Time Storm

by Philip R Benge

  Caroline came across to Tyler, her eyes looking at the ground. “Now you have the gratitude of the sister of Appolon as well as his and Tryon`s.”

  Caroline hadn`t re-joined the battle for to have done so would have gone against the warrior code that the people of Orion lived by. To have done otherwise would have shown a lack of respect for a warrior as brave as she saw Tyler was. Had he asked for help she would have joined him instantly in battle, but he would also have lost her respect. Caroline could not think what had come over her to cause her to take her eyes off the giant Magi bird, what had made her need to look towards Tyler at that time in the battle. He was only another warrior and there were many like him in her village, many who were tried warriors. Caroline didn`t realise what was affecting her so, for she had never begun to fall in love before. Then she saw the blood on Tyler`s shirt from the injury he had sustained from the birds talons.

  “You are injured Tyler, we must see to your wounds or they may turn septic.” Caroline cried out, her concern for Tyler going beyond what she had felt in similar situations.

  “We should head back for the cover of the trees anyway Caroline, and wait there a while to see if our minor battle was noticed by any of the soldiers.”

  Caroline agreed and they moved back into the cover of the trees, and once there Caroline quickly bathed his wounds with water from her flask, and then she applied some healing lotion that instantly took away the stinging of Tyler`s wound.

  Tyler and Caroline waited for ten minutes while they slowly recovered their strength before deciding that they were safe, and that no one had seen or heard them. Luckily the nearest broken hulk was too far away from where the Heliot troopers were busy working.

  Therefore, they set off once again, walking by the dead Magi bird, moving from one piece of cover to the next until the broken hulk was before them. The Heliots seemed to have finally left this former space giant, having stripped all that was of any value to them. It lay with its back broken, it insides strewn about for all to see. Before them was a ramp up into the lower levels but it was not to here that Tyler ventured.

  Chapter Twelve

  June 23rd the Year 2494

  To the Rescue Again

  The Heliots troopers were all being made to work extremely hard and fast, and with little respite for things such as food and sleep. The transport ships would never become space cruisers, but they had to become more effective fighting ships. After the Phasers had been physically fitted into the transport ships, the necessary connections between the hyperspace engines and the Phasers needed to be put in by the skilled technicians of the fleet. As all of the technicians needed by Divilio had not all been killed when the fleet had crash landed so violently upon Orion showed, the gods of the Heliots had not forsaken them completely. Four separate teams were working flat out to get the Heliot fleet ready for action, sooner rather than later. At this particular moment Divilio had other things that needed his attention.

  An earthman was shoved to the ground before him, to be followed by a woman and two young children.

  “Well what do we have here trooper.” Divilio inquired of the trooper in charge of the patrol.

  “We found them walking in the direction of the modern complex beyond the mountains Generalissimo, they are dressed differently to the natives so we brought them in for your attention.”

  “Yes they do seem a little different, a little dusty and tired from their walk, but maybe they can tell us more about the complex than the other natives.” Divilio looked down at the man.

  “Is this so, what can you tell me about it?”

  The man in question was a vicar of the Church of the Universe, he and his family had started out their journey on the day of the space storm, they had been travelling to the town of New Eden. John Parsons was going to New Eden so that he could speak to his Bishop about the coming celebrations, and the rest of his family were travelling so that they could catch up on the local gossip with the other colonists on Orion. Unfortunately a piece of space debris snatched up by the Time Platform had come roaring out of the sky, narrowly missing their land transporter it still landed close enough to cause the land transporter to overturn. Some of the fragile components in its highly sophisticated engine were damaged by the accident; the vehicle would now need to be taken to the town for repair. The accident forced the family to walk on towards New Eden, it being the closest place to secure assistance. They had attempted to contact New Eden with their satellite telephone, but by then the satellite had been destroyed by a rather large asteroid, making all terrestrial communications impossible. The family was exhausted having been forced to spend three days and two nights in the Orion wilderness without food. When they had first seen the troopers land transport they had been overjoyed, now they were just plain terrified.

  Parsons had been born on Orion forty five years ago, he was slight of build with short straight brown hair and the tanned skin of all the colonists, tanned by spending time amongst the natives who lived and worked mostly out of doors. His brown eyes showed a defiance that he didn`t feel, but he kept calm in front of his family.

