Beyond the Gates of Antares, page 24
Turning back to his lead phaser, he gave Laurice a nod. “Go, now! We’ll keep you covered, but get up there and clear that entryway!”
The phase trooper bounded out from cover, his nimble steps propelling him toward the main structure. With a unified front, the others in the group sighted out from their spots, taking shots at those that presented obstacles in Laurice’s path. The trooper did not have far to go, and Fenris planned to make sure that he was unscathed.
Keeping one eye on the enemies as he mowed down two Algoryn AI, he reserved the other one to watch the show Laurice was putting on. He had not stopped moving; when a stray shot found its way to him, he phased for a moment, and with the propulsion of his pace, it was like he was teleporting with every use of the technology instead of freezing in that spot in time.
The Ghar outcasts at the steps of the ruins did not know what to do with the plucky Isorian. They tried firing, but he was too quick and too in touch with his phasing. One tried to shoot him point blank, but the lugger shell went through the hologram-like being and into the back of another Ghar’s head. Pulling back into reality, Laurice grabbed the rifle out of the putrid creature’s grasp and smacked it in the head. Turning toward the others on the steps, he held down the trigger and eliminated all targets.
“Now, move it!” Fenris had already been in motion before he uttered the command. Laurice was not the only member of the group that knew how to skillfully phase. Each member of the group turned their attention away from the two battling forces and ran with all of their might toward the steps. Fenris knew they could feel every shot that would come their way, that they could sense each time that they were being fired upon, and each member knew just how to distort their bodies just long enough to avoid unnecessary damage to their phase-armor shields.
But then there was Daveen, who rarely used the Isorian suit tech. While the expertise marksman could shoot a grenade mid-air with unparalleled accuracy, the other Isorians knew how to get to their destination quickly and effectively – of course without losing their sanity. Perhaps that was what he feared, losing his sense of balance on the battlefield and connection with his drone.
Fenris nearly threw his body up the steep steps, turning back to fire a few sporadic shots at his opponents. He slammed his back into the wall once they crossed the threshold into the ruins. He exchanged nods with Laurice and made sure his approval was sufficiently fed through the shard.
“Good job as always, soldier.”
“It’s what I do best, sir.”
One by one the other phase troopers piled in through the doorway, leaving Daveen the last one in to cover the entrance.
“Damn Algoryn, and damn Ghar,” Basch’ra spat as he sent a couple of warning shots back out. “If only we had more troops that we could wipe the lot of them out.”
“But we don’t,” Fenris took point, leading them in. “And we need to figure out if the Ghar are already inside. If they held the entrance, who knows how far they got in.”
“IMTel doesn’t seem to have exact coordinates for the tech,” Tona muttered as she examined the narrow corridor. “This place looks a lot more intact from the inside than it does the out.”
“The IMTel could not detect exactly where it was, but what drew it to Pfytorus in the first place was the discovery of an energy unlike anything else registered. The drones found the rest of the tech that was destroyed in or around similar ruins to this one. It could only see an orbital view of this particular set, as the fighting had been too intense to try and get a drone down here.”
“So we have no way of knowing if the tech is actually here?” There was almost an ounce of panic in Zyler’s voice, but Fenris knew him better than that. Fidgety and easily distracted, yes, but he was not one to lose control of his senses.
“The IMTel is never wrong,” Fenris reassured, and the response that he felt in unison from them was one in the same. “We know it’s here, it’s just finding where in here.”
“No predicted layout of the inner workings either,” Ethar shook his head. “I keep trying to call one up, but the IMTel is only projecting our entrance. Everything ahead is… shadowed and unknown.”
“Could there be something in this ancient structure blocking IMTel feed, Ethar?”
“I don’t think so,” the Isorian touched the obelisk-like walling with the fingertips of his suit as they walked on. “The building itself is clearly Fifth Age as well. I’m sure the data we’re here to recover has schematics on it. Whatever civilization built this, we can hopefully better understand once we find it.”
