The Sword of Gabriel: Ten Days on Earth

by Tom Holloway

  Anna looks at me, laughs, and says, “That sounds good. And really, you have a law firm?”

  I laugh and say, “You never know when you’ll need a good lawyer.”

  I realize Anna has now seen most of the ship. To my pleasure she has been interested in most of it. One area she was most curious about was in the armament storage locker. The dog soldier suits—that’s what I call them—are stored there along with our normal armored suits. We go back and look at them again. They do look strange. She asks about them, and she is not unfounded in saying they look like werewolves. They are frightening even hung up, with no one in them.

  I respond, “Anna, you’re right. They really do look like Earth movie fantasy werewolves, and there are a hundred of these armored suits. When you wear them you look like a huge vicious dog or a wolf that can stand up, or maybe like a massive Hollywood werewolf, and for good reason. They are designed as camouflage for what they really are—a serious deadly weapon—when worn by a soldier. The soldier is completely immersed in the suit when he enters it from the back. The suits are actually copies of a ferocious animal called a hiyack on an off-world moon, in a solar system in another galaxy. Hiyacks just happen to look like werewolves.”

  “The flexible synthetic suit has an armored hide that is covered with short brown-red fur, and it is impenetrable, as it has a sophisticated security shield. The suit provides powerful synthetic muscles that attach, adding to the soldier’s strength, and jet propulsion drives for short low-altitude flights. It has wonderful and accurate laser guns positioned on the forehead, shooting wherever you look. It protects you from all weather, has a communications package, and lets you run upright on two legs or, for increasing speed, on all fours with a maximum speed of 145 miles an hour, with the legs in an extended mode, making them longer. It works on any terrain, carrying up to three hundred pounds of equipment in Earthlike gravity. It is eight feet high when worn, normally increasing your weight to 460 pounds if you weigh 180 pounds.”

  “The suit provides some serious metal alloy talons on every gloved paw, like a cat’s claws, that can extend several inches and can grab any surface, making it a superb climber. The head and mouth are large, with large lion jaws that are powered by hydraulic force bars, extremely powerful, with large razor-sharp teeth, including long fangs that can tear off a head. It cuts through anything. It has two large devil-red eyes, like cat’s eyes, set into an armored vision mask capable of night vision and with magnification for long-distance sight. The head is also a helmet with a closed air system with recycled atmosphere air, also capable of underwater use for three hours.”

  “More critical and dangerous, and what I call its main weapon, is panic. It terrifies most of our enemies. They panic or lose their resolve. Wearing this suit gives you a fierce appearance, with gruesome sound effects. You can roar loudly, louder than any Earth lion. It terrifies an enemy. Any enemy soldier or civilian that is organic carbon based has real problems standing up to dog soldiers. They scare me.”

  “Anna, I know you probably don’t like this part of the Cyclone or this part of me, and I apologize for this. However, as you know, we are primarily a military vehicle. The universe has some of the same issues Earth faces. We defend civilizations from the same evil that exists everywhere. All beings with free will are vulnerable to evil.”

  Anna does not respond, does not know what to say about all of this. She just shakes her head.

  I tell Anna we also have silver-metal-armored spacesuits covering us completely when outside the ship, used on the ground or outer space. They protect us from radiation, supply air, resolve severe temperatures, and provide weapons and a security defense field. We have powered propulsion, too, limited range yet effective.

  We are headed for the captain’s bridge. Jupiter is waiting for us, and we are still in orbit over her. As we go into the room, the visuals are up, and I can see Jupiter below us, mostly white in color, mostly a hydrogen atmosphere, thirty-five-thousand-feet deep, huge streaks of various colors over this massive planet. G-BE, F-LA, M-HO, and K-HO are all here. They acknowledge us, and they want to go on, as Jupiter is old news for them. As Anna stares at the panorama in front of us, I tell her the Cyclone is moving about twelve thousand miles per hour and has just passed over 88,846 miles of surface. Jupiter is eleven times larger than Earth and rotates at twenty-two thousand miles an hour, about twenty-two times faster than Earth. Thus we are seeing the surface at thirty-four thousand miles an hour, ground velocity or the total aggregate speed, as we are traveling against the planet’s rotation.

