Shedding the Demon

by Bill Denise

  In any case, he had no time to lose. The Augies would be returning in a few hours, and he needed to find Reverend Trueblood before they arrived. There was no guarantee that Leland and the troops would arrive before the Augies, so it was up to him to find, protect, and somehow convince the reverend that they were the good guys.

  He signaled Ken that he was ready, and the aircraft banked suddenly, picking up speed. The tour guide in the cabin looked momentarily shocked, but her training took over and in a surprisingly calm voice she began to give instructions to the panicking passengers.

  In short order, the crew had everyone loaded into the emergency capsule and ejected. Ken reconfigured their passenger log so they wouldn’t miss him when he stayed behind in the stricken aircraft. As Damon prepared himself for the next step, he hoped Ken had it calculated properly.

  The craft was not fast, but it used its full power along with its altitude to drive for the Spire as quickly as possible. Damon watched the patrol aircraft in his HUD as it swooped around to intercept. He tore out one of the large seats from the passenger area and held it tightly.

  A red flashing light in his HUD indicated missile launch and he braced himself for impact.

  The explosion rattled him, but he’d taken worse hits in the past. Falling now with the debris of the aircraft, he curled into a ball and clung to the seat in his hands. The smoke and other falling parts should give him cover, but he wanted to make sure that no one would see a man-shaped object falling from the wreck.

  As Ken predicted, the craft had gotten close enough that Damon fell into the water near the edge of the caldera lake.

  He allowed himself to sink to the bottom of the lake before walking over the uneven terrain of the lake bed. He reached the base of the Spire without any obvious alarms being raised. At least nothing on passive sensors, he warned himself. He held no illusions that he would be able to penetrate the Spire without being detected, and at that point things would get crazy.

  Ken had sent a timer just before taking over the aircraft, and it showed Damon two important items. First was the estimated arrival of the Augies, about three hours away; and second was the arrival time for Leland and his strike teams, about two and a half hours. Too close for comfort, and certainly not enough time for the teams to set up any kind of defense before the Augies arrived.

  Damon turned his attention back to the Spire and wished once again that he had more detailed information. He checked his oxygen levels, and realized he needed to get moving.

  He pulled a collapsible underwater shelter from his pack and placed in against the base of the spire. Damon watched it unfold and bond to the rock-and-concrete structure, forming a completely water-tight bubble around him which clung to the Spire’s wall. While the enclosure worked to pump the water out of the bubble and replace it with thin, oxygen-rich air, Damon got to work on the wall itself.

  He dug into the wall with the cutting laser from his right wrist, knocking off small pieces of concrete with his left fist as they became loose. Left hand’s nothing but a hammer now, he thought irritably, still angry about losing its weapons.

  He kept the hole as small as possible, hoping that he would be able to hide it once he gained entry to the Spire. He did not expect to get in undetected, but any delay in discovery would get him closer to his goal.

  He fervently hoped that Ken and Ted successfully disabled the Trueblood WERA, or his attempt at stealth would become laughable. Both of the electronics wizards promised they could scramble the Trueblood defensive systems, but Damon was nervous nonetheless.

  Finally, he broke through into the interior, and the water pressure on the enclosure was too much for it to maintain its shape. It pushed against him and squeezed him through the hole. Once inside the inevitable alarms were sounding, so he worked quickly to disguise his entry point.

  The enclosure did not collapse completely, and was able to hold back the water long enough for Damon to seal the hole crudely with cement scraps, adhesives, and liberally applied heat from his lasers. It wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, but should buy him some time.

  He looked for stairs leading up. He did not know exactly where to find Reverend Trueblood, but he was sure it would be near the top of the tower.

  Damon paid close attention to his passive sensors and avoided contact for long enough to make the Trueblood guards believe it was a false alarm. He overheard it suggested more than once that the aircraft mishap probably triggered it. Nonetheless, he stayed vigilant, and despite his hurry, he moved deliberately and did not rush. Just like crossing the open back at home, he thought, but pushed aside the memories of Andrea that inevitably sprang up.

