Logan Ryvenbark's Saga Box Set

Table of contents-9

An hour later, when the flames dieddown and the castle cooled, eight Raiders plus their commanderslipped on jetpacks. We zoomed straight up and then headed for ourdestination. The jetpacks are a wonderful way to travel. No onegetsair sickness. You breezily fly over land and trees. We usuallytravelat about thirty miles per hour, although our jets can make fifty ifwe’re in a hurry. As we circled the castle, nothing was in sightexcept the burned ashes, the deserted castle and two dozensmolderingSoltarians. We landed, coming in softly on the smoking ground. Thedoors to the inner chambers had been blasted open. Five Raiders,gunsout, walked in. I landed in the courtyard and took off thejetpack.

A dead Soltarian soldier, with his armburnt off, lay five feet in front of me. An orange-haired comradelaynearby, absent his lower body. A number of small fires still burnedin various places inside the walls. Or two of the walls — other twohad been reduced to ashes. Drones are darn effective. A sad scene,but the galaxy was much better off with the Soltarians dead and notalive.

The gritty, sandpaper voice came frombehind me.

“Ryvenbark! You coward!”

I turned and saw General Conbor lookingworse for wear. An explosion had blasted some skin off his face andhad blown off a quarter of his uniform. Blood seeped from his left,exposed shoulder. In his right he held a knife. Two other kniveswereattached to his belt. His eyes were dark and menacing, full ofangerand hatred.

“General. Long time no see. There’snot much of your kingdom left. Throw down the knife.”

“Never!”

He raised the knife. The three Raidersin the courtyard pointed their rifles at him. I waved themdown.

“Haven’t you had enough fighting?You keep trying to establish kingdoms with yourself as the king andyour plans just keep failing. Give everyone a break, general, andcome with us peacefully.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m goingto kill you.”

“A lot of people have wanted to killme and I’m still around. I don’t think you can succeed when allthe others have failed. But I most compliment you on your scheme,general, especially creating a new race. Amazingly creative. Youhadfooled the Federation. You are not a worthy adversary, but you havebeen a formidable one.”

The anger, for a moment, seeped out ofhis voice. He looked around at his dead soldiers. “It should havesucceeded. It should have worked. The Cappnids were moretreacherousthan I imagined.”

“No one knows more about treacherythan you, so it’s rather ironic you underestimated the Cappnids.The Federation owns them a lot. If they had not fought you so well,the Raiders might have been defeated. They did their best tocrippleyou and succeeded. But where did you get the idea of creating theSoltarians? You always had brilliant plans. Sometimes the executionphase of the plan was lacking though.”

I stuck a cigar in my mouth and lit it.I blew the smoke out slowly. “Let me guess. Ten years ago, afteryour defeat, you came up with a new idea, one that had never beenattempted before. You used the medical technology of today tocreatea new race out of your lizard friends. I never understood how youfooled them so much. Your every wish was their command. Did yousomehow convince them you were a god?”

“The Kollaws, the lizard people, didnot have an advanced civilization when I and my friends arrived.Theywere suitably impressed by some of our stunts. They would, as yousaid, do anything I told them. They are a greedy, selfish race andinclined to violence. Just the type of aliens I needed,” hesaid.

“So you changed them and created anew race. The Soltarians. You and your rogue scientist colleagues.Where are they now?”

“Dead.”

I shrugged. “Anyway, the Soltariansmade a few appearances at Federation conferences and meetings, justfor show. The Federation could never find their planet. It was amystery. But they couldn’t find the planet because there was nohome base for the Soltarians.” I took out the cigar and pointed itat him. “Now that was both creative and pragmatic. You could haveattacked or invaded a planet and the Federation would be lookingforthe Soltarians’ home world. But there is no Soltarians’ homeworld. So the Federation would have been stymied. You were probablymaking some dastardly plans when you learned of the Cappnids, orrather when you discovered they had mastered time travel.”

He gave a wry smile. “It attracted myinterest.”

“Tarum and his friends used it forhistorical reasons, for exploring their own history. But you hadother plans for time travel. It could be used as a potent weapon. Aweapon that would bring you victories, bring you conquest. A weaponthat would have brought the galaxy under your feet.”

