The three of them set down in the region where the lions were held. A few moments later several of the lions approached them.
“By the look of your robes, creature, I would guess you are from G’l’d?” The tallest and oldest of the lions – the one Jacob had met so many years ago – stood before them, sizing them up.
“Yes, Great Nalsa!” Elijah said and bowed his head.
“If they have brought you here, I can only surmise that the Nukpana have been released?” The lion looked at the two soldiers from the cursed Abhir’s Kingdom.
Elijah nodded.
“And you cannot stop them, can you?” He looked at Jacob.
“We cannot thus far,” Jacob replied. “A doomsday tactic?”
“Doomsday, indeed!” Nalsa growled.
“Tell us how to stop it, Great One. My world is on the verge of being devoured.” Elijah fell to his knees.
“I am sorry, primitive one, but I will not deal with the Kingdom’s evil Leader. His expansion has been completely in disregard for any of the indigenous species throughout his domain. He has conquered and imprisoned or committed genocide on countless millions of species. Besides, I can do nothing from – here.” Nalsa waved his hands regarding his imprisonment.
“Could you do something from outside the event horizon? That is, if I can arrange it?” Jacob asked.
“I could do much.” I could do very much, he thought to Jacob. Jacob was surprised that the prisoners were on the net, but he shrugged it off as the Emperor’s arrogance.
As well could I, another voice whispered in his mind – a voice Jacob hadn’t heard in centuries but he recalled it. Jacob stood thoughtful for a moment.
“I’ll return soon. Elijah, you can stay and speak further with your god if you wish,” Jacob said as he turned and prepared to leave for the pad.
“I would like that. Yes, I want to stay and speak with him for a while.”
“I’ll return for you soon.” Jacob and Spixcer left Lucy behind to protect Elijah and the two used their personal fields to return to the connection pad. At the pad, Jacob thought on a person-to-person, Almighty, two to return.
#
Emperor Abhir listened calmly to Jacob's explanation and solution to the Nukpana threat and was pleased with him. I knew centuries ago that you would be a great one, creature, He thought. Abhir smiled upon Jacob and boomed, “Excellent work my son. Leave your subordinate here to prepare for moving the beast and return yourself to retrieve him and your primitive.”
“Thank you, Almighty Abhir. Your will be done.” Jacob bowed and backed away. When clear of the throne he rose and thought to Spixcer, “I want a frigate ready for flight, and make sure it is loaded with Starfires – a contingent of armed soldiers around the pad, and a prisoner transport field bubble. And bring me a belt of plasma grenades, several handhelds, and a repulsor rifle. If we’re going to transport this beast to the Fringe I’m going to be loaded to the teeth.”
“Roger that, sir.”
#
Almighty, three to return. Jacob thought as he primed the repulsor rifle and then disintegrated.
The three of them reintegrated on the pad outside the Throne Room – Jacob, Nalsa, and Belial. All of them were wielding weapons and they quickly overcame the unaware guard contingent. Poor Spix never knew what hit him. Nalsa and Belial both began to shimmer and repulsor fields formed around them.
“Ah, that feels good,” Nalsa growled.
“Yes, it has been so long I forgot what it felt like to be out of that damned dampening field of His.” Belial stretched and gathered several of the weapons from the dead troops around them.
Jacob surveyed the connection pad near the throne room – the only pad to the Pit of Despair. He drove his right arm deep into the control panel for the pad and ripped through the power circuits one after the other until he was certain the pad was inoperative. Abhir could not send them back to the prison pit – anytime soon. And sooner or later they could fix it and free the prisoners.
“Shall we?” Jacob asked.
Faster than the eye could track, the three of them created as much destruction as they could manage. Belial dropped plasma charges and fired repulsor blasts and did just as much damage slamming through things with his personal repulsor field. Nalsa and Belial crushed through the thirty-foot thick granite walls of the Throne Room and did not bother to kneel before Abhir. The two of them were on top of Him pounding away, with each blow making a thunderous boom. The palace shook violently from the impacts.
Abhir rose, straining against Nalsa and Belial, “What treachery is this!”
