“Are you sure this is it, Jon?” Emma asked, clutching her wounded shoulder with her good arm.

Andrea had helped her tight a tourniqit and the white material there was blotched with some blood, but not a lot. Before landing, Jon removed the projectile and hastily stitched her wound before they landed. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before her body began a Guardian’s accelerated healing process.

The beach was clearly untouched in some time. He peered toward the black stormclouds. They rumbled, emitting a flash of light.

He turned to regard the direction from where they had come. Clear skies—but the other war barge was not in sight.

But when it catches up with us, Jon thought, we’ll need every person to be ready.

Jon moved into the large pit. He could see the outline of an artificial structure that hadn’t been obscured by sand yet. He bent down, moved some natural debris consisting of small rocks and branches.

“As a matter of fact, Emma,” Jon said, asnwering her earlier question, “I’m completely certain this is one of the control room’s entry points.”

“How do you know?” Andrea asked, still trudging down into the large depression.

“The calligraphy,” Jon said pointing at the stone he had uncovered. “Come, we need to unearth this as quickly as possible.” He bent down and started digging through the wet sand with his hands.

“You heard him people,” Niles said, bending down.

“If this is really where you get inside the control room,” Sidney said, “then how come they didn’t do a better job of covering it up?”

“They...” Jon was panting. Then he paused his digging. “...they would have had no need. As dangerous as it is on the ground, nobody would have a reason to come to this particular place—and the tides have already begin to cover it.” He started to dig again. “Faster,” he said. “That barge is going to be here any moment.”

The group kept digging for about ten more minutes, pausing occasionally in wide eyed amazement at what they were uncovering.

Jon rose to his feet and said, “That’s enough. Clear away.” He stepped back. The artifact was definitely a door of some kind, housed within an ornately carved stone framework.

“What do these markings mean?” Andrea said, pointing at a part of the stone framework that was jutting up slightly.

Jon chose not to answer. He was too busy readying the calligraphy. It was ironic, really. In their haste to find out the location of the control room, he and Emma had only asked where its location was and not how to get in. He smiled wryly.

“Jon...?” Emma asked.

He raised a hand for silence. He didn’t have much time to figure out the markings. He knew the alien language, but this... this seemed slightly different, as if it were some dialect he wasn’t very familiar with. “I believe... it’s a puzzle—like a pass code.”

“What’s the code?” Niles said.

“I’m...” Jon put his hand to his chin. “...uncertain.”

“You better make it quick,” Walter said. “Those barges.”

The pass code could be a million different things, he thought. How was he supposed to guess what the correct combination was? The words the markings represented weren’t even human. It would be impossible.

Then something else came to him. Maybe it’s not a pass code, he told himself. Maybe it’s... It’s a level system! “It’s a lift.”

“An lift?” Emma asked.

“Yes, though these markings are largely unfamiliar to me.”

“I thought you said you studied—” Niles began, but Jon cut him off.

“I did. I’m one of the best linguists in the field, in fact.”

“Then what do we do?” Niles said.

Jon lowered his hand from his bristling chin. “We guess.”

“Guess?” Emma said incredulously. “And where’s that going to get us?”

“We have no choice. We guess, or we walk away. It’s as simple as that.” He began walking around the circular door. “There’s eight color coded markings, each jutting up from the surface. These are levels. We just have to choose the right one. What would be the color for the control room?”

“Red,” Walter said. “It’s the most important.”

“No,” Jon said, “red is too aggressive. I would imagine this would be the maintenance level of the artifact.”

“How do we even know these creatures interpret colors the same way as we do?” Andrea said doubtfully as she wiped the streaming water off her face.

“We’ll just have to take it on faith,” Emma said. “The command console is on the blue level.”

Niles shifted. “What’s your theory?”

“It’s what I would have chosen.”

“I’m freezing,” Sidney said with his hands tucked underneath his arms.

They were never going to solve the question before that war barge got there. Their best chance would have to be a guess. But how could they pin the fate of the world on a one in eight chance? Jon felt propelled to simply pick a color and see what happened, but he couldn’t. Every time he tried, he felt an invisible force scream in his ear and tell him not to.

“Oh, no,” Sidney said. “You better make it fast.”

There was a feint buzzing sound which Jon knew distinctly as barge props. They must have stayed low to the ground, knowing the Dusty Maiden would land and be unable to see them approaching from the forested hills. The Order... they were here. It was now or never. He would just have to make a guess and hope for the best. As if he was completely sure of himself, having no doubt whatsoever, Jon stepped forward and said, “Emma’s right. It’s the blue.”

“But how can you be sure?” Andrea asked.

“Trust me,” he said, stepping forward. Then he bent and pressed down on the blue marking. It gave way and sunk into the stone framework. “Stand back.”

The door opened to reveal a large white platform. Raindrops tinkled as they splashed against the smooth white surface.

Jon stepped onto the platform and the others followed. Moments later the platform began to descend down a cylindrical stone shaft and the door shut above them leaving them in blackness. Then the lift lit up brightly by way of small alcoves housing blue crystals.

Amazin.

“Wow,” Niles said. “How long do you suppose this thing goes down?”

