The Trilisk Ruins (30 page)

***

Joe strode out into the familiar
cavern-like area on the far side of the lock. He wore a stiff new
Veer skinsuit and had a military grade scrambler slung over his
shoulder, though the weapon was of cheap government
issue.

“
Link up,” the squad leader
said. Joe’s link asked for connect permission from the group’s
interface and he gave it. A window opened in his mind’s eye,
showing him the disposition of the squad. Joe tried to split his
attention between the mental display and his natural senses, but
had a moment of difficulty.

“
It’s a little awkward at
first, but believe me it’s helpful when you get used to it,” the
marine next to him signaled.

“
Second nature after a
while, right?”

“
Exactly. Just stick with
me, we’ll watch out for yah.”

“
This look familiar?” the
squad leader asked Joe.

“
Yes. The cubes are banks of
equipment of some kind. The caverns tend to be the same size,
seemingly random variations...”

“
Weapons? Defense
systems?”

“
I have no idea,” Joe said.
“But both of my robots were destroyed quickly and they only managed
to get a couple of shots off.”

The leader nodded and signaled for the
group to move out. Joe watched half the time in his mental
interface, trying to get used to the added input to his brain
without stumbling around. Joe felt immensely nervous as they
started into the complex, waiting for all hell to break loose.
Presumably if this incursion was unwelcome, a superior technology
like Shiny’s could make it very bad for them.

After a few minutes of moving through
the caverns, Joe’s link signaled the presence of another network in
range. He checked its source. For a moment he thought the aliens
had brought up a network to talk with them. Then a message came
through to his link.

“
You lied to us. You said
you would let us go.”

Joe checked the sender and saw that it
was unidentified. But he could guess who it was.

“
Tam? I was willing to let
you go. But not the alien. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to
you if you hadn’t kidnapped the alien.”

“
Kidnapped? Shiny followed
us. We had no choice, how could we turn him away after he helped us
escape from that place? We don’t even know how the installation
worked, for all I know we would have died in there without his
help.”

“
Who are you talking with
Lieutenant? Our networks aren’t operating in here, we’re completely
scrambled. Is it the renegades?”

Joe found it difficult to think of
Mark, Tam and Shiny as renegades. But it was an accurate enough
term now.

“
It’s them. Tam and the
other one.”

“
You’re sure? The link
frequencies are all scrambled... how could you be reaching
her?”

“
Yes, I’m sure.”

The comm officer nodded and
then retreated back into himself. Probably alerting the entire
fleet, Joe thought to himself. The rest of the squad stopped and
kneeled against the walls of the room, waiting for information from
the
Seeker
about
where the signal was coming from.

“
We’re having trouble with
the telemetry,” the officer said. “This place is screwing with all
our ECCM. It doesn’t make any sense that they’re coming through to
him.”

“
This is Joe. I’m here for
the alien, true, but the captain of the
Seeker
also wants us to bring you
back to safety. How is it that you can talk to me? A huge chunk of
the EM spectrum is completely trashed in here.”

“
We’re doing just fine.
Besides, Shiny isn’t here right now. I don’t know how we can talk
to you... Shiny said something about giving us access.”

“
He said? Well where are
you? And where is he?”

“
If you can only get us or
the alien which one are you supposed to bring back? If I were you
I’d be looking for him instead.”

“
We’re getting you both.
Look, this could get dangerous. Just come turn yourself in before
someone gets hurt. Is the alien with you?”

“
No. Good-bye, Joe.” Telisa
cut the link.

Joe shrugged to the members of the
incursion team. “She won’t cooperate. Somehow she has the help of
the alien, I don’t know how but apparently he made it so her link
still works.”

The comm officer shook his head. “These
links use a limited set of frequencies, you can’t just jam one and
leave the others alone–”

“
Well the alien can,” Joe
said. “I don’t know how.”

“
We’ll see how much it can
do with bullet holes in its ass,” came a comment from somewhere in
the squad.

“
Enough arguing. Back to the
old fashioned way,” the squad leader announced. He pointed to an
exit. “Sims on point, that direction.”

Joe’s nervousness increased
again.

Chapter
Twenty Six

Kirizzo searched through the many
chambers in the base by accessing the system interface. Data flowed
into the cybernetic parts of his body and became part of his
memory. Kirizzo accessed the new information as if thinking of
events that had occurred seconds ago. He now knew that hundreds of
alien war machines were in the base with him, moving in from three
access points. Well behind this force, teams of the aliens
themselves came in, forty one of them in all so far.

He considered the advantages of their
presence. The aliens seemed to be of an inferior technology level.
It seemed they had little to offer in comparison to his own
civilization. Still they would have access to large amounts of
natural resources and perhaps information that could be useful.
They might even know of others of his kind, or of the disposition
of his enemies.

On the other hand, the aliens posed
many problems where they were. Kirizzo faced potential malfunctions
in base equipment while the aliens were milling about. If they
sought to capture him at an inconvenient moment his aims could be
impeded. There even existed a chance that their weapons, although
primitive, could harm him. And since they were so primitive, it
seemed unlikely that they could be successfully resisting any of
the foes of his race.

Kirizzo decided to activate the
automated defenses against the intruders. He calculated a fair
chance that the aliens might overcome the defenses through sheer
numbers based on his combative interactions with them in the
Trilisk installation. But it was the best he could do for now; he
decided to concentrate on gathering what he would need for leaving
the base in a fast ship that could take him home as quickly as
possible. Almost as an afterthought he left a few automated
entities to make sure that the ones he had dealt with would remain
unimpeded. He had developed a rapport with this tiny faction and he
decided to keep that investment intact in case he required their
cooperation later.

