The Battle for Allegra: Warpath

Season Two: Episode Seventeen

Caleb Fast

Copyright © 2021 Caleb Fast

www.calebfast.com
First Published in 2021 by the Author on Amazon
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.
For information regarding permission, please email the author at calebfast@calebfast.com Please direct all further inquiries to the author at calebfast@calebfast.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real-world people, events, or locations are entirely coincidental.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

DESPERATE PLEA!

The Story Continues,

Other Books By Caleb Fast:

One

The Bulwark, Allegra

Matthew, his team, and Vansen’s team all walk in silence for quite some time as they try to distance themselves from the Dawn Camp. It is abundantly clear to Matthew that everyone has quite a lot to say, but they don’t feel at liberty to say it just yet.

And Matthew can’t blame them.

Hamilton and a select few other members of the Dawn force had done a lot to tell him and his team about the Beets. What made Matthew even more nervous about everything was the fact that Hamilton then sent everyone else out in order to share some of the more frightening details. Details on what the Beets did to people, on what War Maker invasions were like after the Beets softened up a world, and so many other things.

The most disturbing factoid that Hamilton shared was that neither he nor anyone else in the Dawn’s kingdom knew of any planet that had successfully repelled a full Beet attack. Without fail, every planet had eventually fallen.

Some of these lost worlds were due to sleeper cells of Beets that had evaded what should have been their extinction as planets were swept clear of the invaders. Other times additional waves of Beets came. There were other stories, none of which had been fully verified of other ways that the Beets had ended up winning the wars for planets on top of all of those.

But the moral of the story was that the defense of Allegra was destined to be doomed.

And, despite all of that, Hamilton pledged his force, and however many other teams he needed to save the planet—so long as Marie remained here. He also provided assurances that the Dawns would leave a force here as long as they could in order to prevent a Beet stronghold from forming in the Milky Way.

Swallowing, Matthew can’t help but feel like everything he is doing is for naught. To top off that feeling of hopelessness, a lot of the more depressing news was to remain confidential and Matthew couldn’t share everything that Hamilton had told him privately.

“So, the War Makers…” Louise says suddenly.

Matthew immediately looks around, and he assures himself that there isn’t anyone around that can hear them. Sure, the Dawn force had a way of hiding in the hills, as he had already seen, but something about not being able to see them made Matthew a little more confident in his liberty to speak freely. Taking a slow breath, he nods, “Yeah, the War Makers.”

Louise gives Matthew a worried look and hesitantly asks, “Hamilton says no one’s ever seen them before and that the Beets are just their attack dogs, do you really think that’s true?”

Reminiscing on his previous close encounters with the beasts, Matthew nods slowly, “Yeah.”

“And why’s that?” Alois asks.

Matthew can’t help but shrug slightly, “I don’t know… I guess the Beets just don’t seem too bright. I mean, we haven’t personally seen anything to convince us that they’re sentient, much less smart.”

“But they seem to of mastered intergalactic travel,” Jane reminds everyone.

Again, Matthew shrugs, “That’s not saying a lot. The fish on Sinclair, where I’m from, all came from Earth and other planets that mankind has explored. They didn’t master interplanetary travel; they were just taken along for the ride.”

“To be farmed,” Jane adds with an audible swallow.

With a shake of his head, Matthew counters, “The fish, yeah, but the Beets don’t seem like any sort of livestock to me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Vansen speaks up.

Matthew cocks his head, “Why do you say that?”

“You don’t see it?” Vansen asks.

“We don’t see what?” Louise asks Vansen right back.

Even in the dim lighting cast by only one of Allegra’s moons, Matthew can see Vansen shake her head. When the woman doesn’t respond, Matthew prods, “What aren’t we seeing?”

Vansen looks over at Matthew and seems to catch his gaze, “Well, the Dawns have already dealt with the Beets, right?”

Matthew breaks the stare and looks away as he nods, “Right,”

“Well, that means they know just how fearsome they are.”

“They do,”

“My bet is that they are either going to try out something new to fight the Beets here, or they are scared of what the Beets are really for.”

Matthew’s brow furrows and he can’t help but cut in to ask, “What else would the Beets be for besides clearing the planet?”

Vansen doesn’t skip a beat before she announces, “I think they’re here to be bred like farm animals and then sent off to other planets.”

Matthew’s jaw drops as he realizes the truth in Vansen’s statement. It all made sense, and he can’t help but wonder why Hamilton hadn’t shared about it.

There was a reason why most of humanity opted to avoid intergalactic travel—the time and the risk of traveling so far were too much to bear. Raising up one’s attack dogs in the galaxy one sought to conquer would be a lot easier, and it would mean that less space would have to be set aside to transport said attack dogs.

Unsure as to what to say next, Matthew hesitantly asks, “But how can we be sure that Allegra is the first planet that the Beets have attacked here?”

Louise stops suddenly in front of Matthew, and she gasps, “You’re saying there could be more of them?”

Matthew has to sidestep in order to avoid running into Louise, but he still clips her shoulder far too hard for either of their likings. As Matthew bounces off Louise, he sees a glimmer of a small tube fall from the pocket of his jacket.

Kneeling down, Matthew picks up the object and he forgets to apologize to Louise. In fact, he forgets about everyone for a moment. His world is entirely enraptured by the tube.

Turning over the device, he sees that the top has a screw lid, which he quickly undoes, and he finds a small note. Looking it over, he sees that it isn’t too long and that it appears to have been written in a hurry. Settling down to read it, Matthew starts:

I was one of the people you rescued in the Black Forest that came to help fix your ship.

There are things up there that you need to know about, things in the caves. They killed a dear friend of mine. They aren’t natural. I think they’re robots.

Come see me where you dropped everyone off at the Bulwark. I’ll find you. I have a lot to tell you.

Matthew swallows, wondering just what kind of bad news the caves in the Black Forest might hold. Not even a second passes before he begins thinking, As if everything about the Beets and the War Makers isn’t bad enough already, now I’ve got something else to worry about; something bad enough that whoever this is didn’t want to risk telling me about it in front of everyone else. What could be worse than the Beets taking over half of Allegra? What could the caves be hiding? And, if the caves are so bad, then who in their right mind would have fled there when the invasion began?

“Mudskipper?” Louise’s voice draws Matthew from his thoughts.

Looking up, Matthew sees Louise’s worried and confused face. He quickly looks around and sees that everyone else had stopped to stare at him as well. Looking back at the note, he can see that his hands are trembling.

“What’s the deal, sir?” Vansen prompts after a beat.

Shaking his head slightly, Matthew lets out a soft sigh. He felt defeated. Not even the seeder, the new recruits, new supplies, or any of the new ships could make up for the reality that Hamilton had let him in on.

The battle to save Allegra was just beginning, and it wasn’t going to end any time soon.

Two

The Bulwark, Allegra

“What’s wrong?” Marie’s ever-soothing voice asks.

Matthew lets out a loud breath and he rolls over in his bunk to face her. He had been trying to sleep for the past eight hours to no avail.

The first few hours slid by easily enough since he was able to keep himself busy. Lots of thoughts, plans, and hopes as to what he could expect allowed the time to fly by. But, after a few more hours, Matthew’s brain just couldn’t keep up and he fell into a thoughtless lull and his body still didn’t allow him to succumb to his need for sleep.

Which left him here.

“You’re still worked up over the mission, huh?” Marie continues when Matthew doesn’t answer.

Matthew simply nods, but even that effort hurts. Something about his current state of exhaustion made it feel like his brain was swollen and bruised, making any and every movement somehow painful for the grey matter in his skull.

“Was it the mission itself, or what you learned?” Marie presses on, “I find talking about stuff can help me figure things out. Writing helps too.”

“A little bit of both,” Matthew answers in a strained, dry voice. He hadn’t drunk anything before going to bed, and now his thirst was adding to his long list of woes. Knowing that Marie was going to continue talking for some time, Matthew tiredly sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bunk to face her fully.

