by Chris Bunch
“I’m not planning on thinking,” Joshua said. “Now shut up.”
He felt the Lumina, forced away his own fear, tension.
Breathe … you are the void … you are the fire …
He was out, beyond the ship, riding just ahead of the blast wave of his missile, barely aware of his hands moving on the control panel as the missile came up and around toward the oncoming Al’ar rocket.
Touch the void, be part, be all, reach out, feel …
His awareness flashed out once more, floated above the crags as the long double-finned Al’ar ship-killer flashed toward him, then felt his own missile beside him.
Hands coming together, fingers outstretched …
Far away, in a safe, warm world, Wolfe’s hands left the missile’s control panel, splayed, moved together, and he heard Taen’s hiss of alarm.
Touching …
Wolfe’s missile veered into the path of the oncoming projectile, and flame balled over nothingness, then vanished, and a few, tiny metal fragments spun down toward the rocks below.
Wolfe stood over the missile controls. Taen was out of his rack, halfway across the compartment.
“Don’t bother,” Wolfe said. “It’s dead. I killed it. Ship, get us the hell off this world. We’ve got some rethinking to do. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”
“How was that done?” the Al’ar said. “I knew you could project your awareness, but how could you affect what your rocket did without touching anything?”
“I don’t know. But I knew, as I took the controls of the rocket, that I could do it.”
The Al’ar stared at Wolfe. His hood flared suddenly.
“Shadow Warrior,” he said after a time, “now I feel fear toward you. I no longer know what you are, what you are becoming.”
CHAPTER TEN
Taen and Wolfe muscled the cylinder out of the lock, hastily set up its tripod legs, and ran for the nearby rocks as the Grayle lifted away into space. The cylinder slid three antennae out, and one swiveled up toward the sky.
The two space-suited beings stumbled on, moving as fast as the bulky suits and their heavy pack frames and slung blast rifles would let them. Wolfe kept glancing at the hillcrest. They’d made about a quarter of a mile when Wolfe saw the flicker of movement, knocked the Al’ar down, and flattened beside him.
A double-finned missile arced over the nearby hilltop and smashed into the cylinder. Smoke, fire flared up, and rock dust obscured the clearing.
Long moments later, it settled. There was a crater about thirty feet deep surrounded by splintered boulders.
Wolfe got to his feet, licking blood from his lip where the blast had smashed his head into the rim of his faceplate. He unclipped a lead from his suit and plugged it into an improvised connection on Taen’s armor.
“I guess they told us.”
“Your diversion was clever.”
“We’ll see if it fooled them into thinking we just dropped the sensor and scooted, or not. Then it’s clever. But I sure hate to lose that snooper. Damned thing cost me too many credits to just throw away.”
“Would you rather have thrown away your life?”
“Nope. But I wish I wasn’t such a stickler for authenticity and had thrown them the spare toilet instead.” Wolfe checked monitors. “How thoughtful. It wasn’t a nuke they dumped on us. Shall we press on and see what else the lion has protecting his den?”
“When you speak to other Terrans, do you also attempt to confuse them?”
“As often as possible.” Wolfe turned serious. “Taen, do you have any sense of whether we’re going after some robot deathtrap, or is there intelligence, such as maybe your Guardians, inside?”
“I do not know.”
“Second question. How many ways are they going to try to kill us? Anything besides the usual Al’ar methods?”
“I do not know that, either.”
“Elaborate.”
“Toward the close of the war, when we realized the Federation was slowly closing the trap, we experimented with many different types of weapons. I was not taken into the confidence of our leaders, so I do not know what devices may have been successful enough to be taken out of the laboratories and put in production.”
“You bring utter peace and confidence to my soul. Come on. We’ve got some hills to hike.”
Chitet Murder Charges Rock Federation Master Speaker Athelstan: “Government Tried to Assassinate Me.”
Press for More
BATAN — Chitet Master Speaker Matteos Athelstan today accused the Federation of masterminding a plot to murder him in last month’s suicide-crash of a starship into his palace.
