AERON GALAXY:

BOXWOOD RANCH:

A half-dozen rocking chairs sat on the porch of the Boxwood’s main ranch house. Usually those chairs were sat on in the evening, by Elroy and some of the hands; usually when the chairs were occupied, a harmonica gently played in the background while the day’s chores were mulled over, and the next day’s chores were discussed. It wasn’t only work that played on the ranch hand’s minds, however. Some of them dreamed of striking it rich, of leaving the ranch eventually and setting out California-way to search for gold. Some of them dreamed of an upcoming dance in Lewiston, when they might spy a fetching young lady who’d make them feel like a school kid again. And some of them, some like Jack, used the time in those rockers to gaze up at the stars, to wonder just how far away they really were and if they ever ended, and if they did end, then what was beyond them? Just more black, or was there an end to it all? And if there was an end to it all, what was beyond that end? God… or something less… knowable.

Jack now sat in one of those rockers on the ranch house’s front porch, and so did Dr. Krane – however, neither of them were musing on anything so distant as the stars. For both men, their thoughts resided on something much, much closer.

The door opened behind them and Lucy came out of the door. She carried a platter topped with a coffee pot and three cups. While she poured, Jack continued looking out at the pasture. Since Elroy and the rest of the Boxwood’s hands had left, over two hours ago, the plain out beyond the fences had gradually become more visible. Since moon-set, the features of the land hadn’t become clearly definitive, but a gentle pre-dawn glow had begun to give shape to the scene’s more exaggerated features. Both Jack and the Doctor’s eyes were glued to the assumed horizon, searching for movement. Though neither said it, both men were wondering if the first people they’d see approaching would be Leroy and the hands, or the dreaded strangers that both Krane and Lewiston’s half-crazed deputy had described.

“What do you suppose is taking so long, Jack?” Lucy asked, sitting down at another of the rockers and resting her coffee cup in her lap.

Jack took a sip of his coffee and shrugged. “I just don’t know, Lucy. But I do know that I’m tired of waiting.” He glanced over at Krane and saw the doctor biting his lip. “What do you think, Doc?”

Krane looked at Jack for several seconds, and then at Lucy for several more before speaking. “Lucy, honey, would you be so kind as to step inside so that I might speak to Jack in private?”

Elroy Holmstead’s daughter frowned at once. “Look, doctor, if what you’re gonna be sayin’ has anything to do with my pa, then out with it. I may be young, and I may be a woman, but I’m not so fragile that I’ll break after hearing some wicked conjecture.”

Krane sighed. “So be it.” He looked out again at the horizon as he spoke. “I do believe that Elroy and the others have been gone far too long to expect that they’ll be back any time soon. If there’d been some sort of gunfight that they’d gotten tangled up in, odds are that at least one of them would have made it out to let us know exactly what happened…”

The doctor looked as if he were going to say more, but then bit down on his tongue, stifling his words. Jack understood what Krane was saying. Getting to Lewiston was a bit of a ride, but it wasn’t so far that Elroy couldn’t have sent someone to sound the alarm if things were going bad, especially considering that Elroy’s daughter was back at the ranch. Jack knew the old man well enough to know that if things looked like they were getting out of hand, then the old man would make sure that Jack knew it so he could best decide how to protect Lucy.

All of these thoughts rolled through Jack’s mind like a charged up thunderhead.

“What are you saying?” Lucy asked. An undercurrent of fear infected her voice. “Are you sayin’ my pa is dead?”

Krane sighed once again. “I’m saying that there’s no way to know dear. There’s just-”

“What’s that?”

Jack had let his eyes wander again to the pasture beyond the fences, and movement caught his eye. Grimacing from the pain in his shoulder, he stood. “Lucy, go in the house.”

“But Jack, what if…?”

“Lucy, go in the house now.” Jack’s tone left no room for argument and the girl did as she was bid.

Krane stood and moved next to Jack. “What is it?”

Instead of answering, Jack shook his head and kept his eyes glued to the movement on the plain. He could see now that it was a horse, but it looked riderless. The way the horse was moving, bobbing its head and pushing hard down no particular trail, made Jack think that it was spooked.

Stepping down off the porch, Jack glanced over his shoulder. “Stay here, doc.”

Krane nodded. “Not a problem.”

Not really knowing why, Jack pulled one of his six-shooters. The events of the past evening – the coyotes, the strange lights in the sky, the reports of faceless marauders in Lewiston – all of it had more than frayed his nerves. His gun hanging coiled in his hand, Jack moved out towards the pasture fence. The horse had reached the outer fence now, and had started to gallop along it to the south, seemingly looking for a way through.

It was close enough now that Jack could recognize its markings; it was the palomino that Freddy Bask has lassoed last spring down near Fester’s Weir. And now that it was even closer, Jack thought that he could make out Freddy himself clinging to the steed’s back.

Putting two fingers into his mouth, Jack let cry a shrill whistle. The horse stopped almost at once, its ears standing on tiptoe to decipher the location of the sound. Realizing that neither the horse or its rider presented any sort of threat, Jack holstered his gun and started at a jog towards the horse. The palomino had been in service to the Boxwood long enough that it wasn’t spooked as Jack approached, but its stamping hooves and hard exhales proved that something had given it a fright.

“Easy boy, easy…” Jack said, reaching the fence and scaling it with only a minimum of pain to his shoulder. He could now see that the ranch hand, Freddy Bask, was on the back of the animal, however, whether Freddy was alive or dead still remained to be seen. The hand was lying on the back of the horse, his boots fixed in their stirrups, his hands wound up in the reigns, and his face smothered in the palomino’s mane. Jack reached out cautiously to the horse, grasping its bridle in his right hand.

“Jesus, Freddy, are you all right?”

What might have been a vague moan, but what could have just as easily been the low scream of the breeze across the pasture, came from Freddy. Jack turned back towards the ranch house at once.

“Doc! Doc, get over here!”

Loosening Freddy’s hands from the reins was no easy feat. Jack had to pull hard on them to separate leather from skin. However, as limp as Freddy was, virtually tying himself to the horse was probably the only thing that had kept him from falling off. As Jack eased the ranch hand to the ground, he saw that something had hit Freddy might hard in the face; almost his entire forehead had blown up into a purple, bulbous mass. The ranch hand’s eyes were closed, and as Jack held his fingers to the man’s throat, he couldn’t tell if Freddy had a pulse or not.

“Hell fire and hawk spit!” Krane said when he saw the hand on the ground. “Is that Frederick Bask?”

Jack nodded. “Is he dead, Doc?”

Krane knelt down next to the man, lifted his eyelids, felt his throat and wrist, and then leaned even closer to take a look at the enormous bruise. “He’s alive, Jack,” Krane said. “But not for long I’d warrant. Looks like he got brained with somethin’ akin to a wagon wheel.”

As the doctor said this last, a rasping cough broke through Freddy’s lips, pushing a tight mist of blood up into the moist morning air. His eyes went wide, and twin rivulets of tears immediately streaked back into his sideburns.

“Jack!” he croaked. “Jack!”

Going down on one knee, Jack put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Freddy. You’re safe now.”

“No…” Already the man’s voice was fading. “Monsters… black… from hell… caught or killed everyone… oh God, save me… save me!”

Freddy’s eyes blinked once and then focused on the brightening sky.

After a moment, Krane reached out and shut the man’s lids for the last time. “He’s gone, Jack.”

Standing, Jack looked at the dead ranch hand for close to a minute before turning and looking out past the pasture. Finally, Krane stood and spoke. “What do you wanna do, Jack?”

Sighing, Jack gestured towards the house. “You go and hitch up two of the horses to the wagon. Grab whatever supplies you can glean from the house. Tell Lucy to do the same.”

“Where are we going?”

“You and Lucy are going to head north, to Jerry Clavel’s place. He knows Elroy well enough. You tell him what’s happened and he’ll put you up for a spell. Leastways, Lucy will be safe there for the time being.”

Doc Krane rubbed his chin with his hand. “And what about you, Jack? What are you gonna do?”

“I guess I better find out what the hell’s going on in Lewiston.”

Krane shook his head. “You’ll forgive me for sayin’ so, but from what we’ve seen and heard, that sounds an awful lot like suicide.”

Jack nodded his head gravely and looked back at Freddy on the ground. “That it does, Doc. That it does.”

Next: “COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN!”

KNEON GALAXY:

PLANE STATION KNEON WING DARR:

TRAINING BERTH:

Pharnum held her breath in the hall just outside of the Training Berth, futilely listening for any sound coming from the other side of the soundproof door. Even though they’d been friends for over a hundred Kneon years, Veda still made Pharnum nervous. Oh, Pharnum loved her old friend to be sure, and she trusted Veda implicitly, but there was a wild-card factor to the woman that made her wholly unpredictable.

Activating the springhold pad panel, Pharnum watched as the door slid open. She was immediately taken aback by the darkness of the Berth, and stood just outside the door for a few moments to try and let her eyes adjust to the lack of light. Finally, she stepped over the threshold. Veda’s Stinto guardians stood to either side of the door, and though neither of the short aliens made any movements beneath their robes, Pharnum knew that they were keenly observing her.

Movement caught Pharnum’s eye from the center of the darkened Berth. Squinting, she saw Veda standing in a battle-ready stance, her Slades attached to her wrists.

All at once, something behind Veda caused the Hunter Agent to spin. A sparring drone whirred towards her out of the darkness. Essentially looking like a floating human torso, the robot’s two long arms ended in sharp blades much like Veda’s own Slades. A thin metal neck sat atop the robot’s torso, and the neck was in turn topped with a glowing blue, fist-sized eye. Veda waited until the last moment before deftly somersaulting to the side, out of the drone’s reach. It soared by her on dully-lit prop-jets, and by the time it had corrected its course to turn back, Veda was already on her feet.

