Chapter 2

Jeffrey the Bold was relaxing in his compound's redoubt, his favorite wife beside him, when Benito the Shaman burst in, his eyes wild.

"It is gone," he wailed, "The Vessel from the Stars is gone. Our ancestors have returned and taken it away!"

"What nonsense is this," Jeffery growled, arising from his bed of furs, "How do you know of this, Benito?"

"A woodcutter told me," was the reply. "He had ventured near the Sacred Place searching for Ironwood when he saw it was gone. It is a miracle, a miracle!"

"I will see this miracle for myself," Jeffery said, reaching for his loincloth, "Take me there."

"You see, is it not a miracle?" Benito said, as Jeffrey and his escort of spear carriers stood in the depression where the ship had rested. "It is a sign from the Star Gods, our ancestors."

"And yet they did not touch our offerings," Jeffery mused. "Surely they must have seen them. Were they displeased? Did they take our Vessel away in anger? This is most disturbing. This bodes ill for the tribe, I fear..."

He stopped in amazement as a strange figure approached them, hobbling painfully over the rim and down the slope, a mat of tangled gray hair obscuring his leathery, wrinkled face. He was barefoot, dressed in animal skins and carried an Ironwood staff.

"It was not the Gods who took the Vessel," he croaked in a voice hoarse from disuse. "It was the People of the Air who took it."

"Who are you and why did you not tell us of this?" Jeffery roared. "To touch the Sacred Vessel is blasphemy most foul."

"I am called Alaric the Hermit," was the reply. "I live yonder in my cave. I heard the noise and ventured as close as I dared as I did not wish to be seen. The Air People lifted the Sacred Vessel from it's resting place and took it with them.

As to why you were not told of this, I am old and unable to walk far. I had hoped someone would come around so I could tell them what I had seen."

"The Air People, the flying ones, they have stolen our sacred relic," Benito wailed anew. "What shall we do mighty one?"

"Send our fastest runners to the other tribes," Jeffery barked to an attendant. "Tell their chiefs to assemble in my compound. We will hold a council of war. Have the acolytes prepare the Fists of Retribution. We shall take our Sacred Ship back from the Air People or die in the attempt."

Air Police Lieutenant Jared Burkhalter was jolted from reminiscing about his lover Freya when a distress call came in on the Aerocruiser's radio.

"All points emergency! This is Stratoliner Lautrec! We are under attack. Our left drive motors are disabled, as are four lift fans. We are maintaining altitude, but the remaining engines are becoming dangerously overloaded. We are initiating a forced landing on the Farming Continent. Send help immediately."

Locking on the liner's locator beam, Jared shoved the cruiser's throttles to maximum and soon had the Lautrec in sight. The airwaves crackled to the cross talk between other patrol cruisers and aeroplatform's converging on the site.

Jared could see the left pod of the Lautrec's drive propellers had been twisted into scrap and four lift fans were seriously damaged. The Lautrec's helmsman skillfully maneuvered the huge craft into a belly landing on the fallow fields below. It struck tail down, and then belly flopped and skidded for several kilometers, sending clods of dirt into the air until it shuddered to a stop. Jared and the other's landed nearby to render assistance as needed.

"We were on our usual route to the Rainforest Continent, when we were struck by a tremendous impact that nearly sent us into a spin," said Captain Angelo Giaconda, mopping his brow with a handkerchief as he sat in the control cabin of an Aeroplatform while Jared debriefed him.

"We were struck four more times in quick succession and the impacts stopped. There were no aircraft in visual range. The attack came out of a clear sky."

"What was your position when the attacks occurred," Jared asked, his minicorder taking the captain's statement.

"We were at cruising altitude, Latitude 27 North, 80 West over the Sea of Storms passing near the Barbarian Continent."

"And you saw nothing unusual?"

"Nothing, the dorsal and ventral solido cams were scanning as per regulations. Possibly they recorded something."

"Possibly; the damage to your liner is extensive and it will need assistance to the Repair Continent. Our platforms will provide the necessary lift needed for you to remain aloft."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Now I must rejoin my crew and see to the passengers transfer to another liner."

Something about the incident seemed oddly familiar to Jared, but he soon became involved in the liner's retrieval operation and he forgot about it.

Sky Police Patrol Unit 24 was following it's programmed pattern over the Forest Continent when a crushing impact sent it spiraling down in a vicious spin. Activated by sensors, drogue chutes unfurled and slowed the craft's decent so that when it hit the trees and then the ground, the fuselage was damaged but it's unconscious pilot was unhurt.

Alerted to the crash, rescue platforms were soon hovering at the scene. When revived, the injured patrol officer could not offer any reason for what had happened. He was taken to a hospital and the damaged cruiser salvaged for clues as to why it had crashed.

An incident report filed at Sky Patrol headquarters found it's way to Jared's desk and it started him thinking again, then he called Freya at Planetary Marine HQ.

Colonel Ephraim Hardesty, Planetary Marines, listened with growing concern as Freya and Jared offered their explanation for the mysterious crashes of the 'Latrec' and Patrol Unit 24.

"The personnel at the Proving Grounds called them Impulse Projectors," Freya was saying, "It took a while to figure out how to fire them, but when they did, they found it could punch a hole in sheet steel from over 6,000 kilometers. Now we're sure they came from the alien ship."

"Where are these weapons now?' The colonel asked.

"They aren't," Freya replied. "When the techs attempted to disassemble them to see what made them tick they melted into puddles of slag."

"How could such unsophisticated people know how to fire such a complex weapon?" Hardesty said. "And are you both of the opinion the Barbarians have eight of these projectors and they are attacking us with them?"

"Yes, sir," Jared responded. "The star ship has ten empty weapon mounts so we think the Barbarians had removed them for some reason; possibly to fight each other. We found two after the firefight at the Boss's fortress, so eight are still out there somewhere."

"It's too much of a coincidence," Freya continued, "That these attacks have occurred less than a month after we brought the alien ship back here. Evidently the barbarians resented our taking it and they're out for revenge. We also think that if they can get in range, they'll attack the Aerocities. It's a disaster waiting to happen."

At that moment, the Colonel's televisor beeped and a flimsy emerged from its printer slot. He read it and frowned.

"It's Condition Red. Three Aerocities are under attack."

He pressed the comm touch pad in his desktop.

"All Aerotank squadrons, attention, I repeat, attention. This is Colonel Hardesty. The following Aerocities are under attack: da Vinci, Cezanne and O'Keefe. Attackers are unknown. Repel attackers at once. Grab some sky, people!"

Freya and Jared leapt to their feet and saluted, Freya saying "I'm joining my squadron, Colonel. Jared ... err ... Lieutenant Burkhalter, is checked out in my WO seat, sir."