The Prophesy: Book 4 - Armageddon

 

"What is keeping the Soul-eaters from converging on us like locusts? They must know by now that the only source of food left for them is in here," wondered Annabelle, as the day team discussed the events in the Captain’s Ready Room.

"I think it is because the trap is still functioning. It will continue to do so until the gravitational energy stored in the engine that drives the trap or shield, whatever you wish to call it, is fully dissipated. From what I see, that should be within seven days at the latest. More like five, since it has been two days that the Moon has been reduced to this Snake," Sitar replied.

"Can we measure it?" asked Harold.

"The residual charge? Yes. It is still considerable, and given the curve converges toward zero at an ever-slower rate, projections are the shield will not completely dissipate during the next five days. However, the Soul-eaters may well consider it gone enough to risk passing it," replied Paschal.

"They may also consider their lunch at risk from the Snake and decide to assault us in the hope of getting lunch before it vanishes," added Harp.

"Anyway, it is what the model predicts," noted Ian.

"And the shield is also unstable because what drives it is probably getting pummelled as well," piped up Enron.

"How far is the Snake?"

"Its current distance is 170,610 miles," replied Samson, consulting the data from his notepad. "It is dropping by 54,000 miles every 24 hours."

"What is the situation in Thebes?" asked Harold.

"It is calm, but people are anxious. I think that our passage through the different groups has helped relieve some of that anxiety," replied Diamondcutter.

"Security?"

"Greywolf and the Canines are doing a fine job in keeping everyone in line. Their calm demeanour has a tranquillising impact on the other species," replied Timor.

"How is the level of noise?"

"It is very acceptable, even for us. We feel the vibrations of the impact, even if they are several miles away, and you hear a deep rumble, like rain on a rooftop. In fact it is rather relaxing if you think about it," continued Timor. "I visited Dad and the Troll colony was sleeping. By the way, Ian, you have a new Troll Boy."

"If everyone gets named Ian, we will have issues!"

"I am not talking about a name, I am talking about a Son, Prince Ian. You have been doing the binding thing for at least two years, and the result is coming to fruition. The little pest is already a pain in his Mother’s butt. I gather he takes from his Father!"

"Well, it is new with the Trolls, but I have already had several Children with the Canines and Equines. Your gestation period seems exceptionally long, my friend."

"Talking about life and reproduction, we talked extensively with the Matriarch the other day," said Amethyst. "We learned some fascinating things."

Amethyst exposed what she and her Husband had discovered.

"There are many things I do not understand. If there are 50,000,000 eggs per lay, we should be flooded with Seraphrims," said Amethyst.

"First, we assume here that the Seraphrims have no predators. They certainly do. The Enemy may be one. And we do not know of the Soul-eaters or the Scavengers are predatory to them. Second, quite a few Seraphrims may never find a suitable planet. They may die of starvation. They may fall into black holes, or into stars. Or they may misjudge a planet and find themselves cornered on it."

"Enron’s analysis is but the beginning to understanding the enigma of the Seraphrims. Consider these facts: The males are few; they disappear after fertilising the females, never to be seen again. This reminds me of Bees. They too have drones, which literally kill themselves with sex and never migrate. In fact, apart from the period immediately prior to the Dispersion, the males are all but ignored. And not all females are fertilised. There may be several million eggs in each clutch, but you will have a lot of trouble finding nests. I think they do not retire, as the Matriarch said. They die of exhaustion."

"That is interesting, Harp, but that means there must be literally billions of dead Seraphrims drifting in space! It is a tragedy!"

"No, Iridia. It is life. Consider the Salmon: the female lays billions of eggs. Maybe 500,000,000 get to the Fry stage; and of these, only 5,000,000 reach the sea to grow to adulthood. By the time they come back to the river mouth to begin the climb upstream to the spawning area, there may be 5,000 left, and maybe 20 individuals when they finally reach it. What matters to life is not the survival of the individual, but the capacity to carry the genes to fruition and produce the next generation. In Salmons, it goes further, the parents, once the females has laid the eggs and the male has fertilised them with his sperm, die out completely."

"You give a depressing image of things, Ian."

"No, a realistic one. The Seraphrims were doomed when our ancestors gave them the means to migrate from star to star. Now, they are a successful species. They may not be numerous, they may still fall prey to the Enemy, but they are able to disperse themselves, hide, and reproduce to disperse again and again. This is success, so far as life is concerned."

"You mention the Enemy. Are you talking about the Soul-eaters?" asked Bjorn, which had joined them to talk to his Son about other issues.

"Not really. From what the Matriarch told us, the Enemy is a sort of mechanical society, robots, androids, or whatever you might like to call them. They devour planets, while the Soul-eaters devour Consciences. They have different diets but produce the same result. But who knows. Under the word Enemy may lay many species."

"We seem to collect enemies like Dogs collect Fleas!"

"I do not collect Fleas!" said Ian converting to his silver Wolf form to prove his point.

"Oops, wrong example. Sorry, Ian!"

Reconverting to his Boy form, Ian replied to Bjorn’s comment with a smile.

