Mat woke up to a loud buzzer. He heard a thump as Dany, who had been
sleeping on the bunk below, hit his head on the bunk above him. Mat couldn’t resist a chuckle.
“Is
this funny to you?” asked Dany.
“Extremely,”
said Nax, also chuckling.
“We’ll
see whose laughing next time we get a new member,” Dany replied, “I’ll see to
it that you’re the one that gets moved to a lower bunk because Kron will be
SOOO much more comfortable on the to—“
“Dany,
just put your armor on and go to the briefing room,” Aaron said from the bunk
under Nax. “I’m not in a patient mood
this morning.”
Dany
groaned “Yes, sir,” he said, and did as instructed.
The
Squad walked into the briefing room and sat in front of the usual lime green
hologram, depicting a conduit female.
“Hello Shadow Squad,”
the Briefer said, “Your target today is General Gregory Mons. He is currently the commanding officer of all
human forces in Sectors 3 and 4 of the Universal Monarchy of Humanity’s territory. On the edge of Sector 3 is the Planet 895
C. Our forces will soon be staging an
attack on 895 C. If Mons can be
eliminated, he will probably be replaced with a significantly less competent
officer; one that is less likely to be able to repel us.”
“Where can we find him,”
Kron asked.
“I was getting to
that,” the Briefer said. “Mons is housed in a base on the Planet 786
B. The humans refer to the base as The
Glistening Guardian. The Glistening
Guardian itself is a single square building whose doors will not be difficult
to breach. What will give you more
trouble is the fifty-four foot tall and fifteen foot thick diamond wall that
surrounds it on all sides. There are
numerous snipers, other soldiers and guard towers stationed along the
wall. The towers consist of a single,
large, electrical coil with one man stationed inside. This person operates a simple device that
shoots a small stream of water at an intended target. When shot from within this coil, what was
once a harmless toy carries the electrical charge of the coil to whatever the stream
hits. If this happens to be a soldier it
will deliver a fatal electrical charge.
Your drop-ship is waiting Shadow Squad, good luck.”
*****
The Commander of the
Photon Squad slammed his fist on Mons’ desk.
“Look, by the virtue of it being a ship, Domination’s defenses are far more formidable. You’ll be much safer if we simply wormhole
you up to the ship and wait until the Shadow Squad thinks you’ll be gone too
long to be worth waiting for, and gives up.”
“Calm down soldier,”
Mons responded. “There isn’t a thing that can penetrate our wall. We are invincible inside this base.”
“Everything declared indestructible
is soon destroyed, General. I strongly
suggest you--”
“This base is
impossible to destroy,” the General said. “It’s not a matter that can be disputed, it’s
a simple fact. Now take your squad out
of my quarters.”
“General I--”
“That’s an order Commander,”
Mons shouted.
“Yes, sir” the Commander
said, noticeably frustrated.
The Photons left Mons’
quarters, and headed toward the wall outside
“It’s like a 12 year
old shouting at you to get out of his room,” the Commander grumbled as the
squad walked toward the wall. “That annoying squeal he presumably considers to
be a voice even matches such a thing.”
“Sir,” Molly said.
“What?” asked the
Commander.
“Why are you so
confident the base can be breached?”
Molly asked. “There are several
of these bases and they have withstood yearlong sieges. Any explosive powerful enough to break
through the wall would--”
“Molly, there were two
other ships identical to the titanic” the Commander said. “And I’m sure half of the cities on earth had
walls as thick as Jericho’s.”
The Photon Squad
climbed the shining stairs to the top of the glistening diamond wall. They looked out onto the mix of earthly and
alien trees, many changing their color for autumn. They chatted with the occupants of the four
guard towers stationed at the front corners and on either side of the
door. They waited as the occupants of
the other fourteen towers, which were stationed at the other corners and along
the rear, left and right walls, watched for activity along with them.
*****
The Shadow Squad landed
on the planet. Under Kron’s cloak, they
approached the magnificent wall.
“How do we intend to
break through that?” Mat asked.
“Breaking through it
will do no good by itself,” Kron said. “The
guard-towers alone are enough to render entry impossible.”
“Kron, isn’t there something
you can do to take out the towers?” Dany asked.
“Of course there is,”
Kron said.