Pharnum watched as her old friend rushed the drone in what seemed like a suicidal rage. The robot stopped upon turning, and started slashing with its blades. Veda’s hands blurred as she swung them out and in, blocking the drone’s attacks with her Slades. Pharnum squinted as sparks from the clashing metal lit up the room in staccato bursts of blue and white light, but she was still able to see a second drone rushing out of the dark towards Veda’s blind side. Pharnum’s mouth was open, ready to warn her friend of the new threat, when the Hunter Agent ducked down, lodged both of her Slades into the first drone’s chest, and then spun so that the disabled robot was between her and the new attacker.

The second drone was about to insert its blades into Veda’s back when the Hunter Agent spun. It had no time to correct its attack, and a fountain of sparks flew into the air as the second drone’s blades sunk into the first. Veda pulled her Slades from the first drone and it dropped to the floor with a loud CLANG. The second drone’s arms were still stuck in the first, and as such, it was defenseless. Veda reached over the first drone and lopped off the ‘eye’ of the second with a single swipe of one of her Slades.

“I’d rather you didn’t kill yourself before we’re finished with this mission.” Pharnum approached the center of the Berth.

Veda didn’t turn as she answered. “Does it look like I’m going to kill myself?” She started removing her Slades from her wrists as one of the drones at her feet let out a rusty wheeze.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pharnum said. “A slip of the foot here, a lucky strike from a drone there… you Hunter Agents have a way of losing a limb just when you’re needed most.”

Pharnum stopped directly behind Veda as the woman finished removing her weapons and turned. The two women looked at each other for several seconds before they reached out at the same time and embraced in a tight hug.

“It’s been too long,” Pharnum whispered.

“Yeah,” Veda said. “It’s good to see you again.”

The two of them pulled apart and Pharnum smiled. “I keep trying to get away from you but they keep pulling me back in.”

Veda shrugged. “You’re the logical choice, Pharnum. Whether you like it or not, you’re the best there is as far as I’m concerned. Now, bringing a child along wouldn’t have been something I would have recommended…”

“Don’t get me started.” Pharnum said. “It’s a product of nepotism at its finest, though Sand says Tuck can hold his own.” She watched as Veda moved to the edge of the sparring area and placed her sacred Slades in a time-worn wooden box.

“I hope so,” Veda said. “For his sake.” She turned to look at Pharnum. “Now then, did you just come down here to have a heart to heart with your dear old friend?”

Pharnum smiled. “Partly… but I also wanted your advice. What do you think the toughest part of this mission is going to be? Dealing with the Border Station? Dealing with the Criminals? Landolix?”

Veda shook her head.

“Then what?”

Veda’s answer was immediate. “Finding the stolen Wing in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there’s no way the Border Station on the other side of the Gate would’ve just let a military Wing slip into the Aeron Galaxy. If they’d wanted to destroy it, they would have. Someone tipped them off as to what was aboard that Wing, and they let it go. As such, I don’t think that they’ll be too eager to help us find it. I think that they’re going to be particularly vague as to where in that quadrant it finally sat down.”

Pharnum thought about what Veda was saying. Her old friend was probably right. The Aerons didn’t believe in the incarceration of the Station Criminals. They believed in a separate but equal philosophy, pretty much supplying the Criminals with their own artificial worlds in the form of their own Plane Stations… although those Stations had no means of propulsion or armaments. The idea that someone like Landolix was spiriting Criminals away from the Kneon Galaxy and into theirs probably appealed to them.

“Okay,” Pharnum finally said. “I’ll buy that. So how do we get around it?”

Veda smiled. “Bertrum Sate.”

“Who in Reality is Bertrum Sate?”

A short tone sounded from the Berth’s comm queue, followed by Finnigan Tuck’s voice. “Agent Unanda? We’re pulling down velocity and will arrive at the Plane Gate in ten Kneon minutes.”

Pharnum hit a button on her wristband. “Acknowledged Finn. I’ll be right up.”

* * * * *

KNEON GALAXY:

PLANE STATION KNEON WING DARR:

COMMAND CENTER:

The Wing started to slow as Pharnum and Veda reached the Command Center. On the large viewscreen beyond the control consoles, the surrounding stars were gently transforming from elongated streaks into their familiar pinpoints of light. One element, however, remained unchanged as they slowed; directly in front of the Wing was an immense rectangle of light that took up a large part of the viewscreen. It was difficult to discern its color as its surface always seemed to be in flux. As large as it was, its size was also difficult to ascertain; in the past it had been measured to be approximately equal in size to that of a thousand average, mid-life stars, though nowhere near as bright.

“Have we been contacted by the Border Station?” Pharnum said, moving to the middle of the Center.

Sand glanced over his shoulder from the navigation console. “Negative. Thought it’s doubtful they’ve picked us up yet.”

As the Wing completed its slowdown from sub-light velocity, all five of the Wing Darr’s crew noticed a group of specks heading straight for them on the viewscreen.

“I’m receiving a communique now, Agent Unanda.” Finn tapped several buttons at the tech console. “Putting it up.”

They all heard a male voice over the Center’s intercom. “Plane Station Kneon Wing Darr, this is Border Station Security Task Flight Nine. Please transmit your Delegate order quotation.”

Finn looked over his shoulder at Pharnum, and she in turn nodded to him. The boy immediately began tapping his console. “Transmitting.”

After a few moments, the voice spoke again. “Wing Darr, your quotation is set. Have you any need to dock before proceeding through the Plane Gate?”

Pharnum stepped up and hit the communique button on the captain’s console. “Negative.”

“Understood,” the male voice replied. “We’ll come around to escort you to the surface. Happy Hunting. Security Task Nine out.”

The five specks, which were now close enough to be made out as military attack Wings, broke off their intercept vectors, swept out to the sides, and came up alongside the Wing Darr.

After a few Kneon minutes, the crew could see another speck against the light of the Plane Gate. As they got closer, the speck grew in size, and they could make out its roughly spherical shape. This was the Kneon Border Station. Pharnum knew that there’d be another Border Station on the opposite side of the Gate… though the military Wings from that one probably wouldn’t be quite so cordial.

Pharnum glanced down at Finn and saw his eyes glued to the viewscreen which was now completely filled with the Plane Gate.

“Have you ever been through it, Finn?” she asked.

It took a moment for the boy to peel his eyes from the screen. “Uh, no… ma’am.”

“Do you understand it?”

The boy licked his lips and nodded. “It’s a quantitative transport between the Kneon and Aeron Galaxies. In essence, it’s a wall of light that exists in both galaxies at the same time. If one were to fly around the Gate in either galaxy, one would remain in the galaxy they started in. However, if one flies through it, it’s a gateway to the other galaxy. At present, even with current sub-light Inclusion generator technology, it’s still the only feasible means of travel between the two galaxies.”

Pharnum nodded and gave the boy a small smile. She wasn’t completely certain, but she thought that what the boy had just said was verbatim from the Plane Gate Primer. “And what of the effect on humans and Wings when traveling through the Gate?”

Finn bit his lip. “I believe that the effects vary widely, but for the most part it causes disorientation in humans and minor computer glitches within the Wings.”

Veda let out a small chuckle. “That’s an understatement.”

“Increasing speed to submersion velocity,” Sand said from the navigation console. “Everybody strap in. Submersion in ten… nine… eight…”

Next: “BY DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT!”

BOXWOOD RANCH: TEXAS: AERON GALAXY

Jack awoke to the dim sound of someone shouting. He blinked his eyes and looked to the window. He was in a bed upstairs in the ranch house, and he felt like he’d been trampled by a four-hundred pound bull. Moonlight flowed in through the window, and the sight of it suddenly brought the memory of what had happened in the pasture into focus.

The sound of boot steps coming up the stairs brought Jack’s attention back to the fore.

“I’m telling you it wasn’t any of Desbueno’s boys, Elroy. It was soldiers, or… I don’t know what!”

Jack could now make out Dr. Krane’s voice. He propped himself up on his elbows and squinted through the headache that seemed destined to pound itself out of his skull.

The door to the room opened and the doctor entered followed by Elroy Holmstead.

“Hi-ya, Jack,” Elroy said. “How ya feelin’?”

“Bit of a headache,” he answered. “And all this yelling ain’t helping much.”

Krane sat his bag on the bedside table and pulled a chair over to sit down. “Sorry about that, Jack. I hear you had quite a night.”

Jack nodded, thinking that that was an understatement. The memory of the coyotes flooded through his mind along with the memory of…

“What the hell were those lights, Elroy?”

The old man rubbed his forehead with his hand. Elroy Holmstead looked like he’d aged about a decade since sundown. “I’m not… well, I’m not exactly sure. Lightning maybe?”

Jack almost laughed. “Lightning? Are you kidding me?”

“Settle down, Nordstrom,” Krane said, taking Jack’s wrist in his hand. “Don’t get all flustered up. There’ll be plenty of time to figure out a great many things…” The doctor glanced an eye up at Elroy. “Like who the hell I saw rolling into Lewiston like the seventh cavalry.”

Glancing both at Krane’s dour expression and Elroy’s doubtful one, Jack asked the obvious. “What are you talking about?”

“Hush,” Elroy said. “Just let the doc check you out. Then we’ll talk.”

The Boxwood’s owner turned to leave the room when Jack called out to him. “Elroy? How’s Ike?”

The old man stopped at the doorway, but didn’t turn. “We’ll talk after a bit, Jack.”

Confused, Jack watched Elroy leave before turning his attention to Krane. “Doc?”

