AMP Siege (21 page)

Frig typed away at his console for several seconds.

I spoke. "Uh, how about cluing me in on your train of thought there, hoss. Maybe I can help."

Frig replied, "I apologize. The Duke could not possibly be opening a wormhole from within that small structure that we termed as his brain. But, it may be possible for him to have a portal from elsewhere with an endpoint inside that structure, where a feedback loop was used to reposition its location as he moved around."

I nodded my head. "The guy is always a step ahead. That would explain his smugness when we had him captured. We didn't have the comm with his home base cut off. It was going out through a portal the whole time. I keep saying to myself that this android is just playing us. If he has a constantly on portal linked in, he can send and receive all the data he wants without anyone else knowing the difference."

Frig spoke. "Return and get Ashley to give you an analysis of the situation. We may have a way to detect if a portal is open if we can get in close proximity to its endpoint. If I locate the Duke, and scan for a portal, is it worth the risk that the Duke would detect our portal as well?"

I returned to the jump room, the portal was opened, and I whispered Frig's question.

Ashley thought and then replied, "If the Duke has that ability, then he may be listening to us right now. I say we go for it. He obviously has plans for us, or he wouldn't be keeping us alive and so close to him. If you can pinpoint his location, I would open a hole right next to him and see if you can pick up whatever it is that you think shows a portal."

I spoke. "I'm with you. If we nail this, it will explain a lot."

After returning to the lab, I pressed the comm button on my arm pad. "York, grab Frost and get your ass to Frig's lab immediately. We might have to make a jump."

York replied, "Yes, Sir. Will be there pronto. Frost! Get your suit on; we are going to have some fun!"

Frig turned towards me. "What did you have in mind, Sir?"

I stood looking at an image of the Duke's location on a console screen. "You know that freezer unit we have on the
Swift
?"

Frig replied, "Yes, the cryo unit."

I continued, "Yeah, that one. How long would it take you to rig one of those to a power pack so we could send it through a portal?"

Frig turned and began to punch the keys on his console. "What is it that you are planning, Sir? How will you be making use of a cryo?"

I nodded my head. "How many guards on the Duke's floor and the floor that Ashley is on?"

Frig looked at his console. "There are two guards on Ashley's level and none on the floor with the Duke himself. Again, the cryo unit, Sir?"

I smiled. "The three of us, York, Frost, and me, are going to bulldoze our way into the Duke's quarters, smack his android ass down, pull out his brain, and then dump it in that cryo freezer. I figure it will take, what, three minutes for that brain to reach absolute zero? If it's at zero, he is not communicating with anyone, including a portal."

Frig frowned.

I spoke. "What? What is it?"

Frig spoke. "I am just baffled at these continued ideas that you are spewing forth today, Sir. There is only one word for them, and you will not allow me to say it."

I half smiled as I looked up at the door as York stepped into the lab. "Just tell me if you think it will work, Frig. If you detect that the Duke has a portal, I want to jump through the hoop and freeze the jackass before he has a chance to react. When he hits zero, I'll send the cryo back through and then work on getting Ashley and the doc out."

Frig replied, "And if the portal check comes back as not detected?"

I looked back at Frig. "Well, then I guess it doesn't matter either way. York, get a blaster and a couple days’ supply in a pack, then you and Frost meet me in the jump room. It's time we rode the rail again."

York nodded and turned back to the hall.

"Frig, tell me we can get a cryo powered up and mobile."

Frig replied, "Gy is working on that now. He has placed an ETA of seven minutes on its delivery to the portal room."

I hustled back to my quarters, grabbed my AK and a small satchel of ammo, and threw them over my shoulder. A sprint back to the portal chamber had me meeting Frost and York with their supplies.

Frost spoke. "Fill us in, Sir. What's the scoop?"

I replied, "We are paying the Duke a visit. I want you to be very unkind to him when we get there. I need his little brain cube cleaned off so I can stick it in a cryo unit that we are taking with us."

Frost tilted her head. "What are we doing with the cryo again, Sir?"

