Echoes of Esharam

by Robert Davies

  “Understood,” she replied.

  They watched the ridgeline until the black shape of the shuttle appeared, slicing neatly between gentle hills. Hesset closed the distance in seconds and Norris watched the twin launchers on the craft’s belly flash in quick succession, releasing hundreds of the high-speed rounds that tore into his 690 where it waited, helpless in the Karroba heat. At once, they heard the loud, distinctive crackle of impact points along the length of the communications tower, followed quickly by a staccato rapping sound as each projectile bored deep into the structure and detonated in tiny puffs of smoke.

  The midpoint of the tower groaned and sent out an odd, snapping sound, but Hesset’s second volley followed quickly. The tower crumbled suddenly before them like a sand castle in the surf, collapsing under its own weight amid billowing gouts of dust and smoke. Hesset drifted the shuttle skillfully from side to side, pouring more and more rounds into the tower’s remains for good measure before turning her guns on each of six power transfer nodes littering the grounds outside the compound. In spectacular flashes of white and blue, they fell quickly and every light across the compound went dark.

  There were no alarms, surprisingly, but Rantara wasted no time.

  “Let’s move, Darrien.”

  They scrambled to their feet and started for the rear entryway on a full run. Norris did his best to keep up, but Rantara’s longer legs carried her to a gallop he couldn’t match. In the excitement, he didn’t notice the absence of return fire or resistance as they sped across the open space toward the portal. Ahead, the dark, oval shape of an access was their target. When Norris stumbled to a halt inside the short tunnel to a heavy door, Rantara stood behind him with her rifle poised as he found the latch mechanism and a touch pad.

  “Do you recognize this one from Settis’ memories?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, breathing hard in the thin, cool air. “He used this entrance a few times, so the code should work.”

  From across the compound, they heard the first gunshots—strange, snapping sounds and the screaming whizz of Theriani’s long-range gun as she opened fire. The Kez’Erel were on the move, but their headlong rush from the central building was met by a merciless hail of hot metal. Norris smiled, knowing the cameras had blinked out when the power nodes exploded seconds earlier. Without a thought, he tapped in the code sequence as though he’d done it many times until a small light flashed twice, followed by a metallic clunk when the door’s lock disengaged. With a hiss, the circular hatch rolled left, revealing a pitch-black hallway and the rush of warm, foul-smelling air. At once, they flicked on their light amplifiers and the eerie blue glow showed them every detail a normal, unaided eye could never see. In seconds, Rantara called up her comm to alert Hesset and Theriani.

  “We’re in.”

  “Acknowledged,” Hesset replied. “We have eliminated at least ten of the Kez’Erel from this position, but more remain hidden just inside the entryway and they are returning fire.”

  “Be careful, Hesset, their guns are deadly accurate.”

  “Yes, we know. Their position has made it difficult to kill them, and we cannot cross the compound safely. I am returning to the shuttle.”

  “Good,” Rantara said, nodding for Norris to follow. “Tell us when you reach the front entrance; we’ll try to draw off as many of them as we can before you get there.”

  Norris understood immediately; Hesset would simply release a volley of plasma rounds directly into the opening and bring the problem to its inevitable, bloody conclusion. They moved quickly down a deserted corridor, but Rantara stopped suddenly, pointing to an open area beyond.

  “Can you hear them?” she whispered.

  Norris couldn’t, but even as he prepared to answer, the powerful odor hit him in waves.

  “Jesus!” he said involuntarily. “That’s what they smell like?”

  She nodded and pulled a concussion grenade from her belt, motioning for Norris to do the same.

  “Throw it inside as hard as you can, Darrien; when they move to avoid the blast, I’ll put the next one in their path.”

  He palmed the grenade for a moment, judging its weight like a boy with a stone for skipping across a pond before thumbing the activation button. She nodded again and he took a few steps before hurling it with all his might into the room beyond. In seconds, the flash and thunderous explosion tore through the unseen mercenaries who were already shifting positions when Rantara followed with her own grenade, aiming for a point only meters away. As she turned Norris toward the wall to shield him, piercing screams told them the grenades had done their work.

