by T. R. Harris
Again, it was Ashley who led the way to the elevators.
14
Guards were posted at the locked elevators, and they nodded politely when the two couples approached.
“A grooming station?” Ashley asked, and she was directed further down the hall and closer to the service area.
Every building with elevators also had stairwells, and the Grand Temple was no exception. A single guard had responsibility for both. He looked bored, having drawn the most hapless assignment for the Coronation, guarding a pair of doors next to a bathroom.
“Video is looped,” Amber told the team.
The guard looked almost glad to see the four VIPs step up to him. At least it was something.
“Is this the stairway to the lower levels?” Ashley asked with authority.
“Yes, it is,” the young Antaerean answered without thinking.
“How do we access it?”
“Pardon?” the guard stammered. “Access is limited.”
“But if I wanted to gain access, how would I do it.”
The Antaerean was caught off guard by Ashley’s direct questions.
“Only I can unlock the door.” He lifted his right hand slightly, giving away the fact that he—like the other guard—had a security tag embedded under his skin.
“That’s what I needed to know.” Ashley smiled.
Her strike was so quick that only the other REVs could see it. Her fist hit the guard in the face, sending his head rocking backward before rebounding off the stone wall behind him. Ashley caught his limp body and pulled it over to the door of the stairwell, taking his right hand and scanning the locking panel. The door clicked.
They hid the body in the stairwell and relocked the door.
Zac looked over the railing.
“This doesn’t look to go all the way down,” he reported. “Maybe only five or six levels.”
“That’s a start,” Ashley said. Then she bounded down the stairs at REV speed, the rest of the team close behind.
Zac was right; this particular stairway only went to the sixth sub-level. Amber was leading the way manipulating the camera system to keep them invisible from the monitors.
“Two guards, stationed at the next elevator. They are armed. Distance from the stairwell to them is approximately twenty yards.”
Zac knew what that meant. There was a sizeable gap that needed to be closed before the guards could be taken out, and unfortunately, the original stairwell guard had been unarmed.
At the door, Zac turned to Angus. “This is going to hurt.” Angus nodded his understanding. Then Zac opened the door, and the men stepped out into the lobby.
The guards stood up from their seats, drawing their weapons. No one should have access to this level, especially not flamboyantly dressed guests for the Coronation. To their credit, the sentries saw the REV’s stance as a sign of hostility.
“Remain where you are,” one of the guards called out. “You are not authorized to be here.”
And that’s when the REVs rushed them.
Even with their blazing speed, it wasn’t fast enough to close the gap before the Antaere opened fire with their energy pistols. Two small balls of intense light shot out of the barrels. With the closing distance, it became impossible for them to miss their targets. The bolts struck both Zac and Angus in the chests of their crimson jackets, burning perfectly round holes in the fabric and scorching their toughened REV skin.
Zac was beyond the cascading stage by now, completely activated at max REV ability. He ignored the pain of the burn and barreled into the guard on the right, flicking away a person of equal weight and size as if he were a fly. The guard somersaulted before crashing into the wall behind him. He ended up on his stomach, not dead, but moaning loudly as he pressed with his arms, attempting to climb to his feet. A kick from Zac’s foot flipped the alien over onto his back, his neck shattered. As Zac bent down to retrieve the guard’s weapon, he noticed Angus had made similar short work of the other guard.
The big Englishman patted at the smoldering embers of his burning jacket before ripping open the front and removing it. He quickly relieved his dead guard of his more conservative dark blue uniform top and slipped it on.
“At least it doesn’t have the bloody high collar. That thing was a bugger.”
Zac followed suit. Besides the better fashion sense, the uniform jackets didn’t have holes burned in the chests.
The door to the stairway extension wasn’t locked and soon the team was racing down the steps to the ninth level. They did a quick check of the hallway outside just as Amber confirmed that there were another five guards in the corridor. They hadn’t been alerted to anything—not yet—just doing their duty.
Now armed with energy weapons of their own, Zac and Angus led the way out of the stairwell, blasting two of the guards before Zac swiped another one across the face with the pistol. Ashley—and even Joanie—got in the act after that, and when Joanie stepped away from her victim’s body lying on the floor, she glanced over at Zac and sent him her best Cheshire Cat smile.
“I like being a badass.”
“Who doesn’t?” Zac added.
“The door!” Ashley yelled. “It’s closing!”
15
Zac looked around in a panic wondering what she was talking about. That’s when he spotted a thick, vault-like grey metal panel sliding to cut off the hallway from another room behind it.
“The control centers are on the other side,” Amber reported.
Zac was the closest, so he ran to the door and placed his body between the door and the jamb. A second later, he was sandwiched between the door and the frame, straining with all his REV strength to keep from being crushed. His face was twisted in agony as he pressed with all his might. The door stopped, a loud clacking sound of a hidden mechanism straining against his effort.
