“You look like the cat that got the canary,” she returned his gaze questioningly.
“And so I should; the Longranger can seat five in the back, and from what he said, I’d deduce this one comes with the very latest medical equipment.” Hawk gestured towards the still-smoking wreckage. “That heap of junk back there was about the oldest 206B still in service!”
Epilogue
Partly concealed under a bush near the edge of the piece of land that had once been the hideout of the greatest secret on Earth, and was now just another vacant plot with irregular holes, shredded tarpaulins, severed scaffolding and broken military equipment scattered across it, a rock-like, rounded black surface lay half-buried and unnoticed, as it had both in the many years before Citadel’s discovery, and in the few days since. At one point it had ‘participated’ – rather ironically – in the recent government-sponsored surveillance of Citadel, when, for one brief, painful moment it had caused an FBI agent to trip and fall during his clandestine setting-up of remote video monitors. Despite that, it had continued to rest undisturbed during the building of the temporary cover over Citadel, the excavation of Citadel’s lower surfaces that had resulted in the death of the President’s Chief Scientific Advisor, the fortification of the area, the cataclysmic, but ultimately rather one-sided battle to prevent the return of the ‘enemies of humanity’ to their fortress and the startling departure of that previously ‘beached’ residence – that followed so quickly afterwards.
Given time, Richard and Karen might have discovered it, if they had not been so focused on obtaining the beryllium and escaping Baynes’ trap. They might have pondered on how the recordings of the death of Commander Vochan, the totalitarian leader of the ill-fated mission to Earth, had been made. If they had, they would have realised the recording device must have still been ‘out there’, and they would have taken steps to remove it, or destroy it. They would not have left it to be discovered, and consequently and inevitably, examined by America’s top scientists. Of course, it was still undiscovered, so this would not happen, or would it?
The new crew of the now departed Citadel had observed hours of video records from the area, but had not fully considered, when the ship’s log had been shown to them, that Vochan was a stickler for details, and so had meticulously managed his first mission of exploration and research from every perspective. He had not overlooked the importance of a visual record of his much-anticipated triumphs, indeed, they had seen most of them – the records that is, there had been nothing that by any stretch of the imagination could be characterised as a triumph in his disastrous first and final exploration mission.
In any case, he had ensured that activities near the Scout Craft would be recorded, without jeopardizing anonymity, by the judicious placing of a recording device. So indeed, this was no ordinary rock, but was in point of fact that very device, the means by which Vochan had once obtained external views of Citadel and the Scouts and wild animals moving outside it, the means by which he had ultimately recorded his own demise. It had ceased performing this function centuries ago, due to a minor, easily correctable defect. As the Scouts could not even remember it being positioned, they were not aware of its presence, and so this defect was never diagnosed, and the device had rested in obscurity and inactivity, ever since.
Now, as Edward Baynes sat at his desk in his temporary office on site, beginning his concluding report on the evaluation of the ‘Citadel Incident’, as it had come to be known, and trying to figure out how he could explain his role in the escape of the two fugitives, and the loss of the most incredible scientific prize ever to be found by mankind – Citadel – his concentration was disrupted by the crashing of the door against its stop. He looked up to see Judy Brisson, her face flushed with excitement, her boots covered in mud, gasping for breath in the doorway.
“You’ll never believe what I just found, sir!”
* * *
Dust swirled. Varshak lowered Harnak’s body into the laser-incised slot in the desolate, ultra-cold ground. A thin trail of orange showed briefly on the ridges of the rocky surface, outlining the path where the Narlav corpse had been dragged moments earlier. The sand scoured it into oblivion as Varshak paused briefly, then, satisfied that the burial place would soon be covered by the seemingly endless sandstorm, he returned to the now vacant galaxy transporter, alone.
For a moment, Harnak seemed to make a miraculous recovery, as his body appeared to struggle to climb out of the rather shallow grave, but the movement soon ceased as the huge ship rose rapidly, and several rocks that had also been lifted by the gravity field fluctuations fell back as the effect dissipated. Dust rapidly coated his space suit, softening the outline, and starting the process of making the burial site blend in with the random and desolate disorder of nature, Mars-style.
