The shuttle bumped down lightly on the snowpack. Valac unclipped his seatbelt and immediately assumed command of his part of the mission, securing the landing party and escorting the Sci-Ops crew into the base. One by one the men slipped on their breathers, tiny oxygen masks to compensate for the reduced levels of breathable air. Abaddon slipped on his as well, even though the oxygen levels were merely deficient enough to cause fatigue.
"Alright men!" Valac shouted. "You know the drill! Fan out. Make sure there are no surprises hiding in the closet so our intel guys can get to work without worrying about a pulse rifle to the back!"
The rear gangplank of the shuttle moved down, letting in a frigid blast of air. The away team pulled up their hoods and clipped their goggles over their eyes. Although a team had already secured the base, with sub- zero temperatures and perpetual whiteout conditions, there was no guarantee that some of the lizards hadn't regrouped just out of sight. They moved out of the shuttle in two well-formed lines, one pair rushing out in front of the other to kneel, scan the perimeter with their pulse rifles, and then signal the next team to do the same.
Abaddon squelched his urge to move out with them. As Supreme Commander-General and the only hybrid who had a clue as to what Lucifer's rebellion had really been about, it was up to him to stay alive long enough to locate Sarvenaz's homeworld. He waited until Valac gave the signal before stepping down the ramp into the artic landscape.
Damantia! It was freezing! He wrapped his wings around his torso to cut the wind. It blew right through his parka and his feathers. A sensation akin to an icepick being driven into his knee caused him to limp. Excrementia! When had he gotten old? He unfurled his wings and catapulted himself away from the effects of gravity. His wings instantly turned numb, but he flew to the entrance to the base like an Angelic should, not walked like a land animal.
"General?" Lieutenant Valac said with a straight face.
Abaddon ruffled his feathers and shook out the ice particles which had instantly imbedded themselves into his wings.
"Lieutenant," Abaddon replied with an emotionless expression.
He knew he'd regret his juvenile impulse to fly when his wings punished him by shooting pins and needles down his back when the blood flowed back into the limbs, but right now he didn't care. He had a younger wife to keep up with and he'd be damned if he'd stay ship-bound like some geriatric old fool!
The Leonid Brigadier-General who'd first obtained intelligence from the Free Marid about this asset stepped forward, a good cubit taller than Abaddon, with a thick, reddish-brown mane and golden pelt typical of the half-humanoid/half lion hybrids. Leonids were the closest to extinction of all the hybrids, and therefore the most eager to help.
"Supreme Commander-General Abaddon," Rahotep gave a crisp salute. "Right this way, Sir. We haven't had a chance to explore the entire base, but we thought you'd want to see this right away."
Abaddon followed the man through a series of tunnels which burrowed deep into the ice. They crossed a rickety rope bridge built across part of the glacier which had fractured, a recent addition, Sata'anic in design. His breath steamed out in front of his face as they walked through tunnels which had seen little action in the 200 years since Shemijaza had died. The men grew silent the further they descended into the crypt, the only sound being the ice groaning like an old woman in pain.
"Were you able to capture any of the lizards?" Abaddon whispered even though there was nobody here to hear them. "I'd love to find out how long Shay'tan had this base in his claws."
"No, Sir," Rahotep said. "The minute my men pulled over the base, the lizards bugged out and ran. They barely even gave us a fight, just hopped into their shuttles took off."
The Leonid Brigadier-General had an eager look about him, the same eager look Abaddon suspected he wore. Two ship's commanders, neither able to resist the temptation of exploring Shemijaza's mythological genetics laboratory. They had plenty of firepower in orbit at the moment, but then again, so had Shay'tan, and look where it had gotten him?
Abaddon signaled Rahotep to fall into step beside him.
"As soon as you're debriefed, hightail it back to the Emperor's Vengeance and make sure Shay'tan doesn't sneak up on us while I'm here instead of on my ship. Lieutenant-Captain Shzzkt is a good man, but he's untested leading a carrier brigade if Shay'tan decides to jump out of hyperspace and surprise us the same way that we just surprised him.
Rahotep's whiskers drooped, but the Brigadier-General took it in stride.
"Of course," Rahotep said. "Right this way, Sir."
