Resolution (2 page)

It registered a barrier at ten thousand klicks from the surface, and slowed down to try to cross it. The barrier however, held firm, and the probe was stopped.

"That would explain why there isn't any junk on the surface," Carl replied. "It has a type of repulser field."

"The Probe is being scanned!" Wanda said excitedly. "There's life in there!"

"It could simply be an automatic function prior to demolition," Chloe said. "Scanning the unit to see if there are useful elements."

"The Probe has been grabbed by a tractor beam, and is being guided down," Wanda said. "They let it through the field."

"Yeah, but is it being guided to a recycler, or to a landing?" Alice asked.

"Isolate the feeds from the probe, now!" John ordered.

"A wise precaution, Guardian-General, but thankfully, an unnecessary one," a new voice said on the bridge. A hologram of a tall being took form and slowly bowed its head to John. "We have been anticipating your arrival for many years. Thank you for coming."

John returned the bow. "We had little choice in the manner of our arrival. May I ask who I am addressing?" The voice had been androgynous as far as identifying a sex; this being could be either male or female.

"Of course, Guardian General. You may call me Malthis, as that is my designation among our people. I am, what you would call, the leader here."

John nodded. "Malthis, as you probably already know, I am John, these are fellow Marines, Chloe, Wanda, Carl, Alice and our pilot Tami. There are others with us, but I'll leave their introduction for later. You say you have been anticipating our arrival, may I ask why?"

Malthis nodded. "The path to knowledge is as important as the knowledge gained. To this question you have the answer yet lack confirmation and explanation. Indeed the group of races you call the Tammerain are being used to make war on your people. I am afraid we must claim responsibility for this horrific situation.

"As you have so far deduced of our civilization, we were a race focused solely on the pursuit of knowledge. A hard lesson was learned in this and many did not understand it until it was far too late to effect change. We created biological organisms, and seeded them on worlds that would develop to be hospitable to them. In this manner we were responsible for the creation of many races, yet only two still remain. The rest were destroyed by one of our child races.

"To fully understand the situation, we must inform you that our race, that which you call 'Promethean', is dying. Once we spanned several hundred star systems. Now, what remains of our race, reside here while we await our end."

"Forgive my interruption, Malthis. Why are you dying out? Have you not been able to discover the cause and stop it?" Chloe asked.

"Given what you know of us, this is a fair question. It is a curious issue in the extreme. We have been beset by a series of illnesses that have led us to the discovery of a critical breakdown in our genetic code. There is a way to correct the damage and some of us have done so. The result is what you have discovered to be a shorter version of our current form. We consider them to be one of the two races I mentioned earlier. However, the alterations, which amounted to a complete reconstruction of our genetic code, changed them. They began systematically destroying our child races to ensure their continued technological supremacy above all others.

They have taken control of a small number of our older facilities, which has in turn given them control of the Empire of Tammerain. The Facility your trading ships discovered was a living computer created eons ago to assist us in monitoring and guiding our child races and most especially the one on your home world. Of them all, yours has shown and continues to show the most promise. The living computer tried to terminate herself when she discovered the purpose of the Egranis. That is the name that was have given the race of our modified brothers," Malthis explained. "However, she was not completely successful. The Egranis have control of her facility, and are using it as a false religious icon to direct the forces of the Tammerain."

John furrowed his brow. "Egranis means disgrace or disgraced, doesn't it?"

Malthis nodded. "It does. Our purpose has always been as students and stewards, never as conquerors. Our brothers have discarded that philosophy in favor of becoming rulers. They have developed hate and greed. Emotions as alien to our nature as anything can be. They have destroyed all of our other child races but yours, because you have been able to resist them. You have shown a resilience and will to survive that they cannot understand or abide. We have been able to restrict their access to most of our technology that could be used as weapons and they themselves have held back what little they do possess in fear of the Tammerain ever discovering the truth and using it against them."

"If you have anticipated our arrival, then it is your intention to assist us in stopping this war?" Chloe asked.

"We cannot assist you in the manner you would like most. Although we are responsible for the current situation, we cannot allow your race that which has been denied the Egranis. You're race simply is not ready for that yet and would most likely misuse or abuse the technology. But there are ways in which we can aid you. We only ask that you not destroy the Egranis, or any other race in the process. We will allow you some of our advanced technology, but only to your small, select group. We understand that, in order to undertake this, you will affectively violate the oath you have made to your sovereign and through him to your people. So this is something you will have to decide on your own, as individuals. We will ensure your travel back to your home regardless of your answer. But if you accept, you will no longer be Knights of the Realm of Man, or Guardians of Man, but Guardians of all the races; Guardians of life and of the legacy we will leave to you."

"That is a lot to ask of us Malthis. You are asking us to commit treason against our people," Carl said, but not in a threatening way.

"Although it may seem like that, Guardian Carl. It is not in truth, a violation nor is it treason. In fact it will enable you to better fulfill the oath you made. It would be a tightening of your rstrictions and a broadening of scope. The oaths you are bound by at this moment, with the exception of fealty to your King, would simply expand to include all life, not just those of your realm. We do understand that violence is as necessary as peace in the balance of our universe. We may not approve of it, but we know there are times that no other option save that of violence or force remains. We only ask that if time permits, care be given to limit the damage."

"Malthis, we are far from communications range with our home. As the commander, I must speak with the King and explain this to him. I will try to make him understand what you are offering us so he may release us from our oaths to him and our people. To do so any other way would... I feel it would invalidate the spirit of the agreement," John explained. "May we return to our space in order to discuss this with him?"

