 ayj sat in his tall white command chair. 'Are the Spreaders ready?' he queried, fingers drumming restlessly on the arm of the chair.
Gaust looked up. 'Yes, nearly, sir.' His fingers danced over the controls once more.
The Command centre in which Kayj was waiting was a tall imposing tower of white. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for marble as the surface and textures were similar. But no, it was Coarn, a reinforced, laminated shell, totally and utterly impregnable - but then, as no-one had ever bothered to attack the place, no-one was really too sure on that last statement.
The Spreaders were situated on top of the obelisk. They were two enormous tubes of corrugated metal of some kind, with a mass of snaking cables emerging and vanishing into and out from within them. A hum of power drifted skywards as the tubes lowered to a flatter angle. When they were virtually horizontal, they halted and an even louder hum filled the air.
Kayj's drumming fingers filled the control centre as he waited. Gaust glanced to him. 'Ready, sir. All it needs is your command.'
Kayj stood up, a grin spreading like treacle across his mask-like face. 'Melt them..' he aid and sat down.
Out from the Spreaders shot a long legion of spheres, each the size of a cricket ball. They smashed their way through the air, sphere after sphere, nose-diving into the soil of the battle-field. As the spheres struck land, they violently spun, burying themselves, covering all signs of them ever being there. They were gone - the wasteland looked exactly like it had done five minutes before hand...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
  ok saw it first - towering on the horizon, looking like a stick of rock. It looked small from where they stood, but they were still a far distance from it. Hite smiled.'So, that's it - Kayj's stronghold. The Ivory Tower...' Mok nodded and touched his communicator.
'That,' he said, ' must have been what Haft control had tried to tell us before we lost communications...'
Hite nodded and asked the question that sat poised on everyone's lips - 'Do we attack, sir?' Mok stood still, not saying a word. He turned to the troops.
'We will approach the Tower and attack...but only if we are attacked first...'
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mok's words resounded around Kayj's control room and smiled. 'Oh, you'll be attacked first...once the MP's have done their task, you won't be able to do a thing - ever again.'
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It happened fast - very fast.
Mok led his men on and the looming Tower seemed to dry out their dampened spirits. As they got nearer, the MP's activated themselves. Whirring, buzzing, they flew upwards and stuck themselves on the uniforms of the men. They didn't have time to brush them off, smash tem, shot at them - the speed of the spheres caught them unaware. Once attached, the spheres fell apart and smothered its prey with a think yellow gas. Screams emitted from the swirling clouds as the men struggled...and died.
The clouds dispersed themselves and the empty uniforms of the soldiers fell to the ground. They had just discovered the power of Commander Kayj's Melt Pods, and the meaning of his chilling command of 'Melt Them' ...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Kayj's laugh bounced from white wall to white wall, computer bank to computer bank. 'Gaust!' he shouted, 'We have done it! Mok and his men - melted!' he laughed again and strode out of the command nest. Gaust walked over to the wall panel, picked up a thick, black pen and scrawled over the word "Mok" that was embossed into the plastic panel on the far wall. The only platoon left on the sheet was "Tecain". They would be next for the melting pot...He turned to the communications desk and rapped out his message to the young Communications Officer.
'Inform Millioz control that Mok platoon has been...dealt with...'
 
|
the ivory tower page2