As he turns, a few thoughts of how great it would be to have a private room and some privacy pop into his mind. When it came to stewing over bad thoughts all night and not being able to sleep, Matthew felt like he’d prefer to go it alone. He didn’t want to discuss it because he still didn’t know what he thought. He needed time to think everything over.

“Well, what’s keeping you up about those things then?”

“Well… I guess most of it is just what I learned that’s keeping me up.”

“That sounds more like what I was thinking. …You’ve changed, you know?”

“I do,”

“I don’t think you appreciate how much you’ve changed.”

“I know I don’t,” Matthew sighs and a new wave of sadness washes over him. He isn’t sure if he liked the man that he was becoming. There were times that he was proud of what he had done and was doing, but there were others where the weight of everything caught up to him; where the fears of what could happen and the dread of what had happened find him once again.

“So, what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing right now, I’m just tired.”

“Well, something’s keeping you up.”

“Yeah… I guess all of this is a bit much.”

“Well, you’re not here alone, the rest of us can help, you know.”

“No one else seemed to care about what that Hreve guy said.”

“That’s because we aren’t sure about his story just yet,”

“But did you see the stuff he gave us? It didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen!”

Marie chuckles softly and she reminds Matthew, “You haven’t seen much of the galaxy though, there’s a lot of stuff you haven’t seen.”

“Well, no one else has seen something like it before either! Not even the twins!”

“Well, the twins did say that they weren’t sure if they’d seen something like it before.”

“All the same.”

“Well, what’s so worrying about it?”

“I’m worried because it sounds like whatever those things are have been down there for a very long time! That opens up a whole can of worms that—I don’t know, it’s just all so… It’s crazy to think that we’ve been here so long and there’s stuff like that that we didn’t even know about.”

“So what if they have been? That doesn’t change much.”

“What do you mean?! It means everything!”

“They’ve waited this long the be discovered, I’m sure they can wait a little longer before we figure out what to do with them. Now we know where they are and what they are capable of. All they know—if they even can know—is that we’re out there.”

“You’re forgetting one important fact.”

“Which is?”

“They’ve got crazy laser things that can incinerate people.”

“And the Beet snipers have something like that too, just on a smaller scale.”

“Well, last I checked, killer laser beams are quite scary,” Matthew huffs, “I don’t see how none of you seem to care.”

“We aren’t worried because we don’t plan on going down there—wait, you aren’t saying…”

Realizing that Marie didn’t see the reason for what Matthew knew needed done, he simply offers, “Well, we can’t just leave them down there! They’re clearly hostile.”

“We just lost thirty-some people on your last mission up there! Another twenty were killed on the front while you were gone too! Are you really saying that you’re ready to send more people out to die this soon?”

“If we don’t deal with whatever those things are now, then there’s a chance they could strike first.”

“So what if they do? It’s such a slim chance that there’s no point in going after them and poking the sleeping giant.”

“If they do come up to the surface, the first thing they’ll find is Vansen’s camp, then they’ll find all of the civilians that we’re protecting. We can’t let them stay behind us like this.”

“Well, what about sealing off the cave?”

“You heard the locals say it yourself, the caves are intertwined. We’d have to seal off every single one.”

“That does sound like a lot of work…”

“And it’d be impossible to find every single one too. Besides, we could end up losing more people to the wolves than we’d lose to an attack on whatever those things are anyway.”

“The Polarity?”

“That’s what Hreve called it, I don’t know if I’m ready to call them that just yet.”

“And why’s that?”

“Well, I decided that I was going to show the gun and the green plate thing to Hamilton. If anyone would know what they are, my guess is it’d be the Dawns.”

Marie giggles softly before she quips, “I’m a Dawn and I don’t know!”

Matthew can’t help but roll his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

Marie nods, “I do. And, since I know that you won’t be getting any sleep before you find things out for sure, how about we go on a little adventure.”

Matthew looks at Marie and he gives her a skeptical face before he hopefully asks, “You’d be up for a trip to the Dawn Camp to figure this out?”

“As your doctor, it’s my obligation to keep you healthy,” Marie announces in a sassy, yet businesslike tone, “Sleep is important, and figuring out this little mystery seems to be the only way I can guarantee that you’ll get any.”

•••••••••••••••

“Well, that was a lot faster than walking,” Matthew chuckles as he steps out of the truck that he, Marie, and a couple of Dawn soldiers had taken to the Dawn Camp.

Marie nods, “The new trucks from the Black Forest will be very helpful.”

“We’re looking more and more like a real military base!” Matthew lets out a proud laugh. Every time that he thought about how far the Bulwark had come since he arrived filled him with a sense of awe and encouraged him. It made him feel like the war wasn’t lost simply because of the lot that he was handed. He felt like he could change anything this way.

“Hol’ tight, we gettin’ the Legate,” one of the Dawn soldiers tells Matthew from their post just outside of one of the tents. After delivering his message, the soldier sees that Marie is with Matthew, and he snaps to attention.

Wow, they’re taking this whole royalty thing quite seriously, Matthew thinks. He isn’t sure if he is bewildered, pleased, excited, or what, but he did know that he was happy that Marie was on his side and that she liked him. If not, Matthew shudders slightly, he didn’t want to dwell on what could happen to him if Marie was against him. If she was, that would mean all the Dawns were, and that couldn’t end well.

To Matthew’s left, Hamilton bursts out of his tent in a hastily thrown-on uniform that Matthew can’t help but think is missing a few pieces. Matthew watches as the man slides to a stop, composes himself, and then tries to flatten out his uniform. Fortunately for him, all of this is done behind Marie’s back.

Hamilton draws near and stops a few meters away before he clears his throat and says, “Your Excellency, we were not expectin’ you.”

As Marie turns, Matthew sees Hamilton bow, and Matthew can’t help but feel out of place. Something about the whole royalty thing was off-putting and disturbing to him.

“It’s fine,” Marie says with a motion for Hamilton to stand upright. She waits for the man to do so before she continues, “Matthew and I have a few things we wanted to show you, we’d prefer to do it privately.”

Matthew looks over at Marie when she adds the privacy caveat. They hadn’t discussed it, but he did see the reason behind it—there was no knowing what people would do if they saw the green plate and the gun. If they didn’t recognize it, nothing would happen. If they did, then that was something Matthew didn’t want to think about. He also preferred the idea of Hamilton being the one who explained everything to him.

“Right, well, I reckon y’all can show me in there,” Hamilton nods toward the tent where the guard that had spoken to them earlier is standing at.

“Well, the things we want to show you are a little too big to carry in there,” Matthew warns.

“Huh,” Hamilton nods slowly, a beat passes before he requests, “Can I jus’ look in the truck?”

“Yes,” Marie answers as she opens the passenger side door.

Matthew waits for Hamilton to come close before he pulls out the green plate that Hreve had provided him earlier. Handing it to Hamilton, he explains, “One of the civilians that we rescued said that he found this down in the caves of the Black Forest.”

Hamilton doesn’t say anything as he turns the large plate over in his hands. He runs his finger along some of the engraved markings before he lets out a shrill breath. Looking up, he asks, “This it?”

“This too,” Matthew pulls out the strange rifle and he trades it with the green plate.

Hamilton’s shoulders slouch and he sighs, “This ain’t good,”

“What is it?” Matthew asks worriedly.

Hamilton shakes his head and asks, “What else did these civvies say they found down there?”

Again, Matthew takes the lead here, and he recounts a brief summary of Hreve’s story as best he can. He makes sure to make mention of the killer robot, the strange blackish-green stone that most everything was made of, and of the bunker. All the while, Hamilton nods along slowly, his face not betraying any thoughts or emotions.

After a few minutes, Matthew finishes, and he is sure that he is leaving a lot of important elements out. Despite that, he is confident that he shared everything that he needed to in order to let Hamilton know what’s happening.

Marie is the first to speak up when Matthew finishes, “I’m assuming that your silence means that you know what’s down there, Hamilton.”

“I do,” the Legate nods slowly, “That what’s worryin’ me.”

