The Geoca-angel reached out and swung a mighty arm along the length of the ground that separated the two armies. A stream of fire flowed from its fingers, creating an impassable lake of molten rock.
The soldiers on both sides drew back and then turned and scattered, the Nefilim disappearing into the jungle, and the humans either bolting into the tunnels that led back into the depths of the mountain, or fleeing to either side of their positions around the base of the mountain. A few stood frozen where they were, unable to move.
Geoca grew six more pairs of arms. Each of them threw shining spheres down onto the ground that shattered when they hit, sending showers of sparks and smoke into the air. He moved on around the mountain, his eight pairs of arms weaving like snakes, as if he was a religious idol that had come to life.
Sahrin, watching through the monitors, was impressed. It was a spectacular sight. Geoca’s sense of scale and theater was superb. But she had her own work to attend to. She flowed into the hardware of the laser she had chosen and told the gun’s computer that it was about to explode. When the computer relayed the news to the operator, he scrambled down the ladder to the access way as quickly as he could, swearing all the way.
Excellent.
She swiveled the gun around and looked through the sights. Not yet having had the benefit of a visitation by a vengeful deity, the opposing lines of soldiers here were still intact, and still going about their bloody business.
A couple of tanks went rumbling through the human ranks, on their way towards the Nefilim positions. Arrows bounced harmlessly off their iron flanks. A fireball was thrown towards one of them, and was extinguished instantly by a jet of foam.
An unfair fight,
she thought. There had been a time in the recent past when Sahrin would have had no hesitation at all in destroying the lot of them outright. But that felt like the old Sahrin, the one who hadn’t experienced the Stream. Now, she felt pity for the soldiers from both sides below. They were nothing more than pawns. She didn’t want to kill or hurt anyone.
Aiming carefully, she fired a long laser burst into the ground in front of the tanks. They stopped instantly, their drivers wondering who on their own side would be firing on them. She traced a ring of fire around the tanks, surrounding them with a trench of fire. The soldiers on the ground looked on in confusion as she neatly sliced the barrels off both tanks. Then she did as she had seen Geoca do, and separated the armies with a reminder that they should not try to cross the land that separated them.
It was time to move on to the next laser bunker and see what could be done there. As she was about to leave, Sahrin’s attention was caught by something in the distance.
A small silver streak was approaching, moving quickly and low, skimming above the treetops. It was a ship.
* * *
AS THEY APPROACHED the mountain, Bark had been feeling even more strongly attracted to the place. It seemed almost to have acquired a voice, heard in brief snatches in the way that a conversation in another room might be heard.
Mount Weather rose out of the jungle before them.
“What’s that?” There were flashes of red light on the face of the mountain.
Nibat made an adjustment to his monitors.
‘Lasers, the locals call them. A basic but effective form of energy beam. We will need to be careful.’
As they drew closer, a larger light the same color as the lasers came into view from the far side of the mountain. Without being asked to, the ship focused in on the object until it filled one of the screens.
“Geoca!” they all said simultaneously.
“He’s not exactly doing things by halves.” Reina was impressed. Geoca had formed clouds around himself, and heavy rain was falling on the soldiers below. They wallowed in mud, trying to get away. The two smaller Geoca angels swooped at them like burning harpies, adding to the chaos and confusion.
‘Whether he means to or not, he’s providing us with a most welcome distraction,’
thought Anak.
“For what, though?” Now that they were here, Reina made the same realization that Sahrin had. They had no plan.
“I want to get in there,” said Bark. The closer they got, the clearer the voice in his head was becoming.
“Whatever it takes. I’m with you. This place has got to go,” said Pig. “We’ve been living underground long enough.”
‘
We’ll find a place to land,’
thought Nibat.
They flew in close to the surface of the mountain. Near the summit they found a plateau big enough hold the ship. It was high above the fighting, and close to something that looked as though it might be an entrance to the mountain’s interior.
“That was easy,” said Bark, and went to get the guns.
* * *
The Secretary-General watched on one of the few working monitors as the ship landed. He touched a key on the desk in front of him.
