The Hand of Grethia: A Space Opera

by Guy Antibes

  The two groups were about to clash when Jan, now within range, began firing his blaster and mowed down the men, one at a time. He ran past them and jumped into the surf as he decommissioned a sailor and what looked like an officer as they tried to get the boat under way through the waves. The boat washed up on the shore with its unconscious crew. Jan, completely wet after being dumped by some waves, returned, saltwater bathed his back in pain. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes as his body cringed.

  The bodies were carried up the cliff and dumped into a line. The soldiers sat down in another group, tired from bringing the dead weight up the cliff’s face. “Now what do we do, sir?” the sergeant asked as four soldiers came out of the forest. A couple held bleeding wounds. Pulsgar, grinning came over to Jan. “Sir. We closed with the enemy and none of them survived. No casualties on our side, save these two wounded.” he saluted as he reported.

  “Ah, did you give them any choice to surrender and come with you?” Jan asked not confident in an affirmative answer.

  Pulsgar reddened. “The heat of the moment, sir. Once we were spotted, the two men closed and began to fight, sir. No chance at a parley, sir.”

  “Thank you, Pulsgar. For your success, you head a detail to bring all of the sentries and their possessions back here.”

  Pulsgar grimaced and then cut it off. “Yes, sir. Sergeant?” The sergeant called off names of four more men who followed Pulsgar into the woods.

  “What now sir?” asked the sergeant.

  Jan thought. He never commanded before. He guessed his blaster made him the senior officer. However uncomfortable he felt in command, he knew what had to be done. He reminded himself, that without the blaster, his strategy carried much more peril.

  In no time, Jan was dressed in the damp clothes of the Murgrontian naval officer. The rest of his men wore the clothes of the Murgrontian soldiers, or at least the parts that fit and made them look more like the Murgrontians.

  “Now Pulsgar, you do know how to sail don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. I can sail well. I just don’t like the sea...uh, I, uh get seasick every time, sir.” Pulsgar replied miserably.

  Ah, the truth. Pulsgar was a soldier because he was sick at sea. Jan smiled. “Can you make it from here to Diltrant?”

  He nodded sorrowfully.

  The men crowded into the boat and began rowing out to the anchored ship. Jan hoped they could get on board before the Murgrontians saw through their disguise.

  As they approached, Jan could see only a few interested parties waiting for them. Evidently they didn’t pay much attention to what was happening on shore. As he looked back, he could see with the light and the mist from the ocean, he could see the cliffs easily enough, but the shore was swallowed in a haze.

  Jan silently pointed to a wooden ladder built into the side of the ship. The men rowed over to it. Jan gave a glance at Pulsgar’s green face. Jan only hoped the retching would take place after they boarded. He crept up the ladder, to meet the captain. “Where is Manhime?” a sailor asked. Jan’s reply was a broad sweep with his blaster.

  He ran to the helm, which overlooked the cabin. The soldiers of Diltrant came over the railing and began to search the ship. A door opened beneath the helm. Jan looked up and a man in the rigging headed down towards him. Jan pressed the trigger of his blaster and nothing happened. The charge was gone. Jan didn’t have a second jury-rigged power cell. In the heat of fighting he didn’t think to check the depletion of the charge. He looked around and found a fallen sailor with a sword still at his waist. Jan drew it in time to ward off the first blow from a sailor. Jan kept to his forms, regardless as the involuntary gasps as the pain in his back blossomed with each movement. In the heat of the fight, he still felt the stickiness of blood seeping through the unhealed wound. On he fought, fighting for his life. Vaguely he could hear the sounds of fighting becoming louder.

  When he defeated his second opponent, he noticed a warm feeling on his sword arm and noticed the spreading red stain on his shirt. As he fought his third opponent, a finely dressed Murgrontian, he struggled to maintain his concentration. He doggedly kept to his forms and then he saw the opening he planned for and thrust his sword into the man’s chest and all was quiet.

