Preacher Man

  A young ensign touched his sleeve and snapped to attention. "Yes, my son?”

  "Comm link, Sir, the Mage is gathering the Circle."

  "Thank you." he turned to Paris, "Mrs. M, shall we attend?"

  She smiled and took his hand, they jumped into the waiting grounder and, with a whoosh, they rushed to Chamber Hall. Once there, they moved through the doors to the Inner Chamber. Arriving at the same time was Prince Praseer. He bowed and waited. They smiled and stepped in ahead of him, heading for their seats. Little Jim, Sheel, and Ssarratt were already seated.

  Jim flicked the switch on the desk, "Receiving..."

  The Viceroy's face wavered into view. "Report..."

  "There have been no further attacks. The town is nearly evacuated. The evacuations will be completed by mid-day. We have arranged rooms for your troops in the abandoned homes. We know that some of them are not fully completed, but they are better than sleeping out of doors."

  "Excellent, Sir. We will begin arriving within a few arns. See you all soon." The screen went blank.

  Zeer turned to Jim, "How many troops are coming?"

  Jim turned to Sheel. She answered, "Rumor has it that he has six legions at his personal disposal. If he brings them all, that would be about sixty thousand."

  Ssarratt looked happy, "Alright...now we can avenge my nest."

  Zeer looked at Little Jim, "You don't look so confident."

  "No, Sir, I am not. The pirates picked the area that we call Purgatory for many good reasons. The canyons are narrow and filled with verlite steel deposits, which disrupts communications. They are winding and treacherous. Properly defended, a small force can cut a larger force like ours to ribbons if we tried a frontal assault."

  Ssarratt looked upset, "What will we do?"

  "We'll get ready and hope the Viceroy has a plan."

  "Right..." she bowed and headed back to the mine.

  Praseer looked at Zeer. Zeer looked Paris. Together, they nodded. Zeer spoke to Jim, "Jim, we need to see you in private."

  He showed them into his office. "Okay, what do you need?"

  Praseer began the story, "Mage, we won't need radios to communicate in the canyons."

  "No?"

  Zeer continued, "No, we won't. You see, me friend, I have kept another secret from thee. I am sorry. Par Cats, Askirabs, and certain earthers such as meself can communicate through a form of mental speech. The canyons do not interfere as much with this type of communications."

  Praseer nodded. "We ask that you never tell anyone. We have kept this a secret for centuries. Now, though, if we are to survive, this secret must be used to our advantage. The Askirabim have promised to help us with spying and guiding our attacks. They are morally bound not to fight, but they sense the evil in the Pirates and have decided to help as they can. They have an uncanny ability to move without being seen."

  The big man sat and stared for a moment. "I remember that as a child if we were playing hide and seek, trying to find their children would take all day.” Then, he smiled, "All those years I lived in the nest, you know, I did think something was going on with all of those long looks my Namu and aunts used to give each other."

  "Aye, lad, there was a lot going on."

  Jim looked Paris, "You, too, young lady?"

  Paris smiled, "Yes, sir. All Paronese are able to do it from birth."

  He sat down, "Whew! So, how do we sell that to the Viceroy?"

  Praseer looked around, then he smiled, "To protect our secret, we devised a communications system using dummy radios, and we don't tell any one the truth."

  "Can you get ready in time, Lord Praseer?"

  "I can Sir. My brother has designed a marvelous mock up, and we are making copies now."

  "Good! I am glad to hear some good news for a change."

  Zeer rose, "Little Jim?"

  "Yes, Sir..."

  "You know that the Viceroy is gonna want maps. You're the one who knows the most about them canyons. Can ya make `em?"

  "Oh, I already have some. I had been thinkin' the same thing, Father. I've been already working with the computers updating our maps."

  "Good."

  The Comm line on Little Jim’s desk buzzed, “Yes, Sparky?”

  “Space Port City says the skies are full of troop ships. They are on Delta Hex Delta pattern coming right at us. ETA 8 to 20 ticks. The Viceroy’s boat is first.

  “Roger that! Out!”

  He looked around, “Zero hour, people. The future is now.”

  They scrambled out to the Parade ground. As expected, the Viceroy’s battle cruiser topped the far lip of Purgatory Valley and grew in size. Behind it, the sky began to fill with troop transports. The Viceroy’s cruiser landed in the usual space. One after another transports set down, dumped out their troops, and lifted off to make room for the next. In a little over an hour, the areas around the square were filled with troops standing, leaning against walls, sitting, or laying on their kit bags.

  The Viceroy led his command staff into Chamber Hall. He moved directly to the Inner Chamber and looked around at the Magi Circle. He saw without commenting that the room had been completely reconfigured after this morning’s briefing. He was pleased to see that his command center now occupied the dais. Each group of officials now had a table and chairs in a semi-circle on the floor level of the wide room around his area. His people arranged themselves in the upper level chairs ready to assist him. The Circle and their people all found chairs and tables as indicated by name cards.

  The Prince leaned forward, “Okay, Mage, what could not be said on open space link?”

  Little Jim stood and spoke, “Sire, the pirates know that we found Verdollium.”

  “Verdollium? Why wazn’t I informed?”

  “We only found out ourselves yesterday.”

  “The one who originally found it died in the cave in. Miners working in the rescues found it on him. They were secretly searching for the source when the Pirates got wind of it and attacked.”

  “How large of a force?”

  “We believe that there were at least six full sized battle wagons. A bit of worse news is that they flew under six different colors.”

  “That is not good. Lets get started.”

  In turn, each defense group gave their report just as they had done in the Magi Circle that morning. No references were made to anyone having any other status than Citizen. The elected Citizen gave the report for their table. In the spirit of good politics, each new project manager was introduced to the Viceroy in such a way that he could appear to have appointed that person to the job.

  Chapter 21