by Dean M. Cole
Vaughn urgently pointed fore and aft, indicating each end of the tunnel. “Spread out!”
BOb complied instantly. He spun around and sprinted back to his position at the front of the formation.
Vaughn looked back at the gathered group. They were moving too slow. “Go! Go! Go!” He pumped his arm insistently. “We can’t be this bunched …!”
A new sound rose above the thrumming of the collider’s mechanisms.
The words fell forgotten from his suddenly dry mouth.
An icy chill ran down Vaughn’s spine as he exchanged a knowing glance with Angela.
The bit of color that had returned drained from her face. “A Tater’s coming.”
Rourke blanched. “Oh, no!” Eyes flying wide, he turned left and right.
A string of additional curse words sprang forth as the other team members similarly scanned the far ends of the collider.
The volume of the screaming banshee sound continued to rise. Vaughn looked at the still motionless Neck. The damned thing must’ve gotten out a Mayday before Angela had killed it.
Looking past the robot, he scanned the tunnel ahead for the approaching, life-stealing bastard. “Sounds like it’s coming from ALICE.”
Angela nodded. “From the sound of it, it’ll be here soon.”
“We need to get the hell out of this bloody tunnel!”
“Thanks, Wing Commander Obvious.” As Vaughn spoke, he glanced through the doorway from which the Neck had emerged. Racks of computers filled its cramped quarters. “Dammit! No good. It’s a server closet, a dead-end.”
He stepped back and looked around.
“Shit! There’s nowhere to go.”
The sound continued to climb.
Vaughn turned to face Rachel. “Time to fight, Major.”
She gave a sharp nod and then, looking at the rest of the crew, gestured at the dead Neck. “We need to get away from this thing.” She pointed down the tunnel. “Fall back a few meters and take cover.”
Bingham looked at her incredulously. “Take cover behind what?”
“Anything, Chauncey-Baby.” She swept a hand toward the machinery that lined the wall on the other side of the collider’s main conduit. “Just get the hell outta sight.”
The sound reached new levels.
Jumping into action, they each scrambled a couple of car lengths down the tunnel.
Rachel slid in behind a cabinet and waved the others past her.
Diving for concealment, Vaughn and the rest of the team members darted beneath and behind bits of machinery and tubing.
Leaping back over the conduit, Vaughn positioned himself behind a large cabinet.
Angela dove into the narrow crawlspace beneath the collider conduit.
Peering toward the noise, Vaughn saw BOb still standing in the open. The machine had followed his orders to spread out so quickly it hadn’t heard Rachel’s subsequent command.
Vaughn started to raise an arm, intending to signal BOb to take cover, but then he spotted movement at the far end of the tunnel, well beyond the battle operations bot.
A Tater slid into sight.
Vaughn worried the machine would see his thermal signature, but then he felt the heat coming off the cabinet he’d hidden behind. The collider’s multiple heat sources should mask their presence.
BOb must have detected the Tater at the last moment. Just before the alien device had emerged, the battlebot pressed itself against the wall behind one of the rare cabinets that lined the inner circumference of the curving tunnel.
Apparently not seeing BOb, the Tater drifted forward. The levitating machine’s long axis slowly swept left and right as if it were scanning the tunnel ahead. Then the sweeping motion stopped just as it lined up on the motionless Neck.
Locked on, the Tater angled straight at its immobilized comrade.
It flew past the battlebot.
Lightning-fast, BOb darted from behind cover and leveled the EMP cannon, aiming it at the back of the Tater.
“Take the shot!” Vaughn urged, whispering under his breath.
The high-pitched, penetrating eruption of the cannon’s sudden discharge echoed throughout the tunnel, momentarily eclipsing the sounds of both the collider and the Tater.
The machine stopped.
It hung motionlessly in the air.
Vaughn held his breath.
Had it worked?
Had it killed the Tater?
The still levitating, potato-shaped machine turned toward the battle operations bot.
The thing appeared to study BOb.
After an eternal moment, the Tater turned from the bot and resumed its advance.
BOb raised his EMP cannon and fired again. The piercing report of its activation echoed through the tunnel once more.
The advancing Tater didn’t slow or turn. It continued to fly straight toward the dead Neck, utterly ignoring BOb.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Vaughn mentally ran through their options as he watched the machine close the gap. He had ordered everyone not to use grenade launchers in the tunnel, worrying that an explosion or shrapnel might take down the collider and trap them in this timeline.
The Tater continued to close on the dead Neck.
Vaughn shook his head. “Think, Singleton!”
The enemy machine moved to within half a football field from Major Lee.
Vaughn could already see the light wave emitter hanging from its belly. The sight gave him an idea.
“Rachel,” Vaughn whispered urgently.
From her hidden position behind the next electronics cabinet, she looked back at him. “What?”
Vaughn extended a finger toward the Tater. “Can you hit the lens on its belly?”
Peering through her scope, Rachel gave a single nod. “Is a pig’s vagina pork?”
Vaughn blinked. “Wha—?”
A faint crack split the air as her suppressed rifle spat a bullet downrange.
The clear glass emitter on the belly of the Tater flickered but remained intact.
