Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) (54 page)

"Not bad," I said. I was stunned.

"All right, let's get started," Bird said. "You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be. Aside from being stark terrified."

"You're not as scared as I am," Bird said. "I'm the guy who just turned the controls over to you."

"You've got a point there!"

"Put your right hand on the stardrive lever," Bird said. I did it. A whole lot of things happened on the console.

"All right, keep your hand right there," Bird said. "Prof, what does that text say?" They were looking at one of the readout screens that had just appeared.

"Preparation star flight," he said. "Enter destination/coords. That's what it means."

"Destination and coords," the general said. "Just above it. That's the one that has all the preset Mid Haven destinations and many coords for our own universe. So we have to manually enter a coord. Prophet, just above the lever, touch a finger to where it says 'coords'."

"Which one is that?"

"The text on the right – not the left. Right, Prof?"

"That's right."

"Please let me do the instructions, all," Bird said. "We don't want to confuse our pilot. Prophet, touch right there." Bird pointed to the alien lettering. I did it. The readout changed.

"Enter manual coords," the Prof said.

"Now that we know it’s there, can we get an auto Inter readout onto the screen?" Bird asked.

"Yes we can. Later. Bird, you have the coords. Prophet, do exactly as Bird says. There is no rush."

We did it. When the coords were in, I had to press a tab marked
ACTIVATE
.

Another notice appeared, in Demon script. "Stardrive ready. Press to activate drive," the Prof said.

I was sweating bullets. "Prof, I just realized I haven't put Honeyhair into my will yet. Can we do this another time?"

"Your wife will get everything if anything happens," he said. I could hear the smile in his voice. "So stop worrying. And activate the drive."

So I did. For an instant nothing happened, then there was a silky jolt, the stars all disappeared from the simport, and we seemed to be racing through an inky infinity. The lights on the panel illuminated us all. We were frozen in awesome silence. What kind of stardrive was this? I knew all our spooky instruments were sucking up every last detail of this alien starjump, but I had no idea what it all meant at that point. I didn’t feel any of the normal signs of stardrive. This one was certainly different.

"Prophet, are you sure you entered those coords exactly as I said?" Bird asked.

"Um, well, yeah, I think so. I mean I was a little nervous. I could have touched the wrong one by mistake. Maybe. But I think I got them."

The general laughed.

"Should it take this long?" I asked.

And suddenly we popped back into normal space, and we were surrounded by an infinity of spectacularly lovely stars.

"It's so beautiful," I said.

"You're looking at victory," the Prof said. "You have no idea how important this is."

Δ

We were all going to die. That much was certain. We spiraled in, into the ultimate dark, into Satan's realm. I felt we were falling just like a meteor, leaving a fiery tail as our last trace of our existence, against the inky dark. My heart was on overdrive. I was thinking about Honeyhair, about Delta, all of them, Ice and Saka and Bees and the Prof and Arie, all of them, everyone I loved. All right, I thought. We'll die for them, it's all right. We'll die for ConFree, for all of our people, for all those women and kids, for the future. And we'll rate a line in the history books. But that doesn’t matter. It was freezing cold.

"Prophet! Prophet! Wake up! It’s Kwan!" At first it did not register. It was dark, and Honeyhair was holding a comset out to me.

"What," I said.

"Prophet, get over here right away, right now!" Kwan said. "It’s Ice! She wants to see you right now, please. Please!" He sounded very stressed.

I staggered out of bed, fell to the floor, got up, struggled into some fatigue pants and ran barefoot out the door towards Ice's quarters. Honeyhair was right behind me, clad in a nightgown.

"What is it?" I asked, hurrying into the open doorway. Kwan rushed me into the bedroom. Ice had wrapped a sheet around herself and was shivering. She looked like she had been crying.

"I saw it, I saw it, Prophet! It was one of those visions. It was so real! I was there, I was there, oh my God it was horrible!"

"What did you see?" I asked, settling onto the bed.

"Oh my God, it was awful!" She was trembling. Honeyhair landed beside her, embraced her and tried to comfort her.

