by Jan Stryvant
"We're still busy with the gate control protocols, Sean," Roxy said.
"This takes precedence."
"Um, did you talk to Dad?" Wendy asked.
"Not yet. But that doesn't matter. I'll deal with him."
"Okay, so what is it?" Roxy asked.
"I've been looking into the Inangar who came to Earth. The one Dad, Keairra, Wendy here, and all of the first pride ate."
"What?" Roxy said, looking surprised as Wendy shot him a nasty look.
"Lions are what they are today because the first pride caught an Inangar and ate him. It's one of the secrets they don't go telling people."
"And you just told someone," Wendy grumbled.
"Yeah, well, I'm in charge, and I get to make those kinds of decisions."
Wendy gave him the kind of look that told him they'd be talking about this later.
"O…kay," Roxy said. "But what does that have to do with hacking into some files?"
"The last thousand years or so of Omushkego's files are locked, under heavy security."
"So?"
"What if his getting eaten wasn't an accident? What if he did it on purpose?"
Sean noticed Wendy froze and her eyes got wide.
"Why would he do a thing like that?" Roxy asked, scowling.
"Exactly, why would he? Why didn't he just experiment on the lions? Why did he just show up, and why did he let the lions eat him?" Sean looked at Wendy, who was looking at him a little nervously. "Dad told me everything that happened that day, everything. Even the secret of the first pride. I need you two to break into those files, and we need to go over them."
"What secret?" Roxy asked.
"It wouldn't be much of a secret if we went around telling everybody, now would it?" Wendy bitched. "But Sean's right. We need to get on this."
#
"How bad it is?" Chad asked Maitland as they sat around the table in his northern command post.
"Adam's killing that prince is what saved us. All their attacks stopped at once, probably when he killed it. But it's only a matter of time before they come at us again, and when they do…" Maitland shook his head and sighed. "I'm not going to lie; I don't think we can hold on much longer. If that traitor hadn't handicapped his troops so badly, maybe we'd be in better shape, but we really have nothing in our favor in this fight."
Chad nodded. "I'm still pushing the evacuation as fast as I can. Roloff's been able to keep the I-80 corridor to the west open, but I don't think that's going to hold much longer. Once they realize we're going that way, I'm sure they'll move to shut it down.
"I'm hoping we can hold the southern exit longer, but at this point, the only resources of ours in the city are those that are on the McCarran and I-80 defensive lines. The moment it looks like you can't hold your position, I'm ordering a complete retreat of everybody."
"What about the civilians?" General Young asked.
"Sorry, General, anybody who hasn't left by now isn't going to. Not now, not ever. We've given them days, weeks, hell, months already."
"Well, we have to do something!"
"No, we don't. Or rather, yeah we're going to do something, but you're not going to like it, so I'm not going to tell you about it," Chad growled, leaning over the table towards the general. "We're not even halfway through this war; that's almost a year away! We can't go burning all our resources and abilities to save people who ain't got the brains God gave a squirrel!
"Look, we've always known we can't hold Reno. Our goal was always to draw them in and keep them occupied here as long as we could. To give everyone else a chance to prepare, to build their defenses, to try to find better ways to fight them, and yes, a way to take a bite out of their army.
"Well, we've done that. There's no use in making any kind of valiant last stand when all it does is open us up to worse attacks that'll allow them to head south to Vegas."
"What about Sacramento? Salt Lake?"
"They all know what's coming; if they can't be bothered to protect themselves from it, that's not my problem," Chad said. "Well, not yet it isn't. So make sure all your men know if they got anyone in Reno, anyone, they need to get them the hell out of there, now, today. Which brings up your folks at Reno International; have they finished pulling out of there yet?"
"Almost. They should be gone in another few hours. The Air Force unit there has been helping us with their C-130s."
"Good. I'm gonna need a replacement for McGuire. I've already told the Pentagon that whoever they send is getting bitten, because I can't take a chance on another traitor."
General Young snorted. "I can just imagine how they took that."
"Well, considering the Joint Chiefs recruited a bunch of those veterans Steve's been healing, gave them guns, and turned them loose to roam the place and hunt down whatever they can find, I'm sure they've got a lot bigger things to worry about back there. Last I heard, anyone who's ever served with McGuire is under the microscope unless they've been infected."
"How badly did McGuire's defection hurt us intelligence-wise?"
Chad shook his head. "I've got someone looking through our records for all the requests he made. Maybe if we recorded these meetings, we'd know what he picked up on as well, but I don't think any of us want that. We do know he told them about being weak on the east side of town because of Jack's move to intercept the force heading to Salt Lake, and that the whole northern section was just a trap because they attacked the first and avoided the second. Beyond that?" Chad shrugged. "Anybody's guess."
General Young nodded. "Do you still want me and my men to dig in in the hills to the north of Washoe and protect that pass?"
"Yes, but I now want you to send a force up 431 and find a good place to deny that to any enemy movements as well. That was supposed to be McGuire's responsibility, but apparently he never bothered to do anything about it or the approaches north of Pleasant Valley, and if he did, I'm sure the enemy knows all about them."
