The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “It would be helpful to have more information—some small bit of confirmation, at least,” Agrippa growled. “Before we risk our lives attacking it.”

  Merrin spread his spindly fingers wide. “I am sorry, then,” he said, “but I have told you all I know.”

  Agrippa shifted his gaze from Merrin to the unnamed High Commander who stood by himself off to one side. All you know, perhaps, he thought to himself. But all any of you know? I wonder.

  “This tower is the epicenter of the cosmic shockwave I have traced,” Solonis stated. “I have seen it before, somewhere, somehow. But perhaps not in this same setting.” He raised his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, wincing as though in pain. “It is...odd. But it is our objective.”

  Agrippa looked back at Merrin. “Let us set the metaphysical considerations aside,” he said, “and focus on purely tactical matters. We need to get past a garrison of hundreds of Skrazzi and into that tower. The importance of doing so is absolute and vital to the survival of the galaxy. Do I understand the situation correctly?”

  Before any of the alien leaders could reply, Solonis answered again. “You do,” he said.

  The Dyonari appeared annoyed at his impertinence but didn’t contradict him.

  “Very well, then,” Agrippa said, taking a knee and beginning to sketch with his armored finger in the soft soil. “If what we’re doing is a frontal assault on a fixed position defended by superior numbers, here is what we must do.”

  As the others, human and alien, looked on with interest, the General drew his plans in the dirt.

  10

  As it turned out, Agrippa’s plans all came to naught, surviving no longer than any other combat plans tend to survive after first contact is made with the enemy. The sneak attack by the aliens, devastating in its effectiveness, caught the Kings of Oblivion by surprise as they were still forming up their thin ranks and discussing the finer points of their assault strategy.

  As Agrippa was pulling his enameled white gauntlet on and gripping the pommel of his gladius, a shout off to his right caused him to turn and draw the blade. He was milliseconds too slow; the big, night-black shape that hurtled out of the fog struck him in the chest with overwhelming force and drove him backward and onto the ground. He scarcely had time to recover before a curved stabbing blade struck down at him. He parried it with the gladius, which had somehow remained clutched in his hand. The needle-sharp tip scraped along the side and hip of his Diesing-Arry Combat Suit’s ceramic-synthetic steel outer shell, gouging out a thin furrow before it slid off and stuck in the ground.

  The weight of the thing—a Skrazzi, surely—pressed heavily upon him and he couldn’t reach up now to strike with the sword. The stabbing limb was free an instant later and rising, preparing to drive down at him, into him.

  Part of his brain realized and understood that it had been one of his own soldiers he’d heard; one of his own who had uttered the cry that had alerted him to turn in the nick of time. Given even a moment’s respite, he surely would have paused to wonder why the Dyonari guards on the perimeter had failed to sound an alert. Having no time for anything other than survival, however, he drew his foot up toward his chest and then planted it on the rock-hard shell of the Skrazzi. He kicked out with all his might. Somehow his strength, augmented by the battle suit he wore like a bulky second skin, was enough to propel the horrific alien creature away from him.

  As quick as he was able, he climbed to his feet and brandished the gladius in his left hand even as he unslung his trusty quad-rifle with his right. The Skrazzi he had launched away from him now surged forward, albeit moving more slowly and cautiously this time. Agrippa watched as it aimed its other limb—the organic disintegrator cannon—directly at him. He understood implicitly that a direct hit from that weapon for anything more than a second would be lethal, given their current lack of complex medical assistance. Therefore, he knew, it could not be allowed to strike him.

  In much less time than it took to tell, he fired all four barrels of the quad-rifle at the creature.

  The operating manual of a standard An-Ro Quad-Rifle clearly specifies that under most operating conditions, it is a very bad idea to fire more than two barrels in tandem, and one should never fire all four barrels at once. Two of the barrels dispense energy beam/particle beam fire, while the other two unleash solid projectiles—high-speed slugs and explosive rounds, respectively. Each pair generates remarkable heat in the weapon; three can cause serious damage. Four...Well, the engineers at An-Ro surely wouldn’t have wanted to contemplate such a thing.

