Vosper offered an assessment of the machines they passed on the battlefield. "Looted already, I'd wager, sir."
"Most of them, yes," Kozon nodded. "Picked over by tech vultures, though not recently. I very much doubt these machines have been touched in millennia. The dry desert heat has preserved nearly everything since the last time the gate leading to this world was functional. But what were they fighting over? What could have been so important that they turned an entire world into a battlefield?"
Orbital surveys of Sasanga had shown no lifeforms beyond the most basic, and there were few of those on the sun-blasted planet. All of Sasanga was a vast desert with only tiny ice caps at the poles. No sentients were in evidence, human or alien, but there were tantalizing remnants of a civilization of unknown provenance dotting the surface. At forty-two cataloged sites there stood looming crystalline structures, with most conforming to the same overall plan. They had been habitations of some kind, built to house beings of a roughly humanoid shape and size. Recon drones had performed initial flybys of several of these sites, discovering no inhabitants. Unlocking the mystery of the fate of the constructors of the towers would have to be left to xenoarchaeologists. What Kozon was after was any technology that had been left behind, either by the tower builders or by the interlopers who had later come to make war on Sasanga.
Ten more minutes of careful maneuvering around dozens of additional vehicles had brought the skimmer to within a hundred yan of a slender crystal tower. It stood resplendent in the morning sun. The system's primary, Pivaris, was a brilliant yellow-orange, mid-sequence star. Had Sasanga lain a bit further away, it might have been a rich and verdant world teeming with life. Instead, it orbited just a little too close to its sun and suffered for it.
Uhliss was waiting for them. His face was alight with wonder. "You will want to see this, Kozon. Follow me, if you would."
Its cyclone thrusters kicking up sand, Uhliss's Skyraider bike shot off into the distance, and Vosper gunned his engine to follow. The ancient war machines were thicker on the ground here, and Kozon quickly lost sight of Uhliss in the dust storm his bike created behind him. Vosper directed his attention ahead. "A Vidrian dropship. Sixth Age. Old, but of a more recent vintage than anything we have yet seen."
"Quite right," Kozon agreed. The Vidrians had been a people of a bygone age noted for their expansionism and acquisitiveness. It made sense that they had come to take a look at Sasanga. They had likely thought it a treasure trove of ancient tech. Funny though. Vidrian records were notably complete, an oddity when compared to the haphazard survivals of other, more prominent civilizations. Yet there had been no mention in them of the Antarean gate to Sasanga, but that could have been because the Vidrians were notoriously secretive. Perhaps they had wished to keep such an open air storehouse of artifacts to themselves and refused to log their findings, determined to keep it hidden even from others of their own kind.
What Kozon saw next made him reconsider natural Vidrian secrecy. Perhaps they had never made it home. From a distance it looked like a wall, perhaps a yan in height. It had the appearance of having been built of stone and steel, but on closer inspection, it had been fabricated from the battered pieces of the vehicles and equipment strewn across the desert. Among the wreckage were numerous Vidrian machines.
"See here, Kozon," Uhliss said. "This is another Vidrian dropship, just like the one further back. And here too, this is from yet another dropship."
It took an hour for them to complete their circuit of the wall. They found at least a dozen such dropships and many other Vidrian ground vehicles embedded within the structure, crushed alongside the weaponry of several other cultures. Koresbor took part in the exploration with an almost childlike enthusiasm. Tosibel stood off to the side, as if picking through wreckage was beneath her dignity.
The Mhagris made for a contrasting pair. Odo Koresbor was a plasma pistol wielding brute recruited from a barbaric jungle tribe on Mhagris. His people had a practice of incising a ritual scar on their bodies to commemorate each enemy a warrior had slain. Koresbor’s scars began on his right arm, just above the wrist, then climbed upward, around his shoulders, and continued halfway down his left arm. Kozon had tried counting them but had given up once he had reached forty.
