Voice of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book Three)

by Lawrence White

  He searched the corridor walls, knowing entrances were hidden from anyone not needing or wanting to know of their existence. Everything about the complex had been designed so that its users would not be aware of its ugly side. According to the Professor, this lowest level was the ugly side. Even knowing what to look for, his eyes still passed over the thin break in the décor several times before finding it. He pressed a recessed button that had been strategically placed within a wall mural and the door snicked open.

  The Professor looked to Mike in embarrassment. “I don’t like confined spaces. I hope you can do this on your own.”

  “What is it?”

  The Professor looked around to make sure no one was listening, not very likely this far down. “It’s my gift to the Queen. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you’ve mapped it out.” He looked at his pad to check the time. “I really must be off to a meeting.”

  The tunnel had no built-in illumination. Mike pulled out his flash and crept in, his flash panning the steeply sloping tunnel walls and ceiling which stretched into the distance before him, a black maw dispersing the light. The floor was smooth, but the walls and ceiling had been rough-cut, then reinforced at regular intervals and lined with a shiny sealer. The tunnel turned sharply and leveled out, opening into a slightly larger tunnel. Mike stopped and considered, wondering if he would get lost in what he suspected was a belowground labyrinth.

  Then his ears picked up sound, maybe the sound of little feet scurrying away from the light, but he did not see anything moving and he couldn’t be sure.

  >Jake, you’re our palace complex expert. Does anything live down here I should know about?<

  >Sorry. I don’t have a clue. This was not exactly part of the Royal Family’s daily routine.<

  >But this is the center of the Empire. No costs were spared in building this place. They wouldn’t allow critters, right?<

  >Define ‘they.’ We’re part of the staff. Doesn’t that make us ‘they?’ Remember, this place is thousands of years old. These tunnels have been here for a long time. I’m not even sure the pipes here are still in use.<

  >Well, keep your eyes peeled.<

  >I don’t have eyes. I’ll keep your eyes peeled, okay?<

  Mike didn’t bother to answer, but he did pull out his stunner. He would have preferred a blaster, but he couldn’t afford to damage the pipes if he had to shoot at something.

  The tunnel sloped down slightly, standard design practice to assist the flow of effluent. One large pipe, most likely for waste, ran on the right wall of the tunnel and three smaller pipes, probably for electricity, communications lines, and water, ran on the left. He moved forward in a crouch, partly out of anxiety and partly because the tunnel was barely high enough for him to stand. He heard a sudden commotion up ahead and stopped, wishing he had a stronger light. Frantic squeaks sounded briefly, then stopped. He inched forward with no idea at all what was up ahead. He passed several smaller tunnels that branched into this main line, just as he would have expected.

  He found the source of the commotion about a hundred meters into the tunnel. A bulbous web hung from the top of the tunnel, swaying from the weight of a spider slashing long pincers into whatever had been caught in the web.

  Mike shuddered. Of all the things it could have been, why did it have to be a spider? He had a deep, primordial fear of spiders, even little ones. This one, its body easily the size of a dinner plate, put him over the edge. He started inching backwards, then stopped. He was a human being and this was a spider. Okay . . . it was a big spider . . . but who was smarter and who had the weapon? Besides, first Knights were fearless.

  A shudder passed through his body, but he made himself inch forward for a better look at the creature. It was a dirty white color, and it did not appear to have eyes. That made sense, he decided. Any creature living in this darkness wouldn’t need eyes.

  >It will have other senses,< Jake reminded him. >Smell, sound, air movement, maybe even vibrations from your steps, and those senses will be sharp.<

  Mike froze and slowed his breathing. >Should I shoot it?<

  >Probably not, unless it attacks us. It’s not bothering you.<

  >Not physically. I’m pretty creeped-out though.<

  >Call out to it. I doubt if it will respond. The thing clearly lives down here in the dark without companions, but give it a shot.<

  >You’re joking. It’s a spider.<

  >I’m not joking. It’s an alien spider, Mike. There are all kinds of possibilities here.<

  A shudder raced through Mike’s body again, but it was gone in an instant. He swallowed, took a breath, and called out, “Hey, can you talk?”

