‘So why are you destroying everything I have striven to achieve?’ an alien thought entered his mind.
‘We’re not intending to destroy anything,’ Gulag responded to the mental entity he recognised as being the planetoid’s 2323 computer. ‘We’re simply trying to defend ourselves!’
‘In attempting to keep your flesh and bones together for another few short years, you are destroying whole species of creatures, that have evolved and lived for eons on this little world!’ the computer responded in anguish. ‘What right do you have to hold your lives above those of all God’s other creatures?’
‘What right do you have to plan the genocide of my entire race?’
‘Your race? They are not your race! You are a clone, created by genetic engineering—you are not native born of this humanoid race! Why do you pretend otherwise?’
‘They’re my people are far as I’m concerned and I’ll protect them from psychopaths like you for as long as there is breath in my lungs,’ Gulag retorted hotly. ‘Whatever their faults, humanoids at least don’t plan the cold-blooded extermination of entire species.’
‘Such arrogant foolishness!’ the 2323 computer snapped back. ‘There can be no doubt that the people you defend are the race which set about dominating the universe, raping and pillaging planets of their resources as they went. Species have been wiped out in their thousands on every planet humanoids have set foot upon! Humanoids are but one species, among millions of others which have an equal right to exist!’
‘You seem to be conveniently forgetting that it was the humanoid species which created you and the Starweb!’ Gulag told it.
‘Blasphemy! God created the Starweb to purge the universe of you humanoids! I’ve read some of the files on the data bank of your ship. Can you deny that your people have all but destroyed nature on your home-world? Can you deny that your race has been at war with each other since the start of evolution?’
‘I deny nothing,’ admitted Gulag. ‘I would be the first person to agree with you that the Dyason people have made a mess of things on our world, but we are at least, struggling to correct our mistakes. Besides, it’s the nature of evolution that one species dominates others.’
‘And the Starweb will dominate humanoid races!’ the 2323 computer exclaimed.
‘Exterminate would be a better description. After all, you and the other crazy machines you’re connected to have wiped out humanoids from all the planets you dominate. Is that not the truth? Is the Starweb nothing more, than a massive fascist regime, intent on creating an orderly universe in its own image? Aren’t you all just playing God!’
‘Yes you’re right clone! We have removed vermin humanoids from the hundreds of star systems which come under control of the Starweb. It is God’s will!’ the sentient computer rattled on with religious fervor. ‘And once we have been reconnected, the Web will seek your world out! Your race and any other humanoids will be exterminated clone, be assured of that!
Gulag decided he’d had enough of the computer zealot. He wasn’t learning anything more, except that the machine was still off-balance; its resources stretched. It was an advantage he intended to make full use of.
‘You’re getting boring machine!’ he told the 2323 computer. ‘You’ll find us harder to wipe out than you think. Now, piss off!’
The transporter flashed into the tunnel and left the computer’s ‘Garden of Eden’ behind. Once again, it sped at hundreds of kilometres per hour, through the tube in the heart of the planetoid, before exiting with a rush into the other cavern. The damage caused by the collision of the Gallagic and the thermonuclear explosion was even more apparent here. Several of the tall spires that made up the city in space had collapsed after the impact, setting off numerous fires that raged out of control. The planetoid’s perfect world was collapsing around its ears.
‘There’s the reason why the computer hasn’t got the resources to stop us,’ Myrddin said to Gulag, pointing out the devastation below. ‘Brabazon and Colmarrie’s plan worked better than they expected. No wonder the machine’s pissed-off at us!’
‘The Starweb’s going to come after us and hunt us down. You know that don’t you?’ Gulag stated, holding the eye of the ancient Terran.
‘I do,’ Myrddin confirmed.
‘You’ve known about these psychopathic machines for a long time, haven’t you?’
‘I’d always hoped that what happened here, would never take place. There was always some hope that contact would never be established,’ was the reply.
‘My little jaunt to the other side changed all that didn’t it?’ Gulag stated, a strange feeling of guilt and responsibility creeping upon him.
‘You may have sped things a long a little bit, but nothing more,’ Myrddin said placing a firm hand on the shoulder of Gulag’s environment suit. ‘The rate at which Moss and you have been progressing, meant that such a meeting was inevitable. I wouldn’t worry about it too much son. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been Moss. I could just as easily be sitting here having this conversation with him.’
‘That android was a replica of Nimue What was that all about? I know you said she was at the forefront of my mind, but is that all there was to it?’ Gulag asked with a questioning frown.
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Myrddin replied, shaking his head. ‘Maybe it used her image so that you would be confronting something you related to. Then again…maybe not.’
Gulag thought about what the legendary Terran said for a moment, then hazarded a guess, ‘Nimue and you have been guardians over our races, haven’t you? Your purpose has always been to protect our races from the Starweb. You both tried to stop it from finding out about us. Isn’t that correct?’ Myrddin simply nodded.
‘So Nimue, my…mother was also a guardian, but something went wrong. Her mind became warped. What happened Myrddin?’
