"Or else it's not programmed to open for you," Magnum said.
"We could blast it open," Rictan Seven, Carnage, suggested.
"Better than diggin' our way out," Magnum replied. "Set charges. Let's see what's behind door number one."
"Yes, sir." Rictan Seven went to work, and the rest of the Rictans retreated to a respectful distance. They kept busy watching the tunnel entrances, just in case.
"Charges set!" Carnage said, racing away from the door.
"You better not bring this whole place down on top of us," Magnum warned.
"You worry too much."
They took cover on the far side of the chamber and took up a semi-circular formation with Atta safely nestled between them and the wall. "Light it up!" Magnum said.
Ethan made the mistake of watching the explosion. The sudden flash of light blinded him; then came a whump and a loud bang! Castcrete dust billowed out and pebble-sized debris hit them at high speed, plinking off their armor.
"Princess?" Magnum asked as the debris settled around their feet.
"I'm fine."
"Good. Carnage, check the area."
A moment later, they heard: "All clear!"
They all hurried over to see what lay on the other side. Ethan reached the threshold of the blast and saw some kind of equipment locker. The door had been blown inward, turning the inside of the locker into a war zone. Magnum stepped through the smoking frame, debris crunching under foot. Overhead lights flickered on automatically, and dust swirled, dancing down through the light.
"Who hides access to another room inside an equipment locker?" Magnum asked.
Atta walked in after him and went down on her haunches to study the debris. She fished a smoldering roll of bandages out and tossed it aside with a wrinkled nose.
"This is a medical supply room. We're back in Union Base, all right."
Remembering something, Ethan turned to look behind them. "If this door leads into the fortress, then where's the other one go?" he asked.
Magnum and Atta both turned to look.
"That's a damn good question," Atta said.
Magnum shook his head. "Whatever's through there, we've been getting along just fine without it all these years, so it can wait one more night. I'll make my report in the morning and someone will come investigate. Right now, we need to seal this place up and make sure no Stalkers come creepin' in while we're sleepin'."
Ethan's brow furrowed and he studied the caved-in tunnels that Stalkers had dug all around the perimeter of the chamber. "What's the point? If they can dig through castcrete, they could come through anywhere."
So why haven't they?" Atta asked.
"Another question that can wait to be answered," Magnum said, already crossing the supply locker to the inner door. Just before he reached it, the door swished open and a squad of soldiers burst in. Therius stood behind them, looking ill-amused.
"What's going on here?" he demanded.
Chapter 35
"What were you doing down there?" Therius demanded, his eyes on Atta.
Therius had them all standing in a line in front of him. They'd left their mechs for the squad that had come to investigate, and now, standing in the jumpsuits, it was easy to see how exhausted all of them were.
"We were performing night ops," Ethan replied, taking a quick step forward. "My idea, sir."
Therius's gaze swept to him. "You were performing night ops beneath Union Base?"
"No, sir. We ran into Nightstalkers in the jungle, and they dragged off the general. We followed her comm beacon down one of their tunnels, and ended up in an abandoned chamber right outside the supply locker where you found us."
"So why'd you blow a hole in the wall? You could have gone back the way you came."
"It wasn't a wall. It was a door, sir, and we didn't go back the way we came because the Stalkers caved in their tunnels to trap us."
Therius's eyebrows floated up. "Really? You're saying they laid a trap for you? They must be more intelligent than we thought."
"It would appear so, sir..." Ethan trailed off. Something about this situation didn't sit well with him.
"Something on your mind, Commander?"
"Yes, sir."
"Go ahead."
"How did you find us so quickly?"
"You're not the only one who can follow comm beacons. When a squad checks out a group of Zephyrs for an unscheduled mission in the middle of the night, I have to sign off on it or they don't even get out the door. Are we still sticking with night ops, or does someone here want to give me a better description of what you were all doing out there in the jungle?"
