by T. R. Harris
“Rather than the Lone Ranger, we’re more like the Three Stooges, “ Sherri threw in. “As soon as we muck up the works, they’ll be all over us, and with no cavalry to ride in and save the day.”
“What’s with all the negativity? Let’s just get inside one of those generator rooms and see what kind of mess we can make. If nothing else, we pull the plug and kick out a few vacuum tubes.”
“That’ll do it,” Riyad said. “I’m sure in this day and age replacement vacuum tubes can be pretty hard to find.”
They scurried up the dark side of the low hill but soon found themselves in a bath of light at the top. The three impossibly tall towers disappeared above them in a dizzying display of construction. Adam became woozy just looking up at them. Focusing on the squat generator buildings seemed like a better idea.
Each tower had its own generator, and even though light covered the structures, they didn’t see any Sol-Kor posted around. Though, as they approached, the buildings that at first seemed so small compared to the towers, were actually quite large, each four stories tall and over two hundred feet on each side.
There were two small doors and one large sliding door along the front face of the building. Adam signaled for Riyad and Sherri to stay in the cover of the building’s shadow as he ran forward to check the first door. It was unlocked—in fact it had no locking mechanism at all. This made sense. After all, he was sure the astronauts who first landed on the moon didn’t need a key to get back inside the LEM. This facility was so far off the beaten path that anyone finding their way here who wanted to get inside wouldn’t let something like a locked door stand in their way.
There were no lights on inside the building and the place was too huge to go looking for a switch, so Riyad conjured up a large static ball and placed it high above them. With no windows in the building, they felt confident the light wouldn’t give away their presence.
“I can’t pick up anything with my ATD in here,” Sherri said.
“Me either,” Riyad commented. “Looks like the Klin don’t subscribe to Formilian design specifications.”
“We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Adam said. “Look for anything that looks like a control console or power box. This thing was designed to run automatically for years if necessary. If we can find the central control, we may be able to knock this particular tower out of commission, and I’m pretty sure they need all three to make a hole in space.”
The problem they soon ran into was that nothing looked like a control panel or power box. The entire building was one huge machine, with miles of thick cables, conduits, readout dials, cooling pipes, fans. Yet without the need for on-site supervision, there apparently was also no need for a central on-off switch, or even a console with computer screens. The health of the facility might even be monitored and controlled remotely without the need for any live input at all.
There were also no loose pieces of equipment, tools, or surplus of any kind lying around. The place was spotlessly clean, and everything they saw was attached to something else. Where was the huge metal rod they could stick into a cog somewhere to stop the machine? If Adam and his crew were going to start smashing things, they’d have to do it with their hands and feet.
“C’mon, this is ridiculous!” Adam cried out. “Is there nothing around here we can use to break things with?”
“Over here,” Sherri called out. “I may have something.”
Riyad and Adam met up with her a moment later. “Up there, it’s a railing of some sort. Looks like it was built for people—or Klin, I mean.”
“Klin are people, too,” Adam said sardonically.
It was indeed a walkway, and after climbing three stories up, near the top of the room, they chose the direction that held the most promise, one that ended at a wider platform area with a wire floor. There was a large display panel set against an outer wall of the building with several rows of imbedded gauges, a series of thin pipes leading out and into a huge humming bank of equipment.
“Help me with this top rail bar,” Adam said. “We may be able to break it off and use it to twist up some of those pipes.”
The three Humans began to tug and push on the top bar of the railing. It was about two inches in diameter and appeared to come in sections of ten feet each. After a minute, the metal railing was bent, the bar separating from the rest of the structure. Another thirty seconds and they had their tool.
Adam took the bar over to where a dozen thin tubes exited—or entered—the huge display panel. He placed it between two of the tubes and pushed up. The tubes bent easily. He continued to push upward until the tubes wrapped around each other—and then one snapped. A brilliant flash of electric light temporarily blinded the trio.
“Hey, dummy, make sure you don’t electrocute yourself,” Sherri said.
“Little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Just bend some more. I didn’t notice anything happen the first time.”
Working with urgency now, Adam soon had half the tubes broken and spitting sparks of electricity before falling dark. “C’mon, dammit, the wires in these tubes have to do something—”
Then the huge humming equipment bank was no longer humming. That has to be significant, Adam thought, and for good measure he kept twisting and breaking tubes until the entire connection with the gauge panel and the equipment bank was severed.
Now other parts of the huge machine began shutting down, one after another. Adam took the metal rod, and just because he could, smashed one end of it into the glass-covered gauges. He didn’t know if it would make a difference or not, but it sure did make him feel better.
“I’ll go outside and see if the flashes are still coming from the portal,” Riyad called out. He hopped over the railing, and in the light gravity of the planet, managed to land three stories down without injury. He looked up at Adam and Sherri and smiled. Even from this distance, his teeth glowed unnaturally white.
He disappeared out one of the smaller doors and was gone a full minute. Sherri and Adam stood at the mangled railing, waiting with anticipation for him to return. Finally the door opened and Riyad came back in.