  “Move inside quickly and turn left, Darrien!” she shouted. “Stop there and shoot anything that moves!”

  He did as she commanded, slipping around the first corner and into the smoke from fires the grenades had ignited and immediately, he saw them. Three shapes moved slowly to his left, scuttling on slender, multi-jointed legs. He recognized the form and aimed instinctively for the torso of one, cutting into it with a short, precise burst. The gun’s terrible, razor sharp projectiles ripped through the Kez soldier, just as they had done to the Khorran scouts on Karroba, tearing pieces from its body in explosions of thick blood. The creature didn’t cry out, staggering for a moment until it dropped to the floor in a heap. Rantara waited until the surviving soldiers made for the doorway beyond, falling directly into her line of fire. In seconds, they were down and the room went suddenly silent. She called to him.

  “Darrien, are you all right?”

  Norris noticed he was panting and he trembled with nervous excitement.

  “I’m okay!” he called out, moving cautiously toward her where she waited.

  “Reload now and move forward; we need to keep the pressure on before they can recover.”

  They stepped over the grotesque, spiderlike bodies of dead mercenaries, slipping awkwardly in the pools of gooey blood spreading out across the tiled floor. Norris fought against the pounding heartbeat and the needling pull of all his senses, alive and pushed to their limit. Beyond the second doorway, an atrium opened wide and Rantara held Norris for a moment.

  “Go slowly now,” she whispered; “they’re on the other side and waiting beyond that doorway.”

  “How are we supposed to get through?” he asked. “They’ll draw on us the minute we walk in!”

  “No,” she replied, and Norris heard again the utter calm in her voice. None of the carnage bothered her, nor the truth of what waited as the Kez’Erel no doubt trained their gun sights.

  “It’s obvious they can’t see us. Just like before, head left and stay quiet when you move. I’ll go first this time, but wait until I throw before sending your grenade, understand? Put it straight out in front of you and they’ll blunder into it trying to escape the blast from mine.”

  They edged closer to the arch of the atrium’s entryway, watching for the thin, telltale beam of light that would announce they’d been targeted by a deadly particle weapon. When nothing changed, Rantara pointed Norris left and moved slowly to the right, setting up a perfect, pincer attack profile. Again he could smell them, but the clicking of their spindly legs on the flooring told him quickly where to look. With their amplified vision plates, Norris and Rantara saw them moving low behind a long, waist-high console of dark, silent computers. Incredibly, the Kez soldiers looked with panic with oversized, compound eyes toward the vacant doorway, unable to anticipate the destruction that would soon follow. Norris stopped as Rantara glided effortlessly around and to the right, holding at a point that would make for an efficient field of crossfire.

  In an instant, her grenade detonated and its flash nearly blinded Norris where he stood. The heat buffeted him, too, but he held steady and tossed his own toward three Kez soldiers as they tried to scramble free. The explosion lifted two of them cleanly into the air as a third managed to escape until Norris cut it down with a long, deadly volley from his rifle. At last, and in sheer desperation, the surviving Kez soldiers opened fire
as thin, glittering beams of green light reached silently out into the darkness. Again and again, they fired aimlessly in their panic, leaving charred lines along the near wall. Norris crouched, waiting for them to come into view as Rantara’s gun shattered the silence once more.

  The mercenaries, caught unaware and hopelessly blind in the darkness, had no chance. Moments later, the whole of the chamber was quiet again. Beyond, the sound of explosions had ceased, too, signaling Hesset finished dealing with the intransigent Kez who stubbornly delayed their approach to the front entrance. Soon, Theriani called in to report she and Hesset were moving again and with no resistance only seconds before the backup systems engaged and power returned to the complex in stages. Rantara and Norris waited until Theriani and Hesset found them in the atrium.