I smiled. "We are going to take his smug ass down to absolute zero and bring him back. Then we are grabbing Ashley and Dr. Touchstone. First the Duke, and there are no guards on his floor, so it should be quick and easy, and then Ashley and the doc, one guard each, from what we can tell."

Gy came through the door wheeling a cryo unit on a handcart. "You three go through, and we send this in on the rail right behind you. We put this together a little hastily, so try to be gentle with her if you can. Oh, and she has to be vertical to give a full freeze. Power cell I added should give you about ten minutes of use."

I pressed my comm button. "Frig, we are ready here."

Frig replied, "I can see you on the external monitor, Sir. Take your positions on the rail, and I will have you in the palace momentarily."

Frig continued, "And, Sir, the Duke does indeed have an internal portal. And he probably knows you are coming. As I did the scan beside him, he turned and smiled. Be careful, Sir. Troops are already beginning to move on several floors below."

The portal opened, with York sliding through first, followed by me and then Frost. Frost was given the job of catching and standing up the cryo unit while York and I subdued the Duke.

I rolled off the rail to see the Duke standing ten meters away with a grin on his face. "Oh, yes! Hello, Don Grange! And York, I am delighted to see you as well! And oh, what a surprise! You have brought Miss Frost with you too!"

The Duke continued, "And a portal of your own! Ingenious! I knew there were too many events that went your way for being so behind in your technology. Wormholes! You must explain to me how you came to have them!"

I spoke. "We don't have time for your games, Duke. Just stay still, and we will try to make this as painless as possible."

As the Duke continued to grin, he pulled a small blaster from behind his back and sent a bolt into York's torso. York flew backwards a dozen meters from the impact and then rolled up on her feet and charged forward. I sidestepped a second bolt that still caught my leg, spinning me around like a top before I crashed hard into an ornate table. A ceramic-type sculpture on top shattered into a thousand pieces.

York let out a yell as she jumped to within reach of the Duke in a single bound. The Duke quickly sidestepped her advance, and with an equally impressive leap, he was on the other side of the expansive room.

The Duke cried out in delight. "Oh, it has been years since I was awarded such entertainment as the three of you bring!"

He ducked behind a column as an angry York fired off a bolt from her blaster. The wall behind the Duke sparked in a dazzling display as the blue bolt was absorbed and spread out.

As I took aim to fire a blast from behind the table where I was kneeling, the Duke again leaped from his position. With a single bound he was again across the room, thirty meters’ distance away.

York again jumped in his direction, the Duke raising his blaster and firing at her while she was in midair. I then saw why George had rated York's reaction times so much above my own. In anticipation of his gunplay, York had rolled into a ball; the ion blast struck her square center.

This time, however, York was not thrown backwards. The ion bolt exploded, stopping York in midair. She unfurled herself as she dropped to the ground, landing on her feet with her own blaster at the ready. A bolt of blue ion energy hit the Duke center chest, sending him hard into the wall behind him.

Before the Duke could regain his balance, York was again in the air. As she arrived at the Duke's position, she swung her right arm and came down hard with a fist to his left shoulder. The metallic android frame buckled under the tremendous force York was able to exert with her prosthetic.

The Duke was knocked hard downward to a seated position. As he looked up with a smile, York fired off a blast from only centimeters away, tearing his right arm completely from its socket.

The Duke spoke. "Impressive, Miss York. Simply impressive!"

The sergeant dropped to her knees, placing her face to face with her enemy. "I've got
impressive
for you, you bag of robot trash!"

With the insult given, York shoved her blaster under the Duke's chin and pulled the trigger. Blue sparks flew as the ion charge spread out from the point of contact. The remains of the Duke's head shot upward, first slamming into the ceiling and then careening out into the middle of the room to a waiting Frost.

As Frost picked up the Duke's remains in her right hand, she spoke. "Nighty-night, scumbag!"

The Duke's small square brain was pulled from the debris and dropped into the cryo chamber. The lid was gently shut and the big green button on the front depressed.

Frost spoke. "OK, you've got three minutes while he cools down!"

