Spires of Infinity (46 page)

“Doing my job, which is more than I can say for you. And who the hell are you?

I never received word I’d be getting another man. Let’s see your orders.”

With a questioning look, Gabriel pointed to himself. “Oh, you’re talking to me?

I’m not under your command. I need to get into the containment area and there’s a pitched battle going on right on top of the access hatch.”

“Well damn, is that all you need? You couldn’t do that yourself? The Emperor’s standards must be falling if someone like you made it in. Well, come on then, pussy.

Let’s get to it.”

Gabriel turned to Henry. “You should evacuate. Get everyone as far away as

possible.”

Without even bothering to duck, Dorlan strode out of the room, his duster coat flaring behind him. Walking upright to the barricade, he examined the enemy

fortifications on the other side of no man’s land. He didn’t even flinch when a bullet struck his hat, sending it flying backward.

The nearest emergency lights seemed to have been shot out in the firefight, but the hallway was lit by gunfire. Bright flashes flickered with every weapon’s discharge on both sides, and fire blazed from the barrels of rifles. Things seemed to move almost in slow motion in the flickering light. It was hard for Gabriel’s eyes to adjust to the rapid and extreme changes in lighting.

“Grenades,” Dorlan shouted.

Each of the four Lawmen pulled out several grenades and began pulling the pins, lobbing them toward the enemy barricade.

“Fire in the hole,” Dorlan said. Without shouting, his normal grating voice was loud enough to be heard over the gunfire.

A split second before the first grenade went off, Dorlan dropped for cover.

Gabriel was wondering if he would, or if he would remain on his feet and expect the explosions not to mess with him. Drawing twin pistols identical to Gabriel’s as he dropped, he nodded to his men.

Gabriel had to wonder why Aaron had called his weapons archaic if the Lawmen

of this time carried pistols like his. Looking to the fully automatic rifles that that soldiers were using, he supposed that they were. Perhaps they were ceremonial?

“Secure the hatch,” Dorlan ordered, leaping over the barricade with pistols

blazing in the flickering semi-darkness. The other three provided covering fire as he dove to the ground, rolling to his knees by the hatch leading down to the coolant duct.

Throwing the hatch open, Dorlan used it for cover as he began firing toward the enemy barricade again with one pistol while reloading the other one-handed. Waving the others over with hand signals that looked suspiciously like baseball signs, he cursed loudly as one Lawman went down in a spray of blood. Another was clipped in the forehead and toppled into the hatch. The last man made it to cover and began firing toward the enemy lines.

Gesturing to Gabriel, Dorlan shouted. “What are you waiting for, pussy? Move your worthless guts!”

Eyeing the barricade apprehensively, Gabriel yanked his pistols from their

holsters and drew himself up.

Taking a running start, he leapt over the barricade and found himself grinning like an idiot. It was like jumping into the most awesome action movie ever made.

“Good luck, Gabriel,” Allie said in his ear. “I wish I could be more help.”

“Not your fault,” Gabriel said as he flew through the air, landing fifteen feet from the hatch.

“Wingless,” he cried, feeling the now familiar rush of fighting skills entering his mind. He automatically adjusted his aiming and began pulling the triggers of his pistols.

Two men dropped under his barrage and the rest ducked below their barricade.

Diving for cover behind the raised hatch, Gabriel noticed Dorlan appraising him and wished he could take credit for the Sa’Dhi’s skills. “Well, at least you can aim.

Marius, get that slab of meat’s ammo.”

Nodding, Marius looked back toward their fallen comrade. As he turned, his hat was taken off by a near miss. He barely appeared to notice as Dorlan began firing with both pistols to cover him.

“Don’t sit there like a frightened puppy,” Dorlan growled. “Cover him!”

Jamming an emptied pistol back into its holster, Gabriel reached for his shotgun, forcing his arm to remain straight against its hard recoil as he fired it. He cocked it John Wayne style and fired again.

Marius rolled into Gabriel’s back holding a box of shells in one hand and the dead man’s gunbelts in the other.

“Now get in that hole,” Dorlan ordered.

