The Decade Worlds

by Patrick McClafferty

  “Due to a tectonic shift, a fracture occurred in the base of the main dome of Jafelon, and water began to enter faster than it could be pumped out. According to emergency plans, the pumps were turned off, and Jafelon was allowed to flood. When the air in the city was gone, all of the domes were simply switched off. When the damaged base has been repaired the domes can simply be turned back on, and all the water removed. The cost of repair, or so I’ve been told, is nominal when compared with the cost of a total rebuild caused by billions of liters of water crashing in during a catastrophic failure.”

  Gareth stared into the air. “You just let it fill up and turned the dome off?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Gareth shook his head. “I don’t friggin believe it.” He grumbled. “Can you activate the lights around the gateway?”

  “Yes Sir.” Light blossomed all around the gateway station. “Modern power systems are unaffected by minor inconveniences like being submerged under hundreds of meters of sea water.”

  “Excellent.” Gareth replied in a flat unfriendly voice, as the lights around the gateway blazed with radiance. “Now, if you would, please modulate a signal into the water at thirty kilohertz.”

  “If you are trying to attract dolphins—that will do it Sir.”

  “That is exactly what I’m doing.” Gareth checked his EVA belt one last time, and switched it on. “You will wait for me, won’t you?”

  “Yes Sir.” The voice said in an unperturbed tone. “It is doubtful whether there will be any more requests for transportation.” Without bothering to reply, Gareth stepped through the wall.

  To Gareth it felt as if he were walking through jello. The suit kept the pressure from crushing him, but at this depth the density of the water was… thick, like jello.

  “Activate gateway to preset parameters.” He said, speaking to the small code key Ell had given him, and which was attached to his EVA belt, integrating it with the entire EVA suit. A green light lit on the control panel, and for a second the surface of the gateway shimmered. Gareth frowned. “Is the gateway active?”

  “Yes.” The voice of the EVA suit replied in his ear. “Per programming parameters.”

  “Yeah.” Gareth groaned. “And now I just have to wait for my first customer, and of course, figure out how to talk to him.”

  Simply reach out and touch him. Athena whispered. Your translation ability extends to non-human intelligences also.

  What? He said, staring into the dark. Do I have a little thingie in my brain that translates for me?

  You mean like the Babel Fish from the legendary Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

  That’s the one!

  No. What you have is even simpler. An unused section of your brain picks up thoughts and translates them into language, and visa versa.

  Oh. For some reason Gareth was slightly disappointed. He had been secretly hoping for a Babel Fish.

  A dim shape loomed out of the dark water beyond the lights, and then another. For a second Gareth thought they might be sharks, until he recognized them as dolphins. The first and largest approached him warily and Gareth, after shutting off the portion of the EVA suit surrounding his hand, touched the leathery side of the swimming mammal. A rush of strange alien impressions flooded his brain. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and concentrated on telling the dolphin all he needed to know. The creature floated there for ten minutes as Gareth spoke quickly, and when he was finished pulled away rapidly, disappearing into the deeps. He stared into the empty ocean around him. Well, that was a waste of my time. He thought to himself. Staring glumly at the gateway, he was about to give the command to shut it down when the first dolphin swam out of the black. It was quickly followed by a wall of swimming creatures. The first dolphin again swam up to him, and Gareth reached out his hand.

  ????? Pictures of a dolphin swimming in and out of the gateway flashed through Gareth’s mind.

  !!!! He replied, repeating the picture to the creature floating in front of his face. The dolphin pulled away and shot toward the gateway and through, disappearing immediately.

  The wall of creatures stirred uneasily, and then the dolphin was back. It went back and forth a half dozen times before it turned to its fellow underwater denizens. Gareth almost heard something like a dull booming sound in the water around him, and the entire wall of creatures streamed out and disappeared through the gateway, and on to Xolia. Something huge loomed out of the dark and Gareth took a moment to recognize the whale as it disappeared through the gateway, its wide flukes barely clearing the sides. Gareth nodded once to himself before he turned back to the pod. At least the gentlest of the creatures on the Earth would survive. He thought, smiling.

