Anno Stellae 6700, Anno Stellae 7074, Anno Stellae 7504, Anno Stellae 7506: RetroStar Chronicles, #3

By R.D. Ginther

Chronicle 51 started off by showing the destruction, or rather half destruction of the diamond OP which the living half found its way to a more palatable environment on Atlantis II. Then there was a sudden increase of OP activities with more finding their way to Earth II, to Wally's dismay. How will he ever keep up with these evil entities? In the meanwhile, one of these pesky entities found itself in the midst of a family feud affair, in a little village where the two wives, Penninah and Hanna, the wives of Elkanah, resided. Perfect for Penninah's personality, this OP found itself riding along with her but only for a short while. The Carbuncle stone located itself in Shiloh where it conveniently found itself in the temple there.

 

Chronicle 52 introduced the jasper stone, another OP, which seemed to be working in conjunction with the others. As if each stone was not a problem in itself for wally, now they appeared to be collaborating with each other, behaving "as thick as thieves". And while keeping watch on these entities, Wally had to focus on events taking place on Earth II with a young man by the name of Jona, the green-faced prophet. FC called out Jona to take a message to Nineveh. Jona immediately departed but intentionally in the opposite direction. Great troubles arose for the crew and the captain of the ship until they took matters in their hands.

 

Chronicle 53 began with Wally reviewing Nineveh's humble act of repentance and the dramatic change in Jona; all at the same time trying to figure out the mysterious disappearance of the three Ops. However, the next generation of Nineveh forgot their judgment and resorted to their old greedy, violent, warlike habits. A revived Babelen swooped in to sack and burn their city. But Babelen's conquering did not end there, it was extended to Israel, namely Jerusalem and its temple, all came under siege. Four young Jews entered into this saga as slaves in Babelen; but because of their high intelligence, outstanding character, and handsomeness, they were quickly elevated above hundreds of other Jewish captives to serve the Sharru, the great king of Babelen.

 

Chronicle 54 was a continuation of the enslavement of the Israelites from Jerusalem, focusing mainly on the four Jewish youths and their interaction with the Sharru of Babelen. Daniyel, the leader of the four Jewish youths In court training,  was the first to stand face to face with the king to help him with a very troubling dream. Disregarding Daniyel's advice the Sharru built an immense golden statue resembling his megalomaniac alter ego.  He overlooked the fact that pride generates every kind of evil known to man. The three Jewish boys refused to worship this self-exalting image and as a result were cast into a furnace. This turned out to be the biggest mistake that the Sharru has ever made in his life, causing destruction to literally leap like a lion at his door. The elements presented in this story resemble much like the end times which this 21st century world of ours is plagued with. The worship of Sharru's colossus came with the command that the people must wear the mark of the image on their foreheads and hands, or else face death. In the end, the troubling dream that Sharru had was fulfilled and FC showed his hand in judging this kingdom of Babelen starting with its prideful ruler. Just like prideful Nineveh who forgot to humble themselves  before him, Babelen fell into the same error. Wally soon had an even worse fate than Babelen to deal with.  Will it bring the end of the wargame's champion,  Wally the blue e-butterfly?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201280635

Book preview

CHRONICLE 51

ANNO STELLAE 6700

Two Wives and an Attitude

D iamonds are a girl’s best friend?  Not necessarily!  Two women in a diamond-doomed world, crossed, can create enough trouble to destroy it twice over!  And the Diamond in question was not  a regular diamond, but a star-stone, fallen corrupted out of the spiritual dimension.  A normal diamond is morally neutral, but this Diamond was implacably evil, and its characteristics?  The Diamond’s Fidelity, Invincible Power, and Humility were corrupted to Infidelity,  Corrupt and Oppressive Tyranny, Pride and Arrogance.

Suddenly finding itself subjected to intense heat and pressure beyond endurance,  comparable to a powerful radio-energy field that could produce a global defense if enough people joined together,  the Diamond vacated its new jewel setting on Earth II.

But it made the move a fatal second too late.  Internal pressures split the octahedron crystal on a fault line,  neatly dividing the stone.

