Read The Temporal Knights Online
Authors: Richard D. Parker
The Temporal Knights
The Temporal Knights
By
Richard D. Parker
Also by Richard D. Parker
The Temple Island Series:
The Best of all Possible Worlds
For more information please visit my website at
http://www.richarddparker.net/
For Laurie, Mike and Tim
My family, my friends.
Always.
Copyright © 2013 Richard D. Parker
All right reserved
The Temporal Knights is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
W
hat to do about the anomaly?
Eradication?
The thought left T7 very uneasy.
Strange and alien they were, unlike any other successful life form encountered thus far. Obviously a lower order in every respect, barbaric and unstructured, yet they thrived!
T7 sprawled alone in his chamber and brooded. He was still undecided even though there was now little doubt that this bizarre species posed a real threat. A year ago he might have debated the point, but after the initial attack failed, no such opinion could be entertained. He alone among the Council of Thinkers reserved judgment. His peers found this species incomprehensible, utterly repulsive and completely deserving of eradication. T7 agreed, but remained unnerved by this life form. As a collective, they were wholly uncooperative and arcane, an underdeveloped species that was certainly a growing threat to the galaxy.
For the others the decision was simple, but something about this life form left T7 troubled and fearful for the first time in his life. T7 did not understand this form. They were utterly perplexing.
From time to time the Colony’s expansion brought them up against other life forms that were not completely understood, but these species were less successful, less resilient, less a complete mystery. Always in the past, there was at least a foundation for understanding, not so with this new and strange form. The Council was in the dark about this species and T7 knew it.
These beings were completely abhorrent, with their live births and slimy exoskin, but there was something about them that held T7 captive, enthralled, and anxious. T7’s elongated body shivered at the unwelcome thought of having another being squirming and feeding inside his body, thriving and growing within, until finally it was forced from an orifice like a piece of living excrement. The very thought was disgusting; enough to cause him to go blank at times when he considered it. T7 shivered again; he did not understand this vile species and he was afraid.
The form first came to the attention of the Colony some 47 revolutions ago when regular radio transmissions were detected coming from the planet. In the beginning they were viewed as a curiosity, something to study. They were not yet an interplanetary form when the first Colony ship arrived to study them. In fact, they were only very rudimentary fliers, but they were savage to the extreme.
As a species they were disorganized and lacked any semblance of cohesion, instead they were separated into thousands of small collective hives each trying to gain an advantage. At first they were mistaken for a form in the very early stages of development, not a threat, only an amusement. But their Thinkers were very impressive, and their technology grew exponentially. This strange form went from first flight to interplanetary in only about 70 revolutions. It had taken the Colony, the most successful form in the galaxy, nearly 1300 revolutions to accomplish the feat, and another 800 revolutions to go from interplanetary to interstellar. Who knew how long it would take this form to go
interstellar? This unknown fact, plus the bizarre makeup of their hives and their extreme warlike tendencies made the Colony very wary, and it was agreed that the form should be considered a great threat. A decision had to be made and made quickly before the form became interstellar and began to spread like a sickness. And so a verdict was reached…eradication. T7 was the last to agree on such a path, but in the end the threat to the Colony outweighed any other course.
However,
T7 urged caution. This form was something completely new. That it was successful was no longer a question, but how they achieved such success was a great puzzle. Even now there were hundreds of little colonies still fighting one another for dominance. Every other successful life form encountered in the galaxy had already coalesced into one uniform hive, all working for the collective good. This form was in chaos. Yet their Thinkers were obviously superb, frighteningly so. T7 didn’t understand how this could happen; the species’ hierarchy was completely upside down. There were as many Queens as there were workers and warriors. In fact, it appeared that Queens could function as workers or warriors and still beget offspring. It made no sense and followed no pattern. Successful chaos! There were still many, many questions, and that made T7 uneasy. But a decision had to be made quickly, which was outside the nature of the Colony, and T7 finally agreed...eradication.
The initial attack began as the first attack on other forms always began; the Colony attacked the Queen, or in this case Queens, billions of them. This was a time honored, time tested tactic, and it always...always succeeded. Attack and kill the Queen and no hive, no matter how bizarre, could survive. And initially the attack appeared successful with the new form as well, even if the workers and warriors did not grow lethargic and die with their Queens. This was puzzling at first, but not considered a large setback, after all, what could be done without Queens? In time, the males would die and that would be the end. Even now, their
hives were in chaos. Yet after a full revolution, another strange thing happened; the workers and warriors began to pull together, to cooperate. Strange, but still not considered very threatening, and then the Colony discovered something utterly horrifying. This strange species was creating new Queens.
