Asura

by R P L Johnson

  Eventually they felt the deceleration that meant they were approaching an intersection. The speeding ramp deposited them in front of one of the huge, crystal view ports. Through it, Rose could see the lava plain some two hundred metres below, partially obscured by swirling sulphurous clouds.

  'Hang on,' said Garrett. 'I've got an idea.' He pumped another cartridge into the Remington and fired on the wall of crystal. The hardened steel flechettes ricocheted off the wall, missing the Major by inches.

  ‘Are you mad?’ the Major shouted, but Garrett ignored him. He knelt at the wall.

  ‘Not a scratch,’ he said. ‘Damn!’

  ‘Stand back, Mister Garrett.’ Rose stood behind him with the Asura’s staff. He swung at the wall. The blade bit deep into the crystal. It was thicker than it looked, but Rose could clearly see the hair-fine edge protruding on the other side of the huge view port.

  ‘Give me another minute,’ Rose shouted. ‘We’ll get out of here yet!’

  He swung the rod again and again. The tough crystal refused to shatter. It didn’t even crack, but it couldn’t stand up to the molecular blade of the Asura’s staff. Rose quickly sliced four deep cuts into the crystal outlining a square a metre wide. He flung his shoulder against the square and felt it give. The cube he had cut from the crystal must have weighed close to half a tonne, but the glassy smooth fracture planes from the molecular blade were almost frictionless. Garrett added his shoulder to Rose’s efforts and the block began to slide. They kept the movement going, pushing the block through the yard-thick window until with a final heave, it fell clear and tumbled to the lava plain below, ringing off the side of the tower as it fell.

  A blast of hot air belched through the newly-formed opening.

  ‘This way!’ Rose shouted. He covered the others with his SCAR while they crawled, one-by-one through the opening and out onto the outer wall of the structure. Finally he rolled his last two grenades down the slope and dived through the opening himself.

  The outer surface of the crystal view port was far from smooth. Shards and sharply angled facets provided ample handholds as Rose scaled the glass wall and joined the others on a narrow plateau that ran like a window sill along the bottom of the wall.

  A concussion from inside the structure nearly shook him from his handhold. A plume of smoke burst from the opening above him. Rose’s grenades would buy them some time, but not much: certainly not enough to scale the outside of the tower all the way to its base.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Rose shouted. ‘Get going, I’ll hold them off.’

  ‘You and me both,’ replied the Major. He had already set up the Minimi machine gun on its bipod – maw trained on the opening above.

  Rose joined him, slamming one of his few remaining magazines into his SCAR as Tej led the two non-climbers down the tower.

  They had a good chance, Rose thought. The outside of the structure was a jumble of shapes as its spire-like features intersected. The whole surface was studded with shallow blisters, fins and other geometric protrusions that stuck out like alien air conditioning units. And Tej was one of the best mountaineers Rose had ever seen. He just had to buy them enough time.

  The first Nagas through the opening was blasted back with its head and shoulders a bloody ruin. Then they came in numbers: two and three Nagas squeezing through the narrow opening together.

  The Major’s Minimi clattered almost continuously. Without a spare barrel, the weapon was dangerously close to overheating, but the Major pressed hard. A storm of lead sliced through the Nagas and the opening was soon clogged with the bodies of the dead. Rose picked off the few stragglers that had escaped the firestorm to skitter up the glass wall like bugs.

  ‘With enough ammunition we could hold this position forever,’ the Major said.

  ‘And how much ammo have you got?’

  ‘Not enough!’

  Rose looked down the tower. Tej and the others had made good progress.

  ‘Go!’ Rose said. ‘It doesn’t take two of us to hold them off.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go?’ the Major replied. The plug of dead bodies twitched and he fired a volley into the mass.

  ‘Because I’m the better climber. Go on, I’ll catch up.’

  The Major glowered at him, but couldn’t counter Rose’s argument. He relinquished the Minimi and took Rose’s SCAR and spare magazines in return.

  ‘Go on! Get out of here!’ Rose urged, and the Major jumped down between two geometric outcrops and chased down the tower after the others.

