"No stewardesses?" Arie complained. "What the hell?"
"Anybody know where we're going?" Scout asked.
"Delta, alert," the general said. "I asked where we were going and they did not directly answer, as usual, but they did send two words into Saka's mind: Target Demons."
"All right!" I said. "That's great!"
"Why won't they tell us where we're going?" Smiley asked.
"Why do you think they want us along?" Doggie asked.
"Don't know. Do you?" Bird said.
"I can't imagine why," Doggie said.
"They are very reluctant to disclose information," Saka said.
"These troopers are going to someplace called the Cat," Bees said.
"What! How did you learn that?" the general asked.
"I can hear their thoughts," Bees said. "They're all around us, and very excited, and throwing messages back and forth. I can hear them clearly."
"I had no idea you were that good, Bees. Listen in! Try to learn where it is, what it is, anything you can learn about this Cat."
"Sure! All right, let me listen."
We waited impatiently as Bees listened in. Finally she reported back. "The Cat," she said. "The Black Cat. It seems to be a region of the vac, a very large region. It's dangerous, it can suck you in – like a black hole. And it's like a whirlpool in the vac. You can ride it, into another universe. It's like a bridge. A star bridge."
"It's Dragon Shoals," the general said, calmly. "That's got to be Dragon Shoals. We're heading for home!"
We were all stunned. I could hardly believe it.
Δ
By the time we reached the Bright starship, we were hyper. We boarded along with all the other troopers. It was a huge ship, and it was soon full of Bright troopers, bound for war. Our Bright escorts showed us our quarters, two-tiered wall bunks along an almost endless personnel corridor, crowded with Bright troopers struggling out of their armor and storing A-suits and weapons in open lockers on the opposite wall of the corridor. We did the same, stripping down to our Bright lizard camfax. General Huynh and Saka were invited to room with the officers.
As soon as we were allowed to break away from the bunk area we did so. We hurried to find a simport and found a big one that revealed our lovely black shuttle still affixed to the starship. Two other inky black shuttles were floating in space not far off, awaiting their turn to board troopers. And the vac was glittering with cold stars and lovely faraway nebulae. Several distant silvery specks were approaching us. More ships, full of soldiers and exotic weaponry, bound for another universe to strike hard at ancient foes. No escape, for the Demons. Somehow it was thrilling to me, to see this mighty alien army gathering for war. Why attack the D's in our universe when they could do it so much easier in theirs? That part I did not understand.
"Want to know the name of this starship?" Bees asked.
"Yeah. What is it?" I asked.
"Hand of God," she replied.
I almost felt sorry for the D's. Almost.
Δ
Once underway in DX stardrive, there were no more simports and no more lovely views. What we had gathered from our earlier look out the simport was that the Hand of God was a gigantic, roughly delta-shaped starship, probably a mother ship or battlestar like the Andrion Deep. We had several days to gather our thoughts as we approached Dragon Shoals. We would have squad meetings in the cafeteria, which was normally crowded with young Bright troopers. Blackie often accompanied us and the Brights loved him, reaching out to stroke him and hold his head in their hands, perhaps to read his thoughts. He seemed to be very happy. We weren't worried about the Brights reading our minds because there was nothing we could do to counter it. But we still had staff meetings, sitting around a cafeteria table, snacking on Bright delicacies.
"I keep asking where we are going," the general said. "And they keep sending Target Demons. Today we got something else. Tell them, Saka."
"We were asking the usual," Saka said. "Where are we going? And this time one of the chief's subordinates answered. I think this guy is relatively high ranking. It was that tough old bird that almost died in your arms on Galinta, Prophet. Remember him?"
"I sure do."
"What he sent to me was the thought, Home. That was his answer. And then the chief interrupted and sent me the thought, Target secret. Target briefing later."
"I'll be damned," I said.
"Bees, have you picked up anything about a target world after the Black Cat entry is over?" the general asked.
