Chapter 17 - Meeting of the Warlords
On the far western edge of Tymorea’s main continent, in a desolate rocky area that held only scrubby vegetation and was devoid of habitation, Warlord Voltec’s baseship hosted a meeting. He had invited the other five Warlords to that isolated location to discuss the progress of the campaign to conquer their enemies.
Only by the fact of his fifty years of military experience, and his unblemished record of successes, was he the titular leader of the invasion force.
His age-hardened features studied the five younger men, who were in all other ways, his equal in rank, and authority. He did not underestimate the rampant ambition of any of them, but for the moment, as they sat sipping some of his dwindling supply of aged Aeronite liquor, they were less mutually abrasive than normal.
This did not mean they were being perfectly civil, since they were discussing the latest reports that had been circulated on various aspects of the invasion plan. The voices were at times, raised or sharp, but Voltec did not interfere, yet. He was satisfied with the progress of his part of the plan, though he had made many tart comments to himself about the progress of the others. He was using this time to evaluate his peers.
The chamber he had chosen for the meeting was actually his personal control room. A large space that could be considered decadent on a space ship where space was at a premium. In his private area, the seats were very comfortable, the décor blatantly lavish. Paintings of battle scenes, in solid wood frames, alternated with blank monitor screens that were curved to be flush to the circular walls.
The monitor screens could, at whim, be programmed to show any part of his ship, or the surrounding terrain, or to receive transmitted messages, or what ever else he wanted.
Idly, he adjusted the one on the opposite wall from where he sat, to show one of his favourite landscape scenes from his home dominion on Aerdna, and the one next to it to show his dominions emblem, the black and gold nighthawk striking at prey.
When the conversation began to sound like children bickering, Voltec placed his goblet on the low table in beside him, and rose to speak. His movement caused a pause in the level of voices, long enough for him to break into the discussion.
“The Tymorean cowards won’t fight us,” he proclaimed. His hands went to grip the gilt trimmed lapels of his black uniform. “They simply walked out of their towns and we can walk in and take over.”
“They left nothing behind but empty buildings,” his brother, Axec, reminded him. He too was clad in black, which was the colour associated with the dominion of his birth back on Aerdna. “Not even crops in the field.”
He touched a screen on the arm of his chair and one of the wall screens showed images of deserted villages. Most showed wooden tools abandoned untidily.
“We don’t need their rubbish,” Voltec said scornfully, turning to glare at his brother. “And the pap they call food is too weak to sustain us. I have sent for the first one hundred farmers to be released from stasis – we can begin to grow our crops immediately. Though for now, they will need to add the essential nutrients.”
Warlord Xezir, who wore a brown uniform, was one of the younger Warlords and a scientist as well. He remarked quietly, “I scanned your report, Voltec. It is odd – your brother’s mention of the crops – they can’t have been ripe. It is only a quarter of the way through the growing season.”
“Irrelevant,” Voltec proclaimed, waving the comment aside with a hand gesture. “If they chose to harvest unripe crops - that is not our problem. It gives us time to grow ours and I intend to besiege the cities, as it is obvious that the people all went there. Even with the collection of unripe grain and vegetables, they can’t hold out long. The expanded population will eat through the stores in no time and they will be unable to bring more in. It seems that the fools would rather die than fight us.”
Zorrec, the Warlord in the dark orange uniform, countered with, “You can hardly claim that. They sent aircraft after one of our scout ships and attacked a baseship.”
“And who allowed his position to be compromised?” Voltec snapped, glaring at Zorrec. “Kellex with his obsession about children.”
Kellex clamped his teeth down on a retort and tried to appear relaxed in his chair. He brushed some imaginary dirt from the sleeve of his dark green uniform before speaking. “It is not an obsession. Those children could be our undoing if we don’t neutralise them first. They are quite powerful for their age.”
“So you say,” Voltec agreed with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Still, they are two inexperienced youths – hardly a danger. You’d do better trying to remove their elders.”
“That is a priority of mine,” Kellex agreed, not betraying the fact it wasn’t exactly true.
“I didn’t see your strategy working on the cities,” Zorrec pointed out, deflecting Voltec from his glare at Kellex. He didn’t want Voltec trying to demean him too, simply because he had panicked and fled his hidden mountain position. He had scorned Kellex’s obsession until he had seen the two red headed children within the camouflage fields around his ship. “How many tons of explosive did you waste trying to destroy the first two? The Tymoreans have shields over them.” He implied that Voltec should have known that after the first unsuccessful bombing run.
“And why didn’t you tell us about them? You and Kellex are in charge of gathering intelligence on these people,” Axec defended his brother. He glared from Zorrec to Kellex.