“Good news,” he declared. “Looks like the portal has been closed.” Then he stepped further into the room. “In other news, the bad guys are here.”
A squad of huge, black-armored Sol-Kor flooded in behind him, taking Riyad by the arms and shoving him against the front wall of the building. They pointed their weapons up at the other two Humans, and this time the blue beam was absent. Whatever the weapons were capable of, Adam and Sherri were reluctant to find out.
Then Noslead Vosmin entered. His helmet faceplate was clear and Adam could hear him through external speakers. “I have been informed that our pulse beam does not work on the three of you. I can assure you that we also have more traditional energy weapons, ones I’m sure you are not immune to. Would you like to test my assumption?”
“Another time, perhaps,” Adam called down.
“Come down. You do know we can have the generator repaired within the hour?”
“From our calculations, that’s about a hundred and twenty fewer invaders into our universe,” Sherri called down.
“Insignificant. A reaper fleet consists of ten thousand ships. When we’re done, there will be several such fleets operating within this galaxy alone. And with this portal back in operation, we will be able to jump from galaxy to galaxy within your universe, feeding, reaping, and sending the harvest back to Sol.”
“Sol? What’s Sol?”
“Sol is our star system. It is where the Sol-Kor originated.”
“No shit?” Adam said. He looked at Sherri. “I believe we definitely have a case of copyright infringement, my dear.”
“I would say so. Just think how large that class-action lawsuit would be.”
“Stop talking amongst yourselves and come down. You are wasting my time, and this armor is very irritating.”
********
Adam and Sherri c
limbed down from the platform using traditional methods, saving the revelation of their special talents in the planet’s low gravity for later.
Later came as they approached the eight Sol-Kor guards and their leader on the floor of the building. Adam had already contacted Riyad and Sherri telepathically through their ATD’s, and they were ready to go. With death appearing to be the only alternative to action at this point, the three Humans agreed that going down without a fight was against their nature. And besides, there were only nine aliens and three of them. The odds hardly seemed fair…for the aliens that is.
Although the gray creatures wore armored suits, Adam had noticed how thin and lightweight they appeared to be, more like environmental outfits than real armor. Adam neared Vosmin, while Sherri positioned herself between two of the others. Riyad was being held by two other guards with his back to the wall.
The aliens seem pretty lackadaisical with how they hold their weapons, Adam said through the telepathy device. We should be able to take two out each. That still leaves three. Someone is going to have to grab a weapon.
I have the best angle on the rest of them. I’ll do it, Riyad said.
Get ready. Count of three. Three, two, one…now!
Adam planted a solid forearm into the under part of Vosmin’s helmet, the force of which lifted the huge alien off the floor and slammed him into the metal wall of the building. In another blur, Adam jumped at the alien to his right, grabbing him around the neck. He twisted at the helmet, ripping it off the creature’s head. Adam was curious as to how the Sol-Kor would react to the planet’s atmosphere without their suits, but he would have to wait to find out, because as he pulled off the guard’s helmet he felt his neck snap, and the gray alien crumpled to the floor.
Just then a flash of light came from his right. Riyad was there with an alien rifle cradled at his waist, successive pulses of angry white light pumping out the barrel. Three guards stumbled backwards with fiery holes blasted through their black armor.
Sherri was having fun too. She had swung out a leg and tripped one of her two guards, before placing a knee firmly into the groin of the second one. She had no idea what affect it would have on the alien, although most Prime males carried their junk in about the same place. It was at that point she remembered these weren’t normal males. They were part of a colony of drones spawned by a queen. Eunuchs—all of them—and as such it was only the force of her knee that caused the alien to buckle over. At that point she was presented with an irresistible target, and even with his helmet on the creature was knocked unconscious when Sherri swung doubled-clenched fists against the side of his head. Adam watched as she calmly stepped up to the alien she’d tripped and planted a throat-crushing foot to his neck.
All the aliens were down, yet when Adam turned to where Vosmin had landed, the alien wasn’t there. The door to the building was slowly closing.
Adam rushed to the doorway, and then flew back inside just as a barrage of light-balls splashed against the doorway and streaked into the room.
The three Humans dove for cover, Sherri and Adam scooping up discarded alien weapons.
The second small door opened about fifty yards away and several Sol-Kor soldiers entered. The Humans shot off a few bolts at the aliens, but found that the range of the weapons was about half that distance. “At least we’re out of range, too,” Riyad called out.
Sherri then turned her weapon on the huge maze of machinery behind her. What the metal rod took time and effort to accomplish, the balls of energy did instantly. Soon that side of the building was a fireworks display of electric sparks and popping circuits.
The alien weapons had shoulder straps, so Adam and Riyad each grabbed two from the heap of dead Sol-Kor on the floor, flinging the rifles over their shoulders for future use, and then they too set about raining white-hot balls of plasma at anything within range.
Soon this side of the building was engulfed in flames. “Let them fix that in an hour,” Sherri cried out over the din of the mini-explosions and the incoming fire from the Sol-Kor.
Riyad slid in next to them, until they were all crowded in a narrow space between two of the multi-story banks of equipment that wasn’t on fire and exploding. “This still doesn’t give us a way out, not unless these things can cut a hole in the wall.”
