CHAPTER 21

Alexander spent the next week on Terra touring the devastated areas of North America and Africa, reassuring the populace, making presentations to the heroes of Terra’s defense, and making plans. Now that the threat to Terra was over it was possible to spend time on such things and slow down the frenetic pace of survival. Alexander ordered all possible resources to be used to provide aid and comfort. The salvage and rebuilding of the Seventh Fleet was put off indefinitely so that the full attention of the Second and Fifth fleets could come to bear on the troubles at home. The continuation of the war with Golkos could wait on Terra’s convenience. Without a fleet the Golkos were no longer a threat.

If the Terran losses were difficult to bear the Golkos defeat was catastrophic. Golkos began the campaign with over twelve hundred ships and almost three-and-a-half million soldiers and sailors. In addition to her crews each Golkos warship carried a full complement of ground troops destined for the occupation of Terra; over three million of them. Many ships were wrecked along the route to Terra, stranding their crews in deep space. Still, by battle’s end eight hundred and sixty-three Golkos warships drifted lifelessly in Terran orbit. Of the mighty Golkos fleet only an even score ever saw their Homeworld again. Of the crews many thousands were taken captive, having escaped their ships in lifepods, but still only one in one hundred who left Golkos ever returned. Even in comparison to the Terran World Wars the casualties were sobering, but to a galaxy with thirteen millennia of peace just shattered the wholesale slaughter was terrifying. To the fatalistic Golkos the reality of the loss of their entire fleet was a blow too swift and crushing to be borne. The very fact that two Terran fleets remained unfought brought an immediate air of panic and betrayal to the empire. Grand Admiral Khandar knew his people well. Within a fortnight the entirety of the Golkos civilian government had been arrested, tried and executed under the most ruthless of Golkos courts. The new government contacted Alexander with overtures of peace, fearing that the dreaded Terran fleets were already approaching the Terran-Golkos frontier on their way to the now undefended Homeworld.

Alexander accepted the overtures conditionally, and sent overt word recalling his fleets. He told the Golkos that he still had every intention of coming to their world, but in the interests of galactic peace he would give the Golkos several Terran months to get their house in order. In reality Alexander needed the time for his own purposes. The warships of his remaining fleets were in sorry need of overhaul after months of hard driving. He had a planet and a people that needed healing and rest. Therefore, he saw to both before finally bringing the Galactic war to a close.

Alexander spent the majority of this time not in his float house on lake Pend Oreille but in Roma, the new home of the Terran government. There was simply too much work to be done for Alexander to take a break, and truthfully, although the people of Bayview were proud to call Alexander their own they had become somewhat distressed at the changes in their tiny community since the rise of the Overlord of the Terran Empire. When Alexander came for even a weekend the machinery of the government came with him, swallowing the hamlet in a sea of trailers, temporary houses, and the like. Therefore, politely but firmly the natives of the formerly pristine hideaway requested that Alexander find some other place to conduct the affairs of state. The Overlord of the Terran Empire was loathe to leave his beloved Pacific Northwest, though he had a plethora of offers, and after some contemplation he thought it was wise to be somewhat closer to a metropolis. With New York now a smoldering island of slag, and Washington DC too American, Roma was the obvious choice as its successor, and Terra’s principle seat of government. Alexander wasted no time in removing himself to Italy. From the great room of an Italian villa outside the city the pastoral countryside of Tuscany was a perfect canvas for the setting Sun. Alexander cradled a Beaujolais, pausing to look out upon the hills, an expression of reflection in his eyes.

“The afternoon rain has given us a glorious evening, my dear” he told Nazeera over their secure ethernet connection. He opened the doors to the deck, breathing deeply the clean fresh air which rolled into the hall. “How I wish we could sit out on the veranda and watch the stars come out!”

Nazeera shook her leonine head with a feline smile. “You forget my husband that Chem is considerably warmer than your world. Such a chill as you have this evening may not seep through Alexander’s thick hide, but I am cold to the marrow just watching it. Your afternoon showers are not for me, I think. At least on Chem the rains are warm.”

“Sorry, my dear, I forgot myself for a moment,” Alexander said closing the doors. He sat by the hearth. “At times I forget we were borne of different planets, and different cultures. I lump everyone into a common base of experience, my own. It is a failing I think will get the better of me one day.”

