Chapter Eighteen.
The combined forces of the Gate made progress more rapidly than either Ryan or Gloria would have thought possible, and that wasn"t just because the Illuminated Ones had, for all their supposedly superior tech, been found grievously wanting in terms of battle experience. It was also because Jorgensen had taken the step of withdrawing all but a few of his people to the central chamber located at the very bottom level of the redoubt. Only a skeletal force remained active, to delay rather than stop the progress of the attackers.
Down in the central chamber, the sec men of the redoubt were racing against time to try to get the evac completed before the intruders reached the bottom level. People raced around the cavernous room, loading and restocking supplies and tech into wags that were then driven into the mat-trans chambers to be transported to their new location.
Jorgensen oversaw it from a point a hundred yards from the first of the chambers, where the control comps for the mat-trans units stood in banks, attended by people who didn"t dare look up for one second, such was their intense concentration.
"Think we"ll do it?" Jorgensen asked one of them. Strangely all the fear and sweat of his earlier defeats had gone from him. He was calm in accepting defeat and retreat, and his mind had clicked into a more relaxed state, concentrating only on those matters that seemed to be the most pressing.
The technician answered without looking up. "If your people can just hold them long enough, we"re onto the last relay of transfers. We just need time to boost power levels and get the coordinates set."
Jorgensen nodded. He wasn"t too sure what that actually meant in practical terms, but it seemed to imply that he might just have got away with it.
"ALL ROADS LEAD to Rome, as they once said. I believe it to be a universal truism, in one sense or another," Doc said calmly, letting the barrels of the LeMat droop slightly, and the weariness of battle for one brief moment wash over him before he summoned the next wave of energy.
"I don"t know what the h.e.l.l you"re talking about, honey," Margia said to him with a puzzled expression, "but something tells me you"ve got it just about right."
Their war party had experienced no resistance on its descent to this level. Despite that, they had maintained a triple-red alert, and so were ready when they ran into another war party descending from another route, then another.
The last party to join was that led by Ryan and Gloria. Now, while the Gate warriors rested for what appeared to be the last push, the leaders of the parties met for a last tactical consultation.
"We"ve pushed them right back-that much is obvious," Ryan mused. "The question is, what do they get from it? They"ve given so much ground that they can"t beat us now. Unless..."
"Unless this is the gateway, and the guardians will take that gateway to another place," Gloria added, her piercing blue eyes fixed on Ryan Cawdor.
The one-eyed warrior nodded his agreement. "They intend to make a run for it, and are hoping we don"t overrun them before they get a chance to make good a complete escape."
"I don"t get it," Tammy said, puzzled. "Where are they going, and how?"
"It"d take too long to explain, my dear, and I doubt that any of us knows for sure, but my supposition is that they will leave the gateway, as you call it, and travel to that place they are guarding, using old tech. And if we don"t get to them before they go, the chances of finding out where exactly this place is and being able to either follow or even journey with them in some way will be greatly reduced," Doc replied.
"Yeah, right," Tammy said uncertainly. "Anyone care to make that clearer?"
Mildred laughed and shook her head. "As usual, Doc"s dressed it up in big words. They travel to their destination using old tech. They might put it out of commission before they go. So we need to get to them before they get that opportunity."
"In which case, why are we standing here?" Margia asked angrily. "Let"s chill some f.u.c.kers."
"Will you shut the f.u.c.k up, Marg?" Gloria snapped at her sister. "s.h.i.t, it"s easy to see why I was the daughter to be queen, and not you. Keep that hot head of yours under wraps, sweetie, or it"ll get us all chilled. We need to think about this. Like what it means to all be in the same place."
"Exactly." J.B. spoke for the first time. He had been standing silently, weighing odds and strategies in his mind. "Doesn"t it seem strange that we all end up here, and that there"s no other route into the last level?"
"It"s not a question of us being channeled here. It"s just that they seem to narrow it down to the one entry level," Krysty said.
"Must be some service ducts that lead down, though, or an emergency shaft of some kind. h.e.l.l, there must be an elevator."
Ryan shook his head. "There may be maintenance shafts, but we can"t mount an attack through them, not even if we could find them quickly. It"d be too constricting and make us easy meat. Count that out."
"I would say that the reason there is only one way down, and it is not an elevator, is simple," Doc said softly. A silence descended as they all looked to the old man to continue, but he was lost in his own thoughts. It was only after a few seconds, when he noticed the silence and looked up in surprise that Doc realized that they were waiting for him to expand. "Why, I would have thought it was obvious."
