"But before we do, you need to know there are quite a few of us and we're getting you out of here. The Fleistians just discovered we have breached their dimension. Right now, their guards are assembling. We have only moments. Stay close to Arvid and listen to his directions."
"Thank you, Tarafau, I will."
In the utter silence, she heard the doors at the top of the amphitheater open. Jenny suddenly remembered something her dad had said about the advantage of the heights in a battle and felt very exposed as she slipped off of the stone table. Her staff appeared in her hand. She grasped it firmly in the fighting stance, grateful for the feel of the sleek wood in her hands. Her key warmed and she realized she was still being guided.
"Look down," came Arvid's command in her mind, "And keep your eyes to slits. Look up when I tell you."
Jenny obeyed, realizing that this was to prevent the blinding effect of coming from pure darkness into light.
The lights came on and even with her eyes averted to the floor and closed to slits, it was still almost painful.
She heard a collective gasp and then Arvid said, "Look."
At first, she looked to the top of the amphitheater, noting Sam at the forefront of a group of Groga soldiers. Sam and her minions looked shocked and looking around, Jenny realized why.
On every row starting at the top, the stair-stepped benches were filled with…Tarafau! Well, not really Tarafau, but an army of beings enough like him as to be nearly indistinguishable. Every one of them had a blaster rifle trained on the pitifully small force surrounding Sam.
"You will not prevail!" she sent, her face twisted in shock and fury. "You'll never get out of here alive!"
Tarafau did not reply. He thought to Jenny, "I think we have a bit of a surprise for her. I'd have you out of here already, but I thought you'd like to see this."
She followed his glance up at the wall extending above Sam's head behind her. Perched on an extinguished torch bracket, directly above her was something that looked very much like a spider the size of Sam's old Smart Car. It spat something from underneath its pincers onto Sam's head which instantly covered her in a web that was attached to a filament which began to draw Sam upward.
Sam yelled something urgent to her Grogan soldiers, but they didn't budge, looking down the bores of the thousands of blasters pointed at them. Some of them edged towards the exit door, but froze when a full platoon of Tarafau's cousins swiveled to aim directly at them.
Another couple platoons strode forward, encircling the Groga soldiers menacingly. Tarafau's troops each put a hand on the shoulder of a Groga and flashed out of existence. Jenny blinked and returned her gaze to the now shrieking Sam who continued to be drawn higher and higher towards the waiting spider.
"Don't worry," sent Tarafau. "Your Sam is not going to be eaten by our little arachnid friend." He smirked and put one hand on Jenny's shoulder and one on Arvid's. "Let's go."
Immediately they were somewhere else, surrounded by Tarafau's people in a meadow. Not far from where they stood, were Lova, Burt, Bob and the rest of the Guardians as well as Jenny's Guards who looked at once shamefaced and relieved to see her. She would talk to them later, and could hopefully make it clear that they were in no way at fault for her recent adventure.
Sanglarka had never looked so good.
Chapter 37: Debriefings
Tarafau's people attended to setting up camp in the meadow, which now looked like a small city between their encampment and that of the Troopers. Only a portion of the force Tarafau had brought to free Jenny and capture Sam had come with them to Sanglarka. From her recent experiences, Jenny was beginning to think that all military encampments had a certain feel to them, regardless of the facilities they used for housing and transportation.
Two of Tarafau's people came into the lodge with the rest of them. They all seated themselves at the long dining table.
Lova, stood at the head of the table, beaming at them all.
"Welcome home, Earthlings and honored guests," she thought at them in mindspeech, obviously to accommodate those who probably did not speak English. As Jenny looked around the table, she was startled to see the humongous spider, who had captured Sam, at the other end of the table, antennae waving complacently, her huge many faceted eyes taking it all in. Jenny thought of the spider tattoo on Sam's arms and grinned, although that grin seemed somehow out of place.
"Tarafau, would you please introduce our guests?"
