The Search for Gram (21 page)

“I think this is it,” said Master Chief, walking into the large room. “This is the first room we came to. I remember that drawing.” He pointed to a black and white drawing of a large Efreet. “The door straight across is the way out of the building.”

As they approached the door, the soldiers could hear explosions and screaming coming from outside. Calvin crossed to one of the windows. “Shit!” he said, looking out.

“What?” asked Night, coming over to the window.

“They’ve got fighters,” said Calvin. Outside, Night could see the gate of the prison complex across a large open area. On the other side of the gate, civilians were running between strangely-shaped buildings as two red aircraft strafed them.

The aircraft didn’t look particularly dangerous or deadly, as they were nothing more than flying boxes with wings. They were, however, more than enough to do the job of killing civilians, especially since the Sila didn’t have any anti-aircraft weapons.

“I thought you said the Efreet didn’t have armed aircraft,” said Night, turning to Trella.

“They didn’t,” replied Trella. “I’ve seen those craft flying, but they never had weapons on them before.”

“I have never seen them with weapons either,” said Sella, who had been rescued from her cell on the platoon’s way up to the surface.

“Well, they’ve got them now, and we can’t take the civilians out there,” said Calvin. “In addition to the aircraft, I can see at least two manned guard towers.”

“
Nelson!
” called Night over his implant. “
Can you do something about the damn aircraft?
”

“
Right away, Captain Train!
” said Sergeant George Nelson. The cyborg moved past the rest of the squad, threw open the door and marched out into the courtyard. As he cleared the doorway, the two anti-aircraft missile launchers rotated up from his back where they had been stowed, with one pointing over each shoulder. He turned to the right, where one of the aircraft was attacking several civilians who were running toward the safety of a building.

The guards in the towers sensed the motion in the courtyard and began rotating their weapon
s
toward the cyborg.

“
Snipers!
” commed Calvin. “
Take out those guards in the towers!
”

“
I’ve got the right tower,
” said the platoon’s sniper, Sergeant Rick Day, as he smashed out the window on the right side of the room. “
I’m on the left,
” added Sergeant Nicholas Tomaselli, smashing out the window on the left. Although not officially ‘sniper-qualified,’ Tomaselli was the best natural shot the platoon had. Both men began firing.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Sergeant Nelson said as he tried to lock the missile onto the aircraft. The ship wasn’t a ‘fighter’ per se, but a modified transport onto which the Efreet had mounted rockets and a gun. The pilot used some sort of anti-gravity generator to hold the craft aloft, and a suck/blow system to propel it, but neither system generated enough heat for the infrared-seeking missile to lock onto.

Bang! Ping! Ping! Ping!
Most of the flechettes bounced off Nelson although he could see a couple of them in his legs and one in his left arm. He pulled out the one in his arm and ran a status check. No issues. A thermal scan showed that although Tomaselli had killed one of the Efreet in the left tower, it looked like there were two, and the second one was reloading for another shot. The Efreet were starting to get annoying. “
Could someone keep the damn guards off me long enough for me to shoot down these damn planes? Left tower, reloading.
”

Sergeant Tomaselli looked through his scope and found the second Efreeti. As Sergeant Nelson had commed, it was reloading its flechette thrower. Before the lizard could bring the weapon back up, Tomaselli took aim and fired. The bullet hit the lizard in the face, knocking him back and over the railing of the tower. “
Guard down,
” said The Kid as the Efreet fell.

“
Thanks,
” said Sergeant Nelson. Looking up, he found the red aircraft again, silhouetted against the backdrop of the green sky. He switched the missile to contrast tracking, and it locked onto the aircraft. “Gotcha,” he said as the missile roared out of the box launcher.

The weapon homed in on the unsuspecting fighter and detonated, tearing open nearly a third of its side. The explosion also damaged the system keeping the fighter airborne, and it flipped over sideways and fell from the sky, narrowly missing one of the buildings as it crashed to the ground.

“Now…where’s that other one gotten to?” Nelson asked.

He turned to the left, searching, but the other aircraft had seen its companion go down and had turned toward the source of the threat. Before Nelson could launch his second missile at the fighter, the Efreeti pilot fired his gun, and a line of explosions walked across the ground and into the soldier. The shells penetrated the cyborg, and Calvin saw his life signs immediately drop to zero across the board. Nelson fell to the ground in several large pieces.

