It was a replay on the days when troops lined up shoulder to shoulder and fired on each other. Only the weapons were not single shot muskets. They were automatic weapons, lasers, particle beams and grenade launchers. And they tore the mass of robots apart before they could truly react to the assault.
More robots came through the wormhole, to be ripped to pieces or slagged into molten metal. They kept coming for minutes, and kept being swept away. A few got misaimed shots off, but most were killed before they could even turn and fire on the Theocrat marines. And then they stopped coming.
“Steady,” said Chung over the command circuit, waiting for the next wave of robots he felt sure must be coming. The time clicked down and after ten minutes no robots had poked their snouts through the wormhole.
“Advance in line,” he ordered.
The first and second ranks stood up and started to walk forward, weapons at the ready. At the first sign of anything through the gate, they would drop back to their firing positions and blast whatever it was to oblivion. But nothing moved as they came up to the gate. A platoon pivoted in place, then broke ranks as men took up positions covering the gate.
“Give me some grenades and rockets through that thing,” ordered Chung, gesturing toward the mirror surface.
Thirty weapon launched grenades and a pair micro nuke rockets went into the mirrored surface. One of the micro nukes was set to weave its way into whatever installation was on the other side and detonate far away. The other was set to go off within whatever chamber was on the other side. Chung would never know what happened to them, but as the mirror surface of the wormhole flickered a couple of times and faded away he was sure that something beneficial happened.
“Let’s go,” he ordered the rest of the troops. “Fan out from here and send scouts through every open wormhole. Let’s see if we can catch this prey before they get further from us.”
Chapter Twenty-five
To Patrick’s practiced eye the new hall looked much like the old one. But not exactly. Shrubbery was arranged just a bit differently, benches may have been placed in slightly different orientations, and of course the large double doors at the far end of the hall were closed.
Alyssa was standing in the central length of the hall, her own eyes taking in everything. Shadow was at her feet, and he too was looking. He must have caught sight of something, for he bounded off into the nearby brush.
“Just some vermin,” said Alyssa, looking over at Patrick with a smile. “It helps him with tension to hunt.”
“So this is the other hall?” asked the Monk, looking back at the wormhole they had just stepped out of. “The one we couldn’t get in before?”
“That’s what the ship said when I asked it,” said Alyssa. “Isn’t that right, ship?”
There was no answer, and Patrick tried to reach the ship with his mind with no success.
“It said the Theocrat marines were overrunning the hangar,” said Alyssa, a puzzled look on her face. “Maybe it had to shut down to avoid detection.”
“Or it got shut down,” said Derrick, frowning. “That’s just fucking great. Our ride is not up and running, and we’re trapped here on this derelict.”
“All we can do then is forge ahead,” said Patrick, looking at the other two. Alyssa smiled and Derrick frowned, the reactions he expected from both of them based on experience with their personalities.
“How you going to forge ahead?” asked Derrick, “when we’re trapped on this damned station with damned near a brigade of troops looking for us.”
“Through the rabbit holes,” said Alyssa with a smile. “We need to find one off of this station that leads to someplace we can use.”
“Like the control station,” said Patrick hopefully. That’s what I need, if I’m going to save my people. Anything else is not enough for my purposes.
“We will try to find the control station, Patrick,” said Alyssa with a frown. “But we may have to jump somewhere else for now, and hope we can find a way there through another route.”
Meaning that they will try to get their information out, and if possible they will help me as a secondary course of action, he thought. He really couldn’t blame them. They were trying to be of service to their own government. If they could save his people they would. But first they would accomplish their own mission. And I may have to go off on my own, he thought, looking over at Alyssa. Though I would miss this one. And that seemed like a daunting task, with his limited knowledge of how things worked. Sure, he could make the machines of the ancients give him information, but he didn’t have the innate understanding that the two agents had. And the Theocrats would be of no help. They would use him and discard him as a whim.
“Let’s get to it,” said Alyssa, looking around and pointing at the nearest open wormhole that did not lead back to where they had just come from. She looked back at Patrick. “I want you to guard this entrance. And remember, anything that comes through this portal is not a friend. It’s either one of those robots, or a Theocracy marine.”
“The robots didn’t harm us,” said Patrick, shaking his head. “Despite my destroying the first bunch that came through.”
“And they may do the same here,” said Alyssa with a frown. “Or they may have different orders, or be under the control of someone other than the controller of that first batch. We don’t want to take any chances. Cut down anything that comes through that opening.”
Alyssa turned away and headed toward the portal she had pointed to. “You get that one, Derrick,” she said, pointing to another open portal.
Patrick pulled his ancient sword from its sheath and settled his shield on his arm. Something was on our side in that hall, he thought, replaying the scene in his mind through the Fae. Was it another computer? Or maybe a real ancient. And if an ancient, then who? The one who toppled civilization? And is that one we really want on our side?
