Harris lost his patience. “What the hell do I look like to you, an errand boy? You think the acting base commander’s going to come running just because you snapped your fingers? In case it’s escaped your attention, Dr. Ericson, the base is on full alert and the reason General Forrester is in this hospital is because there have already been several attempts on his life and the last one damn near succeeded! Now I’m here to do a job and I don’t intend to leave my post simply because some prima donna doctors have been inconvenienced. Now if you want to speak to the acting base commander, I suggest you go through the proper channels and request an appointment. If Col. Steiger thinks that your request warrants sufficient priority, he’ll see you, but frankly, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Now get the hell out of my face. I’ve got work to do.”
The chief administrator looked as if he were about to have apoplexy. “How dare you speak to me like that? Who do you think you are? I’ll have your stripes for this!”
“I haven’t got any goddamn stripes;” said Harris, rolling his eyes. “I’m a commissioned officer. Now I’m really trying not to lose my temper, but—”
“You are the most arrogant, insolent, and uncooperative young man I’ve ever met!” Ericson said, puffing himself up like a blowfish. “Now I demand to see Col. Steiger this very instant, do you hear me? This very instant!”
“That’s it,” Harris said, “I’ve had it. If you’re not out of here in three seconds, I’m placing you under arrest. One…”
“Arrest?” The administrator’s face turned purple and his eyes bulged. “On what charge?”
“Two…
“You must be out of your mind! You wouldn’t dare—”
Three, Donnelley, Kruger, place this man under arrest.” As the two men moved in to take the astonished hospital administrator into custody, a well-dressed man hurried past the checkpoint, carrying a briefcase.
“Wait a minute!” Hums called after him.
“Can’t stop now!” the man called back over his shoulder as he hurried on. “I’m Dr. Blake, I’m due in surgery! It’s an emergency!”
“Stop!” shouted Harris.
The man ignored him. “Stop that man! Right now!”
Donnelly and Kruger forgot about the hospital administrator and rushed after Dr. Blake, drawing their weapons as they ran.
“Now see here!” the chief administrator shouted as he hurried after them. “You men! Stop! You can’t do that! That man’s on his way to an emergency surgery! You can’t—”
“Ericson!” Harris shouted. “Get back here!”
Dr. Blake suddenly dropped his briefcase on the floor, sliding it towards the lift tubes. Then he pivoted around sharply, drawing a plasma pistol from a shoulder holster.
“Look out!” yelled Kruger.
Donnelly dived to the right while Kruger leaped to the left as “Blake” fired. The plasma charge took Dr. Ericson full in the chest as he came running up behind them. He screamed as the searing heat enveloped him and then an instant later, his charred remains fell to the floor. As the briefcase stopped sliding, there was a faint, explosive pop and the lid flew open. A bright, incandescent glow came from within the briefcase.
Harris fired his weapon and dropped “Blake” in his tracks, but even as he did so, a swarm of lilliputians equipped with floater paks came rising up out of the briefcase.
“Jesus Christ,” Harris said, grabbing for his communicator. “He’s got a chronoplate in there! Donnelly, Kruger! Fire! Fire!”
As the two men laid down a crossfire in the hospital corridor, Harris shouted into the communicator.
“Mayday! Mayday! Assault in progress at Post 1!”
The lift tube doors revolved around and a group of hospital staff members stepped out right into the line of fire. Three of them were killed instantly, the rest dispersed, screaming and beating at their flaming clothing or clutching at themselves Where a dozen miniature lasers had sliced through bone and sinew as easily as if it were warm butter.
The lilliputians swarmed into the lift tube and more kept on coming from the briefcase. Four security men came running down the hall and two of them went down at once. Donnelly, trying to get around the screaming wounded, caught several laser beams in his head and upper torso. He fell to the floor without a sound.
“Harris, this is Steiger. What’s going on down there?”
“It’s a goddamn invasion!” Harris shouted into the communicator as reinforcements from the other hospital entrances started to arrive upon the scene. “We’re got casualties down here! I’ve got several men down! They’re coming through a temporal transit field, Lilliputians, hundreds of them! I can’t get to it! They’ve gotten to a lift tube and they’re headed up your way!”
“Damn it!” Steiger swore. “How the hell did they get through? Destroy that field, Harris! Cut ‘em off, right now, no matter what it takes!”
“Right,” said Harris, gritting his teeth. He dropped the communicator and took out his plasma sidearm. “My goddamn fault. My own, stupid, goddamn fault …”
He held his plasma pistol out before him, took a deep breath and starting running down the hall, right into the line of fire. He screamed, “Get down! Get down!” and fired as he ran, his pistol cycling rapidly. The Lilliputians returned his fire, but he kept on coming, right into the deadly web of laser beams, aiming at the briefcase that a small band of Lilliputians was frantically trying to shove into an open lift tube. Harris kept on coming, screaming as he charged them, firing into their midst, incinerating them as they swarmed up out of the temporal transit field and destroying the skirmish line they’d quickly set up in the lobby, pinning his men down. He was within fifteen feet of the lift tubes when his plasma pistol cycled through, the charge pak exhausted.