Extinction Wars: 02 - Planet Strike

by Vaughn Heppner

  None of us could lie on our back because of the bulky ammo-packs and equipment we carried. A lot of that was life support, and most of that was breathing apparatus. In the end, I lay on my side like many others and closed my heavy eyes. After fifteen perfect minutes, I forced myself to a sitting position. I shook Ella awake.

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered.

  “Nope,” I said, in as cheery a voice as I could summon. “You picked yourself some time ago. Now we talk to the relic.”

  “Go away,” she said in a raw voice.

  “Ella, don’t you want to know what this really is?”

  “Futility,” she said.

  “I know you’re curious. You need to know about the Kargs, the portal and Forerunners.”

  “I just want to sleep.”

  “Perchance to dream?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Let’s do this, Timoshenko. Let’s awaken the ancient spirit of inquiry.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a pain in the ass?”

  “Pretty much everyone I’ve met says that to me sooner or later,” I said. “Why do you think that is?”

  Ella groaned as she dragged herself to a cross-legged position. She did it while clutching the bagged artifact. It didn’t look like she could let it go of it even if she wanted to.

  “I hate this place,” she said. “I hate this chamber. Why did the Forerunners make this planet?”

  “Ask your little relic,” I suggested.

  Hesitantly at first, she grasped the zipper and zipped open the ammo bag. Then she withdrew the precious item. Smaller than I remembered, it was about the size of a bowling ball, although it didn’t seem to be as heavy. I recalled the adept releasing the artifact and watching it hover. Had the relic done that for him as a favor? I wished we’d brought the old Lokhar with us. I was more curious than ever how Ella had taken it from him. Belatedly, I glanced around. Fortunately, there weren’t any powered-armor Lokhars in our midst. They might believe it was heresy for a human to hold Orange Tamika’s greatest holy object.

  Ella glanced at me.

  All I saw was the polarized surface of her visor and me staring at her in reflection. She likely saw a similar image off my visor. That reminded me of the Apollo astronauts bouncing around on the Moon. I’d seen old video of that in my dad’s living room.

  “Talk to the thing,” I suggested.

  “I already tried that earlier,” Ella admitted. “Nothing happened.”

  “Shake it.”

  “It’s been shaken like mad for some time,” she said.

  “Give it to me then,” I said.

  Ella shook her head and clutched the round or oval, rather, artifact against her chest. “No,” she said.

  This was interesting. “Why not, Ella? Can’t you let it go, or don’t you want to let it go?”

  “Of course I can let it go,” she said mulishly.

  “Then do it.”

  She hesitated before saying, “I don’t want to.”

  I laughed hoarsely. I sounded like a sleepy smoker with pneumonia. I felt as powerful as one, too, which was to say as weak as a baby. Did the Kargs use radar, or what passed for radar, as they searched for us? Maybe. That meant we couldn’t stay here for long. But the truth was that we needed something better than our legs. Walking to the center of the planet wasn’t going to win us this war.

  “We have to do something now,” I told Ella.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” she said.

  “Hold it up,” I said.

  “I’m not giving it to you, Commander, and that’s final.”

  “I’m not suggesting you do,” I said. “I want you to hold it up so I can address it.”

  “I don’t know…”

  I thought of something then—a light bulb moment—and if I were right, that would answer some interesting questions for me. “Do you feel as if the relic has been playing tricks on your mind?” I asked.

  Ella cocked her helmet. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I don’t know. That you have a mental attachment with it maybe.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That is an interesting idea. Are you suggesting the artifact might have done that to the old Lokhar a long time ago?”

  “Hold up the relic, Ella. Quit stalling. Let me talk to it.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ll talk to it. Turn around first.”

  I laughed again. “Are you serious? Why should I turn around?”

  “This is a private affair. It is…sacred.”

