Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

There were several more shots that Robey could tell only by seeing the flashes, and then nothing. Curious, the pain in his ears subsiding although not the ringing, he decided to follow. If he was on the way out, then his best route might well be by following those two.

They had shot to kill, that was clear, but the expressions on the faces and the huge amount of blood evident there made it even more dramatic. They weren’t bleeding from the coup de gras, that was for sure. They were bleeding from their ears, noses, and mouths.

Almost subconsciously he reached up to both his ears and put a finger in each, then looked at them. No blood, thank the Lord! But he was aware that he did in fact have something of a bloody nose. He hoped that was all.

One of the squad said something to him, but all he could do was reply, “I can’t hear! Ringing in my ears won’t stop!”

“That’s a good reason why you should do as you’re told,” he heard from the implant radio. It was the woman on tactical. “Stay close and don’t stray or get in the way!”

There was only one side opening off the cave, and they reached it at just about the same time as two other black-clad security team members met them coming the other way. It was frustrating not to be able to hear them talk, although if they made any calls on the tactical frequency the implant would give him the same as they were broadcasting, which was something.

The woman from his side and a guy from the other side of the cavern flattened on either side of the door, then, at a nodded signal, rifles at ready, spun around and went into the chamber.

Traffic was quick. “Father, use the ferret line!”

“Go ahead. What have you got?” Hearing this way wasn’t like hearing normal speech, but he was pretty certain it was Cromwell just from the tone and manner of speaking.

“We’re going to fire straight up from this position. No access doors nearby that we can find. We need everything you got. Looks like thirty, forty of our people. Mostly dead, but some are still moving. This just happened!”

“Then speed’s of the essence. We’re moving now. Make your opening!”

The other two security team members moved down to where the cavern opened into a chamber and, with precision and their rifles on full power, aimed at the same spot above and to the left of them and just kept firing.

The whole complex shook as if undergoing a minor earthquake, and molten rock began to form and then ooze down. They had to be very careful that they had as straight an angle as possible while being just enough off not to get caught in this white-hot residue.

At about twelve meters beyond the chamber roof there was a sudden buckling and then the two beams shot out and made open air.

“Cease firing and clear that area. We’ll enlarge from above and then get people in. Any resistance?”

“All dead,” the security people reported. “We’ll establish a parameter at the other end, but we need more people, all kinds, as quick as possible!”

Above, having picked up the flash of the laser canon and the deformation in the rock, Archangel targeted the position and gave a surgical blast with a naval grade disintegrator. It reamed a hole about three meters around all the way to the chamber and also eliminated the still heated edges left by the blast.

At least forty people from Olivet ran for the opening as soon as it was made, carrying bales of netting, ropes, whatever they could find. It was still a little dicey working around the remnants of molten rock below, but that was localized and the security team quickly sprayed it with a yellow chalk dye so that nobody was going to go into those piles by accident.

Robey had kept well back while all this was going on, but he’d also taken advantage of the action to look into the liberated chamber that the pirates had fought so hard to guard.

There were bodies, and parts of bodies, and the awful smell of charred flesh all around. He was suddenly thankful that he couldn’t hear their groaning, the ones left alive, and he pulled back and felt suddenly very sick.

Almost since he could speak he’d been taught that man was saved only by grace and that evil was always lurking about and victories were always partial, but he’d been taught, too, that there was only one unforgiveable sin, and that was denying God to save oneself and going over into the service of evil. All else was supposedly forgivable if sincerely repented. Well, he didn’t want any repentance on the part of these bastards! Not now, not ever. All he wanted for any of them, any of them, was that they be resurrected in indestructible bodies but in the Lake of Fire, roasting eternally without hope.

Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He saw an usher, ashen-faced, and the man pointed up and tugged at Robey’s sleeve. The Arm of Gideon nodded. He had seen more down here than he ever really wanted to see, more than he should have seen.

He climbed up the netting, even though it was no easy task, and into the sunlight without even thinking of the exertion and effort. He was trying very hard not to think at all.

Thomas Cromwell, too, had seen enough, even though few here realized that he’d seen even worse in the past, much worse.

Using magsleds helped along by good old fashioned guide ropes, they managed to evacuate the wounded, anybody still alive in that massacre chamber. Olivet ’s hospital, though, was already overwhelmed; it was adequate for the basic things the staff and a transitory group might encounter—the usual aches, pains, accidental breaks, that kind of thing—but not this kind of heavy duty work. Things had improved a bit after a couple of bad previous landings, but nothing had compared with this kind of damage.

“Sir, I think we’d better move everybody out,” one of his squad told him as he looked at the aftermath of the killing room.

“Eh? What, girl? Oh—what’s the hurry, now? We still don’t have His Nibs and the top henchmen off our earlier ferret recordings.”

“Yes, sir, but we believe now that they’ve gotten far enough back that they are in a position to flood this entire cave complex. We came across the watertight doors with automated devices on them and we haven’t been able to solve the security there. We think they’re going to blow them. Please, sir! There’s nothing left here now!”

He looked at the dead bodies, a low priority until all the living were evacuated, and muttered, “ Until the sea shall give up her dead, in the sure and certain belief in the resurrection and life to come… ” Then he seemed to snap out of it. “Very well, Sergeant. Get everybody out now! You, too! Complete evacuation. Everybody to Olivet unless you want to stay here with these—these people! ” He made the word sound like the worst kind of vermin.

Olivet could only mark time, and then for only so long. They had twenty-six critically injured and probably dying if they didn’t get help, and while only three of the women were dead in the other chamber discovered over a kilometer away on the other side, the damage to them mentally and physically was going to take a lot of work. He didn’t have the total score yet, but he estimated that, deaths alone, they’d lost about half the hostages and most likely would lose some more. He couldn’t imagine any of the others coming out of this without severe spiritual and psychological damages.

He also knew what this would do to the Doctor. Karl Woodward was a great actor, as all teachers and leaders must be, but Cromwell knew him better. This would break his heart, for all his words about martyrdom and New Jerusalem.