The Targothian: The Circle Closes: Targothian Trilogy, #3

By Larry Yoakum III

With the world safe and the Crimson Death a distant memory, Sargas settles down to live out the rest of his life, now fully mortal and aging normally again. However, in his sunset years and now an elderly man, he is requested to come to meet someone claiming to be the son of his old enemy, Gostal. Facing this new threat, the original Targothian Knight regains his powers and sets himself upon a course that will take him to a faraway planet, a strange dimension, and ultimately meet a destiny which has been a very long time in the making.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.O.T. Publications
• Release date: May 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393559603

Larry Yoakum III

Born in Wichita, Kansas and raised in Valley Center, a small nearby town, Larry graduated High School in 1993 and joined the Air Force in 1995.  Serving 4 years, he got out and ended up in the Dallas, Texas area.  Writing short stories since school, Larry eventually put them to print and now has several published works. 

Book preview

Here it is, the 3rd and final installment of the Targothian Trilogy. 

This story is really close to my heart.  I’ve wanted to tell it since I was about fourteen years old.  Believe it or not, the story has never been altered in my mind since I came up with it.

I have been influenced, of course, by sci-fi, fantasy, and horror classics, and I hope that this story will one day stand up against the test of time and be just as much of an enjoyment to read as it was for me to write.

My wife, Allison, my parents Larry Jr. and Anita, my best friend and brother James Timber and his wife and my sister from a different mister Dee.  You’re all my family and I thank you for being in my life.

Before I get started, here are words from two people close to my heart and are also a part of the story.  My beloved wife Allison and my brother from another mother James.

The world of the Targothian is filled with a rich and robust history. Larry has had these stories in his head for many years and is so happy he has finally completed the tale. I am honored to be a character within this amazing adventure. Larry, I love you and am proud you stayed the course with your passion for writing. 

Love Allison Teak

My Terran name is James, but my Targothian name is Timber Targoth, First Knight of the Knight of Targoth Order of Veterans.  My weapon is named Fenrir, slayer of those opposed to the Knights.

TACTAB isn’t just a saying, it is our way of life.  Deep down inside, I knew there was something more to me than my mere existence.  My bruder, Larry, has shown and taught me that there are more than just us here on this world through his published works.  He has gone over the struggles of our Targothian brethren. The last part of this trilogy has shown me that this story might be over, but the ways of Targoth will never cease.

My friend, my bruder, my Lord Knight.  TACTAB

And now, for my loving readers, here is the conclusion to the Targothian Trilogy....

PROLOGUE

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT is getting closer to the end of this thing.  I must confess that even now, all these years later I can recall the events of my life with a clear precision.  It’s been such a long life that I lost count of how many years it has been.

Hell, I’m not even sure what year it is as I transcribe all this stuff.

Allison and I had a great life together.  I managed to sneak her to Targoth a few times and the planet seemed remarkably familiar to her.  You have to love DNA remembrance. 

Though we had many happy times together, we never had any children.  As it would seem, becoming tene again didn’t restore my reproductive capabilities.  I could still have sex like a normal person, but I was sterilized.  I suppose you can’t really go back to the way you were in your past, can you?

We were happy and in love, and I did stay on as the Lord Knight of the entire K.O.T. for a long time, too.  I stepped down in 2025 and Allison and I retired to Anchorage, Alaska.  We were young, still, but I had the money and resources to have us both stop working.

I continued to give advice and attend the occasional functions of the K.O.T., but I knighted Timber as my successor, and he led from his hometown of Memphis.

The only thing of note that occurred during these years was in March of 2020 when the Corona Virus, dubbed CONVID-19, spread across the world in an almost pandemic fashion. It lasted until around September of that year and during that time, the K.O.T. did a lot of charity work, such as delivering medical and food supplies to the unfortunate. 

Once that was over, life went back to a somewhat normal capacity, though with the wisdom of sanitation and watching your health more closely being a major addition to our everyday lives.

But as with normal life, loss is inevitable.

Dee left us in late 2049.  Timber followed not long after in 2050.  Allison left me in 2051.  That was just as devastating as when I first lost her as Teak so very long ago. 

Time crept up on me, and soon I was eighty years old, physically at least, in April of 2055. 

