Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates

by Edited by Brandon Rospond

  “Surviving. It can be a struggle to keep the families together, but he manages.”

  “Well, I’m glad you could make it after all. How do you like the view?” Kordata beckoned at the stars above.

  “Truly magnificent.” Nacen paused, unsure how to proceed. “Listen, we need to talk.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” the Algoryn spread his arms, splashing some of his drink on the dry stones below.

  “Yes, well, our pilot has...”

  Kordata looked suddenly ill at ease. “You still don’t have a drink. Come, we must remedy that. I discovered the bartender wasting away in a quaint little restaurant on Kakuno. She makes the best Kalamata Slapbang this side of Antares.”

  Nacen clenched his jaw and followed the merchant back the way they came. Beskin’s rough voice popped into his head. “Captain, the guards aren’t at the entrance. I lost them in the crowd.”

  “Thank you. Keep on it, and stay close. Hold on, Camlo is opening comms.”

  The captain acknowledged the other vardanari’s signal as he walked beside Kordata.

  “Nace, you’ve gotta try this thing called a Slapbang, they’re really–”

  Nacen cut the signal. This wasn’t good. He needed to warn Kordata about the comet. Nacen turned try to find Camlo at the bar, but was confronted with the dusty breastplate of one of the Algoryn guards. He held a compact mag rifle pointed squarely at Nacen’s chest. At this range, his reflex armor would be worse than useless. A single round would punch through his chest and turn the plating into shrapnel. As his hand went to his holster, he felt a strong grip around his forearm. Kordata approached from behind the guard, his drink replaced by a small but vicious pistol. “Oh, how careless of me to wait this long. I’ll need your weapons now.”

  The scaled faces of the guards showed no emotion, but reflected Nacen’s cold stare. He allowed the Algoryn behind him to unholster his plasma pistol. Two other guards approached, hauling a bruised and battered Beskin between them.

  Nacen leaned forward in the guard’s grip and sneered at Kordata. “Why are you doing this? You’re not Concord. You said it yourself, our relationship is mutually beneficial.”

  The Algoryn lowered his pistol in sympathy. “There’s a bounty on your head on this entire side of the Prominar Rim. Don’t be too hard on yourselves for not picking up on it.”

  “How’d you find out? We didn’t even know about it.”

  “Obviously,” the harbor-master said, cocking his head to one side. “As for me, I have my sources.”

  “Who?” Nacen demanded.

  “If I told you, they wouldn’t be my sources. They’d be dead, after the Concord Admiral gets ahold of you.”

  “Admiral? You’re dealing with C3 high command now?”

  “Listen now, I don’t care where the money comes from. Why do you think I’m the only merchant on Folasi who does business with you Freeborn scum? Besides, I don’t want to be stuck on this planet forever. You can’t move up in the castes without money or glory, and glory is on short supply out here. It’s a shame your father couldn’t come. We had such grand plans. I guess his worked out well enough. Not for you, obviously.”

  The guards began moving the restrained pair to the nearest staircase. By now, a hole in the crowd had opened, and most of the guests were streaming for the exits or back against the far walls. Nacen spat, furious.

  “The C3 attacked that station, and we stopped them. Kaha,” Nacen swore. “You’re still at war with them. That has to count for something.”

  “Your daring heroics aside, no. The official story from the Concord is that they had no involvement in the attack. A rogue terror cell I believe is what they're calling it.”

  Nacen sent a panicked message to the Carmine, relieved at least that the Algoryn’s security was unable to jam his signal.

  “Lina, where are you? I’m not seeing my ship coming to rescue me.”

  “Bad news. The pinnacle level is enclosed. The sky you were seeing must be a high-resolution projection. We can’t get in. Hold on, we’re trying another way.”

  Even in the most dire situations, the pilot never swore. Nacen could do with a bit more urgency from her. He began to feel trapped in his armor, damp with sweat. Kordata looked at Nacen intriguingly and the group of guards began forcing the Vardosi to the exit.

  “Talking to your little pilot friend again? What was it you wanted to tell me earlier, anyway? Come now, and talk straight with me.”

  Nacen felt anger boil up in him. “I can’t talk straight when the way is curved.”

