Beyond the Shroud of the Universe (5 page)

“Dude, what’s that up there?” Sergeant Jamal ‘Bad Twin’ Gordon asked, motioning toward a lump 80 feet in front of them.

“Don’t know,” Sergeant Marcus ‘Spud’ Murphy replied. “Looks like a body. S’pose we ought to check it out?”

“Beats me, dude. Maybe they leave bodies on the ground here. Looks human, though.” Bad Twin switched to his comm system. “
Hey, Master Chief, it looks like there’s a human body up here. Want us to go check it out?
”

“
No, I’d like you to wait for the second coming and see if it gets up on its own and starts walking,
” Master Chief replied. “
Of course I want you to check it out, you moron! Just be careful in case it’s booby-trapped.
”

“
Roger that,
” Bad Twin replied. He looked at Spud. “You heard the man. Let’s go check it out.”

The soldiers advanced on the body, rifles at the ready, watching for enemy activity.

Bad Twin reached it first. “Holy shit!” he cried. “It’s Father Z!”

“Oh, man, someone fucked him up
bad
,” Spud said. “Who’d do that to a priest?
Medic!
”

The squad’s medic, Corporal Shaun ‘Lucky’ Evertson, ran up and knelt down next to the body. “Careful,” Spud said; “Master Chief said he might be booby-trapped.”

“Well, then move back, because I can’t check him out without touching him.”

Seeing the troopers were more interested in finding out if Father Zuhlsdorf was alive than they were worried about possible booby-traps, the medic shrugged and felt for a pulse in Father Zuhlsdorf’s neck. “I’ll be fu…guys, he’s got a pulse. It’s weak, but it’s there.” He started stripping out of his combat suit. “Quick! Help me get him in the suit. I can stabilize him better that way.”

The three soldiers raced to get the inert priest into the combat suit. As they connected the last seal, the suit came to life, analyzed Father Zuhlsdorf and began injecting him with a variety of analgesics, fluids and life-saving medications.

“
Can anyone see Lucky?
” Master Chief asked. “
What the fuck just happened to him? His suit is showing him as almost dead.
”

“
I’m good,
” Corporal Evertson said. “
We just found a human who was near death, so I gave him my suit. It will be close, but it looks like he may make it.
”

“
It’s Father Z
,” Bad Twin added. “
Looks like someone beat the crap out of him and then shot him with a laser. Of course, that’s after they brought him back from the grave since he was dead and all.
”

“I’ll need one of your suits, too,” Lucky said, who was monitoring his suit. “My suit isn’t going to have enough meds in its pharmacopeia.”

“That’s it?” Calvin asked, looking down on the Efreeti capital of Belshazzar. “It doesn’t look like much, considering this is the capital of their home world.” Judging by the geography, Calvin guessed he was somewhere over what would be Iran on Earth. Nightsong had overflown the Black Sea, then Calvin had seen the Caspian Sea go past on the left. The city they were overflying had tall buildings made of adobe and brick, arranged in narrow winding streets. Even though the city spread out to cover a fairly large area, each of the houses had its own enclosed courtyard, so there weren’t as many residences as there would have been in a modern city on Terra. Altogether, the city couldn’t have housed more than 10,000 individuals.

“Home world?” Nightsong asked as he guided the ship past the city toward an enclosure that housed a number of buildings and looked far more modern. A tall, Efreet-manned wall surrounded the buildings, including what looked like an enormous warehouse. “This isn’t their home world,” Nightsong continued. “The real Efreet home world is a long way from here. Whatever gave you the stupid idea this was their home world?”

“You did,” Calvin said as the shuttle swooped in to land between two large adobe buildings in the enclosure’s central courtyard. “You told us this was their home world.”

“Did I?” Nightsong asked. The ship touched down without even a tremor, and Nightsong looked across the cockpit at Calvin. “Oops. I lied.”

“It looks like you lied about a lot of things,” Calvin said.

“Yeah, well I needed to make getting here important enough that you would come running back to Earth and cross over with me, without thinking about it much first. Sue me.”

Nightsong smiled. “When I first met you,” he added, “I told you that Aesir are less worried about short-term gains than we are long-term successes. This success has been a
long
time coming…and it’s even sweeter for all the planning and work that has gone into it.”

“We searched a mile in every direction,” Night said, “but there was no sign of civilization. The only sign of life on the other side was the silver ship we saw leaving, but we don’t know whether our forces were onboard it or not.” The general assembly meeting room spread up from him in a 90 degree cone, 45 degrees on either side of the center aisle. The room was packed, with every seat taken; all the representatives’ aides had to watch from their offices.

