The Siege Against Tolkeen

"Oh, damn it!" muttered Jack Perrin, his eyes fixated on the pyramid, still intact after the bombing of the century. "Why the hell didn't that fucking thing EXPLODE?!!"

"Betcha that our ride out of here ain't coming," said Possman solemnly, unscrewing the top of a hip flask. "In other words, we're screwed."

"Is that all you can think about?!" snapped Perrin angrily. "Tolkeen has an invincible super-weapon which may be capable of wiping humanity off of the Earth, and you're just angry that our ride never showed up! Where the hell is your loyalty, buddy?!"

"Look, asshole!" yelled Possman, grabbing Perrin by the pilot's jacket. "I've got every bit as much loyalty as you do! But I've got friends back home who're wondering about me now! They don't know whether I'm alive or dead, whether I'm a hero or in a torture camp, and I would very much like to see them and tell them I'm okay! Being happy about being trapped behind enemy lines is not my idea of loyalty! Stupidity is more like it!!"

"Where do your friends live, Hubert?" asked Perrin. "Do they live in Chi-Town? Do they live in the Burbs? Do they live in ANY Coalition State?"

"Yeah," replied Possman defensively. "They live in Level 26 of Chi-Town. What's your point?"

"Do you cherish them?!" Perrin hissed. "Do you want to keep them safe?"

"Of course. Again, what's your point?"

"Well, come summer solstice, they're going to be atomized along with EVERYONE ELSE in Chi-Town!! Unless that pyramid gets taken down, your friends are going to die! And from where I stand, it looks like behind enemy fucking lines is the best place to be if you want to destroy that pyramid!!"

Possman looked into Perrin's eyes for a moment, not saying anything. He then pulled out a hip flask, and began to unscrew the top. "It has been a BAD day," the ranger muttered to himself, as he took a deep draught of the booze. Just then, there was t he sound of laser fire, and a beam of pure energy cut into his back. Possman fell to the ground, his back on fire.

"Got 'im!" said the skinhead triumphantly from the rooftop. He pulled his laser rifle's scope up against his right eye again, and focused on Perrin's forehead, as the pilot tried to scramble to safety. "Pity my juiced-up buddy couldn't be here to see this."

"Keep it up, moron," laughed the Juicer, from an even taller rooftop nearby. He held a submachine gun in one of his hands. "Keep it up, keep it up. I'll be a hero for offing the traitor who shot our beloved leader."

"Bloody hell!" snarled Perrin, diving beneath a pile of garbage in the side of the alleyway. "Who IS this guy?" He then pulled a holdout pistol of his own, and began firing away at the sniper. Still, he knew that he was in deep trouble. He was pinned down, had an inferior weapon, and was unarmored. Things looked bad.

"What th'" grunted the skinhead, as he saw a new adversary enter the alleyway. It was a Super SAMAS, although it didn't look so super at the moment. Most of its armor had been destroyed, its jet thrusters were a smoking mess, and its pilot was moving around like he was drunk or dazed. Still, its weapons systems still looked to be operable.

Instinctively, Donald Hartman opened fire on the sniper, with his plasma cannons. There was a roar of energy, and the sniper (as well as most of the rooftop the sniper was on) evaporated. The SAMAS pilot then extended an armored hand to the man cowering behind a pile of refuse. "Jack Perrin, I presume?" Hartman asked, and then passed out.

"Oh, geez," muttered Possman as he got to his feet. "My back is killing me!" He then looked around the alleyway. The building behind him was demolished, there was a beat-up Super SAMAS lying prone on the ground, and Jack Perrin was standing behind a pile of crap holding a smoking pistol. "What happened here?"

"You got hit with an energy weapon," said Perrin. "Why aren't you dead?"

"You can thank our friends east of the big pond for that," said Possman. "Those folks at Triax make great armor clothing."

"I've got to get myself some of that," remarked Perrin casually. "Now let's get this flyboy on his feet, and then get the hell out of here. The cops are spread thin today, but I'll wager that a laser battle will probably draw a few of them."

Meanwhile, a sniper who had never fired a shot, leapt away into the darkness, vowing that next time he would strike Perrin down personally.

Miles away, in a darkened room, sat the leaders of humanity in North America. The Emperor and his son sat at the head of the table, with their personal guards standing behind them. In the center of the table was a holograph projector, which projected a recording of the battle in static-filled black and white.

"What are our options?" asked the Emperor gravely. "I don't want to throw away more pilots and planes on another futile frontal assault."

"We don't have many, sir," said an air force commander. "Our ground forces can attempt a blitzkrieg, but that might be..."

"That might be suicide!" barked another general. "Those woods are full of booby-traps, golems, and snipers! Even if our men did get through there with minimal losses, the perimeter is so well protected that the ground troops would be slaughtered by t he..."

"Shut up, defeatist," said the crown prince sharply. "I want to know the projected capabilities of that weapon. Dr. Emil, what do you say?"

A robotic, pathetic figure shambled into the room. Dr. Emil Halstrom, formerly of the Federation of Magic, had been one of the world's premier theoretical mages, and a famous philosopher to boot. But he had been careless, and was captured by the Coalition while on his way to a conference in Lazlo. Halstrom's magical knowledge was too great to waste, so he was not slaughtered like most captured mages. Instead, he was brainwashed and drugged into total compliance. As a final precaution, his brain had been put into a faulty, experimental borg body, to prevent him from casting magic.

"Pyramids are very...versatile...structures," he rasped, in his tortured mechanical voice. "They can do many, many things, from opening rifts to prolonging life. However, this pyramid is...different. Note...note the orbiting crystals. They seem to be...containing some form of energy. The...weapon...most probably operates by releasing that energy...destructively."

"So why haven't they already?" asked the elder Prosek. "What's keeping them?"

"The...energy...must be hard to control. If they rush into releasing it...without having accumulated enough power...Tolkeen would almost certainly be destroyed...by its own weapon. They must wait for the next...solstice."

"How can we shield our troops from this energy?" asked a general. "And how powerful would you suppose this energy is?"

"At its highest effects...magic can do vastly more than...mere technology. It takes us...years of research and billions of credits...to make a single Firestorm base. But...beings such as dragons...which are equally powerful to a Firestorm...are commonplace. Magic can open rifts between dimensions, raise the dead, make gods. Science can only...make roads, prolong death...slightly improve men's bodies. The closest that...man...ever came to magic...was the creation of the atomic bomb. The...atomic bomb remade magic, reopened the rifts. It was...science's greatest hurrah..."

"I've heard enough of this heresy!" yelled Victoria Langsford, the chief of science in the Coalition. "This madman is comparing science to lunacy! I will not stand for it!" She was suddenly silenced by a wave of the Emperor's hand.

"Sit down, Victoria," said the elder Prosek gently. "Let Halstrom speak."

"Thank...thank you, your highness. As I was...saying....the nuclear weapon was the pinnacle of science, science's greatest achievement. And apparently...the men of Tolkeen...wish to outdo science once again. I believe that the pyramid is a...magical counterpart to the...nuclear weapons of the Golden Age."

There was a stunned silence. The younger Prosek was the first to regain his composure and speak. "The atomic bombs of the Golden Age reshaped the entire megaverse. And you're saying that the magicians of Tolkeen have created something even more powerful."

"Exactly...sire. It may...destroy the Coalition...reshape the world...or destroy the universe. Maybe all of the above."

"We have no choice then," said the Emperor gravely. "We must destroy Tolkeen before they can reach the next solstice. Divert all available troops from the battles of Free Quebec to the siege against Tolkeen. The rebels of Canada are little concern when compared to this menace."

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.