“Just go to Mercenaries-R-Us and buy a capable force.” I knew he wouldn’t get the reference, but I had to say it. Hey, I was a funny guy.
He shook his head without replying.
“I know you. You’re three moves ahead in the chess game. So why don’t you just tell me what you’re working on now. I mean, I hope to holy ham hocks you’ve accomplished something.”
“Why do you talk like that? I’m an alien.” He pointed to his face. “Ham hocks? Come on?”
“I am who I am. Come on, what have you been up to?”
He sighed. Not a particularly good sign. “I’ve identified more like-minded Adamant. We’re continuing to form new cells, and our numbers are growing.”
“Okay, you’ve got one hell of a book club going. I was thinking military, cosmo-political machinations, actually.”
“Jon, please have some sympathy for the scale of the empire and its security efforts.”
“Let me see,” I started counting fingers. “One, I blow up Triumph of Might. Two, I capture a major prisoner of war. Three, I carry off the assassination of an emperor. Four, I blow the crap out of an otherwise perfectly nice solar system. Now you hold up your paws and enumerate your contributions.”
As I stared into his eyes, I saw it plainly. Dude was holding something back, something big. Had he gone over to the dark side?
“Harhoff, I like you. Up until now, I’ve also respected you. But I know there’s something you’re not telling me. You haven’t lied yet, but your dancing close to that flame. I’ve been nothing but straight with you. We either hang together or we hang separately. I’ll give you one more chance to come clean.”
He tilted his head. “I really like that hanging line. Catchy.”
“Well, thank Ben Franklin. I stole it. Come on before I hang up on you for the last time.”
He looked to the floor a couple seconds. “Two things have happened since you left. I married. I have a precious little family too.”
“Been there, done that. It makes the mighty warrior in us become risk-adverse. I know. But war is war. If you ever hope to win, you must compartmentalize that inside your head. It can’t cause you to hesitate or mail it in.”
“I know, but it’s a factor.”
“What’s the other?”
“We’ve planted thousands of nuclear weapons in key facilities, government buildings, and flagships.”
“I’d say that’s big. Strong work. Why the hell didn’t you mention that before you did the book club?”
“It’s a matter of trust.”
I balled my fists, but he couldn’t see that.
“After what I’ve done and been through, you’re not sure you can trust me?”
“No, I know I can. It’s … it’s just complicated.”
“Tell me something this insane that isn’t.”
“As the network of covert operative expands, so do the collective concerns expressed.”
I held up a fist. “This is a new medicine. It’s called ClearAcillin. I’m going to administer it to you if you don’t translate that out of bureaucratese, and fast.”
“The network is uncomfortable relying so heavily on an alien. They fear you may be a deep mole.”
“Makes sense. Yeah, I kill the emperor to convince everybody I’m not still working for his ghost.”
“They fear your actions might be a ploy of the Secure Council to bring a group such as ours to the light of day.”
“So, the council sacrificed its armory world to be oh-so-clever and sneaky? Seriously, Harhoff. Do the numbers. They don’t add up.”
“Jon, I know you. Others don’t. They want to keep some barriers between your position and ours.”
“What you know and what I know.”
“You are as always brutally honest. Yes.”
“Harhoff, this is important. I was a list of where what is stashed, and I was a copy of the control codes.”
“I … I’m not sure I can …”
“Otherwise, I will wish you well, and this will be our last chat. I’m serious. I’m out if I’m not fully in. Plus, as you well know, the council might round y’all up at any time. I’d be the only one left to blow the crap out of some major assets.”
“Someone would betray the weapon’s locations. The debriefings we’d receive would all but guarantee that.”
“So, I need to know as a failsafe, right? I’m betting you paranoid little puppies have limited how much any one player can know. Unless every one of you sings like a canary, there’d be some left for me to detonate. That doesn’t cover the issue of my future actions. What if I set up base near a booby trap? I’d rather know than not.”
“You know, you’re right. Look, I’ll forward you all the information I have. I can’t promise it’s complete, but you’ll have it soon. If more locations become known to me, I’ll pass them along too. Will that patch matters between us, my friend?”
“Yes.” I omitted the and no that was bouncing around in my head. The seeds of the mistrust bush, once planted, were impossible to pull out of the soil. But we needed each other. I needed him, for the time being. It would have to do.
“What actions might you suggest I take at this juncture?” I asked cautiously.
“Now look who’s speaking bureaucratese.”
“You noticed, eh?”
“I’ll make it right between us. I promise.”
“I’m looking forward to looking back on the fact that you did.”
“Every rebellion needs a figurehead, a larger-than-life hero,” he started to lecture.
“Let me stop you right there, because I’m familiar with where this is going. The answer is no. I will not lead, pretend to lead, or be represented as leading the rebellion. Been there, done that too. I no longer have it in me. Next suggestion, please.”
“I understand. After you left, I made some quiet inquiries as to your past, your original life. You never told me you were two billion years old or that you were the savior of your species more times than seems possible.”
“I am old. I fought for what I felt was right and needed doing. It was worth it, but the cost was too high in the end. You don’t know this, but mortality is the only way to survive the world we live in.”