"It is okay, Bjorn, I understood the example. We may collect enemies like Fleas, as you say, but we collect allies at a faster rate, which gives us a clear advantage. We my find more as we migrate off-planet, and many species currently in our custody are likely to evolve into useful and Conscience-enriched full participants in the Atlantean society."

"Oh?"

"Dolphins, the only survivors of the Cetaceans, are one; we have also that Australopithecus Regressi colony, that may well get back on track and evolve forward; we have the Orcs, which we are currently rewiring and reprogramming; there are the Pterodactyls, which, since they are trainable, are likely to become a valuable addition. And some Birds are quite intelligent. Maybe we can make them go forward too. And I have not given up on Felines and Cephalopods. As for the Ogres, even if they seem to be intelligent, I will be thinking twice before adding them to the collection. For now, we need to have a lot of genetic studies done before we begin to consider them for Elevation."

"Elevation?"

"Bringing them to full consciousness. Do the count: Orcs are well on their way to becoming full Atlanteans; we have three maybe four other family of animals in the wings to get worked on. That makes for a lot of potential allies, if we work things right so they feel it has been beneficial for them. We must not redo the errors of the Ancients or the Soul-eaters, that is, do things for us. We must do things for them."

"You seem to have a huge program on your mind, Ian."

"We all do."

***

"What is the position of Thebes?" asked Harold.

"We just crossed the 35° North parallel and following the 80° West meridian," Enron replied.

"I thought we would be moving along at a faster clip?"

"Actually, Harold, even if the surface of the world is liquefying, the mountains still exist. They are hit, they melt, but they can still be a rough ride. Continental crust is surging as its top melts and fills in the oceanic basins."

"How much are we talking about?"

"Let us see. On the plains of Lava Flows, we managed a good clip, but once we hit the Eastern mountain range, even if Thebes is much bigger than they are, I had to go slow. The interesting thing is that the lava basin that constituted the core of the Elvin Kingdom has melted, and is following us along the grove Thebes is creating as it moves south. But what I want to know is what we will get when we reach the oceanic basin. It must be impressive."

"Who is handling the helm?"

"Currently, it is Rockhook. I took him up to the main helm and explained what we were doing. To say he was surprised at the result was an understatement. I had to show him an uncompensated imagery for him to grasp that Thebes is like a sphere rolling on itself using the external spires as paddles. I must admit the original view is even more spectacular than the stabilised one. Can you imagine the view produced by a sphere of over 100 miles in diameter rotating slowly as it digs through a mountain range that look more like pimples on a face than mountains relative to the sphere’s size? We saw huge mountains collapse as the spires dug into it."

"I wish I could see that!"

"No problem, Dad, just give me a few seconds," replied Paschal.

An instant later, a monitor lit in the Ready Room, and everyone saw a stabilised picture of the exterior. After some minor adjustments, the scenery began to roll and the observers saw the ground recede, to be replaced by a black sky, whose southern edge was a stream of reddish dark objects. As the view progressed, the sky lightened as once again the ground came into view. The camera dipped below the surface of the almost white-hot material to darken again and then begin to light up again.

"What you have just seen is an accelerated view of a full rotation of Thebes. The movie, as the Ancients call this kind of sequence, started with a picture just as the camera emerged from the lava. Each picture was taken every 10 seconds. As you see, the ground recedes as the camera moves upward, while the red sky turns ever darker as we reach the apogee of the rotation. As you noticed, on the south edge was the Snake. As we continue, we get back into the atmosphere and the environment lightens up. Then the camera enters inside the lava. On its surface, the lava is fluid, and very hot. As we penetrate deeper, the lava is heated up but the substrate is darker, so the overall effect is a darkening of the ambient light. Soon the camera is now under Thebes and the radiation is being wiped out as the sphere crushes everything in its way. Then the process is repeated."

The scene was replaced by the forward view of the advancing sphere, before Enron showed them the rear view. The scene was apocalyptic. The rotating sphere threw away a huge stream of molten lava that created an arc covering several miles before it came crashing down on the surface. Far off, in the giant rut created by the passage of Thebes, a wall of very liquid lava could be seen trying to play catch-up with the rolling city. The spires drilled holes that seemed to fill in rapidly with seeping lava from the mantle, or, more likely, from the continental crust as it got exposed and suddenly decompressed explosively. Wide fissures and cracks spread tangentially from the furrow, much like those formed on ice by the passage of a heavy load. Lava from down below filled in the gaps and gushed forth, some reaching several thousand feet in height.

The side of the rolling sphere were as impressive to watch. As the huge ball rolled, it crushed the crust and giant slabs of not yet fully melted rocks were expelled on each side and described parabolic arcs ranging from several hundred feet to several miles. The rock substrate seemed to open, split, shatter in so many strange, beautiful and yet frightening ways it kept the attention of the Atlanteans for hours on end. At some point, Rockhook called on Enron.

"Enron, have a look at what is coming ahead of us."

"Okay."