There was no point in answering. The lift could go down for ages for all Jon knew, and he wasn’t in the mood to speculate on trivial things at the moment. Not with the fate of humanity resting on what would happen next.

I’m here. We’ve done it. Now we just have to finish this.

The lift began to slow. They stopped, and in front of them was a stone door that opened automatically with a low scrape of rock. Jon stepped out of the lift and into a small plain-looking room. The far end was lined with three small stone door covered in runes, much like the one they entered.

“Are we going the right way?” Andrea asked as she glanced about.

“Let’s find out,” Jon said, making his way to the middle door which didn’t open as he approached it. He recognized what was a small keypad consisting of elevated crystals. He pressed the marking which read “enter” in the alien’s language. The door opened and he stepped inside.

The rectangular room was dark but illuminated by dull blue light from glowing crystals. At the far end Jon noticed another door exactly like the one he’d entered through. Along the room and on the floor were crystal viewports stained green by algae. As he looked out one of the windows, Jon could see what he thought was a track system. They weren’t inside a room. It was an underwater tram car.

Jon turned to the others. “This is the right way.” He made his way to the center of the car and found a duel-sided console which lit up as he approached. Close the door,” he said to Emma as he started punching commands into the rune-etched keys. A diagram popped up into view. As far as Jon could tell, it was the control room.

Excellent, he thought. Emma’s choice had been the right one.

He pressed the rune he knew would take them where they needed to go.

Nothing immediately happened.

Finally a light from outside the tram lit the interior of the car. Jon looked down and realized the track system was lighting up. He looked out what was now the forward end of the car to see hundreds of lights illuminating the track that faded into the distance by the dark blue haze of the water which eventually turned to pure black.

There was a loud metal-on-metal sound. Jon could feel the motion of the tram as it accelerated evening out at a generous speed. Jon turned and watched as the track system seemed to fall behind them.

He wondered why the aliens would build tram cars mostly out of glass. Designs like these were more structural weaknesses than anything else. He thought the off-world beings who surely had far more advanced magic and technology than themselves would be more practical in their construction. The track did lead to a super weapon after all.

He turned to face the rest of the group. “Is everyone ready?”

They nodded.

“When we get into the control room, Emma and myself will try to figure out how to use the weapon while Niles and everyone else makes preparations for our pursuers.” He shifted his gaze. “It seems you’re going to get to see some action this time,” he said to Sidney. The boy grinned in what he thought was nervous apprehension. “You’ll be fine,” he assured the sixteen year old.

“Yeah,” Niles said. “When this is all over you’ll be a fully fledged member of the crew. Which means I’ll have to hire a new furnace boy.” He swung the large leather weapons bag to his front and unzipped it.

Jon didn’t reach for the contents this time. He knew he would be too busy at the command console trying to figure out how to operate the weapon. Besides, he had his energy pistol.

After a few minutes of watching algae sway in the water while fish navigated between them, the group had finished reequipping their weapons. They waited for the tram to reach its destination. It stopped about ten minutes later with another loud metal on metal scrape. “We’re there,” Jon said, stepping through the door positioned on the opposite end from which he’d entered.

Slowly, crystals illuminated.

The others were close behind as Jon made his way out of the car and into another tram room nearly identical to the last. There was no elevator leading up to the surface in this room, instead there was a door. Jon approached the entrance to the next room and the door opened for him. Stepping over the threshold he found himself inside the control room. The area was more vast than he had expected. “That’s probably the main console,” he said, pointing past dozens of jutting cylinders with multi-faceted crystals projecting different information.

It has to be the main console, he told himself as he moved passed the stone collumns to the central cylinder in the center of the room.

‘You know,” Niles said musingly. “Their computer systems—in some fashion—look an awful lot like the ones the Order uses.”

“After the Great War,” Jon said, moving up to the main console. “The order wasn’t very technologically advanced.” He started punching commands into the console. “They found alien computer systems and started to adapt those to their own uses. Now stop talking. I need to concentrate.”

Emma came up beside the console as he perused at the database looking for the weapon. About five minutes later he found it.

“Can we have a look at it, Jon?” Emma asked quietly.

“I’ll see if I can get it to project.” He pressed a series of commands into the console. “I think this is—yes—there it is.”

A projection of blue light imitated the world. The core was a darker shade of blue. But limned in red. Surrounding the core and projecting almost through the planet’s crust was something else

“Is that it?” Walter said. “It’s... huge.”

“It would have to be,” Emma said. “It is a world killer.”

Surrounding the world’s core were twenty spheres connected by a thin ring-like bridge. The projection almost looked like a red beaded bracelet, except for the fact that each of the twenty spheres projected a long cylinder arcing to form a pyramid-looking mass of pylons that nearly broke through the surface.

Amazing, Jon thought.

“How do you suppose it fires?” Emma said.

“We’ll have to wait and find out, Jon said.” He stopped looking at the hologram and went back to work looking for ways to control the weapon. But what will I fire on? he wondered. He didn’t want to commit genocide—and somehow the thought of having that choice never occurred to him.

Perhaps I’m not as heartless as I sometimes think.