  Agrippa’s weapon, however, was modified. Heavily, extensively modified. He fired all four—and to devastating effect.

  The Skrazzi made it halfway across the distance separating them before it exploded in a thousand jagged, chitinous, dripping fragments, some of which splashed across Agrippa’s boots.

  Grimacing at the sight, the big general whirled about and attempted to take stock of the situation.

  The sounds of fighting came from all around, though the ever-present fog made it difficult to identify individual combatants and impossible to take in the overall strategic situation. The Kings of Oblivion were each locked in one-on-one battles with Skrazzi attackers. Agrippa could see at least two of his legionaries down already, though the extent of their injuries was not readily apparent. Only a few meters from him, Torgon was parrying the lightning-fast strikes of a Skrazzi’s blade-arm; the major didn’t seem to notice the creature’s other arm swinging up, leveling its disintegrator cannon.

  Agrippa leapt forward, his quad-rifle swinging around toward his back on its heavy strap as he shifted his gladius to his right hand and brought it out and down, striking with all his strength.

  The short, wide blade sliced cleanly through the alien’s arm just below the elbow and above the organic weapon. The black cylinder dropped to the ground, grotesque dark blood spraying out in its wake.

  Torgon had no time to thank the general for coming to his rescue. More Skrazzi, now apparently all fully aware of their presence there, came roaring out of the fog. Agrippa no longer felt certain whether they were even dealing with the members of the garrison they had been watching or with some new crowd erupting out of nowhere. As he brought his quad-rifle back around and opened fire on more of the invaders, hosing the hard-light beams into the charging insectoids, he spared a quick glance over at the Dyonari contingent. He had expected to see them equally engaged in life-or-death struggles with the creatures, but that was not the case. The Skrazzi had yet to attack the Dyonari, and for their part the Dyonari merely stood looking on, seemingly unconcerned.

  “What are you waiting for?” Agrippa bellowed to his erstwhile allies. “An invitation? Here it is, then! Fight them!”

  He recognized the first to move as Commander Merrin. The stoic alien officer unsheathed his long, curved sword and waded in, slashing at the Skrazzi with cold, surgical precision.

  “That’s more like it!” Agrippa shouted, even as he charged into the next pair of attackers, his own sword slicing into them.

  The Dyonari assigned to Merrin’s squad hesitated only an instant before following their leader into the fray, and Ralin’s warriors did likewise moments later. Within seconds, almost all of the Dyonari soldiers were battling the enemy alongside Agrippa’s troops, despite the fact that no general order had been given by their High Commander—a fact Agrippa noted and added to his long list of things to ponder later, if he and his legionaries survived.

  For quite some time, swords slashed and energy-weapons flashed, and eventually the Kings of Oblivion and their Dyonari allies began to make headway against the wave of attackers. Dead and dismembered Skrazzi bodies lay all around, dark blood pooling underneath them. Finally the surging ranks of enemy combatants reached its end. The creatures never retreated—it was as if they had no notion of the concept—but simply kept charging into the fray until their numbers were exhausted. Agrippa, seeing the combat dying out, unfastened his helmet and pulled it fre
e, taking a knee and gasping for breath. Even one with his near-incomparable physique had an upper limit on endurance, and he had reached his at last.

  Within a few seconds, the three Dyonari officers had approached and now stood in a semicircle around Agrippa, with Torgon and two more of the Kings arrayed opposite them. With the Aether not functioning, Obomanu was asking for the other human troops to check in via the audio link.

  “Four men dead, General,” Obomanu reported flatly. “Two others seriously wounded, but they say they can go on.”

  Agrippa cursed. “And what of Solonis?”

  “I am well,” the seer-god stated cheerily, moving forward into view. “Two of your men attempted to protect me during the altercation—something for which I am grateful, despite the fact that their assistance was scarcely required.”

