by James Axler
Grant knew that the machine gunners needed to be disciplined and conservative with their ammunition. The fact that they had two hundred rounds in a belt was not as important as the fact that they could warp and damage the barrels of their heavy weapons in sustained fire. In this position, simply shooting until they ran out of ammunition was just a waste of the gun’s deadly power.
Even the men with assault rifles worked in short bursts. Lots of gunners and lots of guns wasn’t license to shoot at anything that moved, and the Zambian soldiers had years of experience dealing with raiders and barbarians in the wilds around their city-state. Here, in a defensible position, they’d been able to set up a good counter to the kongamato, whose leaping and bounding was limited by the size of the redoubt entrance.
“I’m glad we’ve got things under control, so far,” Grant answered the Zambian officer. “But the kongamato must know what kind of a defense is down here. Otherwise, they would have tried to surge on through. Using the corpses of their dead, they might even reach the defense line.”
“And then we’d fall back, our second line providing cover fire,” Lomon said. “But I can see where you’re on edge.”
“I’m used to being the one outnumbered, and everything right now is telling me that we are outnumbered,” Grant admitted. “There’s something we’re not seeing.”
“I can feel that, too,” Lomon said. “Thurpa and the millennialists mentioned Gamal and the Panthers of Manosha. They are deadly.”
Grant nodded.
“You think that the force that jammed the doors might have the Manosha militia on deck to do something?” Lomon asked.
“I’m used to things going sour. When it rains, it always pours. What’s an army of vat-bred freaks without a force of maniacs with rifles backing them up?” he replied.
“What about Sela?” Lomon asked.
Grant smirked, glad that Lomon had noticed the other Cerberus warrior missing from the mix. “She’s checking the back door, the one that Domi and Edwards found.”
“And the tunnel systems linking this to other facilities in this network of redoubts,” Lomon added.
Grant nodded.
“Any news?” Lomon asked.
“None yet. But she’s reporting in regularly.”
“Constantly, more like it.” Sela Sinclair’s voice came through the Commtact, audible through the vibrating plate attached to pintles on Grant’s jaw. He smiled at her response. One thing about the Commact was that it could keep them in near constant communication, and thanks to the pickups on the devices, they could hear what the others were hearing.
“So what’s up?” he asked, making a point of pressing the Commtact plate on his jaw.
“The door is jammed shut,” Sinclair answered. “Edwards wedged it fairly tight, and the millennialists know their way around a welding torch.”
“A few joints going to be enough?” Grant pressed.
“Probably not, but we’ve also got the hallway rigged with high explosives, and a couple of steel I beams bracing the door,” she replied. “Still nothing on Edwards’s third trip line.”
Grant grunted in affirmation, then turned back to Lomon. “Just be ready. These things might have backup that can return fire.”
“You’re still operating under the assumption that an intelligent agency is controlling them,” Lomon commented. He nodded. “Yeah. It’s been quiet for the past couple of minutes. I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
Grant handed him a piece of paper. “That’s the frequency you can reach me on. Keep me appraised. And stay well back from your front line.”
“That’s going to be hard. I’m a leader, and not from the rear echelon,” Lomon retorted.
“In this case, I need you alive and talking to me,” Grant said. “I have to check on something.”
“Godspeed, Grant,” Lomon offered.
He smiled. “Thanks.”
* * *
THE WARLORD WATCHED as the shapes of the kongamato orbited lazily over the Zambian hydroelectric center, the one that hid the redoubt, and his lips turned upward in a mirthless smile. His enemy was surrounded, and they didn’t know how badly they were outnumbered and outgunned. Had it just been the clone-bred beasts from the underground laboratory, or the armed men of the Panthers of Manosha, then the Zambians would have been set up for one of the greatest battles of their lives.
For years, warlord Gamal had sought the treasures of the preskydark era. He’d hunted them down. He’d murdered for the slightest of hint of their locations. Gamal’s frustration was sated only by acts of slaughter, or the amassing of more weapons and power. Stockpiles of old rifles, the means to produce gunpowder for bullets and bombs—those were tantalizing tastes of what could be. The occasional finds of operating trucks and half-tracks that the Panthers of Manosha kept in operating condition were an appeasement, especially as he listened to the screams of torment as they raided small villages for metal and scrap that could be fashioned into crude replacement parts. Even so, half those trucks were drawn by tamed Cape buffalo, and a third of his men used single-shot muskets and were relegated to raking up used brass to reload their automatic rifles.
But Gamal pressed onward.
Let Harare and Zambia continue to live in a semblance of what the ancients had. Factories and manufacturing, utilizing kerosene and biodiesel and hydroelectric power, were all well and good for grass-chewing prey, but Gamal was a lion. He was a predator. And his desire was simple.
Nuclear power.
Then, one night, the russet-skinned angel had whispered in his ear.
Her name sounded innocent enough.
Neekra.
She came as lover. As prophet. As guide. As king maker.
They believe themselves well girded against your might, Warlord. Her voice had been breathless, heady, intoxicating.
