The Children of Eternity (21 page)

“I was afraid of that,” lamented Jonathon.

“I could attempt to activate the ring again,” said Zurel.

“How long could you keep it active?” asked Jonathon, glancing back at the rest of the crowd in the corridor.

“Not long,” Zurel replied, “perhaps twenty of your seconds, perhaps a bit more.”

“That’s not long enough to get all of these people out,” said Jonathon. “Couldn’t you stall for time, stretch it out a bit?”

“Not likely,” said Zurel. “The master expects us to conserve energy, and that means swift as possible transportation from one ring to another. I would be pushing it at twenty seconds.”

“What would happen if other people were in the midst of gating when the ring shut down?”

Zurel shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought that would be your area of expertise.”

Jonathon shook his head. “I’ve never tried it.”

Zurel paused to think. “You might get bounced back to your starting point. You might end up adrift in the ether. You might even be ripped apart. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be in transit when it happened. I’m not even sure that I could make it to the ring before the change of the guard. Even if I did, it would seem awfully suspicious that I needed to use the ring twice in one night.”

“Then that’s no good,” replied Jonathon.

Zurel seemed surprised. “Are you telling me that you embarked upon this mission without a clear escape plan?”

“I have an escape plan,” objected Jonathon. “I’m just not that confident that it will succeed.”

“Fortune favors the foolish,” said Christopher, stepping up to Jonathon. “Perhaps it favors the faithful as well.”

“If you are going to resort to some backup plan…now is the time to execute it,” noted Zurel.

“I suppose so,” said Jonathon, turning away.

“Wait a minute,” said Christopher, “maybe we’re going about this all wrong. We don’t need to escape the same way we got here. Our problem is this force field crystal, right?”

“Yeah, right,” confirmed Jonathon.

“But the crystal is heavily guarded,” objected Zurel.

“Yeah, but we could gate right up to it, couldn’t we?” asked Christopher. “We could blow it away before anyone realized that we were there.”

“I doubt that you could gate closer than a hundred feet from it,” said Zurel. “The nerloft that surrounds it would probably prevent you from getting any closer.”

“And none of us have ever been there,” said Jonathon. “Gating around in the close quarters of this building would require that we have at least have some knowledge of it, more than we've gained from just a rough floor plan.”

“But Zurel has that knowledge,” said Christopher.

“I do,” replied Zurel, “but I’m not human—I can’t gate.”

“But I could,” said Jonathon, turning to Zurel. “Look, I don’t have time to explain it all to you, but if you know it, focus your mind on it; then I can know it.”

Zurel looked at Jonathon. “Yes, it is all becoming clear to me now. Very well…I’m picturing it in my mind at this very moment.”

Jonathon took several steps toward Zurel and their eyes met. He focused on this peculiar being. What he saw this time was not some weak-willed creature whose mind could be bent to his whims. He saw an entity whose thoughts were as clear as a pool of deep, fresh water, a being full of dreams and aspirations. It hardly seemed like the mind of a demon.

Jonathon linked onto Zurel’s vision of the corridors above almost instantly. He saw the guard posts and the passageways, the cubicles and the side chambers, and he understood what needed to be done. The only problem with the plan was that it would alert the demons to their presence. Still, if they struck quickly and decisively enough, it should work.

“I figure it will take about twelve of us, thirteen counting Zurel,” said Jonathon looking about at the others. He then focused once more on Zurel, the only demon he had ever met that he could truly call his friend. “That is, if you wish to come on this mission.”

“I would insist on it,” replied Zurel. “I believe I could be of help to you.”

“It would almost certainly involve firing on your own kind,” cautioned Jonathon. “Do you think you could handle that?”

“Yes,” Zurel replied. There was not the slightest hesitation in his answer.

“OK,” said Jonathon. “In my mind’s eye, I see a small room that the demons don’t use much. It is fairly close to the field generator. We could gate in there and make for the generator. Still, we don’t know what the security looks like right around the generator itself. Zurel has never been there. The longer it takes, the more difficult this whole mission will become. If we don’t take it out in about five minutes, I don’t think we ever will.”

“In that case, we’d have to fight our way out,” deduced Christopher.

“That’s about right,” confirmed Jonathon.

By this time, Jerry and Lilly had joined the gathering at the junction of the corridors. They’d heard enough to catch the general game plan.

“I think I need to go with the group that takes out the field generator,” said Jerry.

“Right,” confirmed Jonathon. “Christopher and Lilly will stay here and hold this junction of the corridors.” Jonathon turned to Christopher. “I suspect that it won’t take too long before the demons get around to checking on their prisoners. When they do, you and the others will need to hold them right here. You can’t let them get into this corridor because then they’ll be able to split your forces.”

“I understand,” confirmed Christopher. “No retreat, no surrender.”

Then Jonathon turned to Lilly. “You’ll need to stay in contact with me. I’ll try to reach out to you. I’ll let you know if our mission has failed. In that case you’ll need to get these people on the move toward the only exit. Do you feel strong enough to bring up that barrier of yours, the one you created in the battle in the forest?”

“Yes,” said Lilly, “and I know how to get to that exit from here.”

“If we can’t take out that generator, we’ll retreat and take up a position behind you. Then we’ll cover you from the rear.”

Lilly nodded.

It took a few minutes to bring the rest of the group up to speed on what they were about to attempt. Many of the former prisoners volunteered to go along with Jonathon, Jerry, and Zurel. In the end, they selected the best qualified. Six of them were former Marines. Indeed, they had all fought in combat before, but not quite like this.

“In about fifteen minutes, my relief sentries will arrive,” noted Zurel. “We can delay no longer.”

Jonathon turned to Lilly and smiled. “You take care of yourself while I’m gone. I want to take you out surfing tomorrow.”

