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59: The Accomplice
"Nasca." General Lysis stared into the face of one of the most disgusting men he had ever met. Nasca the nachash they had always called him. The Cometines had pestered Gamilon and her territories for decades, only recently stopping their harassment for some reason unknown to anyone but them.
"What great message from Zordar brings you out here? Into my domain?"
Nasca laughed heartily, his chuckle reverberating through the Cometine bridge and sounding very much like the exclamation of a mad man. "You are just as stupid as I remember you, Lysis."
Dommel raised an eyebrow, "So glad you remember me fondly, General."
"Oh yes, most definitely. It is hard to forget one so utterly inept." The Cometine retorted.
"You are just as I remember you." Dommel growled. "We all know you had a hand in the Marad*."
"Phsh!" Nasca scoffed, "Don't be silly, Lysis. I was hundreds of light-years away from Gamilon at the time. How could I have had anything to do with that little scufuffle? Hmm? Wasn't it someone called… the 'Malha Guardiana' who was to blame?"
"Indeed she was." Lysis spat back, "But she had help."
"Of course she did. She had a band of zealot soldiers with her if I am not mistaken. The accounts were poorly written though. It was difficult to tell exactly how many she had with her." Nasca smirked.
"Perhaps, but you would know better than I. You were one of them after all." Lysis growled.
"Oh, nonsense." Nasca dismissed. "I have witnesses who place me right at Zordar's side."
"Witnesses who lie."
"Ah, but who's to say who is lying and who speaks the truth?" Nasca's eyes narrowed, "Would you be the judge of such things?"
"And would that be so terrible?" Lysis replied, voice full of the hatred he felt for this Cometine.
A dangerous silence fell between the two Generals, but it was soon broken.
"Well, now that we've had some time to reminisce –" Nasca said, one of his eyes twitching just the slightest bit, "Shall we get back to the subject at hand?"
"Very well." Lysis replied coldly. "What poison has your master given you to spout to us today?"
"So unforgiving." Nasca tsked before saying, "Zordar, most esteemed Prince of the greatest power in the universe – the Comet Empire – first sends his greetings to you, fellow inhabitants of the cosmos –"
"Get to the point, Nasca." Lysis interjected.
The Cometine scowled at Lysis and continued, "'We are in the midst of a most trying time. Gamilon is not what she once was. Her glory is… diminishing. We are prepared to aid you in your efforts to acquire a new home."
Lysis narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Nasca as the message went on.
"But there are two conditions that must be met.'" The Cometine smirked and continued, "'First, you must consent to becoming subject to Prince Zordar.'"
At this a chorus of outraged exclamations came from Dommel's bridge crew. This made Lysis almost laugh.
Nasca scowled at the other men, then cleared his throat and went on, "As I was saying, 'Second, the Prince requires the return of his former consort. You have harbored her long enough.'"
At this Lysis was puzzled, "Consort?" he asked. "We have no consort of Zordar's."
"Oh no?" Nasca raised an eyebrow, "Then who is this?"
An image of Dara appeared in place of Nasca's face.
Dommel fought hard to control his reaction to the revelation and mostly succeeded.
"I have never seen this woman before in my life." Lysis lied, "Whoever gave you this information was most mistaken."
Dara's face disappeared again and Nasca's scowl reappeared. "Playing dumb will not work with me, Gamilon. I know she is there."
"And how would you know that with such surety?" Dommel retorted, "Have you seen her with your own eyes? Is Gamilon's security not good enough to keep out the Nachash?"
At this Nasca clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed to slits, "One does not always have to see something with one's own eyes to know that it is there."
Lysis breathed a silent sigh of relief; at least the Cometine hadn't actually seen the woman he was hunting. "So why come to me with this?" Dommel asked. "Who not bring your demands directly to our Leader?"
"Pft! Deun? That young one has no idea how to run anything. Why should I not give my demands instead to a seasoned veteran such as yourself?"
Now it was Lysis' turn to smirk, "Your information is outdated, Nasca. Deun no longer occupies the throne. In fact, he has been gone for some time now."
"What…?" Nasca's face paled a bit and Lysis smirked in triumph.
"We are now governed by Leader Desslok, whom I assure you does know how to govern Gamilon."
The Cometine recovered quickly and narrowed his eyes at the Gamilon once again, "We shall see about that."
"Oh yes, we shall." Lysis replied and linked Nasca's call to a frequency that would transmit – albeit at a delayed rate – all the way to Gamilon.
The face of the Cometine General filled the screen. Desslok's eyes bored into the man, assessing him.
