story4

"The Quest of the Defender"
Part Three

     Saxon appeared in the lower Slipgate room at Ironfort with Stormbringer's body in his arms. There were no sounds to be heard. It was eerily quiet as he walked into the corridor and on to the pillar room. It seemed strange that there were no guards posted here. There were always guards here as this was the rear dimensional entrance to the base. He turned left and went up the ramp and passed through the sensor gate into the upper halls. Still no one had challenged him, he neared the entrance to the front of the base and laid his friend on a ledge near the door. He walked out into the courtyard and saw no one. He went over to the pool and knelt to wash his face in the water. Before he rippled the surface with his hands he noticed his reflection in the pool. He had never looked so old before and he pictured in his mind's eye the little man in the control room of his brain frantically turning on switches and pulling levers in a dusty area of the control center of his mind. Long had it been since these parts of his mind that controlled the emotional state of his entire being been put to use and it seemed that the little man was having trouble finding the instructions to this part of the machine in old and tattered manuals. He cupped his hands and washed some water over his face and rubbed his eyes. The image disappeared and he stood up with a swelling in his throat. He wiped his face off on his sleeve and turned to go back into the fort. The only sound he could hear was the noise from the automatic gondola that was running above to the upper main wall.
       He walked back into the base and then he heard the hum of a slipgate about to discharge a traveler. He ran to the upper gate room and covered his eyes in advance of the flash. With a loud crackle his friend Sheepman lurched off of the anvil and approached him. "Where have you been? I have been sent back to find you." Sheep said. "I was called out on a rescue mission and found Stormbringer dying in a forward area. He told me that he had seen Lisbeth!" Sheep looked at his friend and as he couldn't see any large lumps on his head he said: "There is no time for this foolishness of yours, the entire contingency of the defenders is mustering at the canyons." Saxon looked at his friend in disbelief. What could he say to convince him of the facts. He stood with his feet apart defiantly and said: "I have a damaged slipgate display panel with a partial location on it. Those of the lidless eye passed through it just before it was destroyed." Sheepman was not impressed and said: "There is no time for this, you are needed and you have a certain responsibilty to your order. Saxon looked down and with a crushed feeling realized that Sheep was right. Sheep said with some compassion: "Where is Stormbringer's body, we'll carry him to the lower slipgate room where we can take him together on the double slipgate. Saxon nodded and walked down the ramp with his friend. Together they carried Stormbringer back down to the lower levels and activated the gate for the destination of the gathering of the Defenders.
        The sky was a dusky brown color and the sun was setting red into the horizon. The last rays of the sunlight were coming through a slit in the haze of clouds on the edge of the sky. The travelers cast long pointed shadows into the east that went before them as they walked. All around them were the sounds of thousands as they walked into the encampment. Campfires were lit as far as the eye could see. Men were here in the edge of the woods and had pitched tents all over the surrounding hillsides. As they passed one group of men in training Saxon recognized a grizzled old drill master as his friend Cyberjim. They heard him correcting a rather flustered looking recruit. "Moongoose, unload the weapon before you clean it!" The trainee promptly dropped the clip into the mud and they heard the drill master shouting profanities at him as they walked on. Saxon thought to himself: "Been there, done that!" and a slight grin came over his face. Sheep said: "We all have to help these newbies out during their first battles, once that was us and where would we be now without the help of others?" Saxon nodded and said nothing.
       The canyons were a natural amphitheatre and you could hear the sounds of thousands of men talking and laughing. The air was filled with the sounds of weapons being handled and pots and pans being rattled as the men made their meals. They walked down into the dell where a little stream ran by loose boulders. As they rounded one large boulder they came upon the command center where a briefing was taking place. Cisco was among the group of captains listening intently to a commander who was saying: "The first recon group will go through the gates at 0200 hours. When they return at 0400 we will meet here again and review the data they bring back. The first wave will pass through the gates at 0800. Prepare your men and get some sleep. Dismissed!" The group broke up and Cisco noticed his friends laying the body of a defender on the ground. He walked over and said to Saxon: "Where have you been? This is our hour of need!" Saxon said: "I need to talk to you alone, I have some information you will want to hear." Sheep rolled his eyes and Cisco noticed. "This better not be about the girl!" he said. Undaunted, Saxon recounted his story to his captain and showed him the damaged display panel. Cisco looked it over and handed it back to him. "The information on the display is incomplete and is no more than we have ever seen before. You both need some rest. The shadow of war grows to cover us all in darkness, you will have enough to worry about without this old quest of yours rearing it's ugly head again." Cisco walked off into the darkness and sheep said: "It is time for sleep, I am off to set up my tent." He left Saxon at the map table alone. Saxon walked over to stormbringer's body and folded his arms in the customary fashion. Tomorrow he would be burned on a pyre with honor among the dead from the battle. As he moved the left arm into place a small handful of dried flowers fell out of Stormbringers shirt pocket. Saxon stooped to pick them up and recognized the little meadow flowers of his homeland instantly. He looked over the sprig of small violet petals and was thrust back in time to when he had plucked these very flowers from the ground in which they grew and had put them behind the ear of his beloved. He looked through the other pockets of the man's clothing and found a small communicator of the type that he had never seen before.