  He floated in the dim twilight of early evening for some time before the raft arrived to pick him up.

  Gareth! The voice in his mind said insistently, for perhaps the third time. Wake up. There’s a problem!

  Gareth grumbled and opened his eyes, noting unhappily that they felt like they’d been dipped in sand. What is it? Is there a problem with the gateway?

  No! People are being slaughtered in Iyreeqeka and I have no idea why. You need to find out what’s causing it, and stop it. Hundreds have already been killed. There aren’t enough humans around for us to waste them like this.

  Gareth yawned hugely, and leaned over to shake Lyndra awake. “Time to get up, beautiful. Duty calls.” Lyndra said something to Gareth that raised both of his eyebrows, and pulled her sleeping bag back up and over her head. The previous night she had been very glad to see him return from the depths alive, and had expressed her pleasure in a forthright manner. It had been quite late before she and Gareth finally drifted off to sleep. He sighed and pulled her bag back down. “Up!” He said in a growl. “If I have to get up, so do you.” He began to roll up his own sleeping bag. “You can take it out on the children.” He nodded to the still sleeping marines a dozen meters away by their own camp fire. Lyndra returned his growl.

  Beside him and strapped into her seat Lyndra stifled a yawn. “Where are we going again?” She asked as the shuttle angled up into the starry sky, leaving the ground far below.

  “There’s a problem in Iyreeqeka, and hundreds have been killed. We have to stop that nonsense. There aren’t enough people left in the world to waste.”

  “Humphhh!” Lyndra replied dryly. When Gareth had first met Lyndra she had been tied to a stake in a square in Iyreeqeka, about to be burned. The government of the city didn’t particularly like werewolves… or thieves. Lyndra, unfortunately, was both. It was obvious that the dislike was mutual.

  “Arrival in Iyreeqeka in one hour and eighteen minutes.” Shyrrik said softly.

  Lyndra snorted and shut her eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”

  Gareth chuckled, and spoke more softly to Shyrrik. “Does this shuttle have defensive shields or screens?”

  “The Mark XII Combat Shuttle has lightweight reactive armor, capable of deflecting most ground to air fire.” Shyrrik repeated as if by rote. “The shuttle does not have shields like larger warships. It was decided to sacrifice the weight of the shield generator for speed and stealth.”

  Gareth bit his lip, and looked over his shoulder into the troop compartment. “Something is killing the residents of Iyreeqeka. It’s our job to find out what, and stop it. Full body armor, boys and girls. When we land I want you all to keep your eyes open, and be very careful.” He’d done this same thing before in Iraq. He hated drops into potentially hot landing zones.

  “Aye, aye, Sir.” Three dry and scared voices replied as they struggled into their body armor. Body armor was one of those new/old ideas of Gareth’s. As soon as marines began to provide defense on potentially hostile worlds, Gareth had had Ell dredge her memory for designs of lightweight effective body armor. Armor was now mandatory for all marine deployments. Gareth just wished that their weapons were as good as their armor, although his Colt was more than a match for anything they were likely to meet. Instinctively he reached down to to
uch the small hand-held rail gun that fired titanium slivers at a respectable fraction of c. E=MC? did the rest.

  He turned back to find Lyndra watching him. “You know I don’t wear armor.” She said pointedly. “I wouldn’t be able to move in my wolf form if I did.”

  “You be careful.”

  She grinned. “I’m always careful.”

  “Remember the first time Chiu and I found you in Iyreeqeka? You hadn’t been so careful then.” Her smile faded.

  In the view screen the ground was rushing up at them. “Arrival in Iyreeqeka imminent. Where do you wish me to set down?”

  “Is the dock empty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Set down on the dock, let us out and then hover at fifteen meters. Can you do that?”

  “Easily.” Shyrrik replied. “You’ve done this before.” The voice of the AI commented wryly.

  “Different world, same job. Can you hear me if I shout for you to land?”

