The Search for Gram (25 page)

“
Right or left at the top of the stairs?
” asked Bob.

“
Go right when you get to the top,
” said Master Chief, consulting the diagram in his head. “
Look out, though,
” he added; “
the queen’s room may be close by, and the passageway will probably have guards.
”

“
Got it,
” replied Bob. He reached the passageway at the top of the stairs and cautiously looked both ways. “
There’s a door to the right about five feet down the hallway and six guards about 30 feet to the left,
” he commed. “Zlllpdrrrrzd blrrrgzd!” he added out loud to the Efreet looking suspiciously at him. “Don’t shoot!” he said again.

Bob and Doug turned away from the guards and began walking to the door. “ZzzzLLprd Brrrlffffd!” shouted one of the Efreet from behind him.

“
The Efreet are saying something to us,
” commed Doug. “
They sound angry.
”

“ZzzzLLprd Brrrlffffd!” yelled the voice more insistently.

“
Keep going,
” repeated Master Chief. “
We’re at the top of the stairs. We’ve got your back.
”

“
Okay,
” said Bob, not sounding the least bit convinced. He grabbed the door handle. It felt funny in his new talons. “
The door is locked,
” he reported.

“
Really? They locked the door during General Quarters for an intruder alert?
” asked Master Chief. “
Were you expecting a welcoming committee? Knock on the fucking door, you moron!
”

“
Oh,
” said Bob. He knocked on the door but his claw barely made a sound. He knocked again with the butt of the flechette thrower he had liberated from an Efreeti at the docking port. Much louder.

The Efreet behind them yelled at them again. It was also much louder. “
We don’t have much time,
” commed Doug. “
The guards are moving toward us and aiming their weapons at us.
”

An Efreeti looked through a small window in the door. Bob waved at him. Bob hoped he didn’t look as nervous as he felt.

The door started opening. “
We’re in,
” Bob commed.

“
Go! Go! Go!
” ordered Master Chief, pounding up the last few stairs with Night at his side. They burst forth from the stairwell, nearly knocking over the approaching Efreet, laser rifles firing at close range as they cleared the stairwell. The rest of the Space Force poured into the passageway close behind.

The Efreeti opening the door jumped backward in surprise, pointing a talon down the passageway to warn Bob and Doug. It opened its mouth to yell a warning, but Bob shoved the laser pistol he had been hiding into the Efreeti’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The creature fell backward, twitching in its death throes.

“ZzzbrrrrllFFd; llrrrgzzd!” said Bob. “Don’t move; claws up!” He realized as he said it the two orders were contradictory, but he had to go with it; that was what he had been taught to say.

There were seven Efreet on the bridge. A large chair sat in the center of the 20-foot by 35-foot space, with other positions around the periphery. All the Efreet were dressed in black leather uniforms, but two stood out because of the extra silver piping and braid they wore. The Efreeti in the central chair had with large purple bands up both arms; the Efreeti standing next to him had a similar uniform, except his bands were blue.

Bob could see the Efreet were weighing their chances of success if they rushed the two Efreet who had just stormed onto the bridge; all of them seemed armed, and their claws strayed toward their weapons. The Efreet in the central chair barked out an order as Master Chief and four other troopers poured through the door, and all the Efreet at the peripheral stations dove for cover, reaching for their weapons as they went.

Bob shot the unmoving Efreeti in the central chair, striking him several times, while Doug shot the equally immobile Efreet with the blue bands on his uniform. Both collapsed.

“Shoot the armed ones, you morons!” yelled Master Chief, firing at one of the Efreet who had gone for cover behind a console. “Try to capture some of them alive if you can.”

The Efreet returned fire, and the Terran Federation troops were forced to dive for cover. All except for Sergeant Adeline Graham, who strode across the bridge, firing a burst into the Efreet as they showed themselves. The smaller flechette pistols of the bridge crew weren’t built to take on cyborgs and didn’t have enough power to penetrate anything vital.

She reached the last console, which was being used as cover by the final two Efreet. She realized these Efreet had some training, due to the speed at which they reloaded, and how they covered each other. She wasn’t worried, as they were still only armed with the little flechette pistols. She rounded the console and took five shots in rapid succession to her torso, then a sixth to her face, which put out her left eye.

“Dammit!” Okay, maybe she wasn’t impervious to fire after all. She aimed her rifle and killed the Efreeti who had put out her eye, leaving only one alive. Chopping down, she knocked the pistol out of his hand and grabbed him by his tunic collar.

Weaponless and unable to escape, the Efreeti pulled a thin knife from one of his sleeves and stabbed himself in the stomach. Sergeant Graham grabbed his hand so he couldn’t do it again, but it was too late. He had punctured something vital and died quickly, glaring all the while at her.

“Sorry, Master Chief,” said Sergeant Graham, dropping the dead body to the deck. “I was trying not to kill this one.”

