AN: I kind of wanted to get more written here, especially wanting them to fight all the way up to Vulcan, but have been having lots of and having significant troubles with my computer particularly with my spacebar and few other keys not working which is obviously slow down writing significantly. As such you must forgive me any errors as I've been typing on a keyboard most unusual to me as well as doing some voice typing it is actually quite good especially on Google although it's rubbish on anything else.

Also on some boards this has been declared a dead story because I haven't updated it in a while, this demonstrates the importance of audience engagement so start a discussion or something.

-x-

The Company all followed cheering after Durov. This time they had no banners, and only their black berets and camouflaged uniforms to shield them in their advance through the smoke.

Igor stayed behind, crouched in a ditch with Dimitri and the wounded radio operator.

"When do we go?" he asked the big man.

"After the second volley of smoke, about two minutes." said Dimitri. "You saw the stones closer to the pyramid? We go there first, then when it's clear, onto the Colonel."

Igor nodded, the raised dais between the treeline and Vulcan's palace would provide decent cover and would hopefully prevent any stray shot from killing them as they ran whether it be from Vulcan's servants and their turret-cannon, or from the Soviet emplacements behind them.

They could see nothing through the smoke, and occasionally there came shouts and calls, or perhaps the burst of the rifles, firing into some unseen enemy. What seemed like every few seconds though they heard the whoosh of the heat ray, and the whumps as its bursts struck the ground, golden glimmers through the smoke passing over them rapidly to slice through the trees behind the three Soviets.

"They are fighting more of the beasts," said the radio operator, "not many, but enough to slow them down." and he put one hand over his headset to hear the reports better. "Captain Ivanovich has arrived and is securing the artillery."

"Good." grunted Dimitri, "But there's too much wind, tell them to fire the second salvo."

The other soldier hastened to obey, his voice clear despite his neck injury.

Dimitri turned to Igor, smiling. "Do you have all your books Comrade-Doctor?" he asked.

Igor's hands went to his shoulder straps, loosening and tightening them again. "Hopefully." he replied.

The sounds of the mortars firing came through the trees, and another burst of golden light replied, lancing toward them.

"Well then I say we go." Began Dimitri, but just after he finished a trio of bolts thudded into the ground right next to them. "Go! Go!" Shouted Dimitri, hauling Igor up by the shoulder and throwing him forward even as the dirt fell around them. Igor in one hand, the radioman in the other Dimitri ran forward, Igor finding his feet and pushing ahead, throwing himself down behind a large stone as the others came swiftly behind him.

"Where's our own support?" asked Igor, for though the smoke might obscure vision, it did nothing to prevent the sounds of canons being heard, which made it all the stranger that he heard none at all.

"Danger to the men and the Colonel sir!" said the radioman, still listening at his headset.

"Well they must have some support, who gave that order? Tell them to fire at the pyramid!" shouted Igor back.

"Damn fool whoever it was." said Dimitri, and indeed, Igor knew Durov would rather have 30mm shells flying past his head than have to advance under the enemy energy weapon without any attempt to suppress it.

As the soldier shouted down his radio again through the whooshes of the enemy fire, Dimitri turned to Igor again: "Either the smoke clears, and we've got both sides shooting over us, or we run again now and get to the other side."

Dimitri made to take him by a shoulder strap and drag him along again, but Igor batted his hand away, "No grab him, I'm fine." he said, but he did take off his backpack to hold it by the top strap as he ran, for if he needed to outrun any of the beasts he'd want to be able to drop it in a hurry.

"Tell the Colonel we're coming up! And the artillery to fire again!" said Dimitri, and only a few seconds after he leapt over the stones they'd hidden behind in one bound, reaching down and pulling the radioman up by his armpits. Igor threw his bag up and scrambled up himself, grabbing it and running after Dimitri.

In a few steps they cleared the opposite wall of the dais, which ordinarily Igor would have liked to examine, and ran on out into the open again. The air was still filled with smoke, and barely anything could be seen, though in the occasional gusts of wind they could see the dark stone of the pyramid, its carvings etched in gold.

But as he took another step, Igor's foot caught on something and he fell heavily to the ground. Trying to gain his stride again he instinctively reached out, but his hands slipped through the muddy ground and he fell again, dropping his bag off to the left.

Dimitri was there in an instant, hauling him up by the shoulder. "I'll get the bag," he said, "Run! Go! You as well!" and he pushed the other man forward.

As they ran on, getting closer and closer, Igor glanced over his shoulder and saw Dimitri by a dark shape. He had tripped over a man, or at least half of one, and the archaeologist considered that it was fortunate at least that they knew they were going in the right direction.

"Over here!" called a familiar voice, and they changed direction slightly to the left and saw Ilya, crouched near the wreckage of an armoured car, some of it mangled and melting as if it had been struck by an artillery shell.

"Good to see you comrade!" said Dimitri as he came up. The man had the temerity not to even by out of breath when running and carrying both his ordinary equipment, and Igor's large bag of books.

"We've been calling you over, didn't you hear?"

Dimitri looked at the radio operator, who shook his head, "No comrade, I can still hear the camp though."

Ilya frowned "Vulcan must be jamming us."

Igor didn't know about that, and he knew that in a mountain valley it would be difficult to even head a powerful signal given the terrain and trees in the way, but Ilya's point was entirely possible.

"Where's the Colonel?" asked Dimitri.