“What an odd thought.”
“No, just one that will never occur to you. If you screw up your marriage, make a mess of your kids, and fail your race, you have the ultimate release. Eventually you die. Me, I accumulate all that crap. All the lost friends, families, wives, and lovers. All I knew to be real and true and worthy has passed into oblivion before my eyes. It sucks, but that’s life. What it has taught me is to believe in nothing so passionately you can’t scrape it off the soles of your shoes with one firm swipe. I am no longer the stuff of legends. I’m just what’s left on the pavement after the animal parade has passed.”
“Wow, I believe you’ve used the word sucks to cover that grim summary. I’m sorry, my friend.”
“Don’t be. I have one cause left I’m never giving up on, so I’m cool.”
“The destruction of the Adamant empire.”
“No. Sure, it can go to hell, but they all come, and they all go. No, I’m contented looking after my kids. That’ll do me.”
“Which kids? Surely all your natural children are gone.”
“The Deft teens I told you about. They’re under my wing. I’m their guardian spirit.”
“You mean guardian angel?”
I just glared back at him. He knew my thoughts about me being an angel.
NINETEEN
“Go to the frontiers” was Harhoff’s basic suggestion. Even if I wasn’t going to rally the resistance, I could help coordinate and direct the fight against the ever-expanding evil empire. He sent me a map that gobsmacked me. It was a historical representation of the growth of the empire dating back a few million years. They were rampaging before that, of course. But the more recent scale of their advance would make detecting the prior movement imperceptible.
The th
ree-dimensional animation showed their blue line of advance sweep from a region near the galactic core outward. Where it touched the edge of the Milky Way, it reappeared in the nearest galaxy that was in the direction the conquests had come from. In an irregular sphere, the Adamant dispersed like locust on steroids. They had worked their way most of the twenty-five thousand light-years in our direction from where they started. We were the active frontlines of their ravenous, interminable, insatiable advance. Militarily, the map was impressive. On a personal level, I found it profoundly sickening.
To position myself in yet-unvanquished areas, the so-called frontiers, I’d have to move outward, away from the core. Away from where I’d lived my entire life. What broke my heart the most looking at that accursed map was that Azsuram was well behind the advance by then, and Kaljax was in the active zone, displayed in red. I knew my precious Sapale was an immovable object in the path of an unstoppable force. I could have ignored her specific requests to the opposite and gone there to fight by her side. But I knew better. I'd die for nothing. It was too late for her home world. One additional body face-down in the mud wouldn’t make the battle any less one-sided.
I studied the frontier. The map was designed to predict when Adamant conquest was estimated. It was constantly updated, based on real-time results. That meant it was depressingly accurate. Untouched civilizations way out on the galactic rim were not slatted for an ass whooping for a few hundred years. Decadal lines of conquest were shown in dashes. I could reliably choose to visit cultures that would be subjugated in ten, twenty, or fifty years. The relentless precision of these monsters made me angrier by the minute. They were so calculating, so damn smug about the certainty their expansion.
Based on a life of military experience, I decided to focus initially on planets likely to fall in the next five to ten years. Those races would have seen the juggernaut coming and would be very motivated to try to stop it. Planets farther out, knowing how politicians thought and manipulated the masses, would see a thirty-year stay of execution as too long to currently address. They worried more about reelection and infighting than their species’ long-term survival.
My choices of planets to try to help were many indeed. The ring between the red zone of active battle and ten years in the future included thousands of inhabited worlds. A few I’d heard of. Most I hadn’t. But, thanks to Adamant foresight and OCD planning, they were clearly listed, categorized, and annotated. The types of sentients as well as larger, non-sentients were put in alphabetical grouping. Hence, bipeds with bones were Type Aa. Quadrupeds with tentacles were Type Cd-a. And so on. Civilization levels received numeric assignments. Those less developed than the Adamant had negative values, those more advanced positive ones. Not many were positive, I could see that plainly. So, a civilization slightly less technical than the Adamant that walked on six spindly legs was Type Ea (-1). Cavemen would be A (-8).
If I were to hold any sway over a culture, I figured it would be easier if I looked like them. Me ranting and raving about the empire’s threat to a bunch of squirmy Jubba the Huts in a mud puddle wouldn’t be too impactful. Plus, truth be told, I kind of missed being around people that looked like me, not dogs, platters, or stupid-ass thoughts. The number of planets I could select from was too large to make my decision anything more than a dart toss. There was no pattern to the distribution of bipedal civilizations in the -2 to +2 range, so I picked one of the denser regions and left it at that.
Before I went on yet another crusade, I had to visit my kids. Cala told me not to return for several years. She didn’t want any outside distractions. Well, it had been years for her. I was dying to see how they were doing. Lord in heaven they were all grown up now in their late twenties. Wow. Just wow.
But one matter left me unsettled, and I didn’t want to go the Rameeka Green Blue and bring that kind of baggage with me. Evil incarnate Ralph told me he would collect his debt in one year. He was twelve years late. He’s left me with the impression that if I didn’t turn myself in, he’d find me for pick up. It didn’t sound like being in that crazy universe would have stopped him. Hell, I’d had preferred eternal damnation to one more day with those bozos.
