Teramar: The Gathering Night

by Thomas Michael Murray

  “They didn’t dare touch my person the first time. I planned for that today. The clothing is lined with a material that hides the composite metal of the swords. Even if I was scanned without my knowledge, they still would not see what I carry.”

  His majesty, stirred trying to stand. The chains gave off a ghastly rattle.

  “Father, we must leave now. An artificial intelligence is flanking me today. It knew of my schemes to break you out of this horrible place and conveniently appeared when I became serious about the plan. I don’t know whom to thank for this assistance. The support has dramatically improved our chances in here. The machine has commandeered the prison’s systems and is broadcasting a serene fiction of my visit to your gaolers. Time is precious, father. You and I have to move.”

  Alian recognized a dormant confidence surfacing. “Ah yes. My other computer, my Jessica.” A satisfied smile took over. “Daughter, it is so good to see you. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “You look awful, father. Can you walk?”

  “I’ll have to.”

  Alian quickly cut the chains with the small red beam she had tucked into one of her gown’s many compartments. Strugglingto stand,the king had difficulty finding his legs and collapsed. Alian caught him. She was a tall girl.

  “I can do it. Help me up.”

  An inky red coagulant crept toward the princess’s slippers. She daintily stepped aside so as to not dirty them. The guard that still possessed a head, rasped with a final lungful of life, and then he shuddered and shivered toward death. When the king finally understood the cell door was truly open, and that there was an honest possibility for escape, the king’s stature immediately became less wretched, where a simian-hunch transformed into the old royal backbone. Alian could now recognize the true ruler of Teramar. He said to his daughter, “Give me one of your swords.” He took the hilt like the pommel of a staff and was ready to walk.

  “My hover is just outside the building. Follow me!”

  The king gingerly hobbled after. With each step, he felt blood flow to thirsty joints. The great door to the sector loomed ahead. Father and daughter both understood that they had to get past the guards who first admitted the princess. “Let me go alone,” she urged. “They expect my return. Hand me your sword. Sit if you have too.”

  Two guards scrambled to their feet and snapped at attention. From birth, all Teramarians were taught the royal person is sacred. This was especially true among the vast class of plebs. As the princess approached the bowed heads, she paused a moment to assess their positions and then erupted into a whirling cartwheel driving her sword into the chest of one and then amputating the arm of the other. The still-living guard instinctively put his other hand around the bloody stump. He wore a look of stupefied horror. With a swift cut, she removed the man’s leg. He crumpled.

  There was panic in the young man’s eyes. Alian kneeled whispering to calm him and then kill him, “Quiet boy. Quiet boy. Yes, that’s a good boy.” He was going into shock. The king appeared. She tossed him the second sword.

  Then tenderly, Alian pulled the boy’s forehead back and carefully cut open the throat that gurgled warm blood. She dropped his head to the floor in an unromantic thud. The king noted how Alian enjoyed herself a little too much here. His daughter was becoming more like his wife when it came to temperament. “Father, there will be guards on the other side. These few minutes will be the most difficult part of the mission. Prepare yourself.” Her plan counted on swords not blasters. They had to move like shadows through the building. Alian turned to face the door and in her most imperious voice commanded, “Open.” The door automatically rose. Bright lights on the other side revealed men languishing on benches. Surprised by the quick return of the princess, the men immediately jumped to their feet and snapped to attention.

  The princess assumed all her royal hauteur. Alian believed she could gain precious seconds using the power of royal intonation. This exceptional skill worked best for brief commands such as “Sit,” “Stop” and “Quiet.” After centuries of training and controlled breeding, Teramarian aristocrats used this skill to keep the lower classes in line. Out of the darkness, Alian walked before them as a sublime vision. Standing a head taller than most men, her natural authority flowed into the room. The confused guards wanted to reach out to her. To touch her. Few noticed the disheveled king shambling behind.

