"Life signs all right…Dragon all right. Valkyrie tenners. Scrapper is all right! I'm doing mags!" They were stirring, struggling to get off the floor. Thank the dead! The armor had saved them—the star had exploded outside the room, otherwise we'd all have fried.
"Outer door sealed!" It slid shut noisily as xmax popped outside. Merlin wrecked the controls with his laser.
"All right, in we go," Snow Leopard said quietly. "We've got to secure that ship before anyone else gets to it." I had been trying to avoid looking at the inner door. It was open now, and it was glowing. It was bright in there—brilliant.
"Psycho, we've got to leave you here. I'm sorry, but we'll need the Manlink. Dragon, give him your E. Thinker, give him that SG."
Psycho pulled himself up to a sitting position, leaning against one of those massive metal tables, facing the outer door, his bloody stump plastered with gel and sealant. He was flying on mags and I knew he didn't feel a thing. "You go right ahead, guys," he said, "and don't you worry about your rear. Nobody's getting past me. You can bet your lives on that!"
"You got plenty of psybloc grenades?"
"I'm all set. Get out of here."
Valkyrie and Scrapper and Dragon were on their feet, weaving. "Deadman," Dragon said. "I'm still seeing double."
"Let's go, Beta," Snow Leopard said. "On me. Psycho, we'll be back for you." And he stepped into the inner doorway. We followed. I paused, for a last look at Psycho. I was going to miss the little creep.
"I expect to collect that hundred credits, Psycho," I reminded him.
"Either way I win," he replied. "Now get outta my sight."
###
We found ourselves in a brightly-lit corridor of mirrored, translucent glassy walls, frosted with ice, a road of glass under a high, shiny ceiling twice the height of a human. It led straight ahead. I could see movement behind the walls—it looked like water rushing over the glass. I swung the butt of my E at the wall and it bounced off. The air was freezing and frost was forming on my faceplate.
"Maintain attack interval!" We rushed forward blindly. Many Uldo civilians had trod this glassy road, I knew—those destined for EXPORT.
"I don't like this!" Our psybloc units were still flashing—we were now, truly, in the Land of the O's, and we could expect our hosts to appear at any moment.
"One, this may lead to the ship," Valkyrie said, "but the O's have to know we're here!"
"I know that, Eleven," Snow Leopard said. "Squad halt. Look alert! This is far enough. Dragon, the Manlink. Blow a hole in the wall—this side." I skidded to a halt and raised my E. I made sure it was on canister x.
"How you doing, Twister?" I asked.
"Is it too late to ask for sick leave?"
"Just stay alert. Pop a mag."
"I've been chewing them like candy!"
A tremendous bang, the air swirling, a hurricane of mirrored shards. Dragon had blown a hole in the corridor wall.
"Black Jade, Blue Gold!" The transmission came through on Legion combat freqs, cutting right through the deceptors. "We've secured the ground floor! Systies are one level up! Repeat, we've secured…" A splattering roar overcame the transmission. Blue Gold! Those were the Legion troopers who had been tracking us. Their aircar had been destroyed, and we had walked away from their nova. A chill ran over my skin.
"Nobody answers them!" Snow Leopard snapped. "Under no circumstances will anybody in this squad communicate with Blue Gold! Beta, on me!" He stepped out of the smoking hole in the wall. We followed.
And I held my breath when I saw where we were. Pale green light softly illuminated crystal walls behind colonnades of vertical tubes covered with glittering ice and wreathed with airy walkways. We were inside a huge cenite cavern within the Mound, and an emerald city rose all around us. It was a city of tall spidery multi-faceted crystal columns shining like diamonds in the icy air, all interconnected, the walkways and the ice tubes slowly moving. The flat ceiling blazed with phospho green lights high above.
We crouched at the foot of one of the towering columns, by a field of luminous miniature white flowers. I could hear a faint roaring. The air was misty and cold. There were a few tall, slender trees ahead, with pale wet bark like lizard skin, topped by masses of dark spiky leaves.
"Look!" Off to one side, an icy black lake—a waterfall, thundering down from a cliff of porous white rocks, filling the air with mist. And I knew it was a glimpse of the Omni's home planet. I had never even imagined such an eerie, lifeless landscape, such a bright, dead city.
"Deadman!"
"We've got to get higher!" Snow Leopard said. "The ceiling is flat—there are more levels above. The ship will be on the highest level." Snow Leopard was right—the columns were buildings and their tops merged with the brightly lit ceiling.
"Attention! Energy source! Three enemy probes approaching!" We crouched in the slowly settling cloud of smoky debris from the hole we had blown in the corridor. It was a tube, covered with frost, and it headed into a nearby building.
"Grenades! Biodee!" Snow Leopard snapped.
"Negative," Sweety corrected. "These are not genetic weapons! I have high and rising psyprobe energy readings. I have concluded these are psyprobe directional amplifiers. Three targets!" We could see them now, three shimmering silver orbs arcing lazily through the air, circling our position. Five or six psybloc grenades burst white-hot all around us. I kept my sights on the nearest probe.
"Fire auto x," Snow Leopard commanded, and we all fired at once. The shriek of auto xmax shattered the eerie silence of the alien city and the three probes exploded, glittering phospho blue core, spitting white tracers, flashing out of existence.
"Targets destroyed," Sweety said.
"Nothing to it," Dragon added.
"They must have thought we were civilians," Valkyrie said. "Those probes are what the O's use to control them. The Systie said 'you can't resist them', remember?"
"How long before they figure out something's wrong?" Dragon asked ominously.
"We're not important," Merlin said. "I'd like it to stay that way!"
"Move out!" Snow Leopard snapped. "On me! Attack formation! We've got to…"
The air exploded above us, an ear-splitting crack of lightning, a brilliant writhing phospho fireball, icy-green flames, the shock wave driving me to my knees.
"Biotic field, human range! Unidentified power source, laser guidance, recommend…"
"Tacstars!" Snow Leopard shouted it out before Sweety could, and a tacstar exploded directly above us, right in the center of that glittering fireball, a white-hot core, golden tracers peppering us all. Dragon had fired almost instantly. The O's had used this weapon on Mongera, and without the tacstar to diffuse the fireball, we would have had only instants to live.
"On me!" But another fireball erupted right over us, before I could even get to my feet. Hot green death, and I could only twitch, screaming inside my A-suit. My guts churned—a tremendous pressure built up in my head. Blood burst from my nostrils. It was the O's biobloc, and our bodies were about to self-destruct.
Another tacstar, a titanic bang, a holy nova of life, and my A-suit rang and smoked with hits. My faceplate flashed with critical warnings and Sweety was relaying vital information to me but I was receiving none of it. Dragon fired full auto tacstar, and the O's little slice of home was about to change.
"Fire full auto tacstar!" One shouted to make himself heard. I scrambled to my feet, stunned, raising my E. Tacstars burst all around us and the sharp crack of canister fire interrupted the ripping and banging of the tacstars. The O's trees fell, disintegrating, the lake boiling, vaporizing, the waterfall gone, the rocks blown to splinters. The airy buildings exploded, flashing white-hot, glittering with tracers. The shock waves rocked us. And through this flaming wilderness, a tall shimmering unearthly figure walked in a mag field of pale violet air, a dark looming skeletal creature, its features hidden by the force field. It was the O. He raised a dark spidery arm and he was holding something. He was right in my sights.