The 3D hologram before him took Leon’s breath away.
Epic ruination.
On a planetary level.
“We haven’t yet had time to do a full mockup of this site. Despite all the mind-tech that makes the painstaking model work superfluous, we space archeologists find that it grounds us and triggers insights the more we work with our hands, and the more time we’re forced to spend turning each item over and looking at it from all angles. We also teleport back to the original sites, of course. But that comes at the steep price of being apart from the citywide AIs and our mindnet that connects us all.”
Leon barely processed his prattle. “The Kang split the planet in two like an egg.” Gone once again was the professional neutrality Leon had been trained to talk in, replaced by barely muted awe and terror.
“Yes, they use the molten lava at the planet’s core to forge their castle worlds. As a trophy and a reminder of past conquests, I imagine.”
“Can you show me the battle as it went down?” Leon asked. “I am told that information never dies. It is always retrievable, with the right tech. Surely a civilization such as yours…”
His host shook his head without necessarily denying that they had that tech. Again that noninterference imperative of theirs…
Leon zoomed the image of the bisected planet. Over the “stew pots” of the molten lava in each half of the cracked shell drifted dead Kang, their bodies either falling into the stew, or already being churned inside it. Evidently the hologram was not without some animation.
“What am I looking at?” Leon asked.
“The Kang return their dead to the molten metal, that will then be forged into their castles and dragon ships. They believe that the dead will then guide them through future battles. The bodies of the Kang dead are immune to the molten lava, of course. So I imagine if you ever get to tour their castles and warbirds, you’ll see the faces and bodies of the dead embossed into the walls.”
Leon zoomed the image further, so he could make out more of the people the Kang destroyed on the planet. He got close enough to the consumed alien civilization to feel like a bird coming in for a landing just yards below. The people of this world were attractive, winged humanoids; they might even be described as angelic. The world they had built… the cities sparkled like jewels, and they were so well integrated with nature that it reminded Leon of those Japanese rice paper homes which were built in a similar fashion—only on a much larger scale.
“How could you let this happen?” Leon couldn’t keep the acid out of his voice.
“I’m afraid evolution is not as linear as you might like to think. Similar setbacks have been recorded on your own world, multiple times over. The lore regarding your faeries, small, winged, glowing, elfin looking humans, the hobbits and dwarves of middle earth, the tiny folk of Irish mythology, and so much more… Those peoples actually existed once.”
A voice inside Leon had been crying out for help all this time, expecting to be rescued from the likes of Kang by a civilization like Syntha. But he saw now that this was just wishful thinking. If they were stewards of time, they did not operate by any rules Leon understood. More than ever he resolved to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Roosevelt was right. Come Leon’s chance at guardianship over more than just the Earth, he would not miss the opportunity to champion more enlightened causes, and he would use the most advanced tech at his disposal to do so.
Still, when he pushed past his own anger, remorse, and countless other bubbling over emotions, he had to admit this trip wasn’t a complete waste. The Kang could be killed. And what’s more, they were prone to more primitive, magical thinking. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. Of course, it didn’t matter if the Nautilus possessed technology that was more advanced than what the Kang had—if not in all areas, then in some—or if the crew of the Nautilus had graduated to higher levels of reasoning. The Kang, however primitive, could overrun them with sheer numbers alone. Like those animals in the Amazon that were taken down by army ants—millions and millions of army ants.
The situation might be even worse than Leon imagined. What if the Kang could talk to their dead? What if the dead were like the Viking dead of Valhalla—a contingent of warriors, but who hadn’t earned their eternal rest, so much as continued to fight in a dimension that could reach out and touch Leon and his people, but against which Leon and his people could do nothing? How did you fight ghosts exactly? Such rumors had already reached Leon, captured from the mind of one of the Kang drones on Earth by Mother, then forwarded to Leon’s neural net.
“Thank you,” Leon said, “for showing me this. Do you have more on the Kang?”