The woman, Sulza Tosibel, a roamer from Mhagris’s northern ice deserts, was far more frightening. She was silent at almost all times and never blinked. Her dead eyes were those of an assassin. Kozon thought he could sense her thoughts. She seemed to be constantly sizing up anyone she encountered, considering how best to kill him. That she had taken lives before was readily apparent. At her waist she wore three shrunken heads of particularly noteworthy foes she had slain. The grisly trophies were hung from her belt by the braided hair of the victims. A sleek mag gun, wicked saber, and mag lash completed the hideous picture.
"The Vidrians must have mounted a full scale assault on the tower," Kozon said. "It doesn't look like it succeeded."
Adding to the eeriness of the place was what lay inside the wall. Apart from the crystal tower itself, there was nothing. Out to a radius of sixty yan, the ground within had been swept clean, leaving a zone devoid of cover for any who might try to cross. Kozon, Vosper, and Uhliss refrained from doing anything more than briefly looking over the top.
"That was not done naturally," Vosper said. "Someone, or something, is keeping a watch on this site and will not let anyone get too close."
"The Vidrians were fools then," Kozon said. "They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They probably lost ten thousand men trying to fight their way to the tower." Kozon's spirits sank. An army had perished here. Sasanga was not a treasure trove. It was a graveyard.
"I've seen nothing newer than the Vidrian equipment," said Uhliss. "Most of the material is far older. They must have been the last to come through before the gate was lost at the end of the last age."
A sharp beep emanated from Uhliss's bike. He glanced down at his display. "Just an anomalous heat source," he said, tapping the display to shut off the sound. "Probably something in this mess is solar-powered and comes back on-line every morning when it gets enough juice."
Kozon kicked a small piece of debris as he continued to inspect the wall.
"Please be careful," Uhliss urged. "We don't know if anything here is still functional. Any piece of material we find might be a live mine or grenade."
Kozon winced inwardly. He had been waltzing around the battlefield as if it were nothing more than a junkyard. Yes, nearly everything present might be lethal. It had been too long since he had received his lessons back in basic training. Now he was behaving no better than the rawest of recruits. Uhliss was right. Kozon would not tell him that, though.
"I have enough experience to distinguish between litter and live ammunition, thank you very much. I'll let you know when I need babysitting."
Uhliss was chagrined. "Sorry, sir. No offense intended."
"None taken, Uhliss."
* * * *
“I’m leaving you, Ayess.”
Kozon turned and looked at his wife. Valoora was not smiling. “You’re serious?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.” Valoora was tall and beautiful, with honey-colored hair that cascaded down her back like a river of gold. She looked every bit a queen. Now his regal wife was leaving him.
“But. . . why?” he stammered.
“You know why,” she sneered, “or would, if you paid more attention.”
“I thought that. . .”
“I want more, Ayess.” She tossed her head dismissively. “More than you can give.”
“I’ve given you a very comfortable life,” Kozon protested. “What more could you wish for?”
Valoora’s lip curled. “To be more than the wife of a middling lordling of a second-tier vardos, that is what I wish.”
Kozon sat down heavily. They were in the spacious quarters that he owned aboard the Glorious Lucre. He looked around their home. It was exquisitely furnished with works of art d
rawn from a dozen worlds. “You need more than this?”
“I want more than this,” Valoora corrected. “Whether I need it is my own business.”
“I had thought you were happy with our match,” Kozon said.
Valoora turned her back on her husband. “I was, for a time. When you were here. You are always gone.”
“That is because I am busy trying to provide you with more. You always want more.”
Valoora faced her husband. “If I want more, it is only because I want what I once had. I am a daughter of a vardos of greater nobility than your parvenu Joxiana.”
“Parvenu? An insult and untrue as well,” Kozon rejoined. “House Nirana is not so lofty that one of its daughters would not marry into Joxiana. You did.”
“A youthful mistake.”
“You say that just to wound me,” Kozon chided. “You have succeeded.” There was silence between them for a time. “What brought this on?”
“Can’t you guess?” There were tears in Valoora’s eyes. “Ayess, you are going away again. I have seen you for scarcely six months in the last four years. You are never here!”