“It is a strength, as I see it,” Nazeera disagreed, sipping at the Chem equivalent of wine. “It may be an oversimplification of your mind, Alexander, and it could indeed lead you to trouble, but at the moment I believe your monochromatic view of the known galaxy is a strength. You are the leader of your people largely because you alone understood the Galactic situation. You thought like a Galactic. You did not allow prejudice or ignorance to keep you from dealing with Terrans and Galactics equally. Yet you’ve grown beyond that. Farther even than I, with a somewhat biased view, could have imagined. Oh, I have always believed you could conquer the known galaxy militarily, but I never knew that you could win it. My dear Alexander you now think more like a Galactic than any Galactic I’ve ever known. You think of us as a community, not as thirteen different empires each striving in their own self interests. I almost believe you would put the fate of the neighborhood on an equal footing with your own people.”

“I do, you know,” Alexander told her, surprising even Nazeera. Now it was his turn to amplify. “My reasoning is mixed with a myriad of factors my dear, and doubtless you’ve heard me ramble on about them before. I won’t tax your patience with my philosophy. The crux of the matter, and the basis for all my dealings with the former empires of the Alliance, is a symbiotic relationship between Terra and her new found neighbors. Terrans, by all accounts of history are as poor slave masters as we are slaves. Terran dominion of the galaxy is then as farcical and tragic a scenario as Golkos or even Chem domination of Terra. Such scenarios inevitably lead to destabilization and disaster. The only reasonable alternative is symbiotic relationship. That being the obvious solution then by all means I must view all Galactics as equals, and somehow I must get my people to believe that.”

“Is that so difficult?” Nazar asked.

“My dear, even to this very day there are Terrans who believe themselves superior to their brethren because of the color of their skin, or differing religious beliefs, or any number of stupidly nonsensical reasons,” Alexander told her soberly. “While we have such energy coupled with such detestable ignorance we are a very dangerous race. To others as well as ourselves.”

Nazeera was surprised by the force in Alexander’s voice, especially against his own people. He simply nodded with those glittering eyes and smiled. “My dear you do not yet know your danger. Those imperfections in our character have led us to the precipice more than once, and they led the Chem and the Alliance to the brink of genocide. Who is to say that I was wrong for stopping you? Only history will tell. I have, it is true, a complete and contemptuous hatred of our arrogance, our prejudice, our disregard, and our greed. I would, in all honesty, rather see Terra destroyed than see her pollute the universe. Yet I cannot remember our failures without recalling our triumphs. Our greed is only surpassed by our capacity for pity and self sacrifice. Our ignorance is matched by our benevolence. Our prejudice and hatreds are exceeded only by the nobility of our ideals. Our arrogance concedes to our compassion; our pettiness to our dreams of grandeur. I fear our galaxy is in for a rough ride until my fellow Galactics can bring their Terran brethren through their adolescence and into adulthood. For better or worse you are stuck with us. We must therefore strike a relationship that is as mutually beneficial as is possible.”

“How different galactic history would be if you were, in all aspects, the Terran Alexander the galaxy expected, and not the Galactic Alexander we all needed,” Nazeera told him.

“We shall see, my dear,” Alexander said, and he turned a weary eye to his wife. “The difficult part remains. Wars create heroes, but more often than not it is peace that destroys them. Maybe Crandal should not fail. As Lincoln I would be revered in death. My memory may be more powerful than my living voice, and my dead hand may be the stronger.”

“Alexander you cannot be serious!” Nazeera protested.

“Don’t worry my dear,” Alexander calmed her. “I have too stubborn a regard for this life to leave it placidly. Especially when your embrace awaits me! I will attempt to ride these waters, but I will be honest with you, I fear them more than all the fleets of the Alliance and the Chem put together!”

#

Crandal looked the Hrang in his Terran eye, a quiet touch of confidence in his smile. He puffed at his pipe as they stopped beside the reflecting pool. The Mall in Washington D.C. was almost completely deserted. This was hardly surprising. Only three days earlier the Golkos bombardment of the city was commencing in earnest. A third of the city was fused into slag; concrete, steel, marble, it didn’t matter to blasters. The bulk of the city, however, was saved by the fanatical defense of the Seventh Fleet and the Terran Defense Force. Washingtonians watched from the farms of Virginia and Pennsylvania as the Seventh Fleet and the Golkos annihilated each other. Initially the battle was a Fourth of July fireworks display; fantastic even in the full light of day. As the terminator swept over the capital the battle peaked to a mighty climax, and then faded until only sporadic flickers and pulsing glows swept the heavens. The night was peaceful now, even as it had turned three nights ago. Yet the Terran sky was different. Strange clouds still glowed blue and red, too dim for the daytime sky to reveal, but too bright to be missed at night. Then there were the hundreds of new “stars.” New satellites whirling about the planet as bright sparkles of light. In the night the hulks of the destroyed invaders became brilliantly beautiful.

“We have over twenty thousand Golkos prisoners on Terra now and the only fleet in the galaxy worth mentioning,” Crandal informed his contact.

