by James Axler
There was still time to change course.
“General, are you sure you want to proceed with this?” Lima asked. “The Deathlanders might have already exited the chamber at the other end. When we initiate the recall, we don’t know what we’re calling back.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” the general said with obvious impatience.
As far as the base commander was concerned, they’d already had this discussion. And indeed they had. Lima had failed to get his point across.
“They need to pay for what they’ve done to us,” Commander Romeo said. “They can’t be allowed to escape free and clear.”
“But what if the unit comes back empty?” Lima said.
“Then we will use it to go after them,” India replied. “Initiate the recall.”
In one sense the general was absolutely correct. If they were going to do this with any chance of success, it had to be now. Lima pressed the button with his thumb.
On the other side of the porthole a thick mist descended, the floor plates glowed and a tremendous pulse of energy was released. The power system cycled down, and as it did, the loud hum dropped in volume and pitch.
General India looked through the porthole. “Can’t see a damned thing,” he said. “Everyone, get your weapons ready.”
As the fog slowly lifted, bodies became visible on the chamber’s floor.
Bodies in black coveralls.
Lima’s first thought was that they had trapped the black woman and old man, but he couldn’t see their faces.
“Damn, we only got two of them,” the general said. “Hurry, get the door open and drag the bastards out of there.”
Lima opened the mat-trans and let the black suits rush in first. He had just stepped over the threshold as they turned over the bodies. His eyes darted from the scorched, unfamiliar faces, to the massive block of gray explosive and embedded timer, and finally to the piece of string that lay across the floor.
Instead of shouting a warning to the others, he lunged for the open door. Even as he did so, he knew it was too little and too late.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ryan looked through the porthole’s armaglass as the jump mist dematerialized. The mat-trans chamber had emptied. The dead black suits and the bomb had been transported—somewhere.
“How do we know if it worked?” Krysty asked. “How do we know if the mat-trans is safe to use again?”
It was a good question and it needed an answer.
“Anybody got a suggestion?” Ryan said.
“We could throw something else in,” J.B. said. “Try to send it to the same place using the LD button. See what happens.”
Everyone agreed that was a logical starting point.
Ryan opened the mat-trans door, pulled the commandeered Beretta from his waistband, walked inside and placed it on the floor. He hit the LD button, raced out of the unit and shut the door. The system went through the standard sequence and powered up. Tendrils of jump mist appeared out of nowhere, writhing like gray snakes.
Then the process stopped.
The mist disappeared; the handblaster was still there.
The companions filed into the control room.
“Have you ever seen this before?” Mildred asked, pointing at a small digital readout on one of the comps just outside the anteroom door. Tiny orange dots of light against a black background spelled out a message to the unit’s human operator, which scrolled across the narrow screen in jerky little steps.
“Error #29671A. Reinput or retask.”
It repeated the message over and over, scrolling from left to right.
“What does it mean?” Ricky asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Ryan said. “Let’s do what it says.”
They repowered the mat-trans with the same result. The handblaster was still there. The same message appeared, and repeated endlessly.
“I think we have our answer,” Ryan stated.
Ricky looked puzzled. “What answer?”
“We know where we tried to send the blaster,” J.B. told him. “If it didn’t leave this chamber, if it didn’t go there, then something’s wrong at the other end. It couldn’t rematerialize in the target chamber.”
“To put it another way,” Mildred added, “there’s no there, there. The bomb went off inside the unit, as planned.”
“And it probably took out several floors of the redoubt,” J.B. said. “That was one honkin’ big block of C-4.”
“All the people in that place are going to die now,” Ricky said.
“We made sure of that,” Ryan replied.
“But they were human like us, weren’t they?” Ricky said.
No one said anything for a long moment.
“If we are finished here, my friends,” Doc said, breaking the silence, “may I suggest we reconvene in the fresh air.”
* * *
OUTSIDE THE REDOUBT’S entrance, the sun was bright and the air was hot, so hot it made the distant mountains seem to shimmer. The companions leaned back against the rock face on either side of the entrance, letting the trapped warmth soak deep into their bones.
It felt wonderful to Ryan, but after a few minutes the heat started to release more than just their sweat.
Krysty sniffed at her forearm. “Gaia,” she said, “I smell like dead pengie.”
“I could use a bit of a wash, myself,” Doc said, staring down at his blood-encrusted fingers.
Ricky had a different priority. “I am so hungry I could eat a scagworm, buttfirst,” he said.
“Let’s recce the area to look for a stream or a lake,” Ryan suggested. “We can clean up there.”
“And after we’re done washing, we can get some dinner,” Mildred said with a smile. She took a frag gren from her pocket and bounced it on her palm. “Do a little fishing.”
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460342091
First edition November 2014
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Alan Philipson for his contribution to this work.
Polestar Omega
Copyright © 2014 by Worldwide Library
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