A few seconds later, the front view was visible for all to see. Ahead of them, still 110 miles away, was the coastline, if you might have called it such. For, under their gaze was the most incredible scene yet to be witnessed by Atlanteans: The continental shelf was melting, bubbling up and down like a cork on a sea, and giant cracks opened and closed violently. Each opening crack sucked in the lava, revealing the dark bedrock, and then, as they closed back, the lava was ejected violently, several miles high, and fell back on the continental base with boulders the size of city blocks. Lava flowed liberally toward the abysses, cascading down like the Victoria Falls into the depths of the oceanic basin.

The Atlanteans watched with fascination the coast getting nearer, and the gorges’ depth and sudden drop over relatively short distances became apparent. The moving city sphere churned on, and then began engaging on the continental shelf that was once under the ocean. On each side of the moving sphere, the Atlanteans could deep streams of lava several miles wide and probably as deep.

"Are you sure it is a good idea to go there?" asked Harold as he eyed the oceanic depression ahead of them.

"Do not worry Dad. Even the Mariana trench represents less than 7% of the total diameter of the sphere. We will not even feel the bump when we deal with the continental incline."

"What about the islands we see looming ahead?"

"First, one of these islands had been underwater until recently. As for Hispaniola, it is like a minor bump for this giant ball of orichalque. Second, when we cross the continental spine, the climb will be much steeper."

"Tell me again why we are not in space yet?"

"To put an end to the tyranny of the Soul-eaters, Dad. This is going to be the ultimate trap, and we are the bait! If we play our cards right, they will be baited under the trajectory of the falling debris. Once we reach the Equator, we turn and move westward just fast enough to stay ahead of the incoming Snake," began to explain Sitar.

"Will they not be able to track us and plan an intercept?"

"I count on it. They probably already know the fact that we are moving at variable speed. They must believe that this place cannot fly, and that is called intoxicating their information. The only thing stopping them from attacking us is the shield. They will have six hours between the time it collapses and the time the Moon collapses on us. During these six hours, I expect them to throw in the battle every scrap of space worthy ship in order to capture as many of us as they think they can. They have no means of penetrating our ship. They may try teleporting, but to do this, they will have to pass through the polyphasic random shield. By the time they can calculate one sequence, we will have changed to another. Harp and Paschal have been doing numerical simulations using Pyramid two to generate the sequences, and Pyramid six to break the sequence. If we change series every 20 seconds, Pyramid six was never able to break it. The probability of the Soul-eaters disposing of that kind of processing power is next to zero."

"What about the weapons?"

"I plan to pretend we are weak. Oh they know we have big guns, but we never did use our biggest ones. We look 1,000,000,000 times weaker than we are in reality. And we have stopped using long-range guns for the past 12 hours, even if the situation has worsened considerably. They must have come to a single conclusion: we no longer have long-range defence capabilities. It is another lure. Even the shields look like they are weakening. I have installed a program that follows an asymptotic-degrading curve. It can only be interpreted in a single way: a loss of energy, therefore a weakening target."

"Is that all?"

"No. We will gradually slow down, and the thing is, by the time the trap closes in on them, we will seem to be immobile, moving at less than one mile per hour. That will be a tempting target."

"How close do you plan to let them come?"

"You will not like it Dad. I plan to let them set their ship on the outside hull. It will not serve them any, but when we have them where we want them, I will have Enron set the spin to full tilt. That thing can do a full rotation in less than 0.1 seconds. Believe me, their ships will not have the time to take off and escape a visit in the lava, under Thebes. Their spaceships are battleships all right, but I do not think they were designed for a pressure of several trillion tons per square inch, in temperatures ranging in the vicinity of 3000° Fahrenheit. I will even help them hold to us! A millisecond before the spin, there will be a magnetic surge in the order of several thousand gauss, in effect freezing any mobile parts in their ship, binding them to ours like there was no tomorrow, and making those that are on the verge of taking off crash right back on our surface. The magnetic field will be such it will also take the lava and drape us in it, but a sudden reversal of polarity will expel it and the Soul-eater ships, now crushed, in every direction, in effect destroying anything within several miles. Hopefully, that will rid us of the majority of their ships. If not, well, we can play dead Duck in the water again. I doubt they know what that is, and the Soul-eaters are starving. It will be a tempting morsel, and if we close down all the non-essential things, they will fall for it. After all, they can only interpret that as a last-ditch effort to get rid of them."

"You are devious."

"I am the God of War."

"That is if everything goes according to your plans, Sitar," said Annabelle, which had kept quiet while her Son exposed their plan of battle.

"I know Mom. We have contingencies, and contingencies for the contingencies, and contingencies for them too. It sometimes goes down to five or six levels. Even if they do manage to penetrate inside by managing to port some of their elite Units, we will be ready for them. They have only a false image of the structure inside Thebes. We have been feeding them false information there too. They will be having some bad surprises. We have been absorbing their sensors and sending back images that are totally misleading. I want to see the Soul-eater survive in liquid oxygen!"

"It will be explosive!"

"Exactly. But the oxygen is not likely to explode at the pressure we are keeping in the containment unit. Even at body temperature, oxygen at that pressure stays liquid. And they will implode on materialisation."

"If I understand your idea, we might collect Soul-eater Popsicles?"

"Mom! I will not be able to savour a Popsicle for years due to that image!" said Ian.

"Sitar, you are terrible!"