  Agrippa ignored this and turned to the trio of Dyonari officers. “How did they know we were here?” he demanded. “How did they approach us without your sentries noticing?”

  Merrin and Ralin exchanged troubled glances; the High Commander shook his head. “Two of our scouts have not reported in,” he said aloud. “I can only assume they were killed by the Skrazzi before the attack, to prevent word of their movements from reaching us.”

  Agrippa met the High Commander’s eyes, considered this, and nodded. “If that’s the case, you have my condolences,” he said.

  The tall alien nodded once back to him. “And you have mine.”

  Agrippa stood and walked past the others to stand out in the open, directly across from the gray edifice of the tower. In the dim light and fog, it could’ve been anything from part of a medieval fortress to the landing gear of some unimaginably colossal spacecraft. Idly he wondered what lay inside it that could possibly be worth the deaths of four of his troopers and two of the Dyonari. If it—whatever it turns out to be—isn’t of galaxy-shaking importance, he vowed to himself, I will punch Solonis so hard that he will need that tomb—and not for time travel.

  He stood there for several seconds, waiting, looking, assessing. Fastening his helmet back in place, he lowered the visor and accessed the various sensors and lenses at his disposal. Try as he might, he could find no signs of life remaining anywhere around the tower.

  Finally he removed his helmet and turned back to face the collection of humans and aliens gathered together. “Very well, then,” he boomed. “I believe we have killed them all.” He nodded toward the tower. “Time to claim our prize.”

  And before anyone could stop him—before anyone could so much as call his name— he began to trudge across the open space toward the vast gray cylinder.

  11

  Agrippa had anticipated having to search for a way inside. As he ran across the open space between the bulk of the combined forces and the tower, images flickered through his head from ancient literature. He imagined hidden doors; secret passwords; mechanisms that read retina patterns or hand prints or magic words and phrases.

  As it turned out, none of that was necessary. The door was standing wide open.

  The door, in point of fact, was actually an open space, rectangular-shaped, that stood out quite visibly in the side of the gray metal of the tower. A dim light shone from somewhere inside, flickering slightly. In the dappled, inconstant glow where it reflected off the ground, a narrow trail of blood shone feebly.

  Agrippa halted and stood a short distance away, not daring to move any closer just yet, simply studying the opening. It was tall; perhaps six meters in height. About half that wide.

  His gaze flicked down to the blood. It definitely did not look to be Skrazzi. Human? ...Perhaps. That much was not clear.

  At length Major Torgon, Lt. Obomanu and the others jogged up behind him and hesitated, no one speaking at first. They all gazed at the open doorway and waited to see what the general would do—or what he would order someone else to do. One by one they noticed the blood on the ground, forming a trail leading through the opening, and one by one they frowned and looked to Agrippa. The general was, however, inscrutable. After what seemed like hours but was scarcely more than a couple of minutes, he squatted down and studied the blood more closely.

  Those that knew him knew he would never order someone else in his command to venture into a potentially hazardous environment before he did it himself. Even as the Dyonari approached and moved in alongside the Kings, and without even a glance back, Agrippa strode confidently through the doorway.

  Nothing happened. No death rays from the walls or ceiling; no blades or arms or trap doors. Agrippa walked through into a dimly lit, plain hallway that curved away to his right. Drops of blood, much smaller now than at the entrance and spaced out, led in that direction. This time he looked back only momentarily; he knew his own troops would follow him in. He only glanced back long enough to see if the Dyonari were coming with them. He was pleased to note that they were, though they did appear somewhat more nervous now than usual.

  “General,” called one of the alien officers as he entered the tower behind Agrippa. “Perhaps a greater degree of caution is in order—?”

  Agrippa shook his head. “Time is of the essence—we don’t know how much longer before the...” He searched for a word. “...before the event, after we wasted so much time with the battle. And, not incidentally, we have no idea what we’re looking for.”

  “Quite correct,” noted Solonis. “On all counts.”

  Agrippa motioned with his head, indicating the way forward along the corridor. “So we have to move.”