"What business have you with Gamilon, Cometine?" the Leader spat at the ugly emissary.
Nasca said nothing. Instead, his face lost some of its green hue and turned a rather sickly color.
Desslok chuckled, "Am I so hideous to you that you gag at the sight of me?"
"No – no – it isn't –" realizing how stupid he sounded, Nasca attempted to recover his shattered expectations and shake himself out of the shock he'd received upon seeing the face of the new Leader of Gamilon. "I… did not realize I would be able to have an audience with you so quickly." He lied.
"No matter." Desslok dismissed the man's odd behavior, "What has General Lysis seen fit to send you directly to me to discuss?"
Nasca, still in a state of unbelief, related Prince Zordar's demands to the Leader.
Desslok stared at the image Nasca presented, giving no hint as to what he was thinking. Then he said, "I have never seen this woman before. She is not on Gamilon; I can assure you of that."
Nasca looked at the Leader again, puzzled at the man's composure. Surely his information had been good. But then doubt began to creep up into his mind. If he hadn't been informed of such an important thing as a change in leadership – or the apparent lineage of the one who had ascended to the throne – how was he to know that he hadn't missed something else too.
"Very well…" Nasca said, grudgingly retreating from the conversation. "But remember, if you give her to us and submit to the great Zordar, we will aid you in your search."
Desslok stared briefly at Nasca, then narrowed his eyes and said, in a voice that could have chilled ice, "We need no help from you."
Nasca's image disappeared, banished to return to his injured ship.
Desslok called Lysis fleet and instructed the General to allow the Cometine ship to depart – but only Nasca's ship. The rest of the fleet he had taken with him was to be utterly destroyed.
The order was neatly, and quickly fulfilled.
"What news, General Nasca?" a deep booming voice inquired of the man who now knelt before a high throne, several steps above him. "Did you deliver my message?"
"Indeed, Prince Zordar." Nasca replied his head bowed in respect – and fear. "I delivered it to the Leader himself."
"Leader Deun?" Zordar scoffed, "What good did that do? He has the sense of a demented rodent."
"Quite." Nasca agreed, "But it was not Deun with whom I spoke…"
If Nasca had been looking at his ruler at that moment, he would have seen the gigantic Cometine's snowy eyebrows rise in curiosity.
"Then whom did you speak with, General?"
" With… Leader Desslok, Sire." The General replied, holding out a holographic projector and switching it on. The face of the Gamilon appeared before Zordar.
"Ah…" the Prince said, finally understanding Nasca's strange behavior, "I see the resemblance. I presume he denies all knowledge of… her then?"
"Yes, Sire." Nasca nodded, finally standing and daring to look at the Prince.
"Most interesting." Zordar replied, then sat in silence for a long, nerve-wracking moment before adding, "Good work, General. You have done well."
"Thank you, Sire." Nasca bowed, letting out a sigh of relief as he did so. "What more is to be done about the matter?"
"Nothing." Zordar replied. "At least for now."
Desslok continued to stare at the video screen long after the face of the Cometine had dissolved. There had been something in his eyes that made him nervous. It was almost as if the man – Nasca – knew something that Desslok did not, and that made him quite nervous.
It was unacceptable for an enemy to know more about him than he knew about himself. He grimaced at the thought. General Nasca himself was not well known to Desslok, but the Cometines as a race had a striking reputation as overbearing thrill-seekers who only thirsted for conquest.
They were a barbaric group to be sure – the ravaging of Iscandar all those years ago served as a memorial to that truth.
Iscandar…
Desslok's gaze turned, as it always seemed to these days, to the blue planet floating effortlessly in the night sky. It only seemed to become more and more beautiful every time he saw it.
"Perhaps one day…" he thought, the face of Starsha seeming to appear in the sky before his waking eyes, "After this is done… When I am rid of this foul presence that haunts me…"
He bowed his head, suddenly unable to look at the sight any longer.
"Naughty, naughty." A voice cackled from somewhere in the shadows. "Thinking about that princess again, are we?"
"Queen." The Leader growled back, "She is their Queen."
"Whatever." The voice dismissed, "Distractions are not good for you right now. Put her out of your mind. Concentrate on the task at hand. Cleanse Erats. Deliver your people from their imminent destruction."
"Leave." Desslok growled into the darkness. "I am doing as you have bidden me, so get out!"
The voice cackled in glee. "You are so wonderfully obstinate, mortal. The Master chose well."
"I am no pawn that you or your 'Master' may use on a whim." The man retorted in anger, "And I do not need to be supervised!"
