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Jenny wasn’t sure what to expect as an aftermath of the shout, at least not from her standpoint. There was no one alive that she was aware of who had ever done it. She had only been told secondhand stories about this particular mental ability. Those who had done it in the past had never written about the experience, and her instructors had not had anything else to go by.
So, she was frankly surprised to find herself on the winding path of Miriha’s beautiful garden. “Did I die?” she wondered aloud. “Have I ‘transitioned’ to the next dimension?”
“Of course not, Jenny; but you are unconscious in the other place. Would you like to see what you just did?” It was Miriha in flowing robes and flowers wound into her braid.
“I would. This was the part of the plan I wasn’t so sure about. There were a few on the council who opposed it, but I really felt strongly about it. The Groga need to see the full impact of what we are doing, and it is important to not just talk about freedom and choice, but to practice it.”
“Well said, Jenny,” and she beckoned for Jenny to follow her to the decorative stone bench beside the crystal pool. The bench should have been hard and cold, but it was warmed by a sun Jenny couldn’t quite see and somehow it didn’t feel hard. Of course, she was not there in her physical body, so this part made sense.
They sat for a moment in silence looking into the pool with no fish and not a single ripple, although a pleasant warm gentle breeze always seemed to be blowing here.
Then, the surface of the pond changed from reflecting the sky and their faces to something much like a television screen. They were looking down onto the large valley she had just left, at least mentally. Jenny gasped. The massive Norgoth army was lying on the ground as if blown there by hurricane-force winds. Like little toy soldiers strewn by the casual hand of a bored player, not a single one was standing. Behind the place they had assembled, their tents and stacks of supplies seemed untouched and undisturbed.
“Are they dead?” and despite herself, Jenny felt tears welling up in her eyes. These were the enemy. How could she possibly be feeling compassion for them right now?
“They are all unconscious, but no real damage has been done to them other than an occasional bump on the head where they landed on a rock. It is exactly as you had planned.”
The next thing Jenny noticed were the people moving forward, each with a Mookookie on their shoulder.
Groga soldiers were searching the bodies of the Norgoth soldiers. Although it looked like they were looting the bodies, as was common on a battlefield after a victory, this was all part of the plan. Nothing would be left to them that could be used as a weapon. The rest, trinkets, and other things a soldier might carry with them were left on them.
Then the Groga would grab a Norgoth by the shoulders and sit him up, still unconscious, and a Daringi would bend and touch their MDP to the top of the head of each Norgoth soldier. One by one they disappeared into the MDP.
This process would take a long time to complete, but it would be so much better than the alternative. The idea of slaughtering the helpless in their sleep for the convenience of their conquerors was appalling to Jenny. She would never have used the shout if that was the only possibility.
She found that when she refocused on a particular part of the scene before her that it immediately zoomed in to the specifics of that part of the vast field she surveyed. The people went from looking like tiny action figures to the point where she could see faces and details. She shifted her gaze to the small cluster of people halfway down the field. She knew who they were before they came into focus. These were those of her entourage. Burt and Tarafau knelt on either side of her. Her bodyguards and Elizabeth surrounded the place where she laid on the battlefield, their backs to her each facing in a different direction.
“Can I hear what they are saying?” she asked Miriha.
“It’s easiest to do that by focusing on a certain person, one you know well. Because of your close connection, you can experience the scene from their point of view and hear what they hear, although you will not be able to communicate,” Miriha replied.
Jenny concentrated on Burt. She knew she had dealt him a big shock just before it all blew up. And it served him right, she thought with a touch of smugness.
Elizabeth had turned to Tarafau, evidently in response to something he had asked her. “She is in a deep meditative state,” Elizabeth was saying. “As far as I can tell, everything is normal about her. She can’t communicate with us in this state, as she explained when she told us what she wanted to do. But I can see no damage physically or mentally.”
Tarafau nodded, looking directly into Burt’s eyes. “You need not worry for Jenny. We don’t know how long she will be like this. I will return her and Elizabeth to Ungoli to be tended by her and Amenia. She will be in good hands.”
“I understand,” Burt said softly. “And I know I would probably be useless there, but I don’t know if I can bear wondering about her. What should I do?”
Tarafau laid one hand on Burt’s shoulder, nodded to Elizabeth, and the scene faded from view. Now they were in Amenia’s house. Tarafau and Burt lifted Jenny onto a pile of cushions that had been laid out in the large family room-kitchen area where most socializing happened in their home. Amenia nodded approvingly.
“We have her usual bedroom ready for her, but I want to have her where things are happening, to surround her with the voices and sounds she is familiar with. We will put her into her bed at night. Chidwi will see to her then and knows how to get our attention when needed. She will never be alone while she is unconscious in our home, Burt,” she told him in her quiet but authoritative voice. Amenia was a leader in her own right in her community and a certified healer and used to taking charge.
In their culture healers didn’t heal only physical injuries, but mental and emotional ones as well. Jenny had learned from their interactions the last time she was there just how much Amenia was respected by her fellow Daringi.
Elizabeth now put a hand on Burt’s shoulder to get his attention and nodded toward Chidwi. “She isn’t agitated or upset, which she would have been if Jenny was anything other than alright. You needn’t worry, Burt. You can continue with your work.”