“Alexander has the prisoners, and the fleets,” the spy corrected him.

“A technicality that shall be corrected in the coming months,” Crandal smiled.

“You seem remarkably confident, Crandal. Do you truly think it possible that you can remove Alexander from power and from life after the entirety of the known galaxy has failed?”

“Do you prefer the Overlordship of Alexander be extended to Hrang?”

“Certainly that is not the agreement we came to with Alexander when we signed the peace accords.”

“Do you then trust Alexander?” Crandal asked, a biting tone of reproach entering his voice.

“Should we trust you more than Alexander? After all, Crandal, it is you who are being treasonous, not Alexander. What assurances have we that you, considering you are successful, will not turn the Terran fleet back upon us? Betraying us as you have Alexander.”

“A reasonable question,” Crandal smiled, though with no sense of humor in the grin. His teeth showed like those of a skull, causing the spy to turn away. Crandal emitted a short barking laugh. “My talents, considerable though they are, do not extend into the military arena. Alexander, whatever other quarrels I may have with him, is quite capable at the helm of a fleet. Let me remind you of the genesis of the Alliance, and of our little conspiracy. All of this is based on the negation of Terran aggression. I am no conqueror. I can cajole the military to defend our own, but certainly nothing more. Even in this day and age a military needs a charismatic leader to follow in a war of aggression. By removing Alexander I cripple Terra’s offensive capability without affecting her defense. That subtraction of the Terran threat should be ample fuel for my logic.”

“You make a palpable point, though I discount any selfless motivation on your part. You are quite possibly the worst sort of Terran for such a position, Crandal: power hungry, malicious and self righteous. Alexander, on the other hand, is audacious but noble. Even the populace of the galaxy, forced into war with him and cajoled into peace, nevertheless reveres him. You are as detestable as Alexander is enthralling; but you are right. You are no leader. You are only a power mad traitor who stumbled on providence’s path, and as such you are a danger only to your own people. Alexander is, quite probably, a boon to Terra; but to the galaxy he is dangerous, even in magnanimous victory. Do not worry about your precious plans, Crandal. We have soiled our hands in our own fear, even in this time of reprieve. We shall not foil your project, as much as we abhor it. With your triumph we take the heart out of your fleets, and the genius from your designs. Terra shall be a harmless giant we shall leave to herself.”

“You mean to me,” Crandal corrected.

“Yes, to you Crandal, and strange as it may sound I find pity for Terrans in the prospect. To have a people overcome a galaxy, against all odds and rationality, and stand at the pinnacle of their success with all the universe before them and then watch them sold into slavery by their own inherent greed; it is a story of tragic proportions.”

“I think you take an unnecessarily dim view of my tenure. I shall bring order to Terra, even as we originally intended. There shall be newfound prosperity. A completely new world. Alexander shall always have his place alongside Lincoln, Churchill and the original Alexander. I shall one day be forgotten, but the empire I administer shall last beyond me, and possibly beyond the memory of Alexander.”

“Say what you will, but very few empires built upon blood spout aught but blood. That is not my opinion, but the opinion of one million years of Galactic history. That is also, if I remember correctly the opinion of Terran history. I do not expect you to listen. All you will hear is what you want to hear: that we shall not interfere. We shall not. Regardless of the consequences.”

“That is all I wanted to know.”

“Then you have some time to wait. From our reports Alexander will not set out for Golkos until two of your months have passed. The journey to the Golkos Homeworld is not short.”

“I’ve been obliged to wait two and a half decades longer for this than I originally thought. I’ve the patience to wait a bit longer. Alexander still has some domestic battles to fight on my behalf.”

The spy simply shook his head, handing Crandal a plain black attaché case.

“That’s it?” The Terran asked without opening it.

“That is all you need to activate your psionic projector via etherlink.”

“Is there anything else I need to know of?”

“Such as what? The formal surrender ceremony of Golkos will undoubtedly be carried by all major ethernet channels. All you have to do is watch. When you see the situation you desire you send the etherlink pulse. It will activate the psionic amplifier placed in Alexander’s armor. You best know the capabilities of the amplifier, but whatever the reaction we shall be swift to blame the Scythians. I see no great difficulty.”

“Is there a time delay in the Galactic transmission that needs to be taken into account?”

The spy made it clear that such a question was so ignorant as to be unworthy of response, but he said, as to a child, “Not more than a hundredth of your seconds. This is energy not matter your transmitting.” Then as if fearing another such question would shake his resolve further the spy disappeared into the Mall, shaking his head.