  “This we do so easy,” Theriani said with clear satisfaction as they surveyed the devastation and Kez’Erel corpses gathered in twisted groups on the bare tiles. Norris looked and found the sight of their bodies, torn and shredded on a floor awash in their thick, brown blood, brought no special feeling of shock or horror. Had they been human, he knew, the effect would surely have been very different.

  “You’d think all those creepy eyes would give them superior night vision, but maybe they’re only good for detecting motion?”

  “Perhaps,” Hesset answered; “I’ve never studied them, but…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rantara interrupted suddenly as she reloaded, “they’re dead and we’re alive.”

  She was ‘in the pipe,’ Norris’ old squadron mates would say—the unique and pronounced focus all skilled soldiers maintain, which explained her agitated response. He smiled at Hesset and whispered, “Case closed, I guess?”

  Hesset grinned with a single nod and they waited for Theriani to finish a perimeter sweep to ensure the upper level was safe. Norris looked again at the corpses, but something seemed off.

  “There has to be more of them,” he said at last. “I can see it in the memories as Settis watched them leave the compound on patrols—there were dozens.”

  Rantara returned a confused expression and said, “Theriani and Hesset killed a lot of them at the front of this building, Darrien.”

  “In Settis’ memories,” Norris continued, “there were more—there’s no way this is the entire detachment. They must’ve retreated to another, more secure area.”

  “They’re probably massing underground near the library,” Rantara replied, “but it won’t stay that way for long, now the power’s back up. They can’t call for help and they know it, so any minute now, the Kez will be back and we won’t have the advantage of darkness anymore.”

  “So what’s our next move?” Norris asked, although he already knew the answer.

  “We have to finish clearing the compound, Darrien. The entire complex has to be swept and secured completely.”

  “Then we split into two teams and work the problem?”

  “Exactly. You and I will go down to the lower levels while Hesset and Theriani clear out the surface floors. Every room and every compartment—leave nothing unexposed.”

  Theriani looked around and said, “We not seeing any Merchants yet; they stay below, maybe?”

  “There’s only a few of them here,” Norris replied, “and they’re usually in the central chamber.”

  “Then arm up and let’s move,” said Rantara. “Keep the comm open and let us know if you need help.”

  Hesset and Theriani turned for a doorway to one of the out-buildings while Norris led Rantara to a spiraling ramp and the secondary levels below. It took only moments before they were met by several Kez’Erel soldiers moving quickly up the gentle incline in single file, holding to the predictable behavior of creatures more closely related to insects. Rantara nodded for Norris to toss his grenades as she knelt and leveled her aim. Seconds later, the first beams of particle weapons appeared and the firefight engaged again.

  For twenty minutes, they scoured the central chamber’s corridors and rooms, one to the next. The Kez were determined, but their position was grave as grenade after grenade flushed them from cover and into the hail of projectiles coming at them from loud, terrifying rifles. At last, they walked through spaces already cleared and realized only the lowest levels remained. Above, a Kez particle beam had found Hesset, but her armor took the brunt of it, leaving a painful but mostly superficial burn on her right thigh. When all four gathered near the lifts, Norris remembered immediately.

  “This is the elevator that goes down to the archive library itself; the Merchants don’t let the Kez’Erel inside, so maybe we won’t have as many to deal with.”

  Rantara frowned and said, “They’ll let them in now; the Kez’Erel are the only thing between the Merchants and death. I would think they have the last soldiers with them, waiting outside this lift to kill us the moment the doors open; there has to be another way down.”

  Norris searched his acquired memories and saw in them a maintenance shaft, but it took a moment for the image to clear in his mind.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “There is another way; I’m seeing in Settis’ memories a tunnel that runs from the library chamber to another building…”

  “Darrien?” Rantara said, waiting for him to finish his thought.

