The War of All Wars

by J. Eric Booker

  Trendon replied with a smile and a nod to his head, “Good, my young friend. Don’t ever judge a book just by its book-cover, unless the message inside you decrees that the person/s is diabolical, treacherous, evil, and powerful enough to hurt and kill others. When such is the case, it is our superhero duties, as Watchers to stop them—like the Vompareus.”

  Baltor said, “You’re right, captain—I see where you’re going with this.”

  “Tell me then, my apprentice.”

  “I—I have been guilty of becoming attracted to women who are beautiful on the outside, just by physical appearances and dress—instead of looking for the inner beauty and purpose…or the inner ugliness and purposelessness.”

  Just then, “the black waters outside” instantly disappeared, now replaced with “the cockpit’s silvery-interior”—Trendon set his helmet and joystick onto the seat, stood up, and said, “Exactly…follow me…”

  As he walked to the back of the room, the doors slid open, revealing the hallway beyond—Baltor followed.

  Once back in the engine room, he asked, “What are we doing back here? I thought you fixed the engine.”

  While tools worked on their own and dozens more parts of all shapes and sizes became simultaneously replaced, Trendon answered, “I fixed it so it would get us out of there and over to here. I still have to fix the majority of it…this very ship can not only move ten times the speed of light, yet it can literally fold the universe in half, so that we can travel from point A to point B in the snap of a finger, and if desired, even time travel. If you thought the wormhole I magically created was impressive, wait until you see this vehicle in action—equally impressive!”

  “I have a question?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why is it the aliens died and crashed this ship on earth if their technology was so superior?”

  “Ah, very good question, my apprentice. The thing that killed them happened to be the horrible pollution clogging Earth’s skies—they should have thought to check the air quality first. The only reason why these particular aliens didn’t was because they had visited this planet one-half century earlier, when it was nearly pollution-free. Their delicate bodies could not handle it; seconds after entering the atmosphere, they had an instant allergic reaction that caused their throats and eyes to swell, and thus they suffocated to death before they could retreat into space, which in turn caused the ship to crash land, and a fire to erupt in the cockpit. I could show you the video of it if you want to watch it…”

  Shaking his head, Baltor said, “No thanks…may I ask another question?”

  Trendon patiently said, “Go ahead.”

  “Why is it you still utilize magic to teleport around, instead of relying on this superior technology?”

  “Oh,” Trendon said with a light laugh, “I never said I didn’t use technology…but never did I tell you that I have, do, and will—prior to the present, you just weren’t ready to learn any of this information yet. Now you are ready to learn. And as you can clearly see now, I use both…magic and technology. Oh, just so you know, aliens like these do not have any magical powers whatsoever…we, originally of the humanoid race, do. Again, checks and balances…”

  Baltor said, “I’ve another question. Why is it the Vompareus don’t also use this technology?”

  Trendon answered, “Yet another example of checks and balances—Vompareus love magic as it’s chaotic in nature, but hate technology as it symbolizes the scientific order in the universe. Besides eliminating all life forms but their own, including extraterrestrial races of whom they hate, but are not yet powerful enough to attack, yet, another of their primary goals is to destroy any and all technological devices.”

  Baltor sang, “I see. Very interesting.”

  “Understand one more thing, Baltor. Even though we have this spaceship, this war we are about to face is going to be the most difficult war you and I have ever faced! On December 21st, 2012, we will be combating against billions and billions and billions of Vompareus—after they’ve opened the portal somewhere on this planet, which event could happen anytime now, as they soon will be in this solar system on that other planet.

  “Oh, and you alone will have to fight them on foot, as their magic is too strong for even this technology to breach. As for me, I will be flying this ship to their planet, in order to bomb it in space.”

  “Great,” Baltor said quite sarcastically, “I thought we were both going to be fighting them on this spaceship!”

  “Nope—not initially. Also, just so you know, I will only get one shot to destroy that other planet—so the second you have shut the portal from the other side, teleport back here into the cockpit of this ship, and I will fire.”

  Baltor gulped.

  “Relax…the power of their combined magics vs. us and our spaceship almost equals out in the end—good vs. evil. They have a 58% chance of success—we have a 42%. Understand?”

  After sucking in a deep breath and releasing, Baltor said, “Yes, my captain.”

  Only a few moments later, Trendon said with a nod, “There—that should do it. Follow me back into the cockpit.”

  “Yes, sir,” Baltor said, before doing so.

  Once there, he watched as Trendon telekinetically used a dozen scrub brushes, rags and even buckets filled with either water and/or soap, in order to scrub and wash off all the burnt areas on the walls, floors and ceiling.

  “Where did you get all those cleaning supplies?”

  “Oh, from my own magic pocket, Baltor.”

  “Ah, I see…”

  Fifteen minutes later, the walls and control panel sparkled clean…Trendon forthwith used telekinesis to have the tools and other cleaning items moved to the back of the ship.

  He then asked, “Much better, yes?”

  “Yes, captain. One more question for you. What weapons shall I be using for the first stage in our battle plan?”

  “Well…good question, which deserves another question. What have been your two favorite weapons to use so far in life?”

