Unwilling From Earth Page 41

  “The People won’t interfere with the inevitable tide of history. They’ve seen it all before. On their scale of things, this will just be a blip. Even if my empire lasts a billion years, it’s just a passing phase to them. Though I’m sure that I will get bored with it well before then. I’m not the first you know. There have been galactic empires before and there will be others after mine. Even if they did try to take direct action, I have something that will surprise them.”

  “You do? What would that be?”

  “Well, you’ve heard of the AI war?” Tk'ng Dach Rrn asked.

  “I’ve heard a little about it. I believe that some clever machines caused the People a little difficulty a long time ago, but that’s all ancient history.”

  “Yes, of course. It all ended well for the People. They seem to have had a bit of luck there. You may be interested to know, some of the machines technology survived, scattered in bits and pieces all over the universe. Some of it ended up in this galaxy and, this is the important bit, I found it.” Tk'ng Dach Rrn said smugly.

  “And you’ve copied it?” Mark asked.

  “Well, no, not yet. I’m working on it. But I have made it work, so we can use it. It basically blocks all the Peoples technology. Clever, eh?”

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking all these questions.” Mark said.

  “No, not at all! It’s good to meet someone who takes an interest. It’s not as if you’re going anywhere afterwards.”

  “So what do you think you’ll do when you get bored with being the emperor of the entire galaxy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll probably want to get away from it all and go farm root vegetables on a dirtball in a backwater corner of the galaxy. Earth might be a good spot.” He said, languidly.

  “That’s enough of the idle chit chat. Time to make a start.” Tk'ng Dach Rrn turned to the bench. “Now where shall we start? The eyelids I think. If we get rid of those, you’ll be able to fully appreciate my art. It’s all about the right instruments you know. The trouble is, I’ve got such a comprehensive collection it makes it difficult to choose.”

  While Tk'ng Dach Rrn fiddled with his torture instruments, Mark spoke to his AI. “I hope you’re getting all of this Kate.” There was no response. “Kate? Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment and talk to me.” There was still no response. A cold chill went down Mark’s spine. “Kate! Kate! Bloody answer me!” Mark demanded, but there was still no response.

  Seriously worried now, Mark pulled against the restraints to free himself, but found that they didn’t give way and the straps bit into his wrists. “Oh fuck!” He thought, as he realised that not only was his AI not responding, but his phase shift protection had stopped working. So Mark no longer had any protection or armour, and without his AI he couldn’t even call for help.

  Mark concentrated on his hidden weapon a flicker of hope rose in his heart as it dropped down beneath his wrist. He immediately thought that if he could fire it, he could use it shoot off the straps holding him down, but quickly realised that if he fired it at the straps, without his phase shift protection he would blow his hands off. He struggled to twist his wrist around to point it at Tk'ng Dach Rrn and having got it as close as he thought he was going to, he concentrated and tried to fire it. Much to his surprise, but even more of a surprise to Tk'ng Dach Rrn, it fired, hitting him halfway along his tail, severing it from his body.

  Tk'ng Dach Rrn jumped forward with a shriek, knocking a shower of shining surgical implements across the floor. He whipped round with a grimace of pain on his face. “How did you do that you mammalian bastard!” He reached down to his waist and pulled a hand weapon from a holster. He was now out of reach of where Mark could aim and he raised his gun in a shaking hand to point at Mark.

  Suddenly the straps securing Mark to the chair retracted, releasing him. He threw himself sideways as Tk'ng Dach Rrn fired his KE weapon and bullets thudded into the back of the chair where Mark had sat moments earlier. Mark rolled across the floor and fired in the direction of Tk'ng Dach Rrn, missing him but making craters in the wall where his shots hit. The chair started to retract into the floor, as did the bench holding Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s instruments, folding over to engulf them as it shrank away. The shining implements that Tk'ng Dach Rrn had scattered were already embedded into the smart metal floor, disappearing from sight.

