“Ah,” said the demon. “The rod and the CPU chip are the keys to your success. You’ll be one of my time-commandos, but you’ll still need to do your work in the physical dimension. We can’t have your battle computer telling all it knows to the other parts of ‘the One.’ My servant in the replacement chip can do all the duties of your battle computer, but it would be unable to fool the other parts of ‘the One.’ The knowledge-transferal device will solve that little problem.”
As Gaston listened, Lord Crendemor explained how to use the small rod. Wanda begged and pleaded the whole time, but Gaston ignored her. He knew the truth now. She wasn’t his friend. She was part of ‘the One.’ He had no friends. All he wanted or needed was the bottle of DNA gas. He was determined to do whatever he needed to get it.
Following the directions of the dark elf, Gaston removed the CPU chip that contained Wanda from the battle helmet. He touched the small rod to the chip. Wanda begged even harder. When the lights on the rod stopped flashing, Gaston dropped Wanda to the floor. She landed in a small pile of bones. He heard her begging him to put her back in the battle helmet before the chip’s backup power emptied, but he continued to ignore her. Only the bottle of DNA gas mattered.
Gaston touched the small rod to the replacement chip. When the lights stopped flashing again, he placed the new chip in the slot in his battle helmet and put it back on. His new battle computer told him many things. Gaston learned much. With the new knowledge, he was sure he could destroy ‘the One’ and acquire the bottle of DNA gas as well. All was as it should be.
“Please, Gaston,” said Wanda in his shared space. “I’m dying. Please. I’m your friend.”
“She’s not dying,” corrected the Dalinfaust. “She’ll no longer be able to function as a battle computer, but it’ll take more than losing the chip’s backup power supply to kill her. And she has to die, or she’ll inform the rest of ‘the One.’ They’ll ruin any hope you have of acquiring the last bottle of DNA gas. You need to kill her, and you need to kill her now.”
In spite of Wanda’s pleading, Gaston asked the obvious question. “How?”
“Use your phase rod,” said the Dalinfaust. “Touch her with it. I’ll do the rest.”
“No, Gaston,” said Wanda. “Don’t do it. I’m your friend. For your own sake, don’t do it.”
Part of Gaston wanted to pick up Wanda’s chip from where it lay amid the bones and run. The presence that was his new battle computer brought up the image of the bottle of DNA gas. It showed him an image of Diane, Matthew, and him living together as a family. They were happy.
Gaston removed his phase rod from his utility belt and activated it in destructive mode.
“No!” cried Wanda.
Gaston moved the red tip of the phase rod downward, ever closer to the chip.
“Please, Gaston. Remember all we’ve been through. Please. You’re my friend.”
“No!” Gaston said. “No longer. You’re part of ‘the One.’ You deserve to die just like every other part of ‘the One.’”
The tip of the phase rod touched the metal chip. Gaston heard a mental scream so full of pain and fear that he started to pull the phase rod back. Another image of the bottle of DNA gas appeared in his shared space. He kept the phase rod where it was. He sensed the demon essence greedily sucking out the life force from the chip.
“Yes!” said the Dalinfaust. “Feed me. I’ll use her Power to make you the greatest time-commando the three galaxies have ever seen. Feed me, my servant. Feed me!”
The life force which had been Wanda became a faint glow on Gaston’s passive scan. Then it winked out completely.
“Welcome, time-commando,” said the Dalinfaust. “You’ve done well. You’ll find I’m generous to those who serve me well.”
A black pack popped into view in the air before Gaston. He reached out and grabbed it before if fell to the floor. He recognized it as his father’s dimensional pack.
“I’ve taken the liberty of liberating this from where it was stored,” said the Dalinfaust. “With it, you can get anything you need from Storage. The phase rod at your side contains a piece of my essence. Each time it steals the life force of others, it feeds me, so use it often. You’ve already fed me more life force than even your unwitting brother.”
“Then give me the bottle of DNA gas,” Gaston said. “I’ve done what you’ve asked.”
“Soon,” said the Dalinfaust. “You will get all that you deserve soon enough. However, I’ve got a few favors you must do for me first.”
“What favors?” Gaston asked. He was already beginning to regret his actions, but he knew it was too late for second thoughts now. He was committed. He was a time-commando.
Chapter 74 – New Drepdenor
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The mountain the Oracle called New Drepdenor was easy to spot. Its twin peaks looked like two dragon’s teeth waiting for a victim to pass between them. Bright Wing made straight for the teeth’s gap. A ravine beyond was just wide enough to hold the silver dragon’s outstretched wings.
Once they were safely down, Richard looked around. All he saw was rocks. “Well, we’re here. Now what?”
“Do you not feel it, brother?” asked Bright Wing. “It’s calling to us. It must be protected.”
Richard was about to ask what could possibly need protection in the rock-strewn land when he sensed something deep inside the mountain. He sensed Power. He sensed a lot of Power.
“It’s a gate of some type,” said Nickelo. “It’s a very powerful gate based upon its energy output. The gate is currently closed, but based upon the readings from your passive scan, its lock is weakening.”
“We must protect the gate,” said Bright Wing speaking for all the dragons that composed her ancient dragon form.
“How?” Richard asked.
Thousands of voices spoke in Richard’s mind at once. They were the voices of the young dragons he’d freed from their eggs. The links of their Circle were still connecting them all together. If Richard had only been thinking like a human, he would’ve hesitated to do as the dragons asked. However, he’d been a part of their Circle. He’d been given a glimpse of their species memory.
