The Time Masters by Gary Lovisi

Author:Gary Lovisi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: edgar rice burroughs, fantasy, science fiction, adventure, sci-fi
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The Dark Tide

Of the five options presented to me for dealing with the alien entity, I rejected two immediately out of hand. Another attack in the Place of Meaning within the entity would not work and I would only be dealing the fighting men I sent there a terrible death sentence.

As for the fifth option? I knew there could be no negotiation with such a monster.

That left us with three highly unlikely and most probably unsuccessful modes of operation. Keeping the thing in stasis for as long as possible seemed only a stop-gap measure useful only until it escaped. And at some point, at some time, it would surely escape. At least I believed that to be the case. It had to be. Then we would have to deal with it at that time, which was hardly a viable option. This plan was not proactive enough for me and not really acceptable. However, who knew how long the thing might remain helpless and held in stasis? Would it be for a thousand more seconds—or a thousand more years? We had no way of knowing, and that was not acceptable to me either.

Destroying the entity outright with our fleet—if such an action was even possible— and I was not entirely certain that we had the power to do that, even though it seemed to be the wisest course—might not work either. Who knew for sure? Nothing was a certainty. It was a devilish Hobson’s choice if ever there was one. Perhaps it would work? I was not so sure.

However, there was also the option of sending the entity back in time. If that was, in fact, actually possible. This plan seemed too tricky and fraught with what could be some dangerous unintended complications. I did not like this idea very much and was most leery of attempting it.

“It is certainly a trio of dark choices, My Emperor. We are set adrift upon a dark tide with no markers or maps to guide us in what we must do,” Aron the Eldest told me later.

I nodded with dark resignation, it certainly seemed that way.

“What shall we do?” Lord Aron asked me.

“Zaor, what of the rest of the Enemy Empire fleet? This Kin-Ty-roo controls a massive fleet of warships —a much larger fleet with many more ships than were ever controlled by Lord Doom. Doom’s ships are ours now after his defeat, their crews ours now as well. They have all come over to our side and sworn allegiance. However, there is a much more serious problem. The remainder of the alien entity fleet with least one thousand warships remaining and unaccounted for. What has happened to them?”

Lord Aron was silent, as he and I were thinking it through. We knew this to be a serious problem that we had to somehow deal with soon.

Zaor was quiet. I could tell he did not like this situation.

I shook my head, then added, “There are also many planets, alien races, conquered worlds still loyal to the entity.

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