Fenris stopped, raising a hand to the others.
“Are you serious?” Basch’ra stepped forward and thrust a hand out toward what lay ahead. Three corridors led to three different directions. “This is ridiculous! We’re in a damnable maze! And without proper IMTel readouts, how the blazes are we supposed to know where we’re going?!”
“And how is this place even this big?” Zyler stepped forward to peer down one of the tunnels. “From the outside it barely looked bigger than a few yan. How are there so many paths that clearly stretch deeper?”
“We have been descending,” Daveen’s voice nearly caught Fenris off guard. The strange depth of it added to the mysticism of the labyrinth. “I’ve been tracking it on my rifle. Our depth has been declining at a staggering rate.”
“Hmm, now that you mention it, you’re right,” Ethar nodded, his head slightly tilted as he checked the IMTel. “As far as we’ve been going in, we’ve sloped down at quite the rate. Perhaps it’s whatever makes up this strange construction that has made it seem like we’ve been on a straight path.”
Fenris scowled as he looked down the three ways. “Daveen, Ethar, any ideas on where to go?”
The sniper held up a hand but did not speak. It seemed he was communicating with the drone- rifle. After a few moments, he shook his head, a strange mix of sadness and annoyance coming from him through the shard.
“This… construction goes beyond anything I have encountered. We cannot scan or see anything through it. Normally, we would be able to detect life forms or even more specifically, this strange alien technology that it normally would not recognize. I see nothing but emptiness from the walls ahead and no way of knowing where the paths lead.”
“Great,” Tona growled. “If we can’t detect other life forms, who knows what else is crawlin’ around in here with us.”
“The IMTel gave us this mission because it knew we would be successful,” Fenris raised his plasma rifle as he started moving toward the eastern path. “And the IMTel is never wrong.”
While the IMTel could not ascertain the inner passageways of the ancient settlement, it still felt as if it were leading Fenris. The first path he chose took them down a long, winding hallway that split to another tri-fork. Choosing this time the left one, they soldiered on until they came to another fork, this time with only two paths. He chose the right, but before he was able to take more than a few steps, he felt the unease of the others.
“Boss, you know where you’re going?” Tona stepped forward to walk beside him. “How can you so confidently pick paths without thinking on it?”
“To be honest, I don’t know where I’m going. But we don’t have much time. I just…”
Fenris’s voice trailed off and he came to a slow stop. The narrow walls spread out several yan in both directions to reveal a wide room. There seemed to be an entirely different energy in this location, as if something was humming underneath their boots, breathing and pulsating. Small lines of green crawled like bugs across the walls in different paths. As Fenris stepped forward, he noticed a semi-circle set up near the far wall. Once he set his sights upon it, the IMTel registered that it was some sort of older technological receiver.
“A control panel!” There was excitement in Ethar’s voice as he moved ahead of his leader. He paused and came to attention, the sheepish feeling hiding in the recesses of the shard as he fought the feelings back. “Sorry, sir. If I may?”
“Have at it, Ethar.”
The savviest of the tech-warriors led them behind the console and they were washed in the blue glow of the displays coming to life. Ethar at first seemed too in awe to react, as he stood in front of it, his hands held out awkwardly at his sides. It was not until the others nudged him through the shard relaying their impatience that he cleared his throat and began to gently push buttons and issue commands on the displays.
“Oh, yes. This is definitely what we’re looking for. It’s certainly Fifth Age. Belonged to a group called the Mandolarees. They seemed to have been a lesser-known race that were more interested in studying the way that Antares worked rather than fighting against the various warring factions.”
“Can you download everything to the shard?”
“Yes, and…”
Ethar pressed a button and there was a whooshing of air followed by a small cube rising from the internals of the machine. As Fenris studied it, it seemed to be of the exact same black, shiny material made up of the entirety of the ruins.