The doctor finished taking Jack’s pulse and leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily as he did. “I’m afraid I couldn’t help Ike.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. Ike dead? No. It wasn’t possible. “I… I can’t… he’s dead?”

Krane closed his eyes and slowly nodded his head.

“I shouldn’t have left him.”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Jack.”

Jack didn’t believe that for a second. Why did he have to go out and try to scare off the coyotes? Why didn’t he just stick with Ike? He voiced his thoughts. “If I would’ve stayed with him, we could’ve fought them off together.”

Krane shook his head. “T’weren’t the dogs, Jack. He had a few bites to be sure, but nothing that I couldn’t have fixed up if that’s all there were…” The doctor’s voice trailed off.

“Then… what was it, Doc?”

“To tell you the truth, Jack, I don’t have the faintest idea. Ike, and at least a dozen cattle around him, were all… well, pressed into the ground, for lack of a better word. Each of ‘em looked like a giant hand had just reached down and pushed their bodies down into the dirt and grass.” Krane gave a deep sigh, clasped his hands in his lap and centered his stare on them. “By the looks of things, I’d say that Ike succumbed to a snapped spine and neck… possibly a shattered skull as well.”

“Jesus…” Jack whispered.

“Yup. It’s a shame. Ike was a good kid.” The doctor finally looked up at Jack. “You can be assured that he went quick-like, Jack. He didn’t linger.”

The memory of the lights in the sky burned back through Jack’s mind—the memory of those lights, and the pressure they’d exerted. Jack remembered feeling like he was going to be squashed right into the ground himself.

“You don’t seem to worse for wear, though.” Krane leaned forward in his chair. “Just a bit shaken. I think I’ll be able to swing it with Elroy to let you hunker in bed for most of tomorrow, but then it’ll be back to work.”

Jack continued to stare at the end of his bed. Ike was dead and gone. That thought was going to take some getting used to.

“Jack?” Krane said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“What?”

“Did you hear me? I’ll get you tomorrow off, but that’ll be it.”

“Oh,” Jack nodded. “Okay.”

“Help! Help!”

Both men’s eyes snapped to the open window. After a moment, Krane walked over and looked outside.

“Who is it?” Jack asked.

Krane looked on for a few more seconds as someone continued to yell outside. After a bit, he shook his head. “I don’t rightly know. I can’t make him out…”

“Help! Holmstead? Where the hell are you?”

“Well I’ll be damned.” Krane stood up straight and rubbed his chin.

Sick of not being in the know, Jack sat up and swung his feet onto the floor. At once he knew that the move had been a mistake; the simple act of sitting made the pulsing in his forehead that much more severe.

“Jack! For Pete’s sake, lay down!”

For the moment, Jack decided that the pain in his head was manageable. “Who’s out there, Doc?”

“It’s Deputy Brannigan.”

More voices could now be heard discussing—or, arguing—out in front of the ranch house.

“The deputy?” Jack’s voice took on a wondering tone. “Why the heck is he calling for help?”

The doctor was rubbing his chin again. “I’ve got an awful feeling that it’s got somethin’ to do with those fellas I saw ridin’ into town.”

“What fellas?”

The doctor relayed the story of seeing the riders on their way into Lewiston. “I didn’t get close enough to make ‘em out, but a group that large riding in formation… I had the feeling that they weren’t just out for a moonlight ride, if you catch my meaning.”

Between the attack of the coyotes, the strange lights in the sky, some strange soldiers on horseback, and now a deputy outside calling for help, Jack decided that there was too much strangeness going on to spend the rest of the night in bed. Gritting through the pain in his head, he stood up.

“I’m tellin’ you to take it easy, Jack,” the doctor protested.

Jack held onto the bedpost for a moment with one hand, and waved Krane off with the other. “I’ll be fine.” After a moment, the swooning pain in his head subdued somewhat, and he headed for the bedroom door, followed by the doctor.

Outside, Elroy was talking to Deputy Brannigan while Elroy’s daughter, Lucy, and the other dozen ranch hands looked on.

“It was a massacre,” Brannigan said. “I’m tellin’ ya that they didn’t have faces, Holmstead. They was all black, like they were wearing masks… only it was their skin.”

“Poppycock!” one of the older ranch hands said.

“Shut it!” Elroy barked. “Go on, deputy.”

Brannigan bent and put his hands on his knees. “I was lucky to get out. I was over to Lou Felton’s, playin’ cards, when we heard the shouts outside. We ran into the street and saw ‘em out there grabbin’ everybody. Some they killed, twistin’ their necks and punchin’ their chests, and some they just knocked unconscious. Me and Felton and the others drew our irons and started shootin’…”

The deputy stopped talking for a moment, and as everyone looked on the only sound surrounding the ranch house was the delicate symphony of the crickets.

Finally, the deputy looked up at Elroy. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy, Holmstead, but I hit one of ‘em three times and he didn’t drop. He just kept coming… he grabbed Felton… oh Jesus Christ almighty…”

“What happened to the sheriff?” one of the hands asked.

Brannigan shrugged. “’Don’t know. I thought I might’ve seen one of them things going into the office, but I didn’t stick around long enough to see what happened. I’d bet my eye teeth they got to him, though.”

Elroy looked from the deputy, to his daughter, to Jack, and finally to the rest of the hands. “All right, I want everybody suited and mounted in ten minutes. We’re going to ride into Lewiston and figure out what the hell’s going on.”

The deputy was shaking his head. “You’re not going back there? Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? They can’t be killed!”

“Anything can be killed with enough lead,” Elroy said. “And you’re the law in Lewiston. You’re coming with us.”

Brannigan almost laughed. “Hell if I am!” He tore the silver star off of his shirt and tossed it to the ground. “I’m not crazy enough to go back there… I’m not crazy enough to commit suicide!” The deputy pulled himself up on his horse. “I’m getting’ as far away from here as I can! And I’m warning you all right now, if you don’t do the same, you’ll all end up deader than dirt!”

They watched as Brannigan kicked his horse and tore off into the night.

Finally, Elroy broke the silence. “You heard me! Get dressed and get your horses! Full ammo!”

The ranch hands disbursed back towards the bunk house, but none moved too quickly. Jack started to follow with them when Elroy grabbed his shoulder.

“Not you, Jack.”

“What do you mean?” Jack frowned. One of the ranch hands had been killed on his watch tonight, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Elroy glanced at his daughter and leaned in close. “Jack, out of all these men, I trust you the most. That means I want you here to protect Lucy should anything happen to me or the men. You and the doc stay here at the house with her. We’ll be back soon.”

Jack didn’t like it, but he respected Elroy enough to honor his wishes. “Whatever you want, old man. Just make sure you come back.”

Nodding, Elroy moved past him and went into the house.

Lucy looked from Krane to Jack. “Now what?” the girl asked.

Jack sighed. “Looks like us three have the hardest job of them all.”

Krane raised his eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“We wait.”

NEXT: “BEHOLD! THE PLANE GATE!”

KNEON GALAXY: WING DARR: CONFERENCE BERTH

The military wing was well underway. Its inclusion generators had wound up to full speed, pushing the ship to well past the speed of light.

Once the wing had left the Station and was correctly vectored for the Plane Gate, Agent Sand called all of the Agents aboard to the Conference Berth. Sand currently sat at the far end of the Berth’s table regarding a display that showed the Wing’s current course.

To Sand’s right sat the stately Agent, Miller Kraus. Uniform impeccable, his white hair matched his short, sharp goatee. He sat watching the boy to Sand’s left, Agent Tuck, who in turn was staring wide eyed at the two reptilian creatures standing to either side of the Berth’s door.

“Have you ever heard of the Stinto, Agent Tuck?” Kraus asked.

The boy shook his head but never took his eyes off of the creatures. Their hoods were pealed back, revealing their grayish skin and elongated snouts that were saturated with the tips of hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth.

“They are from the Edgeworlds,” Kraus continued. “They introduced the Slades to the Plane Station Crux.”

If the boy heard the elder Agent, he gave no indication.

The Stinto continued to watch the room with black eyes that seemed to watch everyone and no one at once.

Sand looked up from the display and saw the boy staring. “They won’t hurt you, Finn. They’re Agent Marx’s… companions. As a First Hunter Agent, she’s earned their protection… not that she needs it.” Sand shot Marx – who sat at the opposite end of the table – a grin.

She didn’t grin back.

Veda Marx also had the hood of her cloak pulled back, revealing the skin-tight black websuit beneath. Her long blonde hair spread over her shoulders and down her back. Her expression was blank.

The door to the Berth opened and Pharnum entered carrying a small visi-pad. “Sorry I’m late. I just wanted to make sure I had everything in order before we go over the specs.”

Pharnum sat at a chair midway down the table. “Now then, do we know everyone?” Everyone at the table nodded except for Veda. “I’ve met Sand,” Pharnum continued. “Miller, it’s good to see you again.” Kraus nodded. “Agent Tuck, do you think you’re up to this mission?”

The boy finally peeled his eyes from the Stinto and turned to look at her. “Yes ma’am. I am.”

“Good. Agent Sand tells me you’re the best wing tech in the galaxy. Is that right?”

For the briefest moment, the boy looked the slightest bit embarrassed, but he quickly composed himself. “I can hold my own, ma’am.”

“Good. But let’s get something straight, your place is on the ship, all right? Under no circumstances are to leave the wing without my expressed permission. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“All right.” Pharnum looked again at her visi-pad while addressing Agent Marx. “Feeling well I hope, Veda?”

Agent Marx remained silent.

Pharnum reached out and placed the visi-pad on the center of the table. She hit a button on its side and a three-dimensional hologram shot up from its center to show a Plane Station hovering over the table.

