Time Shards--Shatter War

by Dana Fredsti

  “Feuer! Feuer!” Behrendt bellowed. Siegmund slammed on the foot pedal to fire, and the whole turret shook. Smoke from the discharged round and the scent of cordite fumes swirled in the Panzer’s interior. Their shot caught the rearing enemy tank in its underbelly, the backblast sending the upper hatch flying off in a burst of roaring flame.

  All around them, the Tommies overran the anti-tank defensive line, targeting each individual field gun and using their tanks like battering rams to punch through, annihilating the positions. Behrendt watched in horror as below them the nearest squad of German infantrymen were buried alive in their slit trenches. He heard the screams of one soldier as the tank treads decapitated him.

  Those English pigs, he fumed. Damn all those fucking English straight to Hell.

  Everywhere he looked, the smoking battlefield was awash in burning armor, broken guns, the dead, and the dying. The enemy had overrun the German anti-tank line. The dam had broken, and still more waves of tanks, heavy armored cars, and infantry were coming.

  Behrendt did a quick count of the sea of glittering metal shapes. There were hundreds. By his estimate, they were outnumbered eight-to-one.

  1037 hours

  Seven minutes before the Event

  “Sir! Message from HQ!” Schildhauer, their wireless operator, called out.

  “All mobile units in Twenty-First and Fifteenth Panzers, Littorio and Ariete Armored Divisions prepare to launch immediate counter-attack at Tel el Aqqaqir.” His voice sounded raw.

  Oberleutnant Behrendt rubbed his temples, exhaled. The other crewmen in the turret looked up at him with haunted eyes. The aerial bombings were almost constant. Just a few hundred meters ahead of the remains of their tattered defense line, screened behind the immense clouds of smoke and dust, the British were digging in with field guns and artillery of their own.

  No one spoke, but the men in the cramped tank’s tomb-like interior were all thinking the same thing. The next order from German HQ would launch them and the rest of the surviving Axis tanks on their own Charge of the Light Brigade.

  November 2, 1942, 1044 hours

  The Event

  “SWORD ONE, SWORD TWO, this is Sword Leader. Move out.” The Oberleutnant kept his voice steady with a coolness he didn’t feel as he spoke into the microphone. Looking down he added, “Driver, advance.”

  The Panzers left their hull-down positions and exposed themselves, climbing over the low ridge to meet their fate, no cover but the haze of smoke and dust. Behrendt stood high in the cupola, binoculars out as he scanned the tactical situation. All across the line, the German and Italian tanks advanced over the Rahman track. He counted about forty tanks from their division alongside them. South of them, perhaps another thirty of the 15th Panzers, and further south still, he guessed slightly less than twenty of Littorio and Ariete’s outgunned Italian tanks.

  They crossed a wasteland of flamed-out wreckage and broken scraps of metal. Dead and dying soldiers littered the ground, flies eagerly descending upon their wounds and drying blood. The tanks passed the wounded, unable to help. They were not yet within the range where their guns would be effective, but the enemy was already firing.

  Shells and tracers zipped by on all sides, but perversely, Behrendt could not bring himself to retreat down into the tank. He looked over at the commander of Sword 1, driving to the side and just behind them. The man was riding high in his turret, as well, tossing him a reckless grin and a jaunty salute that made Behrendt smile in spite of himself. A whistling noise streaked past and Sword 1’s turret vanished with a roar of explosive flame and smoke.

  Behrendt cringed involuntarily at the wave of heat singing his cheek and eyebrows as bits of flying metal clattered off the upraised hatch behind him. His ears rang and his vision lost focus, his head spinning.

  The battle language in his earphones faded away, replaced by a strange music, like a chorus of Valkyries singing some wordless aria, or perhaps the seductive call of the Lorelei’s siren song. Some garbled chatter came back over the radio, fragmentary and hard to hear:

  “—I am—”

  “—large energized scre—”

  “—ome kind of high in—”

  “—illumina…lightning—”

  “Sword Two, pull back!”

  Impossibly, he was hearing the sound of his own voice. The realization stunned him. Another voice responded. Behrendt clasped the earphones and strived to hear more.