“I am on trade missions to the farthest stars, Valoora. You know what I do. You press me to make more money but then scold me when I am away, doing just that. It is not to be rid of you that I travel so much or for so long.”
“What have your missions brought you, my dear husband? You’ve had one business disaster after another.” Her darting eyes took in the whole of their quarters at once. “How long will it be before you will be auctioning off all that we have to pay your debts?”
“This will be different, I promise you, Valoora,” Kozon pleaded.
“I’ve heard that before.”
“This is an opportunity unlike any other,” Kozon explained. “The lead comes from Lord Joxiana himself. Our scouts have found a new gate. It goes to a system on the other side of the galaxy. It’s called Pivaris. One of those worlds is covered in ancient technological artifacts. I will be one of the first to explore it. Who knows what I might find? It could turn around my fortunes at a stroke!”
Valoora stood stock still. Kozon hoped that she was digesting what she had been told and coming around. Her derisive laugh informed him otherwise.
“That is what you are going to do? That is your mission? To go pick through rubbish on some forsaken planet in a backwater system? How much did you pour into this unfolding calamity?”
“It will be worth it,” Kozon promised. “There’s more to it than old equipment. Our ships have found towers - alien towers - they are sure to house something very valuable.” That is what he hoped, at least.
Valoora closed her eyes. “I do not have patience for this anymore, Ayess. Maybe a year ago I would have given you the benefit of the doubt. Not now. I don’t know you anymore. You haven’t been a husband to me for a long while. We have no children. The other Vardosi wives used to pity me. Now they laugh at me as word gets out that your ventures are failing.”
“This will not fail,” Kozon insisted.
“You’ve said that many other times.”
That was the last Kozon had seen of his wife before departing for Sasanga.
* * * *
Kozon made certain to avoided touching or stepping on anything that looked like it might have been made by the hands of men as he carried on searching. He discovered a Nean missile carrier embedded upside down in the wall a few minutes later. He searched for it in the vehicle data catalog he had downloaded to his datapad. It was older by far than the Vidrian equipment, but Vardosi explorers of House Joxiana had encountered such machines on numerous occasions and dutifully logged and shared what was known about them. The Pruxor, as it was named, was a battlefield weapon system constructed by the Ankon Heavy Equipment Corporation around the middle of the Fifth Age. Designed to deliver overwhelming fire support with pinpoint accuracy, the Pruxor had been popular with several militaries in ancient times, seeing service for well over two centuries before it was superseded by more modern types. Whoever had brought it here had known what they were getting into. The camouflage that the vehicle wore was an uncanny match for the surrounding sand. It had not allowed it to survive.
Vosper's comm came to life. He pressed his hand to his ear. "It's Fourth Flight, sir. They're inbound. Should be here in five minutes."
"Tell Erenn that it’s about time." Erenn was not really late, but Kozon saw it as his duty to keep his subordinates off-balance and apologetic about their supposed tardiness. Besides, he had paid handsomely for Fourth Fight’s assistance. He wanted to get his money’s worth.
"Erenn says he'll hurry up," Vosper reported.
"While we wait, let's keep looking."
A little further on, they came upon the front end of an enormous tracked tank. Koresbor spent much of his time examining the pintle-mounted mag repeater atop the machine. Kozon's catalog identified it as a Xefet tank destroyer. The vehicle had no turret. Its main gun was fixed in place, with the weight saved by foregoing a turret allowing for the installation of a larger mag cannon than would otherwise have been possible on a chassis of the same size. The Xefet was most notable for taking part in many battles on behalf of the armies of the Cholirian Empire, acquiring an impressive record for lethality and reliability. It was widely exported by Cholir to other powers of Antarean space and had proved itself in many planetary battles before the flow of vehicles ceased when the gate to Cholir was lost at the close of the Fifth Age.