  Their commander immediately came to his senses and said coldly, “Your highness, why is your father, the usurper, not in his cell?”

  Alian scowled in disgust as if she smelled a fart. She let the silence linger. Some of the men cowered. “Step aside,” she commanded, waving her hand in a sweeping gesture for emphasis.

  Their heads jerked to the pitch and most of them actually shuffled to create an opening for the princess. However, there was always the one who proved immune – usually the headman. During that fleeting moment of confusion, the king released his sword, which flew hilt over tip and smoothly entered the commander’s surprised mouth sliding through the back of the skull. Alian was already moving, but the dead man’s blaster accidently went off in a spasm. The princess’s foot hit the wall with a bloody thud. The smell of cauterized flesh filled the air.

  During this brief moment of confusion, the king killed another. These drones were no-match for the superbly trained royal family. The pain from the stump was excruciating. The princess gulped down vomit, as the remaining guard fled down the hall. The princess then pulled her small knife and threw it with a lazy velocity, catching the man squarely in the back. Royal blades are horribly sharp and heavy. The man immediately dropped to his knees. Red spread across his uniform.

  “Someone surely heard the blaster.”

  “Can you walk on that,” asked a worried father? The king’s breathing was ragged due to the unfamiliar exertion.

  “Yes. The wound is not bleeding. They can fix this later.”

  Alian swung the injured leg up onto the bench and quickly tore part of her cloak to bundle up the stump. She then retrieved the bloody foot and tucked it into a large pocket.

  A halo-screen with a map bounced before the princess. With the computer’s guidance, Alian then led them through a maze of corridors. Father and daughter moved with haste despite Alian’s limp. The king pushed himself to maintain pace. The princess said over her shoulder, “We carefully studied the building and developed an escape route with the highest probability for success.” Proving this, she consistently opened every security door and managed to avoid Uriah men.

  Quite suddenly, an officer appeared. He stepped out of what looked to be a locker. Startled, the king raised his weapon. “Majesty, your highness, I am Commander Singh. I serve the family.” The officer bowed his head. “Good to see you, commander,” said a relieved princess.

  She explained, “He is with us, father. The family still has agents within the prison. We saw a higher probability for success with another person or rather another gun joining us today. Our models also foretold that either Singh or I perish on the mission. But you, father, will indeed escape this place to marshal our forces and retake the kingdom. Today’s sacrifice will be for the good of the family.” She emphasized this with a clenched fist.

  A father grabbed that fist and looked calmly into her eyes, “My dear, it won’t come to that. As you say, let’s move. They will find the bodies.”

  On the opposite side of the complex, the prison’s director believed he was observing an orderly interview between father and daughter. Since assuming responsibility for the king’s incarceration, the once bored director now lived in anxious times. Today’s visit was uneventful and mercifully winding down as the princess kissed her father’s soiled cheek. Lulling off to sleep, his door was rudely thrown open jolting a tired afternoon to attention. He gave his agent an angry glare.

  The young man ignored spoiled manners and said in an agitated voice, “Sir, they found dead guards and worse the king’s cell is empty.” The boy was panting for air from the observatory’s stairs.
The head gaoler and another clamored into the small room. The office overlooked the entire complex. Over a light rain outside, they suddenly heard the princess’s battle hover throttle up and move to the opposite side of the building where the cargo ships made deposits. All four heads moved synchronously tracking the machine as it flew over the complex.

  Aware of the personal consequences to himself, the director shook his head and shouted, “How could they be moving through the prison without our knowledge?” He was fully awake now. The princess’s hover should not have abandoned the visitor’s landing pad.

  “I saw the dead myself in the anteroom where we house the usurper. Whatever is flanking them seems fully in control of the entire facility, sir.”

  Always watching, the queen’s computer had also seen that things had gone terribly wrong inside the jailhouse. Cataline was frantically powering through his own systems to purge the intruder. He calmly addressed the room, “Gentlemen, I have cut power to the complex, but the emergency generators have automatically activated. You need to send engineering teams to turn it all off. Once the power is cut, the fugitives will be stuck in their tracks. We knew the king had significant resources. We will learn from this.”