Ilya only nodded off to the left. "The weapon stopped firing at us once we got past here," he said, motioning to the destroyed vehicle, "We're in defilade, but hurry up anyway. There's a group of the beastmen off over there." and he nodded again, this time into the clearing smoke to the right. "You'd better let Ivanovich know. He's arrived by now?"

Dimitri made some reply, but Igor was wondering how Ilya had seen them running, or anything really, through all the smoke. As the sniper turned though he exposed the large battery pack of the night-vision scope, which of course he had with him.

They trekked over toward the base of the pyramid.

"How long have you been here? What happened?" asked Igor.

Ilya spoke louder to be heard over the firing of the weapons over them, and the Doctor advanced slightly in their order to be closer to the sniper.

"Not long, we ran here, and realised we were safe enough, then a whole horde of these things came out again. This time they didn't bother dodging though, they were feral. It was very strange. We just gunned them down."

And indeed, Igor could see all around the tracks of where the Company had advanced, their boot and wheel tracks of the armoured cars which had carried them clear in the mud.

"The Colonel said he thought Vulcan had been keeping them in reserve, locked in the palace. We followed the stragglers back and found the door."

Just then they heard more calls as they rounded one step of the pyramid and came upon a small camp, made up mostly of armoured cars as the walls and guarded at all points by riflemen. The men called out as they approached, and put up their weapons, welcoming them.

"Doctor! Over here, the Colonel wants to see you immediately." called one of them, a Major Reniv if Igor recalled correctly, though he only remembered seeing the man once.

They followed the Major and came to a rather disappointing door.

Igor had never excavated a pyramid, though he had been at digs in Nineveh's palaces and grand temples. Compared to them, this door was barely large enough to fit a man standing straight, and not more than a metre wide, bowing in the middle into a rough ovoid.

"Stand back and get me some light." he ordered, for though he'd follow any of the soldier's orders in a military situation, in this one, his qualifications far outranked theirs.

The soldiers brought up torches and soon his own shadow was obscuring much of the door, before Vladimir himself came up by his shoulder with his own torch. The light moved as Igor read, the soldiers moving around them and the beams of their torches overlapping on the stonework.

The archaeologist mumbled words to himself as he read, and blindly he groped at his side for his bag's catch, feeling within for his notebook.

"Look for any animal signs, bulls, snakes, birds. Snakes most of all though." he said, relying on the probable phrases he'd copied from Abydos and a few other ruins they'd found on other planets.

The language itself was most confusing. He saw a great many of the same marks as Ra's temple before, but also plenty of hieroglyphs similar to those found earlier on in the historical record.

"What about this?" asked Durov, tapping one with his finger.

Igor gave it a glance, "No, its 'ib', a goat."

He saw 'abt' and 'tchd', and began to see symbols occasionally that he didn't recognise, at least ones that didn't belong in Egypt. But hadn't he recorded some Cretan symbols somewhere?

He furiously flipped through his book, then remembered he'd written them in a different one, which he soon found after a moment's search.

That was it! Vulcan's minotaur's pointed to the Cretan connection, and a later connection through the Phoenician god Baal. The symbols were Phoenician, derived from the Egyptian dialect he'd found on Abydos!

He began to push the symbols, but there was only the strange metallic rock, unyielding and immovable.

"What are you trying Igor?" asked Vladimir beside him.

"I don't know what it says, but try to turn or push the symbols while I-"

Suddenly, amid the quiet tension of the camp one of the cannons roared, followed by its smaller brethren.

"Reniv!" shouted Durov, "See to that! They're trying to sneak up on us again!" and he called out the names of a dozen men, directing them so that they'd all be able to reach some part of the door. They all began to explore it, while Igor's eyes settled on a particular phrase.

"Quickly Igor." muttered Vladimir as he worked, the Colonel eying his men as they fired into the woods.

"It's a warning, very formulaic, saying not to open it unless you want to travel into the stars."

"What the whole thing? Is it a religious instruction? Some sort of door button disguised as an opening spell?" asked Durov.

"I don't know..." replied Igor, glancing back down at his books. He settled on the phrase as important, and began to read around the phrase on different lines, hoping to find something close to it that would shed more light on the words.

And there it was, just like on the staff weapon's crystal, 'Praise Atok'.

He pushed the snake symbol next to the worshipful words. It did not depress, but it did move slightly.

"Have you got it?" asked Durov, watching.

"Maybe…" he replied, still thinking. "It's a combination lock." he mused, "Some variation of symbols to enter the passcode."

Durov didn't need to ask what the symbols were, and Igor was already trying various combinations. He twisted the snake symbol, it was harsh on his fingers but it turned, and after he'd turned it the other symbols seemed to unlock. The phrase in the unusual dialect about the stars had some moveable keys, almost like a typewriter, and he turned and pushed them, coming back each time to the Atok symbol, which seemed to be the important piece.

"Praise Atok, Open to the Stars?" he mused, "Or, Praise Atok, Open these Stars?"

Perhaps it was much more simple.

"Praise Atok." he muttered, twisting the snake, "Open." he pressed the symbol and then twisted snake from before back into its original position.

The door cracked. Men scrambled back and it split fully down the middle, diagonally and in a curved line, with both halves of it sliding into the walls on either side of it.

"Well done Igor!" grinned Durov, turning to Ilya who like many of the others had levelled his weapon at the dark corridor before them.

"Looks clear sir."

Durov readied himself, "Advance."