Reaper's Crossroad

by Timothy Ellis

  "Guinevere will back this up?"

  "Ask her."

  I popped up a hollo everyone could see, and it took the shape of Guinevere. She looked surprised for a moment, but quickly smiled at the one I was coming to think of as their leader.

  "How do our people on this human's station?"

  "They do well Peeinnk. Better than well in fact. A lot of them were wounded, and they were treated, fed, and clothed for free. Some of them are working now, using their specialties to help where they can. The others are waiting for us to resolve the core issues."

  "Do we stay or do we go?"

  "That one most of all. These men are here to help you."

  "How can you help? More than you already have I mean?"

  I looked at Thorn.

  "How many are you?" he asked.

  "Not sure. Haven't counted in a few years now. Lost a lot of good people when the plants attacked suddenly a few weeks back. Anyone not in a city at the time died very quickly. The station took a beating, but a ship made it out with Arthur. Three days later, the Trixone came back and battered it into junk. Fifty thousand dead right then. Another ten thousand dead on other stations in the system. Few more on the trader ships they destroyed."

  "Twenty million," said a voice towards the back.

  "Nearer thirty," amended another. "Not all the farmers were lost. Just those who stood and fought. Those who ran, mostly made it into a city before the gates were closed."

  I looked at Thorn. The decision was more than just about saving people. It was political as well. If he offered up one of his planets, he was putting an alien species smack bang in the middle of his people, who were already divided into three groups.

  "Do you want to stay here and fight?" I asked. "Or would you flee if you were able to?"

  "Flee," said yet another voice, and there were noises of agreement from around the room.

  "Flee where?" asked Peeinnk.

  Not how I noticed, but where.

  Thorn looked over at a wall with an unused flat screen on it, and an oval shape appeared, which cleared to show meadow as far as the eye could see, ending in mountains in the distance. Everywhere was a riot of colours from many different types of plants and flowers. A bird swooped down into the grass, and rose back up with some sort of rodent in its talons. A short way away, a group of animals were eating the grass and flowers. They stopped, and seemed to be looking at us.

  "Is that real?"

  "Very real. The planet can support several billion beings, but there is nothing there but raw materials.

  "All we need," said the first voice from the back. "We are great builders. We can build anything from nothing!"

  There was a titter of laughter at this, but most of the faces said this was exactly what they were.

  "That we are," said Peeinnk. "Look at this city. We built walls not even the Trixone can breach."

  This seemed to be true, but it seemed the Trixone hadn't bombarded them from orbit. The walls might have stood, but without a shield, everything inside would have been destroyed. But looking at them, I had my doubts about it. They seemed very sure of themselves.

  "You want to go there?" I asked. "You'll be in space belonging to humans, with them on three sides of you. And while there is a sort of alliance in effect at the moment, the Keerah are determined to do what the Trixone are doing here. You might be swapping one threat for a different one."

  "Keerah?"

  "Tigers," I said. "Big tigers."

  I pulled up another hollo screen, this time showing Hobbes slashing his way through Trixone.

  "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," muttered someone.

  "Not in this case. Hobbes there is only one of them. And he is outcast from his people."

  "One outcast, means more are possible."

  "I'll give you that, although Hobbes is unique, but so far we’ve been too busy fighting to find out."

  He looked around the room, and saw nothing but nods. Thorn dropped the rift he'd been holding open, and there were sighs from a lot of them. All eyes went to Thorn.

  "I'll need to ask some leaders if they'll allow it," he said, and promptly vanished.

  Twenty Three

  A few moments later he reappeared.

  Prime Minister Shanto was with him, and he vanished again before her surprised look made it across her whole face. He was back another few moments later with Council Leader Tranallo. He shook his head as if he was used to this now, but considered it his lot in life to put up with it.

  Thorn made the introductions, and explained the situation to them. I popped up the navmap of where their areas of space intersected with Thorn's, although the actual join was in Shanto's jurisdiction. All the same, the planet I highlighted was roughly in the middle.

  Guinevere was suddenly standing there as well, much to her surprise, and she was invited to join the four leaders in discussions in another room. I found myself left behind with all remaining eyes on me. When I looked around them all, they suddenly went back to whatever they were doing before we arrived.

  I opened a rift, and stepped back onto my bridge. Angel opened an eye, twitched a whisker, and closed the eye again.

  Not much had changed. Even with the extra troops, we were spread thin around all the cities, and while the main city had more of the basic troops, it also had the least decent weapons spread. Many of them were using pulse rifles, and so a high degree of the pulses were missing, or not penetrating armour the first time. We were making progress, but it was going to be slow again. And without shields, some of the plants were still making it to the walls, and keeping the defenders busy.

  Back in Crossroad, the battles continued unabated. There was debris on the down jump lane on our side again. The approaches to Karn and Kelewan were clear, but the Keerah were building up again at both ends of Thorn's space.

