***Setting propulsors for max speed…initializing flagellar thrusters too…configuring for transit ops…maneuvering to commanded heading***
Although no one could see it, the small swarm set off on its mission, lost in the swirling ash and dust. The trip would take at least an hour, even at best speed.
Winger eyed the red glow emanating from atop Kipwezi. “I hope that monster doesn’t blow its top before we can get out of here.”
“Me too,” said Barnes. “If it does, we’ll be flash-fried.”
The Doc swarm sped on toward the village, flying over the top of the field in good order. The Quantum Dawn detachment hunkered down among the leafy plants and slammed down some Q rations as they waited.
Presently, Winger got a chime on his coupler link. Doc was approaching the perimeter of the village and had initiated his photon lens. Winger got a grainy image on his wristpad and studied the scene for a few moments. The other troopers gathered around to watch too.
The village seemed deserted. No one moved across their field of view, though it was clear that the ash fall had already taken a toll. Mounds of the gray flakes were already piling up next to many of the huts.
“That has to be it!’ Singh pointed to one hut near the central fire pit, now dark and barely glowing with blackened embers. “The shaman’s hut…the one with all the figures and statues arrayed around the front.”
“You’re probably right,” Winger said. “Let’s have a closer look at some of these figures.” He sent new maneuvering commands to Doc and the swarm bore in on several carved statues situated just outside the thatched hut.
Each one resembled a gargoyle’s face, half jaguar, half human, with tusks and claws and a spiked tail.
“Looks like a nightmare,” Barnes shivered. “Or like what I see after I eat tacos in the commissary at Mesa de Oro.”
Singh noted the similarities. “Each figure is similar…see? The same face, same claws…just variations on the same image. Maybe that’s their principal god Ngai.”
“Or their idea of what he looks like. I’ll have Doc scan the closest one and replicate from that.”
Scanning proved to be a tedious process, as the Doc swarm enveloped the figure and measured the positions of each and every atom in the top half of the statue. With this huge trove of data, Doc would be able to grab local atom feedstock and replicate at least a ghostly image of the figurine.
While the scanning proceeded, they saw shadowy images of villagers crossing their field of view. It seemed as though their proto-human captors were buttoning up their village, gathering belongings and preparing to evacuate the area.
“Makes sense,” Winger said. “Nobody wants to be around if Kipwezi blows its stack.”
“One thing bothers me about these cave men,” Barnes said. “Clearly, these are pretty primitive people. How is it that cave men like this have MOB nets and other nanobotic systems?”
The same question had bothered Winger. “Mite, the only way I see that could have happened is if somebody gave it to them, gave them the technology and taught them how to use it.”
“So who did that?”
Winger shrugged, keeping a close eye on feedback from Doc. Replicating an image of the god statue would take another hour, perhaps more. “I don‘t know. Maybe the same people who’ve been helping Red Hammer all along.”
“And who’s that?”
“Mite, I don’t have a clue. That’s what we have to find out.”
In time, Doc announced that the replication was done. Through the photon lens, Winger could see the faint outline of a jaguar-human face, glowing and winking as bots slammed final atoms together. Enveloped in the fog of ash, the image made a fearsome sight.
“Let’s go,” Winger ordered. “Grab some of these leaves and make yourselves look frightening.” Winger sent a command to Doc to rendezvous just outside the shaman’s hut.
As the detachment hacked and sliced their way through the dense foliage, coughing in the thickening ash, Singh heard a deep shrieking sound overhead. It wasn’t Kipwezi, though tremors shook the ground every few minutes. Above them, visible in the ash, bright streaks colored the sky.
“Meteors!” Singh yelled. “They’re coming down! A meteor storm…and that one’s huge!”
Indeed, as the nanotroopers watched, they counted a handful of smaller objects streaking across the sky, followed by a much larger object, tumbling, shedding pieces of itself, burning bright red and white and hissing as it blazed down through the atmosphere. It was clear that many of them, including the largest fragment, would impact nearby…and soon.
“Come on!” yelled Winger. “To the village!”
They pushed on through the field and burst into the village, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. As commanded, Doc was ahead, hovering by the entrance to the shaman’s hut. Winger waved his troops to follow and they took up positions behind and around the grotesque swarm image Doc had replicated.
Two villagers emerged from the hut, one of them the shaman himself. He was dressed in a necklace of jaguar teeth which clicked and clanked as he moved. An ornate feathered headdress capped his head. Seeing the Doc swarm and the troopers decorated with leaves and branches, the shaman froze. His companion fled in terror, and was soon joined by other villagers, stumbling, falling, arms and hands flailing as they screamed and retreated outside the village. They were soon lost in the undergrowth.
“Inside the hut!” Winger motioned. One after another, the troopers ducked inside, while Doc hovered at the entrance, scaring off even more of the villagers.
As Doc had detected, there was a Sphere inside. It had been set on a small table opposite the entrance flaps, mounted in a small basket decorated with feathers and colored stones in an intricate pattern. The Sphere glowed with a faint pearlescent sheen.
“Doc, get in here…let’s analyze this thing before we try to use it!”
As commanded, the Doc master bot maneuvered from its guard position through the entrance flaps of animal hide and bore down on the table of the Sphere. A faintly coruscating mist drifted in and soon hovered beside them.