The crewmen led them to a large steel door, brand spanking new and Sata'anic in origin, but the door frame which surrounded it was rusted and full of pock-marks. It was more evidence that Shay'tan had developed an interest in this planet only recently. Two of Rahotep's men stood stationed on either side of the door, but Abaddon forced the eager scientists to wait while he sent in Lieutenant Valac's men. He stared at the brand-new door, a door designed to be slammed shut and hold off an invasion. Why hadn't the lizards retreated inside the chamber?
Valac's eager voice echoed from inside the ice chamber. "Shay'tan's scaly tail!"
Abaddon signaled the men to follow him inside.
They stepped into a cavern so enormous he could swear the Jehoshaphat would fit comfortably inside of it. He'd seen images on his flat screen, but they'd failed to capture the scale of Shemijaza's prize research project. This facility was even larger than the laboratory that Hashem had built onto the Eternal Palace. Row upon row of cryo-chamber stretched across the vast ice cave to a laboratory set up at the very end. They walked together while Valac's away team rifled through each row, searching for an enemy huddled behind the machines.
Abaddon stepped up to one of the cryo-chambers and rubbed on the glass which had frosted over from the bitter cold. A hideous, distorted face stared out at him, part-animal and part-humanoid, its mouth twisted up into an eternal scream. Abaddon stepped back, his feathers rustling with revulsion. So. The rumors were true? Shemijaza had been experimenting with creating other types of hybrids.
"Shemijaza chose this world," Colonel Ekk said softly from behind him, "because with the frigid temperatures, he'd need very little power to maintain the cryo-chambers. I can see why neither emperor ever picked up on the energy signature."
Abaddon met the Electrophori agent's gaze. Her expression was no longer the sanctimonious one she'd sported earlier. He gestured for her to explore whatever goodies Shemijaza had left behind.
They fanned out like eager schoolchildren, chattering about the genetic modifications of the frozen inhabitants. Each chamber contained a separate creature which had been experimented upon and then frozen, though for what reason Abaddon could not say. Some creatures he recognized, but others? A few bore no resemblance to any life form he knew. He came to a spot where a cryo-chamber had been removed.
"There seem to be a lot of them missing," Rahotep said. "Recent, from the look of it. The video footage my Free Marid contact showed me was of the lizards removing three such chambers."
Rahotep pointed to the far end of the cavern where a small, square pod rose above the icy floor. "That's the main laboratory. At least in there the lizards rigged up some heat."
"Any records?" Abaddon asked. "I'd sure love to figure out just what Shemijaza was up to."
"The lizards grabbed their own computers and smashed the older equipment, the ones dating back to Shemijaza," Rahotep said. "I've already got my two best computer technicians interfacing with a Darda'ail hive-mind to see if there's anything we can salvage."
The thought crossed Abaddon's mind that perhaps the Emperor would be the best person to accomplish that task. Hashem was, after all, the galaxy's leading geneticist, second only, it was said, to She-who-is herself. Should he tell the Emperor he'd finally found his long-lost prize?
Abaddon curled forward one wing, thoughtfully twirling a long, grey primary feather. No. While he hadn't cast off Hashem's rule out of anger the way t
hat Lucifer had, the fact remained that the Emperor had a long history of suppressing any evidence which didn't fit his narrow notion of what mortal creatures had a right to know. Abaddon was tired of secrets and the tit-for-tat intrigues of the two old gods. It was time for mortals to make decisions for themselves.
"Do we have any idea what he was doing?" Abaddon asked.
"No," Rahotep said. "But the closer you get to the laboratory room, the more intricate the genetic modifications and the closer those species came to mimicking humans. But the real interesting stuff is down that tunnel, to what appears to be a secondary laboratory."
"Shemijaza's?" Abaddon asked.
"No," Rahotep said. "The secondary laboratory was completely hidden. If the lizards hadn't found it first, I doubt we would have found it, either, unless we'd pounded the bedrock with sonar looking for hidden caverns. This way, Sir!"
The Leonid command gestured like an excited schoolboy for Abaddon to follow him. Abaddon glanced over to where Lieutenant Valac shadowed the Electrophori intelligence officer. He and Colonel Ekk were embroiled in a heated exchange over one of the cryo-chambers. Abaddon gave the man a silent hand signal for 'I'll be down there' and then turned to follow Rahotep down the icy hallway, too round and perfect to have been created by anything except for a laser-drill. Recently, by the way the icy floor lay free of almost all dirt or debris.