  Something caught my eye, and I zoomed in on the jump point Jen's Chariot was guarding. There was a station being built off the jump lane, and I was pretty sure it was one of our battlestations. Looked like Bob and Jane had figured it easier to use the station rift system to move station parts through, and assemble them there. And yes, there were station tugs going in both directions.

  Now I knew what to look for, I found the same thing going on at the other end of Thorn's space as well, and in Kelewan. The race was now on to see if the stations were completed first, or the local pest was going to attack again first. I told Jane to keep me up to date. I left the two rifts in place for Karn and Kelewan, so the tugs could go through them direct to the jump points, and removed the other two which were no longer needed.

  I wondered where Jane's primary actually was. It wasn’t like her to not be on the bridge. Her combat suit didn’t have her in it, just acted as an extension of herself, so she shouldn’t have been down on the planet. I suddenly had one of those thoughts you first dismiss, and then check on. Sure enough, my own combat suit was missing from its charge bay.

  "Jane?"

  "Jon?"

  "If I was to ask where you were, would I regret it?"

  "No."

  "Where are you?"

  "You know damned well where I am."

  "In my combat suit, running amok down on the planet."

  "Not running amok. Leading two of the infantry platoons."

  "As I said, running amok."

  She laughed.

  "Any reason why you're in my combat suit? You can run a dozen of them remotely."

  "I am. But where's the fun in not being hands on?"

  I sighed.

  "Do you know where Tanith is?"

  The cam view down from Custer showed a red dot.

  "Thanks."

  I put a rift in front of him, and the next time he stepped forward, he appeared on the bridge. He hastily stopped whatever he was about to cast.

  "Some warning would be nice," he said, somewhat sarcastically.

  I waved him to a chair. He sat, and swiveled to face me, looking like he was actually glad to be sitting down.
>
  "How do you put a shield around yourself?"

  "Err, I just do?"

  "Seriously."

  "It's something we get taught. If you can't do a shield, you're useless for battle magic, as someone else has to protect you."

  "Can you teach me?"

  He considered for all of two seconds.

  "I doubt it. You're not a magician."

  I sighed. I sort of knew that.

  "Okay, how about I supply you some power for doing some big shields?"

  His eyes lit up.

  "How big?"

  "Around the cities."

  "Around them? Or a dome completely over them?"

  "What's easier?"

  "Dome probably, but it would use more energy since its covering more area. Depends on what it's protecting from as well. If you’re protecting from orbital bombardment, a dome is the only way to go. Here though, we probably could just put a circle of shield wall around the outside of the city wall, high enough for the plants to not be able to get over."

  "Can you make it destructive if touched?"

  "Sure, but uses more energy. Especially if hit all around it at the same time, which it currently would be." He paused, looking confused. "Why isn’t Thorn doing this?"

  "He's in a meeting."

  "Of course he is. Still, I get to play with the big stick for once."

  He was grinning. I frowned. The grin downgraded to a smile. I rose, stepped over to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder, sharing the power of the sceptre with him. He shivered.

  "What a rush!"

  "Let's start with the capital city."

  He swiveled around to look at the cam view from Custer. Together we checked for anyone near the wall we didn’t want to get fried, but only found plants.

  "So all around outside the wall, say two meters from the base of the wall, and two meters high?"

  This would leave a ring of one or two plants all around the wall, and those ones currently climbing it, to be dealt with by the wall defenders.

  "Let's try it. Capital first."

  He concentrated, and I could feel the movement of energy towards intent, almost as if I was reading his mind. How far from the wall, surrounding the whole wall, how high, effect when touched, no effect on soil underneath, duration until removed. And suddenly I could see a shimmering field around the city wall, from the Custer cam I’d been using to see down. It didn’t look very thick, but presumably it didn’t need to.

  Immediately there was a flare around the whole shield, as plants walked into it, and vanished. Inside the shield, almost half of the plants saw what was happening, and tried to fire into the shield. It ate their fire, and when they stepped too close, ate them as well.

  "Do we need to hold that?"

  "No. It's self-sustaining now. If it runs long enough we'll start feeling tired though. Maybe sooner than later given the rate it's being hit at the moment." He paused. "Actually, without you, I couldn't keep this up for more than a few minutes."

  I didn’t feel a thing. If anything, the energy flowing from the sceptre was making me feel wonderful, in terms of the darkness I’d been feeling was now lifting, being replaced by just general wonderful. Addictive is what they'd said. Maybe I was feeling the first signs of that. Something to think about.

  I opened team coms.

  "Who's in charge around the capital city?"

  "Me," said BA. "What do you need boss?"

  "Fall back to the drop ships and Bonko's Club, in an orderly fashion."

  "Something up your sleeve boss?"

  "Yes. You'll see it as it happens. Move now."

  BA started barking orders. Platoons started to disengage, rear guarded by combat droids. I watched them moving back, being followed by Trixone on the outer ranks, while the rest continued on towards the wall. With them half way back to the dropship ring, I looked at Tanith again.

  "Let's expand the shield outwards, moving it away from the city."

  Again I followed the application of his intent, and the energy flowing towards it. On the screen, I could see the shield begin to move outward, slowly. The vaporizing of plants quickened.

