Like his men, Jon gaped at the sight, paralyzed by the size, complexity, and energy of the place.
“It’s like…like we’re fleas in a giant Swiss Clock.”
Reverend Johnny replied, “The Lord has made everything for his own ends, even the wicked for the evil day.”
A twisting, swooping tunnel encased in some sort of grayish metal or rock worked its way above, through, and around the madness. Jon spied several openings that might be entrances of some type; perhaps this was a thing meant for transportation. A conveyor belt of sorts moved through that tunnel in a stop, start, stop, start again fashion.
That tunnel rose and turned then descended then turned again like an insane version of the monorail at Disney World. Jon could not see if it traveled all the way to the bottom but it made no difference because the nearest entry port was a distance away.
From far down beyond the descending platforms came a light seemingly a mile away, its shine somehow seeping through the pandemonium to reach Jon’s eyes.
The runes.
“General, do you think we should-” a hailstorm of rail gun rounds cut off Reverend Johnny’s question as the shots ricocheted around the entry team.
A group of Vikings stood on a jetty higher than Jon’s group and a hundred yards away to their right. Their camouflage ponchos struggled to find the right pattern. Some turned cream like the floor of the rings, others splashed blue resembling the arcs of electricity shooting across parts of the machine, others shaded black, gray, silver, and red in reaction to the various colors found in the chaos.
“Take cover!” Jon yelled but that cover presented as much danger as bullets.
“Dear God, we are not alone,” but Johnny did not mean the Vikings. He directed Brewer’s attention in the opposite direction where, in the shadow of a pyramid-shaped metallic structure spitting sparks, gathered a cadre of Wraiths.
The alien races appeared as confused and intimidated by the gigantic apparatus as the humans. However, the commanders of each of the three groups managed to focus their charges on the mission.
The Wraiths split into groups. Three hurried toward the transport tunnel, aiming for one of the entry slots. Others descended the rings level by level.
The Vikings moved carefully, clearing every corner like a SWAT team sweeping a building.
Jon spread out his force in a picket line and hurried to the next ring. His right flank made contact with the Vikings. One human soldier absorbed a series of rounds in the chest and fell. Another tossed a grenade at the enemy. Its detonation caused a nearby glowing red ball of crystal to explode. The resulting shock wave smashed more machine parts and crippled two Vikings.
Jon’s left flank engaged several Wraiths. Their screams shattered tubes and chipped pulsating rocks and also killed a soldier.
Reverend Johnny responded by climbing on top a large glowing block. He fired from his elevated position at the Wraiths, evaporating one and forcing the others to retreat.
Through it all, the invaders on each side dodged moving walls, swinging hooks, and bursts of energy between power couplings.
Unit cohesion evaporated, for all the combatants. The chaos of the great machine conspired to eradicate any order as did the constant sniping between enemies. Each of the invading forces deteriorated into smaller groups.
No one-alien or human- noticed the covers on three compartments near the ceiling slide open.
Jon, with a trio of soldiers in tow, came to the edge of the ring. The next level sat some six feet below but as he stood at the lip and prepared to leap, he noticed groves that resembled “Look out!” A soldier cried as a massive gear came whirling along the edge like a mammoth wheel.
Jon and his three comrades jumped for the next level, one did not move fast enough. The groves of the gear caught him, crushed him beneath, and split his body in two, half of which stuck to the metallic surface as it rolled away.
The chaos of the machine afforded no time to mourn, no moment for reflection. The instant Jon Brewer hit the floor on the next level he had to avoid an extending pole charged with electricity jabbing out from an opening in the terrace wall. Crackling energy singed the top of his crew cut.
Brewer spoke to the two men on his flanks, “Watkins, Cooper, stick close to me.”
Watkins-a short fellow with a beard who had been nicknamed ‘the Dwarf’ by some of the men-offered, “There are more of my squad in the area, Sir. I can round them up if you like.”
“No time, we have to move fast. Just stay on my six.”
Jon knew he could not waste the time to coordinate the entire team; every second that ticked by meant a Wraith or a Viking could find and imprint the runes first. He suppressed his instinct for military order and gave in to the chaos; the battle for the runes had become one last headlong sprint through this maze of machine with armies dwindling to individuals.
His adrenaline, his focus, and his fear of failure compelled him forward like a junkie in desperate search of a fix and for Jon Brewer, that fix was the need to prove his courage and worth. Not to Trevor, not to Lori, not to his daughter, but to the ghosts of the men he once abandoned on a battlefield the day Armageddon struck.
That focus kept him from seeing those three compartments high on the wall in the shadow of the ceiling. From those compartments came yet more madness in the form of three guardians, one flying out in search of targets, the other two walking down the wall on spindly legs, hidden from view by the pieces of the machine they protected.
Below, a Viking hustled around a mass of wires and rock and came face-to-face with a human soldier who fired and missed, the Viking answered with better accuracy.
Three Wraiths boarded the conveyor-belt in the transport tube. That belt moved them forward quickly until it stopped at another opening in the tunnel for a short pause not unlike a city bus halting to pick up passengers.
A human soldier tossed a grenade at their feet. The demons reached for it, but the conveyor belt moved them forward again into the confines of the tunnel where the grenade exploded with a muffled boom.
Meanwhile, Reverend Johnny ran and jumped across the top of machine parts with his big gun sweeping for targets. He watched humans and Wraiths and Vikings worm through the maze of machinations.
He saw a Wraith impaled by a spear-like device. He saw a Viking fall into an open hole followed immediately by a large rock with pulsating veins dropped into that same hole where it certainly crushed the alien.
Reverend Johnny glanced down and locked his eyes on the black sockets of a Wraith staring up at him. The vile fiend opened its long mouth and began its deadly scream.
“Shut up!” Johnny’s shout lacked his usual elegance but his machine gun provided its usual lethality.
Further away in the space between two house-sized bricks, a Viking soldier found his path suddenly blocked by some mechanical monstrosity walking on three legs supporting a round center piece. On that centerpiece, a track holding a long blade that spun around the body of the thing like a helicopter rotor.
Before the alien realized exactly what he faced, the guardian wobbled forward and cut him into smaller parts. As those parts fell to the floor, the poncho finally settled on a color: red.
Beneath a canopy of meshed wires, a Wraith screamed at a human soldier, exploding his head. But as the body fell, a new threat flew through the air directly at the demonic creature. The confused Wraith saw a sphere slightly larger than a beach ball with a ring of jagged blades around its center and the upper half covered by a large eye that appeared more biological than mechanical. The bottom half spun fast as if providing the propulsion needed for flight.
A moment later, a powder-filled cloak fluttered to the ground with a round hole in its chest.
Jon emerged from the forest of energy towers with Watkins and Cooper to either side. They came to the end of yet another of the terraced rings. Below them waited the next level, the next step closer to the runes.