The chill from the ice saturated through the soles of Abaddon's combat boots as the sound of their footsteps was swallowed by the groaning ice. The hallway grew darker, more jagged, as they moved out of the newly drilled portion downwards into a glacier which was far older than the room they'd just exited. At last the icy floor gave way to bedrock. Water dripped down from a pair of jury-rigged light fixtures as the heat of the light bulbs melted the icicles frozen to the ceiling.
"We think this is the oldest part of the facility." Rahotep gestured towards an enormous carved wooden door. "The ice cavern is circa Shemijaza's reign, but this chamber? We believe it dates back to before the destruction of Nibiru."
A thrill of anticipation broke through Abaddon's carefully cultivated air of pragmatism.
"Nibiru?" Abaddon forced his expression to remain neutral. "What makes you guess that?"
Rahotep pulled back on the door. They passed through yet another hallway, carved out of natural bedrock with picks and axes, and a second doorway which opened up into a large natural rock cavern. The Leonid reached over and turned on a crude spotlight the lizards had propped onto a stand. The yellow light did little to illuminate the cave, but contained within were cryo-chambers of a vintage which appeared to be many millennia older.
Abaddon walked over to the first cryo-chamber and rubbed the filth off of the glass to see who was housed inside. Despite the fact that at some point the power had failed, the frigid temperatures had preserved the specimen with only moderate decay. A massive slant-browed, broad-nosed humanoid lay within the chamber, its skin discolored, but still recognizable as the species it had once been.
"Nephilim," Abaddon's cheek twitched. Yes. Giants. The original soldiers in Shay'tan's armies. Shay'tan had wiped that species right out of the galaxy about the same time that Nibiru had been destroyed.
"There are dozens entombed here," Rahotep said. "So far, all appear to be dead."
Abaddon stared down at the fearsome creatures of legend. Unlike the victims of Shemijaza's experiments, this Nephilim wore an almost a peaceful expression, as though it had simply lain down to go to sleep. He thought back to the sketchy histories which said the Nephilim had been evil, but the history books had never explained why.
"It's a pity the power failed," Abaddon said. "I sure would have liked to have heard their side of the story."
This entire cavern was a crypt, a gigantic, icy sarcophagus for the unfortunate creatures some crazed scientist had experimented upon millennia before Shemijaza had done the same to the specimens housed outside within the glacier. Why? Why the exact same research, by the looks of it 75,000 or so years apart?
A very modern-looking Sata'anic computer sat, undestroyed, next to an operating table, still attached to the ancient version of one which was a technology Abaddon did not recognize. It beckoned to him like a Merfolk siren song, whispering that this ancient computer might hold information about the last bastion of humanity.
"The lizards left this one booted up," Rahotep said. "They must not have had a chance to make their way back down to this part of the facility when we routed them out of here."
Abaddon ran his finger across the touchpad, the squiggled letters which made up the Sata'anic language almost as familiar to him as his own Galactic Standard cuneiform. The screensaver disappeared. A mechanical-sounding man's voice asked him in the hissing Sata'anic language, 'how may I be of service to you today, Sir?'
"Give me all information you have about the location of the human homeworld," Abaddon said to the computer.
'Do you have your password, Sir?' the mechanical voice hissed.
Abaddon glanced over at Rahotep.
"We haven't been able to break the code," Rahotep said, "though we haven't had much time to devote to it, either, Sir. At least it didn't self-destruct like they usually do when you give the wrong password three times. I don't think Shay'tan anticipated we'd capture this base."
Abaddon frowned. Self-destruct sequences were standard operating procedure in all sensitive military equipment which, for the Sata'anic Empire, meant nearly all equipment, period.
Brigadier-General Rahotep's tail swished with excitement. This was the most exciting discovery since a deep space scientific expedition had picked up an unknown radio signal and come back with stories of a Leviathan homeworld. Whatever secrets this facility held, it was critical that Shay'tan not be allowed to recapture it.
