Beyond the Shroud of the Universe (7 page)

“One other question,” the admiral said. “How are you going to keep them from noticing the
Terra
is gone? Won’t they be expecting an attack when the
Terra
jumps to the other universe?”

“
Terra?
” Night asked. “Who said anything about the
Terra
taking us over?”

Master Chief watched the ungainly craft as it floated into the box. Nearly 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, it barely fit. Despite the driver’s best effort, the starboard side made contact with the box, smearing the paint on the number ‘85’ and eliciting a squeal that could be heard over the screaming of the vessel’s four gas turbine engines.

“With all the advanced alien technology at our disposal,
that’s
the best we could do?” Master Chief shouted. “I’ve ridden on those pieces of shit. Really? That’s the best we could do?”

“What
is
that thing?” Sergeant Anne ‘Fox’ Stasik asked.

“It’s an LCAC,” her brother, Gunnery Sergeant Jerry ‘Wolf’ Stasik said, pronouncing it ‘el-cack.’ “That’s short for Landing Craft, Air Cushioned. Basically, it’s a big hovercraft the wet navy uses for transporting people and gear from amphibious assault ships to the beach.”

“The navy folks also used to take us SEALs out with them sometimes,” Master Chief added. “They break down a lot.” He looked back to Night. “Really? We couldn’t do any better than that?”

“No, we couldn’t, so stop your bitching,” Night said. The flying boat made it into the box, landed on four giant blocks inside it and shut down its engines. “All right,” he continued as silence returned to the cargo bay; “gather round. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

“Is this the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?” Lieutenant James Alfred ‘Jamming’ Miles, the Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) of
Shuttle 02,
asked.

“While flying anyway,” his pilot, Lieutenant Jeff ‘Canuck’ Canada, said. He watched as the
Spark
vanished from sight. “Huh,” he said, “maybe this will work after all.” He clicked the radio’s transmit switch twice to let the crew of the
Spark
know they were invisible. The system of microphone clicks had been arranged to keep any voice transmissions from being intercepted. The cargo ship reappeared.

“Here goes nothing,” Jamming said. He flipped the switch on the shuttle’s stealth system. After a couple of seconds, two microphone clicks were heard, indicating it was working as well.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Canuck said. “It worked.”

Jamming turned the stealth system back off, and Canuck flew the shuttle into Starboard Cargo Bay One.

“How long do we have to wait?” Canuck asked.

Jamming looked at his notes. “About five minutes,” he said. “It took a lot longer to get the stealth module attached to the shuttle than they thought. We almost didn’t make the timeline.”

The five minutes flew by as they went over the mission profile in their minds. Finally, right on schedule, there was a flash as they made the jump to the Jinn Universe…followed by waves of nausea.

“Is it always this bad?” Jamming asked when he finished puking.

“It gets easier,” Canuck said.

“I hope so,” Jamming said. He tied off the airsickness bag. “All right, I’m ready to go.”

Canuck lifted the shuttle off the deck. “Are we cloaked?”

“Coming on now,” Jamming said. He flipped the switch. “Should be good.”

Canuck could tell from the look on the lineman’s face that it worked. “Okay,” he said, “here goes nothing.” He guided the shuttle out of the cargo bay and began flying to the drop point.

As they crested over the anti-moon, they got their first look at anti-Earth. “Looks about the same,” Canuck observed. “Aside from the atmosphere being kind of green.”

They flew the rest of the way in silence, each hoping there wouldn’t be a system that could see them.

“Oh, crap,” Jamming said as they neared the drop point. “I’m picking up something. Looks like there’s a ship in orbit.” He did some calculations. “It won’t affect us now, but the pickup could be…interesting.”

“I hate interesting,” Canuck said. “Are we ready?”

“Yeah,” Jamming agreed. He reached up to flip a switch. “Cargo bay doors coming open.” When the green light illuminated, he pushed a red button next to the switch. “Cargo deploying.”

“Good luck, boys,” Canuck said as the box rolled out the back of the shuttle. “And now, we wait…”

“I’ve done an awful lot of crazy shit in my time,” Master Chief said as they felt the giant box roll out of the shuttle’s cargo bay with jolt. The officers and senior enlisted were watching the evolution from the port cabin of the LCAC, while the rest of the troops waited in the ‘Personnel Transfer Module,’ a big box strapped to the center of the LCAC’s cargo bay. “I’ve even done some really stupid shit too,” he continued, “but this has to be the stupidest and craziest thing I’ve
ever
done. Have I mentioned that?”

“Repeatedly,” Night said.

“Actually, I reviewed the records, and the assault drop box is one of the safest means of assaulting a planet,” Lieutenant Bradford noted. “Not only does it get us down quickly, but with the various coatings the box has, we appear to an unsuspecting nation like a meteor falling from the skies.” His eyes widened a little as a thought came to him, and he turned to Night. “They aren’t expecting us, are they?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Good,” Lieutenant Bradford replied, although his eyes darted back and forth as if he was still unsure. “I didn’t realize we would be weightless this long.”

“This is the easy part,” the LCAC’s Loadmaster, Petty Officer Steve Johnson, said. “The fun part is going to be when we try to fire up the engines. Hopefully we will get them all running before we hit.”

“What are the odds of that happening?” Lieutenant Bradford asked.

“Pretty poor,” Petty Officer Johnson replied.

“Shitty,” Master Chief said.

“What happens if the motors don’t all run?” Lieutenant Bradford asked.

Petty Officer Johnson shrugged. “We make a big splash when we hit.”

“We’re not going to sink, though, are we?”