The old man stepped away from the small party of group leaders and gestured expansively to the long, winding tunnel that led down from where they were positioned. It was much wider than any other they had encountered in the redoubt, and was sloping in a fairly gentle gradient, which was presumably why it was doglegged rather than running in fairly straight lines.
"If they are what the Gate call the guardians of the gateway, then I would make the supposition that this gateway is either a large mat-trans or a series of mat-trans chambers. I believe that it is large enough to encompa.s.s a number of wags, and that they are used on this lower level to transport materials to and from another redoubt. Therefore, to have an elevator would be impractical, and this is such a low level beneath the surface of the earth that it is stable enough to build these sort of tunnels rather than have to reinforce and build on a horizontal level."
J.B. pushed back his fedora and scratched his head. "Yeah, I"ll buy that, Doc. But there"s one thing that still gets me. Why is this so open? One way in and out? That"s just plain stupe."
Doc shook his head. "Not stupid so much as simple arrogance and overconfidence, my dear John Barrymore. Quite simply it never occurred to whoever built this redoubt that any enemy would have the skill and sheer audacity to get down this far. And if that was the case, then why bother to waste precious time and effort on an alternative exit?"
"That"s so dumb it might just be right," Dean blurted out. Doc"s expression as this unintended backhander broke the tension with a wave of laughter: the laughter of relief rather than humor, as it was now obvious that the next a.s.sault would be the final action.
"Okay, so what do we do about this?" Gloria said to Ryan, recovering her composure rapidly.
"I"d like to work out some plan of action other than just a headlong charge," Ryan stated. "If we can get as much old tech as possible, then mebbe we could answer some questions about the mat-trans."
"Yeah, and if we leave it too long they"ll all be gone and we won"t be any the wiser," Gloria replied. "We"re only getting the one chance at them, and this is our destiny. I say we hit hard and we hit now."
Ryan and Gloria stood face-to-face, the battle scarred veteran looking down on the wiry Gate queen. Both were born leaders, both had won glorious battles and both had wills of iron.
But Gloria had the greater numbers. Ryan was aware that he had only his party of seven, whereas the Gate warriors outnumbered his people by about six to one.
In the end, he would have to defer to Gloria, simply because she could go ahead and do whatever she wanted.
Ryan stepped back from her. "Okay, I don"t agree, but I see your point. We hit now, and we hit hard."
THE Ma.s.sED RANKS of the Gate warriors made their way down the sloping tunnel, scouts checking every bend. It was empty and seemingly undefended, the tension among the warriors growing with each undefended turn.
"We must be near the bottom by now, for f.u.c.k"s sake," Tammy murmured to Krysty.
"Keep it frosty," the t.i.tian-haired woman replied gently. "None of us can afford to lose our grip at this stage." Especially when they were going headfirst into their defensive position, she added to herself.
A chorus of whistles from up ahead, just around a corner, was followed by the scouts sprinting back to cover as a volley of laser blasterfire scorched the walls.
"At least we know we"ve hit the end of the trail," J.B. muttered before dipping into the canvas bag slung around his shoulder and producing a handful of shrapnel grens. "These should do the most damage," he said, tossing two to Ryan and two to Jak, keeping two for himself.
Each man pulled a pin on a gren and threw it with a curve around the corner of the corridor. They then hit the ground, gesturing the tribe to follow.
The grens exploded with a deafening concussion in the enclosed s.p.a.ce, spreading shrapnel around a wide radius of the three areas of impact. Some of the shrapnel was propelled far enough along the tunnel to ricochet against the laser scarred turn of the wall, clattering with a high pitched whine around the edges of the Gate tribe. The vast majority of it, however, exploded with a deadly impact into the defending party of the Illuminated Ones, and the wailing screams of the injured and dying sec squad mingled with the sound of the explosion.
The aftershock of sound was still ringing in their ears when the attackers picked themselves up and advanced to the bend in the tunnel. Beyond, there was nothing more than an eerie silence where the entire defending squad had been wiped out.
Gloria gave a high-pitched scream that ululated around the corridors, announcing the arrival of the attacking Gate tribe. The way into the main chamber was now undefended, decorated with the chilled corpses of the sec force.
With wild cries, the Gate warriors swept forward into the chamber, the force of their attack pulling Ryan and his companions with them. The one-eyed man would have preferred a more considered and tactical attack, as there was old tech that he would prefer to keep intact for observation, but he realized that the chances of that happening were now nonexistent, and instead contented himself with going along with the flow.