  Nodding in assent, the director turned to his young aid. “You heard Cataline, send teams to the generators.” The adjunct saluted and spun out in a clatter of boots.

  “The rest of you, alert the barracks and flow every soldier to that cargo depot. Travel outside as we are locking this place down. And finally, please get men on the roof with heavy cannons to pin down the princess’s ship. Remember, we need them alive. You know how it works. You and your families will be dead tomorrow if you kill either one of them – or worse – if they escape.”

  Running for their lives now, the three fugitives made a final rush over an austere bridge into the loading zone. Alian saw a company of black uniformed men rushing toward them like beetles. Random red light blasts drove small explosions around them. Singh returned fire with precision slowing their pursuit. Exhausted, Alian approached the last door. A hover would be on the other side. “Open,” commanded the princess.

  The door did not move.

  Again, “Open.”

  Still nothing. Then quite suddenly, the door slid a mere few inches as the queen’s men rushed closer in flights. The firefight became fierce. The king and Commander Singh laid down a heavy barrage on the advancing troop. There were far too many Uriah guards, swarming from behind.

  “Could Jessica’s program have run its course,” she panicked?

  The princess peered through the crack in the door. There was a straight line of sight to the hover. Dust whirled around the ship as the pilot had the engines ready for flight. The loading dock was empty except for a few guards who lay lifeless on the ground. The hover’s pilot had released a toxin that incapacitated the men who were working that day.

  Alian screamed over the noise into the com, “Identify this voice, machine?”

  “Princess Alian,” said a computer that sounded like Cataline, but was probably still one of Jessica’s clones. “Recognize my authority. Open this door.” Panic flowed through her.

  The computer blandly answered amidst the chaos, “I apologize for the delay, your highness. I am working on it. They are attempting to turn off the building’s power. Please stand back. Use the wall to shield yourself. I’m going open the door with the cannons on the hover.”

  Without waiting for a response, the hover moved closer. The warehouse’s roof groaned and snapped as the ship pushed the beams aside. The hover was now directly above the exit. Cannons fired and the door blew open like an old card.

  The three of them, Alian, the king and Commander Singh looked at each other with visible relief. They moved from their cover and made an open run for the ship. Commander Singh selflessly covered their retreat. The black commandos saw this and trained all their fire on the escapees. Commander Singh’s head then evaporated into a red mist and his body collapsed pouring blood and tripping the princess. Alian was drenched. Suddenly, an enormous cruiser appeared over the waiting hover blocking the sky.

  A loud metallic voice came from that ship. “Your hover cannot move. We’ve enveloped this side of the building with a primary force field.”

  Alian and the king were breathing heavily. They were so close. The king saw the failure play across his daughter’s face. Alian knew the consequences of today’s plot.

  The beetle soldiers carefully crossed the bridge with blasters ready. Simultaneously, a company of elite storm troopers filled the cargo bay from the outside. High-grade razor wire moved to block all exits.

  The king gingerly hobbled toward the men. He spoke to them proudly as their rightful, true king, “Men, the princess requires immediate medical attention.” He put a hand to the wall to support himself. There was an obvious seething anger emanating from the approaching soldiers. This trio slew many of their comrades. The men stared at the king with blank, unhelpful expressions.

  A giant approached. He appeared to be the one in charge. With a large hand, the man slapped the king to the ground in one smooth arc. “How dare you,” gasped the princess who crawled to her father’s side.

  “Get her up,” the man roared.

  They roughly grabbed the princess. The beast was inches from Alian’s lovely face. His presence was overpowering. With the same hand that slapped the king to the ground, he tenderly cupped her chin and said, “You look even better in person, princess.” Dissolute eyes took her in. He then turned on heel and roughly pushed through the men.

