Reformation (17 page)

“
Intruders have killed two palace guards just down the hillside,” one of them reported as he removed his helmet to reveal the long furry snout and pointed ears of an Alpha.

The sight of two live Alpha warriors still on the planet
plunged Hastelloy’s stomach into a tailspin.  His mind kicked into overdrive trying to play out the scenarios that could lead to a set of Alpha warriors standing in front of him at that very moment. 

Had they survived the original crash in Egypt and remained hidden?  No, they would have helped Goron back then. 

Were the Alpha here in force with warships in orbit ready to conquer the planet?  No, why would they wait.  Why would they be messing around with this human and his little empire?
  The questions in his mind had no end.

“Quite a coincidence
that this intrusion accompanies your new visitors don’t you think, Kublai?  Do you still think you can trust those men?” the whimsical voice asked rhetorically.  “Kasin, escort the emperor back to his palace.” 

“I
will see which members of the merchant party have not been accounted for every second of this evening and put them to the sword,” the emperor declared while rising to his feet.  He then followed his escort as they both ran down the hillside leaving the relic alone with its foot soldier.

“I just informed Goron
and Kuanti of this,” the mystic voice reported.  “If it is the Novi, they most likely think I am Goron’s relic, therefore all their efforts at subterfuge will be focused here rather than his stronghold on the western continent.”

“Wi
th this fortress, the army, and Alpha warriors protecting you and Kuanti’s relic; I like our odds,” the Alpha guard stated with excitement hanging from his every word.  The giant of a being looked excited enough to jump out of his own sizeable skin.  “The thought of a Novi being almost close enough to reach out and strangle with my own paws is almost too much to bear.”

“Yes, it’s
nearly enough to make me want to violate nature and reanimate just for the opportunity to kill one of them myself,” the voice added.  “How I envy you.  Generations spent eking out an existence on that barren red planet has amounted to this, and destiny has chosen you to lead the physical fight, but not yet.” 

“Yes, one more year,” the guard vented.  “On
e more year and the entire colony from the fourth planet will be here so we can end this once and for all and get our transmission out.”

“While we wait for that
great day why don’t you round up the others and search every tree limb, branch, and blade of grass on the grounds,” the voice ordered.  “I doubt you will find anything, the Novi captain has proven far too clever over the years to commit such an error, but surprises can happen.”

Surprises can
happen indeed
Hastelloy thought while watching the Alpha duck out from under the temple roof and bound down the far hillside letting loose a blood curdling howl as he went to summon his companions.  Hastelloy and Gallono then patiently made their way off of the hillside and out of the palace since their cover was now hopelessly blown. 

Gallono was the first to finally break the silence between the
m while they walked westward along the shores of the Yellow River. “Well that was certainly informative.”

Hastelloy just shook his head in bewilderment at the sudden turn of events.  He didn’t even know where to begin.

“Come on, look on the bright side,” Gallono said.  For good measure he put his arm around Hastelloy and gave him a playful shake to lighten the mood.  “At least we didn’t walk all way from Europe for nothing.”

“
Are you planning
on walking all the way back to Italy with your tail between your legs?” Gallono finally asked Hastelloy.  He had remained silent for most of their two day hike up the Yellow River in order to leave his captain alone with his thoughts and careful planning.  Gallono could be a very patient man, but this was getting ridiculous.

Gallono
tried to skip a flat rock across the river surface out of frustration, but only succeeded in making a small splash with the first bounce.  “Let’s review what we know.  There are at least three Alpha relics on the planet now instead of just one.  We’re not sure how many, but there are definitely Alpha warriors alive and well here also.  What are they waiting for?”

“Reinforcements,” Hastelloy finally spoke.  “From that conversation we overheard
, it sounds like there is somehow an Alpha colony on the fourth planet.  Mars comes closest to Earth in another eleven months.  At that time I believe we can expect another shipment of Alpha and relics to arrive.  At that time they will locate the jamming signal coming from the Nexus chamber, and it will be check mate.”

“
How the devil do you think the Alpha established a colony on the fourth planet anyway?” Gallono wondered aloud while attempting unsuccessfully to skip another stone across the river waters.  “Escape pods from the battle that landed us here?”

Hastelloy immediately shook his head as though he had already reached a conclusion on this matter a day earlier.  “No.  We saw no escape pods jettison from their ship after our torpedo hit severed the engineering section from the rest.  Besides, the fourth planet is almost uninhabitable and would require far more resources right away than a few escape pods could provide.”

“That leaves us with the runaway engineering section then,” Gallono concluded.  He had to give the Alpha credit for that one.  “If that’s the case, they survived a massive explosion, and then managed to get half of a crippled ship under control enough to guide it in for a safe landing.  That took some stones.”

Hastelloy a
dded his praise as well.  “They established a colony and made it thrive to the point they can now build sophisticated communications equipment and space craft.”

“It’s not like they had the benefit of the Nexus to reanimate after death,” Gallono went on.  “They had to do it the old fa
shioned way and made it a multigenerational effort.”

“It’s not the first time,” Hastelloy
responded.  “They spent ten
generations building their fleet before launching the war machine against us.  They are a very dedicated species when their collective efforts get behind a goal.”

Gallono suddenly felt his feet turn to lead weights anchoring him in place.  The full severity of the situation suddenly hit him
, and it was more than he could bear.  “They landed on Mars almost four thousand years ago. By now there must be tens of thousands of them waiting to land and take over.”

Gallono picked up another oddly formed rock and hurled it
toward the water with all his might and succeeded in generating three awkward skips before the stone plunged below the water’s surface.  “We can’t fight against that even if we had a hundred years to prepare, and all we have is eleven months at best to try and stave off Armageddon.  We’re completely boned.”

