The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “Departed? Departed where?”

  “Where? Here, of course.”

  Agrippa scowled. “You departed here...to come here?”

  The man laughed. “The question is when, not where.”

  Agrippa pursed his lips, then looked back at the gray box. “Temporal Vault. Ah.”

  The man raised his dark eyebrows at that, then shrugged. “As good a name as any, for what is essentially a time machine.”

  “That’s what they called it,” the general said, nodding toward the aliens.

  Looking over at them, the man bristled again. “Dyonari,” he muttered. “Here. Now. It cannot be an accident.”

  “What is your issue with them?”

  “I have seen what they will do,” he snapped. “I remember it clearly. I—” He halted in mid-sentence and frowned. “I—I did remember it. But now, it seems to be slipping away.” He shook his head angrily. “I must not forget. I must not! Everything—everything—depends upon stopping... stopping...” He looked at the Dyonari again. “Stopping them! From...”

  “From what?”

  A long silence, and then the man met Agrippa’s eyes. “From some great evil. It will come to me…”

  The general pointed toward Merrin and his warriors, who stood huddled together about thirty meters away. “But you’re certain they are the ones who—”

  “Not that group specifically,” the man said quickly. “But it is most assuredly Dyonari, and that group is here, now. And so...”

  Agrippa exhaled slowly. He thought of what the goddess Aurore had said earlier, when they’d set out on this insane mission: that the Dyonari were about to...what was the word she had used? To shatter the galaxy. He started to mention that, but then decided to withhold it for now—at least until he had a clearer understanding of this strange man, and how he fit into the larger situation.

  “I can’t stop these Dyonari here from doing something terrible if I don’t know what that thing is. And if I don’t know if these particular Dyonari are the ones who did it. Or are going to do it.” Frustratedly he ran a hand through his short blond hair. “I take it, from what you have said, that you believe you have come to us from the future.”

  “I have,” the man replied. He hesitated, then added, “Though I died far back in the past.”

  Agrippa gave him a look that spoke volumes. “I have no idea what to do with that,” he said, “so let us set it aside, at least for now, and stick to pertinent matters.”

  The man nodded.

  “You would have us believe that you are the god Solonis, the seer. And that you have traveled back to this moment from some future point in time.”

  “That is correct.”

  “To prevent a tragedy of galactic proportions.”

  “Yes.”

  Agrippa nodded at this. “I have no reason to believe anything you say. But then again, I have no reason to doubt you, either. And so here we are.”

  The man nodded. “Indeed.”

  Agrippa regarded the man for a moment, pursed his lips, and looked away. A second later he said, “We spoke of Solonis recently, ourselves, as a matter of fact.”

  The man appeared interested to hear that. “Oh? With whom, may I ask?”

  “With a young woman who claimed to be the goddess Aurore.”

  The man smiled at this. “Ah. Yes. Aurore.” He chuckled. “So—it worked.” He looked Agrippa and his men over now as if seeing them all for the first time. “She chose you, then?”

  Agrippa shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. We struck a deal with her. My team and I were to help her to avert some great catastrophe. But then, after we arrived here...” He shrugged again. “She disappeared. Right before our eyes.”

  The man who called himself Solonis laughed again. “She performed as I required,” he said. “Excellent.” He gave Agrippa a sidelong look. “And you believed she was who she claimed to be?”

  “She possessed the power to lead us here,” Agrippa said by way of answer.

  The man nodded thoughtfully. “She performed a miracle, and so she must have been divine. Yes.” He chuckled softly. “And yet, I must tell you that she was not in truth the goddess she claimed to be, or believed herself to be.”

  “What do you mean? How would you know that?”

  “Because Aurore died long ago, as did I. The woman you encountered was a kind of ghost—a representation of everything that Aurore was—kept intact by an infusion of the Power, the cosmic energy that makes the gods what they are.”

