Star Clusters: New Arrivals (16 page)

After some twenty more minutes of fighting, all that was left was the Tarhedia and the bunker on the planet surface. Fortunately, the energy transferral beam did as was expected, providing enough power to the Tarhedia’s shields to protect it and the fleet from the Xargan onslaught. This, however, did not prevent the Xargans from trying - successfully, to a degree - to send transports to the planet surface. As expected, they exploited the flaws in the bunker’s shield dome, and it did not take long for them to realize that the defense would crumble without the energy collectors. Jackson and Keeler met in the base’s command center to discuss the situation with their counterparts on the Tarhedia.

“More ships are arriving,” Hatos noted, “but for the moment, we are safe. Still, I do not believe this will last indefinitely; we need another solution.”

“Yeah, this isn’t even a stalemate,” Lanis said. “We’re not dead, though. That has to count for something.”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Keeler told him. “As far as I can tell, the only reason our perimeter hasn’t been breached yet is because the Tarhedia’s shooting down some of their transports and bombarding their landing zones. We can’t count on that, especially if they try sending a larger group.”

“Actually, it’s the Tarhedia and the storm,” Fanra reminded the general. “Based on what we know about them, though, they’ll try to adapt; even if they can’t do anything about the ship, it isn’t a question of
if
they’ll figure out a way to protect the transports from the storm. It’s
when
they’ll do it.”

“In other words, it’s even worse than we thought?” Jackson asked.

“Pretty much. If we can’t reinforce our defenses down here… this will all fall apart like a house of cards.”

“If that happens,” Lossuh said, “all we have done will be in vain. We can’t allow that.”

“I know, but unless you have some sort of magical device that makes armies out of thin air, there’s nothing we can do. We can’t even escape anymore!”

During this entire discussion, Xargan reinforcements were trickling in, steadily growing in number and applying pressure everywhere they could. Now, however, a large amount of hyperspace windows opened in a specific area at the edge of the system. “Sir, there’s a large group of ships emerging from hyperspace!” the bunker’s sensor officer reported.

“I think something’s about to hit the fan, and it’s not going to smell good…” Lanis commented.

“No, wait - they’re not Xargans?”

“Indeed,” Hatos said. “The ships are Tarhedian!”

The Tarhedian fleet, consisting of around fifty ships of all shapes and sizes - most of which seemed to have been fitted with weapons almost as an afterthought - sped towards the Xargan reinforcements. The Xargans quickly rallied and formed a cohesive group, sending swarmers at the new arrivals.

The Tarhedian flagship - a large ship somewhere between the Tarhedia and the Orion in size, it dwarfed any other member of its fleet; Lanis correctly assumed that it was the ship the Tarhedians used to escape their homeworld’s destruction - hailed the Xargans. “Unidentified craft, this is Kanet of the Tarhedian vessel Sothar. Stand down immediately or we will be forced to open fire,” its captain said.

“Kanet,” Hatos told him, “it is good to see you. Unfortunately, negotiating with the Xargans is not possible. They will not back down.”

“I see. I do not believe we will be able to win this battle on our own - prepare to assist us in any way you can.”

“I shall do what I can.”

“That is all I ask for. Sothar out.” The transmission ended. The fleet engaged the Xargans, using a mixture of cannons similar to what would pass as a laser in the US and Petran militaries, neutron cannons and a pair of forward-mounted plasma beam weapons on the Sothar. Clearly, not only were the weapons haphazardly tacked onto the ships, but they were using outdated technology - Tarhedian laser cannons were designed prior to the construction of the Tarhedia, whereas their plasma and neutron weapons were designed using the knowledge gained during its construction. Regardless, their lasers were as powerful as their Terran counterparts, and the Tarhedians were still a formidable fighting force.

“Admiral, order the Interdictor to deactivate its hyperspace disruptor. We must act now. Hopefully, Kanet will have brought something that will turn the tide; if the Sothar is destroyed, we will truly be defeated.”

Jackson hesitated for a few moments; if they did this now, there was a chance that they would be incapable of refortifying the base. Still, he believed Hatos wouldn’t have said something like that unless he was certain of it. “Do it,” he told the Interdictor’s captain. “Hatos, I’m transferring full command authority to you; I hope you know what you’re doing,” he added.

