by James Axler
The interphaser housing’s jammer had made it so that Brigid and the rest of the CAT teams could inform Diana of the setup for the pyramid, one that now appeared on a data monitor just off her shoulder. If there was something that gave the New Olympian a sense of hope, it was that they were under the direction and guidance of one of the most thorough and intelligent women in the world. Having used the passive GPS information from CAT Beta’s suits and their exploration of the lower levels of the pyramid, Artem15 and her Spartan guard were fully aware of the path to the captives of the Etruscan gods.
Artem15 led the way, her escorts pausing only to rip a door off of its hinges and jam it into the rock as a barrier against pursuit. The quarters for the fifteen-foot automatons were tight enough that they had to move down corridors in single file, but the last thing they needed was for Charun and Vanth to show up and easily make their way in pursuit of the mobile suits.
“Fiddy, set up a barricade here,” Artem15 ordered. “Weapons free. Especially the explosive spears.”
“Yeah. I remember the briefing about Vanth and her explosive arrows,” Spartan 50, nicknamed Fiddy, answered. He accepted the sheaths for gren-tipped spears from Spartan 46 and her own.
“On me, Four-Six,” Artem15 added. “We’re going to look for a way out for the prisoners.”
With that, the three robots became two. Artem15 hated leaving one of her own in the line of fire, but there were too many people in need of help and there had to be something that could hold the Etruscan deities at bay.
This being a Spartan expeditionary suit, and not the true Artem15, she didn’t have her heat spear, a “hero suit” weapon. Instead the war spears were simply old RPG shells on sticks, thrown with more than sufficient robotic strength to burst the impact fuse on the warheads. Artem15’s arsenal was both the standard explosive shells and a superheated spearhead on a conducting staff that could carve steel and stone let alone flesh.
That would have been nice to have, but she’d make mayhem with what she had. The shoulder guns alone and the powerful, wall-smashing fists of the Gear Skeleton would have to suffice.
And then, Artem15 and Spartan 46 were on the balcony overlooking the prison of the pit. The depth and breadth of the chamber was nothing short of epic, easily eclipsing every other structure she’d seen except for the Tartarus Crack in which Marduk had left his vast clone vats and the hundreds of ancient automatons that would become the backbone of the New Olympian military.
Looking through her cameras, Diana could see that the people down there seemed to be awakening from their hypnotic slumber. Not just humans, but also livestock in the form of cattle, sheep and horses were present. The yaps of dogs and yowls of cats also managed to reach her ears.
The pyramid shook.
“Fiddy?”
Another distant explosion resounded. “Winged bitch showed up and tried to impress me with her boom stick!”
“Fall back if you have to,” Artem15 ordered.
“If,” Spartan 50 added with defiance.
“As you were,” Artem15 returned. “Come on. Let’s look to see if there’s a path out of here for the crowd. There had to be a way in for all of them, and not down the narrow ladders.”
Spartan 46 grunted in agreement. “I can’t recall the last time I saw sheep doing ladders, do you?”
Diana let out a chuckle. “Climbing time. We’ll look for a major ramp.”
The two robots dug their finger and toe claws into the wall and scaled their way down into the pit, aware of the precious cargo they had to protect from the demons above and their own footsteps.
* * *
THE MANTA ALIT on its gear and Kane hit the release on his harness. He carried his shotgun again, and this time instead of rubber slugs and tear-gas shells, he was armed for war. He paused only to grab a pack of spare shells for the weapon. Kane knew that using a gren launcher in close quarters would bring as much harm to him and his allies as it would to his opposition, given the general nature of the weapon, but these rounds were meant for punching deep through light armor and detonating inside their target without spraying indiscriminate shrapnel everywhere.
He hooked the ammo pack to his harness and thumbed the explosive 12-gauge shells into its tubular magazine. Charun had been pulled from the battlefield, even as his Stygian pilots had been torn to shreds under Grant’s counterattack, and that meant there were allies in the depths of the pyramid who’d engaged Vanth and his other monstrous minions.