  “Spare me your Freeborn nonsense. Let us proceed to the cell. No sense delaying this. Our fighters will soon be bringing down that flying brick you call a ship, if they haven’t already.”

  Another round of gasps escaped from the crowd still brave enough to have stayed on the roof. High in the night sky above them, a dozen dots of intense light blossomed from the icy aura of the distant comet. Then more followed, easily one hundred. For a moment, the comet appeared as though it were the center of a new galaxy bursting violently into existence on its azure tail. The entire courtyard stared in amazement at the incoming ships for a moment, before complete chaos ensued.

  Kordata pointed at the nearby guards. “You two, get these Freeborn to the mag cells on level seven. You, follow me to the landing pad. We’re getting our people to the safety bunkers, now. Get an alert out to orbital security and find out what the hell is happening.”

  The guards hauled Nacen and Beskin down the staircase, now packed with shoving bodies. They went right at the foot of the stairs, away from the fleeing mob. Nacen struggled against his captor’s grip. “I guess this is the wrong time to ask for that drink?”

  He felt a numbing blow to the back of his skull and his vision blurred.

  * * * *

  Nacen woke to the interior of a gray cell, harsh lighting punctuating the aching in the back of his head. The room’s steel walls vibrated with a deep rumble.

  “Any chance that’s still the music?” Nacen groaned.

  Beskin was pacing nervously at the door. He shook his head. “No, that’s wreckage hitting the planet. The orbital cannons are taking out Ghar ships, but anything short of vaporizing them just turns them into projectiles bound for the surface. That’s the last thing I caught on the security feed before the Algoryn jammed us in this cell.”

  Nacen nearly jumped from his seat as another rumble shook the cell. They were trapped. Trapped in the cage of a crumbling fortress. He shook the thought loose. “We have our squad’s shard connection still, even if it isn’t much good right now.”

  Beskin shook his head. “I suppose.”

  Nacen’s eyes finally became accustomed to the bright lights, and he glanced around the small cell. He saw Camlo leaning back against the opposite wall. “Camlo, they captured you too?”

  “Hmm? No, security hauled me off when I punched out an Algoryn who ended up being a general or something. He was lecturing me about how I should have regenerated my arm rather than getting the prosthetic. How was I supposed to know he’d go down that easily?”

  “Which arm did you punch him with?”

  “My- oh, that makes sense,” Camlo said, glancing down at his metallic palm.

  Nacen sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way. It was an easy in, easy out. Get some info on what happened back at the Crab.”

  It was Camlo’s turn to shake his head. “So much for the harvest festival.”

  “It’s alright. Lina and the crew are on their way. We’ll get out of this.”

  Another deep quake rocked the cell. Beskin stopped pacing and pounded the wall with a gauntleted fist. “I just feel so powerless.”

  The cell shook once more and the bright amber lights faded. They were replaced with a single, blinking red emergency light in the corner. Frantic shouting, though muffled, could be heard through the reinforced door of the holding cell. Nacen rose to his feet and walked to the entrance. “The guards might decide it’s easier to get r
id of us here. Let’s show them what we can do if they decide to come through.”

  Beskin lined up opposite the captain, with Camlo behind him. The red lights continued to blink methodically, in contrast to Nacen’s own racing heart. An uncomfortable minute passed. Then, two metallic thuds reverberated from the door and it slid open. Jumping around the corner, Nacen raised his fist to deliver a fatal blow. He stopped short of the figure that had passed over the threshold. She wore the crimson robes of his crew. Dark, curly hair rested on black reflex armor.

  “Whoa,” Jeta raised an open palm. “Let’s hold off on the warm welcome for now.”

  Shukernak lumbered up beside her, the big domari hefting his plasma support gun on a small carrier drone for stability. The domari wiped a glistening layer of sweat from his shaved head. “About time. This was the ninth cell we tried.”

  Alifair and Merripen waited in the hallway, gripping mag rifles under each arm. Camlo bounded out, patted Alifair on the shoulder, and eagerly snatched up one of the firearms.

  “You’re a lot better than the company we were expecting.”

  Nacen gave Shukernak a wide smile. “I mean, you might not be as pretty as the Ghar, but I can’t say I’m not grateful.”

  “Don’t get sentimental on me now, Captain.”

