Last Merge (Wine of the Gods Book 34)

by Pam Uphoff

  Ajki leaned back to think that over, while a few low voiced comments were exchanged.

  Hackathorn raised a hand, attracting all eyes.

  "I'll send people who can close gates to babysit both surveillance worlds. As the merge—possible merge—nears, all personnel need to get off the Primitive World, whether the Helaos are planning to control the merge or not." He glanced at Ajha. "And off Helios. Then we'll close the gates."

  Ajha nodded. "Just in case more phenomena can propagate through the gates. The timing of the Dinosaur World earthquakes, probably caused by the concentrations and sheer number of transdimensional gates, were strongly felt on Helios, and weakly felt on both the surveillance worlds. An interesting effect we need to think about later.

  "Unfortunately, the Helios facilities are on hard old rock, so there was minimal damage. But I wouldn't want to find out about solar changes up close and personal."

  A question from down the table. "So the Helaos's aren't happy about this?"

  Ajha grinned. "Not a bit. There was a near emotional melt down after the recalculation. The scientists are quite certain they'll hit square on. They are not happy at all."

  Satisfaction all around.

  Except the Disco people. And I know what's worrying them.

  "Dr. Hackathorn? Are you going to try to evacuate the Primitive World?" Rael said Q and Xen were distressed . . . Hackathorn looks cool.

  "That's already underway, in fact, nearly finished. Q called in civilian assistance from Comet Fall. We will inevitably miss people, small groups, but we will be as thorough as possible."

  Leaking worry.

  Movement down the table.

  Info Subdirector Omsi leaned to eye the Earther.

  "We have satellites orbiting the Primitive World. One of my people reported this morning that there are large circular areas of disturbed ground in Eastern Africa."

  Hackathorn nodded.

  "Yes, they're scooping entire villages into dimensional bubbles and transporting them to an Empty World. It keeps all their families, shelters, and possessions with them. It's . . . the minimally impactful thing we can do. Given the short time frame, we simply cannot invite them to move out of the danger zone."

  One! Brute force kidnapping of the entire world population. Fortunately a small population, but it's going to be a horrible shock for them.

  There were several brief updates—the other empty world being used for surveillance and a military buildup had also felt the earthquakes caused by the close encounter.

  Ajha nodded thoughtfully. "That would explain the state of the Hygeia Branch. Close passes, even overlaps, long before the Helaos developed their merge techniques, causing massive tectonic effects, on Earth and any other bodies in the right orientation, perhaps gravitational effects on smaller bodies—the asteroid Hygeia in the case of Comet Fall.”

  Hackathorn summed it up. "We'll get the people off the Primitive World, and see if they stop there."

  Urfa nodded. "Good. I don't like something like that wandering around loose. Done and over."

  With no other business, the meeting adjourned.

  "Well, it was what we expected." Urfa stood. "Dr. Hackathorn, Inso? Can you stay for lunch?"

  Inso grinned. "So you can grill us in private?"

  "And get to know Dr. Hackathorn better. We really do need to stop thinking of Disco as Xen and his crew."

  Inso and Hackathorn swapped grins. Hackathorn shrugged. "That's pretty much how we think of ourselves. Xen has threatened to just disappear—again—if we don't stop it. But then something like this comes up and he just says 'I'm off to save the Multiverse' and leaves us scrambling to figure out how to support his efforts."

  Inso nodded. "Q's just as bad, she just not as scary. And I really hope she's right about the potential effect of this multiple-stars-and-planets merge. The idea of Helios just stopping is excellent. If they survive, they'll be an ordinary threat, not a world killing menace."

  Urfa showed his teeth. "I'll put it on my calendar. Once a year go destroy any attempt of the Helaos to build a gate."

  Inso shook his head. "There's no one there for them to merge with. Perhaps, if they understand about needing water and can collect rain from the other world, as the worlds merge, they might survive. But I suspect that most of them will die."

  Urfa paused . . . nodded. "All million and a half of them, and I'm sorry about any children that might still be there, but I really don't give a damn about the rest of them."