  My eyes widened. That didn’t sound like Ella. Did the crazy Forerunner relic have control of her in some nefarious manner? I loathed the idea. Ella was one my troopers, one of the hardcore who had made it out of Claath’s clutches. I’d hate to see some other alien get hold of her mind, even if that alien was a Forerunner artifact.

  I grunted as I put my hands on the floor and pushed up to my feet. “Sure, Ella,” I said. “You talk to your friend.” Turning, I said, “Dmitri, Rollo, where are you?”

  Two hands went up among the crowd of troopers littering the floor.

  Then I realized their two mingans were assembled—or crashed prone—together. Chan’s mingan made up the rest of us, and she had scouted ahead.

  There was nothing between the hunting Kargs and us except metal and space. I had to believe that Demetrius’s mingan had sold their lives as dearly as possible already.

  My two leaders converged on me. Rollo looked more like a gorilla than ever as he limped, the beefy simian warrior. A wet patch of bio-suit over his heart showed where it healed.

  “What’s up, Creed?” Rollo asked.

  “Switch to a private channel,” I told them. “Okay,” I said, once they’d done so. “I think something fishy is going on with Ella and her Forerunner artifact.”

  “Ella Timoshenko?” Dmitri asked.

  I nodded. “Ella took the artifact from the Lokhar adept,” I said, quickly filling in Rollo and Dmitri on what I thought had happened.

  The Cossack whistled, and he aimed his visor at Ella. I grabbed Dmitri by the arm and turned him away from her.

  “The relic might have done something to Ella’s mind,” I said. “That makes more sense than her playing the acolyte these past weeks. You know, I wonder if the old adept knew about the artifact’s power—if I’m right about this, anyway. Ulmoc played along with us, right. He made a lot less fuss over the situation than he should have. Maybe Ulmoc did that because the relic forced him into it. Yeah…maybe that’s how each Forerunner priest got hold of the artifact—the thing told the newbie to take it from the oldster.”

  “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions,” Rollo said.

  “I know it,” I said. “Ella is acting too strangely, though, and we’ve plum run out of time. I called you two because you’re going to saunter over there and grab her arms. Haul her to her feet and don’t let her struggle free. Then pry her arms apart so she has to let go of the relic.”

  “Ella will not cooperate with that,” Dmitri said.

  “Which is why I picked you two,” I said. “You hold her, even if she’s kicking and screaming. I’m going to take the artifact from her.”

  “If what you suggest is true,” Rollo said. “The relic might not like that and react against us.”

  “Good point,” I said, thinking hard. I might have to persuade an ancient…thing to play ball with us. Hmm…I had an idea or two. “Okay. Go over there and get ready to grab her. I’m going to get N7. We may need his analysis. Are you ready?”

  “I don’t like this,” Rollo said uneasily.

  “We don’t have time to think of something more elegant,” I said. “Besides, I’m not about to let Demetrius’s sacrifice go in vain.”

  “What’s that mean?” Rollo asked.

  “Hey,” I told Rollo. “How about you just do what I tell you. We don’t have time for twenty questions.”

  Rollo stiffened, but he nodded. The two of them began ambling toward Ella.

&
nbsp; “N7,” I radioed.

  The android pushed off a brilliantly lit wall and strode toward me. He and I spoke on a private channel. I told him my suspicions and my plan.

  “That is logically reasoned,” N7 said. “Ella would not normally spend so much time with a priest. Nor do I believe she would murder him to steal his artifact. Yet I don’t believe you have thought through the ramifications of your suspicion.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “If the relic is sentient, as you suggest, it might have ulterior motives. Given its origin, those motives might oppose ours.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “What do you suggest?”

  “That you expect anything,” N7 said. “Logically, you should have a fallback position or a way to deal with Forerunner surprises.”

  Within my helmet, I squinted. I wondered then about our android. Might Claath have planted him long ago upon us? That struck me as inconceivable. Why would Claath have given us N7, who’d proven instrumental in our escaping Jelk service? Still…

  “N7,” I said.

  He stood there waiting.

  “Do you believe I should trust you?”

