Chapter 18: The Well of the Past
January 11, 3242, 0310 hours
Parl-265d, Near Unknown Artifact
Parl-265 system
Home Universe
"Step on it!" Finitevus cried out, twisting towards the driver so hard his neck cracked.
Reihner had already stepped on the accelerator, shifting the vehicle into gear and slamming the throttle to full.
The bulky rover shot forward despite its size. The other vehicles had the same idea, rocketing away from the massive alien worm. The creature was massive, as wide as house and as tall as an office building. Its shell-like exterior was covered with serrated chitin plates and fine cilia that reverberated as it roared. Its mouth expelling hot air that rippled in the already baking environment.
As soon as it detected motion, it began to move and go after the vehicles that it now perceived as a threat.
Reihner wondered if it now thought of them as food.
"We can't turn that cannon around." Finitevus said, slamming his fist into the hand rest. "It's not made for something like that!" he shouted. The echidna tapped his cuff communicator and said, "Legionnaires! Those with heavy weapons aptitude get an environmental suit and make your way to the outer gantries! Give that thing everything you have!"
"Boss, with respect, that's not going to stop it!" Reihner shouted. "Some rockets might slow it down but you aren't going to kill that thing!"
"Then we slow it down!" Finitevus roared. "SCION, get out there and make sure those fools don't get themselves eaten!"
"On it." The android said, making his way from the cabin quickly.
The Mobian turned back towards the viewport. The mushroom cloud caused by the orbital strike still had not dissipated in the wind, and stretched well into the stratosphere. It was incredibly well directed. He had to give Julian's drones that much.
"Where's Kintobor?"
"About two klicks ahead of us." Reihner said, consulting the GPS in front of him.
"Put me through to him." The cyborg said.
Reihner, without missing a beat, tapped the communication channels and dialed in Robotnik's rover. The Overlander picked up on the first ring.
"Benjamin."
"Thank you, Julian, for leaving us behind to get eaten."
"I thought you ordered me to go ahead."
"Yes, but not to stay ahead!"
"Regardless, we're all moving now."
That Ovie son of a bitch was too flippant, Finitevus thought. The whole thing must have seemed incredibly funny to him.
"I need another firing vector!" he explained to Kintobor.
"Come again?"
"Drop another slug on this thing!"
Their rover cleared the top of the ridge and instantly began to move downhill. Ahead of them, the crater created by the first strike was still gaping in the surface of the world. A thought rose into the back of Finitevus' mind that maybe the gap would close, either sealing them out, or sealing them in.
"So let me get this straight... you're asking for my help here? I was right?"
"Do it or we all die!"
"Just say the magic word."
Reihner let out a low belly laugh. "He's got you, boss."
The echidna took a moment to roll his eyes, then said, "It was a good call! Just kill these things!"
"Excellent. I ordered the strike five minutes ago. Steeper trajectory."
Finitevus' hand flew to his face and he began to mutter under his breath rapidly, and in a dialect that Reihner had never heard before.
The worms were gaining ground; it was their home turf after all. They surfed the dunes with powerful muscles working in their bodies, adjusting for the curves in the sand with nary a loss in speed.
One of the rovers took a shot at them, 40cm cannon bellowing as a shot was sent straight at one of the creatures. The snaking motion of its body meant the shell did not hit the head, but impact on an angle halfway down the body. The explosion of the munitions staggered the beast, though it opened its mouth again, roared loudly, and made a beeline for the vehicle that attacked it.
"Fire again! Fire again!" someone shouted over the radio.
"Give them some cover!" Finitevus shouted back in. "Cover their retreat!"
Tracers began to fill the air. From the deck of nearly every single rover, a dozen or more men stood, fastened to the floor and toting heavy weapons. Heavy machine guns bolted to the hull of the rovers provided the point defense they all needed. The drumline of automatic fire was lost in the cacophony, though. Thousands of shots in the span of second were tossed downrange. The rounds pinged off the chitin of the worms' bodies and spiraled into the air, all whining over one another and adding more noise to the mess of battle.
The proactive rover that had chosen to open fire had far worse problems though - the unbraced shooting had damaged an axle, creating a visible limp in the vehicle's motion. The speed began to drop drastically.
"We're slowing down!" the driver called out.
"What should I do?" Ambrose asked, a hint of apprehension in his voice, though his eyes lay firmly ahead at the chasm they had created.
"Keep moving." Finitevus said.
"And just leave them?"
"If we turn around, then we're putting ourselves in danger! Even if we do kill a worm, there's going to be more attracted by this reckless firing! Julian's orbital strike is going to ensure that whatever does survive the next few minutes will go down after that. We're mere miles from that opening! Put the foot down and get moving!"