  "Speed it up."

  The shield sped up.

  "Move it people," yelled BA. "Sprint!"

  I pulled the screen out into three dee, and had Jane change the shield line to red, and all our people to blue. I moved it so Tanith and I were actually looking down on it.

  The blue dots were moving rapidly, but so too was the red line. Tanith was sweating now, looking visibly apprehensive. I waited. BA roared at her troops.

  And finally someone stopped moving, now obviously down.

  "Stop."

  Tanith fainted. But the red line had stopped in time, and then vanished.

  "BA, you can stop running now. Clean up what's left."

  Jeeves was beside me suddenly, checking on Tanith.

  "Right boss."

  She started bellowing orders again. All the dots stopped, reversed, and the killing commenced again, only with only a fraction of the enemy left. Where the shield had crossed, the ground was a churned up wasteland.

  "He's fine my lord. Shall I take him to quarters?"

  "Yes please."

  Jeeves lifted Tanith like he weighed nothing, and left the bridge.

  Twenty Four

  I shifted focus to the next nearest city.

  Using the same intent as Tanith had, a shield appeared around the walls.

  "Was that you boss?" asked Amanda.

  "Yes. Fall back please."

  Amanda started barking orders, and her teams and combat droids began running back the way they'd come. A group of mages vanished, and reappeared next to the nearest dropship. I waited. The combat suits could run faster than normal troops, so I didn't have to wait as long this time. No-one fell either.

  When they were far enough away, I concentrated on distances, and a second shield appeared just behind the last combat droid. I started moving both shields towards each other, one getting bigger, the other getting smaller. I sped it up, and when there was only a few meters between them, I removed the one heading in, leaving the remaining plants for the shield going out. When only churned up dirt remained, I removed that one as well.

  Amanda gave orders for cleaning up the few remaining plants, and I moved onto the next city, where Aleesha was in charge.

  It took several hours all up, but it worked the same way for each city, with me getting faster each time. By the time I was finished I’d begun to feel the effects on me. I needed a nap.

  I told Jane to wake me when I was needed again, took myself off to my bed, and flaked straight out.

  I dreamed I was running for my life, a curtain of energy right behind me. I tripped and sprawled forward, going down heavily, and rolling over my left side, something jabbing me in the side, and causing me to cry out in pain.

  I stood over myself, as if looking down on me from an out of body experience.

  Except it wasn’t me.

  It was Aline.

  I desperately tried to drag her to her feet, but I was insubstantial, and my hands passed straight through her.

  The curtain ran up her body, and passed her, her face and neck vanishing, the suit remaining for a few seconds more, before it too vanished.

  I woke up screaming.

  "Jeez Jon! What the fuck was that for?"

  Aline was beside me, and I grabbed hold of her and hugged as tightly as I could. I heard more than saw the twins race in the door, and they hugged the both of us. Me in fatigues, the three girls naked. I don’t know how long we stayed like that.

  When I woke up, I was alone.

  "The troops are on their way back," said Jeeves, scaring the crap out of me.

  He put a drink on the bedside table, and left me to get a grip. I needed the facilities in a hurry, and ended up sitting in the shower, naked but for a belt, just letting water flow all over me.

  Aline found me still in there.

  "You okay Jon?"

  "
No."

  "Want to talk about it?"

  "Not really. Bad dream."

  "About me?"

  I looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

  "Yes."

  "Well it didn't happen."

  "What didn't happen?"

  "Whatever happened."

  "When?"

  "In your dream."

  "Oh that."

  "Jon?"

  "Yes?"

  "Whatever you did, you shouldn’t have."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it seems to have knocked the crap out of you."

  I blinked a few times, and looked around for brown colour which wasn’t supposed to be there. Not finding any, I looked back up at her. She'd shifted her suit to a belt, and was shucking her underwear. She came into the water, washed quickly, pulled me to my feet, washed me, turned the water off, pulled me out of the shower, and dried us both.

  Back in the bedroom, she pushed me back onto the bed.

  I woke up again, half off the bed this time, with Aline sound asleep next to me. Angel was curled up in her normal position, head on my pillow.

  I sighed quietly, repositioned myself, and went back to sleep.

  Twenty Five

  The following morning I found Jane back in her usual place on the bridge.

  She gave me a worried look, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure how much of last night had been dreams, and what was real, but enough must have been real for her to have noticed. And I guess the twins probably knew exactly how much was dreams, and might have told her.

  I busied myself catching up.

  There were now two rifts outside the main gates of each city, each wide enough for some fairly large looking transports to pass through each way. A line of people was stepping through the left side outgoing rift, making sure they didn’t get in the way of the trucks. Only empty trucks were coming back.

  The comnavsat over the world Thorn and I had chosen was in synchronous orbit of the other end of the rifts, and I could see all of the rifts were in a wide line across a large plain. Groups of mages were erecting temporary accommodation well away from the rifts. Around the outside, a loose ring of combat droids was acting as a defense line.