Ethan sighed. "I wanted to check out the ruins, sir."
"Why?"
"Curiosity."
"Didn't your squad already explain to you what's been found at those sites?"
"Yes, but I wanted to see for myself."
"So instead of getting some much-needed sleep for tomorrow's training, you thought it would be a good idea to go hunting through the jungle for bones. Don't take your squad's name too literally, Commander. You're not actually rictans."
"Yes, sir."
"There's going to be plenty of time to go unearthing the mysteries of Origin when Avilon is conquered, but until then, your curiosity can wait."
"What about the room we discovered? We need to find out where that other door leads."
"Other door?"
"There was another door, sir, besides the one we blew open."
"I see. We'll look into it, but as I said, satisfying curiosity is not a high priority right now. We didn't build this fortress, so we can't possibly know all the ins and outs of it. There could be just one hidden chamber or a hundred more, but that's not important right now."
Ethan shook his head. "With respect, sir, I disagree. Why is this fortress still standing after so many millions of years? What was it built for? It's too convenient. It's almost like someone left it here for us. Maybe Omnius is setting you up."
"That's enough, Ortane. I won't have you come here at the final hour and call into question everything we've worked so hard to accomplish. Finding Origin was a stroke of fortune, but that doesn't mean it was ill-fortune. Dismissed."
Ethan gave a reluctant salute. "Yes, sir." He turned and left the briefing room, making his way to the nearest bank of lift tubes. The Rictans crowded around him as he stabbed the call button. One of the lifts opened immediately and they all piled in.
On their way up to their quarters, Atta let out a breath and shook her head. "He's hiding something."
Magnum turned to her with one eyebrow raised. "Like what?"
"That we know of?" Atta glanced at Ethan.
He shrugged. "We could use their help."
Atta turned back to Magnum and explained, "The battalions are taking nanite bombs down to the surface of Avilon."
Carnage's jaw dropped. "The frek... why?"
"I think it would be better if we showed you," Atta replied just as the lift arrived. Rather than step out and head to their quarters as ordered, Atta selected another floor from the lift control panel—the Fortress's rooftop hangar and landing pad.
The lift doors slid shut and it shot upwards again. When it opened once more, Atta strode out and led them all over to one of the hangar's shuttle loading bays. The room was stacked full of transport crates. Atta headed over to one in particular and tapped a code into the crate's control panel. Locking bolts slid aside, allowing her to lift the lid. As she did so, Magnum peered in. Ethan leaned over Magnum's shoulder and saw a glossy black capsule.
"There's nanites in there?" Magnum asked. "Are you sure?"
Atta nodded. "Sure as we can be without unleashing them here. We ran scans on the capsules, and the results were consistent with what they should be if they're filled with nanites."
The Rictans traded wary looks and Magnum asked, "So why are we taking them to Avilon?"
"Therius knows we can't win, and he's going to threaten Omnius with the destruction of the enti
re human race if he doesn't leave Avilon alone."
"You're jerkin' my chain. What if he doesn't back down?"
Atta grimaced. "Boom."
"So it's not an empty threat."
"You know Therius. He believes in an afterlife. He wants to set humanity free, but to him, death is the ultimate freedom."
Magnum shook his head. "We've been training here for almost a decade. We bred a whole army of Gors! You're tellin' me all that's for nothing?"
"No, not for nothing. We're going to take Avilon and turn its people against Omnius just as we planned. The only difference is when he comes with reinforcements—and he will—Therius intends for us to be standing by, ready to blow ourselves to the Netherworld rather than let Omnius take the planet back."
"Frek!" Magnum almost punched the nearest transport crate, but he stopped himself when he realized it was full of explosives. "That skriff-krakkin' kakard!"
Ethan scowled. "We can't let that happen."
"No, we can't," Atta replied, "and we won't. We're going to strap enough conventional explosives to those bombs so that the nanites are vaporized when Therius tries to use them."