He nodded.

“What were you planning; to take theentire race back with you, along with all the knowledge of ourtime,plus a couple of dozen robots that could build military and otherinstallations? Build up your strength and then with the knowledgeandpower of the future, you would attack the worlds of the past. Idon’tlike you general, but it was an ingenious plan. You just made twomistakes. You underestimated the Cappnids. They put up more of afight than you expected.”

“They were peaceful. I wasn’texpecting them to fight at all. I thought I would come in and taketheir planet. Never thought they would put up much of a resistance.You never can tell, can you?”

“No, the best-laid plans of mice andmen and would-be dictators. It wasn’t to be. That was the secondmistake. You didn’t know you’d be facing Ryvenbark’s Raiders.”

He laughed, a hollow, dry laugh. “Onthe contrary, that’s exactly who I thought they would send. Thiswas tailor-made for you major, and your squad. If I was wrong, noharm done. We’d kill whoever came out. If I were right, I’d getrevenge on my enemy.”

He raised his knife again. “Let’shave one final battle, major. You and me. You carry a knife. Pullitout. Kill me if you can. Man to man. You can’t resist that, canyou?”

“Oh yes, I can.” I pulled theDesert Eagle out of the holster. “This was never about you and me,general. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind killing you. I wouldconsider it a fringe benefit of the job. But I’m not playing gameswith you. Put down the knife or I’ll shoot.”

An angry growl came from his mouth ashe twisted his lips into a sneer.

“You’re a lesser man that Ithought. You really are a coward, Ryvenbark.”

“General, this may surprise you but Idon’t care about your opinion of me. Now I’m not going to tellyou again. Put the gun down and stop the histrionics.”

He was quick. I give him that. In aflash, he twisted and raised the knife over his head. His hand evencame forward before I fired. Three bullets slammed into his chestnear the heart. His fingers trembled. The knife slipped from hishandand fell. He hit the ground about three seconds after the knifedid.

I walked over and stared at Conbor’sdead body.

“The paths of glory, general, leadonly to the grave. In this case an unmarked grave. If, that is, theplanet doesn’t spit you out in disgust.”

DEADLYDREAM

LoganRyvenbark's Saga-Book2

Chapter1

It is said that Thomas Edison thoughtthe phone he invented – a technological marvel of his day – wasso profoundly annoying that he refused to have one in hishouse.

Whenthe j-phone – a technological marvel of our day – buzzed softlyin my ear, I thought it was profoundly annoying too. For a momenttheears heard the soft, gentle notes of ‘BeautifulDreamer’. Ifyou’re with your special dreamer – and I was waking up in bedwith Astrid by my side –, it should evoke a wistful smile and awarm feeling.

Except the call came at 3 a.m. and Ihad been sleeping contentedly. The lovely song just made megrouchy.I am an expert in dozens of weapons and, usually, it doesn’t pay tomake a weapons expert grouchy.

Mentally I turned off the song, thentossed the covers off and barefooted to the study where the screenand my desk were. Screen doesn’t do justice to the techno-deskset-up. Let’s just say it was another technological marvel of ourtime. Of course, I was getting rather tired of technologicalmarvels.I was thinking of a rustic, simple life when Belen appeared on thescreen.

“Should I say good morning or goodevening, Logan?”

“It’s not good anything,” I said,my voice reflecting my drowsiness. “Don’t you keep regularhours?”

She answered something, but I was sogroggy the words flew by me. In the distance, waves lapped at theshore. Astrid and I had the windows open on the resort house wherewewere staying. Two light purple moons lighted the waves and thebeach.Another wave crashed on the shore.

“Sorry for the interruption Logan,but I need you.”

“No, you don’t. You have a hugecorporate empire. You can find someone else to do the job, whateverthe job is.”

“Aren’t you curious about why Icalled you in the middle of the night?”

“No.”

“Neither am I.”

I looked up at Astrid. She was clothedin a mid-thigh length blue bathrobe and leaned on the door, armscrossed. Her blue eyes didn’t look groggy like mine. They flashedanger. Lips curled with indignation. We were on vacation and didn’texpect to be bothered. Astrid is beautiful and sweet, gentle andloving. Except when she’s woken up from a sound sleep.

