The Enemy of an Enemy

Chapter Twenty-One

Two hours passed with no outside contact fromanyone until the captain arrived. One wall of the room wastransparent, allowing easy communication with anyone in a sittingroom which was connected but secured from any chance ofcontamination. The captain’s large frame made the visitors’ roomlook like a child’s playhouse. He walked close enough to seethrough the wall and waited. I got up from the table where I wassitting and stood before him, not precisely at attention, butenough to convey respect.

“Welcome home, Vydor,” he said. “And welcomeaboard to your squad.”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied.

“What happened to your uniforms?”

“Well, when we left the planet three or fourdays ago, we had to hide out amongst the natives of the world wewere on so we are dressed as they dress.”

“What planet, and why were you hiding?”

“Sir, I am not able to tell you much, atleast not before my debriefing by High Command, but there are somethings you need to know. The first thing is that war has come tothe Empire, and the new enemy wields weapons of vast power. Sir,understand that what I am about to tell you for the most part youwill probably never have clearance to know, but you will be on thefront line of this war so I am going to break some rules.”

“Go on.”

“Captain, what we were calling the Magi whenI left here are an alien race, a very hostile alien race. They camehere looking for something. What they were looking for we do notyet know, but what we do know is that they chose this colony toattack because the Black Adders were there. They saw them as theonly threat to their eventual takeover of the Empire. I hope yougot my report from the field about how easily they beat LieutenantTom’s forces and faked the distress call?”

“Yes, we did. Some of that footage was verytroubling, especially your dogfight with nothing in orbit.”

“Yes, that it was. Think about this scenariofor a moment: the sorcerers turn both their fear weapon and theirhallucination weapon on the fleet at the same time. They makeeveryone very afraid and then make them think they are surroundedby enemies…”

“It would be a bloodbath. We have alreadyplayed that out, and a dozen other possibilities. None of themlooks good.”

“Well, we know now you can add superiordefenses, firepower and mobility to their advantages.”

“I take it that shield around the Dark Talonis something you acquired from them?”

“No, not exactly, but it is something theycan do, too. Let me fill you in on the broad events that happenedafter those logs ended. The Dark Knights and I were pinned down ina tight corridor, unable to make much of a dent in the forcesbrought against us. They stood and held the position and our enemyat bay long enough for me to escape the death trap, with the helpof the Black Adders who showed up to help, but before any of themcould follow me the sorcerers brought out heavy weapons and brokethough our shield walls, completely devastating the squad. TheBlack Adders and I then pushed on to send what data I had to you,all the while staying just out of reach of the sorcerers’ patrols.We knew that they had an escape route off the planet, so we knew wehad to destroy that before they realized the peril they were in.They use a gate to travel through, and once we learned how tooperate it we laced it with explosives and used it to escape. Justas we were leaving they found us and opened fire on our unshieldedposition, and they thought they had succeeded in killing us beforewe escaped. That is why we had to hide out; we had to let themthink they had won so that they would not rush to build a new gate.You see, your bombardment attack exploited a big weakness in theirdefenses; they can only scan for living things. That is why onlythe Imperial sensors that were on the colony detected the probes.By the time those sensors could have seen the rocks it would havebeen much too late to raise a defense. We do not have exactnumbers, but we do know that you scored a crippling blow on theirability to make war in this realm. They will have to reorganize andredeploy before they can attack again. We do not know how long thatwill take, but I do know that once they find out we are still alivewe will be their first target.”

“So you hid out on this other planetsomewhere for a few days. How did you get back?”

“We used one of their gates.”

“What are these gates?”

“Well, they appear to work similarly to ajump drive, except that you do not need a ship or large mass, justa big ring of stone planted in a wall. When the gate is activatedit looks like a swirling blue light, and when you enter it, it islike being in jump space, but with absolutely no physical matter. Ireally do not have much more information on them.”

“Vydor, you have changed a lot.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Well, when you left here you were a kid. Youtalked big but had nothing to back it up. Now I see why Dr. Rannorrecommended you so highly. When the challenge came you rose to meetit and became a warrior worthy of my senior staff.”

“Thank you for your kind words, but I do notthink I will be returning to your senior staff. Sir, pleaseunderstand that I fully expect it to go poorly when we meet HighCommand, and it is a given that I will never wear the uniformagain.”

“Vydor, you are more than any uniform, andonly a fool thinks High Command has a clue about real officers inthe field. No matter what happens at that debriefing you will havean ally in me.”

“Captain, I greatly appreciate that, and Imay have to hold you to that promise. A lot of things will changeafter I meet with them, and you may be required to publiclydenounce me. I just want you to know now that we will be fine, andwe do not want you to take a fall for us.”

“When we got that message from you, we allthought that would be the last we heard from you. All of us exceptPeter, that is. He said at the time, ‘Vydor always plans a way outin advance. He will make it yet.’ Seems that he knew you betterthan we did.”

“Captain, Lieutenant Commander Peter is thebest possible replacement for me; please make his positionpermanent as soon as you can.”

He laughed and said, “Of course. You know, itis funny how things work out. He was the one I wanted in yourposition before Dr. Rannor convinced me to take you.”

The door opened behind him and Dr. Rannorwalked in. “Captain, I need to talk to them alone if you don’tmind.”

“That does not sound good, Doc,” the captainsaid as he left.

Dr. Rannor stood there for a moment withoutspeaking, seeming to visually examine each of us. It was a tensesilence and I was unsure of what to expect. He was wearing histraditional white lab coat and holding a medical pad thatpresumably had our charts on it.

Eventually he turned to me and said, “Vydor,how long do you need?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you have some odd bacteria on you thatresisted the decontamination treatment. It could be harmless butthere is no way to know without watching it for a while,” he said.There was something about his voice, something that told me he knewthat we would be better off spending our trip in here and he wasoffering to arrange that.

“Well, that sounds only prudent and if we hadto stay in here until we were to report to High Command’s chambers,that would be fine with us. We would not want to endanger anyoneneedlessly,” was my reply.

“I think we can arrange to have you out intime for that. It is good to see you again, and we will have tocatch up some day when you are not so penned up.”

I realized then what the good doctor was upto. He was warning me that our conversation was being monitored.“Yes it will, Doc.”

He gave a slight smile and left the room.