“I saw,” said Master Chief. “There’s nothing you could have done about it.” He switched to his comm. “
It was messy, but we’ve got the bridge,
” he reported.

“
And I’ve got the queen’s quarters,
” replied Night, “
but we’ve got a problem.
”

“The Captain is on the bridge,” said the quartermaster of the watch as Captain Lorena Griffin walked through the door.

“Have we heard anything from the other side yet?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” replied the operations officer. “Still no word.”

“Damn it,” said Captain Griffin. “We should have heard something by now. Next time, we’re bringing more Marines. First a planetary assault and then combat in space? We need more troops!”

“Stargate emergence!” said Steropes and the defensive systems officer simultaneously.

“Get me an ID, ASAP,” said Captain Griffin. “Communications officer, see if you can get them on the radio.”

“The emergence was not from a gate we knew about,” said Steropes; “there is a new gate much further out-system.”

“How come we didn’t know about this gate?” asked Captain Griffin.

“We must have missed it,” said Steropes. “Things got exciting when we found life on the planet, and we might not have ever finished the survey. It is my fault.”

“We can assign blame later,” said Captain Griffin. “I’m still waiting on the identification of the ship.”

“Long range scans indicate it is…” said Steropes.

“It’s what?” asked Captain Griffin.

“I don’t know what it is,” Steropes admitted. “The ship that just came through the gate isn’t in the database.”

“Launch the fighters,” said Captain Griffin. “Have them go take a look.”

“Launch the fighters, aye,” said the operations officer.

“Um…the ship is gone,” said Steropes.

“What do you mean by ‘gone’?” asked Captain Griffin.

“I mean, it just disappeared,” said Steropes. “It appears to have jumped to the other universe.”

Caliph’s Retreat, Wendar, Day 10 of the Second Akhet, 15th Dynasty, Year 14

“You’re just in time!” said Chomper, running out to meet K-Mart and Rock as they approached the retreat. “We’re pulling out.”

“What do you mean ‘we’re pulling out’?” asked Rock.

“When I exposed Grand Vizier Nefermaat’s plot, the caliphate to the south, the Bargah Caliphate, attacked,” replied Chomper. “Apparently, they had other spies besides Nefermaat and that slime Hori, and they passed the word to Bargah that their operatives’ covers were blown. I never got a chance to ‘talk’ with Hori, either. Unfortunately, he heard I was back before I could find him, and he was shot while trying to escape. None of that matters any more. What does matter is we have to leave
right
now
before we get overrun by the Bargah forces. They are already within 10 miles of here.”

“If we leave, how are we going to go back and rescue the Aesir?” asked Rock.

“I don’t know,” replied Chomper. “I guess we’re not…not now anyway. Maybe Calvin will get back with some air power so we can win the war and go get them. It doesn’t matter; we can’t stay here even if we wanted to. The reason Hori was going to the other side of the boundary was to put together some sort of treaty with the Jotunn to help the Bargah Caliphate; there have been reports of “enormously tall men” fighting for Bargah who keep breaking through the front lines. The caliph’s troops are at about the same technology level as we had back in the late 1950s, so taking down one of the Jotunn is tough for them, especially since they don’t have any air power. It’s possible, but you have to hit them so many times they’re already upon you before you can kill them. And, because it takes so long to bring the giants down, the rest of the normal troopers have reached your lines by the time you do.”

“So, the caliph’s forces are losing?” asked K-Mart.

“He calls it, ‘trading land for time,’” replied Chomper. “I call it losing.”

“At some point they’re going to run out of land they can trade,” said Rock. “Then what are they going to do?”

“I guess that’s when they will start losing,” replied Chomper. “Right now, the Jotunn are spread out enough that the caliph’s forces can kill them almost as fast as they appear. When the lines get shorter, and the giants start coming closer together, there will be so many attacking at once that the caliph’s forces will be overrun like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I think it goes without saying,” he added; “we
don’t
want to be recaptured by the Jotunn.”

“If we only had
one
of our fighters, this war would be over instantly,” said Rock. “It wouldn’t even be close.”

“Yeah,” agreed K-Mart; “unfortunately, the only fighter we have access to is wrecked beyond repair, and the functional one is out of gas and up in space. We can’t get up to it, and even if we could, we couldn’t do anything with it.”

“So what are we going to do?” asked Rock.

“We’re going to get our weapons and rescue everyone from the Jotunn jail,” said K-Mart. “What else can we do? I’m not a combat trooper and, even though I like the caliph, this isn’t my war. Our first goal is to rescue the Aesir. Then we need to stay alive long enough for Calvin to make it back here and pick us up.”

“So you think he’s coming back?” asked Rock.

“He’ll be back,” said K-Mart. “If he’s able.”

“
Look out! Shit! Sergeant Day is down!
” commed Mongo from the doorway.