  “It’s beautiful!”

  “Can you see it?”

  Deep in the metal walls of the tank, a low, resonant thrumming sound began, sending a tingling through Behrendt’s breastbone. He stared up in wonder. The haze all around them was swirling in a most peculiar fashion, indescribable and surreal. Everything seemed suffused with an angelic glow.

  Was this death?

  A chance breeze stirred, pulling the haze away like the flourish of a magician’s cloak. To Behrendt’s left, the commander of Sword 2 tried to get his attention, pointing at something dead ahead—a heavenly curtain of pure light, stretching across their line of sight and rising up into where the murky furnace air turned blue and pure again.

  “Can you see it?” Sword 2’s voice asked over the wireless. “It’s beautiful!” The hairs prickled on the back of Behrendt’s neck, even as he found himself calling out to the commander on the other end.

  “Sword Two, pull back!”

  Behrendt quickly took up the microphone around his neck and called for the driver to halt, then reported in.

  “HQ, this is Sword Leader,” he said. “I am seeing a large energized screen running roughly one-zero-zero meters between the enemy line and the Rahman track…” He struggled to find the words to describe what he was seeing. “It is some kind of high intensity illumination… like a lightning-field…”

  Even as he spoke, the Panzer on his left continued forward, driving straight into the curtain of pulsating light. Berhrendt’s eyes widened.

  “Sword Two! Sword Two! Respond!”

  A deafening drone came from above. He looked up to see a dogfight raging overhead. Trailing smoke, a stricken Messerschmitt was trying to elude the guns of the Spitfire on his tail. The German fighter streaked across Behrendt’s line of vision—and straight into a second curtain of light, roughly opposite the first. It vanished into the brightness without a sound.

  The pursuing Spitfire pilot panicked, pulling up sharply to avoid the curtain. He cut a tight parabola, but failed to totally clear it, just skimming its surface. Everywhere the wing touched the energized wall, it was sheared off as thoroughly and precisely as if the plane had skimmed a slit of the sun. The fighter tumbled crazily in the air and corkscrewed down toward them.

  With another slam of the hatch, Behrendt ducked back inside and crouched for cover.

  “Brace yourselves!”

  A moment later, the booming impact of the crashing warplane violently rocked the entire tank. The shock threw the men against the unyielding metal walls. Fiery light streamed through the glass of the vehicle’s apertures, then faded away.

  All was quiet.

  * * *

  “Everyone alright?” Behrendt asked quietly. One by one, the rest of the crew checked in. There was no noise from outside. No roar of engines, no gunfire, no more explosions. The men waited, unsure of what to do now. The tank commander pulled off his glove and gently placed the back of his hand against the hatch. No excessive heat. Probably safe to open it.

  Someone tapped on the hatch from outside, startling them. A sharp rap with something small, then another. A further series of taps followed. Behrendt held a finger to his lips to silence the others in the turret, then spoke softly to the wireless operator, keeping his voice down so their visitor outside would not be able to hear.

  “Schildhauer, is that Morse code? What is he saying?” They all waited with bated breath while the tapping continued. Finally Schildhauer responded.

  “It’s nonsense, sir.”

  Behrendt frowned, drew his Luger, and
slowly opened the hatch.

  The first thing he noticed was the sun. Though they had been conscious the entire time, it had leapt across the sky in the span of a few seconds. Then Behrendt locked eyes with their phantom tapper—a gray-black bird the size of a pigeon, but slimmer and harder-looking. As the hatch opened, the bird stopped and froze into position, its bill pointed skyward at a forty-five-degree angle.

  A good twenty or so others just like it had billeted themselves on the big gun, all ranked in perfect coordination to give the impression the cannon was nothing more than an odd outcrop of crumbling rock. They looked back at Behrendt with intelligent, unblinking eyes. With a considerable effort, he reached over to touch the closest one.

  Twenty eyes swiveled, and then, simultaneously they took to the air.