“The treachery is your own, you mad man,” Jacob announced as he flew headlong into Abhir’s midsection. The four of them crashed through walls and buildings and continued their groundshaking combat throughout the Imperial starship.
Abhir fought back wildly, he was greatly powerful, and Jacob was beginning to understand why he had been called “Almighty. ” But Nalsa and Belial were similar creatures, and Jacob had learned and gained much power over the last two centuries.
“Keep him busy!” Jacob thought to Belial and Nalsa as Abhir fought back. A blow sent Jacob back through the palace roof below and through several hundred floors. A few seconds passed before Jacob regained his senses. “Whew, that hurt,” he said to himself.
Jacob could hear the loud booms throughout the giant starship and could feel massive vibrations from the battle of gods above. “How are you doing?” he thought to Nalsa.
“Alas, it is my fear that we are stalemated and will destroy this ship in time.”
“Great! Keep Him busy,” Jacob thought.
#
At maximum field speed Jacob boarded the awaiting frigate – Spixcer had always followed orders. The frigate crew was not yet aware of what was actually happening, so Jacob knew he had a few moments when the crew would still follow his commands.
“Abandon ship immediately. This is Colonel Jacob, all hands abandon ship,” he ordered over the net. The crew of thirty on the small frigate followed his orders and were off the ship in a minute. The Army of the Seven Stars was strong on discipline and it would have been odd had any of the crew stop to question their superior. About the same time, Abhir thought to the global net that Jacob was a traitor – nick of time, Jacob thought. But Abhir was too late. The frigate was closed up tight and Jacob had raised its fields.
Jacob steered the frigate in line with the general combat zone and then thought to Nalsa and Belial, “Okay, steer him to me!”
Nalsa and Belial, working together, steered the fight back toward the Palace area at the same time Jacob powered the frigate’s pseudo-jaunt drives online and plugged himself into the ship so he could feel it.
“Jacob, we are coming now!” Belial thought to him.
As soon as Jacob felt the first pain from the hull rupturing he hit the pseudo-jaunt engage controls. The hyperfield bubble formed around them instantly and they were jaunted into superluminal space. Jacob could feel the interior of the ship being torn apart by the Olympian struggle within and he feared that the ship could not manage the strain. It didn’t have to hold together forever. Just long enough to get them into the Fringe. Fortunately, that trip was not as far as it could have been. With Abhir paying more attention to the Fringe efforts after Michael’s failures, the Imperial starship had been moved closer to the rearward muster points. They only needed to travel a hundred light years or so.
“Keep him away from the engine room as long as possible,” Jacob thought.
“We are trying, Jacob,” Belial replied.
Jacob brought the internal weapons and life support systems online and attempted to aid in the battle where he could. But for the most part he spent his efforts putting out fires, setting up emergency structural integrity fields, closing and opening hatches when needed, and rerouting power circuitry. He did all he could to keep the vessel going. He knew that none of them would try to pierce through the ship at superluminal – powerful or not that would b
e certain death.
The battle inside the ship waged for nearly thirty minutes before the vessel was destroyed beyond engine function. The frigate came out of superluminal more than five light years from the Nukpana lines. Jacob disconnected himself from the ship and slammed into the fray. He forced all of them through the hull of the ship and out into open space. Nalsa tagged out with Jacob and made a run for the remains of the frigate.
“Coward!” Abhir boomed in their heads. “I will destroy you all!”
A Starfire burst from the remains of the ship and blasted Abhir with a repulsor blast just before the little fighter disappeared into pseudo-jaunt.
Belial and Jacob continued trading blows with Abhir, but each of them realized that their internal systems would run out of power long before Abhir’s would. Jacob remembered Belial telling him two centuries earlier that Abhir’s technology was better. Obviously, and most certainly purposefully, Abhir had the most advanced and superior systems allowed in the Kingdom. That, of course, was how he had remained Emperor and Almighty for eons.