“Well, what is it?” Matthew asks impatiently. He didn’t have the energy to beat around the bush and, even if he did, he didn’t like the idea of not getting straight to the issue at hand.

“It the War Makers,” Hamilton reports with a resolute nod, “Tech is old, but it’s clearly them.”

“But how could they already be here?” Matthew demands.

Hamilton shrugs, “I don’t know, kid. There a lot of things we ain’t sure of with ‘em, but we do know they got some colonies all over the Universe. This the first one we know of in the Milky Way though.”

Grasping for some strand of hope that might remain, Matthew asks, “But, if the technology is old, then that means they’ve been here for a long time, right?”

Hamilton nods, “I reckon,”

“But if they’ve been here once, then why come back?”

“I ain’t rightly sure.”

“Do you have any theories?”

“There’re theories about the War Makers, lots of ‘em.”

“Any that pertain to what we’ve got here?”

“A few,”

“Any that you’ll tell us?” Matthew asks, growing even more impatient.

Hamilton nods slowly and a far-off look crosses over his face before he finally answers, “I reckon your story fits with this one: that the War Makers are extinct.”

“Extinct!?” Matthew finds himself yelling for some reason. He isn’t sure if it is his surprise or his relief, but he feels like it’s mostly his surprise. If the War Makers were in fact extinct, then the war he was currently fighting was against a long-dead foe. The thought that people were still dying against a dead foe made him angrier than he already was about his current losses.

“Aye, extinct.”

Matthew regains his composure, and he continues his questioning, “For how long?”

“Some say few centuries, others a few thousand years.”

“But how can they still be killing people?”

“We don’t call ‘em the War Makers for not’in’.”

“That doesn’t answer my question—"

“I think it does, Matthew,” Marie cuts him off, “Names like that are earned—I’m willing to bet that Hamilton here knows a lot more than what he’s told you so far.” Marie looks Hamilton in the eyes for a few beats before she requests, “I’d like to know everything about the War Makers.”

“That’ll take some time, Your Highness, but consider it done,” Hamilton bows his head quickly before he begins leading Matthew and Marie to the tent that he had pointed out earlier.

“I guess class is in session,” Matthew says with a chuckle as he and Marie follow the Legate.

Three

Dawn Camp, Allegra

“Well, my brain is fried,” Matthew announces when the third assigned tutor leaves the tent that Hamilton had left them in some ten hours ago.

After the first hour, Matthew had begun to grow restless, and he can’t help but think that that was because of his lack of rest. While he knew that he needed to learn what was being taught, his brain seemed to have other plans.

Despite his inability to pay absolute attention, Matthew knew that he was still picking up all the information he needed. Something about military history had always been a strong suit of his. For as long as he remembered, he would pick up whatever war story—be it fiction or fact, and he’d read and remember more about it than just about everyone else. No matter how many all-nighters that he seemed to pull to get through a book, his desire to learn somehow overcame his fatigue.

Not even being tossed around in rough seas could stop him as he’d squeeze in all the reading he could in the hours he wasn’t topside helping the men fish. In those many hours of reading, Matthew made his way through more books than he was sure most people would read in a lifetime.

Most every kind of book interested Matthew in the arena of military tales. Some were biographies of great generals, some of frontline soldiers, and some of the leaders who kept their nations together through the wars that had been. Looking back, Matthew can’t help but realize that he had learned a lot about military strategy and other relevant matters from all of that reading.

The presence of the Hidden Library in Crail just provided him with more reading materials. Countless banned books made their way over to Matthew, tales of heroism and riches inspired him early on. Despite his father’s insistence, all of those interests often came back to books about pirates during the Age of the Sail and the odd romantic qualities of sailing under wind power alone.

That idea always made Matthew laugh when he’d read those books. Even after all these centuries, he would still end up using wind power to traverse the oceans of Sinclair. The culmination of all human achievement and technology seemed to be forgotten about every time that he turned off the ship’s engines and cut through the seas under the power of sails alone.

“You’re lucky I’m taking notes,” Marie groans as she massages her hand, “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a class this long.”

Matthew can’t help but shake his head, “I don’t need notes,”

“Everyone does,”

“Not me; not on stuff like this.”

Marie doesn’t seem convinced, and she flips through her notes before she stops on a random page. Looking up to Matthew, she smirks and challenges him, “Prove it.”

For the next half hour or so, Marie quizzes Matthew on everything that they had been told. At first, she seems irritated by Matthew’s memory prowess, but she seems to quickly find it amusing and entertaining as time went on.

“Sorry I’m late,” the fourth member of the Dawn force bows to Marie before they set up a small array of belongings on a table at the front of the tent nearest the holographic display that the other three had been using.

“It’s fine,” Marie nods along as she flips back to a blank page in her notebook.

The older man nods at a small screen on the holographic display for a few moments before he turns and says, “Ya know? I ain’t feelin’ like talkin’ on what they’ve left me to tell y’all ‘bout.”

“Oh?” Matthew cocks his head. He can’t help but feel excited because, judging by the man’s tone, things were about to get real interesting.

“Aye,” the old man nods once more. He smirks and adds, “I reckon y’all should hear some stories of what all I seen.”

Matthew and Marie exchange a quick look, and Matthew can see that Marie is not nearly as excited as he is.

Before anyone can say anything else, the man dives into his story, “It was twenty-six years ago when I was o’re in the Andromeda Galaxy. We were fightin’ to save some colonies that the Dawn royals ‘stablished themselves back in the day. They were some o’ the firs’ colonies we had in ‘nother galaxy back then.

“‘Nyhows, we were fightin’ the same kind of critters y’all are fightin’ now. Beets, you call ‘em. That’s a good name. ‘Nyhows, we were fightin’ them Beets, fightin’ for e’ery bit of land we could save as the colonists made a run for it. Commanders called it a fightin’ retreat.

“We were a-killing and a-fightin’ day in and day out. Some of us were dumb ‘nough t’ think we could win the war, but most of ‘em died that thought that.”

At that, Matthew’s slight grin drops. He wasn’t hearing some glorious war story anymore, what he was hearing was another person telling him that his mission to save Allegra was doomed.

The old man continues yammering on for quite a while, sharing a few useful bits of information, some of which confirmed Matthew’s suspicions about the Beets. The information also seems to jive pretty well with the theory that the War Makers were long gone and some strange error, automation, or malicious intention kept sending the Beets far and wide across the Universe to wreak havoc everywhere.

One important piece of information that Matthew does glean is that his idea about the Beets living in larger underground colonies was very much true. While the old man didn’t know what it was like in the subterranean colonies of Beets, he did know that no one had ever lived to tell the tale of delving into one.

And that just excited Matthew.

As far as Matthew was concerned, anything left undone in the war against the Beets was both a learning experience and something that could very well take part in ultimately defeating them.

The old man’s talk continues for a good three more hours, and it only stops when Hamilton comes back in to relieve the man of his job.

Hamilton waits a few moments after the old man leaves the tent before he says, “Hope all that was informative.”

“It was,” Matthew answers with a nod, “Makes me think we’ve got a chance against the Beets too.”

Hamilton sighs, “He was supposed to tell you two more about the War Makers and their machines.”

“He briefly mentioned them,” Matthew shrugs.

Marie laughs, “He said one sentence about them when you asked him about them. All he said was that he didn’t know about them!”

“Well, that counts for something,” Matthew shrugs.

Hamilton nods for a few beats before he says, “Well, I guess I’ll brief y’all on ‘em ‘fore we launch our attack in few hours. First thing’s first though, you two need to rest up.”

Yawning, Matthew agrees and he follows Hamilton out of the tent and into the ship that the Dawns arrived in. Hamilton leads him and Marie to two cylinders and he explains that they were to take a ‘power nap’ in what he called hyperbaric chambers.

“What’s this?” Matthew asks as one of the Dawn soldiers hands him a glass of water and a couple of pills.

“They’ll help you sleep and fight better when you wake up,” the soldier nods before he hands Marie the same things.