This was not possible!
Only Queens may beget Queens, but somehow the workers and warriors were doing it. Now the entire Council shared T7’s unease.
Eradication...immediately!
Aside from T7, who had yet to voice his opinion, the Council had approved an all out attack.
This was the last, best way to protect the Colony. T7 had little doubt the warriors of the Colony would be able to handle the alien form. Their new Queens were not yet mature, and battle would come down to simple attrition. The alien form was still unable to move off the planet; unable to hide, and they would die before the multitude that was the Hive. No, T7 had complete faith in the Colony’s warriors, but his faith was not so great with their Thinkers. Could they outmatch the Thinkers of this strange species? T7 was not so sure, and he was the highest Thinker in the Colony. But with the Warriors outnumberi
ng the alien form 10,000 to one, victory was assured.
Eradication.
T7 finally decided, but the uneasiness did not go away.
T
he company moved slowly, methodically down the rocky hillside. Each man knew that one false step could mean the death of them all, but they continued on just the same. Despite the danger, they inched their way slowly closer to the deadly cell, crouching, even crawling at times, in their effort to move with absolute silence. The darkness helped. It was a perfect night, utterly black with a new moon and a consistent breeze that came down off the Rockies to the west, strong enough to sway the branches of the nearby trees and rustle the leaves. The continuous movement of the surrounding foliage was the perfect cover for both sight and sound.
Major Matt Thane sat quietly in the rear behind a large boulder, dressed in full battle gear. He watched over a group of men laying claymores and other booby traps on the outskirts of the closest Skawp cell. The men moved silently
…and very precisely, despite the darkness, having long adapted to both the strange world of night vision and the guerrilla tactics needed to inflict harm on the enemy; such tactics were the only truly proven method of success against their strange, alien enemy.
During the day such an exercise would be unthinkable, nothing more than mass suicide, but in the dark of night, the Skawps were vulnerable. At night they were sluggish but far from helpless. It only took seconds for a Skawp to rip a captured soldier to pieces, but at least at night they could not locate their prey with anywhere near the efficiency that the
y displayed in the day. In fact in the darkness they could barely see at all, instead they relied on a primitive form of sonar. It was not nearly as finely honed as the domestic bat, but it allowed the aliens to move about to some degree.
During the deepest part of the night, the creatures would lumber about screaming ‘Skawp Skawp Skawp,’ in the hopes of tracking and finding their prey. It was an otherworldly and frightening sound, especially when the creatures were systematically approaching your position. Major Thane and his comrades learned quickly that as long as they remained very still they were relatively safe, at least until the Skawps blundered close enough to catch their human scent. The Skawps olfactory system was highly developed, but even so they moved about quite slowly after dark, at least until they were c
lose to their intended prey…then they attacked lightening fast. Even in the black of night they were very lethal for the careless. But the soldiers that the Major watched over were far from careless; in fact they performed their jobs as if the lives of all of mankind depended on them, which was exactly the case. They attacked at night, always at night, when the enemy was slow and vulnerable. It was the only way.
During the daylight hours the Skawps were frighteningly fast and very deadly. The Skawps were not bipedal, instead they moved about like an animal, on all fours and occasionally on all sixes when speed was essential. The aliens only stood about four feet off the ground, though the largest were over nine feet long. They had a hard, dark bronze exoskeleton and four full time legs. On their upper body they had one very long arm, full of wiggling tendrils that were incredibly strong. The sticky appendages were used for snatching and holding their victims. They also had a pair of shorter, slasher arms that were tapered and ended in razor sharp points. The slashers were primarily used for slicing apart their prey but they could also be used as legs for speed. It was estimated that the Skawps could run nearly fifty miles an hour for short
distances, and any human beings they caught in their sticky grip were quickly and efficiently killed.
