The Shattering: Omnibus Page 3

  “Spread out,” Tamerlane ordered. “Scan for any signs of that power source.”

  “I don’t like this place very much,” Singh observed. He moved the black cube off to one side and switched off the function that had caused it to follow him. “Something about it gives me the creeps.”

  “Me too,” Dalton added.

  “That’s why we’re going to find what we’re looking for and get out of here,” Tamerlane stated. “Now get going.”

  The five of them walked slowly around the pitch-black cave, not bothering with lights and frankly somewhat concerned of what they might disturb if they turned one on. The interior looked particularly bizarre in the over-saturated colors of infrared and sensor scan; clearly nothing natural had carved out the big open space, given the regularity of its dimensions, but the walls had a sort of half-melted look that sent chills up the spines of more than one of them.

  For a time no one spoke, and a sort of coldness-that-wasn’t-cold descended, despite their high-tech shielding. Each cranked up the warmth generated by their environmental energy spheres. The electromagnetic fields that surrounded each of them and provided a breathable atmosphere were not visible to the naked eye, but a very faint luminescence shimmered in the air just beyond as they moved. Tamerlane ascribed it to the fields interacting with something in the cave’s own atmosphere.

  After a few minutes Singh called out, “Major—I’m detecting an energy spike here.”

  Tamerlane and the others hurried over. Each of them switched through a variety of sensor modes, as they all tried to gather what data they could.

  “I’m sensing…something,” Tamerlane noted, frowning as he ratcheted up the sensitivity of his scanner. “But—”

  The cavern lit up like a flashbulb.

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Tamerlane, stumbling backwards. The others were holding their arms and hands up before their faces to block the sudden blinding light.

  An instant later, there came a sound—low, deep, rumbling—as though the entire mountain had transformed into a volcano and was about to erupt. But the sound was not natural; it had a regularity, an artificiality to it. Like an alarm claxon, Tamerlane realized—but one that had been slowed drastically down.

  Several seconds—long, awful, blinding and deafening seconds—and then the glare faded to a manageable level. The five soldiers blinked furiously and squinted until they could see again, then looked around, seeing the interior of the cavern in visible light for the first time. It revealed an even more disturbing tableau than they’d first thought: the half-melted walls gave the impression that they represented the inside of some giant’s digestive system. The faintly blue radiance that revealed all of this to them had no obvious source; it was as if the air itself glowed, and glowed most strongly only a short distance in front of them. It cast harsh shadows on the nearly-black walls and floor.

  The low rumbling claxon ceased. The resounding silence it left behind was somehow even more deafening.

  Tamerlane turned and was about to ask for opinions from his team when a bizarre voice echoed out, again coming from no obvious source, filling the cave with loud but unintelligible words.

  He turned back in the direction of the light source just in time to witness three big humanoid shapes forming out of nothingness. He gawked for a moment, then reached for his pistol.

  Seeing this, one of the troopers behind him whispered, “They’re not real, sir!”

  Tamerlane’s eyes never left the apparitions. “What?”

  “Holograms, sir,” Singh replied. “Look at their feet!”

  The major did this and saw that the giants’ feet faded out into static near the ground. They weren’t solid—not enemy warriors somehow teleporting in or stepping through a dimensional portal—but were instead simply some sort of projected images.

  Tamerlane removed his hand from his gun and made sure his recording devices were all switched on. He studied the apparitions more closely.

  Before them now stood three very distinctly humanoid beings, each at least twelve feet tall, each rendered in exquisite detail. Their heads were bald, their skin pale, their faces impassive. They wore dark gray suits of what looked like high-tech armor, or perhaps pressure suits. Or both. The design was so alien that it was hard to tell. They stood in a triangle formation, all gazing steadily ahead.

  “Anybody recognize these guys?” Tamerlane asked, not taking his eyes off of them.

  The one at the front began to speak. The words were like nothing the major had ever heard before; deep and powerful, like the claxon had been.