  Shyrrik actually chuckled. “You have an induction mic implanted in your jaw. We have two-way communication up to five kilometers.”

  “It would have been nice if someone had told me.” He replied sourly.

  “For your information, the air is safe to breath. Three meters to touchdown… two… one…”

  The ramp at the rear of the shuttle hissed open, and Corporal Yong barked “marines out!”

  The marines pounded out of the shuttle, followed by Lyndra who was armed with a marine lever action carbine. Gareth hesitated as he was about to step off the ramp. “Should we all fall,” he said softly to Shyrrik. “return to The Yeugate and let them know what happened. Take lots of pictures.”

  “I will do that.” The voice of the AI said in his implant. Gareth drew his Colt and stepped out onto the dock. Behind him the ramp thumped closed, and he heard the low whine of the engines as the shuttle lifted off. Gareth swallowed and found his mouth suddenly dry with fear. Dozens of bodies, or parts of them, were scattered across the far end of the dock and down the nearby street. As he studied the scene he noticed the broken tip of a mast protruding from the water beside the dock, and several bloated white corpses floating in the listless current. He turned his gaze back to the city.

  What the bloody hell happened here? He asked Athena who he knew from experience, watched what was happening through his eyes.

  I don’t have any idea. Her mental voice sounded shaken, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  Gareth motioned the marines forward as his eyes tried to sweep all the empty avenues. “Move forward and down the main street toward the library. If there are any people left, we should find them there.” He said in a soft voice. No people came out to greet them, no dogs barked, and no birds flew. The whole city was dead.

  “This is worse than I imagined. Can you provide over-watch, Shyrrik?”

  “Affirmative.” The AI said quickly. “What altitude?”

  “Fifty meters should give you a good view, but should still leave you low enough to get us out of trouble.”

  “I’m at fifty meters and on over-watch. The city appears deserted.”

  “Check again. As far as I can see the entire city is dead. Nothing is living.”

  “Nothing except the five of you.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” Gareth replied grimly. “Can you provide covering fire if necessary?”

  “Regulations prohibit me from firing air to ground munitions below three hundred and fifty meters within city limits.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “The Peace First politicos thought that if the firing altitude was raised there would be less chance of… mistakes.”

  “Oh, give me a break!” Gareth shook his head in disbelief.

  “There is something a thousand meters ahead of you, and slightly to your left.” Shirrik said sharply.

  Gareth held up his hand to stop the group. “Living?”

  “No. It looks like earthquake damage of some sort.”

  “We’ll take a look.” He motioned the group forward. The air smelled vaguely of carrion and ruptured organs.

  The crevasse that bisected the wide street diagonally was ten meters wide, and deeper than Gareth could easily judge. Eldenworld was an ancient world of ruins built on ruins. In the depths of the rift he could see the remains of ancient buildings split apart by the quake.

  “Sir!” Corporal Yong called out. “You might want to take a look at this.” She was staring down into the fissure, and when Gareth arrived, he could see why. Somebody or something had crawled up out of the depths of the earth. It took Gareth a few minutes to find the tracks, and when he did, they troubled him deeply. Vaguely human shaped feet had left tracks in the dirt that were half again as big as his. Following the tracks, it wasn’t long before he found the first body, or what was left of it. Most of one leg had been eaten. The next body was just torn in half.

  “Gareth!” Shirrik called with some alarm in her voice. “Something is approaching you from the West. It is moving quite fast.”

  Gareth threw caution aside. They had been discovered. “Back to the market square.” He shouted. “I don’t want to be caught in a street.” They formed up on the East side of the square, facing West.

  “It is quite close now.” Shyrrik said softly. Gareth could smell the sour reek of fear as the five huddled together.

  It stepped out of an alley and into the market square and stopped. Two and a half meters tall, the thing was roughly man shaped. Thirty centimeter long curved retractable claws extended from the back of its hands, and its eyes glowed red. The skin of the creature was mottled green and black, wherever the tight-fitting black body-armor didn’t cover it.

