Through the Reality Warp

by Donald J. Pfeil

  “How soon can you join up, Lieutenant?” Anticipating the need for the information, the flagship navigation officer fed the position and course data from the lieutenant’s computer into the cruiser’s navigation computer. The numbers ran across the lower edge of the screen Billiard was using to communicate with the combat-boat squadron.

  “Wait one, sir.” There was a pause. Then: “We can join up in fifty-two minutes, sir.”

  Billiard looked up and saw the cruiser’s navigation officer nod his head in agreement.

  “Good enough,” Billiard said. “We’ve got a battle to win.”

  With that Billiard cut the connection to the combat-boat squadron and sat back in his shell, a slight smile on his face. He knew that there was going to be some hard fighting ahead, and a lot of men were going to die. But he also sensed that the battle was already won—that the God of Lori was performing his last operations.

  IV

  Two hours later, leading the 147 ships of the two combat-boat squadrons, Billiard’s cruiser swept in from interstellar space to join the battle raging near the Pavian sun.

  Santha’s remaining ships were conducting sting-and-bounce attacks on the Meppa, which was giving back as much as it was receiving. Revolutionary combat boats were swatted like flies by the Meppa’s heavy batteries, and a Lorian combat-boat launch was being readied on the hangar deck of the battleship as the Admiral Paru decided to begin an attack of his own. The boats in the first V formation were now pushed forward on their launching racks, their engines hot and ready for flight. Their pilots knew the battle was only scant miles outside the hangar doors, and that they would be taking and giving back fire almost immediately upon launch.

  The giant doors swung open and the leader of the first flight programmed full acceleration as he came off the rack. His was the only boat to make it out, for just as the doors opened a tight spread of kill-torps from an attacking revolutionary hit the battleship. The two boats behind the leader died in shrapnel-riddled flames. A second spread of torps quickly hit, one of the missiles chewing up the center launching rack while the other plowed its way along the Meppa’s hull, leaving a bright streak of torn armor plating before it fully penetrated two-thirds of the way back along the thousand-foot battleship. A few other torps hit the Meppa, but their damage was not severe.

  Back on the bridge, the admiral was beginning to realize that his flagship was, nevertheless, in serious trouble. All communications with his engineering and gunnery departments were out; and when the computer links to his engines were activated with the order to begin acceleration, nothing happened. Meanwhile, eighty million miles away the Lori—the empire’s newest and biggest battleship, flagship of the God of Lori—was driving at full speed toward the battle, intent on saving the Meppa.

  Matching orbits with the Meppa less than five thousand miles away, Billiard’s cruiser began pumping heavy-duty torpedoes into the faltering battleship, blasting the entire hangar deck and forward laser batteries of the Meppa into twisted junk. The fuel tanks of the unlaunched combat boats began to explode suddenly in a chain reaction of gargantuan proportions, each tank setting off the one next to it in a bath of radioactive fire that needed no air to support its hellish combustion.

  In seconds, every man on the bridge of the Meppa received a fatal dose of hard radiation, but they were not destined to live long enough for their cells to deteriorate: a heavy-duty torpedo immediately thundered into the ship, racing unhindered past torn armor plating, through compartments filled only with vacuum-dried pink-and-red husks that had once been men, to explode deep in the flagship’s heart. Its back broken, the Meppa began, as if in slow motion, to disintegrate. In moments, not an airtight compartment was left aboard the battleship. The few crewmen who had been in a position to grab pressure suits ejected themselves into space, where combat boats under Captain Garth picked up the survivors they could find.

  Still halfway across the system, the God of the Lorian Empire watched the destruction of his fleet on a stereo tank that had been set up in his quarters. Now, as he watched the Meppa disintegrate, he ordered the commander of the Lori to take the battleship out-system, far from the battle. Quietly, and with a hint of tears in his eyes, the ship commander set the Lori toward home at full thrust.

  The Lorian God knew that the few cruisers and monitors he was leaving in the Pavian System would easily be picked off by the swarming combat boats of the revolutionary navy, but he also knew they were no longer of any use to him. The battle was over, and though the rebels were not yet on Lori, that battle, too, was over. Lori would soon have a new God.

  VI

  Even though the Lorian Empire occupied an enormous volume of space, some nine hundred light-years in diameter, the speed of light was once again dwarfed by the speed of rumor as stories of defeat after defeat, defection after defection, spread like wildfire throughout its boundaries. Over hi-wave on the colony planets and on Lori itself, the God appeared to assure everyone that the rebels would very soon be hunted out and destroyed. Two days later he appeared again before his people, this time appealing for loyalty and offering full and unconditional pardons to any rebels who would surrender to the government before the end of the week. His offer had few takers, and the fact that he had had to make the offer led to scores of new rumors among his people.

  Day by day, week by week, the inhabitants of the capital watched fleets of Lorian combat ships rising from the great military base at Bahsum. Few of them returned. The rebel fleet had by now encircled the empire, hitting hard at every ship rash enough to leave the confines of the immediate system and occasionally even running a sortie into the heart of the system itself to destroy a squadron of ships, a supply fleet, or an in-system garrison.