  Rose forced himself to concentrate on the opening: everything outside that one square metre was irrelevant. He had to make every last round count.

  The plug of dead bodies twitched, shifted and then exploded! The twisted grey bodies of Nagas flew in all directions as the charge from behind pushed them from the opening like shot from a scatter gun. Black blood and alien offal rained down, splattering against the side of the tower and smearing the huge glass wall like bugs hitting a windscreen.

  Rose ignored the rain of body parts and concentrated on the living. He alternated between hammering round after round through the opening and picking off the surge of Nagas that had burst through in the initial rush. He could feel the heat radiating from the Minimi’s barrel, even against the stifling temperature that boiled up from the lava plain below.

  Rose leaned into the Minimi’s stock as the powerful weapon bucked in his hands. Hot brass spat out of the side of the weapon, forming a rapidly-growing pile at Rose’s feet. Rose’s world became a narrow strip in the iron sights of the Minimi. A place solely inhabited by screeching, inhuman targets and the constant thunder of the Minimi.

  A dark shape moved behind the crystal wall.

  Asura!

  The thought barely had time to flash across Rose’s mind before the crystal wall shattered: exploding outwards into metre-thick shards. He hugged the wall as chunks rained down around him. Blocks the size of telephone booths slammed into the tower structure, missing him by inches. Sharp-edged splinters whistled past his head.

  He risked looking up. For a fraction of a second, the Asura was visible framed by the shattered wall before an army of grey-skinned Nagas swarmed out in every direction.

  Rose mashed the Minimi’s trigger, but nothing happened. A blade-like shard of crystal had sliced through the steel of the upper receiver, jamming the bolt.

  Rose ran for his life, instantly forgetting everything he had ever learned about mountaineering and virtually sprinting down the side of the tower. A series of fins stepped out around the curve of the tower and he took them at a dead run, each long stride carrying him across a yard of fresh air to the next fin. He sprinted down them like a child running down a giant’s staircase.

  The fins stopped but Rose couldn’t: the Nagas were right on his back. Ahead of him was a narrow gap like the fork in a huge tree trunk where one of the tower’s secondary spires surged upwards from the main structure. Rose leaped, his heels landing just inches from a straight drop down to the plain below.

  He ripped the second Remington from its holster and fired one-handed back the way he had come. The closest Nagas was mid-leap when the flechettes tore into it. The blast killed the creature's momentum and it dropped like a stone, screaming and clawing at the hardened steel nails driven into its flesh.

  Rose took off again.

  Tej led Garrett and Khamas through a tortuous series of sloping gullies. The narrow gullies offered no hand holds and only the most treacherous footing. Their path twisted back on itself several times as they followed the contours that curled around the tower like brain coral growing on some rocky, underwater pinnacle.

  Ahead, Tej could see his goal: a grill-like formation that they could climb straight down like a ladder. It would take them almost all the way to the tower’s base.

  The Major caught up with them just as they were coming out of the “coral”.

  ‘Where’s the Captain?’ Tej asked.

  ‘On his way, keep going.’


  Tej dropped down onto one of the narrow ridges that ran around the circumference of the tower. It was easy going but the tower wall at its side was pock-marked with all too familiar shapes: metre-wide circles of the translucent blue material that served the Asuras as doors.

  ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  As if on cue, the portals began to open with a noise like bone growing.

  ‘Run!’ Tej shouted and they sprinted across the ridge.

  The first Nagas came out right in front of Tej. Sprinting for his life, he almost barrelled right into it, but at the last moment dodged to one side and gave the creature a shoulder barge that sent it spinning off the tower to the plain below. He stopped for a second to spray a volley of shots into the open portal, tossing a grenade into its black depths for good measure.

  ‘Tej, keep moving!’ the Major shouted, but it was too late. A dozen other portals had already opened and a dozen Nagas spilled out onto the ridge between Tej and the only way off the tower. Khamas and Garrett were already climbing down the ladder-like grill at the far end of the ridge while the Major gave covering fire. But Tej was trapped: there was no way through.