Angus, Ashley and Joanie were at the door a moment later, each placing hands around Zac, trying to force the door open. It worked to a point, while the sound of the clacking turned into a whine. The panel moved back a little, enough for Zac to squeeze first one leg, and then the other, up against it. Then with his back firmly pressing against the door frame, and his legs pushing away, he managed to open the gap a little more.
“I can’t hold it!” he called out. “Get through!”
Joanie was the first to react, diving under his legs and into the room beyond. Ashley followed next while Angus could barely fit. And then Zac rolled, spilling from the doorway just as the defiant metal panel slammed shut.
The whining faded away, almost like a breath of victory over the REVs.
The four team members now lay on a carpeted floor, staring at the closed panel.
“You … you are not to be here,” came a sheepish voice off to Zac’s left.
Everyone turned to see a young Antaere, this one dressed in a priest gown, standing a few feet away. His eyes were filled with fright, and not like the confident defiance of the guards. He then turned and ran down the hallway.
Zac scowled. Now he had to chase him.
The REV was up a moment later and after the young priest in a no-contest sprint. The problem with running as fast as a REV could run was not the forward movement; it was the stop. Zac didn’t bother to slow down at a turn in the hallway; instead, he slammed into the wall to change direction. He was at the priest a hair later, reaching out with his hand to take the Antaerean by the arm.
In the heat of the moment, Zac didn’t gear down his strength. The priest was jerked backward with his head striking the stone wall with enough force to snap his neck.
“Sorry about that,” Zac whispered to the dead alien. But then he took the limp body by the arm and dragged him back to the others.
They were standing at a row of five identical metal doorways with security panels mounted on the wall next to each.
“Those are the control rooms,” Amber informed them.
“Which one is the right one?” Joanie asked.
“I do no
t know. I am tied into the security computers, not those with other functions. You will need to gain access and then place wafers on each computer.”
Angus rapped a metal door with his knuckles. “We ain’t getting through those with our brute strength,” he said.
Zac lifted the thin arm of the dead priest. “Let’s see if he has access.”
He went to the first door on the right and swiped the alien’s hand across the access panel. An invisible latch released, and Zac pressed open the heavy door.
Joanie rushed past him, taking in the interior of the room before stepping up to a computer array built into a control console. The room was full of other equipment, with no signs of life.
After a few seconds, Joanie had identified the power switch, and the room came to life. She removed another of the wafer patches from her gown and placed it on the face of the computer module.
And then they waited.
It took a full minute this time before Amber came with her answer.
“This is not it. Try another room.”
Outside in the corridor, they moved to the next door, Zac dragging the lifeless priest along with him. The layout of this room was different from the last, and it took Joanie a full five minutes before she had the power up and another of the patches on the computer. She only had one patch left.
Again, Amber’s answer was negative. They moved to the third door.
Using her last hacking patch, Joanie set about firing up the control room, again, one of a different design than the other two. Although Amber kept telling them they weren’t the right control stations, she never said what they were for if she even knew.
When the answer came back that the third room also wasn’t the right one, Zac was discouraged.
“This isn’t looking good. If the control room isn’t here, we’re in a world of hurt. If not here, then where?”
Joanie was out of patches, so she took hold of the one attached to this computer and ripped it away.
“Oh, please!” said Amber. “Do not do that unless you tell me,” the AI scolded. “That was too abrupt of a break.”
“Sorry,” Joanie said, appearing genuinely embarrassed. “I didn’t know.”
With lowering spirits, the team moved to the fourth door. There were only two left. This room looked a little more updated than the others but still gave no clue as to its purpose. Zac grimaced. It was all alien stuff used for alien purpose. He had no way of telling what for.
Once the power was on, Joanie placed the used wafer patch on the computer and stepped back with a frown on her face. “I hope the patches can be reused.”
Amber didn’t answer, at least not for a full two minutes.
“This is it,” the AI proclaimed. “Computer interface indicates a trigger program for forty-eight nuclear devices at a remote location.”
“Great!” Angus said. “Go ahead and send the signal, then let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I cannot do that,” Amber answered, which sent everyone’s hearts into the toilet.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Zac asked.
“I cannot affect the triggering event. That will have to be done on-site.”
“With the Ha’curn?” Ashley blurted.
“No, in the room where you are. But before that, the uplink needs to be reestablished. The computer program is active, yet no signals are leaving the room at the moment. Ms. Hollis, it is time for you to go to work.”
“I thought I already was working,” Joanie said sourly. But she knew what Amber meant. With a grunt, Joanie dropped to her back and slipped in under the console, her once-pristine white gown now covered in years of the accumulated dust on the floor.
She went to work, following communications lines in and out of the control console. Every few minutes, she would ask Amber if what she had done had worked or not. The answer was always no.
Zac, Angus and Ashley eventually moved out into the corridor and sat down on the carpet, their backs resting against the cold stone walls. Twenty minutes went by, and still no success.
“You know, they’ve probably discovered our handiwork by now,” Angus said. “They’ll be looking for us.”