  “Or that language?”

  No one answered in the affirmative.

  After nearly a minute of talk, the lead being raised first one hand and then the other up to chest level, palm outward. The gesture could be taken as either a sign of greeting or a warning to stay away—and the blank facial expressions offered no contextual clues.

  The giant spoke one final phrase, its voice so low and rumbling that it seemed to vibrate the cavern floor, and then lowered its arms. The hologram flared brightly again and faded.

  For several seconds the five soldiers simply stared at the empty spot that the aliens had occupied. Then they turned toward one another, all looking extremely puzzled.

  “So…” Tamerlane croaked, discovering that his throat was very dry. He swallowed. “So—anybody make any sense out of that?”

  Grunts and head-shakes in the negative.

  “Looked like a pretty clear ‘stay away’ to me,” Westerfeld observed.

  “I’m not sure I agree,” Dalton stated. “They didn’t shout—didn’t wave any weapons around. Maybe it was their way of saying, ‘Hello.’”

  Reilly snorted at this. “Anybody else here get the feeling what we just witnessed was some kind of warm welcome?” he asked. No one answered.

  Tamerlane nodded. “Okay, then let’s—”

  Another light, this one far less intense. It shimmered into existence just beyond where the giants had stood. This time the light took the form of a rectangle about fifteen feet to a side, its edges wavering all around, floating just above the ground, looking like a window into some other world.

  “Nobody move,” Tamerlane ordered. The others complied but they all had recording devices aimed at it.

  As he stared at the rectangle of light, the major suddenly thought he could make out shapes within it. He felt as if he were looking though a sort of translucent glass, seeing color and movement but no real details.

  “What do you make of that?” he asked the others.

  “It’s a portal,” Dalton responded immediately. “A natural one!”

  Tamerlane’s eyes widened. Naturally-occurring dimensional portals were legendary, bordering on mythological. Supposedly those beings centuries earlier that man had considered “gods” had been able to open and close portals at will, and even lead others through them—but no human ever could. At least, not naturally, he thought, as he glanced over at the big black box Singh had dragged along behind him from the ship. Well. This could certainly make my job here a bit easier…

  “Westerfeld,” he barked, “send a probe toward it. Quick!”

  The soldier Tamerlane addressed had already taken a small silver sphere, about the size of a golf ball, from a pouch on his uniform. He held it up and activated it via the Aether link, then released it. The little ball hovered in midair for a moment, then shot forward, directly at the rectangle of light.

  It passed through and curved around the other side, as if the rectangle was but a ghost-shape—like it wasn’t even there.

  Tamerlane cursed. “Okay—we’re humans, not gods, so it’s not going to let us just walk through. But clearly we’ve come to a very interesting and unusual place.”

  Dalton nodded, rubbing her hands together. “The dimensional walls are extremely thin here. Maybe the source of the energy spike was on the other side of one of those portals. That might explain why the readings have been so inconstant.”

  “Let’s fi
nd out,” Tamerlane said. He motioned to Singh. “Alright, everyone—let’s help the lieutenant set up the scanning equipment. Let’s get going.”

  “No help needed,” Sing replied with a smile. He grasped the floating black box he’d shepherded all the way over from the ship and positioned it very close to the shimmering square of light. He sent a signal to it via the Aether and it gently lowered itself to the ground. At the same time, the lights along its side switched from red to green. Immediately the box began to unfold itself, pieces sliding out and rotating into different positions. In less than a minute it had transformed itself into a black rectangle about ten feet tall.

  “Very good, Lieutenant,” Tamerlane noted.

  Singh didn’t reply. He knelt down beside the base of the rectangle and began fiddling with something.

  Dalton and the others were staring, puzzled, at the device Singh had activated.

  “Major,” Dalton said, “What kind of scanner is this supposed to be? It looks more like—”

  “Like a doorway,” Reilly finished for her. “Minus the door.”