“Dammit,” said Master Chief, “he was the only one with anti-aircraft missiles.”

“I’ve got this,” said Sergeant Rowntree. He sprinted out the door to the remains of Sergeant Nelson. Reaching the body, he set his rifle down, unclipped the unused missile launcher from the mount on Nelson’s shoulder and slid the missile canister from the box. Originally built as an infantryman’s weapon, the missile still had all the hand-held launch controls built into it. Rowntree put the launcher up to his shoulder and sighted through the targeting reticle.

Nothing.

The sight was dead; the missile unpowered. He could still see through the lifeless sight, and he watched as the fighter turned back toward him. Taking the launcher from his shoulder, he scanned it, trying to find out what was wrong with the missile’s power. The box launcher seemed undamaged, and he realized it had been powered by the cyborg’s own electrical system. He found the power switch, turned it to “internal” and the missile began humming as it went through its power-up sequence.

Rowntree looked up and saw the aircraft closing in. He put the missile back to his shoulder and found the aircraft in the reticle. As the aircraft began firing, Sergeant Rowntree took aim, got a solid lock on the heat from the aircraft’s gun and fired the anti-aircraft missile. “Eat that!” he shouted as the missile leapt from the canister.

His excitement was short-lived, as the plane broke hard to its right while launching a string of decoys. The missile followed one of the decoys, and spent itself on it. The aircraft immediately turned back toward Rowntree, continuing its attack.

The soldier dove to the side, and the aircraft’s shells tracked through the space he had just vacated. The Efreeti aircraft roared past, pulling up and around for another attack. Sergeant Rowntree saw he had nowhere to run, and nothing to take cover behind, so he tossed aside the empty missile canister and picked up his rifle.

He sighted in on the aircraft as its pilot began firing, and it was a race to see who could put their rounds on target first. Sergeant Rowntree won, and a line of bullets stitched across the canopy of the aircraft, killing the Efreeti. Calvin watched in horror as the plane, already diving toward Rowntree, continued to accelerate as it arrowed straight at him.

“Move!” Calvin yelled.

Sergeant Rowntree turned and took two steps before the aircraft ploughed into him and detonated on impact with the ground. His implant transmitted one last update, and Calvin saw all the trooper’s extremities had been ripped off…and what was left was shredded beyond repair. He hoped they’d find enough of him to bury, but didn’t think it was going to be likely. Fuck.

Jotunn Jail, 14 Herculis ‘a,’ Unknown Date/Time

“Now what the hell are we going to do?” asked Rock, looking around the cell. There wasn’t much to see. Four straw mats and a hole in the floor for refuse. The hole was far too small to try to go through, and even too small for one of the cell’s previous inhabitants to use well. Feces covered the area around it, and the entire cell smelled like a sewer.

“We’re going to try to find the Aesir prince and get out of here,” said K-Mart.

“And just how the fuck are we going to do that?” asked Chomper. “Do you have some sort of magic wand you can wave and whisk us out of here?”

K-Mart motioned the other two men closer. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he whispered. “Before we left, Vizier Kawab gave me one of the transportation rods. That’s what he called me over for.”

“Why did he do that?” asked Rock.

“Because Hori lost his partner on both of his previous missions. One time, his partner had the transportation rod when they left, yet Hori was the only one to return. He was also wounded both times but both looked self-inflicted to the vizier. Hori was the most experienced guide the Sila had…however, Vizier Kawab was starting to get the feeling something else was going on. He didn’t tell anyone else he was doing it, but he gave me a rod because he was worried something might happen to us.”

“Pretty justified in his thinking too,” said Rock.

“So, if you had a transportation rod, Hooty’s death wasn’t necessary,” said Chomper.

“No, it wasn’t,” said K-Mart, “but there was no way to tell you before now.”

“Just get me back to the other world,” said Chomper, “so I can kill that rat bastard.”

“If you aren’t worried about being in an official landing zone,” said K-Mart, “we can go now.”