The last thing he wanted was to have even a fully armed and equipped Olympian Spartan stand alone against the two alien entities and their forces. Certainly, the pair had lost control of their amorphous giant, the creature who’d swallowed three such warrior robots and a platoon of soldiers, but that didn’t mean they were completely disarmed.
Kane reached the peak of the mountain and saw that Charun had left the hatch open. He caught sight of a shadow moving at the bottom of the ladder, so the Cerberus leader pumped a single shot into the hole. The detonation of his shotgun gren was loud, and a bloodied Stygian guard limped into view, holding the broken pieces of his rifle in his hands.
Kane slung the shotgun and snagged the ladder. The friction of his grasp and the pressure of his boots on the sides of the ladder helped him slide down in a controlled drop that deposited him into the entrance foyer of the pyramid. The stunned and wounded Stygian let the broken pieces of his rifle fall away, one tri-fingered hand plucking a knife from his belt even as Kane let go of the ladder and dropped the rest of the way to the ground.
With the reflexes of a panther, Kane ducked beneath the wounded alien’s slash, realizing the creature he was up against might not have been operating at peak capacity but still possessed prowess equal to the finest of the Magistrate corps. The Stygian reversed the point of its knife and stabbed, the point snagging the shoulder of Kane’s suit. Polymers split, slicing open, but still managed to protect the human skin beneath.
Kane spun, as if to whirl away from the deadly attack of his alien foe, but dropped down to one knee and swept his leg across the ankles of the humanoid. The Stygian’s spindly legs snarled against each other under the swift, savage lash, and it comically windmilled its arms in an effort to stay upright. In the next moment he’d crashed on the hard stone floor, and Kane pounced, coming down with his weight focused onto the peak of his elbow against the breastbone of the alien minion.
Ribs snapped under the elbow drop, Kane’s joint protected by the non-Newtonian polymers hardening like steel. That very protective quality also made the force of the blow increase as the elbow was now as if it were encased in armor plate, rendering the protective cage of bone around the humanoid’s vital organs a mass of splinters stabbing and slashing through lungs and blood vessels.
Inky-green blood spurted from the abomination’s lips and its colorless eyes blinked in shock and horror.
Kane rolled away from the fallen foe’s torso, spinning on his backside so that he could bring his booted feet around to bear on the opposing entity’s head and neck. A swift scissor kick pulverized jawbone and ground vertebrae to chunks, ending the thing’s suffering within moments.
Kane scrambled to his feet and looked up the ladder, Grant taking the lead down the ladder, Brigid above him.
“Beta, I’m picking up comms from the Olympians. They’re looking for the exit. The main exit,” Kane said. “Uplink with Cerberus and look for that door leading underground and go that way!”
“Sure you won’t need us?” Edwards asked.
“Over a half million humans need you more than we do. Now go!” Kane ordered.
“On it,” Domi returned.
“Close the door, Baptiste,” Kane said. “And leave a surprise in case we chase them back up this way.”
Brigid braced herself at the top of the ladder and Grant handed up a larger version of the flat mine she’d hidden in her ankle brace earlier.
“This should shear even an armored Annunaki in two,” Brigid said, securing it.
/> “Then don’t arm it too soon,” Grant offered.
“As if I’d forget that, or any step,” Brigid replied.
In moments they were down with Kane, guns out and ready.
* * *
THE SOUND OF Lakesh over her Commtact made Domi feel whole again, his Indian accent and deep voice soothing her nerves like salve on a burn. It didn’t matter that she was in full run down the side of a mountain, loaded with grens and a Copperhead rifle. It didn’t matter that, a few hundred feet beneath her, two alien entities claiming godhood were still trying to get to over half a million human captives and assorted livestock.
It just mattered that her love’s voice was in her ear.
“We’re looking for the main entrance to the Etruscan pyramid, and using ground-penetrating radar as well as uploads of the layout transmitted by both you and Brigid. We’ve found a strong possibility,” Lakesh said. “Adjust your heading forty degrees west, beloved.”
“Thank you, Moe,” Domi said. “How big is the opening we’re looking for?”