Gamal could almost feel those rose-petal-red lips brushing softly against the lobe of his ear, even though he knew that she communicated with him through mind, not body. She was about him, in him, and her presence warmed him.
“What of Kane and the snake man?” Gamal asked her.
Her answer was a kiss on his mouth. They struggle to free themselves. They take up arms against me.
Gamal nodded. “So your testing is nearly concluded.”
Her giggle was infectious, bringing a smile to his lips, a tingle all the way down into his loins.
Neekra came as an angel, but Gamal knew the truth of her, having learned the name of such beings as a child, listening to the superstitions of his people. She was a succubus, a seducer. That was why she came to him as his guide, as his muse.
Neekra wanted her freedom. And to achieve that, she needed a man of strength and iron will.
Someone like Gamal, who had an army.
He wanted to feel jealous about her attention tothe two foreigners, the strangers, but realized that even if she left him with only Africa, he commanded millions of square miles of empire. With Durga and Kane as her consorts in North America and the Orient, Gamal would still be king of a third of the world, especially as he could push up into Europe.
There might be some tension if Gamal’s and Durga’s empires bumped borders in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, but Neekra would be their court of appeal, and the succubus would appease any injured feelings.
“Is it time?” Gamal asked.
Send them, my love.
Gamal smirked. “And shall I send them your love, goddess?”
The image of her smile was indelible within his mind.
I have no love for those who resist me.
For a moment, that sounded hollow, strained.
Gamal raised the radio to his lips. “Send the bombers in.”
* * *
GRANT FELT THE floor shudder beneath his feet even as
he reached the conference room where Nathan was tending to Nehushtan, Kane and Durga. The young man had propped up the snake-headed staff and put both men’s hands on its shaft, hoping that it might give them something, return their minds to their bodies. But the situation was discouraging.
“Oh, that was not good,” Grant murmured, even as Nathan turned his attention to him.
“Was that an explosion?” the young man asked.
“Give me a moment,” Grant said apologetically. “Lomon, come in. You there?”
Coughing came over the radio waves. “Barely. Something just blew up at the vault doors. I’ve got four dead and a half dozen wounded.”
“Do you need help with evacuation?” Grant asked.
Lomon’s voice sounded rougher, older than usual. “Anyone else would just get underfoot here. We’ve got our fall-back plan in action. Laying down a lot of chemical smoke.”
“What hit?” Grant inquired.
“We saw a kongamato bounce off the ground. He deposited something and we fired, but when our bullets hit, it exploded,” Lomon answered. “Regular blast, and shrapnel.”
Grant grimaced. “Sela? You heard that.”
“I’ll be up there with first aid,” Sinclair responded over the radio. “We’re...”
Her words trailed off into a grunt, and vibrations ran through the soles of Grant’s boots once more.
“Sela!” he exclaimed.
“Door’s holding,” Sinclair answered, sounding as ragged as Lomon. “But they’re using more than their damned muscles to breach the redoubt from below.”
Her voice became muted as she shouted commands to the millennialists, waving them away from the tunnel entrance. Grant had been waiting for the kongamato to engage in a two-pronged attack, and he wasn’t surprised by the creatures’ use of explosives, especially in the wake of Brigid’s description of one showing intellect and malice as it pursued her in the jungle.
“All points, fall back to secondary defense lines. Leave your charges set to blow,” Grant ordered. “They might not make an immediate push, but we’re dealing with an intelligence controlling these creatures now. They’ve adapted enough to use explosives.”
“What are you going to do?” Lomon asked.
“Whatever I have to,” Grant answered, ending the call.
He moved over to Kane. “Come on, you stubborn bastard. I need you to wake up, and to bring that snake face Durga back, too. We need access to the Threshold right now.”
Kane grunted in his unnatural slumber. He was in his mind, battling. Even Durga seemed to be entering some form of consciousness, his eyelids fluttering in rapid eye movement, something Grant recognized as the dream state.
Nathan clutched both men’s hands, keeping them pressed to the artifact. “Staff of Solomon and Moses, scepter of Israel, arm of the Lord, I pray, if you’ve ever in your existence listened to one of the Longa men, heed my plea now!”
Grant looked on as Nathan squeezed his eyes shut. There was no activity from the black-coated staff, but then again, you couldn’t see the Commtact working even as it was implanted against your own jaw. Nathan opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’ve got nothing.”
“The stick might be fighting something. They’re already in conflict,” Grant said, motioning to the two unconscious men.
“They’re not waking up fast enough. And why do we need the Threshold?” Nathan asked.
“Because Durga knows where these things are coming from, and the command center that might be controlling them,” Grant answered. “And Kane would go with him.”
“And what about you?” Nathan asked.
“Bry, send through the interphaser to the mat trans,” Grant said aloud.
Nathan appeared confused for a moment, then realized that he was speaking with Cerberus redoubt utilizing the cybernetic communicator on his jaw. “What’s an interphaser?”
“It’s like the mat trans, but it doesn’t need a nuclear-powered redoubt and plasteel chamber to power it,” Grant said. “It allows navigation across natural parallax points.”
“Wormholes,” Nathan translated.
Grant nodded.