  A cheer went up from the men left standing. Jan leaned against the wheel, out of breath and weak from exertion and loss of blood. He looked down at the defeat of an unexpectedly large force on board the ship. He weakly raised his sword. “Well done men of Diltrant. Let us take this prize with us to the king!” Another cheer went up. Even Pulsgar raised his sword, although he had spent a good deal of the fight at the rail.

  His men retrieved the prisoners, and the Murgrontian dead were thrown unceremoniously overboard. Seven Diltrantians died fighting were laid in state on the deck. Jan went to the captain’s cabin to eat, drink and have his new and old wounds bound. Then he returned to the cabin with half of his men and used the portal to return to the palace at Diltrant.

  “I need the autodoc to get mended properly,” he said to a perplexed guard as he was let out of the unlocked cell containing the return portal.

  ~~~

  Chapter 21

  “Another success, Jan. Your first command was highly successful. We have never had an undamaged Murgrontian shark ship to examine. What a prize. You have stopped the Murgrontians and we have another portal in the bargain.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother, dying the way he did,” Jan said.

  Obsomil suddenly turned grim. “Bad business about my brother. They will all pay. Let us change our attention to Actobal. It’s time we went back and visited Mulloy. I will need you, Bloodin and a few trusted guards.”

  “Your highness,” Jan began, “let’s go to Actobal aboard my ship. I believe I can modify enough power cells to permit atmospheric operation.” The small group of men gave Jan a blank look. “Uh, my ship will have to fly closer to the ground than it would if it had full power.”

  “Your ship?” Obsomil blurted, “You mean the thing you were supposed to get here on, but nearly crashed? I can’t fly in an alien vessel!” Obsomil visibly shook himself. “What am I saying? After what we have been through together? I can’t believe my thoughts. Here I have declared to heads of state to change the world and mentally I resist embracing a new way of travel in my own mind! Of course, Jan, we will use your ship and visit Mulloy.”

  Bloodin then explained how Habamil’s security apparatus had been set up. The threat of a renewed insurgency was still a faint possibility. However, with the secret police lacking their most powerful leaders, Bloodin felt that there wouldn’t be too much trouble in dismantling it. Bloodin knew the remaining key men and was given the task of disbanding the security force and establishing a civil police force based on loyal former army personnel. “I know just the man to head it up. He works for me up in Tryst. A cousin, yes, but trustworthy and loyal to you, Obsomil. He won’t have any trouble rooting out the troublemakers. I’d bet he knows who most of them are anyway. He’s a very good man. “

  Garst, thought Jan. Yes, a very good man. “It’s a shame that three generations of beneficial rule can be ended so quickly by a bad ruler.”

  ~

  The forest glade was just darkening with the setting of the sun. Mountains ringed the little valley. The spaceship that deposited Jan on this world lay dormant… a machine similar to the other Grethian relics, just a lot newer.

  Jan took a box from his pack animal and entered his dormant ship. His wounds had festered and he shook as he stepped inside

  In a few hours he’d be healed, but first he had to give his computer some more power. He wiped his brow when he finished connecting a series of the power cylinders to his ship and spoke, “How are you, 202X? Please report on your power availability.” Instantly a glow illuminated the interior.

  Jan sighed when he heard the computer speak. “Adequate energy for self-repair of the power plant has been restored. After approximately twelve days, the ship will generate sufficient power
to enable a return to your original destination.”

  Jan paused to think. Power to return to his original destination? He could leave and return to his civilization, his former life, in two weeks. But what would Jan do, then? Jan wasn’t heading anywhere important, he thought. The Space Quest was long over. His goals were in flux. He would see this fight on Diltrant to the end. For now, his path lay with Obsomil and Grethia.

  No other action seemed to have as clear a focus. There were perils here. His own father or his family had sabotaged his craft, just like Obsomil’s brother tried to depose him, but Jan didn’t know whom. That bothered him.When I am done here, that is what I will find out. That will be my future focus,Jan thought as he lowered himself into the autodoc for personal repairs.

  Later, Jan lifted the ship and headed for Diltrant to pick up Obsomil and his retinue. Pulsgar, who had steadfastly refused to enter the ship, took the cart back to Diltrant.