There was a loud crunch. Kozon looked up from his datapad. Koresbor had ripped the mag repeater from its mount. He stood on the Xefet, proudly holding the big weapon in both hands. “This is mine now,” he declared.
There were none present who would gainsay him.
The search continued. Tosibel again showed no interest in the venture and merely watched as the men picked their way over, across, and sometimes through, the old machines.
Uhliss, rummaging beside Kozon, asked, "How many do you think are still out there, sir?"
"How many what?"
"People, I mean. How many humans are living on the other sides of lost gates on worlds we have forgotten?"
"There must be so many of them," Kozon said. "Our whole civilization relies on Antares, an object we scarcely comprehend, to knit our worlds together. It has a nasty habit of reshuffling the deck of gates on us every so often. We get to a stage where we think that we are something special, that we stand at the apex of human achievement, and then Antares blows its stack and we realize that we are mere insects in comparison. We're lucky that we remember anything of the elder times." He tapped his datapad. "Our Joxiana forebears were assiduous in taking notes about what they found."
Uhliss's bike stood not far off and began to beep several times. "More heat sources?" Kozon inquired. "I had thought this place dead."
Uhliss ran back to his machine and tapped the console several times. "It's picking up three energy spikes, sir, about two hundred yan away."
“Working equipment?”
"Maybe. Possibly a few batteries have just finished charging and then discharged rapidly."
"Let's take a look."
They mounted their vehicles and headed toward the source of the energy spikes. Coming upon a comparatively clear space, they found a gargantuan human-like warbot, sunk to its waist in sand. It had been a striking, even beautiful, machine of war at one time. Now it was missing its head, which lay disconcertingly atop its outstretched hand, as if the fallen titan were presenting it to an onlooker. Kozon’s catalog was unable to identify it.
"I did not know they ever made them this big," Uhliss gasped.
"I can't imagine what these were made to fight," Kozon said. "Whatever hit it cut it clean in two. Its legs are over there."
The lower waist and legs of the warbot were draped over the massive hull of a slagged Aggrunian grav bomber. The cockpit of the craft had disintegrated on impact with the ground, but the fuselage, sleek and gray, lay largely intact, looking like a beached ocean predator, at
once menacing and helpless.
A roar of engines overhead lifted their eyes skyward. "Fourth Flight," Uhliss said.
Three Striker attack skimmers turned in a lazy circle above their heads. The lead machine peeled off and shot upward, soaring higher and higher until it cut its engine, and began a steep dive. It fell, and continued falling, until just before it crashed the pilot restarted its engine and pulled out of the dive. Leveling off, the skimmer then banked sharply and rejoined its mates.
"The pilot is Zatter Erenn," Kozon sniffed. "Show off."
The three newcomers circled around, dropping low as they approached the clearing. "Big energy spike, sir," Uhliss said. "Coming from right behind the warbot." He peered around the side of the humanoid war machine. "What is that. . . ?"
A searingly bright burst of plasma sizzled heavenward, hitting Erenn's skimmer squarely on the left flank. The vehicle's composite side armor vaporized, with the remainder of the energy blast breaching the cockpit. Erenn and his companion were gone in an instant. Their vehicle spiraled into a mound of wrecked weaponry and detonated. A second blast erupted from some distance behind the first, and this seared the underside of the second Striker as it jinked to evade fire. A glowing-edged hole a half-yan in diameter formed in the skimmer's undercarriage, followed a split-second later by a tremendous explosion as the vehicle's hyperlight shielding collapsed.
The last Striker in Erenn's doomed flight dove close to the ground, hoping to lose itself in the clutter of vehicles and equipment lying outside the wall. The pilot's instincts were good, but his maneuver had been anticipated by the unseen enemy. A hail of small bomblets hurtled aloft, forming an aerial minefield. The Freeborn skimmer smacked squarely into these, and the combined discharges of so many weapons overloaded the flying machine's avionics systems. Losing stability, the damaged Striker clipped the top of a ruined antiaircraft tank, and then cartwheeled front over end before coming apart in a massive fireball.
Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates Page 9
