“Readings?” he demanded of the officer who carried a small broad-spectrum scanning unit built into one sleeve of his armor. “Anything coming in or going out?”
“No, General,” the trooper replied, tapping a few spots on the sleeve unit. “It’s not active, as far as I can tell.”
Agrippa nodded and moved right up next to the object. He paused for a few seconds, thinking, then began to remove his right gauntlet, exposing his hand. As the others looked on, some of them holding their breath, he ran his fingertips lightly over the surface.
“It’s cold,” he said. “Smooth and cold.”
“It’s a tomb,” Obomanu whispered, finally vocalizing what all of them had been thinking all along.
“Maybe so,” Agrippa said with a shrug. “Maybe not.”
“General,” the scan man interjected, his voice suddenly urgent. “I’m picking up something now. Okay, wow,” he added. “The readings are going crazy.”
The others stepped back from the tomb.
“What does that mean, precisely?” Agrippa asked, keeping his voice casual. “Crazy how?”
The scan man shook his head; his helmet was off and hanging from a tether at his side, just as Agrippa’s was. The fog swirled up and around his features, making him somewhat difficult to see. “I’m not sure, sir,” he replied. “It’s not just one thing. It’s all the readings. Electromagnetic activity; radio waves; heat; temporal—”
Agrippa stopped him there with a quickly raised hand. He frowned deeply. “Temporal? What—?”
“Temporal readings are all over the place,” the man replied, still staring at the readout on his armor’s sleeve. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Agrippa felt his patience slipping away. “Start over,” he said, his voice calm but rock-solid and powerful. “What do you mean by temporal readings being all over the place? How can that be possible?”
“I—I don’t know, General,” the scan man said, his voice strained. “If I understood it myself, sir, I would try to explain it clearly—but I don’t. I have no idea.”
Agrippa bit back a sharp retort and instead merely nodded. Maintaining the morale of the men was critical right now, and reprimanding one of them wouldn’t serve that cause at all. He cursed the fact for the thousandth time in his adult life that being a leader meant more than just being the bravest fighter in combat; one had to carefully manage the spirits of the troops and keep them at just the right balance of caution and aggressiveness. And never, ever allow them to give up hope. “Well, figure it out as quickly as you can,” he said, scowling.
“Yes, sir.”
“Contact!” cried another soldier, one of the few females that made up the company, off to the right on the perimeter.
Agrippa looked up, his quad-rifle in hand, ready now for anything in this bizarre nowhere realm. “What is it?”
The woman—a Lieutenant Holland, Agrippa recalled—paused before responding. “Intruders approaching. Five of them. Six. Now seven.”
“Humans?” Agrippa asked, even as his troops around him brought up their pistols, rifles and swords.
“...Negative,” the perimeter guard replied. She must have been struggling to get a clear reading in the strange atmospheric conditions that surrounded them. Finally she said, “Definitely alien, General, but I can’t tell exactly what they are.”
“Ready all weapons,” Agrippa said, though everyone had already done so and was moving into defensive positions. He turned back to the tomb, studying it anew. Was there something intrinsically valuable about it? Was this new group—aliens, apparently—looking for it? Would they want to fight for it? Was it valuable enough or useful enough to Agrippa and his team that it was worth fighting for—or should he simply order his forces to move aside and let them have possession of it? Thinking through all of this, he cursed his lack of answers. He needed more information. The goddess Aurore had led them here, to this barren level of the Above, with the understanding that they were desperately needed to prevent some vast, galactic catastrophe that the seer-god Solonis had foreseen. But then, once they had arrived, she had seemingly disintegrated, abandoning them with no way back home, no goal in sight, no understanding of the mission beyond those basics, and no way forward other than to simply slog through the fog. It was all very frustrating and infuriating, and Agrippa was struggling to hold his team together in the face of it all.
“Intruders have halted,” the perimeter guard said, bringing him back to the moment. She, like the others, was having to rely on actual voice communication, their usual mental link via the Aether connection not working terribly well in this strange environment.
“How many now, Lieutenant?” he asked, actually finding himself pleased to have a presumably real-world opponent to concern himself with. Fighting aliens was something he knew how to do, and knew how to do very effectively.
“Seven, sir.”
Agrippa nodded, his mind working, trying to figure out how to proceed. Probably the other party was now aware of them, too, and their leader was thinking much the same thing.
“General,” the scan man called in a low voice, as though that wouldn’t prevent Agrippa from keeping up with what was happening around them. “The readings are even crazier now. The temporal numbers are off the charts.”
Agrippa came very close to smacking the guy. His patience was exhausted. “Tell me what that means, in real terms,” he ordered in a tone that was low but very sharp. “If you can’t give me concrete facts to go by, Corporal, I’d as soon you kept your mouth shut.”
Rebuked, the scan man opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before saying, “I—I think, General, that it means that this tomb—or whatever is inside it—is actively traveling in time.”
This brought Agrippa’s head around to stare at the man with wide eyes. “Traveling,” he said, “in time.”
“I—um, yes, sir. Yes, just so. Traveling in time.”
“Intruders are on the move again, sir,” came the voice of Holland, the perimeter guard.