  Lothar! Athena whispered in the back of his mind. The scene in the square stood frozen for a moment.

  What’s a Lothar? Gareth asked, concerned at the sound of fear in Athena’s mental voice.

  Lothar is an assassin created during the last of the great wars on Eldenworld. Technically a golem, it was used only once, its creators dropping it behind enemy lines to kill the enemy commanders and create confusion. It single handedly wiped out a city of eighty thousand souls. Every person was killed, every dog, every cat, and every living creature. The country in question tried to surrender, but the golem shed its controls. An earthquake silenced it, and all breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it dead. Today proves how wrong they were.

  Great, it’s a nasty assassin. How do I kill it?

  That’s the problem, my Gareth. Lothar is self-regenerating, permanently powered, and virtually immortal.

  Scheiße! We are so screwed. He looked up at the shuttle. “Target that verdammt thing with everything you’ve got! Fire, dammit!!”

  “I’m sorry, target is within prohibited zone.” Shyrrik said primly.

  “Pay attention.” Lyndra called. “Here it comes!”

  Gareth was still drawing the Colt when the four carbines roared. He could see the sparkles on the creature’s armor where the heavy slugs hit, but it didn’t even stagger. Gareth squeezed the trigger of the Colt. Using the normal three shot burst Gareth had killed ice dragons and kraken, usually blowing the beasts in half. Lothar just staggered under the incredible impact and turned toward Gareth, offhandedly swiping a marine out of his path. The body of the marine, the same young man who had rowed the raft, crumbled to the ground spouting blood while his head bounced off a far wall, leaving a dripping red smear. Gareth fired another three shot burst at the thing’s head but it seemed to be able to anticipate the shot, jerking its head away just in time to avoid being hit. The clawed right hand swung at Gareth, and he turned slightly to take the hit on his left arm rather than full in his chest. He heard his left arm and left ribs break under the force of the blow as he was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall of the building behind him.

  “I’ll lead him off. You get the others out.” Lyndra shouted in the bedlam of screams and shots. Gareth blinked away the blurry vision, sighted on the back of Lothar, flipped th
e gun to full auto and pulled the trigger. The golem went down this time, but got right back up even though he was missing his left arm at the shoulder. Gareth could see where the back of his armor was pocked from the impact of the Colt rounds. Lothar casually smashed the last two marines out of his way as he reached for Lyndra who, in her wolf form, was snapping at the back of his knees. The wolf slid out of his reach, turned and shot off down a long street, Lothar in close pursuit.

  Gareth glanced down at the shards of his left arm and wrapped a makeshift tourniquet above his elbow to stop the bleeding. Spitting out a wad of blood, he guessed that he had a punctured lung to boot. Turning to the fallen marines, Gareth saw that the other private had his head twisted in the wrong direction. Corporal Yong’s body armor had saved her, kind of. Her right arm hung at the wrong angle however, a sliver of bloody bone poking into the air, and a claw had raked her from hip to knee, down the side of one thigh.

  “We need evacuation, now!” Gareth gasped. He’d just gotten a good grip on the back of the Corporal’s armor when the ramp dropped open in front of him. Leaving a red smear on the floor, he buckled the young woman into a seat, did what he could to stop the bleeding from her torn leg, and administered an ampule of both no-shock and morphine before staggering forward. “Follow that wolf!” He gasped, nearly collapsing into his seat in pain.

  From the outside audio pickup he heard the howl of a wolf, cut short. “Look!” Shyrrik gasped. The body of Lyndra lay in the middle of the street, her head bent at a strange angle. “I will land and you can…”

  “No.” Gareth countered. “She was my familiar. I felt her die. Check for lifesigns.”

  “There are no lifesigns Gareth. I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, so am I.” Gareth felt the hot tears on his cheeks. “Lothar wants us to go down there to retrieve Lyndra’s body so that he can attack us and get this shuttle. Destroy the entire block, and if you give me any lip, I will damned well turn you into a coffee pot.”