Tarafau stood. "This is my brother, Moalgi, and my daughter, Elizabeth." With a start, Jenny realized she hadn't noticed the difference in gender. She assumed Elizabeth had been named after her aunt, so couldn't be more than 60 years old. Her black hair was braided into thin braids which hung to her waist, which was saying something, as she stood nearly as tall as her father. She wore battle armor and her huge eyes were golden, also like her father.
Moalgi was of a height with his brother. They could have been twins, except for the long scar that went from his right eye to the lower lobe of his ear. Both Moalgi and Elizabeth nodded respectfully to the assembly and sat down again on either side of Tarafau.
"I would also present to you, Glitha of Arandi. Her species and mine live in peace on the same planet. She is not a shape changer, but she also has the ability to travel dimensionally without a gate, a common trait among the intelligent species on our planet, which was why her assistance was so imperative to our mission. She has transferred Sam to our planet, and she is under 24 hour surveillance until we decide what best to do for her. The most Sam could do at this point, is to escape into the Arandi wilderness. No one will aid her and there is none who need fear her. She might as well be a butterfly." And he looked meaningfully at Jenny's arm.
Glitha sent to the group. "I thank you for your kind hospitality, one and all. And to be clear, unlike your indigenous arachnid species, I, and my kind, are vegetarians." This was sent with a mental smile. Jenny sensed kindness in Goliath's somewhat raspy mental voice. She hoped she would get the opportunity to actually get to know her.
"Jenny, I would appreciate it if you would get Lizziebot out of your MDP. What happens next needs to be recorded into the Alliance cloud."
Jenny obeyed, and Bob also got Fidget out. "Always backup your backup," he said cheerfully to Tarafau when he raised his eyebrows.
"OK, we will proceed to report, now that we are all together again, thankfully with few casualties. Let's start when we were all together, as the battle at the enemy portal began. Gariel, please start us off."
"We launched everything per the original plan. Burt and Bob's initial distractions allowed us to secure the Groga sentry posts. At that point, we launched stage two of the decoys, believe it or not, flying saucers! Burt and Bob had redesigned several of our larger drones to look like the Earth myths you Earthlings are so crazy about. This apparent invasion got the attention of a large part of the enemy force. They even had a shoot-out, which covered our incursion with the five who accompanied me into the portal and we emerged onto a planet that was unfamiliar to me, but the population seemed to be pastoral and non-technical, which is a divergence from the Grogans usual modus operandi.
These beings were very surprised to see us, but not alarmed. We tried to explain their danger, but try as we might, we couldn't get the concept across of war or conflict. We scanned the area and determined there was indeed a gateway there that wasn't in the network. However, we had come prepared for that. We brought an unassigned link with us. Because we expected the Groga to come through the portal in mere minutes, and, at the risk of contaminating a non-technological culture, we used a hover car to get to the gate which was several miles away.
We hurriedly activated the link and connected it to our staging area. Although it took longer than I would have liked to get our force of several thousand through the gate, when the Groga came pouring through from their portal, we were ready for them. I regret to say, it was a slaughter. Not one Groga survived and unfortunately, there were some casualties among the Troopers. These deaths sub
jected those poor beings on that planet to bloodshed and violence they had never even imagined before.
Of course, we cleaned up after ourselves and we left healers behind to help them deal with the trauma. I remind myself that this outcome was better than them being slaughtered and enslaved, but I can't help but wonder what their future will be like now that they have been exposed to this.
We realized that we had no way, at this point, to completely shut down the Groga portal in that dimension. So, as a stopgap measure, we put up a shield that will no longer allow anyone to come more than a millimeter through that portal without dire consequences. If they try, they will only try once. The natives of that planet won't even notice the shield is there.
We sent word through the Alliance to do the same with the Earth portal and then clean up the area and restore it, as possible. So far, on this mission we have lost few Troopers.
The one thing I can tell you is that these attacks were neither planned by the Groga nor do they have the intelligence to pursue it."
