“Your life isn’t over,” Mortimous said from behind her as she walked back to her quarters, somehow always knowing exactly what she was thinking. “It’s just beginning.”
75
Something had to change. Talbot knew that much; he just didn’t know what he could do differently. Even with the firepower and protection offered by their CABs, they were being picked apart. The people he would normally rely on were either missing, dead, or critically injured. The remaining lieutenants, even though they outranked Talbot, were clearly happy to defer to General Reiser’s son.
Including Talbot, they were down to nine officers. That included Warwick, who had stopped yelling threats at the Carthagens from the floor of the transport he was resting on but only because he was delirious and slipping in and out of consciousness.
Dozens of laser blasts continued to fly at them from both ends of the tunnel. Sporadic explosions within feet of their fortified trench reminded them that they were stuck.
Looking around at his fellow soldiers, thinking of all the different types of weapons they had unleashed only to face more attacks, he realized that his desperation was prompting him to give certain measures more consideration than they otherwise deserved.
Holding out a thick glove, he began to initiate an atom grenade. After entering the command into his suit’s computer, he heard a click. An internal cylinder released a small disc that rolled into a loading chamber. From there, small vials opened after a timed release.
Atom grenades were the only weapon fitted on CABs—and only on very few of them—that weren’t immediately available for use. The grenades couldn’t be carried in a ready-to-fire state because the volatile components could explode while attached to the CAB. If that happened, the reinforced suit would be dust and any others within hundreds of feet would be nothing but smoking scrap metal. The projectile was sophisticated enough to arm fully only after the grenade was launched and racing toward its target.
Talbot listened as the third and final tube opened, emptying its ingredient into a compartment within the grenade.
“Brace yourselves,” he said.
The other officers hunched down, and Talbot activated the launcher. A small red light flashed at the thickest part of the gauntlet, followed immediately by an orange light, a yellow, and then white. The entire sequence took only one second, just enough time to give the suit’s wearer one final chance to aim at the best target or cancel the launch of such a lethal weapon.
Talbot didn’t really have an actual target, of course. For the last few hours, they had launched projectiles of every type down the tunnels. And yet they were still under constant attack. Either there was a constant stream of Carthagens entering the battle or Talbot and the others weren’t hurting the enemy. No sane army would continue to engage in a tactic if they were being slaughtered in great numbers, so Talbot had to conclude that he and the other officers were wasting their ammunition. Worse, the Carthagens knew it.
That was the thought that raced through his mind as the colored lights flashed through their sequence. And it was why, right before the light went from yellow to white, he pulled his arm slightly to the side. Instead of sending the atom grenade into the abyss, he aimed it at a point roughly one hundred yards down the tunnel.
A click. A puff of force. The grenade ejected from the sleeve of his armor and flew down the cave. The other officers were still hunkered down, waiting for the all-safe call.
The grenade sailed through the air. A funny thing happened, though. Once it was hundreds of feet away, it collided with an invisible barrier and clanged to the ground.
“Huh?” Talbot said, seeing the tunnel stretch further ahead of them even though the grenade had hit some kind of unseen wall.
Brilliant white light filled the tunnel. Talbot looked at it with confusion, still not understanding why the atom grenade hadn’t gone farther down into the darkness.
He had just enough time to mutter, “Uh oh,”
Then the real force of the explosion began. A wall of energy that could have risen thousands of feet into the sky to form a giant mushroom cloud, was instead channeled down the narrow path of the tunnel.
Before Talbot could duck down inside the trench with the other officers, the wave of energy hit him with thousands of tons of force. Even though his CAB suit weighed more than a ton itself, the force of the atom grenade yanked him off his feet and sent him flying through the air.
He grunted and gasped for breath. While the wind had been knocked out of him, he was otherwise unharmed. The CAB suit had suffered greatly, but it had also done its job and absorbed the brunt of the explosion. Even so, almost every piece of armor plating on his suit was either charred or crumbling away. After he landed, rolled, and got back to his feet, he saw places where his armor was smoking. A screen inside his visor showed that the temperature control systems were running at full capacity.
It wasn’t until he took a step forward that he realized he had been thrown into a side corridor. Dozens of feet ahead and one story below, the other officers were lifting their heads out of the trenches and were looking for him.
“I’m over here,” he said, waving his hands.
The officers continued look for him, however.
“Right here,” he said as one of the officers looked directly at him.
Rather than acknowledge him, though, the officer continued to search the tunnel for the missing member of their party.
Talbot squinted and took another step forward. As he did, he began to notice a thin layer of energy between the side corridor he was standing in and the main tunnel. Looking up, he saw similar patches of energy along the tunnel wall opposite him, all around the cavern they were bunkered in. Some were even on the ceiling.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said out loud.
