Weapon Page 3

  "What's a Katalan?"

  "Oh boy..."

  ###

  "I don't know what you're talking about," the elf director replied.

  Lantz slapped him, then asked again.

  "Sir, tell him," Gabe said, suppressing the urge to shudder. "He has the morals of the devil and the patience of a three-year-old."

  Lantz growled at the young human.

  "This way," Meisner said. He led them into the building while three mercs stayed behind.

  They made their way to a large, imposing vault. "It's inside the vault, but we can't get in until 0600 hours. The vault was tested with a nuke, so your weapons will have no effect on it, and the time-lock controls are inside the vault."

  Lantz smiled at the director. He handed his pistol to Gabe. "Kill him, then find his assistant. Someone knows a way in, and I'm getting tired of this cat and mouse shit. We'll kill everyone in the damn facility if it means we get inside this vault."

  Gabe took the pistol and examined it...

  ###

  "He handed me a dead gun. Really? Let me guess, he wants to see if I have the cajones to kill an innocent in cold blood. What a freakin' asshole." Gabe thought for a microsecond. "Siv?"

  "I hear you five by five. All modes available, all weapons on standby. Um, do you know what you're capable of?"

  "Nope."

  "What's your favorite weapon?"

  "Quarter-staff."

  "Do you trust me?"

  "Oddly, yes."

  "Oddly?"

  "Forget I said that. Yes, I trust you."

  "Good. I assume you're going to try to piss him off?"

  "Of course."

  "Have at it, and let Siv do the driving."

  ###

  Faster than the wing-beat of a hummingbird, Gabe had the beam emitter of the blaster pressed against Lantz's forehead. "Director, please join your staff in the foyer," Gabe said quietly.

  "Thank you," the elf whispered. Gabe realized he had just saved the life of an alien life form.

  "What's up, Gabe? No stomach for killing?"

  "I will not violate the operational directive so that you can get off watching someone die," Gabe said calmly.

  "Get off? What the..."

  Gabe pressed the emitter hard into Lantz's forehead. "Back when I was alive, I hunted people like you, people who liked to watch others suffer. Take away their guns and knives, and they become whimpering piles of fear. Personally, I thought a trial was a complete waste of time." He pulled the trigger.

  Lantz flinched, then smiled, but the smile didn't last long. Gabe ejected the power pack and handed the dead pistol to the merc.

  "You forgot the hum."

  ###

  "What hum?" Siv demanded.

  "The Markov 229 blaster had a known flaw- it hums when set to full power. That pistol was silent... How the hell do I know that?"

  "Knowledge on demand is finally syncing-up. You wondered about the pistol and the KoD kicked in. Think of the word 'Alturan.'"

  "Oh my God!"

  "Welcome to the new world."

  ###

  Lantz holstered the pistol, then in one fluid motion, he backhanded Gabe across the face, a blow which would have killed most humans. Gabe just stood there. "Let me guess, this is some lame loyalty test Mother cooked up. So, what next?"

  ###

  "Boss, his adrenaline is spiking and his fellow reprobates are bringing up their weapons, including the ones guarding the prisoners!"

  Gabe brought up the readouts. He could see the biometrics of every living being in the facility. For a brief instant, he shut down the feeds so that he could feel the vibe of the room. It wasn't good.

  "Siv. Cancel quarter-staff. We got anything that can knock out everyone?"

  "Not these guys. They've been bioaugmented to resist chemical warfare."

  "God, I hate this shit." He spent a few microseconds staring at his inventory readout. "How the hell do I know how to do all this?"

  "The nanorobots seem to have directly programmed a lot of shit into your brain."

  He returned to the feed from his eyes and saw Lantz preparing to fire. He looked at the inventory and found what he was looking for. "Siv, hold on. I think it's going to get rough.”

  ###

  Lantz pulled the trigger, but it was too late. The blaster beam bounced harmlessly off the tank-form's nanorobot-fabricated adamantine-plas-steel armor. "Stand down," Gabe quietly ordered.

  "Never. This is Lantz," he said into his comm, "Kill..."