“Nah, we’ll hit pretty hard, but assuming nothing breaks too badly, we’ll still float like a normal boat…we just won’t be able to do any of the flying stuff.”

“Which means we’ll be a lot slower on the water, and the Efreet will have a lot more warning we’re coming,” Night added. “And we’ll have to hump all our gear about 18 miles, too, which will suck.”

“And we won’t make our mission timeline,” Master Chief concluded. “We’ll be pretty screwed.”

The men were quiet as they contemplated all the ways the mission could go wrong…until they reached atmosphere, and the shaking began.

“Is it supposed to vibrate this much?” Lieutenant Bradford asked. “I mean, this is normal, right?”

“No idea sir,” Master Chief said. “You’re the expert on these things. I’ve never used a box before.”

BANG! BANG! BANG! It felt like somebody was outside the assault box hitting it with a massive sledgehammer.

“Sounds like someone’s outside,” Night said. “Hey, Lieutenant, why don’t you go answer the door?”

“Not…funny,” Lieutenant Bradford replied, his eyes tightly shut.

The hammering continued for several more minutes, then the shaking became more violent.

Master Chief winked at Night. “Hey, Lieutenant, is the side of the box supposed to get so red? It almost looks like it’s glowing…”

“What? Where?” Lieutenant Bradford asked. “The manual didn’t say anything about that! I hope it’s normal; I mean, it’s got to be normal, right?”

“Actually, the sides of the box
are
turning kinda red,” said Petty Officer Johnson. Seated up on a platform, he was the only person able to look out the port observer dome window.

All the color drained from Lieutenant Bradford’s face.

“Guide parachutes deploying,” Petty Officer Johnson noted. The sounds of wind noise could be heard from outside.

“Wee!” Master Chief yelled as the capsule began to yo-yo back and forth. “This is fun, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“This is worse than a roller coaster,” Lieutenant Bradford said. “How can it feel like we’re being pulled in every direction at once?”

“Main chute deployment,” Petty Officer Johnson said. The ride smoothed and everyone, including Lieutenant Bradford, began breathing again. “Time for the fun to begin.” The passengers were thrown from side to side as the LCAC rocked. “There go the sides of the box. Time to pray that the engines will start…”

“There’s one…” Over the wind noise, the troops could hear a jet engine spin up to full power.

“Two…” The jet noise doubled in volume as the second engine came online.

“Three…” The craft started shaking as the roar intensified.

“And four…fuck!”

“Unless that’s a technical term in the navy,” Night said, “I can’t imagine ‘fuck’ is good.”

“Nope,” Petty Officer Johnson replied. “The fourth motor won’t come online. There’s a stuck valve.”

Reacting to something he heard over his headset, the other member of the port cabin, the LCAC’s deck mechanic, pulled a wrench out of the tool box next to him. He released his seat belt and jumped out of his seat.

“Sit down, Jones!” the loadmaster yelled, but the other man ran to the cabin door, catching himself on a bulkhead as the craft rolled in a wind gust. “The craftmaster said we’d get it once we’re down!” the loadmaster added.

The deck mechanic opened the door, and a blast of wind swept through the cabin. The temperature was below freezing at their altitude, and all the troops shivered in the icy gale. Jones turned around, gave the loadmaster a thumbs-up and went out the door, closing and dogging it shut as he left.

The ship rolled again, even further than before, as another gust hit the craft. Master Chief saw the loadmaster’s eyes grow large in shock. “Man overboard!” he screamed into his microphone. He threw off his headset, released his harness and jumped down from his platform.

He crossed the cabin to the door, before turning back to Night. “I just hope this is worth it, sir,” he said. Another icy blast lashed the cabin, chilling the troops, as he went out. The door slammed shut with a note of finality.

“I don’t get it,” Calvin said as they walked into the warehouse. Unlike the rest of the buildings and houses in the area, the warehouse looked modern and very Earth-like from the outside, almost as if it had been lifted from a Terran facility and brought to the Jinn Universe intact. “Why are you doing this? You’re helping your civilization’s enemies. Your entire
race
could be destroyed because of you.”

“True,” Nightsong replied; “the civilization
could
be destroyed. I don’t think it will be, at least not before we get back, but that was a risk I had to take. If they can’t hold out until we get there to save the day, then it wasn’t much of a civilization anyway, was it?”

“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re doing it,” Calvin replied.

Nightsong stopped walking and leveled a piercing glare at Calvin. “You really want to know? Well let me tell you a story. A long time ago, especially as your race reckons time, there was a set of twins, a boy and a girl, who were born to the rulers of our race. This was during one of our wars with the Jotunn. As was often the case, the giants struck without warning, hoping to surprise us and take back their planet. As part of their plan, they sent a number of assassins along with a diplomatic party to our capital. While there, the assassins struck, killing our king and queen. The Jotunn also captured the twins, who they hoped to take back to their world as hostages to ensure our obedience to their wishes.”

“Unfortunately, the girl was tremendously headstrong. Once she got something in her head, you could never talk her out of it. She decided she would escape and, if that failed, she would kill herself rather than become a hostage. Unable to escape, she killed herself before I could stop her. Minalwen died in my arms, and I watched her spirit leave her body. I swore then I would find a hero and return to destroy the entire Jotunn race. All of them, no matter how far they ran or how well they hid.”

Calvin’s brows knitted. “So…you want to take me back to fight the Jotunn for you?”

“Indeed. I intend to fight and destroy the Odin in single combat, and you will help me.”

“How can I help you in single combat?”

Nightsong smiled. “You will be in my sword; together, we will destroy the Odin and his entire line. Then we will destroy the entire Jotunn race. And finally, I will kill my uncle and take my place as Thor of the Aesir.”