Matthew waits a few moments for Marie to inspect the offerings and ask a few questions. When she appears to be satisfied, she takes her pills and Matthew follows her lead. In a few short moments, they both lay in their respective chambers and the lids ease shut. In the total darkness, and thanks to the pills, Matthew succumbs to the rest he so desperately needed.

•••••••••••••••

“Did you sleep as well as me?” Marie whispers to Matthew as they follow Hamilton out of the transport.

Nodding, Matthew assures her that he had, and he can’t help but wonder what the Dawns had given them. In addition to his mind feeling fully rested, his body felt like it was ready and rearing to go as well.

Matthew and Marie continue following Hamilton for a short while longer before they stop at the bottom of a ramp where several other Dawn people are waiting, in addition to Rav’ian, Alois, and Louise.

“Hey, Mudskipper,” Louise greets Matthew when she notices him.

“How’d you two get here?” Matthew whispers as Hamilton begins walking up the ramp alone.

“Hamilton sent some guys to pick us up,” Alois answers, “Felt weird having an armed escort like them, but I liked it.”

“We just got here a little while ago,” Louise tells him, “I’m surprised you and Marie are wide awake already, they told us you two were asleep.”

“We were,” Matthew nods, “They had us sleep in these tube things, we’ve never slept so well in our lives.”

Louise nods slowly and she then whispers, “Well, hopefully, that gives you two an edge for what’s to come.”

At that, Matthew immediately remembers what Hamilton had told him and Marie before they went to sleep.

They were going after the War Makers—or at least what was left of them.

“Alright, boys!” Hamilton calls out from the top of the ramp, “We goin’ af’er the War Makers in a way no one’s ever done ‘fore. There a lot of things we don’t know, but I do know that we got t’ do this if we ever gonna beat the War Makers. Saddle up, we’re goin’ to war!”

Hamilton’s speech is met with cheers from his men, and Matthew can’t help but feel like he is just as ready as everyone else to go to war too. In an instant, all the Dawn soldiers begin marching up the ramp after their leader, leaving Matthew and his people behind for the time being.

Louise chuckles softly beside Matthew and she elbows him to whisper, “That was a better speech than any you’ve given so far.”

Laughing, Matthew can’t help but agree. Perhaps speech-giving was something he needed to add to his repertoire of things to study and try to master if he was going to convince more people to join his battle to save Allegra.

“We must go,” Rav’ian urges as she starts up the ramp ahead of Matthew and the others.

Nodding, Matthew motions for the others to follow Rav’ian’s lead. He waits for everyone else to board the small ship before he does himself.

Inside of the transport, Matthew immediately sees that the ship’s interior is just as blank of a canvas as its exterior. No undo effort was applied to make things look nicer, it was a military ship, and the builders clearly had no intention to hide its nature. A line of benches line the starboard and port walls and there is the ramp at the rear, which Matthew just entered from. Ahead of Matthew, there appears to be a closed ramp at the front of the ship below the cockpit area as well.

Looking at what he assumes is the cockpit, Matthew sees Hamilton waving him over and he and his small team make their way over to the man.

“I reckon now’s as good a time as any to tell y’all what we be lookin’ at,” Hamilton gestures once more for them to follow. Hamilton turns and steps into the room that Matthew previously thought was the cockpit as he continues, “We only ever seen the War Maker’s bots from afar ‘fore t’day. I reckon thing’s get pretty messy if we ain’t careful, but y’all seem t’ have a way of gettin’ out of jams scotch free anyhows. Since that’s the case, I figur’d y’all should know what we know for sure.”

Matthew looks around the room as Hamilton lists off the various known weaknesses of the robots that they would be facing underground.

The room ebbs off the closer you get to the front of the ship, and it comes to a single point at the bow. On either side of the door that Hamilton had led Matthew and the others through, there is a ladder that leads up to what Matthew assumes must be the actual cockpit. Within the room itself, there are a few rows of benches that face toward the corner at the front of the room, where a few computer screens and a holographic display are set up.

“And that’s round abouts all we know,” Hamilton finishes his short speech of what the robots’ weaknesses were.

Matthew swallows a lump in his throat. The speech Hamilton gave lasted all of maybe three minutes, and that was because there weren’t many known weaknesses to the robots. The only weak spots Hamilton knew about were only discovered because of airstrikes—airstrikes, Matthew noted, which were not going to be available to him and the others.

To top all of that off, Hamilton made sure to tell Matthew and the others that there was no knowing how well their small arms would fare against the robots and if they would even be enough to bring one down. He assured everyone that his teams would be bringing down heavier weapons as well, but nothing that came close to the firepower of a ground support bomber or anything like that.

“Well, that paints a bleak picture,” Louise sums up everyone’s thoughts.

“Well, that ain’t all of it,” Hamilton frowns, “We were fixin’ to try ‘n take one alive.”

Matthew’s jaw drops slightly, and his eyes go wide. As if the mission weren’t already impossible, Hamilton now wanted to add another layer of difficulty, “And how would we ever be able to do something like that?!”

Hamilton shrugs, “I ain’t sure, but I know y’all can do it if anyone can. The men I’m sendin’ in ‘re some o’ the best out there too, so the odds ‘re stacked in our favor.”

Marie leans over to Matthew and whispers, “I don’t think he would be sending me in too if he wasn’t confident that we’ll pull through.”

Matthew lets out a frustrated sigh before he allows himself to think about the plan. A few moments pass before Matthew recalls a scripture from the Bible back in Crail’s Hidden Library. In the scripture, it said something along the lines of binding the strong man first so you can then do what you want with his possessions. Realizing that was his only real choice here, he begins thinking aloud, “Well, we’d have to tie it up if we want to capture it—”

“Gonna have t’ disarm it first,” Hamilton interjects, “Them lasers it got are some’ing fearsome.”

Matthew frowns, “Well, how tall are these things?”

Hamilton thinks a moment before he answers, “‘Round ‘bouts as tall as your big mech,”

“Well, if it’s that big, then how are we supposed to get it out of the caves?”

“I was fixin’ on that earlier, I reckon we could just have my people a-studyin’ it down there.”

“What if they get attacked?”

“We’ll make sure the caves ‘re clear first.”

“Alright, alright,” Matthew nods with a little more excitement now. He was liking the way things were going in his head, now he just had to convince everyone else that his idea was a good one, “I’m thinking that our only bet is to trip the robot and then get its weapons. It’s too tall for us to get them first—but that isn’t to say that we can’t try to shoot them off or something also.”

“How do you suppose we get that close, Matthew?” Rav’ian asks skeptically.

“The Hreve guy I talked to said that there are a bunch of old tank-things and a bunch of buildings. If we could lure the robot into a trap and use those things as cover, I think we could make it.”

Hamilton nods along slowly for a few beats before he says, “If this Hreve bloke’s right ‘bout what he said, those buildin’s ‘re made of Maker material too. They’d stand up to the bot’s attacks.”

“So, is that the line of attack then?” Matthew asks hopefully. He liked the simplicity of his plan.

“For the last bot, yeah,” Hamilton responds, “But the other ones will need t’ be taken out in a diff’ent way jus’ in case the bots catch onto our plan.”

“And how else are we supposed to take them out?” Matthew demands, “You heard the story, these things can kill in a second’s time!”

Hamilton shrugs before he sadly states, “That’s what I’m worried ‘bout.”

“What about a game of whack-a-mole?” Alois says suddenly.

“What?” Matthew asks with an awkward laugh.

“It’s an old game where little things would pop their heads up so you can whack them on the head.”

“I’m not about to volunteer to get whacked,” Louise jokes as she elbows her brother.

“How’ll this help us?” Hamilton asks.

“Well, we could spread everyone out in the buildings and tanks and—”

“I already said we can’t do Matthew’s plan, or the bots’ll catch on—”

“What I was saying is that we can have everyone pop up and take a shot whenever the robots aren’t paying attention to them,” Alois interrupts Hamilton to finish outlining his plan, “It’d be a lot safer than forming a firing line or something like that.”