  The God, trying frantically to retain his position, one day attempted to contact Admiral Koppett by hi-wave. His call was intercepted and routed to Billiard.

  “General,” the God said in a peremptory tone when he was connected to Billiard, “give me Admiral Koppett at once!”

  “Whatever you have to say, you can say to me.”

  “General,” the God growled, “I’m warning you only once. Connect me to Admiral Koppett, or I’ll see your body delivered as tribute to the Goromi.”

  “I repeat,” Billiard said levelly, “whatever you have to say, say it now while you have a chance, I am busy. It was only curiosity that led me to accept your call. Do not strain that curiosity too far.”

  His adversary could detect a clear note of warning in Billiard’s voice.

  “Very well,” the God said, accepting defeat with no lessening of his arrogance. “Deliver this message to Koppett: There is room on the throne for two.”

  “Is that the whole message?” Billiard asked.

  “It is. Deliver it.”

  “I do not need to deliver it,” Billiard said. “It is summarily rejected. The only message the revolutionary forces will entertain from you is one of complete and total surrender, without condition. At which time I will undertake to have you transported—with full honors—into exile outside the Lorian Empire.”

  “How dare you!” the God sputtered. “What insanity prompts such a usurpation of the admiral’s prerogatives? Why, I’ll have you—”

  Whatever the God was going to say, Billiard didn’t hear it, for he had reached forward and flicked off the hi-wave set, turning back to the papers, reports, and plans that cluttered his ship’s desk.

  Less than a week later, General Billiard landed at the Bahsum base on Lori. Following his own carefully worked-out plans, he was ignoring the directives that came from Admiral Koppett, who had remained with the core of the revolutionary fleet in deep space.

  From Bahsum base to the capital, Zilamat, was no more than a few miles. Capturing Lorian groundcars, Billiard, covered overhead by his combat boats and flit-boats, moved quickly toward the city, meeting with only scattered resistance along the way—this mostly from pockets of Redhats.

  The citizens of Zilamat, both those who had been secret
supporters of the revolution and those who believed in the maintenance of the status quo, had poured into the streets at news from Bahsum of Billiard’s arrival. Supporters of the God and supporters of the revolution met in head-on clashes. In and around the center of the rioting, near the Star Palace, old debts were paid off and new ones incurred as the city’s citizens realized that, for the time being at least, no law existed on Lori except mob law.

  The Lorian army and navy now disintegrated as officers and troops deserted their posts wholesale. Even the Redhats abandoned their headquarters, burning all their files first; but General Karlar, their commanding officer, was captured by a band of rioters and torn to pieces.

  Less than an hour after their landing, the revolutionaries had moved into the capital. Hi-wave stations and the intercity communications system were now taken over by a group of revolutionaries hand-picked by Billiard. Nothing except official calls—calls, that is, made by the revolutionary forces—could now be broadcast. One in-coming report told that revolutionary squadrons commanded by Captain Santha Garth had hit Zenmat and Tola, two other major cities on the planet, and that she had met with only an indifferent resistance to her boats’ fire.

  Meanwhile, Billiard’s forces moved quickly to break up the rioting, shooting down those rioters who would not cease their fighting.

  An hour after this entry into the city, Billiard had taken control of the Zilamat police headquarters and secured its communications net. The general put Lieutenant Somms, former commander of his second combat-boat wing, in charge of the police system, instructing him that it was his responsibility to maintain order in the capital—in any way he thought necessary. By nightfall, both the morgues and the jails of Zilamat were full—but the city was quiet.

  Billiard and his men next took over the Star Palace, meeting minimal resistance. There, he found a hi-wave set up with an open channel in the God’s private chambers—a channel to the God of the Lorian Empire, in hiding somewhere on the planet.

  When Billiard stepped in front of the set a deep musical chime rang, which stopped him in his tracks. Automatically, his hand reached for the laser holstered at his hip. The chime was not for Billiard, however. If merely announced to whoever was listening in on the other end of the hi-wave beam that someone had come into the God’s chambers and had found the set

  Billiard was standing looking at the hi-wave set, when the florid features of the God of the Lorian Empire appeared.

  “If I remember correctly,” the face said, “you are General Billiard.”

  “Yes,” the Earthman said flatly, with no expression on Ms face to give away the thoughts churning in his head. Billiard had hoped the God would lead a resistance to his landing and have the decency to die in combat. That would have been much neater for all concerned.

  “You are to be congratulated, General,” the God said with a wry smile. “My experts predicted that you couldn’t possibly be ready for a landing on Lori itself for another four months.”

  “Unless I’m mistaken, your experts predicted that you couldn’t lose the battle of the Pavian System, either.”

  The God shook his head slowly, the smile still on his face. “All too true. My experts were not nearly as expert as we had thought they were. Their mistakes led them to quite messy—and prolonged—deaths.”

  “Was that really necessary?” Billiard asked.

  “Most necessary,” the God said, “if only because their stupidity has led us into a most unfortunate situation.”