"Understood." he nodded, upshifting the vehicle. "All rovers, press forward."
On the topdeck, SCION watched as the greater majority of rovers pulled away from the damaged one, now trailing smoke and pathetically bouncing on its broken suspension. It had been an act of desperation to fire the cannon in the first place, and now it had cost Rover 6 dearly indeed. One of the worms had easily caught up to the vehicle, got underneath the rear, and flipped the vehicle, measuring nearly twice as long as a semi truck and two stories high, end for end into the air, broken components and sand fanning out in an arc. The series of summersaults ended in a massive explosion, tearing the vehicle apart. Secondary explosions of the munitions went off, which had the somewhat fortunate side effect of gravely wounding the worm that had attacked it; chunks of meat sheared off its body. The alien creature reared up, sent an ear-splitting roar into the air, and collapsed into the sand.
SCION yanked back the charging lever of the Browning Autocannon in front of him. The massive sixty caliber machine gun was one of four lined up on the topdeck. Nestled in the ammunition box were shining brass shells, red tips on every tenth bullet indicating a tracer.
SCION thumbed the firing stubs and the Browning barked, soon joined in concert by the three other manned weapons emplacements on the rover. Tracers streaked into the air towards the surviving creatures, some rounds whizzing only five or so feet away from SCION's head. The sounds of the weapons firing overlapped over one another, creating a Doppler effect that was strangely appealing to SCION, the audible waves neatly lining up with one another in his processor. It was a sharp contrast with the sheer danger in front of him.
One of the worms attempted to dive into the sand, intending to get beneath the rovers; flip them over.
"Heads up people!" SCION called. "All rovers, focus fire on that diver!"
The fields of fire from every single rover shifted and changed. Almost fifty weapons emplacements opened fire, piercing the sounds of both the engines, roaring wind, and the screaming worms. Not a single Legionnaire failed to open fire. What was more, it seemed additional forces with lifelines appeared on the topdecks, firing general purpose machine guns to assist the others, as if that would make a difference.
SCION was considering opening a channel and reaming them out, but thought better of it for some reason. It was a waste of ammunition, but seeing these men work together seemed acceptable. Yes. They were working together, strengthening the Legion through camaraderie.
But a terrible waste of ammunition.
The worm compressed on the ground, slowly coiling up like a spring. SCION realized it wasn't enough. Things were really going to get bad now.
The worm shot up into the air; five, maybe six stories into the air, arcing like a javelin. The firing abruptly stopped as every single set of eyes was watching the monstrous creature barreling towards the ground, faster than a speeding car.
"You're going to enjoy this." someone said over the radio.
SCION recognized that the voice belonged to Reihner.
The worm impacted the ground lamprey face first. With a thundering crash, it went no deeper than the surface, the body compressing again like a gigantic accordion. The impact blew away some of the sand, revealing the silvery surface of the alien metal again.
With a laugh and a cheer, the Legionnaires jeered at the beast, now stunned, and limping away, leaking some of its dark blue blood onto the surface.
SCION said, "Keep your eyes peeled, this one's not that stupid!"
The guns fired again, this time focusing on the worm that had chosen to simply chase the rovers. The body moving too much like a Terran snake, slithering ahead on the surfaces, hugging each individual dune with nary a break in its pace.
It lashed out all of a sudden, spinning out one of the rovers close to it. Tires squealed on the alien substance and black streaks stretched for a hundred feet before the powerslide became a corkscrew. The vehicle rolled on the ground, losing metal as it went. The alien worm simply ran it over, crushing half of it with its body as it moved on.
"Lost another!" SCION called over the radio.
"Less than three miles!" Reihner called from the cabin.
The distance was covered with more destruction. Two more rovers were destroyed, reducing the task force even further. Each destroyed rover taking forty men with them in balls of fire. Each loss winking out in SCION's tactical map, and no doubt causing Finitevus considerable distress.
"That orbital strike is entering the atmosphere in sixty seconds!" Kintobor called from the lead vehicle. "We need to move faster!"
The second voice was Finitevus who said, "We can't move any fast than this! We're going to lose our transmissions if we push the rovers any harder!"
"Then we hang on!" Reihner said.
"This isn't helping!" Finitevus said. He punched the COM. "Every single Legionnaire, hear this! Hear this! Abandon all mounted weapons and get below decks! We have forty seconds to orbital slug impact! Abandon your weapons, you sons of bitches!" the echidna screamed this as he tightened his body instinctively. He suddenly realized this was the wrong thing to do. If things did end up going from bad to worse, locking up would tear him apart. He slumped, loosening as many natural muscles in his body as he could manage; the mechanical augmentations would slacken as much as he desired. He raised his eyes and saw the slug punch through the atmosphere; another pillar of fire descending like an angel of vengeance, or more appropriately, Finitevus thought, a god of war.