The ship has now been identified as being the Exploration Vessel Occam, an ex-Federation warship disarmed and converted by the Chitet two years ago. It was reported missing on a routine venture two months before it dove into Speaker Athelstan’s Residency, and had been assumed lost with all hands.
However, three days ago the surviving crew arrived at a mining camp on the Outlaw World of Triumphant, and claimed that they had been hijacked by a Federation spyship of the Sorge class.
According to documents sent to this com, the Occam’s Master, Captain Millet, said they were following their orders when a Federation vessel identifying itself as the Harnack ordered it to cut its drive. Captain Millet of course obeyed. The Harnack then connected airlocks to the Chitet ship and, when the lock was open, Federation sailors coldly murdered four of Captain Millet’s crewmen and seized the ship.
They were imprisoned in a hold and then released, with minimal supplies, on a dangerous jungle world, no doubt, Master Speaker Athelstan said, In the hopes they would be destroyed by the savage beasts of that planet.
However, due to the inspired leadership of Captain Millet and the other officers, the crew was able to …
Wolfe slid to the knife-edge of the ridge, peered over, and quickly ducked back.
The fortress sprawled across the hill beyond them, although little could be seen aboveground. But the knolls were a little too regular, the mounds winding between them too convenient.
He reconnected the com lead to Taen’s suit. “We’re on it. How do we get inside?”
“We fight our way in,” the Al’ar said. “I know of no way of communicating with whoever is inside, nor would they be likely to believe me, especially as I’m in the company of a Terran.”
“In the old holopics,” Wolfe grumbled, “I’d pretend to be your prisoner and then we’d jump ‘em. Pity you come from a race that doesn’t believe in silliness like that.”
“Why should anyone bother taking an enemy alive, unless killing captives makes the others fight more fiercely, as Terrans do? Certainly we never concerned ourselves with our own prisoners.”
“I know,” Wolfe said. “But they vanished along with everybody else. Forget it. Why haven’t they opened up on us? Surely they’ve got IR sensors.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps they are waiting to see what our move will be, or perhaps they are waiting for us to move into the open.”
Wolfe thought for a moment, then wriggled out of his pack. He took out a small tube, opened it, and took out a small, slim rocket. As the rocket came free, guidance fins snapped out of slots. He carefully pried at the tube and stripped five metal rods from it.
He clipped these into slots on the tube to form a launching rack.
“We’ve been where we are too long,” he said. “Move over to behind that boulder there. And we won’t need to be careful about anybody homing on our signals once the shooting starts.”
He unhooked the com cable and reeled it back into his suit. He ran awkwardly about thirty yards, set the rack down, slid the rocket into position, came back. Then he took what looked like binocs, except with an extra barrel in the center, from his pack and slithered back up to the ridgecrest.
Wolfe focused the viewer, put the crosshairs on one of the knolls, touched a stud on its side, then a second.
The small rocket shot into the air. Fo
llowing the homing signal, it shattered against the knoll, a surprisingly large explosion for so small a device.
Instantly the knoll unmasked a multitube weapon, sending laser fire spattering in the direction the rocket had come from.
A moment later, a second pillbox exposed itself and put crossfire into the same area.
Joshua backslid into cover. “Maybe they don’t have infrared,” he said, putting his pack back on and crouching across to where Taen waited.
“Did you mark those two?”
“I did.”
“Now it gets interesting. Did you ever take part in an infantry assault?”
“Never. My fighting was in space or in-atmosphere.”
“That doesn’t improve my mood.” Wolfe took off his pack, took out two round grenades, one anodized white, the other red, and an egg-shaped object almost as large as his head. He twisted a dial at the top. “When I charge, you put one burst on that first pillbox, then concentrate on the second.”
“That sounds extraordinarily hazardous for you.”
Wolfe shrugged. “It’s about the only way to take out interlocking fire. But if anybody else starts shooting at me, discourage them. Try not to get killed.”