  N7 didn’t move a muscle. Finally, he asked, “After all this time, why would you suspect my loyalty?”

  I told him my suspicions.

  “You have a devious mind,” N7 said. “Perhaps a man in your position needs that. I do not feel disloyalty toward you, although I do sense emotional anger in me toward you at this point.”

  “The mind’s a funny animal,” I said.

  “There is nothing humorous about you,” N7 said. “Indeed, I find you to be the most murderous individual I have ever met.”

  “I’m just saying: if you feel disloyalty toward us or me in particular, I want you to inform me the second such emotions surface.”

  “That is illogical,” N7 said.

  “If you want us to treat you more than a machine, you’re going to start to have acting human.”

  “I believe you have a phrase for that: ‘Heaven forbid I act more like you.’”

  “Right,” I said. “Are you ready?”

  “Time is limited,” N7 said. “So this is as ready as I will likely ever be.”

  Androids obviously had feelings, and I seemed to have hurt N7’s. Maybe if I’d been feeling better—more rested—I would have acted with more grace. When I got tired, I didn’t have the same smoothness.

  In any case, the two of us started for Ella and her Forerunner relic.

  -26-

  The regular Ella would have noticed two thugs like Rollo and Dmitri trying to saunter innocently behind her. Our present Ella had wrapped her arms around the artifact, aiming her visor at it.

  The oval object was steel-colored but seemed to be constructed of ceramic material. I moved closer, but in front of her. Chinning the zoom on my HUD, I studied the artifact in detail. It had hairline grooves and what might have been sunken divots. Parts of it seemed glassy instead of ceramic and had tiny thumbnail-sized protrusions. How old was this thing? Thousands of years, tens of thousands or could it even be a million years old? Age didn’t matter now though did it?

  “Okay,” I radioed.

  Ella looked up, and I heard her chin on her link.

  Dmitri moved first. He bent down and grabbed an arm.

  Ella twisted around toward him. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Rollo belatedly moved, grabbing the other arm.

  “Hey,” Ella said. “Let go of me.”

  The two bruisers did the opposite, tightening their hold and lifting her upright. She kicked, shouted and tried to keep hold of the artifact.

  Dmitri wrenched her arm. Rollo did the same with her right.

  “No,” Ella shouted. “You don’t understand. Let go of me before—”

  The two troopers ripped her hands free of the oblong globe. The artifact should have dropped and hit the deck. Instead, it glowed faintly, and it floated in place.

  “Release me before it’s too late,” Ella panted.

  I aimed a heavy caliber Karg rifle at the object. I chinned on my outer speakers. “If you harm my soldiers,” I said, “I’m going to fire at you at point-blank range. I don’t know if these bullets can gouge your surface or not, but do you really want to find out?”

  The glow around the artifact lessened. The thing swiveled, and I felt heat then. Was it scanning me?

  “Commander,” Ella said. “You don’t know what—”

  “Shut up,” I told her. “You had your chance. Now it’s my turn. Keep a good grip on her arms.”

  Dmitri nodded.

  N7 flanked me, and he, too, aimed a heavy caliber rifle at the object.

  Troopers sat up, watching. The artifact glowed lightly and it floated, dipping down a few inches and rising back up. Finally, it drifted closer toward me.

  I didn’t like the idea of something thousands of years old at its youngest picking out me to examine. More than ever, I wondered about the Forerunners. I didn’t think of them as angels anymore, but they were the First Ones. That implied extra knowledge or power. Why had they left our area of the galaxy? Where had they gone? What was this metal planet for and why did the bigger Forerunner object fit into the center like a hand in a gauntlet?

  Questions, questions, questions—traveling through a hell-universe had that effect on me.

  Then, high-speed alien speech emanated from the floating object.

  “What’s its saying, Ella?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” she complained. “I don’t know High Speech.”

  “Did it do something to your mind?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, sounding indignant.

  “Why did you block our recording or even seeing into the chamber when the Lokhar showed you to her?” I asked the relic.

