“Do you see to the left of the rings?” Meta asked. “More rubies are appearing, pouring down into the ring. Can they have come from here?”

  Maddox leaned nearer the portal window. A river of rubies appeared as if from nowhere, adding to the gigantic mass of the ring as Meta had said.

  “Is that the planet Omegan was trying to send us?” Ludendorff asked.

  “I have no doubt of that,” Carn Dar said. “That is where the squid aliens live. That is where they’re trying to break through to another dimension. The junkyard of spaceships is meant to trade places for a fleet of Seekers. The Seekers will create the conditions for the evil one to set foot in our universe.”

  “It strikes me that they’ve been at this for a long time,” Ludendorff said.

  “You mean because I’ve been raking rubies forever?” asked Carn Dar.

  “That’s one reason,” Ludendorff said.

  Carn Dar nodded. “You’re correct in your assumption.”

  “Can you show us more?” Ludendorff asked.

  “More of the planet and spaceships?” Carn Dar asked.

  “No, other places,” Ludendorff said. “I think we’ve seen enough of this one.”

  “Yes, good idea,” Maddox said.

  Carn Dar frowned at the controls. “Let us see what others have desired to see.” He worked the banks of controls. The window disappeared. Abruptly, a new shimmering half-portal appeared in the air.

  “This is a recording,” Carn Dar told them. “Someone thought this worth saving.”

  The others crowded around the portal, the viewing screen. Tall creatures, part machine and part biological stood in a huge chamber of machines.

  “Those are Leviathan cybers,” Maddox said. “I think they’re strategists.”

  “Can you give us sound?” Ludendorff asked the Ardazirho.

  Carn Dar shook his head.

  “Why do you think this is important for us to see?” Ludendorff asked.

  The cyber strategists had assistants push jacks into their heads. After that, the strategists lay down on couches and possibly communicated through the jacks.

  “If you are addressing me,” Carn Dar said. “I cannot explain the scene’s importance. If there is a way to tell what the jacks relate, I do not know it.”

  “Is there anything else we can see?” Maddox asked.

  Carn Dar adjusted the controls. “I don’t think so. The controls were set for this.”

  “How is seeing these things helping us any?” Riker asked.

  “For one thing,” Ludendorff said, who had been tapping his chin, “it shows that Carn Dar’s story is true. There is a water world and rubies circle it. The rubies seemingly power an engine to bring other dimensional enemies against us. If Carn Dar was right about this, he is likely correct that an evil entity is trying to reach our universe.”

  “Do you mean like the Devil?” Riker asked.

  Ludendorff snorted. “What a preposterous notion. It is absurd to speak of the alien as the Devil.”

  Maddox wasn’t so sure. Either way, he wanted to destroy the ruby ring around the water world. Carn Dar suggested that would require a grand battle fleet. Maddox didn’t have one at the moment. Besides, that wasn’t the pressing issue now. The squid aliens had been working on the dimensional rift for millennia. Surely they had a little time before the dimensional breakthrough occurred. There was another, a possibly more looming problem.

  “Can you show us anything about a Leviathan battle fleet heading to the Commonwealth?” Maddox asked.

  Carn Dar raised his eyebrows. “It would take me time to discover the process. I believe I should rest a moment and regain my strength. Do you mind?”

  “No…” Maddox said reluctantly.

  Carn Dar slid down onto his butt, clearly tired.

  Maddox tapped his chin. They were in the control room of the scooper, obviously a pivotal place. It was time to figure out what to do next.

  -52-

  Maddox mentally reviewed what he’d learned, starting with a water planet with the Saturn-like ring of rubies. He had no doubt a great engine was there. It was part of a long-term plan to break through into another dimension. A graveyard or a junkyard of spaceships waited in readiness to supply the counterweight for Seekers invading from another dimension.

  He had also seen strategists of Leviathan. His intuition told him that they were personally important to him. That struck him as odd, but maybe not. Why had Leviathan wanted him three years ago? Could these strategists be the reason?

  “Carn Dar,” Maddox said.

