The Califanan general, a squat, barrel-chested man with a mop of white hair, entered the center, approaching the group.
“We’ve started transporting missiles to put them in range of the generators,” he said. “But it’ll be many days before they’re positioned and launched.”
“Well, we can only hope that—” began E’iouy, when the general held up a hand, his brow furrowing. He touched a communicator earpiece.
“I’m getting a call from base security,” he said, frowning. “There’s a breach from the south.”
A loud thud shook the building, as the elves scrutinizing their consoles skrittered a warning. The trolls and Theran technicians sounded alarms, as well.
The general scanned their consoles. “We’re getting multiple attacks around the globe,” he announced. “They’re coordinated.”
Another thud of a distant explosion shook the building; and Jack, Sam, E’iouy, and A’eiio rushed outside to see truckloads of soldiers speeding toward the south fence of the sprawling base.
An explosion reverberated to the north, one to the west, then one to the east.
“They’re attacking from all sides,” declared E’iouy. “We need to contact our Wardens, to have the wormholes deployed to bring in our reinforcements.”
He turned to re-enter the building, but Jack remained, a puzzled look on his face. He shook his head as sporadic bursts of gunfire sounded from the four directions. Mike loomed behind him, preparing to join soldiers headed for the battle. Jack grasped his massive arm to stop him.
“You were a soldier?” he asked.
“Yes, before my exile.”
“What would you think of multiple attacks on widely separated targets by relatively small forces? These sound like only small numbers of attackers, right?”
Mike thought for a long moment, his great ogre head swiveling about, scanning the base.
“Trap,” he growled and turned to lumber back into the building. Jack followed, to find E’iouy leaning over a communication console manned by Ryan.
“They’ve given permission,” he said. “The wormholes have been dispatched with reinforcements. They will be on station very quickly.”
“Trap!” repeated Mike emphatically. “They want the wormholes in range.”
E’iouy shook his head in puzzlement. “But there’s no way they can track them if they are moving. Only if they’re stationary and nearby. Like the werewolf wormhole was when it was targeted. And we’ve developed maneuvers to prevent that.”
“Still feels like a trap,” repeated Mike insistently.
“Then we’ll spring it,” said Jack, turning to Ryan. “Message the Wardens to expect a missile attack . . . to activate the defenses.”
The elf launched into a frenzy of screechy phone calls.
E’iouy joined him, asking, “How can you possibly guard against missiles? Aren’t you endangering the wormholes?”
“We prepared,” said Jack. “When we were planning to close the werewolf wormhole with missiles, I realized that all the wormholes were vulnerable, including the Mythicals’. So, I asked the trolls to work with the elves to devise a defense system. You’ll see. It’ll be pretty spectacular.”
The explosions and the rattle of automatic gunfire drew closer, and Jack and the others sprinted outside, taking cover behind a troop carrier. They hunkered down as bullets ricocheted off the carrier with loud clangs.
“Look up!” directed Jack, and they saw above them, a wormhole gliding down through the clouds, growing into the shimmering transparent orb they had seen so often. But inside the hole, they could see—instead of the usual vacuum chamber interior—a large black sphere, studded with cylinders.
“What—” began E’iouy, but Mike interrupted him, bellowing,
“MISSILES INCOMING!” He threw his massive body over the others to shield them. Three missiles materialized from three directions, speeding toward the wormhole, leaving white contrails.
“They’ll destroy the hole!” exclaimed E’iouy.
“They won’t,” declared Jack. “Shield your eyes!”
Just as the missiles reached the wormhole, it erupted in a seething fireball of blinding, white-hot light, spewing cascades of sparks.
E’iouy and the others gasped as the fireball hissed and sputtered, radiating waves of blistering heat.
As the missiles penetrated the roiling fireball, their casings melted, exploding into harmless fragments that showered down, rattling against the metal of the troop carrier and littering the ground. A large fragment slammed into Mike, bouncing harmlessly off his armored skin.