“They are new,” Zorrec stated. “And I thought you had located all the shield anchors before you tried the second bombardment…or what you claimed were shield anchors.” He turned to Xezir. “What were those devices?”
“Rubbish. Broken bits of a space ship – probably from one of our scout ships that were destroyed,” Xezir said in disgust. “No more than childish attempts to distract us. At least my efforts to distract their scientists are working. One of the accursed Governors has come to the second continent to try to solve the problem I gave them.”
“I think we need to know where those aircraft Zorrec mentioned came from,” Axec redirected the talk.
“I do know!” Kellex snapped. “They have a hangar cavern in the cave system under the palaces within that mesa. They went there after their precious brats were rescued. There are only twenty craft there.”
“Where did the Tymoreans get them from?” Xezir asked. “We have had no mention of aircraft until recently.”
Kellex growled. “They can’t be more than message ships. You note that they did little more than try to chase us away.”
“They were armed,” Axec remarked.
“Hyped up defensive lasers,” Kellex retorted, dismissively. “And you notice that they only dared fly against us to try to recover those two children.”
“Merely because they are children of one of the ineffectual Governors,” Axec drawled. “How many ships did you say they destroyed?”
“None! The ship that crashed exploded first. The others only needed minor repairs.”
Zorrec snorted softly but made no vocal comment. Those ships were forced to land, but were fortunately hidden by a cloaking field until Kellex’s mechanics fixed them.
“And what caused that? Those children?” Axec asked pointedly.
“The children were caught by our allies amongst the ugly ones,” Kellex stated flatly. “My men gave the ugly ones and the brats, no chance to interfere or escape. They saw so sign of any locals, but some of the ugly ones might have been nearby and got curious. They couldn’t have done anything, as most of them are brainless cretins. I punished the tribe, to warn them against complaining.”
Voltec suddenly banged a fist on the table in front of him. He received the full attention of the other Warlords.
“Let us not quibble. It is true that even the best plans need to change once begun,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “Even mine, I will admit. So I will begin – do we still have spies within the cities?”
Zorrec, who had the responsibility to oversee the infiltrations, smiled maliciously. “Yes, indeed, and they are still reporting. However, since the villages were evacuated, no more people are allowed into the cities. Not even unlucky or foolish Tymorean travellers. My commanders have coerced a few disgruntled peasants into helping us.”
“Can your agents in the cities find a way to bring those shields down?” Voltec asked.
“They are already working on it,” Zorrec claimed. “However, it will take time to locate the controls and avoid the security. We may have fragmented their so-called Peace Corps, but the few in each city are training peasants to be fighters. I will let you know when I have results. I have authorised our spies to create as much havoc and unrest as they can.”
Voltec gave a snort of mirth. “It hardly matters - the Tymoreans will all die eventually. Once we begin the terrain reforming program and spike the atmosphere with traces of Alfinium, any who prove to be capable of adapting and thriving on it can become slaves. The rest are merely fertiliser for our crops and they will nourish our people when they come here.”
“Axec – show us where we have taken control,” Voltec invited.
Promptly, Axec brought up on a projection screen, maps of the four continents and the numerous island archipelagos. He used a laser pointer as he spoke.
“As we all know, most of the population lives on this continent – where we are now. There are a hundred or so cities, each surrounded by smaller towns, villages and hamlets. We have taken control of seven areas – and have the central cities surrounded.” Axec pointed to the seven cities that were all in the southeast corner of the continent. “As previously mentioned, all the smaller places are empty and we must assume all the cities are shielded. Wazir, do you have anything else of importance to report?”
“Only that our preparations for operating the terrain reformer are progressing well. Our scientists on the third continent are close to having the parameters confirmed. The Tymoreans have not noticed the majority of our …tampering…and where they have moved to reverse out work, we have in turn restored it. They have not noticed the evaporators we inserted into the oceans – they have some local superstition about the oceans – no one even goes out on boats. They do have crude facilities for desalination – one plant is operating, but there are three others. They can’t have missed the fact that we have made the rainfall less than normal in the past cold season. Drought conditions are spreading and the native trees and plants are tinder dry. With the weather on this world now thoroughly quantified – it will be easy to ignite fires and have them spread fast and far. After that, our plants will flourish.”
Voltec turned to Kellex. “What can you report? Do you know where those precocious brats are? I would be quite happy to bomb whichever town or palace they are in.”
His sarcasm wasn’t unnoticed. Kellex ignored it – he truly believed the prediction of Old Sedgram, his mentor and a former Warlord.