“I’d like that,” said Lilly.

“OK,” said Jonathon, taking a deep breath, “we’re on our way.”

The mists formed before Jonathon and his team and they stepped in. The others watched with trepidation as the last of them vanished into the mists. It would be a waiting game now, but not for too long. This fight would be determined one way or the other within the next five minutes.

J
ONATHON GATED INTO THE DARKNESS,
illuminated only by the glow of the glimmering stars of the portal through which he had just passed. Almost immediately the illumination increased. He looked behind him to see that Jerry had materialized some sort of glowing crystal in his hand to light the way. He continued forward to the wall eight feet in front of him. Within 10 or 12 seconds, the entire group was within this otherwise empty 18-by-18 foot room. Jonathon identified a heavy metal door behind him. “So far so good.”

“The corridor beyond this room is not frequently traveled,” noted Zurel. “I will go first.”

Zurel moved to the door and drew his demonic sword. The rest of the team powered up their weapons. Zurel swung the door open to behold nothing except a dimly lit empty corridor that led to a T-shaped junction about 30 feet down. The light in the corridor beyond was far brighter.

“We will need to proceed to the right,” said Zurel. “If we are fortunate, the corridor will be clear.”

Zurel led the way into a wide corridor. The others followed two at a time behind him. The last two soldiers to reach the junction covered their advance, their weapons trained on the corridor behind them.

“We will need to proceed up to that junction,” said Zurel. “Then we bear to the left, then immediately to the right. There we will most assuredly encounter resistance. There is a checkpoint there. It will be helpful if we do not have to fire our weapons before then. If we do…we lose the element of surprise.”

They cautiously advanced to the first turn. Zurel, Jonathon, and Jerry had already made the turn when they heard a high-pitched scream followed by two loud particle beam blasts. The advantage of surprise had evaporated like an ice cube in a blast furnace.

“Forward!” hollered Zurel. He turned the next corner to see three confused demon sentries at the end of the corridor. “Come this way, quickly!” he yelled, in the common language of demons.

The demons acted impulsively, running toward Zurel. Within five seconds they had been engulfed by a fireball from Zurel’s sword and then blasted apart by particle beam blasts from Jonathon’s and Jerry’s rifles.

At the rear of the column another firefight had arisen. A large group of demons had been surprised by the human invaders. The first two had been blasted into a scattered mass of bubbling blood, bone, and tissue. The rest had taken shelter beyond a turn in the corridor 40 feet back.

The last two human soldiers in the column took up positions at the turn in the corridor in an attempt to pin down the demons at the far end of the passageway, while the others proceeded with caution toward the field generator.

“The generator is not far,” said Zurel to Jonathon. “It lies beyond the four-way junction straight ahead. It is perhaps fifty feet straight ahead and to the right…” He hesitated. “I think.”

“You think?” asked Jonathon. “I sure wish you’d been there before.”

“However, that is not the case,” said Zurel. “I am relatively confident about the information I gave you.”

Jonathon and the strike team arrived at the four-way junction only to discover a demon army converging on them from both the left and right passageways, weapons drawn.

“Oh crap!” Jonathon exclaimed, swinging to his left and opening fire at the demons scarcely 20 feet away. His first several shots were fired straight down the corridor. The corridor turned red with vaporized blood. Jerry swung around to the right and opened up on the demons coming in from that side. The eight comrades behind them joined in the firefight.

“The target is straight ahead?” asked one of the soldiers who now stood in the middle of the junction.

“Yes,” confirmed Zurel.

The soldier directed his fire into the ceiling about 30 feet down the corridor to the left. The five shots were well placed, bringing a sizable portion of the ceiling crashing down into the corridor, partially blocking it. Unfortunately it also had the effect of blowing a hole in the floor of the level directly above them, offering another point of entry for the demon defenders. This mission was falling apart fast.

Everyone was looking to Jonathon for guidance. He quickly assembled one last-ditch plan. He turned to his soldiers. “The six of you will need to hold this junction,” he said to one group, then turned to the others. “Zurel, Jerry, and you two follow me. We’re going for the field generator.”

They covered the remaining 30 feet to the split in the passageway only to find themselves facing a column of demons closing in from both sides. They were surrounded.

“Hold this junction,” said Jonathon to the former captives by his side. He, Zurel, and Jerry rushed at the demon force approaching them from the right passageway, particle rifles blazing. The weapons cut the demons down like wheat before the scythe. Within seconds they were wading through a stream of boiling blood, engulfed within a fog of the same.

They turned a corner to see a kaleidoscopic range of color emanating from a corridor to their left. It was the field generator—it had to be. But between here and there was a span of some 40 feet, and it was rapidly filling with armed and angry demons.

The three opened fire, shooting into the growing mob. The flashes of high energy particles and plasma meeting normal matter lit up the corridor with a brilliance that was well beyond that of normal daylight. Yet this time the fire was coming in both directions. Their beam blasts were returned in the form of super hot fireballs emitted by a dozen demon swords. The three attackers were forced to take cover. Even at that, they were all severely burned by the heat.

Still, despite the pain and shock, they didn’t withdraw. They opened fire again in an attempt to clear the wide corridor of the enemy. But it was no good; there were just too many of them and their numbers were growing by the second. They had lost. Jonathon fired several shots into the ceiling 30 feet in front of him. Jerry followed with shots of his own, bringing a large portion of the ceiling down between them and the demons. It gave them the time they needed to withdraw.

They pulled back to the junction where their two fellows had resorted to a similar strategy of bringing down the ceiling in an attempt to delay a vast number of attackers. The whole group withdrew to the next junction. Here they encountered relative calm, for the demons had temporarily withdrawn—no doubt to regroup for a new assault.