by James Somers
The material within the matrix chamber would be used as an enhancement of the cloned warriors within their own bodies. Once the data was received by the automation system, Varen activated the program and the process began even as the thunderous battle continued to rage within and without the city.
Grod drifted off into a medicated sleep as the system prepared him and his warriors for genetic enhancement and regeneration. His drifting thoughts were of the glorious spectacle he had witnessed in his battle dome of the young Barudii warrior skillfully vanquishing all the combatants, Horva and robot alike, that had been arrayed against him in the dome; even the teragore beast itself.
WHEN they arrived in the rail system chamber they found minimal power available. Daooth located the grid controls and brought the system online. The rail cars were kept in a docking bay apart from the magnetic propulsion tunnel. Daooth brought one of the cars from the bay on a loading arm as Wynn and the others brought the explosives into the loading area. It was quite a bomb they had rigged; almost too much for the hover carrier to support. It consisted of two containers of inert chemicals that became volatile when mixed; Zanthium 424 matrix and B7 accelerant.
"Two of us will need to go ahead of the car with the explosives and begin clearing the rubble from the tunnel," said Wynn. "After that, one person needs to accompany the bomb in case there are any other obstructions in the tunnel."
"Tiet, why don't you go with Wynn and I will take the explosives on through after you," said Orin.
"Are you sure Orin?" asked Wynn.
"I'll make sure nothing interferes with the car reaching the facility," said Orin.
"Daooth can load the cars into the propulsion tunnel and send us through from the control chamber here, so you will not need to operate the rail car yourself, but you will have to escape after it comes above ground inside the city. The rail system becomes a series of magnetic rings that are spaced along the track until it enters the cloning facility. However you will be inside the city at that point so you will have to be careful. Grod's forces have undoubtedly already begun their assault."
"What about our rail car that will be setting in the tunnel?" asked Tiet.
"Daooth can move our car into a passing cell located at different positions along the tunnel. They allow for cars to be displaced while others pass," said Wynn. "We will go on ahead in this car and then I'll communicate with you when its time to come through with the explosives."
Wynn and Tiet climbed inside the rail car, which was quite long. It must have measured nearly thirty yards in length. Tiet and Orin exchanged glances as the door closed on the car. Orin tried to look reassuring.
He knew if anything happened to him, that Wynn would be able to continue Tiet's training even beyond what he had been able to accomplish with the boy. But he had no intention of riding that rail car to his doom. He did wonder what would be waiting for him in a city full of Vorn military and potentially a Horva army led by Grod. Hopefully they would be so busy with each other that they wouldn't even notice him.
The door of the car secured itself in a locking position as they sat down and fastened their seat harnesses for the trip. Daooth worked the controls causing the hoist arm to move the rail car into the propulsion tunnel. Once inside the mouth of the tunnel, a safety door constricted into place behind the car so that the magnetic field would not harm anyone in the loading area. The field was powerful enough to pull a person with any metallic garment into the tunnel and potentially to their death.
The safety door sealed and the rail car was bathed in a magnetic field. The hoist arm released the car, which was then suspended within the magnetic field.
He hit the send command and the car began to propel forward down the tunnel, rapidly increasing speed to six hundred miles per hour. Within the car, Wynn and Tiet noticed little effect from inertia because of the damper systems in place.
"The trip will take a little over an hour to complete. I would suggest we both try to get some rest before we arrive. You'll need it."
"If you say so."
The journey from his home on Castai seemed like an eternity ago and Tiet had gone nearly the whole time now without much sleep. He was glad they had at least had the opportunity to eat some food and clean up back at Wynn's base in the caves.
He didn't like being separated from Orin, but he had to stand on his own at some point, and he sensed it may have even been done on purpose when Orin sent him with Wynn. He rested his head back, noticing that Wynn already looked like he was asleep. Within moments he had also drifted into much needed sleep and not even his old nightmares could break through his exhaustion.
Orin made his way to the car holding the device. He boarded and found a seat, unconsciously glaring at the weapon as though it might blow at any moment. Daooth watched him from the control booth and manually closed the car door so he could secure it with the boom arm for loading into the tunnel.
Daooth noticed an odd power fluctuation on his panel. It was something he had seen before but he couldn't…wait they're monitoring the system!
"Orin! I have to send you on through quickly," his voice came through on the rail car intercom.
"What's wrong?"
"They're monitoring the power emanations back at Nagon-Toth. If they've already noticed it they'll be sending a squad to investigate. Strap yourself in, we've got to hurry."
Orin didn't waste any time with further inquiry. He located his safety harness and secured himself to the chair.
The boom arm swiveled over to attach to the car and he could hear the magnetic seal apply through the roof with a snap of metal. Daooth watched carefully as he guided the arm and placed the car inside the tunnel for departure. Once inside he released it and closed the safety door behind it. It took only a moment for the magnetic field to charge and build inside the tunnel and then the rail car was speeding down the tunnel.