“Those brats haven’t returned to the Estate,” he stated positively, though mentally he hoped his peers wouldn’t notice his unease. “My spy there is sure of that. It is my opinion that the king is hiding them, possibly in whatever backwater they grew up in.”
“Didn’t your spy say they came from off world?” Zorrec asked, casually. He hid a smirk.
“Talk!” Kellex retorted. “If they arrived with traders – who are the only ones with ships that land here – they certainly haven’t left that way – not since we arrived.”
Zorrec shrugged, he didn’t mind feeding Kellex’s obsession with the brats – after all, when the Aeronites were victorious and the homeworld Superior Council awarded honours, he doubted that Kellex would collect many.
“I wouldn’t assume that the brats never returned to the Estate,” Zorrec taunted Kellex. “Commander Kek reported that those brats rescued the nameless one from the scavenging animals, one of which mauled him. He believes they took him to the nearest city.”
“I agree that Kek is an exceptional warrior, but his belief can be mistaken.” Kellex countered. “The nameless one must be nearly dead, if he was mauled after Villeni finished with him. The wounds those creatures give, turn rapidly septic. Anyway, if the Tymoreans start demanding information from him, he will probably will himself to death. I doubt he could stand much of their torture in his condition. As for those brats, if they escaped your Commander, they were very lucky, no doubt. That being so, can you see their elders letting them loose again? If their High King Governor is using them to dupe the commoners, he wouldn’t want them risked. I would say they dumped the nameless one at the city, gave orders for him to be taken to the Estate, and then took off again. They are undisciplined whelps.”
“Lords!” Voltec called for order. “Does it really matter where these children are? They can’t fight us single-handedly.”
“The point is, that my esteemed colleague Kellex, claimed he could eliminate all of the High King’s get,” Zorrec murmured mildly. “He can’t even take a baby.”
Kellex and Zorrec glared at each other, until a messenger beep broke the tableau. Voltec glanced at his brother who was retrieving a message via the screen on his chair’s arm, and then turned back to the meeting, to invite the two scientists to speak.
“Wazim, Xezir, are you ready to proceed?”
Wazim stood, and straightened his dark greyish blue uniform self-consciously. “In addition to what Xezir has reported, our experiments and small scale operations are complete. Already we have areas of the fourth continent under cultivation. We infused Alfinium into the atmosphere and the prevailing wind we created spread it evenly over a wide area. The rain we created using the ocean-based evaporators settled it to the ground. The plants are growing well and we have noticed that the hopping rodents won’t touch them.”
“Have you any ideas for negating the shields?” Voltec asked.
Xezir answered this time. “Yes, and I earlier suggested things to your brother. However, if we don’t get those shields down, the people in the city won’t get Alfinium into their systems. Though of more concern, the Tymoreans have also shielded vast areas of uncultivated forest.”
He had the attention of all the other Warlords.
“Forests?” Axec echoed. “Why would they bother?” It seemed like he had his mind on something else.
“Why doesn’t matter,” Xezir said. “But with all that area shielded, the terrain reforming will be incomplete and should the shields be removed at a later time, the terrain reformation may be destabilised, and the changed areas will revert to what has been natural until now.”
“It isn’t a priority then,” Voltec considered. “Once we find and deactivate the city defences, we will know what to look for at the forests. Those controls will surely be outside of the shields. I cannot see people being left inside those places.”
“There is one other point,” Xezir said calmly. He still had the attention of his peers. “The animals are migrating to those areas.”
“I cannot see how that matters,” Axec insisted, impatiently.
“Perhaps it doesn’t,” Xezir said equably. “But the behaviour is odd.”
“The animals can wait – we can eat them if we need to and if they are dumb enough to hop into cages – well and good.” Axec dismissed that concern. “I have just received a very interesting report. One of my Commanders – at this city called Basiq – has succeeded in entering the city. He had sappers dig a tunnel under the edge of the force dome.”
Five voices tried to ask questions at once. Axec silenced the clamour by raising two hands. His face had a faint smirk of triumph.
“They came up under a building and waited there until they contacted several of our spies. If we want, we can bring troops in and take over the city. However, that isn’t all. While our spies were looking for the shield controls, thinking them in the council building, they found a room in the cellar with three tunnels leading off it. They sent a robot probe into one and it is still sending signals from over a hundred miles away. It likely links that city with another. If we travel the tunnel, we can invade other cities as well.”
“That is an awfully long way for troops to travel on foot underground,” Xezir said, breaking into the babble of conversation between Voltec, Axec and Zorrec.
Wazim spoke up. “We can build bullet capsules, pressurised to travel along the tunnels. It would be faster.”
