by Jack Castle
As Tae began fiddling with the alien circuitry, Leo noticed a Mook wearing war paint standing outside in the hallway. Leo recalled the indigenous Mooks at the ruins and swallowed nervously, but then he saw that Fu-Mar was talking to the Mook.
“Hey, isn’t that Enoch’s Mook?” Leo asked Tae.
Frowning at the interruption, Tae took a quick look and then did a double take before returning to the task at hand. “Yeah, I think so, but what’s with the war paint?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said thoughtfully.
Tae sighed with exasperation. “That’s it. I give up. Maybe if I had about a year to build some sort of interface I could understand all this, but there’s no way I’m going to figure it all out in the next five minutes.”
Leo unslung his pack and removed its contents. “Well, can you understand this?”
Tae leaned over to peer into Leo’s backpack. It was filled with homemade explosives. “Where the hell did you get those?”
“Harry gave them to me,” Leo said. “He’s been working on them for months.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so before?” Tae asked.
“All part of the plan: need to know only basis.” Leo saw that Tae was angry and added, “Harry made me promise not to tell anyone in case one of us was captured.”
Leo handed Tae one of the charges and then noticed that the Awumpai were no longer in the hallway. “Wait a minute — where are Fu-Mar and Hu-Nan?”
“I don’t know. They probably went off to find someone else to eat.”
Leo didn’t think that was likely: Hu-Nan, perhaps, but not the older one.
Tae looked at his watch. “C’mon, Leo,” he urged. “Harry and Mac are going to start their attack run in about twelve minutes.”
Leo nodded and helped Tae wire the charges in and around the generators, but he still wondered where the Awumpai had disappeared to.
#
Less than ten minutes later, Tae was just finishing up with the last of his charges when Leo heard a noise near the entrance. He spotted Commando Alan Stein walking on the other side of a long row of machinery. Strangely, Stein looked about four feet taller than Leo remembered, but Leo assumed that he was walking on a platform behind the machinery.
“Stein, you’re alive!” Leo exclaimed, but then he realized that Stein wasn’t exactly himself anymore. “Oh crap!”
Stein now sported a Tripod’s body where his legs should have been. He carried a large trident in one hand and wore thick body armor made of leather.
“Uh, Tae?” Leo said.
“Yeah?” Tae plugged the last detonator cord into the master detonator just as Stein stepped out from behind the machinery.
“You might want to hurry things up a bit!” Leo called over to him. Tae must have seen Stein, too, for he seemed to pick up the pace.
“Hello, fellows!” Stein boomed.
“Stein, is that you?” Leo asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Leo, of course it is me. Khaos returned me to life, so I could serve him. It is my calling.”
Leo and Tae exchanged nervous glances. Leo remembered that Hu-Nan was still in the hall. “Uh, Hu-Nan?” he cried meekly.
“If you’re waiting for that filthy animal friend of yours to save you, I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Tripod-Stein said. He planted the pole of his trident loudly on the floor and licked one of its bloodstained points.
“You killed him?” Leo asked.
“It was no small task, mind you. He killed three of my Tripods in the process and fell out a window, but fortunately for us, we got the drop on him while he was eating.”
Leo noted that Stein hadn’t said anything about Fu-Mar.
“Damn you, Stein!” Leo said. “You didn’t have to kill him.” Leo spied Tae sneaking behind Tripod-Stein toward the generator to set the last of the charges. If he could buy his friend a few more seconds, they could still complete their part of the plan. Harry and Mac were due any moment now, and if they didn’t blow the shields, the entire plan would come to nothing. In every man’s life there comes a time when he realizes that there are things out there that are more important than himself.
“Khaos doesn’t judge me,” Tripod-Stein said. “He accepts me for who I am.”
“Stein, are you off your rocker? Khaos may be an omnipotent alien, but even you have to see that he’s nothing more than a psychopath.” Leo saw that Tae had set the last of the charges and was tiptoeing toward the detonators.
“You shouldn’t say that about such a benevolent being.”
