by Mack Maloney
"And if they get by us," Grinx said, "they could be on Earth in a matter of hours, minutes even."
"But what can we do?" another officer asked. "We are probably the only souls in the Empire who have this information already."
"We must fight them, of course," one commander said defiantly.
Grinx bit his lip. Fighting them might prove suicidal. Though Omega outnumbered the incoming force, their technology seemed so highly advanced there was a chance that Empire weaponry might not have any effect on them. Plus, these ships would be in their area in just minutes. There certainly was no time to bring any other SF ships in to do battle with them.
"But what about our orders?" another SCO worried. 'They are as strict as any I've ever heard…"
Grinx thought about this, too. But he knew sometimes orders had to be broken.
Especially when it meant trying to save the Empire.
The Omega Force turned about in a matter of seconds and realigned into ten arrowhead formations.
Their orders set, the squadron commanders were preparing to beam back to their ships when another report from the XenoVox came in. The mysterious alien force was close enough now to get a fuzzy visual on them. The Xeno commander uplinked his viz to the Tempus, along with a warning that what the fleet commanders were about to see was rather startling.
The viz appeared on the Tempus' s huge battle management screen. It showed twenty-four ships, and indeed they were heading right for them at inconceivable speed. But the startling thing was this: the ships were of an almost ancient design, right down to their blue and chrome color scheme.
This made no sense, but the time to question anything was over. Grinx was the person solely responsible for the Empire's very survival now, and he ordered his ships to prepare for battle. They would try to stop these mystery ships here; if not, then they would break all the orders and inform Earth what was coming their way.
The squadron commanders agreed. But as they prepared to jump back to their ships, three images suddenly materialized on the bridge of the Tempus.
Grinx and the squadron commanders were astonished. These three people had not transported in by usual means; they would have been detected by the ship's security auras. Nor had they dropped in from another dimension. This, too, would have been caught by the security systems.
They had literally come from nowhere.
Even more astounding, the trio was well-known to Grinx and his SCOs. One of them was none other than Skol Fyxx, a ten-star general emitrus for the Space Forces. Loy Staxx, a very well-known starship SF commander, was the second man.
Most astounding of all, the third man was Zapp Multx, quite possibly the most famous SF ship captain of the past 400 years.
Grinx somehow got up the gumption to have the three men scanned. Remarkably, they all passed.
They were the authentic items. In this trio was more than 1,000 years of high-caliber service to the Empire and the Space Forces. Oddly, though, each one was wearing a drop of oil on his forehead.
"We must talk," was all Multx said upon their sudden arrival. "Alone…"
Grinx immediately cleared the bridge. In seconds, only he and his squadron commanders remained.
"You've detected an incoming fleet," Multx went on. "You cannot interfere with it. It is here to do good, and it will not harm anyone who doesn't deserve it. You have to let it reach its destination unimpeded."
Grinx was still getting over the shock of the sudden appearance of the three spiritual leaders of the SF.
"With all respect to you, sir," he began, "we have indications that this is some kind of an alien force that seeks to—"
Multx cut him off at the quick. "These things are very complex, Commander Grinx," he said. "And not so easily explained. I wouldn't dare pretend to understand them myself. All I can tell you is that what will happen here seeks only to right a wrong committed ages ago. And in a way, it has very little to do with what is happening inside the Galaxy these days. In fact, it involves something even bigger. I know it is hard to believe, but what the people in this fleet — as well as others — must do is for the benefit of us all. Of everyone in the Galaxy. And that's why you must let them do it."
Grinx turned to Staxx and Fyxx. They were nodding in agreement.
"But what you are advocating is seditious and disloyal," Grinx told them. "I cannot just sit back an allow an alien attack on the Empire!"
"It is not an attack on the Empire," Multx said, cutting him off again. "Do you know three people who are more loyal to the Empire than us?"
Grinx thought a moment, but then just shook his head. "No," he murmured.
"Do you think we would be here advocating anything that was not in the best interest of the citizens of the Empire? Either now or in the future?"
Again, after some thought, Grinx had to shake his head no.
"Then, please," Multx said, in his very persuasive way, "just trust us — and do as we ask."
Grinx just shook his head. "And if I don't?" he asked.
The three men just looked at each other. Then Multx clapped his hands. If this didn't get him back in the history books, nothing would.
Outside the TempusVox control room bubble a gigantic star-ship suddenly appeared, again as if from nowhere.
It was the very famous BonoVox, Multx's old ship. Sensors said all of its weapons were powered up and ready to fire.
Before anyone could say a word, another SF ship appeared behind it. This was Staxx's old ship.
Then another materialized: Skol Fyxx's former vessel. Then came another… and another.
In seconds, there were more than a hundred SF ships surrounding the tightly boxed Omega Force.
These ships all belonged to elderly, retired, or SF commanders who had fallen from favor and, like Multx, had been relegated to the Ball.
"If you don't do as we ask," Multx now said in a very even tone, "then I'm afraid we will have little choice but to blast you all out of the sky."
