by G. H. Holmes
"If you excuse us," Dr. Cho said.
He and Guofeng walked away a few steps and started to talk among themselves in a language other than the Common Tongue.
Ben recognized it to be a peculiar form of New Mandarin with Korean words mixed in. Never having mastered either language, he only understood tidbits here and there.
After a few minutes of heated powwow, Cho and Guofeng came back and Cho began and said, "We understand that Mr. Harrow here knows many things. It would be best if at least one of us could travel with him, but we cannot go into deep space." Dr. Cho shook his head vehemently.
"We are needed here," Professor Guofeng clarified.
"Gentlemen," Ben said, "nobody here demands that you stick your neck out and travel into the void with me. With your help I shall familiarize myself with this craft some more and then we'll ferry you back over to Bagong Lupa—via quantum wind." He glanced at von Schwarz. "Won't we, Admiral?"
"Of course," the admiral said with his best calming voice. "Mr. Harrow generally knows what he's doing. He manages fine by himself. And as far as I am concerned, I will oversee the implementation of the Schwarz plan."
When he said that, both scientists' eyes widened.
"You heard correctly," the admiral said. "We have to get our entire space fleet battle-ready and into position, and for that I shall need you, gentlemen."
"What are you going to call her?" Daniel von Schwarz asked Ben. He stood by the starship's door, ready to disembark. Professors Cho and Guofeng had already departed and were waiting for him in the pinnace.
"The ship?" Ben asked.
The admiral nodded once.
"Considering that she can shine again and again after dull periods, has a quantum wind drive under her hood and is the all around greatest vessel in space today, I'm tempted to call her the Western Sun."
"Great name," the admiral said. "May she shine in all her days." He patted Ben on the shoulder and turned to leave.
When he turned around once more, Ben saw that worry was etched in his face. "Good luck and Godspeed trying to find Charity, Ben. Take care."
The men shook hands and then the door closed behind the admiral.
Ben was now alone aboard the Western Sun.
In a minute he'd employ the quantum wind drive for the first time in his life. He was looking forward.
He no longer had to travel on the pylon road.
Chapter 25
In a dim chamber deep within the black pyramid of Kasaganaan, three man-sized ants were made ready for their doom. Resembling insects for the most part, they nevertheless had eyes like men. They also walked on two legs and their six claws were flexible enough to substitute for hands in most cases. Indistinguishable from one another, they were surrounded by a multitude of creatures who all looked the same, too.
The uniform Vamrah were a race who had once lived on Terra Formica in the Serpent's Head galaxy, before that planet's desolation. They were discernible only by the color of their personalities, which hung about them like a cloud.
The three doomed Vamrah were fighter pilots who had not accomplished what they were ordered to do: they had destroyed neither the invaders of Kasa Station nor the station itself. Presently they were placed on three of a long line of identical stone tables. Their heads, their middle torsos and their lower bodies were strapped down while the throng watched.
Not a word was spoken.
When all three were properly tied down and only their antennae were still wiggling, fingering the straps around their heads, a captain lifted his claw. The action began as three executioners bent over them and began to chop away with their saw-toothed mandibles.
The crunching sounds electrified the onlookers.
First the heads were severed, then the connections between the other sections of the doomed ants' bodies. There was hardly any blood and the stone tables remained clean for the most part. The Vamrah liked it clean.
Immediately after the execution, everybody but the cleaners filed out of the chamber and hurried through narrow corridors up to the throne room. Everybody was required to appear today, because the King was going to make an important speech.
Everybody already knew what was coming. The preparations for the war about to begin had taken forever.
Today they'd finally get to it.
Up in the throne room, the King rose from his black metal chair. Four of his arms brushed the purple mantle back behind his shoulders as he looked down on the many heads of his people. They were quiet, as always. It wasn't that they were forbidden to speak; they just thought it wise to remain silent in the presence of their master. What needed to be said could be communicated silently by intertwining squirming antennae with one another.
The throne was mounted atop a small pyramid in the center of the pyramid-shaped hall. This way everybody in the hall could see the King Jabin, who stood surrounded by his lieutenants. His exoskeleton was dark blue as compared to the reddish brown ones of his subjects, but otherwise there were no differences. But even if he'd been red like the rest of them, everybody would still have been able to identify him as the King, because his air was that of a lord. There was no mistaking it. He had fortified it by many years of meditating on the superiority of his people.
"People of Vamrah," the King's deep voice rang out when the hall was overflowing and not another ant fit in. "The Queen"—whom none of them had ever seen—"has decided that enough is enough. The aggressions of the Human Union, so-called, have reached such a level that they now even come into our system and randomly, willfully attack our territory, starting with our space station. This deed must be punished, even if it was perpetrated by Nebuchadnezzar, the enemy of our race, the hidden Emperor of Neo Babylonia, whom we have watched for many years and who is now on the rise again."
A snarl came from the throats of those assembled.