“That is not my desire at the moment.”
Wolfe thumbed the first grenade’s activator, over-armed it into the open space in front of them, came to his feet, and ran forward. As he came into the open, he pitched the second grenade to his front, underhand, just as the first exploded and smoke boiled.
A moment later the second grenade blasted a flare of energy. Wolfe saw Taen’s weapon fire past him, saw return fire from one of the turrets, then hurled the egg-shaped object high into the air.
It hit just short of the first pillbox, exploded, and the turret blew up, metal disguised as rock tearing with a screech audible above the crack of Taen’s fire and the blind return blasts from the second pillbox.
He dove forward into smoke, feeling rounds smash into rock a foot away, pulled another grenade from its pouch, touched its stud and threw.
Again fire flashed and Wolfe, lungs searing, stumbled up, unslinging his blast rifle, and ran past the flare, sending rapid-fire bursts toward the second weapons bunker.
An explosion sent him tumbling, arm coming up to protect his faceplate. Another turret must have unmasked — a rocky column above him shattered and cascaded down.
Wolfe rolled twice, came up, and sent a burst at the weapons station, then felt death behind him and went flat.
A blade slashed as he rolled and saw a six-legged gray metalloid spider rearing over him.
The scythe on one arm lashed down and smashed his blast rifle as Wolfe yanked his pistol from its holster, fired twice.
The blasts took the spider in its leg segments, and the robot thrashed, toppled, as the Al’ar pillbox “saw” movement and blew its carapace into fragments.
A moment later, Taen’s weapon blasted the third pillbox into silence.
Coming from between the rocks were three more of the robots. Each was about eight feet tall, with a body like a round cigar and a small dome on top with a weapons tube jutting from it.
Wolfe knelt, held his pistol in a two-handed grip, and sent bolts smashing into the first. It shuddered, sidestepped, came on.
The one behind it reared as a ray from Taen’s weapon took it head-on, and his second burst seared its belly open, revealing multicolored circuitry.
Wolfe sent a grenade spinning at the first, and the blast went off under it, seemingly harmlessly. But the robot froze in midstride, then sagged to the rocks.
The last spider was on Wolfe, cutting at him. Wolfe ducked, had its metalloid arm in his hands, trying to twist it. Inexorable force twisted, sent him down, and the scythe inched toward his faceplate.
Breathe … fire, burning all, blazing, wildfire, firestorm, beyond control …
He felt muscles tear, and the robot’s arm bent, metal scraping. Wolfe rolled forward, came to his hands and knees under the nightmare, then stood, lifting against the greasy underside of the spider, pushing up, and the robot flipped onto its back, legs flailing.
Joshua saw his pistol, had it, and sent the rest of the magazine smashing into the robot as its legs flexed and died.
Taen was beside him. “It is gone. And you are hurt.”
Suddenly Wolfe was aware of pain in his side, looked down, saw the black where a blast had burned his suit, and felt his suit’s air hissing out.
He fumbled at his waist, but Taen’s grasping organs were ahead of him, opening the patch and sealing the suit.
Wolfe swayed, and the Al’ar pulled him into the shelter of some boulders as another turret opened fire. The fire spattered harmlessly against boulders.
Breathe … breathe …
“Are you injured?”
Wolfe felt his body, shook his head, then realized Taen could not see the gesture.
“No. Not badly. Burned a little. Sorry. But I just lost my fondness for goddamned spiders.”
“Those devices surprised me,” Taen said. “I had heard no stories of their development. I would guess they were completely experimental, since it was so easy to deactivate them.”
“Easy for you to say,” Wolfe said. “All right. We’re inside their first line of defense. Let me see what I can discover.”
He sat, awkwardly.
Breathe … welcome the void … there is no pain … there is no fear … earth and water combine, restore your body … now reach beyond, find hei, let hei surround you.
Without realizing it his gauntleted hands touched, tried to link fingers.