  In two seconds, every merc was dead, including the three guarding the hostages and the two flying the transport. No civvie was even scratched.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "What just happened?" Siv asked. He could hear the shock in her voice.

  "I... I don't know. I heard him start to give the kill order and I... I... I reacted." He looked at his arm and saw a minigun where his hand once was. It was spinning down, the six barrels still smoking. He looked at the other hand and saw some kind of ray gun. Glancing around, he saw more weapons on his shoulders while gaping holes peppered the walls. Looking down, he saw each merc had been killed instantly by a single shot. "Siv?"

  "Yes, Gabe?"

  "Do I have a way to destroy myself, you know, in case I go bat shit crazy?"

  "No. It seems that option was left out of the package. I suggest you don't go bat shit crazy any time soon."

  "Copy that. What now?"

  The director walked in, his face white with shock.

  "I think you need to talk to him."

  "Right..."

  ###

  "Mr. Stryker?"

  Gabe morphed back to human form. " Director, are you or any of your people injured?"

  "No... No, we're all fine. How did you do that?"

  Gabe smiled and shrugged. He barely understood himself.

  "I thought we were dead, then you changed and bullets started to fly..."

  "I reacted. Have you called someone?"

  "Someone...? Yes, we sent a distress call to R-Sec. They've already dispatched two EMEF teams. They'll be here in minutes. Did you send the call?"

  "No. I was a little busy. What is EMEF?"

  "Elf Marine Expeditionary Force. Who hasn't heard of the EMEF?"

  "An anachronism from Earth…"

  ###

  "Great. The EMEF is on its way. Perfect!" Siv explained.

  "Care to explain perfect?"

  "Yeah. I've been monitoring the comm chatter between the EMEF teams and their HQ. It seems someone tipped them off to this op, which is why they got the jump on us. Someone told them about you."

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you. The teams have been ordered to secure this facility, then take you into custody. You are to be transported to a secure facility near here. Meanwhile, Zoe is being misrouted to a different facility on the other side of the planet to buy us time..."

  "Time for what?"

  "For you to talk to Josiah."

  Back in the real world, Gabe sat down on the floor and leaned his head against the wall. "Fine," he muttered. "Wake me when these Marines show up." Moments later, he was fast asleep.

  ###

  Gabe woke up feeling stared at. He opened his eyes and saw a woman wearing the damnedest outfit standing in front of him. Like the director, she was an elf. Choking down his fear, he tried to sound non-threatening. "Hello," he said. He added his best smile.

  "Hello," she replied.

  "Boss, she's OK. Her name is EMEF Col. Sana Irithyl. Her mother is EMEF Gen. Marta McMurphy, and her father is Prince Lucien Irithyl, Ambassador at Large for Ventos Prime."

  He slowly got to his feet. "Detective Inspector Gabriel Adon of Earth's USPF, but everyone calls me Stryker-1." Again, his best disarming smile.

  "I'm happily married, so you can drop the Prince Charming shit. My name is..."

  "EMEF Col. Sana Irithyl, and I'm your prisoner."

  She gave him the hairy eyeball.

  He laughed.

  She
and five Marines raised their weapons.

  "Sorry, it's been a long 72 hours, and you're only the third real space alien I've met since waking up."

  Another Marine, this one had a helmet that hid its face, handed her a fancy looking tablet computer. Her eyes went wide with shock. “What did your say your name was?"

  "DI Gabriel Adon, USPF."

  "The League DNA database agrees with you, but it says you died over two hundred years ago. Care to explain?"

  He carefully shrugged. "Car wreck. I was driving too fast and slammed into a tanker full of gasoline. The rest is history."

  "What about this group?" she said while nodding toward several body bags being carried out by building security.

  "They threatened to harm the civvies. I’ve sworn to protect civilians at all costs. I asked them nicely to put down their weapons, but they refused."

  "You turned into a tank and killed a dozen heavily armed sociopaths, five of which you shot through thirty feet of concrete wall."

  "I reacted."

  "Who sent you?"

  "Mother sent me."

  "Mother?"

  "Doctor Zoe Muntz. She revived me and gave me the full options package."

  "Did you say Zoe Muntz?"

