Promises & Prophecies

by Lee Watts

  The automated evacuation order repeated so Nicole rushed to the back of the ship to help load as many of the treasures as she could onto the escape pods then launch them. Clawing his way across the tiny room, Gareth struggled for each fraction of progress toward the emergency panel so he could activate the emergency thruster. Slipping, he was suddenly swept off his feet and hurtled uncontrollably through the air. Slamming into the side bulkhead, he was grateful he wasn't flung out through the now shattered window. With the emergency thruster controls close, he reached out with his closer arm, his other hand serving as his only anchor to the ship. The controls were just out of range. Leaning as much as possible, he reached out, extending himself to the absolute limit. Only the thickness of a sheet of paper kept his fingertips from brushing the need activation panel. Straining, he continued his desperate stretch. Taking the last pod for herself, Nicole closed the escape hatch and hit the button.

  The capsule lurched like a lightning bolt from the dying craft. Nicole screamed in fright. There were no piloting controls, and only a small window to see the outside world, which seemed to be racing toward her at far too great of a speed. Preprogrammed breaking thrusters fired, but the pod had launched at such a low altitude that there was insufficient time to slow properly, and Nicole's capsule slammed into the ground, knocking her unconscious.

  When at last she awoke, she thought she was still dreaming. Leaning over her was the face she most longed to see in the universe, her husband.

  "A… Amos?"

  "Yes, it's me," he answered taking a seat on the edge of his wife's hospital bed. "Don't try to sit up, you have a nasty blow on the head, but you're going to be fine."

  "What… what about… the treasures?"

  "A little battered here and there, but nothing too serious. Looks like you took the worst of it."

  "How about the… the Vault Keeper?"

  "When we saw the fireball a bunch of us from the village rushed toward it, that's how we found your escape pod. If you'd been any closer that ship would've landed right on top of you when it crashed."

  "But what of the Vault Keeper?"

  "I'm sorry, My Love; He didn't make it out. We found his remains among the wreckage."

  Tears welled in the woman's eyes as she considered the loss of the man who had meant so much to her and thousands of others across the galaxy.

  "Nicole, I know this is hard, but I need you to try and remember where The Vault is. The rest of the treasures are still there."

  "I… I have no idea. In fact, he made it a point to make sure I wouldn't be able to find my way back."

  "He must have done something to give you a clue."

  "What about that map he gave you the day I left?" Nicole asked.

  "Remember, that's only a piece," Amos said. "It would take lifetimes to find all the pieces, even then he said it was a riddle to figure it out. Think hard, Nicole, did he give you anything, or say anything that might help us?"

  "His name stuck out. I can't remember all of it. It was unusually long though; I do remember that."

  "At least that's something. What was his name?"

  "It was Gareth… something, something… LaRouche."

  CHAPTER 4

  "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

  – James 1:8

  "It's rightfully mine," brooded the pirate Sosimo LaRouche as he absentmindedly drummed his left hand's artificial fingers on the arm of his command chair on the starship Fortune.

  "What'd he say?" Jaiden asked from his position at the helm.

  "Never mind," Shen Mei answered dismissively. "He's always mumbling that – even I don't know why."

  Crossing to her position on the bridge, the trim, black-haired first mate of the ship ran a status check of the on-going repairs.

  "Captain, engineering says they've finished replacing those dented conduits in the cargo bay ceiling."

  "Finally," Sosimo replied. "What about the other systems? We've been docked at this station for three weeks now."

  "Everything should be completed by the end of the day, except..." she trailed off, not wanting to bring up the touchy subject.

  "…except the shield generator," Sosimo grumbled in completing the sentence. "I can't believe Pfluger didn't go for the deal. I offered him fifty thousand Grellio credits for that generator!"

  "But the Grellian system was absorbed by the Hateeg ten years ago. Grellian money is worthless now," Mei reminded him.

  "I know that, and you know that-"

  "And Pfluger knows it too," Mei said. "Captain, you know it's crazy to head off without a shield generator, and the old one is complete scrap. The one Pfluger got his hands on is top of the line. It's worth it. Why not give him the price he's asking?"