“This,” Pharnum said, “is Plane Station Jenovi. As most of you have probably heard, the Station was destroyed four Kneon days ago. As far as the Delegate Council is concerned, it was a purposeful, heinous act.” She pointed to the hologram as a tiny speck moved away from the Station on the hologram. Pushing a button, on the visi-pad’s base, she paused the hologram, so that the tiny ship was frozen in mid air.

“This,” Pharnum pointed to the ship, “is believed to be Plane Station Jenovi Military Wing Mercer.”

Tuck cleared his throat. “How did they get this footage?”

“It was recorded by normal surveillance satellites in orbit around the Station. For security purposes, satellites constantly record the Stations and sidewind their footage to Plane Station Kneon every three seconds.” She pointed again to the wing in the hologram. “This military wing was unaccounted for at the time of the explosion. It should have been in air-dock… not leaving the Station.”

Pharnum pressed another button and the hologram went back into motion. The tiny Wing Mercer flew out of sight. Pharnum continued to speak as they watched the Station erupt in stages. “The way the explosions occurred, in sequence, at critical spots along Jenovi’s seams and bulwarks, leave no doubt as to whether or not this was accidental.”

The holographic Station imploded and the image went blank.

“This,” Pharnum said, hitting another button on the visi-pad’s base, “is who the Council believes masterminded the destruction of Plane Station Jenovi.”

A hologram of a man with a long ponytail and mustache appeared above the table. “This is Delegate Landolix, the overseer of Jenovi.”

“Landolix?” Kraus said. “You can’t be serious?”

Pharnum nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

The elder Agent shook his head. “I know he’s against Kneon’s policies, but I would never expect something like this from him.”

Shrugging, Pharnum shook her head. “You can ask him about it when we find him, Miller. Uncovering the motives behind the destruction of Plane Station Jenovi are not part of our mission specs, only finding the Wing Mercer and its occupants.”

Veda looked up and spoke for the first time. “So the Council assigned us all to go after one Delegate and a military wing?”

Pharnum shook her head and pushed another button on the visi-pad. Another hologram of the Wing Mercer, this one much larger and more detailed, appeared on the screen. “This is a photoscan of the Mercer taken by the Border Station on the Aeron side of the Plane Gate. When the Mercer came through, it was hailed by the Station, but there was no response. A security detail was dispatched and a customary photoscan was taken of the ship.”

She hit another button and several human shapes appeared from within the ship. Two of them were reddish in color, and dozens more were blue. “As you can see, the Aeron Border Station Security detail spotted numerous Station Criminal signatures…”

“And they didn’t fire.” Sand finished her statement with a shake of his head.

“Right,” Pharnum continued. “From their point of view, the Station Criminals, or Brethren, are hostages.”

“Any idea who the other person is with Landolix?” Veda asked.

Pharnum shook her head. “No. From the photoscan, they were able to determine that the person is female, but there’s no other information… at least none that the Aerons are sharing.”

“Where did they go when they left the Plane Gate?” Veda asked.

Again, a button was pushed on the visi-pad and this time a map of the Aeron Galaxy popped into view. “The Council wasn’t told any specifics yet, but they believe that the Wing Mercer landed on a colony in this quadrant here.” She pointed at a section of the map. “I’ve been told that we will be given exact coordinates once we reach the Plane Gate.”

“By the Aerons?” Veda sounded incredulous.

“We’ve no reason to think they’ll deceive us,” Pharnum continued. “They’ve given the Council an ultimatum. We are to track down and capture or kill the two crewmembers aboard the Mercer, and apprehend or terminate the Station Criminals within seventy-two Kneon hours.”

“Or?” Miller raised an eyebrow.

“Or the Aerons will conclude that the Mercer breached the Gate with authorization from the Kneon Council and treat it as an act of war.”

Sand shook his head. “A second Dimension War. Great.”

“So, that’s the plan. I’ll divide us up into specific assignments once we get more information from the Border Station, which we’ll arrive at in… Sand?”

He looked at the display on the table. “Uh, about three Kneon hours.”

Pharnum nodded. “Right. Any questions?”

Miller shook his head. “I just don’t understand it. Why would Marco do something like this? He was actually making gains with a lot of the Delegate undership. Change is coming… to do something so rash will sabotage all the work he’s already accomplished.”

Sand stood up. “Maybe he wanted to make a bold statement. Maybe he didn’t think the Council was acting fast enough.”

“Who cares?” Veda said, standing. “It isn’t our place to wonder why.” Turning, she walked to the Berth’s doors. Before she left, she turned back. “It’s our place to kill him, and every last Criminal he took from Jenovi.” Veda left the Berth and the Stinto fell in after her.

NEXT: WARNINGS IN THE DARK!

WING MERCER COMMAND CENTER: TEXAS: AERON GALAXY

Arien entered the Command Center to see Landolix cycling through different views of the surrounding area on the central monitor. The way he was sitting, slumped off to the side, his chin on his fist, told her that he was deep in thought.

Several of the Brethren sat at the stations around the Command Center, each of them focused on their particular tasks. One of the Brethren stood just behind Landolix’s chair. Its name was Maddoc, and Arien had given it the task of keeping an eye on the ex-Delegate.

“Admiring the environment?” Arien asked, stepping up to stand next to the command chair.

Looking up at her, Landolix sighed. “I’ve been going over things in my mind, Agent Grieves. There was no need to destroy the Station.”

Arien rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this Sir Delegate. We needed to—”

“We needed to make them understand our point of view.”

The way he interrupted her made Arien want to shove her Slades through his eyes.

“If Lanther would have just gone to the Senior Delegates,” Landolix continued, “and told them that the Station Criminals can actually communicate with us, this all could have been avoided.”

Arien turned to fully face him, her teeth bared. “First of all, you will speak of them as the Brethren, Sir Delegate. Second, it is not your place to question the Master Delegate’s decisions.”

“Master Delegate? Lanther has no more clout with the Council than I do. Less, actually, once they’ve realized that he’s the one who’s masterminded this entire operation.” Landolix gestured to the central view-screen. “And what are we doing here Agent Grieves? Sitting on some pre-exceeded colony in Reality-only-knows what quadrant of the Aeron Galaxy?”

Forcing herself to regulate her breathing, Arien turned her back on Landolix. She didn’t know how long she was going to be able to put up with him and hoped against hope that when the time came to eliminate the Sir Delegate, that the Master Delegate would choose her to do the job.

“Maddoc?” When she spoke to it, the Brethren stayed completely motionless, though she knew it was listening to her. “Follow me.”

Arien walked to the communication console of the Command Center and Maddoc fell in step behind her. When she reached the console, she reached over the Brethren sitting at it and activated several controls. On the console’s view-screen an image of a primitive, darkened settlement composed of a few dozen multi and single leveled buildings appeared. After the Mercer had landed, Arien had sent out three different spy probes to find the nearest signs of inhabitance.

“This settlement lies just half a jik to the north of our position. The people that inhabit it are primitive, but they do possess some defenses you should be aware of. They ride quadrupeds which can move faster than a man can run. They possess projectile weapons that, though rudimentary, can cause you and the others harm. Avoid them if possible.” She looked to the Brethren and he nodded that he understood. “Take a squad there and set up a containment perimeter in the center of the settlement. Once you’ve collected the inhabitants and placed them within the perimeter, you and your Brethren may begin to feed.”

* * * *

LEWISTON: TEXAS: AERON GALAXY

Dr. Samuel Krane was dreaming of the girls down at Delores’ brothel when a pounding at the front door rustled him back to reality. Squinting in the dark, he reached out and struck a match from the box kept near the kerosene lamp on the bedside table.

The knocking continued as the lamp illuminated the tiny room. “Just a second,” Dr. Krane called as he pulled on his glasses and regarded the pocket watch hanging over the bed post. How many times in his life had he been awakened after three in the morning, he wondered? Too many.

“Doc?” a voice called from outside. “Hey Doc?”

Krane scratched himself through his long underwear as he maneuvered out of his bedroom and into the main room of his small home. “Comin’. Comin’.”

He unlocked the front door and opened it up. The man standing outside was barely illuminated by the moonlight, though Krane thought he recognized him.

“Doc, you gotta come quick!” the man says. “Out to the Boxwood. Something’s happened.”

The words were spilling from the man’s mouth like vomit from a drunkard, though at the mention of the Boxwood Krane recognized the ranch-hand. “Now slow down, Hank. What’s happened?”

The man’s face went blank. His mouth moved as if on a hinge but no sound emerged. Finally, he closed up his trap and gulped. “I’m not sure. But Jack and Ike are hurt real bad. You gotta come right away.”

Sighing, Krane nodded. “Let me get some clothes on and grab my bag.”

* * * *

Krane’s house lay just outside of town, between Lewiston proper and the Boxwood. The doctor didn’t relish the twenty minute ride out to the ranch and apparently his horse didn’t either. As they rode, she stamped her hooves on the dust between steps and kept rearing her head unexpectedly. The doctor was about to pat her neck in an attempt to calm her down when he noticed that Hank’s mount was doing the same thing.

“Hold up a minute, Hank.” Krane reared his horse but still she kept stamping.

“What’s the deal, Doc? We gotta hurry.”

Krane noticed that Hank was too flustered to notice his own horse’s distress.

Ahead of them, to the west, Krane saw movement on the top of the long shallow hill that held the pathway out of town. After staring at the movement for several seconds, he thought he could make out a dozen or more men walking on the path towards them. It was too dark to make out their features, but the way the moved, in organized lines, in sync with one another, reminded Krane of the way military regiments marched.

Something about them didn’t sit well with Samuel Krane.