* * *
—One Day Later—
Shallah stood on the bridge of his command ship, the Asharn, surrounded by all six of his high lords, as well as Lady Kala and Queen Tavia—together they represented all the leaders of the Sythians.
They were a diverse group, each of them bipedal and humanoid, but each of them different enough to be considered their own species. Lady Kala and Queen Tavia looked like giant bats with their black skin, wings, and red eyes, while Kaon and Shallah appeared to be a cross between lizards and fish. Lord Shondar appeared to be a cross between humans and Gors with his pale, leathery gray skin, jagged black teeth, white eyes, and topknot of long, white hair. The other lords, Worval, Rossk, Thorian, and Quaris were all equally different and equally terrifying from a human perspective. It was no wonder Omnius had chosen them to be humanity's executioners.
When Shallah looked at all of them, he saw the future of sentient life. The Sythians were the evolutionary descendants of humanity. They'd adapted for survival in harsh climates where no human would be able to live. That meant they were superior to humans on a fundamental level. It was time to take that superiority to its logical conclusion.
"Therius leads usss to our deaths," Shallah said, hissing in perfect Sythian. "The battle for Avilon cannot be won. You know what shall come for us. Therius plans to threaten Omnius with the destruction of Avilon, using Omnius's own nanites to do so."
"Nanites? He cannot be that big of a fool!" Lord Kaon said, the gills in the sides of his neck flaring.
Queen Tavia's glowing red eyes narrowed swiftly. "Do not be so sure," she said. "I meet him and speak with him myself. He is foolish, even for a human."
"I do not know if his threats are true," Shallah said, "but it does not matter. Last night Therius came to speak with me. He suspects traitors in his midst, and he has given me the bombs to guard until the time comes to use them. Whether that time comes or not, we shall drop those bombs. Yet before we do, we must be sure of our escape. As soon as we arrive, I will send you, Lord Kaon, to the surface with a Sythian strike team. You will locate the Eclipser and disable it so that we can jump away."
"Me, Supreme One?"
"Is there a problem, Kaon?"
"The nanites shall kill me if they touch me."
"If you die, then you are to be revived. Nothing will happen to you that cannot be undone."
"But if I fail, the jamming device will ensure that my mind is stranded on Avilon when I die."
"Then you shall be revived from backups, and you shall not remember your death. All the better for you."
Shallah watched Kaon's large blue eyes dart around the room.
"Do any of the other lords join me?" he asked.
"They do not. The honor shall be yours alone."
"I see," Kaon replied, swallowing visibly.
Shallah smiled. "You shall be rewarded for your sacrifice."
He looked away, his eyes skipping from one High Lord to the next, addressing them all. "The day of reckoning is upon us. We cannot defeat Omnius, but we shall have our revenge. He lied to us and used us, choosing humanity over the Sythians, but now we shall deprive him of his chosen people. For glory!"
"For glory!" the lords roared in unison.
* * *
Omnius stood all alone before a massive forward viewport aboard the command Facet of his Icosahedron, watching as Avilon drew near. The planet lay bright and glowing in the surrounding darkness of space. That was the old Avilon, but little did its people know, here came the new.
Over a hundred thousand Facets approached the planet in a diffuse cloud, and soon they would form up into a semi-circular shroud around the night side of the planet. The other half of his Facets were still calculating their jumps from the Getties, but they would arrive in a matter of days now.
Omnius had originally planned to jump the entire Icosahedron into position around Avilon. The dramatic shock of seeing the sun suddenly eclipsed would be a great way to introduce New Avilon to its people.
But he'd been forced to change those plans. Less than a week ago, a pair of Facets had found the Sythian fleet in orbit around an uncharted planet in the Getties. He'd witnessed them performing quantum jumps there, which meant that they'd developed quantum jump drives earlier than anticipated. Rather than fight them there and force them to scatter, Omnius had sent as many Facets as he could back to Avilon to wait for them.