A pall of gray smoke obscured the sky where the wormhole had been, and they peered upward, trying to see through it. Finally, it began to clear.
“It’s gone!” cried Sam. “It’s destroyed!”
“That’s what the attackers will believe,” said Jack. “But the instant the grenades were launched from inside the wormhole, it accelerated away. It’s fine.”
“Grenades?” asked E’iouy.
“Thermite grenades,” said Jack. “The big sphere you saw inside the wormhole was a grenade launcher. It was triggered by radar to shoot out a hundred thermite grenades the instant the missiles grew close enough. They burn at several thousand degrees. They created a fireball hot enough to detonate and destroy the missiles, shielding the wormhole. We should get back inside. The missiles were probably thermonuclear, and there is likely radiation that needs to be cleaned up.”
They rushed back into the control room, to find the general conferring with Ryan, Steve, and others at the monitoring consoles.
“Did all the defenses work?” asked Jack. “Were all the missiles destroyed?”
“Yes,” rumbled Steve. “All the wormholes survived . . . globally. We could tell that all the missiles were launched at precisely the same time. Precisely! That means they were triggered from the same place.”
“That means there’s a central Pilgrim control center,” said Jack. “And that means the Pilgrim wormhole is probably there. And that means we can find it, capture it, and transit to Earth to go after the werewolf Flak and save Meri.” He turned to Steve, who was overseeing the consoles. “Can you pinpoint the headquarters?”
The troll began ranging up and down the rows of consoles, issuing instructions, querying the operators. He returned, nodding his gnarled head and grinning with brown teeth.
“We’re gathering signal data from the other sites. We should be able to triangulate a position,” he said.
“But how could we possibly capture a wormhole?” asked Sam.
“I may have an idea,” said Jack, taking up his laptop and retreating to make a phone call.
“Nothing!” triumphantly declared the Theran mercenary Roberson, striding from monitor to monitor in the Pilgrim control room. “Nothing left of the wormholes. They’re gone. Now the only Mythicals we have to deal with are those left behind.”
“You’re sure?” asked Christopher regarding Roberson dubiously.
The soldier shot him an annoyed look and tapped one of the screens decisively. “Just look at the feed from our drones.”
With that, the technician called up video showing a wormhole hovering above a missile base. A trio of speeding missiles etched contrails across the landscape toward their target; then a blinding flash of light, and an empty sky.
“You can review all the other sites. All the same. All show the wormholes closing in a flash. The Mythicals threat is gone. Now, we can concentrate on capturing that werewolf, Flak-whatever, and getting those trigger codes.”
“But they’re going to continue to destroy the generators,” said David Clark.
“They won’t be nearly as successful as they have been,” said Roberson. “Our forces around the globe have withdrawn with acceptable casualties. Shortly, I’ll order them repositioned to attack the Theran missiles. Our reconnaissance indicated many are vulnerable, because they’re being transported over land. Many won’t reach their destinations.”
; “So, the next step?” asked Nathan Clark.
“I’ve got a platoon of a dozen men armed and ready to go through your aperture and pursue the werewolf. And if you have no more questions, I’ve got to launch that mission.”
Before any of the others could react, Roberson donned his armored vest heavy with grenades and ammunition pouches, took up his assault rifle and left. On a control room video screen, a dozen heavily armed mercenaries sprinted to the Pilgrim wormhole and began hauling themselves up its ladder.
• • •
James and Louisa March stood frozen at the controls on the Earth side of the Pilgrim wormhole, as the mercenaries filed from the vacuum chamber into the warehouse. The brawny soldiers quickly assembled at the building entrance, checking their imposing arsenal of rifles, grenade launchers, and shoulder-mounted missiles. Echoing through the warehouse came the decisive metallic click of rifle bolts being drawn and the terse commands of orders being given.
“Can we do this?” Louisa whispered timorously, grasping James’s arm. “Can we pilot this wormhole to Jack? Should we do this?”