Burt was embarrassed by all of this attention. Most people took it for granted that he was ok, and he never gave them any reason to think otherwise. He preferred going unnoticed. It was a survival instinct born of years of experience at what he did best. He only drew attention to himself when it was absolutely necessary for the completion of his current mission.
Right now, he had no mission. Their planning had not gone much beyond the task at hand. It had been assumed that he would simply go to Alliance headquarters and get his next assignment, but he had known from the beginning of this wild scheme that this would never happen. Right now, as far as he was concerned Jenny was his mission.
“No thank you, Elizabeth. I can sleep on the floor if there isn’t another place for me, and I know Jenny is being well taken care of, but my place is here now. I’ve done my part. Done it and done it and done it. Right now, there is only one thing I can think of and I would be useless in the field. My primary skill is to show no emotion I don’t want people to see and be 100% focused on the mission at hand. I couldn’t do that now and in my current state I might do more harm than good.”
Tarafau nodded. “You all have this well in hand then?” Three heads nodded at once. “So, I will be off to finish what we started. Be safe and feel my love,” he concluded to Amenia and Elizabeth. “I will have no worry where Jenny is concerned. She could be in no safer hands.”
He hugged his wife and daughter and patted Chidwi gently on the head who was sitting beside Jenny’s unconscious body, both tiny hands holding Jenny’s slack one as she crooned softly.
Jenny quickly changed focus to Tarafau, not wishing to dwell longer on this scene.
The battlefield came into view immediately from Tarafau’s point of view. He strode forward, checking on one after another of his troops and consulting with the Groga generals. So far everything was proceeding as they had planned. All weapons were being removed. Soon Daringi would begin depositing the unconscious Norgoth onto a planet in an unpopulated dimension. The planet itself had no gates.
The exploratory teams of the Dimensional Alliance continued to discover new dimensions through random natural gates. Most of the gateway planets into a dimension were populated, potentially by some species wandering through the gate by accident, getting stuck there and then populating the area.
But from time to time they found a gateway planet that was apparently uninhabited. Most of them were oxygen rich. When they found such a planet, a team would go to work exploring the solar system of the planet to see if there were inhabited or habitable planets in the system.
In this particular case, there were three habitable planets in the solar system, but none of them had any discernable life beyond plant and animal life. The council had chosen the planet farthest from the gate planet to establish the Norgoths who survived this war.
They had left basic tools, temporary shelter, rations, and medical supplies in several areas throughout the planet. The thought was to separate the Norgoth into colonial areas so as not to deplete local resources and hopefully to prevent some of the conflict that might ensue as factions developed and contentions began, as they inevitably would in such a warlike culture.
Tarafau had admired Jenny’s reverence for life and was grateful this option was open to them. The only other alternative would have been to exterminate the Norgoth. There would still be many deaths. Not all of the battles would be as clean as this one had been. They had no idea if Jenny would ever be able to use this ability again and what it would do to her to use it more than once if it were even possible.
He went to the designated assembly area. They had set up a table for each Daringi to check in before taking the MDP with specific numbers of Norgoth to the various settlement areas.
This was a huge and detailed task, as there were thousands of Norgoth here. Jenny had been concerned that there would be this huge number of male Norgoth with no potential mates for colonization, but as it turned out, about a fourth of the Norgoth soldiers appeared to be female. Theoretically, eventually the numbers would even out, but for now it was what they had.
According to reports Jenny had seen, when they had explored the planet they were using for the settlement, they had noticed a healthy balance of herbivores vs predators. It would initially put the Norgoth in a certain amount of danger while they established themselves.
Tarafau had expressed the opinion that the sheer numbers of the Norgoth arriving so precipitously would discourage any of the wildlife from coming too close to do any large scale damage and this was still a better option than large scale euthanasia.
All in all, Tarafau mused, it was probably better than they deserved, but there it was. Part of this exercise was to teach the Groga by example that killing wasn’t the only solution to a problem. Jenny had not wanted to start them on their new path with a bloody battle, and fortunately her plan had worked. Had it not, for any reason, they had been prepared to fight it out, but the results would have been devastating on both sides.
So, he checked in with the sergeant at the desk and was passed the coordinates in the mysterious way the Daringi did that. Even Jenny, sitting now in his mind, couldn’t discern how that happened. She had been so excited when Elizabeth had displayed that talent, for the potential it had for the resolution of this struggle with the Inseni.
Something startling just occurred to Jenny, as she watched this all play out. She hadn’t seen a single one of the big-eyed Inseni, Peril’s people since this fight with the Norgoth Inseni had begun. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them and shuddered slightly.
While it was true that the intentions of their leader had been malignant, that didn’t mean the common people had deserved any ill treatment. The revolution had been a necessary thing, but she didn’t want to focus on what might have happened to the Inseni who had survived it.
Tarafau faded out of the battlefield to an unfamiliar landscape. It was pleasant, gently rolling hills covered with grasses, wildflowers, occasional leafy trees, and some scrubby little bushes here and there. Not far from where Tarafau stood, there was a little stream chuckling along in its rocky bed. The area he was facing had several large field tents erected, and a fenced in storage area filled with crates of varying sizes.
