by Mack Maloney
The three visitors changed everything. Not only did they bring the news of the origin of the Home Planets, they defeated the prison guard army who'd been watching over the three dozen imprisoned worlds, then raised a space army of their own and sailed off to win Earth back for its rightful owners.
That army was called the United Planets Forces. The six ships they'd sailed on were known, on Planet America at least, as the First Fleet.
Those half dozen vessels had left nearly eight months before; nothing had been heard from them since. Forty thousand soldiers representing each of the thirty-six planets, flying under the Stars and Stripes of Planet America's flag, were out in the cosmos somewhere, fighting a great battle for all of them back here. They were gone but not forgotten. Indeed, American flags had been strung from every light pole, every front porch, every overpass, from the top of every high city building in the entire system when the fleet sailed. Those flags were still flying today.
That these young soldiers were so far away, fighting and dying for the people back home had not been forgotten here.
Lisa was out of the Chicago FBI office, and as Betaville had become a place of notoriety, the Bureau thought it wise to open a field office here. Lisa had played such a significant part in the space visitors' first appearance — she had been the original investigating agent after they arrived — so it was only natural she be put in charge of the small office.
It had been a success so far, but there were these little glitches that had to be worked out, and one of them was the chronic malfunctioning of the first-floor soda machine. It worked only sporadically; today it was shut down for good.
And had Lisa been a gambler, she would have bet that no Coke was the reason for Gloria's obvious discomfit now.
But it was a bet Lisa would have lost.
She began to apologize to Gloria, but the middle-aged woman gently stopped her.
"There's someone waiting for you in your office," Gloria told her in a whisper.
Lisa didn't understand. She had eaten her lunch, as always, out on the bench next to the only working door leading into the police station. She had seen no one come into the building except the usual gang of cops. How could someone be waiting for her in her office then?
"Who is it?" Lisa whispered back.
"He asked me not to tell," was the secretary's reply, still a little breathy. That's when Lisa noticed Gloria had a drop of oil on her forehead.
"Are you using a new moisturizer?" Lisa asked her.
Gloria just shook her head no, then motioned for Lisa to get inside her office immediately.
Lisa just shrugged. She was a pretty redhead and always tried to look her best. So she flattened out her skirt, fluffed her collar, ran a hand through her hair, and walked into her office.
Her visitor was standing behind the door. She was completely in the room and turned around before she saw him.
" Oh my God…" she breathed.
He was enormous. Much bigger than she remembered him. And he looked so different. There was a white haze surrounding him, and he seemed just a bit out of focus, or better put, seemed to be existing in a kind of soft focus. But still, even in this state, his muscles looked huge.
She knew who he was immediately. He was another visitor from outer space. Not one of the original three. This man had come to Planet America right after the victory against the Bad Moon Knights' prison guard army. At the time, he was the oldest man Lisa had ever met. But now, he looked about a thousand years younger.
His name was Klaaz.
"Do you remember me?" he asked her sweetly, his voice different, too.
"Of course I do," she told him, nearly collapsing in her chair. "How could I forget? Your friends freed our planet. Then you helped build the UPF First Fleet."
Klaaz just smiled. "I tried to help where I could," he said.
Lisa was still staring at him, amazed at his transformation. When she'd last seen him, he was bent over, had wrinkles on top of wrinkles, and could barely walk. Now he was standing straight up, with large, broad shoulders, enormously powerful hands, and an extremely handsome face. It was like looking at a photograph from the very distant past and realizing for the first time that the person you knew as ancient had once been a very handsome man. A hunk, even.
Yet here he was, standing before her. That hunk, in real life.
"Why are you here?" she asked him, a little breathless herself now. "Everyone thinks you're with the fleet, off fighting in the Galaxy somewhere."
"And they would not be wrong," Klaaz told her. "But something rather important has come up, something that must be taken care of. I came here because I know I can trust you. Please, can you tell me the status of the Second Fleet?"
The Second Fleet was another UPF squadron of ships that had been under construction since the first one left. It was being manufactured, in bits and pieces, on just about every planet in the system, this, as another army of UPF troopers was being trained. The new force was meant to be purely defensive in nature, however. Both ships and men were intended to serve as protection for the very out-of-the-way Home Planets system.
"The last I heard, the Second Fleet was about a month away from trials in space," Lisa told him. She was finally over the initial shock of his sudden appearance and the slightly ethereal look about him.
"And the state of the army being raised?" he asked.
"About the same. A month away from activation."
Klaaz thought a moment. "This will all have to be moved up," he said finally. "The ships and the soldiers must be ready to leave within twenty-four hours."'
Lisa was confused. "Leave? Why?"
'They are needed elsewhere," Klaaz replied. "Urgently needed…"
Lisa shook her head. "I'm no expert in these things," she said. "But I'd have to think that would be almost impossible."
Klaaz smiled again, a little sadly though. "My dear girl," he said. "I've just recently learned that nothing is impossible. And I know this is suddenly out of the blue. But I will need your help to get these things done."
"But why?" she asked him. "Why are these ships and men needed?"