"Diamondcutter, war is an ugly thing."

"Let us head to bed. The day has been long, and I trust the evening Crew with my life."

"Who leads it tonight?"

"You will not believe me."

"Test me, Ian."

"Colibri is in the Captain’s seat."

"And who will captain the night shift?"

"Greywolf."

"You must know what you are doing. I can understand Greywolf, but Colibri?"

"He just passed his Ordeal with flying colours. I do not see why he should not be put in charge of this. We got thrown into battle without even benefit of the Ordeal and succeeded, Dad, and quite well I might add."

"You are right. It must be old age playing tricks on me, Ian."

"You can say that again, old Man!"

"One more comment like that, and I will show you the old Man is still young enough to outsmart you and give you a good spanking, Boy!"

"Oh! Kinky! Catch me if you can!" replied Ian as he vanished.

"Are you not going to run after him?" asked Samson.

"Why? And give him the pleasure of ridiculing me once again? I may be an old Monkey, but I still can learn new tricks. I will out-wait him and get him when he least expects it."

«Thanks for the warning, old Man! But you are no fun! All the pleasure was in the hunt!» said Ian, which had simply changed his molecular frequency to become invisible and was still sitting in his chair.

"You should know I have yet to see a chair seat sag without some weight on it, Son," replied Harold, laughing as Ian became visible again, still in the same place.

"Oops!"

"Yes, ‘oops!’ as you say!"

The day shift retired for the night, as prime came early. The evening was already well on its way out and Greywolf would take the matins shift shortly, accompanied by the Runt as Mage on Station, the other siblings occupying different stations, and Bushtail Fox holding the Strategic Planning Station. Lord Agramon was dealing with the internal security issues, which were rare in the late hours of the night.

***

The days passed and nothing seemed to change the routine. Just as the day shift took their station, the night shift, headed for the occasion by Yamato, gave Ian his report.

"All is going according to plan, Ian. We are now on the Equator, and have been moving west at an ever-slower clip."

"What is our position?" asked Ian, as he sat in the Captain’s chair.

"Our current position is 0.1° North 130.5° West, and our current speed is 25 miles per hour," Enron replied as he looked at the navigational chart ahead of him.

"How long before the shield collapses?" Harp questioned.

"We are four hours before what we consider collapse, and 10 hours from Snake impact on the globe."

"What about that huge mass? What have we learned of it?" Ian enquired.

"It is about five magnitudes bigger than the Earth, and is coming at us at about 0.31 % of the speed of light. The collision will give out the equivalent energy of 8.69×10³¹ megatons. The numerical model expects the planet to first, shatter on impact, and second, to slow down enough to begin spiralling toward the Sun," answered Nestor as Samson took his seat.

"I wonder where it comes from?"

"Who knows? Maybe an Oort planet unknown by the Ancients, the alleged planet X, Nemesis or Tyche, depending on the source we look at," replied Enron.

"There is another possibility offered from spectrographic studies. They seem to indicate an errant interstellar mass. In fact, the speed too seems to indicate such an origin," added Samson. "It could be a brown Dwarf, which is unlikely given its mass, or an Oligarch planet, which is more likely. The solar system is a beehive of undocumented junk."

"Where is the comet?"

"Halley? It has been captured by that mass and will follow its path directly behind. The result will be a double whammy for the Earth. Not that there should be anything left for the comet to hit if the model is right."

"How come we never saw that mass until now? Precognition should have told us about it?"

"Ian, I have repeatedly told you precognition is not like looking into a pair of binoculars. We actually select what we want to see. It might have been visible but so outlandish we dismissed the image as impossible to be the truth. If anything, this should tell us, once again, to expect the unexpected, however outrageously improbable it may seem to be. I have been reviewing our strategy with this rule in mind. For now I see no flaw in our protocol of action. Even without that planet X, the days the Earth could be seen as life sustaining are over. What matters is that one, we get out of here on time, and two, that the Soul-eaters do not. The rest is a cherry on the cake," said Harp.

"A big, reddish-black, cherry!" said Ian.

"I wonder what will pop? The cherry or the cake?" said Alexander.

"Alexander! Language!" said the other Boys in unison, snickering.

"Where are the Soul-eaters?" asked Harold as he walked in on the bridge for the upcoming crucial hours.

"Trailing behind the Snake, Pharaoh," said Alaric, as he left the radar seat to let Iridia take over. "They think they can sneak on us, the fools!"

***

Time passed slowly. The spin of Thebes slowed down to barely perceptible. The defences were kept to firing lasers on the incoming meteorites, and then only on the biggest ones. The others would explode on contact with the giant city sphere, rebounding and falling into the bottomless sea of lava that was now the earth. Rocks the size of mountains kelp splashing in the lava near the ball of orichalque, creating giant tsunami of molten rock that pelted the ball, pushing it in all directions. Ian ordered the antigravity field diminished so the sphere sank about halfway into the planetary molten crust.

"We are adrift," said Enron. "We must look like one big derelict from space."

"That is what we want. I wish the damn Soul-eaters would move. What is the shield’s residual power level?" Harold wanted to know.

