"We're trapped by enemy fire!! We need backup now!" There was only static. "Fucking cheap equipment..."
"Dammit, Kris! Those punks are all over us! There's no way we're gonna get out of this one alive."
"Don't give up, Jorgen -- never give up. OK, I want Per, Erik and Jan to flank left. Jorg, you and I will give them cover fire. Staffan, Olle, Kjell -- flank right on my mark."
"This isn't gnna work, Kris... I can already picture fucking Tryggvason laughing at us for our humiliating defeat back at base."
"Shut it, Jorgen. We can do this. And call me Kapten."
"Aye aye... 'Kapten'."
"All right, on my mark." He started counting down with his fingers. When his hand turned into a fist, they all turned and did their duty.
Shots were fired in an almost endless stream from both sides, the shots getting louder, and louder, and louder...
***
"Va--?!"
Kristofer Schanz's eyes shot open in a moment, the fog in his head from the gas cleared already from his body. His immune system was nothing if not efficient. And though the military games he'd undergone as a young man during his required stint in the Swedish Army were now a mere memory, a dream of days gone by, the sounds of shots being fired in the distance and growing closer could still be heard. He sat and looked up.
"Whoa, there, boy," a man said in English with a slight Mandelovian accent. Chance couldn't see his face due to the lack of much light and the fact that the man was silhouetted by what little light there was coming from behind him. "You don't want the blood to rush to your head too fast. Take it easy."
It all came back in a second. The pact of honour the team owed to D'goon and their vow to protect him from the Strikeforce... the quick flight to Espertingonzia... then the long wait as they drove south through the Swiss and Italian Alps... then across northern Italy towards the only highway entering Mandelovia... the day-long wait in that small northern Mandelovian farming village where they were held in order for the authorities to ensure safe passage through the country... the farcical impromptu soccer game they'd played with a few of the locals while they were still dressed the part... the trip into the Palace... meeting the General... the Strikeforce attacking the Palace... and finally his desperate and unsuccessful search for the fate of Dr. Henry Quantos' daughter, Helen McKenzie.
"W-who are you...?" Chance said, his voice much less commanding than he'd wanted it to be.
The man's face still could not be seen, though the cigar he smoked was distinctly Cuban, a relic of earlier years when foreign imports were allowed into Mandelovia. He was silent, as if contemplating this 29-year-old Swede who would soon be demanding answers if none were given.
"To tell you the truth, Schanz, names aren't all that important," he finally said in a voice which sounded tired and husky. "But if you really need to call me something, I'm Major Roman Marko, Elite Agency, retired..."
"I'm Chance."
"I know. I saved your life, remember?"
"Well, no, not really." Chance was still confused as to what this man was all about.
"Believe me, I'm just as surprised to find you here as you are to meet me, kid, though I guess I shouldn't be. The Old Man has never steered us wrong yet. So are you ready to go?" Marko asked, offering his hand to help the Vanguardian to his feet.
"As soon as you're ready to start explaining a few things to me," Chance replied, taking the hand warily and rose to his feet with a jerk.
"You people always want explanations, don't you?" Marko replied, shaking his head. "The Old Man said you might give me a headache."
Chance finally got a look at the man who'd freed him from the gas-trap in the secret computer room. He was a well-built, fit man appeared to be in his 40s with dark brown hair and white at the temples, a pencil-thin moustache, and he wore a black, leather-like form-fitting suit which looked like something out of a spy film. He had a strong, tanned, classically-Mandelovian face with a long scar running from two inches over his left eyebrow down over his eye and cheekbone to within an inch of his left earlobe. His left eye was unlike anything Chance had ever seen before. It was cybernetic.
"A little gift from my days as an Elite Agent," Marko said as he noticed Chance's interest in his eye. "Back in my younger days I was known only as 'Agent M' and was the head of the so-called 'Alphabet Agents'. I lost my eye in a fencing match with a rival of mine, but I ended up being the recipient of an advanced miniature computer and recording device. Comes in handy once in a while."
Chance scratched his head as he tried to sort all this out after having just woken up. He still didn't know what this man was all about.
As if reading his mind, Marko said to him, "Kid, do I have to spell out everything for you? You're looking for Helen McKenzie, right? Well, I'm the guy who can tell you -- no -- show you where she is."
"But who are you?"
"I'm the good guy, kid!" He held out his hand impatiently to shake Chance's and said in a loud voice as if he were talking to a nearly-deaf and slow child, "Roman Marko -- head of the Mandelovian Underground Resistance, dedicated to restoring democracy to Mandelovia. Pleased to meet you. Now let's get out of here before those moronic conscripted soldiers come back here to investigate the explosion. Okay?"
"All right," Chance said. His instincts told him to trust this man for some strange reason.
***
Roman Marko led Chance through the Palace hallways, most of which were darkened due to the power lines being cut during the fighting. There were few individuals left in most of the Palace, as they'd gone to join their individual Army Divisions or were simply fighting with whatever weapons they could get their hands on, but occasionally Marko would stop, indicating Chance to remain quiet and wait until someone had passed. Along the way Marko explained in whispers that he'd followed the instructions of the Old Man -- a living Neanderthal Chance had met only briefly once in Paris during a quick trip there with Edulcore, Dr. Quantos, Mick, and Shirley -- to break into the Palace at a certain room and a certain time where he would find a young man named Chance, and that he was to assist him in his search for the daughter of Henry Quantos. Finding the room specified and realizing that Chance was being gassed inside, he set charges on the revolving bookshelf door and blew it in to rescue him.
Beginning on the first floor, they made their way up to first the second floor and then the third floor, and then back down to the first floor again in the same wing as the PPM's office where most of the fighting was occurring. Moving swiftly down an empty hall, Marko suddenly stopped at a locked room. He produced a card, kissed it, and passed it through a scanner. "Yes!" he muttered under his breath as it worked and the doors slid open.
"What is this?" Chance asked as he saw several wide tubes standing in the middle of the room, control boards placed around it. "It almost looks like..."
"You're right," Marko interrupted. "I think the man who designed this transporter system was a huge fan of Star Trek. Well, go on -- step into the tube."
"I-I'm not so sure about that," Chance said, more interested in this new scientific discovery than in their current situation at the moment. "How does it work?"
"It would take at least five hours to explain the complicated mathematics behind this principle, kid," Marko said. "And even if I cared to remember all of it, I wouldn't want to bother with it just now. Let's just say that it's an matter-energy-converter controlled by a probability matrix which can transport us to any other transporter tube in the country. Now get in."
"A 'probability matrix,' huh?" Chance said, a smile playing across his face. "I happen to have some experience with probability..."
"I'm sure you have a wonderful mother, too. Now get in! I'm setting it to transport us in 15 seconds."
"Where are we going?" Chance said, still somewhat distracted as he was pulled into the tube by Roman Marko.
"Well, since this is only an experimental model..."
"Wha--?"
"...there's only one place it can transport us to. Let's just hope it hasn't been destroyed in the fighting..."
"WHAT--?!?"
Just then, the transporter tubes hummed to life, and the two men were gone...