“And I hope it is not too late. All ships, prepare for combat; Kanet’s fleet should be capable of holding the Xargan reinforcements at bay, but we must still break the siege on this side before the battle can be won.”

Fighters and capital ships alike left the Tarhedia’s shield bubble; the laser feeding power from the surface was deactivated and the collector jettisoned to allow the use of the ship’s main weapon - a tractor beam from one of the other ships picked it up and stored it elsewhere. “Don’t tell me… back to the Eagle,” Lanis anticipated Hatos’ order. “Come on, let’s get to work,” he told Barnes.

“Frankfurt and Altair, concentrate your fire on hostile swarmers to support our fighters. Orion, Plert and Wolf, focus on the smaller capital ships. All other ships, provide support to either group as you see fit.”

“What about the big ones?” Rabalm asked.

“Leave that to us. Align for primary weapon activation, target the largest available target. Transfer partial battery power from shields to weapons.”

As the fight against the Tarhedian fleet wasn’t going to be a successful one, the Xargans decided to cut their losses. “The Xargans are disengaging!” the Frankfurt’s captain said.

“Yes, it would appear we have given them something to think about. All craft, concentrate your fire on the escaping ships’ hyperdrives - this attack will cost them. Fire primary weapon on my mark.” Both fleets targeted the rear sections of the Xargan capital ships, and the largest of these behemoths turned away from the Tarhedia to jump. “Fire.”

The orange beam from the Tarhedia’s power crystal penetrated deep into the massive creature, refracting within its hull and outright annihilating a large portion of its rear half. What Xargans could still jump away did so; the rest would be destroyed in the following thirty minutes.

The siege of Tanopas was over. The battle that would decide their ultimate fate, however, was still only in the making…

Chapter 11

Branches of a Tree

Once the cleanup was complete, Hatos transported aboard the Sothar. Kanet and several other members of the Tarhedian ruling council were already waiting for him. “It is good to see you are still alive, Hatos. When you did not return as planned, we feared the worst,” Kanet said.

“Your fears were almost justified. Fortunately, ‘almost’ is the operative word here. Did you receive my message?”

“What message?”

Hatos’ concern was visible on his face. If Kanet had made the wrong decision... “Do you have the stranger’s key?”

“Yes. The Council decided this may have been the dangerous situation referenced in the prophecy; they believed you would know what to do with it.”

Immediately, the worried expression on Hatos’ face evaporated. “Then all may not be lost. Still, it would have been better if the message had arrived; perhaps the data stored in the other device would have been helpful.”

“We would probably have arrived sooner as well.”

“They have found it, Kanet - the key’s purpose. Finally, I know what the key is for, how to use it, and most importantly, why it was left to us. We must summon the leaders of the Terran and Petran fleets; the coming hours will require nothing less than complete unity, and even then we may fall.”

“Very well.”

Soon, Lanis beamed aboard the Sothar. He was surprised by the architecture of the large arkship - the majestic vessel was so similar to the Tarhedia in some ways, yet it, just like the rest of the fleet, was nothing like the Tarhedia. It reinforced the belief that the Tarhedia, as alien as its origin was, was the pinnacle of their technology as well as the crown jewel of the Gezerhian Order.

He was so distracted by the ship itself that he failed to notice the Tarhedian waiting for him. “Lanis Baltor?” he asked. Lanis nodded, still focused on the ship around him. “I am Kanet. Please, come this way - everyone else has already arrived,” he said, unfazed by the Terran’s fascination.

Suddenly, Lanis remembered he wasn’t here to look at the ship. “Right. Sorry.” The two of them walked out of the transporter room and continued towards the briefing room. “My invitation must have gotten lost - I didn’t even expect to get one. You can imagine how surprised I was to hear I had to come here,” he told Kanet as they walked.

“Hardly. Still, it is true that it is unlikely that you would have been summoned here under different circumstances.”

“So what’s this about?”

“I am not sure. Until the officers started transporting aboard, Hatos had not spoken to anyone after requesting this meeting; he went into the archives.”

“I guess we’ll all find out what’s going on soon enough…”

“I hope that is the case. This is quite an alarming situation.”

“You know, every time someone says something like that, it makes me wonder when something new will completely redefine it...”

“Such is the universe in which we live, I suppose. Let us hope that we will live to see many more ‘alarming situations’.”