"They were everywhere. Those saucers! Everywhere! They filled the skies and they were dropping those – those – antimats. Right onto the city! It was real, a real city, real people! I was with them, running for my life! And the city was going up all around us. Antimat annihilation! The saucers were strafing us, with lasers, with tacstars. Just gunning everyone down. I've never been so terrified in my life. I saw children cut in two, I saw women running, blown to bits. We tried to reach the air raid shelter but everything was just blowing up, and I had no idea where the shelter was. And then I reached it, I reached it. Oh God!" She burst into tears. "I reached it. And the ramp was piled high with bodies, hundreds of mutilated, smoking bodies." Another torrent of tears.

"Ice. Slow down, please. This is very important. Where was this? Where?"

"I don't know."

"You must have some idea. Any hints?"

"It was some place I'd never seen before. I got some glimpses of the city, before they hit it."

"The people running. Who were they?"

"They were Outworlders."

"Oh no," Honeyhair said, holding Ice tighter.

I raised my comset. It was still in my hands. I called the Prof. I had no idea what time it was but that did not matter.

"Yes?" He sounded sleepy.

"Prof, we've got to do a brainscan. Now! Get the techs together. See you in the office."

Δ

I guess we looked pretty funny, the whole brainscan gang gathered in the exam room at oh-dark-thirty in their pajamas with Ice lying on the scan table in her nightgown. As the techs secured the helmet around her head and did their thing, Kwan and I sipped dox to try and steady our nerves. The Professor was too excited to do anything but look at the images on the scans.

"So you saw the city, before it went up in antimats?" the Prof asked.

"Yes, I saw parts of it," Ice said.

"Was there anything that looked familiar to you?"

"Not particularly."

"Think you'd ever been in this city before?"

"I don't think so."

"Did you see any distinctive buildings?"

"There was a big air raid shelter. It looked kind of like the one in Quaba, but the architecture was different."

"Can you remember what it looked like?"

"I only got a quick glimpse."

"Try to imagine it."

The image flickered in the screens. With proper neural photo analysis, we might get a good idea of what it looked like.

"Any other buildings? Or structures?"

"There was a tall tower."

"Can you try to remember it?"

"I'm trying. Tall. It had things on the side. Like commo dishes or something like that. I guess it was a commo tower."

"Try to envision it. Got that? Got that?" The image was flickering on the screen. "What’s that on top? Was there something on top?"

"Yes. Yes. Ah yes. It was – a symbol. An eagle, I think. Up on top. Yes, an eagle."

"Oh my God," the Prof said. "Oh my God! I've got to see Ambassador Wester, right now! Print that out!" He hurried towards the door.

"What is it, Prof?" I cried out after him. "What does it mean?"

"It's Veda," he said. "Veda 6!"

Δ

Veda 6 was the Prof's native world. It was where the Brothers in Blood had done a successful raid, kidnapping his daughter and quite a few others. It was an Outvac world, but was a bit isolated and not far from the Gassies. The Prof recognized the commo tower and when they did the neural pix, both the tower and the air raid shelter were confirmed as being on Veda 6. Now remember this was a dream – but it was why Delta Research was in business. If it turned out to be an accurate prediction, and ConFree reacted in time, the horrific details in Ice's vision might not come true after all. We did not understand exactly what these visions represented. Some of the details in my first accurate prediction, for example, did not come true in real life. There were no captured females in the Demon march, and the D's shields were down, not up. But the Demons were sure as hell there, right where I saw them. And so were the saucers. The Prof said we may be looking at possible futures, things that may or may not happen. And our reactions might determine whether or not they would happen.

Ambassador Wester sent a
FLASH COSMIC SECRET
message to the Director of ConFree, the Director of Galactic Information, the Minister of War, the Director of the ConFree Legion, Fleetcom Hqs, and the Legion and Fleetcom Commands on Veda 6. It said sensitive sources, believed reliable, were predicting an imminent large-scale Demon vac-air attack on Valhalla City, Veda 6.