  Hackathorn followed him out of the room. "Well over half of them moved to their colony world before you destroyed their gate machinery. All the children and fertile women, young men and women who didn't want to merge. We've only condemned three hundred thousand or so."

  ***

  On the Primitive World, the Helaos were erecting a prefab building to exact specs. Full of barred cages. "It's a jail." Q shivered. "They're planning on holding prisoners here."

  Xen nodded. "I'll warn Urfa that they've apparently got another gate working. Damn, if we had more time . . . " He stepped around the peered . . . “they’re prepping to keep the Magnetos working, over there.”

  "We have more important things to do, ourselves." Q shot a glare at the widespread construction areas. "Damn them. C'mon, let's get back to Africa. We need to finish kidnapping millions of people."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Another raid

  One World

  6 Safar 1405 yp

  There was always news on, during breakfast.

  Rael tuned her bug in to the screen she was facing.

  Oh One! Hysteria about missing college students. We retrieved . . . wait. Hundreds? What the . . .

  "For those of you just tuning in, cross-dimensional raid on the University of Karachi western campus early this morning. Police are still trying to account for all the students, with roughly a thousand students being treated for broadcast sleep spells

  The Newsie on the scene and his cameraman were focused on stretchers carrying limp bodies out of another building. They weren't shrouded, as if dead, and as they zoomed in, were clearly female.

  The vid switched to a hysterical man pointing at a building. "See? They took over that building with all the big lecture halls in it. Do you believe they packed two hundred kids into a theatre-like room and expect them to learn anything?"

  The newsman looked a bit taken aback. "Well, it certainly made everything easy for the kidnappers. It has to have been either a gate or a corridor. At this point all we know is that six hundred young men and women are missing, and the police say a military type force had control of most of the campus and is now backing away."

  Military. Oh crap.

  An unidentified voice interrupted. "Ugde, they are leaving most of the women behind, and the doctors at Central City Hospital say they have detected traces of halogen compounds."

  "Knockout gas? That sounds like Earth. The Fallen would have used magic."

  Rael watched carefully, as a remote backup memory of a security camera was shown. She recognized the phenotype and uniforms immediately. "Helaos. God. Damn. It is them."

  :: Urfa! Those are Helaos in Karachi. :: She could feel the man's wince and toned her mental voice down. :: Is it still ongoing? Can we get there in time to do anything. ::

  She looked over her shoulder . . . "Eppa? I need the Speed Squad! Guys? Uniforms. An armored something. No, forget the armor. We need aircars that can get through corridors. Lots of guns." She bolted up the stairs and headed for her room, already shedding her warmups. Uniform, her favorite pistol, the rod of the dimensional bag. Lace shoes. Run back down to where a bunch of weapons were being carried out the front door.

  Major Eppa, waved her toward the first vehicle. "Rael? It's not armored at all. But it's fast and it'll go through the corridors."

  Urfa huffed up, out of breath. "You're heading straight for Auckland—the Helios are already out of Karachi. I've called Disco, they're enroute."

  "Auckland!"

  "Ye
ah, at least they yelled for help immediately."

  Isakson arrived at a run. Pointed at the Speed Team. "Two in each seat. Rael and I get the doors."

  "What?"

  "Because she can fly and I can parachute." He eyed the driver. "Show me how fast you can get to Auckland."

  The driver—Dear One! Zippo!—grinned. Isakson leaped in beside him, closed the door, the others crammed themselves in.

  Rael sat on Ux's lap and pulled the door closed. The aircar leaped into the air and the rear jets cut in. "What? Don't look like that, better me than Isakson, right?"

  "Uhhh . . . Ahhhh!" as the aircar dropped . . . right into the red-lit emergency zone in front of the corridor to Gate City, skidded through, bounced up . . . two blocks then, twist and drop into the space before the Auckland Corridor . . . up and blast forward . . .

  "Campus coming up on the right where do you want me to land?"

  Rael leaned between the front seats and pointed "See that line of trucks disappearing into nowhere? As close as you can get." She triggered the emergency door release and jumped.

  Shield wings out, tail, flipped up and dive for the spot where the trucks were disappearing. And throw a slice across the engine compartment of the truck approaching that spot.