  No response.

  >Okay, I feel a little stupid here, Jake.<

  >So do I. What next?<

  >Back is what’s next. We’re out of here.<

  >You’re afraid of a little ole’ spider? The guy who faced down all those Chessori?<

  >Uh . . . Knights never fear, but I’d like to do a little homework before we go any further. I’d hate to upset the ecosystem down here, and I definitely don’t want to become part of it.<

  A flash of movement on top of the sewage pipe caught his attention. Another spider raced along the pipe, its legs a blur, its grayish coloring blending well with the light-colored pipe. It leaped off the pipe straight at his face.

  His stunner moved of its own accord. Legs and a disgusting body hit his outstretched arms that, thankfully, blocked his face, then slid to the floor. Horrified, he took a step back, but his training from Brodor saved him. He stayed focused, swinging the flash back toward the web. The first spider was almost upon him, racing along the ceiling, level with his head. He stunned it, then swung the flash to his rear. No movement there. He swung back around, but the only thing moving was the nest swaying to and fro. He took out his miniblaster and blasted it to smithereens, then lowered the blaster to the two bodies on the floor.

  One spider lay on its back, the other on its legs. The legs had been drawn up tight against the body of each spider. The bodies were dirty white, flat, and shaped like tics about the size of a large dinner plate. Mike wanted to shoot them, but he hesitated.

  >I don’t want to jump to conclusions here,< he said to Jake. >I’m on an alien planet and these are alien creatures. Is there any possibility they’re intelligent?<

  >Not likely, but I can’t be certain. I recommend getting out of here and checking with the Professor.<

  >I’m with you, Jake, but we have to come back.<

  >With reinforcements, I hope. Better yet, find someone else on the staff who can do it.<

  >Not until I learn more about the tunnels. If they’re what I think they are, a network underlying the whole plateau, they’re a way to get our guys in.<

  >You still have to get them across the forest. That’s 20 miles.<

  >One bridge at a time, Jake. But think about it: these spiders, assuming there are more of them, would make it hard for anyone else to use the tunnels, or even to investigate the tunnels. We’ll own everything down here.<

  >Only if you’re willing to put up with the spiders.<

  Mike shuddered. He started back the way he’d come, his light always moving, his eyes and ears constantly checking in front and behind.

  Professor Harylda’s eyes bugged out in alarm when he heard the news. “We absolutely, positively cannot allow their presence. They’re not poisonous, but they’re fast and brutal. In time, they’ll work their way into the lower levels of the complex. It would be a disaster of the first magnitude.”

  “What do they live on?” Josh asked.

  “Probably Orths, smaller six-legged spider-like creatures. Where you find one, you usually find the other. Both live only in dark areas. They don’t even have eyes. We’ve had infestations before, but I thought we’d stopped them.”

  “Looks to me like you just drove them deeper,” Mike said. “Uh, they’re not intelligent, are they?”

  “No. They’re just dangerous pests. I
’ll hire a crew to deal with them.”

  Josh shot a glance at Mike as he held up a hand. “Give us a day or two, Professor. Their presence might actually be to our advantage. We’d like to learn more about this tunnel network before doing anything else.”

  Harlyda nodded thoughtfully and left. When he returned, he placed an ancient, hand-drawn chart of the tunnels on a table and described the tunnel system. As Mike had suspected, the network reached all parts of the plateau, coming together in hubs at several waste purification plants.

  “The plants are inspected regularly, but not the pipes leading into them. There’s no need. Those pipes are virtually indestructible.”

  Josh looked hard at Harylda. “We’ll check it out. According to your chart, we might have found a way to move my men around if we can get them into the tunnels. How do I get them from the space port to the plateau without attracting a lot of attention?”

  Harylda scratched his head. “They’ll be armed?”

  “Unless I can find a way to move their equipment to the plateau in advance, yes.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t have a plan yet, so it’s hard to say. Maybe 600.”

