The First War

by Reg Franklin

  It was night in London when the small shuttle from the Chancel began to hover over the English Channel. The team accompanying Stragdoc mainly consisted of the same group that had sprung him from custody back in ‘47, with the team leader Victor Karman now in charge of covert operations. Of course, this operation was only going to be semi-covert due to what they had been told the Emperor had planned. A small vessel was lowered from the shuttle loaded with the team, which quietly made its way up the Thames.

  Karman’s team was clad in black armor, the Emperor clad in a long jacket of the same kind that Karman had presented to him on the day of his release. A thin layer of armor lined the coat, strong enough to stop a bullet, the same sort of polymer used in construction of several areas of the Chancel; only there of course it was much thicker. Otherwise, the only protection the Emperor wore were a sidearm and a ballistic vest.

  “Two minutes to target, sir.” Karman intoned, the consummate professional. Stragdoc nodded, maintaining his mental shield. He would have to drop it eventually, but he knew that Jennifer was likely mentally scanning for him, trying to discern what he was planning. Moreover, he did not want her to know what was happening until it was too late.

  The Embassy sat near the riverbank, guards patrolling the perimeter. The craft pulled to the shoreline, the team silently disembarking. “I want our people out alive. For each one that dies, I kill a member of this team.” Stragdoc ordered, sensing their discomfort at the command. “Now clear me a path to the entrance.”

  “Sir.” Karman nodded, signaling his men. All prepped weapons of relatively new design, streamlined rifles that were capable of reducing a target to their constituent molecules: the Atomic Displacement Rifle, or ADR. The group advanced to the perimeter, getting remarkably close to the embassy before being called out by the guards. Green lines silently lanced out from the rifles, Stragdoc making a mental note to add some kind of sound effect to future models if only to satisfy his nostalgia for television and movie “laser guns”.

  Caught by surprise, the guards fell quickly. Stragdoc strode for the front gate, dropping his mental barrier to take hold of the double doors with his mind, tearing them loose before he reached the entranceway. More guards began running towards the doorway from inside, to no avail as the Emperor grabbed them mentally, slamming them into the floor, knocking them unconscious.

  Marching inwards, Stragdoc called out. “Anyone who is still allegiant to the Emperor had better get out of here. Anyone who isn’t...COME AND GET ME!”

  Doors flew open all over, Alphites staring in shock as their leader continued his walk into the central rotunda of the Embassy, smirking as he effortlessly struck down the human guards with his mind. Many of the guards upon seeing the destruction following the now madly grinning Stragdoc turned tail and fled, his mad laughter echoing after them. For too long had he pent up his abilities, only now unleashing them in full force. One guard managed to get a few rounds off in his general direction before Stragdoc noticed him. One of the rounds had pinged off his ballistic vest. Stragdoc extended his arm in the guard’s direction, lifting him from the ground. To any watching, it looked like sorcery.

  “Who are you that dare raise arms against me?” Stragdoc grinned widely now, telekinetically dragging the man closer to him. The guard remained stoically silent, refusing to succumb to the panic he felt at facing a man turned insane god. Stragdoc mentally tore his nametag from his uniform. “St. George, eh? Come to slay the dragon? Pity that there is no maiden to rescue.” Casting the scrap of fabric aside, Stragdoc firmed his mental hold on him. “You show bravery and I value that. Swear loyalty to me and I shall allow you to live as my subject.”

  St. George merely spat on the floor in response.

  Sneering, Stragdoc further tightened his hold on him. “Then set an example for all those who might dare to follow in your footsteps.” St. George felt enormous pressure building on his skull, and spared a thought for his family before the Emperor crushed his skull under the boot heel of his mind, casting him aside. Seeing Calixta Morsalis running for the entrance, Stragdoc signaled the shuttle to begin extraction.

  That done, he stood in the wreckage of the rotunda. Moans echoed throughout the building from the injured and dying. He closed his eyes, feeling out with his mind for any more of his people within, felt nothing, then that familiar voice pierced his mind.

  What have you DONE? Jennifer Safyo screamed at him mentally. His mad grin firmly in place, Stragdoc simply sent mocking laughter at her, and then grasped the ceiling of the building with his mind. Turning around, he began collapsing the structure behind him dramatically, as much for his own people’s benefit as his enemies’. His people would remember this day, and talk of the power he showed in rescuing those he viewed as his children.

  His enemies would be forced to think very hard about what sort of response to show to this action, now knowing what he was capable of.

  He smiled as he saw emergency crews race towards the rubble of his former Embassy. And thus, he smiled, do I declare humanity obsolete.

  7.

  An ocean away, Jennifer Safyo lay in a heap, heart pounding, eyes streaming with tears. She had been there, in his mind, helpless to do anything but watch as he committed an atrocity against that poor guard.

  Never again. She swore silently to herself. She refused to allow something like this ever happen again if she had the ability to stop it. Jennifer shakily rose to her feet; hand on the wall to hold herself steady. Had her opponent seen into her mind as well? Did he know where she was? She did not think so, he had been too busy showing off and laughing at her inability to stop him. Still, better safe than sorry, time to relocate.