  NSA Command

  Ft. Meade, Maryland

  “Sir, We’ve found something odd out there. One of our K-12’s recorded a black mass that appears to be orbiting the planet. Astrologically or scientifically, no one knows how to describe this thing.”

  The Director of the NSA, Colonel Robert McNamara III, a graduate of West Point and career military man, moved closer to the view-screen at which the young officer gestured. Here in the NSA’s great observation room, lights were purposely low facilitating an easy review of a vast wall of equipment. Today, only one screen was the focus of an entire shift of spy technologists. The video unmistakably presented an unidentified black sphere. “Like a small black moon,” reflected McNamara. The young officer played the recorded scene again and again. One moment the sphere obstructed the surrounding stars, and then poof, the black spot disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  “You see that, sir? In the middle of the Centaurus galaxy – a little bit to the right.” McNamara clearly saw. “That black whatever-it-is should not exist.” The young man’s cologne was glaring. McNamara pulled back from his aid so as to not get the stench on himself.

  Unmoved, the colonel barked, “When did we first see this?”

  “Twenty minutes ago, sir. When the K-12 originally recorded the phenomena, we attempted to move closer. As the satellite approached the sphere’s coordinates, the camera went completely dark – a failure we cannot explain. Our engineers had to completely reboot all the primary systems. Now that the satellite is operational again, all we see is regular space. The mass is gone. Vanished.”

  McNamara wore a serious face. Cold eyes studied the video. The former marine had seen many deployments round the world. He witnessed countless U.F.O. sightings – especially in those geographies where there lived an unruly indigenous population. He wasn’t easily spooked by ghost stories. McNamara asked, “Could this be some piece of space junk that passed by our window?”

  “Sir, there’s more to the story. In addition to the black sphere, we also recorded an attending signal that emanated from the sphere’s position. We don’t even know how to scientifically describe the transmission which points to somewhere in New York City. Unfortunately, the broadcast dissipates above the island.”

  Jessica of course was listening to this very discussion. When she first entered earth’s orbit, she promptly threw a cloak around the ship’s mass to secure her anonymity from their primitive surveillance systems
. But today, one of those annoying little machines - that seemed to exist in the thousands - moved too close. Much too close. The bad luck occurred when the great computer’s capability was particularly stretched. For a month now, Jessica had diverted immense processing resources to assist the princess on Teramar. This week, there was a surge in requests as the plot to free the king unfolded. With all this responsibility weighing on her synthetic mind, bad luck positioned one of these primitive earth machines off her port side. Aghast at the accidental sighting, her first inclination was to destroy the little machine. Thinking better of it, she quietly blinded the device and moved the ship.

  McNamara asked, “Did you forward all of this to the director at Langley? Best get their team and a fucking NASA astrophysicist to look at the data. This discovery doesn’t appear to be a run of the mill encounter. My guess is our little situation here is going to quickly rise above our pay grades.”

  “Yes sir, we already forwarded the information and received orders to keep a close eye on New York and to locate an end point for the alien transmission.”

  McNamara noticed the use of that word – alien. “Jesus fucking Christ,” thought the career military man. “A fucking black sphere.” He saw what they saw.

  McNamara’s mobile phone vibrated with a new kind of urgency. “I’m being summoned to the White House.”

  “Yes sir. Word travels quickly,” replied the young aid with a wry smile. The young commander’s bright eyes held the excitement of someone at the center of something big.

  Without a further word, McNamara rode the elevator to the ground. Walking across a polished floor, the colonel ducked into a black windowed truck. The small motorcade roared through the White House gates. Within minutes, he was taking his seat in the national security briefing room. The elegant space was adorned with historic prints around a long walnut table. All the secretaries and directors from defense, law enforcement, intelligence and the space agency were already present. McNamara nodded at the other principals. When the president strode into the room, everyone immediately stood. Their leader smiled warmly and said, “Please sit down.”