“How can you say that? Hello, Stein? He cut you in half.”
“Yes, but he also put me back together. He is merciful, but I am not.” Stein abruptly spun at the waist and flung his mighty trident at Tae with no more thought than someone swatting a fly. It seemed as though Stein had seen Tae sneaking behind him, too.
“Tae, look out!” Leo shouted, but it was too late.
Tae’s face registered a look of surprise as the massive trident slammed into his midsection like a nuclear missile. It carried him backward through the air and pinned him to the generator housing behind him. His legs dangled off the floor.
The two outer points of the trident had passed clean through Tae’s body. The engineer gripped the trident’s shaft with both hands and tried unsuccessfully to remove the weapon.
Tripod-Stein clopped over to Tae, took the trident in his hands, and wrenched it back and forth. Tae cried out and coughed up blood. “Hurts, Tae?” the Tripod asked him with a nearly demonic voice.
“Leave him alone!” Leo screamed. He ran toward them, and Tripod-Stein quickly removed the trident from Tae’s body and turned to face Leo.
No longer pinned to the generator, Tae dropped to the floor.
Leo skidded to a halt in front of Tae. He saw Tae slumped over on his side, attempting to hold his intestines inside his torso.
Tripod-Stein stepped into Leo’s field of vision. “I don’t want to have to kill you, too, Leo.”
Leo reached for his pistol, but before he could fire, Tripod-Stein expertly spun the trident over his head like a Bo staff and, in one swift blow with its pole end, smacked Leo’s hand and sent his gun flying.
Leo remembered that he still held one of the detonators. He brought it up to his chest and tried to depress the button, but before he could do so, Stein swung the staff again and delivered an uppercut that sent him soaring backward through the air.
Leo dropped the detonator and landed on his back with his lungs deprived of all breath. Before he could even think about getting up, Tripod-Stein clip-clopped over to him and rested a hoofed foot on his chest. The pressure was unbearable. Leo gripped Stein’s hoof and tried to remove it but couldn’t. Stein peered down at Leo the way a bird might look down on a worm.
“You know, Leo, I think I’m just going to have to kill you after all.” He raised his bloodstained trident and aimed it at Leo’s head.
Leo’s last thought was that there were three points to the trident, and they would soon be stained with the blood of three deaths: Hu-Nan’s, Tae’s, and his.
But before the trident made its fatal descent into Leo’s skull, a hologram appeared beside Tripod-Stein’s head. “Bring him to the inner sanctum,” the disembodied voice commanded.
“Yes, my master,” Tripod-Stein replied. He removed his hoof from Leo’s chest and picked him up off the floor with one hand
Dazed and breathless, Leo watched as Stein removed a short piece of rope from his saddlebag and, in one deft move, dropped a noose around Leo’s neck.
“Come with me,” Stein said. He moved past the pilot and pulled the noose tight. As Leo was dragged out of the generator room, he saw Tae lying on his side with both arms clutching his stomach. Tae’s eyes stared at him but were devoid of life.
#
Khaos’s aide, Lahmu, stood in the palace’s m
ain control tower behind a hybrid being, whose brain and veins were hardwired into the glowing fiber-optic cables that surrounded and suspended him.
The hybrid had the singular distinction of being the augur, the eyes and ears of Khaos. He looked as if he were caught in the nexus of a thousand giant spider webs, and he was, in fact, a living, breathing oracle who was wired into everything: every last warship and every single Tripod. He was the nexus of every communication system in the empire.
“Augur, how long until the fleet arrives?” Lahmu asked.
“Working.” The augur’s synthesized voice resounded over the room’s speakers. He no longer utilized his mouth, as his nervous system was hardwired into the system around him.
Lahmu clasped his hands behind his back and paced back and forth. He let his mind wander while he waited for the augur’s answer and contemplated the fact that there had been fewer, and less jubilant, worshipers this year than last. He blamed the small wood nymph from the Kingdom of Mukara for this and realized that he had previously underestimated the people’s love for the tiny princess.
