thoroughly. The Guardians may have broken the Transdamping barrier, but now they are trapped. They won’t even be able to move to another part of Tyros. The inner security door is firmly locked but even if they do manage to get as far as the main control room, they will never be able to penetrate that magnamite shield casing, I don’t care what explosives they possess. The traitor has already been eliminated. Kronos has been wounded to such an extent he can barely walk. The remaining Guardian is apparently so traumatised that he is frozen in a state of paralytic shock. Drakos, your orders are to kill Kronos on sight, but the new Guardian is to be captured alive if possible. Whoever presents the Supreme Council with Kronos’s Guardianship belt will be very handsomely rewarded.”
“Consider it done,” Drakos replied. “We will be back in the bunker complex in a matter of minutes, bringing this whole sorry business to a successful conclusion very quickly.”
“Good.” The Council member waved a hand. “Carry on.”
Drakos, with his son and two Lieutenants, led the way to the main bunker entrance to supervise proceedings. Not Wesker, though. He was the only one with a look of foreboding on his face. Now on the balance of probabilities, all was seemingly safe with the situation soon about to be restored. But he hadn’t acquired the nickname of Slippery for no reason; he was going to hedge his bets and cover himself just in case the unthinkable happened, and slowly backtracked to a more secure location, preferably where there were not large concentrations of Drones. Yes, it is true… cowards never die; they just slip away into obscurity, only to turn up again later like a bad penny.
Twenty-two
On Sontral in the S.I.S. command centre, everyone was waiting in silence for news of any kind, whether it be good or bad. Such was the anticipation. A message then came through the supervisor, who passed it on to Commander Vadoran. He in turn made his way over to the Prime Minister.
“Yes, what is it, Commander?” asked the Prime Minister.
“Our long range listening stations have picked up a massive increase in radio traffic on Tyros, all encrypted of course. But it does lead us to believe that at least the attempt is being made.”
“Thank you, Commander. Keep me informed of any further developments.”
On Tyros, in the reception area of the Drone command bunker, I very slowly and ever so gently laid Adema on the floor, closing his eyes and saying as I did so, “Goodbye, you dear, kind man. I hope you are at peace now and reunited with your wife and son.” Then I put my Guardianship belt on as well as the rucksack and grabbed my laser rifle, strapping it over my shoulder. I then started to make my way over to Kronos. As I did so, the inner security door suddenly opened. The decoder had done its job. The door must have been at least a metre thick and made of pure magnamite.
“Good,” said Kronos. “We’re in. Now you make your way down to the main control room and do what you’ve been trained to do. I will hold them for as long as I can, then I will fall back on successive defence lines as I hit and run, stall and retreat, until I meet you back in the main control room. By then the rebellion should be well underway and we can sit it out until things quieten down.”
As I walked over to him I thought to myself that my grasp of military tactics was weak in the extreme, but even I could see he was in no condition to fulfill his expectations. He could barely walk, never mind run. He was trying to pull the wool over my eyes, or to coin a phrase of an old friend of mine called Ken, he was trying to blind me with science, and I wasn’t having it.
Once I reached him, I replied, “You’re in no fit state. You can barely walk, never mind run. I will stay and follow your strategy; you go down and plant the charges.”
Just at that moment, the Kaytons started cutting through the outer security door with what I could only describe as laser cutting equipment. And not in one place, but two… the bottom left and the bottom right hand corner of the door, cutting upwards in an arch shape to meet in the upper middle of the door. This must have given him extra encouragement as, instantly and with both hands, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me like a rag doll. The whiplash was so vigorous I thought my head was going to fly off. He really frightened me, and I think it was intentional – a shock designed to make me fall into line.
“I can’t, John. You are right. I can barely walk, never mind run. Now listen, John, there is very little time left. I got you into this mess and now I am trying my best to get you out of it alive. You are going to go down into that control room and kill those technicians with no hesitation and then you are going to plant the charges correctly. Then you are going to do as much damage to those control panels as you can with your laser rifle, after which you had better start praying it works before this lot get to you.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, John. There is no time for recriminations or regrets. I do believe the best is yet to come from you. Very shortly, I am convinced you will be witness to some truly astonishing events. Now go, before I change my mind.”
