The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “I would be delighted to come aboard your flagship,” Iapetus interrupted. He paused. “That is—assuming there was an invitation in there somewhere.”

  Tamerlane was taken aback. “Um—yes, yes. You can take that as an invitation. Provided you come alone.”

  “I will.”

  “And leave your weapons on your own ship.”

  A pause, then, “Yes. Yes, that is acceptable.”

  It is? Tamerlane thought to himself. He was shocked, but managed to hide his reaction. “Very well, then,” he said, “you may take a shuttle over. No fighter escort.”

  “Understood.” Iapetus started to turn away, then stopped and looked back at Tamerlane. “And since you have the Lady Teluria present, you can be sure I will remain on my best behavior.” He cocked his head to one side. “She is there with you, is she not?”

  “She is indeed,” Tamerlane replied. “And you may rest assured that she will be keeping at least one eye on you at all times.”

  “Excellent,” Iapetus said. This time he actually smiled, though Tamerlane wasn’t entirely sure why. “Very good,” he went on. “We of the Sons of Terra are, after all, always watching. It will be refreshing to have someone else performing the surveillance for a change.”

  And with that, Iapetus closed the connection.

  Tamerlane mentally stepped out of the Aether link and his consciousness returned to the bridge of the Ascanius. He looked to Dequoi. “They’re sending a shuttle over. Keep a gun on it at all times, and scan it from stem to stern for anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I’ll keep a whole battery on it, if it’s coming from Iapetus’s ship,” Dequoi replied testily.

  “I trusted that you would,” Tamerlane said with a smile.

  “He is coming here?” Teluria asked, frowning.

  “He is indeed.”

  She looked as if she’d bitten into something extremely sour. “I would advise that you send out a couple of torpedoes to greet his shuttle,” she said.

  He laughed at this, ever so slightly, but quickly came to understand that she was deadly serious.

  “I can’t do that,” he told her. “He’s at a position of disadvantage now. I have to see what concessions I can extract from him. If he could be brought back over to our side—convinced to fight the enemy and not fight my government—he would be a formidable addition to our ranks.”

  Teluria simply shook her head at him. “How did you rise so far, so young, when you are so naive?” she wondered aloud.

  Dequoi and some of the other officers looked up at this remark in surprise. Tamerlane meanwhile felt himself growing angry. Another part of him, however, began to wonder if the woman in red was correct. Should he blast Iapetus out of space while the opportunity was there? Did he dare? Could he live with himself afterward if he did such a thing? After giving his permission for the man to come aboard?

  Tamerlane turned and strode toward his office off to the right; it was a room that had until recently belonged to General Nakamura. The thought of it made him extremely sad.

  He looked back at Dequoi. “Please inform me when Iapetus comes aboard,” he said. And with that he went into the office and closed the door.

  3

  The Kings of Oblivion marched along through the fog, servos in their combat armor whining softly as they moved, soft soil yielding beneath their heavy, booted feet. At the front of their portion of the larger procession, General Agrippa kept one eye on the monotonous landscape ahead and one eye on the sensor readouts arrayed inside his helmet and scrolling across its transparent ceramic/steel faceplate. He and all the others were alert for any movement, any sign of attack as they continued on toward the location the Dyonari promised was just ahead.

  The movement, when it did come, was so faint as to go unnoticed by anyone for the first two seconds. By the third second, it had registered in Major Torgon’s vision and he was opening his mouth to call a warning. By the fourth second, before Torgon had actually uttered a word, Agrippa had seen it, as well. He was already in motion by the time the major cried, “Contact!”

  Agrippa had his short, broad gladius unsheathed and ready in his right hand as he brought his quad-rifle around with the other. He and the others around him waited, tense, weapons at the ready, as the seconds ticked by.

  Agrippa scowled. He could see nothing.

  “What is happening?” called the Dyonari commander—Ralin—from up ahead.

  Squinting, Agrippa attempted to make out what the movement had been, even as another part of his mind noted the fact that his armor’s electronic scanning devices were not registering a thing.