Zac motioned at the closed vault door staring at them like a cold, grey eye. “At least they’ll be able to get us out of here. I’m not too keen about starving to death in the bowels of the Grand Temple on Antara.”
“Me neither,” Angus said. “Fortunately, I will be the last to starve.”
“Why is that?” Ashley asked.
Angus grinned widely. “Because I’m not opposed to eating the rest of you to keep me alive.”
Zac pursed his lips and nodded. Makes sense, he thought.
“That’s it!” Joanie cried out. “It’s up!”
And so were the REVs. They rushed back into the room to find Joanie now seated at the computer terminal, working the device.
“It’s linked?” Ashley asked.
“The signal is going out,” Amber confirmed. “I can trace it to the Simblaus Relay Station. It is within range of the Ha’curn fleet.”
“Great,” Angus said. “Go ahead then, send the detonate signal.”
Joanie sat frozen at the terminal.
“What’s wrong?” Angus asked. “Do it.”
“I … I don’t know. There’s supposed to be a million Ha’curn in the fleet.”
“That’s a good start,” Angus said. “Waste them, Joanie.”
She pushed away from the station. “You do it. I don’t know if I can.”
Everyone looked to Angus. His mouth fell open slightly.
“Hey, that’s not my job. I just came along to bust heads.”
“So bust a million of them,” Ashley said.
“Why don’t you?” he said to his girlfriend. “Just push the damn button.”
“I’m not … I don’t know—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Zac yelled. “I’ll do it.”
And with that, he stepped forward and pressed the button.
16
“Did it work?” Angus asked.
Joanie shook her head. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Amber?” Ashley said.
“Impossible to tell from here. All I can confirm is that the detonate signal left here and was relayed to Simblaus. Beyond that, I can neither confirm nor deny detonation.”
Zac sighed. “Well, that was anticlimactic. How will we know if we’ve done it?”
“Let’s worry about that later, Zac,” Angus said. “Let’s just vamonos and call it a day.”
“We still have the issue with the security door,” Ashley pointed out.
Zac shrugged. “Hey, Amber, why don’t you turn the cameras back on in the hallway. Let them see us waiting outside the door. I’d rather take my chances with an army of Antaerean guards than let Angus eat my ass.”
Angus smiled. “I’d save your ass for last, mate. A nice juicy hindquarter for supper.”
It took another fifteen minutes after the came back on before sounds came from the other side of the metal door. The team stood up from their carpet seats and raised their arms in the universal sign of surrender. They eventually put them back down when it took another five minutes before the door slid open.
Amber already told them there were over twenty guards on the other side of the door, each armed with energy rifles and pistols. Zac instructed the team to chill out; it would be better to fight their way out of a holding cell than up nine flights of stairs before meeting the main force in the Grand Hall.
Antaere rushed in and frisked them; Zac and Angus had already disposed of their weapons. Then their hands were locked in strong metal shackles behind their backs, and they were led into the main corridor and to the once-locked elevator.
Zac saw a lead guard listening on an ear set.
“You are being taken before the Rowin,” Amber reported, as she continued to monitor the security communications.
“Take them to level three. The Rowin wishes to speak to the p
risoners,” the guard commander announced to his troops.
A minute later, the elevator doors opened, and the team was herded out and taken to a smallish room decorated in fine Antaerean artwork. From their study of the Temple, level three was at the back of the raised section leading to the sermon platform. It was reserved only for the royal family and Level Four priests or higher.
Zac recognized the face of Kallen Zaphin as one of those who had come to view his humiliation on the central stage, although at the time, he didn’t know who he was. Andus Zaphin was the Rowin then, meaning all the other family members served the role of seen-but-not-heard entities. Now he was the man—or alien—about to be crowned the supreme leader of the Antaere people, and by extension, of the Order.
The four REVs remained passive and contrite, not wanting to give away any of their hidden abilities. That would come later.
Kallen Zaphin stood up from the plush couch on which he sat an approached them. Guards tensed, holding their weapons a little tighter.
The Rowin surveyed each of their faces while wearing a thin, entertained grin. Then he frowned when he came to Zac.
Did he recognize him? Zac wondered. If he did, that would give away who and what they were. He was counting on that being a surprise.
Kallen reached out and pulled a thin piece of Zac’s prosthetics that had come loose on his face, a little extra something designed to make him look older and less recognizable. The Rowin studied the tiny strip of rubber with interest. Then he leaned in closer and studied Zac’s eyes.
“Humans,” he said, turning slightly to a group of ranking advisors standing nearby. “They are not Antaere, but Humans.” He laughed. “So, your evil plan to assassinate me on the day of my greatest achievement has failed.”
Assassination? Where did he get that? Zac thought.
“I should have suspected as much. You must have learned of the Ha’curn fleet and know that only by disrupting the leadership of the Antaere could you hopefully gain any advantage. You should know your plan would have never worked. Even as Rowin, I have appointed one below me as my successor. There will always be a Tesnin of the Antaere.”
