by James Somers
hand-set and yelled into it saying, “Increase speed to full throttle! Evasive maneuvers!”
The entire transport group surged forward faster, making them even harder to hit. They were still three miles outside of the capital and closing fast.
A beam of energy blazed near Estall’s transport, cutting across their flight path behind them. Ranul suddenly realized why he liked being a scientist rather than a warrior. The city perimeter came up fast now. Estall and the others in the transport prepared their firearms for battle. It appeared most of the ships had made it through the gauntlet and were now too close to be targeted by the large cannons, which now fell silent.
Another barrage of fire began to sweep across the distance between their transports and the Vorn facility. But now the firestorm came from the hundreds of Sentinel robots around the facility’s perimeter.
Pulse-laser blasts rang out from the transports as the Aolene returned enemy fire. The shots impacted against the forward deflectors as Estall pushed on through the line of Sentinels with their ship. The deflector shield bounced the robots out of their way as they rammed their way through. The warriors activated their electromagnetic shields and hurried out of the transports, firing their pulse weapons at the Sentinels.
The robots took multiple hits, but had greater numbers at their disposal. The Sentinel’s armaments were too much for handheld pulse rifles to be effective against them. As the robots approached, their own guns still blazing, the Aolene warriors secured their rifles in favor of Barudii blades and kemsticks. More and more warriors drew their blades, put shields ahead, and moved into the oncoming Sentinels.
The E.M. shields gave them cover as they closed the distance needed to strike. The Barudii blades sliced through the Sentinel armor like butter. The powerful blows of the Aolene warriors dispatched robot after robot. The Sentinels appeared helpless to stop the Aolene advance as robots fell to their human foes.
Estall shouted for the other warriors as several hundred came against the cloning facility’s wall. Using handheld grapples, they fired them over the perimeter of the roof and quickly began to scale the walls. Ranul didn’t like this part one bit. He detested heights. And he didn’t enjoy being pulled up the height of this wall any more than he had being pushed off by Orin the night before. When the warriors had all reached the roof, they ran across to ventilation shafts and sliced open the vent heads, allowing them to enter. Estall instructed them to fan out through the facility and take the main control room.
“Whoever gets to it first, contact me.”
Ranul stayed glued to Estall as they all plunged into the dark maze of tunnels comprising the facility’s ventilation system.
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“Governor, the facility has been breeched by enemy forces,” Setaru’ lek reported. “They have bypassed our ground forces at the building entrances and are moving through the ventilation system. Several floors are reporting gunfire while others don’t respond at all.”
“Get more soldiers up here at once!”
Behind the room’s ventilation screen, Estall, Ranul, and several warriors listened.
“That’s him,” whispered Ranul. “That’s Governor Kisch K’ta. If you can take him, you’ll control the Vorn.”
Estall ran at the vent screen and crashed through it, rolling into the room. The other warriors followed. Several Sentinels responded by firing upon them. Their E.M. shields repelled the laser blasts while they engaged the robots with Barudii blades.
The governor and Setaru’ lek, along with several other men, crouched on the ground in fear. The governor’s office door slid open, allowing several Horva guards to come inside. Like sleek predators, they leaped at the Aolene warriors, attacking furiously. One of the Aolene near the entrance was caught from behind by one of the clones as it plunged a knife into his throat. The wounds were fast and fatal, and the dark skinned clone kept coming.
Ranul blasted at the Horva with several bursts of pulse laser fire from his crouched position just inside the vent shaft, dropping the clone. Two more Horva came in for the kill.
The Horva swiped his dagger at Estall as he brought his blade up to defend himself, causing the brute man to sever his own hand upon Estall’s weapon. As the wild man recoiled in pain, Estall followed through with a quick thrust through its chest to dispatch the feral man. As the last Horva lunged at the third warrior, Vasad, it met a spicor disc in flight, which vaporized the majority of his body. Ranul leveled his pulse rifle on Governor Kisch K’ta.
“Hello, Governor…surprised to see me?”
“I should have given you and your family to the Horva long ago, Ranul.”