He stood, his eyes fixed on the portal, while his mind walked the paths of contemplation.
* * *
“So what happened?” said Chung, walking over to stare down and the smoking figure on the floor. The man’s skin suit was burned through in places, and the helmet’s plastic parts were melted. From the look of the exposed skin he had suffered massive and immediate burns.
“The troopers went through the portal,” said the NCO in charge of that squad. “They screamed as soon as they hit the other side, then Private Losso came stumbling back through, to fall to the floor and expire.”
“Everyone stop going through the portals,” yelled Chung over the command circuit.
“We have teams already through on a half dozen,” said the Captain commanding over the circuit.
“If you have contact with them, then let them check out the area and come back,” said Chung, grimacing as he looked at the smoking meat at his feet and imagining himself in that place. “Send robots through from now on to check out the area, then send men through if it seems safe.”
The Captain acknowledged the order and Chung looked over to where a marine was slapping a scout robot together. The man activated the scout and it rose into the air, then plunged through the portal.
The other side, as revealed by the robot, was a hell hole. The temperature was in the six hundred degree range, and the other marine was lying on the floor of the ruined room, his skin suit burned away and his body turning into charred flesh and hard ash. The robot flew out of the room and into the world beyond, panning for a moment on the bloated blue star overhead. It panned over the landscape and revealed a scene of flowing lava through smoggy air.
“Damn,” said the sergeant. “That sure looks like hell to me.”
“And that’s why we want to send robots through first,” said Chung, glaring at the screen. “If it looks safe and promising we will send men through, and not until we are sure it is both.”
The sergeant nodded, then gestured at the other marines to start putting together more drones to send through open portals. Chung nodded his approval and walked on
to the next open portal, where he knew a team had gone through.
Yelling to the rear caught Chung’s attention, and he turned to see a pair of Maurids come running out of a portal, several thick vines waving through after them. The nearest troops opened fire on the vines, blazing away with their automatic rifles. More vines followed, until a total animal versus vegetable war had erupted. Lasers and particle beams finally shriveled the dozen thick vines, and a flurry of grenades was launched through the portal to discomfit the controlling plants on the other side.
“I’m guessing they didn’t go through that one,” said Chung to the Sergeant who stood beside him staring at the short fight.
“They would be fertilizer if they did, my Lord,” agreed the Sergeant with a grimace. “I never heard tell of such plants.”
If they were plants, thought Chung, looking over to another portal where a robot was preparing to enter the wormhole. They could have been plant like animals for all we know. And with a whole Universe out there, who knows what we’ll run into in this place. That thought struck him again, this place. They were actually on a structure of the ancients, and just looting this station would give his polity such advantages as they had never dreamed of. But not the ultimate prize, he thought, visualizing the Theocracy in control of ancient warships, taking out their enemies in the local systems, then sweeping on in a holy war to spread the faith across this part of the Galaxy. And my name will be in the books that relate this part of history to our descendants. To live forever alongside the names of the founding fathers, the prophets, and the saints.
“Keep at it men,” he called out. “We must find them. One of these portals will lead directly to them, and then they shall be ours.”
* * *
“Shit,” yelled out Derrick, shaking his head. “Another dead end.”
“Another hell planet?” yelled Alyssa, looking at her own screen and seeing what had to be a vacuum exposed room, the darks and shadows so clear and deep. Wonder why the air isn’t being pulled out of this room and into that one, she thought. It has to have some kind of system to keep gas and radiation from going across. She was maneuvering the drone on jets of compressed air, its secondary propulsion system, due to that lack of atmosphere that rendered its fans useless. It was running out of propulsion fast, and she noted that the gravity was about point five normal. So it was an airless moon somewhere, probably the center of some industrial or mining enterprise.
“It’s a hell planet alright,” said Derrick in a disgusted tone. “Cold as hell. Just ten degrees above absolute zero.”
“Why in the hell would they have a portal to someplace like that?” asked Allysa, running his feed onto her monitor. The scout was in a long room, and its lights were shining on the walls which were covered with ice. There was no atmosphere there, and she suspected the ice crystals on the floor were what was left of whatever air had once been in the structure.
Her own scout came out of the wormhole and its fans popped on as soon as it was back in atmosphere. Small ports opened and the robot began to compress air to refill its tanks. It followed her to the next open portal and plunged in.
And before her was a world that looked like paradise. Trees and lush vegetation were everywhere, with blooming flowers and birds with colorful plumage all through it. A soft light shone through the leaves and left bright speckled shadows on the ground.
“Ship,” she said, hoping that it might have come back online. But nothing came back, and she looked in frustration at the scene as the scout flew between the trees. It came up above them and the walls and ceiling of the enormous room came into sight. There was a bright pinpoint up by the ceiling that she knew was the light source, possibly an artificial sun, denoting technology of much greater advance than hers.