"It stands at 5% of nominal and dropping," Harp said, as he looked at his instrumentation once again. "The Black Star that drove the shield’s energy is now less than 700 miles above the surface of the Earth."

"A black star? Are you talking about a black hole?" Harold said, worriedly.

"Yes, it is a microscopic black hole, the size of a pin head. It is no wonder we could not locate it when we placed Lucifer and Gabriel into the Lagrange point. It is only now detectable because it leaves a trail of gamma ray bursts as it travels through the dust cloud that now shrouds the Earth. It gives out a gamma ray burst from its poles each time it eats up anything, from a single hydrogen atom to a particle of dust. Right now the event horizon is visible in the X-ray range as well, but as soon as it finishes digesting the last bit of matter that committed the impudence to stand in its way, that will go."

"I thought they had all evaporated over the aeons?"

"That one is artificial. No naturally occurring black hole goes wandering without collecting a considerable number of objects of varying sorts around it," replied Samson.

"We are going to be dunked below the lava by the next impact guys," Paschal informed them. "It is about 15 times the size of Everest."

"Are you not afraid we will get stuck under it?" asked a worried Diamondcutter, remembering the numerous collapses of mines the Dwarves had to endure before moving to Thebes.

"Just watch!"

Suddenly a giant block of rock slammed into Thebes, which was violently pushed down several hundred miles under the lava sea. Once the rock had reached its equilibrium between pressure and density, it stopped sinking, some 800 miles below.

"Okay. Enron, get us out of here." Paschal said.

"I need repulsion from the mass, as I kick the reactors into action, Harp."

"Coming up. Repulsion at 50,000 atmosphere, climbing "

Suddenly the sphere sank deeper as it pushed its spires free from the rock, which had embedded its mass onto the orichalque spires like a Bull onto a Torero’s sword. As soon as this occurred, Enron triggered a roll of Thebes that crawled on the floating piece of rock like a fly on a ceiling. It took them 10 minutes to get from under the still slowly sinking piece of matter that was already melting rapidly. Suddenly Thebes was free and began to rise to the surface, gaining speed.

"Maximise buoyancy! Full repulsion at the bottom!" ordered Enron.

Thebes emerged from the molten rock at well over 600 miles per hour and described a superb parabolic arc before coming back down crashing in a splash of magma. The sphere was tailed by a magnificent trail of lava that went from blinding white to black as death over its entire length before crashing down back into the lava sea.

"Why did you do that?" asked Samson as he looked at Enron critically.

"I wanted to give the Soul-eaters a show. After all, condemned have the right to a last meal, but I am not willing to give them that so I am giving them a circus show. Instead of the jumping Dolphins, it is the jumping city!"

"Or the jumping bean?" asked Sven, which had been fascinated by them for months.

"Oh no! Not again!" said Annabelle. She had suffered the need to procure these beans to keep Sven entertained for weeks on end.

"Time to play dead again," ordered Ian.

"Do you not think they will understand we are luring them?"

"No Dad. Our behaviour is consistent with a cork popping out under intense pressure. The certainly know the pressure involved but they do not know how deep we went, and certainly not my stunt at playing fly on the roof."

"Paschal?"

"Yes Harp?"

"I am detecting a mass rising to the surface slowly consistent with 250,000,000 tons of orichalque. It must have been trapped under a mountain range and just broken through the residual crust. I want to recover it. How many mining Spiders do we have on hand? And how long would it take them to recover the orichalque that is about 100 miles below the surface?"

"I got 1,000 mining Spiders ready. It would take two hours to recover the orichalque."

"It would be too long, it will be to the surface within an hour."

"Give the coordinates to Enron and let us move Thebes over the surging orichalque. That will keep it below, bind it to our crust and give us the time to completely recover it."

"Good idea, Ian."

Thebes was moved gently into place and bonded to the rising orichalque. The Spiders were ported on the underside of the mass and began eating away at it. The process involved two Spiders: one gnawed at the mineral, and then a specially designed conveyor system fed it to a carrier Spider able to hold 250,000 tons. Once it was filled, it ported inside Thebes and dumped the load into another conveyor belt that brought the product to a storage bin. The average temperature of the orichalque was around 3,000° Fahrenheit, and it was left to cool in the bin.

"Are we losing Magic with this process?" Williams enquired.

"No, the Spiders cut the crystal according to its natural cleavage so each magical cell is left intact. Once the mineral has cooled enough to be safely examined, I will determine how to bind it properly so we can maximise its true potential by aligning the magical strings and opening it to the perfect resonance to Magic we so attach importance to. For now, it is more like amorphous than crystalline," replied Harp.

"Oh, okay. Magical theory has never been my forte. I am more a touch and do guy."

"So, do you think there are other clumps of orichalque around?"

"That goes without saying, Thorsten. However, we cannot stay around to recover them. This one was served to us on a lava sea platter," said Harp.

"All mining Spiders are at work. The recovery should be done in two hours. I will stream the loading when it finishes. Ian I have put 250 cooling bins on wait. The mining Spiders will be sent directly to storage for cooling, and trains of four cargo Spiders will get ported to the conveyor belts entry points. Once they are empty, they are sent back to cooling as well."