“Goodbye,” I said, as he pushed me away.
“Go on, John! No more looking back, only forward. Now run like the devil himself is chasing you!”
As I began to run as fast as my legs would carry me, Kronos turned towards the entrance door to prepare himself for what was about to come. I could not even begin to imagine, let alone understand what was going through his mind as the seconds counted down to the laser cutters meeting and all hell breaking loose. But alas, that moment came all too quickly as the cutters met and the door fell forward with an almighty crash as hordes of Drones attempted to pile through.
Kronos had the initial advantage but it couldn’t be maintained indefinitely as the sheer weight of numbers began to tell. Even the Drones had learnt from their past mistakes by jumping over their fallen comrades instead of falling over them as previously. He could feel his rifle heating up with the continuous fire as it began to burn out. Then the inevitable occurred as he was hit twice in quick succession. Falling to the floor, he was no more for this world. But at least he had taken a good number of Drones with him. It was a shame Drakos was not amongst them but at least he had bought some valuable time, which could prove crucial.
The Drones poured through, continuing their pursuit of me through the inner security door and on down the connecting corridor to the Drone command bunker proper. And when this momentous episode was all over, who should come strolling in with seemingly not a care in the world, but Drakos with his son and two Lieutenants. First he surveyed the scene of utter carnage around him and then he walked over to Kronos and nudged him a couple of times with his right foot, smiling.
“Ah, you’re not such a big man now, are you? Daymar, remove his Guardianship belt. You can have the honour of presenting it to the Supreme Council, for which they will reward you handsomely.”
“Yes, Father.” Daymar obeyed with a smile and reached down to retrieve the Guardianship belt but as soon as his hand made contact with it, the belt flared up into an intense fireball. Worse still, the yellow and orange fireball began to consume Daymar at an ever-increasing pace. He yelled out in pain, but to no avail. Drakos lunged forward to try and help him but his two Lieutenants forcefully held him back, one of them saying, “No, Drakos! If you touch him you could go up the same way.”
As the flames mercilessly accomplished their aim until nothing remained of Daymar but a pile of ashes, I suppose you could say there was some sort of poetic justice in play. Drakos had taken away everything Kronos had loved. Now, in death, Kronos had destroyed the only thing in life that Drakos cared about. Yes, it is a funny old galaxy, isn’t it? What goes around comes around; whatever evil you perpetuate you can guarantee that one day you will be paid back in kind.
When it was all over and his two Lieutenants had released their grip, Drakos said, “I am personally going to kill that remaining Guardian and destroy and eliminate all he stands for.” He then began to run down the tunnel to the main bunker complex, closely pursued by his two Lieutenants.
> As for me, I could hear, at least for a while, the ensuing gun fire being exchanged in the reception area but after a time even that noise abated, leaving me in silence with only my own thoughts for solace, which were a mixture of fear and rage. I then remembered what Freema had said to me once during one of my training sessions. ‘Control your thoughts and by controlling your thoughts you can control your actions, concentrate on what you are doing, not on what other people are doing.’ At last I could see the bunker entrance coming up in the distance so I gathered my thoughts and readied myself for the task ahead. As I ran the last few yards I repeated a couple of times the inscription that was on my Guardianship belt. After all, it was supposedly a Kultarn war cry: Ishtar Racnar Tacknar Heyah. Then I was in the Control Bunker proper. Would you believe it, all the technicians, unarmed, middle-aged men, were huddled together in the middle of the floor like a group of penguins. I needed no encouragement. I let them have it with a vengeance, spraying them remorselessly with my laser rifle.
The first shot clipped one of the technicians on the arm. He fell, but began to crawl across the floor. The rest of them tried to scatter but the field of fire was so rapid and intense that