“Why can’t you tell if they were aboard?” President Nehru asked. “Wouldn’t you have been able to contact them over your implants?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Night replied. “If they were on the ship, we should have been able to contact them. Either they weren’t onboard, they were incapacitated or there was some sort of interference that kept us from reaching them. We are unable to determine which of these happened. I think our personnel were captured by a third party, who then blew up the initial landing zone, but that is just a guess; we don’t have any hard evidence to confirm it.”

“What are your recommendations?” the president asked.

Before Night could respond, he saw motion out of the corner of his left eye and dove to the right away from it. He rolled and came up on one knee, reaching for the laser pistol in his holster…except he hadn’t been allowed to bring it into the session. It was outside the conference chamber in the weapons storage facility.

Just to the left of where he had been standing now stood a man and a creature that looked like a seven-foot-tall salamander. An Efreeti! He had to protect the president!

Night’s senses went into overdrive, and he looked around for something he could use as a weapon. Seeing nothing, he gathered himself to charge the alien as several of the representatives screamed. He could see movement as doors opened throughout the auditorium; he knew it was the security force personnel responding to the threat.

Night turned back to the man. Swarthy in complexion, the man was dressed in the long robe worn by Muslim men, along with a ghutra headdress. The man had dark hair and eyes, and badly needed a shave. Night could also see the man held a package wrapped in chains.

“Nobody move,” the man said in Farsi, holding up his bundle. “This is a bomb!” He brought his left hand out from under the parcel and held up a joystick. His thumb held down the button on top of the controller. “And this is a dead-man’s switch,” he added. “If I release this button, or if you kill me, the bomb
will
blow up. I suggest no one does anything that might make me nervous.” He turned to Night.

“Captain Train,” the man said, “I would appreciate it if you would come out to where I can see you. You can stand over by the president if it makes you feel better.”

Night slowly got to his feet and moved to the president, his eyes on the intruders the entire time, looking for an opportunity he could exploit. It did make him feel better to be near the person he most needed to protect, even if he didn’t have a plan for how he was going to do so. Yet.

President Nehru waved the security forces back. “What is it you want?” she asked.

“I am not here to hurt anyone today, and I do not intend to take up much of your time,” the man said. “I just have a few announcements I need to make. You may call them demands, but they are not demands, so much as statements about how your lives have changed, and what you must do to adapt to the new reality you find yourselves in. If you want to live, that is.”

“Yes?” President Nehru asked. Night had never heard so much sarcasm loaded into a single syllable.

The man smiled. “The Supreme Leader wishes you to know the so-called “Republic of Terra” is no more. All ties with off-planet civilizations are dissolved as of today. Any aliens currently polluting our soil are to leave or be exterminated immediately. All the nations on Earth have now been absorbed into the Fourth Persian Empire, and Sharia law is now in effect across the entire planet. Any infractions will be dealt with accordingly. The Supreme Leader will have more information on what this means to you, and how the new laws are to be enforced, soon.”

The Efreeti next to him grunted something, its tongue flicking in and out of its mouth. “Additionally,” the man added, “all technology research is forbidden from this day forward. Anyone found conducting research into any area of technology will be summarily executed. As of this moment, all replicators are to cease functioning and be turned over to us. The penalty for disobedience is simple. Your nation’s capital will burn in a nuclear fire for the first infraction. After that, your entire country will feel the wrath of Allah, and all will die in the fires of his anger.”

“How do we know what you say is true?” President Nehru asked.

The man smiled again, but there was no warmth; it was the most evil expression Night had ever seen.

“I hoped someone would ask that,” the man said. He nodded to the Efreeti, who vanished. He looked at his watch as if counting time. “If you would all monitor your news feeds, I believe something bad is about to happen to Tashkent.”

“Who’s Tashkent?” a voice called.

Within moments, Night’s newsfeed was swamped with pictures of a mushroom cloud rising over a city. The text beneath it read “Nuclear Bomb Destroys Tashkent.” Gasps could be heard throughout the room.

“Tashkent
used
to be the capital of Uzbekistan,” the man said. “Pity. It was quite a nice town before the Soviet invasion. Don’t worry, though. Our people recovered the Samarkand Kufic Quran before the…demonstration.” He surveyed the audience and saw several hands shoot up.

“There will not be any questions taken today,” he continued, “but you may be sure more information will be forthcoming. For now, return to your countries and await further instructions. This meeting, just like this government, is at an end. Go!” He pointed to the exit.