  The Ardazirho was sitting with his back against the controls. He’d been resting and had opened his eyes. The wolf alien now raised his snout.

  “Given that you have a visual capture of the cyber council chamber, does that mean there’s a portal link to it?” Maddox asked.

  “Of course,” Carn Dar said. “Without the link, we could not have seen a thing.”

  “That necessarily means there’s a portal to the spaceship where we viewed the water world with its ruby ring,” Maddox said.

  “All true,” Carn Dar said.

  “What are you thinking?” Ludendorff asked Maddox.

  “That we have a transfer mechanism that allows us to reach places we need to know more about,” Maddox said. “We can make recon trips. For instance, what did the cybers talk about? Maybe we could learn that and why would they said is important.”

  “Why would knowing that be important to what we’re doing here?” Ludendorff asked.

  Maddox ignored the question. “Carn Dar, is there a way we could retrieve or learn what the Leviathan strategists said during their meeting?”

  “I perceive what you are saying.” Carn Dar used the side of the control bank to help him work up to his feet.

  “No, no, sit, let the Professor work the controls for you,” Maddox said.

  Wearily, Carn Dar shook his head. “For all his intellect, the Professor doesn’t have my expertise. The knowledge is coming back to me. Here, I’ll make the needed adjustments and bring that back up.”

  A few moments later, a full-sized portal appeared so they looked into an empty machine-lined chamber. The couches the strategists had lain on were still there, although bare.

  “Do you know what planet that’s on?” Ludendorff asked.

  “I do not,” Carn Dar said. “There are no designations I can find on the controls. This isn’t like the Mastermind’s control room or like the subsidiary rooms we Ardazirhos used.”

  Maddox recalled when he’d seen such a control room. It had been when he’d been behind the Yon Soth barrier across the Milky Way Galaxy. “Could you link the portal so I can reach the chamber?”

  Carn Dar looked at Maddox closely.

  Meta whirled around. “No, certainly not,” she said. “You’re not going to go anywhere else. We’re in too much danger as it is, my dear.”

  “I know we’re in danger,” Maddox said calmly. “Ours is a desperate situation. But we’re here, and now it’s time to act.”

  “Not you this time,” Meta said. “Let somebody else go. Send Riker.”

  “Sure,” Riker said. “I’ll go. What do you want me to do?”

  “Riker can join me if you wish,” Maddox told Meta.

  “No. You will not go.”

  Maddox pointed at her. “My dear, I love having you on these missions. But I’m still in charge, despite your concern for me.”

  For a moment, bitter stubbornness twisted Meta’s features. It looked like she would argue further. Then her shoulders slumped as she turned away.

  Maddox had expected at least for her to say, “Yes, Captain,” or “Yes, dear,” but she did neither. For the moment, her barest acquiescence would have to suffice. He would talk to her later about the appropriate response in such situations.

  “Carn Dar,” Maddox said, “can you pinpoint a place in the chamber, a computer node, where I could insert a data stick and recover the recording of the incident we saw earlier?”

  Carn Dar scratched the side of his snout. “I’ll have to study the controls.”

  The others watched a virtuoso of portal manipulation. Carn Dar switched the scene here, looked there, and finally focused on an area with many computer banks and slot openings.

  “There,” Carn Dar pointed at the portal. “I believe if you inserted…” He manipulated the control board faster. From a slot near the bottom, a crystal rectangle dropped out. The slim crystal resembled a data stick.

  “That’s a universal jack. If you insert it there into that slot,” Carn Dar manipulated the board. Energy flowed to the crystal. “If you insert it into the place I’ve shown, it should draw out the information you require. Then, if you return it here, I will be able to play the recording from the control panel.”

  “That’s incredible,” Ludendorff said. “It will truly work in the manner you’ve said?”

  “From what I remember from my time with the Mastermind, that should be the case,” Carn Dar said.

  “How long will the portal stay open for us?” Maddox asked.