He wasn’t worried, however. He knew that although his master preferred to rule under the guise of love, he was unafraid to rule by fear. Perhaps when the fleet of warships arrived, Atum would raze the princess’s kingdom, so it would serve as an example to others who dared to oppose him.
The aide turned from the augur to see his new Tripod Prime, the earthling who once called himself Stein, standing before him. The other pesky human, the one called Leo, lay at his hoofed feet and struggled to remove a leather noose from his neck.
“Ah, Lieutenant Leo Dalton, back again, I see. Where’s your friend?” a sly glance at Tripod-Stein confirmed what the aide had seen already on the boy’s face. “Oh, I see,” he said, feigning sympathy.
“You murdered my friend!” Leo yelled, his voice hoarse.
“Why, I did no such thing. My Tripod Prime merely defended himself and everyone in this palace.”
“Stein, don’t you get it? These guys are going to wipe out Earth!” The young Adamah ripped the noose the rest of the way from his neck and threw it to the floor.
“Oh, come now. There’s no reason to be so melodramatic. You’re much too smart to believe in God — much smarter than the others. Why, I’m sure you were the first one of them to figure out that mankind was created by Atum-Khaos, not by some non-existent deity to whom billions and billions of your kind have needlessly prayed over thousands of years.”
“Harry said you would say that,” the Adamah replied while looking for an exit.
“Did he now? Well, then, since you won’t worship His Benevolence, I guess the only alternative is for you to die.” He took a threatening step toward Leo, who attempted to back away but was held in place by Tripod-Stein.
The augur’s voice suddenly filled the room. “Lahmu, let his eminence know that his fleet will achieve orbit within three hours.”
“There, you see? You’ll be back home before you know it. But, by the time Atum-Khaos is finished with it, it may not be the home you remember.”
The aide was about to dismiss the Tripod to carry out his bidding, but the Augur’s voice addressed him once more. “That’s not all, Lahmu.” He gestured toward a three-dimensional holographic projection that appeared in the center of the room. The projection displayed two planes heading directly for the palace. “Two crude unidentified chariots approach the palace from the east,” he said. “Shall I inform Atum-Khaos?”
The aide scoffed. “And interrupt him while he is attending tribute? I think not. Do they present any danger to the palace?”
“Our scanners show that the crude craft do seem to be carrying large explosives.” The augur zoomed in on the torpedo bombs that were strapped to the planes’ wings.
“Will the bombs do any damage?” Lahmu asked, trying to sound unconcerned in front of the Adamah.
“No, all critical areas are heavily shielded.”
Lahmu looked at Leo and said, “That’s what you and your engineer friend were doing in the main generator’s power-supply room. You thought that if you could disrupt the power system, it would shut down the shields protecting the anti-gravity generators and the gun batteries. A good plan. That is, until my Tripod stopped you.”
Turning toward the augur, he commanded, “As soon as they’re in range, lock all batteries on them and disintegrate them. Also, prepare for immediate ascension. We’ll rendezvous with the Atum’s fleet in orbit.”
“And any followers still within the palace?” the Augur asked.
“Enlist the Mukarian bowmen for additional security but remove the rest. Have the Tripods throw them over the side if you have to.” Lahmu turned back to Leo. “I don’t think your primitive friends will be able to reach us at higher altitudes,” he said. “Once the Atum’s fleet arrives, I’ll blast this planet back into the Stone Age. They’ll be talking about this day in song for centuries.”
Tripod-Stein struck the control room floor with one hoofed foot. “And what do you want me to do with this one?” He gave the boy a good hard shake.
Lahmu smiled. “Bring him to the sacrificial chamber.”
Leo was dragged from the room, fully aware that Harry and Mac weren’t coming to the rescue but rather flying to their deaths.
Chapter 29
Bomb Run
“We’re too late!”
“What?” Harry asked. He banked the nose of his Avenger for a better view, and he saw it, too. Mac was right. They were still several miles out, but even from this range, he saw that the mountain-sized citadel suspended over Joppa-Cal was slowly beginning its ascent toward the heavens.