“What are the odds they dug this facility out, and we’re going to materialize in the ground?” asked Rock. “What about the forest in the vicinity of the caliph’s retreat?”

“No way to tell,” said K-Mart. “I guess I can transport back and, if I make it, come back to get you.”

“If you don’t make it, we’re all dead anyway, so we might as well go together,” said Rock.

“Okay,” said K-Mart. He reached into his suit, pulled out the golden rod and showed it to them. “Kawab colored them for me. There are two main buttons, a green one and a blue one. Green means ‘go back.’”

“Hey!” shouted a deep voice from the cell door. “What you got there?” K-Mart heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.

“Quick! Skin to skin!”

Both of the others touched him, and K-Mart pushed the blue button. Nothing happened.

The door grated as it was flung open. “Give me dat!”

K-Mart pushed the green button, and there was a flash of light.

Wendar, Day 7 of the Second Akhet, 15th Dynasty, Year 14

“Why’d you push the blue button, you dumbass?” asked Rock.

K-Mart flushed. “In the heat of the moment, I thought, ‘blue for back.’ I need a better mnemonic.”

“At least we made it back safely,” said Chomper looking at the trees surrounding them. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. It would have sucked to come back inside a tree.”

“Before you move,” said K-Mart, “mark the spot where you came in. That way, when we go back, we know it’s safe.”

“Back?” asked Rock.

“Yeah, back,” said K-Mart. “The prince is still there, and now the Jotunn know about him.”

“One of us should go back to the caliph,” said Chomper. “He’s got to be warned about Grand Vizier Nefermaat’s treachery.”

“I guess that’s you,” said K-Mart. “Besides, don’t you have a date with Hori?”

“Yeah,” agreed Chomper with an evil smile, “I do.”

“How is Chomper supposed to find his way back, though?” asked Rock.

“Let’s see…” said Chomper. “I came back here facing that direction. In the other world, I was facing about 90 degrees to the left of where we came in. That means, if I turn right 90 degrees, it should be in that direction.” He pointed.

“That’s as close as I can figure,” said K-Mart. “If anything, maybe a little more to the left. If you go more than two miles, try looping around to the left and coming back.”

“Agreed,” said Chomper. He began walking.

“That’s weird,” said Rock.

“What?”

“I just realized we didn’t get sick coming back.”

“Well, Hori said it got easier,” said K-Mart.

“Yeah…” said Rock, not sounding convinced. “Maybe it’s the direction we traveled.”

“Maybe it’s because we were too scared to notice this time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Rock. “So, what are we going to do about the Aesir?”

“Before we go any further,” Calvin said to the caliph. “I’d like some answers about what the hell is going on.”

“Quickly,” said the caliph, straining to look out the gate of the prison yard. “What do you need to know? My people are dying out there.”

“
My people have been dying in here to get you out!
” Calvin yelled. “
They’ve been dying out there, too!
Now, damn it, I want to know what the hell is going on.
”

“If I tell you everything I know, will you help my people?” asked the caliph.

“If you can help me figure out what’s going on in my world, I will do my best to help you, as long as I can get the information back.” He looked around and saw Sella and Trella. “Tell you what. You send Sella and Trella back to my world with one of my troops so I can get the information to my commanding officer, and I will do my best to help you.”

“That is acceptable to me,” replied the caliph.

“There’s going to be a bit of a problem with that,” said Night. “The control rod Trella had is busted. She tried to bring over the cyborgs, and while it brought three across, it died on the third attempt. Unless you have another transport rod, no one’s going home.”

“Do you have another rod?” Calvin asked.

“Yes, I do,” said the caliph; “unfortunately, it is hidden in the castle. We only had three of them left. The Efreet took one from Sella when she was captured, and I have no idea where it might be. It could be here in the jail; they could have taken it to the ship they have in orbit. I don’t know. The second was with Trella, but you say it is now broken. The only other rod is back at the castle.”

“Well, at a minimum, I guess we’ll be going back with you to the castle because that’s our only way home.”

“There are more of them in this universe,” said the caliph, “but those are the only three that are on this planet.”

Night reached into a pocket. “Here’s the broken one,” he said, handing it to Calvin.

“Do you know how to fix it?” Calvin asked.

The caliph looked at the vizier. “Can it be fixed?”