  "Yes. Short, nice figure, blond hair. Her brother is larger, older..."

  "Brother?"

  "Yeah, a guy named Josiah. He's planning on meeting..."

  Sana put a blaster to his head. "You work with Josiah Muntz? Betrayer of House Irithyl. I should kill you..." She stopped when he morphed into tank form and pointed the barrel of a 40mm rail gun at her heart.

  "Back off, sister. I’ve had a really bad few days. First, I find myself dissolving from exposure to a bioweapon, then I hit a tanker truck at over 250 miles per hour. Instead of meeting St. Christopher and ironing out my living situation for the next eternity, I find out that I've been turned into a cyborg weapon by some crazy bigot bitch. No, I will not calm down, dammit!"

  Siv appeared in mid-air, landing behind him. “You didn’t just eject me!”

  Gabe ignored her as he focused his attention on Sana. "Listen lady, I’ve come to the end of my rope. I was a good cop with a great arrest record, so what do they do when I die in the line of duty?" He walked forward while every Marine on the premises aims an assortment of weapons at him. Sana waves them off.

  "What did they do to you, DI Adon?"

  "They turned me into a frozen lab rat. And you know what the worst part is?"

  "What? Tell me."

  "I was supposed to see my daughter this weekend. Her name is Emma, and she's seven now. Brenda took her when she was four. Now they're both long dead, and I never got to say goodbye." He lowered the weapon, then morphed back to human form. "Kill me."

  "What?" Sana asked

  "Kill me. I've turned off all the safeguards."

  "You know how to do that?" Siv asked. "I don't even know how to do that."

  "I asked the Knowledge on Demand and it happily complied,” He replied to the Alue. “Colonel, I’m a danger to every being in your League. It is your duty to kill me, then burn my body to ash."

  Sana raised her weapon and thumbed it to full power before pushing the emitter against his chest, over his heart.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Don't thank me; thank her," she said as Siv plunged an injector full of sedatives into Gabe's back, sending him to the ground in an unconscious heap.

  "Think he'll be mad?" Siv asked.

  "Gods, I hope not," Sana replied. She turned to her people. "Team 7, take this man to Facility 18. Be gentle with him for he once saved the Earth."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Gabe woke up on a cot in a nondescript room. At the opposite end, he could see a doorway leading to a bathroom. "Hey, sleepy head. How are you feeling after your nap?" Siv asked. She was sitting on a chair next to the bed.

  "Like a fool. Sorry about all that. I think the day caught up with me."

  "Really? You think? When I get my hands-on Zoe, I shall do great harm to her,” the Alue declared

  "Why?"

  "For doing this to you. I don't know what would have happened if you had woken up right after they botted you." She saw the look on his face. "They brought you to consciousness, then threw you into an op completely unprepared. If I didn't know better, I'd say old Zoe views you as a prototype, one destined to fail."

  "And that bothers you?"

  "Yeah, it bothers me."

  The cell door opened, and Josiah Muntz walked in.

  "Josiah! Are you crazy?" Siv exclaimed. "This is an R-Sec stronghold. Buddy, they know you're alive."

  "I told them," Gabe said as he stared at Josiah.

  "Have you always stared like that?" Josiah asked.

  "Like what?"

  "Like a hawk sizing up a rabbit."

  "No. You can blame your sister. From my point of view, I'm targeting you for incineration. Whatever she did to me labels you as dangerous."

  "Yah gotta love Zoe." He closed the door before pulling up the only other chair in the room. "Josiah Muntz, ex-director of OffSec Special Projects aboard the Cube." He held out his hand.

  Gabe took it. "Detective Inspector Gabriel Adon, angry cop. Siv, here, says you need something?"

  Josiah held out a black square of plastic about a quarter inch thick and an inch square.

  "Nice. What is it?"

  "Test command sequence alpha one. Authorization Zoe tin tin seven."

  A gauntlet appeared on Gabe's left wrist. Josiah dropped the square into a matching opening on the gauntlet’s top side. Lights flashed followed by the square popping out and the gauntlet disappearing. Siv reached over and put her hand on Gabe's forearm, then closed her eyes for a moment before snapping them open in disbelief. "You think you found a device used by the creator to form universes?"