  "Because money doesn't grow on trees, Mei. Unless of course, you live on Rilar where they use vorra fruit as the currency, then yes, I guess it does grow on trees."

  "Captain," she said trying to goad him into the purchase, "This is too good of a deal to pass up. It's a lucky coincidence Pfluger even has a generator that's compatible with our systems."

  "You know what I say about coincidences, Mei."

  Rolling her eyes and speaking monotone she quoted her captain's oft-employed expression.

  "The universe is too big for coincidences. Those are only carefully laid plans that most people are oblivious to."

  "That's right," Sosimo said with a nod to his surrogate daughter. "But that's beside the point. There's no way I'm giving him that price. You know the three things I want out of life Mei," he prompted.

  "'Fortune, fame and glory,'" she again unenthusiastically recited.

  "That's right, and I'm never going to amass a fortune if I pay Pfluger what he's asking."

  "Quality costs," Mei insisted.

  "Yes…" Sosimo agreed reluctantly as the wheels in his head began turning. After a moment, he struck on an idea. "But there is something to be said for quantity." Rising from his center chair, he headed off of the bridge. "Mei, you have the ship. I'm going back on the station to see if I can cut a deal with somebody. Jaiden, Byron, with me. I'm going to need a hand carrying this stuff."

  Jaiden glanced to the high cheek-boned first mate, giving her a confused look. Picking up on Jaiden's inexperience and innocent nature, Mei had taken the newest member of the crew under her protective wing. Not in on what the captain was thinking, she merely shrugged when Jaiden looked at her. With a wink then jerk of her head toward the door, she indicated it was alright and that Jaiden better get going.

  Passing through the boarding tube linking the ship to the space station, Jaiden repositioned the blaster holstered at his thigh. To Sosimo and his longtime crewman Byron, dealing on a black-market space station for illegal weapons was business as usual, but to the eighteen-year-old who spent all but the past year of his life deep in a jungle, the experience was anything but typical. He tried not to gawk at the trio of scantily-clad, orange-skinned people heading the opposite direction. Byron made no such attempt to avert his eyes, leering at those in the extremely low-cut dresses.

  "Byron," Sosimo called out to snap the man out of thought then added flatly, "Those are men."

  "What?" the jolted pirate questioned.

  "I recognize that race. They're from the Ultare system. I visited there years ago."

  "Are you sure they're men, Cap'n?"

  "Oh, I'm sure," he assured as they kept walking, "but don't ask me how I know that… ever."

  "Where are we going, Captain?" Jaiden asked.

  "Bargain hunting. Actually, I can't believe I never thought of this before. It's going to work great, trust me. Next time we're in a scrap… well, nobody will ever expect this."

  Though Jaiden had no idea what the rogue was talking about, he was sure Sosimo was right when he said no one would expect whatever the pirate had up his sleeve.

  "He bought what?" Mei asked Jaiden in a mixture of disbelief and disappointment, combined with a healthy dose of shock.

  "A hundred and ei
ghty-three of them," Jaiden added while retaking his seat at the helm. "He said no one would expect it."

  "He has that right," Mei agreed. "How are we supposed to hook all of them up?"

  "Oh, he got them to throw in a bunch of free relays with the deal."

  "How did he talk them into that?"

  "I don't think he did," Jaiden puzzled, still befuddled from the negotiations. "I think they just got confused."

  "Typical," Mei commented, thinking of her captain's babblings that often spun his opponents into utter chaos.

  "How long until engineering is ready?" she asked.

  "The captain put them to work on the installations right away. They think they can have the first set ready within the hour." Seeing the dazed look on Mei's face, he tried to encourage her by adding, "Hey, I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

  "I don't know what gave you that idea," Mei said with a smile as she shook her head.

  As engineers installed the new equipment, Sosimo sat at the desk in his office while staring at the one-hundred finally assembled sections of the encrypted and tattered star map leading to The Vault.

  For most of his adult life, he sought the scattered map sections, as had his father, and his father before him. The quest spanned generations of his family.