“Where?” Agrippa demanded, growing annoyed with having to bounce back and forth between the two separate conversations. He was also growing frustrated with the inactivity. He was not alone in that, he knew. Around him, the other troopers of his Bravo Squad stood about uneasily. Certainly they all gave the visible impression to anyone who might have been looking at them that they were overwhelmingly confident and sure of themselves, and there was no doubt that they constituted a remarkably formidable force, for one composed of so few individuals. But Agrippa knew them better than that, and could read the smallest signs in their voices, their posture, their movements. They were nervous and jittery, and this inactivity only amplified that condition. At least when they had been marching they had been doing something, if only trudging through a foggy wasteland. Now, they had nothing to do save peer into that very fog and wait for an attack that might never come—or might come in another second.
Holland had pulled back closer to the main body of the Bravo Squad so that the others could see her, and now she was gesturing in a broad arc. “All across there, that way, sir,” she said to Agrippa. “They’re approaching—slowly—and they’re fanning out.”
Agrippa nodded. He turned back to the corporal with the scanner. “Anything more of note besides that this box is somehow traveling in time?” he asked, his feelings about that report quite clearly conveyed in his tone.
The corporal seemed reluctant to add anything, but at last he noted in a low tone, “Just that each of the effects I reported earlier is now amplified, and growing greater by the moment.” He hesitated, then added, “It’s as if this box—this tomb—was far away from us when we found it, but now it’s getting closer and closer to us.”
Agrippa pursed his lips, wondering if he should have the medic check the man for head injury. “Corporal,” he said, “you do understand that this tomb has been sitting right here the entire time. It’s not ‘getting closer’ to anything. You, however, are getting closer t
o testing the limits of my patience.”
“In time, I mean,” the man said quickly. “It’s as if it is approaching us in time, not in space.”
Agrippa stared at him blankly.
The corporal blanched. “I’m sorry, General,” he said quickly. “I apologize for doing a poor job of describing—of explaining—what I’m sensing here. It’s just—” He stared down at his readouts again for a long second, then looked back up at the big blond man. “It’s just that I haven’t encountered anything like this before, and I don’t know quite how to put it into words.”
Agrippa nodded. “That’s fine. Just keep an eye on things and let me know if it’s about to explode or change into a killer robot or something.”
The man clearly didn’t see any humor in Agrippa’s order. He merely nodded, his expression serious as ever, and returned his attention to the small display panels on his sleeve.
The tomb, meanwhile, began to glow a soft white—just barely visible enough for Agrippa to notice.
“Humans,” came a voice suddenly in all of their heads. “Please move away from the Temporal Vault.”
Agrippa reacted more quickly than anyone else and, given the makeup of his team—all highly trained and skilled soldiers of the III Legion—that was saying something. He raised his massive quad-rifle and leveled it, aiming out into the fog before him. “Who goes there?” he shouted. “Identify yourselves.”
For a moment there was only silence around them. Then shapes began to move within the fog; to move, and to emerge. They were tall and almost impossibly thin, and they carried extremely dangerous-looking pistols in one hand and curved, transparent swords in the other.
“Move away,” the telepathic voice repeated, “or we will be forced to engage in extreme violence.”
4
Tall, slender, vaguely humanoid shapes moved within the fog, as the men and women of the Kings of Oblivion Legion’s Bravo Squad looked on. As the beings emerged, the weapons they carried became extremely obvious.
“We are the Dalen-Shala Kazi Vor Tarr,” the voice in their heads announced, its tone smooth and musical and not at all unpleasant. “In your words, the First Company of the Star-City of Dalen-Shala.”
The voice, or at least its tones, sounded very familiar to Agrippa. He began to suspect with whom he was dealing. Indeed, a moment later a particularly tall, slender form emerged fully from the fog and into the open. Colorful, glasslike armor gleamed on its body.
“You know our people,” the mental voice said, “as the Dyonari.” A pause, then, “My name is Merrin. It is my honor to command this team.”
Agrippa brightened. Of all the aliens he could have encountered at this moment, given what had transpired for him and his company over the past couple of days, the Dyonari seemed to him undoubtedly to provide the least cause for concern. That, he reflected, was probably not something he would have ever thought prior to his recent combat duty on Eingrad-6. But now he felt his opinion of them had changed somewhat. When his team had been battling a rival human empire in a bloody conflict on that planet, he had encountered a Dyonari combat squad of roughly the same size and makeup as his own, and they had ended up becoming allies, at least temporarily. Of course, he remembered, given the horrific nature of their mutual foe, it was difficult to imagine any other outcome between them at that moment in time. In short, he reminded himself, striking up a working friendship with one Dyonari tank commander did not necessarily put him on good terms with any of the others in the galaxy. And the tall, spindly aliens had always been preceded across most of the Milky Way by reputations as cruel and selfish as any beings humanity had yet to meet. Maybe Glossis, the tank commander, had simply been “one of the good ones,” he considered. Maybe even that had been a trick of some sort, though Agrippa found that last bit a little hard to swallow. Glossis had been genuinely friendly, in his alien way. That, for Agrippa, earned this new bunch some measure of the benefit of the doubt. Within reason, of course.