  Surprised by his good fortune, he avoided contact for almost an hour, much longer than he ever anticipated. Unfortunately, his upward progress was much too slow. Ken estimated he would have to move up approximately 100 floors, and so far he had only covered twenty. Obviously, he would have to give up stealth for better speed.

  Up to this point, he’d been moving through the support areas of the Spire. The large rooms were filled with machinery and supplies, but very few people.

  The floor he just entered, however, was quite different. It looked like an office, or possibly a school, with many small rooms off long, straight hallways. There were more people around as well, making it difficult for him to stay hidden.

  He found two guards stationed at the next stairway and it appeared to be a permanent post. Previously, he had hunted around for another way up, but now he felt the inexorable press of time.

  Damon extracted his combat blade—only one, Kyndra curse it!—and modified its shape to be blunt instead of sharp. He moved as close as he could without being seen, and then burst into motion to close the last twenty feet at top speed. He swung the ECB in wide arc, trying to incapacitate the guards without killing them. Both guards tried to raise their weapons, but the first went down immediately, while the second had time to dodge.

  Damon’s strike didn’t connect cleanly with his head, but it sent the man sprawling anyway. Damon followed through with a left-handed punch to the face that cracked the man’s visor and his nose below.

  Both men were unconscious, and Damon had not detected any transmissions in the few seconds of the attack. However, the alarm would be certainly be raised soon. He quickly checked to make sure both men were alive, and then bounded up the stairs in three easy strides.

  Damon checked the timer—about an hour and a half until the strike teams arrived. He continued up the stairs until he ran into more resistance. This time he was moving too quickly and could not sneak up on the group of four guards. Nevertheless, he did take them by surprise and two went down before the others wisely spread apart. He was forced to take them down with his slug guns. Fortunately, the damage to his left wrist had not touched these weapons.

  Finally, Damon detected a communication signal alerting the tower to his presence. To his surprise he felt relieved; the sneaking around was hard on his nerves. Now it would be a running brawl, Damon’s natural element. This type of battle allowed him to flow with his instincts and not take time to think or plan.

  It also allowed two other things that brought him a feeling of comfort: he immediately sent out a powerful active scan that gave him a rudimentary map of the entire facility, except for a few heavily shielded areas—a give-away in itself—and he could now break out the slug guns.

  Damon’s biggest worry was that the guards would have needle-flak guns, but he hadn’t encountered any yet.

  He checked on the guards he had dispatched with the slug guns. They were unconscious, but alive, due to the modified rounds Ken had procured. Some sort of nano-tech, is all Damon knew. So I can hit them full-on and not worry about killing them. Sure makes things much easier!

  With the sensor-generated map, Damon made much better time. He encountered more resistance, but still no heavy weapons that would give him any trouble. He moved through each group of soldiers quickly, leaving most of them incapacitated and the others
disoriented. When confronted with a dead-end, he made his own doors, a luxury he did not have when he was trying to be quiet.

  A blip in his HUD told him that Leland’s ships had arrived in system, meaning the troops would arrive in about an hour. This part could go bad real fast if the ships were identified as anything other than regular commercial traffic.

  Best to keep their attention focused on me, he thought as a different warning symbol popped up, indicating the energy signature of Heavy Weapons Platforms moving in fast.

  “Now we’ll get this party started,” he said to no one in particular.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “WHAT?” Renard Trueblood stared at his aide, Jeffrey Allen, unable to comprehend what he had said.

  “We have an intruder in the Spire, and it’s been positively identified as the Demon,” Jeffrey repeated.

  Renard’s mind reeled. He’s dead. We shut him down, destroyed him. He sat down in the couch, his legs unable to hold him up.

  “You said he was destroyed. What happened?”