SINCE THEIR FIRST meeting, Margia had, in her spiky and awkward manner, maintained a soft spot for Doc Tanner. As they charged into battle, she took hold of him.
"Stick with me, sweetie," she yelled, "and I"ll see you all right."
As they entered the chamber, they came on the Illuminated Ones at the tail end of their evac. The wags were gone from the mat-trans units, and the main hall itself was stripped of all except the junk that could be allowed to remain, smashed to useless pieces. Only a skeleton sec force remained, headed by Jorgensen himself, who had elected to stay. They were overseeing the evac of the last of the Illuminated Ones, with themselves to follow if possible.
The Gate charged in with their blades ready to taste blood, and their handblasters firing at anything in a brightly coloured one-piece uniform.
The Illuminated Ones were outnumbered, and up against a superior fighting force, but they still had their laser blasters, and these were causing the most problem. The erratic firing hadn"t as yet claimed any Gate lives, but they were causing them to scatter and not be able to take good aim.
Margia, with Doc at her side, skidded to a halt.
"They think they can get the better of me, do they?" she screamed belligerently at Doc, shouldering the laser blaster she had already used to some effect. She leveled it and squeezed the trigger.
But her luck had just run out. The blaster spluttered, and the nose glowed white hot before the whole length of the object seemed to implode in her hands, engulfing her in a sudden and violent shower of intense white light. Doc saw her scream, but didn"t hear the sound as it was buried beneath the screech of white hot metal rending unto flesh.
For the briefest moment it seemed as though the whole world stopped down in the main chamber, frozen in action by the incredible sight. And then the moment was broken.
Gloria howled in anguish and pain. She might always have been at odds with her sister, but blood was thicker than anything, especially in a tribe like the Gate, and the sight of her sister being claimed by the tech of the enemy-albeit at her own hands-was more than the Amazon queen could bear.
Her panga became a whirl around her head as she strode into her astonished enemies, drawing blood with every vicious sweep of the razor sharp blade. A whirling dervish of violent chilling, she claimed the lives of many of the remaining Illuminated Ones, ripping through their flesh and flimsy defenses with ease.
Spurred on by the sudden intensity of their queen"s attack, the Gate and their allies strode farther into the attack. J.B. used his Uzi, set on short bursts, to chop into the packs of sec men. Mildred, Dean and Krysty took aim and picked off individuals with their ZKR, Smith & Wesson 640 and Browning Hi-Power respectively. Meanwhile, Doc used the LeMat to wreak havoc on a small group while Ryan strode into the remnants with his panga running as red as that of the Amazon queen, and as fiery crimson as her hair, which flowed like ribbons of blood from her wildly tossing head.
There were other casualties among the Gate, but nowhere near as many as those suffered by the Illuminated Ones. Not least among those to fall was Petor. Both he and Jon, as the only Gate men to join the attack, were in the thick of the action. But their lack of training was beginning to tell, and when a laser blast was aimed in their direction, Petor was just a little too slow to twist away. The beam caught him full in the ribs down his left-hand side, frying the flesh through to the bone, charring internal organs and searing nerve endings for a second before killing him with burns that went too deep to cause pain.
The young man screamed and went down into his friend"s arms.
"Petor? f.u.c.k it, man. Don"t die on me," Jon screamed as the light in Petor"s eyes dimmed and faded. Looking up at the group from which the laser blast had come, Jon no longer saw reason. Screaming wildly, he let Petor"s corpse drop and charged forward.
Dean had seen the death of his friend, and also saw the laser rifle leveled again, this time drawing a bead on Jon, who was too distracted and raw to see what was happening.
Without thinking, Dean showed the warrior instinct that marked him as a true Cawdor. Throwing his body weight behind a change in direction, he snapped off a shot with the Browning that hit the laser sharpshooter directly between the eyes, drilling into his frontal lobe and negating any threat he might pose. At the same time, to save Jon from any further threat, Dean threw himself across the young man"s path, charging him onto the concrete floor.
The violent jarring of the fall seemed to snap Jon out of his anguished trance, and he looked up at Dean.
"What the... s.h.i.t, I really lost it there."
"Just don"t again," Dean snapped. "Bad enough Petor chilling, without you, as well. C"mon, let"s get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."
