The Search for Gram (33 page)

“It looks like a Jotunn outpost,” said Steropes, “but it appears to be abandoned.”

“How do you know it’s a Jotunn outpost?” asked Captain Griffin.

Steropes brought an image up on the front screen. “This building appears to be the main building in the complex. The imagery indicates each floor is well over 20 feet high. All the other buildings are constructed similarly although they are not as long.”

“All right,” said Captain Griffin, “I’ll agree it is a Jotunn building as I don’t know anyone else who needs 20-foot tall ceilings. Any guess as to what it is?”

“There is a fence around it, so I’d say it looks like a jail, or maybe a military compound. It doesn’t appear to be inhabited now, though.”

“So they probably kept the Aesir there but have now moved them. Are you getting any readings from the
Blue Forest?
”

“It’s a hulk,” replied Steropes. “It looks like it was hit by at least six of the Efreeti time bombs, as there are a number of holes down its side. Both engines are gone; it isn’t going anywhere on its own.”

“So it looks like the Jotunn took the Aesir crewmembers with them,” said Captain Griffin. “The Thor will not be pleased.”

“Is it time to go look for our ships, then?” asked Lieutenant Commander Brighton.

“It is,” said Captain Griffin. “Recover our fighters and prepare to make the jump to the other universe.”

Dendara, Wendar, Day 8 of the Third Akhet, 15th Dynasty, Year 14

They were doomed, thought K-Mart. It didn’t take an army general to see it; the outcome was painfully obvious, even to an aviator. The capital city of Dendara occupied a peninsula which jutted from the northern end of the continent, although it was currently cut off from the rest of the land mass by the enemy troops who spanned the peninsula from east to west. Both the caliph’s neighbors had thrown their most capable forces into the fight to end it; the caliph’s troops were now outnumbered by more than 10-1, and their enemies had more armored vehicles than the caliph’s troops had ammunition to kill them with.

The Jotunn had also equipped the caliph’s enemies with lasers that completely outclassed anything the caliph’s troops had in terms of range or damage.

The caliph’s troops were doomed.

The final attack had begun at dawn. Bordraab had fought from the sky, spitting acid on concentrations of soldiers and their armored fighting vehicles until a group of Jotunn lasers brought her down. No longer able to fly, she scratched out a hole next to the trench in which K-Mart waited. It wasn’t much protection for the dragon, but she wouldn’t have to wait long; as quickly as the enemy forces were advancing, they would be in the trenches within the next hour.

K-Mart shot a scout who was sneaking up to their lines. With his suit and laser, he had a better tracking system and weapon than his counterparts in the caliph’s army, and he was usually able to kill the enemies’ scouts before his allies even knew they were present. Too bad his rifle’s battery was down to fiv
e
percent remaining.

He shot at another scout, but was distracted by a commotion from further down the trench.

He turned to see the caliph had arrived, along with the last 20 of his personal troops. The vizier in charge of the battle came running up, ducking to stay below the lip of the trench.

“What are you doing, my caliph?” asked Vizier Bulah. “This is far too dangerous a place for you. The enemy will be here soon, and it is likely this position will be overrun.”

“I understand that,” said the caliph, “but if this is to be the end, I intend to die in battle.” He turned to one of his troops who was carrying a radio on his back. “On my command, give the order to charge.”

“I guess this is the end,” said K-Mart to Bordraab.

“I am afraid so,” said the dragon, surveying the battlefield. “The time in jail has taken too much out of me. I will, however, die with one of the Jotunn in my mouth.” She spotted a target and tensed her legs to join the charge.

“
K-Mart, Calvin,
” his CO commed. “
I don’t know what it looks like down there, but from orbit it looks like you could use a little help. Tell everyone to close their eyes and keep their heads down; it’s going to be a big one.
”

“Incoming!” K-Mart yelled. “Get under cover
right now
!” He dove into the trench.

Calvin’s voice counted down, “
Three…two…one…
” He might have said “Impact,” but it was drowned out by the supersonic shock waves of the incoming kinetic bombardment.