A moment of immense tension went through the room. The SF and SG fighting each other was bad enough. But SF ships against other SF ships? At that moment it really did seem like the entire Empire was about to collapse.
But then, suddenly, a million bells went off all over the bridge. The ship's comm string sector was instantly ablaze with warning lights. The midrange scanners began going absolutely crazy.
Grinx hastily called up a mini-scanning screen. He took one look at it and nearly fell over. He was sure that the scanner was malfunctioning. The reading he was getting was almost impossible, even more so than an alien force coming down the Two Arm.
But Grinx made some quick instrument adjustments and determined that what the small scanner was telling him was not a mistake. With trembling fingers, he hit the panel that would bring the information up to the main screen itself and give everyone on the bridge a visual of this latest turn of events.
The screen came alive, and every squadron commander let out a gasp. This didn't make any sense.
The screen was showing another huge fleet of strange, incredible vessels. These ships went beyond the word alien. They seemed impossible. In design. In shape. In size. And in speed, for they were traveling even faster than the smaller fleet coming from outside the Galaxy. They, too, were heading into the No-Fly Zone. And they were all shining in the brightest gold.
"My God," Grinx said, staring at the visual, seeing it but hardly believing it. "How can this be?"
Multx touched the drop of oil on his forehead.
"As I said before…" He smiled. "Some things are just not easily explained."
Doomsday 212
Down the mountain, across the hills, to the field below, Alfx Sheez was running as fast as he could.
He'd watched the battle from the top of the mountain for so long, he'd almost become mesmerized by it. In that time, the blaster fire around him grew more intense, and the robots of Myx were fighting more fiercely, sometimes even hand to hand. But the number of red-uniformed SG troops entering th
e fray seemed to be growing with every second as well. So many red-hulled Starcrashers were unloading troops nearby, they were nearly colliding with the rescue ships taking off full of refugees. And all the while, more innocents were streaming into the defense perimeter.
The entire scene was so intense, so confusing, Sheez finally had to snap himself out of it. He couldn't waste any more time. He had to get his people to the evacuation point and at least give them a chance to get off this hellhole.
That's why he was moving so fast now.
He returned to his troop and quickly explained as best he could what was going on up ahead.
Between his story and the breathless report of the two runners before him, the mob of refugees soon got the picture. It wouldn't be easy, but Sheez was going to try to get them off Doomsday 212.
There was a pass between the two mountains nearest to them. On the other side of this pass was the edge of the evacuation zone. If his people were able to climb over the shallow hills in between and then down through the pass, they might be able to fall in with the other streams of refugees, get into the defense perimeter, and hopefully get on a ship that would lift them out.
How could they all make it that last half mile, though? Many of the elderly refugees could barely breathe at this point; others couldn't walk. The worst heat of the day had passed; still it was brutally hot.
But Sheez had a plan. He would put the strongest individuals in his group at the rear of the column and the most feeble, along with the women and kids, up front. He would then lead the group over the hills and toward the evacuation ring, and those who fell behind would be helped by the stronger ones at the back.
They would physically carry them to the rescue site if they had to.
Word passed down the line of refugees that they would be moving forward. The sky all around them seemed on fire now. The smoke was swirling like a hurricane, the sounds of explosions, blaster fire, and rocket engines was deafening.
But Sheez was feeling good. There was a chance that he just might pull this off.
He got his people positioned, women and kids and the elderly up front, stronger males at the back.
Then he stood up, raised his hand as the signal to move forward… But suddenly there was a tremendous blast.
Sheez looked down to find a huge hole burning its way through his through his chest.
He started to fall over, but then everything began moving in slow motion. He saw a huge vessel landing in front of him. A second ship was setting down close by. Both were Star-crashers, both painted red. REF troops began pouring out of these ships, even before they touched the ground. Weapons raised, it was one of these soldiers who had shot Sheez.
Still falling over, with one last breath, he screamed, " Everyone get down! "
No one in his troop hesitated. Just on the sound of his voice alone they hit the dirt. A storm of blaster fire went over their heads an instant later. There was another tremendous blast of light, and Sheez was hit again… and again… and again…
The next thing he knew, he was on his back, his clothes on fire, a half dozen blaster holes burning through him.
A tremendous glow was suddenly all around him. On his hands, his body, in the very air itself. In saving his group one last time, he'd taken a fatal barrage himself. He tried to move but couldn't. He tried to speak, but no words would come out. His people were down, but he could also hear the sounds of the SG troops coming up to them, weapons crackling with power. His people would all be dead in a matter of seconds.
Damn! We came so far, only for it to end like this!
Sheez felt life itself slipping out of him. Tears rolling off his face, body going numb, he was looking straight up — and above him, saw a very strange sight.
It was a ship. A starship. But it was unlike any he'd ever seen.
It was not shaped like a wedge, as were all starships in the Fourth Empire. This vessel looked like an ancient sailing ship, bare images of which had survived over the ages. Things made of wood with great cloth sails that pushed them across the waves. It was strange the things one recalls before dying, but back then, Sheez knew they'd called these ships galleonis.