“Hah, I can live with that. Close encounters with death I’m sort of fine with. Death itself, now
that’s
another story.”

“Indeed.”

Finally, they reached the briefing room. Lanis saw a lot of familiar faces: Fanra, Zeshaira, Herrun, the Arcamil officers Barnes and Lossuh, Jackson, General Keeler, Captain Rabalm and finally, Hatos. There were also a few Tarhedians he could not recognize among them - they were the members of the Tarhedian ruling council that had come with the fleet.

“Ah, Lanis. Now we can finally begin. I have summoned you all here because you must know what I am planning. First, I will summarize a key event whose true significance has only recently become known to me.” He paused there. “A long time ago, during the Tarhedian Civil War, an alien being arrived on Tarhedia. Though this individual was killed, he passed on several devices of ancient construction - presumably the same civilization that had created the Tarhedia - with specific, if somewhat cryptic, instructions on how to use them; as well as a few other requests of an equally cryptic nature. One was a data storage device that could only be unlocked by speaking his name, which had been deliberately omitted during the encounter. The other was a sort of ‘key’ - its purpose was uncertain, but there was a clue in the following sentences: ‘When you meet the stranger again, if all else fails, and there is no hope left, take the stranger’s key to the world where boots are buried and found again. Then, hope will be restored once more.’”

“‘The world where boots are buried and found again’... Lanis’ boots were found during an archaeological survey on Daserus Three,” Barnes remembered.

“Indeed, and as he and Zeshaira can confirm, old Tarhedian writings were found on a pillar on that planet. However, no Tarhedian had set foot on the planet before that. Furthermore, the language was in clear contrast to the language found at similar locations.”

“And since the Xargans never found Tarhedia, the language would have been a mystery to them,” Lossuh said.

“Precisely. This made it clear that it was absolutely vital that the Xargans do not know the true significance of the text on that pillar - when they took control of the site in their initial incursion, they learnt nothing. However, even before that, there was ample evidence to form a theory from. Though he does not know it, the alien who arrived on Tarhedia all those years ago is sitting here among us.”

“Well then, who is it?” Lanis asked.

“As a matter of fact...” Hatos looked at the Terran with a slight hint of amusement.

No one needed him to finish his sentence in order to know the answer. “What?”

“As I said, you do not know you did so. Technically speaking,
you
did not do it. By the time we met you in the Anlaran asteroid belt, I had already forgotten about the key and everything connected to it; it was only after our unfortunate landing on Petra that I began to remember. To realize I had seen you before. You, on the other hand, had no recollection of me whatsoever. I suspect some of you already know the answer to this mystery, but I shall say it anyway: The only logical explanation for all of these facts is time travel. The key, when used on Daserus Three, unlocks a time machine. With this time machine, we can nudge events in our favor. Naturally, it is of paramount importance that the device never falls into Xargan hands intact.” Hatos paused. “The new Tarhedian homeworld is doomed. The Terran, Petran and Tarhedian races are nearing their final moments - but if we reach Daserus Three with the key, we may yet survive.”

“What makes you think this is even possible?” Keeler asked. “For all we know, you could be leading us into a trap!”

“I am not saying it
will
work. I am saying we have no other option.”

“This is all a lot to take in at once, Hatos,” Jackson said. “I don’t think any of us are willing to go all-in just like that.”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Lanis asked. “We’ve basically lost everything right now - we might as well go out with a bang if there’s no other option. If there’s going to be an attack on Daserus, I’m in.”

“Me too,” Herrun said.

“Well, technically, it’s not going to solve
our
situation as such when you take many-worlds theory into account, but… It’s better than doing nothing,” Fanra decided.

“Many-worlds theory?” Jackson asked.

“In a nutshell, anything that can happen, will happen. Just not necessarily in the same universe as some other thing,” Lanis explained. “Basically, the only reason we can’t predict the future is that we don’t know what universe - what timeline, actually - we’re in. Really, we
cannot
know because that knowledge would change the future.”

“Yeah, that’s more or less what I was talking about. I didn’t think--”

“You didn’t think I’d know about it? Can’t really blame you for that - after all, I don’t really look like I know things like that.”

“So what you’re saying,” Keeler asked, “is that even if
we
don’t do it, some other version of us will do it?”

