to make sure the general is dead. He slipped out of our clutches the last time we saw him. He’s not going to do the same again.”
“Yes, sir. If Conbor had on a time belt he might have gone back to the future before the drones hit,” Rab said.
“That thought crossed my mind. He wouldn’t mind leaving his men to die. But I hope we find his body inside.”
“It may take a while before we can go in. Those fires may burn for a long time.”
“We can wait. Time is something we seem to have.” I nodded. “That’s why Conbor invaded. He knew the Cappnids had mastered time travel and he wanted that knowledge. I think this was his plan all along. To take his knowledge, his men and some of his technology into the past and change it. He would have built up his forces and attacked the worlds in the past, overpowering them. He would have worlds at his command. He thought he would have the weapons of the future to conquer the past. But the paths of glory lead only to the grave. He should have read the poets and philosophers.”
“Doubt they would have convinced him,” Rab said.
Chapter 19
Because I didn’t want any more surprises I asked Mr. Tyson if he would return to the future and then come back to our present. The last thing I needed was a few bugs in the time machine. Tyson disappeared and reappeared about, in our time, three minutes later. He said he had a pleasant chat with his colleagues in the future and everything looked OK. It was extremely good news.
An hour later, when the flames died down and the castle cooled, eight Raiders plus their commander slipped on jetpacks. We zoomed straight up and then headed for our destination. The jetpacks are a wonderful way to travel. No one gets air sickness. You breezily fly over land and trees. We usually travel at about thirty miles per hour, although our jets can make fifty if we’re in a hurry. As we circled the castle, nothing was in sight except the burned ashes, the deserted castle and two dozen smoldering Soltarians. We landed, coming in softly on the smoking ground. The doors to the inner chambers had been blasted open. Five Raiders, guns out, walked in. I landed in the courtyard and took off the jetpack.
A dead Soltarian soldier, with his arm burnt off, lay five feet in front of me. An orange-haired comrade lay nearby, absent his lower body. A number of small fires still burned in various places inside the walls. Or two of the walls — other two had been reduced to ashes. Drones are darn effective. A sad scene, but the galaxy was much better off with the Soltarians dead and not alive.
The gritty, sandpaper voice came from behind me.
“Ryvenbark! You coward!”
I turned and saw General Conbor looking worse for wear. An explosion had blasted some skin off his face and had blown off a quarter of his uniform. Blood seeped from his left, exposed shoulder. In his right he held a knife. Two other knives were attached to his belt. His eyes were dark and menacing, full of anger and hatred.
“General. Long time no see. There’s not much of your kingdom left. Throw down the knife.”
“Never!”
He raised the knife. The three Raiders in the courtyard pointed their rifles at him. I waved them down.
“Haven’t you had enough fighting? You keep trying to establish kingdoms with yourself as the king and your plans just keep failing. Give everyone a break, general, and come with us peacefully.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m going to kill you.”
“A lot of people have wanted to kill me and I’m still around. I don’t think you can succeed when all the others have failed. But I most compliment you on your scheme, general, especially creating a new race. Amazingly creative. You had fooled the Federation. You are not a worthy adversary, but you have been a formidable one.”
The anger, for a moment, seeped out of his voice. He looked around at his dead soldiers. “It should have succeeded. It should have worked. The Cappnids were more treacherous than I imagined.”
“No one knows more about treachery than you, so it’s rather ironic you underestimated the Cappnids. The Federation owns them a lot. If they had not fought you so well, the Raiders might have been defeated. They did their best to cripple you and succeeded. But where did you get the idea of creating the Soltarians? You always had brilliant plans. Sometimes the execution phase of the plan was lacking though.”
I stuck a cigar in my mouth and lit it. I blew the smoke out slowly. “Let me guess. Ten years ago, after your defeat, you came up with a new idea, one that had never been attempted before. You used the medical technology of today to create a new race out of your lizard friends. I never understood how you fooled them so much. Your every wish was their command. Did you somehow convince them you were a god?”
“The Kollaws, the lizard people, did not have an advanced civilization when I and my friends arrived. They were suitably impressed by some of our stunts. They would, as you said, do anything I told them. They are a greedy, selfish race and inclined to violence. Just the type of aliens I needed,” he said.
“So you changed them and created a new race. The Soltarians. You and your rogue scientist colleagues. Where are they now?”
“Dead.”
I shrugged. “Anyway, the Soltarians made a few appearances at Federation conferences and meetings, just for show. The Federation could never find their planet. It was a mystery. But they couldn’t find the planet because there was no home base for the Soltarians.” I took out the cigar and pointed it at him. “Now that was both creative and pragmatic. You could have attacked or invaded a planet and the Federation would be looking for the Soltarians’ home world. But there is no Soltarians’ home world. So the Federation would have been stymied. You were probably making some dastardly plans when you learned of the Cappnids, or rather when you discovered they had master
ed time travel.”
He gave a wry smile. “It attracted my interest.”
“Tarum and his friends used it for historical reasons, for exploring their own history. But you had other plans for time travel. It could be used as a potent weapon. A weapon that would bring you victories, bring you conquest. A weapon that would have brought the galaxy under your feet.”
He nodded.
“What were you planning; to take the entire race back with you, along with all the knowledge of our time, plus a couple of dozen robots that could build military and other installations? Build up your strength and then with the knowledge and power of the future, you would attack the worlds of the past. I don’t like you general, but it was an ingenious plan. You just made two mistakes. You underestimated the Cappnids. They put up more of a fight than you expected.”
“They were peaceful. I wasn’t expecting them to fight at all. I thought I would come in and take their planet. Never thought they would put up much of a resistance. You never can tell, can you?”
“No, the best-laid plans of mice and men and would-be dictators. It wasn’t to be. That was the second mistake. You didn’t know you’d be facing Ryvenbark’s Raiders.”
He laughed, a hollow, dry laugh. “On the contrary, that’s exactly who I thought they would send. This was tailor-made for you major, and your squad. If I was wrong, no harm done. We’d kill whoever came out. If I were right, I’d get revenge on my enemy.”
He raised his knife again. “Let’s have one final battle, major. You and me. You carry a knife. Pull it out. Kill me if you can. Man to man. You can’t resist that, can you?”
“Oh yes, I can.” I pulled the Desert Eagle out of the holster. “This was never about you and me, general. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind killing you. I would consider it a fringe benefit of the job. But I’m not playing games with you. Put down the knife or I’ll shoot.”
An angry growl came from his mouth as he twisted his lips into a sneer.
“You’re a lesser man that I thought. You really are a coward, Ryvenbark.”
“General, this may surprise you but I don’t care about your opinion of me. Now I’m not going to tell you again. Put the gun down and stop the histrionics.”
He was quick. I give him that. In a flash, he twisted and raised the knife over his head. His hand even came forward before I fired. Three bullets slammed into his chest near the heart. His fingers trembled. The knife slipped from his hand and fell. He hit the ground about three seconds after the knife did.
I walked over and stared at Conbor’s dead body.
“The paths of glory, general, lead only to the grave. In this case an unmarked grave. If, that is, the planet doesn’t spit you out in disgust.”
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