  "I've almost found it, Father," he whispered, unsure if his long-dead parent could hear him or not. "Then we'll see who's crazy," he added, thinking of his mother's frequent disparaging about the LaRouche family mania. "I'll show her."

  Unexpectedly seeing his mother recently, her shun of him displayed her continued disapproval. She had left his father over the same matter and was loathed that her son inherited the LaRouche clan's eccentricities… to the extreme.

  "Captain," came Mei's voice over the speaker at his desk. "Engineering reports the first set is installed. They say they can do the rest en route."

  "Excellent," he acknowledged as he stood. "I'm anxious for us to get moving. Retract the passage tube and clear the moorings; I'm on my way."

  "Already done, Captain."

  Crossing to his office door, he paused to look at the small hole in the wall where he had thrown a bobble at his former first mate Shen Lei, Mei's father.

  "You'd be proud, Lei," he muttered pensively then headed down the hall to the bridge.

  "Cap'n on deck," Byron called out as Sosimo entered the command room.

  Jaiden turned and quietly asked the crewman if they were to always say that when the captain entered.

  "Nah," Byron answered. "When I was in the Navy, we had to, but now, I just like the way it sounds."

  Sitting at the command chair, Sosimo hit the switch activating the ship's intercom.

  "My Dear Crew," he began. "Since the prism we need to read the map to The Vault was destroyed, we must find another Eye of the Deceiver,'" he informed, referring to the jewel eyes used in the giant idols of the Ramillie god Xerxes. "Seeing as how they're not exactly plentiful there's really only one place we can go to get one. So that's where we're heading. Captain out." Switching off the intercom he turned to Jaiden and gave an unusual order, but on the Fortune, Jaiden was getting used to the unusual. "Mr. Suchet, set course for The Cloud."

  Jaiden froze, though only in space for a year, he knew no one ever entered The Cloud and came back out. During the past thousand years, many ships tried, but none ever returned. Even after the Ramillie's reemergence, no person of another race had penetrated the nebula and lived to relate what they saw. This lack of precedence did little to dissuade Sosimo in his monomania quest for The Vault. He was close; his long-awaited goal nearly within reach.

  Knowing nothing could change the captain's mind, Jaiden shrugged then laid in a course for The Cloud. It took several days to reach their destination, but at last, the ship slowed to sub-light speed as it drew near its objective. Filling the entire main viewport loomed the dark cloud of thick, reddish-orange gas and interstellar dust. Random flashes indicated immense electrical discharges inside the ominous fog. Sosimo leaned forward in his chair as if staring down an opponent before a fight. Then with a grin of confidence, he leaned back, eager to conquer this latest obstacle.

  "I'm picking up something on the sensors," Mei reported. "Bearing one-one-eight mark two-seven-one."

  "A ship?" Sosimo questioned. "Has someone spotted us?"

  "I don't think so. We're not being scanned," she answered. "It's big whatever it is. Energy output readings off the scale. I'm putting it on the screen."

  Appearing on the bridge's primary monitor was a massive, ring-shaped device floating motionlessly in the space near The Cloud. Ruby-colored light poured from the center of the construct, and a small group of ships emerged from the plane of swirling energy.

  "What in the worlds is that?" Byron pondered aloud.

  "Hyperspace gate," Sosimo answered. "I heard some talk about these things back at the station. Seems the Ramillie are building these all over the galaxy. Since their ships don't have standard lightdrive, they have to jump in and out of hyperspace. Problem is, hyper generators take a lot of energy, so smaller ships have to rely on larger ones. These hyper-gates allow ships without generators to enter and exit hyperspace."

  As Jaiden listened to the description, it reminded him of the Dridmor portal Merrick spoke of on Dalban II. Putting the pieces together, he wondered if the Dridmor had anything to do with the Ramillie's development of hyperspace travel.

  "Maybe we could use that to get inside The Cloud," Jaiden offered.

  "No good," Mei discounted. "I'm picking up several warships in the area. That thing is well defended."