       Taking these things he went off into the nearby clearing and sat down. He was in conflict and did not know which way to turn. Just yesterday his life had been simpler. He would have relished the thought of joining his mighty army in a fight against evil. This time though, the command group had no idea who the enemy was and what the terrain was like beyond the slipgates. He was not sure if he
could stand the pain of the burden that had fallen on him. On thing was for sure, he thought, if Lisbeth was alive and waiting for him somewhere he had to find her. Nothing else mattered. But where to turn? and who could help him. He could not do this alone, or could he? Often when least expected, help comes from unlikely places. With the cool of the evening the sky had begun to clear, he looked up at the stars and began to trace out the constellations in his mind. From this perspective Cygnus the swan was an even tighter trapezoid. Lyra was now unrecognizeable, but the cross hung high above and looked much like it did from the viewpoint of the homeworld. He could see his own star from here, it shone yellow and dimly from the southwest. He dreamed of the ocean and could imagine the sound of the gulls calling from high cliff walls where they made their home near the shore. He missed the sea and it beckoned him.
       While he sat under the stars he inspected the damaged display panel. Pulling out his tool kit he removed the back cover and surveyed the damage. All of the parts were intact and he saw the crack running across the circuit board. He looked through his kit and found some jumpers. Carefully he attached the jumpers across the gaps and then he took apart his own communicator to power it up. He was hoping to read the complete coordinates. As he touched the leads together he crossed his fingers and held his leads on the contacts. He flipped the device over and pushed the recall button. The display flickered for a second and then he heard a pop and smoke came from the back of the device. The entire display had gone blank. He cursed himself for fiddling with it as now his only lead and real proof was gone. He should have taken it to an engineer. It's pretty hard to put the smoke back in the box, he thought. He looked up towards the stars and clenched his teeth.
       He heard the sounds of footsteps coming closer, it was his friend Bundy. Bundy was an engineer and a first class tinkerer. "Evening, Sax." said Bundy. "Hello, How are you?" replied Saxon. "Not bad, I can't ever sleep before a battle. You too, huh?" said the engineer. "It's not the battle that is keeping me awake." said Saxon. "I was trying to fix this thing!" "Let me have a look, oooh, you smoked it, didn't you?" said Bundy. "It was pretty badly damaged before I started in on it, I put jumpers across the cracked leads in the board and powered it up, then poof!" said Saxon. "Well, it has a memory circuit that is isolated on the broken corner. I may be able to bring the data up on a good panel. Let me pop that chip off the board and see what I can do. Where did you get this anyway?" Bundy asked. Saxon told Bundy his tale and was frank with him about what he was planning to do. He trusted Bundy and knew that he could keep this secret to himself. "If you go alone you may never survive, if you are right about this." said Bundy. "I know but I have to try, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't." said Saxon. "Well, your secret is safe with me. I hope that you don't try anything stupid like taking them all on by yourself." Bundy said. "I don't even know if I can find them, much less fight them alone." said Saxon. "I also found this unique communicator on Stormbringer too, I'll bet he took it from one of them." "Let me see that," said Bundy "it has a ten key encrypted passcode. There could be thousands of combinations, it'll take me a couple of hours to get it to work." Bundy was amazing and although he said it matter of factly, he knew that it was important to his riend and would do what he could to help. Saxon said: "I will leave before first light, before the first recon team returns. You never saw me. I'll come back for this stuff later." "I'll get to work on it right away." said Bundy and off he went to his portable lab. Saxon prepared his gear and snuck off to the distant slipgate pad that he had come in on. He set the coordinates of the unholy kingdom into the panel and then picked one of the many destinations there at random. He kicked over the lever and hit the switch. In a flash he was gone.
