“If I am a conqueror then I am a reluctant one, my dear,” Alexander told her. “The fact that the Alliance planned to invade Terran space upon the outcome of the Chem Ascension spurred this action, not my desire for conquest. The space we have opened to us now is as large as we need for the time being. From what I know so far the Scythians were hardly interested in the worlds within their space, other than those habitable planets along their trade routes. Even then their scientific studies of those systems are minimal. We have much to do in the next century or two, and the administration of additional worlds or empires for that matter is purely impractical. I cannot get anyone in the Alliance to listen to that skein of philosophy, though. They have an image of Alexander ingrained in their minds, and nothing I can do will change that. It is that image which causes them to mass at my borders, ready for invasion and war. I cannot beat back their invasion. Therefore, I must attack, and attack as Alexander. It seems to me, my dear, that the only way I can protect Terra is to make the fears of the galaxy come true, and conquer it. So be it! If that is what they demand, that is what Alexander will provide!”
“I wonder, my dear Alexander, when the galaxy lies at your feet, as it no doubt will, if your appetite will be quite satisfied. Can Chem remain free and sovereign in Alexander’s galaxy?” That old glint of fear tainted Nazeera’s blue eyes, a memory, perhaps, of her first encounter with Alexander and the threat of Terra.
Alexander smiled, and all her fears melted, “My dear Nazeera, I have conquered all of Chem that matters to me: your heart.” With that said he approached her with obvious intent.
“There will be none of that, Alexander, Overlord of the Terran Empire!” Nazeera ordered, stopping his amorous advance. She pointed him to the dresser where he’d laid out his clothes the night before. “Get dressed. You have a golf game to play!”
CHAPTER 2
Captain Dolgas Set of the Syraptose cruiser Kolgar awakened grudgingly to the buzzer in his cabin. Sleep came with difficulty in these days of tension and he relished what little he could get without interruption. Over the past galactic decant a chaotic mass of communiqués flooded the ethernet as the Alliance fleets massed for the offensive on the Terran Empire and their Overlord, Alexander. Set had no illusions but that his civilization was in peril, and though he viewed the invasion of Terran space with disquiet, he drew comfort from the holographic images of his family that glowed from the tiny bulkhead niche beside him. He said a quiet good morning to the image of his wife, a practice he’d followed for as long as he could remember, and then hit his comm switch.
“What is it, another communiqué from headquarters?”
“No, Captain we’ve picked up a superluminal signature on the long range scanners,” the officer answered.
“Commander, there are twelve different squadrons enroute to the rendezvous from this sector alone, are you certain it’s not one of those?” Set replied in weary exasperation, this was the third time this night he’d been awakened.
“Fairly certain, Captain,” the Commander responded. “This is a very large signature, and the projected course is not towards the rendezvous coordinates.”
“Where are they going?” Set asked wearily.
“Mira Prime, Captain: they are directly enroute to our Homeworld.”
The cold withering grip of fear clutched his stomach.
“Have the squadron drop out of superluminal, and tie in all sensors to the signature. Keep the shields down; if these are hostiles we can’t afford to let them see us. I’ll be right there!” He cursed himself in his own fear. Certainly Alexander had proven himself to be an astute general; one did not defeat the Chem through luck, but could even he move so fast, and so daringly? That all depended on his response to the Alliance threat, which Set admitted to himself, was the most public event in the galaxy. The Alliance strategy, as no doubt Alexander knew full well, was quite simply to overwhelm the Terran fleet with numbers. The Syraptose would attack Terran space simultaneously with the Quotterim-Bael fleets, and the Golkos-Seer’koh fleets. Alexander, theoretically, could not be everywhere at once, and by attacking from three different sectors simultaneously he could not concentrate his forces on one opponent without losing territory, time and position to the other attacking contingents. If he thinned his forces enough to engage two, or even all three strike arms, then he risked defeat. A significant defeat of even one of his defending fleets would mean the war was lost; but what choice did Alexander have? That was the question which bothered Set, and now, on his very own sensors, was the possible answer. Could the sensor signature be a Terran fleet? Could such an act of bravado, and risk, be possible? Set didn’t know the answer, but he feared he knew it.
