“We’re coming up on the compound,” said the Commander, pointing to the view screen like Chung couldn’t find it for himself.
Why can’t you call it what it is, thought the Colonel, his anger looking for a target in the eggshell floored bridge. It’s a fucking Monastery. Just because it isn’t one to our religion doesn’t mean it isn’t one.
Chung was an angry man, but he still had a brain and tended to use it, even though it possessed significant blind spots. He thought his own culture bred enemies everywhere with their total disdain of other cultures. He saw that as a problem, even though that disdain was a part of his personality.
“We’re here,” said the Commander as the ship came up on the massive structure sitting on the cliff.
Waves were pounding against the face of the rock, just like always, and Chung wondered how long it took to not even notice the sound. The ship was too large for the courtyard, and came down in the field fronting the building. Cattle and sheep lowed or baad in terror as they ran away from to them must have seemed a monster from the sky. Chung was out of his seat before the ship touched down, running toward the hatch and through the corridor to the embarkation port.
Chung was already in his combat suit. He grabbed the web gear held out to him, which included the ancient sword that would sheath over his back. He shrugged into the webbing, secured it, and strode out the open hatch. Marines were already on the ground and fanning out to cover all approaches to the ship. A squad was running for the gate to the Monastery, which was of course closed. A couple of explosive rounds from the ship hit the wood and iron portals and blasted them from their hinges. The squad hurried through the gate, speed being more essential to the mission than safety at this point.
Chung stepped onto one of the gates and into the courtyard. The smell of death pervaded the air, death that he had visited here not long ago. All were natives, none his. The squad ran toward the building and Chung followed. Another squad would be coming from behind, giving him overwhelming force.
In the entry hall there were four bodies that belonged to his unit. Two had been chopped down by some blade weapon that had cut through weapons, armor and flesh with equal ease. He knew that kind of weapon. It was just like the one sheathed on his back. He grimaced as he thought of what that weapon could do to anything made by his, among the most advanced cultures in known space.
The other two lay in rigid postures, their lips discolored and peeled back from their teeth. Poisoning, he thought with distaste. Not a warrior’s weapon, but most definitely one favored by spies and assassins. That damned animal of hers, he thought, thinking back to the report of his Maurid operatives found dead of poisoning on the battlefield, just after the true possessor of the ancient biological key had disappeared from that same field. Along with the weapons of said possessor. Which had been used to kill the other two men. Which meant that the possessor was probably working with them on this, and not a prisoner, because he couldn’t see the Republicans using those weapons useless they were backed into a corner and had nothing else. It was just beyond the thought processes of most moderns to use ancient looking weapons, even if they were superior to the modern equipment they used every day.
“Let’s go get these, people,” said Chung, looking into the eyes of the men with him, “before they get what we came for.” The men nodded and started off, trialing the fire team that had already gone further into the building. The sounds of combat erupted ahead and they quickened their pace.
* * *
“Help me get him up,” said Alyssa, stooping over to get her hands on Derrick.
Patrick nodded and squatted down to get one of Derrick’s arms. They lifted him to his feet while Shadow moved around them. Suddenly the cat stopped in mid pace, then stared at the stairs coming down from above.
“They’re coming,” said Alyssa, pivoting and moving Derrick along the hallway.
Derrick grunted in pain, then tried to help them move him along. Alyssa pulled a cylindrical object from her webbing, hit the top of it against her stomach a couple of times, and then threw it toward the stairs.
“Come on,” she hissed. “We need to get out of here, now.”
There was shouting behind them as they turned the corner of the hall, then the cracking sounds of high velocity rounds coming in and smacking the corner wall. Alyssa stopped for a moment, then disengaged herself from Derrick.
“You keep him moving along,” she said with a grimace. “I’ll slow them down.”
“Don’t, Alyssa,” said Derrick, trying to resist the pull of the Monk for a moment.
“I’m in command,” said Alyssa, yelling over the explosion of the thing she had thrown up the stairwell. That explosion was followed by some short lived screams, then more firing. “Get his ass out of here.”
Patrick nodded, then stooped and put a hand between Derrick’s legs. He grabbed the good leg and straightened up into a fireman’s carry, then started away at a jog, reveling in the strength that his new body possessed. He glanced back before he turned the next corner, to see Alyssa throw another of the things around her corner, while bullets continued to smack into the wall. Then he went around his corner and continued on with the man over his shoulders.
As soon as they got into the vault Derrick started pounding his fist on Patrick’s back. “Let me down, you fucking primitive,” yelled the man. “I can get on from here.”
Patrick lowered the man, who balanced himself on his one good leg. “I can hop down to whatever it is we have down there,” said Derrick, a tear in his eye. “Now you get back there and get her. Right now, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” said Patrick, looking the man in the eye. He could tell that Derrick cared about his superior officer. And not just as a subordinate or a friend. He wondered for a second how much of that Alyssa returned. Then he wondered why he really cared. He nodded at the man and took off back up the passage.