"Oh very well." The voice relented, "But just remember, if the Master sees you are in need of correction, he will not fail to provide it."
"Just go!"
A strange rustling of air whooshed through the room, disappearing, and taking with it the chill that the Leader realized had been in the room the entire time.
"He thinks about her more and more." The imp hissed to his Master. "The man is obsessed. He would rather stare at this silly ball in the sky than do anything else."
A voice, deeper than a drum's beat resounded back with a reply, "She is a menace." The words continued to echo long after they were spoken and mixed ominously with the rest of the Master's speech. "She must not interfere with my grand design."
"Yes, great Lucifer, Son of the Morning. May it never be." The imp said, his sickly voice no longer carrying the deeper tones it had used when speaking with the Leader.
"See to it that she doesn't." the Master boomed. "She has already sent out her sister to try to thwart our plans. See that that little endeavor is… snuffed out."
"Yes! Yes, Sire." The imp cackled, quite happy at the prospect of causing more harm to the now-Queen of Iscandar. "Such a despicable woman. Doesn't she know that we will triumph over her puny efforts at saving 'Erats'?"
The Master's laugh boomed louder than his speaking voice and the imp nearly had to cover his ears, the sound was so deafening. "She does not seem to possess such common sense." He finally managed, between laughs. "She sees only her precious Taskmaster – He who would enslave the races to do His bidding. Why would any of them want to follow such a tight-fisted Ruler as He when they can come to me and I will let them have whatever they want?"
"Of course, Master. Who would want slavery when one can have freedom?" the imp agreed.
"Perhaps your brand of 'freedom' is not so desirable." The voice nearly made the two dark spirits jump.
"What business does an emissary of the Most High have here in my realm?" the Master bellowed at the intruder.
The spirit, bright as the dawning sun with the radiance of Shaddai Himself, replied, "I bring a message to you, Foulest of the foul. The one known as 'Starsha of Iscandar' is hereby under the special protection of Adonai. Touch her and you will regret it. You may have all she possesses, her home, her belongings, her loved ones, but she herself cannot be touched by your dark hand for she is Yahweh's."
The Master seemed to shrivel at the name of the Almighty, but managed to reply, "We will see, little minion. Now be gone back to your lofty abode."
"Gladly." The messenger took wing and disappeared back to the realm from whence he'd come.
"My eyes!" the imp wailed the moment the enemy's envoy was gone, "The light! It burned like fire!" then he whispered in terror, "And the Name – it spoke the Name!"
"It is most unpleasant." The Master replied, "But do not be so weak, servant," the Master said, coldly, "His time will come. I will ascend to His throne! I will be like the Most High! I have proclaimed it, and it shall be so." The Master grinned, "The destruction of the cursed Word of the Enemy is the only thing in my way. The cleansing of Erats will be the fist and greatest step to achieving that goal. After that, it will be simply to eradicate the remaining copies of that text…" The Masters stopped and thought about that for a while, "To destroy the Word of the Most High from the cosmos… That would be most enjoyable, don't you think?"
"Yes… Master…" the imp replied, the feeling of cold dread the envoy had left in his wake still making the imp's entire spirit ache in agony.
Time passed quickly for them all. The days melted into weeks, and the weeks into months.
Masterson's ship continued its relentless sweeps through the deserted perimeter, every so often clashing with a stray Bolar vessel or two, but nothing more than that.
Rapha'owr was moved below the surface, its re-construction taking much less time than anticipated. The city of healing light, no longer able to see the rising sun, was renamed "Belarus."
"A meaningless name for a meaningless city," Desslok had said in response to the renaming.
Admiral Talan and his wife continued to live in the palace, contacting Masterson occasionally through Starsha. They kept their communication down to a minimum, knowing that speaking too often would draw attention and could result in all of their lives being forfeit.
Desslok became more and more reclusive, his moods turning enigmatic as the days rolled by. Even his attendants feared to speak to him as they never knew if they would receive a good-natured reply, or end up with their throat in a vice grip, the Leader's inexplicably enraged eyes burning into their own.
General Lysis returned to Gamilon after completing work on the Pluto Base and finalizing the logistics on Balan, but his hope of an early retirement was sat aside when Desslok asked him to continue in his role as head of the GRN.
Elisa continued her sessions with the council members, making more progress than she ever thought she would have.
Frakken's Ze'evim were commissioned as a Special Forces unit and assigned to the command of General Lysis.
It seemed almost as if everything would continue to go on as planned; the push for Erats seemed to be going without complication.
Then came the call that changed everything.
"General! The Eratites have attacked!"