  Also Jupiter’s day is ten hours long, not twenty-four hours like Earth’s. Jupiter has sixty-three moons, some of them more interesting than others. I tell Anna when we have more time in the future, we can explore them more closely. The gravity on Jupiter is two and a half times greater than on Earth. It pulls on the Cyclone. It actually may have captured its moons the same way as they passed by; they may even be former asteroids that are now moons. Our individual weight is two and a half times more, too, which would cause a lot of strain if endured for any length of time.

  “Anna, you asked before, and to answer you, we are now five hundred fifteen million miles from Earth, and it is now eight o’clock your time in the second day on board. We probably should end our trip out now and head back, as you said you have only three days. We are too close to Earth to use our warp drive, and the right speed on the fusion drive is limited because of the time it takes us to slow down. So we will start back at about one hundred fifty million miles an hour, end up averaging about fifty million miles an hour because of trying to slow down, taking us fourteen hours to be back on Earth. We need to slow down in the last eighty million miles coming in to Earth at a much slower speed. We will lock into an orbit and then land the ship’s tender where we can rent a car and get you to the restaurant. You can make lunch with your parents and still be in the third day of our adventure. What do you want to do, more adventures in space or home tomorrow?”

  Anna looks at me, smiles a big smile, and responds, “Henry, the trip into the solar system is awesome, not my normal date with a guy.” She laughs. “Sort of an out-of-this-world experience, no pun intended. And I do want to try again later, if you are willing. However, I do need to get home. I want to introduce you to my parents. Come to lunch with me tomorrow. And it’s my turn to have you stay with me. I also want to take you to London as my date to my movie’s premiere. Then I want you to come to my home in Hollywood and meet some of my friends, maybe come to a couple of functions with me. Don’t say no. You’ll enjoy it.”

  I shake my head, knowing this is a bad idea.

  “Please, Henry, come with me!”

  I am thinking this is way more than I ever thought about, and that is the problem: I am not thinking. I am in some kind of daze—captured, I will admit. I know what meeting the parents means; even a stupid guy knows that. No wonder the human species continues to grow. Now is the time to cut and run, just need to say I can’t; we go our separate ways. It’s the best thing to do for both of us. I am bad news for her in a lot of ways.

  “Anna, you are wonderful to invite me. I’m sorry, it’s not possible, and there are some things I need to do here before I can leave. I’m really sorry, I need to…”

  The look on Anna’s face is awful, and to my surprise she starts to cry. She looks away. Her tears are my defeat. I can’t do it. There is no question I’m going with her. Anna may regret it later. I already regret it. This is probably not wise. Yes, she has me.

  “Anna, please, I can change my plans. Yes, and thanks, I want to meet your parents, see their home, and go to London with you and see your home, too.” I dread saying this, but I continue. “Anna, you know I have to leave. I’ll stay as long as I can. I want to spend my time with you. I know you might not like this situation, but it’s not my doing. I will have to leave.”

  Anna looks at me soulfully. “Henry…” There’s a long pause. “I don’t want to cause issues for you. I know your life is re
ally complicated, and I have no idea how many responsibilities you have. I’m overwhelmed by all of it. You need to do what you need to do. Yet I want to be with you. I can’t help it; I’m sorry.”

  “Anna, I have to admit, it is really complicated on many levels, yet no matter how complicated, I also feel the same way. I’m sorry, too, as you may regret ever having met me at some point.”

  “Starman, I am one step ahead of you. I know this is not a normal relationship. It’s all crazy. I’m not even sure it’s real yet, that it’s not some kind of dream. Really, I have no idea what I’m doing, just following my heart and praying we have some time together. I do know you’ve been here before, on Earth, and you come back now and then. We can see each other, or I hope this may be possible.”