Half- vaporized in a flash that blinded all,  man or beast,  who happened to look that direction, the half-stone shot away,  circling the planet, but still reluctant to leave.  So it did not withdraw completely but with basilisk sensors looked for and found a habitat, on Atlantis II, even more to its liking than the first.

Wally, seeing the Diamond blast up  from the Earth’s surface,  naturally assumed it was gone for good.  Then came the explosion and he was certain this  particular  OP was finished on the gameboard.  But no!  With considerable chagrin he watched the half-Diamond’s  stealthy return, a strategic retreat or retrenchment amidst the plains of  Neo-Assyria.

He had already observed the ferocious, predatory character of the Assyrian state, its kings, and governing officials.

Inflexibly cruel,  arrogant, boastful of their power of subjugation,  the Assyrians could well become a terror beyond any other on Earth.  No city and country was safe!  Assyrians feared nothing and attacked all their neighbors, no matter how powerful—and showed no pity for weak, old people, children, pregnant women, they were all prey to be devoured.

Lions and tigers don’t need  encouragement to act like lions and tigers,"  he thought, dismayed.

1900s American author L. Frank Baum, who created the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz, certainly was clever, he observed, for a fearful lion would be cowardly and probably not last long in the jungle, for almost any other predator could take it on, and scratch one King of the Beasts! Therefore, he was given a drink of courage-helper to pump up his courage.   The Cowardly Lion was lovable, but also an object of pity and sympathy,  but a courageous lion is more admirable and can exhibit traits of valor.  What mankind needed was not cowardly lions but some true champions with the traits of lions who could stand and resist fear and push back against the alien invader, though they were seemingly invincible in power.  Who could those champions possibly be?  Wally had no answer for that question.

If he didn’t have problems with the alien stars, he had plenty with the rapacious cultures and empires that OP had strewn across the world, centered primarily on Atlantis II.

Once this second Assyria goes on the rampage, the entire world will suffer hideously.  This is, indeed, a great reverse for human society.

For centuries a smoldering firebrand amongst the nations, it now began to burn with white-hot intensity, its king and his armies grown ravenous for prey just like a pride of lions or a family of tigers. 

Besides this problem he had others.  At this time another star-stone sought refuge, following the trajectory of  the Diamond.

The initial display was impressive, even with the other Stones for comparison.  Holding the center of a jetting cloud of  fire and smoke, waves of  orange ran upwards and downwards across tendril-like, corkscrew  streamers of  purple and red.  Then pink and green flowers formed at the extremities, gradually folding back into the tawny hued center, recoiling all the noise, color, and fire into the point of origin. 

The roaring at the center jewel contrasted violently with the delicate waving streamers.  It reached a deafening pitch that drew attention across the wide Earth.

Suddenly,  the fifth destroyer plummeted earthward to join the Fourth.  But for some reason it too found the  Bethlehem locale inhospitably hot. 

It flew to  a quiet district  farther to the north  amidst the tribe of Ephraim. 

The new invader settled in Ramathaim-Zophrim,  a northern Israelite village with an impressive name but otherwise known as Ramah.

Ramah  held three or four hundred people in the best times and was devoted to rural pursuits:  sheep raising and grain cultivation.  What could be more peaceful and unsuspecting a host?  But that was what the intruding,  cryptozoic stars sought:  an unsuspecting, gullible victim.  In that way the latest OP  compared with the second invader after the Carnelian, the dangerously powerful Topaz, which was still eluding his detection.

What exactly was the new Stone of Fire?  he wondered.  He knew he had to keep close watch on events in the sleepy hamlet  it had chosen for its residence.  After all, it was chiefly  by behavior that he ascertained  what specific threat he faced on the gameboard.  As for FC,  if past performance said anything, FC might also be involved somehow too.  But FC followed a different agenda.  Would FC intervene or refrain from active participation?  That was always the question with FC.

If only I  had been programmed to deal with the spiritual dimension!  Wally thought, utterly frustrated.  The jewel-like Stones of Fire, he knew, could operate freely in it, and so he was playing with a severe handicap.  Nevertheless, he was, despite setbacks, still in the Wargame.  But how much  longer?  At the rate the star-stones were zeroing  in on Earth,  he might find the opposition overwhelming at any moment.