"How long will it take for the orichalque to cool down?"

"Several weeks for the orichalque, several days for the mining equipment. We recover the heat too. Space is damn cold, and it might come in handy one of these days."

"How do you do that feat?" Isabelle said, curious about that apparent violation of the laws of thermodynamics.

"Right now, we are pumping the heat from the lava into a Freon-based liquid kept at several gigabar of pressure. It can sink in enough heat to keep Thebes cool. That surplus of heat from the orichalque will not even show on the scale. The occasional spikes we do see are due to the sudden impact of a meteorite on our outer shell. By the way, the lava crust that is accreting around us is constantly falling off due to the impacts."

"How effective is that cooling mechanism?"

"The crystal composing Thebes’ outer crust is so well designed it has 100% thermal insulation and we could go straight to the core of the Sun and stay there several days without any ill effect."

"Only several days?"

"Mom, we can also do other things, like keeping the solar plasma from touching us, turn the surface into a perfect mirror, or use the heat to produce a powerful laser, that would in effect cool the inside of Thebes so much we might regret it!"

Time passed slowly, ever more slowly. The waiting game was eating at everyone’s nerves, but they could do nothing to speed things up. Two hours later another flurry of activity was initiated as the Spiders were recovered.

"Did we lose much of the orichalque?"

"No, Harp. The rest is now a small amorphous sheen on the outside of Thebes. It is crystallising naturally to integrate itself to the old shell. The process should be completed within an hour."

"Good. Orichalque is more precious than platinum."

"I know."

"How long before the collapse?"

"Still three hours, Dad."

"These will be the longest three hours of my life!"

"I agree. I suggest we ask for a skeleton Crew and go have a good lunch. When things start heating up, we may not be able to leave station for hours."

"I think it is a valid suggestion Harp. Iridia, call in for a skeleton bridge Crew. We will move to my Ready Room for a quick lunch and some rest."

"All right, Ian."

The skeleton Crew, led by Ness the Dragon, took control of the Bridge for the next two and a half hours while the day Crew had lunch, and relaxed in prevision for a harsh period ahead. Patrols within Thebes were intensified, and last-minute checks undertaken by the Fairies and the Elves on weaponry.

***

Ten minutes before the expected collapse of the Shield, an alarm rang around Thebes. Ian, who had been napping on a couch in his Ready Room, fell off.

"What the Hell?" he thundered.

Everyone rushed into the Bridge to see what was the alarm.

"What is up Ness?"

"The spaceships we have been tracking are diving toward us as breakneck speed, Ian."

Indeed, a forward top view of the skies revealed a black cloud of spaceships headed for the Earth. Millions exploded from collisions with lunar debris, but there were far more that managed to get through.

"Shield?"

"At 5.3%, and dropping."

"How far are they from its current position?"

"They are 1,000,000 miles out, but they should cross the shield in five minutes if they do not slow down."

"They are hungry. It is like a pack of Megalodons that have been on a diet for too long."

"Where is the Black Star?"

"Currently at the antipodes. But it should be quite near the surface of the Earth by now. It will rise on the eastern horizon in 43 minutes, pass over us and reach the zenith 20 minutes later, overflying us by about 29 miles. By then the drag will be such it will be its last full orbit. Calculations indicate the Black star will hit the surface of the globe at the eastern Terminator at an angle of 6° and begin to curve toward the Earth’s core in an ever-tighter spiral. It should pass below us at a depth of 150 miles."

"Ring the general quarters, Iridia. The Soul-eaters are crossing the Shield," ordered Ian.

Immediately, a powerful klaxon was heard right through the giant Atlantean spaceship, and the military Centuries dispersed across Thebes to their assigned strategic position, should the Soul-eaters make it through the defences of the city. The Centaurs were affected, along with the Dragons, to the protection of the inner core, whose vast spaces fitted them much better than the relatively narrow halls of the Outer Thebes. The Tessaracts were sealed and placed in a transitional phase shift, effectively blocking any access except to those who knew how to modify their own body frequencies to reach their control rooms. Only a few Atlanteans had mastered this feat: Ian, Alexander, Harp, Sitar, Enron, Thorsten, Typhoon, Greywolf, and Paschal. Even Harold had yet to gain that capacity after several weeks of arduous training. Intuitive Magic had its limits, and that type was a wee bit beyond intuitive.

"All armoured Legions are ready and on station," Timor informed Ian. "Trolls are policing the inner city’s main living quarters. Canines are patrolling the outer reaches of Thebes, while the Mages and the Unicorns hold the main junctions. Equines are held in reserve for the inner core. The last bulwark door just reported closed and locked. Legionnaires, Elves and Dwarves are patrolling the intermediate zone separating the outer limits of Thebes and the core. Fairies and their domesticated Spiders are keeping an eye on the innards, like ventilation and other narrow passageways. All secure!"

"How far up is the shield?"

"It is 30 miles above us, and dropping. The cloud of Soul-eaters ships is dense just behind it. It is only the most greedy that have ventured crossing the shield, and this is already a considerable amount. One minute to the 5% mark!"

"Begin countdown!"