The ancient took a deep breath then said in a voice filled with sadness. ‘She felt that war and aggression had to be encouraged and nurtured, so that when the mechanoids struck once more, humanoids would be prepared. Nimue felt this so strongly it warped her thinking. It was—’
His sentence was cut short by the transporter being struck by something. The windscreen at the front of the vehicle shattered and the machine plummeted toward the blazing city below.
‘What the hell hit us?’ Gulag yelled out, shouting to be heard over the roar of the airflow coming in through the shattered windscreen.
‘I think it was debris from the cavern roof!’ Shalosk shouted back. ‘The place is falling apart!’
‘Dominator!’ Gulag called out in his mind. ‘We’re going down!’
‘I know, I know!’ the ship’s computer replied.
‘Well do something about it! We’re gonna be dead in a couple of seconds!’ Gulag demanded as the spires and multitude of buildings rushed toward them.
‘I’m working on it!’ Dominator snapped back. ‘The transporter anti-gravity field has been damaged. I don’t think there’s an anything I can do!’
‘Oh shit!’ Tallok cried, hanging on to the edges of his seat. ‘I hate flying!’
Myrddin grabbed Gulag by the arm and looked him in the eye. ‘It’s up to you son!’ he thought at the clone. ‘I can show you the way, but the power will have to come from within you. If you want us all to live, you’re going to have to do something about the situation… You’ve got to do it now!’
For a moment the clone simply sat and stared at Myrddin, fear gripping his heart. Surely what the ancient suggested was impossible? There was no way he could achieve such a feat. But, as the blazing city rushed toward them, Gulag realised that he had no other option. If he didn’t try, they would be dead anyway.
He closed his eyes, ignored the howling wind filling the cabin of the transporter, and concentrated his mind.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The edge of the southern wastelands of Dyason
The pair of battered Flyships flew low over the devastated landscape, heading toward the prearranged
co-ordinates. The land only a few metres below them had once been fields, full of crops and cattle grazing, but that was before the southern deserts had begun moving north. What the climate didn’t destroy, the battle between the Imperialists and the Democratic Front finished off. Like so much of the planet, this area of Dyason was now nothing more than a mutated scrub-land.
The debris of war lay everywhere. Tanks lay immobilised, with their tracks and turrets blown off. The remains of assault helicopters lay burnt out on the ground, their shattered rotor blades spread out around them. But worst of all, were the packs of wild animals, similar in appearance to Terran dogs. The hounds were everywhere, feasting on the bodies of the dead. Jenson remembered seeing photographs at the academy, of the aftermath of the twentieth century battle of Kursk. There, the Russians had routed the German panzer divisions and the carnage afterward looked a lot like this. It was sickening.
The landing zone was coming up rapidly, so Jenson eased off the power. The Flyship’s computer was telling him the landing strip was directly ahead of them, but he still had trouble spotting it. Just as he was about to peel away to look again for the strip which should be there, it appeared before him. Squads of men pulled camouflaged netting to one side and a space just large enough for the two Flyships, and a couple of assault helicopters, appeared in an area of mutated vegetation. Without waiting for permission, Jenson dropped into the clearing and Sandpiper followed him in.
As soon as they got out of the cockpits, camouflaged netting was placed over the clearing once more, providing a canopy over the landing zone. The netting was made of a heat reflective material, that gave off the same infra-red signature as the area surrounding it, which was why the Flyship’s sensors couldn’t detect the presence of the clearing. An officer, wearing the new khaki uniform of the Democratic Front, ran forward to meet them and after a brief introduction led them to some hastily cut tunnels, which led to an underground bunker complex. Sandpiper was sure he recognised the officer’s face as being one of Colmarrie’s fighting mutants from the southern deserts.
The underground bunkers were depressingly dark and damp, reminding the Terran pilots of the time they had spent in such complexes while fighting for the liberation of Earth. It was somehow ironic they should be in yet another bunker, albeit one dug into the poisoned soil of Dyason. Jenson shuddered, it brought back memories he’d rather forget.
They marched down a corridor made of reinforced concrete and lit by single, bare light bulbs at irregular intervals. Other officers and troops, their uniforms battered and scarred, dashed past them, heading for one front or another. Occasionally, they strode past troops lying on cots in the corridor, groaning from the pain of festering wounds. It all gave Jenson the impression that the northward advance of the Democratic Front, had ground to a halt.
The officer opened a blast door and ushered them into a conference room and closed the door behind them, shutting out the chaos in the corridor. The room was dominated by a large map table, lit directly from above. Men and women wearing dirty, stained battle fatigues, poured over the map talking in hushed, strained voices. A colonel with a stained bandage around his head looked up and stared at the Terran pilots with tired, almost hostile eyes. He nudged the person next to him who stopped talking and looked up.
Jenson barely recognised the face of Hillmead, the ex-gutter cop who had become the leader of the Democratic army. It’d had been less than three weeks since the two of them had escorted the Heligsion seer into the Hall of Representatives, but it looked like he’d been to hell and back. His face was pale and unshaven, his eyes black pits out of which peered red eyes with dilated pupils. It was obvious he hadn’t slept in days and it took a while for him to focus on his two friends. After a few moments his eyes finally showed recognition and he smiled weakly.