Tarafau nodded. As the Guide to the Gatekeeper, Tarafau had always been the highest ranking among them, beside Jenny. He generally acceded to Lova when in Sanglarka, but here and now, in these circumstances, he was in charge.
"Burt, please report. The last we knew of you, was in the jungle cave."
"When you and Jenny disappeared, we decided to take a peek out of the cave. There we found your tracks heading back toward the encampment. We also found that the bots had gotten in range. We all got Miriha's message, Tarafau, so we didn't follow you. Instead we had the bots reconnoiter for us.
The little village where Sam had imprisoned us had burned to the ground. We couldn't tell if there had been any casualties, but the little Shaman was giving orders like a foreman as they cleaned up. We retrieved a boat from an MDP and retraced our path up-river until we could use the hovercars without being spotted by the natives. We figured we had already contaminated the indigenous people in that area enough.
We got to the airstrip and shuttled off to the Puerto Rico gate. Juan and Luz let us rest up for a day and here we are. Nothing exciting from our end, really."
Jenny snorted. "Nothing but making such amazing distractions and decoys that it allowed Gariel to get his Troopers through the enemy portal in the confusion and to capture the remaining troops they left behind. Spaceships? Really? And SYRUP???"
A chuckle went around the table at that.
Bob ducked his head. "I always wanted to try that. Can you imagine a whole fleet of flying saucers over L.A.? Anyway, we wanted to be sure the Groga were looking the other way when Gariel and his Troopers went through the portal."
Tarafau was still chuckling. "Well obviously you got the desired results. I'll be having a talk with the Council about you, Mr. Bob. Something tells me they're going to need minds like yours. The third stage of distractions was brilliant. Gariel tells me they still haven't got that syrup completely off of the Groga they captured."
Turning to Mynn and Nona, he said, "And the two of you? Where did you get off to?"
Mynn rolled her eyes and Nona looked abashed. "When the Groga attacked the command post, we were on guard with you, Tarafau. We got off a few shots, but in the meantime, you got hit with darts and one of the Groga hurled a smoke bomb of some kind," Nona said. "We hopped into one of the hover cars under the cover of the smoke and hunkered down. We were pretty sure it was more than smoke, since Tarafau went down like a felled sequoia and the Groga were wearing masks as well as the little native guys. The Groga must have thought they could pick up our tech later. They never even looked at the hover cars. We heard them rustling about for a bit and then peeked out to see them carrying all of you off in the direction of their camp. It took four of them to heft Tarafau. They didn't look very happy about it."
Mynn broke in. "We thought our best chance to rescue you was to follow the mission plan which said to hop into a hover car and get a message to headquarters. Since it looked like everyone else was either engaged in battle at the portal or captured by the Groga, we figured we were the only ones left to do that."
"You did exactly right," Lova said. "Following orders is nothing to be ashamed of. What could the two of you have done under the circumstances, other than get yourselves captured as well, or even worse?"
Tarafau agreed. "You followed the plan when everything fell apart."
Neither Nona nor Mynn seemed to be buying it, though. They hung their heads and Mynn's face colored. Jenny decided that her very next step would be to sit those two down and make sure they knew, in no uncertain terms, that they were not in disrepute for their actions.
He turned to Juan. "Do we hear anything that would indicate that anyone in the Brazilian or Peruvian governments are aware of a battle anywhere in the basin?"
Juan shook his head. "There is nothing on the news and I can't imagine there wouldn't have been if anyone had noticed. I feel fairly certain we pulled it off and once we clean up the clearings, I doubt anyone will ever realize what happened. We have sent a few agents, disguised as natives to also help the little village with some goods and labor, nothing that they wouldn't ordinarily find in the jungle. In a short time, this will all just be another story about how the shaman once accidentally burned down the village and the mysterious strangers who stayed with them for a while."
"Lova, what do you have for us?"
"We have been keeping the Alliance up to date as more information comes in. They have identified several new priorities, now that stage one is complete.