“You know how we feel about what’s been happening. And Jack needs us to do this . . . to find the werewolf . . . to stop the Palliation. We promised him.”
“We’re betraying our own kind.”
“We’re trying to stop a massacre of global proportions.”
“And, we’ll have to go . . . out there,” she said, shivering at the prospect of venturing into the ecological wasteland outside the compound.
“We have to. Jack will go, and so must we. He’s never been out there. He would die. So would the others.”
The middle-aged couple briefly held hands to bolster their resolve, and James turned back to the control panel. He mentally rehearsed the rapid sequence of control commands needed to hijack the wormhole, instantly vaulting it away from the Pilgrim colony on Thera. What if somebody was in the chamber with the wormhole, exposed to the vacuum of space? He steeled himself against the possibility. That person would explode into unrecognizable fleshy pulp.
He scrutinized the video screen showing the inside of the chamber. The wormhole floated in the middle, imprisoned by the magnetic fields emanating from the hundreds of cylindrical electromagnets dotting the sides of the chamber. Through the wormhole he could see the clearing in the woods where the wormhole now floated on Thera.
He checked the status of the magnets. All were stable. He nodded to Louisa, who bent to the task of checking the propulsion electromagnets at the ends of long, robotic arms that rapidly adjusted themselves in the chamber to drive the wormhole in the other universe.
“Let’s turn off the shaping field,” whispered Louisa. “Nobody will notice. It will keep anybody from entering the wormhole from the other side.”
James shook his head decisively. “We’d have to withdraw the ladder first. They would notice that in the control room.”
He glanced at the mercenaries in the warehouse to see if he and Louisa had attracted any attention with their nervous fidgeting and whispering. But the soldiers were busily shouldering their weapons, preparing to deploy. James shrugged nervously, changing his mind.
“All right. The instant they’re gone, I’ll retract the ladder. Then, you turn off the shaping field. That’ll stop anybody from coming up. I’ll make an excuse.”
“What?” she asked.
James shook his head, beads of sweat rising on his forehead.
“Make sure you’re ready for our return,” said a voice behind them, making them both flinch. It was Roberson, staring at them suspiciously, holding his rifle. “We’ll need to get back through quickly.”
“Uh . . . sure . . . of course,” said James.
“You look nervous,” said Roberson. “Something wrong?”
Louisa answered. “A bit of a fluctuation in one of the containment magnets. We just need to make sure it’s replaced before any transit.”
“Do whatever you need to quickly. Once we get those generator codes from the werewolf, we’ll want to come back through . . . to apply them.”
He turned and left, barking orders to his men and exiting the warehouse. The roar of engines starting up told James and Louisa the mercenaries were preparing to exit the compound on their mission. Sure enough, the next sounds were the deep whine of the front gate’s electric motor; the rattle of the gates opening; and the sound of the troop carrier engines fading.
“Ready?” asked James.
Louisa peered at the dials, ensuring that the fields were all stable.
“Now!” she exclaimed.
James flipped switches, twirled dials, and shoved the two joysticks forward. The video screen showed the Theran forest plummet away, the colony shrinking to a mere opening in the woods, then the curvature of Thera as the wormhole vaulted into space. Without the friction of the atmosphere, James could now accelerate to enormous velocity, streaking toward the destination.
“What is this?” he heard a voice exclaim. He turned to see the captain of the compound, glaring at him, pulling out his pistol.
• • •
“JESUS CHRIST!” exclaimed Christopher, waddling out of the control building as fast as his short legs would carry him. He reached the darkened, empty field where their wormhole had once hovered, jerking his head comically around in all directions, his chin wattle quivering, peering into the surrounding gloom.
Nathan and David Clark rushed up behind him, followed by security men wielding rifles, as if the weapons would prove useful. All stood puzzled at the wormhole’s sudden departure.
“What the hell happened?” asked Nathan.
“The mercenaries?” asked David. “Did they double-cross us?”