  The Oberleutnant watched them, and then picked up his binoculars for a look around. The burnt wreckage of the downed Spitfire was strewn all about, still smoldering, but the air was remarkably clear again. Sword 2 was nowhere to be found, nor was the strange wall of energy that had encircled them all.

  Due east, where the British tanks and guns had been dug in just a few moments ago, he saw only rocks and tufts of camel grass, all the way to the horizon. He turned to the south. In the distance, he could see other surviving tanks of the 21st Panzers on the grisly, smoldering battlefield, but past them there was no sign of the 15th Panzers or the Italians.

  A strange trumpeting noise came from behind him.

  He looked back at the crumbling stone ruin of the ancient well… but there was no ruin anymore. It was now in excellent condition, with smooth masonry, a wooden well sweep, and a hefty leather bucket. Groves of palms stood near it, as well a group of large canopy tents. A few dozen men in desert robes stood around, staring at him.

  The loud trumpeting sounded again, and suddenly a huge shape came roaring up from the corner of his eye. The elephant was outfitted for war, with a studded armor headdress and a carriage atop its back carrying a trio of spearmen. Behrendt stared in unbelief, raising his pistol.

  Too late, as the great charging beast caught him on its sharpened tusk and flung the impaled German out of the tank. He hit the ground like a wet bundle of rags, still staring at the unbelievable scene as the life bled out of him onto the hot sand.

  35

  The temple of Sobek-Ra, Shedyet, Egypt

  Seven days after the Event

  Amber let out an involuntary scream.

  The shattered obsidian fragments of the dead rover skittered across the hard, white stone floor of the temple courtyard. She and Cam looked at each other in horror.

  “Amber, what does it mean?” Cam asked in a hushed voice.

  Amber shook her head, unable to answer.

  “The sphere and the ship are one, are they not?” he continued, visibly shaken. “So if the sphere is gone…”

  Amber’s eyes burned—she quickly wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.

  “Cam, just give me a minute, please,” she finally said. “I need… I just need to think.”

  “But, what will we—”

  “Damn it, Cam!” she shouted. “I don’t know! Please, just let me think!”

  Ignoring his hurt expression, Amber ran through the courtyard, finally coming to a halt at one of the big pillars—its solidity offered a measure of comfort. She put her back to it, slowly sinking down to the floor again, fighting to keep from crying.

  She had to think.

  She couldn’t imagine the Vanuatu gone, just like that—but what else could have happened? As she sat there, the Ship’s voice ran through her head again…

  “The Vanuatu is under attack. There is an incom—”

  How was this possible? Who would be attacking the ship? Who could attack it? She sifted through possibilities, grasping for any possible options.

  The message had broken off mid-sentence, but that just might have meant their connection had been knocked out. Or, maybe the drone’s power was interrupted, and that’s why it broke down. For all they knew, the Ship could crank them out by the dozens.

  Less pleasant possibilities suggested themselves.

  That final clipped bit of the message. “Incom—” Incoming? An incoming missile? Could the entire ship have been destroyed in an explosion? Suddenly all she could think about was Blake, Nellie, and Harcourt, wondering if she’d ever see them again. Once again she felt the weight of responsibility for their mission. If the Vanuatu was truly gone, what options did they have left?

  Finally she picked herself up and returned to where the others sat in silence, putting a hand on Cam’s shoulder by way of apology. He bristled at her touch, but then placed a hand over hers and squeezed it.

  Kha-Hotep stood. “Lady Amber, my vessel is nearby,” he said. “We should take it and leave before the temple survivors return. We can sail until we find a safe refuge, wherever that may be.”

  Cam shook his head. “A refuge will do us no good, Captain,” he said. “We must continue with our mission, or the world is doomed.”

  “You’re both right,” Amber said. “We need to leave now and go to where the Vanuatu was headed. We’ll find the ship, or we’ll find whatever Mehta was looking for. Either way, it’s our best chance.” She didn’t add that it was the only option she could think of, and she couldn’t tell Cam her strongest reason to keep heading down the Nile—one she carried so deep inside she was barely aware of it herself.

  The small but insistent voice in her head.

