THE VROL TRILOGY (118 page)

"
You killed
Joseph Stalin
?" Max asked, totally
surprised.

"
No. He died
of a cerebral hemorrhage. I simply poked his brain a
bit
," the archangel said with a touch of a smile on
his lips.

"
Good - one
vamp down. Let's check the Draeders
," said Bagatelle,
not feeling any remorse for the death of an officer he
despised.

Down on the flight deck they again found a
number of Draeders that had been retrofitted with hook drives. Max
performed the same undetectable modifications on them, stripping
all of their faster-than-light capabilities.

Finishing with that, they all left and went
to Vera Base, where Pandy and Jessica were testing out the training
equipment in the gymnasium. The base had turned out looking less
like caverns carved out of rock, and more like modern facilities
with smooth walls, proper lighting and doors.

"Hello, Jessica. How has your day been?"
asked Gabriel as he approached his lycan friend, who was turning
out more and more to be closer to a girlfriend than a mere platonic
acquaintance.

"Heya Gabe. We're doing great. Are you fellas
hungry? The commissary has elk stew. It's super yummy."

Sitting down at a lunch table, the six
engaged in light conversation, Max being the most inquisitive.

"So Pandy, are you liking it here? Do you
miss Sins at all?"

"Max, it's great. I'm not missing a thing.
Just one thing I'm not looking forward to."

"What's that, little one?" he inquired.

There's a full moon in the Rhönen in
four days. Krynos said we can't simply pop around the universe and
avoid it. We have to start being
real
lycans, as he says."

"Yeah, I hear it's gonna totally suck," said
Jessica.

"It's not really that bad. Don't worry. And
each time it happens there's a chance you maintain some sentience.
I look at it as kind of a game," said Bagatelle, attempting to make
the girls feel at ease.

"We shall be there with you, young Pandy.
Worry not. You shall have our protection," said Gabriel, while
looking at Jessica with a mild grin.

"You know, we should really try something.
You girls have been inoculated with the anti-protein inhibitor that
Draagh synthesized out of my blood after my time in L.A. G managed
to change to phase 2.5. If you can do that you may have a chance at
getting a better handle on your transformation. I did last night,
in Old-Earth of 2020, when we went to get the hamburgers," said
Max.

"Yeah, and smooth move, genius commander. You
failed to check the moon phase charts," said Bagatelle
jokingly.

"True - luckily Draagh went and did an area
memory wipe before fixing the restaurant and going off to the
zoo-bar. Otherwise there could have been a serious time paradox,
resulting in a split thread from that reality," said Max.

"But what about the people on the bicycles?
Won't they also remember, Max?"

"Nope. It was Halloween, so everyone was
dressed up in all kinds of outfits. They thought I was wearing an
awesome costume."

"Huh? What's Halloween?" asked Pandy.

Max then spent the rest of the lunch hour
explaining not only Halloween, but also numerous other Old-Earth
western holidays to the girls.

Chapter 35 - Plans

"Something very odd is going on, and I want
to know what it is - immediately," growled Chairman Johnson, "and
why my hand-picked captain of the Revolution, who was, by the way,
in his physical prime, suddenly dies of an aneurism on the command
bridge of his ship. To top it all off, suddenly none of the
Draeders that had been retrofitted with hook drives can fly FTL. I
want answers - now."

"Sir, it may be an aberration. All four
starships maintain FTL capabilities," said Chief of Staff Coby
Worthington. "Besides that, we have poured over surveillance of the
flight decks and there is absolutely no sign of tampering with the
fighter craft.

"Coby, you have a family, right?"

"Yes sir. A wife and two children - a boy and
a girl."

"Do you love them?"

"Yes, of course sir."

"Find out what is happening or I will delete
them and let you live, so you can suffer in agony for the rest of
your life."

"Yes sir. We'll find out what is
happening."

Johnson waved his subordinate off and turned
his chair around, looking out of the plaza de armas. Worthington
left the office, a feeling of dread eating away at his stomach.