  “She was a ghost,” Agrippa repeated dubiously. He raised one eyebrow at the man. “And you know this how?”

  “Because I created her ghost. I bound it together with the Power. Just as I created this form for myself, so to speak.”

  Agrippa just looked at him.

  “I did tell you, after all,” the man said, “that I died long ago.”

  Agrippa growled in the back of his throat. “I intended that this conversation should make things clearer,” he grumbled, “but I fear it is having the opposite effect.”

  The other man shrugged. “Time travel will do that,” he said. “But perhaps—”

  What he was about to say would never be known, for at that moment the perimeter scout to Agrippa’s left called out, “Contact!”

  7

  General Agrippa grasped the barrel of his quad-rifle and hoisted it up. “What is it?”

  “Some sort of vehicle, sir,” the scout called from a short distance away. “Very small.”

  Agrippa leapt atop the gray sarcophagus and peered into the ever-present fog, his cyber-optics working to compensate for the terribly low visibility. He could just make out the shapes of three more Dyonari approaching aboard a transparent, levitating platform that skimmed a few centimeters above the ground. As he looked on, the vehicle came to a halt and the alien in the middle of the trio hopped down on long, slender legs. He wore a slightly more elaborate suit of shimmering, glasslike armor and seemed to be exchanging harsh words—though likely silently, via telepathy, since his mouth didn’t move but his posture reflected an aggressive stance—with Merrin, the commander. After a couple of seconds of this, both the newcomer and Merrin turned and began gesturing toward the gray tomb—and toward the humans.

  “I don’t like this a bit,” Agrippa muttered. He hopped down from the tomb and began to stroll in what he hoped was a leisurely manner toward the huddle of aliens. He raised his right hand in what he hoped would be interpreted as a friendly gesture as he approached.

  “Hello,” he called, smiling. He quickly sized up the new figure and assessed that he was now the ranking Dyonari officer present. “I am Arnem Agrippa,” he said, nodding toward that one. “General of the III Legion of the Empire. And you are..?”

  The new officer seemed to regard Agrippa as if he were a somewhat annoying insect. “You will move away from the Temporal Vault,” came a voice within Agrippa’s head—forceful verging on aggressive.

  The general’s eyebrows knitted together. He raised both hands now, gesturing for this new Dyonari to calm himself. “Hold on, now,” he said. “I’ve reached an agreement with Commander Merrin here, and—”

  “Any agreements you struck with the Commander are null and void,” the voice shot back.

  “But we negotiated in good faith, and came to an equitable—”

  “There will be no negotiations, human. Your forces must move away from the Vault immediately.”

  Agrippa felt himself growing angry. Clearly this new Dyonari—who hadn’t even seen fit to introduce himself—was the highest ranking member of the group, and wasn’t willing to concede anything. This was the type of Dyonari Agrippa had encountered in the past, before the incident on Eingrad-6: arrogant, enigmatic, and hostile. In a way, it felt reassuring to him; reassuring to know that he hadn’t entirely misjudged them up until then.

  “All we seek is a way out of here,” Agrippa said—but as soon as the words escaped his lips, he realized that they were no longer true. He had come her
e with his squad on a mission, albeit an ill-defined one. He felt a responsibility to see it through, if possible—particularly if he’d been told the truth: that the safety of the entire galaxy was at stake. He only wished he understood the particulars better. Or at all.

  “Your desires are of no interest to me,” the new leader snapped, still speaking telepathically. “This is your final warning. Order your warriors away from the Temporal Vault.”

  “The Vault doesn’t belong to me, nor to you,” Agrippa replied. “I assume it belongs to the man who came out of it just now.”

  The leader reacted visibly to this. He turned and stared silently at Merrin; surely a spirited telepathic conversation was underway between the two of them. After a few seconds the leader turned back to Agrippa. “If the being that dwelt inside the Vault has now emerged, he must be handed over to us, as well.”

  “What? Why?”