  ~~~

  Chapter 22

  Obsomil boarded the ship and sat down with astonishment. “You say there are millions of these going between the stars?”

  “And this is a small one,” said Jan. “Grethia has its own unique treasures, Your Highness. We have ridden one before.” Jan lifted the ship and the entourage headed for Actobal. “As you can tell, this one goes much higher.”

  After traversing the mountains ringing the plains of Actobal, Jan sighted the farmhouse where the machine from the lodge’s hall lay sequestered. Jan brought the craft down immediately from a position directly above the farm to minimize their exposure to unseen eyes.

  There were signs of significant activity at the farm. The stable had seen a lot of traffic, but no one disturbed the barn. Feelings of anticipation rose as he opened the barn door, but the vehicle had remained hidden in the pit Jan had dug weeks before. Jan inserted new power packs and the machine quickly powered up. Jan spent some time with the viewer that he had left with the machine to learn what the relic was used for.

  Just as Jan had thought, it was an earthmoving machine. The front edge of the blade was similar in operation to an ion disruptor. It set up a field that sliced through soil and rock. With power reduced, it would quickly melt snow as well. Jan drove the relic out of the barn and dug a pit that was large enough to provide some cover for his ship.

  The group then went to the stable. Jan adjusted the transporter in the building and disappeared. Moments later, he returned leading several horses. He continued leaving and returning until there were eight mounted soldiers. Jan and Obsomil rode the earth-moving machine as the group headed towards the towers of Actobal shimmering in the gathering twilight.

  ~

  Dontril, one of Obsomil’s men, rode through the city gates. To him, it seemed that a gray pall lay over the people in the plaza. They seemed listless, ill at ease, unhappy.

  “Be on guard. Something is very wrong, here,” he said as the men rode to the Merchant’s Inn.

  “What has happened here?” Dontril said to the innkeeper.

  “You’re new in town, aren’t you? Well…” the man looked around to make sure he wasn’t overheard. “…the Murgrontians now rule us. Mulloy is just lucky they spared his life. If you want lodging, I can’t give it to you because I am just about full of Murgrontian soldiers. You might want to stay down at the Plowshare further down on this side of the square.”

  “Your advice is well taken. I thank you for your candor, innkeeper.” Dontril replied. The men conferred. One of the group left the inn, mounted and headed out of the city to report to the king.

  “Let’s get rooms at the Plowshare as our friend suggested. I think that the king stayed there on his visit. Then we need to start gathering information on the situation here. His Highness requires intelligence to deal with the impending invasion from Murgrontia. Let’s leave this inn before any soldiers come and detain us,” Dontril said. The men nodded to the innkeeper across the room as they left.

  The Plowshare was obviously below the standards of the Merchant’s Inn. The facade portrayed shabbiness barely kept at bay. Dontril became wary when he saw a glint from the upper floor and saw a man polishing a sword. Obviously, soldiers were quartered here as well.

  Dontril sensed a trap. The men wheeled their mounts at his order and left to exit the square. As they moved towards the square’s exit, a group of armed horsemen appeared. The front few advancing horses stopped, One of the men slapped the rump of the horse next to him. The man on the horse did not move. As Dontril saw the man approaching he recognized his messenger. He rode with three arrows sprouting from his chest.

  A chill wind blew through the square as the sounds of hoof beats rang out behind the group, as well. Dontril told his men to drop their weapons and surrender, hoping to keep their merchant cover intact. Two hostile groups closed in on the men. Swords were drawn and the seven remaining men of Diltrant were slain out of hand.

  ~

  High above, Jan and Obsomil looked on in horror. Obsomil’s face grew dark red. “Mulloy no longer rules. These were not the troops of Actobal. Eight good men! Butchered! Bah!” The king spit on the city below. “Let’s return to the farmhouse.”

  The machine turned and headed back. High up, they could see about twenty men searching the farmyard. They could see them discovering the spaceship. Jan unhooked his blaster.

