If they couldn’t get access to them, how could he?
His goal had been to find an Achilles’ heel in the gigantic tank. But from all appearances, the xarcus was invulnerable. It had no weak spots.
That is, until he found the green door.
It was strange because it was the only hatchway that was not sealed by a reatomized lock. Hunter came upon it, almost by accident, at the end of one particularly long passageway.
Unlike the rest of the huge tank, this hallway was dimly lit — so much so that when he reached the green door it was practically pitch black inside.
As soon as he touched the frame he knew there was something different about it. It was definitely metal, but it also gave way to the slightest pressure from his fingers. It was malleable, rubberlike — yet some kind of metal all the same.
He was amazed when he touched the bottom of the door with his boot that it partially swung open. He hesitated a moment, trying to estimate exactly where he was inside the gigantic xarcus. He retraced his route to get here; he’d walked a hell of a long way, but he stayed on the upper levels. Then it hit him. If his calculations were right, he was in the vicinity of the smaller, tinted control bubble he’d spotted when he first arrived.
Interesting…
The pliable material actually made it easy for him to fully push open the hatch door. Inside he was faced with another passageway, but instead of the straight hallways he’d been walking, this one curved to the left. It was very dark inside, and the predominant color was an odd coral blue. Even the smell inside here was different.
He raised his blaster rifle, an odd gesture for one reason. If he was in fact stuck in time a few seconds behind everyone else, did that mean his blaster wouldn’t work? He’d yet to try out that little experiment, to his regret now.
Still, pulling his weapon up to the fore gave him a shot of confidence. He walked slowly down the curving passageway. Its ceiling was a lot shorter than the rest of the tank. There were no doors or windows in here. Every once in a while he would stop and push his hand against the wall. It responded with the same rubbery sensation. He discovered some hieroglyphics written haphazardly along the wall. They seemed to be made up mostly of geometric shapes, possibly a code of some kind, though he couldn’t imagine anyone actually being able to understand it.
He kept walking, slowly, silently, his ears open for even the smallest sound.
Then, suddenly, the floor beneath his feet start to move. An immense vibration began shaking the rubbery walls of the dark passageway. At the same instant, noise began to grow from somewhere down below. It got louder and louder and the vibrations became more intense until they joined into one loud wave of ear-piercing noise and bone-rattling motion. It became so acute, Hunter had to throw himself against the soft metal wall just to stay on his feet.
What the hell is happening now? he thought.
Then it hit him.
The xarcus was moving again.
The Nakkz commenced their attack just as the first rays of the sun lit up the horizon.
During the night, the enemy’s equivalent to a sapper unit had managed to infiltrate all the way up to the outskirts of Qez and install several combat field replicators. When first light broke, these devices were activated, producing hundreds of climbing tubes through which the Nakkz were able to reach the parapets on the north wall.
Within seconds the enemy soldiers began shooting up to the top of the wall and flooding over the battlements. Just about every man who could hold a weapon met them here, including Erx and Berx.
They were front and center on the parapet, firing their ray guns point blank in the face of every enemy soldier who tried to get over the wall in their sector.
The remaining Home Guards — about three thousand or so — plus militiamen and armed civilians were doing the same thing along the entire quarter-mile stretch of the north-side fortification. The Nakkz seemed to be startled by the size of the makeshift garrison and the ferocity of their defense. And while the climbing tubes essentially shot the attackers straight up to the thousand-foot height of the immense wall, they did need to use their hands to exit the transparent tube — and that’s when they proved most vulnerable. A direct ray blast to the head or shoulders of an attacker would usually disintegrate his entire body, letting the subatomic remains be carried away by the fierce morning wind. However effective this tactic was for the defenders, it also cleared the top of the tube and allowed the next Nakkz soldier to pop up.
It was Berx who realized that by doing this, the defenders were playing right into the enemy’s hands. The first wave was just to wear them down and deplete their ray gun power supplies.
“We’ve got to start stickin’ ‘em!” he began screaming. “Stick ‘em! Stick ‘ em.”
The trouble was, there was so much noise and commotion going on, few of the nearby defenders could hear him bellowing, and those who could, didn’t know what he was talking about.
So he showed them by example. Transferring his ray gun to his left hand, he drew his electric sword and began skewering the Nakkz soldiers appearing at the top of the tubes closest to him. By running these soldiers through with his blade, he left a gruesome, bloody body, which in turn blocked access to the next soldier coming up.
It was probably the screams of dying Nakkz that brought attention to Berx’s idea, for within seconds defenders up and down the ramparts were stabbing the attackers just as quickly as they were shooting them. Soon there were massive amounts of blood flowing down the outside face of the wall.
But still the Nakkz kept coming.
This went on for what seemed like forever. Berx and Erx were leading the charge in slicing every other Nakkz soldier who appeared at the top of the tube, but the sheer number of attackers was beginning to grind the defenders down. Throughout all this, the ghostly image of Hunter’s flying machine, its nose pointing away from the battle, hovered not more than fifty feet above them.
More time passed. The bloody battle continued, and the defenders’ strength began to ebb. Soon Erx was running out of power in both his ray gun and his electric sword. Berx and many others in their vicinity were as well. And while a run-down electric sword still could be used to kill and maim with some effectiveness, a ray gun without power was useless. Erx had already thrown his away and was now using just his sword and his fists against the attackers. This, too, became extremely draining very quickly. And still the attackers kept coming.
“Are you still sending out the call for help, my brother?” Erx yelled over to Berx as he dispatched a Nakkz soldier with a mighty slash to the man’s unprotected throat.
“Loud and clear!” Berx yelled back. He had his quadtrol set on “all points/need help,” which sent out a coded SOS message to any Empire ships in the vicinity. The trouble was, they were so far out on the Fifth Arm, the chance of any friendly ship receiving such a message in time was practically nil.
“We must hold them off just a bit longer!” Berx yelled — but the fire was gone from his voice. The Nakkz soldiers were gaining the wall not far down the battlement from them, overwhelming the defenders in that area with a combination of numbers and the failing power supply in the weapons of the Home Guards.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion right below them. Then another off to the right. Somehow Erx and Berx were able to look back over the ramparts to see that Nakkz sappers had blown two huge holes at the base of the north wall. Streams of enemy soldiers were now pouring through the two openings.