  “It’s what we need,” Tamerlane replied, staring up at it, “to accomplish the job we’ve been sent to do.” He turned to face Dalton directly. “Now, I think—”

  He paused as a signal came in over the Aether. It was Radikov, back on their ship. He held up a hand to Dalton—one moment, please—and then turned away from her and the others.

  “Tamerlane here, Captain,” he sent back.

  “Major, we’ve received a message for you from Central Command.”

  “Send it over.”

  A second later, thanks to Tamerlane’s Aether connection with the ship, a voice—the voice of his commanding general, Nakamura—resounded in his head: “Ezekial, I need you back here immediately.” A pause. “And by that I mean immediately, not ‘after you finish whatever fool’s errand the Eccleisarchy has you on this time.’ I’ve complained loudly and long enough that they’ve given in—you’ve been reassigned to me again. Captain Radikov has been ordered to grant you use of the Donbas’s shuttle, so you can depart without disrupting their current mission. And—you’ll be happy to hear—I’ve gotten your rank restored, too—Colonel Tamerlane. So come on home.”

  The message ended abruptly.

  Tamerlane reeled.

  I’m a colonel again? And—I’m no longer in the doghouse with the military?

  He couldn’t quite process this at first.

  Bless you, General. You’ve never let me down yet.

  The others had stopped what they were doing and were all looking at him. He realized he must be acting rather strange. He smiled at them and somewhat modestly revealed the news.

  “So—you’re Colonel Tamerlane again. Congratulations, sir,” said Reilly, grinning. The others joined in, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back.

  “Alright, that’s enough,” he told them after a few seconds. “There’s been a change of plans. I’ve been recalled to base.”

  Westerfeld blinked. “You’ve been what?”

  “I’ve been ordered back to General Nakamura’s central command, effective immediately. Just me—not the rest of you,” he added quickly.

  “You have to go, sir?” Dalton exclaimed. She gestured at the cave around them, clearly encompassing everything they’d experienced in the past few minutes. “They’re pulling you out of here now?”

  Tamerlane laughed. “Great timing, huh? Gotta love the military.”

  Despite his outward good humor, though, Tamerlane realized he wasn’t entirely happy. As much as he’d inwardly complained about being sent on this mission, he found he sort of liked his teammates and was even starting to become somewhat engrossed in what they were doing, now that it had become a bit more interesting than he’d expected—now that they actually were getting somewhere. He hated to have to leave them now, perhaps right on the cusp of discovery.

  Still, if there was one thing he’d learned in his years of service to Nakamura, it was that the man expected you to jump the second he said, “Jump.” And he had gotten Tamerlane’s rank restored. In truth, his debt to the general was growing larger seemingly every day.

  Dalton clasped his hand again. “We wish you the best, Major. I mean, Colonel.”

  Westerfeld and Reilly did likewise. Singh appeared engrossed in something he was working on at the base of the machine and didn’t look up.

  Tamerlane disengaged from the others and opened a direct, private Aether link to Singh.

  “Sir?” came the other man’s mental reply.

  “You know what to do, right, Lieutenant? You can handle it on your own?”

  “I’ll take care of it, sir. I’ll have the portal open in a few minutes. After that, it’s just a matter of timing.”

  Tamerlane nodded.

  “Are you going to explain it to the others, before you go, or—?”

  “I’ve been holding off just in case the machine doesn’t work,” Tamerlane answered. “No point revealing state secrets needlessly. Once you’re sure the machine works—once you actually have a portal open—send them out of the cave, so they don’t see exactly what you’re doing.”

  “I understand, Colonel.”

  “Very well. We will speak about it further once it’s done.”

  Tamerlane closed the private connection and addressed the entire group. “I’m heading out. Lieutenant Singh is in charge for now. He will report to me on how things are going, until a new officer is assigned to this mission.”

  The others nodded.

