Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  Incautiously, I rushed up the steps, across the courtyard and scrambled up the pyramid. I rolled Xiv's head to face me and tested for a pulse. It was weak and thready, but there. As I checked his vitals, I became aware of a low rumble; a deep-throated growl from something big. Two eyes opened in the dark, their reflective retinas staring straight at me. I blinked over to thermal and found myself staring into the mouth of Hell. A ghastly visage of rippling white-hot orifices marked the eyes, nostrils, and the jagged, toothy sneer of a maw larger than the van we'd arrived in. Cooler lines marked the rest of its scaled, horned form. Cooler being a relative term, as the false-color spectrum read as scalding. The heat spiked to pure white as it opened its mouth and roared.

  The room trembled at her cry and the force with which her breath hit me sent me tumbling down the side of the pyramid.

  "Magnificent, isn't she?" Omicron's resonating voice called. "Even I was impressed at what the Final Star had managed without me. Shame she has a tendency to eat visitors and supplicants." In a snort of fire from her nostrils, I got the first clear impression of her face. Rust red on top, she faded to pale gold underneath, with two rows of knobbly black horns running from behind her nostrils along the top of her head, ending in two massive black spikes from the rear of her cranium. Her eyes were a copper hue with a cross-shaped pupil. Each one was bigger than I was. The extent of her body was impossible to judge, as I was transfixed by her gaze.

  Only when she lunged forward did I react, raising a defensive bubble around myself as her jaws closed around me. Clamping down on the unyielding red static with its nimbus of shadow, she growled again, expecting something more chewy. Her collarbone knocked over the granite arches as she continued forward, slamming me, and her snout, into the far wall. A shower of halite rained down around us. As she reared back, I found myself level with an unlit observation deck. Two glowing red eyepieces stared out at me.

  "I knew my glove would turn up sooner or later," Omicron said. "We've never been able to fully test Valeria's bite strength, and I'm curious to know if my force fields can withstand it. This will be interesting."

  "You seem awfully calm," I said, "I don't think that polycarbonate window or its frame will withstand a hit from Valeria here." Omicron's eyes lacked lids, but there was still a shift in their expression as my words sank in. Valeria heard me too, as her left hand smashed through the window, shattering the observation deck in a single swipe, and drawing Omicron out in a shower of debris. I saw the dragon's muscles flex as she tried to crush Omicron in her grip.

  "This behavior is unacceptable," Omicron said, raising his left hand. His new glove clashed with his color schema, being a light blue with a box mounted to the back of the hand. He made the gesture to dismiss a force bubble and a "whump-whump-whump-whump" sound echoed through the chamber. It was some sort of sonic attack aimed at Valeria's head, as she flinched away, swinging me wildly through the air. She dropped Omicron. Partway to the basalt, he encased himself in a bubble and slowed his fall to a gentle stop. He checked his suit for damage. "You broke my teleporter," he said, firing another "whump-whump" at the side of Valeria's head. I had no idea how sound could pass in and out of the force bubbles, but as long as I'd been running into them it always had. So I should have expected to find sonic weapons in Omicron's arsenal.

  I was getting dizzy from the thrashing of Valeria's head under the auditory onslaught. I was fortunate enough to avoid a direct hit from the weapon. Probably because the dragon was trying to get out of its path and I was still trapped in her jaws. Her wild scramble knocked down caryatids and brought a rain of salt from the ceiling as her wings buffeted the halite. Valeria let out another growl when the onslaught stopped. Keeping the bubble in place held most of my attention, as I hadn't practiced with what would shut one down under the control of the psychic circuitry. Was inattention enough? I didn't want to risk it, and willed the bubble to remain up. Jennifer hauled Xiv away from the pyramid atop a disc construct, shifting him out of the way of the enraged dragoness.