*****
The Commander kept a
sharp look out for Conduits. His eyes
were focused intensely on the ground in front of him when he heard a
scream. He turned to look at the tower
it had come from. Where there should
have been an operator, there was but a disgusting parody of the human form with
a glob of water floating above it.
“What the--” The water
divided into streams and flew through the bars making up the head of the
tower. A jolt of electricity, not
plainly distinguishable from a lightning bolt followed each stream out, one of
them hitting and killing another soldier.
The Commander radioed
General Mons, “General, you’ll want to take a look at what just happened.”
“What the heck?” Mons
said back after a second.
“That’s what I thought
too,” said The Commander.
“I order all of the
tower operators to exit their stations,” The General said, now over a
loudspeaker.
As the operators tried
to leave, the hatches which would allow them to escape were suddenly melted
shut. The switch to cut the flow of
electricity to the towers then followed.
As the eighteen remaining tower operators frantically jerked at the bars,
the Commander heard another scream. He
looked and saw water seemingly being drawn out of the operator’s body. After some moments, a similar abomination to
the first was all that was left of the man.
Once again the water divided into streams, which carried glowing jolts
of electricity into the base. This time no one was hit.
“Everyone, get inside
the building!” General Mons ordered over
the loudspeaker.
“General, maybe my guys
should stay out here and see if we can figure out what’s happening.” the
Commander said.
“Sure, why not. I guess
your expendable enough.” said Mons.
“Photons, look around
for anything that might be causing this,” said the Commander.
“Do you have anything
in mind?” John asked.
“No,” said the
Commander, “I have no idea what might do this.”
“Please stop talking
about how likely I am to die,” said another operator. Right as he spoke those words, he was
destroyed in the same way as the others.
“Anyone else want to
complain?” The commander shouted.
There was no response.
“Good then,” he said,
“Photons, resume searching.”
As the Photons searched
in vain for the cloaked Shadow Squad, another operator was killed, reducing their
number to fifteen.
Yet another was killed
reducing it to fourteen.
Then thirteen,
Then twelve,
Eleven,
Ten,
Nine,
Eight,
Seven, each having the
water sucked out of their bodies and hurled inward toward the center of the
base.
The commander jumped as
the stream of water from that last victim appeared to be aimed at him.
He looked around and
noticed a pattern. It seemed as if those
closest to the southeast corner were all dead, and those farther away not yet
killed.
Photons go to the northwest
corner of the wall,” the Commander said.
The squad did as
instructed, as they scanned the exotic forest for anything that could be
causing this destruction. Slowly, the
operators continued to fall one by one, until there were none left. Each kill was accompanied by the most
haunting scream ever to touch a man’s ear.
After the last man
operator was killed the towers were ripped off of the wall in quick succession,
until only the wall itself remained.
“I think we should
probably get inside,” Mike said.
The Commander agreed.
*****
“It looks like the last
ones have gone inside,” Kron said.
“Dude,” Dany said,
“That, was, AWESOME!”
“Indeed,” Nax said, “It
was most enjoyable to watch them squirm.
My favorite part was right after you sealed the towers, when they knew
there was no escape. They knew they were
going to die, and there was nothing to do but pray.”
“I’m glad you liked
it,” said Kron.
“Excuse me,” Aaron
said, “as great as this is, and that was, we still can’t follow them inside
with that massive diamond wall in the way.”
“Indeed,” said Mat.
“Kron do you have anything in mind?”
“You guys shouldn’t be
counting on me to be able to do everything.” Kron said. “That said, there is a trick I do all the
time at shows.”
Kron approached the
wall. Once he arrived, he reached out
and touched it with both hands and his tail.
“Excuse me,” Gar said,
“What are you doing?”
“I’m telling the Higgs
field to shut up,” Kron said, “There we go I’ve greatly reduced this wall’s mass. It should be easy to lift out of the way.”
“Nice, in a different
way,” said Mat.
“I’m glad you liked
that too,” Kron said, casually tossing the enormous wall aside.
“And now we go in,”
Aaron said.
*****
The Commander huddled
with the others in the General’s quarters at the back of the twenty-room
state-of-the-art facility that was once protected by that majestic wall.
“So you have no idea
what’s happening?” the General asked.
“No one does,” the
Commander said. “We just watched things that are impossible, at least for a
Conduit.”
“Sir,” Molly asked,
“How did you know this base would fall?”
“Hold on,” General Mons
asked, “Even without our wall, there are hundreds of soldiers in here and only
6 of them.”