  She moved along the wall to a cabinet, removed a bottle of whiskey. She had been drinking hard lately, not that her accelerated metabolism could tell. All the downsides of alcoholism...none of the perks. She raised the bottle to her lips, but could only swallow a drop before realizing something: at heart, she was a fighter, always had been. She had fought cancer as a child. Fought Paul when she first realized what kind of monster he was. And even in her current borderline state, she had retained enough presence of mind to wire a bomb onto a shuttle.

  This sorry wreck trying to drink away her fear? That was not her. Choosing to forgo the cliché of throwing the bottle, she gently sat it back down. The whiskey was not responsible for her anger, the lunatic in space was. In addition, truth be told, it was very good whiskey that did not deserve to be wasted.

  Okay. She had been unable to do anything this time. There would be a next time. She would be ready for it. She might have gone at things half-assed initially, but now she had to focus her anger and pain and use it against Stragdoc to stop him. Whatever he planned, she needed to be the fly in his ointment.

  ---

  On board the shuttle, all there sat in quiet awe of Paul Stragdoc as they returned to the Chancel. Of course, he drank in the silent adoration, positively drunk on power. Never before had he let the power loose as he had this night, and knew he would never be able to reign it in again.

  Nor did he want to. He wanted to revel in it, and if his people were going to also develop psionic ability, then they would need training, guidance...Stragdoc began to plan, plot, and ponder what his next step would be. Of course, the human governments would also be planning a response, but they lacked a military force that could come after them at present. They were only capable of fighting an atmospheric threat...going after a nation that was not bound to Earth’s surface was still beyond their capabilities at present.

  At present. It was obvious that they would be coming for him eventually. Therefore, they would need to be ready. The small fleet he had would need to be expanded, militarized further. So would the Chancel itself, for that matter. It had only been designed as a safe haven initially, but now it was a base from which to strike hard and fast.

  As the shuttle docked, he was in motion, striding through the airlock. Word had preceded him, and an assemblage of people were standin
g there in awe of the man who could tear a building down with his mind. “Open a communications channel to the propulsion section.” He ordered as he moved past the crowd of onlookers. The technical officer on the other side of the docking bay handed the Emperor the receiver obediently and stood aside respectfully. Stragdoc indulged the crewman with a smile.

  “Propulsion. Engineer Simms.” The voice on the line began.

  “Engineer Simms, this is the Emperor. We need to change orbit, how long to bring the engines online?”

  “Depends how far we’re moving, sir.”

  Stragdoc thought for a brief moment. “Lunar-stationary orbit, but on the dark side of the moon. I want that rock blocking Earth’s view of us.”

  “Easy to do sir, just need to release our current orbit, and drift around back before locking it back in place. Depending on how fast you want the Chancel moving, I can have enough power cycled up in, say, twenty minutes.”

  “Excellent, Simms.” Stragdoc grinned tightly. “I will entrust things to you, and will meet with you once our new orbit is stabilized.”

  “I look forward to it, sir!”

  As he ended the connection, Stragdoc turned to face the small crowd. “Make no mistake, my friends. We must now consider ourselves on a war footing, and they will be coming for us eventually. Whether they desire our deaths as revenge or out of fear of their own obsolescence, they will come. And we must be ready for it.”

  Calixta Morsalis, former Imperial Ambassador to Earth, was the first to speak. Her treatment had not been inhumane, but the embarrassment of her captivity was an open wound, salved by the Emperor’s words. “Long live the Emperor!” she called in a choked voice.

  The others quickly took up the chant, bringing a broad smile to Stragdoc’s face. He raised a hand to signal silence. “My friends, long live all of you, and long live the Empire!”

  It was a calculated bit of humility that paid off, as now chants of “Long live the Empire!” thundered around him, fanatical devotion glowing from all present. Word would spread quickly, and soon every man, woman, and child aboard would echo the phrase from the very pits of their souls.

  ---

  Needless to say, Stragdoc was exceptionally correct as to the world’s response to the destruction he had caused. The governments of Earth united in anger at the Alphites in general, and Stragdoc in particular. The British government was among the loudest, as they had supplied many of the guards at the embassy who were now dead. They proposed the formation of a new global alliance in the face of what was determined to be an overwhelming threat in between the advanced technology on board the Chancel as well as the bizarre abilities displayed by Stragdoc (security footage having filled in exactly what had happened within the building).

  Thus did the world ratify the Earth Alliance Pact of 2056, wherein the signing nations agree to put aside all differences, and unify the globe under a centralized governing body until such time that the Alphite threat was neutralized. The few that did not were the usual group of stubborn iconoclasts, determined to maintain their individuality either out of pigheadedness or paranoid thinking that the entire incident had been staged in order to have their dictators-for-life surrender to foreign interests.

  The signing countries then chose to change the name of the United Nations to the United Earth Alliance. All member nations still had relative individual autonomy, but still had to follow the will of the Security Council, which was built now solely out of the most economically and militarily powerful nations of the world. Military and scientific secrets were made available as the Earth prepared for a new attack.