He started looking into the weapon’s subsystems and before five minutes had passed he brought up another projection into the center of the room. Everyone craned their necks so they could get a good view of the galaxy.

“What does that all mean?” Andrea said.

Emma glanced at the pilot.

Jon was sure Emma knew exactly what she was looking at. From the looks of it he surmised that there were several races of extraterrestrial beings that inhabited the galaxy. “Look he said, pointing to about fifteen solar systems that were limned in blue. “If I’m not mistaken... these are colonized worlds by the same species that attacked us thousands of years ago.”

“And these?” Niles asked, gesturing to the hundreds of red limned solar systems.

“The enemy,” Jon said.

“The Enemy?”

“Yes. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Why else build a world killer?”

“They’re losing the war,” Andrea said. “The weapon is the only way they can win.”

“It would seem that way,” Emma said.

“What about all the ones with both colors?” Sidney said.

Jon scratched his chin. “I believe, seeing as how these systems are mostly outlined in red, they’re the worlds once belonging to the defenders. Though they’ve obviously been annexed to the aggressors.”

“We’re in the middle of a massive interstellar war,” Emma said.

“It certainly appears that way,” Jon said distantly as he typed more commands into the console, causing the galaxy map to change.

“What did you just do?” Emma asked.

One of the planets, belonging to neither side, had a large purple outline with hundreds of glyphs scrolling downward.

“Celestial body marked?” Emma said having translated the alien glyphs quite accurately. “What does that mean?”

“I believe I’ve just begun the pre-targeting phase.”

“What’s pre-targeting?” Niles said.

Jon pointed up to the galaxy map where the glyphs were blinking and scrolling. “The weapon is scanning the world so that we know exactly what we’re firing at. These”—he moved his finger down to some other readout—“are categorizing the target, its type, how far away its star is, and if there’s any habitable areas. From the looks of it, this planet is uninhabited and cannot support human life.”

“Are you going to blow it out of the sky?” Sidney said excitedly.

Jon shot the boy a reproachful look, but didn’t say anything. “Now I just have to find our world.” He punched in more commands into the console and after a few moments Jon said, “There it is. But what’s that?”

“What?” Emma said.

“That,” Jon said, pointing to a small symbol surrounded by blinking glyphs. It was relatively close to the planet.

Emma looked at the symbol. “The glyphs, they say...”

“They’re approaching and will be here in three more celestial revolutions,” Jon said.

Emma gasped.

“What?” Niles asked.

“That symbol,” Jon was pointing fervently at the blinking object on the galaxy map. “Is their fleet—the one I warned you about. It’ll be here in less than four days.” Then in a barely audible whisper he added, “Much closer than I anticipated.”

“What are we going to do?” Andrea said.

“I’m going to target the fleet instead of another planet,” Jon said.

There was a quiet audible blink that came from one of the other jutting cylinders before displaying a holographic diagram. “Is that the tram?” Niles said. “It’s moving.”

“The order,” Emma said, eyes widening. “What are we going to do?”

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Jon felt his heart pumping extra hard, his stomach churning. The other behemoth behind the Predator had tracked them to the control room. Would he and Emma be able to destroy the incoming fleet before they were overrun? Will Niles and the others have to fight an entire crew consisting of trained soldiers outnumbering us five to one? he wondered. He knew there would be at least one Guardian leading them.

He turned to Niles. “You’re going to have to hold them off until Emma and I have destroyed the fleet.”

Niles looked incredulous. “How the hells do you expect us to hold them off, Jon? They outnumber us by more than a lot in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Not the best odds,” Walter added.

That’s putting it mildly, Jon thought. Very mildly.

Most likely Jon would begin to figure out how the computer systems worked, and then the Order would arrive. There would be a quick shoot out with Niles and the rest of his crew either being overrun or killed, then there would be nothing Jon and Emma could do to hold them off and the mission would amount to a failure. This world and mankind... would be finished.

With a wry smile, something occurred to him. “Let me see if I can find a way to lock that door to keep them out.” He turned to the console immediately tapping in commands.

“What’s going to happen if you can’t get the door to lock?” Sidney said.

The furnace boy’s words seemed to hang in the air for a moment. “Then we run,” Andrea finally said. “I know we’re supposed to save the world and all, but if we die trying and don’t even pull it off... well I have no intention of dying today.”

“Me neither,” Walter said.

“Agreed,” Niles added.

“Wait,” Jon said. “Just wait. I think I almost got it.”

“Well almost get it quicker,” Sidney said, “because they’re about here.” He was pointing up at the projected display.

Jon glanced away from his task for a quick look at the hologram detailing the progress of the tram. The order would be on them in a matter of minutes.

He turned back to his work, frantic to find the sub routine which would lock the door. He was in the system’s processes when he finally found the correct command for the door. “Got it,” he said, entering the correct command that would execute his orders.

Metal clicking sounds issued from the direction of the door followed by a soft thud as the hue of the crystals above turned from blue to purple, and then finally to read.

“Alright,” Niles said “We can do this. All we have to do is stall the soldiers behind that door long enough for Jon and Emma to finish this.”