Alyssa was backing down the tunnel, firing her rifle on full automatic. As Patrick came around the corner she was fumbling with another magazine, while a man in strange armor leaned around the corner and took a shot at her that barely missed. That ruined her concentration for a moment, and the magazine slipped from her hands. As she crouched to pick it up another man leaned around the corner and took a shot that passed over her head.
Patrick roared a war cry as he ran forward, shield to his front, sword trailing in his other hand. The enemy soldiers turned their fire on him. Everything that hit the shield bounced away. Patrick stayed in an upright position to get the most speed possible out of his legs, hoping that these soldiers would not think to shoot at his legs. They didn’t and a quick over head chop took care of one man, while a turn and thrust took out the other.
Alyssa had run up next to him with another cylinder in her hand. She threw it around the corner, then grabbed Patrick by the arm and pulled him away. There were shouts and yells that were silenced by an explosion.
Alyssa led the way back to the vault. She cursed as she looked up the tunnel at Derrick, who with a hand on the wall was slowly hopping away.
“There they are,” yelled a voice, and a round bounced off the wall and ricocheted down the corridor.
Alyssa turned, but Patrick put an arm on her shoulder and turned her back around. “You get him going. I’ve got the shield, so it’s up to me to stop them.”
“But,” said Alyssa, trying to grab his arm.
Patrick avoided the grab and ran back into the vault, shield held to his front, bouncing the rounds off while the two soldiers fired at him. He slammed the shield into one, then sliced his sword across the face of the other. The second man screamed, then gurgled, then went down with the top of his head flopping back. Patrick pushed the other man into the wall, brought his shield back, and slammed it into the soldier’s face. The man went slack and fell back into the wall to slide to the floor.
Alyssa was yelling something, but Patrick couldn’t hear her in his Fae state, his senses all focused on the situation around him
. He was aware of a big man entering the room, and turned to face him. The shock took him out of Fae state as he recognized the man.
“You,” he called out, remembering this big blond man standing over him as he bled out on the battlefield, his guts hanging from his abdomen and pain about to unman him.
“You,” said the big man with a smile, hand reaching over his back and grasping a hilt.
The hand moved down and the blade came out. Patrick gasped as he recognized that blade.
“Didn’t think you had the only one, did you?” said the big man, moving the blade to his front and taking a two handed grip on the hilt. “We never did find a shield like that on the home world. But all of these things are just toys compared to what you have unlocked behind you. Now let me through, and we may treat you well. We may even let you see your brother.”
“Sean?” said Patrick, a fleeting feeling of hope running through him. “He’s alive?”
“He is on my ship,” said the man with a smile. “We have treated him well.”
“Hoping to use him against me,” said Patrick, swirling his sword around in a circle.
“Of course,” said the big man, keeping his blade at the ready. “And he will continue to be treated well if you follow my lead.”
“Will you save my world?” asked Patrick, moving his consciousness back into the Fae.
“Of course,” said the man, his smile growing wider. “It is a valuable world to me and my people. We do not want to see it come to harm.”
And then Patrick knew the man was lying. He could tell by the look in the eyes, the set of the mouth, the heart beat he could hear through the man’s clothing and flesh. The man was a skillful liar, able to fool most. But still a liar.
“I don’t believe you,” said Patrick, shifting his shield and moving in to the attack.
The man came forward, his own blade striking Patrick’s shield with a force he had never felt, pushing him back as the shield, which always seemed to absorb any force, vibrated from the hit. The man’s blade than came around with uncanny speed and intercepted Patrick’s sword. The weapons clashed with a screeching sound like two lost souls battling in out in the pits of hell.
Patrick brought his sword back for another strike, then had to bring it forward before he was ready to stop the man from taking him behind his shield and removing his arm. The man was too fast. Patrick found himself always a step behind where he wanted to be with any maneuver, and the man seemed to have some kind of fighting trance that equaled Patrick’s.
He threw in a kick, snapping it forward and missing his target by mere inches. Instead of the tender solar plexus he hit below it into the strength of the abdominals, which bounced his foot off like it had hit a slab of rock. The man’s elbow came down on his foot and the top of his foot erupted with pain. He brought the foot back out of danger before something worse, like the man’s sword, came down on it.
“Oh,” said the man with a shark like smile. “You’re good. But not good enough.”
Definitely not good enough like this, thought Patrick. His center was off, and he couldn’t bring the full strength and speed of the Fae forward without a firm center. This man fought a different style, one Patrick was unfamiliar with. And he was balanced and at ease with his body.
The man feinted with his sword. Patrick brought his around to counter. The shield hanging from his arm was a non factor, more of a hindrance really in this kind of fight. As soon as his sword contacted the other man’s a big fist came in and struck Patrick on the face. He felt his knees weaken, and kept up only through force of will.
“Patrick,” he heard a voice calling as if from far away. “Patrick.” He couldn’t afford to look for the voice. He had to keep his concentration on the man to his front. That was the priority, the life or death situation. He noted with an almost detachment that there were armed men now behind the man he was fighting. They were not a worry at the moment, though they might be if he downed the big Colonel.