  What did you do with the guards?” Nacen asked the domari as he emerged from the cell.

  “They took off when they caught sight of me,” Shukernak gave a short laugh. The big domari withdrew a mag pistol from his hip. “Thought you'd appreciate a party favor.”

  “It’ll do.” Nacen checked the ammunition. It had a full compressor core. He gestured with the pistol. “Lead the way.”

  “The airbikes are parked on a balcony two floors up,” Jeta said, rounding a corner.

  “You didn’t take the Carmine here?” Nacen glanced apprehensively down the opposing corridor.

  “Couldn’t. We were flying over the gorge, trying to get to you, when the two fighters that escorted us in fired on us,” Jeta sneered. “The Carmine suffered some serious hits, but Linasette managed to evade most of it. We took the Skyraiders out as she made her escape over the canyon. We lost communications with her shortly after we arrived.”

  “Understood. I’ll scold you about taking my bike out without asking if and when we get out of here. Let’s huff it to the Skyraiders and try to get back in contact with Linasette.”

  “The Ghar are hitting this place hard, and not just with the wreckage of their own ships. A lot got through,” Jeta said grimly. “From what we could gather from Algoryn defense forces, they’re focusing on industrial targets.”

  Nacen shrugged. “So we should be fairly safe at a trade port.”

  “Well, tell that to the dozen battlesuits we saw on the landing pad where we first arrived,” Jeta countered.

  The domari turned right and took off at a brisk pace down the corridor, followed quickly by the rest of the group. Shukernak brought up the rear, heaving his plasma weapon about on its mobile support drone. The Vardosi ran past several more cells before the hallway opened up to reveal cargo bays to the left and right. The holds were disturbingly empty of personnel and drones, and conveyors lay motionless among the masses of crates.

  “The stairs to the next level are just ahead. Left at the next junction,” Jeta gave a quick glance behind to ensure the group was still following. Her pace slackened as she passed a shielded window to her right. In the twilight sky above, a tremendous light show played out over Folasi. Planetary defense guns fired thunderous hyperkinetic rounds, their burning trails leaving harsh contours across the sky. Every few seconds, one made contact with an enemy ship and it went up in a blaze of white-hot plasma and vaporized metal.

  “Well, it looks like a bountiful harvest after all,” Beskin said, narrowing his eyes at the display. Another two ships exploded in scintillating bursts as he spoke.

  “C’mon, let’s keep moving,” Nacen said hoarsely, breaking the group out of their trance. The Vardosi returned to their quick pace, checked each corner at the next intersection, and proceeded left. As they moved into the next corridor Nacen was hit by a wall of putrid stench.

  “What is that smell?” Camlo grunted.

  “It’s the Ghar’s own proprietary blend of dried sweat and whatever else they excrete,” Beskin explained. “The little bastards would spend their entire lives wired into those suits if they could. The heightened sensory input, the power the armor gives, it’s addictive. But they have very few amenities to facilitate the daily workings of a living body.”

  “I guess no one accused them of being overly sophisticated.”

  Shukernak swung his plasma gun around to catch up to the group. “Well, they’re going to smell a whole lot worse when I get done with them.”

  No more than one hundred paces down the corridor, a full squad of Algoryn scrambled across the junction. There were ten in all, clad in their off-white armor and hugging sleek black mag rifles close to their chests. They didn’t notice the Vardosi, and were gone as quickly as they appeared. Without warning, the opposing hallway flashed as searing beams of bright violet lanced out across at the retreating guards. They shrieked as the plasma vaporized air and stone alike.

  The corridor echoed with the concussions of metal on cracked stone, and three Ghar battlesuits ambled into sight. Interlocking metal plates of dull cobalt housed an interior of power lines and hydraulic cables. Scuttling forward on the three thick talons, the battlesuits stood nearly twice the height of the Algoryn. When they passed, Nacen signaled the squad to follow him. They cautiously approached the intersection.

  Camlo shook his head. “I've never even seen a Ghar before now, let alone fought one up close.”

  “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to,” Jeta rose cautiously to her feet. “The way they came from is where we need to go. Let’s get past while they chase down the guards.”

  “Fine by me.”