  “It’s not going to answer you,” Ella said. “Believe me. I’ve been trying to get it to answer for some time. It doesn’t understand us.”

  I didn’t believe that anymore. “This is what we call a standoff,” I told the artifact. “But I have no more time. The Kargs are going to finish us off long before we can reach the center. That means we lose. Well, you know what? You’re going to lose too then because I’m going to blow you to pieces first.”

  Lights flashed in the object. Did that mean it was thinking or computing, or doing whatever an alien machine had to? I noticed a slot slid up, and a lens the size of my thumbnail, an optical device, appeared and glowed red.

  “Commander Creed,” the relic said flawlessly.

  Ella gasped. Maybe hearing the thing talk surprised Dmitri and Rollo, too. Ella tore her arms free, and she lunged for the artifact, to hold it, I imagine.

  A wavering light flowed outward from the floating ball. The pink light encompassed Ella, took in Rollo and Dmitri and then it extended to the entire cube-shaped chamber. Naturally, that included me, too, and the rest of the troopers.

  “Stop it!” I shouted, taking two steps closer and butting the barrel of my rifle against the relic, knocking it backward.

  The thing didn’t stop, though.

  I hated bluffing, and so I seldom did. If I gave a threat, I tried to follow through. Therefore, I pulled the trigger. The rifle recoiled in my hands, and an exploding Karg bullet smashed against the artifact. That blew it farther back, but nothing chipped from it or rattled loose.

  Ella screamed.

  I pulled the trigger again, blasting the relic back a little more. Ella reached me then, and she swung at my head. I ducked, and I swung the rifle in a short and brutal arc, using the butt to slam against her stomach. It knocked the scientist off her feet onto the floor.

  “Grab her!” I shouted. “And don’t let go of her this time.”

  Everyone but for Ella and N7 stood there. Perhaps the others were caught in the pink light. The android moved fast as Ella climbed to her feet. In his cyber-armor, he looped his arms around hers, jerking them back. She struggled, and with her neuro-fibers, steroid-enhanced strength and bi
o-suit, she almost broke free. Almost, but N7 held her.

  I aimed at the object once more. A darker pink ray now emanated from it. That was the final straw to break the donkey’s back, as they say, and I was all out of patience. Three times, I fired—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. A piece of the object now chipped off and fell to the deck.

  Ella moaned in horror.

  I grinned nastily in my helmet. I could obliterate this thing if I had to. That was good to know. “I’m going to destroy you unless you turn off that wide beam!” I shouted. “If you think I’m playing, kept it up.”

  Abruptly, the pink light stopped shining, and the relic hovered in place, dipping and rising slightly. Smoke drifted from the barrel of my rifle. I found myself gripping it with manic strength.

  “This is unwarranted,” the relic said in its flawless voice. “You should have succumbed to the mind ray.”

  Then it hit me, the implications. The Saurian storm troopers under Jelk control had used a pink mind-ray like that on us Earthers when they’d landed that first alien-visiting day. Why hadn’t this one worked on me? It might have been my polarized visor along with sheer cussedness on my part. Maybe our battle technology had trumped Forerunner tech…if that’s what the pink ray was. Or maybe this thing was a piece of Jelk technology.

  “You’re not a Forerunner artifact,” I said.

  “I fail to see what has caused you to reach your false conclusion,” the relic said.

  “For one thing, your little ploy failed just now against us.”

  “Ah, yes,” the artifact said, “I understand your error. It is quite common. You grant products of the First Ones magical powers. I have observed this phenomenon before, and I must inform you that it is a category error.”

  I blinked several times. I’m not sure what I’d expected from the relic, but not this. “You used your mind ray on Ella before, haven’t you?” I asked.

  “It is time to make one fact clear. I do not accept your legitimacy to interrogate me.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Do you mind telling me what you do consider legitimate?”

  The relic hovered up and down as lights flashed. “You must return me to…to yonder female.”