“Don’t know why they would,” said Christopher, pacing back and forth, his head down. “They stood to gain a lot by staying loyal. And, they know that any disloyalty would bring disaster for their families. We have a list.”
“Okay, then, one of our own? The Marches? After all, they are Jack’s parents.”
Christopher stopped pacing, his expression grim. “Maybe. But we won’t know until the aperture returns. There’s no communication through a wormhole.”
“So, what do we do now?” asked David.
“Preserve the generators. Stop those missiles. So, the instant the mercenaries return with those codes, we resume the Palliation.”
“And the wormhole. Is it lost?”
Christopher smiled conspiratorially. “Not at all. We know how to track them now. We’ll track ours. And when we locate it, we’ll attack.”
• • •
James March froze, panicked, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly, trying to find the right words, as he looked down the barrel of the pistol the captain was pointing at him.
“What the hell are you doing moving the wormhole?” the captain demanded. He glanced at the view screen, which showed the oceans and continents of Thera sliding past, as the wormhole transited the planet’s face.
Fortunately, Louisa had the presence of mind to answer. “Put down the gun,” she commanded. “The answer is we don’t know what’s going on. We were instructed to relocate the wormhole, and nobody bothered to tell us why. Maybe there’s a threat; maybe it’s some tactical move. So, put the gun down!”
Perhaps the captain accepted the explanation. Or, perhaps the matronly, middle-aged Louisa reminded him of his mother, whom he always obeyed. But for whatever reason, he lowered the pistol, although he kept it out of its holster.
James took the distraction to surreptitiously press a button that would automatically pilot the wormhole to the rendezvous point. So, if anything happened to them, it would still reach its destination.
The captain’s voice was distinctly less angry now. Again, he scrutinized the view screen. “So, where are you headed? You do know that, right?”
“All they said was to land at these coordinates . . .” James gestured at a set of numbers on one of the screens. “. . . and we’re to pick up some . . .” James paused for just a
n instant. He hadn’t figured out his lie thoroughly. He hoped the captain didn’t notice. “. . . creatures who have agreed to help.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Same reason as the mercenaries. Protection. Wealth.”
Two other guards arrived, and the captain turned and murmured something to them. James only hoped it wasn’t a shoot-to-kill order.
The image of Thera on the screen loomed ever larger, as the wormhole swooped into the atmosphere, slowing to prevent damage, but still traveling at an enormous speed. The landscape rushed up to reveal a Theran military base, and the captain backed up and raised the pistol once more. The other two guards did the same.
The view screen revealed seven figures—a human, two Therans, an ogre, a pixie, a fairy, and an elf—waiting below the wormhole. The fish-eye distortion of the scene resolved into clarity, as the magnetic field flattened one side of the wormhole to allow access.
The ladder descended, and the figures began climbing upward, the view screen showing them crowding into the vacuum chamber.
“These are enemy!” declared the captain to the guards, now joined by two more to level their weapons at the metal airlock door. “We’re not taking any chances. On my command, open fire!”
The large hatch swung open with a groaning creak, and the hatchway filled with the gray-green bulk of an ogre. He regarded the guards with his onyx eyes, his massive brow furrowing at the sight of the guns. He grinned, his tusks becoming more prominent.
“Fire!” commanded the captain. James and Louisa slammed to the ground, as the guards launched a volley of bullets at the monster. The rounds slammed into his body and his arms raised in defense, driving him back into the chamber.
The firing paused, as the guards assessed the damage they had wrought.
The ogre reemerged from the chamber, his thick hide pocked with the marks of bullets that had not penetrated.
“Ouch,” he growled, his tone scolding. “That hurt.”
Sam crouched in the troop compartment of the speeding armored personnel carrier, sponging blood from her arms and legs. Her eyes were beginning to transform from their angry scarlet back into sky blue. She had followed Mike the ogre through the wormhole, with devastating results for the human guards, despite their weapons.
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