  “And what do you intend to do about it?”

  “I believe you mean, General, what are we going to do about it.”

  “As you wish,” Billiard said. “The problem exists, and it must be solved. I would rather not have to hunt you down and kill you. Getting this planet under control is going to be difficult enough, without our making a martyr out of you. My original offer still stands, though. Safe passage out of the Lorian Empire for you the moment you surrender.”

  “Your offer? Why General, what happened to my dear friend, Admiral Koppett? I thought he was head of the revolution.”

  “Whoever the head of the revolution might be,” Billiard said, “the person you have to deal with is me.”

  “And what guarantee do I have that you’ll keep your word once I surrender?” the God asked.

  “None at all. But what choice do you have?”

  The God looked at Billiard for several moments, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You’re right, of course,” he said finally. “I haven’t much choice.”

  “You have no choice,” Billiard said flatly. “Where are you?”

  “Aboard the cruiser Pel’lai,” the God answered. “I’ll order the captain to take the ship to the main base at Bahsum. If you’ll be so kind as to have an honor guard meet me there, I’ll surrender formally at that time.”

  “An honor guard will be waiting,” Billiard said, then he reached out and snapped off the power to the hi-wave set.

  He looked at the gray face of the dead unit for a moment, then turned and started out of the room. He had managed only four steps, when he stopped, turned toward a chair, lifted his leg, and set his foot down on the seat of the chair. Moving with deliberation, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and began slowly to wipe the dust from his right boot, being certain even to get the cloth into the seam that ran between the boot top and the sole. He needed almost three minutes to finish the cleaning job to his satisfaction, three minutes he could have used to warn the defense forces of the imminent surrender of the God. Then he gave the boot a final, critical inspection, brushing off a last, tiny bit of dust, and returning his foot to the floor. With the same deliberation, he lifted his left foot to the chair and repeated the operation.

  He was halfway through cleaning the second boot, when the door burst open and one of the young lieutenants Captain Forgari had assigned to his bodyguard rushed in. “General,” the man yelled, almost out of breath, “we’ve found the God.”

  “Where?” Billiard demanded, looking up from his polishing job.

  “He was aboard the Pel’lai, a navy cruiser, which was apparently hiding in the west ocean. Reports are pretty sketchy so far, but apparently a ship in the west ocean either tried to make a run for space or to launch a last attack on the capital here. It was spotted by the orbital monitor.”

  “What makes you think this ship was either running for space or making an attack?” Billiard asked.

  “Well, it lifted out without warning, refused to answer the monitor’s challenges, so…”

  “So… ?”

  “So the monitor put a couple of torps into it. It hit them over land about four hundred miles away from its takeoff point.”

  “And you’re certain the God was in it?”

  “The ship’s com officer got off a message just before the ship hit.”

  “What message?” Billiard asked, dropping his foot to the floor and taking a quick step toward the young officer.

  “Why, the word that the God was aboard the ship,” the young man said, flustered, taking a quick step backward, “and that we were to try to rescue him at once. The God, that is, not the com officer.” The longer he spoke, the more confused the young officer seemed.

  “And that was all?” Billiard asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was a rescue party sent out to see if the God might have survived?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?” Billiard demanded.

  “The motors must have gone critical when the ship hit,” the lieutenant said. “We sent out an overflight at once, but according to the pilot there was nothing left where the ship came down except a red-scale crater.”

  Billiard looked steadily at the man for a moment, until a red flush began to creep up the latter’s face. “Very well, Lieutenant,” he said at last, “you may go.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The young officer saluted and backed hurriedly out of the room.

  A look of sadness crossed Billiard’s face as he sat do
wn in the chair he’d been using as a footstool a moment before. He knew now that the battle for Lori was really over, and he could not help but wonder if the victory he had won was worth the price he had paid and was going to continue to pay through all the sleepless nights to come, for he knew what he must do now. Then he thought about the fate awaiting both this universe and his own, and he knew that no price was too high.

  With a clear conscience he went out to take control of his new empire.

  FIVE

  I

  Out in space, in the dark outposts of the Lorian System, the core of the revolutionary fleet waited in silence to see if General Billiard’s bold thrust straight to the heart of the Empire would be successful, or if he would be driven out by remnants of the Lorian armed forces. Aboard a mighty transport in the center of the fleet, which Admiral Koppett had picked for his flagship, the leader of the revolution waited impatiently, knowing that Billiard’s gamble would be successful.

  Throughout most of the great ship it was night, with only a minimum crew on duty since there was no anticipation of combat in the near future. Sixty percent of the crew was asleep, but not Koppett. He could not sleep, though he had tried. Instead, he paced back and forth within the confines of his cabin and pondered the problems Billiard’s success would bring him.

  The realization had been late in coming. But once Koppett had seen the reaction of the men aboard the flagship to the announcement of the landing on Lori itself, he understood that with the same tight, cold efficiency Billiard had used in training the revolutionary forces, the general had taken control of the revolution itself: the revolutionary fleet no longer belonged to the admiral—but was merely a tool of the man he had hired to create it.