The Chronicles of Ki
Book 1: In The Beginning
© Copyright 2024 Frank Walters Clark ~ All Rights Reserved
Stretching as far as the eye can see, the well-lighted military garrison complex lying ten kilometers outside Don is a bustling milieu of activity. E-orders have been received, and the Heroes are martialing forces.
Overhead, the twinkling of stars at their backs, thousands of well-armed and provisioned shiny black skyships take up formations. Belly-mounted missile racks are fully loaded, and the ships crowd to order.
Air crews bristle with blue steel mist long- blades, and laser bows slung over their shoulders. Hearts pound, and nerves tense with blood-oath anticipation.
On the ground, the laser-burned red insignias on white banners of the Annunaki Heroes clearly mark out the thousands of squat, armed gravcars. Laser weapons charged, they hover in long silent ranks intimidating, at a full state of readiness.
Lord Dalu’s comset sounds, and ComOfficer Huo comes on the link.
“Lord Dalu! A Z-1 communiqué has arrived, my lord.”
“Forward it to my compad ComOfficer Huo and standby. Notify battalion commanders to stand to, for orders.”
Quickly decoding the Z-1 angelic, Lord Dalu is pleasantly surprised by what he reads. It seems the king’s agents have not been able to locate his Black Glove forces, and for the moment the royal strategy is to stand down.
” ComOfficer Huo,” he says. “Direct battalion commanders to stand down until further notice.”
ComOfficer Huo affirms the command with a sharp, two-toned chirp.
Catma has had success, Lord Dalu thinks.
Pursing lips, he watches the skyships weave in and extend pods and land. The gravcars power down and drop slowly to the tarmac.
He finds himself in a very unique position. Not only as commander of his king’s royal battalions, but as high leader of the Black Glove forces as well.
Switching to an encrypted channel on his compad, Lord Dalu keys in a four-digit signal and pauses. On the other end, Catma responds with the identical code, in reverse order.
It is the order to attack. An order only requiring two skyships, flown by skyship experts, to inflict maximum damage. Late model T-7s, refitted with two fifty-gigawatt fast recovery laser cannons.
Those two Black Glove experts, Catma, and his second, Visor Majin, have sworn a vow to the blue-steel mist dagger. More binding than even a blood oath, Lord Dalu knows his men will fly unto death if necessary.
He hears the long horns of e-sentry alarms sounding all across the complex’s quads. The incoming ships have been detected.
He dallies, as Heroes in a chaos of fear and noise look up at the star-studded blackness of the heavens. He waits, while they panic, scrambling for their posts and ships, dropping compads and helmets in a rush of confusion.
Finally, he roars into his comset. “Officers man your stations! Majors take up skyship combat grids and execute defensive measures! Minors, e-sweep your gravs into stacked perimeter fortification lines… immediately!”
Far off in the distance, slipping out of sector leap and down through the darkened clouds of night, two bright dots trailing thin fans of white light race toward their objective. Suddenly the dots disappear, positions revealed only by glowing, s-curving sparkler trails.
The brightness of the light towers exposes a vast tarmac in complete disarray. A few skyships rise up intermittently off the landing pad and fly haphazardly in all directions. Most remain, as yet, unassigned and grounded.
Unable to override outmoded sequencing codes, a few overly zealous Minor officers power up gravcars, then sit helpless at the helm while the vessel automatically floats low and slow along flyways leading to the launch staging quadrants.
“Get those ships off the ground!” Lord Dalu screams.
Catma orders his wing man over his comset. “Disarm your n-visiwrap, Visor Majin. On my flank. Follow my lead. Fire at will.”
“At your command, sir!”
Both T-7s appear out of thin air over the end of the long tarmac flyway. Swooping down low, ten meters off the ground, their cannons erupt fast and furious with powerful, broad- slashing beams of laser fire.
Running in parallel ten meters apart and slicing lasers in a straight-line attack, the T-7s savage the two long rows of perfectly aligned and grounded skyships, cutting every one of them in half. Looping around at the other end of the flyway, and re-positioned the same, they fly lines of gravcars with equally brutal results.
” N-visiwrap on now, Majin,” Catma says softly. “Sectrleap on my mark…”
“Woooo-wee!’ Visor Majin shouts. “Infinitizing at its best, my Lord!”
“…Now.”
“Cleave.”
The T-7s disappear, leaving the entire field array of ships in flames. Clouds of black smoke bellow out, and damaged circuits on hundreds of royal vessels burn with hot shooting sparks, catching the crafts on fire. Explosions send pieces of hot jagged metal whirring away, slicing at the air.
Dead Heroes sprawl everywhere. A few brave ones stagger among the wreckage, moving from ship to ship, searching for survivors.
In the top level of the command complex, Lord Dalu switches his compad back to its encrypted com channel, then keys the link with Catma. His hands shake, he is so aroused by the Black Gloves’ success.
“What pleases my lord?” Catma says over the com link.
“You, Catma!” Lord Dalu shouts. “You have far surpassed my wildest imaginings!”
“Done with great relish, my lord”
Lord Dalu smiles and sits down at his command console. Through the floor-to- ceiling window, he watches levfoam tankers hover above the burning carnage, spraying in fruitless attempts to bring wide-spread blazes under control.
“Because of the secretive nature of our… undertaking,” he says exuberantly into his comset. “I can’t reward you with another Tri- Star, Catma.”
“Understood, my lord.”
For the first time in many months, Lord Dalu is at peace, at one with himself. “Be aware, though, I would if I could. You’ve certainly earned one.”
“Our mission would have failed though, without Visor Majin at my flank, my Lord.”
“How so, Catma?”
“He is proving to be one of the best young wing officers I have ever known.”
Lord Dalu hears fatigue in the other man’s voice, a vague distraction. “A teacher for your flight school, perhaps?”
“That may be so, my lord.”
Back at the Black Glove headquarters, Catma lands his craft, powers down, and leaps out the open portal. Landing hard on the tarmac, he grimaces and moans, his ankles and hips screaming.
You can’t do that! he thinks, hunched over, palming knees in pain. He straightens and flinches.
Light on his feet, Visor Majin is again at his side, raising an eyebrow at him.
“May I be of some aid, my old favored?” Visor Majin says, wrapping a well-muscled arm around his master’s shoulders, gently squeezing, supporting.
Catma temple-touches and speaks via his comset.
“My lord?”
Limping, he looks up at Majin’s face as he speaks.
“Speak to me, Catma,” Lord Dalu replies.
He grows impatient, resigning himself to make a disheartening communiqué to his king.
“I am of a mind, my lord,” Catma says. “Advancing age is rapidly becoming an overwhelming factor in my life.”
“No!” Visor Majin frowns, shakes his head.
He knows what is coming.
“Cleave, General,” Lord Dalu says. “Straight! I would make my second, Visor
Majin, battalion adjutant general, my lord. Over the sars, I have seen for myself, he is a well- qualified, stable and capable man.”
“Granted. What else?”
“My Lord! I would assume full administrative command of the skyship training complex.”
“I am proud of you, Catma,” Lord Dalu says. “Resignation to age is no small matter, one which you seem to have accomplished gracefully.”
“We shall see, my lord.”
“Off, General,” Lord Dalu says, closing the com link.
Lord Dalu leaves the command center, climbs the ladder of his skyship and orders Second Officer Pleeg to code the coordinates for the castle. Moving to a cabin at the rear of the vessel, he lies down on one of its plush comfort racks.
Exhausting task, Lord Dalu thinks. Pitting royal heroes against one another.
Sleep does not come to the royal commander. Far too many demons invade his mind.