The patched-up Warrnam broke free from the dust storm a few kilometres above its very temporary resting place, and accelerated out of Mars’ gravity well with ease. On the stubby nose of the ‘Space Hammer’, a small oblong of Hybralloy[3] covered the first laser-impact point, reinforcing and resealing the structure – this was the only outward sign of the attack from the utility/power module that had precipitated Varshak’s laser slicing of the laboratory dome. In fact, the laser blast from the humans had destroyed key components of the control and navigation equipment, both short- and long-range scanners, and almost succeeded in permanently disabling the Narlav craft. The reality that the laser used in the attack on the mammoth ship had been the very one dropped by Harnak in the airlock of the utility/power module during their aborted attempt to determine the progress of their new Earth-born slaves did not make it any easier for Varshak to accept. He had come to realise that these humans from the planet known as Earth were quite different from the ones he had become used to on his home planet – though perhaps the solitary tech-slave, the zombie-like creature he and Harnak had brought with them, had turned against them and helped the Earth scientist and his two friends?
Impossible!
Varshak had been forced to perform the repairs himself – a distasteful experience that had made him wish he had not left his tech-slave to supervise the scientist. Of course, he had only attempted repairs to essential equipment – the scanners did not come into this category, so he was unaware that the humans were still alive. Even if he had known, he would not have returned to attempt their complete destruction, preferring to leave them to die a cold, slow and very un-warrior-like death marooned on that inhospitable planet.
To add insult to injury, he had been obliged to repeat this process of ship repairs, this time with a small fraction of the same components, after he had finally wiped the humans out of existence (as he assumed) with the vastly superior ship-mounted laser. Varshak had supposed that the second, very brief impact of the lost laser had weakened the skin – just centimetres from the first damage – and so he took no chances. Now a second panel was installed on top of the first.
His quick reaction to the impact, bringing the ship’s defences into play, had in fact been fast enough to prevent the laser beam from doing anything more than slightly heating the equipment immediately behind the first repair, although he had been forced to override the safety warnings to allow the Warrnam to take off before the components cooled. Varshak was also forced to fly the ship himself, a task he usually delegated to his pilot Harnak, and this, he allowed, was the reason why his first attempt to eliminate the humans had not been entirely successful.
At least this time there is no chance for them to follow me. Varshak swivelled the massive “Space Hammer” around until it was oriented away from the sun, and out of the plane of the planets. If by some strange circumstance of battle they are not now all dead, the survivors will suffer the ultimate disgrace of dying slowly, marooned on that dusty, desolate planet.
There was silence in the Warrnam for a few minutes. The alien directed his short-range scanner back towards the dust-enshrouded disk of Mars, forgetting, for the moment, that it was still out of servi
ce. He wondered if the storm had lessened slightly, but realised that, even if it had, it would be a long time before the surface was visible again, and that, by then, the artefacts he had placed there would be buried, lost forever from view. I will be back on Rhaal by then, reporting my find! He paused in his departure routine briefly, swung the ship around slowly, so that he could look at the new home of the Narlavs, and fine-tuned its alignment until the blue image of the third planet swam into view, at this distance little more than a blue point in the immensity of space.
Soon, very soon, I will return – with my kham[4] of warriors, and all the other Commanders will join with me, with their Warrnams, each one with another kham of warriors within it! We shall utterly defeat you with my great invention, and you will not be aware of our attack – until it is too late. Those who survive will soon learn to envy those we destroyed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thorby Rudbek grew up in England, where, from an early age, he fell in love with reading. As a teenager, he often had three books on the go at once. (Is that a male kind of multitasking?) Science Fiction became his favourite kind of book, and he particularly enjoyed many of the works of Robert Heinlein. Of course, once he graduated from University, he found it a natural progression to pursue a career in science; he worked around the world, dabbling in high vacuum physics, microwave, radar, laser, and ionising radiation.
As he grew older he found it harder to locate novels that he enjoyed, and finally he decided to write his own.
The Galactic Citadel series, begun in 'Ascent', is about seemingly ordinary folks who find themselves tasked with extraordinary challenges. They might seem to harken from an earlier time, when heroes were really heroes, and the only wars worth fighting are ones which will protect the defenceless.
If you can escape from reality for a while in his stories and come away with that 'feel good' sensation - Thorby will feel he has succeeded.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Thorby is pleased to announce a big change to the visual impact – if that word can be used in reference to this volume☺ – of this, the first Galactic Citadel novel. Ascent now has an exciting cover, thanks to the creative talent of Donna Harriman Murillo. You can see other examples of her work on the 99designs website… and in other Thorby Rudbek stories!
* * *
[1] These are the numbers one to ten, in Karen’s language
[2] Liver cancer – sometimes caused by alcoholism
[3] Hybralloy – technical name for the black steel-like alloy that covered the exterior of Warrnam and the utility/power module.
[4] Note: A kham is the Narlav term for one hundred million in base 4, and is equivalent to 65,536 (base 10)
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