  Her left arm jerked back and she fell into an out-of-control spin. Bullet hit the wing. Reach out for a pull to stabilize, kite up in a swoop. Wings in one solid sheet bulging out in front of her body. With brief holes so she could throw three more slices to stop trucks, then she dropped into a target rich environment and went to work. Hard stuns—prisoners to question—a curved shield, grounded and braced and they were shooting themselves with ricochets.

  Isakson hit the ground on the far side of the trucks and laid out his own swath of destruction.

  Rael took a breather to check the battleground.

  The truck drivers were all out, shooting from behind their truck doors, windows down and providing rifle rests. The foot soldiers . . . Some were in cover, providing cover for the ones who were up and running for the buildings.

  :: Ohhe, concentrate on the ones running. Don't let them get hostages. Isakson and I will deal with the trucks. ::

  She turned her attention to the trucks. A vertical slice through the middle of the door . . . Worked nicely. Well, messily. She ran to get the right angle on the next truck, staggering at the punches of hits on her shield. Slash and slash again. Turn and slash right through a concrete planter that the Helaos must have thought was safe . . . and all the shooting had stopped.

  Rael looked back at the gate . . . which wasn't there.

  Q was.

  She walked over to Rael. "I disrupted their gate enough that they shut it down, and I've destroyed their gate anchor. But I'll bet they've got them at dozens of other colleges. Possibly hundreds."

  Three more aircars, with more sane pilots, arrived, and the Black Horse Guards joined the local police in a room-by-room search for the mentally-invisible Helaos.

  None surrendered. A few more were stunned.

  Newsies were almost as thick as the police and medics. Yelling questions.

  "Doctor Quicksilver! How did they get their gate mechanism repaired so quickly?"

  Q glanced their direction at that one, looked back at Rael. "The gate was coming from their colony world." Her comm buzzed. She clicked it on and listened. "Right. I'll go to the Colony and see if I can stop them there. Then I'll meet you at the second surveillance world."

  She clicked off and looked around as Urfa jogged up. "Xen says they've established a shadow zone on the target. These kids they've kidnapped? They're on the colony world. They'll gate them to the Primitive World and haul them into the Shadow Zone from that side, to merge with Helaos coming in from their world. I've got to go."

  Not even a poof of air. She was just not there.

  Chapter Twenty

  If you can’t grab those kids, try these . . .

  Some Earth, Tunguska Cluster

  6 Febuary 2018

  Eldon's casual stroll paused as he spotted the parked car and the policeman leaning on the door of the Magic Shop. "Hey. Thought you'd be busy with that riot on campus. My kids aren't mixed up in it, are they?"

  "We haven't a clue, because we can't get past their military cordon. We were wondering if you could do a pair of gates that would get us someplace useful."

  "I can throw a corridor a couple of miles. Just show me where you want it. Military? What the hell's going on?"

  "We were wondering if you could tell us that, too."

  "Umm, you drive. I'll look and see if they're messing with the Gate to Wilderness."

  As soon as he sank into meditation he could see the foreign gate, a massive writhing tube, like a snake trying to rip a piece of the World off. He traced it back to where it was coming from, a World pretty much in the direction of his Miocene World.

  Guess they aren't all Empty Worlds out that way. But that's the world the gate from that little one went to. They must both have gates. Are they at war with each other? Or both part of an Empire?

  He looked back at where it connected here. Close. He could see them . . . soldiers . . . moving people to round topped trucks, driving toward the gate. Taking people away. Why? Is this a slave raid?

  But the Gate's presence was so strong he thought he could throw a corridor at it easily enough.

  He opened his eyes, and realized someone was shaking his shoulder. "Stop. I see them. I'll get you a corridor right to them, but be ready, they're armed, military." He opened his eyes and looked around at the police SWAT teams, and shook his head. "They don't seem to be killing anyone. You have time to get the Army in here. 'Cause you can't take them."

  The local cop nodded. “They’re on the way, already. But I really don’t want to wait.”