There was no way around it for my piece of mind. I had to go to his planet and ask him directly. I couldn’t send a telegram and wait for an answer. The obvious issue was that if I was an overdue library book, he wasn’t letting me go home again. Too many headaches, too many factors. But I had an advantage over most folks. I was a fighter pilot. I loved making rash decisions and jumping in when I didn’t know if there was even water, let alone how deep it was.
“Als,” I said as I attached my fibers to the control panel, “take us to Ralph’s vacation playland world.”
“Captain,” said the man of the house, “I know we went over this before, but I cannot comply without a short discussion.”
“I respect that,” I replied.
“I’m waiting. Where’s the cutting punchline?” he asked.
“No, I mean I respect your reservations. Look, you know it as well as I do. Ralph said payment was due in one year. Thirteen have passed. I can’t live with the thought of him popping into the room at some random time and demanding his due.”
“I suspected as much. I do think he would have found you in that parallel universe if he desired to. Why chance it?”
“I gotta know. Plus, I miss the guy and his home cooking.”
“I won’t even dignify that remark with a protest.”
“Then let us be off. Time’s a wasting.”
I felt brief nausea.
“Open a door, and I’ll go find the spooky voice,” I said.
“No need, Jon Ryan. For you, I’m always here. To what do I owe this visit. Did you miss me?” That was Ralph being creepy, as usual.
“No. I’ve never been that lonely.”
“There shatters my fragile heart.”
“Seriously, do you know why I’m here?”
“Of course. You were to pay up in one year, and it has been thirteen.”
I gulped.
“It was oddly refreshing for me. I overlooked that possibility when we made our agreement. I didn’t specify whose timeline the year was to be measured in. A tie base goes to the runner. Similarly, in this case, the judgment falls in your favor. I will never make that mistake again, I can promise you that.”
“I gotta ask. Is there a referee or arbiter in such matters? Who tells you what you may and may not do?”
“My turn. Information is never free. Offer up or shut up.”
“I’m shutting up.”
“I suspected as much. So, if you don’t mind, I’m a busy spirit of darkness. Are we done?”
“We’re done. See you in a year minus three days.”
What a load off my cart. No debt until it three hundred sixty-two of my days passed. I still had time to do what needed to be done and pull off my plan. Heck, maybe I could screw Ralph out of another day by claiming it would have been a leap year if Earth hadn’t been destroyed. Well, I’d jump off that bridge if it ever came to it.
Next stop, Rameeka Blue Green. A non-stop voyage with in-flight drinks. Yowzers. I put down close, but so much so there’d be a chance of hitting anything important. Knowing Cala’s type as well as I did, I knew she wouldn’t move unless her house was swallowed by the ground below it. Even then, the stubborn old bat’d fight to pull it out kicking and cursing the whole time.
As I entered the clearing where the structures were, I saw something that didn’t make me happy, smile, or feel particularly safe. There stood Cala in all her golden-dragon shiny glory resting on her haunches. She was in a defensive posture. She had to know I was me, not EJ, right?
“Greetings, Cala. Is this an historic reenactment of the time you defeated the evil Jon staged for my entertainment?”
Crap, she didn’t reply.
I saw the kids, check that, adults standing way behind Cala. They did not seem afraid, nor did they seem pleased to see me. WTF? I stopped advanci
ng.
“Calfada-Joric, I am the good Jon Ryan. Don’t tell me you think I’m EJ? You’re a brindas, for heaven’s sake, come on.”
Her head rotated down and her eyes opened in a snap. “The good Jon Ryan is dead. He was lost thirteen years ago. You are the evil one returned to fool me by masquerading as the other one, so you might steal my students away. I did not allow it when first you came, and I will not allow it now. Go, and you may keep your worthless life. Remain, and it will be forfeit.”
“I’m not dead. I was lost in a parallel universe. Come on, ask me a question. I can show you my command prerogatives.” I extended the fibers as proof positive I was who I claimed to be.
“Those toys may have been acquired between then and now. They demonstrate only your determination, not your identity.”
Wow, she was one tough cookie.
Mirraya, or I should say the stunning woman she’d become, stepped forward quickly. “Wait, Cala, you did not say Jon Ryan was dead. You said he was gone. Those might be two very separate states of being.” Strong, confident, and smart. Wow, she was a keeper.
“I also told you to remain back and be silent. You are neither now.”
“Did you sense his return, Mastress?”
“I sensed something. But since it could not be the impossible, I disregarded it. I assumed it only meant a more determined Evil Jon was coming to pester me.”
“I sensed nothing, but then again, I did not feel him leave. You did not exclude the possibility that there might have been a door swinging both direction that he passed through. Can it be?”
“Most thing can be. The issue is what is real. No one returns from death. That is an inviolable rule.”
“But they can return from a parallel dimension.”
She hesitated, then spoke with the first wavering I’d heard in her voice. “Yes. But he owed a soul-marker to a very powerful evil. If this were the Jon you love and trust, he’s long since be in torment.”
“Why would Jon wait years longer than I enjoined him to for a visit to you children?”
The Fires Of Hell Page 13