"Behold...your destinies," said Shaard in an uncharacteristically amused tone of voice. He gestured to a little table, on top of which lay nine golden rings. Each of the rings was plain and unadorned, but they all glowed softly, with an inner brightness. One by one, the Council members picked up the gold bands, and slipped them over their fingers.
"When the solstice comes," said the dragon. "These rings shall help you channel your energies through the pyramid to complete the ritual. Isn't it odd to think that these little bands of metal shall earn each of you a place in the annals of this nation's history?"
"I must admit to not liking this, Shaard," said one of the human members, gazing at the shining gold. "In my experience, relying on magical trinkets like this has always led to trouble. True power comes from inside, and you know it."
"I sssuposse that the Dead Boyssss do not feel the sssame way," snickered one of the two Lizard Mages. "They have no choice but to rely on their lassser gunsss, and we have no choice but to rely on thesse rings."
"I couldn't have put it better myself," said Shaard, reclining in his throne.
"Hmph," muttered another one of the sorcerers. "You're seeming far more mellow than usual, Shaard. I would've thought that the upcoming armageddon would have made you tenser than a constipated goblin."
"What can I say?" laughed Shaard, although this laugh was harsh and humorless. He looked around him, at the inner walls of the great pyramid, at the glittering bands on the fingers of the Council members, and at the skulking devil-woman in the likeness of Elizabeth Perrin, and laughed again. "I've got some insurance."
Lucius Mallen, the Wolfen detective, glumly sat at his desk playing computer solitaire. He had gotten stymied in the past few games, and it looked like it was about to happen again. In the back of his heart the D-Bee just wanted to put his meaty fist through the screen of the computer, but knew that it would accomplish nothing. He just felt so helpless, sitting around on his butt killing time while the lab boys tried to pull a fingerprint off of the CD he had found.
Things had been generally going to hell ever since the psycho bastard he was tracking had made his first kill. Both of Lucius's partners were incapacitated, one dead and one recovering from bionics implantation, the war was going real badly, and he had been running into more and more problems with his wife. Just the last night they had gotten into a big fight when he had suggested that she take a two week vacation to some other dimension while the war reached its conclusion. The thought of her being in Tolkeen when the CS panzers rolled into town sent a cold shiver down the Wolfen's spine. But no, she had to stay here, to see things through to the end. All in all, these were taxing times to be living in.
Suddenly, one of the lab boys ran in, breathless and carrying a sheet of paper. "Hot off the press, sir!" cried the cheerful technician, slapping the printout down on his desk. "We finally got an ID out of those fingerprints. It turns out that our music lover is a Coalition power armor jockey named Donald Hartman. He was one of the men who led that big air attack a while ago."
"So he survived the attack, but was stranded in Tolkeen?"
"Sure looks that way."
"Hmm...our psycho may be involved with a Coalition operative? I don't like the looks of this."
"Hmm. Anyway, anything I can do for you on the way back to the lab? I'd hate to disturb you from your police work." With that, the technician cast a sideways glance at the computer solitaire game in progress.
"Yeah. Could you put out an APB on this Hartman guy? If any beat police or cameras in the city spot him, I want to be told. If we can track this fellow, he might lead us to our killer."
"Can do," said the technician, as he began to walk out of the door. "Oh, and by the way, put the eight of diamonds on the nine of clubs."
There was a flash of blue light and the thick stench of cordite, and suddenly the servant of the Old Ones found himself standing in a dusty field. The alien intelligence was disoriented for a moment, as this journey through space and time had been especially chaotic and bewildering. The intelligence looked around, and realized that this was definitely not Tolkeen. There was nothing but never ending plains as far as he could see, with dry scrub and a few curious rabbits. Interesting, the monster thought, rubbing its angular chin. It appears that the Tolkeenites have set up a mystic shield to prevent beings of my power from rifting into their land. I was lucky not to wind up in Olympus, or the pits of Hades. Now, to find out where I am.
The intelligence sniffed the air, and smiled. There were humans, and plenty of them, just beyond the horizon. Hopefully, one of them would know the path to Tolkeen. And if they refused to cooperate, well, the intelligence had ways of extorting information out of lesser life forms. The monster pulled out its star-blade sword, and casually bisected a bunny which had dared to venture too close. The intelligence laughed, rose up a few feet in the air, and then sped off to this settlement, to try and procure a map.
"First," said Perrin, pointing at a map of the area around the pyramid. "We send the vans containing our men into their positions. We'll have to do it all at once, to minimize the chances that they'll check them out. When all of the vans pull up at once, the guards will know that something is up, and they will most likely attack. But that's okay, because we'll be attacking as well. We use the NGR electronics to jam all of their communications and sensory technology just as our men are getting out of the vans. Plus, we use high-pitched squealers to take their devil dogs out the equation. Those distractions ought to occupy the guards long enough for our boys to get to cover."
"Have we told the men where each of them is to hide?" asked one of the HFA mercenaries.
"We're going to," replied Perrin. "It's not all finalized yet, but they're definitely going to know where they're all going to before we make the attack. Anyway, they get to cover, and begin trading shots with the guards. At this point, we're just trying to force the guards into keeping their heads down, so that our pre-positioned snipers can take out the anti-air batteries from a distance. At this point, the fun really begins."
"You have a strange definition of fun," remarked one of the terrorists.
"With all of the crap that I've been through in the past months, taking out these demons sounds very fun. That's when our flying forces take over. We jet overhead, and drop grenade satchels onto anything that looks angry or explosive. Once we're all out of satchels, we hit them with energy blasts until they're dead. Our boys on the perimeter come in and take over the walls, and Alpha team assembles to break into the pyramid itself. That's as far as I've gotten."
"When can we expect a finalized plan?" asked the mercenary.
"By tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to assemble Alpha team, and get Possman to give me a rundown on what the inside of the pyramid looks like. Any more questions?" Looking around the room, he saw that there were none.
"All right then, men," Perrin said, saluting his officers. "Let's get ready to rumble."
Next Chapter
By David Haendler.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.