Harp obeyed Ian’s order and began counting backward from sixty.

"Radar! Estimate density of Soul-eaters converging on us!"

"It is already at one ship per six cubic miles of space and increasing slowly. They are experiencing problems it seems!"

"Any problem the Soul-eaters experience is a good omen for us. What problem are you talking about, Sitar?"

"They have to keep evading falling debris, and sometimes they are between the hammer and the anvil. Generally that translates into an exploding spaceship. They must be desperate to get to some food to risk these conditions. The concentration of Soul-eaters per cubic mile of molten lava is getting so we might consider it pollution!"

"Do we have their frequencies?"

"Yes."

"Iridia, open a channel! Transmit a weak signal, but make sure it is powerful enough to get heard over the static and clatter of their communications."

A few seconds later, the signal was activated and Ian began transmitting.

"Welcome to the Soul-eater feast! On the menu today, roasted Elohim on wings, Elohim brochette on lava platter, braised Elohim on skewers, served with a side dish of spicy-hot magma, the bone of contention dish, composed of an Elohim Pig served with a side dish of Scavengers and a glass of red lava wine. Side orders are welcomed. Please reserve in advance, as the supply is limited and dwindling fast!"

Ian signalled to Iridia to close the connection.

"What is the radio activity?"

"It went dead, but those that had been waiting beyond the shield have begun moving massively toward us."

"Why did you do this?" Harold asked.

"To taunt them into moving in. We cannot wait on them forever, and we want them below the Moon and too close to the surface of the globe to manoeuvre properly. The collapse of the shield will signal the rush to the buffet, and I want them too enraged to think."

"Dad, Ian’s idea is not bad. They are not communicating anymore and that is to our advantage. It already shows its benefits too! The number of collisions between spaceships has exploded near us and it is likely to increase even more as they try to cram themselves like sardines in a box."

"If the God of War approves, who am I to complain?"

"It is raining Soul-eaters on the planet now. Initially it was a drizzle but now it is a downpour," added Harp as he monitored the planetary surface.

"How stupid can they be? All they needed to do was wait for us in space!" said Timor.

"When you are hungry to the point they are, it is your stomach that does the thinking for you."

"Harp is right, Timor. They have been living off scraps for the past 17,000 years, waiting for this moment like the Ancients waited for the Manna. It never will materialise because their laboratory got blown up a long time ago and their genetic experiments went awry but they do not know it. They think this is the proverbial Golden Egg, carrying their food supply! They cannot imagine what really happened, I think. And no one could leave this trap to inform them of the catastrophe." Enron said.

Figure 7: The Melted Earth

"Is this not ironic? They think they are rescuing their kin and the result of their experiences in developing a permanent food supply! Are they not in for an unpleasant surprise!" commented Ian.

"Ten seconds to collapse!" Harp informed everyone.

"Here come the Mosquitoes!" said Ian as a cloud of spaceships surged forward diving toward them from every direction. "Is the Goblin core still intact?"

"Yes, Ian. I used Magic to protect it."

"Detonate it!"

The result was spectacular! The Earth shivered, and began slowing down on its orbit. In time, it would spiral in the Sun, but not before meeting a lot of debris from the incoming train of planetoids. Even the rotation of the Earth slowed down, creating a tidal wave of magma that broke through what was left of the thin crust.

"Ready short range weapons!" ordered Sitar.

"Weapons in charge!" said Paschal.

"Shield at 5%!" Harp informed them.

"Surge in progress!" Thorsten commented.

"Who commands the secondary bridge?" Ian asked.

"Alaric is handling it today." Sitar replied.

"He has mastered a lot since we got him out from under his overbearing Dad, has he not?" Harp said.

"He sure has. Now it is the Dad that looks up at his Son with envy. Too bad the old Man keeps failing at everything magical while his Son runs through this like it was a walk in the park. Luckily, Alaric has the good sense not to rub it in!"

"The Soul-eater ships are 25 miles out!" Thorsten commented.

"Hold your fire. Let them come to a hair of our surface!"

Everyone watched the approaching Soul-eater ships that began slowing down in preparation for landing on Thebes’ outer surface.

"Can we detect where they land?"

"Yes."

"As soon as they have three legs in contact with the surface magnetise the area and then transfer the magma heat that we are sucking in to their ships. We will have Soul-eater Lobsters! Also apply an electromagnetic field to them, so they cannot communicate!"

"You are not planning on eating them, are you?" Alexander asked, making a face.

"I am not that dumb," replied Sitar. "Anyway, I prefer my steaks raw!"

"The Soul-eaters are hovering about a mile off. I do not understand why. They are losing ship from the rocks. Someone has suggestions for this?" asked Sitar.

"Maybe they are waiting for a door and do not understand why there are none?" Sven said, as he sat on Ian’s lap.

"Truth be told, Sven has a good point. Let them search! The more they wait, the more their ships get destroyed and we have nothing to do."

The waiting game resumed and the armada of Soul-eater ships was getting denser by the minute. They had finally decided to synchronise their fire to stop the hail from cutting them to shred before they could resolve the problem posed by the huge sphere’s lack of entrance.