Daooth secured the control station and locked out the system. Hopefully Grod's men would not be able to disable it when they arrived to investigate. He ran out of the chamber and back through the secret tunnel entrance they had come by. It was time to get back to his quarters before he was missed.
TIET was shaken by the slowing and stopping of the rail car. He saw that Wynn was already out of his harness and looking through the front window at the tunnel blockage ahead. He removed his harness and joined him at the window. The lighting in the tunnel was adequate to see the large pile of heavy stones that were piled three quarters of the way up to the roof of the tunnel. A large hole that looked like the source of the rock could be seen going upward into the tunnel roof.
The rail car came to a halt approximately fifty yards from the blockage. The side door unlocked and opened automatically, no doubt under the watchful eye of Daooth hundreds of miles away in the control chamber. Tiet followed Wynn out the door and they bounded up the tunnel toward the rubble.
"Well, let's get started," said Tiet as he began to concentrate on the individual stones.
"I want you to move all the stones at once."
"What do you mean? Are we able?"
"If you remember when we were on the roof of the General's compound…"
"Yes," interrupted Tiet, "you were controlling the automated weapons while simultaneously fighting the Horva! That was amazing."
"It was easier than you realize. It is not in the amount of power, but in the technique for wielding it."
"What do you mean exactly?"
"I mean that when you use the kinesis you are reaching out with your mind. You are probably used to reaching out in one direction at once. But you must learn to reach in all directions at once, as though you were surrounded in a sensory field and everything within the boundary of it were susceptible to your senses and your control. When these things are comprehended at once in your mind, you're able to manipulate them, and the kinesis carries out the thought with action."
Suddenly he was enthralled by this new understanding of the Barudii power insomuch that he nearly forgot why they
were even here.
"When I was on the roof, you were in the dome with that teragore. I could reach out throughout the compound and in my mind I could see you fighting that beast. I admit it takes discipline and a lot of practice to begin thinking in this fashion, but you do have the ability. Of course it's all made possible by the energies in play here. We don't understand how, but the fact remains. It was the overlap through the Rift that gave us Barudii what power we had, but on this side we are much more powerful."
"Could you teach me?"
"Within you I believe is the last hope for the Barudii to carry on as a race. We must do what we can to preserve what is left. You're young and if you survive this war our people have hope to live again. I want to make as much of a contribution of what I have learned to that future as possible.
"Now, raise the rocks, Tiet. Reach out in all directions around you, feel the tunnel, the ground, the hole in the roof, even me standing here beside you, and then move the picture in your mind with determined intent."
Tiet tried to let go of the way he would have normally gone about the task by trying to lift the boulders individually. He began to feel more and more around him. The picture of his surroundings was in his mind as though he had eyes on all sides, and even more, he could feel his surroundings in a way he had not previously realized.
He could sense the temperature of the air in the tunnel, the rhythms of Wynn's bodily functions-heart rate, blood pumping, neurons firing-and he could feel it in a way that gave him confidence that he could manipulate any of it if he desired. His kinetic power felt like another appendage of his body. In his mind he searched over the surface of each piece of rock in the pile of rubble and could sense with exacting precision where it fit in the crumbled tunnel roof above.
He exerted his will upon the rock and it disassembled in his mind and in reality. It moved apart and seemed frozen in a moment of time with even the dust suspended in the air. Wynn was in awe, not at the possibility of performing the task, but in Tiet's quickness to apprehend the concept and be able to apply it so skillfully. He was his father's son indeed. The rock began to ascend upward and reassemble into the places it had previously occupied in the cavernous hole.
Once it was all in place, Tiet held it there but was unsure what to do to keep it all in place. Wynn fused the joints of the rock with his mind and Tiet could feel them supported by it. He released the structure and it held.
"I could sense your power working within the same space as my own and I could sense my susceptibility to your mind. Was that real?"
"It was real but not indefensible. If I were to attack you kinetically, you could shield yourself from the intrusion and prevent such an attack and possibly even counter it if you sensed that I was unprotected in some way."
His communications link beeped to life on his wrist.
"Daooth here. How are you progressing with the repair?"
"It is already complete my friend."
"Good. Orin is already en route with the other rail car and the explosives. He should be arriving at your location; within half an hour. I had to leave the station because I realized they are monitoring this place from Nagon-Toth.
"I have been monitoring transmissions from the compound about Baeth Periege. Grod's forces have already penetrated the city and were able to disable part of the city's perimeter shield. The Vorn are attempting to keep them at bay, but from the communications among the Horva they are probably well on their way to entering with their main group of forces."
"The sooner we send that rail car into the cloning facility the better," said Wynn.
"I agree. You will need to reenter the rail car. Now that the blockage is cleared, the automated system will take control and position your car safely inside a passing cell in the tunnel wall."