  "Yes. It’s on a planet in the Elspeth expanse designated XM583. The Martok found it during a colonization survey. The planet is devoid of any sign of sapient habitation except for two large structures separated by a bridge and a platform. One of the structures is an advanced interdimensional portal. The other is the engine of creation. Preliminary surveys show large power transfer conduits connecting the engine with the planet's core. Similar conduits connect the portal with the core as well."

  "Let me guess, something is missing, something that lets you fire this thing up and use its mojo to fix a problem you created." Gabe said.

  "Very astute of you, Mr. Adon. The entire unit is controlled by a complex key. The builders decided to separate this key into pieces which are scattered across several planets in the League. You are going to fetch these pieces and deliver them to me on XM583."

  "Gabe, you don't have to do this," Siv said. "Some of those planets are designated as restricted. Planets are given that designation only after a few hundred people have died on them."

  "Siv, you worry too much. He'll be fine. Won't you, Gabe?"

  Gabe started to say something, but stopped and turned to stare at the wall. "Tell me, Josiah, did Mother have any other stryker units ready for launch?"

  "What's wrong, Gabe?" a worried Siv asked.

  "I'm detecting five strykers entering the building. They're fully armed."

  "Shit. She never mentioned any others,” Josiah said. “You should leave.”

  "Scanning... No Alue life signs. I have the advantage, then,” he said, looking over at Siv with a smile. "Feel like kicking some ass, Copilot?"

  "Roger dodger, Boss." She disappeared in a flash of light.

  Gabe fixed his gaze on Josiah. "Anything else, Josiah?"

  "No. You have the all the details. I will meet you when you have completed the first part of your mission. There is nothing else."

  "Does Zoe know you're here?"

  "On Ventos Prime? Yes. In this facility? No. Gabe, she's here for you. You have done something that her creations rarely do: You've survived, and she wants to know why."

  Gabe went to infiltrator mode with a pistol on his right hip an
d a sword slung diagonally across his back. "She will have to work for that particular pleasure."

  "Good luck, son."

  "To both of us, director." Gabe tore the door off its hinges, then stepped out into the corridor.

  "May the gods have mercy on those who oppose him," Josiah said as Gabe headed off down the hallway.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Things were not going well for the EMEF teams. Even with two teams augmenting the two she had brought with her, Sana's forces were having their asses handed to them.

  "All forces fall back to the perimeter. We'll wait for reinforcements to arrive!" she yelled into the open comm link. "Risa, Terrance, let's get the hell out of here," she commanded what was left of her escort.

  The three headed down a hallway when one of the walls blew inward, separating Sana from her LTs. Her power suit had absorbed most of the blast, but her biometrics were reading a broken arm and a fractured tibia. Not good. She punched her suit's EPIRB.

  "Well looky here, Jimbo, we've got ourselves a pretty elf girl. Hey, pretty elf girl, how about a kiss?"

  Seeing two mercs standing nearby, Sana grabbed for her pistol, but was stopped by a hand encased in some kind of impossibly black armor. "I don't think so, Colonel." She looked up and saw a featureless black face staring at her. Looking down, she saw "Stryker-7" floating in the black armor above the thing's left breast.

  "Stryker? There's more than one of you?"

  The creature grabbed her broken arm and applied pressure. "You saw a stryker unit? Which one?"

  "Stryker-1, but he was human, not... Not whatever the hell you are."

  "Is he still here?"

  "Why yes, yes he is," a voice said as two mercs disappeared in a hail of blaster fire. Stryker-7 stood up and backed away. Like Stryker-7, this new player was encased in obsidian black armor. She squinted and saw Stryker-1 above the new one's left breast.

  "Gabe, is that you?"

  "Yes, Sana, it's me. Stryker-7, stand down. You are no match for me. Surrender and live to see another day."

  Stryker-7 raised its arm while forming a weapon. It died before it could finish. A hail of adamantine-core projectiles tore through it, killing it instantly.

  "Options package," Stryker-1 muttered as he hurried over to where Sana lay against the wall. "Hello, Sana. Where are you hurt?"