"What about the approach into Virginia City?"
"The Dwarves are handling that, so don't worry about it."
"Got it. Guess I'm off to get this done then," General Young said and, standing up, he left the room.
"I'm surprised he didn't press the Reno issue," Chad said with a sigh.
Maitland snorted. "He didn't get to be a general by not knowing how to tell which way the wind was blowing when you took that wind out of his sails."
"Well, that's a relief. I got a call just before the meeting from one of the lionesses down at headquarters. She told me our people in the Onderwereld just destroyed a bunch of 'holding pens' that had thousands of human 'cattle' in them."
Chad didn't miss the pained expression on Maitland's face. "Yeah, I don't think our friend General Young would have appreciated that."
"I don't appreciate it either," Chad replied, "but what choice do we have? I also don't appreciate Adam getting himself killed."
"He comes back, you know."
"Yeah, in like a week. I think I'm going to be needing him a lot sooner than that!"
"Oh? You had plans for him?"
"He volunteered to take on a task that I really do not want to do," Chad said, and this time he sighed heavily. "But we all gotta do what we gotta do. The price of command, I guess."
"Any last orders for me?"
Chad shook his head. "Use your best judgment. You've got such a mess over there that I really don't want to be the one telling you what to do when your situation changes every ten minutes."
"Any word on how Sean and them are doing?"
"Not a one. Well, I was told that the second team is going to need an extraction from the next gate. Apparently they're not very popular after wiping out all of King Sladd's food supply."
"Imagine that," Maitland said with a grin.
"I know! Those damn lions are always pissing everyone off!" Chad said with a wry grin of his own.
Truth and Consequences
"I just had an interesting conversation with Roxy and Wendy," the First
said, coming up to Sean as he was trying to dig up what he could find on Omushkego's academic work.
"Yes, Dad. I know, Dad. Sorry I didn't tell you, Dad. It's very important, Dad," Sean mumbled as he continued to flick through search results.
"Ah, so you know why I'm here then," the First said with a hint of a growl.
Sean paused and looked around; his privacy spell on the room was still active. Good. He turned to look at the First, who was in full lion form, which Sean was learning was typical for him.
"Look, Dad, I think I'm on to something, something important, and right now I'm trying to find some kind of proof so I can justify to you why I've put Roxy and Wendy on something else. Because I don't think you're going to be satisfied by a 'gut feeling'."
"And what would that be?"
Sean went back to his tablet. "What if that guy you ate expected to get eaten?"
"Which guy?"
"Mahk's friend."
"Why would he do that?" the First asked, puzzled.
"I know, right? Why would he? And that's what I'm trying to find out."
"Son," the First said and put his paw over the tablet, blocking Sean's work. "Tell me why you think he did it?"
Blowing out his breath Sean looked up at the First. "We can only absorb demons."
"So?"
"Demons can absorb everybody. So why can't we? We can only absorb them, and possibly one other."
"So you think we got the ability from Mahk's friend?"
"No, I think we got it from the demons, just like you do, but I think he figured out a way to limit it."
"Then how do you explain Cali's…oh wait, she's part demon."
"And Peg and Roxy are descended from you, plus in this world, absorbing almost seems like the natural state of things."
"So what have you been doing?"
"Well, I started off searching his notes, but his last years of work were locked. That's why I borrowed Roxy and Wendy."
"Once you get into his notes, grab whoever you need to help you."
"You're not upset with me?"
"I've learned over the years that 'gut feelings' make more sense to pursue than to ignore. I'll be upstairs distracting Mahk."
"He's so focused on the djevels at the gates, I don't know if you can distract him."
"True, but I still don't trust him."
Going back to his tablet, Sean found another work by Omushkego not long after his last increase in rank. In this one, which was different from his previous ones that had all stuck to research in his field, he was bemoaning the loss of the Wenangar. This work of his was pointing out the difficulties that had arisen in many people's research because of their lack of resources, resources the Wenangar had once provided.
Sean then queried the search engine for a definition or description of what the Wenangar were and was shocked when he didn't get a single response! Next he did a search for the term 'wenangar' in academic papers, and only got one, Omushkego's paper.
"Now that's curious," he said to himself. He then did a search for any and all articles that referenced Omushkego's paper.
There were ten million of them.
He sorted them by date and skimmed the first few. All of them were taking Omushkego to task for 'living in the past', for 'not recognizing that they did what they had to do', and said that 'it was better not to speak of such things'.
Jumping further down to a later date, he found a large number of articles that displayed open hostility with Omushkego for bring up the subject, and calling his present academic rank into question.
He had hit on something. This had 'clue' written all over it. Getting up, he went to find Kalif. Kalif was digging into the Inangar past, and Wendy had already gotten him complete access. Hopefully this would shake something loose.
"Oh, hi, hon!" Sean said as Roxy, Peg, Cali, and Estrella filed into the room as he was leaving. He stopped and gave each of them a kiss.
"Going somewhere?" Roxy asked.
Sean nodded. "I think I found something. I need to go show it to Kalif; it just might be useful. How's the security hack going?"
"Just broke it. Wendy is setting you up with the permissions so you can check it out, but…"
"But?"