From the information they had extracted from the Norgoth who had invaded the Puerto Rico gate compound, Alliance scholars had been able to get a crude understanding of the Norgoth language. On the outside of each crate was an inventory of sorts printed in dark ink in the Norgoth language on each container and, for the ones that required instructions, packing slips had been included inside each box.
Alliance troopers, transported there earlier by Daringi soldiers, were busy at work erecting more of the field tents. Each one would accommodate a hundred cots. It would be a little cramped, but Tarafau figured he could live with their discomfort.
“What do the medics say about their condition?” Tarafau asked another sergeant at an almost identical desk stationed at the edge of the compound.
“As far as they can tell, none of the Norgoths were badly harmed. There will be some bumps and scratches from where they all fell over, but nothing serious. They will survive,” he said in a dry tone.
Tarafau nodded and entered the closest barracks tent. Row upon row of sleeping figures laid out, each on a separate cot. They didn’t look so fierce with their faces slack and their breathing quiet. All was well, but he didn’t want to be there when they woke up. What would they remember about their confrontation with the Dimensional Alliance Gatekeeper?
When Jenny had commanded “Now!” every Mookookie had instantly shielded every ear of every one of their soldiers, including little Chidwi. They had done a variation on the shielding they did to the body in combat situations. But the difference this time was that instead of going inside the spaces of a garment, they had somehow manipulated those retractable appendages of theirs to fit seamlessly over the ears of each individual in the Groga force. Tarafau still wasn’t clear whether that involved them merging with the spaces on the actual faces of each of them and honestly didn’t want to think about what that might mean.
He went back out to the desk sergeant and asked him, “Do the medics have any idea as to how long they will stay in this state? I want to be absolutely sure that all Dimensional Alliance personnel, Daringi and Groga are off planet well before that happens.”
“The medics have put a device into the first tent that was filled with Norgoth. It monitors breathing patterns and heart rhythms. It should be able to give us a warning about an hour before they come back to consciousness. We are prepared to get off within 15 minutes of that alarm, or whenever we have finished installing our ‘guests’ into their accommodations, whichever comes first.”
Tarafau nodded. “I want hourly reports. Have you assigned a courier?”
“Yes, Tarafau. All is as you requested.”
“Thank you, sergeant. I’ll only be returning if you need me. For now, I have to get back to the Groga planet to finalize things there.”
He did a similar check in with all 10 different settlements and found all satisfactory.
As he faded back to the battlefield, Jenny noticed that much had been accomplished while they had been gone. The field had been cleared of about a third of the unconscious Norgoth and the Groga were assiduously continuing their task, each with a Daringi trainer absorbing one soldier after another. From Tarafau’s point of view, if you didn’t look at details, it looked as if the soldiers were just melting out of existence.
Jenny could see her plan was working as well as she could have expected. She knew the Groga still had a long journey ahead of them, and she might even have a part in that at some point. For now, she faded out of Tarafau’s consciousness and back to the beautiful garden and the crystal pool.
“Would you like to see what else has been set into motion?” Miriha asked. “Remember, your part in the plan was just one small corner, albeit an important one.”
“Yes, I would. I know the rest probably won’t have had it go as smoothly as we did. It almost feels like cheating that I could use my ability in this way.”
“Not cheating, just good use of resources.”
“You sound like my dad.”
“Ah, yes. I like your dad.” Miriha replied with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Wait! You know my dad?”
“Of course. May I remind you that Lizzie and I monitored you for a long time before she decided on you to take her position? Had you not measured up, someone else would have ended up in that little house on Infinity Loop.”
Jenny sighed. She had often tried to look back and remember what she had been up to those years she was observed intently by her aunt and Miriha, trying to think of what embarrassing things they might know about her.
“OK, so who do we need to check in on next?”
Liliath wasn’t in the council room. She didn’t even appear to be anywhere Jenny recognized. She stood on a ledge at the side of a tall hill. Before her were assembled something that made Jenny gasp.
Dragons! Thousands of them! Large ones, small ones, and several sizes in between; the range of colors was like a rainbow gone nuclear. Liliath trumpeted a sound Jenny had never heard from her before. It was like an entire brass band on one clear note. The stirring of wings and all other movements ceased. Every reptilian head was focused entirely on Liliath with such concentration that Jenny was intimidated by the sheer force of it.
“My dear ones; the time has come! Each of you has been chosen for your dedication and your battle prowess. It has been ages since anything like this has been required of us, but we know why we joined the Alliance in the first place. Every dimension is contributing something.
We will contribute our powers and the ability to fly. The planet we have been assigned is rocky and not easily accessible to those who only have their feet to rely on. The Norgoth on this planet are strongly fortified, and it is a main training and deployment center according to intel from our Mookookie friends.
Your squadron leaders each have the entire plan and what part your squadron will play in it. You have been briefed by them. Pay attention. The outcome of this battle could shift quickly if the Norgoth have any surprises for us.
I wish I could be with you, but necessity dictates I must play my part while you play yours. Thank you for your service and your courage. My blessings and the blessings of He Who Created All Things go with you into battle and will return with you when you come home.”
Once again, she trumpeted, and the entire dragon legion trumpeted back. Jenny was surprised the very planet didn’t vibrate with it. The dragons were on their way. The Norgoth would be having a bad time of it on that planet, Jenny was sure.