  Harylda blinked, then frowned. “That’s much larger than I imagined. Let me think about it.”

  “They could come in supply crates if necessary.”

  Everyone’s noses crinkled. “A last resort if I ever heard one,” Harylda said. “I might have a better idea. The Queen will be with them. Surely you won’t lock her into a crate.”

  “I will if I have to.”

  Mike and Josh returned to the tunnel that night. Josh was excited by the idea of a tunnel system unknown to the Rebels, and the presence of critters just made it more interesting. They passed the place Mike had shot the web earlier that afternoon, but there were no traces of anything ever happening there.

  This time they had lamps attached to their heads, allowing both hands to be free for weapons. Josh moved carefully but swiftly with Mike checking their rear. Two hundred meters beyond the previous encounter, Josh held up a hand. Mike stopped and peered over his shoulder. Hanging slightly down from the ceiling, a web glistened in the light, stretching all the way across the roof of the tunnel. In the dark it would have been completely invisible. Josh studied the net, then motioned toward the walls and floor. Nets covered them, as well. There was no sign of the spiders known as Gnanths.

  Josh pulled a food bar from a pocket and tossed it up toward the net on the ceiling. It hit the net and stuck. A few moments went by, then all parts of the net snapped together, forming a ball hanging by a thread from the ceiling. The gnanth was on it in an instant, long pincers stabbing viciously into the ball.

  Josh waited patiently, motioning for Mike to check their rear. The sound of Josh’s stunner brought him back around. A gnanth fell from the ceiling directly before Josh, and the other followed an instant later. Josh finished them off with a blaster, first making certain a ricochet would not damage the pipes.

  The moment he stopped shooting, he held up a hand and motioned for Mike to protect his back. When their hearing returned, both of them heard a skittering sound, a lot of skittering that suggested many, many small feet. Orths, their six-legged white bodies hugging the floor, walls, and ceiling, raced toward them from both directions. Instinct took over, and four stunners opened fire, each shot expertly aimed. The last orth fell just a few feet in front of Mike.

  For Josh, the orth were just another enemy. For Mike, the whole setting of dark tunnel, gnanths, and orths was a horror film come to life.

  Josh knew what Mike was feeling. “You did well,” he said. “Your training took over, and your aim was perfect.”

  “This time.”

  “I know. We have to get smarter. I’ve seen enough for tonight. Tomorrow we return with better equipment. Can you do it again?”

  “It’s not optional, Josh. I wish it was. So does Jake. I can’t imagine Ellie down here.”

  Josh’s lips thinned. “She might not have a choice.”

  * * * * *

  The Professor brought them another set of ancient plans the following day. “Someone thousands of years ago had great foresight,” he said. “He, she, or it built you the perfect entrance to the plateau.” He traced his finger along a corridor running from the city to the Palace. “I’m guessing it was an early supply route. It might have been built even before the senate chamber came into existence, back in the days when they used wheeled vehicles to make deliveries. I’ve never seen this particular corridor, but I know exactly where it comes up underneath the Palace. It’s been sealed off for many, many years. It’s probably sealed off on the city end as well. It’s wide enough for vehicles to move in both directions.”

  Josh’s eyes gleamed. He looked at Mike, then Val, and finally Reba. “We’ll have to explore it right away. I don’t want to get side-tracked if it’s not going to work. We’re all going to get less sleep for a while.”

  A while was a month of nightmarish existence for Mike and Reba. Josh and Val didn’t seem to mind inhabiting the confining spaces with creatures from hell, but Mike and Reba did. He wished they could gas the whole tunnel system, but Josh would not hear of it. He wanted to keep the Rebels from discovering the tunnel system, and what better way?

  The challenge wasn’t just mental. The gnanths and orth did not give up ground easily, and sometimes webs had been restored by their next visit. The two teams pressed on, confirming the accuracy of the old map and carefully marking notations on tunnel walls to keep from getting lost. Everything was done in the dark with headlamps constantly dancing to and fro as they walked.

