Patterns of Chaos: Book One - The First War
Chapter 7

An ocean away, Jennifer Safyo lay in a heap, heart pounding, eyes streaming with tears. She had been there, in his mind, helpless to do anything but watch as he committed an atrocity against that poor guard.

Never again. She swore silently to herself. She refused to allow something like this ever happen again if she had the ability to stop it. Jennifer shakily rose to her feet; hand on the wall to hold herself steady. Had her opponent seen into her mind as well? Did he know where she was? She did not think so, he had been too busy showing off and laughing at her inability to stop him. Still, better safe than sorry, time to relocate.

She moved along the wall to a cabinet, removed a bottle of whiskey. She had been drinking hard lately, not that her accelerated metabolism could tell. All the downsides of alcoholism...none of the perks. She raised the bottle to her lips, but could only swallow a drop before realizing something: at heart, she was a fighter, always had been. She had fought cancer as a child. Fought Paul when she first realized what kind of monster he was. And even in her current borderline state, she had retained enough presence of mind to wire a bomb onto a shuttle.

This sorry wreck trying to drink away her fear? That was not her. Choosing to forgo the cliché of throwing the bottle, she gently sat it back down. The whiskey was not responsible for her anger, the lunatic in space was. In addition, truth be told, it was very good whiskey that did not deserve to be wasted.

Okay. She had been unable to do anything this time. There would be a next time. She would be ready for it. She might have gone at things half-assed initially, but now she had to focus her anger and pain and use it against Stragdoc to stop him. Whatever he planned, she needed to be the fly in his ointment.

On board the shuttle, all there sat in quiet awe of Paul Stragdoc as they returned to the Chancel. Of course, he drank in the silent adoration, positively drunk on power. Never before had he let the power loose as he had this night, and knew he would never be able to reign it in again.

Nor did he want to. He wanted to revel in it, and if his people were going to also develop psionic ability, then they would need training, guidance...Stragdoc began to plan, plot, and ponder what his next step would be. Of course, the human governments would also be planning a response, but they lacked a military force that could come after them at present. They were only capable of fighting an atmospheric threat...going after a nation that was not bound to Earth’s surface was still beyond their capabilities at present.

At present. It was obvious that they would be coming for him eventually. Therefore, they would need to be ready. The small fleet he had would need to be expanded, militarized further. So would the Chancel itself, for that matter. It had only been designed as a safe haven initially, but now it was a base from which to strike hard and fast.

As the shuttle docked, he was in motion, striding through the airlock. Word had preceded him, and an assemblage of people were standing there in awe of the man who could tear a building down with his mind. “Open a communications channel to the propulsion section.” He ordered as he moved past the crowd of onlookers. The technical officer on the other side of the docking bay handed the Emperor the receiver obediently and stood aside respectfully. Stragdoc indulged the crewman with a smile.

“Propulsion. Engineer Simms.” The voice on the line began.

“Engineer Simms, this is the Emperor. We need to change orbit, how long to bring the engines online?”

“Depends how far we’re moving, sir.”

Stragdoc thought for a brief moment. “Lunar-stationary orbit, but on the dark side of the moon. I want that rock blocking Earth’s view of us.”

“Easy to do sir, just need to release our current orbit, and drift around back before locking it back in place. Depending on how fast you want the Chancel moving, I can have enough power cycled up in, say, twenty minutes.”

“Excellent, Simms.” Stragdoc grinned tightly. “I will entrust things to you, and will meet with you once our new orbit is stabilized.”

“I look forward to it, sir!”

As he ended the connection, Stragdoc turned to face the small crowd. “Make no mistake, my friends. We must now consider ourselves on a war footing, and they will be coming for us eventually. Whether they desire our deaths as revenge or out of fear of their own obsolescence, they will come. And we must be ready for it.”

Calixta Morsalis, former Imperial Ambassador to Earth, was the first to speak. Her treatment had not been inhumane, but the embarrassment of her captivity was an open wound, salved by the Emperor’s words. “Long live the Emperor!” she called in a choked voice.

The others quickly took up the chant, bringing a broad smile to Stragdoc’s face. He raised a hand to signal silence. “My friends, long live all of you, and long live the Empire!”

It was a calculated bit of humility that paid off, as now chants of “Long live the Empire!” thundered around him, fanatical devotion glowing from all present. Word would spread quickly, and soon every man, woman, and child aboard would echo the phrase from the very pits of their souls.

Needless to say, Stragdoc was exceptionally correct as to the world’s response to the destruction he had caused. The governments of Earth united in anger at the Alphites in general, and Stragdoc in particular. The British government was among the loudest, as they had supplied many of the guards at the embassy who were now dead. They proposed the formation of a new global alliance in the face of what was determined to be an overwhelming threat in between the advanced technology on board the Chancel as well as the bizarre abilities displayed by Stragdoc (security footage having filled in exactly what had happened within the building).

Thus did the world ratify the Earth Alliance Pact of 2056, wherein the signing nations agree to put aside all differences, and unify the globe under a centralized governing body until such time that the Alphite threat was neutralized. The few that did not were the usual group of stubborn iconoclasts, determined to maintain their individuality either out of pigheadedness or paranoid thinking that the entire incident had been staged in order to have their dictators-for-life surrender to foreign interests.

The signing countries then chose to change the name of the United Nations to the United Earth Alliance. All member nations still had relative individual autonomy, but still had to follow the will of the Security Council, which was built now solely out of the most economically and militarily powerful nations of the world. Military and scientific secrets were made available as the Earth prepared for a new attack.

Which was not to say that each nation did not maintain a few internal secrets. The Americans felt that Stragdoc was the key, that should he be removed, the threat would end. As such, they began secret plans of their own

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