Squinting at the approaching army, Gabriel could see that there did appear to be a banner at the head of it, but he couldn’t quite make it out.
“Is there any way to magnify that?”
The image zoomed in on a large group of Imperial Soldiers, riding cathors like death itself was on their heels. Gabriel thought that he recognized the banner man, but it was hard to say. There was a lot of dust in the air and the image was grainy from the magnification.
“Those must be the remnants of the army that the Apostle defeated at the
Quarantine Zone,” he mused aloud. “I bet they decided to retreat to the nearest fortified position, which would be here.”
“Reinforcements,” Allie grinned. “I could use a few of those. That buys us a small amount of time. Might I suggest that you all get some rest while you can? Or perhaps you would like to clean up after your travels? I will show you where the personnel quarters are.”
“Rest,” Michael said.
“Our very favorite pastime,” Jonathan finished.
Chapter 33: Reinforcements
“Why are you going alone,” Sam muttered bitterly. The two of them lay in each other’s arms on the bed in Gabriel’s room. After he showered, she’d turned up at his door wanting to cuddle, and what sane man would turn down a chance to grope a
beautiful woman in lieu of a few measly minutes of sleep? “You need me to watch your back. You promised you’d never leave me. Remember? You promised!”
Feeling the unnatural heat of her body as he held her tightly, Gabriel was
somewhat relieved that she’d bathed too. Her silver hair hung loose, still damp from washing. She smelled of flowers, and it suited her. In fact, ever since Kari arrived, Sam had been on her best behavior, as though trying to prove she was just as well behaved a woman as her perceived nemesis. The change was rather refreshing.
“I like your hair unbraided,” Gabriel said. “It’s pretty. Makes you look older.”
“Does it,” Sam shifted to look at him, fingering the half-healed scar on her cheek.
Her curiosity melted into a scowl. “Hey! Don’t change the subject!”
“Allie says only one person can go. And I don’t want you to get hurt. When the Children of the Chosen took you . . . well, you may think I’m patronizing you or something, but I don’t think I could deal with losing you again. I’d rather you stayed behind where I know you’ll be safe.”
“Safe,” Sam cried, pushing away from him and sitting up. “There’s an army on the way! How is that safe?”
“Saf er,” Gabriel amended. “And Allie is right. One person sneaks better than two.”
“Allie,” Sam sniffed sharply, straightening her clothes as she stood. “She seems to take orders from you! Just tell her I’m going with you and that will be that! You need someone to watch your back. Aren’t we a good team, Gabriel? Don’t you want me anymore?”
“God, Sam. Why do women always try to tie completely unrelated things together like that? This has nothing to do with whether or not I want to be with you.”
Giving him a blank stare, Sam’s odd, golden eyes bored into him. Then Gabriel understood. Everyone important had abandoned her, and now he was leaving too. She thought he was never coming back, just like her mother.
“Sam. I know you want to help. But you can’t. I don’t want to do this. I wish you could come with me. I’m not a hero. But when it comes down to it, I’m the only one that can go.”
“Why just you?”
“Because I’m the only one with these,” Gabriel showed her the implant in the
back of his left hand.
Sighing deeply, Sam slumped a bit. “I’ll never see you again. Even if we die together in the past, I want to be with you. I finally found someone worth being with and you’re leaving me behind to do something you may never come back from.”
“This has to be done, Sam, or your world and everyone on it will be dead in fifty years. If I don’t go, their lives are on my hands. I can’t live with that. But I swear to you that I will return. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I will not let anything stand in my way back to you. Understand? I will come back to you. You remember the last time I promised you something impossible?”
“Yes,” Sam nodded reluctantly. “You promised to rescue me from the Children
of the Chosen.”
“Did I break that promise?”
“No.”
“And I’m not going to break this one.”
There was a tone from the console next to the bed and Allie’s voice sounded over a small speaker.
“The Imperial Army will arrive in approximately ten minutes. Following the
yellow arrow outside will lead you to the control room for your Sa’Dhi, and then to the gate.”
Gabriel looked at Sam. Her eyes were pinched and she looked like she was
sucking on something sour. She was obviously terrified for him, and about the thought that he might never come back, but there was something else in her face.
“You’re feeling left out,” Gabriel accused, “aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you be,” Sam cried, her tail lashing as she stomped her foot. “You get to go have the most amazing adventure I’ve ever heard of, and I gotta stay behind! That is so unfair! I wanna see my world before it got blown to hell like this!”
Gabriel wasn’t able to keep from laughing out loud at her reaction. She scowled at him, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her eyes brightened slightly and the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile.
“Promise you’ll tell me all about it,” she asked.
“Every single detail,” Gabriel stood, offering her his arm. “And for what it’s worth, I’d take you if I could be sure we’d be able to slip through security together. Care to join me meeting the army?”
“If I have to,” Sam shrugged, her tail swishing in something like indifference.
*****
Following Gabriel through the office-like hallways, Sam had grown thoroughly
annoyed with her hair being loose and was busily rebraiding it, into a single braid this time rather than her customary two.
“I’ve calculated a Gate Jump to the day that this facility was activated,” Allie said in his ear, sounding as clear as if she was standing beside him. The only indication he had that she was even in his head at all was a dull pressure behind his eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was strange to think that she was actually using part of his brain to run herself. He felt somewhat like the Master Chief in Halo.
Though she seemed oblivious to his thoughts, Gabriel wondered if she would hear a direct thought to her.
How are things in there?
“Oh wow,” Allie sounded girlishly excited. “I totally heard that! I have some diminished computing and speed capacities, and everything is all squishy. I find it adequate to my needs. I had almost forgotten what a human body was like.”
What do you mean?
“You’ll see soon enough. Take a left here.”
Turning, Gabriel found himself in a hallway he recognized, not far from the
courtyard.
Can you link up with the other Allie?
“At the moment we have synced using the wireless connection capabilities of the Sa’Dhi.”
Where is this gate we’ll be jumping through, and when can we go through?
“The Gate can be created at any point within the walls of the facility using any console with a direct link to the mainframe. Due to the increased power demands, I have raised power levels to ten percent of maximum in order to build a large enough charge in the main batteries. A Gate Jump will be possible in just under fourteen minutes.”