Accelerated to a speed of 36,000 feet per second, 12 of the telephone pole-sized tungsten rods slammed into the planet’s surface, with each releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of 120 tons of TNT. Even though his eyes were closed, K-Mart could still see the flash. The blast effect was multiplied as the shock waves overlapped, reinforcing each other, and K-Mart felt himself hammered into the ground, which shook with the violence of a major earthquake. One of the trench walls collapsed, coating him with dirt. At least it helped protect him from some of the flying debris.

When the shaking ended, K-Mart risked a glance above the trench wall. A near-continuous mushroom cloud ran from one end of the enemy’s line to the other. Underneath the cloud, there was a half-mile wide strip of…nothing. Everything that had been there, both men and machinery, was vaporized. Even the Jotunn were gone.

K-Mart turned to view his own lines, and what he saw was nearly as bad. Many of the caliph’s troops hadn’t heard his yell and were injured by the blast and flying debris. Many more had been looking in the direction of the enemy lines and were now flash-blind. At what price, victory, he wondered.

Bordraab had protected herself by throwing her wings over her head, and she didn’t appear any more hurt than she had previously.

“
Did that help?
” Calvin asked.

“
Uh, yeah, that helped a lot…for those of us who survived it, anyway,
” said K-Mart. “
Did you have to do it so close to us?
”

“
Close?
” asked Calvin. “
That was 3/4 of a mile from your position. We wanted to make sure we got the enemy’s attention.
”

“
Well, there’s no doubt about that,
” K-Mart replied. “
Now I know why I’m an aviator. This ground-warfare stuff sucks!
”

“
Tell everyone to keep their heads down. There’s a second round coming.
”

When a second earthshattering series of explosions didn’t immediately follow, K-Mart risked a look, hoping his suit’s visor would protect his eyes from any further flashes. While the first round was anti-personnel, the second round was anti-materiel, and there were no flashes. The incoming rounds initially resembled the telephone poles of the first barrage, but this time the poles separated into a stack of Frisbee-like saucers as they passed through 15,000 feet. The saucers fanned out on both sides of the first strike’s ground zero, with some close enough for K-Mart to get a better look as they initiated their attacks.

With the enhancements provided by his suit, he could see the saucers weren’t symmetrical; a sensor stuck out from the underside. He couldn’t tell whether the targeting system was based on infrared or optics, but the saucers unerringly found the remaining fighting vehicles of the caliph’s enemies and homed in on them. Prior to impact, explosives on the upper part of the saucer detonated, firing an anti-armor dart down into the weaker armor on the top of the armored vehicles. Within 10 seconds, all the remaining vehicles were smoking hulks.

“This is our opportunity!” called the caliph. “Soldiers, to me!
Attack
!”

He climbed from the trench and started toward the enemy lines. Though the dust raised by the orbital bombardment was still thick, the devastation of the enemy’s forces was visible to the troops, and they raced forward with a renewed enthusiasm to get in front of their leader as he charged toward his opponents.

“For the caliph!” they yelled as they assaulted the enemy lines, invigorated for the first time in weeks. Disoriented and demoralized, the remaining enemy troops were no match for the caliph’s forces, and they turned and ran. Although only a few at first, platoon-sized units quickly joined the stampede, then entire companies fled en masse.

The battle was over in minutes; the rout continued for three days.

Dendara, Wendar, Day 8 of the Third Akhet, 15th Dynasty, Year 14

The shuttle landed, raising the dust which had just settled from the orbital bombardment. The ramp at the back was already in motion before the shuttle touched down, and suited Terran Space Marines poured out of the shuttle to set up a perimeter.

K-Mart watched the evolution with pride; the Terran soldiers were obviously professionals who knew their jobs and carried them out without any apparent oversight. The only thing that was odd was how few there were; K-Mart always thought the platoon had more men and women than the 20 or so he could see. He shrugged, deciding the rest of the group must have been employed on other missions.