  The leader ignored Agrippa’s questions and strode imperiously away. Merrin remained nearby and his embarrassment was obvious even upon his slender Dyonari features. After a moment he sent to Agrippa a telepathic message: “Our seers informed us that we would likely meet resistance from an alien army while carrying out this mission. And also that we would encounter a being hurled from the time stream. He was to be very important—vital—to our mission, and we were to secure him and preserve him at all costs.”

  Agrippa glanced back at the dark-complexioned man who had climbed out of the tomb, then nodded to Merrin. “I believe I understand, but—”

  “Merrin!” shouted the leader, using not telepathy but actual voice, and proving quite adept at it. “Come!”

  Commander Merrin gave Agrippa one last look, disappointment and regret clear on his alien features, before hurrying along after the others. Now standing alone in the center of the space that lay between the two small armies, Agrippa began to withdraw back to his own side. Even as he moved, he kept his eyes on the Dyonari warriors, watching as at some unspoken order they lined up in what was clearly an attack formation, swords and pistols drawn and ready.

  “Major Torgon,” Agrippa called as he reached the tomb and leapt up upon it, “ready the men to defend this position.”

  “Sir.” Torgon saluted, now all formality, and barked orders to the troops. Instantly the dozen men and women of the III Legion—the Kings of Oblivion—moved into strategic spots around and atop the tomb.

  “Not to question your thinking, of course, General,” Torgon whispered to Agrippa as the last of the Kings moved into position, “but are we certain this—whatever it is—” He nodded down at the gray Temporal Vault they stood upon. “—is worth fighting for?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that, Major,” Agrippa replied quietly, so that no one else could hear.

  “Is there no chance we could persuade this new leader of theirs to simply open a way for us and let us leave?”

  Agrippa seemed to consider this for a few quiet seconds. Then, “Perhaps. But circumstances have now changed.” He faced Torgon directly, keeping his voice very soft. “I don’t fully grasp all of this, no. But what I do know is that we agreed to come here to stop a group of Dyonari from doing something that would potentially destroy the galaxy. This man—” He nodded his head toward the one who called himself Solonis. “—claims he sent the goddess, or whatever she was, who delivered that message. And he claims he came here from the future to help prevent the catastrophe.”

  “I—think I followed all of that, sir.”

  Agrippa chuckled. “And so here we are, standing atop the only solid object we have encountered anywhere in this dimension that we were brought to. And right over there—” He gestured toward the aliens across the way. “—are a group of Dyonari. And they want this object, and the man that came from it.”

  “It does all seem rather connected, doesn’t it, sir?”

  Agrippa nodded once. “Until I know otherwise—until I get answers that are clear and logical— my priority is to deny those creatures over there anything and everything.”

  Torgon nodded. “I understand, sir.”

  Agrippa clapped the major on the back. “What of the others?” he asked a second later. “Should I attempt to explain—”

  Torgon was shaking his head and Agrippa trailed off. “No need, sir,” the major replied firmly. “They are Bravo Squad. They will do whatever you require of them. Explaining is not necessary.”

  Agrippa allowed himself a slight smile. “Very well.”

  There was movement within the fog directly across the open space. “Here they come!” shouted the scout off to their right.

  Gleaming glass swords raised high and pistols firing, a wave of Dyonari warriors charged at Agrippa’s line.

  8

  Agrippa opened up with his quad-rifle, the twin energy-weapon barrels on either side firing an unceasing barrage of blinding and deadly streaks of coherent light and heat into the center of the Dyonari ranks. To his surprise, the aliens didn’t immediately go down. When he’d unleashed such firepower upon human enemies, there were rarely more than a couple of seconds to pass before smartcloth outfits melted and even heavy-duty deflector suits gave way. These aliens, though, in their shiny armor made from what looked to the humans like stained glass, absorbed the strikes and kept coming.