The tendrils at the end of their long arm were more like tongues than fingers and could grip and hold with python strength, but they could also perform very delicate work such as handling all sorts of equipment, including firing their deadly pulse laser weapons. They could even operate human rifles and pistols in a pinch. The Skawps had large, oblong heads and a narrow mouth full of tiny sharp teeth, but they rarely attacked by biting, preferring to kill with their slasher arms instead. They had a total of six very small eyes grouped close together just above the mouth. The human scientists who studied them did not believe the Skawps had binocular vision, and shared the opinion that the creatures evolved in a binary star system since their night vision was so weak.
Nearly all Skawps were at least seven feet in length and could scurry very, very fast across even terrain. What was puzzling was that they did not seem overly intelligent and as far as anyone could tell did not communicate through verbal means. There were rumors of another species of alien, a species similar to the Skawps but much more intelligent. A few soldiers, years ago, had reported seeing such beings in the presence of the Skawps. Rumor had it that these smart aliens had very large, white heads and big round eyes, but no one still alive could corroborate the claim. And after the endless years of war, no one much cared.
It was nearly six years ago that the first assault hit the upper atmosphere, unnoticed by then Lieutenant Thane and his colleagues at Peterson Air Force Base, home of the U.S. Space Command and the Air Force Command, but there was no shame in their lack of detection. The boys just up the road at Cheyenne Mountain, the headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, were not aware of the attack either. The Skawp’s salted the atmosphere with a deadly poison, and within five days every woman, girl, pre-pubescent boy and non-virile male was dead. Nearly 5 billion people almost overnight, including Matt’s wife Cindy, his seven-year-old daughter Shelley and his two-year-old son Matt Jr. What followed was unbridled grief and then chaos, filled with indiscriminate murder, rotting corpses and deadly disease, and finally
Martial Law. It took nearly two years before the majority of the United States was stabilized. Even then no one was aware that the Earth had been deliberately attacked, and testosterone, long viewed by many to be the scourge of everything violent in humans, turned out to be the savior, a natural antidote. In time, humans, that new and remarkable species that had only dominated the Earth for a few thousand years, found a way to persevere, and with the announcement of several test tube female births it was assured that the species would defy nature itself and survive…but then the Skawps struck again.
Three years later, to the best of Matt’s knowledge, there were 971 human beings left on planet Earth.
Matt shook his head to clear away the unwanted thoughts and returned his focus on the Skawp cell. Almost immediately he spotted slow but steady movements to the right of his squad.
“Thermal sighting,” he whispered to his computer and on the helmeted view-screen the landscape was now displayed in heat signatures. Friendlies appeared on the screen as green dots, and any unknowns were lit up red. The surrounding rocks were still radiating the day’s heat and gave off a confused pattern, so Matt switched to a new night vision system.
“Microwaves,” he whispered and the computer swiftly complied. Again he spotted movement to the right of the crew.
“Magnify vector three...seven...one,” Matt whispered and immediately identified four Skawps moving carefully around the group’s position. Matt cursed silently then toggled over to the General Battle Frequency or GBF.
“Sergeant, we have confirmed Charlies, vector three...seven ...one and circling. Disengage and move your troops to vector seven…five…five.” There was only a slight pause.
“Roger,” an angry voice replied.
Matt cursed again, but fell utterly still and quiet when he spotted the stationary Skawps concealed directly along the line of retreat he had just given his company.
“Cancel that,” Matt quickly called in, “additional Charlies in vector four...three...one…stationary.
Retreat back to vector eight...five...five on the double.”
No one said anything but the company, represented by green blips on the Major’s shield display, complied instantly with his directions and headed straight back and out. Major Thane however, was busy. First he targeted the stationary enemy’s position with his high intensity invisible laser and logged it into his weapon’s memory system then he concentrated on the moving Skawps now in vector six...one...two. The Skawps were still moving slowly, apparently unaware of the location of the company. The Major hoped they were just routine sentries, fumbling about in the dark, hoping to foil a night attack, which came often. The company was almost out of danger when a trailing soldier stepped on a loose rock and caused a small slide. The Skawps quickly moved in.
“Skawp! Skawp! Skawp!” The aliens screamed, honing their sonar.