“And then there’s this. It seems that whatever type of technology this is, the Mandolarees used this to both cloak themselves and jam outsider technology. While the IMTel is advanced enough to not be completely jammed, this explains why it was unable to get a read on the interior of the facility. While it may take some time to reproduce their efforts, this can at least be the building block to help us get started – both figuratively and literally.”
“That sort of technology would definitely prove useful to our cause.” Fenris nodded and Zyler reached out to grab the hand-sized cube. Using a carefully designed storage container they had brought specifically for this mission, he stored the strange artifact on the side of his suit. “Download as much of the data as you can salvage, and then we’ll get out of here.”
As Ethar connected the IMTel to the machine and began to transfer the information to his personal shard, Fenris almost felt like he could let his guard down. But something about the ominous ruins made him feel otherwise. It was not the Mandolarees ruins themselves, but the darkness, the oppression from the tight spaces, and of course the unknown factor of the two armies they had opposed to gain access.
Almost on cue, there was a faint rumbling emanating from the passageway they had come. Every moment it grew louder, and all members of the unit had their weapons trained and ready. Fenris kept trying to spot the red dots that symbolized enemies, but thanks to the Mandolarees’ alien tech, that was not going to happen.
He had expected something big from the way the ground was rumbling, and thus Fenris was partly caught off guard when the outcasts came flooding in toward them. They screamed in howling terror as their slavemasters drove them forward. The narrow opening to the chamber proved a good choke point to shoot them down as the phase commander laid on the trigger, but the width of the large room proved to work against the Isorians as the few outcasts that got through spread out and made for harder targets.
The outcasts were fearless and fired back at the Isorians as they stormed inward, causing the phase troopers to have to duck or time their phases very carefully. Fenris tried to get a read on where the slavemasters were, but the outcasts were overwhelming. How many did they have? How many more were focused on the Algoryn? Damn the Mandolarees and the death trap they set up.
“Boss, we need to stop playing the sitting duck game!” Basch’ra roared as he hammered down on five outcasts that came too close for Fenris’s liking. “Look! There are other tunnels beside the one we came in!”
Fenris watched his second’s finger and was surprised he had not noticed the other halls. Cutting down a swath of plasma on another few outcasts, he slammed back down next to Ethar.
“What’s the status?”
“Sixty percent, sir. Almost all data this terminal has on the Mandolarees is completely transferred!”
“Alright, I need you to find us another way out! Download the schematic on this place and find us another exit!”
“Of course, sir! I’m queuing it to do simultaneously!”
Fenris sighted up and he recognized one of creatures the Ghar called their ‘slavemasters’. This creature looked even more primitive than the half-naked, barely armored outcasts. He wore a mask fashioned out of metal, shaped like an Algoryn skull; his body covered in a mock-up of various different armors of those he killed. Disgusting battle trophies. His maglash whipped ferociously in one hand while a mag pistol barked in the other, firing wildly to match the roar coming from the creature.
Fenris wasted no time laying into the beast. Several of his shots sparked off the tattered armor and bone-metal helmet, causing the slavemaster to fire back at him. His shield dispersed the energy of the return fire, the percentage of energy dangerously low, and Fenris sighted up for another round of fire. That was, until, a vicious bolt struck through the slit of vision on the Ghar’s helmet, causing him to spill to the ground, whip and gun limp.
“You’re not too bad with that thing,” Fenris breathed down the shard to the sniper.
“Thanks for keeping it occupied.” Daveen answered, the slightest hint of a joke in his voice.
Fenris turned his attention back to the outcasts and held down the trigger as they rushed closer and closer. Just how many of the suicide runners were left? If this kept up…
A map schematic formed in the upper left corner of his vision. While it did not show positions of the enemies, it at least gave the Isorians an advantage of knowing which way to go. And there was indeed a back exit!
“On my mark, we move!”
