He stiffened immediately and shook within his suit. He collapsed forward, dropping his rifle to the hard surface.
“Enter the room,” the neutral voice, neither male nor female, ordered again.
“Of course,” Charlie said, stepping forward, but still holding his rifle to his side, the barrel pointing down to the floor.
Denver turned to Layla and helped her step over Vingo’s prone form. The second prism behind them seemed to tilt when it got close to Denver. Man and machine regarded each other. Denver felt that strange buzzing sensation in his head again. The second prism moved forward until it hovered over Vingo’s body. A ghostly white field emanated from its base, lifting the tredeyan off the floor.
“Please, into the room,” this second prism said, specifically to Denver.
Denver nodded and turned, following the others into the white light of the server analysis room, feeling strangely secure despite his initial fear and uncertainty.
The lights within the ten-meter-square room dimmed as they entered. It had golden walls that shimmered against the light cast down by an overhead glow panel. A narrow holoscreen no more than about thirty centimeters in height stretched around the walls at a little lower than chest level.
Data in a script he didn’t recognize flowed around these screens. Two more prisms, smaller this time, like the one he and Layla had encountered outside of the temple, hovered in front of the screens, shining their pale blue lights onto the surface. Denver presumed they were scanning for information, much like the other one did around the statue.
When he brought his eyes to the center of the room, he saw the source of the croatoan sounds. Bound by thick metallic cuffs around his wrists and ankles, the scarred form of Hagellan lay stretched out. The scion who had lifted Vingo dumped his body to the rear of the room onto the glossy black granite floor and returned to hover above Hagellan.
The old croatoan managed to lift his head and thrashed when he saw Charlie, Denver, and Layla.
Blood dripped from his mouth and sprayed out into the air when he called out.
“What’s the meaning of this? What are they doing here?” he croaked, sounding more afraid than Denver had ever heard any croatoan. It pleased him, seeing the ex-council member in such a humiliating and weak condition.
“Well, well, well,” Charlie said, with a smile on his face. “Looks like you’re in a bit of trouble there, old friend.”
Hagellan tried to spit at Charlie, but the spray just dripped uselessly down his thick neck and pooled onto the granite floor. The scion prism above him extended out that ghostly white field that had previously lifted Vingo. This time it didn’t lift, but pressed, forcing Hagellan’s throat to the ground, cutting off his words.
The other prism hovered between Charlie and Hagellan.
“Humans,” it said in that neutral voice, “your mission is over.”
“Mission?” Denver asked. “The only mission we’re on is to get air and survive this goddamned planet. What’s any of this got to do with us?”
Vingo came to and hobbled to his feet. He swayed and clanked against the wall. His eyes grew wide when he saw where he was. He spun to face the holoscreen and reached into a compartment on his suit leg.
The scion didn’t seem bothered and were silent as everyone watched Vingo take what Denver thought was a recording. The tredeyan spun round and flicked his gaze across the occupants of the room, a kind of confusion coming over his face.
He didn’t hesitate, though; he made for the way they had come in. Denver raised his rifle and was about to shoot the fleeing alien when the scion prism knocked Denver to the floor and pressed him down with a force that made it difficult for him to breathe, even with the protection of the suit.
“Let him go, you fucking machine,” Charlie said, firing a burst of fire at the prism. The bullets ricocheted off the armored surface and embedded into the gold walls with heavy thuds that reverberated around the surface.
One of the rounds had pierced the tough hide on Hagellan’s chest, making the beast wail out and thrash more within his shackles. The prism holding Denver glowed brightly as a bolt of laser fired from it, striking down Vingo with a single blast, the tredeyan’s body cauterizing before it even hit the floor.
The neutral voice from the scion spoke up. “Stop, it’s over now.”
The force on Denver’s throat eased and lifted him to his feet.
“Humans, you are Charlie, Denver and Layla,” the scion prism to the left said. The one in front of Denver remained silent, its blue glowing strip had dulled to a softly pulsing gray. “It’s time you knew the truth. We will get you air and supplies, but first, you’re to receive an explanation.”
“Don’t believe anything they have to say,” Hagellan croaked out. “They’re damned liars, just like the tredeyans!”
Denver was expecting the croatoan’s throat to be crushed again, but the scion prism ignored him. Instead, the cone extended further up before flipping back. A holographic projection of a humanlike face extended up and regarded them with hollow eyes.
“I am Drone 451, the coordinator of this encounter. If you have questions, ask them. We have just a few of your Earth minutes before we have to leave.”
“What happens then?” Layla asked.
“This vault will be no more.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. “Tell me, what the hell is Hagellan doing here, and why are you torturing him? Not that that bothers me much.”
The face turned to Charlie. “Hagellan was a scion agent… until he cut his algorithm short. He defected back to his race shortly before the invasion of your planet, taking with him artifacts that we had assigned a great deal of resources to procure. That’s why he came back here.”
“Wait,” Denver said. “We came back to destroy the gate to stop the croatoan ship… Hagellan showed it to us. It was going to use the tredeyan gate to jump to Earth.”
The face shook from side to side. “That was a lie. He wanted to destroy the gate to stop us from getting to Earth and reclaiming the lost artifact that he stole from us. He is a traitor to us and his own kind. His plan was to join the Amalgam after his failure on Earth.”
“Like Vingo,” Layla said, looking at his corpse.
“So what about the micro-gate?” Denver asked.
“There is no such thing,” Drone 451 said. “There is only one gate, the one Hagellan had you damage.”
Denver picked up on the language immediately. “Damage? So it’s not destroyed?”
“We currently have our architects fixing it—this”—the holographic display extended an arm to point at the data on the screens—“is what Vingo was hoping to trade; the technical specifications of the gate.”
“You can’t trust them!” Hagellan said, trying to appeal to Charlie directly. “They’re worse than us; they don’t care about your life, your planet. All they want is—”
Denver winced at the sudden burst of gunfire.
A swirl of smoke trailed away from the barrel of Charlie’s rifle as Hagellan’s head exploded under the power of the tredeyan firearm. Shreds of croatoan hide scattered around the room, bouncing off the golden walls. The beast’s yellow blood and dark purple brains splattered against the back wall as pieces of bone and cartilage clattered against the floor.
Hagellan’s great body continued to thrash for a few seconds after until eventually his limbs became still.
“Damn, that felt good,” Charlie said. He turned to Drone 451. “Frankly, I don’t care if what you’re saying is the truth or not. We’re going to die if we don’t get air in the next quarter of a unit. If you have air, then we need it now. After that, we can talk.” He kept the rifle poised in his hands, aimed partly toward the scion drone.