Interstellar

by Bob Mayer

  Sufra thought about. “We must go up a steep staircase, which is in West Ridge. Then exit onto an ancient path where we can travel only two astride, which will slow us further. We can get you onto Lions Head, just outside Seventh Wall.” He glanced at Gorm, who’d appeared about to say something.

  Drusa caught the exchange. “You have a way under the shield wall, don’t you?”

  “It is a difficult path,” Sufra said. “Moroi, one of our Elders, is leading a group of our brethren on it. They will be there when we arrive outside Seventh Wall. They will either drop the shield or destroy the Citadel-Tower.”

  “Or die trying,” Gorm added.

  Cetic turned to Drusa and Paric. “I’m sure Horus is sending patrols and has outposts stationed south of the Wall searching for us. We must keep the Atlantean Army fixed on North Wall. If the Nagil succeed, we can take the city.”

  “We need a diversion,” Drusa said.

  Exactly,” Cetic agreed. He indicated the narrower, eastern tunnel, and asked Sufra. “Would going that way allow an element of my army entry into the Valley south of the Wall?”

  “Yes,” Sufra said. “They’ll come out about six miles south. One of us will have to accompany in order to open the door at the far end. It will be in the forest, a few miles from Lion’s Road.

  “Paric?” Cetic said.

  “I will lead the diversion,” Paric volunteered.

  “I’ll give you five hundred. Spread them out on both side of the Lion’s Road, but do not get on the road. Make as much noise as you can. Build fires for the evening to make them think you are waiting for an attack tomorrow at dawn. You want to appear to be the entire army. There will be scouts. Do not let them get an idea of your true strength.”

  “I will go with him,” Drusa said.

  “I thought your questions lay to the north, in Atlantis, witch?” Cetic said.

  “We will get north, Paric and I,” Drusa said. “Won’t we?”

  “We will,” Paric said.

  “Go,” Cetic ordered.

  Gorm led Paric and Drusa down the eastern tunnel. Cetic designated a man to allocate every other warrior that way, until five hundred had been sent. Then the rest were to continue on the Mainline.

  NORTH SEA, EARTH15

  Anubis was in the Hall of Honor, a compartment that had been built into every mothership at the time this one was constructed. Listed on the walls were the names of the motherships that had been lost in defense of the Empire.

  She recognized many of the names from her history lessons as a child and then as a cadet. The epic battles they’d fought. Some had been lost to the Swarm, but others in various conflicts with Scale species in wars of conquest over the years. The only entity the Airlia had not been able to defeat, nor had any other Scale, was the Swarm.

  She moved to the left, where the earliest capital ships were listed. The names of the battles had disappeared in history; even lost was who the battles had been against.

  So many ships.

  Because she’d been deployed on this mission for so long, Anubis didn’t know that motherships launched after her departure were no longer named. They were numbered. This space wasn’t used any longer for the Hall of Honor, but was incorporated into a larger weapon system. Too many ships had been lost to list them anymore. The Wall of Honor had turned into a depressing litany of death and someone at Fleet had made the decision that crews didn’t need to be reminded of that.

  With a shiver from the ghosts represented by the ships, Anubis headed back to the control to check on the status of the Talon.

  WORMEHILL, EARTH15

  Using the Msats, Arcturus had a pretty good idea of where all the players on the board were. The Great Alliance had disappeared underground and he assumed they were moving steadily north. The Hegemony army was trudging south, directed to the east-west road where they would turn toward the Lion’s Road, as ordered by Orlock posing as Seth. By the time they made it to this valley, things should be decided. The dispersion of Horus’s forces along the North Wall was textbook, to be expected of an Airlia warrior.

  Arcturus checked the Sentinels. The mothership was inside the solar system and slowing.

  An alert flashed from the Msats. An airborne craft was inbound. Arcturus activated an elevator platform on the side of the laboratory. It rose up the stone wall carrying a jumble of gear he’d put together. A door opened in the floor far above as it reached ground level. Once the lift passed through, the door closed.

