by James Somers
As they approached the massive entrance, it was apparent that the doors probably were not functional. They were shut and pocked with blast marks and several very large holes that went all the through. The Saberhawk would not be able to gain entrance to the city.
Orin tried several command codes from back home; hoping that maybe the same had been in use in this duplicate universe. The automated systems either weren't functional or didn't recognize the codes. At any rate, the result was the same.
"Well there's not much choice," said Orin as he looked back at Tiet. "We'll have to go in and see if we can find anything."
"I'm in."
"Me too," said Dorian.
"Actually I think Tiet and I will have to go alone. We don't have the time to land and hike back up to the city. We'll have to drop in here and go through the damaged hangar bay doors. You can't make the descent from the ship and I would rather that Millo was not left to handle any problems with the ship alone."
Dorian was noticeably unhappy with the situation, but compliant.
"Millo, please take the ship down into the southern valley until we contact you. Keep an eye peeled for any trouble and get the ship out of danger if you have too. It's likely that the Vorn will be investigating our arrival. I doubt an old Barudii battleship will have gone unnoticed on this planet. Tiet, you and I will make the jump to Vaseer and see what we can come up with."
Orin proceeded through the bridge passage and down the short stairwell toward the main entry way to the ship, with Tiet following close behind.
"Tiet!" called Dorian coming after him. Both men turned at her approach. Orin looked at Dorian and then Tiet, realizing they needed a moment to speak.
"I'm going to secure some more gear we may need. I'll meet you shortly in the vestibule."
Orin went on without further comment, leaving them alone in the corridor.
"What's the matter?"
"I just have a bad feeling about you going down there."
"Don't worry. Orin watches over me like he was my father," he said playfully, but Dorian's expression did not lighten.
"I feel like I need to tell you how I feel before you go," she said hesitantly, as if searching his face to know his feelings before she continued.
Tiet could hardly breathe; waiting for her next words with such anticipation he could perceive nothing else.
"I have loved you before I even knew you," she said. "From the images of you as a child, until I first realized who you were in the tunnels; you have been in my most secret thoughts. Now that I have been with you, I cannot imagine being anywhere else."
She raised her left arm and then pulling back the cuff of her uniform, she exposed the donjarr of her family. Tiet recognized the woven bracelet immediately. According to Castillian customs, it was the woman who chose her life companion and it was signified by the passing of the donjarr to the intended male as a promise of her desire to wed. The donjarr was not a light commitment. It was a binding contract once the male placed it on his own wrist.
Dorian looked into Tiet's eyes, and he could see her longing to know his feelings about what she had told him. He reached for her hand, clasping it in his own. With his other hand he moved the donjarr from her wrist over their joined hands to rest upon his own, according to the ritual. A tear escaped her swollen eyes, trailing down her olive skin. Tiet pulled her to himself in an embrace they both had longed to have.
"Come back safely to me," she said as she touched his lips with her own. Then she turned and hurried back to the bridge, before she lost control of her joy at their coming together, and her anxiety at their parting. Tiet could hardly contain his own joy, as he went on to meet Orin.
He was already waiting at the main entry ramp to the ship when Tiet arrived. Orin looked him over once; puzzled by the grin on his face, but supposing that something had happened between him and the girl. It did not surprise him and he hoped that all would turn out well for them, but at the moment more urgent matters pressed. He keyed in the safety bypass code, to allow the ship to open the main hatch while still in flight. Millo was hovering about one hundred yards above the mountain's face where the city's hangar bay was located. They could see the scarred bay doors below them now.
"Are you ready Tiet?"
"Lead the way," he said over the engine rumblings spilling into the vestibule.
"The way is down," he said as he turned and stepped into the open air; quickly plummeting toward the mangled surface of the bay doors below. Tiet followed without hesitation. The two warriors controlled their descent precisely with their psycho kinesis and soft landed on the surface of the hangar doors.
The structure creaked under their weight a little, but appeared to be solid enough. Orin led the way to the largest opening and turned to toss Tiet a lighted headset. He clicked his own headset on to keep communication with the Saberhawk and to provide some illumination of the darkness below them.
"Millo, take the ship down to the valley, and wait there until you here from us. If you encounter any trouble, dust off immediately and we'll rendezvous later."
"Affirmative. I'll be waiting for your call. Be careful."
Above them, the engines of the Saberhawk whined to a higher pitch and the ship veered away from the mountain on course for the southern valley. Tiet switched on his own headset and the two of them peered into the darkness below them. They could see that the pavement was littered with a lot of debris.
"Look over there," said Tiet motioning to a large clear area.
"Let's go."
They dropped from the edge of the blast hole in the hangar bay door, about two hundred feet to the pavement; soft landing again thanks to their kinetic abilities. From memory, Orin led them through the debris field inside the hangar bay to the control room.
The door was standing open and a thick layer of dust covered the control panels within. Orin looked for the power grid panel and found the cells for all the power and backups were drained to nothing.
"Even after power failure, the successive auto backups would have run for at least six months," said Orin.
