Aeon Legion: Labyrinth (60 page)

“Soldiers of the Zeitmacht!”
Hanns's voice echoed through the machine. “We are victorious!”

Cheers followed. Thinking
quickly, Terra sent a signal to Saturn City so they might find her
and send help.

“Alban, please escort
Brigadeführer Emmerich Klein to the field hospital,” Hanns said in
a condescending tone. “I think he needs his rest after our little
adventure.”

Terra readied her aeon edge as
she marched out of the machine and into the open building ahead. It
was a wide open bunker three stories high with metal railing on the
side. She stood on a large ramp leading up the machine. Several
squads of soldiers stood in front of her with Hanns at their head.

He turned and smirked. “Oh
look. I even get a prisoner.”

A few of the soldiers laughed
upon seeing a girl with a sword stand before dozens of armed men.
Others tensed and pointed their weapons at Terra while steeling
themselves for sudden movement.

Hanns smiled and stood with
confidence. “I didn't think you would try to follow me. Such a
foolish display of bravado. Ironic isn't it? You captured me and
brought me to the city beyond time. Now I capture you in the past.”

Terra raised her aeon edge
while the soldiers itched at their triggers.

Hanns held up his hand to stop
them, his smirk vanishing. “Stop! Think about this, Terra. You
can't beat all of us. You don't have to die here. This isn't even
your fight. What do you owe to a decadent city of stagnant
imperialists?”

Terra lowered her blade, still
standing on the iron ramp. She gazed at the floor.

Hanns relaxed. “Wise
choice.”

Terra moved the switch on her
aeon edge, changing it to the nonlethal setting. After all, if she
killed anyone here by accident then that might affect the continuum.
This was standard procedure since lethal force had not been
authorized.

Hanns stepped forward. “There
is no need for you to buy into lies and propaganda. If you hand over
your shieldwatch and blade, I can even take you home. I am a man of
my word.”

Terra looked up at Hanns who
halted. She then pointed her aeon edge at him “Hanns Speer, you are
in violation of the Temporal Accords! You are ordered to stand down
and return all contraband! You will return to Saturn City or I will
use force if you do not comply immediately!”

“Very well soldier,” Hanns
said evenly.

Terra saluted Hanns and his
soldiers with her aeon edge.

Hanns turned to his men. “Fire
at will!”

Terra did her best to dodge,
Speeding her reflexes. The soldiers hesitated upon seeing Terra move
so fast. Using the opening, Terra jumped onto a nearby catwalk in a
blur of Sped motion.

She knocked aside a single
soldier with a submachine gun who stood in her way. The man tumbled
off the high catwalk with a loud yell before smacking and sliding
down the top of the cylinder shaped time machine. The soldiers below
fired, but the shots went wide while trying to hit a fast moving
target above them.

Terra reviewed her objectives.
First she had to destroy Hanns's shieldwatch before he accessed the
information within it. Second, she needed to neutralize Hanns's time
machine to prevent or slow further illegal temporal incursions. Last,
she had to arrest Hanns so he can stand trial for his crimes, but
another darker thought crossed her mind. In circumstances like these,
she was authorized to use lethal force against Hanns. If she couldn't
arrest Hanns then she might have to kill him.

Hanns was not famous in her
time. His death would not likely affect history as much as if Hanns
succeeded in his goals. She had learned in the Academy that Time
could endure most deaths without changing too much. He was already
well past the point where lethal force was authorized even if his men
had not yet crossed that line.

Terra forced this thought from
her mind. Right now she had to focus on more important problems. She
stood over Hanns's time machine. This massive metal beast was as long
as a Manticore and almost as wide. Most of the soldiers had yet to
storm the catwalks, leaving the time machine vulnerable.

Terra switched her aeon edge
to the lethal setting and jumped on top of the metal monster. She
then plunged her aeon edge into the machine. It sliced into the metal
with little effort as she ran along the outer shell. As she ran,
Terra pulled the trigger of her aeon edge, sending bursts of energy
ripping through and smashing large chunks of the time machine into
twisted metal. When she reached the end, a ball of flame shot from
inside the machine, forcing Hanns and the other soldiers to scatter

Terra jumped down to where she
had emerged from the machine. Soldiers took shots at her as they
fled. Using Sped vision and reflexes, she blocked the normal bullets
and only dodged upon spotting green tipped projectiles. As the
soldiers regrouped in front of her, Terra switched her aeon edge to
nonlethal and slashed at them while pulling the trigger. The aeon
edge burst washed over them and turned their skin and clothing gray
as they collapsed. The force of the blow pushed back the others not
caught in the burst, knocking them out. Many of the soldiers fled.

Her aeon edge went dark. Terra
then ejected the spent stasis cell clip and loaded in her last one.

Hanns retreated further into
the building and Terra followed. She chased him into the maze of iron
rigging that made up the underbelly of Hanns's burning time machine.

It was dark below the time
machine, casting a wide shadow. The only light came from flicking
flames above. Around Terra was a maze of iron beams and scaffolding.
She swept her gaze across the iron pillars, but did not see him in
the shifting shadows even with Sped vision. The shifting lights would
also make night vision useless here.

“You have come far. You are
a soldier now,” Hanns said, his voice echoing. “It didn't seem
that long ago that you were a cowering civilian.”

Terra turned, still searching.
“You are still the same, one evil cackle away from becoming a
Saturday morning cartoon villain.”

“Accusations mean little
coming from a mercenary. What did they offer you to fight for them?
Immortality? At least I fight for something greater than myself.”

Terra stalked around the next
pillar as she tried to follow the sound of Hanns's voice. She
switched her aeon edge to lethal again. She spotted a flicker of
movement and charged. Her attack sliced through a metal beam. The
beam slid and smashed into the floor, revealing empty space. “I
won't be lectured by a Nazi!” she said as she looked around the
next beam.