  "Could we sneak by them to use the portal?" Byron asked.

  "Hmm," Sosimo noised as he was intrigued by that idea and began drumming his real and artificial fingers together. He contemplated ways to accomplish the feat. Mei noticed every once in a while, Sosimo would subtly shake his head, meaning the latest scheme he was considering wouldn't work. Sometimes he would mumble to himself as he was mulling over scenarios. Jaiden couldn't distinguish what Sosimo was mumbling most of the time. There was one exception.

  "Sure, but it'll take forever to collect fourteen metric tons of Celtis rabbits," Jaiden thought he heard the captain say. He was about to discount it as mishearing Sosimo, but on second thought considered he probably heard him correctly.

  "Can't be done," the captain finally announced after reasoning out several wild schemes. "We'll have to get in the old-fashioned way."

  "But," Jaiden began, trying to mask his uneasiness, "no ship can penetrate The Cloud."

  "My Dear Boy, the legend says that you can pass through The Cloud - just not pass from it. We can't very well go from somewhere we've never been, and we can never be at somewhere that we don't go to first, neither could anyone do it in the reverse order either, even if they tried. Therefore, we should be perfectly safe, understand?"

  "…No, but please, don't explain it again."

  "Don't worry," Sosimo assured him. "Set a heading, and take us in."

  With a soft push from its trio of engines, the Fortune eased forward. Sosimo leaned back in his chair and smiled welcoming the challenge. Slowly, his ship faded out of sight, slipping into the blanketing mist of The Cloud.

  CHAPTER 5

  "Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy." – Psalm 82:3

  Four Realm battlecarriers concentrated the significant might of their main cannons on the Ashtaroth, which was the Hateeg command ship in the Entauri Major system. Within seconds, the quad of azure beams destroyed it - sending large chunks of the dead craft spiraling outward and slamming into the adjacent Hateeg ships. Immediately redirecting their fire, the Realm vessels continued to the next target, and then the next, not giving the enemy pause to think or form up. Corvettes, more agile capital ships than battlecarriers, drove straight at the Hateeg vessels in closer orbit of the planet and began blasting away at them.

  "Break and attack," Commodore Upton instructed the other battlecarriers. Facing twenty capit
al ships and several score of support craft, the Realm was far outnumbered in this battle, and while reinforcements were on the way, they were still twenty minutes out. Using the element of surprise to tip the balance, the Realm gained an initial advantage and was rapidly decimating the notably less-skilled Hateeg forces.

  With two full squadrons each, the other three battlecarriers launched their full complement of starfighters, which swarmed the bulky Hateeg ships, stinging like deadly insects. Hateeg pilots rushed to their craft, jetting their fighters into space as quickly as they could. They engaged the attackers and lit the black of space with exchanging streams of orange and blue energy.

  "On your six," Dakota called in a warning to his wingman, Ian Hammond.

  A diamond-shaped, green Hateeg starfighter lined up for a kill shot. Giving a split-second of full throttle to his maneuvering thrusters, Ian flipped the nose of his Arrowhead class fighter a full one-eighty as he cut his main engine. Flying backward, he quickly locked on a missile, launched it, and flipped forward again before the projectile slammed into the Hateeg craft, detonating it. Reactivating his main engine, Ian zoomed ahead.

  "That's some fancy fly'n," Dakota complimented.

  "It's a standard, controlled, vectored thrust reversal," Ian said coolly and being rather pleased with himself. "If you behave yourself, I might teach it to you someday."

  "I think you ought to do it now if you think yur so hot."

  "Oh, why's that?"

  "’Cause you got two more on your tail."

  "DAKOTA," Ian shouted as his warning indicator flashed, alerting him to an enemy target lock. Pulling hard, Ian's ship made a sharp left as orange bolts zipped his direction, barely missing.

  "I thought you were supposed to be covering my back," Ian shouted as he flew erratically in an attempt to shake his two pursuers.

  Lining up behind the chasing pair of angular Hateeg ships, Dakota released a couple of his own missiles. With simultaneous direct hits, the green threats were eliminated.