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  The Cajun Asian, standing next to Rab, was ready and had ample courage. It is rare to find individuals, even in today’s genrich world, who have exceptional scientific abilities as well as soldiering skills. Kayli was one of them. In addition to her brilliance, she had the excitement gene in her DNA. She could also carry a tune. Well, she could do a lot better than simply carry it. Her voice could caress a song and make it memorable. Her laser rifle pointed upward. Ready to cross to the sphere, she wore a big smile. She waved and I waved back.

  Murdock had a toothpick in his mouth. It’s his trademark. No one else uses them these days, but he likes them. He gets them in flavors. A burgundy one was stuck between his teeth. It moved up and down as he chewed it. Instead of a laser, he liked an automatic rifle. It shoots twenty rounds a second. Or is it two hundred? I should know, but the weapons people keep making improvements. Remington looks like an Olympic gymnast; huge chest, beefy arms, and he is just as quick. He would qualify for the sharpshooting medal but not the balance beam. He’d probably land on it and break it.

  The goateed Haldran stood next to the Cajun Asian. They have become fast friends. We all look military, even Cajun. She’s beautiful but if you’re around her, you get the sensation she’s dangerous. Or can be. I understood it caused a bit of strife in one or two scientific facilities she spent time in.

  Haldran instead, looked distinguished and did not have a military bearing. He had a relaxed gait, much like Clint Lamour. Clint favored his cowboy boots to military boots. He chatted with Carli at the back of the squadron. Unlike Cajun, who was ready to cross, Clint looked very comfortable conversing with Carli, and she looked like she was not anxious to leave either.

  Geneva stood behind Rab. This would be her first combat mission. She didn’t look edgy or nervous. She nodded. Cricket looked as calm as if she had taken one of her sedatives. But she hadn’t. For a doctor she didn’t particularly like taking prescription drugs. She had patched me up a few times, for which I was enormously grateful.

  None of the squad appeared nervous. Tek stood ready. He’s taller and leaner than most of the squad. A cigar stuck out from his mouth. He smokes as many cigars as Murdock chews toothpicks.

  When I looked outside, the golden tunnel had moved closer to the sphere. Only about fifty feet away now. The gold light locked onto the sphere. For a moment it slipped, then returned. Slipped again, then the gold turned darker and stayed on the rock. When solid, it would flash yet another color, a bright green, which was the signal to go.

  “Get ready,” I said.

  A support team, with scientific equipment, was in back of us. They’d cross over when I gave the all clear.

  “Let’s go,” I said when I saw the green flash.

  We ran into the gold tunnel at full speed. The tunnel is safe, but even so, you like the solid metal of a ship under your feet, so the quicker across the better. Engineers on the Patton had opened the portal for us. We clamored into the sphere.

  Barren and empty.

  We stared around but there was nothing to stare at. Just a vast, empty room with a huge, solid, brown wall to our right. Miles long. Cajun and Tek walked over and tapped it with their hands. They flicked open their scanners and studied the readings.

  Astrid stood beside me.

  “Not exactly living up to its fearsome reputation,” she said.

  “Just wait. I’m guessing it will later.”

  “Spread out. Report anything that looks suspicious,” I said.

  “Nothing can be suspicious if nothing is here, major,” Geneva said.

  “A good point, but let’s make sure there’s nothing here.”

  Lamour looked at his radar scope. It can scan about five miles in all directions.

  “Nothing, sir. It won’t scan through the door but there’s nothing out here. Just dead air,” he said. “And old man river just keeps rolling along. Or flying along, as the case may be.”

  Cajun and Tek were almost a mile away. I buzzed them. “What are you two doing?”

  “Looking for the controls, sir, and I think we’ve found them,” Cajun said. “We should be able to open a gate in the wall soon. It looks about five feet thick. Not sure we could blast it open, but I think we can open it manually. When we do, the door should be almost in front of you. Give us about thirty seconds. OK, maybe a minute.”

  “Raiders. Since there’s nothing to see, stay here. Should be a gateway here soon,” I shouted.