“I’m afraid not. Due to their penchant for swallowing up worlds within their boundary shields first, before plundering them, little is left beyond the shields for us to study. And none of us has cared to cross that threshold. I believe your expression is ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’.”
Leon realized that he had to move quickly to keep the Earth and its moon from being absorbed—transported to the other side of the boundary—if they were to stand a chance at all.
He patted Tortos on the shoulder. “Thank you again.”
Tortos smiled. “Thank you for being so gracious. I know you really just want to strangle me and the rest of my kind with your bare hands right now.”
Leon smiled ruefully. “Forgive me. I’m a soldier. People who stand idly by and do nothing while others suffer just doesn’t compute for me. Especially when they know they can do something about it. But we have a fair number of Nietzscheans among our numbers on Earth, as on the Nautilus, who believe that evolving man into God is all the ethics you need, and who might well condone your refusal to coddle for just that reason. They would say the harder things are on people, the better, because then they have no choice but to identify with the God within rather than play the part of the victim, if they are not to be crushed.”
Tortos smiled, teary-eyed, without saying more. Leon could tell he’d touched a nerve. But which nerve?
“People, let’s go.” Leon was on the march and he expected his troops to fall into lockstep.
Patent pulled the teens away from their latest toys and made sure they surrounded Leon. He knew Leon well enough to know that if his mind was racing with ideas, he might very well need them to empower those ideas.
How right he was.
“We need to hack that artifact on the moon,” Leon said. “If we can’t keep it from beaming us beyond the barrier—once this courtship period or initiation is over, and we prove worthy enough adversaries for the Kang—then I want the following. Make sure Natty succeeds in teleporting that entire Dead Zone galaxy worth of space habitats out to our side of the barrier. Sync the moon artifact to them so that if we’re transported to the other side of the barrier, we have every Kang world surrounded by the numerous space stations so we can conduct a war on as many fronts as we need to. I’m told each one of those habitats is armed to the teeth.”
“But it’s legacy tech,” Ariel bitched.
“Maybe relative to other districts in the TGE. But relative to the Kang rumpus room?” Leon replied. “Where they’ve elected to keep things basic, just unkillable bodies mixing it up in close combat with their enemies… We might find the Dead Zone tech more empowering than we imagine.”
“I gather we have a way forward,” Crumley said, smiling.
“Oh, yeah,” Leon said, picking up the pace slightly. “As to how straight and narrow the road, or how twisted, we’ll have to wait for the other clone teams to check in.”
“Sir,” Satellite said, his voice sounding whiny, “it looks like you have temporary command of the Nautilus for now.”
That stopped Leon.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Leon aboard the Nautilus is fishing timelines, looking for a way around the Kang Federation that worked in another timeline, if not in ours. And failing that, he’s hoping to get lucky with an insight that might do
some good, once he has the bigger picture. He’s temporarily beyond benefitting from any leadership advice you could give him.”
Leon groaned. “The man is insufferable.”
Crumley looked at the rest of Omega Force, smiled through bit lips, and did a count down with his fingers. When he got from three to one, they all said, “Whatever do you mean?”
“Stow that shit,” Patent commanded, stifling a smile of his own.
As they marched past the space archeologists they all looked as if Leon had made their day, showing them how “live military leaders from Earth circa mid-21st century” reacted under pressure, as opposed to having to infer as much from the fossil record.
Leon ignored them.
“Skyhawk, if we do get thrown to the other side of that barrier. We’re going to need a way out again, and a way to take our now galactic federation back where it belongs—to Earth’s original resting place—The Milky Way Galaxy.”
“More a job for the nun, I think, since she’s got the mandate to protect Theta Team’s handiwork on those Dead Zone habitats as much as them, but I’ll assist. So, let me make sure I’ve got everything clear,” Skyhawk said. “I’m to hack an alien moon artifact billions of years old which not even the Nautilus has been able to hack. I’m then to steal an entire galactic federation of artificial worlds for you. Teleport it out of a hostile TGE. Beam us all back to the Milky Way Galaxy. Is that all?”