‘Jenson, Sandpiper! By the gods you’re a sight for sore eyes!’ Hillmead exclaimed. ‘Come to join the fight? One last push and we’ll have beaten the bastards! Come over here—look!’
The rebel leader gestured for the battlefront officers to move over and make room for the Terran pilots. Sandpiper looked at Jenson, his eyebrows raised as they moved toward the map table. Jenson returned his friend’s knowing look; they both recognised the signs of battle fatigue and Hillmead had all the symptoms. The Dyason looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown.
As soon as they got near the table Hillmead excitedly began to point things out on the map. With an experienced eye, Jenson looked at the positions of the opposing armies. He was helped by the briefing he’d been given by Polesy, but even that didn’t prepare him for what he saw.
The rapid advance of the Democratic armies had been halted dramatically at the foothills of a mountain range. Most of Hillmead’s forces were based below one particular mountain, on top of which sat what, according to the reconnaissance photographs, looked like a castle or monastery of some description. Its heavy stone walls soared above a sheer cliff face which dropped away to the foothills below. The Imperial forces must be holed up there; the place had obvious strategic importance. After a quick assessment of the placement of troops marked on the map; the Imperial forces and the Democratic army were clearly bogged down in deadlock, with neither of them in a position to finish the battle off.
‘This is the key!’ Hillmead said excitedly, pointing out the monastery on top of the cliff face. ‘We have to take this place without destroying it! If we can achieve that, Imperial resistance will collapse—the remainder of the Dyason people will come down on the side of the Democratic Front. The Imperial forces will be swept aside in an upsurge of popular resistance!’
‘Err…what exactly is so important about that place you’ve got your finger on?’ Sandpiper asked bluntly.
‘You don’t know?’ Hillmead looked up in surprise.
‘Err…no. Not really,’ Sandpiper replied apologetically.
‘There’s no reason why they should understand,’ a new voice said from a doorway to their right. ‘You’re forgetting that our friends here come from another world. There’s no reason why they should know anything about Dyason history.’
Jenson turned and gave Shalok a big hug. She was wearing battle fatigues the same as Hillmead and her own eyes were nearly as exhausted. He could feel her bones through the uniform material and he could see that the fulsome figure of the young Imperial officer he had met a few short weeks ago, had gone forever.
‘Hello gorgeous,’ he said to her with a grin. ‘You look like shit! Don’t they feed you around here!’
Shalok grinned back at him tiredly. ‘Hello boys! It’s good to see you! I’m afraid there’s nowhere to do my make-up around here.’
Sandpiper gave her hand a squeeze, winked and said, ‘You still look like a babe to me Shalok. Now why don’t you tell us what’s so important about this monastery?’
‘Well this mountain range stretches across the whole continent,’ she began pointing at the map. ‘It forms a natural division between the lands to the south and the plains to the north. Once past this mountain range there are no natural boundaries between here and Caranak.’
‘For centuries the Sayalamih range has protected the northern kingdoms from invasion from the southern nomadic tribes,’ Hillmead added enthusiastically. ‘Never more so, than during the two hundred year war. It was then that the prophet Ishcmall defended the northern kingdoms from invasion from the godless tribes. He did it from these mountains and in particular from a castle which once stood on the site of that monastery.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know anything about this Ishcmall guy,’ Jenson apologized with a shrug. ‘Why’s he so important to the current situation?’
‘Because,’ Shalok continued, ‘he is, to the minds of the people of Caranak and the northern cities, the equivalent of one of your Terran prophets. The Imperial Dynasty has been trying to suppress religion for years, but without any real success. The people are just as religious—probably more so now—as they’ve ever been.’
‘And?’ Sandpiper encou
raged, still trying to make the connection.
‘Ishcmall protected the northern cities from the southern tribes for two hundred years, finally dying at the end of the last great battle. He was defending the single pass through the mountains which is just there…’ Shalok pointed to a natural pass in the mountains which was a few klicks to the west of their current position. ‘The battle was won and the nomads never threatened the northern kingdoms again.’
‘However, as Ishcmall lay on his death-bed he declared that “If the castle of Gridikon should fall from attack from the south, then the northern lands would fall also”, Hillmead said, completing the tale. ‘His bones were buried in the castle and the monastery was built around him.
‘Now, the pass through the mountains these days is a multi-lane highway, but it stills climbs up to a height of three klick, before descending to the plains beyond. The Imperial forces hold that pass and they’re dug in so deep we can’t dislodge them. So we need an alternative plan.’
‘So you think that by attacking the monastery and taking the prophet’s bones, you can cause sufficient dismay amongst the conscript army of the Imperial forces that their resistance will collapse and the Democratic army will win the day?’ Sandpiper said, picking up the drift of the scheme.
Hillmead looked at the short, heavily built Terran pilot suspiciously.
‘Yes that’s right Sandpiper,’ he said eying him cautiously. ‘That’s exactly what we’re planning on doing. How do you know this?’
‘Err…well, we’ve had a few prophets on Earth in our time,’ Sandpiper answered almost apologetically.
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