  After nodding his head, Baltor said, “Ah…my swords!”

  “Exactly…all right, now I have two more tasks to finish until this ship is once again operational, and I can begin to train you how to pilot it. In the meantime, follow me,” Trendon said, before he made his way for the hallway.

  “What two tasks?” Baltor asked as he followed.

  “First, I’ve got to remodel the weapons’ system, so it’ll be powerful enough to make that one-shot-planet-kill. And second, I’ve got to remodel the time-traveling device, just in case you fail to stop them on Earth.”

  “You think I’ll fail?”

  By this time, the two had entered into the far-right-side room near the end of the hallway.

  Inside this cube-shaped room with silver walls sat a strange-looking metallic box in the middle of the floor. One foot above this device hovered a ruby that possessed the shape of a princess-cut diamond, yet this jewel’s size happened to be ten-feet squared. Baltor estimated that it would cost nearly ten million rubles or parsecs. Finally, there stood another closed, silver doorway on the far side of this room, which door had a small lit-up box at waist-high.

  While more tools and parts telekinetically entered the room and moved about, so they could remove the silver plate from the contraption and work on the very sophisticated parts on the inside, Trendon answered, “Probably…nothing personal. But remember this motto: ‘even when you fail, try-try again.’”

  “Okay,” Baltor said. “Hey, I’ve got a question, and that question is: why are you rigging this weapon for only one single blast, instead of dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of shots for multiple targets?”

  Trendon answered, “Because…if I adapted it to make two shots, the blast would not be powerful enough to destroy that planet to smithereens to the point where the planet’s remaining fragments cause very little damage to Earth and her inhabitants. If all goes right, the worst that will happen is that the entire planet will be co
vered with a good foot of alien topsoil, which soil will benefit this earth in so many ways, including stabilizing it from earthquakes and fertilizing the crops.”

  “Ahhh…I see, my captain.”

  “I’m going to need another five minutes or so, and then I will be done repairing this device. Let me concentrate my fullest attentions now to this task, as it is very technical and brain-demanding…please?”

  “No problem.”

  They spent the next five minutes in complete silence, until the ruby began to glow, thanks to the mechanical lights directly underneath it that rotated around in tiny circles. In fact, as Baltor looked around, red prisms of light flashed here and there all over the walls and ceiling!

  A second later, Trendon swiped his hands together, before saying, “There…all I need to do is put back on the cover, and I’m done.”

  Baltor did not say anything, but he did nod one time.

  A handful of seconds later, the cover bolted itself onto the device—once so, the tools and spare parts flew out of the room.

  “Follow me…once I start working on the time-traveling device, I’m going to again need silence.”

  “Yes, captain.”

  They next went to the closed room on the other side of the hall—the door opened. In the middle of this circular-shaped room, twenty-five feet in diameter, stood a five-foot tall black pedestal.

  As for the ten-foot tall walls, they consisted of large, bluish-tinged/fluorescent light bulbs that ran vertically from floor to ceiling—horizontally on the floor and ceiling. Twelve of the forty-eight bulbs were nonoperational—more than half of these were cracked or shattered.

  More tools and parts zoomed into the room and toward the contraption, which tools first removed the exterior cover, before they operated on the blue-colored circuit boards on the inside. At the same time, thirty-six light bulbs flew into the room, while the burned out light bulbs separated themselves from their attachments and exited the room.

  As the new bulbs began to attach themselves into their sockets, they lit up—at the same time, Baltor observed as all of the old parts became separated from the interior of the device itself, before becoming replaced by new parts.

  A grand total of ten minutes passed before the cover was bolted back on—only a second later, the device became operational, evident by the mechanized-whooshing sound that surged from within.

  “There…well, Navigator, you ready to learn how to pilot this thing or what?”

  “Yes, captain!” Baltor replied with a whole lot of enthusiasm.

  “Follow me to the cockpit.”

  Without word, he followed.

  Once back inside, Trendon turned around and said, “Okay, take the joystick, put on the helmet, and sit in the navigator’s seat.”

  “Okay.”

  After he had completed his tasks, he heard Trendon say, “Good. Before I explain what each button or lever does on this joystick, of which there are only three, I will first tell you that you can simply maneuver this ship around by maneuvering your joystick-wielding hand around. If you want the ship to go down, lower your arm, and vice-versa. If you want the ship to go left or right, move your arm in the appropriate direction. Just like in some of those videogames you were playing back at the hotel.”

  While nodding his head, Baltor replied, “Okay—understood.”

  “Now, the silver lever nearest your thumb will activate the light speed—up to a grand total of ten times—ten times the speed of light is the fastest this thing will move. By clicking back on the silver lever, your speed will diminish per click—up to a grand total of eleven times, which will put the ship in reverse. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trendon next instructed, “Even the first push of this very button forward will send chills up-and-down your back the first time you move at light-speed. Do not try to manually navigate your way around for anything faster than five times the speed of light, but have your course pre-plotted, which I’m about to explain to you in a little bit. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trendon next explained, “This leads me to the white button nearest your pinky. By pushing it down one time and releasing it, it will open up the computer’s main menu inside your goggles. By pushing it one time again, it will close the window inside your goggles. Push it one time now.”