"Maybe, but this looks like about a hundred years of dust," said Tiet.
"If not more. Well, what have we here…?"
He keyed on another panel lever and several low lights flickered to life in the bay.
"Manual backup, in case the auto systems were down," said Orin. "These should be connected to solar panels on the eastern face of the mountain. They won't run down as long as the panels have a descent access to sunlight. Let's go."
He led them out of the control room and up a tunnel to a higher level of the city. Tiet followed the swift steps of his mentor, trying to keep his senses alert to any sudden dangers that might present themselves.
This duplicate city had certainly taken a pounding. The ground was littered everywhere with debris. It looked like the Vorn had nearly torn the city apart and yet there were no signs of any bodies. The two men came into an ornate corridor approaching a single room. It seemed familiar to him, though he couldn't place it exactly.
"What room is this?"
"It's the king's quarters. This would have been your home back on our planet. Although I doubt your father was even born when this city was destroyed. I would guess it happened well over one hundred years ago."
"So what are we doing here?"
"There was a separate computer database in the King's quarters with its own link to the solar panels. Since they're still operating, I'm hoping the database is functioning as well. It may provide us with some answers."
Orin tried the electronic keypad, but there was no response. Tiet quickly ignited one of his kemsticks and sliced an oval shaped hole into the door. He kicked the cut piece inward, and bending down, he went through the opening. Orin followed and they could clearly see a luxurious abode. It reminded him of home, but it had been so long ago. Orin made his way to a certain place on the rock wall and depressed two separate points that were far enough apart so as to be almost unreachable at the sa
me time. A digital keypad rotated out of the wall before him. It still had power and Orin quickly typed in the words: Barudii, Soone, vaseer 1. A panel slid back in the wall to reveal an information display. A list of categories for searching the database appeared on the screen.
"Good, the code works here too. That means your family ruled here as well, somehow," said Orin.
"Well, where do we start?" asked Tiet.
"How about with those strange spheres we encountered?"
Orin typed in the word sphere and instantly a list of subcategories scrolled across the display. Among the data entries were schematics and weapon systems capabilities for a massive attack vehicle. It must have measured three miles in diameter and looked just like the smaller spheres they had witnessed earlier destroying the space fleet of the Vorn.
They were shocked to see that it was the long dead Barudii of this planet that had constructed the huge machine. They scanned page after page of data, hardly able to believe what was being stated.
"Hard to believe they built this thing," said Tiet in amazement.
"To fight the Vorn, or avenge themselves. Either way, a very deadly weapon to unleash on anyone."
"Yeah, but we never saw this one; only the smaller drones."
"But you can be sure it's out there," said Orin. "It's probably directly responsible for the destruction of the Vorn space station. It appears they launched it just prior to being wiped out by the Vorn. It was sent to attack the Vorn home world of Demigoth and then pursue the remaining Vorn and destroy them anywhere that it found them."
A small illuminated box on the display began to blink as Orin continued scanning the data. He tapped the box with his finger, causing more data to appear.
"This appears to be a live feed from the Sphere itself."
"Look at that tactical map. Isn't that Mt. Vaseer and the Saberhawk in the valley to the south of us?"
"Yes, and on a direct trajectory from the large Sphere down to the valley is a massive group of those drones!"
"Look at that, coming in from the northern pass. It looks like a ground army and they are heading toward the southern valley, too!"
"Orin to Saberhawk, dust off immediately! I say dust off immediately! Enemy forces are closing rapidly on your position!"
"We've got to get down there to them," shouted Tiet as he scrambled out of the room and down the corridor.
Orin followed, while still trying to get through to the ship, but there was only static.
Suddenly he heard a reply.
"Millo to Orin…are you there?"
"Yes Millo! I hear you! There are two different groups of combatants converging on your location. You've got to get yourselves out of there now!" shouted Orin into the headset as he tried to keep up with Tiet through the corridors leading to the surface.
"I've got them on scans already. Shields are at maximum and weapons systems have been armed. I'm trying to lift off but some of those drones are already within visual range and closing fast on us."
"Do your best. We're on our way!"
When Tiet and Orin reached the main gate, they found it blasted almost completely away. As the pair emerged into the open air again they could already hear the noise of battle in the valley below. Many of the spheres were engaged in combat with the hovering Saberhawk. It appeared to be pinned down by the swarm of drones strafing at it with their energy weapons.
The other group of spheres landing in the valley threw large arms out of their sides that lifted their bodies and acted as legs to carry them and fight with. Blasters popped out of the tops to lay down laser fire against the masses of Horva.
The pass from the north to the southern valley was flooded completely with ground forces that greatly resembled the Horva, but Tiet noticed that these were different. They were dark skinned men like the Vorn but stronger looking and they wore uniforms and moved more like an organized fighting force; not like the brutes they had encountered back home at all. They were utilizing pulse weapons to fire on the sphere robots as the two sides of the struggle engaged one another.
The Horva were swarming in massive numbers upon the large robots, who in turn were spraying them with wave after wave of automatic laser fire. Tiet could see that the Horva were also using similar portable shield generators like the ones used by the Barudii.