She faded back to the little pool. “They were majestic. Thank you for showing me this. I wish I could have taken a photo. If I were an artist, this would be a picture worth painting. Where do we go next?”
“I think you should see this. I warn you, although what you just saw was impressive, this is not as pleasant.”
She was looking over a vast city on a planet with a violet sky. She was on a ridge. An alliance trooper approached and saluted. “General Gariel, we are ready.”
Jenny made another mental sigh. They had discussed in council that they couldn’t do like the Insenium tried to do to the Groga and just annihilate them from space. It would have been a simple solution, although it might have entailed some space battles, but still would have created much less casualties among Alliance troops. It finally came down to what Jenny had already learned. Soldiers were soldiers and expected to die in battle at some point, but they all had families who were not necessarily soldiers.
The majority of the members of the Alliance were of the mindset that it was not right to punish the innocent. Most of the beings that populated the various Inseni planets were just beings pursuing their day-to-day lives. They had been conditioned since birth that the philosophy of enforced societal order was how things should be. The people themselves had not conceived the plan to dominate the multiverse. So, it was up to the Alliance to see to it that they were able to pursue their own lives and philosophies as long as they didn’t try to force them on others.
Therefore, it was back to ground warfare, hitting all of the military bases they could find. This was a war of attrition. If the Insenium didn’t have the forces necessary to prosecute an interdimensional war, it would buy the Alliance time to figure out how far the Insenium had spread into other dimensions and whenever possible, free the people from that tyranny.
It would be a long term commitment and would require more intel and more planning to make it happen. In the meantime, they would create so much chaos and deplete the Inseni armed forces to the point that they wouldn’t threaten any additional dimensions any time soon.
She knew Gariel was an experienced commander and she could count on him to fight using smart tactics to preserve as many of his troops as he could. Jenny had been told that Bob had been preparing some fairly nasty surprises to help the Alliance armies, along with the help of Xao Ting and the rest of the science team.
Bob had confided in her that he would never have considered building these weapons if it hadn’t been for the desperate nature of their mission. However, like Gariel and the rest of the Alliance leadership, he had created all of them with the hope that, in the long run, it would mean fewer casualties than contemporary Earth weapons were intended to inflict.
Gariel gave a mental command: “Move out! Take your positions! Prepare the first wave!”
Jenny pondered this. First wave? Of what?
About a hundred Alliance troopers stood at the forefront of the troops, massed beside and behind Gariel. They each raised a hand into the air and from each of them poured hundreds of drones, each the size of a large paper kite, but that’s where the similarity ended. They didn’t float. They zoomed.
Jenny had seen documentaries of locust swarms darkening a sky as far as the eyes could see. This was much like that. En masse, they descended on the apparently unsuspecting city. From the watchtowers, however, alarms began to sound. Blaster shots fired from the city walls, but so far the drones were out of the effective range of the shooters.
Jenny also knew these drones were shielded, but the brilliant part about this part of the operation was that it didn’t matter if any of them were hit. There were several modifications of these little drones that made them effective weapons long after they were downed. Inevitably the Norgoth would forage the downed drones and unknown to them, some of the new versions of Burt’s bugs would be released at the first touch of anyone with Norgoth DNA.
They never did discover the purpose of the Norgoth raid on the Puerto Rico compound, but the DNA they collected from the prisoners had been invaluable in so many phases of the various attacks that would happen this day. The tacticians had all agreed that a coordinated attack all at once would be the most effective.
So, on four other planets in addition to the events at the Groga planet, the main concentrations of Inseni forces would be attacked. Each contingent was assigned a different planet, and each planet required different tactics for differing terrains.
The intel they had collected had mentioned four main planets within this dimension that were important based on the high concentration of military forces. They also had hinted that there were other colonies in dimensions they had not yet pinpointed. In addition, there was a space station that housed their space fleet in orbit around the main planet, Xatal, where Gall resided.
As she watched through Gariel’s eyes, the drones zoomed closer and closer to the city. At this point the Norgoth on the walls had all they could do to keep firing as the drones were firing back. Not at the Norgoth themselves, but at the wall supports just below their feet. In many places parts of the walls where they had all been standing had crumbled beneath them, sending them to fall the several stories below to land on whatever was below them that Gariel couldn’t see from this vantage point.
“Wave two!” Gariel sent again.
Once again the troopers raised their arms. Shrieking out of the MDPs was a different kind of drone, and they were faster than the previous wave. Not quite a rocket or missile, but they were shaped like the paper airplanes teen boys often made when they wanted them to fly fast and high. They were almost dagger-like. They had nearly caught up with the other drones when they began to wail, a high pitched, eerie sound.
Jenny actually smiled. This particular component actually came straight out of a favorite Bible story about the walls of Jericho. The sound was irritating, but not injurious to the ears. It was designed to start vibrating every solid structure in the city. Anything that wasn’t very strongly built would eventually shake to pieces. Like with the city of Jericho, the second wave caught up to the city and began to circle the city around and around, like wolves circling their prey.
In the meantime, the first wave of drones was flying over the city, spraying some kind of light mist as they went. Jenny knew this was a concoction of Xao Ting’s meant to make the people disoriented and slow their reaction time.