A shot rang out. Terra dodged
the glowing green bullet. Before Terra found him, Hanns hid again.

Terra moved forward with
careful footsteps. Sped vision let her see in low levels of darkness,
but the extra detail did little to reveal Hanns as he hid amongst
twisting shadows. The detail, in this case, worked against her. She
needed a way to flush him out into the open.

Movement flashed nearby. Terra
charged, slicing through several iron beams before pulling the
trigger and sending an aeon edge burst rippling through the metal
pillars. The machine above her groaned as it shifted position. Terra
scowled. If she tore apart this area too much then the whole machine
would collapse, killing both her and Hanns. A shieldwatch would do
her little good with so much mass collapsing on top of her. She
glanced down to see she had only a few stasis cells left before her
aeon edge went dead. She couldn't waste them on bursts.

Hanns took two more shots at
Terra, forcing her behind a metal beam.

“Shieldwatch energy low,”
came Minerva's voice from Terra's shieldwatch.

Terra grimaced. Hanns was
winning a war of attrition. All he had to do was to wait for Terra to
run out of ammo and energy. Then he and his soldiers could move in
for the kill. She looked down to Zaid's aeon edge still in its sheath
and her eyes widened as a plan came together.

Terra froze her aeon edge in
stasis. It hovered in the air just behind a metal beam. She then
moved away, leaving the aeon edge in place before drawing Zaid's aeon
edge and waiting in the shadows.

Hanns moved around the corner
to get a better firing angle on Terra. He maneuvered around the
beams, coming into Terra's view while keeping his own eyes on the
aeon edge that hovered in the air. When Hanns drew close to the
hovering blade, his eyes went wide before turning and darting to the
surrounding shadows. He was too late. Hanns had already missed Terra
who was charging towards him with the last of her shieldwatch power.

Hanns fired several shots as
Terra advanced. She blocked the shots with Zaid's aeon edge, not
bothering to dodge them. When she was almost on Hanns, he tossed
aside his gun and grabbed Terra's aeon edge at the guard.

They both pulled at the aeon
edge. The tug of war went on for a few seconds before Terra
overpowered Hanns by shifting her stance to unbalance him. Twisting
her hands, Terra jerked the aeon edge out of his hands before
grabbing his shieldwatch. She flung the shieldwatch in the air and
sliced it in half.

Hanns made for the broken
shieldwatch, but stopped when Terra pointed her aeon edge at him.

Terra's aeon edge had the
safety off.

Hanns knelt on the ground with
a confused expression as he stared upward at Terra.

Terra gritted her teeth as she
sweated. She didn't have enough energy to bring Hanns back with her.
It would take another half hour before her shieldwatch was charged
enough to time travel and she couldn't hold Hanns for that long
before his troops rescued him. He had to die. She could kill him. Her
knowledge of protocol knew that it allowed, even encouraged her to
take life in this situation.

Hanns sighed. Then he smirked.
“Well. It seems you are soldier now. Go ahead then,” he said
before closing his eyes.

Terra thought he looked smug
even as he faced death. He held a look of contentment, as though he
had challenged Olympus itself and almost won. It was the look of a
man who had, for a single moment, held all of human history in his
hands.

Terra tightened her grip on
Zaid's aeon edge. She had to kill Hanns. There was no other way. If
she let him go now, then he would menace Time again. It was her
soldier's duty to kill Hanns.

She sighed before sheathing
Zaid's aeon edge.

Hanns opened his eyes, his
face betraying confusion. He struggled to stand. “Seems you are not
much of a soldier after all.”

Terra pulled the frozen aeon
edge out of stasis and sheathed it. “You're right, Hanns. I'm a
heroine.”

Hanns took a weak step
forward. “I won't stop, you know. I will win an endless history for
the Third Reich!”

Terra turned to Hanns. “No
you wont. History has already damned you and next time we meet Hanns,
I'll drag you to Tartarus myself.”

She grinned. For the first
time since she had seen him, Hanns looked insulted. She pitied Hanns.
He leaned against an iron beam, ragged, with the shattered remains of
the stolen shieldwatch at his feet, the history it contained
unrecoverable. Above him, Hanns's time machine burned while the fires
spread to the rest of his base. Now he stood lost in darkness as she
left him behind.

It proved easy to sneak out of
the base. Most of the soldiers were busy putting out fires. Overcast
night skies shrouded most of the land in darkness though fires
reflected a reddish orange light on the clouds overhead. That
darkness deepened as she moved away from the burning base. The
rumblings of a thunderstorm sounded in the distance as she took
shelter in a nearby building.

Building was a generous term
for this structure. It was still under construction as steel beams
stood from the ground in a dense grid pattern. Terra could tell that
this would be a smelting plant as large empty metal pots lay nearby
next to piles of unprocessed ore.

It was several stories high
with much of the first floor completed. Extra steel girders lay in
heaps nearby and the clutter along with the dim lighting made it a
good place to hide. Terra decided to lay low there until her
shieldwatch recharged enough to time travel and return to Saturn City
or until reinforcements arrived. Too bad she didn't have enough
energy to go back and take Hanns with her, but in her current state
she could barely escape on her own.

It was then Terra saw movement
in the shadows. She drew her aeon edge, but had only a single stasis
cell remaining. Terra let her eyes adjust to the dark. After a
moment, she noticed a figure standing in shadow, watching her.

“I see you there,” Terra
said. She knew it was pointless to hide now. At least she could draw
out the watcher and identify him or her.

The figure did not move.

“I know you are hiding
there. Show yourself!”

Footsteps echoed on the metal
floor as the watcher stepped out of the shadows.