Meanwhile, Jak was cornered. Carving his way through a group of Illuminated Ones, he had caught his foot on a piece of twisted metal from a comp storage frame that had been dismantled by the wrecking crews. His heavy combat boot caught on the upthrust metal, and his momentum carried him just that little too far off balance. Normally Jak would be able to roll with the fall and spring to his feet immediately, but this time fate intervened. A sec man who had been driven backward by Gloria cannoned into the albino, knocking him over into the group he had just skipped through.
Jak fell into the midst of a melee and felt hands grab at him, fists pummel into him. Temporarily off guard and flailing, Jak tried to defend himself but found his eye closed by a blow that opened up the flesh over his brow. The blood spilled down into his eye, blinding him.
Jak knew he was in trouble, but was saved by the wild eyed Gloria. Screaming wildly, she flew into the midst of the crowd, slashing away at the hands that plucked at Jak"s clothes and skin.
Jak pulled himself to his feet, hitting out at the Illuminated Ones around him, turning back-to-back with the wild and flaming warrior queen. Together they chilled four of the Illuminated Ones, and watched the others turn and flee into the inner chamber, where the rest of their sec squad were in the process of retreating.
Gloria turned to Jak, her eyes red and flaring like her hair. Jak felt a flash of electricity between them, knew that they were bonded by blood and fire.
"They"re going away!" Tammy"s voice rang out over the general noise of the Gate warriors as they cl.u.s.tered in the chamber.
Ryan and Krysty ran after the last of the sec men as they headed for the mat-trans. Jorgensen, standing at the camp console, keyed in the last code and joined the last of his people, slamming the door of the mat-trans chamber as Ryan raised his Steyr.
As the sound of the door echoed, Ryan let the blaster drop. It was too late. The Illuminated Ones had escaped.
IN THE ANTICLIMAX of the empty chamber, Gloria cursed.
"They"ve done it. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have got away from us and s.n.a.t.c.hed our destiny."
"Not necessarily," Doc said, his eyes moving intently over the flashing lights and digital displays on the comp banks.
"Why?" Ryan asked, striding over to where Doc stood.
The old man gestured to the comp bank. "Everything looks as if it is still set for where they were headed. All we have got to do is get ourselves into the mat-trans and close the door. And if that fails, we still have the last destination b.u.t.ton. We just need to be ready to come out fighting."
Gloria had joined them while Doc was speaking, and she looked nervously at Ryan. "None of us have ever done this before. What"s it like?"
Ryan took a deep breath and tried to describe the experience of a jump to the Gate queen. It wasn"t easy, as he didn"t want to dissuade her from the jump, but he was only too well aware that there would be an enemy at the other end, and it was important that the Gate be prepared for a firefight as soon as possible.
Gloria listened intently, then whistled. "s.h.i.t, that sounds nasty, honey. But if it"s what it takes... This is our fate, and we"ve got to follow it through."
The warrior queen turned to Tammy and sent her to the ground level with a small party of scouts and instructions to fetch the men, children and belongings of the tribe. While this happened, she briefed her warriors on what they were about to do.
Ryan gathered the companions.
"Walking into the belly of the beast," Doc commented when Ryan explained their plans.
"Mebbe," the one-eyed warrior countered, "but then again, better to know what we walk into than just stumble, like we usually do."
"That"s a fair point," Mildred mused. "The thing that worries me is how they"ll cope with the jump. We"re used to them, and find it hard enough."
"Only one way to find out," J.B. remarked in the kind of blunt tone that refused argument.
Waiting for the Gate to a.s.semble, the companions took the chance to strip and check their blasters after their recent heavy use. It was a good feeling to know that, whatever else, the weaponry would be primed for use when they arrived.
The Gate were finally gathered in the large chamber, and Gloria a.s.sembled them to explain what their next move was to be. There was a ripple of apprehension about the mat-trans jump, particularly when she detailed the possible effects as outlined by Ryan. But the Gate was a tribe that couldn"t back down on their destiny, and they willingly backed their queen.
Gloria turned to where Ryan and the companions were waiting.
"We"re ready," she said with a decisive nod.
"Okay," Ryan replied. "Your people take the largest of the mat-trans units. That
way you can all travel together. We"ll take the smallest."
"You won"t come with us?" the warrior queen asked.
"Better if we spread ourselves over two chambers. It"ll divide their forces," Ryan explained.
Gloria bit her lip and a.s.sented. "Seems fair." She looked across at Jak. "You coming with us, honey?" The albino allowed a rare smile to flicker across his face, so brief as to be gone before it could even be truly noticed.