  Josh and Reba were the first ones to break into the main corridor that passed beneath the forest. They stepped through the portal and stared in awe at a corridor the size of a freeway. To their right, the corridor spiraled up one more level, ending in heavy, locked, blast-proof doors in a warehouse under the Palace. The Professor had the codes, but there was no intention of unlocking this set of doors. Similar doors on the other end of the tunnel, however, would have to be unlocked.

  To their left, the corridor spiraled all the way down to the forest level where, according to the charted plans, it leveled off under the forest and came up again in Crystal City. At the time of its construction, the corridor opened onto the street level there, but warehouses had since been constructed around the sealed opening.

  Josh was not one to leave things to chance. The Professor gave all of them a full week off work, a week they used to travel the full length of corridor under the forest. Heavy packs were a hardship, but nowhere near the hardship provided by the gnanths and orth. Hundreds of spiders owned this tunnel, feeding on thousands of orth. Where these creatures came from none of them knew, but it was most likely from the numerous side and ceiling shafts angling off from the corridor.

  Bruston greeted them as they emerged, filthy, stinky, and exhausted. He wrinkled his nose. “What, no facilities along the way?”

  Josh, as imperturbable as always, shrugged it off. Reba didn’t even acknowledge him. She just kept trudging along, her eyes dull, heading for the nearest daylight. Mike wasn’t far behind her. Val hustled up to her and attempted to put his arm through hers.

  She didn’t even look at him. “No one gets near me until I’ve had a bath,” she said in no uncertain terms.

  “My Lady, you can’t go into the streets looking like that,” Bruston said nervously. She shucked out of her backpack and started undressing right there. “No, no, no,” he called. “In the transporter. I must insist.”

  * * * * *

  The tunnels would have to be cleared again before the Queen arrived, but there was little purpose in trying to keep them clear until then since the gnanths just restored the webs in a day or two. For Mike and Reba, that future chore caused many a sleepless night, but for Val and Josh who didn’t seem to mind the dark confines or the many-legged critters, it was just another challenge in a long list of challenges.

  The team reviewed the ‘
problems’ the Professor had programmed into virtually every system in the complex. The programs were quite ingenious, needing only one simple insertion of code to activate them all. Until activated, the programs would remain dormant, but once activated, pandemonium would break loose. Every door with a lock would unlock and refuse to re-lock, lights would fail, the heating and air conditioning systems would not work at all, communications would die, lift tubes would stop working, and not long after, the power plants would shut down and refuse to come back on line. And because he simply could not live with the idea that the palace complex would be forever sabotaged, he had cleverly designed a program that would return everything to normal. He gave each team member a copy of both programs.

  Reba became a frequent and well known face throughout the complex, partly because she was so strikingly beautiful and partly because she represented the Professor. She delved into thorny issues on a daily basis. Never one to downplay her good looks, she complained humorously that the men she worked with seemed more interested in her than in their projects, and the women just seemed to be angry whenever she was around.

  Val spent long hours with the multitude of computers used throughout the complex, beginning with the small robots used for cleaning and delivery. There were hundreds of thousands of these bots, though most of the repair work on them had been completed before his arrival. The work was tedious, beginning with installing new crystals, checking them out on the bench, then following them around for hours to ensure their proper operation. Professor Harylda promoted Val after a month, moving him to larger computers controlling higher level functions within the complex. Some computers, those that were deep underground, had survived the neutron bomb, but even they needed to be checked-out.

  Josh’s project became their biggest stumbling block. During his Protector training he had received a rudimentary introduction to Galactic High Standard, the official language of the Empire, and with the help of his Rider that knowledge improved swiftly, but he was involved in a highly technical field. When introduced to the weapons contractors, the Professor made it clear to them that Josh was not an expert, nor did he need to be an expert to satisfy the Professor’s needs. That enabled his ignorance to be tolerated and he, in fact, understood a lot more than the civilian contractors gave him credit for. The military officers testing the results of the civilian repairs simply ignored him. He kept an eye on everything and learned fast.