As soon as the spraying had stopped, the first wave of drones joined the second wave that was still wailing, its plaintive vibrating cry circling the city.
They flew below the second wave, protecting their loud friends from blaster fire. As a result, a number of them were downed, although Jenny noticed the shots of the Norgoth were getting fewer and less accurate over time.
The walls of the fortress were beginning to topple in places. The entrance which hadn’t been closed when the attack began so suddenly was now only partially blocked by one gate. The other hung haphazardly from its hinges, which was disconcerting considering that even from this distance Jenny could tell they were massive. Open, the gateway would allow a full platoon to march in ten soldiers across.
As she watched, she noticed ranks of soldiers forming behind the broken door. They knew they were vulnerable now and were preparing a defense. Jenny knew that the Alliance troopers wouldn’t take any more risks than they needed to. Their enemy had been softened up and, it was likely they had more than one trick up their uniform sleeves, especially those who wore MDPs.
She knew that the tactically sound thing to do was to wait for the Norgoths to come streaming out of the gate and pick them off with their blasters as they emerged from the door. The Norgoths also realized they were now vulnerable behind the walls that had seemed so safe only moments before.
Now the first wave of drones broke from the circular formation and once again began firing on the Norgoth troops below. There was return fire, but the drones were too fast, and the accuracy and speed of the gunmen had been compromised due to Xao Ting’s concoction, and they missed more often than not.
This was something that had probably never happened to them before, being attacked in their own fortress. They generally fought on their own terms, and Jenny knew that their commanders were probably scrambling at the moment, devising a strategy for this different form of warfare.
Suddenly a different type of fire started shooting up from below and behind the walls at the drones. The beam was more like what Brendan had reported in his space battle above the Groga planet. The beams were wider and more constant rather than a single shot, more like a constant stream.
One by one the drones began to come down over the heads of the Norgoth in the city. Jenny was sad to see the fruits of Bob’s labor disintegrating under the barrage of this new weapon and concerned that this same weapon could be turned on human beings as well.
“Bots away!” Gariel sent out in a mental bellow.
Out of the MDPs came a literal army of Bob’s bots. But they didn’t have the pleasant appearance of Lizziebot and Fidget. These were larger, for one thing. They could fly and they were armed to the teeth.
The air was full of thousands of them in only a few minutes. The Norgoth were still dealing with the drones that continued to dodge the deadly fire of the new weapon. The bots had some interesting camouflage, and they were hard to see unless the light hit them just right. They were completely silent and how Bob had managed that was beyond Jenny. He had obviously been given help from the Alliance scientists in the creation of these deadly little wonders.
Now that the bots were moving forward, Gariel gave one final command, “Attack formations forward!”
Jenny could see the strategy unfolding here. First the drones with their annoyances as effective as they were; not really fearsome, although she was sure there had been some casualties and there was definitely a lot of damage to the huge city. In some places plumes of smoke rose from inside the city, so they had that to deal with as well. Now the drones would cover the main attack by Gariel’s troops.
With enough drones and bots, they could have probably destroyed the entire city without the loss of a single Alliance trooper. But bots and drones couldn’t differentiate between enemies and non-combatants with any accuracy. They could only follow their programming. One of the primary reasons for this particular strategy was to limit civilian casualties. Their main objective was simply to stop the Insenium military machine before they could invade any more domains.
Once again Jenny could appreciate the objectives and ethics of the Dimensional Alliance. Protecting the members of the Alliance was important, but all lives were precious in their eyes. They wouldn’t put one more being in danger than was absolutely necessary on either side.
So Gariel and his men charged, descending from their hilltop. Intel said they were up against thousands of Norgoth soldiers in this particular training base. Of the ground battles that would be fought, this was a primary target. The other forces were coordinated from this base. Although there were military bases scattered across the capitol planet of the Great Insenium, this planet had only one purpose, the training of soldiers and launching of attack after attack on unsuspecting and unprepared dimensions.
The good news is that Gariel’s forces were also huge. Jenny had heard her father tell of massive battles in the history of Earth, but it didn’t prepare her for the real thing. Now she was charging with Gariel riding in his mind, blaster in hand. In the science fiction films Jenny had watched so avidly as a kid, the blasters never ran out of power, but Jenny knew that energy weapons, like projectile weapons, had a limited use.
Bob had explained to her that although Alliance science was well advanced from anything Earth had developed, a small portable weapon could still only go so far on whatever power source they employed. What would happen when they had depleted the power of their weapons or fighting in close quarters required a shift in the weaponry they used or the battle descended into one on one, weapon to weapon, hand to hand fighting?
This wasn’t going to be a siege. Gariel had deliberately made that impossible by destroying the walls around the city, so the Norgoth soldiers were pouring out of the now completely open gates. The noise was deafening. War cries from the Norgoth filled the air and the zap of blasters and the cries of those downed or dying ascended with a cacophony like nothing Jenny had ever experienced.
Gariel’s troops didn’t yell as they charged. Under the cover of the bots they had simply run forward, not even firing until the first Norgoth noticed the new peril. They engaged with quiet ferocity, focusing entirely on the task at hand. There was no hate in their faces, unlike their enemy. These men were here to do a job, nothing else.