“Hang up, honey,” she said.

“Can’t really do that. Officiallywe are still on Belen’s payroll,” I said.

“We can quit.”

“That’s always an option,” Ianswered soothingly.

“I can understand your annoyance andI apologize for the call, but this couldn’t wait,” Belen said.“It is an emergency. A security matter.”

I frowned. The warlike race of Creagershad, about two months before, invaded Federation space andinflictedsevere damage on the populations of two outlying planets. Althoughthey are bipeds, Creagers look like the second cousins of Gilamonsters. You don’t want to see them in a dark alley. For thatmatter, you don’t want to see them in the bright daylight either.

The Federation scrambled our forces andin a recent battle had driven them back. Now our forces wereplanninga counterattack that would penetrate deep into their home solarsystem.

“Belen, most of the Federation forceis repelling the Creager invasion. You don’t need my help withthat.”

“This is not about the Creagers.”

“It isn’t?”

She shook her head. “This issomething different entirely. As you noted, the Federation forcesaretied up in a war. They don’t have a lot of ships and men to spare.Because you are always so creative, as well as being courageous,theFederation thinks it can use you.” She smiled. “So they asked meto ask you to help them out.”

“What has the Federation done for melately?”

“Paid you a lot of money for the lastassignment.”

“They can pay somebody else thistime. I won’t mind.”

“Neither will I,” Astrid said.“Let’s go back to bed.”

Belen showed a frown. She is anattractive woman with brown hair and stunning brown eyes. Usuallyshe’s smiling. She’s so vivacious she can make jesters lookgloomy. But tonight she wasn’t smiling, much less laughing. Hereyes looked troubled and the shoulders slumped, as if she had theweight of the world on them, or the weight of the Federation as thecase may be. Usually, the tiny lines around the eyes and lips werealmost invisible. But tonight they appeared to have deepened.Belen,with her corporate empire, is almost a nation unto herself; basicgovernment without the bureaucracy. But she has a strong loyalty tothe Federation. I wondered if another alien race had launchedanotherinvasion. That might get me to put on a Morganthal military uniformagain. Although I’d had one or two minor differences withofficials, I have a strong loyalty to the Federation too.

“We need you two,” Belen said. “Iknow you have disbanded the Raiders. But we have a major securityproblem. The Federation needs you to get your company backtogether.We’ve got a situation we’ve never seen before or even dreamed of.Most of the Federation ships and men are on the Creager frontier,preparing to invade their solar system and end the threat todefenseless planets. But we’ve got another problem coming from theother side of the galaxy. It’s dangerous, and Federation officialsagreed we need Ryvenbark’s Raiders. They have the best chance tocomplete the mission.”

“OK, what exactly is going on?” Isaid, uncomplaining.

“Are you aware of the Terlor System?”

“Vaguely. Long way away from here.Three planets. Inhabited. Haven’t had too much contact with thembecause they are so far away. Exchanged a few ambassadors and theraces seem like very nice people. Had no trouble with them. Let’ssee… hasn’t one of them, the Oreganians, established a smalldiplomatic office on Earth?”

Belen sighed. “Yes, and that smalloffice is all that remains of the Oreganians.”

That woke me up.

“The planet is…”

“Gone. It’s a lump of dirt orbitinga sun. That’s all. No life. No Oreganians. No animals. No plants.No bugs. The planet was obliterated.”

“So we now have an enemy who can andwill destroy a planet of innocents?” I said.

“Not just a planet and not just theOreganians. There is currently no life – no life at all – on anyof the three planets in the Terlor System. All is ashes and rubble.Whatever came at us, Logan, came from another galaxy. They sent ustheir best and they’re coming this way. So we’re sending them ourbest: Ryvenbark’s Raiders.”

Chapter 2

Ten minutes later, a shirt and regularpants had replaced my pajama togs. I had washed my face and Astridput on some coffee as the equivalent of orange juice. I sipped thecoffee as I sat down before the screen again.

“So, do we have a hint about who orwhat hit the Terlor System?”

“We have a little more than a hint.Just beyond the system there is a sphere five hundred-mile big.Maybea hundred miles thick. It looks like a long, solid rock. We suspectit may be connected with the destruction.”