“That’s what she said,” Marius said with a stony grin.

He dropped into the hatch first. As Dorlan prepared to jump, a bullet struck him in the knee, throwing him off balance. He fell into the hatch spewing a long string of particularly foul curses the whole way down. After a brief pause, he resumed cursing at the bottom.

Firing the shotgun once more, Gabriel shoved it into its holster before dropping into the darkness below. He was unable to see the bottom, so he didn’t know when to brace himself. That made for a very painful and abrupt landing as the ground rushed out of the murk. Foul smelling water splashed up into the air and soaked through Gabriel’s coat and pants.

“Oh, nice,” Dorlan took a moment from his cursing to shoot a glare at Gabriel.

“You left the hatch open? Good job, pussy. Now one of us has to stay behind and cover your ass.”

“You’re staying Dorlan,” Marius said in an equally gravely voice as he tightened a tourniquet around Dorlan’s lower thigh. “You’re not going anywhere on this leg.”

“Fine,” Dorlan growled. “Take my last two grenades. You might need them.”

“Bad idea,” Allie said. “Any explosion near one of the support struts holding up the central spire could bring it crashing down into the containment area. They support an unbelievable amount of weight, and even the slightest crack could cause one to shatter under it. I am relatively certain that the paradox will be balanced if the containment field goes down in ways other than the one I am planning, however, we will be left without a way home if I am not allowed to follow our plans exactly. And it is logical to assume that the Apostle has a way of creating an unbalanced paradox else she would not have bothered to come back in time at all. We must arrive before her. We do not have time to take a wounded man with us or stand here chatting for long.”

Gabriel relayed the information to the others.

“You’re just full of good news ain’t ya,” Dorlan muttered as he stuffed the

grenades back into his coat. “Stop fussing over me like a mother hen and get going.

Move it, maggots!”

“Follow me,” Allie said as Marius pulled a flashlight from inside his coat and tossed it to Gabriel.

Switching on the light Gabriel followed after Allie, reloading first one pistol then the other as he ran. He hoped landing in the water hadn’t ruined the shells on his belts, or he was in trouble. Splashing through ankle deep water, Marius followed.

A strong concussion knocked Gabriel from his feet as Dorlan’s two grenades

exploded, causing the tunnel to collapse, blocking it off behind them. Gaping, Gabriel pulled himself to his feet.

“He blew himself up!”

“Keep moving, maggot,” Marius growled like a bear.

“But he just blew himself up!”

“
Get moving
! There’s a job to be done. Complain about it when you’re finished, or dead!”

Chapter 40: The Containment Area

After running through the foul smelling water for about five hundred yards,

Gabriel stepped onto a poorly secured metal grate with the water flowing along beneath.

Shortly after that, the duct slanted steeply downward.

Followed by Marius and running faster than was strictly safe, Gabriel dashed after Allie’s small form. If the Apostle were near, she’d certainly hear the racket that their feet made on the grating. Though it was only in his head, Allie’s feet also made quite a bit of noise, and her skirt flared out behind her. He wondered why she bothered making herself appear so realistic to him. She even cast a shadow in the light of his borrowed flashlight.

After a short time of darkness there was light ahead. When it got bright enough to see by, Gabriel tossed the flashlight back to Marius.

When the tunnel came to an end, Allie kept running. Turning back with a swish of her skirt, she smiled at Gabriel and winked, hovering in midair.

Approaching the drop, Gabriel looked down into a huge underground cavern.

Water poured from the duct in a long, discolored stream into a standing pool far below.

Around the edge of the circular chamber were seven other shafts pouring water into the pool from the seven other towers. It smelled like a rotting bog.

Beside each duct was a steel ladder leading down to a catwalk that was held

above the pooled water by support cables from the ceiling, as well as pilings disappearing into the depths below. Large doors that were level with the catwalks were spaced evenly around the chamber, presumably the main accessways back to the towers. Each of the catwalks ran inward where they met a wide ring that circled the center. A single catwalk branched into the middle of the ring at an odd angle with a computer console at the end.