"Because a great battle is coming," he told her simply. "Perhaps one of the greatest since the Creation."
"Since Creation? Are you serious?"
He nodded solemnly. "Yes, I am. The opposing sides will be like the elements of Nature itself, battling each other for the right to exist. In the very old days, this might have been called Armageddon. And, at this point, the outcome is still very uncertain. But I will tell you this: no matter what happens, things will never be the same again. Here or anywhere else in the Galaxy. The universe, even. Such is the message I have brought today."
Lisa was shocked by his words. And she had no doubt that he believed they were the truth.
"But where?" she asked him. "Where will this great battle take place?"
Klazz simply gestured over his shoulder to indicate a place far, far away.
"Closer to Earth than I ever thought I'd be," he told her.
Word soon flashed around the tiny planet that Klaaz had returned.
Within hours, authorities on each of the Home Planets had been apprised of the situation and the message he had brought.
The ships of the Second Fleet were being assembled on Planet America and Planet France, using components from all the other home worlds. Troops were training on Planets Pacifica, Africanus and Britannica. Of the twenty-eight ships under construction, two dozen were deemed spaceworthy. Each ship was built in the spitting image of the six original UPF vessels, which in turn were more than 1,000 years old. These new classics were blue and chrome like their predecessors but were carrying more modern star engines and room for nearly twice as many soldiers, many of whom doubled as members of the crew. Fully manned, the ships could put nearly a quarter of a million men on the field of battle.
But there was a problem.
The ships were powered by updated ion-ballast motors, fast but not Supertime fast. As the Home P
lanets were actually thousands of light-years outside the Galaxy, the trip by the first UPF fleet inward had taken six months — and that was just to the tip of the Two Arm. The voyage had strained the limits of those antique ships and just about expended their bingo fuel in the process. If the great battle was shaping up deep within the Milky Way, what good would the Second Fleet be if it arrived on the scene many months too late?
During the flurry of meetings Klaaz had with the leaders of the Home Planets, as well as the engineers and the crews of the new fleet themselves, this question came up time and time again. On each occasion, Klaaz replied, "Don't worry." Getting the ships where they had to go was his concern.
There was little fanfare when the new ships departed from their launch pads on Planets America and France.
Little time was available to plan anything more than a quick good-bye to the soldiers from their families and a universal, system-wide wish of Godspeed and good luck. The twenty-four ships made rendezvous in orbit around Planet America; here, they were checked out for spaceflight integrity. That they would be traveling much greater distances than had previously been thought had little bearing now.
As Klaaz had told the system's leaders, this was not something they had to worry about.
While the soldiers inside the ships acclimated themselves to life in space, a first for many of them, their commanders reviewed the information Klaaz had passed to them. The situation was simple enough. In its battles within the Galaxy, the UPF had made an archenemy in the Empire's military, most especially the Solar Guards, and even more especially the almost ghostly Rapid Engagement Fleet. This was the force the Second Fleet was expecting to fight way down in the middle of the Two Arm.
And they would be a formidable foe. The enemy force awaiting the fresh UPF troops might number anywhere from a half million to several billion men. The number of ships they might face could run into the millions as well. But Klaaz was also always quick to remind the new UPF commanders that their mission would be "blessed." And though he did not go into any details, Klaaz did say on many occasions that he was not using the word lightly and that it should not just be taken in a context of simply boosting morale.
The Second Fleet would literally be blessed. Their mission was for pure good, and its intentions were even grander than the recovery of Earth, though both goals, were still absolutely linked.
The UPF commanders didn't pretend to fully understand what Klaaz was telling them. They knew only that he was a great hero and that he was someone who would never steer them wrong.
In other words, they trusted him completely, a trait that was in drastically low supply among the stars these days.
The twenty-four ships all checked out within a few hours of reaching orbit around Planet America.
One good thing about the ships' design was their brilliant simplicity. They were essentially quarter-mile-long hulls with engines attached and soldiers inside. Fewer systems meant fewer things to go wrong. In no time at all, the fleet's commanders reported that they were ready to go.
Exactly what happened next would be spoken about for many years to come.
Klaaz was very well-known to the people of the mid-Five Arm. Over the centuries, he'd saved entire star clusters within the middle Five from marauding space meres and pirate groups. He was a marshal in many armies in that part of space; his face adorned the currency of more than a dozen star systems there. No surprise then that hundreds of stories about his adventures had been written, sung, and memorized. Heroic legends about the Great Klaaz had been passed down through generations on the Fifth Arm for several hundred years.
But the legend of Klaaz and the Second Fleet — true or not— would soon become the most famous of all.
It was witnessed by tens of thousands of people, yet the exact details of what occurred that day would never be very clear.
Shortly after the twenty-four UPF ships took to orbit, Klaaz suddenly disappeared. Though he was still in communication with the fleet commanders via string comm, even this was in question, as some claimed Klaaz wasn't actually talking through the ship communicators but that his voice was just appearing to be heard in this manner somehow.