“We still have Star Trek here in Africa,” Nathan answered with a smile. “But because you don’t have the coordinates...”
“I’m going to go out, pick up Brigid and the others, and we’re going to see where we can land to do the most good,” Grant answered.
“Can I come along?” Nathan asked.
Grant looked at Kane, who was still in distress. “Your job is protecting the ancient artifact, son. And making sure my friend wakes up. Someone has to leave a message with him.”
With that, Grant bent over his war bag and pulled out a large, unseemly weapon.
“What the hell is that?” Nathan asked.
“This is a USAS-12 automatic shotgun loaded with one-ounce solid slugs. It’s the closest thing to the marriage between an assault rifle and an elephant rifle you could ever come up with,” Grant answered. “The shells are so big, only seven of them fit into a magazine that would normally hold thirty to fifty regular rifle rounds. And the slugs can punch through quarter inch steel as if it were paper.”
“That sounds...terrifying,” Nathan observed.
Grant fit a magazine into the big cannon. “Think about the kongamato, fighting with weapons and intelligence, in addition to all that strength and rage.”
He stuffed a spare slug shell into the breech of the bulky cannon. A tap on the bottom of the magazine, and his expression brightened with a brief glimmer of hope.
“Time to battle some devils,” he grunted. “Sela, is the interphaser here yet?”
His voice faded into the hallway even as he spoke on the Commtact, leaving Nathan alone with Kane and Durga.
Chapter 21
Durga raised his saw-toothed sword in a swoop, steel carving into tentacles, slicing them from the main arm of the horror projecting them at him. Kane moved swiftly, dodging other attacking pseudopods. Their touch burned his “skin” and yet Durga seemed to endure their touch for a little longer.
Kane brought the fine Spanish sword around, plunging it through the heart of the entity’s log-sized arm, causing the being to withdraw from the two of them. It was a giant, standing at least twenty feet in height by Kane’s estimation. And yet the two warriors seemed to hold their ground against it.
Durga dropped back, his scales smoldering where they had been caressed by the nebulous cold of the tentacles.
“That’s got to sting,” Kane said to him.
“Sting doesn’t begin to describe it,” Durga growled, his jaws clenched. He patted himself, grimacing, and the cold, smoky burns faded from his flesh. “Will to power, Kane. You’re sitting here in that shadow suit, which can’t be a lot of protection....”
Kane looked down at himself. Sure enough, he was clad in the black second-skin designed by the moon techs. “You’re armoring yourself?”
“With will. Anger,” Durga answered. “It still hurts, but I see myself as I have to be to win.”
Kane nodded.
He concentrated, even as the void goddess lumbered toward them, trunklike legs shaking the ground with each ponderous step. In a heartbeat, he was back in the form he felt most battle-ready, head to toe in the shiny black carapace of his magistrate armor. Except this time, rather than his protective shell being forged from polycarbonate and Kevlar, his armor was days of anger and frustration.
Kane surged forward, the silvery Spanish sword disappearing and taking the form of his old trusted, foot-long combat knife. The entity reached toward him, arm branching, swirling like rivulets of black blood in snow. The Cerberus warrior slashed with his knife, carving through grabbing, hungry limbs. The flicker of a thought and the knife became two Sin Eaters, drawn far faster than he could have in
real life, and bolts of flame and thunder rippled up the thick center of the entity’s arm.
The thing staggered as twin streams of Kane’s realized anger and pain stabbed into it. It reached for him with another arm, those suckers stretching to seize him. Kane felt the cold burning on his skin, even through the armor, but in a way, it didn’t hurt as much, and indeed, only served to strengthen his resolve. He was about to turn and launch an attack on the void being’s other hand when Durga drove the blunt point of his sword into the entity’s wrist.
The sky broke open as the thing threw its head back, ebony lightning crackling from where a mouth would have been. The sunny sky that they had been battling beneath had been invaded by thick, choking clouds dangling writhing vines of ebony. The tentacles fell as thick as rainfall, but Kane growled and swept out with his combat knife.
Durga wrenched his sword free from the entity’s forearm, where inky blood sprayed like a geyser, then hacked with the saw-toothed edge of his Khanda. As jagged points met skin, Durga slashed, cut, sawed at the entity’s limb. The sheets of tendrils threatening to engulf Kane, Durga squirmed in reaction, and the void beast was now the one in need of retreat.
Kane whipped around and slashed at the shadow limb, drawing blood and quivering hunks of gelatinous “flesh” with each hacking strike of the knife. Within a matter of moments, the black strings of insanity dangling from the clouds were withdrawn, recoiling from the two beings who had caused their master such agony.
The “hand” itself lay on the earth at their feet, tawny grass blackening with its blood, as if it were infected. Durga saw a flinch of reflex still in the severed bit, and kicked at it, stmping it into the mud.
The void entity, clutching its ruined limb to its chest, was becoming more and more defined. Sure enough, Durga had been correct about the thing being female, as the fuzzy aura seemed to rinse away in the return of sunshine. Kane could make out the curves, soft and full, but other than its figure, the rest was indistinct, featureless.
Kane glanced toward Durga.