“How’ll e’eryone know when it safe for ‘em?” Hamilton asks skeptically.

“Maybe we could have a spotter or two radioing out to everyone when they’re safe,” Alois shrugs, “I don’t know, that’s just my thought.”

“This appears to be a sound plan,” Rav’ian voices her support, “Simplistic, as is Matthew’s, but equally as sound.”

“It’d be a good trial to see if Matthew’s plan can work too,” Louise adds.

Hamilton nods slowly before he sighs and says, “I’ll have a chat with my people to see what they think of y’all’s plan.”

Matthew watches as Hamilton leaves the room, leaving Matthew and his small team to talk amongst themselves. Several beats pass as the muffled voices of Hamilton and his team sound faintly through the closed door. For some reason, the voices of everyone else seem to be ample for Matthew and the others. It is clear that no one found the need to make small talk.

They all knew what they had just been tasked with.

In lieu of talking, Matthew finds himself thinking up a storm. For a good five minutes or so he thinks about his plan and its potential perks—and particularly—its potential pitfalls. However, as the minutes pass, Matthew is hit with the sudden thought, How come I’m taking orders from Hamilton on this? Aren’t I the one in charge? Hamilton’s my guest, not my superior… However, those thoughts are quickly culled as Matthew reminds himself that Hamilton hadn’t steered him wrong thus far, and that the man’s experience made him the best choice for the operation. After reminding himself of those facts, Matthew puts the negative thoughts to rest, and he assures himself that they were nothing more than random thoughts brought up by his jitteriness.

“Think we can actually pull this off?” Louise breathes. Something about her stunted delivery and quietness seems to suck the air out of the room.

Everyone’s just as scared as me and I’ve got no idea what to say, Matthew thinks as a heavy feeling weighs on his chest; it felt almost like someone strapped an anchor to his chest and that was what was weighing him down.

“We can do it,” Matthew eventually squeaks. He clears his throat before he repeats himself, “We can do it, for sure.”

Everyone looks over at him, and Matthew can’t help but feel like he is blushing. The room feels like it heats up several degrees and Matthew takes a seat in a corner in an effort to hide himself. He didn’t feel equipped to lead his team at a time like this, but, at the same time, he knew that this was a mission that was likely no more dangerous than any number of his previous escapades.

Swallowing, Matthew tries his best to pass these thoughts along, “We’ve dealt with the impossible before, and that was when it was just us. We’ve got a whole army this time, so that counts as something, right?”

Alois nods and provides the encouragement Matthew needed, “Right!”

Matthew watches for a moment as Rav’ian and Louise also nod. Marie, on the other hand, appears to be lost in her own world, which Matthew finds relieving, with a chuckle, he thinks At least she won’t see me make an idiot of myself.

Nodding alongside the others, Matthew continues, “Hamilton’s dealt with these things before, so I’m sure he’ll get us through this.”

Seeing that this final sentence wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm, Matthew decides that it is time to shut up, and he is sure to do so. Nothing killed a speech—mediocre or not—like repeating the same point over and over again. He knew that his team could manage and he was confident that Hamilton’s team could as well. Judging by the quickly improving morale in those around him, Matthew is sure that the others knew this to be true as well; they just needed reminding.

Maybe that’s the whole thing about rousing speeches, Matthew thinks with a slight chuckle, People just need reminded who they are, and they can take things from there. That’s all Hamilton did, I guess it’s worth giving a shot next time…

Matthew stops his train of thought before he can doubt the chance that there would in fact be a next time. There was no room for thoughts like that. As he had been taught early on, he had to keep his head in the game when he was in the middle of the action. There was always the time after the fight to think about the random flotsam thoughts that would just get his brain tangled up and get him killed.

“The crew’s in!” Hamilton calls in to Matthew and the others, “Now gear up, we’re hittin’ the ground in a few minutes.”

Matthew’s head jerks up and he momentarily wonders how they could be so close to the Black Forest already. Before he can ask anything, Louise beats him to it.

“Wait, when did we take off?” Louise cocks her head.

“Shor’ly af’er we got in ‘ere,” Hamilton answers, “Don’ worry, most people miss the takeoffs—my pilots and ships are some o’ the best ou’ there!”

“Huh, I’m impressed,” Louise nods approvingly before she follows Hamilton out of the room and back to the main area where the rest of the Dawn troops are.

Matthew follows the others out wordlessly and he continues following them until they stop at the first crate in a row of crates that bisected the staging room that all the Dawn legionnaires are in. Before he can ask why they stopped, Hamilton pops the crate open.

Hamilton reaches into the crate and pulls out a small vest, “In ‘ere we got light armor. We ain’t got nothin’ to stop lasers like the bots got, so just some light armor ‘ll do for this mission. Gear up, you five.”

Matthew catches a vest that Hamilton tosses to him, and he quickly pulls it on. Once it’s on, he runs his fingers along it, and he makes note of the gel-like substance that fills what he assumes are the armor pockets. There is also a small plate that he can feel behind the gel, but that isn’t nearly as interesting to him.

“Nex’ up, we got guns,” Hamilton continues as he pops open two more crates, “High caliber sidearms ‘n rifles. Sorry, but my boys already took some o’ the cooler guns.”

A few chuckles sound around the room and Matthew sees that they are coming from the soldiers who are holding some very large weapons including heavy machine guns and some sort of rocket launchers.

Seeing the assortment of weapons that the Dawn soldiers had, Matthew takes a quick survey of all of them and sees that most had rifles, save those with the larger armaments, and there is also a small group near the front who are quietly sitting beside some large sniper rifles.

“And now the ‘nades,” Hamilton continues after he finished handing out the weapons to Matthew and the others, “We’ll be needin’ all the ‘nades you can carry. Pack e’erythin’ you can. Don’t forget a few extra mags too. We don’t want anyone runnin’ out o’ ammo in the middle of the fight.”

Matthew takes three strands of grenades, and he attaches them to a few carabiners on the back of his vest where they dangle by his butt. After checking the rifle and its magazine he straps that to his back and then holsters the pistol after checking it as well. Something that he noted with both firearms was that they both had bullets that were a lot larger than the ones he had been using so far on the front. Part of him wished that he could keep the guns and ammo to kill Beets later, but he knew that wouldn’t happen.

“That about covers it,” Hamilton nods as he looks everyone over. He nods for a few beats before he says, “I’m proud to be leadin’ a squad like y’all into the belly of the beast. Let’s do our families and the royals proud.”

“For king and country!” several of the Dawn soldiers boom.

One of the men with the large machine guns finishes loading his weapon and he slams it on the ground before saying, “‘Si vis pacem, para bellum.’”

“Para bellum!” the soldiers around him echo.

Right after the call, the soldiers all around Matthew start banging their weapons on the ground in a rousing, almost tribal fashion that both excites and scares Matthew. In an instant, he feels like he is transported back in time to an old Celtic raiding party or something along those lines.

“War ready!” a Dawn soldier shouts; several others echo the call back.

“Oorah! Oorah!” the soldiers chant before they fall deathly silent.

Before Matthew can ask what had just happened, the ramps on either end of the staging room open up and the Dawn soldiers rush out in one fluid motion. Carried on almost instinctually, Matthew follows them out.

The next thing he knows, Matthew finds himself clamoring down some gravel that had been piled high in front of a cave entrance. Ahead of him, he can see Hamilton and a couple of other Dawn soldiers racing ahead with small computers lighting their faces up in the darkness. Judging by the swiftness of their motion, they know exactly where they are heading. Behind them, everyone is following with their weapons held loosely in their arms.

Now, this is what a professional army looks like, Matthew can’t help but think as a boyish grin crosses over his face. He can’t help but feel excited by the idea that he is taking part in something that no man had ever done before.

He was taking the war to the War Makers.

Sure, the Dawns had already done so, but not in the same manner that he was about to. Something about charging into a now-known War Maker enclave seemed exhilarating—especially when Matthew remembers how up close and personal, he is about to get with the killing machines that the race had left behind.

