by James Axler
Looking down, Domi saw that the floor was irregular. Where the cylinders had stood, she saw water glistening, some kind of internal stream just a little wider than she was—wide enough to contain the floating, man-size tubes. The six cylinders were being floated upright along the stream, the movement so smooth that Domi could scarcely believe they were traveling upon water. It was a marvel of engineering.
“Stay close,” Domi instructed Hassood as she paced forward, keeping her own body low in a half crouch.
Reaching down, Domi ran the fingers of her empty hand through the water, felt its coolness run over her alabaster skin. “This just gets weirder,” she muttered to herself as she paced forward, ducking low beneath the delicate arch of the staircase.
It was very dark in the area beyond, and it took Domi a few seconds to adjust to the semidarkness. As such, she felt the immense room’s dimensions even before she saw them, subconsciously noticing the stillness of the air, the faint echo of her footsteps on the hard floor. The six cylinder-like frames moved onward into the room, their strips of amber lighting flashing across their slender forms, illuminating the area in front of them in brief, epileptic snatches. Within those snatches of artificial light, Domi and Hassood began to make sense of the room.
It was huge, far bigger than either of them had expected. Shrouded in darkness, the room appeared as big as a sports ground or an ancient gladiatorial amphitheater, and the ceiling stretched to an incredible height, so much so that Domi wondered momentarily if they were still indoors. Channels of water washed across the room, running like tiny rivers throughout the length of the vast chamber. Domi watched the reflections of the amber lights firing across the surface of these canals, guessed from their straight and intricate design that they were all used as some form of transport, somewhat like the way oxygen is ferried around the body in the channels of the bloodstream. In fact, despite the lack of noise and the way the only movement came from the bobbing cylinders, the whole place seemed somehow alive. If a room could be said to be breathing, this one was.
Domi looked up and saw catwalks that crisscrossed the room, fanning out like barbs from six identical staircases. The walkways themselves were milky pale with no safety rails along their narrow lines, jutting out skeletally like branches over the expanse of the room.
The racing amber lights retreated into the distance as the cylinders trundled on their prearranged paths, and Domi slowed her pace, making sure to keep Hassood behind her. They watched as the cylinders split up, four going to the right while the others—presumably the women’s—veered off toward the left wall of the colossal room. As they illuminated more of the room, Domi finally saw the back wall and what was waiting there. Behind her, she heard Hassood say a prayer under his breath.
Hundreds of cylinders were waiting there, each one holding the unmoving body of an Annunaki. They were filed and stacked into groups, males and females, each of them with mouth open in silent scream. Not one of the reptilian figures reacted to the flashing amber lights that lit them; they just remained upright within their coffins as if asleep. They were waiting for something, Domi realized, genetic material waiting for the spark of life.
Domi stepped farther into the chamber, peering all around her as she tried to estimate how many Annunaki figures were waiting there. At least two hundred, she guessed, perhaps a hundred more than that, it was difficult to tell in the inadequate, flickering lights. As she tried to take it all in, she saw there were numerous empty cylinders lining the edges of the chamber, too, waiting ominously to be filled by more bodies for the coming Annunaki, presumably more transformed humans.
“We’re surrounded,” Hassood said, his voice trembling with awe. “But what are they?”
“Gods,” Domi said. “Space gods, and evil as hell itself.”
Hassood began muttering another prayer as he stared wide-eyed at the sleeping figures arrayed all around them.
* * *
OUTSIDE THE GROUNDED BODY of the starship Tiamat, Grant primed the last of his explosive charges and scampered back to where Kudo and Rosalia hid along with the woman’s dog. Five seconds later, the charge ignited, blasting a deeper rip within the already damaged flesh of the living ship.
Grant stepped out from cover. “This had better do the trick,” he warned as he stalked back to the ship’s wounded hull with the others following. “After this, I’m all out of charges.”
“But not all out of tricks, Magistrate Man,” Rosalia teased.
The explosive had done substantial damage, but it had still failed to cut through to the insides of the ship. The hole was almost square now, five feet high and four across, and it went back into the ship well past the length of Grant’s outstretched arm. The wound glistened with seeping liquid across jagged bonelike struts, whole chunks of them disintegrated by Grant’s miniature explosives. Electricity arced across the gaps in crackling whips, fizzing through the air and making the whiskers of Grant’s beard tingle as he stepped closer. There, in the center of the messy indentation, a sliver of darkness stared like an eye, its lack of color giving it prominence. It was a hole, a tunneled hole no larger than Grant’s forearm that went all the way through into the interior of the ship.
Wary of the arcing electricity, Grant commanded his Sin Eater pistol into his hand with a simple flinching of his wrist tendons. The compact mechanism of the pistol unfolded as it slapped into his palm, and Grant was careful not to tense his finger and set off the weapon prematurely. A white slash of lightning hurtled past in front of Grant’s eyes as he pushed the nose of the blaster through the hole, assuring himself that it really was a hole into the interior. Once he had confirmed that, Grant hastily withdrew both hand and weapon from the hole, stepping back and assessing it again.