"Let us give the Soul-eaters a scare. Dive!" ordered Ian.

"Increasing gravity well!" replied Paschal.

"Sinking rate?"

"Ten feet per minute," replied Thorsten.

"Too slow!" said Ian.

Paschal increased the apparent density of Thebes once more, and the rate of dive was brought to 30 feet per minute.

"Soul-eater activity?" Ian asked.

"They seem to be too busy staying alive to notice we are now sinking!" Harp replied.

"Paschal?"

"I am bringing our sinking rate to a mile per minute. If that does not get them to move, I wonder what will!"

It took half an hour for the Soul-eaters to notice the more them apparent change and dive in panic toward the sphere. Thousands of hooks were launched from the Soul-eater ships that were closer to the sphere.

"Hey! Is this not nice of them! They want to pull us out of here!" said Harp.

"Let the hooks take hold!" ordered Ian.

"Magnetic field activated," came back from Paschal.

"How many Soul-eaters have tied their fate to ours?"

"Something around 6,000,000 have done so," said Harp.

"Are there any others doing so?"

"No, it is stopped. The cables are tense. It looks like the top of the Sphere has grown hair!"

The image made a few people chuckle.

"Paschal! Full dive! Let us see how they like a lava bath!"

The sphere began to sink at a considerable rate and pulling the Soul-eaters behind it.

"They have put out all the thrust they can!" Harp told the others, "Paschal, increase the dive rate!"

"Okay. How far above the surface are they?"

"Two miles!"

"Increasing dive to 100 miles per hour. They will learn that liquid rock is as dense as solid rock!"

A few seconds later, the Elohim ships began colliding with the surface of the planet and sinking. less than 10 feet below the surface the ships began crumpling under the pressure, exploding violently in a firecracker show worthy of a New Year party!

"Those that are the furthest are trying to cut the tethers with lasers but it is taking too much time," Harp said.

"Bringing the speed to 200 miles per hour!" said Paschal.

"The last ship is coming down! It blew up on contact!" noted Harp.

"Ah, fresh air! It feels goo to see 6,000,000 Elohim ships out of commission!" commented Typhoon.

"Enron, move us from under the sinking ship debris by moving west along the Equator. Paschal, release the tethers, balance the ship at its current depth plus two miles!" ordered Ian.

The orders were immediately followed by action. Enron made the giant sphere spin at a high rate, cleansing its surface of most of the meteoritic debris. As the Atlantean ship sank quickly, leaving behind the cables it began moving out from under the rain of garbage it had pulled behind.

"We are two diameters away from our original position!" Enron informed the Captain.

"Surface!"

Paschal reversed the gravity well and quickly brought the Atlantean city-sphere to the surface.

"I do not think the Soul-eaters will let this go by and continue their waiting games. Sven? Go check on my little Pups, okay? I am worried about their feeling left alone. I have not had time to spend with them, so go play big cosy Uncle to them, please?"

The little Dwarf Boy dutifully left the lap of Ian, and ran to the portal to get to the Wolf den that held Ian’s Pups and females. He had a work to do, and he would do it!

Just as the Atlanteans surfaced, they saw the trail left by the Black star as it flew toward its destiny pass over them. A bright trail of light marked its passage, and quite a few Soul-eater ships were caught in its path, exploding violently.

"The countdown is at 65 minutes to final destruction of the shield!" Thorsten said, as he did the orbital calculation.

"I wonder how they managed to pack so many ships for this expedition?"

"They are coming from everywhere in the Universe, Dad. They must have kept an eye on sidereal time for 17,000 years, bidding their time, maybe even more, since this trap has been in effect for millions of years, predating our arrival by an unknown amount."

Typhoon, get ready! They have decided the waiting game is over!" said Harp as he saw the Soul-eaters converge as one toward their new position.

"Hold fire! Let them touch down! Paschal, on my signal, trigger a teragauss magnetic field!" said Sitar, as the Elohim came down, firing on the Sphere with all they had.

A few seconds later, Sitar gave another strange order.

"Paschal, shape the surface into parabolic mirrors!"

As the shape of the surface changed into microscopic parabolic mirrors, the lasers fired by the Elohim were reflected toward their ships, destroying those that had been firing on the Sphere.

"It is working! Installing these nanobots under the skin of the ship was a genial idea!" said Sitar. "Thank you Timor for the idea! We must look like a Cat with the hair straight on its back!"

"Still no spin?"

"No, Enron! We must look like we are using passive defences only!"

"The Elohims are backing off! They are moving into a new configuration to reorganise their assault!" mentioned Thorsten as he eyed the Soul-eater movements using long-range cameras.

"Let them reorganise as much as they want."

A few minutes later, Thorsten came back with another comment.

"They have come to a decision! It looks like a layered dome. They have a lot of problems maintaining it intact as it gets shelled from debris, but they are working hard!"

"I love it when nature is on our side!" said Ian.

"It is not on theirs!" replied Typhoon.

"One minute to touch-down!" commented Thorsten as he began a countdown.

"Touchdown!"

"Percentage of covering?"

"It is at 20% and climbing! It is now at 50%, 75%, and now 90%! Covering complete!"

"Magnetise!"