  ‘Keep going!’ Tej shouted. ‘I’ll find another way.’

  He sprinted back the way he had come and heaved himself up into the coral-like formation. If the footing had been treacherous before, now—with a mob of Nagas on his tail—it was downright deadly. Twice his foot slipped on the smoothly rounded surface and only his superb natural balance saved him from the drop to the plain below.

  The Nagas were right behind him. The formation was causing them as much trouble as it was him. Their claws could not even scratch the tough surface of the outer wall of the tower. At least one of the six-legged fiends lost their footing and skittered over the edge. One Nagas clutched at its neighbour in desperation and pulled them both to their doom.

  Tej made it through the coral and onto another of the regularly spaced ridges. He turned and fired back at the Nagas still blundering through the tricky furrows. He picked three more creatures off before his SCAR ran dry. He ditched the rifle and concentrated on climbing.

  The ridge ended abruptly at the junction between two huge spires that surged out from the main structure. A great sweeping expanse of crystal covered one of the walls, the other gleamed like polished brass but Tej had no time for sightseeing. There was no way he could scale the mirror-smooth walls, but where they came together there was a narrow gap about a yard across: a three sided shaft with the fourth open to the elements. Tej eased himself into the gap like a rock climber scaling a chimney fissure. He braced his back against one wall and his boots against the other. Keeping a steady pressure against both walls jammed him into the fissure while below him, the lava plain beckoned. Slowly, carefully, he started to ease his way down.

  The climb quickly started to sap his strength. His thighs burned with lactic acid, but he couldn’t release the pressure even for a second. The smooth walls offered much less grip than a natural rock wall; a single mistake could send him tumbling to his death.

  He was concentrating on the climb so hard that he didn’t see the Nagas until it was almost on top of him. He looked up to see the monster climbing head first down the chimney towards him. It braced four of its limbs against the walls of the shaft while its claws reached for his throat.

  He ripped his kukri from its sheath and slashed upwards. The Nagas shrieked as the blade tore into it, instinctively clutching at its wounds and losing its grip on the walls of the shaft. Before he could do anything about it, it fell right on top of Tej: a bloody thrashing mass. The weight forced him down and they slid down the shaft. Tej pressed as hard as he could against the walls of the shaft but he couldn’t stop the slide. More to the point, the creature was far from dead. Six limbs clawed at him, talons slicing through his clothes and ripping bloody furrows through his flesh.

  But tej had his own sting. He slashed at the Nagas, the broad leaf-shaped blade of his kukri biting deep. Together they slid: a bloody vicious tangle of sinew, claws and steel. Blood, both black and red, smeared down the wall of the chimney as they skidded along. Tej knew that they couldn’t continue like that forever; either one of them would die, or they would both shoot out of the chimney and fall to their deaths. He let go his grip that pinned two of the creature’s arms and with both hands thrust the kukri upwards as deep as he could into the Nagas’s body cavity. Warm blood flowed down across his fists as he twisted the blade. With a superhuman effort he pulled on the hilt of the kukri and threw the Nagas bodily from the chimney. It sailed out, clutching at its innards that spilled from its ruined gut.

  Tej pressed against the walls of the shaft with all his strength. His blood-slickened boots skidded against the smooth surface; below him he could see the shaft opening up, walls curving away like the bell of a trumpet. A few more yards and they would be too wide to brace his back against. He pressed harder, palms burning as he pressed raw flesh against the speeding surface. He could feel the shaft opening. Little by little he was being spread apart, but he was also slowing. The blood on the walls was now all red, but still he pushed.

  Finally he came to a halt, spread-eagled in the shaft. He had saved himself from the fall, but he was at full stretch, both hands and feet jammed against the walls, totally exposed.

  A screech from above forced him to look up. The chimney above him was alive with black eyes and gaping maws.

  CHAPTER 35

  Tej managed to free one hand, throwing even more strain onto his legs. He couldn’t hold that position for long, Nagas or no Nagas.