  Mark looked around, searching for cover. A bulge had started to rise from the floor near the door. Mark had no idea what was going on, but it looked like it could provide cover so he scrambled across the floor and ducked behind it. He pushed himself up to get a shot at Tk'ng Dach Rrn but two shots hit the bulge just below his face before he got a chance to fire. The bulge was by now forming a low wall, providing good cover, but Mark realised that he was pinned down and although Tk'ng Dach Rrn had no cover either, he had the advantage of already targeting Mark's location.

  A loud banging started at the double doors just behind Mark, accompanied by angry shouting. The doors appeared to be locked, which was a considerable relief to Mark, otherwise he would have been trapped between soldiers coming through the door behind him and Tk'ng Dach Rrn in front of him. The banging and shouting stopped and Mark peeked out to see if he could get a shot off at Tk'ng Dach Rrn. As soon as Mark’s head poked over the top of the wall, a shot rang out from Tk'ng Dach Rrn.

  “You can’t get out you know. It’s only a matter of time before I get you, and then I’ll really hurt you.” Tk'ng Dach Rrn called out angrily.

  Mark thought Tk'ng Dach Rrn might be right, but he wasn’t ready to turn his weapon on himself yet. Something exploded behind him. A fist sized piece of sharp metal torn from the doors hit Mark in the back, just below his right shoulder blade. It knocked the breath out of him and Mark felt like he had been hit by a sledgehammer. The pain was excruciating but after just a moment it went away and he felt nothing. He turned round in time to see six soldiers rush in through the smoke with weapons held up to cover the whole room. Mark fired six quick shots and all of the soldiers fell dead, with their momentum carrying them into the room, one falling either side of him.

  Hoping to be able to get a shot at Tk'ng Dach Rrn in the confusion, Mark jumped up and fired at the spot where he had last seen him. He saw an open door on the back wall and no sign of Tk'ng Dach Rrn.

  “Shit. He mustn’t get away.” Mark thought and ran through the door after him. He found himself in a corridor like the one which he had been brought into the fortress. The light that emanated from the ceiling was behaving strangely. Instead of a continuous soft glow, the ceiling was dark except for a pulse of light that moved from where Mark was, to about a third of the length of the corridor where it stopped, and then repeated. Mark could see drops and the occasional smear of blood leading along the floor and started to run, his bare feet slapping on the cold stone flags.

  When he reached the point in the corridor where the light stopped he found himself at a crossing, with branches running at right angles to the left and right. The right-hand corridor was in complete darkness but the ceiling of the left-hand branch had a pulse running along it leading to what looked like an opening into a large room. Mark decided to follow the light and ran down the corridor. As he ran into the room Tk'ng Dach Rrn leapt out from the side and slashed at Mark with a long bladed knife. The blade ripped across the left of Mark's chest and cut into the skin of his left arm, just below his shoulder. There was a brief moment of pain and blood started to pour from the wounds. Mark continued with his forward motion, spinning round to face his opponent when he was a couple of metres away from him.

  “I have you now, you puny mammal. All you mammals are good for is eating. I’ll get a couple of good meals out of you.” Tk'ng Dach Rrn snarled.

  “If you are trying to endear yourself to me, you are failing badly.” Mark retorted. “Personally, I don’t fancy eating lizard, or being eaten by one.”

  “Ha! That was just the first of many cuts. You are going to take a long, long time to die.” Tk'ng Dach Rr
n said, with a nasty looking grin which showed off his sharp teeth.

  “It’s not over yet, lizard breath.” Mark retorted. “You’re not so smart. We kicked your fat reptilian arse on G’nnath, I’m going to do the same here!”

  It wasn’t a very clever insult, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances. It seemed to do the job though, Tk'ng Dach Rrn looked really angry now.