Dommel could hardly believe what he was hearing. "They've what?" he asked.
"Attacked, Sir. They've sent a fleet to try to destroy our ships stationed at the Pluto Base. Their ships are inferior and few in number, but the fact that they came at all is startling." The officer stationed on Pluto said, a look of puzzled amazement on his face.
"So you should be able to shoot them down without difficulty then?" Lysis asked.
"Of course, Sir. They should be no trouble."
"Then do it before they send more – if indeed they have any more."
"Yes, Sir."
The communication ended and Lysis narrowed his eyes at the blank screen, the tiniest of doubts beginning to nibble at his mind, but he quickly pushed it away. The Eratites would be quashed without much of a fight. From what they had observed over the past months, they were a backward people, completely incapable of doing anything to stop the might of Gamilon. He was certain of it.
Astra felt as though she had been confined within this ship for years, though she knew it had only been months.
The confines were, mostly, quite bearable. She had been forced to stop and wait many times to avoid Gamilon ships. She had even had to hide on a couple of occasions when some pirates had become too interested in a lone Iscandarian vessel far from home.
It had been a long, arduous trip that she was thankful was almost over. The Erats system was just a few light years' distant and once she reached it, she could use the data gathered by Gamilon scout ships to route her course to Erats itself instead of having to take the time to travel through the area more slowly.
Suddenly she emerged from warp and a thrill ran through her she realized she was almost there. To see Erats itself – the Point of Creation as the Iscandarians had always called it – would be… the most monumental event of her entire life.
She checked her radar to see what, if anything was around this area in case she needed to hide quickly.
Nothing caught her eye and she sailed onward, letting her warp drive rest for a bit as she had been going nonstop for a couple of days to try to make up some of the time she had lost.
Without warning a blip appeared on her radar. The energy signature was unmistakably Gamilon. Not knowing what else to do, as she was short one hiding place, she poured on the speed, trying to outdistance the other ship as quickly as she could – get out of their radar's range, anything to not be seen by them. If she was discovered, this would be the end of her mission, and very possibly, the end of Erats.
"Sir, we have something on radar." One of the crewman announced to his captain.
"Is it ours?" the Gamilon officer asked.
"No, Sir. Not ours." The crewman replied.
"Herd it towards the main fleet." The captain directed the helmsman, then turned to the gunnery chief, "And fire a couple of warning shots for good measure. If it's an Eratite vessel, it should run."
The two crewman confirmed the orders and did as they were directed. Two shots were fired just to port of the other ship, forcing her to evade.
The Gamilon ship pursued and, just as they had anticipated, the other ship ran, her sub-light engines pushing themselves to the maximum.
Within twenty minutes they came upon the main Gamilon fleet, engaged in a heated firefight with several Eratite vessels.
The battle would clearly fall in Gamilon's favor and ship after Eratite ship fell until only two remained.
The unidentified ship tried to run from the fight, but the captain of the pursuing vessel had grown bored with chasing it.
"Shoot it down." The captain ordered. "It isn't to leave this battle intact."
"Of course, Sir." Came the reply.
"No, no not now. Not yet." Astra's mind pleaded as she tried in vain to get away from the fight she had stumbled into, "I have to get away! Yahweh, help me get away!" she prayed in desperation.
Suddenly the ship rocked and alarms began to blare in her ears, "Damage sustained to primary systems. Engines and warp drive are damaged." The computer announced. "Immediate measures advised."
"No!" Astra exclaimed, "You will not win this!" she stared at the enemy blips on her radar screen. "You will not stop me from delivering it." She grasped the message capsule she and her sister had so carefully prepared. "Yahweh, give me a way to do this…"
Suddenly, the cockpit was silent. The alarms were all gone, replaced by the peace of space.
"Warp drive re-enabled." The computer announced.
"Engage warp drive. Follow… this course." Astra entered the information quickly, praying she hadn't made a mistake, and punched the drive into the highest gear possible.
The stars disappeared, replaced by the in-between of hyper-drive travel. A minute later she reemerged into regular space, just above a planet that looked like a ball of red dust.
"Engines have failed." The computer announced. "Auto pilot feature has been disabled. Prepare for impact in three minutes."
Astra fought a sense of panic. If she could get to her escape pod everything would be all right. She could descend to the planet's surface in a more controlled manner, assuming it was undamaged.
Knowing it was the only chance she had, she quickly pocketed herself away in the tiny space and launched the pod.
* The Marad – a reference to Part I of The Right of Kings; a rebellion in which the Malha Guardiana tried to break into the palace on Gamilon and overthrow Deun I