As if agreeing with him, the doctor’s horse stamped her feet again and loosed a short wheeze.

“Doc?” Hank repeated.

“Shut it, Hank. Let’s get off the road.” The hand gawked at him, confused. Krane didn’t bother to explain, instead, he steered his horse off of the path, through the tall scrawgrass, and into the scant woods beyond. His horse seemed to relax all at once, which only concerned Krane all the more. Who were those strangers on the road?

Doctor Krane didn’t think he wanted to find out.

* * * *

Arien watched with Landolix on the Command Center’s main screen. The image was provided by one of the spy probes, and it now showed a view of the central area of the native settlement. Currently, all was quiet. There were a few lights viewable through some of the windows in the buildings, but they seemed to be unattended. As far as Arien could tell, there was no movement from within.

Without, however, produced motion as Maddoc led his group of Brethren down the center of the street between the buildings. Once they were there, they stopped. Maddoc looked around at the surroundings as if trying to decide on the best course of action. After a few moments, the Brethren leader turned back to its cohorts and nodded its head in a serious of quick jerky movements.

The inaudible communication of the Brethren fascinated Arien. Again she wondered just how the Senior Delegates could be so naive to think that they were mindless beings. She knew, of course, that the Brethren hadn’t made any attempt to make their intelligence known to anyone other than the Master Delegate since their appearance, but still… How could anything so magnificent as the Brethren be mistaken for anything but?

“So this is what it’s come down to?”

Landolix’s question brought Arien’s attention back to the screen. The sound from the probe wasn’t activated, so they couldn’t hear the screams, but they could see them via the open mouthed men and women being dragged from the buildings by the Brethren.

“What?” Arien asked, taking silent pride in the efficiency of Maddoc’s troops.

“Looting these primitive souls for our own ends,” Landolix said.

Arien sighed. “I don’t think the termination of a few lives from a pre-exceeded colony is too high a price to pay.”

“Hmm,” the ex-Delegate said, gripping the arms of the command chair. “I wonder. This colony seems to be teeming with wild organisms. Why can’t the Brethren feed on them instead?”

“You know as well as I,” Arien snapped. She grew tired of chaperoning the ex-Delegate’s conscience. “Sentient blood is much more satisfying to the Brethren. It will make them stronger.”

* * * *

The people of Lewiston had no idea what was happening. They woke from their slumber, alone or in pairs, either by shouts and screams from outside or from faceless, shiny black monsters breaking through their doors and plucking them from their beds.

Roused by the shouts, the sheriff woke from where he’d fallen asleep at his desk in his office. He stood just in time to see the front door kicked in, and drew his revolver purely on instinct. The bullet hit the thing in the shoulder, and though its upper torso jerked backwards, the thing kept coming. The sheriff was too awed for a second shot, and in an instant his gun was wrenched from his hand and thrown at the wall.

As the mighty hands gripped his neck, the sheriff tried to scream but he couldn’t find his voice. He looked at the thing’s shoulder, which should have been covered with blood, and saw that there wasn’t any. The only sign of any damage to the thing was a small, misshapen clog of black that seemed to be a distortion of the thing’s flesh; it was as if the bullet had hit nothing more than a mound of mud.

The thing squeezed harder in terrifying silence, and shortly all went black for the sheriff.

Outside in the street, four of the Brethren had erected four collapsible poles they’d brought with them. Once they were in place, controls on the poles were activated, and they were connected by a multitude of tiny green lasers, effectively forming a large pen. One after another, the Brethren collected the people of Lewiston and tossed them up and over the twelve-foot high barrier. Many of the townspeople, the ones that were still conscious, grunted and screamed in pain as some of their legs and arms broke from the fall.

Some of the citizens of Lewiston ran in terror, fleeing into the night in their bed clothes. Some of them made it away, only to be plagued for the rest of their lives with nightmares of the faceless monsters… but most of them were caught.

Next: “MISSION SPECS!”

Pharnum Unanda’s Berth: Plane Station Kneon: Kneon Galaxy

Located in the officer’s section of Plane Station Kneon, Pharnum Unanda’s personal Berth befitted Unanda’s past. Spacious and offering an actual window view of the space beyond the Station, the Berth consisted of a master suite, two guest bedrooms, an auto-kitchen, a dining area, three living areas, a physical fitness loft, two bath areas, and a communication’s office. This last room – the computer center – was usually only granted to active Agents, and it was something that Pharnum hadn’t wanted, but the Station Delegates had insisted.

They weren’t going to let go of her. They weren’t going to let her move on with her life.

Pharnum thought over what the Senior Delegates had told her about Landolix. She barely remembered him, but she knew his philosophy. He was of the mind that the Station Criminals shouldn’t be isolated… at least not in the sense that the dictates of the Kneon Galaxy Delegates prescribed. The Aeron Galaxy dealt with their Station Criminals – referred to as Brethren – by placing them in Stations of their own: Stations with no weapons and no means of propulsion. They could exist in their own world, doing whatever it was that Station Criminals found interesting to do.

Perhaps it was a more humane solution… but then again, the Station Criminals were anything but human.

If it was true, if Landolix had destroyed Jenovi and fled to the Aeron Galaxy, what was the purpose? A demonstration? A warning? Pharnum thought over this as she packed a small bag of personal items on her bed. In the central Berth chamber, the door chimed and opened. Pharnum looked up to see Mawby enter carrying a small computer pad.

“Hello, Pharnum. I’ve received the roster of Agents that have been assigned to you.”

She nodded without looking up. “Let’s hear it.”

Mawby’s fingers raced over the pad’s screen as he read. “Case Jenno First Agent Connor Sand. Pilot specialist. Three-hundred sixteen years of age, battle experienced. He’s spent the last three years on various missions… most of them involving the expulsion of pirates from the Edgeworlds.”

“Sounds good. Who else?”

There was the briefest hesitation before Mawby read the next listing. “Oh. It seems that Miss Marx has been assigned to you.”

At this, Pharnum smiled.

Mawby raised an eyebrow. “I thought Agent Marx was training Hunter Agents out past the Stinto Nebulars?”

“She was.” Pharnum shrugged. “The Council must have pulled her back in for this mission. Still, I’m sure they wanted to give me the best Hunter Agent they’ve got… and that’s Veda.”

Nodding, Mawby regarded the pad once more. “Next is decorated First Agent Miller Kraus… Kraus? Wasn’t he a Delegate Student under your father?”

“Yes. He was. I haven’t seen Miller since I was a little girl…”

“If I might ask, Pharnum, why did he not become a Delegate? If he was allowed to begin the training…?”

Pharnum stood up straight and stretched her back. “From what I’ve heard, Miller saw enough battle after the War and tried to resign his Agency, but the Council wouldn’t let him.” She chuckled without humor. “Sound familiar? I heard rumors that he became a Research Agent… something to do with psychology. But that’s all hearsay.”

“The last Agent is… oh my…”

The frown on the cynoid’s face caught Pharnum’s attention. “What? What is it?”

“Well… the last person assigned to your team is Grade ‘A’ Third Agent Finnigan Tuck. He’s been working with Agent Sand for the last six Kneon months… it doesn’t seem that he has much battle experience…”

Pharnum was confused. “He sounds all right. Most of the younger Agents have even less battle experience than that. What’s the problem?”

“Young is an understatement. It seems that Agent Tuck is only one-hundred twenty. He’s a boy.” Mawby kept scanning the computer pad. “It appears that he had a genius-level intelligence quotient, and… oh. This is interesting. His Uncle is the Delegate of the Kwonar Station.”

Though silent, the look on Pharnum’s face belied her anger.

Mawby waited a few moments before speaking. “What are you going to do?” he whispered.

Pharnum exhaled hard. “There’s little I can do. If he’s related to a Delegate… I guess I’ll just have to try and keep him out of danger on the mission… give him safe assignments.” She shook her head several times. “Damn!” The cynoid flinched at the outburst. “As if this mission wasn’t going to be difficult enough, now I have to baby-sit some Delegate’s nephew!”

* * * * *

Transference Bay: Plane Station Kneon: Kneon Galaxy

The hangar-like chamber was bustling with activity when Pharnum and Mawby exited the elevator doors. On the far side of the bay, the Military Wing Darr was parked directly against the bay doors. When it moved away from the Station, a concussion field would fill in the vast, empty opening, protecting the interior of the bay from the vacuum of space. Several entrances to the spacecraft were open, and Station workers hurried to load equipment and supplies onto the Wing.

One man stood amidst the workers, pointing to different doorways and giving instructions. As Pharnum and Mawby started across the bay floor, several workers that were moving a floating pallet onto the ship accidentally hit the edge of one of the Wing’s doorways. A loud CLANG echoed throughout the chamber.

“Oh! That’s just great!” the man giving orders yelled. “Do you know what’s in that crate? Only unsealed plasma drains! Next time, try to hit the Wing a little harder, then we can detonate this entire section of the Station, imbeciles!”

The two workers lowered their eyes and readjusted the pallet to move it onto the Wing.

Mawby gestured to the yelling man. “I believe that that’s Agent Sand.”

Pharnum permitted a small grin. “Oh?” She continued towards Sand. The Agent was about her age, and with his clear blue eyes, broad shoulders, and strong chin, Pharnum mused to herself that she could go for him.

She continued walking until she was standing directly behind him. “Excuse me, sir?”

Irritated at the interruption, Sand turned. “What?”

“I was curious… is this the Military Wing Darr?”

“Yeah. Of course it is. Why? Who are you?”

Pharnum extended her hand. “Case Cale First Agent Pharnum Unanda.”

The Agent’s hard look softened into embarrassment almost at once. “Oh,” he said softly. Slowly he shook her hand.