#

Kvel Mavek pushed the lighted switch at her panel, unlocking the door to her office. It was good to be back on Kempec. The days of looking over her shoulder for Golkos assassins on Roma were over. She was home and she had brokered peace between Alexander and her world. Now only one thing remained. It filled her with consternation and doubt, but it had to be addressed. Her door slid open. Mavek’s glittering, doubtful eyes rose to see the Supreme Mystic enter. The Mystic bowed and silently took a seat. Once the door slid closed Mavek activated her security screen. She wasted no time in coming straight to the point of her disquiet.

“Mystic, some time ago I enlisted your aide against my own better judgment in order to facilitate the Terran assassination of Alexander. Although two of the three opportunities have passed by with failures the final attempt has me concerned. The culmination of events now leads me to believe that the assassination of Alexander may well have grave consequences for all of Kempec. Is there a way we can undo what we have done so that this final window of opportunity either does not take place or is doomed to failure?”

The Mystic smiled, “Is it not always the way, my child? We seek our fortunes through the eyes of emotion, and it is only when it is too late we realize our dreams are but facades in the world of reality. When we ask with a heart filled with fear and prejudice we never see what is truly important. When finally we realize our folly the reality we create through our dark emotions is upon us. What is set in motion is set. There are times and places where the timeline may be affected, but now is not one of those times. The fate of Alexander is irrevocably fixed, and nothing can now change the encounter on Golkos. All timelines intersect at that locale now. There is nothing I can do for you.”

“Can we warn Alexander, search out the assassins, anything?” Mavek asked desperately.

“That would not affect the timeline,” the Mystic told her. “Alexander has set his course and nothing will sway him.”

“Then we are lost,” Mavek lamented.

“That is the prejudice of your eyes which see things through the filter of emotion, but for that you cannot be blamed. You have been deceived my child, and for that deceit I must take the blame.”

“What do you mean?”

The Mystic took a deep breath, stirring uncertainly. Finally she said, “I was determined to reveal all to you when things could no longer be changed. Such is our place in the timeline. Kvel Mavek I told you the truth concerning all of our visions of Alexander, his ascendency, the darkness which follows his assassination, the dissolution of the galaxy as we know it after his fall. You were troubled by these truths, but they failed to alter your intentions. This resolve disheartened the Mystics to such an extent that we took a grave risk. We supplied you with the times and places for three assassination attempts upon Alexander faithfully; but the occasions we gave you were already predestined to failure. Moreover, we chose the events in such a way that they would expose and eventually destroy those that were a danger to Alexander. Therefore, the Hrang unknowingly supplied Alexander’s enemies with the time-place events which would assure their own destruction and Alexander’s domination of Terra, and consequently the known galaxy.”

“You could purposefully identify the times and places for such opportunities to fail?”

“As easily as we could estimate those which had a great probability of success,” the Mystic replied, adding, “of course each instant in time is only a probability. Nothing in the Universe is certain. We did what we could, however, to foil the enemies of Alexander.”

“I know this sounds incredulous after asking you to reverse what I had already done, an act you apparently took upon yourselves before I realized its necessity, but tell me why you took such a course of action?”

“Kvel Mavek without the ability to see the visions which we have haunting our dreams you could not comprehend our decision. Let me reiterate what I told you and She-Rok of the Hrang. Not a single timeline absent of Alexander in our future results in the continuation of the galaxy or its peoples as we know them. The most fortuitous circumstances we envisioned showed the Kempec as a scattered race of vagabonds; driven from our Homeworld and forever in hiding from some terrible retribution. At worst we found no remnants of our race at all. Our civilization had disappeared from the galaxy.”

“Such is the horror of Terran revenge,” Kvel Mavek commented, but the Mystic shook her head emphatically.

“No, such devastation is shared by Terra, Chem, Golkos and the rest of our Galactic neighbors, Mavek,” she said sternly. “There is long and protracted war, and we unite against a foe from without, but to no avail. We are destroyed in total.”

“I remember your warning now,” Mavek said, her eyes closed in concern. “Alexander is not here as a conqueror, then, but to unite us. It is his destiny to face this foe.”

“It is Alexander’s destiny to bring the Terrans into the Galactic community, and the Terrans will reignite the fire that kicellia of stagnation have allowed to wane. Alexander is leading his people into the maturity that we have relished, and awakening us to our lost youth. It is his spark which shall allow us the opportunity to survive the coming peril. We could not face the task separately and survive. Yet in all of our empires there is not one among us, even Nazeera of the Chem, to whom we would rally. Now there is Alexander. He is not so much a Terran as he is a warlord of Galactic myth. To him we can and shall look, and upon his shoulders place the burden.”

“Can he bear such a task, can anyone?”

“It is his destiny.”