In all the chaos, Jenny still remembered that day in the Amazon jungle when Gariel had addressed his troops: “We are the shield of the dimensional gateways. There will be no welcoming victory parades for us. We serve those who do not know us and who may never realize the sacrifice each of us have chosen to make for their protection.” He had told her that they would prefer to never have to harm another being, but that they also could not allow the bullies of the multiverse to harm the weak and helpless. They served and were consummate professionals at what they did.
As the clash of the two armies ensued, Jenny could see the difference clearly. Fighting had already switched from blasters to clubs, swords and other weapons Jenny could not identify. Gariel had switched out his blaster for his staff from his MDP and was applying his ample skill with vigor, cracking heads, shattering kneecaps, and breaking bones.
He was lightning fast, and Jenny realized she could never remember Gariel fighting with Arvid. That would have been a match to remember.
Jenny couldn’t see much from Gariel’s perspective at this point and so, not really understanding how she did it, she “zoomed out” to see the broader picture. The battleground looked like someone had kicked an anthill. There were no longer any clear demarcations between the two armies. Bots still moved forward, firing from their energy weapons at the Norgoth who had mounted what was left of the walls of the fortress. But they could no longer fire into the masses of battling soldiers without potentially harming their own troops.
Suddenly from the gates emerged a few hundred of what Jenny could have only described as trolls. They were a dozen feet tall and built like professional wrestlers. They held huge clubs that appeared to have been molded from metal, spikes protruding from the end at every angle.
Jenny wanted to cry out a warning to the Alliance forces, but it was not possible. This viewing was exactly that, a viewing, not the two-way communication Jenny had become used to. But the bots had focused in on the trolls before Gariel’s troops were even aware of them, targets that stood out from the crowd.
Unfortunately, their energy weapons appeared to have only a slight effect, somewhat like biting wasps. It was almost like these beings had a shell, much like a snail Jenny had discovered when doing a paper in college about endangered species. The scaly foot snail actually created an overlay of their natural shell and armored extensions of iron that they ingested from the deep sea hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean.
These massive beings seemed nearly indestructible. When they swung their intimidating clubs in huge sweeps they didn’t seem too particular about who they hit or what they destroyed. Jenny decided that for such a huge creature, they hadn’t been supplied with a brain to match. This random element only increased the chaos on the battlefield.
Gariel or one of his commanders must have given a new command to the drones that were left, because they stopped targeting the soldiers left on the walls. Instead, they focused on the new menace. Now each of the trolls was swarmed by the wave one and wave two drones, firing at them over and over again.
The trolls now swung their massive clubs in vain at the drones that zipped in and out around them, often passing inches from their faces. One troll actually smashed himself in the face, trying to swat the drones out of his way.
With this distraction Jenny could see that for now the trolls were not the menace they had originally appeared, but only a few of them were down at this point.
She also noticed that the Norgoths were beginning to tire. Evidently it took a while for their systems to metabolize the drugs Xao Ting had put in that spray early on in the battle. Their ferocity was definitely diminishing, and their coordination was clearly inhibited.
Gariel’s troops stepped up their efforts, encouraged by their progress. Bodies were everywhere, covering the ground to the point that the soldiers on both sides had one more obstacle to overcome. More and more often someone would trip over a dead or unconscious soldier.
Jenny couldn’t imagine how any of them kept track of much of the battle. Gariel had led a group of his soldiers up to a rise at the edge of the battlefield. From there, he could observe and issue commands.
The trolls’ numbers were diminishing, although there were still a few dozen of them standing. But the number of drones was less as well. In the meantime, the bots had also surrounded the trolls, continually pelting them with laser blasts.
Jenny faded back to Miriha’s little pool. “Have you experienced a battle like this before? How long will this go on?”
“I remember the Groga wars, in my role as the gatekeeper, but I was never as directly involved as you have been in actual combat. My role was more about helping with planning and coordinating resources. My skills are different than yours, but comparable. I, for instance, never had the necessity of using the shout although I knew someone who had.
As far as the length of the conflict, I seem to recall that Gariel and others warned you that this wouldn’t be as straightforward as their previous encounters with the enemy.
Even once the Alliance forces are victorious, there will be many months of work to clean up this mess. The focus will shift from battle to rebuilding on both sides. The goal and the hope, for now, is to be sure that the rebuilding on the part of the Norgoth is more about rebuilding their culture than rebuilding their armies.
But, to answer the intent of your question, based on what I’ve seen and our past conflicts, this particular battle could last several days, depending on how many soldiers have been held in reserve inside the city itself. Gariel’s troops must take the command center in the city, a vital part of their mission. The intel they will gain there will be invaluable going forward.”
Jenny considered this. “According to the reports I collected before the confrontation on the Groga planet, there will be reinforcements to Gariel’s troops on the way in a few hours, to allow the current troops to pull back and rest. Since I can do nothing about the situation as it stands, I would like to see how Liliath’s squadrons are faring.”
“You realize that you don’t have any personal connection with any of the dragons in any of the squadrons? Fortunately, I do. The main commander, Dryselli, is known to me. I can help you make that connection. As before, he will be unaware of you and in this case, you will not be able to hear his thoughts, but you will experience the battle through his eyes. Will that work for you?”