       Just before dawn Cisco was waken by one of the men. "You are commanded to the map table, pronto!" he said. Cisco got out of his cot and put on his cloak. He was ready for anything and it was starting to look like big trouble. He walked briskly over to the meeting and listened to the debriefing of the recon team. It seemed that there was a ridge on the other side of the gate with an encampment of
men at least as large as their group. The guard at the other encampment was very thick and they were not able to make out just who these men were as it was too hard to get close to them without one of them sounding the alarm. The force was large enough to do the damage they had seen and they held the high ground past the gates. There was a small woods to use for cover on the other side but it wasn't big enough to hide them all. Some of the men would be joining the battle as the others were still arriving at
that location. That would split them up. Cisco pointed out that it would be wiser to wait and follow them secretly until a better place could be chosen that would give them the advantage. He was overruled as they continued the discussion about the morning attack. Cisco would follow orders to the letter, but he would also prepare his men for fallback as there is no sense in sending men to their deaths to feed the egos of the mistaken commanders. It didn't look good, and he had a bad feeling about this. It was then that Sheep came up to him and whispered in his ear: "I can't find Saxon anywhere, I think he's gone awol!" Cisco looked down and said: "Keep this just between us for now, Sheep. He has to live his own life and this thing is consuming him day by day." "Maybe he'll be back in time for the battle." said Sheep. "I wouldn't count on it." said Cisco. "Lets just hope that he doesn't get himself killed." "I have a bad feeling
about this." said Sheep. The meeting broke up and the call to arms was sounded. Thousands of men woke from their sleep and prepared for battle. The red sun began to rise in the east and the light shone through cracks in the cloud cover and reflected off of the morning dew on the grass. The commander stood at the mouth of the valley and spoke to the men in a loud voice that carried all through the hills. "The time to fight is now, Prepare for the destination gates!"
       The men filed out of the hills and into the floor of the valley. They marched up to a bridge that led to an island with a circle of many gates. The first few started to go through and more followed. Several hundred had made the shift and filled the woods on the other side. The next ones through the gates had carried the order to attack. The pace quickened as the men were running into the gates as fast as possible without going so fast as to appear into the man who had just arrived at the battle scene. After a few minutes a commotion could be heard on the island platform and smoke was rising from the gates. Cisco leaned over to Sheep and said to him: "This is what I was afraid of, a forced retreat while the remainder of the group are still going through." The men at the island stopped traveling through the gates as men were coming back into the leaving men. Several smoking bodies lay at the anvils of the gates and no more would these men set foot on the anvils as it appeared that instant death was the price. Now came the main force retreat and men were leaping out of the gate and into each other in their great rush to make it back from a fight with an enemy who had been underestimated. All of a sudden the hills were clamoring with noise and the sky turned black with smoke and clouds. They had been flanked, While they had been doing recon the other force had been doing the same thing and had sent men to surround the Defenders. It was now a rout as the unknown force had put them all in disarray. There was nowhere to run as the enemy held the hills and now was appearing out of the Defender's own gates on the island itself.
       Cisco's group was fighting their way westward and was met by Cyberjim's recruits. They pushed forward through the enemy and broke out into the open. As soon as the others noticed the opening they ran for it as well. They pushed on up the hill and past to a lone slipgate in the middle of nowhere. The men began to file through after Cisco set the destination. The ones who had not come first guarded the rear from attack as the first men went through. The recruits went through, and then the battle hardened veterans. This was Saxon's slipgate and it was sheer luck that it was there at the right time. With a group of soldiers and demolitions men they held the small grassy knoll that the gate stood on as one by one the men passed through to a safer location where they could mount a counterattack. A small group of engineers ran up the hill and began to set up their deadly cunning devices, the automatic sentry guns.
Bundy was among them and yelled at Cisco: "This will keep their heads down as the last of us pass through. There will be no more coming. We escaped with our lives by only the closest margin." Cisco knew that meant that these few hundred that had come west with him were all that was left of the Defenders. "Where was Saxon?" he said to himself. He hoped that he had not returned into the middle of the fiasco on the island.
        Saxon was safe and had not even smelt the battle which was raging at the canyons. He had arrived at in a place near a fortress that was made of stone. He crept through the tall grass and removed his scope from his pocket. he turned on the eyepiece and leaned against a large rock that hid him from the view of the ramparts above. As he focused the scope on the fortress he felt the cold steel of an edged weapon touch his neck. A quiet voice from behind said: "Flinch and you will surely die on this day."

                                                      To Be Continued........