“It’s actively concealed,” Lakesh responded. “Some form of camouflage netting is over the cave, and there was no thermal reading on the crack.”
Domi skidded, adjusting her heading. Behind her, Sinclair, Edwards and Smaragda took to the new course, as well, Edwards laden down with one of the two war bags that had arrived on the Manta. Domi led the way with her Copperhead, which should be sufficient for even a Stygian soldier wearing New Olympian armor, thanks to its high-velocity armor-piercing bullets. But if that wasn’t the case, she had a bolt-action, magazine-fed shotgun attached in front of the trigger guard, in the place of the old foregrip handle. The XM-26 was a 5-shot 12-gauge that stripped off shotgun shells from its box, and could be rapidly reloaded.
Of course, Cerberus Redoubt had loaded the war bag with light antiarmor shells intended for vehicles akin to Sandcats and Deathbird helicopters, and hopefully that kind of firepower would be sufficient to hurt Charun and Vanth. Domi didn’t envy that Kane would get a shot at them first, especially since she was dead certain there were likely other threats guarding the cave entrance.
They reached the camouflage netting and Domi slung her rifle. Grabbing her knife from its sheath, she started slashing, creating a hole in the cave entrance. She could see that the ramp was easily fifty yards wide and tall enough for even the New Olympian Spartan mobile suits to walk without stooping. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she snagged a handful of netting to use as a climbing rope to descend. The entrance continued beneath her, a slanted field that would disgorge onto ground dozens of yards farther. It was just simpler and quicker to drop down from the upper lip of the cave entrance.
As she got down, her ruby-red eyes scanned the darkness. There was something wrong, something dangerous that spurred her instincts to full life. She brought down the Copperhead-shotgun combo.
“Slow and easy,” Domi called upward. “Company down here.”
Dust rained from where her comrades stopped at the roof of the cave entrance, reassuring her.
“I’ll scout,” she informed them.
“Dammit,” Edwards cursed.
Domi ignored his frustration and treaded into the cave. She alternated between infrared illumination and her already light-sensitive eyes. The setting sun had turned the cave inky-black, but something was present that her already canny senses could feel but were not showing up on her shadow suit’s optics or audio pickups.
Then she heard the faintest of rustles, saw small clouds of dust and sand falling from rising shapes.
Of course. They hid under tarps, hiding them as we hide in our shadow suits, she thought. Her instincts hadn’t let her down, realizing that there would be guards present, and they would seek the same means of concealment as had been used across millennia of human warfare. Domi whirled toward one of the rising figures, letting the Copperhead snarl out a salvo of high-speed death.
The tarp shook and vibrated under the rain of bullets, but the form beneath continued surging forward, a deep, vibrant growl resonating inside a deep, powerful chest.
It was a Fomori-style creature and probably something that was also protected by bullet-resistant fabrics or fabric-like metals. It was too close for her to risk the shotgun gren or to do anything else but throw herself into a somersault as the tented titan lunged forward. Domi hit a tuck-and-roll, getting out of the path of the monstrosity, its camouflaging tarpaulin fluttering to the ground and revealing its massive, deformed bulk. Domi was on her feet in an instant, tracking and shooting at the creature’s exposed back.
While 4.85 mm rounds might have been effective on human-size foes, even behind ballistic body armor, to the Stygian giant her salvo of automatic fire was nothing more than the scratching of an irritating itch. At more than seven feet in height, and looking to weigh in at five hundred pounds, the creature boasted four thick arms and one and a half faces, a trio of glistening eyes locking onto her. The one and a half mouths were ugly scars that twisted into a gleeful pair of smiles, and four large hands opened, a dozen fingers clawing the air for her.
“Food!” her Commtact translated for her.
Domi triggered the M-26 and the antiarmor shell boomed loud enough to rattle her teeth in the confines of the cave. The Fomori whirled, one of its quartet of arms hanging by threads of skin and stretched sinew from a ravaged torso.
Despite that horrific damage, it still continued its single-minded approach, two more of the things throwing off their disguises, gibbering laughter echoing in the cave.