But this ship was in the air, and it was made of gold. And where once might have been sails of cloth were now sails of subatomic strings meshed together. And it was armed. Heavily armed. To his fading eyes, it seemed to carry more weapons than a Starcrasher, yet it was barely one-half the size.
For a moment he thought he was already dead and what he was seeing above him was a hallucination — a vision — before the darkness filled in.
But then a bright gold beam shot out of the bottom of the strange ship, and an instant later, an enormous soldier was standing over him. This soldier was encased in armor from head to foot. Gold armor. And he was carrying a huge gold weapon and wearing a huge gold helmet with flared-back wings.
Sheez was sure this was just another REF soldier, for some reason painted gold instead of red and riding in a strange old ship, and that with more strange gold soldiers and those soldiers already on the ground, they would brutally murder all his people.
But in the end, Sheez had it all wrong.
The next thing he knew, the gold soldier raised his enormous gold weapon and started firing at the REF troopers. Suddenly blaster bolts were going off all around him. Sheez heard more screams, but he couldn't tell if they were coming from his people or from someone else. He saw more soldiers dressed in gold armor materializing as if from nowhere. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Then more gold ships suddenly appeared overhead. More explosions. The ground beneath him lifted him up, it was moving so violently. All the while, the pain in his chest was getting worse and worse, until it stopped hurting altogether. It went on like this for what seemed like an eternity.
Then, just as quickly as it started, all the firing stopped. The explosions ended, and the smoke blew away. With his last ounce of strength, Sheez managed to look up. He saw before him an unbelievable sight: the field and the hills were littered with piles of dead REF soldiers. The two red Starcrashers were burning fiercely in the background. And he could see his column of people, all moving together, the soldiers in gold leading them off to the rescue site. Some of the refugees were waving goodbye to him; many were in tears.
Then the huge soldier in gold, the one who had first appeared nearby, knelt down beside him. He took off his helmet, and Sheez saw his face. And that was the one last shock of his life. Sheez recognized him.
Rugged, handsome, steely eyes, but still with a friendly face, he was the one person, more than any other, responsible for destroying Sheez's old planet of Megiddo. Yet he'd just saved his people. And Sheez even knew his name.
It was Hawk Hunter, leader of the rebel forces.
What the hell is he doing here?
Sheez grabbed his arm and spat out his last words.
"My people," he gasped, his voice fading. "Please…"
"Don't worry," Hunter told him. "They're safe now, every last one of them. Thanks to you…"
Sheez was fading fast. "And what about me?" he asked Hunter softly. "What will happen to me now?"
Hunter checked his wounds and knew it was amazing that Sheez had lasted this long.
"You're off to a better place," he said. "Believe me, I know."
Sheez looked up at him and suddenly realized he did believe him. A smile finally spread across his battered face. He closed his eyes.
And then he died.
24
Earth
The Empress landed her air car in the middle of the desert.
Or at least it looked like a desert. It was flat, for the most part, though there were some mountains directly to the west. It was dry and hot, too. But the sand beneath her feet was actually a mixture of tiny glass globules and not authentic silica.
She had never been here before. Still, she knew she was in the right place because way off on the horizon she could see a group of plain white structures built astride a huge dry lake bed. Even at
this distance she could tell the buildings were absolutely ancient.
She would not need the air car from here.
Flash!
Suddenly she was standing at the front entrance of the largest building. A faded sign next to the door read: Domain 51.
Flash!
Now she was inside the building itself, looking down at the entrance to a huge amphitheater. There were dozens of soldiers in stark black uniforms standing at rigid attention around this sizable portal. The only means of illumination that she could see was by candles; there were hundreds of them everywhere.
Their flickering cast odd shadows on the Z-gun turrets built into the walls of this place.
Flash!
She was now inside the chamber itself. It, too, was lit only by candlelight. In the middle of the chamber was a huge black monolith. It was a hundred feet high and about half that measurement square.
It stood alone. A huge, seamless, impenetrable presence.
It was the Big Generator.
It, too, was guarded by an army of black-uniformed soldiers; these were the Sacred Guards. They were standing at attention in small groups scattered around the inner chamber. They did not seem to notice that the Empress was there. Not yet, anyway.
She had never seen it before. This big, ugly, holy thing. No sound was coming from it, as she had expected mere to be. Nor was there any means of access, or dials or switches or panel lights on the thing. There were no controls — at least none anywhere nearby.
This was strange because the Big Generator made everything possible in the Galaxy. The power it generated went everywhere and encompassed everything. It ran all of the Empire's spaceships. It ran the planets. It ran everything on the planets. From the dimmest panel bulb on the most distant world to the prop core of the largest Starcrasher, all energy in the Empire came from here.
The Empress moved down the aisle and finally caught the attention of the guards. They were startled to see her, to say the least. They were not aware of the particulars of what was happening back east or out in the Galaxy. They were mind-eunuchs. Their only role was to protect the Big Generator with their lives and not let anyone unauthorized near it.