“Harry, look at the palace. It’s starting to climb.”
Worse still, the shimmering shields over the anti-gravity generators were still visible. Both pilots knew that dropping their bombs prematurely would waste their one and only shot.
“Yeah, I see it. And it looks like Tae and Leo haven’t managed to shut down the shields yet, either.”
When they were within two miles of their target, the palace’s main guns opened fire. Within seconds, a barrage of deadly flak engulfed both planes. The onslaught was far worse than anything Harry had experienced during the war.
“Break off, break off!” Harry yelled into his microphone as he yanked his stick over to complete a high-speed turn.
Mac followed suit, and both planes arced away. They ducked behind a nearby range of mountain peaks and hid out of the line of fire.
The gun battery assault stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Passing between a gap in the mountain tops, Harry saw a half dozen small attack craft explode from the palace’s launch bay like a disturbed nest of angry bees and rocket after them at uncanny speed.
“Bogeys closing in on our nine o’clock,” Mac said into the microphone.
“I see ’em. We may be in a bit of trouble here.” Harry realized that was probably a vast understatement.
“What do we do?” Mac asked. She dove the nose of her plane down to generate every last ounce of speed out of the Avenger.
But Harry knew that there was nothing they could do against the superior craft. Their one chance had been the element of surprise, and now, even that was gone.
With the shields still covering the generators, they were finished, and they both knew it. It was only a matter of time before the alien fighters closed in on them and blasted them from the sky, dashing any hope of saving humanity from annihilation.
#
Tae awoke in the fetal position with his back against the generator he had come to destroy. He had been either dead or asleep. He wasn’t sure which. Either way, he’d had the most wonderful vision of a young girl who floated above a river and sang the most beautiful song. And now, somehow, he was still alive.
There was a dull ache in his stomach, and he felt wet, sticky blood on his fingertips and chin. But mor
e than anything else, he was cold. He couldn’t stop shivering. The young engineer saw bloody, bluish guts piled on the belly of his shirt, and he knew that he was dead. His brain simply hadn’t realized it yet.
Tae had heard that soldiers in battle feared stomach wounds the most because these wounds took so long to kill. But he thought it wasn’t so bad, considering. Now, what to do with the time left? he wondered. He suddenly spied Leo’s backpack, which contained the detonators.
If only he could sit up. Tae knew that if Stein’s trident had severed his spinal cord, it wouldn’t be possible. He would just lie there, with his face pressed to the palace floor, and bleed out until his brain finally caught up with the rest of his body.
Before he decided to try and move, he remembered something Leo had said — something Leo, in turn, had heard from Harry. What was it? Something about believing in a cause greater than oneself.
#
“Get your damn hands off of me!” Leo shouted at four hybrid priests who held his jerking limbs. The priests carried him high over their heads and roughly placed him atop an altar that looked to Leo as though it belonged in an Aztec pyramid.
Leo turned to see Stein, who stood nearby to watch him squirm. The former commando seemed to be enjoying himself. Leo cast him an angry look. Everything had come down to Stein’s betrayal. If it weren’t for Stein, he and Tae would have disabled the shields and Harry and Mac could have blown up the anti-gravity generators and kept the psychopathic deity from reaching Earth. But there was no hope of success for their plan now.
But then Leo remembered the words Harry had spoken back at the slave ruins, and he smiled.
“Why are you smiling, little Adamah?” Atum-Khaos asked. He startled Leo by speaking in an almost normal voice before stepping into view. The towering deity, with his wolf-like features and oversized eyes, was even more frightening up close than afar.
“Something Harry told me,” Leo said through trembling lips. “Harry said that when things are at their worst, that’s when you have to have faith the most.”
“Faith?” Khaos’s chest cracked down the middle and revealed his glowing essence. Leo squeezed his eyes shut and looked away from the brilliant, throbbing light. “I AM YOUR GOD!” Khaos’s voice softened as he said, “Do you think that your God cares about an inconsequential fleck of molecules such as you?”