Patent evidently didn’t care for his sarcastic tone, and swatted the kid in back of the head. “And I’m to do all that from a concussed state,” Skyhawk added.
“Of course that’s not all,” Leon said. “We’ll benefit from Gamma Group’s arrival on the scene. But get going with Mother to procure us a contingent of ghost warriors, just in case there’s anything to the Kang dead merely taking their game up a level. I believe we’ll call them Epsilon Ethereals. And pray we don’t run out of the Greek Alphabet before this war is through.”
“You want me to get the dead to fight for you?” Skyhawk’s voice had hit an octave that no one had heard come out of his mouth before.
Satellite squeezed him on the shoulder and shook. “Relax. I can talk to anybody, across any barrier.”
“And open a COMMS channel to Sonny for me,” Leon said.
“Yes, sir,” Satellite said, hopping to. A few seconds of fingering his screens later and he said, “Sonny, it’s Leon. Stand by.”
“Sonny,” Leon said. “I know you’re already rooting out every saboteur on the Nautilus and explaining the facts of life to them. By now, I’m guessing you’ve explained that they cooperate or they find out what it feels like to be skinned alive for all eternity. And by cooperate, I’m sure you’re already sending them into the TGCs and TGEs your scanners have alerted you to on the Lucky Streak.” Leon swore he could hear Sonny smile.
“I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny,” Sonny replied.
“Cut the shit, Sonny.”
“And my payment for such largesse?”
“You’ll have free reign over day-to-day operations of every one of those artificial worlds in our galactic federation. Every one stationed on them will rely on entertainment even more than they would on Earth to stay sane. Just so nothing that goes on on any of the stations gets in the way of military operations, or drives people from casual recreational gamblers to out and out addicts, you’re good to go.”
“I prefer out and out addicts.”
“Run the numbers, Sonny. A Lucky Streak, even an entire assortment of Dead Zone habitats full of gambling addicts, perennially insecure and shaking from being so out of control, or an entire galaxy full of happy people, whose entertainment is more carefully managed, who might just elect you as President of this federation, if not as God.”
Leon paused to “hear” Sonny smile at the other end of the line. “And, oh, Sonny, I want that intel from the other TGCs and TGEs from your spies like yesterday. Skyhawk and the rest of Alpha Unit will help you procure that upgrade that will allow you to find the TGCs and TGEs across the entire multiverse. We’ll need to upgrade it further for our joint purposes, so we can take the shortest path to connect the dots for federations more amenable to our needs before tackling the more challenging ones.”
“We hardly need your help stealing, I mean acquiring the upgrade tech ourselves…”
“Fine, I’m sure Skyhawk and the rest of Alpha Unit will appreciate having one less thing on their plates.”
Sonny snorted. “And I thought I drove a hard bargain. You’re a tough man to say no to, Leon. Especially as you take my every greedy, self-serving desire, and stir in the necessary imagination to help me grow as a person.” Sonny laughed madly at his own joke. “And if my people can’t find the leverage you need to secure help from one or more of these TGCs and TGEs before we’re sucked into Kang’s territory, where communications beyond the barrier will be down?”
Leon gasped. “We may indeed have to crawl before we can walk. The challenge then, once on the other side of the barrier, will be to negotiate with the other galactic empires within the transgalactic confederation to which the Kang belong.”
“Of course,” Sonny said, a little too obligingly, before killing the connection.
Patent was cursing under his breath. Leon read the tea leaves for himself. “Sorry, Patent, I should know better than to give everyone their marching orders but you. We’re going to be spread thin across the Dead Zone galaxy full of space habitats we haven’t had time to populate properly. I’m going to need a clone of you and Alpha Unit on each of those artificial worlds to make the most of their technology for battle purposes. You’re going to be my field general with innumerable fields to oversee. You’ve never had to fight off an entire planet’s armada before, far less take on a galactic empire. You sure you’re up for it?”