“Thank you, Miriha. Do you think you could teach me that trick sometime?”
“Ah, Jenny, there is much ahead of you. Before you transition to the dimension beyond, you will accumulate so much more than I ever aspired to, but perhaps I will share some new ideas about your abilities from time to time.”
She smiled gently at Jenny, the smile of a proud teacher for a prized student.
“Then let’s see what is happening on the second Inseni planet.”
Dryselli perched on the peak of a mountain, but it was puny compared to the mountains of his home world. However, this was a world that could have been made for his species, mountains, and large rocks everywhere. He had done a flyover and now was waiting. Jenny had loved the feeling of soaring over the jagged saw-toothed range. There in a valley similar to the one in Sanglarka, but not as lush, was their target. Jenny got the feeling the Norgoth in the city didn’t look up much. None of the soldiers milling around there even glanced once toward the skies.
So, they knew nothing of what was to descend upon them. Once, during one of their training sessions, Liliath had told her of her kindred and some of their history. There was a reason people feared dragons. Not so much because they were cruel or because of their size, but because of a special mental talent possessed by all mature dragons; fear. They could project it like a message from a bullhorn, but instead of hearing it, it vibrated into the emotional center of those within range. It was primarily a defensive mechanism.
Dragons were, in general, gentle creatures. They were meat eaters, but only hunted at need. Warfare had been eliminated among their own kind for time beyond memory. But nature had equipped them with weapons, whether they chose to use them or not.
Jenny hadn’t been in on all of the strategy planning sessions, but she knew that every dimension had contributed something toward the long term success of this mission. She also knew that the Alani could be formidable when they chose to.
She had watched Liliath get herself under control more than once. The one thing she hadn’t learned to control was the tiny trickle of smoke that emitted from her nostrils when she was agitated. Jenny knew that if it hadn’t been for Liliath’s amazing mental control, there would have been scorch marks on the walls of the private council chamber in many places.
What would they be like unleashed? Her family had thrilled to tales of dragons as her mom had read aloud from fantasy classics, such as The Hobbit when Jenny was a child. On the bookshelf in her home were every single book in the Dragonriders of Pern series, and Jenny had read every single one of them more than once.
Getting to know Liliath had been one of the most surprising and delightful aspects of her life as a Guardian and Gatekeeper of the Alliance.
She was seeing this all through the eyes of a dragon. Even with the urgency of the situation and her fear for these creatures she had grown to respect, and even, in Liliath’s case, to love, she couldn’t help but thrill at the thought.
Suddenly her stomach lurched as Dryselli launched himself off of the peak. From his peripheral vision, Jenny could see a squadron ranked beside and behind him. But it wasn’t just one squadron. Circling the valley, from every surrounding peak, hundreds of squadrons were launching. This would be a slaughter!
She noticed that the tiny humans who had been casually going about their business were casual no more. They scattered, running about like mice in a box under the gaze of a hungry cat, but there was nowhere for them to go. Then Jenny realized they had still not looked up. This was the power of fear, unreasoning panic. They didn’t know what they were afraid of. Even the flocks of animals penned in various places throughout the city were bleating and huddling together with nowhere to go and no idea where the danger was coming from.
Into this well of fear the dragons descended. They were flaming, but not at the scattering Norgoths. They were flaming the battlements surrounding the city, most specifically the watchtowers. Their Mookookie agents had been very specific about this compound. At its center was the command center of all the Norgoth forces. In this command center were the plans for every assault, every incursion they had made. If they could scatter the soldiers and take the command center, they would be able to transfer all the records and data contained therein to Alliance Headquarters.
This valuable information would give them the roadmap for the next stage of ridding the multiverse of the inimical plans of the Great Insenium. Jenny remembered that Liliath had cautioned them all that this assault was only the first stage of a running battle that could take a very long time, perhaps beyond the lifetimes of the Earthlings who were at the center of all of it now.
As they descended, they leveled out and circled the city, continually flaming the walls. The Norgoth were still running around in a panic, but a few stalwarts had begun to shoot back with blasters, although sporadically and haphazardly. Jenny could almost feel sorry for them because she knew that the majority of them had been brainwashed to believe in the Inseni cause of order in the multiverse.
Nevertheless, she realized it was a lot like the enemy soldiers of the world wars. They fought because they were told to fight. They went where their leaders pointed them. That didn’t mean that they should have been allowed to destroy the freedom and safety of the rest of the world. Brainwashed or not, the allies of that time fought them and many on both sides lost their lives. This was no different. Freedom and the right to choose were seldom without a price of one kind or another.
As the dragons circled the fortress, they continued their descent until they finally settled on the walls. Suddenly the Norgoth stopped running around. The edges of the city were on fire and it ran unchecked.
Jenny realized that Dryselli must have sent them a command in mindspeech. She imagined it was probably as simple as, “If you continue to fight us, we will burn this entire city to ashes. Drop your weapons and put out the fires before they spread,” since this was exactly what happened. The soldiers and other citizens stopped shooting at the draconic host and turned instead to rescuing their city from the flames.