"The Human Union will not be able to stand against us!" King Jabin said. "They rejected our friendship when we offered it freely. For decades we have offered it, but they turned us down. And now? They have chosen the paths of war, not we.
"We will crush them!"
A shout went up from the mob.
"Soft-shelled like maggots, they have never understood that we are the next step in the evolution of mankind. I am telling you nothing new if I say that we are superior to any member of the Human Union. Our exoskeleton is superior and our discipline is just as hard as our shells; it's superior to theirs as well. Even our arms and hands are superior, and not just because we have twice as many as they do. Our three-pronged claws are not a drawback compared to the five-fingered hand, but an asset!
"We are not human enough for them?
"They keep us out because we are not like the weak creatures from Terra Originalis? I say it's to their disadvantage. They say we are not pretty enough, not worthy to join their exclusive club?
"I beg to differ.
"Our race is the hardiest in the universe. The original human is nothing compared to us! Let any one of us fight any one of them and you'll see just who is superior."
The throng answered with another brief shout.
"Long we have waited," the King went on, "but today the Queen has finally given the signal.
"Today is the day!
"What you all have longed for, what you have yearned for for years, is now upon you. Your most ardent wish is granted. Still today our forces will move on the aggressors. When it's night in Gemina City, when they least expect it, we will be there to teach them a lesson. We will teach them humility. It's a lesson the Human Union desperately needs.
"Let righteousness prevail, my people! Man the ships, take to the stars and fly over and teach justice to the insolent. Bring down Terra Gemina! Destroy Nebuchadnezzar and his minions wherever you find them. The greatest weapons in the universe are with you. And the blessing of the Queen is with you, too."
Again the throng snarled as if with one voice and they smacked their chests with two of their claws. The sound was that of distant thunder.
The King pulled his mantle around him once again and sat back down on his throne while the chieftains of his army filed out through the many doors of his throne room.
For the next hour, the hidden hangars in the pyramid of Kasaganaan were opened to release a myriad of fighter jets, frigates, destroyers and cruisers. This fleet had been prepared in secret over many years. No humans could be seen anywhere. All craft were crewed by the silent and obedient sailors of Jabin King of the Vamrah.
The bellies of the big ships were filled with regiments of disciplined soldiers. One looking like the other by nature, they had no need for uniforms. Their task was one: to kill as many humans—maggots, as they called them—as there were on Terra Gemina and to take over.
Those few humans who refused to die but thought they might live free if they fought hard enough would be made into slaves. It was just a matter of time, the troops heard, and the entire Human Union would serve the powerful Vamrah. There were going to be slaves for all, even the most lowly among them. But the coming night was a night for killing. The act was going to instill fear in the hearts of the cowardly leaders of the Human Union. If the battlefield on Terra Gemina was bloody enough, they might even stick up their hands and give up without a fight.
Then there would be many slaves.
A formerly free human was a priced possession in the eyes of the Vamrah. Only the most affluent could afford them today. But that would soon change.
The starships flew out into space, where cruisers gave short shrift to damaged Kasa Station with their energy cannons, making it to explode into millions of pieces. Its tattered remnant fell towards the yellow planet, where it burned up in the atmosphere.
The warships gathered by the entrance to the pylon road. Here their leaders went over their plans one more time and the troops heard rallying speeches from their commanders.
When the time had come, the ships of Jabin's Armada filed onto the road one by one and entered hyperspace.
Chapter 26
Ben Harrow had transferred the exact coordinates of Cherry's crash into the nav computer of the Western Sun. Now he was one touch of a button away from traveling there by quantum wind. Cho and Guofeng had assured him that the procedure was safe—which he already knew, having gone through it a few days ago—and that it would take less than a minute for the process to be complete. It almost felt like pivoting from here to there, they'd said.
We'll see, Ben thought.
He breathed deeply and then his finger came down on the QW-button.
Immediately a billion points of light exploded around Ben. They washed over him like an ocean wave and he gasped with surprise. This was like a journey through the center of the sun. But within a few seconds the points of light vanished and Ben once again sat in his captain's chair with his eyes on the big screen.
On it, not a star was to be seen.
His heart rate accelerated. He'd done it. He'd jumped into deep space—again. And he'd saved hours that he didn't have to spend on the pylon road.
Thank God. Ben closed his eyes and exhaled. Then his gaze studied the empty screen in front of him.
Come on, Lieutenant Jones, tell me where you are.
For the next two days, Ben explored the sphere of dark space which Cherry had to inhabit—unless she'd fired up her x-jet and had traveled straight out into the void. But that was unlikely. More likely she killed her engines as soon as she realized where she was.
He still didn't understand why there was no SOS-signal. Her x-jet should even be firing one off by itself. But it didn't.
Why?
Ben realized that he was trying to avoid thinking the obvious: that she and her jet had disintegrated. They had turned into energy and were gone forever.
Well, Ben thought, as long as there was a sliver of hope, he wouldn't give up looking for her. She might survive for a week in this hostile environment, considering that she was young and well-trained—but she wasn't physically fit right now, he remembered. She'd escaped out of a hospital to embark on her grand adventure.