"Sorry, General. These troopers don't know the target. They'll go where they are sent. They all seem convinced that the target is the Demons."
"I can't figure out why, with all the Demon targets they've got in their own universe, they want to hit them in our universe. It doesn't make sense."
"There's a reason," I said. "We just don’t know it."
"Well, I believe you're right there. There's certainly a reason."
Δ
When the Hand of God began to vibrate slightly, I suspected we were entering Dragon Shoals. The transition from regular DX stardrive to DX stargate mode was so smooth that we didn't even notice it. Perhaps there was no transition in a ship this large, or maybe it was fully automated. Anyway, the ship did start vibrating a little, from time to time. "It's the Black Cat," Bees said. "That's what they are saying. We're in stargate mode."
Life in the Hand of God continued just as before. It wasn't like when we were in the Golden Lotus, all suited up and prepared for imminent disaster at all times. It seemed that the Black Cat stargate was a routine maneuver for Bright starships – nothing to get excited about.
Δ
We entered the cafeteria for another squad meeting. It was full of Bright troopers. The general paused to try and spot a table. The nearest table suddenly emptied, the occupants scooping up their eats and drinks and gesturing us to the empty table. The general's lizard camfax fatigues had a Bright general's symbol on the collar. It came in handy occasionally.
General Huynh spread out a silky color tacmap out on the table. "All right, we at last know the situation," he said. "Here it is. The target is Veda 6."
"Veda 6!" Scout gasped.
"That's right – the same ConFree planet that Ice saw in her vision, and warned everyone about. The Legion repelled the first attack, brilliantly. But then the D's rallied, and sent in a lot more saucers, and troops. The chief told us that a titanic battle has been raging for the future of the planet. At least that's what it sounded like to us, right, Saka?"
The ship shuddered, vibrated, then settled down.
"Sure did. When they want to let us know something, it's clear."
"He said it looks like ConFree is sending in all they have – and the Demons are attacking with all they have," the general said. "It sounds as if the D's are losing the air power struggle to Fleetcom and the Legion. Their inexhaustible supply of saucers recently stopped. And who did that, gang?"
"We did!" I replied.
"That's right. Here's the tacmap. And here's what we do. The D's are stalled outside Valhalla, the capital – here. The Legion is very heavily entrenched there before a massive Demon army, but Fleetcom attacks any D air that appears in the vicinity. The D's over-ran Goldglen, here, a provincial capital, and moved on from there towards Valhalla as one prong of at least four Demon infantry spearheads targeting Valhalla, supported by saucer fighters. Legion forces are retreating slowly under fire to delay the D advance from Goldglen, and calling in air strikes that are punishing the D's.
"The Brights will attack the D's here southwest of Goldglen and push into and through the town, pursuing the D's as they advance towards Valhalla. Other Bright units will drop behind the D's main force in the west, and attack east to destroy the D's and hammer and anvil them against the Legion defense of Valhalla.
"There's plenty more going on, but here's our part. The Bright Delta fighters are going to cleanse the vac and cleanse the air, and then strafe the D's heavily from air to ground,
going after every visible D ground target in the vicinity of Goldglen. Then the shuttles are going to insert troops on all sides of the Demon advance from Goldglen to Valhalla. The Brights are going to march through Goldglen, exterminating any Demons that show their faces. And they are going to drop us in not far from Goldglen. Our mission is the air raid shelter at the center of town. It will still be intact, although the first few levels will likely be cooked from the airstrikes. The reason it will still be intact is that the D's have been using it for, among other things, storing prisoners. Those will be civilian prisoners, women and children, since the D's don't take military prisoners, or even male civilians. I think the B's have asked us to do this mission because, first, they want us out of the way of the main offensive – probably because they don't want us killed – and second, it involves civilians and they don’t know how to deal with them."
"So what will be the enemy presence in the air raid shelter?" Saka asked.