“Governor Kisch K’ta, you will broadcast to your soldiers, telling them to stand down immediately or you and your people here will suffer excruciating deaths for crimes against my people,” Estall said.
“You would torture us?” Setaru’ lek asked.
“Exactly as you tortured my wife, you filth.” Ranul responded.
“You have killed millions of our people and sent our children away to be massacred by your clones. There must be some retribution for their deaths,” said Estall.
“I will order my men to stand down, but it will do you no good. When our reinforcements come through the rift, you and your rebels will be the ones made to suffer.”
“Where is my wife, Governor?” Ranul asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, you can do better than that,” Estall said.
“I tell you, I don’t know. She was taken as a prisoner across the rift months ago after you agreed to build the android prototype for us.”
“Then I’ll find it in your data files,” Ranul said.
He made his way to the closest computer terminal and input his translator code allowing him to read the files. The display changed from the Vorn language to Castillian, but access to the information he wanted was denied. He turned back to the Governor. “The code, Kisch K’ta? Now!”
The Governor remained sternly silent, until Estall raised his blade. He brought the tip close to Kisch K’ta’s throat.
“Governor, the code.”
Kisch K’ta swallowed hard, listening to the hum of adomen, then grumbled the voice code in his native tongue. The computer responded, allowing Ranul to begin scanning through the Vorn database.
“Now, send the stand-down order and have your people report to the main hangar of this facility,” Estall demanded.
Kisch K’ta looked at Setaru’ lek who normally would have protested the idea of Vorn clansmen surrendering under any circumstances. He now appeared to be in no hurry to sacrifice his own life. The Governor tapped into the communications display on his desk panel, opening a channel to his ground forces commander. He issued the command in his own language and then received a puzzled but compliant reply.
“Now what?” asked Setaru’ lek.
“Vasad,” Estall said, “take the governor’s aides with you and go to the hangar bay. Have the others meet you there with their captives and wait for the Vorn army to arrive. Hold them there in the hangar for now.”
Vasad motioned with his pulse rifle to Setaru’ lek and Kisch K’ta’s other aides to come with him. He looked back at the governor, who offered no alternative, then proceeded out the door with the others and Vasad behind them.
“Estall, I’ve ordered the Sentinels to stand down,” said Ranul, “but you need to look at this.”
He put his display onto the large main viewer on the wall. A picture of the Vorn’s scanner readouts and log entries appeared on the screen.
“It looks like they’ve been tracking the Saberhawk since it left the atmosphere. They’re on approach to enter the transdimensional rift. Look, all of this has been sent as a continuous transmission to the fleet on the other side, but there hasn’t been any reply, even on this closed channel.”
“Maybe they’re maintaining silence to try and surprise our ship when it comes through.”
“Not likely,” Ranul said. “The last transmissi
on from across the rift appears to have been a week ago and nothing at all since. Why haven’t your forces responded, Governor? Your transmission log shows repeated attempts with no reply. Why?”
“If I knew, then we wouldn’t be continuing to try and gain a response would we?”
“There’s a reference here in some of their last responses to the Sphere. What does that mean, Governor?”
Ranul could see something foreboding in the governor’s eyes, though he answered not a word.
“Search the database for the term.”
Ranul keyed the reference into the computer. Immediately, a massive file with numerous subsections appeared on the screen. He scanned through the data very quickly, trying to make sense of it. The more he read, the more he understood Kisch K’ta’s odd look of dread. A disturbing realization came to him.
“You’ve been running! That’s why you came here through the rift. To get away from this thing! Isn’t it?”
The governor remained silent as the images appeared on the main display.
“I don’t understand,” Estall said, still trying to grasp what all the information revealed to Ranul.
“A lot more is going on here than we thought.”
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The Saberhawk began to vibrate more as it approached the rift. The dark center was ominous, like some terrible beast wanting to swallow the ship whole. Nothing could be seen beyond. Even their sensor scans revealed nothing about what lay on the other side. No one spoke. All eyes fixed on