Rachel fired another round, the rifle bucking in her hands.
Light glinted off the fixture again.
The major shook her head.
“What are you doing?” Vaughn whispered. “Did you hit it?”
“Of course I did!”
She fired again.
Light flashed from the belly once more.
Vaughn realized he hadn’t heard the expected twang of a ricochet from any of the shots.
Growling, Rachel stepped from behind cover and switched to full auto. The silenced rifle danced in her hands, releasing a staccato stutter that sounded like a rapid-firing nail gun.
Dozens of lights shot out from the Tater’s emitter. The damned thing was beaming out the rounds, sending them to Hell.
The machine turned and flew straight at Rachel. When it was still a good twenty meters away, a white fan of light shot out from the belly of the Tater.
Rachel disappeared.
Vaughn’s eyes flew wide. “Son of a bitch!”
Cornered and out of options, he activated his grenade launcher.
“Fuck it!”
He leaned out from behind cover and leveled his weapon.
The weapon jumped in his hands when he pulled the trigger. A loud hollow-sounding thump belched from its muzzle.
Vaughn watched as the spinning round arced toward the nose of the Tater.
Another flicker of light flashed out from the emitter, and the grenade disappeared mid-flight.
The reports of several other barking launchers rang out.
The light wave emitter flickered frenetically, illuminating the walls of the tunnel like the strobing flashes of paparazzi cameras, each beam eradicating another grenade mid-flight.
The Tater adjusted its trajectory and flew straight at Vaughn. In the corner of his eye, he saw Angela roll out from under the conduit and raise to a knee, her arm extended.
Vaughn held out a hand. “No, Angela!”
; She pointed the alien EMP gun at the Tater and squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Angela jerked the trigger several more times, but nothing happened. The tiny weapon hadn’t finished recharging.
A fan of white light flickered over her.
Angela and the gun vanished.
Vaughn froze with his arm still held out, staring at the place she’d just been in. His jaw worked, framing a silent, unrealized scream.
As Vaughn stared at the bare, concrete floor, part of his brain registered movement beyond the potato-shaped vessel.
Scrambling stealthily, BOb sped along the ceiling of the tunnel, using the overhead ladder-shaped cable racks like monkey bars.
With insectile dexterity and preternatural speed, the robot raced toward the back of the menacingly advancing Tater.
Having perceived the movement subconsciously, Vaughn continued to stare at the section of floor where Angela had been a moment before.
The white light returned, striking the ground just in front of his feet.
Everything slowed.
Time dilated.
The curtain of light slowly swept toward Vaughn.
Part of him thought the Taters enjoyed tormenting their prey like a cat playing with a mouse before snapping its spine.
Then BOb slammed down onto the back of the levitating machine.
Disconnected and drowning in a silent cacophony, Vaughn perceived all of it as if in a dream.
The Tater bobbed visibly under the robot’s heavy weight.
The fan of white light skidded past Vaughn.
A horrified scream erupted from behind him.
Was that Rourke?
Straddling the machine like a jockey mounting Seabiscuit, BOb raised a clenched fist and began to jackhammer it into the top skin of the Tater.
The now jittering fan of white light danced around Vaughn.
Angela’s empty expanse of concrete seemed to scream.
No. That was him.
“Angela!”
Something plowed into Vaughn.
He stumbled backward.
Mark’s face filled his vision. He was shouting something.
The man flinched and then looked over his shoulder.
Mark and Vaughn watched as a white chunk of the Tater’s shell clattered to the floor.
BOb’s arm sank elbow-deep into the machine’s body. Then the battlebot heaved mightily.
Sparks flew from the top of the Tater, bouncing from the ceiling and showering down on the ground beneath.
The robot’s arm emerged from the opening, clutching a handful of cables and hardware.
At the same time, the white light extinguished, and the Tater crashed to the floor.
Dropping to his knees, Vaughn stared into the empty space beneath the collider’s large blue conduit.
He saw none of it.
A vision filled him, that of a hill covered in unimaginable sorrow and unspeakable horrors.
“No, no, no, no. No, Angela.”
He closed his eyes, but the image of Angela alone atop a mountain of the freshly dead persisted.
A choked cry escaped Vaughn.
“No … please … no.”
Chapter 28
Vaughn closed his eyes and shook his head hard. Stop it, Singleton! You have to keep going.
If he didn’t get moving, Angela would be lost forever, trapped in a real Hell, not the proverbial one, but one that even Dante couldn’t have envisioned.
Vaughn felt himself slipping back toward the abyss. The mere thought of Hell threatened to quit him.
The place had been bad enough—by a damned sight—when their interdimensional travels had thrust them upon it months after the initial event. At this point, scarcely more than a week since the Necks had deposited the whole of Earth’s life upon that dusty rock, the dead would be … fresh.
The Tater hadn’t beamed Angela onto a mountain of dust-covered bones.
The bastard had beamed her to …
A chill snaked down his spine.
This time, Vaughn shook his head so hard it caused him to stumble back a step.
Mark grabbed his shoulders and pulled him upright. “I’m so sorry, Vaughn. I … We …”
Pushing his friend away, Vaughn scanned the faces of the other team members. “We have to finish this!” His eyes narrowed. “And I mean to finish it right goddamn now!”