Whatever the case, just minutes after the ships reported they were ready for deployment, a small object was sighted on the fleet's joint scanners coming up behind the UPF starship Missouri. Many people who saw it both on the viz scanners and with their own eyes said this was actually Klaaz, flying in space, without a spacesuit or oxygen or other extravehicular needs. It was said Klaaz came up on the tail of the huge warship, put his mighty hands beneath its center tail fins, and pushed it. The vessel rocketed away at an incredible speed, traveling much faster than in Supertime. Once the Missouri was gone, Klaaz flew up to the starship New Jersey and did the same thing. Then he went to the Arizona, then the Wisconsin, then the Oklahoma.
Within minutes, Klaaz had hurled all of the two dozen ships away at incomprehensible speed.
And just like that, the Second Fleet was gone.
No one would dispute that something very strange happened that day. Indeed, the UPF ships were gone from orbit, gone from the Home Planets system itself. But how? There was no way of telling that, because even though they tried for days, those back on the Home Planets were never able to establish string comm contact with the two dozen new ships.
As for Klaaz?
Shortly after the Second Fleet disappeared, they said, he vanished as well.
15
Upper Five Arm
The castle mas filled with hundreds of beautiful women.
Blondes, brunettes, redheads. All of them were scantily clad; many were topless. Some were even real.
The castle was known as Ruby Ridge. It was located on a high cliff near the equator of a planet called Rocks 32. The mountainous, tropical world was a well-known gambling mecca in the upper Five Arm, a wild part of the Galaxy if there ever was one.
Rocks 32 was a sunny place for shady people. More than gambling went on here. Much more. The planet was a hotbed of drug dealing (jamma mostly), moving illegal slow-ship wine, and most of all, black market weapons trading, both buying and selling. The planet's police were all paid off; its politicians were, too. And while most of the people on Rocks 32 knew about the Fourth Empire, no imperial ship, whether it be SF, SG, or X-Forces, had been in the system in almost twenty years.
There was only one way to buy or sell weapons on this hot little world: hit town with a big splash, rent the most audacious resort possible, throw a huge party with plenty of beauties, good food, and drink — and then wait for the money to come to you.
Which was exactly what was happening inside the magic castle this day. On the top floor of the tallest tower sat the man who had organized the weeklong bash. His name was Rexx VonRexx. Just eighty years old, he was small and thin, with a long, wispy beard, a head fall of braided hair, and a fetish about always wearing black. Suave, charming and, thanks to a reconstituted face, very handsome, he was also extremely rich. In fact, he was among the richest men in this part of the Galaxy.
Moving stolen weapons was VonRexx's specialty. He'd been buying war toys in bulk for the past twenty years, mostly from the enormous black markets farther down the Five Arm. These parties were the means by which VonRexx moved his merchandise, selling them to midlevel customers who could afford his high prices. He'd been laying groundwork for this gathering for weeks. Calling old friends, setting up meetings, replicating the food, the booze, the jamma, and the girls— spending money like water, which sent ripples around the mid-Five like a volcano orgy. That was the intention, of course. This bash was practically guaranteed to produce results.
It would also attract many guests, invited and otherwise.
Ruby Ridge Castle was forty-four stories high. There were nearly 600 holo-girls, 300 or so real females, several hundred potential customers and their entourages on hand with a small army of hired guards watching over everyone. Security throughout the fortress was tight, especially on the ground floor.<
br />
This was the hottest party in the mid-Five at the moment, but still, no one got through the front gate without a thorough scanning. Those not meeting a strict set of criteria were turned away and told not to return. If they refused, they were beaten to a pulp.
While most of the raucous partying took place on the lower floors, VonRexx only did business in the top suite during these events. He would stay up for days, schmoozing potential clients, getting them fed and oiled — and in the mood to do some buying. When things got slow or whenever the mood would strike him, he would let word filter down to the lower floors that he was in a selling mood again. And that prices were being reduced. This would bring an influx of moneymen up to the top suites, ready to do business. They had to stop at the forty-third floor first, though, where they would be checked over once again, this time by VonRexx's personal bodyguards. They would be scanned for weapons — ironically, none were allowed on the top floor — and their purses searched to make sure they were carrying real money.
Anyone passing this gauntlet would still have to wait until VonRexx himself approved a face check on them.
Only then would they be allowed into the forty-fourth floor.
The party in the castle had just begun its third day when word *ent through the building that VonRexx was discounting igain.
As predicted, this brought a fresh wave of buyers to the huge penthouse, leaving behind the sinful pleasures of the lower floors. Those cleared by security began drifting into ±e spacious top suite. The lights here were always low, the conversations hushed. With star-jazz music tinkling from everywhere, it was more sophisticated, more mysterious. As always, VonRexx could be found reclining on a large divan in.he far corner of the room, a location from which he could see just about everybody and everything.
He was surrounded not m security men but by a battalion of absolutely gorgeous ¦ omen. It was understood that anyone entering the room had to acknowledge VonRexx with a slight bow or a tip of the hat. Like tribute to a king, it was important to remember just who was paying the bill for all this. Plus, VonRexx loved being the center of attention.