Hastelloy
came up next to Gallono and spent a few moments staring at the ground.  Finally he picked up a flat, rounded rock that was almost a perfect circular disk.  He casually reared back and threw it sidearm across the water with relative ease.  Gallono marveled as the stone took monstrous skips across the water.  It must have bounced thirty times before a soft clink from the far shoreline let him know the stone made it safely across.

 
“There is more to success or failure than brute strength,” Hastelloy said in a calm, level voice while pointing toward the stone now resting two hundred feet away on the far shoreline.  “It’s about having a good plan and the right tools to accomplish the end objective.”

Gallono allowed a sardonic chuckle to escape his lungs.  “
You just got lucky; this is the dry season and that river is not twice as wide right now.”

Hastelloy grabbed both sides of Gallono’s head and forced
him to look up river until his eyes met a dam made of cut stone, dirt, and rubble that stood over thirty feet tall and three hundred feet across with a dozen flow doors open to allow water from the massive reservoir created behind to gently flow into the river.  “Luck had nothing to do with it my friend, that dam did.”

The hands holding his head in place were removed and took with them Gallono’s state of
melancholy.  He liked where Hastelloy was heading and he continued following in his footsteps upriver.

“Before this dam was put in place, this river would flood uncontrollably in the rainy season and dry up completely the rest of the year.  That dam allows the controlled release of water so the farmers have a steady supply year round.
  I think it’s time we revert back to the old ways, don’t you?”

Professor Russell and
Alex passed the time on their flight to China pretty much in silence.  The first eight hours were spent more or less unconscious as they both caught up on some much needed sleep.  The soft cushions of the seats combined with a warm blanket and pillow to lay their heads on was infinitely more accommodating than the cold hard floor in the captivity cage inside the Sphinx.

When Brian and Alex both awoke, they were care
ful not to say much of anything: important, mundane, or otherwise.  The assumption was that every word they spoke was being monitored by their host.

Chin spent his time aboard the flight in the forward compartm
ent immediately behind the cockpit.  They did not even see the middle aged man until the engines of the aircraft wound down and the nose tilted forward to begin their descent.

“We will be landing in Xi’an
Xianyang International Airport in a few minutes,” Chin reported.

“Wait, I thought we were going to Beijing,” Alex said, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Chin pulled his head back slightly in genuine surprise.  “What gave you that impression?  The pyramids are out in the countryside, and dozens are located near Xi’an.  It makes no sense to land in Beijing and then drive six hundred miles to reach any of the pyramid sites.”

Brian was
as equally unfamiliar as Alex about the size and scope of China’s geography, but he was certainly familiar with the name of its most prominent archeological site.  “Xi’an?  Am I right to assume that we’ll begin our research by mapping the inside of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s burial mound?”

Chin bowed his head slightly to acknowledge Professor Russell’s familiarity with his nation’s history.  “Yes.”

“Who is Emperor Huang and why is his final resting place so special?” Alex asked.

Brian could not stop himself from shaking his head in disappointment at his assistant’s statement.  Alex was a wizard with machinery, but her
knowledge of history was rather wanting.  “Qin Shi Huang was the first Emperor of China.  The man was so concerned about the afterlife that he constructed a scale model of his entire empire and built his burial mound over the top of it.  He then tried to protect it with an army of clay soldiers.”

“Oh, you mean the
Terracotta Army?” Alex asked.

“See, you do know your history,” Brian applauded.

With the plane making its final descent, Chin took a seat across the aisle from Brian and Alex to continue the conversation.   “Our government has strictly forbidden anyone from entering the burial chamber located inside the mound.  We are therefore left with investigating the great monument from the outside only.  That is where the two of you and your wonderful mapping techniques come in.”

“Why not just go inside
; why is it forbidden?” Alex asked.  “If you know where the burial chamber is located why not open it?  If it has truly been untouched for all these years then what’s inside would probably make the discovery of King Tut’s tomb look like the unearthing of a few broken pots.”

“For better or worse, superstition is a prominent factor in Chinese culture,” Chin instructed as the plane’s tires touched down.  “Legend states that if the tomb is opened, then the collapse of China will immediately follow.”

Professor Russell jumped in with his more cynical reasoning for not opening the chamber.  “Plus the burial mound is a major tourist attraction with the mystery of what lies inside still out there.  If you open the doors and nothing is there then the mystique will be gone along with all the tourism dollars.”

“That is certainly a concern to some,” Chin conceded.

Brian felt the plane lurch to a stop and a melodic tone sounded throughout the cabin to let the passengers know it was safe to stand and exit the plane.  Chin was the first to his feet and extended a hand toward the front of the aircraft.  “After you.”

On his way down the gangplank steps to the tarmac, Professor Russell looked to the rear of t
he plane and saw his six coffin sized wooden crates being offloaded onto a waiting transport truck.  In front of the transport idled three Mengshi off road vehicles, the Chinese equivalent to the American Humvee.  These beastly looking jeeps were all black rather than sporting any attempts at camouflage painting that a military vehicle would employ.

Before Professor Russell followed Alex into the back seat in one of them, Brian considered how odd it all felt.  There were no customs agents checking the crates or verifying travel papers.  Everything he knew about China and its government pointed to a regime that bo
rdered on a state of paranoia; the lack of security was quite disconcerting.

As the convoy of vehicles sped away from the airport and passed through a security checkpoint without even slowing down, Brian could not shake the feeling that Chin was somehow operating outside his government’s authority; perhaps even above it in some way.