  “What is it?” called Commander Ralin again. “Why have you stopped?”

  Agrippa kept his eyes focused tightly on the area as he answered, “There’s something out there.” He nodded toward the wall of fog as the commander walked back towards him.

  The commander appeared to exchange a few telepathic words with Commander Merrin, then said aloud, “What did you see? Why aren’t our sensors detecting anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Agrippa answered. “And I don’t know.” He nodded at the swirling gray clouds. “But there is definitely something there.”

  Ralin frowned at Agrippa. He turned and surveyed the fog for several seconds, then made a sound of impatience or annoyance. “Whatever it was, it is no longer there,” he said. “Perhaps it became aware of the full strength of our column, and chose to withdraw, or—”

  Agrippa issued his own sound of annoyance and impatience with the Dyonari commander. Raising his gladius high, his already-tall stature only enhanced by the bulky armor, he rushed ahead toward the fog. The Dyonari called out to him but he ignored the words. Before anyone could stop him, he plunged into the gray clouds and vanished.

  4

  Seated in the big, comfortable chair in Nakamura’s old office, Tamerlane had actually fallen into a light nap when Captain Dequoi signaled that their distinguished visitor had arrived.

  Iapetus and Tamerlane emerged onto the bridge from opposite directions at almost exactly the same moment. The general in black and gold was escorted by two Lords of Fire and two Kings of Oblivion soldiers in medium-weight combat armor, each carrying a superheated-plasma pistol—the standard issue for use within the hull of a starship, where nearly anything else ran the risk of causing explosive decompression. The general in red was alone, wearing his formal officers’ coat with its flaring bottom over his standard uniform. The two approached one another and halted about six paces apart at the center of the ship’s massive bridge level. Captain Dequoi looked on from his command seat and the goddess Teluria stood off to Tamerlane’s right, leaning with her back against the railing, her dark eyes darting from one to the other of the generals.

  “Well, Ezekial,” Iapetus began. “I must commend your soldiers on their thoroughness. They searched for weapons in places I scarcely even knew I possessed.”

  Tamerlane didn’t laugh. He barely smiled. “You’ve come to discuss terms of surrender, yes?” he asked, his tone all business.

  Iapetus did smile at that. He actually appeared more relaxed, more at ease, than anyone there had ever seen him. He spread his hands wide at waist level. “I hadn’t thought of it, but if you are prepared to surrender,” he said, “I certainly will be glad to hear your terms.”

  Tamerlane’s mouth tightened into a grimace. “Why are you wasting our time?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I simply blow your ship out of the cosmos right now—and put you out an airlock?”

  Iapetus gave a tiny shrug. “If you can do those things, perhaps you should,” he said. “But, in the meantime, I have a special message—” He turned and faced Teluria directly. “—for you.”

  The goddess twitched visibly. Her lips curling downward in distaste, she regarded him with equal parts surprise and contempt. “For me? You dare to even speak to me, after the events of Ahknaton?”

  Iapetus half-smiled. “An unfortunate series of circumstances,” he said. “Allow me to ap
ologize formally.” He pursed his own lips and added, “I also have a secret for you, if you would care to hear it.”

  Tamerlane had no idea what to make of this. He watched and waited, his patience growing thin.

  Teluria’s expression soured further, but she did step away from the railing and move slowly towards him. “I should open a portal here, now, into the Below—and shove you through it,” she muttered.

  “Oh, I think Hell awaits most of us present here,” Iapetus said in a low growl. “Sooner or later.” And then he merely waited, calm and patient, as if he had not a care in the world.

  After five endless seconds ticked past—five seconds during which nobody moved or spoke—Teluria grudgingly approached him. She stopped as soon as she stood within arm’s reach of him. “Well?” she asked.

  Iapetus favored her with a full smile, then raised his right arm and pointed his index finger at her. “You can go ahead and open that portal you mentioned,” he said, “but not into the Below. No—this one should go right back over to the bridge of the Atlantia.”