  And so, some more reluctantly than others, the combined human/Dyonari force marched deeper into the strange tower, following the curving corridor and the trail of blood.

  12

  Several minutes into the march, the hallway opened out into a vast, round chamber, lit by seemingly thousands or millions of tiny lights of every imaginable color, each set into the plain gray metal walls. As Agrippa and the others filed out into the huge room, they became aware that both the ceiling and the floor at the center of the space was open; a shaft several dozen meters in diameter opened in the floor ahead of them, leading down into darkness, while its mirror image gaped over their heads.

  “The core of the tower,” Agrippa speculated, standing near the edge and gazing down. The small lights ran down into the depths, eventually swallowed by a greater darkness. Moving away from the rim a couple of steps, he inclined his head back and looked up. The same was true, visually, in that direction.

  “I believe so,” the Dyonari High Commander agreed. He stood next to Agrippa and looked about, then pointed across the opening to the far side of the chamber. “Shall we continue? There is room enough around the edge for all of us to walk.”

  Agrippa hesitated, then pointed to a spot off to his left. “Wait,” he said. “Look there.”

  The Dyonari followed him as he strode purposefully to the location he had indicated, very close to the opening. A dark patch, larger than the spots they had been following, covered a fair amount of the floor.

  “More blood. Ah.” The general nodded past the stain to the edge of the shaft. “Whoever came this way, they found a way down, it would appear.”

  The Dyonari leader leaned out over the abyss and saw what his human counterpart had noted: A stairway, very broad, with steps much farther apart than would be comfortable for the average man or even the average Dyonari, curved down into the darkness.

  Every fifth or sixth step had a spot of blood upon it.

  The Dyonari commander straightened up and looked to Agrippa. The general smiled flatly and gestured toward the stairs with one gauntleted hand. “Shall we?” he asked.

  13

  Down they went, now some four dozen in number, all combined; the Kings of Oblivion in their white and green bulky armor, Solonis in his loincloth, and the Dyonari in their form-fitting, multi-colored, glass-like suits. As they descended the stairs, the darkness seemed to rise up and surround them, an almost oppressive force unto itself. The Kings switched on bright, narrowly-focused lights that bea
med out from the sides of their helmets, while the armor of each Dyonari warrior emitted a glow from every bit of its surface.

  For a timeless time they pressed on, the opening where they had entered the shaft no longer visible but lost in the blackness high above them. As they moved, as the strange cylinder consumed them into its bowels, a strange sensation passed over and through them. More than once, Agrippa at the head of the formation felt it necessary to halt and simply stand, his left hand braced against the wall, leaning away from the awful drop to his right. Occasionally he would gaze down into the abyss and idly wonder if something was gazing back into him.

  And then, just when it felt as if the stairs would continue on forever like some hellish eternal punishment of mythology, the soldiers spotted the bottom.

  Light—brighter than anything they had encountered in a while—reflected up at them as they continued down, and now the floor was in sight. The light, they could tell as they neared the bottom, was coming from an opening on the far side of the shaft.

  Agrippa felt an enormous sense of relief as he moved off the final step and onto more of the smooth gray flooring. He shifted to his right to allow the others to file along after him, then pointed toward the opening across the way. As before, it was very tall and wide, as though built to accommodate figures even taller than the Dyonari and broader of shoulder than the legionaries in their heavy armor. “That appears to be the only way out,” he told the others. Then, almost as an afterthought, “Weapons ready.” Behind him, the alien commander repeated that order to his own troops.

  Cautiously, and with the Kings of Oblivion leading the way, the combined force emerged from the shaft and into the light.

  The chamber was round, like the shaft through which they had just descended, but it was even larger in diameter. Every surface was of a very light gray verging on dull white. Large banks of equipment that could have been control consoles for a starship larger than anything currently flown by any race stood here and there, like tiny islands in a sea of open space. More consoles faced the broad, curving wall, all the way around. The ceiling of the chamber towered some ten meters above their heads.