Pharnum smiled. “Did you receive the limited itinerary that my cynoid sent you?”

Sand nodded. “Yes. Look, Agent Unanda, I’m sorry about that outburst before, it’s just that things have been… well, they’ve…”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Are the other Agents aboard?”

“Agent Kraus was here before I even got the mission orders. Finn… uh, Agent Tuck is working in the Command Center.”

At the mention of the boy, Pharnum frowned. “We might as well get this out of the way right from the start, Sand. This mission is bound to get hairy. Will Tuck be able to handle himself?”

“Without a doubt. He’s been running a lot of pirate raids with me, and when it comes to solving any sort of technical problems on the Wing, the kid would always be my first choice.”

“All right,” Pharnum said. “I’ll take your word for it… for now. I’m going to get settled in my Berth aboard the Wing. When we depart, I’d like you to contact me and have yourself and the other Agents meet me in the Conference Berth.”

Sand nodded. “Will do, Agent Unanda.”

“Pharnum. Please call me Pharnum. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just a schoolteacher that somehow got roped into all of this.”

He was a bit taken aback by her statement, but nodded nonetheless. “All right, Agent Unan… er, Pharnum.”

Pharnum turned and started towards the passenger entrance at the front of the ship. Mawby fell in step beside her. When they reached the door, the cynoid handed Pharnum her travel packs.

“If you’d wish to reconsider, Pharnum, I’d be happy to accompany you to the Border Station?”

“For what, Mawby?” She shook her head. “I appreciate it, but there’s no need. You stay here. I’ll be in contact.”

“Actually, you won’t. The mission criteria stated explicitly that you were to maintain comm silence until you return to our galaxy.”

Pharnum gave the cynoid a lopsided grin. “Since when have you known me to follow mission criteria?”

Mawby sighed. “Good luck, Pharnum.”

Nodding, Pharnum turned and boarded the Wing Darr. When she was out of view, Mawby turned and headed back in the direction of the Transference Bay’s elevator doors. Before he reached them, the doors opened and three figures exited the elevator. The center figure was tall and enveloped in a green, hooded cloak, hiding any distinguishing features. Two smaller figures – each of them no taller than a meter – flanked the first. They, too were garbed in green robes, though their elongated, gray, reptilian snouts couldn’t be disguised by their hoods.

Mawby approached them, and as he passed he nodded to the center figure. “Agent Marx.”

The central figure nodded in return, but said nothing.

Next: TERROR IN LEWISTON!

Boxwood Ranch: Texas: Aeron Galaxy

“Jack! Jack!”

Between the dust kicked up by the stampeding cattle, the cattle themselves, the prowling coyotes, and the scant glow of the waning moon, Jack was maneuvering for the most part in the dark.

“Jack!”

He could still hear, however, and what he was hearing were the screams of Ike from somewhere near the southeastern corner of the fenced-in part of the pasture. The kid had stopped shooting, and that was a bad sign. Between the two of them, Jack thought that they should have enough bullets to put down every last dog. But if the kid panicked…

No. Jack wouldn’t think of that yet.

A nearby growl snapped Jack’s concentration to the forefront of his mind. He spun, shooting before he even saw the coyote, and hit it between the shoulder blades as it crouched for an attack.

“Where the hell is everybody?” Jack shouted into the air. The gunshots alone should have been enough to wake Elroy and the other hands in the bunkhouse and brought them running. He stood on the toes of his boots and craned his head to look to the west, towards the ranch house. But there was too much dust and too much dark.

“Ungh!” Behind him, two longhorns were scrambling away from another coyote. One of them had clipped jack’s shoulder with the point of its horn and he tumbled to the ground. He lost his right-hand gun in the fall, and saw it skitter across the dirt out of reach.

His shoulder aching, Jack brought himself up to his knees just in time to see the dog that had been chasing the two longhorns lunge for him. Its lips curled back and off of its teeth, and its ears lay flat against its head. Jack reacted on instinct, rolling to his right and kicking out with his foot. He felt his boot connect with the dog’s neck and push it back, but the coyote wouldn’t give up so easily. Rearing up on its hind legs, the dog pawed at the air, snarled, and lunged again.

Jack had just flung his left-hand pistol up from his side when the coyote bit down on his right arm. He screamed in pain as the dog shook its head, raking away skin and flesh from his right forearm. Through the terror, through the pain, Jack managed to aim his remaining gun at the animal’s head. The explosion of the bullet sheered away most of the coyote’s skull above the eyes.

Breathing in quick gasps, and bathed in a generous mixture of his own blood and the coyote’s, Jack lay back on the dirt. He bent his right arm and held it to his chest. His right forearm felt like someone had tried to pound through it with a railroad spike.

More growls made him sit abruptly. Three more coyotes circled, baring their teeth. Jack was so focused on them that he didn’t see the fourth creeping up from behind. One moment he was holding his pistol limply with his left hand, deciding which of the three dogs to shoot first, and the next something simultaneously furry and sharp was pressing into his back.

“Ah!” Jack screamed. He twisted, hitting whatever was on his back with the gun. The animal wouldn’t relent. Its jaws burrowed into Jack’s right shoulder. Whether by accident or on purpose, Jack would never know, he pulled the trigger on the gun. The pistol was pointed up into the air but the sound of the shot was enough to scare the coyote on his back into letting go. Jack twisted again in pain and blindly shot at the dog. The bullet entered into its hindquarters just above one of its rear legs. Yelping, the coyote slunk off into the dark.

Another bark brought Jack’s attention back to the fore. One of the other three dogs came at him. Jack shot, killing it, but the other two were still circling. Beyond them, another pair of yellow eyes approached through the dust.

How long could this go on? As if the thought held a deeper power, as soon as Jack thought it the dogs stopped dead in their tracks. In unison, they all looked to the sky and one of the animals throated a slight whimper.

Jack didn’t know what they were looking at, but he realized that a graven stillness suddenly held sway over everything in the pasture.

After only a few moments, what had caught the animals’ attention caught Jack’s as well.

The sound started out as a buzz, but soon a weighty quality at the lower end of its pitch took full precedence. It sounded like thunder, but it was prolonged, unending, and a growing in volume.

Jack frowned as he saw some of the coyotes begin to circle in place while still looking heavenward. They were entranced, almost hypnotized, by the sound.

All at once the sound heightened, increasing in volume to the point of pain. Jack dropped his gun to the dirt and clamped his hands over his ears. At the same time, three green lights that each seemed to be the size of a barn, fell from the sky. Jack felt an intense wind beat directly down to the ground and at the same time was pushed flat down to the dirt by some kind of unseen pressure.

He laid there, eyes closed, feeling like a dozen horses were lying on his chest. He gritted his teeth, wincing against the thunderous sound which had grown so loud that it rattled through his very mind. He felt an odd itch above his upper lip and it dawned on him that his nose was bleeding.

It was the last thought he had.

The sound and pressure encompassed everything… and then… nothing.

*     *     *     *     *

Just as the military Wing entered the small planet’s atmosphere, Arien Grieves made her way to a private communications Berth located mid-ship. She’d activated a preset communication queue as soon as they’d passed through the Plane Gate, and only now was it being connected.

Education Sector: Plane Station Kneon: Kneon Galaxy

Mawby looked at himself in the mirrored door of the elevator. He noticed his graying hair was getting a bit long around the ears. Perhaps it was time for a trim. Mawby ran a hand across the front of his uniform, down over his slight paunch… too bad there wasn’t anything he could do to lose some weight.

The elevator door opened. Mawby stepped out quietly, walked down the hall, and stood in the back of the gigantic classroom. Before him, in a series of stacked levels descending down to the floor, more than a thousand students sat listening to their instructor and Mawby’s mentor, Pharnum Unanda.

“…we will be discussing the Dimension War, the only military confrontation between the Aeron Galaxy and our own.” Pharnum spoke conversationally, though none of the students had any problem hearing her voice; each of them wore a tiny speaker in their ear that amplified the lecture perfectly. “We will discuss the Plane Gate, the singular connection between our two galaxies, as well as an in depth look at the effect it had on the Dimension War.”

At the back of the room, Mawby slid away a small panel on the back of his left hand and manipulated the small screen embedded beneath.

At the front of the room, Pharnum glanced down at the sleek podium and saw the message he’d sent her.

URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE FAR ROOM

She glanced at her assistant, but continued to lecture. “In addition, we will be discussing the cause of the war… the Plane Station Criminals.” A holographic display behind Pharnum was constantly in motion, changing to reflect whatever she was speaking about. At this last comment, the picture changed to show several featureless, glossy black humanoids.

“However,” Pharnum continued, shooting a frown at Mawby in the process. “We will only by discussing the Criminals as a hostility catalyst. If you want to delve into such things as why the Criminals are only born to parents living on Plane Stations, or our inability to communicate with them, then you should have signed up for Xeno-Biology. We will look at different treatment methods of the Criminals in each galaxy as a product of the Crux Peace Accords, but only in terms of how that relates to the outcome of the war.”

Another message flashed across the podium’s queue.

URGENT!

Pharnum shot Mawby an irritated frown and sighed. “Unfortunately class, that will have to end our overview of the upcoming semester. For next time, I’d like you all to examine the recordings of the Delegate Review of 9822 that describe the appearance of the first Station Criminal. Concentrate primarily on Agent Roland Sparr’s testimony. That’s all.”

There was a flurry throughout the room as all the children stood and filed out towards the doors. Mawby moved through the throng to reach the front of the room.

Pharnum was stacking up her class computers when as he approached. She didn’t look up. “This had better be important.”