  Icerazor charged Omicron, his blade slicing through the force bubble the way it carved through most energy creations. The sudden pop startled the not-so-good Doctor. Swinging his left arm around, he hit Icerazor square in the chest with a single "whump" of sonic assault. It was enough to hurl him back and draw a spray of blood from his lips. Valeria lunged at Omicron, her claws clenching about the bubble of force he raised before she reached him. She raised him up to eye level. Omicron drew a bead on the massive ocular crosshair before him. Valeria flinched away before he fired, and his destructive sound gouged a scar into the salt. She released his bubble, and Omicron rose towards the ceiling. Pointing his arm up and to the side, Omicron's "whump-whump-whump" bored a passage into the concreted salt.

  A rain of debris poured towards Icerazor's still form, but Jennifer swept him away with a construct before he was buried in halite. The channel was narrow, but the grinding action of Omicron's bubble forcing its way through widened it. A constant stream of rubble cascaded out of the hole and into the chamber. Valeria lunged at the wall and began clawing at the hole, her massive claws tearing giant rents in the crystalline deposit. Scratching away like a hound and ripping boulders free from the strata, she pursued Omicron through the earth. With her snout plunged into the tunnel, I lost sight of the rest of my team.

  "Miss Pain, status report," I called.

  "I'm shielding the other two right now. I can't tell how badly they're hurt while holding off all this salt. Also, this chamber doesn't look like it's going to stand up to the abuse. If I can, I'm going to try to get the others to the surface."

  "Understood." Dread passed through me as the first bar of battery on the gauntlet blinked out. I couldn't keep this up indefinitely, and that indicator started to look like what was left of my life instead of the battery's. Valeria sundered the earth to the sound of an avalanche, ripping and tearing through whatever got in her way as she followed Omicron's escape route.

  "Please tell me that's an Earthquake," Nora's voice said over the comm. We were apparently close enough to the surface for the signal to make it through the intervening rock.

  "We've got Doctor Omicron and the dragoness burrowing their way to the surface," I said, "I do not know where they're going to come out."

  "Why don't you ever have good news!" Nora called.

  "There's Omicron," Jack said.

  "Watch out, he's added a sonic weapon to his arsenal," I said.

  "You might have wanted to mention that sooner," Pam said, "He just sent Astroborn through the warehouse."

  Valeria erupted from the earth in a cascade of clay and grass, her gaze casting about between the stars and the horizons. She spread her wings wide, shedding the salt and dirt from them. The crowd by the buildings stared up in awe and fear. She wasn't even fully out of the ground yet, and she towered over the buildings. Snatching up one of the demi-dragons, she sniffed him. The mutated cultist looked up hopefully, before screeching in pain as Valeria crushed him in her grip, sending a spray of blood everywhere. Tossing the carcass aside, she plucked my bubble from her jaws and threw me away. Fighting desperately to slow my flight, I bounced through the main gate and crashed into the hood of a car. I released the bubble and sank into the dent I'd made.

  A distant "whump-whump" made Valeria flinch. "Back in the cave," Omicron called. Instead, Valeria took wing, lifting her hind legs off the ground and pulling her long, sinuous tail from the grip of the earth. "No you don't," Omicron said. A moment later, a massive bubble of red static all but blotted out the stars. The nimbus of shadow finished the job. So he had made a generator big enough to cover a city. Whatever else the slime was, Omicron at least avoided complete lies. Insidious lies of omission, yes, outright falsehoods, no.

  I groaned as I rolled off the car and regained my feet. This was rapidly getting out of hand.

  "I suppose this might be a good time to a
pologize and offer to lend a hand," Neutrino said. I turned to look at whose car I'd smashed into. I nearly wept, the black sedan was a classic from the fifties. Until I'd smashed it, it had been in mint condition. Townsend stepped from the vehicle, a sweep of energy transforming his business suit into a hero outfit bearing his signature white N.

  "What changed your mind?" I asked, still groggy from being shaken around in Valeria's jaws.

  "An old sidekick of mine reminded me of what I used to tell him. A hero should live the example and rise above petty squabbles when the greater good is at stake."

  "Well, we have a bit of a situation here. Three team members trapped underground, Omicron and Valeria loose--"

  "Valeria?"