  “It was a pleasure, people. I’ll look forward to hearing how this all works out.” He paused. “Curious about those big gray guys, too. I’ll let General Nakamura know about them as soon as I get there.” He spared Singh one more glance; the man had turned away and was at work on the big machine again. He’d slid a long, narrow box out of a compartment in the device’s base and was fiddling with it. That seemed somewhat premature to Tamerlane, seeing as how he knew what was in that box, and he started to say something. Then again, he didn’t want to undermine Singh’s new authority with the others by questioning his actions already. So he shrugged and turned back to the others.

  “Take care, Colonel,” Dalton said, saluting. Westerfeld and Reilly did likewise.

  Tamerlane returned their salute. Then, activating his flight pack, he lofted into the air and shot out of the cavern. His Aether link directed him quickly back to the ship, the barren landscape sliding by in a blur beneath him. Within a matter of only a couple of minutes he was back aboard the Donbas.

  “You’re welcome to the shuttle, sir,” Captain Radikov said, leading him down to the small hangar bay. He gripped Tamerlane’s hand warmly. “We’ll miss you. Good flying back home.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” the Colonel replied, climbing into the tiny ship. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  The hatch slid closed as Radikov turned away, and Tamerlane activated the singleship’s engines. Gently it lofted through the open hangar doorway atop the larger vessel and then spun about, angling upwards. Tamerlane moved the accelerator forward and he shot like lightning up through the atmosphere, rocketing toward space.

  He’d scarcely been airborne fifteen seconds when Radikov called him, the signal relayed from ship to ship and then directly to his Aether link.

  “Colonel, I thought you’d like to know—we’re reading another energy spike, this time right there in the cavern where your team is working. I’ve informed them.”

  Tamerlane frowned. Another spike? Could it be a new portal opening by itself—or perhaps some other warning system, or intruder defense system, or… The possibilities tugged at his brain.

  Or maybe Singh has already opened that box, he thought.

  He was too far away now for a direct link to his old crew. Instead, he addressed Radikov. “Captain, could you patch me through via relay to—” He started to say “Singh,” then paused, considered, and changed his mind. “—to Dalton?”

  “Will do.”

  Two
seconds of silence, and then, “Dalton here, Colonel. You’re really missing out, sir.”

  “What’s happening, Lieutenant? I hear you’ve got an energy spike.”

  “Yes, sir. It started when Singh had us position the scanner machine directly in front of the dimensional portal area. The portal’s gotten a lot brighter, a lot more vivid, I guess you could say.”

  Tamerlane mulled this over for a second. Then, “Lieutenant,” he said, “you deserve to know—and, understand, what I’m about to tell you is top secret—that’s not just a scanning machine. It actually was designed to enhance existing dimensional portals—to magnify them—so that, we hope, a real doorway can be opened into the Above.”

  Dalton said nothing for a couple of seconds.

  “Lieutenant? Are you there?”

  “Yes—yes, sir. I’m here. Yes—what you said makes sense. The machine looks like a doorway. I can see how it would work that way, to—” She paused, then, “Sir—it’s gotten a lot brighter now. I think it’s working!”

  Tamerlane smiled. “I wish I could be there with you guys. I hate missing this.”

  “It’s pretty intense, sir.”

  Tamerlane remembered his private orders to Singh, and added, “Lieutenant, at any moment now, Singh is going to order the rest of you out of the chamber. Do as he says. There are even more top secret things still to come, and the less you all know about it, the better, I suspect.”

  “Umm… Understood, Colonel,” Dalton replied. “I think.”

  Tamerlane chuckled at this.

  “Okay,” Dalton went on a few seconds later. “The portal is really swirling now. All kinds of colors and shapes and whatnot. Singh’s got a device and is measuring something, right in front of the opening. I don’t know—I assume he knows what he’s doing.”

  “He should,” Tamerlane replied. “The rest of you might want to go ahead and step out for a bit, just to be safe, and come back later when the readings have settled down—”