  “What?” Teluria and Tamerlane said it simultaneously.

  “And you’re coming with me,” Iapetus added with a laugh. “Now. Or—”

  “Or what?” Teluria demanded. “You are unarmed—not that any of your pitiful weapons could harm me, even if that were not so.”

  “You know of the one weapon that will harm you,” Iapetus replied, his previously disconcerting smile now replaced by a much better-fitting predatory leer. “You know I possess a copy of it.” He nodded down at his arm. “I have had its components surgically fitted within my own right arm. With but a thought, I can fire the weapon and rip your living spirit from your body.”

  Teluria gaped at him. She looked at his index finger, pointing directly at her, then back at his face, seeing his hard expression. She slowly shook her head.

  “Impossible,” Tamerlane exclaimed. “And ridiculous. My men would’ve found any weapon—”

  “It is not a human weapon,” Iapetus stated flatly. “It will not appear on any scans.”

  Tamerlane started forward, his soldiers behind him, their rifles at the ready. Iapetus halted them with a quick look. “Now, now, Ezekial,” he said tensely. “Any false moves and she’s done for.”

  Tamerlane considered this. “Why should I care?” he asked. “Why should I allow you to leave—and to take her with you? Again?”

  Iapetus shrugged at this. “I honestly have no idea,” he replied. “But I do know that you will. Because I know you.” He laughed. “And—because you know me—you know I will kill her without a second thought.”

  Tamerlane glared at him but said nothing.

  “Now, my dear,” he said to Teluria, “if you would be so kind as to open a way through to the Atlantia—?”

  Practically steaming in anger and helplessness, the goddess in red raised one hand and began to peel back the outermost layers of reality.

  “What good will it do you to go back to your ship?” Tamerlane demanded. “It’s dead in the water.”

  Iapetus flashed him another smile. “If that’s so, then why should you object to us going there?”

  The portal whooshed open, a slowly-rotating circle just taller than the top of Iapetus’s head. Clouds and lights flashed within it.

  “After you,” the general said to the goddess.

  Casting one last miserable look back at Tamerlane, Teluria walked through the portal. Iapetus followed her. A moment later, the spinning circle of light shrank down to a tiny ball floating at waist-height, and then it vanished utterly.

  No one aboard the Ascanius was the least bit surprised when, a few moments later, the Atlantia came to life, its damage feigned or superficial, its engines back on line and purring.

  One of the sensor techs turned to Dequoi and Tamerlane. “Sir,” she said, “the Atlantia is powering up weapons.”

  “I knew she wasn’t as hurt as they were letting on,” Dequoi hissed.

  Still cursing under his breath, Tamerlane barked orders at Dequoi and the others on the bridge. The captain was way ahead of him; he’d been issuing orders silently, via the Aether, from the moment Iapetus had come aboard. In response, what was left of the Ascanius’s deflector shields charged to capacity while its guns, already pointed toward the Atlantia, cycled up for maximum power.

  This was done just in the nick of time, for an instant later the Atlantia opened fire with its two main forward-facing guns. The nearly-blinding twin beams of coherent light stabbed out and struck the Ascanius amidships, shredding the remainder of the shields. A fraction of the blasts made it through and hit the ship in its central living quarters area. Meanwhile the Atlantia began to rotate so that its longer row of cannons along the side lined up directly facing Tamerlane’s ship.

  Alarms on the bridge wailed from the first strike. Fire control teams were redirected to deal with the new damage. The Ascanius, already grievously wounded during the battle with the Phaedron comets, teetered now on the brink of utter catastrophe.

  And then ice began to form on the floor of the bridge. Tamerlane saw it, instantly recognized it for what it was, and wondered if it would possibly save them—or bring about an even greater doom.

  “Contact!” cried the sensor officer, just as he had expected. “Comets dropping hyper off our starboard bow!”