  "The dragoness," I said. In the distance, Valeria recoiled as she was hit first by Jack followed close behind by Pam. It didn't seem to phase her much. "You're our resident expert on giant creatures," I said. "Any ideas?"

  "Stop going for the jaw and the snout, those are too heavily armored, start hitting weak points. I would have thought that much was obvious. Eyes, throat behind the jaw, windpipe, ear if you can find it."

  "Hop on our comm channel," I said, rattling off the frequency. I keyed a transmit. "Neutrino just joined us. Astroborn, Stamp, you two follow his lead and focus on the dragon. Ixa, Blue, we have to get Omicron down to earth and peel him out of that force bubble somehow."

  "Where are the others?" Ixa asked.

  "Ice and Xiv are hurt, Miss Pain is covering them and trying to get them to the surface."

  "And Cupric?" Nora asked.

  Crap, I'd forgotten about Ben. "I lost track of him," I confessed.

  "You son of a--"

  "Save the recriminations for later," Neutrino said. "For now, focus on the objectives." He floated into the air and headed to join Jack and Pam. I figured I should get back into the fray. As I took aim at the eaves of the hammermill with the line launcher, my computer fed my eye an estimated trajectory, making it easy to land on target. The angle I would have fired it at instinctively would have missed the building. I yelped in surprise as it felt like the line launcher was trying to rip my arm off. I hurtled through the air, barely catching myself against the wall of the building. The heart-stopping flight renewed my dose of adrenalin. That will definitely need getting used to.

  Clamoring onto the roof, I crossed to the far side and looked up at Omicron's force bubble. It nearly blended into the red static sky. I looked down at the girls below me. "I'm open to suggestions," I said.

  "I'll ground him," Ixa said, bringing her hands together in front of her face in some obscure gesture. As she started into the words of her incantation, I once again felt the flow of energy pouring into her. It began to circle her in loops of strange sigils, glowing brighter as the energy built. Redirecting it, Ixa drew forth vines of white energy from the ground. Rings of sigils circled their anchor points as these leafy ropes wrapped themselves around Omicron's bubble. With a motion through her arms and shoulders, Ixa directed the vines to pull Omicron from the sky. He smashed into the hard clay, all but pulverizing the grass growing there.

  Omicron aimed his left hand, but before the "whump-whump" smashed the hammermill, Nora snagged Ixa and pulled her from the line of fire. With a load-bearing wall knocked out, the roof I was on sagged, dumping me onto the dirt. As I rolled to my feet, I realized I'd landed right in Omicron's crosshairs. The unassuming blue box mounted to the back of his glove held my attention as I awaited sonic doom. The screech and fizzle of Omicron's force bubble collapsing drew his attention away from the task of liquefying my organs with sound. Standing there in what he thought was an imposing stance, Ben looked almost comedically awkward holding Icerazor's sword.

  "Yoink," Nora called as she pulled the glove off of Omicron's right hand. Irate, Omicron fired at her. Weaving, Nora dodged the blast of sound, but the "whump-whump-whump" tore up the hard clay in front of her. Stepping wrong, she lost her footing and tumbled. Momentum being what it was, she continued forward even as she flipped forward before face planting in the ground and rolling along sideways. A cloud of dust obscured her as she finally came to a rest.

  Ben lunged forward as I fired my line launcher into the back of Omicron's helmet. With a backhand swipe, Omicron smashed the vermillion-clad sidekick into the ground. Icerazor's diamond blade bounced away. Propelled forward like a human missile, I crashed into Omicron's back. Wrapping my hands about the armored Doctor's wrist, I tried to wrench the glove away from him. He clenched a fist to keep it. Prying at his fingers, I realized a half-second too late that I was about to force him into the gesture that fired the sonic device.

  "Whump."