Turning, he noticed the side corridor only extended a few feet before forking into two other dimly lit stone paths. He took two steps and found that he could turn left or right. After turning right, he saw a long and narrow passageway with too many side paths to count. He walked forward and turned right at the next intersection. The main tunnel was in front of him again, with another wall of energy between him and the main part of the cave where the officers were. He was only a few feet further down from where he had been.
Looking out at the tunnel he began to realize just how many side passages existed all around the fortified section of tunnel they were in. At one across from him, directly next to where the officers were sticking their heads out of the trench, Talbot could see a Carthagen wielding a pair of vibro axes. And yet none of the Round Table officers seemed to notice that the alien was there, ready to attack.
Like an atom grenade going off inside his head, a great flash of realization hit him. Before Talbot could take the few steps necessary to get through the energy field in front of him and warn the other soldiers, the Carthagen leapt from his hiding spot, brought both axe blades together to meet in front of him, landed beside one of the Round Table officers, then jumped again. His momentum carried him from a hiding spot on the opposite side of the tunnel, to a corridor directly next to the one Talbot stood in.
The Carthagen had taken the life of another Round Table officer. Talbot wasn’t sure who it was, but he saw the helmet of a CAB, the head still inside, roll across the ground before coming to a rest.
76
When the door to Lancelot’s chamber re-opened and Arc-Mi-Joan reappeared, Julian was already back in his CAB. She walked past him without saying anything. For a moment, he thought she might claim the middle of the room and challenge him once more, even though they both knew it would be a waste of her time.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she stood on the far side of the room, looking down at the blankets and spare pieces of armor lying there.
“I’m leaving,” she said, her helmet still on, her voice not sounding quite human because of the modulator in her helmet.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
He hated t
he way he sounded, like a helpless young child rather than the general of the mightiest force the galaxy had ever known. He had come here with an array of ships that could intimidate almost any civilization in its path to join the Round Table. Now he was asking a woman half his age if she planned on killing him before she departed.
She turned and faced him. “That’s up to you.”
Then, taking stock of what few possessions she had, she laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Amused I just gave you the same answer that someone else I know would have given me.”
Seeing nothing of value on the floor, she turned to leave again.
“You aren’t going to take anything with you?”
She stopped and looked at him. “I have everything I care about,” she said, tapping her pair of Meursaults and her pair of vibro lances.
Without waiting for a response, she strode past him. The stone door slid to the side. As it did, Lancelot stood with all four hands an inch away from her weapons as if expecting someone to rush in from the hallway and attack her. The corridor was empty, though, and she stepped through the doorway to leave.
“How do I get out of here?” he asked.
“It will be easy once you get to the end of this hallway.”
“My soldiers and I were lost forever. There were mazes of tunnels everywhere.”
“It will be easy once you get to the end of this hallway,” she said again. “You’ll see.”
Then, as if considering something, she stood there for a moment in silence. After looking both ways, she re-entered the room and somehow made the weapons cabinet open without touching it. The rest of her arsenal was on display.
“What’s going on?” he asked, standing beside her at the door to the storage compartment.
She was already walking back to the door to leave. Over her shoulder she said, “Take whatever you want.”
“Why?”
She paused in the hallway once more and turned back to face him. “So you have a chance of getting to the end of the hallway.”
He swore he heard a smile in her voice, as if she wished she could stay and watch what was going to happen. Part of him wanted to ask if he would ever see her again. He also thought about inquiring where she planned to go. Although he knew there was no chance she would agree, he was also tempted to ask if she would join his forces. With her as one of his soldiers, no army would dare stand against them.
None of it was possible, though, because she was already gone.
77
Talbot could hear rustling and breathing coming from the other side of the rock wall. A Carthagen was standing only feet away, separated by a slab of stone. It was the same alien who had just beheaded one of the Round Table officers. All Talbot or the warrior had to do was turn the corner and they would be face to face.
Although he wasn’t proud to admit it, part of him wanted to avoid the Carthagen and make a dash in the hope of rejoining the other officers. Even as the shameful thought entered his mind he knew there was no way he could possibly entertain it.
He also thought about radioing back to the officers in the trench and telling them he had discovered a series of hidden corridors and was getting ready to attack one of the aliens. But if the Carthagens could listen to the officers’ communications, as Talbot suspected they could, it would also alert the enemy who was only feet away. Not to mention that as soon as he said anything, the alien, only feet away, would hear him and his cover would be ruined.
Taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, he checked his CAB’s status, particularly for what weapons he still had remaining. His cannons were gone, destroyed during the atom grenade’s blast. All of his other projectiles had already been used. The only thing remaining on him was the retractable ion knife embedded in his sleeve.
While the CABs were incredible feats of engineering, they weren’t known for being quiet. Talbot advanced as quietly as possible, taking one small step after another in the massive suit of armor. After each step, he paused to listen for any sign that the Carthagen on the other side of the wall had heard him.