"That hole is in spitting distance!" Reihner roared, jamming his foot further down on the accelerator with enough force that had the floor not been reinforced, his splice-enhanced musculature would have driven the pedal through it. "This is going to be tight!"
It was down to seconds. The formation raced as fast as their engines could allow, leaping over small dunes and outcroppings, their crews holding on for dear life, terrified of what was occurring outside of their armored compartments. It was to their benefit then perhaps, that they could not see what was coming now.
The orbital slug impacted at a steeper angle, nearly plowing straight into the earth, once again sending a blinding flash created solely by superheating the air around it. It struck like an asteroid into the face of the desolate world, sending an awesome shockwave that sliced over the dunes, igniting yet another sand and firestorm that hurtled megatons of material at near Mach speed.
They were so close. So close now. Three hundred meters to go. Finitevus was gripping his armrests so tightly that his enhanced musculature made small divots in the plastic surface. He closed his eyes as tight as he could, forcing them shut as the sweat matted his fur. Though he was not religious - he had not prayed to the Ancients since he was a small boy - he hoped that it would be quick. He cleared everything from his mind. He got rid of the screaming of his men in the hold, the rumbling of the suspension, the jostling of the first shards of rock and obsidian-like pyroclast against the hull, and the roaring of Ambrose Reihner, his voice piercing like a sword through his body. He waited for the end, however it would come.
He became light. His stomach began to rise in his chest. He forgot the feeling, but he suddenly was gripped by the sensation of vertigo. He opened his eyes, and saw a yawning black abyss beyond the windshield as they flipped end over end in space. Reihner to his left was pressing himself as hard as he could into his chair, screaming an inarticulate oath. Debris around him rose off the ground in free-fall. Finitevus though for a moment that the earth itself had swallowed them up and was dragging them into the underworld as a divine punishment. However, for the briefest of moments, he saw a bright hole of light shining in the dark.
The hole in the earth. Finitevus thought. From the slug. They made it.
This was the last conscious thought he had before a great force tore him from his seat, and the world around him blinked quickly into nothing.
He had no idea how long he had been out; how long the yawning abyss had held on to him. Eventually though he blinked, and his eye implants started running a diagnostic, beaming information into his retinas. At first his movements were slow and painful. Every twitch of a muscle artificial or otherwise sent a lance of pain up his nerves and into his brain. He moved anyway, and quickly discovered that he was still in the rover.
The space was dark; almost pitch black. The only light came from a few flickering displays that had stubbornly remained active. Finitevus got to his feet after freeing himself from the wreck of his chair and became dizzy from the effort. He stumbled forward, placing a hand on the control panel and raised the other to his face. It came away warm and wet with blood.
He stared at it. It was not a lot, but enough to annoy him. He looked down at his jacket with just as much dismay. This was a Chantoun-Litz longcoat. Fifteen thousand credits from a Champs-Elysee boutique. Absolutely ruined. Destroyed.
His hands fell limply, and avoiding to disrespect what remained of this fabulous piece of fabric, wiped the bloody palm on an instrument display as best he could. He looked around, and using the power of his own mind, adjusted his eyes' sensitivity. The room slowly brightened, as if a man's flesh and blood equivalent were slowly acclimating to a cave after being in the sun. He accomplished this in mere moments. To make the process even quicker, he changed his vision filter to monochrome, but increased the contrast between light and dark. Better. The ruined cabin was much easier to move around in now.
In the near pitch black, he checked the general integrity of the hull. He was dismayed slightly when his hand came across a small gap in the windshield. It was small, roughly the size of a penny. He brought his ear closer to it, but could not make out the sound of evacuating air.
He swore. That was bad news. That would have meant that all the atmosphere would have been vented from the rover. He checked his watch and groaned as the equally expensive Rintol Pilot Limited had a significant crack on its face. It had been almost six hours since his last conscious moment. The crew would likely have suffocated. He would have survived because of his atmospheric scrubbers. If this world was CO2 heavy he would have been fine. But he took a breath, and then another. He didn't taste the tang of heavily carbonized air on his tongue or in his throat. Indeed, the air seemed rather cold and cool, much like the mountains in Pegagian Alps a thousand miles south of his childhood homeland of Albion. No, there was still plenty of oxygen in the air, and that confused him.
He swallowed a lungful of it, and then said, "Mister Reihner. Are you alright?"
He didn't hear anything at first, only the slight creaking of metal.