  I was not directly in the path of the shot, but the concussive force of the energy dispersing still threw me backwards. The world spun as my ears rang and my body ached. I wondered if I'd ruptured my eardrums with that stunt. Omicron staggered away from me, the front of his coat shredded. The suit within reminded me of an ambulatory iron lung. The valves and plumbing tucked away in recessed nooks controlled who knew what. Half of them were smashed beyond repair, some leaking viscous fluids. Omicron prodded the sonic glove, which fell to pieces, destroyed by its own shot. Even as I started to stagger to my feet, Omicron wrapped his arm around the cable from my line launcher. The realization that we were still tethered at his helmet came a moment too late, as he yanked on the cord.

  Pulled forward by my arm, I staggered towards Omicron. I stopped only as his hand clamped about my throat. He lifted me by my neck, my feet leaving the ground entirely. Stars were already starting to swim in front of my left eye. I stared into the pitiless, lidless orbs boring into me through the red portals in Omicron's helmet. With his coat out of the way, I noticed a detail that hadn't been visible previously, the lower edge of his helmet. Twisting the locking tabs, I heard a hiss as I tore the steel hood from his head. For the first time, I looked upon the face of Ivar Kazuk.

  Whatever had been done to Omicron's face, it had been thorough and aggressive. With the red lenses out of the way, it was clear that not only were his eyelids gone, but his eyes were held in place by silk string and dried ligaments. He had no cheeks, his teeth were plainly visible back to a crooked pair of rear molars. The jaw was held up by what looked like steel wire embedded in the cheekbones. His tongue was gone, and fixed in his mouth was a combination respirator and speaker unit. His ears were little more than holes in the sides of his head. Scattered clumps of white hair clung to a patchy, weeping scalp.

  To my shock, Omicron dropped me and grabbed for the helmet. I was faster, and managed to pull it away before he got a grip on the smooth surface. A red vapor was rising around the neck seam of Omicron's suit, and he stumbled to his knees, one hand clutching the seal where the helmet had been attached. His piteous, pain-wracked visage stared up at me. "Give me back the helmet," he said, his modulated, artificial voice failing to convey any of the emotion that screamed from his ravaged face. "I'll die if not kept in a contained environment." He held out one gloved hand towards me.

  "Do you surrender?" I asked.

  "Yes!" he called, the spike in amplitude almost sounding like fear. Doubt crawled through my mind, but co-mingled with pity and the first rule of the code. I couldn't risk actually ending his life, no matter how wretched and painful his existence. Despite his crimes, it was not my place to play executioner. I forced my reluctant feet to take a step forward and hand over the helm. With almost indecent haste, Omicron crammed the steel hood on his head and twisted the locking tabs. With the turn of another control, there was a hiss of vapor being forced from the hood. Puffs of red escaped from tiny vents along the seam, and he closed the valve.

  For a long moment, we stared at each other, before Omicron simply flopped backwards onto the grass. "What? No 'Muahaha, trusting fool'?" I asked.

  "To tell the truth," his now-resonating voice said. "I'm tired. I could use the rest."


  It wasn't very restful as Valeria's claw smashed into the ground not ten feet away. I looked up to see her unleash a firestorm skyward, belching out a white-hot inferno in a broad arc. Those who had been battling her scattered to avoid the flames. Following Pam's frantic withdrawal from the furnace, her eye passed above me. She paused, and glanced down. I was barely able to raise a force bubble before she snatched me up. With barely a thought, she threw my bubble at the back of her mouth. I landed on an oversized tongue. With teeth as big as my thigh closing down and the slick layer of mucous covering everything, I thanked God for the force bubble.

  Valeria's jaws snapped shut and she swallowed.

  Part 36

  I will never understand those people excited by the concept of being eaten alive. I screamed in horror as the force bubble slid down the dragon's gullet, splashing amongst a veritable sea of stomach acids. Even if she wasn't a preternatural entity of fire, Valeria's innards would be abnormally hot from body mass alone. Instead, it felt like I'd landed in a blast furnace. Fleshy, slime-covered walls crushed against the force bubble on all sides, pressing half-digested food against its surface. I could only imagine what horrific aromas wafted about the space. To my horror, another bar of battery blinked out.