When Set arrived on the bridge he saw that every one of his ten ships was gathered around the Kolgar. Beyond his squadron the sensors revealed a shadowy blur amidst the stars: a superluminal signature. The sensors picked up the distortions in the space-time continuum caused by the superluminal signature, but there was little more specific information to be gained. They could compute speed, course and an estimate of the size or number of ships by the characteristics of the distortion, but little else. This limitation on sensing superluminal targets was true whether the sensing ships were themselves at superluminal or travelling at less than the speed of light. The data was much better the slower the observer was travelling, however, as its own distortion pattern increased exponentially with speed, thus diminishing the ability to receive signals. Sitting in space, silent and almost completely motionless the Syraptose ships were in the best possible position to get a detailed sensor signature. The Captain made his way over to the sensor board and viewed the raw data as it came through.
The Commander approached him, reporting, “Course remains as briefed, towards the Homeworld, at a speed of five point seven-three. We are currently twenty-one parsecs from Mira, and thirty parsecs within Syraptose space. Whoever it is they are deep within our territory, and they’ve been here for some time. At their current speed they would enter orbit around Mira in one point two decants.”
“Ship count?” Captain Set asked.
“Inconclusive,” the Commander answered, “The energy signature of the disturbance remains fairly constant, but the volume changes with great variability. We’re running a sensor diagnostic at this time.”
“What does the energy signature suggest, taken by itself,” the Captain asked sternly.
“It would take a body of between one hundred and three hundred ships to make that signature,” the Commander replied.
Captain Set raised his hands to his temples and rubbed them vigorously. “Very well, maintain strict ethernet silence. If they observe us none of us will ever see home again. They’ll have a hard time picking us up through their own distortion, though. Meanwhile we’ll watch them pass by and record them in our sensor logs. When they’re out of range we’ll relay our findings to the Homeworld. Commander, just to be on the safe side I want you to launch a relay probe with our logs. Set it with a one decurn delay.”
“Yes sir!” The Commander answered returning to her station.
“Let’s hope this is not what I know it is,” the Captain muttered, returning gloomily to his chair.
The Commander took a seat at her station and programmed the relay probe. After the Kolgar’s data logs were loaded she took one of the sensor screens to track the probe and launched it. A slight surge of relief replaced her general malaise as she watched the small metallic sphere jet into space following a curving path away from the squadron. When it was clear of the last ship she reached for the board, intending to switch the sensor from the probe back to the superluminal signature. Suddenly she froze. As the sensor followed the tiny probe the panning camera suddenly revealed a starry background filled with a swarm of menacing silver-white ships. The monstrous shapes and the great size of the vessels left no doubt in the Commander’s mind as to what she saw, but for an instant the breath stopped in her lungs. A warning cry finally erupted from her throat.
The forty ships of the two Terran squadrons which dropped out of superluminal and stalked the Syraptose overwhelmed the unfortunate aliens in a single surprise broadside. So swift and furious was the assault that no ethernet messages escaped from the doomed ships. After the first salvo each ship was left drifting and powerless, but the Terrans continued to fire. Under the concentrated blaster fire from the huge battleship and cruiser projectors the unshielded hulks were vaporized in a matter of minutes. Then, like ghosts in space, the ships turned and disappeared over the superluminal horizon. One vessel remained: a destroyer. She retraced the Terran’s path, her guns spitting out fire at vagrant pieces of metal. She continued this practice for a quarter of an hour, until she ran across a small silver sphere. With one final blast she vaporized the ball, and then she disappeared. The cloud of gas and minute particles slowly expanded and cooled. There was nothing else to tell an observer that six thousand Syraptose and their eleven warships ever existed.