Dryselli and his squadrons then landed inside the walls. Dryselli and several of his officers extended their arms, which Jenny now realized displayed MDPs. From the MDPs, poured a small army of Bob’s bots. These dispersed throughout the city, apparently to do two things; to oversee the Norgoth now fighting multiple blazes surrounding the city and to search for the command post the Mookookie had described. Indeed, suddenly there was a group of a couple dozen Mookookie who had sprouted legs and were leading the robots to the center of town.
The citizens of the town recoiled in nearly as much fear of the Mookookie as the draconic host. The Insenium had thought of the Mookookie as rodents, but these were different. Their long legs and big feet sprouted directly from their body heads. Their arms were waving the bots forward and their wide mouths were open, showing their long rows of teeth. Jenny had to admit; in this mode, they actually looked intimidating. All of this was done in complete silence from Jenny’s side, but she could imagine the screams and shouts of these people who now felt they had woken up to a nightmare.
Jenny knew, or thought she knew, that the Mookookie wouldn’t harm them, but you would never have known this from the terrified expressions and the tears streaming down many faces.
As Dryselli followed the bot squadron and their Mookookie guides, he looked from side to side. The other dragons had remained perched on the areas of the walls that were not yet being consumed by flame.
There was a fair likelihood he wouldn’t be able to get through the command center doors, but he needed to be there to give specific orders about the disposition of the various things they might find there. Out of his MDP he manifested an Alliance tablet which looked more like a cell phone in his clawed hand. Suddenly he could see via the tablet screen through the eyes of one of the bots as they moved forward.
They finally arrived at a large building, as the Mookookie had told them, in the center of the town. Like all Inseni cities, the buildings in the city were plain and undecorated. This building was the same, only much larger than any they had encountered through the city.
It was a single story, with unadorned windows and a single entrance, a double door. The Mookookie and the bots entered the building, the bot that was connected to the tablet going ahead of the others. Jenny got the idea that Dryselli was giving specific instructions as the bots went methodically through the various rooms.
They encountered a few Norgoth who initially took out their blasters. The Mookookie simply faded into the closest adjacent wall or the floor, leaving the bots to raise their blaster equipped arms. However, no shots were fired on either side.
Although she couldn’t hear it, she got the feeling that Dryselli had issued the same mental command as he had with the army outside. The Norgoth dropped their weapons, which the bots ignored. The Mookookie however went behind like a cleanup crew, picking up the weapons and EATING them!
They finally came upon a room that was very much like every situation room Jenny had encountered so far in her adventures; large tables spaced around the room with maps and charts and several Norgoth who were probably generals of their army, as well as a handful of regular soldiers who were probably clerks.
Jenny could see their mouths moving and could imagine they were shouting at the bots. Then several Mookookie entered from behind the bots, and faces now reflected shock, confusion, and anger. Again, weapons were drawn but never fired. Again, she imagined the draconic mental voice commanding they release their weapons. And again, weapons dropped and then jaws dropped as the Mookookie promptly swallowed them.
The bots went from Norgoth to Norgoth, binding them with a flexible plastic that when applied, shrunk to the diameter of their wrists. The Norgoth were seated, until the last one, potentially their leader, shouted something at them, disdain clear on his face. He attempted to grab the robotic arms extended toward him with the binders. However, a Mookookie grabbed him from behind and extended his arms in such a way as to completely encircle him. The Norgoth officer rolled his eyes and growled something in his language that, of course, Jenny couldn’t hear.
She faded back to Miriha and the pool. “Looks like our draconic friends have the situation well under control. Who knew when Burt fed his little ‘buddy’ that they would be so useful and helpful in so many ways?”
Miriha smiled that somewhat mysterious smile of hers, but simply nodded without comment.
“I know these battles have not been without cost to the Alliance forces, but would you say it is going well? I have no way of judging.”
Miriha didn’t answer right away. She looked at Jenny thoughtfully. “I think it is a good beginning. As you know, these are mostly just a holding action. No matter how successful or unsuccessful we are in the individual battles fought today, the true story will be told in how the Alliance follows through.
Regardless of good intentions, there are still those who will continue to suffer from the original Inseni incursions in their dimension. Consider that for many of them, they have lived for generations under this tyranny.
Had they not invaded my home; the Alliance would still have been blissfully unaware of the danger presented by these beings, and the Great Insenium would have continued to spread dominion and terror, potentially unchecked.
For now, we must be content with the progress we are making. We haven’t yet begun to pay the full cost for what the Great Insenium has done, and the losses of the Alliance are miniscule compared to the suffering of the victims of this plan to dominate the multiverse. It is important to understand this without allowing yourself to feel insignificant. Every being plays their part.”
Jenny nodded. However, she couldn’t help but feel that her contribution was pretty minor. Of course, this wouldn’t stop her from trying, but it was easy to feel overwhelmed. But even in her favorite fantasy novels, the wizard’s magic didn’t solve everything. As it was put in one of her favorite books, “The enemy has magic too.” She had her equivalent to magic in the science that had made so much possible, but the enemy had science too.
She sighed. Miriha stood. “Come, Jenny. Let us take a walk through the garden. I find it helps me to think and consider deeply. For now, there is nothing you can do to change what is about to happen. Let it rest. Soon you will return to your unconscious body. Let us use the time to do what we can do. You know you can trust the others to do their best, which is all anyone can ever do.”