  The squad had branched out but stepped back toward me. The only sounds were footsteps on the floor. Besides that, utter stillness. There is no sound in space and the sphere didn’t seem to carry much either. But Cajun and Tek made noise as they walked back to us.

  “Should be opening in about a minute,” Cajun said.

  The walls dilated. Instead of a spaceship, a forest appeared. Tall trees that reminded me of oaks but with broad, dark green leaves that waved in the strong wind blowing. Below, red desert sand surrounded the trunks. Instead of the silence of the chamber, we were in the forest that was alive with sounds. Birds sang. Chirping flew from the trees. Small animals rushed from one tree to another or scurried across the ground.

  “Let’s proceed, but very cautiously,” I said.

  We stepped onto the sand. A small pathway curved through the trees. I had walked just five steps when the red sand grabbed me. Fingers of fire sent pain through my leg. I yelled and blasted the sand. Yellow lasers exploded around my foot.

  I was looking down and the explosion caught me off-guard. A green creature, incredibly quick, ran two feet from me before Astrid blew his head off. I yanked my foot from the sand. The Raiders took up a defensive position.

  I eased toward the creature. It looked like a two-footed alligator but with a shorter snout than those back in my native state of Florida. Rough, bumpy skin like gators. Large eyes. No tail but very sharp teeth. Thing had a nasty overbite. And amazing speed.

  “Tek, tell me what’s below us. I want to know what grabbed me.”

  Cricket rushed over and knelt down. “Got bitten?”

  “Not sure. But something sure hurt. At least briefly. Foot seems OK now.”

  She ran her medical scanner over my boot. It buzzed contentedly.

  “No bites. No entry wounds,” she said.

  Bites from alien creatures are not our major concern. It’s the toxic germs they carry that can kill quickly and, often, horribly. That’s why we carry the medical nanos in our bloodstream. They can speedily wipe out alien germs and can, if there is resistance, mutate into substances that can overwhelm the attacker.

  Rustling came from the forest. Branches on several trees shook. We couldn’t see anything because the forest was too thick. But something moved.

  I twisted a small knob on my suit. “Let’s try the shields,” I said.

  The rustle in the trees increased as our yellow shields coalesced before us. Almost invisible, they can stop almost anything that crashes into them. Two Raiders came alongside me on both my right and left. The other soldiers marched behind us.

  Animal, guttural yells erupted from the forests.

  “They don’t sound friendly,” Astrid said.

  “Don’t know why they should complain. There’s no ‘keep off the grass’ sign. They don’t have a ‘no trespass’ sign either. Of course if they did, we’d ignore it, but still...”

  A heavy wind hoooooed through the trees and brought the smell of sewers and dead, rotting animals with it. Noses twitched and stomachs twisted. We proceeded slowly. The red sand beneath our boots didn’t seem firm but it held. At least for now.

  A bolt of fire from Clint’s rifle exploded a tree trunk and took half the nose and face off another green space gator. Blood and green, ragged skin flew through the air. The thing yelled and darted back into the forest. It got about three feet before thudding to the ground.

  “The sounds are increasing. I have a hunch the forest is full of those things,” Rab said. He stood on my right.

  “Let’s see if we can sca
re them off,” I said. “Raiders, direct your fire into the trees. If you see anything moving, fire at it. If you don’t see anything moving, fire anyway. One minute volley.”

  Bursts of red and yellow lasers, as well as bullets took leaves and branches off the trees. Our shields are another technological marvel. Bullets and lasers can go through them but they stop all incoming fire. The firing stopped after sixty seconds. As I glanced around, I saw a lot of damaged trees but no fleeing gators. I didn’t have confidence the battle would be that easy but I needed to try it.

  Cajun stared at her scanner. “Looks like about a thousand of them, major, and more are coming.”

  “Guessing they don’t have a live and let live philosophy.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  If we had been civilians, the roar would have frozen the blood in our veins. Nerves would have double-timed “run” messages to the brain. But the Raiders have molten steel for blood, or at least that’s what we’ve been told.

  “What was that?” I said.