“Security. Some unwelcome guests have just arrived near Exit 23. See to them. I’m not interested in anything that they might have to say. Just dispose of them.”
His brow creased by ever-deepening furrows, the Secretary-General went back to watching the battle, such as it was, that was going on outside.
* * *
Nibat wasn’t happy about staying on the ship, but he was the pilot, and he had no choice. Bark, Reina and Pig stood at the edge of the plateau and looked at the chaos unfolding far below them. If they were going to find a way in, it would have be up here somewhere.
“Let’s have a look.” Bark led them away from the ship, along a track that had been cut, a long time ago by the look of it, into the side of the mountain.
‘
You must destroy this place. I’ll show you how.’
Bark started as the words appeared suddenly and clearly in his mind. He spun around, expecting to find that Nibat had followed them.
Reina and Pig looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
The path wound across the face of a steep cliff and then up towards an escarpment. They were climbing through a maze of boulders and old lava flows when there was movement ahead of them, near the crest of the incline.
“What’s that?” whispered Pig.
“A missile bay? A door?” said Reina.
“Let’s look,” Bark said, and they started climbing towards it. It was slow progress. There were boulders in their way, and everything was wet with condensation, so that they found it difficult to get a good footing. Pig did better than the others, and was soon ahead of them. He paused, his ears pricked up, then turned and hurried back.
“Voices, up there,” he whispered, pointing with his snout.
They listened, tightening their grips on their guns. There was movement; a few fleeting glimpses of uniforms between the rocks.
“Down!” Even as Bark said it, a ray flared against a rock near him. They had been seen.
“Bark!” a voice called. “Give yourselves up!”
Bark recognized the voice. “Thead! We thought you were…”
“Dead? Ha! Fuck! Yes, I’m sure you did. But I’m far from dead, I assure you. A little sore, for which I owe Sahrin, but apart from that, I’m quite happy in my new position. You see, Bark, people here appreciate my talents.”
Reina snorted. “We appreciate that you’re a prize asshole,” she called out.
There was a pause before Thead answered. “Shut up, bitch! Now, if you’ll all just drop your weapons…”
“And if we don’t?” said Bark, buying time, trying to work out where Thead was.
“No matter, really. I’m just in rather a hurry, that’s all. We’ve got a lot on at the moment, you see, and the truth is that you’re something of a nuisance.”
A rock tumbled somewhere behind them. Bark knew instantly what had happened. While they had been distracted by Thead, his men had been working their way around them. They were surrounded.
Reina moved closer to him. “Sounds like…”
“I know, I know.”
A beam flashed among the rocks again. A grenade arced over and flared a short distance away.
“Shit, Bark,” said Reina, keeping her head down. “We’re not even in there yet, and they’re onto us! And where’s Pig?”
Pig was gone.
* * *
Sahrin had noticed what was happening. She rushed to Geoca.
‘They’re here! But they’re in trouble!’
‘Then let’s see what we can do.’
Geoca finished his display by turning into a giant cobra that reared up, spreading its hood and spitting fire. The apparition moved quickly, slithering through the air above the battlefields. It traveled around and up the mountain, followed by two fiery dragons, each twice the size of a man.
Sahrin found a laser near the mountain’s peak. It gave her a good view of the surrounding countryside, but more importantly, she could see her companions, edging their way through the maze of rocks that surrounded them. She could also see Thead and his soldiers.
Thead!
The cobra appeared above them, twisting like a Catherine wheel. Thead’s soldiers began panicking, shooting into the sky at it. Some of them turned and ran.
“You idiots!” yelled Thead. “It’s nothing! It’s just trickery! It can’t hurt you!” A few of them stopped, uncertain. The rest kept going. “I want those mutants dead! Now!”
Sahrin could see Reina and Bark. They were surrounded. She started firing the laser, melting the rock near Thead’s men.
‘I’m not going to kill any one,’
she thought.
‘I know. But do your best to scare them off,’
replied Geoca.