  Arcturus shut down the guardian and walked up the stairs around the base of the tower.

  *****

  Trat-monar had inspected the moat with the lead engineer from Atlantis, searching for the best place to attempt to bridge. The problem was that they had little to work with. The archers and rest of the engineers were cutting down the closest trees, trimming the branches and pulling the trunks over, but it was slow work and Trat-monar didn’t see the point because they wouldn’t be able to build anything in time for the looming battle.

  But Horus had said do it and they would try.

  *****

  Markus flew low over West Ridge, then dove down, hugging the ground. Wormehill Tower was directly ahead. The North Wall was crawling with soldiers. There was a contingent surrounding the Tower’s moat who stared up in confusion as he flew overhead. There were archers, but none put arrow to string, surprised by the sudden appearance of a craft that could only be possessed by the gods.

  *****

  In the toll tower, Horus saw the spaceship and knew whose it was; one of the teams from that rebellious planet had been captured on a Teardrop planet they’d infiltrated. Tortured, interrogated and their ship examined. The information had been disseminated through Fleet.

  Horus smiled. This was good news: they’d finally flushed out the Walkers and made them bring their ship into the open. Anubis would make short work of it when she came here with the talon. Things were looking up.

  He did wonder, though, why it was going to Wormehill.

  And why he wasn’t getting any reports about the Great Alliance from his forward outposts?

  *****

  “Welcome.” Arcturus stood in front of the stairs leading into Wormehill Tower. He extended his hand to Markus who’d just landed the craft in the courtyard in front of it. “We have not met, at least in the normal sense.”

  Markus shook the old man’s hand.

  Arcturus looked at the ship. “What did you christian it?”

  “Enan,” Bren said. “After the woman who led us off-planet.”

  “STL, of course,” Arcturus said. “But fast, I assume?” He pointed up. “How long would it take you to get to Isis?”

  “’Isis’?” Bren repeated. “For what?”

  “To shut down the FTL transmitter,” Arcturus said. “But first things first.” He indicated the gear. “We must give you the punch you will need. The cannon can be secured with the straps provided. The remote control for it will remind you very much of an Airlia weapons console, which I’m sure you understand.”

  Markus, warrior that he was, focused on one word. “’Cannon’?”

  “It’s a Tesla cannon,” Arcturus said. “Named after a great man from ancient times. A scientist who invented many things, including FTLT drive. The cannon is quite powerful and was made in many variants and sizes. Not much different from the pulse weapons both the Airlia and Swarm use these days. Indeed, physics is a key commonality between all Scale species. And weapons have always been high on the list of priorities as such species crawl up the ladder of civilization. You will be able to match up with a talon, shot for shot, but that won’t be necessary.”

  “Who are you?” Markus asked. “How do you know all this? How can you have that?” He indicated the cannon.

  “I’ve asked him many such questions,” Bren said, “and the answers are vague at best.”

  “We are under a bit of a time contraction,” Arcturus said. “There are many moving pieces and we all need to do our part. If all works as
I hope, there will be time for us to talk later.” He led the three over to the weapon and other gear.

  “It doesn’t look like a cannon,” Markus said.

  The cannon was six-foot-high metal column, eight inches thick, with a platform on top of six nonconductive posts with coils wrapped around them.

  “That’s like saying the Enan doesn’t look like a sailing ship,” Arcturus said.

  Together they carried it over to the Enan and onto the deck. They attached it with straps next to the top hatch so it had a clear field of fire in all directions.

  NORTH SEA, EARTH15

  Anubis shut the airlock connecting the talon to the mothership. She entered the cockpit of the warship. The control panel indicated ready for launch. The airlock disconnected and the talon floated free.

  Anubis examined the controls. She’d flown it several times and had received the basic instruction as a cadet, but she was not a pilot, nor a warrior who had more extensive training. She tapped out the commands and the talon angled upward. On the wrap-around screens the dark water gave way to light and then the talon was in the air.