"That's unknown. But I think it will be plenty. It's the most secure site in Goldglen – pretty much invulnerable to air attacks. If the Brights overrun Goldglen and move on without cleansing the air raid shelter, I'll bet there will be plenty of D troopers hiding down in the lower levels, just waiting for the enemy to show up down there."
"So. Women and children," I said.
"That's it," the general said. "Anyone have a better cause?"
Nobody answered him. Women and children, I thought. All right. That's fine. That's the Supreme Commander, down there. We all work for them. No – there was no better cause.
"Did the chief say why they are doing this?" Scout asked. "Why they are attacking the D's here instead of back in their own universe?"
"Yeah," Saka said. "They gave us six words: You help us, we help you."
Chapter 19
Tears of Acid
If you ever want to get your adrenalin pumping, take a ride on a shuttle headed into battle. We dropped from the Hand of God like a brick, cutting through the at like a meteor, encased in flame, the ship shaking and shuddering, full of young Bright soldiers probably saying their prayers, and I, at last, knew what it was about, for them at least. It was a blood sacrifice, for their human allies. Talk about a meaningful alliance. We couldn't even talk with the Brights, but ConFree's future with them was to be sealed with blood, today.
The shuttle had wide simports along the fuselage, probably for morale purposes – let the troops see where they are going. It was thrilling for me, seeing Veda 6 racing past far below us, mostly covered with grey clouds. I knew very little about Veda 6, except that it was a ConFree world that had been invaded by a merciless alien horde, and millions of ConFree nationals were in mortal peril. Wasn't that enough? Hey D's – remember us? We're the ones that bombed Kratar! How'd you like that? Well, we're coming after you again – you’d better hide your wormy asses – you'd better hide real good!
Δ
They dropped us off with the others, in a smoking rubble field that had once been the happy town of Goldglen. It was still burning under a light drizzly rain and a dark cloudy afternoon sky. The shuttle lifted off as we dispersed. The Brights set off on their own missions and we got to work on ours.
"All right, we got the air raid shelter on the tacmap, up ahead, as marked," Doggie said. He was the tac man and he was in charge now – the general was just a regular trooper for this mission although he was in his Assidic armor and had his A battle rifle. "We enter by element fire teams, one element through each entrance. Element One, Gate One, me, Smiley and Blackie. Element Two, Gate Two, Scout and Nitro. Element Three, Gate Three, Saka and Prophet. Element Four, Gate Four, Bees, General and Bird. Call Smiley for Manlink firepower – we'll be up front with the firepower and Blackie should sniff out any D's that hide from our sensors. Bees, you're in charge of Element Four as we discussed before. You will collect all civilians we liberate, take charge of them and stash them somewhere on the two highest floors, you decide where. General and Bird will assist Bees in doing that task and in defending the civilians – because that's our mission. The rest of us will focus on killing D's."
We activated cloaking and crunched along what had once been a main street, but was now a trash-strewn trail between demolished piles of rubble that had been buildings. Blackened hulks of burnt-out aircars smoked and sputtered in the rain. I guess it looked pretty much like any unfortunate city, anywhere in space or time that had gotten in the way of two opposing armies. Bees took up the rear as her Bright armor did not have cloaking capability. Her armor was flickering with a silvery force field.
Bodies were strewn around everywhere, individually or tangled up in grisly groups – civilians, torn to shreds, and Demons, chopped up in their dark blue armor. Flesh-eating insects flew around the corpses, and maggots squirmed on the rotting bodies. Demon parasite worms were slithering along from corpse to corpse, looking for something alive. I did not see any Legion armor or bodies. We didn't leave our dead behind. Two delta sharks thundered overhead authoritatively, disappearing into the clouds. Head's up, a new gang's in town! We could hear the multiple sharp cracking of the B's lightning bolts. It was close. We could hear distant thunder. It was building. That would be the Bright fighters, pounding the D's.
The air raid shelter was a giant square blockhouse with four huge entrances, each of which took up almost one entire side of the building. The idea was that thousands of people could run into the building at the same time, without any pause or backup, then charge down huge ramps that lead to the underground where they could wait out the raid. They should have been evaced if enemy ground troops approached. But some of them evidently were not. The Brights seemed to have good intel on this installation. Now it was up to us to exploit it.