The laser fire revived their fear of Geoca’s cobra spectacle. To Thead’s men, it was all part of the same package. They turned and ran. Sahrin kept firing, herding them like sheep. But she couldn’t see Thead. And now she couldn’t see Bark or Reina either.
* * *
Bark and Thead had almost collided, coming around the same corner from opposite directions. Thead had the advantage; Bark had been balancing himself near the edge of the ravine that the narrow path skirted. He had just enough time to say “Thead!” loud enough for Reina, a few feet behind him, to hear. She stopped, staying out of sight. Thead leveled his gun at Bark’s chest.
“You’ve turned into a nasty piece of work, Thead…”
Thead’s expression didn’t change. “There’s no time to waste on talk, Bark. Time to die.”
As he pulled the trigger, there was a clatter of falling rubble beside him. Something charged out and hit him, throwing him off balance. The gun fired harmlessly into the air.
Pig collected Thead in the thigh with a single thrust of his tusks. Thead staggered, waving his arms and hovering on the edge of the cliff like a tightrope walker in trouble. His good leg buckled under him as Bark swung out with his foot, and he fell headfirst into the ravine, screaming as he went.
Bark went to the edge and looked down at the trail of bloodied rocks that descended into the shadows. He felt no pity at all for Thead.
“Thanks, Pig. We’re better off without that one around.”
Pig shook blood off his tusks. “That’s OK.”
“You know, I used to like Thead. He was only a boy when I took him onto the ship.”
“Well, I didn’t know him long enough to ever like him. He was a prick.” Reina picked up Thead’s gun. “And it’s too late now. Let’s go.”
They waved to the Geoca-cobra, and watched as it slid off down the mountain. They climbed up to the door that Thead had emerged from. As soon as they entered, it hissed shut.
A speaker near the door crackled.
‘
Don’t worry. It’s me, Sahrin. I’m in their system. We both are.’
“Can you control all the doors?”
‘Some. Most, I think. It’s just a matter of finding them. I’ll call Geoca. He can help. The boss man, the Secretary-General, he knows that you’re here. I’ve been keeping an eye on him. He’s not happy.’
“That’s understandable. Hopefully he’s going to be even less happy.”
‘Come to the holding cells.’
It was the voice. Bark was hearing things again.
‘Near the landing bays.’
“Sahrin, where are the cells? I mean the prison, I suppose.” Bark figured that he’d better do as he was told.
There was silence for several seconds. They started to wonder whether something had happened, then Sahrin came back.
‘I’ll show you. I’ll make the lights flicker. Just follow it. I’ll use the doors as much as I can to keep the guards away from you.’
* * *
The Secretary-General was watching over the shoulder of one of the computer operators. She had been searching for whatever it was that had been disrupting the system, and she had finally found it.
“What are they?”
The operator did that thing where you suck air in over your teeth, and shook her head.
“I see. Well, either destroy them, or kick them out of the system. I don’t care which one. Just stop them from interfering. We’re fighting a war here.”
“Enclosing them is the only option, Secretary-General. Ordinarily, we might be able to find a way to eliminate them or expel them from the system, but we have neither the time nor the resources,” she replied, nodding sideways towards the empty seats in front of the other terminals.
She began setting up internal firewalls around Geoca and Sahrin.
“There they are.” The lines of code and icons that scrolled down the screen meant nothing to the Secretary-General.
“That’s lovely. Just make it quick.”
* * *
The doors to the cells stretched along a corridor, one side of which was taken up by large windows that looked out into the mountain’s volcanic shaft. The inside of the volcano was covered with lights, windows, walls and reinforcing. Floodlights pointed downwards, dispersing the darkness for a few hundred feet.
“You could fall a long way down there.” Reina leaned against the glass, looking as far down into the gloom as she could.
“Some have,” said Pig. “It’s one of their favorite methods of getting rid of problems. There are a lot of bones down there.”
Bark was looking through the peepholes in the cell doors. The rooms were packed with mutants, Nefilim and humans, all segregated. There were twenty or so cells, with no room to spare in any of them.