  “I demand that you allow me to speak to my Bishop, Sir, and just who are you people anyway, and what are you doing here on Orion?”

  “I am your worst nightmare little man.” Divilio snarled. “You will answer all of my questions quickly, and in full, or I will order my men to kill your family one by one until you do so, is that clear?”

  Parsons` two young children, Michael aged ten and Emily aged eight, had been through a lot, but Michael was a proud boy, but one who had never encountered people like these before.

  “Daddy, say nothing to them, order them to take us to New Eden.” He said, his voice beginning to waver as he looked into the cruel faces of the troopers around his family, and heard their laughter. Mary Parsons though thought only of the safety of her family.

  “Tell us what you want to know and we will give you your answers to all that we are able too.” Mary`s voice was clear and unwavering and Parsons immediately agreed with what his wife said.

  “Ask your questions Sir, we will answer them if we can.” Divilio`s smile did nothing to lessen John Parsons` fear, which had become apparent to everyone nearby, for his defiant attitude had deflated as soon as he realised the sort of people that he and his family had met.

  “Good, but first I should tell you that our drones have already told us much, so don`t lie if you value your children`s lives. Now we detected no starships of any kind at the place you call New Eden, tell me now are there any anywhere on this planet.”

  “There is a whole fleet of ships in our main base.” Michael Parsons stated with all the confidence that he could muster.

  “Michael I will answer the questions, please keep quiet.” Parsons said to his son. “Mary, please take the children away, if that is alright with you Sir.” This last part was addressed to Divilio, alone.

  “Yes of course little man, trooper, escort the woman and children into the space cruiser Hammer, and give them food and water, and also somewhere to rest up.”

  The cruiser Hammer had been the pride of Divilio`s navy, now it was just one more broken ship. Mary allowed herself and her children to be led away to one of the broken space cruisers, looking back at her husband, she prayed that they would be separated from one another for only a short period of time, but then Mary and the children were inside the ship, and poor John, she thought, was all alone with that monster.

  With the family gone Parsons felt a little easier, as if his family were safe now they were not actually near Divilio, and so Parsons answered Divilio`s questions as best he could, for to do otherwise risked all he held dear.

  “We are a peaceful colony, and there are no ships anywhere on the planet. There are only a handful of soldiers based in New Eden to guard the Laboratories of the small contingent of scientists who have moved here to work.”

  Divilio smiled at this good news and continued on with his questions. “What communications do you have o
n the planet?” Divilio demanded to know.

  “Normally we can contact New Eden by telephone but that doesn`t appear to be working, the satellite could have been damaged by the meteor storm I expect.” Parsons replied.

  “What about interplanetary communications?” Division now asked.

  “They have a subspace radio in New Eden, so that should still be working, as long as the town wasn`t struck by any of the meteorites.” Parsons replied.

  “You say that there are only a handful of soldiers, how are they armed, are there any heavy weapons on the planet?” Divilio wanted to know whether the opposition were a force to be feared, but his quiet voice gave nothing of this away.

  “No there are no heavy weapons, they only have hand Phasers, as I told you we are a peaceful planet.”

  Parsons was very naive, having never met people such as Divilio, he hoped to be able to ensure that these pirates, as he thought of them, would leave New Eden alone if it did not pose a threat to their lives.

  **********

  Tyler and Caroline moved through the debris of the space cruiser that lay all around it, keeping hidden behind its bulk from any who might be about, when suddenly Caroline put a hand on Tyler`s arm and stopped him. She pointed to a group of people on the other side of the broken cruiser, there some fifty feet from them was a group of the aliens, but they were gathered around a family, John Parsons and his family to be exact. Tyler and Caroline crawled along the ground until they had managed to get nearer to the group without being seen, all thanks to the broken cruiser and the cover that it gave them, and now they were hidden behind a broken bulkhead and only ten feet away from the Heliots and the Parsons family. Being so near they could hear all that was said, as the Heliot translator allowed them to hear Divilio`s part of the interrogation as well.

  “That is the vicar and his family who live in our village Tyler; they set off for New Eden the day before you arrived at our village.” Caroline whispered to Tyler. “You were right Tyler, when you insisted on coming nearer to the great ships, for we would never have known that they had been taken prisoner by these murderers, and we would have regretted it as you foresaw. We will have to find a way to free them from these monsters before they are murdered, as poor Perseus was.” A sob almost escaping from her lips as she thought once more about the moment when that proud old man had been murdered.