Mawby nodded. “The communication said you were to report to the Far Room at once. It stressed that time was of the essence. I could play it back for you…?”

Picking up her class materials in one hand, Pharnum moved past her assistant and started for the door. “This is ridiculous, Mawby! How do they expect my students to learn anything when I have to cut every class short?”

They reached the top of the steps and walked out into a long corridor. As the Education Sector of Plane Station Kneon was several thousand miles beneath the surface, there were no windows looking out into space. Instead, various holographic murals along the walls displayed beautiful alien landscapes.

“I’m retired!” Pharnum continued. “Why can’t they get that through their collective skulls? I resigned over a year ago… and how many times have they pulled me back in?”

Mawby sighed. “Eleven.”

“Eleven! And what do they want every time they call me in? ‘Agent Unanda, we need your advice on such and such. Agent Unanda, who would you recommend for such and such.’ I’m sick of it.”

Her assistant licked his lips as they rounded a corner. “Something worries me, Pharnum.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that usually when they summon you, though intrusive, it’s in a passive sort of way. This time, however, they were most adamant about seeing you immediately.”

“Your point?”

“I’m worried that the rumors concerning Plane Station Jenovi… may be true.”

The two of them reached another elevator door. Pharnum entered a pass-code on the panel next to the doors and they opened. “I expect unsubstantiated rumors from my students, Mawby, but I expect more of you.”

She reached out and handed him all of her teaching equipment.

“I’m just saying, Pharnum, no one has been able to contact the Station for two days…”

Pharnum put her hands on her hips. “How many Stations are in the Plane Station Crux? Our galaxy?”

“Fourteen-hundred and nineteen.”

“Fourteen-hundred and nineteen,” Pharnum nodded. “How many times have groundless rumors been started because one of those fourteen-hundred-odd Stations was temporarily out of the communications loop?”

Mawby shrugged. “Impossible to calculate.”

“Let’s just say, a lot. And what does the reason always turn out to be? Computer problems. Satellite problems. Worker strikes… you name it.”

“Well…”

Pharnum reached out and pressed several buttons on the interior of the elevator.

“Please try to settle down, Mawby. For a Cynoid, you worry too much.”

Frowning, the man shook his head. “I’ve been patterned to be as human as possible!”

The elevator doors started to close. Before they shut completely, Pharnum called out, “That might be the problem.”

*     *     *     *     *

The pass-code that Pharnum had entered into the elevator told it to take her directly to the Far Room. Located near the center of the Station, the room was where the Senior Delegates held sway, governing the galaxy and the lesser Delegates that governed the planetary systems.

“First Agent Unanda,” the guard said as soon as the door opened. He stood on the far said of a mid-sized, circular room.

“I’m not an Agent anymore,” Pharnum said, stepping inside.

The guard ignored her. “Please stand in the center of the room.”

Doing as she was told, Pharnum positioned her feet within a small circle imprinted on the floor. The guard operated a set of controls on the wall, and the lights dimmed.

“Please hold still.”

Pharnum stood motionless as a green ring of light rose up out of the circle at her feet and encompassed her in a glowing cylinder. After a few moments, the green glow winked out and the room lights returned to normal.

“Identification positive.” The guard gestured to the door behind him.

She walked over and through the now-opened doorway… and into the Far Room.

The first few times she’d come here, she’d been blown away. Now, however, after a hundred and ten years of service to the Delegates, the room was mundane.

So high was the ceiling above her head that the point of the dome was difficult to make out. The room was sparse, containing nothing but smooth metal walls and floors. A strip ran across the middle of the chamber; it was an auto-walk, a conveyor to deliver visitors to the center of the room. It was a practical application, as the walk to the center of the Far Room under one’s own power would take upwards of half a Kneon hour. Pharnum didn’t know the exact dimensions of the massive room, but it was certainly the largest she’d ever seen.

The only thing that stuck out in the room, the only thing that really drew the eye after one got over the ridiculousness of its size, was the nine thrones at its center. Nine thrones held nine capsules that held the nine Senior Delegates. Living in this tomb of their own making, the Delegates, surrounded by a myriad of computers, communication queues, and various life assisting equipment, watched over and ruled the Kneon Galaxy until death. When one of the Senior Delegates passed, another Delegate from one of the Stations would be chosen to replace them. There would always be nine—no more and no less.

Pharnum stepped on the auto-walk. Her shoulder-length brown hair blew back as she was whisked across the room.

“Case Cale First Agent Pharnum Unanda.” The voices of the Delegates spoke as one, booming out in a semi-robotic baritone through hidden speakers. As part of the Senior Delegate Circle, each one had given up their individuality. Private thoughts were a thing of the past. They were linked in a system of one mind, and spoke as such.

“Former,” Pharnum barely muttered, but such was the design and sophistication of the room that Delegates heard her clearly.

“Clarify.”

The auto-walk slowed to a stop near the Delegate circle. Pharnum stepped off and into the center of the thrones. The surface of the capsules were clouded and fogged over. Occasionally one could get a glimpse of an elongated eye or a too-long finger, but for all intents and purposes, the Delegate’s true nature was hidden from view.

“Former First Agent,” Pharnum said.

“That is of no consequence,” the collective voice boomed, forcing Pharnum to flinch. She hated this. She hated being intimidated by the pomp and circumstance, and that hate emboldened her.

“What’s all this about?” she snapped. “You all understand that I have a new profession now, correct? Of course you do, because I seem to explain it each and every time you drag me in here. You do understand that my students suffer every time—”

“ENOUGH!”

So loud was the rebuke that Pharnum brought her hands up to her ears.

“Agent Unanda, we understand that you are familiar with ex-Delegate, Marco Landolix?”

Pharnum frowned. “What do you mean, ex-Delegate?”

“You are familiar with him?”

“I don’t personally know him. He served under my father in the war… I know he’s been petitioning you for a re-examination of the Station Criminal containment policy.” She glanced alternately at several of the capsules. “What’s this all about?”

“We have selected you for a mission concerning ex-Delegate Landolix.”

Pharnum shook her head before they were finished speaking. She clenched her fists at her sides. “No.”

“You are the only Agent who might have an insight as to—”

“No!” Pharnum interrupted the circle, something she’d never done in her life. “Why am I the only Agent? I heard about Landolix in passing decades ago. What about all the other Agents in his own Case? What about—”

“There are no other Agents! All of the other Agents aboard his Station are dead!“

Pharnum’s mouth fell involuntarily open. What Mawby had said about Jenovi… could it be…?”

“Three Kneon days ago,” the Delegates continued, “Plane Station Jenovi was destroyed. Wiped out. There is nothing left. We have reason to believe that ex-Delegate Landolix is responsible.”

Pharnum, gripped in shock, remained silent. An entire Station wiped away…? The thought was unthinkable.

“Perhaps now, Agent Unanda, you’ll understand the importance of what we are about to ask. We are terribly sorry to pull you away from your education responsibilities, but we would like you to avenge the deaths of over nine billion people… and, if possible, avert a second Dimension War.”

Next: “THE PRESSURE OF LIGHT!”

 

Boxwood Ranch: Texas: Aeron Galaxy 

 “Jesus, Jack! You hear ‘em? Oh my God!” Jack Nordstrom glanced sidelong at the young ranch hand leaning against the fence. Somewhere out in front of them, somewhere out near the river, a pack of coyotes was in full song.

“What are we gonna do, Jack? It sounds like there’s dozens of ‘em… oh man, what are we gonna do?” At sixteen, Ike was young, but not young enough to act like a blithering idiot.

“The first thing we’re gonna do, Ike, is shut the hell up.”

The boy looked up at Jack like he’d been slapped.

Sighing, Jack rolled his eyes in the dark. “Look, I just can’t hear with your gums flapping, all right? Just sit tight until I can figure out what to do.”

Ike nodded, though the tight grimace on his lips belied his hurt. The kid looked up to Jack, but right now Jack had bigger worries than the kid’s hurt feelings.

The coyotes were back, and it sounded like there were more than last night.

They’d tumbled around the reasons in the main house of the Boxwood Ranch as to why the coyotes were gathering in larger and larger packs, but the Boxwood’s owner, Elroy Holmstead, couldn’t come up with a definitive answer. The only conclusion they could possibly guess at for the coyote’s aggressiveness was the drought; central Texas hadn’t seen rain in three months; the lack of water combined with the heat had made everyone go a little nutty in the head, so why not the coyotes?

“I’m gonna go out and take a look, Ike.” Jack swung over the fence and onto his horse.

“You sure that’s a good idea, Jack? I mean…”

“You stay here and pick off any I can’t drive away. All right?”

The kid looked doubtfully at his rifle and then back to Jack.

“You’ll be fine,” Jack said, trying to reassure him. He knew Ike was rattled from the previous night, but right now the kid needed to get his guts together. “Just shoot whatever moves beyond the fence… unless it’s me. Okay?”

Jack kicked his horse into motion and started away from the ranch. The river wasn’t too far from the Boxwood, but it was shielded from view by a series of shallow rises. Dead and dried out scrubweed bushes dotted the landscape, making it necessary for Jack’s horse to zigzag over the hills on the way to the river.

Pulling one of his pistols as he rode, Jack scanned the area in front of him. The howls of the coyotes had died down, and continued to diminish as he rode. Jack assumed that the dogs could hear him over the din of the breeze, and he hoped that they’d just turn tail and head east, away from the ranch.

Jack tensed as he topped the last rise before coming within sight of the river. Ike hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said it sounded like there were dozens of coyotes down here, and that was what Jack was expecting to see. What he did see, however, confounded him. The banks of the river were blank. Nothing stirred. Jack frowned in his saddle. He rode down to where the waterline would have been had the river not dried up in the drought. All was quiet. Jack couldn’t understand it. Where had the coyotes gone? They just didn’t give up that easily. They—

Jack yanked around in his saddle at the sound of the gunshot. A howl. A bark. Another shot. Kicking his mount in the ribs, the horse reared once, turned and raced back towards the Boxwood.