First: Locate the Insenium and discover what kind of beings they are, what abilities they may have and how their portal system works. The blocking of two of the three gates we are familiar with will not be enough. They are hopeful that Tarafau's people will be able to also block the Fleistian portal, to break that link, but we can't do it until we have discovered how to access the Insenium.
Second: Our scientists need to determine how the portal devices work. They have expressed a desire to have Bob work with them on this, as he has proven himself innovative and nimble of mind.
Third, we must destroy the ability of the Insenium to access any of the dimensions, which may be difficult, as they may have created the technology in the first place, and you can't unlearn something. Since we know nothing about the beings that inhabit that dimension, we don't have any idea if our mind altering technology would work on them and, even if it did, to alter the minds of an entire planet or maybe even an entire dimension might be beyond us.
I think that's enough to be going on with, don't you?"
This last was said almost flippantly, but Jenny gasped and looking around she saw jaws drop, eyebrows shoot up and Glitha's pincers clacked, almost like someone tapping their fingers nervously. No one on the team took this news casually.
"All of us knew when we took on the responsibility of Guardians, that there might be times like these. I for one, will not back down from the threat. Our allegiance to Earth and the Alliance hasn't changed," Lova said, taking the time to look into every face, including Gariel, Jenny's Guards, Glitha and Tarafau's brother and daughter. "I would like to say that I would trust any one of you with my life and all that I have and all that I stand for. But for the purposes of solidarity, I would like each of us to stand in agreement."
They all stood, which was somewhat alarming, as when Glitha stood fully on her eight legs, her head nearly brushed the 14 foot ceiling. Lova continued, "Swear with me, that we will not quit or falter as we undertake to accomplish the three missions I have just announced. That we will remain true to the Alliance as we have agreed and give all we have, and hope to have, to this cause."
There were variations on "I so swear, I do, or I will," but every single being in their company agreed solemnly to this oath.
"Jenny, do you have some words for us?" Tarafau asked as they all sat again.
Jenny nodded and stood again, although unsure what she could add. "It hardly seems possible that not so many months ago I was a kid out of co
llege, with a tiny little apartment and a comfy little life, using my skills to get along in a world that seemed relatively safe to me. I am not sorry that my life has changed, but I would hate to see the lives of those in our world or any others subjected to the mentality that drives this force against us.
Now that we have secured Earth, we are not finished, and I have no intention of quitting and letting the rest of the multiverse get along as best they can. I come from a family who believes in serving the cause of freedom and I know what my dad would say if he knew about this. He'd say, 'Where do I sign up?' I am his daughter through and through. If these beings would leave others alone, I would gladly leave them alone. But we don't ignore a threat, just because it isn't directed at us personally.
Our home world isn't perfect, by any means, and it definitely isn't ready for this kind of technology at this point. I would say we can say the same for the Groga, the Fleistians, the Insenium and any other entity that feels that they can excuse their actions of brutality under the cover of it being for the best good of those they seek to enslave.
I'm not as experienced as any of you here today. Every one of you has better skills and knows more about what we're doing than I do, but since I have been given this responsibility, I will not back down, not as long as there is a single person to stand by me and I will die fighting, regardless. This is the pact we just made. This is the cause we undertake, and we will do it together."
Jenny sat down and suddenly the rest were back on their feet, not applauding, not speaking, but shoulders back, heads held high, looking directly into Jenny's eyes.
"Come on then, folks. We've a war to fight and a lot to do to win it," Tarafau said, finally.
Chapter 38: Full Circle
Jenny stood in the middle of her living room, watching Tidbit sunning in his favorite spot. The voices of Burt, Bob, Lyra, Nona and Mynn drifted in from the patio through the open French doors. The repair crew, courtesy of the Alliance, had done a beautiful job restoring her house, Including a redwood picnic table on the patio meant to seat eight and beautiful furnishings. She even had a new overstuffed reading chair next to a bookshelf full of books and a little table and stand lamp in the usual place.
The House on Infinity Loop Page 38