  As a new wave of comets swept down upon the two ships, the Atlantia held off on firing at the Ascanius for a second.

  This was all Dequoi needed. He didn’t wait for Tamerlane to suggest it. He linked directly to the chief engineer and mentally shouted, “Jump! Now!”

  The Ascanius spun on its axis and leapt into hyperspace.

  Seeing the Atlantia, now surrounded by comet fragments, shrink down to a tiny dot and then disappear behind them, Tamerlane smashed his fist down onto the railing. His iron control over his powers slipped momentarily. In response, little fires sprang up all along the rail, bringing crewmembers running with extinguishers to put it out. The general scarcely even noticed.

  “Maybe the Phaedrons will finish Iapetus off this time,” Dequoi suggested, once Tamerlane had calmed down a bit. “Maybe we’ve seen the last of him.”

  Tamerlane gave the old captain a look that expressed his feelings on that score very clearly.

  Dequoi reluctantly nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m beginning to think the only way to deal with Iapetus is to drive a stake through his heart.”

  “I’m open to any and all approaches,” Tamerlane replied. “Yours sounds as good as any. And I’d like just one more opportunity to try it.”

  5

  Back in realspace, the Atlantia unleashed a massive broadside against the attacking wave of comets, driving the Phaedrons back momentarily. The aliens responded with a psychic barrage of their own, mental hooks lashing out to ensnare the crewmembers of the human ship.

  The officers and techs were screaming in agony all around, unable to do their jobs. Even Teluria had dropped to her knees, clutching at her head and screaming. Gritting his teeth and biting his tongue to the point that blood ran down from the corner of his mouth, Iapetus stumbled to the helm control and shoved the writhing officer out of the way. Then, rotating the ship so that its direction matched that of the Ascanius some seconds before, he collapsed on top of the jump engine controls. His fingers clawed for the correct touchsquares and levers. At last he could hold back no longer and he screamed—but as he did, the Atlantia lurched forward, away from the Phaedron comets, and shot into hyperspace.

  The leader of the Sons of Terra had escaped once again. And he had the power of the gods on his side once more.

  6

  Almost immediately, General Arnem Agrippa began to wonder if he had acted too impetuously, too rashly. The moment he passed through the wall of clouds, the fog totally engulfed him and visibility dropped to almost nothing. He raised his visor but it didn’t help. He froze in place, worried that if he moved about, he might lose his bearings and never find his way back to the r
est of the squad. His common sense screamed at him that he was behaving foolishly, impetuously; that he’d been incredibly stupid to dash into this swirling miasma of nothingness all alone. The movement was purely in your imagination, that voice insisted. After all, no one’s sensor had picked anything up. And yet an even louder, stronger instinct had seized him and compelled him forward. In truth, he’d had no choice in the matter. It was as if he’d been enchanted. For reasons that entirely eluded him now, he’d had to see what lay in this direction.

  Even so, after several long moments of shouting into the fog and looking about, he had nearly come to the conclusion that his wits had abandoned him, and he prepared to head back in what he hoped was the direction from which he’d come. He took a single step in that direction and then the movement flickered in the right rear corner of his vision again.

  He froze in place. Looking around without lifting either foot, so as not to lose what little sense of direction he still possessed, he shouted, “Who is there?”

  For a second nothing happened. Then the clouds of fog parted and a tall, muscular, armored figure strode out. Agrippa frowned as he studied the man for a few moments. Then he gasped.

  The man wore white and green Deising-Arry Mark 5 combat armor. The insignia on his chest represented the III Legion—the Kings of Oblivion. The transparent visor of his helmet was down, reflections from its surface obscuring the features of the person inside. As Agrippa watched, somehow knowing what he was about to see, the other figure slid the visor up.

  It was like looking in the mirror.

  “What—?” Agrippa began, but faltered immediately. He openly stared at the other figure, who was doing much the same to him.

  “So it happens,” the twin said in a low voice, clearly speaking more to himself than to Agrippa. “It actually happens.”