  Tyler was taken aback for a moment, for to try to secure the release of the vicar and his family would be fraught with danger, he didn`t know whether to feel smug or foolish as he heard his words spoken back to him by Caroline.

  “That will not be easy Caroline. We will have to wait and hope for a chance to release them, and without any of them being hurt and ourselves being taken prisoner. Let`s fall back and watch until a suitable opportunity arises.”

  **********

  With the departure of Mary Parsons and the children Divilio was able to extract most of the information about the complex from Parsons. He and Parsons had been talking for ten minutes when Divilio took the conversation onto small talk. He always found that the best way to extract everything was to become a friend of his prisoner, and this he did very well. They were becoming fast friends Parsons thought, Divilio was not too bad really when you got to know him, he had even promised the family a ride home, and the conversation progressed on to home comforts and electrical power, and now thirty minutes later.

  “Of course our power at New Eden is supplied by the fusion reactor, it was supplied by Earth when the scientists began to achieve some sort of progress in that massive white laboratory of theirs.” Parsons said.

  “So John, the scientists must be working on something quite grand in that large white laboratory of theirs, if it requires a fusion reactor.” Division remarked quietly.

  “Well we have been told to keep quiet about it unless it upsets the natives, but most of them know about it anyway.” Parsons replied.

  “Yes John, but I need to know everything if I am to repair my fleet, and then travel back to my home world, and without any violence breaking out between my people and yours.”

  Divilio said this ever so sweetly but not sweetly enough, for as Parsons looked over to Divilio he experienced a shiver of fear, the same sort that he had experienced when the Generalissimo had threatened the lives of his family. He had allowed himself to talk too much, to think himself so important that even a Generalissimo would find him of interest, he saw that now. However, if he refused to continue giving the Generalissimo the information he requested, no that wasn`t quite right he had actually demanded it at the beginning of the conversation, no interrogation, he was being interrogated by the Generalissimo and his family`s lives depended on him continuing on to the end, or their lives could once again be threatened.

  “I was told by the Bishop that the scientists there were working on a Time Machine.”

  Parsons heard himself betraying Earth, somehow he felt the astonishment that his interrogator felt, and he knew with a certainty that he had betrayed all that he believed in, but he still couldn`t stop himself as he continued on.

  “And only last week I was told that it was actually working, actually going back in time, incredible isn`t it.” Parson said in wonder.

  “Yes incredible, you are right John, incredible.” Divilio said quietly as he took in everything that Parsons had quietly told him.

  Of course Divilio still didn`t realise the vast time that separated him from his own time period, but this fact was going to be revealed to him soon by his own navigational officer, Trajo. Even without this important information Divilio`s mind was blown by the information this cretin was giving him, he must really believe that he, Divilio, was the fool`s friend. Ah well it showed how good he was at his job, and it took all his self-control to keep the colonist from realising the importance that he attached to it, in case he needed more from this fool.

  Divilio had immediately seen that here was a way of reversing his fortunes, simply by sending Aswan back through time to give him, Divilio, a message concerning the enormous space storm that rampaged through the planetary system of the Planet of the Light. Divilio of course knew nothing of the laws of time that would stop such a thing happening, namely that the past cannot be altered by the future.

  Divilio`s parting words to Parsons brought the colonist down to Earth with a hard bump.

  “The people of Orion need have no more fears about anything, anymore. You will become part of the Heliot Empire and the strongest amongst you will be taken back to the planet Heliot to serve her people.” Divilio declared without seeming to know how this would sound to a free born person.

  “You mean as slaves? “ Parsons exclaimed in terror.

  “Of course, although don`t you worry, we always need overseers and the like, to keep the rest under control, and as you have shown you`re willing to help me, I will reward you and your family.” Divilio said condescendingly.

  Parsons was then taken aboard the broken space cruiser while Divilio thought about the Time Machine at New Eden, one thing was certain, for the moment no one would be told about it, not even Aswan or Trajo.

  Leaving Divilio, Parsons walked dazedly into the broken hulk and entered the room where his family were, his face ashen, due to the shock he was in after hearing Divilio`s parting words. Mary Parsons thought he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and was so alarmed that she rushed into his arms asking fearfully.