  For the III Legion’s part, he saw to his immense relief, the same was true. The Dyonari pistols fired shimmering violet beams of hard-light, but the Kings of Oblivion in their bulky white and green Deising-Arry combat armor weren’t taking massive damage when the blasts struck home. It appeared that in the eternal duel of offensive vs defensive weaponry, they operated this day within a time when defenses were ahead.

  That, Agrippa knew, only meant the fighting would soon turn to that oldest, most reliable, and most viscerally brutal of all methods of killing an enemy: hand-to-hand combat, the way humans had done it for so many millennia, back to the Stone Age.

  Of course, he also knew, those Stone Age fighters hadn’t worn heavy combat armor or carried transparent swords that could slice through almost anything.

  As the Dyonari reached the far side of the tomb, the Kings of Oblivion rushed out and crashed into them, surging in a broad wave across the clearing. In engagement after engagement, long, curved sword dueled with short, thick gladius. Shiny, transparent armor crashed against heavy metal and ceramics. The shouts, cries and grunts of humans and aliens locked in mortal combat echoed up from the flat, otherwise lifeless plain.

  Snarling at the sight he beheld before him, infuriated at the Dyonari for causing the situation to come to this, he glanced once at Major Torgon—the major’s eyes glinted with combat fury—and then crouched, preparing to launch himself off the gray edifice and down into the fray.

  Before he could, a voice pierced the foggy air, high and shrill and most definitely not belonging to any of the combatants on either side: “Stop this! Stop this now!”

  Agrippa sought out the source of the call; it had come from only a short distance to his left. There, at the far end of the tomb, stood the man claiming to be the god Solonis, the seer. He stood with both hands raised, his dark skin covered only by a sort of brown loincloth lashed about his waist. His fingers were splayed wide in the air and blue lightning danced across them, lighting up the area and driving back the fog.

  “You know me! You know who I am, and why I am here! You will cease this madness and take heed!”

  As one, the two sides in the battle halted their fighting and stood staring up at him. To his surprise, Agrippa found that he was doing that, as well.

  “I have come here, to this time and place, to save the galaxy from utter annihilation,” the man said. “If you would help me, help me. And if not...” Blue lightning flashed, blindingly bright now. “If not, I will kill every single one of you and then do it myself.”

  9

  Solonis’s display had served two very necessary purposes. It had caused the humans and the Dyonari to stop fighting one another before the situation could progress to the point t
hat only one side’s victory and the other’s death would settle affairs. It had also persuaded both sides that this man who stood before them was, indeed, the seer-god, Solonis. His wielding of the blue lightning, drawing it from that universal source of cosmic energy called the Power and calling it down to strike between the two blurring lines at the critical moment, had left no room for doubt.

  As both sides had stepped back and paid heed to him at last, he had stood atop the Temporal Vault—the tomb-like machine that existed in many places and times at once and that had carried his current body back in time from the far future—and he had told them the story of how he came to this time, this place, and this form.

  “I understand now that both of your teams have come here for the same reason I have,” Solonis said, his gaze sweeping from the humans who stood to the left of him in front of the tomb to the Dyonari who stood to his right. “We must work together. That must begin with everyone here understanding the full situation... as best it can be understood. We must share our knowledge across both groups.”

  At the forefront of his group, General Agrippa raised his hand and Solonis nodded toward him.

  “Then let us get this out of the way first and foremost, since you would now have us trust and work with the Dyonari,” the blond general stated in his booming voice. He looked across the open space to the ranks of alien warriors in their glass-like armor. “When you first awakened and saw them present here, you demanded that my troops kill them.”

  The Dyonari reacted visibly at this, but none of them moved to start up the violence again. Yet.

  Solonis nodded. “I reacted out of instinctive fear,” he said, his voice smooth and calm. “I recalled that the Dyonari played some part in the crisis I had come to prevent, but could no longer recall precisely what that part was. At some basic level I feared they were the cause of it. I realize now that I was mistaken—at least with regard to this group.”