Just beyond the short, oddly angled catwalk was a large reflective sphere. Gabriel couldn’t say what it was, exactly. Eight cones like gigantic electrodes jutted from floor and ceiling toward the reflective sphere, four above, and four below. The points came together, almost touching, and electricity frequently arced between them with loud cracks.

Space around the sphere seemed to distort almost like the lensing effect of

looking through the bottom of a glass bottle. Everything that was seen through the distortion was bent, seeming to stretch into the silvery sphere. It appeared almost as though the sphere had placed a dent in reality itself.

“What the hell is that thing,” Marius asked.

Gabriel’s hair and coat seemed blown toward the sphere as if by wind, but there wasn’t even a breeze. Snatching a shell from his belt, he dropped it. As it fell it arched more and more toward the sphere.

Gabriel and Marius shared a look.

“Craziest damn thing I ever saw,” Marius grated.

“What is that,” Gabriel asked Allie, who was still standing in midair.

“What you are looking at is the event horizon of a black hole,” Allie explained.

“That reflective silvery sheen is the point at which nothing can escape, not even light or time. Anything that goes beyond never returns.”

“Why does it reflect?”

“It does not actually reflect. Your mind is trying to comprehend something that is completely incomprehensible to it, and reflection is the closest thing it can equate what it is perceiving to.”

“What do you see when you look at it,” Gabriel asked in curiosity.

“I am looking using your eyes. I see the same thing that you do.”

In movies black holes were always dark pits ringed with fiery clouds and flashes of lightning. The silvery surface of the sphere was a stark contrast to those fictional visions. It looked almost like living liquid or flowing mercury. Able to feel something
wrong
about it, Gabriel could hear a deep, primal part of himself screaming for him to run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.

“The black hole,” Gabriel said for Marius’ benefit. “It’s the core of the Gate Jump System, able to tear a hole in reality, making travel to other worlds and times possible.”

“You mean like outer space,” Marius asked. “Collapsed stars that suck up

everything in their paths? What the hell is something like that doing here!”

“No time to explain. There’s a terrorist bent on destroying this place. If she does, the black hole will devour this entire star system for breakfast.”

“Excellent. Any more good news?”

Scanning the cavern, Gabriel found several huge struts supporting the ceiling, one midway between each catwalk. He did not see the Apostle anywhere, but he supposed her best bet would be to destroy one of those, and drop the Central Spire into the black hole. If it didn’t break through the containment field, the lack of power drawn from the sun would.

“All right,” Gabriel nodded to Marius. “When we get down to that ring, I’ll go to the right, you go to the left, we’ll meet up at that catwalk that goes into the middle there.

Look at the supports in particular but don’t ignore everything else. She’s tall for a girl, wearing a big black cloak, and may not be alone.”

Marius nodded.

Gabriel had given him the longer path on purpose. Hopefully he could get to the console and set things up for his own plan before the man made his rounds and joined him.

“Be careful, this chick is one nasty mofo. She moves so fast that your eyes can’t follow her. I think she’s only armed with a sword, but she can cut bullets out of the air with it. Always shoot twice, she has trouble blocking two at once.”

“Are you going to keep bitching all day or can we get to work already?”

Shrugging, Gabriel slid down the ladder like he’d seen done in movies. He’d

always wanted to do that. Following suit Marius dropped down behind him, drawing both of his pistols.

“You need some of this box of shells,” he asked.

“I’m good,” Gabriel nodded. “Shout out if you see her.”

“Will do,” Marius nodded as he pushed past Gabriel and dodged toward the

central ring, looking much like a wildcat on the prowl. He made absolutely no sound as he moved.

“Can you link up with the computer in here,” Gabriel asked. “You said it was a separate system, right?”

“I already have,” Allie replied.

“Is the Apostle here?”

Floating down to sit on the railing beside him, Allie crossed her legs in the

feminine fashion and arranged her skirt.

“I am still unable to locate her,” she sighed, glancing to the black hole. “I am trying my best, but that thing plays havoc with sensors and cameras. Some of the radiation and spatial distortion leaks through containment field.”

“Keep an eye out. We need to get to that console before she does anything