Another fist came in and connected with the Monk’s ribs. He grunted as he felt one of the ribs snap, then the air was forced out of his lungs from something smashing into his stomach. In Fae state, with his thoughts still speeded up, he wondered why the man didn’t finish him with his sword. Then he realized that he had something that the Colonel wanted as well. Access to whatever tech lay hidden at the end of that tunnel.
He looked up in time to see another hard fist coming down toward his head, and was sure that the blow would take him out of the fight, leaving him helpless on the floor. No, he shouted out in his mind, not able to yet do so with his lungs. He saw that his shield, which had so far been useless in this battle, was in position to intercede, if he moved it now.
With a supreme effort, fighting through dizziness and nausea, Patrick pulled the shield up. The big fist came down on the edge of the shield and the man cried out in pain.
“You fucking little bastard,” yelled the man, waving his hand in the air and pointing his sword at Patrick. “You will pay for that, you bastard.”
But Patrick had already started to move as soon as the hand struck metal. He pivoted in place, again fighting the dizziness that threatened to spill him to the floor. He brought the shield up to cover him as best he could and stumbled toward the opening to the passageway.
Some rounds cracked by his head, and Patrick crouched into his run, almost losing his balance. More rounds cracked by, and there were some slight impacts on the shield. It was then that the Monk realized the shooting was coming from both directions.
“Touch the damned panel,” yelled Alyssa as he careened into the passageway. “Quick, before they follow us in.”
Patrick nodded his head, still dizzy and nauseated, wondering what her purpose was, but hitting his body against the wall by the panel. As he reached out a hand a round hit the wall and threw dust into his eyes. He cried out in pain and fear as his vision left him for a moment, only a field of red in his awareness. He hit his hand against the wall and slid it around. A sound came to his ears, something sliding against something else, and Alyssa was at his side.
“That did it,” she said in a voice that was harsh from recent screaming. “Now why didn’t you come running when I called your name?”
“I could barely hear you,” said Patrick, rubbing his eyes, getting them to tear up so he could get rid of the grit that had flown in them. “And I was kind of disoriented from being hit in the head by that hammer of a fist.”
“You shouldn’t have walked out there to challenge him in the first place,” hissed the woman, grabbing Patrick by the shoulder and pulling him around to face her. “He was more than a match for you.”
“He wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t have changed my body so drastically,” he said back in a cold voice.
“He would have taken you down twice as fast in that bony little body you had before we saved you,” said Alyssa, pushing a finger into his chest.
Patrick’s vision began to clear, and he looked down at her, then over at the entrance that was now sealed off.
“Don’t worry about that,” said the woman, nodding toward the ancient door that closed them off from the Theocrats. “Nothing short of an antimatter weapon will get through that door.”
Patrick wasn’t sure what an antimatter weapon was, but from the way she said it the thing had to be really powerful. He couldn’t even hear anything coming through from the other side of that portal, though he was positive they had to be trying to blast their way through it. He turned back to the woman as something she had said penetrated his thoughts.
“I could have beaten the giant if you had left me with my, as you say, skinny body,” said Patrick, making one last swipe at his eyes, then crossing his arms.
“He would have crushed you,” said Alyssa with a smirk.
“Size is not everything,” said Patrick, remembering to how this new form did not respond to his wishes like his old. “There is speed, and coordination, and timing. And all of that was thrown off by the changes you
made in my mass and length.”
“Well, it’s over now,” said Alyssa, her lips pouting in a manner that Patrick found most attractive, even though he was still angry at her.
“When I meet him again I will be ready,” said Patrick, turning away from the entrance and looking down the tunnel.
“Just hope you don’t meet him again,” said the woman, her face serious. “Next time he will probably kill you.”
“I will meet him again,” said Patrick, feeling determination to avenge his defeat and the death of so many of his friends and mentors. “We will meet, and he will pay for what he has done.”
“We need to get moving,” said Alyssa.
As the words left her mouth the ground rumbled underneath them, and Patrick again felt the danger to his world. “You will promise something to me, Alyssa Suarez,” he said, shrugging off the hand she put on his arm to pull him on.
“And what is that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“You will do all in your power to use what we find to save my world.”
The woman looked into his eyes and seemed to be hesitating. He knew that she had her own agenda; one she had to feel was as important as his. But he was the one in charge as long as he was the only one who could activate what they wanted.
“Promise me, or I will go no further,” he said, standing his ground. “I will trust in your word.”
“I promise to do whatever is in my power to save your world,” said the woman, holding up a hand as if taking an oath. “No matter what happens, the salvation of your world takes precedence.”
“Very well,” said Patrick, reading the sincerity in the woman’s voice. “Then lead on.”
* * *
Nathan Chung screamed to the Gods when the door closed in his face. Unfortunately, as was their won't, they didn’t answer, and the impossible ancient material remained in the way.
Theocracy: Book 1. Page 12