Following a diagram Frig had sent to my arm pad, I raced out of the Duke's abode and to the closest set of stairs. One of the guards was already reaching the top of the stairs as I arrived. I dropped to my knees to raise my blaster but refrained from pulling the trigger as a blurry shadow flew over my head from behind me. It was York, and the guard did not have a chance.

A forward punch caught him right between the eyes. York's fist shattered the face shield of his helmet, proceeded to crush through his skull and his brain, and then exited through the back side of what used to be his head. When she came to a stop, the corpse of the dead guard now hung from her extended arm. It was a gruesome sight. With a single fast slam from her left fist, the carcass was discarded.

York turned. "Let's go get your little lady, Sir."

The second guard was caught in the center of the hallway and easily dispatched. I pressed the button on the door that had held Ashley captive and was rewarded with a glowing smile as it slid away.

Ashley spoke. "Hmm. Here to save a damsel in distress?"

I raised my face shield, pulled her close, and planted a kiss on the woman I had been longing to embrace for months.

When our lips parted, York smiled and spoke. "Hello, Miss Ashley, now let's roll!"

We followed York to the next doorway, which held Jon Touchstone.

The door slid back. The doctor was standing, looking out a broad window at the city below.

I spoke. "Let's go, Doc! Time to get out of here!"

The doctor spoke as he gently waved his hand across the window. "Such a beautiful world, don't you think?"

I replied, "Yeah, whatever, let's go! We have to get out of here!"

Again with a calm voice, the doctor turned and smiled. "Have you ever imagined Humans occupying a world with such wonders?"

For a moment I stood in confusion as the doctor began to talk about the blue skies and aquamarine fields that could be seen on the outskirts of the city. My confusion was jolted back to reality as a blue bolt from York's blaster tore into the doctor’s chest. Mechanical parts, parts from an android, exploded outward from the point of impact.

York yelled, "We have to go now, Sir! The Duke is trying to delay us!"

A voice then came over the audio on my arm pad. "Bravo, Miss York! You have once again bested me! I cannot wait to see what will happen next!"

I turned to Ashley. "Where else would the doctor be?"

Ashley grabbed my arm as she began to run back into the hallway. "Down here! The Duke gave him his own lab to tinker in!"

Through the next door stood a startled Jon Touchstone, standing over a circuit with a probe in his hand. "Ashley? Mr. Grange!"

York spoke. "That's him! Grab his ass and let's get out of here!"

With the doctor in tow, we made our way back to the Duke's abode and to a waiting Frost. "Just in time, Sir! Three minutes on the dot!"

A chime on the freezer indicated that absolute zero had been reached.

I pointed at the cryo unit. "Get that thing on the rail!"

As York and Frost reached to lift the cryo unit, the Duke once again came over the audio on my arm pad. "Are we going for a ride? This is thrilling, simply thrilling."

I shook my head as I spoke. "OK, dump your arm pads and your helmets. He has infected them already. We can't take them back without risking the ship."

Frost spoke. "Sir, what about the Duke? If he was still speaking—"

The Duke's voice came across the audio of my arm pad as it lay on the floor. "Yes... what about me? I think I feel a chill coming on. Oh, wait, no, I think that is a constant energy beam from my portal. Hahahahahaha!"

We were stuck. The Duke was drawing heat from his portal, keeping his internal temperature warm and toasty as the chamber around him reached absolute zero. I began to pace the room in thought.

I spoke. "Take him through."

Frost replied, "What was that, Sir?"

I turned and pointed at the rail. "Take him through! We are out of time!"

The cryo unit was lifted and placed on the rail. After shoving it through the portal, we sent through Ashley and the doctor. The rest of us followed after.

Once we were through the portal, the wormhole closed behind us. The two techs in the room gently stood the cryo unit on its base as they attached a secondary power supply.

Frost spoke. "What do we do now, Chief?"

I replied, "We wait for word from outside that door, that's what. Nobody leaves, nobody comes through until it is deemed safe to do so. We have to know that the Duke is not a danger."

Ashley spoke. "And if he is?"

I pursed my lips. "If he is, we send him back through that portal. We don't have any other choice."