Khephra shifted slowly in his bed, so as not to awaken his wife. Detecting no response from her, except the slow rise and fall of her chest, he rolled slowly out of the bed, and slipped quietly from the room.

Carefully shutting the door, he padded barefoot down the down the hall toward a doorway illuminated with a slowly pulsing orange glow. Upon entering, he looked up to see a disk rotating next to the ceiling.

“What are you doing here?” he asked irritably. “I am not supposed to be disturbed while I’m home.”

The disk continued its slow silent spin, but a moment later a small opening appeared in the center of its base. A finger of light streaked from the opening, creating ghostly image almost directly in front of Khephra.

He shook his head. “Oh it’s you,” he said with an annoyed tone. “What is it this time?”

The apparition took a more solid form and said, “We have a crisis.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Whenever do you not have one?”

The figure shook his head. “Someone’s going to kidnap them.”

The statement caused the supreme commander to take a quick breath, but he did not otherwise show alarm.

“Listen, Khephra, we don’t have a lot of…”

“You will address me by my proper rank,” Khephra interrupted sharply.

The ghostly figure hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Your recent promotion to Supreme Commander came as surprise to no one, and this is going to be a serious test of your ability. If my sources are correct, someone may be trying to start a civil war.”

“Who?”

The figure shook his ghostly head. “The KokoroTetians, or the Maatiirani, what does it matter? Someone knew you’d hibernate after the stressful campaign you just won, and they’ve convinced the Over Council to send your fleet on a wild chase as far from the prison planets as possible.”

The supreme commander opened his mouth to respond, but stopped himself and instead moved to a nearby desk to pick up a small disk.

“Khephra here,” he announced while squeezing the disk in the palm of his hand.

A virtual screen appeared in front of him. The face that appeared looked startled, but quickly recovered.

“Yes, Sir!”

“Give me Tactical.”

When a different face appeared on the screen, he spoke without preamble. “What is our position with respect to the prison planet, Prak a’Terra?”

The face looked down for a moment before answering, “Since an Over Council decree moved the Beta-166 division into the southern sector, our nearest ship to that planet is two paks away.”

“Two paks? Why wasn’t I informed of this change?”

“Sorry, Supreme Commander, but we only learned about it after you went into hibernation.”

Khephra jerked around to face the ghostly figure. “Prak a’Terra. What do the natives call it?”

The figure shrugged. “I believe they call it Earth, Supreme Commander.”

“And what does that stand for?” When the figure’s ghostly head shook, Khephra snorted. “These Human creatures. Are they that primitive?”

“They have barely achieved space flight. You can’t expect them to understand the value of a name.”

“And you’re certain someone plans to kidnap the prisoners?”

The figure nodded silently.

The supreme commander’s shoulders sagged as his head shook. “I guess we had to expect this would happen some day.”

His counterpart seemed to shrug. “You know this means you’ll have to defy Over Council orders to deal with it.”

Khephra stared at the figure for a moment more before turning back to the screen.

“Have my battleship and five others ready for deployment as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Sir,” the face acknowledged. “Shall I give them a destination, Sir?”

Keeping his eyes on the ghostly figure, Khephra shook his head. “They will be following me, and that’s all they need to know.”

“Yes, Sir,” the face responded before Khephra lightened his grip on the disk and the screen disappeared.

“We’re going to war then?” the apparition asked with an eagerness that made the supreme commander’s stomach churn.

“We have little choice, it seems.”

His virtual eyes seeming to glow, the ghost jerked a nod and the room went dark.

“Some day I’ll make you pay for this, Ampheet,” he growled in the empty darkness as the tell-tale smell of ozone reached his nose. “Some day.”

Clifford M. Scovell

www.prison-earth.com

Prison Earth – Not Guilty as Charged.