Crap, he's serious. Why did I get involved
with this maniac?

Coby Worthington wasn't a bad person. In
fact, he didn't even have recessive vampire genes, like most of
those with whom Johnson surrounded himself. Coby was actually a
lycan-potential, but he worked extremely hard, mostly so he could
provide the best absolute life for his wife and children. Lycans
were usually driven by love, even in Pandy and Jessica's Los
Angeles. The lycans there may have been jerks, but they were highly
protective of their own.

What am I going to do? Johnson snuffs out
life without a thought. He's a total sociopath.

"Heya, Coby. How's life?"

Coby turned around, startled, and then, upon
seeing who was addressing him, almost froze from shock. There, in
front of him, were Rear Admiral Luigi Bagatelle and Commander
Maximilianus Gunnarsson, dressed like they had been riding
motorcycles, or at the very least, auditioning for a biker
movie.

"Bagatelle! You should be in prison! I have a
good mind to - "

"Coby, if you say a freakin word you'll have
no mind to think with. You like what happened to Cpt. Smith? That's
what happens to bad people. Fortunately, we know you're not a bad
guy. Also, we know that Johnson just threatened your family. So…
wanna talk?"

Bagatelle was so completely carefree and
nonchalant that Worthington just nodded his head, but then
panicked, looking at the surveillance cameras which lined the
halls.

"Oh man, don't even worry about those. They
see you looking at your personal console, as if you were trying to
access some data," said Max. "Now we need you to go to the
toilet."

"The what? The toilet?"

"Yeah, like you need to take a dump. Go now.
Trust us. We're on your side, Coby," said Bagatelle.

"
Using toilet
stalls is such a great idea! No one wants to see anything in a
stall, ergo, no surveillance
."

"
Yeah I know,
such a great idea. I guess Mikey isn't such a slouch after
all.
"

Coby entered a restroom, and, looking around
first, entered a stall, pulled his pants down and took a seat. He
sat for a moment, and then saw letters mysteriously form in front
of his face, as if they were made of smoke.

"Put your pants back on,
fool. We're getting you out of here
."

Pulling his pants back up, he had no sooner
drawn his zipper than he found himself standing next to a massive
wooden table, where he saw a large, older, Viking-like man staring
at him.

"Coby Worthington, I presume?" Draagh
asked.

"Y-y-yes?"

"Let me ask you this one time, and one time
only. Do you want to live, and do you want your family to also
survive?"

"Yes, of course. Oh gawd. You want money. Oh
man, I really don't have any money. I'm so totally screwed, oh
man," he cried, as he started to freak out.

Jennie Gunnarsson walked up to him, wearing a
sour expression, and punched him in the face, shocking him into
silence.

"Shut up, fool! We're here to save your
pathetic ass, not hold you for ransom!"

Holding his sore jaw, he looked at the
super-attractive dega, not understanding where he was, or how he
got out of the toilet stall.

"Who…who are you?" he asked.

"Jennifer Escalante de Gunnarsson. But that's
Lt. Commander Gunnarsson to you, chump. You've been feeding at the
ass-trough of Len Johnson and that makes me ill. But it also
provides us with an excellent opportunity."

"You - you're rebels! You want to overthrow
the Chairman!"

"Duh!" they all musically chimed out in
unison - even Draagh, who had become quite adept at colloquial
phrases and taunts, thanks especially to his time spent with
Liliana.

"There are things you need to learn, Coby,"
said Max, in a much more kindly tone than his wife had been using.
"We brought you here so you can make a choice, but in order to
properly choose you need to know the whole story."

"What whole story? Like how you stole the
faster-than-light invention of the Chairman's son and went to Earth
in order to foment a rebellion and enslave Azul System?"

Everyone - Draagh, Bagatelle, Jennie, Michael
and Gabriel - all gave the young man a blank stare, and then
started laughing out loud - almost maniacally.

"Ryder Johnson? HE invented the hook drive?"
asked Jennie.

"Yes, of course. Just look it up on your
console."