They moved in close to engage the sphere robots with larger pulse cannons mounted upon hydraulic arms that attached to their vests. The pulse cannons were doing some definite damage to the hulking robots. It appeared to Orin as though the pulse wavelength was modulating continually to match the shield wavelengths of the robots, allowing them to penetrate.
All of the combatants were laying siege to the Saberhawk, even though the Horva and the sphere robots were more interested in each other. Tiet ran down the main path of the city toward the valley with Orin following hard after him. The Saberhawk was hovering about forty feet off of the ground but the sky above them was too congested with enemy vessels to get clear of the battle.
Tiet could see that the ship was returning fire in all directions, but it was greatly outnumbered on the battlefield. He knew that their shields were losing power reserves fast at this pace, and before long they would be taking hits directly to the hull and it would all be over.
Tiet was running with all his might to get to her; to protect her. He leapt away from the path from a nearby ledge that took a drop thirty feet down to the fighting already raging below. He landed right in the middle of a group of several Horva that were firing on a distant sphere robot. They immediately reacted to his presence, bringing their weapons to bear on him.
His kemsticks leapt to his hands as he landed among them. He sliced one rifle in two, severing its owners hand at the wrist while deflecting another shot at point blank range. He swept downward under the barrel of one of them who fired and killed another Horva that had been standing ready on the other side, and with a complete sweep of his kemstick, cut the Horva down at the knees. He wasted little time dispatching two others, and then quickly moved onward to try and get to the Saberhawk.
"WE'RE the biggest thing out here!" said Millo in frustration.
Dorian blasted away at the weapons controls while Millo looked for a clearing in the congestion overhead.
"If we're so big, then can't we just plow through those other ships?"
"After seeing those spheres ramming into the Vorn ships I'd rather not take any chances. I'm going to try and move us out of the battle at this altitude."
"Well, you better hurry; our shields are already down to thirty percent power!"
The battlefield was overrun with Horva warriors, fighting furiously against the robots. Although the Horva were taking heavy losses, they continued to blast away at the automatons. For every twenty or more Horva getting killed, a robot was brought down. The Horva vastly outnumbered the robots and at least thirty thousand had rushed into the valley by now.
VALE and his doubles were fiercely engaged in the ground battle. The androids under Vale's mind were swiftly moving through the battlefield on foot toward the position of the Saberhawk. He knew that he had faced the Barudii warrior on the same vessel and had been defeated. He had no doubt that he could acquire his target there again. The triplet androids moved independently as though separate beings; yet all were under the one mind of Vale with the Sphere.
Combatant after combatant was cut down as they moved swiftly toward the Barudii ship; only engaging in close combat as necessary. Then Vale noticed that the ship was veering away from the fight and heading toward them, apparently trying to escape the situation.
Vales one and two quickly pulled hypermagnetic grapples and fired them at the ship as it passed low overhead. The third was still engaged with a Horva warrior as the hull-planted grapples pulled the other two androids up and away from the battlefield. Vales one and two retracted the grapple cables to bring themselves up to the hull.
Activating their hypermagnetic discs beneath their android skin, they each clung to the hull of the S
aberhawk. The ship's shields did not prevent them since they only repulsed energy weapons. The two androids avoided any attempt to cut through the hull with Barudii blades as it would no doubt cause a repulsion charge from the shields that would fling them off the hull or vaporize them. They made their way quickly across the hull on their bellies as the shields snapped back energetically above them at the incoming pulse laser blasts from the battle.
They recalled the entry code for the outer hull hatch that Vale had gone through before and keyed it in when they reached the door. The door obeyed and both androids entered the ship without incident. Vale recognized the cargo hold as the place of his defeat at the hands of the Barudii warrior.
Wasting no time, the robots moved to the doorway of the cargo hold and found it locked. The second Vale brought his blade to bear on the door and proceeded to cut a portal through. The pair proceeded down the corridor toward the bridge, even as the ship shuddered under the enemy fire raining upon it from all directions. The bridge door was closed and the androids could hear voices from beyond it; a man and a woman. Without trying the lock, the pair sliced through the door.
Dorian whirled around, hearing the sound of ignited Barudii blades, and the crackling of molecular bonds bursting at their touch. From her hand flew a spicor disc toward the door and the android coming in through a newly cut hole. Trapped within the confines of the portal it had just cut, the first Vale caught the spicor disc in the upper torso. The tightly controlled burst pattern vaporized all but its arms above the waist.
Dorian quickly pulled her blade as the second robot moved in fast over its fallen twin. She could feel the pressure and the pain building in her fractured arm as she brought it to join the other on the hilt of her sword.
Millo looked back from the controls, as he heard the spicor explode behind him. The ship was still taking a beating from the sporadic weapons fire erupting from the battlefield below them; there was no way he could leave the controls. Vale pulled his pulse blaster with his free hand and sprayed laser fire in all directions across the bridge. The electromagnetic shield on Dorian's forearm blazed to life to repel the incoming blasts.