CHAPTER 3
The heavy stillness of the buzzing English atmosphere belied the tension in the air. Alexander was on Terra again for the first time since the Scythians abducted him and set into motion an epic saga of events which forever changed the face of the galaxy. It should have been a joyous homecoming for the newly married and widely adulated Terran Overlord, but the twisted consternation on his impassioned face gave evidence for a completely different state of mind. His eyes, glaring brightly as green jewels in the sunlight, wrapped within brows furrowed with forced concentration, followed their prey with trepidation, but then suddenly bloomed wide with hope. Alexander’s face lightened with the new evidence of some surprising deliverance, but just as suddenly the fiery stare was as filled with violence as determined as any during his time on Pantixnia. Alexander leapt as if shot, and instead of the relaxing whisper of the warm spring air amidst the grass the Overlord treated those within hearing to a half strangled series of vehement curses. After a moment his temper abated and he stood silently fuming. The realization that his chip had rolled to within feet of the pin only to stop and return to the “Valley of Sin” whence it came struck him as completely as if he’d been informed that the Alliance Fleets were now entering Terran orbit.
“I don’t believe it!” The knicker-clad Overlord told the assembled host. “I struck the blasted thing as hard as I dared! How many times did you mow this green this morning—twelve? That’s a fine way to treat the Overlord of the Terran Empire!”
“That’s what happens when you leave the ball below the pin,” the club professional told Alexander with a wry smile.
“There’s no way to get it within ten yards of the pin from here,” Alexander complained.
“Sure there is,” the golfer explained, “Rocca did it. You just need to pray and take your medicine!”
“Right,” Alexander grimaced, and then glancing at the golfer asked, “Mulligan?”
“Not a chance,” the professional told him pointing to where he began this latest adventure, “back down you go, Mr. Overlord.”
As Alexander trudged despondently into the depths of Saint Andrews famous, and treacherous, eighteenth greenside chasm, his spouse watched him with somewhat strained interest. At length she turned to Admiral Augesburcke, who, like herself, stood somewhat off to the side watching the spectacle of Alexander’s golf game. With raised brow the beautiful Chem Elder mentioned, “This custom of the Honeymoon is exceedingly strange, Admiral. Is there some significance to this ritual of male sport and female spectatorship? I cannot help but wonder if there is some innate meaning to this game of golf which I do not grasp. Does the witnessing of one’s male spouse struggling with this seemingly simple game normally produce a sexual arousal in Terran females? If so I fear I shall disappoint my husband tonight!”
“What, you mean you do not find this stimulating?” the Admiral asked in mock surprise. “Believe me, Nazeera, the bond between the Terran male and the game of golf is ancient in the extreme!”
“I am afraid I do not have the necessary emotions involved,” lamented Nazeera. “Maybe it is Alexander’s lack of success which contributes to my apathy. The other Terran is scoring considerably quicker than my Alexander, and with fewer strokes of his mace.”
“Ah, but that is superficial. The true art in the game, Elder, is how creatively you get your ball into the hole and how much of the course you use in the process,” Admiral Augesburcke told her. “In that greater aspect Alexander is showing his usual brilliance.”
“I see,” Nazeera replied, and then asking, “but is not the other Terran a professional at this game? He does not seem to be as adept at this, this creativity, as Alexander.”
“I’m certain he’s just being polite,” Augesburcke smiled.