We settled in to wait. What the hell else could we do? That psycherchick Paula was getting her way. We were all stressed out and practically bleeding internally with worries. My latest dream was a puzzle to me, and to the Prof and everybody else, but it had been lost in the aftermath of Ice's chilling vision.

Then Saka had his vision. They were coming thick and fast, now. Something was definitely happening – we didn't know what.

He repeated it, for Ice and me and the Prof, just the three of us, sitting around a table in the lounge. They had already done the brainscan. It was a kind of puzzling dream.

"I looked up," Saka said, "and I saw a dazzling white sky, and a ship shot past overhead. I only had a glimpse, but it was not a D ship. It was one of those Bright ships – roughly delta-shaped, but kind of saucer-shaped as well. I was in my A-suit but the visor was up. It was cold. Then another delta ship circled, almost warily. A forest. I was in a forest. I knew it was all over. We were finished. The sky was flickering. The trees were very black. I knew I didn't belong there. More ships, more delta ships, hovering. Landing. I raised my E. I felt – exhausted. As if my task was done and it didn't matter what happened now. I was going to die alone.

"Then one of the Brights approached me, on foot. He was brilliant; it almost hurt my eyes to look at him. Glittering silver armor. He raised his visor. He glared at me fiercely. He looked right into my soul. His eyes were burning into mine. I didn’t have the energy, or the will, to shoulder my E. I knew I was going to die under strange stars, alone. And, strangely, the thought of dying did not bother me. But dying alone, that was tragic. I thought of Lan Hwa. Then I woke up, in her arms."

"Strange," Prof said. "It's like a puzzle. And we have to put it together. Prophet is in a forest, with fleets of Demon saucers overhead. Then he is falling, to somewhere unknown. Then Ice sees a D saucer attack on Veda. Then Saka is in a forest, with Bright ships overhead. And is approached by a Bright. Interesting. Well, as Paula said, calm down and get miserable. I'm sure there's more to come."

Δ

At 0223 hours of Fourday, 383/01/18, the red alert alarms shrieked to life, and I popped out of bed fully adrenalized and all shook up. A red alert! That meant combat was imminent. What could it be? I had never expected a red alert at Delta Research. I took off running down the hall for the arms locker to suit up and Honeyhair took off for the medical office, which was her post. I was armored up in moments and snatched an E from the locker and ran for my own post, which was up on the roof terrace where we had the high ground. Doggie, Scout, Smiley and Arie were already there, and Blackie was running around barking. Saka and Ice and I were security squad auxiliaries for a red alert, and we all went to cloaking immediately and scoped out the area. It was a clear night, full of stars, and the tacmap didn't show anything unusual. I was still shaking in shock and excitement.

"Is this some kind of drill, Doggie?" I asked.

"Nope. Unless they haven't told me."

"
ATTENTION DELTA RESEARCH. THIS IS THE PROFESSOR
." The announcement came over our comnet. "The planet Dajusdevon 5 has just been attacked by hundreds of Demon IDAG saucers. The capital city is being bombarded with antimats. That's all we have so far. Dajusdevon is part of the Assidic Confederation and you'll remember it is the planet where the A's captured the D saucer and the three live Demons. So maybe the attack there makes sense if they had been reconning the planet before."

Dajusdevon! And we didn’t see it! What the hell good were we, if we couldn't see that? Dajusdevon was practically right next-door. That was my first thought.

"I can assure you that the A's are going to respond to this attack with everything they have," the Prof continued. "And so will we. Remember, we have a full two Legions right here on Pandaravos, and I have no doubt those troopers will be dropping onto Dajusdevon just as soon as they can get there. The D's must be stupid to think that they can hit Dajusdevon without major adverse consequences for themselves. Their intel must be pretty bad if they can't figure out that the AC is a major military power in these parts and has the force to respond aggressively to any Demon intrusions into their vac." I remembered all those troopers on board the CS
Deliverance
who had accompanied Ice and Saka and me to Pandaravos. The Legion had probably suspected that the D's might have been targeting Pandaravos, but it seemed they were after Dajusdevon instead.