While the thought that the War Makers may very well be extinct remained in Matthew’s head, he still can’t help but feel like killing however many robots he was about to would further the cause of ending the War Makers’ reign of terror on the Universe. Something about the gusto of the other Dawn soldiers just riles Matthew up more and makes him feel even more like he needed to do what he is about to.

“Mudskipper,” Louise’s voice sounds.

Louise’s voice pulls Matthew out of the lull that he had fallen into after a good twenty minutes of marching deeper into the caves. For one reason or another, the adrenaline high of earlier hadn’t really worn off just yet, and Matthew can’t help but wonder if it was because he didn’t know how much longer he had until they reached the War Makers’ bunker.

Turning, Matthew sees Louise staring right back at him and he whispers, “What?”

“I’m scared.”

Matthew briefly looks either way to make sure that none of the Dawn soldiers are in earshot. Seeing that they aren’t, he whispers back, “Why?”

“You heard the same stuff I did about these robots. They’re dangerous.”

“But we’ll pull through.”

“I don’t know, how can we be sure if no one’s ever taken one of these things on like we’re about to?”

Matthew shrugs and says nothing.

“Para bellum,” Marie whispers to Matthew and Louise, “It means ‘prepare for war.’”

“And?” Louise prods.

Marie nods slowly as she answers, “War is something you can’t ever prepare for, as I see it. But that doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of it. It just means that you’ve got to be ready to show up when and where it counts.”

“And punch them where it hurts,” Alois quickly adds.

“We shall prevail,” Rav’ian assures everyone, “We have proven ourselves to be a capable team.”

“A capable family,” Matthew finds himself saying before he can stop himself. He chuckles softly as the realization comes to him; he really did view his core team as family now.

“Family,” Louise smiles, “I like that.”

“Indeed,” Rav’ian agrees.

“Brothers born through blood,” Alois adds.

“And sisters,” Marie giggles as she elbows Alois lightly.

“Yeah, that doesn’t quite sound the same,” Alois laughs.

Smiling, Matthew can’t help but feel relieved at the idea that the others saw things like he did. They were a family. The only thing Matthew wished at this point in time was that Jane, Vansen, and the rest of Vansen’s team were here with them.

“It’s just up ahead,” Hamilton calls from the front of the procession, his voice echoing a bit in the process.

“How’d he know which cave it was in?” Matthew asks his small group.

“The guys who picked us up said they tracked down the Hreve guy and got some more information,” Alois answers.

“And, before you ask, Hreve is still alive too,” Louise adds.

“Why would I ask that?” Matthew cocks his head.

Louise lets out a short laugh before she answers, “Sorry, I forgot you’re not used to working with the Coalition. Normally, with the Coalition, they kill people who know too much. That can be people who saw stuff they shouldn’t have or people who provide them information on stuff like what we’re doing now. Suffice to say, these Dawn folk aren’t like the Coalition.”

“I could have told you that,” Marie chuckles.

“Your opinion is invalid, Princess,” Louise teases, “We can’t trust their leader’s word like that!”

Louise’s teasing makes everyone laugh, and Matthew can’t help but appreciate the break from the seriousness of the moment. As he appreciates the break, he realizes that his adrenaline high had worn off substantially and had left his brain a bit sluggish. Shaking his head slightly, Matthew assures himself that he had enough adrenaline left in his body to call upon when they finally arrived at the bunker village that Hreve told him about.

“You know, it’s going to be weird seeing whatever’s down there,” Marie says to no one in particular, “I mean, it isn’t often that you get to declare war with an alien race that might be extinct.”

Matthew chuckles, “Hopefully it doesn’t become a common occurrence.”

“Well, as far as we know this is the only place on Allegra that’s got something like this, so that counts for something,” Marie reminds Matthew, “There aren’t any other magnetic anomalies on the planet, and all the mining Allegra’s seen would have unearthed something like this anywhere else by now.”

“So they said,” Matthew nods as he recollects the particular part of the lesson that Marie was referencing. Thanks to his power nap, he can’t help but appreciate his renewed mind.”

“I still think this is some crazy stuff,” Louise grunts, “I’ve never heard of anything like this before. I mean, ancient alien bunkers? Really? That alone is a bit much. Throw in some killer robots and it’s crazy.”

“‘Ere it is!” Hamilton shouts from somewhere ahead.

Overcome with excitement and curiosity, Matthew quickens his pace and everyone else seems to do the same all around him. In a minute or so, he is standing at a junction in the cave network. All but one of the tunnels that branch off appear to be nothing special.

However, the one tunnel that didn’t look like the others stuck out like a sore thumb.

“Well, that’s terrifying,” Matthew notes with a chuckle as he stares into the black cavern. The contrast between the black stone that the one cave is made of against the grey of the other caves just makes it look more menacing.

“Looks like a portal to Hell,” one of the Dawn soldiers announces. Several others voice their agreement.

“We been through worse,” Hamilton reminds his troops, “Let’s get a move on.”

At that, Hamilton begins marching into the cave. His small computer is now tucked away, and his weapon is raised. Matthew can tell by the man’s actions that he is at least marginally nervous.

Swallowing, Matthew follows after the Dawn soldiers who don’t allow their Legate to get more than a meter or so ahead of the front of their line.

Regardless of what happened, Matthew can tell that the Dawn soldiers were willing to follow Hamilton into it.

Even if that entailed marching straight into the gates of Hell itself, as things currently looked.

•••••••••••••••

“This’s the door,” Hamilton announces after a tense half-hour or so of marching deeper into the greenish-black tunnel.

The tunnel had opened up into a chamber not far from where Hamilton had stopped, and that tunnel came after a seemingly unending stretch of blackness that somehow absorbed the light from everyone’s flashlights, really impeding visibility.

After making it through all of that, Matthew assured himself that there was no trap waiting for him. If there was a trap, it would have been sprung in the darkness. Whatever lay beyond the door Hamilton is at appears to be anything but dark. On all four sides of the door, light is shining through. Not just any light, a bright almost aqua color, much like the light that Allegra’s sun lent it.

But Matthew knew that this wasn’t the natural light from the outside world. He remembered Hreve’s story. He knew as well as everyone else that heard the story that there was some strange light screen of sorts that kept this unnatural bunker lit. The idea of such a light existing after all these centuries just made everything somehow spookier.

“Remember, we ain’t sure what’s past ‘ere,” Hamilton warns his small troop, the bots could be right ou’side, y’all got that?”

Sounds of affirmation sound from all around and Matthew can’t do much more than simply nod.

Hamilton nods as he continues outlining his plan, “We headin’ in there two by two, no need to give the bots more targets that we got t’. Once my runners ‘n scouts ‘re in, the rest o’ us ’ll follow.”

Again, everyone sounds off, letting Hamilton know that they understood the plan, but this time Matthew can summon his voice to join the others.

“One las’ thing,” Hamilton adds, “I’m callin’ this place Horton’s Haunt t’ honor the guy who died ‘ere. Any questions?”

No one says anything, and Hamilton nods. A second passes and Hamilton eases the doorway inward. It floats smoothly into the cavern beyond. As it opens, the light from the cavern illuminates the cave that Matthew and the others are in, and everyone begins clicking off their flashlights.

Without a moment’s delay, soldiers begin racing into the breach into the bright, but unknown world beyond.

“We got eyes on three hostiles,” one of the scout’s voices comes in after a few minutes of soldiers making their way into the War Maker bunker.

“How’s it lookin’?” Hamilton radios back.

“Looks like they ain’t payin’ attention,” the scout radios back, “Y’all can keep comin’ in.”

“Copy that, Brandon, o’er and out.” Hamilton slips his radio back into its spot in his vest, then he continues waving soldiers through the door.

After ten minutes or so, Matthew finds himself at the front of the line. Matthew gazes through the open doorway and he takes in the sight beyond.