  Carli’s voice came from behind me. “I’m guessing it’s that thing right over to your left, sir. It has big teeth and a strong pair of lungs.”

  I turned and saw the large head with round dark eyes staring from above the trees. The head was attached to a green neck and a body about five times the size of a smaller croc. It opened its mouth and showed the enormous, white, pointed teeth.

  While I was admiring the overbite, Carli’s hand-held rocket hit the green nose, exploded and rained blood and bits of flesh upon the land.

  “Good shooting, Carli.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Keep ready in case we see another one. Let’s move out.”

  I started down the path. Raiders on both sides and behind me. The green crocs sounded their displeasure as we walked. But the rustling sounds and the chattering of large teeth diminished. From the sounds they had drawn back.

  “Tek, how far is it to the next chamber?”

  “We’re in for a fifty-mile hike, sir.”

  Which was not going to be easy. The red, mushy sand didn’t give much support. My boots kept sinking into it. Sand came above the rim of the boot.

  “What’s with the sand, Tek?”

  “I don’t want go into lengthy detail, but it’s not exactly sand, sir. Looks like it, but it’s not. Mixture of what we might call salt water, sand, clay and something else that I can’t identify.”

  “I’m not going to do fifty miles of this. Raiders. Ignite your jet packs. We’re going to fly over this.”

  I heard the rush of air as the jets spurted.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  As Astrid lifted from the sand, a black tentacle flashed up and wrapped around her leg. A second tentacle grabbed the other leg. Our shields didn’t protect from underneath. Undisturbed, Astrid pointed her laser rifle at one tentacle and fired. The red laser sliced the tentacle in two. Sewer smells exploded in the air. I blew away the second tentacle with my rifle.

  The squad soared into the air, getting us away from both the smells and the creatures.

  “Moderate speed,” I said.

  Two miles high in the air I spied the outline of the tall, bronze wall marking the demarcation of the chamber. We flew peacefully over the forest with its green denizens and spied two more of the larger creatures, but we were well out of teeth range.

  Like ducks flying south for the winter, the squad formed a V in the air as we flew toward the next chamber. Flying is much preferred to slogging your way through a sandy bog with icky if not deadly creatures. I looked around but, thankfully, there was no winged counterpart of the tentacle monster that had grabbed Astrid.

  Flying at cruising speed, the trip took just less than thirty minutes. We landed six feet from the bronze wall. I turned to Cajun.

  “Can you open this one too?”

  “Piece of cake,” she said. “Give Tek and me about ten minutes and we’ll have it open.”

  Chapter 10

  They sprang the doors one minute ahead of schedule. All the Raiders had their rifles ready. We prepared to blast anything that might be beyond the thick bronze.

  But instead of hungry animals or hostile aliens, we walked into a thick London fog.

  Heavy, gray clouds rolled over us. The previous chamber had been bright, as if a midday sun shone. A darkness, instead, gripped this chamber. Wet atmosphere. A slight wind blew the heavy gray clouds around. No sounds except for the distant croak of what might have been a frog. We could see about five feet in front of us. No more.

  “This is definitely not a day at the beach,” Astrid said.

  “Just as well. We didn’t bring our bathing suits,” I said.

  The fog surrounded us. Thicker than fogs on Earth. It offered some resistance as we walked into it.

  “Tek, analysis. Is this fog just fog?”

  Not a stupid question. There are three planets we know of where clouds are lethal to sentient life. Scientists have never solved the mystery of them, but the best theory is the separate clouds are actually one entity, connected and somehow mentally tied in with one another. Stay too long on the planet and they are toxic.

  “Fog seems to be just fog, sir. Thicker than on Earth but with no poisonous elements.”

  I wiped the water off my face.

  “This seems to be flat land, sir, for at least five miles. The fog is causing static in our scanners. But I see nothing moving here. No animals. No aliens. Nothing humanoid. Nothing in the air.”

  “OK, let’s see if we can have a nice if wet relaxing walk to the next chamber,” I said.