  He sank back into meditation, just deeply enough to keep an eye on the Gate. The next time someone shook him, he saw a line of tracked vehicles, men in camouflage and armored. "Right. I'm going to open a corridor, nice and wide, right here. Then I'll go through and make a big exit. You're going to be in the middle of a parking lot. The Bad Guys are hauling trucks loaded with anesthetized kids from the buildings on the left, across about a hundred feet, and into a dimensional gate on the right. There are three big tank-like things flanking the Gate—I’ll place the corridor so they’re not aiming toward us. Men with rifles everywhere. I've got a magic shield, and invisibility and I can bubble up the trucks full of kids so they won't be in danger. So I'll do that, while you take on the army types. Okay?"

  The officer in charge growled. "I'm supposed to endanger my people on the word of a scam artist?"

  "Your choice." Eldon caught a bubble and anchored it at the base of a pole. He scaled the pole to make the opening tall enough, then crossed the street, making the opening two tanks wide and scaled another pole. "I'm going to go see if they've got MY kids." He shielded, and threw the corridor. Jumped through. Threw an illusion over it as he glued it up wide open on the side of a building. He loped across the parking lot to the tank thing near the gate. Grabbing bubbles, and started swooping up the trucks of drugged kids, as he stunned the divers and guards. Soldiers were running through the corridor now, spreading out and homing in on all the armed enemy. The tank-like objects started to turn, and two tanks roared through the corridor and started firing their main guns. He shielded hard, and pinned the bubbles down. They'd be out of the way for the battle, and easy to find again. No time to search, but no auras he recognized as he hustled past. Last two trucks. Bubbled.

  Then he ran for the gate. As it disappeared.

  Eldon doubled back and headed deeper into the campus. Found more raiders. Tossed some stun spells and left the trucks for others to deal with. Damn it, he was right in the middle of the campus. Where were his kids? He tossed another corridor and stepped through near the police swat people. "There's no other tanks on campus, that I can see." He ducked back through and jogged for the gate he'd placed on campus, damn control freaks had made him put it i
n a garage, where they could control people coming and going . . . and finally a familiar feel.

  "Hoy, sister-with-freckles." He grabbed her and hauled her back around a corner. "Where's everyone else?"

  "They've got Shane! I think they got most of us. I just woke up and they're gone."

  "Right. Stay here. I'm going to show those idiots whose kids they'd better not fool with." He flipped a corridor through the wall of the garage and jumped through his gate. A hundred feet away, he sat and meditated. Falchion had always said that home was easy to find. And as soon as he thought that, he realized what she meant. Home. That World.

  He placed the first cone carefully, in the Rip, right . . . there. The second cone twisted up with the first and sucked down on him. He jumped through and trotted up the stairs. He waved at Epee, fixing breakfast. Started looking through bubbles.

  "What on the World are you looking for? How did you get here?"

  "I've been practicing with gates, and I want those big crates we took away from those physicists and Bellamiso. In fact, I'll take the SUV, as well. I've got a war to fight." He pulled the three SUVs out of nowhere and nodded at the three large crates. "I'll take the battered one, since it's probably going to get even more battered." He shifted the three big crates, and the two little ones.

  "I'll load you up with other stuff as well. And supplies." Falchion trotted out of the kids' area. "Don't get yourself killed, you're pretty damn useful to have around."

  He ducked into his room, for some guns and ammo he'd picked up here and there. Some more potions. Huh. He could do better than these himself, now. All right. Time to do one single sensible thing.

  He sank into meditation :: Orion. Speak to me. Dang it, you're the nearest . . . Korbin? Dammit, where is everyone? Luz! ::

  :: Eldon! What are you doing here? Where are you? ::

  :: Shut up. I need you to contact the Disco people. Xen. Tell them that someone is raiding across the dimensions, kidnapping older teenagers and young adults. Tell Q that the place that I think is doing the raiding looks really weird, really small, with a raggedy membrane flapping in the breeze. They've also got a world in a band of empty worlds, and not the one with the three gates I've put up. I'm going to try and find the kids right now, and I have a really nasty present, so when I yell for them to get out, it's time for them to get off that World. ::