The foolishness…
Though she had brought this on herself, his heart went out to her anyway. She was very young, and in no age had wisdom ever been the province of the young. Sure, there were exceptions, but at eighteen you usually felt invincible. At three hundred and eighty-two you knew better. Experience could be a harsh master for those who didn't listen to the wisdom of their elders. Charity hadn't listened. Now she suffered for it.
The girl still deserved another chance.
Lieutenant Jones had no idea that somebody was casting about for her. If she was still alive, the despair might have driven her mad already. He needed to find her.
Ben fired up the reactors and flew on to the next quadrant.
On the third day, the Western Sun entered a giant hydrogen cloud and Ben noticed that the ship was tapping into the resource all by itself, topping off its bunkers while it had the opportunity.
This was remarkable.
For almost three full days Ben had been in this ship now and had studied it, and he still found new things out about it. Cho and Guofeng were each a genius in his own right, but the synergy they achieved through cooperation was out of this world.
Ben wasn't very good at cooperation.
Perhaps if he'd team up with them that would change, because he really respected them. He could see working with them. They had original ideas and were neither slow nor boring. He'd visit Bagong Lupa in order to talk to them once he got back.
The starship with its glowing tile-top was gliding out of the hydrogen cloud—when suddenly modulating sounds escaped the speakers and Ben was jolted out of his musings.
The Western Sun was picking up a faint signal.
Finally!
Ben had it amplified. Not wanting to get up his hopes too high, he checked and double-checked whether this wasn't just jabber from a pulsating radio star, even though he was far away from any such source of radiation.
It was not.
The beacon was faint, but its message came through loud and clear: Save Our Souls. This was repeated over and over.
Ben's heart slammed into his throat.
He'd found her!
Harrow carefully pinpointed the source of the beacon, which took a while, because it was so weak. When he had it, he chose for his arrival destination a position one klick away from the sender. This way both craft were safe. The last thing he wanted to do was to crash the Western Sun into her x-jet.
Ben engaged the QW-drive and experienced the Billion Points of Light as he'd dubbed the explosion of brilliance all around him when the quantum wind blew him to his destination. The brilliance subsided and as soon as he was fully there, Ben scanned his dark-space environment.
The sensors of the Western Sun quickly painted a picture of the ship he'd found. Ben froze when the computer brought the image up on the big screen.
Harrow gasped.
This couldn't be…
The craft on the screen was not the derailed x-jet of Charity Jones. It wasn't a modern craft at all. It was sleek and looked powerful, all right, but it also was old and belonged to a different age.
He quickly zoomed in—but that changed nothing.
Wide-eyed and with an open mouth, Ben drew a deep breath.
The ship was white and red. And that wasn't all. It also sported a golden crown on its side. It had no right to be here, but it was.
Ben couldn't believe it.
It was an experimental craft from the Empire of Neo Babylonia, a powerful thing in its day. It belonged to a brilliant inventor. Ben knew his name. Because it was his own jet, the one in which he got lost seventy years ago.
But that couldn't be…
This must not be!
Like a drunk man Ben clutched his head with both hands and shook it. He thought he was going to lose his mind. Madness. This was madness.
His eyes went back to the screen, sure that what he'd seen had been a chimera, a figment of his overworked imagination. He
needed to chill for a day. Right now he should rightfully be at the bottom of the pool in front of his home on Terra Gemina, taking it easy. Right now he—
The ship still sat there, as if to taunt him.
Hello your Majesty. You thought you escaped Dark Space? Think again. You're still here. You've been dreaming all these years. You're still out here, lost in space. The Western Sun as you call it, is not real. You dreamed it up.
His eyes unfocussed, Ben slowly exhaled.
Suddenly a cold gust of wind blew down on him and Ben looked up. The ceiling had opened up and a white tunnel was forming above him. An irresistible power pulled him out of the Western Sun. Ben raced through a white-walled tunnel in the darkness. Glancing back, he saw the glowing tile-top of his new craft vanish in the distance. He looked ahead and slammed through a flat surface and after the billion points of light had disappeared, he sat in the cockpit of his spaceship from Neo-Ba—the exact spot he'd occupied for forty years. The smells and the sounds were at once all there again.
Harrow screamed in agony.
"This is not real!" he shouted, kicking and slapping the controls and instruments. "This is not real! I am saved! I'm no longer lost!"
But of course it was real.
Ben really sat in his old fighter jet from Neo Babylonia as if the last thirty years hadn't happened. His eyes roamed the place. The panels and the buttons were there; the shiny pedals on the floor, too. The HOTAS-stick and the unlit HUD device. The vitrum panes looking out into darkness. The smell of desolation. It was all there.
Ben choked up.
The horror and the despair of those years crashed in on his soul like pound-sized hailstones crashing through the glass panes of a greenhouse full of precious plants, creating havoc on the ground. He was back in the Void.
This couldn't be!
Had his mind fooled him all those years?