Abhir began to boom laughter into Jacob and Belial’s heads. “Ha, ha, ha. You have failed, primitives! I am Emperor Abhir, General of the Army of the Seven Stars, Ruler of the Kingdom, ALMIGHTY!” He continued to laugh as a fleet of thirty mixed Army of the Seven Stars vessels appeared from pseudo-jaunt.
“I wish he would shut the hell up,” Belial said.
“All weapons bear on my attackers and fire!” Abhir commanded over the net.
At that instant the sky grew thick with pseudo-jaunt flashes as millions of Nukpana integrated into subliminal space around them. “Today will be your undoing, o Great One!” Nalsa thought over the net as his Starfire appeared in local space.
Bug after bug continued to appear into local subluminal space. Abhir commanded all of the local fleet to the battle, but the Army of the Seven Stars was not great enough to repel all of the Nukpana.
The battle raged for weeks, but in the end the Nukpana overcame even the great Abhir, Emperor of the Kingdom of the Seven Stars – the Nukpana and the three rebels had taxed him until his power grids failed.
Nalsa, Belial, Jacob, and the Nukpana managed to capture Abhir in a force bubble and then pseudo-jaunted to the core of the galaxy, where the supermassive collapsed stars reside. Jacob broadcast over the entire Kingdom net the sentencing of Abhir.
“For treachery, genocide, and countless atrocities against millions of peaceful species in this galaxy,” Jacob began, “we condemn you to fall forever through the bottomless dark pit of despair of the galactic core. No connection will be sent into the pit with you and therefore your fate is sealed. Now the Kingdom can live in coexistence with other races and will be free to govern itself as it sees fit on the individual planetary scale. Protection and affiliation with the Kingdom will only be through voluntary circumstances and there will no longer be made offers that cannot be refused!”
“Well spoken, Jacob.” Nalsa smiled.
“Long live Jacob, leader of the free Kingdom!” Belial cheered.
Jacob gave the bubble enclosing Abhir a final push and it plunged through the event horizon of the supermassive collapsed star. Abhir vanished from realspace and was banished forever to the giant bottomless pit.
#
With Nalsa and Belial’s help there was no doubting who the true ruler – the One True King – of the humanoid section of the galaxy was. The paradise starship was undergoing repairs and transformations and Jacob was having the signs and symbols of eons of Abhir’s reign removed from it. Jacob wanted there to be no part of the free Kingdom to portray any of Abhir’s grotesque philosophies.
Jacob’s scientists had finally deciphered Abhir’s encryption to the Pit of Despair’s connection pad and Belial was aiding Jacob in setting the right prisoners free. And a new courts system was aiding in supplying the Pit with new war criminals. Belial found the remainder of his race and began going by his original name once he found a female named Tabitha. Anson and the rest of his species found a world of their own and started a new civilization allied to Jacob’s Free Kingdom.
King Jacob had the few Abhir loyalists that were not killed in the Final Conflict rounded up and held for trial. Two of the Great Generals fared well and were not sentenced to the Pit – instead they were busted to enlisted rank and placed on the fringe. Four were destroyed in the Final Conflict. And Michael was sentenced to eternity at the lowest level of the pit.
Elijah knelt before Jacob and pledged his allegiance. Jacob told him that that would be up to him and his people, but he would prefer that Elijah go home to his family. Jacob wished he could go home to his, so Nalsa took Elijah home and together they announced their liberation. Elijah offered to coexist with Nalsa’s remaining people, but Nalsa desired to search for a place of their own. Jacob was able to accommodate them.
#
In the billion or more years that would follow of King Jacob’s reign, he never once assimilated a species without their consent. And on any given day in Paradise you can hear some creature exclaim, “All Hail to Jacob, He who set us free!”
Mole Hunt
by Robert Buettner
Or The Moor of Yavet, wherein a commander of mercenaries is bedeviled by whispers, descends into madness, and destroys both his loyal companion and himself. Plus, there's monsters.
In the pre-dawn alien twilight, Roald Otman knelt in the mud, and groped until his blood-slick fingers found Rodric’s carotid artery. Cold, even in the equatorial heat. First Sergeant Rodric’s body lay tangled in death with another bipedal corpse, man-sized and reptilian.