"It's encrypted."
Sean rolled his eyes. "ROT13?"
Roxy snickered. "No, it's better than that, but not by much, I'm guessing."
" I'll get on it after I talk to Kalif, wanna help?"
"Sure, I'll be here when you get back."
Roxy waited until Sean had left, then looked at Peg, who was obviously casting something. "Is the room secure?"
"Yup. Now, what's so important that you dragged us down here?"
"I found out today where the lions got their powers from."
"That's supposed to be a secret," Estrella said, looking shocked. "Who told you?"
"Sean brought it up when he told Wendy and me why we had to drop what we were doing and crack into the account of the guy your parents ate."
"Eww, they ate somebody?" Peg said.
"Yup. One of Mahk's friends. Though Sean thinks the guy intended to get eaten from the get-go, so the lions would gain the powers to get rid of the djevels eventually."
Cali looked at Roxy with a bemused expression. "Are you saying an Inangar actually had the morals and ethics to sacrifice himself for the good of everyone else?"
"I know! Kind of goes against the evidence, right?"
"Okay, fine. So you know the big secret, what does that matter?" Estrella asked.
"Sean and the First said we'll probably have to go through your la-la-land to go home. Remember?"
Estrella looked at Cali and made a silent 'oh' with her lips.
"What if she ate Mahk? That would give her the same things the rest of you have, wouldn't it?"
"Maybe, I don't know…"
"Look, what's the risk?" Peg said. "The First has already said he's gonna kill him when we leave, and honestly? I agree with him. Hell, even Sean agrees with him."
Everyone noticed that Cali looked a little uneasy. "You want me to eat him?"
"Sure, why not?"
Roxy nodded. "Yes, I think you should. We can't let anything happen to you, Cali. You mean too much to all of us."
"I, I don't know."
"What if we helped?" Estrella asked. "What if all four of us ate him with you?"
"Ummm…" Cali thought for a moment. She'd eaten raw flesh before, back in her days of training. "I think I can do it."
"Get Sean to order her to do it." Peg grinned. "She'll do it. She'll do anything for him."
Cali blushed deeply and gave a small nod.
"I don't think any of us wouldn't do something he ordered us to, either." Estrella laughed. "Well, maybe he'd have to spank Rox here first!"
Roxy mock growled at Estrella, who just smiled back at her.
"Thank you, all of you, for thinking of me," Cali said, still blushing. "I admit, I have been worried as well."
Roxy gave Cali a hug and kissed her. "You're one of us, Cali. We're always thinking about you."
When Sean got back to the room, Roxy had already set up her tablet. Sitting down next to her, Sean called up the links Wendy had sent him and went to work cracking the encryption. The hardest part was that neither one of them knew Inangar, and you can't translate encrypted data until after you've cracked it.
"So how are we going to do this?" Roxy asked, looking at the data.
"Let's write a program to start off with simple alphabetic translation. After it runs each iteration, it can dump it into a word processing program and do a spell check. Anything that hits over ten words in a row correct, we'll look at."
"Sounds as good a place to start as any. You know, I tried looking up encryption, but the system didn't even seem to understand me."
"I noticed that, too. Maybe it was against the law or something."
"Why would it be against the law?"
"Because they're all scientists and researchers, and they didn't want anyone
hiding their results?"
It took Sean and Roxy several hours to write the program; neither one of them had really been doing any coding in the last year, and learning the Inangar scripting language they had found started off slow.
What surprised Sean was just how fast the program ran when they finished it.
"It ran through every combination in under a minute! I can't believe it!"
Roxy laughed. "Sean, we have a supercomputer here built to deal with millions of requests, and now there's just you, me, and the others upstairs using it."
"Sorry, I forgot," Sean said, embarrassed.
"What I'm more concerned about is, now what? We didn't get a single successful hint on any of the combinations."
"Oh, that's easy! Now that we have an alphabetic program written, let's add a few recursions, and try a polyalphabetic hack."
"You're not worried that it might be something like an RSA-style encryption?"
"Lost key?" Sean shook his head, "It's not symmetrical. I think it's something simple."
"Well, not like we have anything to lose," Roxy agreed.
Twenty minutes later they were reading the opening statement to Omushkego's work.
"Holy shit!" Roxy swore. "I think your dad is gonna wanna hear this!"
"Let's read as much as we can first," Sean said, glancing over at the research index of Omushkego's work. "Like the findings and his final report."
"That could take hours!"
"Then better read fast!" Sean looked at his watch. "We got another gate cycle coming up in a few hours. When that hits, I have a feeling Dad's going to run out of patience."
Ξ
Trevor felt good. Which was rather strange, when you considered he had a demonic prince with at least a half dozen demon lords on his trail. As well as what they guessed to be several thousand demons of all shapes and sizes.
"Guess they're going to be remembering us a long time back there." Jessie giggled between breaths as they ran. They'd been slowly outdistancing their pursuers, but only slowly.
"They sure are mad enough," Trevor agreed. "You'd think we'd done something rude, like insulted their parents, or kicked their dog!"
"How much longer until the gateway?" Boe asked.