“You ever hear of a
certain defense system called, ‘Medusa’?” the Commander asked.
“Wait, so you’re just
going to ignore me?” The General asked.
“Yes,” Molly said, “Yes
I’ve heard of it, I mean. It was a
defense system that surrounded the planet 156 C. It was deemed impossible to penetrate. As a result, when the Conduit attack came, it
was assumed they could handle it. They
got almost no backup, and the planet fell.”
“I lived on that
planet,” the Commander said, “until it fell, when I was about seven. I can’t think of a single person on that
planet whose first name I knew, that didn’t die in that attack; except for me
of course.”
The Commander heard the
door to the facility burst open. He
motioned at his squad to head that way.
The General likewise
ordered his soldiers, “Let’s go,” he shouted.
“Be quiet,” the
Commander said. “It’s ideal that they do not know where we are.”
“Hey, don’t tell me
what to do.” said Mons.
The Commander heard
footsteps approaching the general’s quarters.
He signaled Tim, John, and Crystal to split up and search the building. The Commander opened radio contact within his
squad.
“Remember, we know they
have a cloaking device, so be really care--”
“We don’t think of him
as a device actually,” Aaron said, “Oh, you didn’t know we could tap into you
radio? Its incription is so amateurish
that any child could do it. Well, any
Conduit child could. Maybe if you found
some unusually smart, adult, human, probably a hybrid with some kind of
microbe, he would be able to comprehend me as I walk him through it.”
“What do you mean you
don’t think of ‘him’ as a device?” the Commander asked.
“He meant I’m not a
device,” Kron said. “Photons just find me authoritative, except for you, until
about five minutes from now that is.”
“Do you really think
we’re that incompetent?” Tim asked as
he, John and Crystal continued searching room to room.
“Your parents certainly
thought so,” Nax said.
“My, my parents?” Tim
asked.
“It’s really sad” Nax
said “when you can’t trust your own son to protect you on a routine--”
“I interrupt your
taunt” Mike said.
“That’s quite alright,”
Aaron said, “By the way, one of you is in the same room as us.”
All of the doors in the
facility suddenly locked shut.
“Photons, report your
location,” said the Commander.
“I’m in one of the
sleeping areas,” said Crystal.
“I’m in the Dining room,”
said Tim,
“I’m
in the medical war--” John began.
“Well
it looks like we have ourselves a prisoner,” said Aaron, “What do you think we
should do with him Mat?”
“Well,
since I’m a nice guy, I think we should offer an exchange, we’ll give you the
Photon, if you give us Mons.”
The
Commander paused for a moment.
“What
are you doing?” Mons asked.
“Considering
it,” said the Commander.
“WHAT?”
asked Mons.
“You’re
annoying, immature, and arrogant and have the general attitude of a twelve year
old,” the Commander said, “What do you think John?”
“The
mission comes first, sir,” John said.
“Alright
then,” said the Commander.
“So
that’s a no?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,”
the Commander said.
“Too
bad then,” Aaron said, “Nax, kill him.”
Nax
raised his sword. John struggled to
break free of the lock the Shadows had him in.
John punched the space above him, causing Gar, who was holding him, to
release his grip and reel back. John
quickly ran across the room, unholstered his sidearm and opened fire in the
direction of the Shadow Squad. Kron
deflected each bullet before it hit any members of his squad.
The doors suddenly opened again. John ran out of the medical ward and headed
back toward the General’s quarters. The
doors to the medical ward shut and locked.
John arrived at the General’s quarters.
“Thanks
Mike,” John said.
“I
didn’t unlock the doors,” Mike said.
“Then
who did?” John asked.
“I
think the better question is what that thing on your neck is,” said Mike.
“What
thing?” asked John.
The
object, an adhesive sphere with a barrel extending from it, aimed its barrel at
Mons’s head and fired a bullet. Mons
fell on his back, dead.
“Why
else do you think I would unlock the doors?” Kron asked.
“We
really must be going now,” said Aaron.
The
medical ward’s doors opened again. The
shadow squad left what was left of The Glistening Guardian, and wormholed back onto the Righteous
Judgment.
John
gulped as the Photons wormholed onto the Domination,
afraid of what punishment the Commander would have for him. He was not pleasantly surprised by the ocean
of pain that greeted him before he went to bed, leaving a trickling trail of
blood as he walked down the hall.