“I’ve got a station of some sort,” she yelled out to Derrick. “I don’t think it’s the one we’re looking for though.”
“Too bad we can’t ask the damned ship,” said Derrick as he hurried over to her, looking down at his own monitor that was linked into her view.
“Tell me about it,” said Alyssa under her breath.
“We have problems here,” came the voice of Patrick from his station.
Alyssa looked down his way, her eyes opening wide as she saw what had come through the portal.
Chapter Twenty-six
Patrick saw the mirror surface of the wormhole ripple, and knew something was coming through. He kept his mind if Fae state, sword at the ready. He waited for an enemy trooper to come through the hole, his sword pointed at waist level, his shield held ready to deflect any shots that might proceed them. To his total surprise an object came out at the very top of the wormhole, flying quickly into the room.
Patrick swatted at the rear of the small winged machine with his sword. The blade sliced through the tail of the robot and dropped it to the floor. The rest of the machine continued on into the hall, weaving and twisting as it tried to compensate for the loss of some of its control surfaces. It climbed into the air to the upper reaches of the hall and started to circle there.
“We have problems here,” he yelled to the others, looking up at the machine.
Alyssa and Derrick came running his way. Derrick stopped and put his rifle to his shoulder, taking aim and sending a flurry of shots at the robot. Rounds ricocheted from the ceiling in a shower of sparks. Enough must have hit the robot, which went into a dive and hit against the floor to slide along, obvious holes in its fuselage.
“We need to get out of here,” yelled Derrick, aiming his rifle at the portal that Patrick guarded. “They know we’re here.”
“Have you found the way into the station we seek?” asked Patrick of Alyssa, keeping one eye on the portal, which had resumed its mirrored appearance.
“Not yet,” yelled Alyssa, stopping and looking back at the portal she had just been scouting. “But I found a place we might be able to use as a hidey hole.”
“That does me no good,” said Patrick, frowning. “A hidey hole doesn’t help me save my people.”
“It’s better than getting our asses caught out in the wind,” said Derrick, walking toward Patrick with his rifle to his shoulder and pointed at the portal. “Or do you think you can save your people while the Theocrats dissect you to find out why you can use the tech that they can’t.”
Patrick nodded his head as he thought about what Derrick had just said. It really wouldn’t help his people if he were killed or captured. And he didn’t think the Theocrats would really give a damn about his world. So his best strategy was to just stick with these people and hope the future opened the possibility of salvation for Vasus.
Just as the thought crossed his mind the mirror surface rippled and he prepared himself for the next thing to transit, which he was sure would not be another scout robot. But he was not prepared for the trio of Maurids who came leaping through the portal.
* * *
“We have something here,” yelled out an NCO, looking down at the portable monitor in his hands.
“What do you have,” called back Chung, running to the portal while he keyed his HUD to see what was being portrayed on the monitor. He could see a hall that looked much like this, the view from high up. Then two people running toward the camera, one raising a rifle to his shoulder as he came to a stop. Then the picture disappeared in a burst of static.
“They’re definitely hostile,” came the voice of the Captain over the circuit.
“I saw the one with the sword when the probe first came out of the portal,” said the NCO, sketching a hasty salute to the Colonel. “He cut the tail from the robot with that damned impossible blade.”
Chung nodded as his own hand sought the handle of the sword over his shoulder, taking comfort in the feel of the ancient weapon. “Prepare for an assault,” he said into the com.
“Start sending men through?” asked the Captain, running over with a squad at his back.
“Hell no,” said Chung in a growling voice. “Send through two squads of Maurids as t
he shock troops. We’ll follow with a full platoon of marines and overwhelm them.”
“Yes, sir,” said the Captain.
Chung pulled his sword from the sheath and stood there, waiting for the Maurids to gather round. He didn’t have to wait long, as the efficient creatures were ready within a minute. “I’ll be going through with the second Maurid squad,” he told the Captain.
“Are you sure you want to do that, sir?” asked the wide eyed officer. “I would feel better if you had a squad of marines around you.”
“I feel safe enough with the Maurids,” said Chung, frowning at the alien prejudice being shown by the officer. “Just make sure that other platoon comes through on our heels.”
“Yes, sir,” said the officer.
Chung turned back to the front to see the first squad of quadruped carnivores start through the gate, three leading, following by the rest of the dozen in trios. The second squad started through, a trio first, and he followed on the tails of that trio.
He jumped into the mirror surface and felt a bit of disorientation. Only a bit and for less than a second. It seemed like he stepped through a door, and then he was at the destination. And in the middle of a battle.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The three dog like demons came out of the surface in a rush, almost overwhelming the Monk in the first second. Almost. In Fae state they came through in slow motion, and Patrick brought his sword up and around, slicing through the chests of two of the creatures, leaving the air filled with a spray of purplish blood. The sword came through and around, then up, then down, and the third Maurid’s head fell from its body.
Theocracy: Book 1. Page 27