Bellows from terrified cattle swept across the plain as Jack closed on the pasture. The rifle shots continued, and to Jack it sounded like Ike was shooting as fast as he could reload. Drawing one of his pistols, Jack held his breath as he crested one last shallow rise before coming within sight of the pasture. His horse juked to the right upon seeing the carnage. It whinnied, bucked, and jerked its head before Jack got it under control. Ahead of them, in the pasture proper, dozens of coyotes were terrorizing the herd; their barks and howls melded with the mewling of the cattle and the gunshots to create a tempest of terror.

His teeth clenched, Jack urged his horse into a full gallop, and charged into the fray. Two dogs ran—heads down, shoulders bobbing, tails erect—along the fence line. Jack took aim and shot the first one in the neck. The second almost fell over the first, and didn’t know what hit it when a bullet obliterated its jaw.

“Yah!” Jack yelled, forcing his horse to pick up speed as they approached the fence. Gripping the reigns tighter, he settled in the saddle as the stallion leaped up and over the barrier. Almost immediately upon landing, another coyote snapped at his horse’s front leg. The horse reared, but Jack managed to stay atop it. He aimed down at the snarling beast and shot it in the top of the head.

The fleeing cattle kicked up a storm of dust in the dry pasture, making it harder than ever to gauge the exact situation. More gunshots led Jack to believe that Ike was somewhere ahead and to his left, but he couldn’t see him. Turning in his saddle, Jack looked just in time to see a longhorn headed straight for him. The horse whinnied, the cow bayed, and the dogs pursuing it growled.

“Dammit!” Jack cursed, holding on for dear life as his horse reared once more. The approaching longhorn was coming too fast. It tried to veer around Jack and his mount, and fell in the process. Its large body slammed into Jack’s horse, and the three of them went down to the dirt. Luckily, Jack had the presence of mind to jump clear of his falling steed—to do less would’ve meant being caught beneath the animal, possibly with a broken leg—but he still hit the ground hard.

Jack rolled, looking up just in time to see one of the coyotes latch onto his horse’s neck. The dog shook its head violently and blood whipped up into the air as the horse breathed its last.

Cocking back the hammer of his pistol, Jack shot the dog at point blank range. The other nearby coyotes, three that Jack could count, flinched at the shot, but continued their assault on the fallen longhorn. Their eyes glazed yellow in the starlight as their guttural growls belied their bloodlust.

As he pulled his second pistol in the dusty dark, Jack realized that his hands were shaking. What these dogs were doing, this ravenous, relentless feeding, was unnatural. He’d never seen nor heard of anything like it.

“Jack! Help!” Ike’s voice sounded very far away, but the fear within it was plain as day. Scrambling to his feet, Jack left the nearby dogs to their meal and ran into the dark to find the young ranch hand.

Next: “ORDERS FROM THE FAR ROOM”

01 photo by caffeineandpixels.

 

Plane Station Jenovi: Kneon Galaxy

Her boots echoing off of the trans-steel corridor, Arien Grieves walked with murder on her mind and a perverted brand of justice in her heart. She made no attempt to be silent; arrangements had been made – arrangements made by Arien herself – to ensure that no one else would be in this particular corridor at this particular time.

The corridor turned and ended abruptly at a magnetically sealed bulkhead. To its right, the eye of an identification computer regarded her lazily.

“Case Jenno, First Agent Arien Grieves.” Arien’s voice was calm but cold. The eye of the ID computer rolled in its socket. She watched it with growing impatience until it settled, focused, and the speaker below it spoke.

“First. Seven. Denied in total.”

Arien sighed, surpressing the urge to spray the damnable machine with her hand cannon. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried again.

“Case Jenno, First Agent Arien Grieves. Passcode override. Password, Vlemma.”

Again the eye rolled and settled. She watched with narrowed eyes as the computer blinked. “Passcode accepted. Have a pleasant day, Agent Grieves.”

From somewhere inside the door, something clicked, rumbled, hissed, and clicked again, before the door slid open. Arien moved quickly into the antechamber beyond.

Two guards manned the outpost. They stood upon seeing her, but for the moment they remained speechless. Gaping, they stared at the long black hair hanging over her shoulder in a noose-like braid. They stared at her green eyes, eyes that were far too similar to that of a Giran Tigress. They stood in awe of her full lips and high cheekbones; her slender face was both noble and exotic at the same time. They stared longingly at her taught waist and shadow-length legs, none of which was left ill-defined by her skin-tight black websuit. Arien smiled as the men’s eyes centered on her cloak’s clasp, which in turn rested between her heaving breasts. These idiots didn’t stand a chance.

Arien started towards the men, breaking their trance.

“First Agent Grieves,” one the guards stumbled, “we didn’t receive word of your… I mean… we… this is a restricted area… you’ll have to-”

“Silence,” Arien cut him off, her voice ladened with ice. “We may have a prison break.”

“Prison break?” Confused, the guards hastily glanced at one another before nervously regarding their computer terminals. As such, neither one of them noticed as Arien silently actived her Slades with her thumbs; neither one of them noticed as the blades popped out of their sheathes and extended some eight inches beyond the knuckles of her clenched fists.

“I don’t understand, Agent Grieves. I don’t see any-” The guard turned back and saw the new look – the murderous intent – in her eyes. He managed to get the fingers of  his right hand around the grip of his cannon before Arien reached him. Bringing the blades up and out of her cloak, she slashed at the guard, severing the hand that had reached for the cannon. She used her other hand to inject the tip of a Slade into the guards chest; she jerked, pulled, and sliced. A fantail of blood swathed across a computer terminal.

The other guard managed to get his cannon out of its holster, but he was hesitant. The disembowelment of his cohort, the sight of so much blood, the realization of what was happening, all combined to make the man slow on his feet… and that was his undoing.

Arien reached out, spun, and grazed the tip of her left-hand Slade across the man’s throat. The wound began to bubble as the guard fought for air. He dropped his weapon and brought both hands up to his neck. Her eyes widening, Arien licked some crimson spittle from her lips, placed the point of her right-hand Slade against the guard’s abdomen, and watched the terror erupt in his eyes. Gurgling, he tried to speak. Staggering, he tried to step back, but to no avail. Arien moved with him, waiting several seconds before pushing the blade of the weapon into the man’s stomach until her fist was flush with his skin. The man made some more noises – sort of a cross between a gasp and something like the whine of a Trilina lapdog – before falling to the trans-steel floor.

Wasting less than ten seconds eliminating the two guards, Arien turned and moved to a particular console; by the time she reached it, the thought of the two men she’d just killed was forgotten, and would never be remembered. Her lithe fingers danced over the touchscreen controls on the computer’s display, entered passwords and codes that had been acquired over what seemed like a lifetime. Finally, after several minutes, the door on the opposite side of the antechamber, the door that was marked with words like DANGER and USE EXTREME CAUTION and CLASS ‘A’ – RED WARNING, slid open.

Ecstatic, Arien practically bounced over one of the dead guards to the newly opened door until she was face-to-face with the creatures standing behind it. They stood waiting for her, in a single file line that extended beyond her view. They were all identical in size, standing two-point-two meters tall. They were all naked, but none possessed sex organs of any sort. None of them had facial features; they were devoid of eyes, noses, and mouths. They were hairless; their glossy, jet-black skin reflected the lights of the antechamber as they stood motionless, absolutely silent, awaiting their orders.

They were Station Criminals…

…and they were magnificent.

Arien checked her smile and stood to the side of the doorway as she addressed the first Criminal. “Transference Bay 11142. Use the pre-assigned route. Go quickly.”

The simple order sent the Criminals on their way. Arien watched them for a moment before returning to the antechamber’s security console. She activated a back-door queue that would allow her to move through the majority of the Station’s communication network without being detected. The file she brought up was one that looked like the shipping manifest for an outgoing cargo vessel. Arien typed in an addendum to the manifest: CARGO ACTIVATED – T MINUS TEN.

Turning away from the console, Arien watched as the last of the Criminals exited the antechamber. Drawing her hand cannon, she followed them.

*     *     *     *    *

The planet-sized Plane Station housed just over nine billion people. Hundreds of thousands of ships and drones went about their routine business in the vicinity of the Station, so no one noticed as a military-class wing  exited one of the Transference Bays, banked away, increased in speed until it achieved full velocity, and departed the area well beyond the speed of light.

Moments after the wing was gone, several dozen balls of fire and super-heated gas erupted over the surface of Plane Station Jenovi. The explosions continued until they seemed to connect in lines of fire thousands and thousands of Kneon miles long. By the time the Station’s security and safety commissions realized that something was amiss, it was too late. A gigantic shock wave of fire spiraled out of Jenovi’s Northern Hemisphere. Cut off from its failsafe mechanisms by perfectly placed detonators, the Station’s massive gravity inducer over-compensated for the loss of mass and caused the rest of the Station to literally implode on itself.

All of the ships and wings in the vicinity tried to kick their Inclusion generators to full power to escape, but almost all were too late. The implosion of the Station detonated all of the power plants and energy satchels at its core, and Plane Station Jenovi erupted in a concussion of fire that consumed everything in the vicinity.

As quickly as the destruction began, it stopped. A few million tons of burning metal that had become superheated plasma in the blast drifted through space. Other than that, Plane Station Jenovi was no more.

Next: “COYOTE CARNAGE!”

Prologue photo by t-mix.