  Anna continues, “Also, I do know how you feel about me, as I can read your mind, thanks to you. By the way, you hide very little. Now, I think it’s time for dinner and your bed. I’m looking forward to both.”

  Chapter 20

  Enemies of Henry

  At the same time, unknown to Henry or anyone back on Earth, in the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Mariana Trench, at about thirty-two thousand feet in depth, sitting on the bottom, is a massive starship, considered a battleship, as more military than not. This considerable amount of water effectively hides it from everything, including the Cyclone. This ship is not part of any consortium or from any civilized world, far from it. They are nomadic, no world to call home, more like pirates living off what they can steal or extort from defenseless worlds. They prey on the weak, traveling thru the galaxies looking for off-world civilizations with primitive technology. There is always something they can use; kidnapping and extortion are favorite tools to obtain it. They usually leave the civilizations devastated, and then move on to the next victim, even after the ransom or tribute is paid. Currently they need fuel; specifically they need nuclear fuel and a lot of it. The city-size starship requires huge amounts of energy to power it.

  This ship is about two miles high, thirty-eight miles wide, and sixty-four miles long, a black rectangle with a long front bumper as a deflector, yet graduated forward, like a blade six-teen miles out, running along the entire forward end. It is a huge city, an entire civilization on board with eighteen thousand aliens. Henry has chased this ship before. They know who Henry is, having escaped him on a couple of occasions. They always stay out of his way, out of the normal starship pathways, locating in some backwater planet like Earth and latching on like a parasite.

  Overall, Earth may not have much for them, not anything of real value, with the big exception of nuclear energy, which is starship fuel and of great value. They are waiting for the right time to strike Earth, searching and taking anything of value they can find. Besides nuclear supplies they are interested in rare minerals, all metals, chemicals, and any other usable resource, anything they can use or sell. They know the easiest way to motivate Earth governments to supply tribute is to take wives and children as hostages. They are now preparing their ship for a large volume of humans, which they will capture, hold hostage, and trade for nuclear energy or anything else of value. They are preparing their ship to load up fifteen thousand humans. They know even if Earth does pay the ransom, they never return the hostages, no matter their promises. Not a happy ending.

  They also know Henry was here on the planet briefly, and then his ship was gone again. They recognized the Cyclone. They saw its signature briefly three different times: once as it came into Earth’s surface running hot, then once again close to the planet, and then again before it blasted back out into deep space. And now the Cyclone is back, coming in fast.

  Not sure why Henry is here, but they will do nothing to draw his attention until they figure out why he is on Earth again and with only one ship. He could not be looking for them with just one ship. If he is here for another reason, they might be able to catch him by surprise and destroy him and the Cyclone.

  If an ambush is possible, they will go operational. If it does not work out, they still have a chance to escape Earth. It is all depending on what the Cyclone does in the next few days. If necessary, they know they might have to fight their way out, and they are fully prepared for and delighted by the prospect of killing Henry and the crew. Henry without a backup fleet is a pleasing thought, and to catch him not paying attention and to ambush him would settle a lot of scores.

  They have to figure out a way to ambush the Cyclone. One strategy is to attack Earth with their smaller deadly planet-surface fighters, called wasps by Henry in the English language. Their attacks would keep Henry busy, then they would use the main ship to toast him with their massive fusion weapons from behind, trapping the Cyclone between them and Earth. Still, Henry and the Cyclone are unpredictable and dangerous. As a further precaution, these nomads have sent an emergency beacon drone into space to alert the other six starships in their group, all part of the same civilization. The nomads have requested they come to Earth to provide military support against Henry and his crew, and to come immediately.