  Anubis gained altitude and headed south.

  ATLANTIS, LION’S HEAD, EARTH15

  Moroi placed her amulet against the proper spot on the wall. A small, two foot diameter door pulled back and slid aside. She crawled through, passing underneath the shield wall surrounding Atlantis. The Nagil had been digging this tunnel angled down for eighty years, deeper and deeper, trying to get beneath the wall. Finally, after two hundred feet through solid rock, they’d reached a point where the shield no longer propagated. Then they’d gone horizontal. They’d spent a decade working on narrow shafts upward, trying to punch into the Roads of Rostau and the duats. On the fourth attempt they made it through. Then they carefully disguised their entrance into the underground maze beneath the Citadel-Tower.

  In this manner they’d smuggled more of their illicit babies out with the assistance of the All-Life midwives. They’d also inserted spies, such as Orlock’s daughter. Moroi led the party of Elders through the Roads of Rostau, into the Duats, to the chamber that held the other of their kind. Moroi leaned over one of the wasted bodies as Elders went to the others. She gently extracted the drip. Removed the covering over the eyes. Winced as she saw the eyes were cloudy gray orbs.

  The Nagil’s mouth made a raspy sound. Moroi poured some water from her canteen into the cloth she would bind around her eyes if she were out in daytime. Held it over the mouth and squeezed some drops into the parched opening.

  Did it again.

  The Nagil finally managed two words. “Kill me.”

  “We will bring you back to life,” Moroi whispered. “We will take care of you.”

  “Kill me.”

  Moroi glanced up. The other Elders looked at her, having experienced the same with the ones they were attending to.

  It was what she knew would have to be done when she started north, but it had to be their choice. It was the only freedom that was left to them.

  “My life to you,” the blind Nagil whispered. “Take it all.”

  “No, we—” Moroi began.

  “It is all I can give.” A finger twitched, indicating the tube in the neck.

  “I accept your life,” Moroi said. She leaned over, putting her lips over the end of it.

  LIONS HEAD, EARTH15

  Cetic blinked in the sudden sunlight as the door rumbled open.

  Sufra held up a hand. “Wait until your eyes adjust. Your soldiers must be careful deploying or else they will be seen from the Citadel-Tower.” The Nagil’s eyes were closed and he wrapped a cloth around his head to protect them.

  “We are that close?”

  “The Citadel-Tower is that tall,” Sufra said. “We are close to Seventh Wall.”

  Cetic took a step forward and peered out. “Ah! Not as impressive as I imagined,” he lied.

  The Citadel-Tower was twenty miles distant. The door Cetic was standing in was on the slope of Lion’s Head, where it met West Ridge. Seventh Wall was two miles away, a dark line snaking over the ridge and descending on either side.

  Cetic pointed at a curved black object close to, but dwarfed by the Tower. “What is that?”

  “A talon,” Sufra said. “It has been there as long as any can remember. It recently fired into the city and harbor to randomly kill and destroy.”

  “To force obedience,” Cetic said.

  Sufra looked at the sky through the cloth. “A storm is brewing. That will give us some cover once it arrives.”

  “You said your comrades would take down the shield wall,” Cetic said to Sufra. “How will we know when it is time to attack?”

  Sufra looked at the Citadel-Tower. “I am sure there will be a sign we cannot mistake. The key is that the shield wall must be de-activated before we reach it.”

  Cetic laughed. “There are real walls we must get through before worrying about that.” He turned and gave orders to his subordinate leaders.

  The Great Alliance flowed out of the tunnel and spread out along the slope of Lions Head, facing Atlantis.

  SWARM BATTLE CORE, INTERSTELLAR, FASTER THAN LIGHT TRANSIT

  The doors on both cages swung open, wakening Kray and Lina, who held each other’s hand through the bars between their cages. On the floor just outside were a pair of grey jumpsuits and rubber soled sandals.

  “What does this mean?” Kray asked when no Swarm entered.

