given the job of watching over Earth
The Alliance ruled its members with a heavy fist, and major violations usually led to the offender facing orbital bombardment. It was at that point that the Directorate was formed by all nations as Earth’s central government to make sure that no one would violate the many rules imposed by the Alliance, which included the twenty-light-year limit, or do anything to antagonize any member of the Alliance when they were on Earth. Weapon development immediately took a high priority, and the government vowed that Earth would not be caught defenseless again. The three hundred years of peace ended abruptly.
One would think that it would be easy to avoid stepping out of line as long as Earth stayed inside the twenty- light-year limit. The problem was that members of the Alliance would come to visit Earth to see its young civilization. Earth’s very existence depended upon no one doing anything that would cause an incident with these visitors. There also had to be central control of all Earth’s space ships to make sure no one violated the twenty- light-year limit. That’s why such tight controls were placed on people’s behavior. A hundred years ago a Cainth noble had the misfortune to die while visiting Earth. Within one week a Cainth war fleet arrived to investigate and take action. Thank the creator that he had died from natural causes and there was a Spejk doctor from the Alliance visiting Earth to confirm it prior to the war fleet’s arrival. The Cainth admiral actually slammed his four arm pads on his ship’s control board because he wasn’t going to be able to eradicate the planet.
On their way out of the Earth’s system, the Cainth encountered one of Earth’s new battle cruisers returning from the Virgo cluster and proceeded to attack it. Unlike the first encounter, this Earth ship had new weapons and was able to hold off its attackers for an hour. It had more than two hundred ships chasing and firing at it, but it still managed to destroy two Cainth destroyers and disable a cruiser and battleship before it perished. The Cainth suddenly realized that in the future it might not be so easy to destroy this young civilization. The final message from the admiral was, “Next time we’ll bring four fleets.”
Even bad things sometimes yield good results. The weapon designers learned a great deal from that battle about the Cainth offensive and defensive capabilities, which would lead to great improvements in Earth’s ships’ armaments. The Directorate felt all along that Cainth visitors showed up looking for an excuse to eliminate a possible rival from the universe. Again, we have to thank the creator that not all races in the Alliance were as bloodthirsty as the Cainth. Another good thing that happened as a result of the Earth’ ship’s destruction was that the Cainth were reluctant to attack with only their fleets. The effectiveness of the Earth ship in battle concerned them, especially since they had no idea how many ships Earth had built. So from that point on, even if they had a reason to try and justify an attack, they had to persuade other members of the Alliance to join them. After a hundred years of hearing numerous petty reasons from the Cainth, most members of the Alliance just ignored them.
So he sat on the moon and thought about why twenty ships were looking for him. He guessed that stealing that ship frightened the Directorate enough to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. “They’re overreacting,” he thought. “Even I wouldn’t dare go outside the twenty-light-year limit. That would put Leila and Danielle in danger and I just wouldn’t do that. I was hoping to make it to a new colony located near Ross 248. Of course, since they didn’t know about Leila or Danielle, they couldn’t trust what I would do. Well, it shouldn’t last too much longer either way. A closer shot from a laser or suffocation would end it.” He wondered how much longer they would continue to look if they didn’t find his body.
He stood up and stretched his legs, moved a little deeper in the shadow, leaned back against the wall to relax, and fell back flat on his back. There was a hole in the wall leading into some kind of a cave. It was in the pitch-black of the crater’s shadow and he had sat down right next to the opening and hadn’t seen it. He stretched his arms out trying to touch the walls but could feel nothing within his reach. He took a few steps further in and turned on his small suit light and immediately saw a body lying at his feet. It had on a strange-looking blue spacesuit that appeared to not have any seams, and it looked to be about seven feet tall. He reached down to turn the body over and as soon as he touched the suit several things happened at once. The opening to the cave instantly disappeared and was replaced by solid rock, lights came on, and he felt and heard a roaring vibration that ran through his entire body. As he fell to his knees in fear he saw a small ship in the back of the cave and knew that because of his stupidity he had just placed Leila, Danielle, and all of mankind on the path to total and complete annihilation.
Beginnings
Chapter 1
His name was Thomas Anglo Gardner and he was a pretty normal five-year-old. He spent his days in school and his evenings with his mother and father. Life was fun and always full of games, learning, and new experiences. He was a good student and loved math, particularly geometry. He seemed to have a flair for shapes and how they related to each other. He could put puzzles together in record time. He enjoyed his classmates and they liked being around him. You can say he played well with others. He had a quick smile and didn’t mind laughing at himself. He was average in appearance: medium height, light brown hair, and green eyes. It was easy to overlook him until you looked into his eyes; then you could see there was a lot going on and that he possessed a good measure of intelligence.
He had just finished playing tag with his best friend, Eric. They were both out of breath and were lying on the lawn in front of Eric’s home, looking up at the quickly darkening sky as the first stars made an appearance. Eric’s home was on a small hill on the outskirts of Central City, and the spires of the government buildings could be seen in the distance reflecting the setting sun off their crystal windows. Both boys loved looking at the stars and dreaming about someday flying a starship out into the galaxy. The night was coming quickly, and the hum of the insects as they flew around coupled with the drone of the floaters flying far overhead gave a peaceful background noise to the evening. Eric was taller than Thomas, with red hair and a demeanor to match; he was constantly getting into things. His mother had told Thomas’s mother that if the world was a bucket, then Eric was a spoon; he kept things stirred up. Thomas thought that Eric was the most fun to be around of anyone he knew, and Eric played off him constantly. They lay on their backs and stared up at the stars in silence; then Eric rolled over and asked with frustration in his voice, “Why can’t I catch you? I know I’m faster than you are but I can’t ever catch you.”
Thomas laughed and said, “Because no one can catch the tag master; he’s uncatchable. No one in the universe can catch him.” Then Thomas poked Eric in the ribs and laughed even louder.
“I want to know why I can’t catch you.”
Thomas looked at his best friend, who had a very serious expression, and said, “I don’t know. I just go in another direction than the one you’re going. I see which way you’re going and I go the other way.”
“How do you see which way I’m going?”
“Your shadows give you away.”
“Duh, if you haven’t noticed, it’s dark.”
“I don’t mean that kind of shadow,” he said, just as Eric’s mother came through the front door and shouted, “Eric, get in this house right now. You’ve left your room in a mess and you know you’re supposed to be in when it gets dark.”
“Eric’s in trouble, Eric’s in trouble,” Thomas began chanting as they jumped up, and they both laughed as they ran up the grassy slope and through the front door, their game of tag forgotten as they headed upstairs.
One of Thomas Gardner’s favorite games was tag. He was the tag master in his class at school not because he was so fast, although he had good speed, but it seemed just before you could touch him he would dodge just out of reach. No one could catch him. His schoolmates started calling him by his initials, T A G. Somehow the name stuck and from the first level on he was just known as Tag. If you asked his playmates if they liked Thomas, they wouldn’t know who you were talking about; everyone knew him as Tag. Even his teachers began calling him that. His playmates didn’t give much thought as to why he was uncatchable but just assumed he was really quick. If you asked Tag why he couldn’t be caught, he’d say, “I go one way, they go another.” His teachers noticed occasionally that he would start to stand up just before they would ask him a question. They thought this was due to his paying close attention and seeing he was about to be called on. All in all, if you asked anyone who knew him they would tell you he was just a normal, everyday five-year-old. Nothing was farther from the truth.
At home his father would talk with him about life and the things he would have to do to be successful. Often