He was above the planet’s stony surface, looking down, looking at, looking through.
Here are weapons stations … here passageways … here there are …
Wolfe came back to his body’s awareness, felt the flush of strength, energy, peace wash over him.
“Now we shall enter their fortress.” For some reason, it was natural to speak in Al’ar.
He took another, longer tube from his pack and got to his feet. Taen began to say something, fell silent.
They went between boulders, Wolfe dimly aware of something shooting, no awareness of where the blasts were striking. He went flat and crawled for almost fifty yards behind the cover of one of the mounded passageways.
Joshua came to an open space, hesitated, held up one hand for Taen to wait, went across the open space very fast.
Nothing happened. Wolfe beckoned, and Taen stumbled after him. He’d barely gained the shelter of a low cluster of rocks when a laser-blast shattered splinters behind him.
Taen looked at Wolfe and saw eyes staring, fixed on some strange invisible eternity through the faceplate.
Joshua’s fingers moved automatically on the tube, and one end extruded until it was nearly four feet long. He opened a tiny compartment on the side of the tube, took what looked like a jeweler’s eyepiece connected to an electrical lead, and positioned it in the center of his suit’s faceplate.
He moved Taen out of the way, then stood, tube on one shoulder. It swept back and forth, then held steady on an open, completely unremarkable rocky patch.
Wolfe touched the firing stud and the rocket blasted out, flame spouting from the rear of the launch tube. The rocket exploded, smoke and flame gouting. Through the boil, they saw where the hidden hatch had been ripped open.
Wolfe tossed the launcher tube aside.
“Come,” he ordered, and Taen followed.
The hatch was only open about a foot, exposing a ramp, blackness. There wasn’t room to squeeze through.
Wolfe took the hatch, hunched, and lifted. Metal shrieked, but the ramp did not move.
Taen was beside him, grasping organs beside human fingers. Wolfe felt resistance give, and the hatch shrieked open another foot.
Wolfe half pushed Taen through, followed him down.
Joshua saw clearly, led the way down twenty feet to where the ramp ended at a T-intersection, pulled Taen into it just as an automatic hatch slid across
the rampway.
The silence came like a curtain of rain across Wolfe’s mind.
He unsealed his faceplate, sucked clean, sterile air, knowing the fortress’ atmosphere was still present.
“Welcome home, Taen,” he said.
Taen opened his suit, as well.
“No,” he said. “I am not home. But I have reached a waystation on the journey.”
His voice echoed down the cold metal corridor.
They started down its curving length, moving carefully, weapons ready. They’d gone about seventy yards when, without warning, the deck fell away below them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Joshua rolled until he was falling facedown, then used his suit’s steering jets to stabilize out of the beginnings of a spin. Craning his neck to the side, he saw Taen floating about three feet above him.
The Al’ar drew level with him and Wolfe realized their rate of descent was slowing. They’d dropped about five hundred feet and were falling at no more than a few feet per second when Joshua saw a deck looming below. He kick-snapped erect and bent his legs for the landing.
No impact came as the fortress’ antigrav caught, held them. As they touched down, a metal roof crashed across, sealing off the tunnel they’d fallen down.
“Alice, and friend. Canned for the feast,” Joshua said. Taen did not respond, but scanned the walls and decks of the oval-shaped trap. Both still had weapons ready.
“I see nothing that suggests weakness that might be cut away,” Taen said.
“Nor I,” Joshua agreed. He tried to feel out, beyond. Through three-quarters of the arc, he could feel nothing but metal, rock. On the fourth, his vision went beyond, but only into emptiness. Then it met something and was hurled back.
Joshua shuddered, as if he’d been struck.
“What was that?” Taen asked. “Somebody out there doesn’t want to be watched,” Wolfe said.
“Lay down the weapons,” came a voice. It filled his mind and the tiny room.
Wolfe hesitated, noticed Taen had knelt, set his weapon down, did the same.