  “I don’t know,” Lina said. “I have never been out of a cage unless controlled or herded by a Swarm.”

  “Let us investigate,” Kray said, getting to his feet.

  “Perhaps we should stay here,” Lina said. “Maybe they’re testing us?”

  “What kind of test is an open door?” Kray shook his head. “It is an invitation. Come.” He walked out of his cage and stood in the opening to hers, hand extended. She joined him and they dressed. They left the chamber into the corridor. It ended at the hatch for a scout ship.

  Lina stopped. “I do not trust this.”

  “This is a positive sign,” Kray argued. “If they wanted, they could easily force us to do what they want. This is a choice.”

  “It could be a bad choice. We could be failing their test.”

  Kray smiled. “Come, Lina. Let us see what awaits.”

  Reluctantly she went inside the ship with him. The hatch sealed behind them and the ship detached from the portal. There was no way to see out as it sped along tunnels inside the Battle Core. After a journey of several minutes and many miles, the scout ship came to a halt. The hatch opened to a portal.

  Lina took the hand Kray extended to her. He led the way into the corridor. It curved to the right. There was noise ahead and it took a few seconds to realize what they were: human voices.

  “Come,” Kray said.

  They walked along the corridor, around the bend and halted. A vast open space was in front of them. The floor was full of thousands of humans in various clusters all wearing the same grey jumpsuits.

  A nearby human spotted Kray and Lina. “Welcome!” the man called out, gesturing for them to join him and a dozen others. Kray and Lina went to the group.

  “I am Pitr.” The man reached out and embraced Kray, who returned the gesture.

  “I am Kray and this is Lina.” Kray indicated the gathering. “What is this?”

  “As best I can determine, what is left of many reapings,” Pitr said. “There are some from my world, but also other worlds. I didn’t know that humans were on so many planets. It’s astounding.”

  “Were you part of the attack on this Core?” Kray asked, trying to understand.

  Pitr shook his head. “No. This ship came into our sky and dropped many smaller ships. On board them were monsters. Dragons, many-headed snakes, spiders. All sorts of nasty beasts. They took over those who weren’t killed. A thing inside of me.” He grimaced. “It was terrible, not being able to control my body; did you experience the same?”

  Kray and Lina nodded.
/>   “Did it march you and the others with you toward a ledge?”

  “Yes,” Kray said.

  Pitr continued. “Everyone I could see was dumped into that pit. But I was separated out. Questioned by another human controlled by a Swarm. Then I was put in a tube. I woke up not long ago and was brought here. I don’t know how long I was asleep. But I fear it was a very long time.”

  “Why were we selected?” Kray wondered.

  “Everyone I asked said the same thing.” Pitr swept his hand indicating the people in the cargo hold. “The only answer in common? None of us fought.”

  THE STORM

  NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15

  The bodies were shredded. Pieces and parts of what had once been humans were scattered not only on the forest floor but in the lower branches of the trees, an indication of the ferocity of the attack.

  “What happened to them?” Paric asked in a hushed voice, as if speaking loudly would draw the attention of whatever force had perpetrated this assault on Horus’s scouts in the forest south of North Wall.

  Drusa checked one of the bodies. “A great beast did this. Wolfram.”

  “There are no wolfram,” Paric said. “That’s a bed time story mothers tell children to scare them.”

  “Are Nagil not the same?” Gorm asked. “Yet here I stand with you. There are wolfram. Arcturus has one that accompanies him on many of his journeys.”

  Paric looked about. “There has to be more than one to have killed so many. There must be at least fifty dead.”

  “A pack,” Drusa said. “It appears, though, that they are on or side.”

  Paric gave the signal for his warriors to deploy. They were moving east through the forest toward Lion’s Road. He was spacing the small contingent out, spreading his meager force across the valley floor to simulate the main body of the Great Alliance approaching on a wide front. A job that was much easier now that all the scouts from Horus’s army had been slaughtered.