He didn't expect Shallah to keep him waiting for very long. They'd already waited years while refitting their fleet with quantum jump drives. Now all they had to do was use them.
Omnius smiled. Let them come.
Chapter 36
"Ten minutes to jump!" the helm reported.
"Battle groups one through fifteen standing by; all battalions and squadrons ready for launch," Lieutenant Devries said from the comms.
"Good. Carry on," Therius said.
Farah stood at the captain's table with him, looking over the battle plan one last time. She caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, accompanied by a familiar clanking sound. Glancing that way, Farah spotted Drone 767 relieving one of the guards at the entrance of the bridge. The other guard was, Torv, the Liberator's chief of security. Torv eyed the drone and hissed as it shuffled into position on the other side of the entrance. Farah wondered about that, thinking that 767 should have been in the hangar getting ready to launch with the rest of the drone battalion.
"Captain Hale?" Therius prompted.
"Sorry, go on." Farah returned her attention to the captain's table, and Therius went back to highlighting the key points of their plan.
The fleet was to jump straight from Origin into orbit over Avilon, maintaining a diffuse shell around the entire planet. That meant their forces would be spread out, which wasn't an ideal formation to deal with any defending fleets that Avilon might have waiting for them, but recent intelligence showed there was no significant orbital presence, and most importantly, no sign of the Icosahedron. With any luck, things would stay that way.
"You're sure that intel is reliable?" Farah asked.
"It's only a day old," Therius replied.
Farah nodded. It would have to do. Their intel from the Getties showed that the individual Facets of Omnius's Icosahedron were still returning from their nanite-seeding missions to a local rendezvous. So far only about half of the Facets had arrived at that rendezvous, and since it was unlikely Omnius would want to present only half of New Avilon to his people, it would be some time before the Icosahedron was ready to leave. No doubt Omnius would start calculating a jump to Avilon just as soon as they attacked, but those calculations would take at least a week.
That was how long they had to conquer the planet. They had a window of opportunity, but it was far from wide open. Avilon had a garrison of millions of drone fighters, which was more than enough to repel the Unio
n by itself. That was the reason they were jumping in so close to the planet. They had to bombard the garrison out of existence before it could launch more than a handful of fighters. There was a risk that they'd lose a few ships from accidentally jumping into the planet's atmosphere, but they'd drilled this over and over again for a reason. Their jump algorithms were all as finely-tuned as they could get. Losses would be minimal.
"This is it," Therius declared.
Farah pursed her lips and shook her head. She looked up and met Therius's pale blue eyes with her darker ones. "What about the Armageddon Protocol?"
"That's classified, Captain," Therius growled. "We've already discussed it, and you'd do well not to open the discussion again here."
Farah's mouth opened halfway to object, but she caught herself.
"Trust me, Captain Hale." Therius said, his blue eyes fierce with a fiery gleam.
But she didn't trust him. They'd had more than a few discussions about the Armageddon Protocol over the past few days, and each time Therius had insisted that they wouldn't actually need to use the nanites. The bombs were a last resort. Omnius would back down. But Farah wasn't willing to bet the survival of the human race on it.
She had a last resort of her own. Therius was on board the Liberator, and it was her ship even more than it was his. His presence on the bridge over the past eight years had been fleeting at best, but hers had been constant. He wasn't as familiar with the crew, and he didn't know all the inner workings of the ship. Any orders Therius gave would have to be routed through the Liberator's comm system, and Farah had set up an emergency lock-down program that would catch and block any outbound comms until she gave the encryption key to deactivate the program. If she determined that Therius was about to give the order to detonate the nanites, she would block the order and expose his plot. At that point, Therius would have a mutiny on his hands. She hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"Are you all right, Captain?" Therius asked.
Farah regarded him with a grim smile. "Yes, I was just thinking about what it will be like when Avilon is ours. This day has been a long time in coming."
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