“Ah, finally something about this that I understand,” Nazeera grimaced. Her joy swiftly turned to anger, however, as she bumped into the small Scythian who was part of Alexander’s entourage. The Scythian almost squealed in fright, scuttling away only to run up against one of Nazeera’s Chem officer’s. The warrior growled with distaste at the small being, who finally succeeded in retreating to the relative safety of its golf cart. The Chem Elder snorted in irritation at the very presence of what she and her people considered the weakest and most deceptive of the Galactics. The Scythian knew this quite well, though it could not read the Chem’s thoughts. Scythian’s shared a common telepathic link, and though this Scythian lived and breathed it had, in a sense, experienced in the most intimate manner the violent death of its two kinsmen at the hands of the Chem. Though the event was now distanced with the enormity of Galactic change the boarding of the Scythian experimentation ship, within which a previously unknown Terran named Alexander was captive, and the subsequent slaying of the crew by the Chem were foremost in the Scythian consciousness. An emotionally stable people they were unprepared for the wrenching repercussions of that moment, and the nature of it stayed with each Scythian as a fresh wound.
“Really, I cannot imagine why Alexander allows a Scythian to dangle at his side like this,” Nazeera growled aloud with unabashed repugnance. “I could never forgive the affront, to myself or my people, for the kicellia of medical experimentation. Can the dismantling of their empire be repayment enough?”
Nazeera turned her attention back to Alexander, attempting to control her Chem temper. She watched Alexander pitch another delicate shot to the green, allowing the ball to roll to a stop just beyond the pin this time, and then put it in. All in all her husband seemed satisfied with the play, despite his prior protestations. He shook hands with his playing partners, thanking them for their patience and sportsmanship, and he gave her a kiss as they finally made their way off the course.
The strained expression on Nazeera’s beautiful features was not lost on Alexander. “Never fear, my dear, we’re done for the day! All that remains is the traditional pint in the clubhouse. That, I think you’ll enjoy somewhat more. I am sorry about this trip, but I’m told that Alexander is a necessary part of the government. Still, I need a change of pace. That’s why this conference is being held here on the course.” Alexander’s attention was suddenly drawn from the Chem Elder by a tap on the arm. The professional drew the Overlord’s gaze to the throng of national, ethnic and religious leaders who in an attempt to follow Alexander to the clubhouse were now walking across the fabled green.
“Ladies and gentlemen if you please!” Alexander erupted, rushing towards the two score persons who now stopped in a muddle of confusion. “Off the green! Off the green! Have you no respect? Now, please keep to the gallery path, it is clearly marked!”
The Pope, riding in an electric cart addressed the Overlord with hardly to
be restrained testiness. “My dear Alexander, I am reputed to be a patient man, but tromping around a golf course for an afternoon without resolution to the issues for which we came here is, frankly, trying that patience. My time is not my own. I assume I speak for my colleagues as well as myself when I say that we expected something somewhat different in our audience from you. I should also say that we are unaccustomed to waiting upon a dignitary in such an unassuming position, especially with such weighty issues upon our shoulders. We recognize the brevity for which you have to address our concerns, but let me remind you of the gravity of the issue. Once begun the emigration of humanity to the stars cannot be recalled. We have one chance, and one opportunity to make a choice concerning the future course of humanity. I suggest we treat it with the requisite gravity.”
Alexander leaned upon his putter. The image of the Terran Overlord in such a casual position, garbed in knickers no less, was almost comical; but the expression on the Overlord’s brow dared any of the attending dignitaries to find humor in it. “Holy Father, I can empathize with you and your colleagues in your concern over the emigration issue. I assure you it is an important issue in my mind as well. There is, however, something of prime importance which you must understand, and that is why we are here today, at Royal Saint Andrews, and not in New York, Geneva, Jerusalem or another more politically correct locale. We are here because I have had a rather taxing agenda as of late, what with saving the world and all, and I need a short vacation. I have desired throughout all of my adult days to play this course, and now I have the power, if not the skill, to do so. Is that selfish, to put you out of a comfortable conference room with the dignity and reverence befitting your petitions? Maybe, but I wanted to see Saint Andrews, and I wanted you to see Saint Andrews, a storied site of peaceful Terran competition, one last time because it may not be here for much longer. That in itself would be a tragedy, but what is worse, in my mind, is the possibility that it may survive but with no free Terrans to play it.
Alexander Galaxus: The Complete Alexander Galaxus Trilogy Page 57