Calvin looked up to see the medic running over. He didn’t need to see the fading life signs on his monitor to know the sergeant was done; he could see the three giant flechettes sticking through his face mask.

“
They just set up some sort of crew-served flechette thrower,
” commed Mongo, peering around the door frame. “
The projectiles are a hell of a lot bigger, and they are tipped with some sort of acid which eats a hole in whatever they hit. We need to get the hell out of here, sir; we’re not going to be able to hold much longer.
” He dove back out of the way as another spray went by. “
The only good thing is that they can’t come at us from both directions with that damn thing. It wipes out most of the passageway when they fire it, so the group coming from the other direction had to pull back.
”

Calvin looked down at Landslide. The Aesir’s finger now traced a groove nearly two inches deep. “How much longer?”

“This should about do it,” Landslide said. His finger made one more circle, and a four-foot diameter section of metal detached, falling about six inches to rest on a number of pipes which ran below the deck. “Oops,” he said. “I forgot there would be things below the floor. As long as these aren’t electrical, it shouldn’t be a problem.” He reached in and grabbed one of the four-inch diameter pipes at the edge of the escape hole. His hand squeezed the pipe, and it crumpled in his grasp. Within seconds, he was through it, and water began spraying out.

“See?” he asked. “No problem.” He grabbed the other end of the pipe and did the same thing. Once again, his hand went through the pipe, and the piece fell six inches to lie on what appeared to be the ceiling of the room below. Water began puddling as it poured from one end of the broken pipe.

Landslide grabbed the next pipe and squeezed, severing it. This one also had fluids running through it, but they were waste fluids; an unsavory smell wafted from the hole to assail the people standing above it.

“Oh my god!” Calvin said, fighting back the urge to vomit. “That is…the worst thing…I think I ever smelled.” He looked into the hole and could see…things…floating in the pool of fluid.

“
Better do something soon!
” commed Mongo. “
We’re almost at hand-to-claw.
” He paused and then yelled, “Last frag out!” as he threw a grenade. They could all feel the concussion as it exploded; the Efreet were close.

“Almost done,” said Landslide; “last one.” He grabbed the third pipe and squeezed. He got about halfway through it, then went rigid as a “zzzzzzt” was heard. Sparks flew from his hand, and his body began spasming as electrical current flowed through it. “Aaaaaaaaaah,” he cried, no longer in control of his actions.

Without thinking, Calvin dove into him, taking a jolt before the force of his contact separated the Aesir from the electrical line.

Calvin rolled to find the Aesir lying still on the deck. Sergeant Yankiver ran over to Calvin. “Are you okay, sir?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Calvin answered. “Check on Landslide.”

The Aesir wasn’t moving, and a wisp of smoke curled up from his blackened hand. Yankiver took the Aesir’s other hand and searched for a pulse. He couldn’t find one.

“If you are looking for a pulse,” said Farhome from above Yankiver, “you’re looking in the wrong spot.”

Sergeant Yankiver realized he had done it without thinking; he didn’t know anything about the Aesir’s physiology. The medic paused, unsure how to help Landslide.

“If you will move,” Farhome said, “I will see what I can do.”

Yankiver moved, and Farhome knelt next to Landslide. His eyes looked clear and focused. Farhome placed a hand on the fallen Aesir’s stomach and closed his eyes.

“Not good,” he muttered.

“Can you save him?” asked Calvin.

“Yes, but it will be a minute,” replied Farhome without opening his eyes.

“Hurry,” said Calvin. He stood and turned back to the hole. Tsunami had her hands in the hole, but wasn’t being electrocuted. Cyclone had a laser pistol and was firing continuously into the hole. She stood awkwardly, favoring one leg, but no longer had the flechette through it.

Tsunami looked up as Calvin approached. “We’ll be out of here momentarily,” she said.

Calvin looked into the hole and saw the liquid in the pipes had stopped flowing; the ends of both fluid pipes were frozen solid. Not only that, but a hole had also been opened through the ceiling into the room below, and he could see where the pieces of the ceiling had fallen down onto the deck, along with the water…and things…that had been pooling. Cyclone had already cut through one side of the pipe with the electrical cable in it and was halfway through the other.

“Wha…” Calvin said. “How did you do that?”

“Water is stronger than you know,” replied Tsunami. “It will carve rock given enough time.” She smiled. “Or the right person to help it along.”

“
Sir, it’s now or never!
” commed Zoromski. “
30 seconds and they’re in here!
”

The pipe dropped as Cyclone finished cutting through the second side.

“
Let’s go!
” commed Calvin. “
Follow me. Careful not to touch both sides of the electrical pipe at the same time!
” He holstered his pistol and slid feet-first into the hole. Careful not to complete the electrical circuit, he dropped to the floor 11 feet below.

They were free.