  “Wait,” Ludendorff said. “I have a different question for Carn Dar. How in the world can you know your ancient technology will mesh with the newer technology of Leviathan? You say this is a Leviathan chamber, perhaps on their main planet. Perhaps we witnessed the key strategists for the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan.”

  The Ardazirho said nothing.

  “See, Carn Dar does not know,” Ludendorff said. “Captain, this could be a trap. Remember, Leviathan wanted to capture you once, did so, and you escaped. Surely, they are keen to acquire you again.”

  “That may be,” Maddox said. “But if we let our fears control us, we’ll never get anywhere. He who dares, wins, and I am about to dare. I would prefer you to stay here and help, Carn Dar. Meta, you’ll stay as well.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Meta retorted, with her back to him.

  Maddox approached Meta, placing his hands on her stiff shoulders. He turned her to him and lifted her chin. At first, she resisted that, but eventually she met his gaze with a stern expression.

  “Meta, this is what I do,” Maddox said gently.

  “Must it always be you? Must you always throw yourself into danger? Can’t you think of Jewel for once?”

  Maddox sighed, looking away. Why did Meta have to make this so hard on him? This was who he was, the man of action.

  “If you don’t understand,” he told her, “so be it.”

  As Maddox turned to depart, Meta’s hand shot out, gripping one of his with surprising strength. The grip was almost painful until she relaxed her grasp.

  “Good luck, dear. May God be with you.”

  “Thank you,” Maddox said. “I appreciate that. Riker, are you ready?”

  “No,” Riker replied, “but that’s never stopped you before. This should be easy breezy, right?” he asked Carn Dar.

  The Ardazirho looked troubled. “It should be easy. Will it actually be so? There might be alarms and other manifestations I cannot foresee over there. But your blaster should work, and I believe everything should go as I have predicted. Will my strength hold? I believe so, but even now I feel a slight shiver in my knees.”

  “I’ll be here, and so will this,” Ludendorff said, holding up the medikit.

  “How long will it take you to turn that into an actual portal we can use?” Maddox asked.

  “Less than five minutes, I should think,” Carn Dar said.

  “All right,” Maddox said, “tell me when you’re ready.”

  -53-

  “Now,” Carn Dar said, as he looked up from the controls.

  There was a subtle change over the portal.

  With his blaster drawn and visor down, Maddox stepped through. Once again, unlike the long tunnels that he had gone through years ago, this portal led directly into the other place.

  Maddox looked around. The chamber seemed bigger now that he was in it, with alien machinery everywhere.

  Riker stepped through after him. He turned and spoke to Ludendorff on the other side, but it didn’t seem that Ludendorff could hear the sergeant.

  “We should do this quickly, sir,” Riker said.

  “Right,” Maddox said.

  They moved deeper into the chamber, deeper in relation to the portal. There were complex computers, machine blocks and running lights everywhere.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Riker said.

  “Just keep your eyes peeled. If you see what looks like a camera eye, destroy it.”

  “What about that up there?” Riker asked, glancing upward at a shiny lens that rotated the tiniest bit as they looked at it.

  “Yes, shoot it!”

  Riker fired, leaving a burn hole in the ceiling and sending tinkling shards from what had been up there onto the deck.

  Maddox jogged across the chamber, took out the crystal stick and inserted it into the preselected slot. He waited anxiously, certain it couldn’t be this easy.

  Suddenly, the whole bank of computers on this side began to flash with lights, presumably filling the crystal with the data he sought. Would the data be vital to everything else? He dearly hoped so.

  “Captain, I hear something coming.”

  “Keep your gun aimed in that direction. If anything comes into the chamber, kill it.”

  “Might we try diplomacy first?” Riker asked.

  Before Maddox could respond, a hatch on the farther end opened. Three tall Soldiers of Leviathan walked through. Maddox was drawing his gun when Riker unleashed blaster fire. Shot after shot burned into the cyber Soldiers, tearing them apart. One had a glittering metallic device in his mechanical-bio hand.

  “It’s a grenade!” Maddox shouted.