The line wrangler who knelt alongside Otman stared across the ring of cleared ground that separated the two of them from the rain forest. The minefields in that ground protected Downgraded Earthlike 476's human settlement from the rest of this hostile world.
The wrangler shook his head. “Never seen these little ones cross the minefield before.”
Otman narrowed his eyes. “But this one did. My cameraman’s dead. Why?”
The wrangler pushed his broad brimmed hat back on his forehead and shrugged. “Bigger pred chasin’ after this one probably flushed it across. Coincidence.”
Otman frowned. After twelve years as a covert ops mercenary, he disbelieved in coincidence.
The wrangler pointed at the hilt of Rodric’s bush knife, protruding from the dead beast’s throat. It was his turn to narrow his eyes and frown. “For a nature photographer, your friend was good with a knife.”
After twelve years in covert ops, Otman also lied easily. He cast his eyes down and pressed his hands to them. The pose was only partly for show. Since his team had hit dirt two days before, he had experienced sharp, momentary headaches. Alien pollen and spores, probably. “It’s ironic. My crew and I came to film this uniquely savage ecosystem, and already it has consumed one of us.”
The wrangler laid a hand on Otman’s shoulder. “Mr. Otman, you seem like a nice fella. Want some advice?”
Otman managed the nicest smile a mercenary killer could, and nodded.
The wrangler, a Trueborn Earthman like the rest of the colonists, rested his hand on the gunpowder revolver holstered at his waist. “Here on Dead End, every man’s business is his own.”
Otman stifled an eye roll at the prospect of a terracentric rant about liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“And here every man’s business is dangerous.” The wrangler pointed into the mist that clung to the distant trees. “But making a movie out there? Call this a preview, a bad omen. Whatever. But Dead End’s waiting to eat you alive. The spiders are as big as supper plates. Even the plant eaters are carnivores. They only eat the plants to get the parasites inside. The mid level predators are like six-legged tyrannosaurs. And on top of the pyramid the grezzen are eleven tons of speed, guile and meanness. Natural history’s not worth what your documentary’s gonna cost.”
Otman nodded. On that, he agreed with this cowboy. Otman’s recon team came here not to film natural history, but
to change human history. The prize they sought could win Cold War II for Yavet, and lose it for the Trueborns. And that was worth any cost to a Yavi, even one for hire.
Otman said, “Bad omen or not, it’s a risk we’re prepared to take.”
The wrangler looked up at the lightening overcast of his adopted world and sighed. “Well, then, safest time for you all to cross the line is dawn. The nocturnal predators are bedding down. But the day shift’s still yawnin’ and peein’.” He paused. “Sir, I know you’re upset. But if you’re bound to continue, an early start is safer. I can have the body buried for you.”
This civilian had no idea how abhorrent it was to leave a man behind. But Otman the “film maker” just swallowed. “That’s very kind. But I would prefer that we return the remains home to Yavet with us. Would it be possible for you to just have Mr. Rodric’s remains held at the local morgue until we return in ten days?”
The wrangler raised his eyebrows, just as something huge bellowed from the distant trees. “Sure. Just never thought about the possibility that you’d be returning.”
Then, without further discussion or emotion, the man walked back down the trail toward his line cabin. Otman watched him go and felt a strange kinship. This wild outpost and Otman’s overpopulated homeworld shared an indifference to death, though for very different reasons.
Otman stared, arms crossed, at the rainforest’s billion billion trees until the Earth man disappeared. Then Otman permitted himself a tear. Rodric had been Otman’s noncommissioned right hand for six years. But then Otman blinked, breathed, and ground his teeth.
Not at the wrangler’s indifference, nor even at Rodric’s death, but at Otman’s own failure.
As the team’s commanding officer, Otman had sent Rodric ahead to recon the vehicle path through the minefield before their “film crew” zig-zagged its three vehicles out beyond the perimeter. It was a routine precaution that Otman had delegated a hundred other times in a hundred other places. But this time Otman had actually wondered, fleetingly, whether predators ever got flushed in across the minefield.
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