  The battlesuits sent another round of their wide beams through the Algoryn ranks. Four of the remaining men managed to dart out of the way, taking what little refuge they could find in the small alcoves of the hall. A pair of their comrades were cut clean through, their own plated reflex armor doing nothing to stop the concentrated rays. The withering hail of return fire from the guards did nothing to halt the battlesuits’ advance.

  Stepping lightly around the corner, Nacen and the rest of the squad began to move down the opposite end of the corridor while Shukernak kept an eye on the battlesuits, his weapon trained on the exposed plasma reactors on their backs. Nacen snapped his mag pistol up and crossed under the archway leading to the stairs. He heard a tiny squeal of surprise and instinctively shifted his pistol’s sights to the source. A Ghar Outcast stood before him, bringing a pitifully small rifle to bear. It barely reached Nacen’s belt level without the powered suit. His mag pistol barked once and the little Ghar collapsed with a sizable hole in its chest. From the staircases ahead of them, a chorus of squeals and rasping shouts erupted. There was a scrambling of feet and ballistics peppered the staircase.

  “This way is no good!”

  The battlesuit on the left turned to respond to the sudden gunfire. It was greeted by a rapid stream of plasma from Shukernak’s heavy weapon and a bellow from the big domari. Nacen withdrew from the staircase and sprinted toward the battlesuits as his domari opened fire.

  “Camlo, Beskin, on me!” Nacen demanded. “The rest of you, give us covering fire!”

  The plasma support gun began ripping into the Ghar’s dense metal plating, followed by a chorus of pings from the domari’s mag rounds.

  “Stay out of range of the claws,” Nacen advised over his squad’s shard. “Get low by the legs if you can and use their size against them. Don’t go for the plasma reactor. If it detonates in close quarters it’s taking all of us with it.”

  The battlesuit let loose a concentrated beam at the charging Vardosi. Nacen dashed to the side as soon as the petals of the gun closed, and the shot narrowly missed him. The
Ghar swung the beam left to catch one of the vardanari, but Camlo managed to duck beneath its path. The petals of the scourer cannon widened and took aim at Nacen, the plasma stirring within easily visible from only a few steps away. The first rounds of dispersed plasma scorched only the ground where he had been a fraction of a second before.

  Nacen was under the beast now and quickly squeezed off three rounds into the underside of a leg. He rose, dodging as the Ghar’s massive claw came crashing down. Nacen felt the solid concrete of the hallway quake and shatter. He shifted behind the bulky suit as it recovered from its swing. He jumped up and planted one boot firmly on the side of the suit’s carapace and gripped the top of an armored plate.

  Pulling himself up, he jammed his mag pistol into a bundle of cables beneath the shoulder plating. Despite a stinging pain in his right leg, he managed to keep his footing. He fired several shots into the Ghar’s shoulder before it lost control of its claw and flung him against the wall.

  Nacen tried to stand, but a sharp pain shot through his spine and he slumped against the floor. The Ghar shuddered as it turned to face him, claw dangling uselessly from its crackling carapace. It leveled its scourer cannon at his head, and the petals of the gun’s barrel glowed violet. The squad’s firepower shifted, and the suit was torn apart by plasma rounds before it could do the same to the captain. It collapsed in a terrible screeching of twisted metal and hissing air from severed hydraulic cables.

  Nacen dragged himself over to the battlesuit to shield him from the Algoryn’s fire, which now struck both Ghar and Vardosi indiscriminately. Camlo, he could tell, had been hit in his good arm. He was trying his best to dodge the Ghar’s claw as he weaved in and out between the suit’s stamping legs. Beskin continued to move around the suit, sending mag fire with deadly precision into exposed areas. The battlesuit gave one last burst with its scourer cannon, blackening the wall over Nacen’s head before it slouched over and the light faded from the sensors in its helm.

  The final battlesuit still lumbered on. Nacen saw the Ghar had been shredded by mag rifle rounds from both sides. Camlo and Beskin dove for cover as it opened up a stream of plasma. Taking advantage of the Ghar’s distraction, Alifair advanced and pelted the exposed areas at closer range as he had seen Beskin do. Power cables flung apart and sparks flew. Nacen joined in, taking aim for the cables around the neck. The enraged Ghar made to fire again, but its cannon didn’t react.