  Jeffrey looked decidedly uncomfortable, and took a few moments to respond, “I don’t know, but I’ll tender my resignation immediately.”

  Renard sighed heavily. “Am I truly such a tyrant?” he asked looking up at his friend.

  Jeffrey quickly knelt down in front of Renard and took his hands. Renard flinched back, the action by Jeffrey was so unexpected and out of character. “I swear to you, Renard, that I was positive the Demon was dead. I would never take any chance with something that could hurt you.”

  Renard found himself unable to speak as he saw tears welling up in Jeffrey’s eyes. After a moment, he stood, raising Jeffrey along with him. Once standing, he squeezed his hands tightly. “I know that, Jeffrey. And I never doubted your loyalty or skills.”

  Renard gathered himself mentally, and affected his persona of wise and loving religious leader. As a role he’d played most of his life, he was quite comfortable in it.

  He dropped Jeffrey’s hands and moved to the bank of screens on the wall over his desk. “Now, what can we do to stop this Demon? He’s either here to kill us all, or to capture Avelina. We’d better bring her up here quickly. There must be a way to stop him.”

  Jeffrey stepped back into his persona of efficient aide, and joined Renard at the screens. “I’ll have Dr. Baksa up here in a few minutes. As for the Demon, we have only a couple of the needle-flak guns available. Most have not been brought back from the last mission.” He paused, and then quietly added “I didn’t think there was any need to bring them back quickly.”

  Renard glanced over, it was not in Jeffrey’s nature to make excuses. He put his attention back on the screens.

  Jeffrey continued without noticing Renard’s look. “The Augies are arriving in-system in twenty-six minutes, and they can use emergency measures to be here in little more than an hour.”

  “Emergency measures?” Renard asked, not sure he wanted to know what it meant.

  “High-boost pods can accelerate them far beyond what normal humans can withstand, greatly decreasing their transit time.”

  “Of course. Will they will arrive in time?”

  “Hard to say exactly. We’re tracking him easily enough, since he’s not trying to hide, but he’s not making great time either.”

  Renard couldn’t keep the detached facade up any longer. “Jeffrey,” he said earnestly, “this is not your fault. You’ve stopped him before, we can stop him again.”

  Jeffrey smiled. “Time to call in the big guns.”

  **** ****

  Waiting was nerve-wracking. Leland McKrae fought the shaking in his hands where they sat in his lap. Loaded aboard a nondescript freighter, all he could do was wait and hope they didn’t raise any suspicions.

  Altogether, they had sixteen ships of various types and sizes with ten to twenty soldiers in each. The amount of traffic around Havyn should easily cover their approach, but anything unusual might alert the authorities to their intentions. Ken Westron and Ted Khasan put a lot of time and effort into the dispersion of and cover for the ships, but any small mistake or overlooked detail could give them away.

  Leland closed his eyes and ran through the newly-acquired sensor map of the Spire supplied by Damon on site. He prayed quickly for Damon’s safety, and for the safety of all his troops now sitting idle and waiting.

  The map provided invaluable data on the Spire, but we wished he had more detailed WERA scans available. Once they were setup on site, they could deploy the portable WERA, but by then it might be too late.

  Forty-five minutes later they entered the orbit flight paths leading to touchdown nearest the Spire.

  “Augie ships arriving in orbit, sir,” the pilot said to him and a corresponding icon popped up in his HUD. “They’re a little ahead of schedule, but we’ve got a head-start on them.”

  “Not much time, we’ll need to be sharp,” Leland said unnecessarily.

  “WHA-?! Sir, they’re firing missiles!”

  Leland unbuckled and strode into the cockpit, even though he would not be any help whatsoever. His mind raced, trying to determine what might have alerted them. Something didn’t make sense -

  “Six minutes to impact! Seven of our guys are changing course, should we?”

  Leland thought furiously. Something did not add up and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Sir? Evasive?”