  Baltor did—in the next moment he saw an illuminated menu on the right eye goggle itself, which menu had seven options. One, activate engine; two, activate anti-gravity; three; activate invisibility; four, activate weapons; five, activate shields; six, activate time travel; seven, plot out course across the universal maps.

  “As you can see,” Trendon explained, “the options in this menu are self-explanatory. Push the white button again.”

  Baltor did—the menu disappeared.

  “Finally yet most importantly,” Trendon added with the point of his index finger, “the red button closest to your index finger is the main trigger button, for firing the laser blasters. Typically you can get around a thousand blasts before the ruby has to be replaced, which is the ammo—now it’s set for one blast, so don’t ever push that button, not even once. Okay?”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “Oh, just so you know, we do have one more ruby, stored in the large metallic box located in the closet in the weapon’s room. That one shall be used for the next Vompareus-inhabited planet. After this planet is destroyed, we will have to locate one final ruby in the universe, in order to blow up the final planet they’ve conquered—somewhere along the way, we will find the rod. After that, we make our way for the Realm of Darkness. Got it?”

  “Got it…”

  “Okay,” Trendon said, “Go ahead and open up the map—following that, activate just the engine, allow one minute’s time to pass in order to warm it up, and then you can activate the anti-gravity, shields and the invisibility at the same time.”

  One minute and one second later, all was said and done, including Trendon being buckled into his seat.

  He then ordered, “Go ahead and bring us up into space at Mach-1—don’t forget to be careful. Remember—this is not a simulation. Even though we have shields, if we smack into anything going faster than Mach-9, we will cause structural damage, especially to whatever we hit…and trust me, we don’t want to give our presence away to anyone just yet.”

  “Yes, captain,” Baltor replied, just before he extended up his joystick-wielding hand and arm—the silvery walls once again disappeared, revealing the pitch-black waters outside.

  The one reason why Baltor knew they were rising at all…they had already exited the cavern, continuously rising straight up through the waters at an incredible speed.

  Only a handful of seconds later, they broke the plane of water, continuing to rise higher and higher through the cloudless skies.

  Not even ten seconds later, they had broken the plane of the atmosphere, now rising higher and higher through outer space—in the next moment, Trendon ordered, “Go ahead and fly the ship and have some fun…but be careful of all the electronic satellites floating in space all around this planet.”

  “Yes, captain,” Baltor said, just before he did—first he began to direct the ship toward the half-lit moon that lay on the far side of the planet, about a million and four thousand miles away. Of course, he navigated around twelve satellites along the way, all of which were cellular phone/internet satellites, except for the seventh satellite. A small space station orbited, with two astronauts inside. Overall, the journey took four minutes and fifteen seconds, and Baltor had navigated like a pro!

  “Technology is as wonderful as magic, is it not, my apprentice?” Trendon asked.

  While nodding his head up and down, Baltor answered with a quickened breath, heartbeat and adrenaline, “Yes…it is, captain!”

  Trendon said, “That is our check-and-balances in the game, which gives us the 42% chance of success—we will be using both technology and magic as our allies. And I hope and pray, we will win!”
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  “Me too.”

  Just then, they began to near a yellowy-orange planet about a quarter of a million miles away, which had a just-as-colorful sphere wrapped around it—Baltor remembered seeing this planet on their way to Earth.

  Trendon said, “That planet is called Saturn, which is another name for one of the Roman gods. In fact, all of the planets of this solar system are named after Roman deities—the Mayans had different names for these planets.”

  After taking a deep breath, he went on to explain, “Actually, these visiting deities weren’t deities at all, but human extra-terrestrials who wanted to assist with the next stage in human evolution. Some even procreated with the humans of this planet, who bore children who later bore their own children, and so on and so on—a few still survive to date, though none know their ancestors’ otherworld origins. The Hebrews called this same group, ‘The Angelic Watchers,’ although this is not what we are, for we cannot physically procreate nor are we angels, as you well know.”

  Just then they passed by a far-larger planet, bearing similar colors like Saturn, but the skies looked cloudy, stormy and full of lightning bolts, especially “in the eye of the storm” near the middle! It had six moons orbiting it.

  Trendon revealed, “This planet is Jupiter—the patron of all the deities, otherwise known by Greek mythology as Zeus. I’m sure you learned all there was to know about him and the other gods while in Rome. Correct?”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “There is one more planet I want to go check out—see the gray-colored-planet-with-the-slight-blue-aura over there?”

  “Yeah.”

  Trendon ordered, “Make for it at Warp-2.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” he said. After pointing the joystick straight for it, the ship began to move that direction. One second later, he flipped the lever forward, which shot them to Warp-1!

  Trendon was right, for Baltor felt goose bumps surging up and down his back, as well his arms—exhilarating to say the least!

  Feeling the adrenaline pumping throughout his veins, he clicked forward the lever but one more time. The planet, which had been just a tiny speck as it hovered billions upon billions of miles away…was almost on top of them seconds later. Baltor clicked back on the same lever twice, back to back, so they did not accidentally crash into the planet!