"I think it's time for you to return to the Emperor's Vengeance," Abaddon said. "Fan out around the planet in a defensive formation. Send word to the ships I left stationed around Glaxius-4 to recall their away teams. I want them to be prepared to jump into hyperspace at a moment's notice if Shay'tan shows up to reclaim this base."
"We haven't set up any communications repeaters yet, Sir." Rahotep pointed to his comms pin. "We're too far beneath the ground to get a signal out. While you're down here, you'll be incommunicado."
"Tell Lieutenant Valac to come fetch me if there's a problem," Abaddon said. He gazed longingly at the ancient computer. Whatever knowledge it contained, it had been valuable enough for Shemijaza to risk setting up his genetics laboratory at the edge of the Tokoloshe Kingdom. How many times had this portion of the Sata'anic border fluctuated back and forth over this solar system, both sides equally clueless about what this ice-planet held?
Rahotep gave him a crisp salute. Dropping down onto all four paws, the Vengeance commander raced back through the tunnels to carry out Abaddon's orders.
Abaddon sat down at the uncomfortable Sata'anic stool, its high back and slit between the seats adapted for a lizard tail, not an Angelic's wings. He threw out phrase after phrase, but the Sata'anic computer kept repeating its request for the password in a polite hissing voice. As he spoke, he caressed the ancient computer which had been brought back to life by the simple act of adding power. What civilization had spawned this technology? It didn't seem like any of the artifacts he'd ever seen from either empire's history books.
His stomach growled. He pressed upon his comms pin and got nothing back but static. Shay'tan's tail! Without a repeater he had no way to contact his men. No matter. Abaddon always came prepared. He reached into the thigh-pocket of his combat fatigues and fished out a tasteless energy bar and a container of water as he settled in for a lengthy game of 'guess the password.' What password would Shay'tan's scientists use to protect the jackpot of the millennia?
He stared past the computer into the dimly lit cavern, large enough that the spotlight did not illuminate the far end. Something golden caught his eye. Abaddon stood up and moved towards the object, clicking on the laser pointer attached to
his pulse rifle to illuminate his way through the maze of cryo-chambers filled with mummified Nephilim.
The object was a statue, thirty meters tall and covered from hoof to horn with gold which glistened like fire from a sun. Huge outstretched arms reached towards him, palms up, as though it waited for him to place something into its hands. The creature possessed muscular arms, broad shoulders, and a thick neck which terminated in a bovine head, its lips curled back in a cruel sneer. Ruby red eyes gazed down at him as though they were taking his measure, and upon its head sat a pair of horns.
Chills ran down Abaddon's spine as he realized what ancient god's statue towered over him…
Abaddon called out the ancient Sata'anic bedtime prayer loud enough for the computer to register.
"May Shay'tan defend us against the Devourer of Children."
"Your password has been accepted, Sir," the mechanical voice said.
With a hum of power, every light within the cavern turned on, increasing in luminosity until the shadows disappeared. Abaddon stared up at the enormous robotic prosthesis of Moloch, the Evil One, Devourer of Children, the god whom even She-who-is feared.
A deep voice rumbled from somewhere behind him.
"And so now you see, Destroyer, what god Shemijaza really worshipped as he played my empire against your own?"
Abaddon whirled, his pulse rifle still drawn from its earlier use as a flashlight. Towering above him was the enormous red dragon whose picture he'd been using as target practice for as long as he'd been alive. His pulse beat faster as he realized he'd been led into a trap.
"Emperor Shay'tan?" Abaddon forced his expression to remain neutral. "How did you get in here? The tunnel is too small to fit someone of your substantial girth."
"How does any god get anywhere?" Shay'tan said. His snout curved up in the pleased smile of a feline which had just cornered a rodent.
The old dragon stood thirty-five meters from nose-tip to tail, with enormous wings which would stretch from one wall of the chamber to the other. From his head curved a pair of matching, golden horns, and around his muzzle jutted a beard of sensitive, gold-spiked whiskers. Brilliant scarlet scales gave the illusion his body was a flickering flame, and his length terminated in a long tail which ended in a barbed fork. Alliance propaganda poked fun at the old dragon and claimed he'd grown portly in his old age, but up close Abaddon could see how every aspect of Shay'tan had been shaped for fighting, from his spiked dorsal ridge to his long, sharp claws.
Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 40