Rourke, who had been staring at the now empty space where Rachel had been standing just a moment before, dragged his eyes away from the void and stared back at him. The blood had drained from the man’s face.
Vaughn knew that the young doctor had grown close to Major Lee. He watched the man collect himself and then swallow. Finally, Rourke looked at Vaughn and gave a short nod. Then he said something that caught Vaughn off guard. “We lost Wing Commander Bingham, too.”
Looking around, he realized the young man was right. Chance was gone.
Behind Doctor Geller, Major Peterson nodded soberly. Angela’s crewmates looked as shocked as Vaughn felt.
He realized that when the light had skittered past him, it must have taken out the wing commander. That’s why Rourke had cried out. He’d been right next to the man.
Monique's look mirrored that of everyone else. However, she pressed her lips into a thin line and dipped her head. “You are correct, Captain Singleton. We need to finish this right now.”
Mark nodded. “We’re with you.”
Vaughn glanced toward the ALICE experiment’s facility. No new sounds had emerged above the steady drone of the still working collider. At the moment, nothing else appeared to be coming.
That wouldn’t last.
He pointed at Monique and Rourke. “Lieutenant Gheist and Doctor Geller. With me.”
Dropping all pretense at stealth, Vaughn turned and started running toward the widening end of the tunnel, heading for the ALICE experiment’s facility. “There should be a computer terminal here somewhere, and the two of you are my best computer geeks.” He left out: remaining.
Spotting a console next to an arcane piece of equipment, Vaughn darted over to its location. As they had seen back at CMS, the HiLumi icon was drifting across its screen.
Vaughn pulled out the chair and waved Monique into it.
She gave a short nod and slid into the seat. However, a moment later, they all growled in frustration as the same network unavailable message popped up.
The Necks had severed its intranet connection.
Vaughn looked around, desperately searching for another network access terminal, but then he shook his head. “We don’t have time to waste. Nothing here’ll be connected. Let’s get to ATLAS.”
“Agreed,” Mark said. Then his face twisted. “But what do we do if, no, when we run into more resistance? Especially if it’s another Tater. Nothing we threw at that thing worked, and I doubt we can count on them ignoring BOb anymore.”
Vaughn turned from the far end of ALICE and nodded. “You’re right.” He looked at each of their rifles and sidearms and then shook his head. “We have to find a weapon that works. The bastard beamed out everything we threw at them.” He pointed at the robot. “BOb’s EMP cannon didn’t even make the thing sneeze. And Angela’s EMP gun… Well, it’s gone.” The thought almost sent him back over the edge.
Everyone stared back at him somberly, waiting for him to continue.
After taking a deep breath, Vaughn returned their gazes. “We need something that can hurt them.”
“Maybe we improvise weapon.” Pausing, Teddy gestured at their surroundings. “Use something from here.”
Vaughn nodded as he recalled trying to attack the collider control pedestal in Mon Calamari with a large pipe wrench he’d found lying around the facility.
He scanned their surroundings. Nothing stood out. Aside from the dead Tater that still lay outside the far end of the facility, nothing looked out of place. There wasn’t even a loose tool lying around this portion of the collider.
His gaze returned
to the white ovoid. Taters seemed to serve as the Necks’ alien police, their blue force, or white in this case.
Vaughn tilted his head. “I wonder …”
Breaking from the group, he ran over to the dead Tater. He could hear the others close on his heels.
“El Capitan,” Teddy whispered urgently from behind him. “What are you doing? You’re going the wrong way.”
Vaughn stopped in front of the fallen machine.
Aside from the gaping hole that BOb had made, the featureless construct sported only one protrusion from its otherwise smooth skin. When the thing had fallen to the floor, it had rolled onto its side, leaving its belly-mounted light wave emitter exposed. It now stared unblinkingly at them from the bottom of the Tater.
Vaughn felt vulnerable under its unwavering gaze. He half-expected to see white light shoot from it. After a moment, he decided it must be entirely dead.
He pointed at BOb. “Start peeling off the skin. Let’s get a look inside.”
As the robot bent to its work, the rest of the team stared at Vaughn.
Glancing back at them, he gestured at the fallen machine. “Maybe there’s something inside the Tater, something we can use as a weapon.”
Looking at the emitter, Vaughn tilted his head as he saw a new feature: a seam in the skin. It ran around the emitter lens, forming a circle roughly a meter wide. This was the first time he’d seen anything other than a smooth surface on a Tater.
Leaning in for a closer look, he studied the area. He ran a finger along the thin outline, trying to work a nail into the groove, but the skin wouldn’t yield.
Standing, he waved the robot over. “BOb, see if you can pry open this part.”
“Wait!” Rourke said. “He’s just as likely to break it as open it.”
“We don’t have time for subtleties, Doctor Geller.”
The young doctor held up a hand. “I see something.”
“Doctor Geller, I said we don’t—”
Extending a finger, Rourke touched a portion of the Tater’s exterior just outside the outline. The shell around the emitter began to slide outward.
Everyone jumped back, raising their guns defensively.