  “It’s Eru Toa’s private residence!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive; he stays offsite in an underground apartment. Settis went there a few times, and the tunnel is directly beneath us.”

  “But we still have to get down to the library.”

  “It’s okay; I know how to do that, too,” he said with a smile. “Settis, that clever bastard! He figured out how to get in through the utility ducts. There’s a vertical shaft and it’s going to be a very tight squeeze, but it has a sort of ladder we can use where the flange of each section connects to the next. He knew somebody would need to get down there by another path, so he looked at the blueprints and found it!”

  “Blueprints?” Hesset asked.

  “The construction plans for this entire facility; he accessed them and searched deliberately for a way.”

  Rantara looked at three consoles nearby, one of which had finished its reboot.

  “Can you access this terminal and find it?”

  Norris looked for a moment, but shook his head. “Not that one, but I know where we can find a console that has main control access.”

  They followed him, watching with anticipation like children on a scavenger hunt. He walked, looking tentatively until a locked door stopped them.

  “This is it. Inside, they have a backup connection to their communications array, but also, a master console—an interface with access to pretty much any system in the complex. With the power back up, all we need are the proper codes, and thanks to Settis, I have them.”

  “But the door,” said Theriani, “it staying locked and no way the control pad to open, only—see?”

  Rantara walked back through the corridor to a hub area and searched through the rubble, returning with a length of metal that looked like a thin support beam. It took three massive blows to buckle and stave in the hatchway, and then two well-placed kicks from her boot finished the job.

  Norris smiled at Theriani. “She may not be subtle, but she is effective.”

  Theriani laughed and followed the others inside the comm room where Norris settled quickly at a live console, pecking at the command pad until it responded.

  “Do you understand how to access this, Darrien?” Rantara asked, frowning at the strange Searcher characters on the display.

  “Well, sort of. It’s weird—I can’t read the characters or understand them because I don’t speak the Searcher language, but I still know which ones to hit. This is nothing but ‘monkey see, monkey do,’ but it’ll work.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  Norris smiled and continued until the machine came alive with a scrolling menu of options he recognized at once, manipulating them quickly until he found the graphical rep
resentation of the facility’s layout.

  “There,” he said with a smile. “That’s the tunnel going out to Toa’s rooms.”

  “And the utility shaft down to the archive library?” Rantara asked.

  “It’s inside an access panel near here; a maintenance port they rarely use. Settis didn’t think the Kez even know it exists.”

  He continued to flip through the images until one caught his eye.

  “Even better,” he continued, “they have no clue it leads down to a hatch inside the tunnel, right beside the main corridor. We can pop up at this junction,” he pointed, “which is two doors beyond the elevator shaft.”

  Hesset leaned over his shoulder and said, “Which means?”

  “It means we’ll be able to crawl up and into the corridor from the shaft, but at least ten meters in the other direction. Presuming Onallin’s right, they’ll be worried about the elevator and never see us sneaking up from behind. If we’re lucky, most of them will be trapped in this circular hallway with nowhere to hide.”

  Rantara knelt and looked at the display.

  “Can you find a way to access their internal cameras, Darrien? It would help if we could see where they are before we get there.”

  “Hold on a second,” he answered, “I don’t know why, but Settis was all over their servers, looking at a variety of things—sensor systems, power distribution, environmentals—you name it.”

  “Perhaps he was compelled to investigate, after discovering what Toa and the Merchants planned to do,” Hesset said. “It is fortunate his activities are fresh in those memories, Darrien.”

  “Yes, but this damn thing…”

  “Do you need help?”

  “I can’t figure out which of these symbols maps back to the controls for each camera.”

  Hesset sat next to him and accessed the adjacent console. Norris coded her in and found the way to a control menu. After several moments scrolling through the images, Hesset pointed at a single character and said, “Try this one, Darrien.”

  With a touch, a new menu appeared, but it was different and clearly another language. Norris smiled and said, “Well, that was easy! How the hell did you know which one to hit?”