  Which was not to say that each nation did not maintain a few internal secrets. The Americans felt that Stragdoc was the key, that should he be removed, the threat would end. As such, they began secret plans of their own

  8.

  It was about a month after the United Earth Alliance was ratified that a number of Earth’s satellites were destroyed. Mainly they were of espionage types, although several communications satellites also went down. Footage broadcast from one of the satellites before its destruction showed a pair of diamond-shaped craft coming around the moon and opening fire.

  “Excellent, Admiral. Your pilots are to be commended for their marksmanship.” Stragdoc grinned watching the footage collected from the vessels themselves.

  “Thank you, sir, but I must disagree. The targets were supposed to be limited to the spy satellites, however several others housing telecom and scientific instruments were also eliminated.” Picking up a control, Dalth found a specific part where a satellite bearing the emblem of an American communications magnate was in the midst of breaking apart.

  Stragdoc grinned even wider. “Oh that's all right; I used to compete against them. All’s fair in et cetera, et cetera.”

  Dalth’s frown remained, but she nodded agreement. Stragdoc stood, placed a friendly arm around her narrow shoulders, leading her from his offices. “Now, Tilial, I know you are something of a perfectionist, I am too in a way. So let me make a suggestion: your pilots’ actions helped to keep the planet off-balance. And if they are off-balance, then they will make mistakes that we may take advantage of.” Mentally opening the double doors, he ushered her through. “Remember, Tilial: not every failure results in the same, it's up to each of us to snatch opportunity when it presents itself.”

  Looking up at him, she nodded fiercely. “I will remember that, sir.”

  “I know you will.” Snapping a small salute to her, Stragdoc returned to his sanctum and sealed the door. He had not been lying to her, his spies reported fresh paranoia on the surface spouting inane theories that they were trying to force communications to redirect through satellites he had installed his own spying equipment. Of course, he had planted backdoors into those satellites years ago, but the increased digital traffic was of no consequence.

  Instead, now he looked to the future. Staring at a schematic of the Chancel’s engines, and looking for upgrade points that would enable the orbiting city to increase its velocity. Touching a comm stud on the desk, he summoned now Chief Engineer Simms to his sanctum.

  “My Lord, I am extremely honoured to-” the tow-headed young man began, saluting the moment he was through the doors.

  “Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure you are.” Stragdoc waved off the coming devotion, instead directing the younger man to where he had set up the schematics. “Simms, there is a possibility that the Earth may launch an overwhelming force at us eventually. In such a scenario, what would be our absolute maximum velocity?”

  “You are planning retreat, sir?”

  “I plan for everything Simms. I won't commit grand suicidal gestures, ‘If-I-go-down-I’m-taking-you-with-me’, because survival is the best revenge.” Stragdoc pointed at the young chief. “Because as long as you survive, your enemies will fear for your eventual return. Just as how they are doing now below us. They scurry like vermin, panicked about our next play. How will it come? Orbital bombardment? Guerilla strikes? As long as they are afraid, they are in chaos whether they choose to admit it or not. And as long as they are in chaos,” he grinned maliciously “then we are winning.”

  Simms nodded, planning to write down what the Emperor had just imparted to him.

  “At any rate, we need the Chancel to be capable of enormous velocity if we need it. Warp speed. Bend laws of space and time. That sort of thing.”

  “I recall reading that in the early part of this century, the Americans were approaching a theory on it.” Simms pondered, now bent over the plans. “If we could adapt the idea to a vessel this size…”

  “I had considered that. Have your team prepare the calculations and a simulation for me and keep me appraised every 48 hours as to your progress.”

  “Yes sir. If I may, however make a suggestion?”

  Stragdoc stood to his full height. “Go on…”

  Simms gulped, afraid of offending the powerful psionic. “Well sir, with the current construction design of the Chancel, were we to bring it to a
warp-speed velocity the act of deceleration would likely tear it in half.”

  “I had considered that as well.” Stragdoc nodded. “Very well. In your opinion, would a series of energy shields function to maintain structural integrity?”

  “Possibly, sir. However, we’ll need to first test the space warp, run simulations, that sort of thing. I simply wanted to offer a suggestion that we may need to rebuild the Chancel into a more streamlined shape better able to handle those stresses.”

  “Hrm.” The Emperor seemed lost in thought briefly. “Seeing as we are on a war footing, a warship design would better serve us anyway.” Now walking Simms out, he continued. “Conduct the warp tests first, as soon as possible. In the interim, draw up a proposal for how best to reconfigure our home.”

  Thanking Stragdoc for hearing him out, Simms virtually floated back to Engineering. Alone again, the Emperor sighed and collapsed into an overstuffed armchair, absentmindedly scratching at the appliances he wore to conceal his true age. His people believed that the changes to their genetic code merely slowed aging; instead, it halted it completely at a certain point in development. Digging his nails into the latex prostheses, he tore them off, revealing a man in his late teens, a stark contrast to his assumed appearance.