There I was, an old man living alone in Alaska.  Old people were supposed to be hating the cold, but I loved it.  I still had Targothian DNA, after all.

I did age pretty normally, though a bit slower than a full-blooded Terran.  My Targothian side aged me at a rate where I looked to be in my early sixties instead of a man in his eight decade of life.

Hell, it wasn’t eight decades.  Fifty-eight decades I had lived.  Time travel aside, I had long since began to feel like my past life never happened for real.  It felt like I had watched it in an old movie.

The past is never really far away, though, and in those early months of 2055, my past as a former Bah’Tene and defender of the Three Galaxies came back to kick me in the teeth.

CHAPTER 1

I HAD RECEIVED A MESSAGE from K.O.T. headquarters in Wichita, KS.  After Timber passed on, the 1st Knight had been anointed as the new Lord Knight and moved operations back to my old hometown.

I was requested to come to Wichita right away.  There was someone there wanting to meet with Sargas in regard to a new master of the Crimson Death who has risen. 

He called himself Gostal’s Son.  I knew that wasn’t a real thing as Bah’Tene couldn’t have kids.  Nevertheless, Gostal’s supposed son called himself Samael and claimed to be the new heir to his father’s legacy.

This was the last thing I expected to hear on that late Sunday afternoon.  I remember it was the 25th of April and around four in the afternoon.  Yes, I wasn’t lying when I said my memory was that good.

I might have been a tene, but I still had my Bah’Tene memory. 

I agreed to fly there immediately, and I hopped into the Hunter.  That was a well put together piece of shuttlecraft, I tell you. 

Allison and I had our own little piece of land and I had the Hunter parked in its own hanger about fifty feet from the house.  We were about twenty miles outside the limits of Anchorage, so we had a lot of privacy.

It wasn’t long before I was landing in the hidden hanger of the K.O.T. headquarters.  A car is there to meet me and drives me back to the meeting hall.

It looked the same as when I was last there before stepping down as Lord Knight.  Memories flooded back to me.

I had to get my head together for this little sit-down with Samael.  I asked the Knights to take me to him.

I was unarmed and an old man.  Sargotha was still back at my house in Anchorage.  I hadn’t summoned it to my hand in many years.  Not since I stepped down from Lord Knight.  I didn’t even know at the time if it would still respond after such a long period of not being used.

Leading me to the main meeting room, I saw who must have been this so-called Son of Gostal.  The smug bastard was sitting at the seat reserved for the Lord Knight.  Behind him was the Peter Max painting of me that was a gift from so long ago.

He looked normal enough.  A typical looking humanoid.  His hair was close cropped and dark, much like Gostal’s.  He certainly modeled his appearance after the old psychotic.  He even wore similar crimson robes Gostal had on when I took him out for the second time.

Sargas, it is so nice to finally meet the man who murdered my father.

I sat down and the Lord Knight, name of Hawk, stood at my back, hand on his sword handle.  He was ready to protect the defenseless old man that sat in front of him.

Curious, I asked how Samael could possibly be the son of Gostal.  It seemed an impossible claim.  Was it just to get me to come visit?

Never you mind about that, Sargas.  I just want vengeance for my father’s death!

Simple revenge?  Is that all this was about?  Then why not just kill me and be done with it?  Seemed to be a valid question.

That lacks passion, I’m afraid.  His voice was as even as Gostal’s and somehow twice as disturbing in that calm tone.  I want to issue Challenge to you!

Challenge?  I wasn’t even a Bah’Tene anymore.  Would I have even been honor bound to that?

My proposal is quite simple, Sargas.  If you agree to the Challenge, then win or lose, I’ll leave your Earth be.  I’m bound by honor and blood in my father’s name.

I was being forced into an impossible situation.  I asked what if I were to refuse.

That would be truly stupid, wouldn’t it?  I just said win or lose you will have your precious planet safe.  Saying not to participate means my fleet will destroy the entire state of Kansas and the rest of the population will be rounded up and sold into intergalactic slavery.  Trust me, there are still many civilizations out there that would love to use your Terrans as either food or labor.

So, that was how I was to die.  A weakened old man being cut down by the heir of one of his greatest adversaries. 

I supposed it was going to be the only way this would go down.  I’d be dead either way.  At least this way there was a chance to save Earth.  If he was being deceptive, then I’d be dead anyway.