***

An almost imperceptible shudder came
through the floor.

“
What? What happened?”
Telisa asked.

The only answer came a moment later. A
spray of projectiles impacted the cavern in a random pattern,
sending one or two ricochets nearby. Telisa and Magnus threw
themselves onto the smooth floor. Nightmare images of the deaths of
Jack and Thomas raced through Telisa’s mind.

“
Shit! They’re trying to
kill us!” Telisa snarled. “Those are human weapons!”

“
They’re probably moving in
after us. But I don’t understand why they’re firing lethal rounds
at us. I’d expect an ultimatum first, at least.”

“
My father’s a hard core
soldier.”

“
Shiny’s base must be
messing with their weapons. Those rounds should have been able to
lock in on us. It’s a miracle they missed. Actually, now that I
think about it, they might not be firing at us. They must be firing
blind, or they would have hit something in particular.”

“
See if you can guide me
back. I’ll try and discourage any pursuit,” Magnus said. He slid
the slugthrower off his back and discharged a staccato burst of
rounds down the sloped tunnel. The sound stunned Telisa, slamming
into her ears painfully. She had realized abstractly that the
military slugthrowers were loud, but she hadn’t understood just how
loud they really were until she experienced it in person. Magnus
released a tangler grenade from his suit and set it on the floor.
It rolled away, accelerating down the tunnel, seeking
prey.

She rolled away from the
opening and slightly down the hall so she could regain her feet
without becoming a target. Shaking her head in a useless attempt to
rid her ears of pain, she regained her concentration and linked
with the
Iridar
.
She brought a map of their path up in her mind.

“
Up ahead and to the left,”
she said.

Magnus put his back against the wall
beside her. “If their scanners are working they’ll know exactly
where we are. I’ll have to stay back periodically. They’ll see that
and be wary, thinking I’m preparing traps or making a
counterattack.”

“
I don’t think their stuff
is working at all,” Telisa said. “The bullets missed us, remember?
I bet they can’t see anything and the robots are almost
useless.”

Telisa felt fear thrilling
through her. She was at once excited and terrified.
I wonder if the end of my life is
here
, she thought.

Magnus nodded. “We can risk it. Hug the
wall. If their rounds are blind, they’ll be more likely to pick you
as a target of opportunity if you’re standing in the middle of the
room than if you become part of the wall.”

Magnus’s level voice calmed her. She
leaned back against the cool wall of the cavern. It made her feel a
little safer. She started shuffling in the direction of the ship,
scraping along the irregular side of the passage.

She laughed a little as she looked at
the stunner she gripped in her hand. She hadn’t remembered drawing
it from her hip. The tiny nonlethal weapon was made to protect
people against muggings, not to fight off assault robots. It
occurred to her that it might not even work against any robot, even
a household cleaning robot.

“
Magnus, does this stunner
work against robots?”

Magnus shrugged next to her. “It can’t
be good for them. But I doubt it would do anything against a space
force assault model. But keep it out, there are probably marine
teams behind the robots.”

Telisa nodded, but she was still
thinking about the robots. Then she remembered that she had brought
the double-horseshoe artifact with her to show to Shiny.

“
Remember the artifact that
we fired up? It generates a huge EM spike locally,” she said. “I
bet that would get a robot’s attention.”

“
Yeah, maybe. Once we’re
back to the ship, though, we should just leave.”

“
No, I have it with
me!”

“
What? Why isn’t it on the
ship?”

“
I was going to ask Shiny
about it today.”

Magnus shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to keep
it ready.”

Telisa slipped the artifact out of her
pack. She zipped the carrying container back up and slid it over
her back. Telisa dropped the plastic holder on the floor and held
the device in her hand. She held it by one arm
carefully.

“
Okay, let’s keep going,”
Magnus prompted.

“
Wait. I hear
something.”

A high pitched whine rose and fell.
Telisa caught a glimpse of something in the air. She blinked.
Whatever it was, she couldn’t sense it anymore. It reminded her of
a hummingbird.

“
Some of those tiny orbs
like Shiny had,” Magnus said. “They headed past us.”

“
What—”

A cacophony arose from the tunnel
ahead. At first it sounded like a pile of garbage being emptied
from a large container. Then the thunder of slugthrowers erupted
and drowned the rest out. Magnus pulled Telisa down. They hugged
the floor for a moment, listening and cowering. Telisa understood
now that these were the sounds of a battle.

The orbs are fighting the
Seeker’s assault robots, right?

Must be,
Magnus replied on the link. Telisa was glad for
the link conversation, since her ears rang so terribly she wondered
if she’d ever hear again.

At last the noise slowed then stopped.
Telisa lay on the sandy floor, breathing rapidly.

We need to find another
route I guess,
she said on the
link.

No. This is perfect. The
orbs have made a hole in the forces ahead of us. We might be able
to get through to the ship if we hurry.

I don’t know. We don’t want
to be in the thick of the fight.

“
Too late. We
are
in the fight,” Magnus
said aloud. Telisa felt relieved she could hear him despite her
ringing ears. “Those orbs are formidable. They’ve probably taken
the assault machines out. Keep going straight for the
ship.”