Sherri and Adam each turned to look at Riyad. “Who says they can’t?” they said in unison.
The three Humans took off running down the narrow space between the equipment banks. Adam brought up the rear, and as he ran he turned and placed several plasma shots into the tall metal walls of the corridor behind them. He didn’t know if that would stop the pursuit completely, but at least it would slow them down.
The trio exited the corridor near what would be the right side of the building as viewed from the front. The outer wall was lined with towering machinery, yet to the left was a small opening under a large, four-foot-diameter pipe. They could see the outer wall beyond it.
Adam and Riyad knelt down and took aim, Sherri covered their six. The room lit up with white energy, and soon a hole appeared in the metal exterior wall. The two men saturated the area with fire until the edges glowed red from the heat. Another ten seconds and the opening was large enough for them to fit through, one after the other.
“Watch the sides,” Adam said as he first let Sherri and then Riyad pass to the outside of the building. He followed seconds later.
This side of the building was shrouded in darkness; however, the energy needed to punch the hole in the side had surely lit up the night. They didn’t wait around for the Sol-Kor to react. They ran down the hill—at full Human speed in the light gravity. Along the way they took turns stumbling and falling in the darkness, tripped by hidden depressions and protruding rocks. By the time they reached the base of the hill, each was bruised, battered and bleeding.
On more level ground, they continued to run into the desert. Arrows of light were piercing the darkness as the aliens searched for them, yet none of the searchlights were aimed at the distance where the Humans now ran. Hampered by their own assumptions of running speed, the Sol-Kor couldn’t imagine the Humans being as far away as they were.
Riyad led the way, with Sherri close behind, Adam bringing up the rear. The going was slower now as they hit pockets of soft sand and undulating dunes. With their eyes adapting to the darkness, Riyad managed to avoid falling headlong into a deep wadi, jumping over the narrow crevasse at the last moment. Sherri saw him jump and followed suit. Unfortunately, Adam was glancing behind at the time Riyad jumped, so he didn’t see it coming.
The ground suddenly fell out from under him, and Adam slammed hard into the far bank of the dry riverbed, becoming half-buried in the rocky soil.
“You okay?” Sherri yelled down at him.
“Yeah, I think so.” He looked down at the base of the wadi. “You might come down here, too. It looks like we can move along the bottom. It could provide us with more cover when they come looking for us, in either trucks or flying things, whatever they have here. You know they’ve gotta have something like that.”
“Good idea,” Riyad said. He and Sherri jumped down, each breaking their fall by digging into the loose soil of the side wall. Riyad then stood up and looked both ways down the riverbed. “Reminds me of home,” he said.
“I guess it would,” Sherri said.
Riyad looked at her with a scowl. “I’m from Beirut, Sherri. It was a city of over a million people back then. I hated the desert and spent very little time there. You know, not all Arabs are what you call camel-jockeys.”
“I’m sorry, I just assumed…”
“Yes, I know you did. All you Westerners think alike.” And then the scowl was replaced by his trademark smile. “Ha…I had you going!”
Sherri punched him in the shoulder. “Ow! That really hurt,” he said. “Besides, I think I dislocated my shoulder in a fall back there.” His face twisted in pain and he grabbed at his shoulder.
Sherri stepped up, attempting to he
lp. He backed away. “I’m sorry, Riyad. I didn’t mean…” Her voice trailed off as the smile returned to Riyad’s face.
“You’re such an ass! How can you mess around like this when we’re running for our lives?”
“The look on your pretty face was worth it.”
“Are you two coming or not?” Adam called out. He was already thirty yards down the winding mini-canyon and about to lose sight of them. When they caught up he said, “Even if they don’t come after us today, we left a pretty easy trail in the sand to follow. They’ll be able to follow us, even in the wadi.”
“So what are you thinking?” Riyad asked.
“I say we get our bearings and then head back toward the camp. They might not be expecting that. I don’t know how these things think. In any event, that’s where the other Humans are, and our only way off the planet. We already know there’s nothing out here except more desert.”
“Sounds like a plan—”
Just then they heard a clap of thunder and the interior of the canyon was lit by a distant light. They looked up to see a tiny speck of a shuttle lifting off under chemical power and heading for space, breaking the sound barrier in the process.
“That’s not one of their ships. They have things that don’t need chemical liftoff, or even gravity assist for that matter. That has to be the Klin,” Adam said.
“Strange time to be heading back to their ship, isn’t it?” Sherri asked. “The Sol-Kor had rooms set up for them.”
“I’m sure they have their reasons. The bastards always do.”
Chapter 17
Molison Jons had trouble meeting the eye of the pale alien. He was sure the grinning creature could see right through the ruse, and if his gaze lingered Molison might even feel compelled to admit everything.
He felt a strange attraction to Panur. Here was a creature who had lived for five millennia, acquiring untold knowledge that he’d used to create so many profound breakthroughs in science and technology. To have only a moment within such a mind would be the culmination of a lifetime. What visions he would see there.