Where are you,  Sub-file Programmer Pikkard, when I need you?  Again, there was no answer from the memory-banked  files of his great mentor.

Alone,  a big blue butterfly flitted through Ramah and the surrounding countryside, scanning  for the hidden enemy. 

With an evil trinity of  at least three OPs loose on the gameboard,  Wally was determined to lock horns with the situation.

I’m going to find you if I have to search every house and sheep shed  in the village!  Wally thought.  Actually, that was not a daunting task, since Ramah was so small.

But what would he do if he found the alien, a potentially hostile intruder?  He had no idea.  THAT was the daunting aspect, not the scale of his search.

If a Cray could have perspired, he would have been drenched. 

After having a good time torching a good half  of  the Universe,  the Sardius, once tagged Cv  X-**/-,  sailed off  to parts unknown, with Earth left still vulnerable to invasion by equally malignant brothers and sisters.

Which was worse?  Wally had good reason to ask. A single OP of  galactic-sized power and ambition, or this proliferating  swarm of  stellar  snakes?

While Wally beat the bushes of  Ramah,  Peninnah,  Second Wife of Elkanah,  rising at daybreak,  went to the door of her house. 

Her breasts staining her bodice with milk,  a very fat, infant son in her arms, she looked out to see if her neighbors on the street were stirring that early in the morning.

Why had she risen?  Something had disturbed her dreamless sleep.

For some days she had in her heart to gain some clinching advantage in the domestic sphere and now fate favored her cause.

A gleaming object on the ground  before her door caught her eye. 

She liked gold, and wore a lot of her dowry in bracelets on her arms and ankles, but this was not gold.

It was colored like the amber she had seen on a necklace of a passing tradesman’s First Wife  (the disdainful tradesman was so wealthy, in fact, he didn’t bother to stop and display his stock).  Not that Elkanah,  if  his name meaning  God-Possessing had anything to do with it, would have bought anything so grand for her!

No, he was always so careful about his wealth!

Running out,  she snatched it up before any neighbor saw it and got it, despite the strain of holding the heavy baby in one arm. 

Her own eyes gleamed in response.  A gemstone!  she exulted.  Not even the First Wife had such a fine jewel as this! 

She looked both ways down the little, winding street between the few houses that Ramah could boast.  There was no sign of any tradesman. 

Perhaps they passed this way again and a stone worked loose from the neck of that tradesman’s  snooty creature,  she reflected.  Served her right for disdaining country folks in Ramah!

At any rate, the other woman’s loss was her gain now.  She clenched the stone tightly in her hand, then put it away in the house with some of her prize jewelry which she wore only when they went up to Shiloh for the great Feast.

Easily eclipsing her rather common necklace of  countrified, copper gew-gaws of Ken’anite crescent moons and polished black coral baubles, the great jewel would not be there long.  They would be leaving in a few days.

Peninnah thought about the problem.  This jewel was just the thing, she realized, to give her the edge she  needed against her rival.  Bearing sons was good when her adversary was barren and  bore not one, but this jewel was her token for good, a sign that the Most High God had set his seal of approval on His humble handmaid. 

How might she get a  skilled man to set it in gold and attach it to a gold chain?

Little Ramah had no such gem dealer and probably never would.  Jebus,  Gath, Ashdod,  Ashkelon, Ekron, Gaza,  Acco,  Sidon,  Tyre,  Babelen, and Nineveh had hundreds and even thousands of such dealers, but that was no help to her stuck in little, out of the way Ramah.

No, she would have to do the work herself somehow.  The stone was just too attractive to leave behind.  How it would draw everyone’s eyes to her in Shiloh when she wore it as a pendant with her best robe!  Could anyone deny then the injustice of her being Second instead of First Wife if her sons were not enough to prove she was favored of God and her rival,  Hanna,  wasn’t? 

Elkanah’s first wife, Hanna,  peered out of the house into the street after Peninnah had gone back in.

She had a waterpot, but it was not water she really needed for herself.

Taking it, she walked down the street and climbed the slope to the spring bubbling into a small rock-lined pool.  Despite that  Ramah’s numerous grazing animals had eaten all the grass and killed the trees and flowers most everywhere else, here amidst some trees and encircling rocks that the cattle could not climb down to sully the spring,  the refreshing sound of the water in the morning and the bright sun lifted her spirits a little.