Looking at it, Grant shook his head in irritation. “Damn thing’s designed for interstellar travel,” he said. “There’s a lot of wall to get through yet.”
Kudo pulled his katana from its sheath with a zing of metal. “The blade is sharp as a razor,” he said. “Not ideal, but it will cut it—at least until it blunts.”
Grant looked at the blade, then back at the hole. “No,” he concluded, sending his Sin Eater back to its holster. “The katana is a weapon of finesse, and we don’t need finesse here. We need brute strength.”
With that, Grant stepped back into the widened rent in the ship’s hull, pulled one of his powerful legs back and kicked with all his might. Grant angled the blow as a side kick, ensuring that the whole of his foot drove into the gap, heel first. The material at the edge of the hole splintered just a little, and without pause Grant kicked it a second time, then a third. On and on, Grant lashed out, driving his heel into the gap, chipping away at the weak part of the hole to make it larger as electricity sparked all around him.
“Keep going, Magistrate.” Rosalia encouraged him. “You’re almost through.”
Grant stepped back, breathing heavily as he swapped feet before kicking out again with his other foot. It was hard work, like trying to kick through a rotten tree. The shell of the ship crumbled into splinters under the assault, but it was slow going, and Grant was working up a sweat.
Then suddenly another streak of electricity arced across the gap in a brilliant flash, slashing across Grant’s body as he struck out again with his booted heel. Grant clenched his teeth as the electricity raced across the surface of his shadow suit, its incredible weave taking the brunt of the voltage.
Then, with one final kick, Grant booted through a whole great chunk of the inner hull, and a thick line the width of a floorboard fell away with a splintering snap.
Grant leaned down, peering through the gap as the dust settled. It was three feet across at its widest point and came up to his breastbone, a little lower than he would have liked but sufficient to clamber through.
Briefly Grant engaged his Commtact. “Cerberus, this is Grant. Have
gained access to the center of the city, am heading inside. Is Domi still showing there?”
Brewster Philboyd’s familiar voice came back via the pickup beneath Grant’s ear, though it buzzed with static here, standing this close to the living ship. “She’s still there, Grant. I have her framed at about a quarter mile directly ahead of you. A little less maybe—the reading’s jumping about on screen here.”
Grant nodded to himself. “Getting a lot of interference on the comm, too,” he said. “There’s a localized field screwing with our signals, I guess.”
“You be careful, Grant,” Philboyd warned. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“You’re mistaking me for Kane, man,” Grant joked. “I never take unnecessaries.”
Then he cut the communication. It was time to literally enter the belly of the beast. With a nod to his colleagues, Grant recalled the Sin Eater to his hand and pushed through into the interior of the great dragon-form ship. As he stepped through the ruined wall, the stench of rotting fish struck Grant, some quirk of the makeup of the incredible living starship itself. And then he was through, brushing the dripping glop from his face as he stepped into the ship’s interior. Kudo and Rosalia followed, the dog scampering along at their side.
Within, the Cerberus warriors found themselves in what appeared to be a corridor. It was ill lit and its walls were ribbed and rounded so that its cross section had a spherical shape. The floor was rounded, too, and Grant found he had to place his feet apart to feel balanced. Grant peered right then left as his companions made their way through the breach in the wall behind him. The ribs continued along the walls of the corridor, meeting above their heads in arches and running below their feet, making moving along the corridor itself a little like walking through a tunnel made of mismatched tires. Neither end looked especially different in the low lighting, and the corridor curved away from sight on both sides without any hint of a doorway. Grant concluded that they were in the middle of an access corridor, which meant that they would need to go one way or the other to discover anything.
“Where are we?” Kudo asked, recalling that Grant had been inside Tiamat before.
“Not sure,” Grant said, his voice low. “We’re going to have to do a little exploring to figure that out. Left or right—you got a preference?”
Kudo shrugged. “Right.”
The muzzle of the Sin Eater pointing ahead of him, Grant led the way warily down the tunnel to the right, with his companions spreading themselves out behind him. They kept just a few paces between them, enough to aid one another without—hopefully—being caught by the same surprise trap.
There were no windows along the corridor and the overhead lighting, though constant, was dimmed to a point that left everything gloomy. Grant wondered whether this was preferable to the Annunaki with their reptile genetics. In pondering that point, he realized something else—they had yet to see any signs of the Annunaki themselves. There was no reason to assume that the ship was occupied. It could be that Domi and Kishiro had been brought here via some automated system.
Engaging his Commtact, Grant tried to raise his missing companion. “Domi, do you read me? Domi?”
There was no reply, and after a moment Grant tried again, keeping his voice low as he stalked through the gloomy corridor. Again no response came and when he tried raising Philboyd at Cerberus headquarters he met a similar silence.
“Comms won’t work in this area,” he informed Rosalia and Kudo. “We’re on our own.”