Tiet followed him back into their rail car. The door closed automatically and an alarm sounded to notify the passengers of an approaching car in transit. The computer began its procedure for clearing the path of the other rail car in the system as a hoist arm moved away from the tunnel wall to magnetically grasp Wynn and Tiet's car; pulling it into the recessed portion of the wall known as a passing cell. The car locked in place as it prepared for the passing of Orin's car; counting down now from twenty two minutes.
IX
ORIN sat uneasily within the second rail car as it made its way down the dim tunnel, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour toward Baeth Periege. The explosives setup, located in the car, was rigged for an explosion upon the car's stopping and Daooth had wired its trigger directly into the auto sensor panel for that purpose.
The computer controls for the magnetic rail system would automatically bring the car into the cloning facility for unloading and stop it at a preordained station within the compound. When the auto sensors signaled a full stop it would detonate the care package. All he had to do was make sure nothing prevented the car on its journey and then escape himself where the system came above ground.
Daooth had sent the car into the blocked tunnel under repair conditions, but with the removal of the tunnel blockage, the automated system had assumed control again. Orin was glad to know that they had been successful in clearing whatever debris had been up ahead.
Now he just had to keep his mind centered on the tunnel up ahead so that he could make sure nothing else happened to prevent the car from reaching its destination. If this was their only shot at stopping General Grod from completing the DNA regeneration of his troops then he had to make sure nothing would trigger the automated system to stop the car.
He could sense the other car up ahead as he projected down the length of the tunnel. It was out of the path of his car and he was approaching their position rapidly. In a few moments he had passed their car tucked away in a recess of the tunnel wall. Orin continued to project his mind up ahead. Nothing appeared to be in the way and within ten more minutes he felt the car and tunnel begin an upward ascent. Daylight came into the car abruptly as it emerged on the surface within the city of Baeth Periege.
He quickly made his way to the front window of the car and could see what must have been the cloning complex in the distance ahead. The speed of the car was rapidly declining as it entered the city. Overhead, he could see the massive magnetic rings that Wynn and Daooth had spoken of.
A barrier came halfway up the height of the rings and stretched between them on either side. He supposed it must have been a preventive measure to keep someone from inadvertently falling or climbing into the path of the rail cars. Otherwise, there was open space between the rings from that height upward and this would be his means of escape.
Orin looked over the bomb mechanism once more, then raised his blade from its scabbard and cut a circle into the roof of the car large enough for him to pass through. He shot up through the hole and came to stand on the roof of the car. He could feel the tingling of the magnetic field around the car and beneath the rings. Several items including his blaster pistol flew off of his person toward the rings as he passed underneath them. Fortunately the adomen that formed his blade was not magnetic.
Around the rail system on either side was a massive open area that separated the main city from the outer perimeter. It was lavish, with decorative pools and gardens of every sort and Orin thought how surprising it was to find such things in the Vorn city.
He had never considered the peaceful or artistic side that the Vorn might possess. They had been the enemy for so long that he had never looked beyond any characteristic that wasn't oppressive or linked with this war.
On the right of the magnetic rail he could see where Grod's army had knocked out a large portion of the defense shield and had secured the area just inside. It appeared they were making a definite effort to push the Vorn away from the cloning facility.
Perhaps Grod had already gotten inside and begun the process to regenerate himself with Tiet's DNA. If any of them were inside, they were about to get a big surprise.
To the left were several ships docked upon a huge landing platfo
rm. None of them would have made Orin look twice except one. It was a Barudii ship. A strider. It sat within a number of Vorn military ships, some of which were powering up to escape the onslaught of Grod's army.
He picked his moment and leapt away from the rail car. It continued on without him toward the cloning facility, but he wasn't watching it anymore. He was transfixed upon the Barudii ship. It had been his ship and had been stolen previous to the massacre of his people.
It was nearly five hundred yards away from him and he began to run toward it. He could see it exhausting from the engine's cooling vents. Whoever was inside was planning on leaving very shortly.
Behind him, the rail car came into the station at the cloning facility. Several of Grod's men who were guarding the entrance raised their weapons as they saw the rail car coming into the docking site. The car slowed and the men moved toward it, but they couldn't see anyone through the windows. The car stopped and the doors opened for unloading.
Orin was closing within two hundred yards of the strider. Behind him came a flash of light that cast his shadow upon the ground running in front of him. The sound came less than a second later along with a blast wave that knocked Orin off of his feet. He tumbled and looked back to see the cloning facility blossoming like a flower with petals of debris and flame. The job he came here to do was done, but now there was something more.
Orin quickly got back to his feet and turned back to the landing platform he had been heading for. To his amazement, the gateway was down and someone was walking out to see the devastating explosion. Orin had started to run, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the man standing there. Then the man caught his gaze and they locked together in time.
Each of them recognized the other in a way few could ever understand. Rage flooded every fiber of Orin's being. He surrendered to it and sprinted toward the man standing under the strider. At nearly the same instant the man ran towards Orin. He removed a blade from a scabbard under the long coat that he wore. Orin pulled his own blade.