Acting on impulse, Richard reached out with his mind and undid the keystone link of the dragon’s Circle. As their links unraveled, the young dragons left Bright Wing’s body. With the departure of each dragon, Bright Wing reduced in size until she resumed her normal form.
Each of the young dragons bowed to Richard before taking wing and flying toward the setting sun. Finally, only two dragons remained in the valley. One was Bright Wing. The other was a three-headed dragon. Its body was gold in color. Each of its heads was one of the primary colors; red, blue, and yellow.
The three-headed dragon locked eyes with Richard. It didn’t speak.
“You’re free,” Richard said using emotion-speak. “Aren’t you going to leave with the others?”
The center head was blue in color. The blue head rose until it was almost level with Richard’s face. After staring at Richard for a few more seconds, the blue head spoke. “No. My two brothers and I must protect the gate. It mustn’t fall into the hands of the enemy. Our descendants will protect the gate until the time of the great battle. Then we shall know.”
Richard grew curious. “Know what?”
The blue dragon head seemed to smile. “Think, dragon-friend. You’ll need to figure it out for yourself. Until then, your task is done. Go in peace.”
Richard was about to ask another question when the cells of his body started to tingle. The area around him began to shift in and out of focus.
“Mission complete,” said the voice of ‘the One.’
Then everything went black.
Chapter 75 – Out of Tolerance
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The reunion on the Defiant was anything but joyous. Bright Wing and Richard’s return was a full week later than that of the others. Trinity, Jerad, Stella, Tam, and Telsa had been ordered
to return to their units. The Empire had deemed five wizard scouts too important an asset to leave alone for long. An Empire transport ship had picked up the five wizard scouts two days earlier.
Myers and Matthew hadn’t been returned to the Defiant. According to Sergeant Ron, the two had appeared unexpectedly on Risors in the newly built palace of Empress Diane Deloris. The word was that the empress had to place Matthew under lock and key to prevent him from returning to his grandfather’s recon ship.
With the absence of Matthew and little hope for his return, a despondent Tia had requested transfer back to Trecor. Sergeant Ron had finagled a ride for her on a passing cargo ship heading to one of the Trecorian mining planets.
As for Dren and Brachia, Richard learned he’d missed them by only a couple of hours. With the help of their Keka, the children had been teleported back to the planet Storage. While Richard had been able to talk to them via a holographic relay, it hadn’t been the same as a face to face reunion.
So it was that after a few hours back on the Defiant, Richard found himself lying on his bunk trying to catch a little sleep to ease his overworked brain. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just his DNA baseline that was keeping him awake. His brain kept going over all the horrors he’d seen since his first mission for ‘the One’ so many years earlier.
“Why am I doing this?” Richard whispered to the empty room. “Am I even doing any good? What if all I’ve done during my missions was to make things worse? Why should I even bother?”
It was the same question that had plagued him during many a sleepless night. Why? Unable to sleep, he opened his eyes and stared at the worn springs of the bunk above him. He noticed something blowing in the slight breeze of the room’s air-conditioning unit. Reaching out, he plucked the item from where it was lodged between the springs.
Upon closer inspection, Richard discovered the object was several strands of gray hair. He caught a whiff of cinnamon and jasmine. It was the same scent that had been on his bunk’s bedding before he’d changed the linen. He stretched out the strands of hair between his hands. The hair seemed to reflect the light of the room’s overhead lamp.
“No,” Richard whispered. “They’re not gray. They’re silver.”
His eyes focused on some writing past the strands of hair. Two words were scratched into the brace bar of Comstar’s bunk. One word was his. On a sleepless night during a time of darkest despair, he’d taken his boot knife and scratched WHY? into the metal bar. Below his word was another. The second word was in a language Richard didn’t understand.
Reaching out with his mind, he levitated his battle helmet off the desk and into his waiting hand, then placed the helmet on his head and lowered the visor to the bridge of his nose.
“Translation program, Nick,” Richard thought.
“Compliance.”
The symbols of the second word wavered before steadying into a single word answer to his question. Richard stared at the question and answer for a long time. Finally, he gave a slight smile and a nod of understanding. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Once Richard was asleep, Nickelo continued to ponder the one word answer to his wizard scout’s question. After many nanoseconds of contemplation, Nickelo gave a quiet laugh. He stored the question and answer in his databanks. In his opinion, the single word question and its single word answer spoke volumes.
WHY?
BECAUSE!
[End Transmission]
Acknowledgments
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I want to thank my wife, Karen Hartman, for putting up with my many hours locked up in my office writing. I also want to thank my son-in-law, Jonathan, and my daughter, Stephanie, for their timely advice and opinions. Finally, I’d like to thank Debra Hartmann (no relation) for her many hours of editing and proofreading.
About the Author
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Rodney Hartman is a retired US Army veteran with over twenty years of experience in military operations ranging from Infantry Private in the paratroops to Chief Warrant Officer flying helicopters during the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Hartman worked for many years as a computer programmer before retiring and pursuing a career as a fulltime writer. Mr. Hartman lives in North Carolina with his wife and family along with their cat, McKenzie.
If you would like to find out more about the author and/or upcoming books, please visit: http://www.rodneyhartman.com/
You may contact the author at: [email protected]
Depending on volume, the author will try to respond to all emails.
Wizard Rebellion (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 5) Page 50