“And the opposite applies if we do get it done. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be the version that does get to Daserus. We can’t hide behind such technicalities; what we choose might be predetermined in a way, but from our perspective - which is the only one that should matter to us as far as that’s concerned - we
do
have a choice, and the universe isn’t going to wait for us to make a decision.”

“Well said, Mister Baltor,” Rabalm said. “I agree that some here are trying to use Doctor Kaa’nt’s statement - as well as your explanation - as an excuse to make the wrong decision. The remains of the Petran Empire will stand with you.”

“The Arcamil will also fight for Daserus,” Lossuh added.

“Not that there’s anything left of it - anything worth mentioning, that is,” Barnes noted. “I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” Jackson commented. “The Tarhedians haven’t made up their minds yet.”

“I do not know the extent of this threat,” Kanet answered, “but it seems to me that we have little choice. I, for one, am on Hatos’ side.”

One of the other council members exchanged looks with her fellow Tarhedians. “I believe we are all in agreement, then. The attack on Daserus Three will commence when all is prepared.”

“Admiral Jackson, General Keeler, you have not yet stated your decision.”

“Like Baltor said, we might as well go out with a bang,” Jackson answered. “I can’t speak for my colleague here, though.”

Keeler paused for a few seconds to weigh his options before speaking. “Alright, we’re going to Daserus.”

“Then it is settled. You have two hours to make your final preparations; each second we wait may allow the Xargans to launch another attack, an attack which would end this operation before it even began,” Hatos said.

“I guess we’ll figure out what branch we’re on in this multiversal tree…” Lanis mused to himself.

Outside, as Lanis tried to catch up to Hatos, he was intercepted by Fanra. “Hey,” she started, “I just realized - we don’t really have much of a plan. Sure, we can’t plan ahead for the attack, but what about the time machine?”

“I know, I’m going to talk to Hatos about that. You should probably come along - a scientist might be useful here.”

“Right. Sorry about that many-worlds thing, it’s--”

“It’s okay. Appearances can be deceiving, remember?” he said as the two tried to find Hatos.

“Yeah, but… It wasn’t supposed to sound like that.”

“Fanra, you’re the brilliant scientist here. Just because I know a thing or two about quacking like a duck, walking like a duck and swimming like a duck doesn’t mean I’m better at it than a duck, or that I have to do any of those things like a duck. You can forget it ever happened for all I care.”

Finally, they found Hatos in a small, nearly empty chamber, looking out a window. “There is a reason why I did not explain my plan to use the time machine,” he told them, anticipating their question just as Zeshaira entered the room.

“You don’t trust them, do you?” Lanis asked.

“I trust that they will do what they feel is best for them. Even when it is the wrong thing to do. Other than altering key moments, we have no place in the alternate timeline we are going to create.”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Fanra realized. “Go in, fix what has to be fixed, and get out of history’s way as quickly as possible.”

“Indeed. For that reason, I believe it would be best if the mission is conducted solely by Tarhedians. Or anyone else who seems trustworthy.”

Lanis felt he knew where this was going. “And I take it we’re among the ‘trustworthy’ people?”

“Even if you do not participate in the operation, there is some information that will be vital in executing the plan - information that I do not have and you may be capable of providing. Whether you choose to provide more than information is another matter. There are two places in the timeline that require our attention. The first is in Tarhedian territory - someone must deliver my message to Kanet and the rest of the Council so that the data module your alternate self gave us can be accessed before it is too late.”

“Not to mention the fact that it’ll probably mean the fleet’ll get here in time to make a difference,” Lanis added.

“Indeed. The second is on Petra. From what I understand, sensor data received in other parts of the system when the planet was destroyed indicates that the Xargan hyperspace bomb was located in the capital - Melraas. The bomb must not be activated.”

“Could we not use a hyperspace disruptor?” Zeshaira asked.

“Normally, that’d work, but… the bomb’s power requirements are enormous,” Fanra explained. “You can’t just open a hyperspace window the size of a planet, let alone one that encompasses orbiting objects. It’d take
at least
the yearly power output of the entire Petran power grid to detonate that bomb, and at that point, they can almost achieve the exact same effect by detonating the capacitors. The resulting explosion would shatter the planet at the very least, and I’m not sure Captain Poteran’s fleet would fare any better than they did in our timeline.”