The Quantum Connection

'Tabitha, are you gone yet?' I called her.

'I let loose about ten more missiles and then hit the gas! We are about two-tenths of a light year away and picking up speed. You'll have to bring Anson and Jim,' Tabitha said.

'I understand,' I said as I set down on the landing field. 'Jim, Anson, where are you?'

'We are straight above you and headed your way.' Then they appeared right beside me in static warp bubbles. 'Okay, good. Let's get the hell out of here.'

'NOT SO FAST, MONKEYS!' A flash of light from above scattered the three of us by a hundred meters. Opolawn fired his lightning bolt at us. The smaller personal warp fields were strained tremendously by the bolt, much more so than was the Phoenix's system.

Steven, your warp armor can't take many more hits like that one. 

I was afraid of that. Thanks for the warning, Mike. 

Okay, Steven. 

'Anson, Jim, scatter and don't give him a target! Keep moving at high speeds!' I shouted over the comm.

'Roger that shit!' I knew that came from Anson.

'You got it, Steve!' Jim said.

The three of us got Opolawn in the classic dogfight merry-go-round. Anson would zip by him and then I would go head-to-head with him from a different direction, while Jim would be trying to get an angle on him. We rolled and tossed and looped around him at hypersonic velocities and would occasionally impact him. His personal warp field, or whatever armor he was wearing, was strong, but it was slower to maneuver. We had him in the classic fast, small, maneuverable fighters versus one big, powerful fighter type of air battle. Just like the MiGs versus the F-4s in Vietnam—Mike told me this. This was working well for us for a few seconds. We made several good hits on him and each time it seemed that his illumination dimmed a bit. But then the tide of the battle turned. Opolawn got wise to our three-dimensional battle tactics and took one dimension away from us.

He fought us to the surface, where the ground would limit our maneuverability. A second later I was staring closely at the Moon of Lumpeya City as I smacked into it. It was covered with civilization and I took out a good portion of ten city blocks. I rolled over and reversed back to Lumpeya City at full warp of the armor. It took about a second and a half to make it back to the fight.

Anson and Jim were holding their own with him and my abrupt return caught Opolawn off guard. I hammered him four kilometers straight down through the temple and into the crust of the planet itself. As we passed down through layer after layer of crust and water tables and limestone Opolawn finally stopped the downward momentum and flung me hard sideways a good half of a kilometer through the limestone bed. He shot upward to the surface only to be sandwiched by Anson and Jim.

I plowed up through the crust and surfaced through the center of the city, causing the large columns to topple in a couple of places. When those thousand-meter columns fell, they really fell!

'Where are you?' I called out.

'We're over the river by the landing strip again!' Jim said.

'And you ain't gonna believe this shit, but the air field is in perfect condition and I think I just saw Prawmitoos trying to make his way across to the little alien ship. Yeeow!!' Anson replied just as Opolawn hammered him.

'GIVE UP MONKEYS! YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!' the alien emperor's voice boomed through the comm.

'Anson's hit escape velocity, Steven! I need some help here!' Jim said. I could see a mountain a few hundred kilometers off to the east explode as Anson passed through it and continued on spaceward. Opolawn had hit him hard.

Jim and I tried to squeeze Opolawn several times but to no avail—he was too fast! We actually banged into each other a couple of times a little harder than I would've liked and the sky was filled with window-shattering sonic booms. Then I rushed Opolawn and stopped short with a feint that caused a shock wave to scatter debris in his face. Jim hammered him. Opolawn's larger, more sluggish bubble only moved a few kilometers. But it gave us a millisecond to breathe.

'I don't think we can force his warp field to overload, Jim!' I said.

'I think you're right, aaagggh!' Jim splashed and skipped through the ocean and traced out into orbit as he caught the full brunt of a lightning bolt from Opolawn.

'We have to get out of here, guys!' I yelled over the comm.

Opolawn and I were chasing each other around in circles until Anson poured up from the ocean and grabbed Opolawn by surprise. With a great sonic boom Anson forced him upward and upward and upward until I could see an explosion on the surface of the moon of Lumpeya City above. An outsider looking in at the battle might have thought that it looked like something from a comic book, like Superman's epic fight against Doomsday, or a video game like the Gladiator Sequence, or an episode of Dragonball Z 3D, but this was no game or comic book and there was no television magic required here. This was a battle of wills and alien technology and good old human stubbornness!

Jim settled down beside me.

'What kept you?' I asked.

'Them!' He pointed at more of Opolawn's fighters bearing in on us. Anson appeared from the top of them taking out several and scattering the rest. Opolawn wouldn't be far behind and we were getting overwhelmed and tired.

Mike, can you give me an edge on Opolawn somehow? 

I can track him in your mind, Steven, but you aren't fast enough to outmaneuver him. Opolawn's computational skills are quite remarkable. I fear you are not capable of defeating him, Mike warned me.

Are you? I asked as we started back through the wheel with Opolawn, and now more of his fighters were entering the wheel as well.