She lay her pot down in the water to cool it before she drew it up.

Elkanah relished a fresh draught of cold spring water every morning before the women did laundry, and she—who was barren and bore no sons—thought she could at least do that for him. 

As for Peninnah, with three sons and one in arms, she could not be bothered though the task was customarily hers as Second Wife. 

Of course, she had never wanted to do it, even before her sons arrived, but she told the First Wife she would do it as soon as she was through bearing children for Elkanah.

When that would be, she intimated,  no one could tell.

Truly,  Elkanah’s prolific second vine showed no sign whatsoever of letting up on fruitage.

While the barren first vine wept and languished at the spring,  Peninnah fussed. 

Where is that dreary,  drooping shirker when I need her to look after my darlings?  she burst out to Oglah,  a toothless  maid-servant Elkanah kept on despite her dotage. 

I wish to do something with a lovely stone I just acquired from the tradesman with the money Husband gave me as a token of his great affection and esteem for me.

The old one attempted a bow and nearly fell.

Oh, well, quit staring at me and take him!  Peninnah cried crossly,  thrusting  her infant at the old woman who nearly fell backwards under the load.   You lazy old thing, you are either going to pull your own cart here, or out you go!  I won’t have you eating up my children’s bread and doing nothing for it!

Going to a corner of  the house where she kept her valuables from prying hands and eyes in a hole in the wall,  the Second Wife took out a gold chain nobody knew she had saved from her dowry, examined it and decided it would have to do.

She would have liked one made specially for the stone, but that would have to wait.  But how was she going to attach the stone?

She could bind some woolen thread round the stone and chain, but at Shiloh that would look terribly countrified to the eyes of  refined women from greater cities than Ramah.

Placing the stone carefully on the necklace, she imagined how it would look in a proper setting fashioned in Tyre or some such wonderful, big city. 

Suddenly, the smell of burning made her rear back. 

The stone was glowing as if it were too hot to touch. 

A miracle! she thought. The Lord who had blessed me, his humble handmaid, with so many sons and smitten the First Wife barren is now fashioning a worthy necklace for rewarding me!   

Indeed, it seemed so.  For she was a firm believer in miracles, when they counted in her favor and not her enemy’s.

When she ventured to pick up the chain,  the stone remained attached to the gold,  exactly as if it were made to do so.  Overcome with the thought,  she fell down on her face before the jewel,  worshiping it as a divine thing.

By the blessed paps of  Lady Hibishu!  What a holy thing I have found!  she thought.  It must have fallen from the Queen of Heaven’s starry crown in heaven!

Surely, such a sacred gem ought to be displayed before the multitude at Shiloh when they went up to the holy feast.  She was determined that she would do just that!  Of course, she wouldn’t breathe a word about Lady Hibishu, no!  The people who gathered there for convocation at the Shiloh weren’t spiritual enough to appreciate Lady Hibishu!  But she would show her divine favor to them just the same, which was just as good.

Hanna’s feet dragged as she took the water pot and retraced her steps. 

A wind had sprung up and it billowed her dark red robe as she picked her way past a giant clenched hand,  broken sword, and scattered legs of  a  statue, all that remained of a former king and his vast domain. 

A few steps below the thumb, she came to her own dwelling.  It was not her house, as it should have been.

Peninah, blessed with sons when she was not, had usurped her authority and lorded it over her and the servants.  She even went so far as to criticize and remind her every day that God’s wrath was upon her for some secret sin.

Good Elkanah,  caught in the middle,  tried to comfort Hanna the best he could, but nothing he could say could make the situation endurable.  If God had shut her womb, and seemingly he had, what could he do? 

Keeping her anguished, reddened eyes lowered, she went and gave him his morning drink in a fine, swan-decorated cup from Philistia.  He drank deeply and then sighed.

Dear wife, are you getting ready for  the house of  El Elyon?  We must start in a day or so with the others from the village.

Hanna turned away, biting her lip.  This festival was one she dreaded and it had come round once again for her to force herself to endure it. 

Her husband’s eyes grew troubled as he well knew the cause of her