“Full retreat,” Matt called out and fired a 20mm smart round at the stationary enemy. He did not wait to see if it struck, having already stored the exact distance to the target in weapon’s memory with his laser. After firing, the round simply counted its own revolutions until it had gone the prescribed distance then exploded its dual warheads spreading shrapnel in a deadly uniform 20 meter spread. The concealed Skawps were shredded while Matt concentrated on tracking the moving enemy, which were now heading along an intercept course. Matt followed their movements for several seconds then picked a forward spot along their path and fired his invisible laser at an outcropping of rock. Three seconds later the Skawps moved into position under the outcropping and Matt fired. Almost instantly all the alien sentries were killed, but now the hive was buzzing with turmoil as thousands of Skawps poured out of their fortifications. The night quickly filled with their weird alien cries as they systematically hunted the retreating humans.
“Skawp! Skawp! Skawp!” The noise was deafening even from a distance. Matt met his company at the correct vector and they moved quickly back to the trail which led to Cheyenne Mountain. Behind them the sky lit up with exploding claymores and mines, as their enemy blundered into the booby traps.
“Base this is 3rd Company moving home...Skawp Cell alerted...” Sergeant Moore reported in.
“Roger...return to base,” headquarters replied and the company immediately increased their speed to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their screaming enemies.
It was a quiet walk home. Their mission had failed; the Skawps were sure to trip most of the mines and traps in the night and would now have a clean avenue of advance toward the mountains the following morning.
As they pushed through the large tunnel leading to the bunker, the company slipped beneath the twin powerful flamethrowers mounted on each side of the main entrance to the Cheyenne Mountain complex. Thankfully no flame appeared and they were allowed safe passage, but when the Skawps arrived the twin weapons would be able to fill the tunnel with fire and heat for nearly an hour.
The enormous main door hung slightly ajar, anticipating their return. The door was approximately three feet thick and made of an incredibly strong and thick steel alloy and weighed more than 25 tons, but it was so perfectly balanced it could be swung by a pair of soldiers. They saluted the sentries and passed angrily through the small opening and into the compound.
“Damn Skawps!” Matt yelled to no one in particular as he moved farther into the main tunnel and then into the large debriefing room just off the main entrance. By now all the companies were returning to base, their entire mission compromised. Everyone was going to be in a seriously bad mood. The Skawps would gain a lot of ground tomorrow, something they could ill afford, especially now near the end.
“You slipped up Major,” Sergeant Alan Moore accused, as he pushed past and bumped Matt on his right shoulder. Matt glared down at the stocky sergeant but did not retaliate or contradict his assessment of the night’s events.
“Easy Alan,” Captain Tom Hersey said coming between them. “It happens,” he added and put a hand on the Sergeant’s shoulder, but Alan shook it off.
“He can’t slip up now...everything depends on him,” he replied, staring fiercely into the Major’s eyes, but then with a grunt of disgust he headed off toward the back of the room.
“Not everything,” Hersey called after him and then shrugged to Matt. Soon a driver pulled up in a caravan of battery operated cars and a host of people climbed out including General Joe Wilder, Supreme Commander of all U.S. forces, Colonel Stephen Peebles, Colonel Stuart Lemay, Lee Robertson, the technical director of the facility, Captain Jon Cummings, the chief engineer, and Eve, a four year old girl and the only survivor of the Colorado test tube babies. Her face lit up when she saw the men milling about and she ran to them. The demeanor of every soldier in the room softened immediately. Eve ran over and hugged Matt’s leg then climbing up into Tom Hersey’s arms.
Sergeant Moore walked over and gave Matt an apologetic smile before reaching over and taking Eve from Hersey. She smiled and kissed him.
“They have us pretty well sealed off now,” Moore reported to General Wilder, showing no more signs of hostility toward Matt. “I’d estimate they gained nearly two miles on us yesterday. How did the other teams do?”
“Surprisingly well,” Commander Wilder answered. “Fifth Company was partially compromised, but the others completed their missions without incident. It will be enough we think. Jon assures us that the main door will hold out for at least 24 hours,” he added and looked for reassurance from his chief engineer, who nodded.
“As everyone knows,” Lee Robertson began, though that fact did not keep him from repeating the obvious ad nausea. “The Skawps, while technologically more advanced, are much slower at adaptation and do not fight well against automated weapons. Once through the outer defenses their lasers will make very short work of the defense door…but it will take them time to circumvent the flamethrowers and the other booby traps we’ve set up for them.” Robertson was a tall, lanky man, completely bald except for a small ring of silver hair that circled his head just above the ears and then merged effortlessly into his great bushy sideburns. His face lit up as Eve wiggled out of Sergeant Moore’s arms and came to stand next to him