  He flexed his raw fingers around the hilt of his kukri. If he was to fall, he’d take of those things with him. Tej would have some sport on the way down.

  He looked down at the empty space that yawned beneath him. He could jump now, but that felt too much like running away. No—he would stand his ground until the end.

  ‘Tej! Hold on!’

  He looked down. About a dozen feet below him and twenty feet around the curve of the main tower structure a black obsidian ledge jutted out and crouched on it was Jonathan Rose. But there was no way Tej could reach him and Rose didn’t even have a rope. But he did have one trick up his sleeve. He thrust out with the Asura’s lance as if stabbing at some invisible opponent. The weapon shot across the gap towards Tej and slammed into the wall a yard below his boots. Rose leaned on the lance with all his weight so that it would not retract.

  ‘Jump!’ he shouted.

  Tej looked down at the thin black line beneath his boots and the beckoning fall beyond. Before he could think twice, he dropped, falling past the lance before catching it as cleanly as a gymnast landing a jump on the high bar. He hooked a leg over the lance and stated to slide down towards Rose. No sooner was he out from under the chimney that the Nagas followed him. The first struck the lance hard and fell, pin wheeling down to the cavern floor below, but the second and third clung on and crawled after him, quick as rats along a rope.

  Rose saw the creatures drop onto the lance behind Tej, but there was nothing he could do to help. With the weight of Tej and two Nagas, it took all his strength just to hold onto the end of the lance. Tej spun around on the lance, wrapping his legs around the rod like a fireman sliding down a pole, only now he was upside down, sliding down a thin pole on his back, three hundred feet above the ground. Gripping the lance with his stocky legs he drew his P9 and fired back at the Nagas. The first monster’s head exploded as the nine millimetre rounds punched into its face at point blank range. Tej continued firing as he slid along on his back. When he reached Rose he rolled off the lance, landing in a rifleman’s crouch with his P9 still spitting lead at the following Nagas.

  As soon as Tej landed, Rose relaxed his iron grip on the end of the lance. Free from the constant pressure the alien weapon began to contract back to its original size. The tip cleared the anchorage it had dug for itself in the tower wall and the weight of the remaining Nagas immediately dragged it down. Rose tried to hang onto
it but the end of the lance ripped from his grasp and went spiralling down to the cavern floor along with the second Nagas: a screeching passenger on a one way trip to oblivion.

  Together they sprinted around the obsidian ridge. They came to another of the grill structures and started to climb down. The ladder of metal fins extended down as far as they could see. Rose thought he could see movement below. As they drew closer he saw that they were catching up with the others: the Major, Khamas and Garrett who had shaken off their pursuers. They redoubled their efforts and quickly caught up with the rest of their team.

  ‘It is good to see you again, my friends,’ Khamas hailed as they caught up. ‘I knew that it would take more than a few Nagas to slow you down!’

  ‘More than a few Nagas,’ Garrett said... ‘How about a thousand.’

  They looked down. They were directly above the main door to the tower, the door through which they had entered twenty minutes and half a lifetime ago. While they had been climbing down the outside of the tower, hundreds of Nagas had poured down the internal travellators. They massed on the lava plain before them: a churning sea of grey bodies.

  Rose looked desperately for a way out, but it was the Major that spotted it first.

  ‘Over there, on the other side of that rift.’

  Rose looked where the Major was pointing. A deep chasm in the cavern floor led right up to the tower wall. Its depths glowed white-hot with incandescent rock and clouds of volcanic gas boiled up from the cleft. Elemental sulphur vapour had crystallised along its edges, pale yellow against the black rock. But beyond that the cavern floor was clear.

  ‘The rift stretches back halfway across the cavern.’ The Major continued. ‘By the time they get around it we should be almost at the way out.’

  ‘They’ll climb over it,’ Rose shouted. ‘They’ll do what we’re doing, climb up and around the tower.’

  ‘Only if they see us. The vapour from the rift should give us some cover.’

  The Major was right. The Nagas swarmed around the tower’s entrance but without an Asura to give them direction, their movements were chaotic, almost random. It didn’t look like they had been spotted.