  Tk'ng Dach Rrn leapt forward with the knife in his right hand, stabbing at Mark’s abdomen. Mark put into practise what Mike had taught him about close combat unarmed combat. Making sure that he didn’t lose his balance, he side stepped to the left of Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s charge and grasped his left wrist as he passed, stepping forward to bring Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s arm around the reptiles back and jerking the wrist upwards and across. There was a loud crack and Tk'ng Dach Rrn roared in pain. He spun round with his left arm hanging limply at his side. Panting now with pain, Tk'ng Dach Rrn thrust forward towards Mark. Mark stepped to the side again and kicked out high with his right leg aiming for Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s right shoulder, but he was ready for him this time and stabbed Mark in the side of his knee. There was a brief pain and when he put his foot back on the floor he almost collapsed as his knee gave way.

  Tk'ng Dach Rrn stood facing Mark in a half crouch, waving the knife slowly backwards and forwards.

  “If you’re trying to hypnotise me, I should warn you that I’m not susceptible.” Mark told him.

  Tk'ng Dach Rrn said nothing but started to shuffle around Mark in a circle, still waving the knife.

  “You’re quite a fancy dancer, maybe you should have made a career out of it. You would have had a longer life as a dancer.” Mark said as he turned to keep facing Tk'ng Dach Rrn.

  “Did you come here to talk or fight.” Spat Tk'ng Dach Rrn.

  “Good grief! You talked enough earlier. I thought you were never going to shut up. Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk or to fight. I came here to kill you.”

  “Ha! I’ve cut you twice already, and I’ve got the only knife. You don’t stand a chance.” He sneered. “How much longer do you think you can last?”

  “I think you may be right.” Mark said. He raised his right arm and fired his concealed weapon, hitting Tk'ng Dach Rrn square in the chest. He dropped dead like a sack of potatoes.

  Mark limped over to the body and stood looking down at it. He sighed and bent down to remove Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s cape. He then took the knife out of the lifeless fingers and set to work.

  Escape

  Mark limped out of the room back into the corridor with a bundle held in his left hand, his right arm propping him up against the wall. The lights had returned to normal now. He wondered if the weirdness was something to do with the fighting machines tech that Tk'ng Dach Rrn had found. Although he couldn’t put any weight on his right knee, Mark was feeling pretty good. He had accomplished his mission and was still alive. All he had to do now was find his way out and get a lift out of the fortress. None of Mark’s wounds were hurting, but Mark remembered some of the accounts he had read when studying the First World War for his history A Level. They claimed that some of the soldiers who had suffered wounds in battle felt no pain at the time. He hadn’t really believed it, but it seemed to be true and it was working for him. By supporting himself with his right arm against the wall he made good progress back to Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s torture chamber. He didn’t know his way out from there, but at least it was a familiar place to start from.

  The corridor ended at the door that led into the chamber, which was now shut. Mark pushed the door open and stepped in. Much to his surprise, the chamber was full of Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s guards. For a moment he stood looking at them while they stood staring back. The room went silent, and it seemed like time had stopped. Then the moment passed, the guards started shouting and shots were fired. A shot from a particle weapon hit him low on the left side of his chest. Mark dropped to the floor firing his concealed weapon, realising that he was massively outnumbered, he had no protection of any kind and had no cover. Several of the enemy soldiers went down and as they returned fire, KE shots tore up the floor around Mark and thudded into the wall behind him. The enemy soldiers were having trouble staying on their feet as the floor beneath them seemed to be rippling, but with the overwhelming numbers of them firing at Mark it wouldn’t be long before he was hit and without any armour his death seemed inevitable.

  A huge crash came from above and the shuttle smashed through the ceiling in an explosion of shattered stone and dust. The door snapped open before it hit the ground. In his peripheral vision Mark saw something flash out of the door and a fusillade of shots poured into Tk'ng Dach Rrn guards. Something thudded onto Mark’s back and straps coiled round his waist and shoulders, tightening themselves up. Almost immediately an image of armour appeared overlaid on Mark’s vision, with a green energy level. He turned his head and saw Alan standing beside him with a weapon in each hand, firing all four of them into the mass of guards. The guards in the chamber started dropping, but this prompted a surge forward through the shattered doorway from a larger number of guards in the corridor. Mark heard his AI say “That’s better. It was quite claustrophobic trapped in there.” Mark pushed himself up and stood beside Alan, supporting himself by leaning on the wall. He fired his concealed weapon from his right arm, with the bundle held firmly in his left hand.