Patent’s grin was a mile wide. “Stop goading me. You know I was born for this.”
“Yes, you were.”
It was Skyhawk’s turn to mumble under his breath, “And he wants me to boost the range of alien TGC/TGE scanners to hack my way into the multiverse! And he wants me to find a way to make way more clones at one time than Mother can currently to populate Dead Zone habitats with more Patents and Alpha Units, when she already has her hands full disseminating Theta Team clones to them… All by breakfast. I’m frightened to ask if that’s all.”
Leon smiled. “Of course it’s not all. We’ve yet to hear back from the other clone teams. But if you’re not up to it, I suppose Mother can clone a few more of you.”
Skyhawk grimaced. “I can see this goading thing is a habit with him.”
All of Omega Force spoke up. “Oh, yes!”
They were outside the cave and overlooking the planet-sized city in the bright, diffused, ubiquitous light that needed no sun; the light was simply the result of the citywide illumination in the perennial night of deep space. “Now, someone get me the hell off this pacifist TGC before I hurt someone,” Leon barked.
“Yes, sir,” Ariel said, handling the teleportation dynamic of dialoguing with the portal back on Earth. Satellite was too busy trying to stay atop of communications amid Earth’s budding galactic federation of artificial worlds in the Dead Zone to make sure stealing those habitats or any other aspect of bringing Earth’s nascent galactic federation into being didn’t require additional attention from Leon. Mother was allotting Satellite more singularity phone line bandwidth that permitted this kind of crosstalk traffic being fed to his scanners, because he was, well, him. The communiqués were being filtered by algorithms that Satellite had written himself, so his nano-upgraded mind still didn’t blow a fuse. And Skyhawk, well, Skyhawk was busy enough to temper even his cockiness for a while.
They were starting to dematerialize, just when Leon spied Crumley tucking something into his pocket. “Is my quartermaster going to tell me what he procured for us back there?” Leon asked Crumley.
“I assure you I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Leon smiled.
/> Ajax leaned in to the praying Cronos, rolling the beads on the rosary dangling from his belt, and said, “Everything you’re going through is preparing you for everything you prayed for.”
Cronos gave him a nasty look. “Why don’t you confine your profundity to yourself?”
“No problem. Today is the day rock bottom became the solid foundation upon which I rebuilt my life.”
Cronos gave Ajax another dirty look. He interrupted his prayer chanting to lecture him. “A person’s mind is so powerful, we can invent, create, experience, and destroy things with thoughts alone.”
Leon, ignoring the exchange between the two up to now, felt inspired by Cronos’s words. “Satellite…”
Satellite was already reading his mind. “You want a team of Zen masters specialized in thought projection. I’ll let Mother know.”
“Let’s call them Psi Force,” Leon suggested.
“Your Psi Force will need to be able to convert zero point energy with their minds,” Skyhawk said, “to truly manifest or destroy things. I’ll get on it, being as I’m feeling so underwhelmed.”
“You’ll divvy up your brainwork with the other Skyhawks and you’ll learn to delegate better to the rest of Alpha Unit,” Patent said, grabbing Skyhawk’s shoulder and shaking him affectionately. “You’re getting worked up over nothing.”
“Yeah right,” Skyhawk replied.
Ajax blurted, “What can go wrong with a unit of thought projectors exposed to the kinds of horrors we’re about to be exposed to?” Ajax let out a primal scream before reverting to his more customary coping mechanism. “Why didn’t the astronaut come home to his wife? Because he needed his space.”
“Easy,” DeWitt, who’d scarcely spoken a word thus far, said, “that hits a little too close to home.”
“I like spending every day as if it were my last, staying in bed and asking my nurse for one more sponge bath.” There was no stopping Ajax now. His mind was on overload, certain Leon’s many ways out of their quicksand pit was just going to take them further down. “What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s mind when it hits the windshield? It’s butt.”
Moving Earth Page 17