At the end of the short cross-corridor, he took a deep breath and began toward the main passageway. The Carthagen sounded as if it was gasping in what Talbot guessed was someone kind of excited adrenaline rush from just having killed one of the Round Table officers. The alien would still be out of sight though, until Talbot walked up the secret passageway another two steps. After that, the Carthagen would be there and whatever he was going to do would have to happen without hesitation.
From inside the CAB, each step seemed painfully loud, and Talbot kept expecting dozens of Carthagens to feel the ground shake or hear the rumble he was causing and come running toward him.
At the next intersection of corridors, he stopped once more and listened for any sign of a change in behavior from the alien. It was still making the same excited noises and was shifting its weight back and forth from one set of feet to the other.
When Talbot leaned forward and glanced around the corner of the corridor, his legs went weak. The sight of one of the four-armed and four-legged fighters only an arm’s length away made him want to retreat to his original hiding place.
Until then, he had only caught distant glimpses of the bronze and brown armored aliens. Up close, the Carthagen looked even more terrifying and gruesome. Every part of it was armored. Its breathing was raspy. It was larger than him, even with his CAB on.
With the alien’s back to him, he analyzed each part of its protective gear and the way its arms and legs connected to its torso. It would be easy to lunge forward and jab his ion knife into the alien but before he did so he wanted to find the best spot. His initial assessment was to attack its neck or the back of its head. Upon further consideration, though, he thought it entirely possible that the Carthagens’ helmets might be reinforced with even more armor than the rest of its suits. He might be able to attack where the helmet met another protective panel, but he wasn’t confident that he could pierce the alien’s skull. The neck also posed a risk because it might not be as delicate and vital to their race as it was to humans. Because of this, Talbot turned his attention to where he guessed the alien’s ribs were, along with its vital organs.
Before he could think about it anymore, the Carthagen turned to leave the corridor. Talbot’s eyes widened and he stopped breathing. Although they couldn’t be seen, the Carthagen’s eyes probably did the same. The alien froze, completely shocked to find him there. It made a gurgling, gasping noise it probably didn’t even know it was making. For a second, the two of them simply stared at one another, dumbfounded.
As soon as the Carthagen began to growl and reach for the axes located at his hips, Talbot dived forward. In one motion, his arm jabbed toward the Carthagen’s midsection, the knife ejected from Talbot’s sleeve, and the ion energy began coursing through it.
The ion knife plunged through the Carthagen’s armor and into its belly. The attack brought Talbot in too close for to the alien to use its axes. Instinctually, the warrior cried out in pain and rage, grabbing Talbot’s wrists with its shorter arms, and using the two longer arms to grip Talbot’s helmet in an attempt to rip it off.
The Carthagen had broken into a full roar. As much as Talbot wanted to free his hands so he could slice the beast apart with his ion knife, he also wished he could place a hand over its mouth to keep it from calling for help.
The stabilizers in the suit, along with his movement, were supposed to push the Carthagen forward, out of its hiding spot and into the main part of the tunnel. Instead, the strength and weight of the alien pushed Talbot backward.
The only thing he could think to do was retract his ion knife even though it was his only weapon. As soon as the blade slid back into the plating around his arm, the Carthagen attempted to readjust its grip. In that split second, Talbot ejected the blade again, slicing through the alien’s armor at its wrist and causing brown blood to spray the cave wall and also Talbot. The Cartha
gen stumbled backward, trying to create space between itself and its attacker. In doing so, it fell from the hidden opening to the main cavern floor.
At the energy field separating the hidden corridors from the main tunnel, Talbot took a breath and then braced himself to jump on top of the Carthagen and drive his knife into it again. Before he could, one of the few remaining Round Table officers popped up out of the trench, saw the Carthagen on its back, struggling to return to its feet, and let loose with a pair of cannon blasts from only feet away. The Carthagen was engulfed in energy and was dead before it could scream.
78
Lieutenant Marv-Lel was fairly confident he would never get out of the maze he and the other officers found themselves in, let alone the entire Orleans asteroid field. The one small consolation he had to take with him to his grave was that the body of a Carthagen warrior was smoking and burnt to a crisp only feet away from him. If he weren’t low on ammunition, he would have blasted it two more times just for good measure.
Another object appeared ten or fifteen feet above the dead alien in the middle of the rock wall. Marv-Lel swiveled his shoulders to aim his cannons at it. Shocked at what he saw, he cocked his head sideways. It was a normal cave wall like any other, but with Talbot’s helmet sticking out of it.
“Hey, it’s me,” a familiar voice said.
The charge on both of Marv-Lel’s cannons, ready to be blasted, remained steady.
“Talbot?”
“Lieutenant?”
“Where have you been?” Marv-Lel asked.
“Couldn’t you hear me? I was in the side tunnels.”
“Side tunnels?”
“There’s a whole system of corridors on the other side of the wall,” Talbot said.
Still not understanding what he was seeing, Marv-Lel told Talbot to move his head back a few inches. As he watched, Talbot’s helmet disappeared right into what appeared to be solid rock, then reappeared a moment later.
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