I accept the Challenge, asshole.  I figured I may as well be rude.  Just in my grumpy old man nature at that point.

As the challenged, I had the choice of where to fight.  Thinking for a few minutes I came up with a place I knew would be secluded and allow me to die on the planet of my ancestor’s origins.

The Dead Zone on Targoth.

As the challenger, Samael decrees the fight will be in one week.  Allowing me to get my final affairs in order was done out of respect for my past reputation.

I felt deep down that it would be better this way.  Earth wasn’t ready for a big fight with an intergalactic group of militant crazies.  Even with the Knights on planet.

Yes, the K.O.T. would jump in to help the fight, but at that moment, this was the only thing I thought I could do for the greater good.

Once we both agreed, Samael left and headed back to wherever he came from.  The Knights all asked if they could fight in my place.

I said no.  This was to be my fight.  I’d die on Targoth in a final battle.  If only I hadn’t become tene.

I didn’t regret it, though.  I’d have still been young and healthy and my love and my close friends would have aged and died before me.  I’ve dealt with that so much in my life.

I made my way back to the Hunter.  I had a week to go before I had to be on Targoth.  What would I do with my final week of life?

After five hundred eighty-eight years of living, I was finally going to be meeting my final moment soon.

Not sure if it was divine inspiration by my spiritual father Michael the Archangel or if it was something I read in a book when I discovered the secret to casting off the Bah’Tene abilities, but an idea came into my mind.  All might not be lost yet.

I took off into the air and headed back to my house in Alaska.  Sending a message to Targoth, I told them Sargas will be arriving in one week’s time.

CHAPTER 2

THE RESPONSE WAS A mixture of amazement and disbelief.  They must have thought me a legend, someone unreal but possibly based off a real person.

I had not realized just how long I had been gone from Targoth as the Lord Knight.  Going back to sneak my wife onto the planet, I had traveled incognito, even disguising the Hunter.

As I went to my ship, parked in a nearby building that appeared to be a large storage shed, I turned and looked back at my house.

Allison and I had made this a home together.  Having it built from scratch, it was designed to be a dream home for us both. I even had an upstairs home office that had a hidden pole to slide down to the garage below where I could hop on my bike and take off.

We were totally off the grid, so to speak.  Though we had a satellite for our internet where we streamed movies and television shows that we wanted as we didn’t want to have cable.  For electricity power, we also had a windmill, solar panels, and a backup generator.   

We grew our own veggies and for the most part, I hunted our own meat. 

I had an outdoor building put up as a meeting place for visiting K.O.T. people.  Acting as an advisor, I gave the benefit of my centuries of experience to the current Lord Knight, my brother Timber.  I had planned to do so with future Lord Knights until the day I passed onto the afterlife.

In a way, I was like the President of the United States.  Whenever they leave their term of leadership, they are still kept apprised of national security.  And so, it was that way with me and any K.O.T. business, both on Earth and out in the Three Galaxies.

There was, of course, a division of the Knights up in Anchorage.  They would on occasion come pay me a visit where we’d share beer and just talk about daily things.  It wasn’t all business with my brothers.

Up until the day he passed on, Timber visited me regularly.  We spent many a night sitting outside on my back patio.  Drinking ale, eating barbecue, looking up at the sky and the mountains in the distance. 

The stars were still a thing of beauty to me.  Though I had lived over five hundred years and traveled the galaxies, the night sky over my home still made me feel like I did when I was young and would gaze up at the dark skies.

The K.O.T. had grown into sort of the unofficial guardians of Earth.  Working closely with various intelligence agencies, they helped protect the planet from threats both worldly and extraterrestrial.

To the everyday world, though, the K.O.T. was just a bunch of bikers.

If only the planet was aware of just how many near misses there were with the world almost coming to an end. 

For the most part, people still didn’t believe in the supernatural.  Most were content with believing the world was mundane.  Perhaps it was for the best.  Tene on Earth were not ready for the greater truths of the universe.

I myself had the distinction of being involved in many of those conflict resolutions, whether directly fighting with Sargotha in hand or calling the shots on missions.  Now that I had retired, I found my advice was still regarded as extremely important.

Besides activity within the Knights of Targoth, I also spent a lot of time writing.  I didn’t really publish everything I had written but I did manage to