  Then he had it. “Any shots coming from the surface? Or the orbiting warships?”

  “What?” the pilot’s eyes flicked over his screens, “No. No other bogeys on screen. The warships are quiet, as are the satellites and ground defenses.” He visibly calmed down as he saw what Leland was thinking. “What are they doing? Six incoming bogeys, now five point five minutes out.”

  Leland thought for a moment. “Those aren’t missiles. Well, not missiles intended for us. Sit tight and stay on the plan. And get those other guys back in line, fast,” he said calmly.

  Inside, Leland was anything but calm. His best guess was that the Augies themselves were in those missiles, and if that was true they would beat his troops to the ground by a good half hour, throwing their whole plan into disarray. Leland found he was grinding his teeth and had to make a conscious effort to release his jaw.

  A very long five minutes passed as the missiles approached and passed, heading directly into the atmosphere. Tracking confirmed that they hit near the Spire, but there were no explosions and no apparent damage. Must be the Augies! I hope Damon’s up to this. Deep down, Leland had no idea how Damon could stand alone against all six of them.

  Time seemed to crawl after that, and Leland could barely keep himself from screaming as they made their slow, methodical approach to the landing site.

  **** ****

  Jonathan Kline leaned back in the expensive chair behind his gigantic desk in the auditorium-sized office he called home. His back was to the two huge windows overlooking the city where one could just barely see the rough desert scrub-land beyond. It was late in the day and he was trying to clear his calendar for the rest of the afternoon so he could take his three sons fishing.

  He loved this planet, Dhanna, one of the original Big-Five colonies and headquarters of the vast Kline empire. He was thankful that its development had been limited to a handful of large cities, keeping the natural beauty intact. The Kline family had learned the harsh lessons of Earth and kept true to environmentally-sound development ideals. Of course, we completely overran Darnall and Mastura with factories, but they were barely-habitable rocks in the first place.

  His mind wandered away from the paperwork in front him as it had countless times before.

  Jonathan jumped as an alarm klaxon sounded harshly in the room. His involuntary reactions nearly caused him to fall over backwards, but the chair was able to keep its balance and brought him quickly to an upright position. He was running for the door as soon as his feet hit the ground, and he nearly ran over his assistant on her way into the room.

  “What is goin
g on?” He demanded while she spoke simultaneously.

  “Ships! Warships! Traffic control on the line! Response units rolling, asking for specific orders.”

  Jonathan pulled up the emergency message from his HUD, realizing in the back of his mind that’s what he should have done first.

  “Mr. Kline,” the controller said, “we have multiple unidentified ships just arrived, obvious warships now that they are detunneled.”

  “Who?”

  “They’re not squawking, but we have a 95% identification as Burdekin.”

  “What? How many?”

  “Thirty-five, sir.”

  Jonathan couldn’t speak for moment, not quite believing what he heard. Dreading the answer to his next question, “How many ships do we have here?”

  The controller hesitated, unwilling to deliver the bad news. “Sir, we have only ten.” Into the ensuing silence he added, “Most of our fleet is protecting the factories on Darnall and Mastura.”

  “Of course. As they should be. I assume you’ve alerted the local Admiral, as well as those in the other fleets.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, leave the defense in their hands. Tell them I said they do not need to route any decisions through me, they have ultimate control.” He paused, realizing he might need to add one command, “Only one directive: do not jeopardize the safety of the factories by diverting more craft here unless it is deemed strategically feasible beyond a doubt. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll relay the message.”

  Esme Burdekin, you little snake. Jonathan thought as he pictured her face with its eternal scowl. Except when she looks at Pryke, of course! If she’s suddenly this bold, Pryke must be involved, too.

  I’ll have to contact Renard and Stacey to see if they are under attack. I know Renard could not be working with Pryke, but I’m not so sure of Stacey.

  Steeling himself he addressed his aide, “You should go home to your family and get them into the city, under the domes.”