The bunker, if one could even call it that, is graced by gently rolling hills that are covered in some sort of green and red grass. Scattered all around are a smattering of small stone structures that appear to be made of the same material as the tunnels Matthew and the others had come through. A few winding roads made of the same material wind around the whole landscape.

“Sure doesn’t look like a bunker,” Matthew notes, feeling slightly out of place with his weapons and vest. What seemed more proper to enter the area with was a casual outfit and a desire to vacation, much like people used to do in the books Matthew read back at Crail.

“The War Makers ‘re a weird race, nothin’ they do makes sense, if you ask me,” Hamilton responds, “While I ain’t ever seen somethin’ like this, it makes sense if you know ‘nythin’ ‘bout them.”

“One of the bots is headin’ your way, Legate,” the scout that had radioed in earlier, Brandon, warns, “Y’all best get movin’.”

“Let’s go, all o’ us,” Hamilton nods to Matthew and the others. He doesn’t waste a moment before he charges through the open doorway and toward the nearest building.

Knowing that time wasn’t on his side, Matthew sprints after Hamilton and he can hear the rest of his team following him. After a few dozen seconds, they all stop just outside of the building that Hreve had described as a checkpoint. This was the place where the man had recovered the artifacts that he had handed off to Matthew.

“E’verybody down!” Brandon’s voice warns over everyone’s radios.

Matthew drops to the ground, and he presses himself against the wall of the checkpoint. Holding his breath, he waits. He isn’t sure what he is waiting for, all he knew was that he had to wait.

“Come on, Brandon, what we lookin’ at?” Hamilton radios after a few beats.

Hamilton’s radio squawks before Brandon answers, “I’m watchin’ two bots on a hill right ‘bouts now. They just standin’ there.”

“We got another three bots patrollin’ the far side of the valley too,” another scout reports in.

“That makes five,” Matthew whispers, largely to himself.

Hamilton nods before he asks, “Any idea if there more bots out ‘n about, Dunn?”

“Negative,” the second scout, Dunn, radios back.

“So we can kill four for sure,” Louise notes, “Think we should go for it? If there are others, they’ll come out then. We can deal with them as they come out.”

“No,” Hamilton shakes his head, “There’s no knowin’ how many ‘re out there… We got t’ be sure ‘fore we overcommit. I don’t want my boys stranded down ‘ere.”

“C’mon, Dunn, c’mon, Brandon…” Hamilton mutters under his breath.

“I got eyes on two more bots comin’ out of one of the big buildin’s,” Brandon sounds, “I got good news, Legate.”

“What’s that?”

“I think these things ’ve already seen some action. They pretty beat up.”

“Think we can take ‘em?”

“Yes, sir,”

“Let’s go, Brandon! That’s ‘xactly what I wanted to hear!” Hamilton calls out excitedly.

A moment passes before Brandon reports, “The two bots on the hill turned, y’all can get movin’ again.”

“Where do you want us?” Matthew quickly asks Hamilton. He didn’t like the idea of not knowing where to go or what to do when he was in the middle of someone else’s plan. The thought made him nervous and made him feel like he might just ruin everything if he didn’t know.

“You can sit ‘ere ‘n watch, or you can be in the middle of it all,” Hamilton answers as he peeks around the corner, “Choose fast, we ain’t got time t’ wait around.”

“Let’s be in the thick of it,” Matthew answers with a steadfast nod. While he knew the decision brought a lot more risk, it only felt right to participate. Sitting on the sidelines as the Dawns fought for him seemed wrong.

“Good,” Hamilton nods. He points off in the distance and waits for Matthew to stand and look where he is pointing before he makes his request, “I need y’all in that buildin’ o’er there.”

“The big one?” Matthew asks, hoping this was the case.

“Aye,” Hamilton nods, “Brandon ’ll be your personal spotter since y’all will be goin’ in further than e’eryone else.” At that, Hamilton passes the message along to Brandon and he then tells the other scouts that they’ll have to make up for the slack.

As Hamilton adjusts his orders, Matthew looks back to his team and he smiles, “We’ve got this.”

“We know,” Louise nods back.

Alois checks the magazine on his rifle before he says, “Let’s get going,”

Nodding at his team, Matthew pulls out his radio’s headpiece, and he fits it to his ear. Hitting the button to talk, Matthew rouses Brandon, “We’re ready when you are.”

“Get on gettin’ on,” Brandon’s voice sounds, “You’re all sorts o’ clear.”

Peeking around the corner of the building that Hamilton is still hunkered behind, Matthew sees that Brandon was right and that the coast is clear. Looking back, Matthew tells everyone to follow him one at a time and he then looks around the corner once more. Satisfied, Matthew steps out and runs to the nearest piece of cover, which was what remained of a tank. Stopping himself with the large rusting hulk, Matthew catches his breath, and he waits for the rest of his team to reach him as they take turns to rush across the open area.

Marie is the first to make the run and, after catching her own breath, she warns Matthew, “It’s going to take forever to get over there like this.”

“What do you think we should do? The rest of the Dawns are doing it like this.”

“Well, if we’re clear, then that means we should be able to head straight for the building, right?”

“Right…” Matthew nods slowly, seeing Marie’s logic.

A short while later, Matthew’s whole team is behind the derelict tank and Matthew tells them to fit their headpieces on. He didn’t want to risk the robots hearing the radio chatter from the radio’s loud speakers. As everyone makes the adjustment, Matthew reaches out to Brandon once more, “How clear are we?”

“Still clear,” Brandon answers.

“Clear enough to make a run for it?”

“I s’pose.”

“Is that a yes or a maybe?”

“You’re clear. I’ll let y’all know if that changes. Don’t be stupid, now.”

“Thank you, Brandon,” Matthew says with a nod.

Looking up, Matthew sees that the rest of his team heard the same message. Knowing that was the case, Matthew forgoes repeating what had been said, and he simply asks, “You guys ready for this?”

“I think you mean ‘y’all,’” Louise says teasingly, making fun of the Dawn soldier’s speech patterns and slang.

“Fine,” Matthew chuckles, “Y’all ready?”

“Yes, sir!” Alois nods.

“You got it, Mudskipper,” Louise smiles.

Looking around their cover, Matthew sees quite a few potential hiding spots that he and his team can use on their way to the larger building that Hamilton had pointed out. Confident that the rest of his team could spot these on their own, Matthew slips around his cover, and he begins tearing straight for the building.

As he runs, Matthew makes a point of making very slight detours so he can stay close enough to the pieces of cover that he had previously made note of. In case things went belly up, he wanted to be able to get behind cover. As he does so, Matthew looks back and sees that the rest of his team is doing the same.

Satisfied that everything is going well, Matthew races on ahead and he passed the first of the small hut-like black buildings. Despite his urge to peek inside, he continues running and soon passes another building and then another.

“Find some cover, there another bot comin’,” Brandon’s voice warns.

Matthew veers off to his right and dives through the open doorway of one of the old black buildings. Safely inside, he looks out and confirms that the rest of his team is either hiding or about to be.

“The bot’s comin’ from the west,” Brandon’s voice warns, “It should be in view in three… two… one.”

Matthew shrinks behind the doorframe, and he just barely peeks out far enough to see the robot that Brandon had warned him about. Thanks to the distance that the war machine is at, Matthew can just barely make it out. All he can really see is that it is present.

Saddened by the missed opportunity to take a good, close look at his adversary, Matthew turns his attention to the building that he is in.

As he had expected, the building is just one poorly lit room. Additionally, it is more or less completely empty and there isn’t even a sign that there had ever been a door in the doorway. A few odds and ends are scattered on the ground, but nothing that seems too valuable to Matthew.

Sighing, Matthew realizes that he is going to be stuck in here for a while, so he crouches down and begins poking at some of the stuff on the floor.

The object nearest Matthew appears to be a smaller version of the plate that he had shown Hamilton earlier on. It is broken in several places, so Matthew shifts his attention to a small pile of junk in the corner of the room.