"You may return if that is your wish, but it is unnecessary. Your communications will work from here as we have set our transit points to allow it for the time being," Malthis replied.

"If that is the case, would you be willing to speak to him as well?" John asked. "By definition, if nothing else, he would also be a Guardian if he were not King."

"I will, I feel I must also warn you that news from your home will be troubling. Although the human race is defending itself, there has been a great loss of life. Your King may wish your immediate return," Malthis explained.

"I understand, Malthis. Please excuse me a moment while I try to contact him," John replied. Again the tall being bowed and occupied itself by answering questions from Chloe, and the others.

––––––––

I
n the month since Mark had sent his friends away to try and stop the war, it had not been going well. The forces of the Tammerain had not been idle during the thousand years of peace. They had been developing new, more powerful weapons and ships. But most troubling, was they had been building a lot of those ships.

The initial wave had seen the arrival of twenty-three battle fleets in Kingdom space. The detection network that had been in place had managed to pinpoint their arrival and Mark had responded in kind, but what hadn't been considered was that the initial wave had been a ruse to draw Kingdom forces away from the protected core worlds.

The Tammerain had sent the bulk of their war machine out into intergalactic space in order to circumvent the detection devices and strike deep into the heart of the Kingdom. If not for the reserve forces that had remained at Xanadu as well as the fleet guarding the Capitol itself, it would have been a deathblow for humanity.

The Capitol of Centauri had seen the arrival of ten full battle fleets; hundreds of capitol class ships, and a thousand lighter, but no less deadly escorts. Mark had ordered the immediate evacuation of the capitol, while the Guard fleet engaged the massively superior force. Once the King, and important personnel had used the transit point to escape, the reserve fleets left the yards at Xanadu and surprised the Tammerain forces at Centauri. The planet itself had been heavily damaged, since the fighting had not been confined to space, but it was still mostly habitable. Once the Kingdom forces pushed the Tammerain back, two of John's flying resorts become hospital ships and arrived to do what they could for those that didn't make it off world.

One of the functions of the Xanadu system had been for the building of refugee centers for displaced survivors when the Tammerain once again attacked. That hadn't really ever stopped, and now there was room for almost a billion souls spread throughout the system. It was to these centers that the refugee’s ships brought their cargo. The location of the system wasn't actually given out, as the ships were told to use the transit point at Centauri, but once they arrived it was relatively simple for them to figure out where they were. Yet, even then, it remained a closely guarded secret, with ship's captains ordering their navigators to make sure the location was not stored in the computer memory. If the Tammerain knew of humanities bolt-hole, they would throw everything they had at that one system.

The Tammerain had expected the arrival of their ships far from the border to panic the rulers, as well as the soldiers of the Kingdom, hoping the massive loss of life the attack had been planned to accomplish would break the Human will. There had been horrible casualties on the attacked planets; in two cases, the entire planetary population had been massacred before Kingdom forces could arrive. But the result of the atrocity hadn't had the affect the Empress predicted; in fact it was the opposite.

Kingdom forces became more violent, more hostile, and far more deadly. The Tammerain quickly discovered that the Kingdom forces hadn't been idle either. Planetary assault forces were hunted down to the last ship and destroyed, Tammerain survivors had been shot in space, captured soldiers on the ground were lined up and executed; the message was clear, those who would slaughter innocent people would receive no quarter; would be shown no mercy.

The people of the Kingdom knew nothing of the mission the Temporal Guard had been sent on, and they began to feel betrayed and abandoned. The Guard had always been there to protect them, where had they gone now that they were needed the most?

In an effort to stem the growing feelings of abandonment by the Guard, Mark decided to talk to his people.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Kingdom, I have heard you. Your Guardians have not abandoned you. They are not here because I sent them on a very special, very dangerous mission to try and stop this senseless war. Because of the threat of this transmission being intercepted, I cannot give you any details. In fact, because of the sensitivity of their mission, I cannot even call them back. Communication is only in the form of message drones they send to me at certain points. I can tell you that we have received the first drone from them, but the second is overdue. There could be any number of reasons for it to be late ranging from the drone failing, to it simply taking longer than anticipated for it to get here.

"What I can tell you about their mission is that, if successful, it should end this war forever. Do not despair over our Guardians, they are doing something impossible in order to protect the rest of us, which is the role of a Guardian after all."

That was the moment Mark felt John contacting his internal comm. Mark almost ignored it since they should be too far away to allow direct contact. Mark sent back a 'Gimme a sec' before smiling at the camera. "I have a feeling we'll hear from them very soon. Now if you'll excuse me, there is an urgent matter I need to attend to."

He stepped down from the podium, and held his hand up to his guards as he leaned up against a wall out of view of the cameras. "John? What are you doing? This could be traced!"

"Somehow Sire, I don't think so," John replied in his normal tone. "Can you get to a place to use holographic transmitter? There is someone here you need to meet."

––––––––

"Y
eah, give me a few minutes. All hell has broken loose here since you left. We've lost a few worlds, and a lot of people are dead," Mark said as he told his guards to take him back to his office.

"What happened, I thought we had the firepower to counter the Tammerain thrust?" John asked.

"That was a ruse, the main attack came from galactic north. The Tammerain had sent thirty more fleets around the border to avoid our sensors and dropped right into the middle of the realm. The clue had been those scientific stations they took out, just before you left. What we thought was a feint was the Tammerain taking out the facilities that would have detected the real force circling around the border.

"They even developed a hypermissile after a fashion. They use small, piloted corvettes to jump very close to our bigger ships and detonate. They even used one of those at the Capitol on Centauri. Nothing left but a huge radioactive crater." Mark said sadly.