Fenris checked the x-sling on his arm. There was only one grenade left. He stood and fired in the center of the oncoming Ghar, hoping that the explosion that rocked the room would not cause some sort of cave in. The assault seemed to become paralyzed with both the loss of one of the slavemasters and what seemed the bulk of the outcasts. Using the dust to obscure the enemies’ sights, Fenris ran forward, out toward the highlighted route.
A red flashing warning displayed on his mind’s eye, and this time, it flashed brighter and strobed more importantly than the last. Without thinking, Fenris phased out. He lost feeling across his whole body, as if his consciousness left the mortal flesh, except for that connection that had been trained between his brain and the trigger. He always found this experience strange, yet pleasing. The sensation made the PanHuman body feel like it wished to stay around in this strange feeling forever, but he knew better – he knew the dangers associated with that desire. Fenris released the phase command and felt like his brain was sucked back into his body from the strange slipstream of time; yet at the same time, it felt as if he simply blinked from the time he saw the red blip to that moment.
He looked at the wall behind him and noticed a dark char mark from an explosion. His head swiveled back around and brought his plasma rifle back to par against the Ghar battle suit – he knew there was something down with them beside the outcasts. The pilot on the inside of the hulking structure could not be seen, but the spider-like vehicle, as it crawled about on the four legs, clad in a dark purple armor with red beady eyes, made it seem all the more menacing. It raised the heavy scourer cannon on its arm as it prepared to fire once more.
Before either force could react, several heavy mag shots struck the side of the Ghar, rocking it to the point that it almost toppled over. Set up in the entrance to one of the tunnels on the other side of the room was an Algoryn light support mag cannon. It continued blasting into the Ghar machine, and the beast brought another arm up to shield itself before turning to address the more persistent foe.
“Go! Now!” Fenris led his phase troopers with all of the strength his legs could muster as they pounded down, pushing him forward. Several shots from the Algoryn mag cannon came in their direction and he was not sure if they were missed shots on the battle suit or purposeful attempts to remind the Isorians of the Algoryn presence.
Fenris followed the map, aware of the other members of his group tightly following him. Left, right, right, straight… The other exit was further than the entrance they had used. He just hoped it would take them out to safety.
“Fenris, when we get back, you owe me one hell of a stiff drink!”
Fenris grinned at Basch’ra’s call. “When have I ever not treated the squad for a successful mission?”
“I expect double the usual. If we make it.”
“We will.”
“Boss, I have a rather pressing question.” Fenris’s optimism drew back from Tona’s worry. “How in the blazes are we getting back to the ship? It was hard enough getting through the jungle in stealth, but without even that…”
Fenris could see the light just up ahead; they were almost out. And he had not stopped to consider that rather disturbing aspect.
“Oh!” Ethar called, causing them all to stop. He swung the drone around from his back, the lights blinking alive and filling their shard with great joy. “It’s back online!”
They jogged out in the open air once more and Fenris reveled in reconnecting to the drone as he activated the veil over the phase troopers and their sniper ally. Not more than a few moments after the drone reactivated its stealth did a unit of Algoryn AI flush down into the ruins, from where they had just exited. The phase commander had to laugh at the irony.
“That… was too close,” Zyler shook his head as he dropped his rifle to his side.
“It seems like the damn thing was saving its power until we needed it the most,” Basch’ra shook his head, waving a tired arm toward the drone. “It’s almost as if…”
“As if the IMTel knew all along what it was doing?” Fenris raised his thin brown eyebrows several times within his helmet. Even though Basch’ra could not see the motion, he made sure the sarcasm conveyed through the shard.
“Yeah, well, I’m just glad it gave us the damn silent sniper and not a NuHu. And I think I’ve seen enough of Pfytorus for one lifetime.”
“I think you’re right, Basch’ra.” Fenris nodded, feeling the warmth of the IMTel in its entirety once more. He looked at the strange cube in storage on Zyler’s side and hoped they would be able to unlock its mysteries. “We have a lot to bring back home. I think a stiff drink sounds good to me, too.”