Poking around in the pile, Matthew finds even more junk. Sighing, he resigns himself to his fate and he finally sits down. A few beats pass before Matthew begins to wonder, If this building is empty, then what about all the other ones? A bunch of empty buildings can’t be of much use to the Dawns. I wonder if we’ll find any more useful stuff before the day is out—

“Mudskipper,” Louise’s voice sounds over the radio.

“Yeah?” Matthew responds.

“I’m bored,” Louise sighs.

“Me too,” Alois agrees.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have volunteered for this,” Louise chuckles.

“Maybe,” Matthew joins in on the laughter. Part of him feels sorry for Brandon who likely didn’t understand the twins’ sense of humor, but another part of him didn’t care, since it was him who sent them all diving for cover.

“Where are you holed up, Alois?” Louise asks.

The radio buzzes for a split second before Alois answers, “Behind a tank. I was on the west side of it up until Brandon warned me. Thanks for the save, by the way.”

“You got it,” Brandon says.

“Any idea how much longer we’ll be stuck in here?” Marie whimpers.

“Negative,” Brandon answers.

“You don’t sound very comfortable, Marie,” Louise chuckles, “Where are you stuck?”

Marie grunts a few times and there is some rustling before she answers, “I tried hiding in one of the tanks. Bad idea.”

“Are they small?” Matthew asks curiously.

Marie quickly answers, “No, but I got in wrong. It’s better now that I turned myself around.”

“Y’all are clear,” Brandon says, cutting the chit-chat short, “Get a move on, e’eryone else’s almos’ in position.”

Standing, Matthew goes over to the door and peeks out once more. Seeing that Brandon was right, he slips out and begins running toward the large building once more.

At long last, Matthew reaches the building, and he quickly finds the entrance, which he stands outside of to help the others find the way in. After directing Rav’ian—who had been pulling up the rear—into the building, Matthew slips in as well and he lets out a long, loud breath.

Slipping into the building, Matthew is greeted by a large, two-story room that has several doors leading further into the building. Along the far wall is a long ramp going up to the second floor that extends toward Matthew and the front of the building. Almost everything is made of the same greenish-black stone, but there are some places where other metals were embedded to provide some beauty and allow Matthew and the others to see the corners and edges of the architecture more easily.

“We made it,” Matthew radios Brandon.

“Copy,” Brandon says.

Looking up, Matthew chuckles as he looks over his winded team. They had all just run a good two kilometers and they were all taking a well-needed breather. Matthew waits for a minute or two before he finally starts talking, “I wonder how long until Hamilton gives the order to his people.”

“Probably soon,” Alois nods, “From what I saw, they were all spreading out along the perimeter of the valley and finding spots to hide out. We were the only ones who went up the middle.”

Matthew nods slowly before he turns his attention to his radio. Changing over to the channel Hamilton is on, he asks, “Will we be doing any of the shooting?”

“Yes, but not yet,” Hamilton answers, “I don’t want t’ risk y’all just yet.”

That makes Matthew chuckle slightly. Their lives had just been risked and shooting at some big, slow robots was likely a lot safer than running across an open field. They were protected now, so the robots would struggle to get to them.

“Sounds like Hamilton’s going to have us wait in here for a while,” Matthew tells his squad. Looking around the large room that they are in, he adds, “Let’s take a look around.”

“I don’t know about that, Mudskipper,” Alois shakes his head, “I don’t want to wake anything up.”

“Alois is right,” Louise nods, “There’s no need to poke around. There could be traps or other things.”

“Well, we have to be sure that the building is secure though,” Marie points out.

“If you desire to remain here, you may,” Rav’ian tells the twins, “The rest of us are capable of securing the building.”

“Fine,” Louise huffs, “We’ll help.”

At that, Matthew and the others proceed to secure the building, which, fortunately, is completely empty. Just like the building Matthew had been in earlier, there is nothing but trash and scrapped pieces of a society long since gone.

“Looks like we’ve got a few good places to shoot from over here!” Alois calls from one room.

“Same in here,” Matthew shouts back. If nothing else, the building did seem like it would be the perfect place to get the drop on the War Makers’ robots.

“I’ve got a stairwell!” Louise announces from inside of one room. There is a clatter before she amends, “Well, I guess you could call it a ramp-well. Weird how there aren’t stairs here.”

“I’m guessing there’s another level or two,” Matthew says as he emerges from the room that he had just cleared. He had been curious how one could get to the upper levels since entering the building, since he knew it was a lot taller than the two stories he had initially seen.

“Weird how the doors are about the right height for us,” Alois notes as he allows Matthew to cut ahead of him and start up the ramp to the upper stories after Louise.

Nodding, Matthew agrees, “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like this though.”

“Think the War Makers could be like us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Toaz are more or less like us. Frazians, even the Dreggs have their similarities to us. Do you think the War Makers are too?”

“I don’t know. I guess I hope not. It’d be weird to be anything like them—I mean, all we know about them is that they kill stuff. That’s not something I’d like to be like.”

“We’re in a war, Mudskipper, we’re killing stuff too.”

“Well, they attacked us.”

“Clearly they were here first though.”

Matthew nods slowly, seeing Alois’s reasoning. The man wasn’t wrong, the War Makers clearly were the original inhabitants of the planet, judging by this city.

“I do not believe that physical similarities speak for the likeness of one’s soul,” Rav’ian weighs in, “I have met humans who are very much like the worst alien races you can think of, such as the War Makers, and I have also met humans who are quite kind.”

“It was just a thought,” Alois shrugs, “I wasn’t really saying anything.”

“Indeed,” Rav’ian nods slowly before falling silent once again.

Matthew crests the ramp, and he looks around the upper floor of the building. Looking around, he calls out, “Louise?”

“Over here,” Louise raises a hand from behind what appears to be some sort of raised flowerbed.

Cocking his head, Matthew approaches Louise and he sees that he is indeed looking at raised flowerbeds. The soil is dry and looks as barren as the sun-bleached dirt on the surface, but that didn’t make the raised garden any less of a garden. Frowning, he asks the obvious question, “What in the world is going on here?”

“I’m guessing this place used to be some sort of lab or something,” Marie says from the other side of the room.

Matthew turns and sees that Marie is busy at a desk that actually has stuff on it. Curious, Matthew approaches and he joins in on rifling through everything. While he can’t make heads or tails of just about anything he is seeing, he can’t help but poke around.

“Careful of the windows,” Alois warns.

Looking up, Matthew sees that he is standing in front of a large window, and he sheepishly backs away from the desk. Marie simply crouches and continues poking around.

Matthew’s radio buzzes and Hamilton’s voice comes through, “E’eryone’s in position, keep your heads down. The fireworks ‘re ‘bout to begin.”

DESPERATE PLEA!

Thank you for exploring the future alongside me!

I’d love to hear what you think about my book!

Please drop an honest review of what you thought about it on Amazon or Goodreads!

Thank you so much!

Caleb Fast

P.S. Sign up to my newsletter to get updates on future book releases, other book news, and some fun, free short stories!

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The Story Continues,

The Black Forest has beasts within its borders, as the stories warned. It also has potentially untold riches.

Will Matthew and his teams find it?

Read on the see what happens in the war for Allegra!

The Battle for Allegra Episode Eighteen:

Available 2021

In the meantime, check out my series of full-length novels! The Coalition will face its greatest test yet!

Renaissance: The Limit of Infinity

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QXKFDV9

Other Books By Caleb Fast:

The Battle for Allegra Series:

Season One:

Conscripted (1)

First Kill (2)

The Hunt (3)

Relegated (4)

Retrieval (5)

Sanctuary (6)

Secured (7)

Harborage (8)

Revelations (9)

Promotion (10)

Season Two:

Awakening (11)

Arrival (12)

Dawn (13)

Fortify (14)

Black Forest (15)

Seeder (16)

Warpath (17)

The Limit of Infinity Series:

Renaissance: The Limit of Infinity

Escapade: A Price to Be Paid

Overcomer: No Man Left Behind

Wayward: Long Way from Home