  “Murgrontians! I can recognize their uniforms from here. Those men deserve no less than what they gave Dontril” The King unsheathed his sword and laid it on his leg. Then he took a cross bow and loaded. “Jan, you take the men on your side and I will take mine. Not one person is to leave the farm to tell how their partners were dispatched. All of those men will die,” Obsomil added grimly.

  The craft descended out the darkening sky and into the midst of the searchers. Jan’s blaster shot out, dealing death this time. It pained him to destroy these men, but after just witnessing eight murders, he felt the Murgrontians deserved what they got. Obsomil shot again and again into the searchers. He jumped off of the machine when his targets fled.

  Jan ran into the barn and found that two men took shelter there. None could unlock Jan’s craft. Jan set his blaster on stun and fired at the men, seeing them crumple in the blaster’s path.Where did these men come from?he thought.The stable!

  Jan rushed to the stable and examined the setting on the portal. It had been changed! Someone had used it after him. He took up the portal from its cavity in the ground and removed its power pack, disabling the device.

  As he did so the door opened and a figure set upon him. His blaster was knocked away by the swing of a sword. Jan ducked, avoiding a thrust. He drew his own sword, fighting furiously. He still felt stiffness in his back, but he could fight. He worked the man around the stable with yelling and continued swinging of his blade. The he rose to his knees, feigning a slip and put his sword up to parry the two-handed blow his opponent was going to land. Jan’s other hand grasped the blaster at his feet and shot the man’s feet. He fell, landing a feeble blow on Jan’s still outstretched weapon.

  As Jan got up, Obsomil ran into the room. “Quickly, up in the machine! There are three left, they just eluded me and left by horse!” Obsomil puffed. “They must not be allowed to flee.”

  The two men ran to the machine and zoomed off after the three men on horseback. It wasn’t too hard to find them as they were heading pell-mell towards the city. The craft caught up to the fugitives. Jan gave the controls to Obsomil, “Keep us steady. Don’t move anything except this lever. It keeps us going faster or slower” Jan leaned out over the machine and fired. Three men fell from their horses. Jan took the controls again and set down by the men. Two were dead from the fall. The remaining man, moaned. Jan and the king lifted all three forms into the craft. The horses were close by. Obsomil gathered them up and rode them in a string back to the farm. Jan followed in the machine.

  “Here I am working on a quest of unification. You don’t really unify without popular support,” said a breathless Obsomil.

  “But you ha
ve enemies who won’t want to be united. With all due respect, I doubt if the Murgrontian people will welcome you as a deliverer.”

  “I suppose Murgrontia will not be participating in unification just yet. We may have to persuade them. In fact, I wouldn’t mind persuading them right now, in a non-political fashion.” Obsomil said, gritting his teeth. “Actobal is different. They are an occupied city.”

  Jan put the men in the Grethian machine and moved it over the portal and sent them to Diltrant. Jan returned the portal to its normal place in the stable and set it for Alchant to confuse the Murgrontians and flew off in his ship, leaving the remains of carnage behind.

  ~~~

  Chapter 23

  Back at Diltrant, Bloodin became furious when Obsomil described the ambush. “We need to wipe Actobal off the face of the earth!”

  “Not so fast, my friend,” Obsomil said. A weak morning sun filtered through the chamber creating a brassy atmosphere in the conference room. Six heavily carved chairs sat around a large black table. At its head, a larger chair, gilt in gold, reflected the wan light.

  Obsomil, pouring drinks from a sideboard, continued, “The fault lies with the Murgrontians and the priests at Alchant. The men Jan stunned are presently being interrogated.

  “We will require an army to take Actobal. We want to free the citizens and King of Actobal, however, we don’t want to destroy the city. For my purposes, I don’t want a populace united against me, I want to unite, not ruin Grethia, Bloodin,” Obsomil said.

  “If there is another battle, we can use the portals better than our enemy. Also, I think the ship should be able to learn how to sense active portals. With some experimentation, we can know where they all are and attack the Murgrontians at those points,” Jan said. “Then we won’t be surprised by a large group of soldiers appearing unannounced. Now that I know the power signature, my ship should be able to detect where there should be a hall or access to a hall like Port Alchant, Actobal and Diltrant. Have you got any good maps?”