"Oh right," quipped Max, "if it's on
the data net it
has
to be
true."

"Max discovered side space carrier currents
AND invented the SSCC hook drive, Coby. Johnson's son had
absolutely nothing to do with it," Jennie informed the confused
chief of staff.

"But how can that be? Chairman Johnson
frequently speaks of his son, and fondly reminisces the good times,
when he would spend hours with his son in his laboratory."

"Johnson is a sociopath who believes his own
lies. He has unraveled the Constitution, perverted our form of
government, and has opened the entire system up to invasion by an
alien race that brings only death," Max informed the young man.
"How can we show him? Old-Earth?"

"Yeah, that sounds good. Let's take him
there," said Bagatelle

Before Coby could say another word he was
standing on the promenade of Larco Mar, on the Peruvian coastline.
Seeing the desolation, he panicked slightly, but Gabriel put a hand
firmly on the man's shoulder and held him in place.

"Coby, this is the first place I came
to when I came here with
my
invention that I invented in
my
lab. In fact, Rear Admiral Bagatelle here,
and Lt. Commander Escalante de Gunnarsson were charged with
bringing me back dead or alive. This is a shopping mall in what was
Lima, Peru. Notice how there is no life. Not even
bones."

"So what? People could have fled and
abandoned the area. Did you ever think of that?"

"It was the first thing that came to my mind.
But then I found that mankind had been wiped out by a virulent
amoebic plague brought on by an alien race."

"Alien race?"

"Yup. The travelers you call the Artusians
are actually called the Vrol, and they did this. Oh, and they don't
look like awesome, beautiful glowing beings."

"I don't believe you."

"They look like this!"

Max created a hologram around himself to
appear to resemble a Vrol ground fighter. Eight feet tall, and
towering over the terrified man, he snapped his mantis-like claws
and stared with massive compound eyes. He then changed back to his
normal self by dissipating the hologram.

"How did you do that? Are you a demon? Oh my
god. You're a demon!"

"Coby, are you a religious man?" asked
Bagatelle.

Hesitating for a moment, he nodded his
head.

"Yeah. My family was secretly Catholic. You
know how religious types are frowned upon in government
service."

"And so I assume you are familiar with
certain famous individuals from the Bible, such as St. Michael and
Gabriel, both archangels?"

"Of course, but that was …myth? Oh crap…"

Coby Worthington found himself staring at two
men with beautiful, obsidian-colored wings, their arms crossed and
wearing smirks upon their faces.

"Greeting, monk…Coby. I am Gabriel."

"Hello, Coby. My name is Michael. I am also
the father of Commander Gunnarsson."

Worthington looked over at Max, with whom he
was completely familiar - except for the beautiful spread of his
own wings. Max looked at Coby with a kind smile on his face.

"Coby. We're friends, we're here to save the
human race, and you're going to help."

###

"Sir, are you ok? You have been in the toilet
for quite a while," asked Worthington's assistant, Johnny
Hernandez.

"Urrrrrrrrhhh, pain. Diarrhea. Leave me be,"
a groaning voice answered back from the stall.

That was all that was needed, for the moment,
to throw any suspicion off Coby's scent, which was magically
created and quite disagreeable.

###

After having watched a vid of the Vrol
invasion centuries prior, Coby sat, stunned, balancing precariously
on a stool in the old Hard Rock Café. Max had found another bottle
of old scotch, and was drinking it with his father, uncle,
grandfather, wife, and new ally Coby Worthington.

"There is much more to the universe than
anyone knows," said Max.

"But this is impossible. We can't be on
Earth. It defies all known laws of physics!"

"
Known
laws, Coby - you just said it. Think about it. Four years ago
there was no such thing as faster-than-light travel. It was always
there. It wasn't invented. I just found the way to access it. And
by the way, it totally pisses me off that Johnson is telling
everyone that his piece of garbage son invented the hook
drive."

"So what you are saying is that everything we
learned in science and physics classes is a bunch of junk?"