  “Time to go, I think.” Alan said and backed up toward the shuttle as he continued to fire. Mark retreated too and in a few seconds they backed through the door into the shuttle. Mark caught his foot on the sill and fell, landing on his back, dropping the bundle which rolled across the floor, stopping as it hit the wall at the rear of the shuttle. The door snapped shut and the shuttle shot upwards, demolishing more stonework and concrete as it smashed its way back up through the fortress.

  “I see you got me a present.” Alan said, looking at the bundle.

  ”Er, not quite.” Mark said, scrambling to his feet and falling against the wall as his right knee refused to work.

  “May I enquire as to what the bundle contains?” Asked Alan.

  “Incontrovertible proof of death of Tk'ng Dach Rrn. What are you doing here?”

  “Giving assistance to a Friend of the People of course.”

  “But you are supposed to be passive non-combatants. I didn’t even know you knew how to use a weapon, let alone four at once. And what was that armour you slapped onto my back?”

  “It would really help if you were to ask one question at a time. We are not passive, we try to be non-interventionist. You should know this. As to using weapons, it would be rather pointless having advanced weaponry if we didn’t know how to use it, wouldn’t it?”

  “Er, yes, I suppose so. But you came out like a ninja special-ops fighting machine!”

  “That’s such a mash-up of mangled and mixed metaphors that my AI is struggling to give me a good idiomatic translation, but you seem to indicate surprise at my skill level. It comes with much practise. Weapons proficiency is a requirement for any of the People who wish to get a field position with authority. A degree of weapons proficiency is a requirement from you before you are fully integrated into the People’s culture, though that is not going to be a problem for you to demonstrate.”

  “And the armour?”

  “We have many levels of backup systems in case of failure. Personal armour is one of them. A civilisation as old as ours has learnt that however improbable a failure may be, given long enough it will almost inevitably happen. To prevent inconveniences being caused by these eventualities, we have multiple levels of contingency plans in place. It’s just simple common sense.”

  “I see. That does make sense. Even on Earth with our relatively brief history, everyone using complex systems has a disaster recovery plan in place. Some of them even work.”

  “And the contents of the bundle?” Alan asked.

  “Look, I’m not proud of this. In fact, it’s pretty disgusting. No one can argue with it and we can provide DNA if necessary.
It’s Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s head.”

  Still Standing

  “I agree with you, it is quite disgusting.” Alan said. “But it’s good judgement. It will be difficult to deny Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s death with his head as evidence.”

  “So what now?” Mark asked.

  “Sally and her team are on Mother, waiting for your call to come and extract you. I suggest after the fiasco with the fusion bomb on Gnn’Ath, you communicate with Sally and tell her you are safe, succeeded in your mission and that we will land next to the lander they are waiting in, in about twelve minutes.”

  “So are the Ants going to launch an orbital bombardment of the fortress now?”

  “No, that part of the plan has changed. We have to make sure the fighting machine’s tech is recovered. We can’t allow any chance of it surviving and being used by anyone else.”

  “So who’s going to look for it? Sally’s army?”

  “No. The Tolen are coming to secure and search the fortress.”

  “The who?”

  “Now this is where I would normally say - It’s complicated - and leave it at that. But now you need to know. The Tolen have never been to this galaxy before and are not known here. You remember the AI war?”

  “Yes, of course. Get on with it.”

  “You need to develop more patience Mark. And manners. Your time with the military has had bad effects on you, not just the unpleasant and unnecessary swearing. You recall that the People eventually defeated the AI’s. The surviving People gathered together afterwards to mourn the dead and to decide what to do to ensure that if an event like that happened again, we would be better prepared. This meeting took place on a planet called Tolen. The survivors formed a martial organisation of People who would define a path forward to enforce universal peace. The organisation took the name of the Tolen.”

  “Enforcing peace? That doesn’t sound non-interventionist.”