Domi worked the bolt on her under-barrel shotgun when the snarl of Edwards’s Sin Eater heralded the eradication of the alien abomination’s skull.
Sela Sinclair and Smaragda cut loose with their shotguns, chopping a second of the horrors apart with a salvo of armor-piercing, explosive slugs, thunderclaps striking quickly and certainly.
The third of the Fomori was caught flat-footed, left indecisive as to whether to attack the small black-clad girl, charge toward the newcomers or flee to fight another day. That moment of indecision meant that Domi and Edwards were able to both take good aim at its misshapen skull and rain damnation onto it. A flurry of 9 mm bullets and an explosive slug sent a rain of blood and tissue misting across the interior of the cavern.
“Told you wait,” Domi said. She took out her magazine and loaded two replacement shells into it.
“And we heard there was a party going on,” Sinclair returned. “Ain’t no party like a CAT Beta party.”
Domi smiled. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, boss,” Edwards said. “Now let’s get to the pit.”
The four warriors continued down into the darkness.
Chapter 25
Vanth tore her tattered wing harness from her shoulders, hurling it to the ground in disgust. She watched as her lover approached, hammer in hand, trepidation slowing his gait.
“My bride?” Charun asked.
“You had to bring the interphaser into our armory?” Vanth asked. Her smart-metal armor sleeve was healing its tear, quickly, but the wing harness, having received much more damage, was shorn apart.
“That was how they got in? But how did they get—?” Charun began.
“How did they activate the three battle robots that you left with quivers full of exploding spears?” Vanth asked. She drew her torch, then extended the flame like the blade of a sword. “How did they render me as an Earthbound fool by throwing said bombs at me with the force of a giant?”
“My love…” Charun started to speak but Vanth slashed at the air between them, letting out a screech of frustration.
Vanth glared at him. “Let us invite them under our roof. They will suspect nothing. Our song has already subjugated their greatest mind.”
“Still your tongue!” Charun bellowed. He scanned around the corridor and saw that Vanth’s arrows and quiver were not present. “Where is your bow?”
Vanth’s rage flashed to morbid guilt, her beautiful, lush mouth turning downward at the men
tion of her archery.
“You lost it to a human?” Charun asked.
“My arrows detonated,” Vanth admitted, stepping back. “My arrows detonated because you—”
Charun snatched the female by her wrist, dragging her off balance, disregarding the flaming sword in her grasp. “Because I what?”
“Because you invited those…mewling little apes under our roof!” Vanth shouted.
Charun let his hammer hang in the air, backhanding his bride with every ounce of strength he could muster. Her cheek and jaw were left livid, lips dripping blood beneath the split mask she wore. Even behind the shielding for her eyes, Charun could see them welling up with tears of despair and rage. “Because you were foolish in your invulnerability.”
Charun slapped her again, her metal mask peeling even further away, her lips burst like overgorged worms. He tightened his grasp at her wrist, pulling her in closer until her cheek was punctured on one of his tusks.
“You blame me for your failures?” Charun whispered. “You tell me that it was my fault that our scheme didn’t work?”
“The humans…” Vanth began.
Charun threw her to the ground and took the torch from her hand. “The humans. The humans are too mighty, too willful. Brigid Baptiste somehow managed to stave off your suggestions because she was brilliant. Do you not recall the origin of this species? The simplicity and complacency inserted into their DNA? They were born to kneel and serve!”
Vanth looked up, her blood dripping on the stone floor beneath her.
Charun observed the intersection and he saw scattered segments of the black bow that Vanth wielded, a holy device made of the same materials as his own hammer. They had been driven apart, and scorched, charred by the detonations of powerful energy crystals. That explained the shredded wing harness of Vanth’s. She had survived the chain-fire explosion of her deadly arrows only by using her own wings as a shield; after all, that was part of the purpose of the appendages. Certainly, they allowed for easier steering and maneuvering in flight, but the wings’ main purpose was to protect their backs, and their ability to fold around their front was a feature that had carried the battle for Charun on many occasions.