“The information I have says that they cannot be fixed once they break,” said the vizier in a surprisingly deep baritone. Calvin realized it was the first time he had heard the vizier speak. “It is said they catch on fire when opened.”

“But you don’t know?” asked Calvin. “Why not?”

“The rods were not made here,” said the vizier. “They were made back on our home planet, and it is said they were very difficult to make. When the diaspora began, each ship left our world with only eight of the rods; it was all they were able to make in time. Our ancestors brought them so that when they arrived at their target stars, they could potentially cross the boundary to interact with the civilization on the other side if they needed assistance. In our case, there was nobody on the other side until the flying snake people arrived, and when they did, they were more interested in sacrificing us than helping us.”

The caliph sighed a very human sigh. “The bottom line is we do not know how to build them, nor do we know how to fix them. They were made on our home planet with a technology lost to us. When we started this colony, we had to do away with many of our advancements in order to sustain our people. We were building back to the level of technology we used to have when the Efreet arrived. They have limited our technology ever since.”

“But you have still tried to advance?” asked Calvin.

“Yes, we have,” agreed the caliph; “however, everything we do has to be done in secret, limiting our access to both supplies and manpower. Any time the Efreet find one of our scientific stations, they take all our research, kill the researchers and burn the facility to the ground.”

“Realizing we were never going to achieve independence with what we had in this world,” said the vizier, “one of our areas of research was in cross-boundary applications. Although we weren’t able to produce the technology, we still had access to the files on how and why the cross-boundary control rods worked, and we were attempting to develop a way to get non-living material across the boundary.”

“You were attempting it?” asked Calvin. “Or you succeeded?”

“We succeeded,” said the vizier, with a voice full of pride. His face fell. “And then the Efreet found our facility and took both the research and the researcher who had made the breakthrough. They also destroyed all the files we had on the control rods and cross-boundary research, leaving us with nothing.”

“Could what you invented be used to take a spaceship across the boundary?” asked Night.

“If given enough power, yes, we thought it was possible,” said the vizier. “In fact, it was our intention to send equipment through to your universe, where we could build what we needed. The breakthrough was really quite amazing.”

“Your breakthrough is responsible for the deaths of a lot of people on our side of the boundary,” grated Night, “and will probably be responsible for the deaths of a lot more before it’s all over. Many of them were my friends or people under my command. It would be much better for your long-term health if you weren’t quite so excited about how ‘amazing’ a breakthrough it was.”

“Well…umm…yes, there is that,” agreed the vizier, “and I am very sorry for the loss of your friends. We had no idea the Efreet would get the technology nor that they would use it that way; we were only trying to get ourselves out from underneath them.”

“
Lancaster! Front and center,
” commed Calvin. “I’m going to have someone take a look at the control rod. If we can fix it, we can cross back to our world, move closer to the castle and then cross back into this world.”

“Yes, sir?” asked Sergeant Lancaster.

“Sergeant Lancaster is our tech guy,” said Calvin. He handed the control rod to him. “See what you can do to get this going again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lancaster. He took the device and turned it around several times. “Well, I see where the access panel is,” he said. “It looks like there is either a screw or rivet holding it on...”

Lancaster pulled out a small tool kit and removed a mini-screwdriver. “This isn’t really the right tool, but it may work to get it loose,” he said, trying to loosen the fastener. The tip of the screwdriver snapped off at an angle. “Bitch,” he said under his breath as he pulled another screwdriver out of the tool kit.

This time, the screwdriver won, and the access panel popped off. A blue glow suffused the inside of the control rod, moments before flames leaped out of it. “Shit!” said Lancaster, trying to blow out the fire. After a couple of seconds, he succeeded, and the flames went out, but the damage was done. Everything inside the compartment was destroyed.

“Damn it!” said Night, looking at the smoking remains of the control rod.

“I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way, then,” said Calvin. “You said there’s another control rod at the castle?” The caliph nodded his head. “Then I guess that’s where we’re heading.”

“You may not remember, sir, but there were a lot of Efreet guarding the castle when we last left it,” said Master Chief.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I brought you along,” Calvin replied. “It’s time to kill people and break things, Master Chief. Move ‘em out.”