  Back in Richmond, Virginia, Senator Sam Jordan, Anna’s stepfather, is having dinner with Luca Deforleo, a longtime wealthy supporter and the boss, or the don, of the largest organized-crime syndicate based in New York City. The senator well knows about Luca’s background and Mafia ties; however, the relationship between them has always been discreet and goes back to the senator’s days in Chicago, when he was just starting his career. He has made a lot of money partnering with Luca over the years and has been careful that the deals are on the legal side of their syndicate. Most of the joint ventures have been real estate in New York City and the stock market, certainly nothing illegal.

  This last deal is not the norm and not what the senator wants to be involved in, as he told Luca before, actually several times. Now it looks like the merger Luca put together with two large airlines, combining them, is much more dangerous than their normal business deal, and to his shock he is in the middle of it, no doubt about it. He became alarmed, actually angered and afraid when he saw his annual report showing huge sums of cash showing up in his offshore captive and then corresponding purchases of stock. He has hidden money there for years, making him very wealthy, mostly from Luca’s deals. His business arrangements with Luca usually end up with a lot of money being earned and showing up there. This time, however, Luca has gone too far, unknown to the senator until now. The captive has been buying large shares of stock in two airlines. Luca has been using the stock proxies to make a merger happen, and now he expects the senator to make sure Washington stays out of the way and approves the merger, as the FAA would have agree to it.

  What has terrified the senator is the possibility that Iran is behind the merger with their cash, then using front companies, like his offshore captive, to buy huge shares of stock in each airline. Their partnering with Luca is for him to provide the muscle of organized crime plus the payoffs that may be needed to make it happen right under the noses of the US government. The senator knows this is happening, as he knows the bank involved on the financial statement is First Excalibur Bank of New York. He knows about Excalibur because of the FBI national security briefings to the Senate indicating the bank is a front for Iran, doing Iran’s bidding. If the link to him is discovered it will be awful, even worse for him than for any elected official involved with a conspiracy. He will go to jail for a very long time. The FBI investigates all of this daily, looking for public officials tempted by foreign governments. The senator now realizes he currently could go to jail for fraud or maybe even treason if discovered. What a mess!

  The senator and Luca are at an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side in New York City; they have just finished dinner and are on their third drinks, making lots of small talk. The senator is thinking how Luca has been very charming tonight, which is not easy for him. The seventy-year-old Italian Mafia killer is never pleasant. He is a big man, stocky and overweight; muscled; with big, powerful hands; bald; a scarred face; and ugly beady eyes. He never had a good bedside
manner. He is usually vulgar, smells like cigar smoke, and is sadistic and cruel. He delights in torturing the waiters whenever he and the senator have dinner together, making dinner disagreeable. He always brags about his exploits, proud of the terrible things he does to people who get in his way. It is hard to spend time with a man like this.

  Even worse is how he has become so wealthy. There is no telling the money he has made in the heroin business. He and his people have made a fortune over the years in the drug trade. Then there are the huge profits from the human trafficking and prostitution he oversees, using his thugs to do his dirty work. The senator feels the awful anxiety he always has when dealing with Luca, and for the first time since he’s been associated with this ugly man he actually is physically sick with fear. He has been thinking about and dreading this dinner meeting for a week.

  The senator, with a worried look, is anxious to speak after all the small talk. “Luca, what have you gotten me into? I know about Excalibur Bank, the Iran connection!”

  Luca smiles. “Senator, Sam, please, you are not to fear. Of course there is some risk. However, all the right people have been considered and paid off. All of it is hidden. The airlines need this, and you know it. Both airlines will go broke if this does not happen. The merger will save them. Money is money. Iran’s money spends like anyone else’s. You and I will make a fortune the legal way, just like the banks and hedge funds have done for years. They actually invented it, the easy way to make money. You have to admire them for it. I could not have done it better. Senator, let me remind you, you will make a lot of money. You have done well by us in the past. Right? Just do your part!”

  The senator responds, “Iran is not your normal partner. They are a terrorist government outlawed by most of the countries in the world, including the United States. They are a military threat, and they use assassins when they have issues. They could smuggle nuclear bombs into the United States using those planes. They are dangerous bedfellows, and I can be investigated if this blows up.”