Since the idea was taken up, Xezir shrugged, and then turned when Kellex addressed him. “You have a better idea?”
“Simpler. Just repeat what that first group did. We have the means to work out where to come up. Our spies could tell us that – and it won’t be where the locals expect arrivals.”
“Yes, of course,” Kellex mused. “I wonder if that would work to get into the Royal menagerie. The rock faces of that mesa are well shielded, as are the walls around the Estate above. I do know a way up through the caverns – but it emerges outside the walls.”
“I will work on a solution,” Xezir promised. “Perhaps it is a reason to capture one of the Governors and make him tell us how to get in there.”
“Yes,” Kellex hissed. “And when I a ready, I will issue a challenge to the so-called President Governor and get him away from there. He will not dare refuse the challenge.”
“And the King?” Xezir asked.
“Him…I have plans for him and for the rest of his get,” Kellex promised.
Xezir controlled a sigh. He couldn’t see the sense in worrying about children.
Kellex looked about to erupt, but Xezir forestalled him with a slight hand gesture. “You know more about them than I do – perhaps you can explain why you believe they are a threat.”
Kellex spoke of the foreseeing of Sedgram, just before he died. He recalled to Xezir the legends of the powers of the Royal lines. Xezir listened thoughtfully and finally spoke up. “While I doubt that the baby is a threat…”
“Babies grow up!” Kellex interrupted.
“So they do, but it takes time…I was going to say that Wazim and I have become familiar with the natural forces on this planet. We needed to be to do the weather manipulations and the terrain reforming. I have recently begun to record anomalies in the normal force pattern. One series on anomalies are in the forested areas, and another in various open areas near the cities.”
“And how does this matter to me”?” Kellex asked, impatiently.
“Consider – the harvests have already been collected in many areas and are well advanced in others…”
“I heard that – so what?”
“Add to that the exodus of animals to the forested areas,” Xezir continued. “Shielded forests.”
“You think the events are linked?” Kellex realised. “So…?”
“So…if you are right about the power of those two children…”
“I am right…just state what you mean, Xezir. I haven’t time for riddles.”
“Very well, from what you said, only two people other than the Governors can manipulate the natural forces in that way and according to you, those people are the missing Prince and Princess. You know where the Governors are…I can tell you where the children are.”
As Xezir gave Kellex the coordinates, Zorrec listened and noted the numbers. He hid a smile when he heard Kellex say he would put his wards onto finding the children. It didn’t really matter who found them, they too could be a lever to get into that Royal enclave or the menagerie as Kellex had begun to call it. But he already had Commander Kek hunting them, or had Kellex forgotten? Either way, Kek had his own uncanny ways of finding things. He had years more experience than Kellex’s untried changelings and now had an extremely personal grudge against them.
Zorrec could almost hear Kellex thinking about tunnelling under the mesa shields, going up the tunnels, snatching the babe – so he could corrupt another of the Royal kind.
“Corrupt the Royal kind,” Zorrec repeated the phrase to himself. Snippets of ancient Aeronite history came back to him. He found himself saying aloud, “We should turn our full attention to removing all those with Royal blood.”
The discussion between Voltec and Axec suddenly halted.
“They cannot survive without commoners,” Voltec stated.
“You forget…the first Aeronite settlers had Royal blood and they survived the Alfinium in our home ecosystem. If they hadn’t, we would not be here today.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Kellex said with assurance. “And if you will excuse me…I will continue to solve that problem – right now.” He strode out of the meeting room and outside the baseship to where his personal shuttle waited on the ground. He wasted no time in getting in and taking off. He activated the cloaking device as soon as the engine blasted into life. Only a tornado like wind and dust cloud showed his departure.
The nav computer was preset to the new location of his baseship. It was no longer in the mountains and relatively close to the Royal Estate, but in an uninhabited stretch of barren land near the northern ocean. While his ship flew itself, Kellex mulled over the information he had just learnt, and made plans.
Let Voltec and Axec deal with the peasant masses, and Wazim and Xezir were well able to deal with the science-loving Governor. Kellex had just thought of excellent plan to draw the king away from the Estate. That only left the President – and if his little toy had heard correctly, that one was away from the Estate for the moment. That thought gave him a modicum of worry. What his toy thought he heard was “…away with the space fleet.” Had he misunderstood, Kellex mused. He must have – for if this world had a space fleet…where was it?
Not once in the twenty years he’d been observing this world had he seen any sign of one and why would the stupid pacifists want a space fleet? Or could even build one…they didn’t have huge reserves of metal ore to use. Maybe his little fool of a toy had actually heard ‘race meet’. That made more sense – but it gave no indication of how long the President Governor would be away.