Calvin walked down the ramp with the Aesir captain K-Mart had seen onboard the
Vella Gulf.
K-Mart climbed from the trench and went to meet them. Reaching the pair, he stopped and saluted.

Calvin and Captain Nightsong returned the salute, the Aesir in the hand-to-chest manner of his race. “We found one of the fighters in orbit,” said Calvin. “Are you the only Terran who survived?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Yeah,” said K-Mart. “We had to ditch one fighter so the other to have enough fuel to carry their space station to the surface.”

One of Calvin’s eyebrows went up. “Space station?” he asked.

“Long story, sir,” said K-Mart. “You can buy me a beer, and I’ll tell you all about it. In any event, we crashed the other fighter bringing down the space station, which converted us from aviators to ground troops. With our weapons and suits, we were better armed and armored than the rest of the troops here, and we led a series of recon missions back into our universe to rescue the elves from a Jotunn jail.”

“You led a recon mission to free the Aesir from a Jotunn prison?”

“Well, it wasn’t me alone,” said K-Mart. “All four of us did our parts, and it was a little more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in order to free the Aesir, we had to free a Sila craftsman, so we could get a transportation device, so we could free the dragon, so we could get her help fighting the Jotunn. It’s kind of complicated.”

“I guess so,” said Calvin. “But I see you’re here, so I guess you were successful?”

“Yes, sir,” said K-Mart. “We rescued the Aesir and their prince. There are about 40 of them left, I think. Assuming the prince wasn’t killed in the fighting today, we should be able to return him to his people.”

“Outstanding!” said Calvin.

“Yeah, it turned out pretty well,” said K-Mart, “aside from losing Rock, Chomper and Hooty. The only thing we missed out on was rescuing some of the Sila scientists who were working on the time weapons. They were in the Jotunn jail we rescued the Aesir from, but we got there too late to save them. Apparently, the Efreet moved them to their home world for safekeeping.”

“Did you get any information on where that might be?” asked Calvin. “As you can see, we were able to capture the technology to cross from one universe to the other. If we knew where they were, we could try to take them back from the Efreet.”

“No, I didn’t,” replied K-Mart. “Apparently, every Sila who has been taken to the home world has never been seen again. It’s some place named Efron.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Captain Nightsong.

“What do you mean?” asked Calvin. “What are you afraid of?”

“I know where the planet Efron is,” Captain Nightsong said. “Efron is the planet across the boundary from Earth. The home world of the Efreet is the same as yours. Efron and Terra are the same planet; the Efreet could come through and attack your people at any moment.”

“Oh, hell,” said Calvin. “We’ve got to get back home right
now
.”

“We are forever in your debt for returning our missing crewmembers,” said the Thor, “and I am personally in your debt for returning my son. Despite living long lives, our race does not have many children; to lose any we have is beyond tragedy.”

“You’re welcome,” said Captain Griffin. “We’re happy to have been able to rescue them. It is too bad we weren’t able to get there sooner; we might have saved more of them.”

“You did your best and honored your word,” replied the Thor. “What more could we ask of you? If you ever need our assistance, you need but ask, and we will come.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” said Captain Griffin. “I’m sure my government will have someone here shortly to open up relations between our two civilizations. We, however, just found out the Efreeti home world in their universe is the same planet as Terra in this universe; we must get back to warn our leaders and help defend our world. We also believe the Efreet may have some Sila scientists there who could help us understand how their time-based weapons work. It would be extremely helpful if we could cross over to their universe and liberate them. We need to understand how those weapons work if we are to develop an answer for them.”

“I understand,” said the Thor. “I would do the same if our positions were reversed. I wish you a safe and speedy journey to your world. Once you are successful there, we would ask for your assistance here again in dealing with the Jotunn/Efreet alliance, if you have aid to spare. With their ability to pop up anywhere at any time, we might be overwhelmed with only a moment’s notice.”

“I understand…and that is why we must get back to Terra as soon as possible.”

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