"Entering Gate One," Doggie reported. Saka and I were almost on Gate Three, which was our entry point. The exterior entrance ramp was tangled with bodies – so many we had to step over them carefully to avoid stepping on them. Lots of civilians – women and children. Blasted to bits. Arms, legs, decapitated heads. Lots of armored Demons as well, chopped up and blasted apart by the Brights' lightning. The Brights had just passed this way, cutting down all the D's. Some of the dead were still bleeding and their parasite worms were abandoning ship.
"Entering Gate Three," Saka reported. My adrenalin was at max output. I was sweating icy sweat. We entered the bunker, the overhead cutting off the sunlight, all dark in here, no power. Inside, the walls and deck and ceiling were blackened and still smoking. Char-grilled Demons were scattered around the deck in black armor like dead beetles, arms and legs sticking up at strange angles. I checked the tacmap and everyone was where they belonged – Doggie and Smiley at Gate One, Scout and Nitro at Gate Two, us at Gate Three and Bees, Bird and the general entering Gate Four. Huge elevators and escalators were frozen and dead. Multiple ramps led down into the dark.
"All right, let's clear this sucker," Doggie said. "Just like a starship, one deck at a time. Silence and stealth, gang. Remember, we're invisible. Get as close as you can, then blast 'em. If they're waiting in ambush, their shields will be down – otherwise we'll spot 'em. Good lord! Look at that!" Our tacmaps had been probing the entire installation, a little friendly outreach for us, and lit up a whole installation full of D's, far below, glowing red, moving around. And what was that – all those blue spots? Civilians! That would be the women and kids, all mixed up with the D's. Damn it!
"Forty seven hostiles, marked red, armored and armed, twelve with shielding up, the others with shielding down," Dolly reported. "Fifty two civilians, marked blue, unarmored and unarmed. Recommend auto hyper darts for all hostiles." Right, I thought, darts for silence and darts to rip open the Demon force fields.
"They'll have ambushes set up at the higher levels, gang," Doggie said. "And they won't be shielded. Let's say hello."
Δ
We set off down the interior ramps, clearing the place deck by deck. It was dark, just like a cavern far below the earth. That didn't bother us at all. We could see just fine. O
ur tacmods did not show any hostiles at the upper levels but we had to make sure, and that took time. Each deck was like a small city – some were just like giant assembly arenas, but others were like cities, divided up into scores of office cubes, shops, residential cubes, warehouses, storage facilities, power stations and more. The entire place was filthy – Demon filth, loose worms and some dead Demons, stripped of their armor. We found two human children, both boys, with their heads bashed in.
The Demons squirmed below, awaiting us.
Δ
"Tacmods say they're blues – civs," Saka said. We were frozen, all our phantom senses focused on a disorderly pile of metal dropboxes. Honey told me there were three civilians there – inside or behind the dropboxes.
"I'll check it out," I said. I crept up to the sweating metal boxes, E extended. Honey revealed three humans inside one of the boxes. I may have been invisible, but I was expecting a Demon to pop up out of nowhere and start shooting at me.
I touched the lock and the top rose open slowly. My E was pointed at three females, naked, tightly wrapped around each other, squeezed into the box. When the top opened they began whimpering, gasping and trembling and crying. When I touched one of them she shrieked and went into a full-body fit, shaking all over.
"Quiet down," I said. "We're Legion soldiers, and you're being rescued. Come on, let's get out of the dropbox."
We got them out of the box but they were terrified, maybe because it was totally dark and they could not see us. I wasn't about to drop my cloaking. They lay there grasping each other, totally terrified. They were in bad shape, covered with welts, cuts and bruises. They looked like teens. Their faces and lips were swollen and cut.
"Bees, Prophet. We've got three girls here, please come and get them."
Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) Page 45