As they continued down the curving, tunnel-like corridor, Rosalia’s dog stopped in place, its head cocked.
“What is it?” Rosalia asked, peering where the dog was looking. She called to Grant and Kudo, telling them to halt. “The mutt senses something. Might be we’re not alone.”
Grant peered down the gloomy tunnel, his eyes searching for movement while Kudo stepped back, checking the way they had just come with his katana held ready in his hands.
“You hear that?” Rosalia asked as she came to Grant’s side, the dog trotting along beside her. “Like a shushing sound.”
Grant nodded. “Sounds like…water.”
Even as he spoke, a rush of water came hurrying toward them across the bowled floor of the corridor, two feet deep, its ever-changing surface twinkling in the dim illumination. Grant brought his gun up as the water hurtled at them, watery figures emerging from its surface like burrowing creatures seeking the light.
Chapter 21
The Sin Eater bucked in Grant’s hand as he blasted a volley of bullets into the emerging figures who stepped from the water. Once again, the bullets whizzed straight through the watery bodies as they formed and continued on down the corridor, cutting little paths like raindrops from the impossible creatures’ backs.
“Dammit!” Grant grunted.
Then the wave hit him and Rosalia, crashing into their knees and lashing past them as it continued down the spherical corridor, causing Rosalia’s dog to yelp with an animal’s appreciation.
From out of the water three figures stepped, each one humanoid in form but made entirely of the water itself. Grant ducked as the first lunged at him, its ill-defined hands rushing at his face with a swish of spray. With swift assuredness, Grant brought the Sin Eater up and through the torso of the water thing, feeling the water sluice around him as he clenched his finger on the trigger while the gun was still inside the creature’s body. There was a strange kind of explosion inside the transparent figure where the gun blasted, cutting a foaming gash inside it like a depth charge going off.
Behind Grant, Rosalia stepped back as the second of the creatures leaped past her, scrambling through the spindrift toward Kudo. Then the third leaped at her, lunging out of the water like the sentient crest of a wave. Rosalia raised the sword in her hands, holding it in the vertical position in front of her as the attacker came at her with the fury of the ocean. She blinked her eyes as the blade split the creature, turning it into a shower of hurtling water as it divided into two.
Rosalia spun as the component parts of the water creature hurtled past her, and she watched as it rained back into the surface of the water around her and the dog’s feet, the droplets of water sounding like a furious drum solo as they spattered downward. Already it was re-forming, an arm and head emerging once more from the water as Rosalia pulled her sword back, ready to strike.
Farther along the corridor, Kudo leaped up out of the water as the shimmering humanoid form approached. Water drained from his armor in thick streams as the modern-day samurai grabbed for the ceiling, his hand snagging one of the ribs beside the strip lighting there. Beneath Kudo, the water thing splashed past, swirling over and over as it tried to halt its forward motion.
His grip tight on the ceiling rib, Kudo swung his katana one-handed, slicing the two-foot-long blade through the creature’s neck and decapitating it after a fashion. The decapitation was effective for a single heartbeat, and Kudo watched in frustration as the watery parts rejoined and the figure turned to face him.
The trio steadied themselves as the next wave of attackers came at them.
* * *
BENEATH DOMI’S FEET, the waters stilled as the trio of cylinders that contained Kishiro and the others sailed to their final destinations and locked into position with a quiet hum. All around them, the static figures of other Annunaki, naked but for the containment strips that held them in place, glistened as the lines of amber light illuminated their leathery scales. A moment after, the strips of amber lighting that had blurred across the newcomers’ chests faded, and the area beneath the catwalks was plunged into near total darkness accompanied by an eerie silence.
Domi peered ahead of her, her eyes struggling to pierce the darkness that had settled across the room. Then she padded silently toward the nearest of the chambered figures, her combat blade gripped tensely in her
hand. The Annunaki were so still that they looked like waxworks, their rigid posture akin to an anatomical diagram or a height chart.
Domi was just a few feet away from them now, a row of Annunaki bodies standing in front of her like statues in the dark. Hassood padded along behind her, flinching this way and that as he noticed more of the creepy figures waiting in the shadows.
Each figure towered to almost seven feet in height and while they were genetically identical, each was subtly different from his brethren. Some had single spiny crests running along the top of their skulls like a Mohawk hairstyle, others had bony protrusions arrayed around them like crowns and still others had smooth heads showing no protrusions at all. All the figures were powerfully built, however, their defined musculature evident across their broad chests and strong limbs. Domi moved across the room, gazing at the females, their rounded breasts and slender waists defining their gender far more than their faces or hidden genitalia.
As she stood there, surrounded by the sleeping forms of more than two hundred Annunaki, Domi felt intense rage welling inside her, twinned with fear of all that the Annunaki had done. Here was the enemy, waiting to be reborn and to wreak havoc upon the planet Earth. And while their bodies slept, waiting for the genetic download that would trigger them to life, here was the perfect opportunity to destroy them, to wipe out their race before it could get a foothold on the Earth again.