“Yes, I do think I know you,” Agrippa called to the Dyonari officer who was standing just visible beyond the edge of the fog. “Or at least I know your people—and know them better than I did only a short while ago.” He paused, then, “I am General Arnem Agrippa of the III Legion. Perhaps you know of me, Commander Merrin? Perhaps you have heard a report about me and my men from a commander of yours called Glossis?” Quickly Agrippa offered a summary of his team’s interaction with that other squad.
“I know that Glossis is one of the commanders from the Resig-Tal Star-City,” the alien replied, his voice echoing within Agrippa’s head. “Beyond that, I am not familiar with him,” Merrin continued. “And I must confess that I have not heard of you. But I extend greetings in the name of the high seat of Dalen-Shala. All who show kindness to our people will be accorded all possible respect and appreciation.”
Agrippa nodded formally at this. “Likewise.”
“I must confess I am surprised to find humans here, in the Vel Shah—the Low Above,” Merrin said.
“We had…business…here,” Agrippa replied, leaving it at that for now.
“I see.” The alien studied the human commander and the others visible around him. “Is your business concluded?”
“I am…not at liberty to say,” Agrippa replied.
“Does it involve the Temporal Vault?”
Agrippa looked down at the strange gray tomb. It had to be what the guy was referring to. “I am, again, not at liberty to say.”
The alien took this in and had no reply, at least for the moment.
Agrippa’s mind was working. He needed the help of these beings, but didn’t want to reveal just how helpless he and his troops were in the process. Not unless there was no other choice. And he certainly didn’t want to hand over to them anything particularly valuable—or potentially dangerous.
“It would be unfortunate if your business here did involve the Vault,” Merrin said after a brief period of silence. “For my orders are very specific and very clear.”
Agrippa nodded once at this, still thinking. What he needed was leverage of some sort. He tried to remember the words the alien had used to describe the tomb, and found them. “So—you are here for the Temporal Vault, then?” he asked, keeping his tone even and reasonable. “May I ask—what is your interest in it?”
“That is our concern, General,” Merrin replied, speaking out loud now, his tone testy. “But we have laid claim to it, and would ask again that you and your soldiers move away from it.”
Agrippa frowned at this. “You have laid claim to it?” He looked down at the plain gray tomb, then rapped on the surface with his knuckles. “I’m not certain what that means in real terms. You intend to try to move it? To take it with you? Why? How?”
“That is, again, our concern,” Merrin said. He moved fully into the open now, flanked by two more of his men, each wielding one of the famed and deadly Dyonari curved swords. “Do not mistake my willingness to converse with you for weakness on our part.”
Agrippa considered this. On the one hand, he never responded well to threats, even when they came couched in civil behavior. On the other, this…Temporal Vault, whatever it was, didn’t belong to him. He had no idea what it was, or what he would do with it if he managed to successfully defend it from the Dyonari. All he knew as that it represented the only solid object—other than these aliens—he had encountered here in this barren wilderness. And it also represented the only leverage over them he could think of.
On top of that, he felt a strong but indefinable feeling that it wouldn’t be good to let the aliens have possession of the thing. Why that should be, he had no idea.
Nothing to do but play the gambit out, he thought to himself. He set his quad-rifle down against the side of the tomb, fitted a smile upon his face, and started forward in the direction of the aliens.
The two guards flanking Merrin raised their swords, preparing to defend against any attack, but Agrippa only allowed his smile to widen and raised his empty hands. “I be
lieve I may have an equitable solution for both of us,” he called to the other commander. He stopped halfway and waited.
Merrin said nothing for a few seconds, then gave a quick, sharp order to his guards. Reluctantly, it seemed, they lowered their swords, and then Merrin walked slowly forward, out into the open. He advanced until he was only a few paces away from Agrippa. His long, narrow head cocked slightly to one side, as if to say, “I’m listening.”
“I believe we can help one another,” Agrippa began.
“We do not need your help,” Merrin countered. “We merely require the Temporal Vault.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to take possession of it without first suffering horrific casualties to your forces?” Agrippa asked, still smiling, his tone incongruously friendly. “Assuming, of course, that your side wins such a conflict at all?”
“You would fight over it?” Merrin asked. “You desire it, too?”
Agrippa shrugged. “Perhaps.”
The alien studied him for a long second. “You are not at all familiar with the Temporal Vault, are you?” A pause. “Perhaps you have only just encountered it for the first time, and have gotten to it before us purely by chance.”
“Perhaps,” Agrippa repeated.
The alien stood in silent contemplation for a few seconds more. “If you do not know what it is, or what to do with it,” Merrin asked at length, “why would you fight to the death to keep it from us?”
Agrippa chuckled. He knew his gambit had reached the end of its thread. Now only honesty remained. Now there would be cooperation, or there would be violence. “Because, truth be told,” he said, “it’s all we have as a bargaining chip with you.”
The alien appeared to be surprised by this. “A bargaining chip?”
“Leverage. To persuade you to help us.”
Merrin tilted his head slightly. “If you needed our help, why did you not simply ask?”
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 63