  I bent down and touched the ground. But it wasn’t dirt or grass. Solid. Material like cement. I pushed against it, but it was firm. Our new London was paved over.

  “OK, let’s proceed with caution,” I said.

  As we walked, I noticed there was a sticky quality to the fog. It stayed on our uniforms, at least for a while. Pieces of it would hang onto our sleeves and pants. I reached to my jaw and pulled away a three-inch piece of gray. Fingers might slide through the fog one minute. The next minute the fog coalesced and became semi-solid. Then the gray would dissipate again.

  Our skin and suits became wetter and wetter. Annoying, but not menacing. I wiped my hands on my uniform, trying to dry them. But the uniform was wetter than my hands.

  The one plus was we didn’t have to worry about bumping into trees. As Tek said, we walked over flat land. We saw no creatures of any kind, large or small. No shrieks or cries from large animals with too many teeth. I grabbed a towel from my suit – our uniforms have a potpourri of objects – and wiped my face. I halted the column while I put on gloves to keep the hands warm. Several other Raiders did the same.

  Although this London was paved, we walked into a patch of mud. We slogged through it for a mile or so.

  “Tek, where did the mud come from?”

  “End of the road, major. Think of it as a county highway in a rural area. The asphalt ran out so we stepped back on dirt and grass. And mud.”

  “Anything showing on the scanners?”

  “Not a thing, sir. So far there’s nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing moving here.”

  I looked, but still couldn’t see farther than ten feet. I heard nothing besides our boots stomping on wet mud. I grabbed a patch of fog and tore it from my suit.

  “Why is the fog sticking to us, Tek?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know that, sir. The elements in the fog here are different than the elements on Earth. Annoying, but no more. There’s no toxic materials in the fog.”

  “How much farther until we hit the next gate?”

  “We still have a good ways to go. A dreary march but at least no one is shooting at us.”

  “Or desiring us for lunch,” Astrid said.

  Still, the nerves weren’t as calm as I’d like them to be.

  “Carli, send a flare ahead. I want to make sure there are no surprises on our trek.”

  A blazing yellow shot into t
he dark fog. It landed about a half mile from us. The light revealed nothing but fog, fog and more fog. It burned brightly even on the ground, highlighting the mud around it.

  “Two more, Carli.”

  With two twangs, yellow beacons soared into the air and landed about three feet from the original. The increased light just revealed more fog.

  “OK, let’s continue. The sooner we get to a dry place, the better.”

  “Maybe the next chamber will be a desert,” Astrid said.

  As she marched, she took a deep breath. Then belted out the song.

  “We can dare and we can do,

  “United Men and Brothers too.

  “Their gallant footsteps to pursue,

  “And change our country’s story.”

  Tek and Clint joined in. So did Carli and Cajun.

  “Our hearts are stout and got us fame.

  “For soon it’s known from whence we came.

  “Wherever we go they fear the name.

  “Of Gary Owen in Glory.”

  The old marching song of the 7th Calvary. Soldiers have sung it for centuries. It does have a catchy tune. Astrid added a verse.

  “We are known from air to ground.

  “The Raiders have such great renown.

  “When we charge they fear the sound.

  “Of Garry Owen in Glory.”

  I hummed as I walked. Such songs do liven your steps. After a mile Astrid switched to the ‘Yellow Rose of Texas.’ The squad also gave a shout-out to ‘Dixie’, another rousing tune.

  “How much farther is the next chamber, Tek?” I asked.

  “About twenty miles.” He was looking at his scanner. “OK, we may have a little trouble ahead, major.”

  “What’s up?”

  “About a mile ahead of us, we have manholes opening up in the surface. And there are... creatures coming out of them, at a pretty fast rate.”

  “What type of creatures?”

  “Trying to get a focus on them. They’re streaming out one after another. Here...”

  He rushed over to me and I looked at the small screen on his wrist. Fog marred the picture. On the screen the ground cracked, or at least a circle of it flipped open. Out of it, at a very fast pace, scurried a four-foot long creature, black, six legged, a long stinger as a tail. It looked very much like a scorpion from Earth. A black scorpion.