When no one moved, he set down the package and pulled a pistol from a holster at his side. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. It is time for you to leave. If you don’t leave immediately, I will begin shooting people until you do. You have five seconds.” He began counting backward from five.

At “three,” several people sprinted for the exits; at “two” the stampede was on. Night headed for the exit at “one,” but only after memorizing the man’s face. Someone who could so casually destroy a city of two million people needed to die. They would meet again; Night was sure.

As he passed through the door, he felt a nudge at his side and looked down to find a short, nondescript man walking alongside him. Night hadn’t noticed the man before, nor had he seen him approach.

“Can we talk somewhere privately?” the man asked without looking up.

Night ran an online facial recognition scan on what he could see of the man’s face, but it came back with no matches. That hadn’t happened since he got his implant. Some of his confusion must have shown on his face, for the man added, “An online search won’t find me. I don’t exist.”

“Yeah,” Night said. “Come with me. My shuttle is parked on the landing pad. We can talk there.”

“So,” Night said. “We’re here. What is it you wanted to talk about?”

“When the Psiclopes made their presence known, the world became focused on the stars,” the man said, “with very few people looking after things on this planet. While this was sufficient for most nations, my country has many enemies, including those who didn’t join the Republic of Terra. Everyone thought North Korea and Iran had been marginalized enough that they couldn’t make trouble.” He shook his head. “Those people were wrong.”

After a sigh, he continued, “My organization, however, has continued to monitor them. And it is a good thing we never lost our focus. Our world…no, our very race, has traitors, as you just saw.”

“It might help me trust you,” Night said, “if perhaps I knew who you were.”

“You can call me Moshe Arens,” the man said. “That is not my name, of course, but it will do well enough for now.”

“If that’s how you inspire trust, you’re not very good at it. You’ll have to try a little harder.”

The man shrugged, waving off Night’s concern with a flip of his hand. “My real name is unimportant; it was erased many years ago to protect the remaining members of my family. I exist for one purpose and one purpose only, to ensure the safety of my country.”

“I guess you didn’t get the memo,” Night said. “We don’t have countries anymore; we’re all part of the Fourth Persian Empire now.”

“I do not consider myself part of the Persian Empire any more than you do, Captain Train. If it will help you move on, I am authorized to tell you I am part of the Mossad, although my organization is not one you would ever have heard of. You may be familiar with my organization’s motto. If not, it is very relevant now. ‘Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety.’”

Night recognized the biblical quote, and he knew it to be the Mossad’s motto. “So you are an Israeli?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“I am,” the man said with a nod. “Despite the world’s recent focus on the stars, we still have many enemies here; it is only prudent we keep our eyes on them. I have been watching Iran nearly all my adult life.”

“With a secret organization?”

The man shrugged. “We all have our secrets. By the way, how is Father Z doing?”

Night raised an eyebrow. The priest’s reappearance was a closely-guarded secret; only a
very
select few were aware of it. Whoever the man was, his sources were good. Very good. “Touché,” Night said. “If you really care, he is expected to recover.”

“I do care,” the man replied; “he may be able to provide additional information about what the traitors are doing.” He paused, seemingly lost in thought.

“So,” Night said, growing impatient after a few seconds, “this would be a good time to tell me what you know. That
is
the reason you made yourself known to me, correct? So I could do something about it?”

“Partially,” the man said. “While we do want your involvement, we also want you to take
all
the credit for it; we would prefer our involvement…even our very existence…never comes to light. We are ghosts, and we would like to stay that way.”

“If you can help us stop these assholes, I’ll be happy to forget I ever saw you,” Night replied. “My focus is on killing bad guys, not revealing the identities of quasi-allies.”

The man smiled. “We
are
allies,” he said. “We want what you want, a peaceful Earth where everyone can prosper. We just have different methods of achieving it.”

“I understand,” Night said. “The Kidon has been responsible for a number of successful assassinations; however, that’s something we Americans generally don’t go for.”

“There are two things wrong with that statement. First, Americans
do
go for assassinations; they just aren’t honest enough to admit it when they’re caught. Assassinations can be very effective in stunting an organization’s growth. The other thing wrong is that, while the Kidon
is
the department responsible for executing our nation’s enemies, I am not part of it as you are suggesting. Now, can we dispense with the verbal sparring? We do not have much time before irreversible changes will be made.”

Night stared at the man, trying to take his measure; the man endured it without shrinking until Night made up his mind.

With a small nod, Night indicated his approval. “Okay,” he growled. “What do you know that can help us kill these bastards?”