  Come find me, Amber…

  * * *

  Kha-Hotep’s river barge, the Star of the Dawn, lay berthed just where the rover had spotted it, a few minutes’ walk through gardens and stands of palm trees. A canal ran from the great lake and headed due east, and here it widened into a lagoon where the barge lay tied up along with a pair of small fishing boats made from bundles of reeds.

  Upon boarding Kha-Hotep vanished belowdecks. His curses echoed up from the cabin, increasing in volume as he reappeared up top.

  “They’ve taken everything, those jackal-spawn!” He slammed his hand against the frame. “A fortune! Two thousand gold deben worth of ivory and cheetah pelts! Set visit foul torments upon them! May they all go swiftly to the Land of the Dead, and Lord Osiris feed their hearts to the devourer!”

  “I’m sorry about your cargo, Captain,” Amber said, “but if we don’t get moving, it won’t matter much if your boat is packed to the brim with gold.”

  Kha-Hotep nodded, unhappy but resigned.

  “You speak the truth. Very well, let us go.”

  They cast off and set sail down the canal.

  * * *

  The canal’s current was gentle, almost nonexistent, but they still had to work against it all the way. The sun had dropped close to the horizon by the time the boat reached the great river. There they waited at anchor while Cam left the boat to scout the area. Kha-Hotep kept watch at the bow with Amber and Leila, scanning the riverbank for the Celt’s return. At last he re-emerged from behind the palms and loped down to the barge.

  “You were right,” he said to the captain. “The patrol boat that captured you is still stalking up and down the river.”

  “How close are they?”

  “They look to be three bowshots away, heading upriver now.”

  Kha-Hotep nodded. “To travel the river after dark is never wise, but our only chance is to slip downriver under cover of night, keep going as far as we can, and pray to all our gods they don’t spot us again.”

  * * *

  Once the sun dropped down beneath the red hump of the western desert, they slipped out of the canal and onto the Nile. They went cautiously, slowly skirting the water’s edge in the increasing darkness, occasionally pushing against the riverbank with their oars, like a blind man tapping his cane down a path.

  The water was inky black, so the only distinction between the earthen bank and the night sky above it was a faint dusting of stars. The sole source of light came from the lines of oil lamps on the Arsinoite
warship, floating upriver of them.

  Seated in the stern with her arms around her knees and her back against the little cabin of the barge, Leila kept a careful eye on the imposing vessel. As she watched, its light grew fainter with every passing minute—from lamplight gleam, to firefly, to ember, to distant twinkling star—until at last it winked out, swallowed by the growing distance. Only then did she let out a sigh of relief.

  “We’ve passed it,” she called, keeping her voice low.

  After another hour or so, Kha-Hotep halted their progress and they weighed anchor for the night.

  “Hey, you okay back here?”

  With a slight start, Leila looked up to see Amber standing above her, and nodded with a smile. “Yes, I think I just needed some quiet time to process it all.”

  “I totally get it.” Amber sat down next to her. “Do you want me to take the next watch? Captain Kha-Hotep says he’s still worried about that warship.”

  “I’ll stay,” Leila replied. “I’m way too wired to sleep.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’m happy for the chance to do something to pitch in, you know?”

  “I’ll tell them,” Amber said. “You want me to stay here with you, and help keep an eye out?”

  Leila shook her head. “It’s okay.” She appreciated the offer, but she wasn’t ready to give up her solitude quite yet. “I could still use a little more alone time.”

  “Well, if you really don’t mind,” Amber said with obvious relief. “I’m wiped. Anyway, just for another hour or so. Kha-Hotep says until those two stars in the Big Dipper go from there—” she pointed, “to there. We’ll make a spot for you to sleep up front.”

  “Thanks,” Leila replied. “I won’t stay up too late.”

  Amber gave her a little wave and went back around to the front of the barge. Leila leaned her head back against the cabin, soaking up her privacy. She stayed there for the hour she’d promised, and then just a bit longer to be safe. There was still no sign of the warship, and the only sounds were the tiny frogs and crickets—and the creatures below and above the water that preyed on both.