"Ambrose." he repeated, slowly stepping over to where the enforcer was. Reihner's massive frame was supine, still strapped into his broken chair. Finitevus reached down and shook him. The man was less worse for wear then he was. His skin felt tough. A bit tougher perhaps than it was a few hours earlier. Had the bastard somehow spliced himself up in mid-air or had he done enough of those drugs to mutate on command?
Reihner grunted, slowly at first, and then quicker as he fought his way back towards consciousness. Within moments he was recovered. He pulled a knife from a sheath wrapped around his boot and sliced through the seat belt. Groaning slightly, he stood up, reaching his full height deliberately. His eyes scanned the darkness.
"I need a flashlight." He said.
"Nothing to boost the rods in your retina?"
"Even if I did they're probably smashed up." he said with a hint of annoyance. He glanced around and gave a noise that had a tone of satisfaction. "Not a bad landing. I think we're right-side up."
The silence from further down the corridor told Finitevus the opposite. The echidna found the intact stairs and found the broken bodies of the Legionnaires splayed in their seats. Some had their mechanical limbs torn off, and others suffered broken necks from the impact. Amazingly, there were survivors. He marshaled up perhaps ten - a fourth of the rover's compliment.
Another setback. Positively amazing.
Half an hour later, Finitevus punched out the hatch leading from the ruined vehicle. The blackness that lay before them was even more oppressive and lonely than the dark inside the rovers. Finitevus looked up, and discovered that the hole he had seen in free-fall prior was gone now. There was only an unrelieved sheet of the void above them, though the surface below him had the harsh angular surface of rock. He was glad to be back on a solid surface, then he realized something was off.
"Where's SCION?"
As if on cue, he heard metal footsteps in the distance and below him. His low-light enhanced eyes quickly identified the surreal silhouette of the android coming towards him. In tow, was Julian Kintobor, flanked by his own drones.
"Doctor Finitevus." the robot nodded. "I appear to have fallen off the rover. Guess I didn't make it below deck in time."
"It would seem so." the echidna said, a trace of annoyance that Julian was attended to first.
"Forgive me, but I ended up landing closer to Doctor Kintobor's rovers, and I had no doubt about your survival odds, Doctor."
"What's your status?"
"Operational." the drone reported.
"Particulars?"
"Superficial damage." SCION assured. "Some wear on my cervical vertebrae and some possible cable compression. No damage to the positron matrix, so we're OK there. I am unarmed though."
"We'll find you weapons later." Kintobor said. "Right now our priority is to create a new staging area in..." he gestured around in the darkness. "... wherever we are..."
"We would have ended up here eventually." Reihner said as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, the burning end of the stick providing what little illumination it did. He considered bringing the lighter out again, but it would only be a waste of butane. "I'll get started on going through those other rovers. Maybe we can pull a platoon together. Shit, that was a hell of a fall."
"Very well." Finitevus nodded. "Make sure we meet up here before we go any further. We consolidate our losses, Ambrose."
"Yeah, understood." The mercenary responded. He took a few steps before a sharp cracking noise was heard.
"The hell?!" Reihner jumped. Hot ash broke from his the cigarette and fell to the ground. Finitevus came forward quickly and looked at what the Human had stepped on. Clearly defined against the sandstone brown of the landscape, was the pale white-yellow shape of a skull - half of it now caved in by Reihner's boot.
Finitevus actually got down on his hands and knees to take a closer look at it. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He glanced at the skull. It appeared Human, which was a massive surprise to the Legionnaire, though when his gaze strayed from the cranium, his opinion swayed. This elegant skull with its graceful contours, perfect teeth, and cheekbones that suggested great beauty in life, was attached to a body encased in armor that was like metal woven into fabric. It a beyond beautiful combination of interlocking plates and gently hovering components that could only belong to a Forerunner Lifeworker.
"Oh dear." he said gravely.
"What's wrong?" Robotnik asked, coming forward and copying Finitevus' motion. "That's... a Forerunner body."
"Yes, no doubt you've seen many of them in your spelunking over the last few years."
"Well..." Julian said, taking off his glasses to take an even closer look. "This isn't right though."
"Why?"
"This is a Lifeworker. A Lifeworker still in his armor."
"And why is that shocking to you, Julian?"
"Like you've said, I've done my spelunking. I know a bit about Forerunner physiology. Benjamin, their armor was meant to keep them alive for centuries even without food or drink!"
"So... what does that mean?" A voice from the Legionnaires said in the dark.
"It means," Kintobor said, his voice now low and grave, "Either this fellow starved to death and there's no way out," he paused, "or there's something down here that killed him, and it's still here waiting for us."