  The captain dove onto the floor behind a large table. Riker did the same. A massive explosion shook the chamber. Everything within it shook. Lights flashed. Parts of the ceiling fell.

  That might have been a NOVA grenade or some other powerful device. Maddox’s head felt woozy. Fortunately, he was still wearing his helmet. Without it, he might have suffered a fatal injury. He turned his attention to Riker. Riker lay unconscious on the floor, pinned beneath a beam of sorts. There was no sign of the cybers. The explosion had obliterated them, put smears of them on the walls.

  “Damn it,” Maddox muttered.

  He holstered his blaster, yanked the crystal stick from the computer slot, pocketing it, and then tried to rush to Riker’s side. His left leg throbbed with pain. Was it broken? Maybe just badly sprained. He limped to Riker.

  Upon arrival, Maddox put his hands under the beam, straining with all his might to lift it. It was far too heavy. Down the corridor, he heard sounds. Maddox looked up, and he could see others approaching the half-ruined chamber.

  That included Meta, who was now entering the chamber through the intact portal.

  “Go back,” Maddox shouted at her.

  “No. I’m here to help.”

  “Did any of the blast go through the portal?”

  “It didn’t. And I don’t know why,” Meta said. “Neither does the Professor. Carn Dar is babbling something.”

  “Come here then,” Maddox said. “Help me with this beam.”

  Meta rushed to his side. Together they strained to lift the beam. But the piece of ceiling wouldn’t budge.

  “All right, stand behind me,” Maddox said.

  Meta did as ordered.

  Maddox pulled out his blaster and fired at the piece three times. Parts of it fell away.

  “You just killed Riker,” Meta said. “The last part is crushing him. The part you shot off was holding the rest up.”

  “Quit babbling about it,” Maddox shouted. “Help me lift.” He already had his hands in place, trying to lift the now smaller beam off Riker.

  Meta joined him, and by the barest of degrees, the smaller piece shifted.

  “You shouldn’t speak to me so harshly,” Meta said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Hurry. Help me, please.”

  Together, they shifted the heavy piece off the sergeant.

  Riker awoke screaming in pain with a jagged shard embedded in his thigh. Despite his injuries, he managed to crawl for the portal.

  “Damn, that hurts.” A sweat-drenched Riker looked at his injured leg, “I wonder if I’m going to need a new prosthetic leg.”

  “Let’s get out of here first,” Maddox said. “Meta, grab his other side.”

  Together, they lifted Riker, who tried to suppress his pain, clenching his jaws. Soon, however, he bellowed in agony.

  “That hurts like hell,” Riker shouted.

  Echoing sounds from an outer corridor indicated more Soldiers of Leviathan approaching.

  “We’ve got to get out of here now,” Maddox said.

  They maneuvered through the ruined chamber, stumbling over debris and supporting the injured Riker. He cried out in pain before losing consciousness.

  “Put him on me,” Meta said.

  After some effort, Meta took Riker’s weight on her shoulders. She staggered for the portal.

  Maddox, blaster drawn, covered their retreat. He took shots down the corridor. Returning fire hit near him. One Soldier aimed at Meta.

  “Look out!” Maddox shouted.

  Meta leaped, diving through the portal with Riker.

  Riker awoke on the other side, his mouth open, perhaps screaming in pain and writhing, although no sounds came through to here.

  Maddox fired at a Soldier, killing him. Another stepped into the chamber. Maddox fired again. This time, a crystal shield appeared before the Soldier, blocking Maddox’s shot.

  Maddox turned and ran for the portal, narrowly avoiding incoming shots. He dove, rolling into the scooper control chamber.

  “Cut the connection,” Ludendorff shouted at Carn Dar.

  In an instant, the portal snapped shut.

  Carn Dar, exhausted, sank to the floor, catching his breath before lying flat on his back.

  “See to him, Professor,” Maddox ordered, standing, as he noticed Meta tending to Riker.

  “Carn Dar is just tired,” Ludendorff said. “I’ll check Riker.” Soon, Ludendorff was administering medical aid to Riker. The medikit beeped as it went to work on the sergeant.