Ross was also prepping her weaponry, which at least appeared to be more conventional from the outside. Her custom-built cartridges looked quite different than the ammunition the rest of the Postal Inspectors carried, but the two sub-machine guns she had were not dissimilar. Although, now that Mackey was able to get a close look as Ross checked the action and disassembled and reassembled the various components, he did catch some very telling differences. The metal of the weapons was quite eye-catching: jet black receivers and grips, but with polished copper barrels and sights, and what appeared to be wrapped copper coils around the chamber and trigger area. She wore them now on a double set of retracting slings, over body armor plates, no longer bothering to conceal them under a jacket. Ross' silhouette, enlarged with the weapons, the armor, and the extra magazines positioned across her person, made her appear far more imposing than anyone would imagine a mathematics expert in her early sixties to be. Pulled back to her shoulder blades, the twin guns looked like metal, military specification butterfly wings. Her silhouette, cast against the interior of the transport plane, looked like a ballistic angel of death.
Hopper, the other member of the team with a dangerously disconcerting appearance, was consulting with the commander of the Postal Inspectors, over-ear headphones carefully placed beneath the brim of her omnipresent hat. She was accepting reports, and giving orders, which was as much her chosen ordnance as any projectile. However, Mackey did notice that she held her so-called ‘transistor staff' in her hand, having handed off the role of carrying paperwork to a Postal Bureau assistant she had drawn into her wake.
The Assistant Secretary pressed one hand to her headset, as if concentrating to perceive events happening in some distance space. About at this time, Mackey had learned in the briefing, a delta-wing PB-58 supersonic bomber would be taking off from Mail Sorting Area 51, circling up through the atmosphere, accelerating to speeds over Mach 2. Then, it would launch the High Virgo missile, which would speed out of the atmosphere and into orbit, carrying a nuclear warhead. ASTB had performed high-orbit radar sweeps and identified the eavesdropping satellite. When the weapon detonated, the electromagnetic pulse would be more than enough to fry its circuits into a lump of distorted solder. The High Virgo launch would be timed to hit the satellite at precisely the moment they made the attack on the ground station.
His attention drawn back to his immediate surroundings, Mackey loaded their dazzle pistols with newly charged batteries he received from Tikhonov, and re-armed their pair of electro-blasts by changing the disposable capacitors underneath the panel of the flat, square, metal end. Under his shirt, he felt the electromagnetic amulet against his chest as he smoothed the holsters down under his jacket, making sure these strange weapons were secure about him.
Tikhonov seemed to be itching for something with a little more deadly force, but did not put his idea into words, perhaps wary of what Hopper might say in response to such a request by the Bolshevik. Mackey, on the other hand, was more than happy to be without the responsibility of any weapon firing actual projectiles. The ability to hang back behind any automatic weapons fire seemed like an ideal defensive strategy for him, regardless of what sort of protective ability the amulet might or might not have.
As they crossed over the aqua hues of Eagle Lake into California, with the peak of the volcanic Mt. Lassen visible out of the left side of the aircraft, the pieces of the plan began to fall into place. The Sleet escort sped off ahead of them, dropping in altitude. The flight of VTOL aircraft dipped low over the hills as well, as they approached the massive volcano of Mt. Shasta.
The Commerce tracking station was on a hill on the southern slope of the mountain. As Hopper had announced in the briefing, the Sleet fighter-bombers would take their runs to destroy any air defenses in the area, so that the PC-142s could land and deposit their troops without opposition. The ground assault would target a rear entrance, where the defenses would likely be less pronounced. And Hopper's team would be going in along with the first wave.
The craft circled wide, giving the occupants a view of the site, where several trails of smoke rose into the blue California sky, no doubt signalling the success of the Sleets' attack run. The PC-142 slowed, began to hang in the air as the wing swung vertically, and the plane descended in a hover. Touching down hard, the rear door swung open, and the Postal Inspectors streamed out, taking defensive positions around the fresh bomb craters kicked into the hillside. Hopper's team followed, taking cover in the tall pines that covered the site.
Mackey saw that the giant white radomes on the hillside had been thoughtfully left intact. But the airstrikes had done good work. Several emplacements of what appeared to be guided missiles were on fire, abandoned by their operators. There was no opposition on the ground. This site, it seemed, was deserted. Did this signify that their coming was expected? Or that they had targeted the wrong place? The advance Postal Inspector team moved towards the steel-enclosed entrance of the tunnel. That would take them below the surface of the earth, into the command center of the station.
A concrete shell, a wide, sweeping arch above the tunnel, kept the rest of the mountain back from the rear entrance way. Across the span of the half-tube into the earth, a heavy steel door was secured. Parsons sauntered forward, lighting a cigar that he produced from inside his tweed jacket. Holding it carefully to one side while digging in his bomb satchel, he said nonchalantly to the Postal Inspectors, "You all may want to back up."
The other members of the team and the Inspectors did so hurriedly as Parsons produced a tube of grey, greasy material, which he began smearing across the hinged edge of the heavy door. Affixing a small fuse to the pasty mess, he said, "Now you all may want to run," as he dipped the cigar ember to its twisted end.
From their points of hurried cover, they felt the air snatched from their lungs as the local air pressure expanded in a solid, exothermic thump. Looking back through the light grey haze that hung in the high mountain air, Mackey saw that the steel door had been severed from its mounts, hanging sideways across the tunnel, revealing a dark mouth heading downward.
The armed Inspectors rushed into the tunnel. Then Hopper's team moved forward to follow. Ross and Parsons took the lead, the rocket scientist's cigar glowing orange in the low light. Parsons carried the Wizard's Hat cradled under one arm, his bag of explosives over the opposite shoulder, while Ross held both her guns in ready position. Hopper was next, holding the transistor staff ahead of her like an unlit torch. She was followed by Tikhonov and Mackey, their dazzle pistols at the ready.
The tunnel was dark and crowded, lined on either side by pallets of unidentified equipment: computer terminals, industrial winches, large cylindrical power supplies for unknown components, and other unidentified material. The Inspectors spread out, not wanting to be caught lumped together in an ambush. Ambush—although no one had said it, it was what was on everyone's minds. Why was there no defense? Why did the site appear deserted, even after an air strike? What were they approaching, as they advanced down below the surface of the earth? For some reason, a saying of Mackey's father popped into his head at this moment: "Check the mail slot." He used to say it when Fred was putting on his shoes. "Check the mail slot" was what they used to say when dressing in Postal Administration flight training. Fred Mackey Sr. had been stationed in Arizona, along with an endless battalion of scorpions that had a habit of crawling into their boots at night.
The tunnel grew wider and steeper, with inlaid steps cut into the raw igneous rock in places. Then the concrete and metal panels disappeared, giving way to stone, dark, wet, covered in serpentine swirls across its surface, with loose sand deposits on the floor of the tunnel. The passageway grew tall, narrow at the roof, bent together like a dark sleeve, held horizontal by the cuff. In the gleam of the tactical lights from the Postal Inspectors ahead of them, Mackey could see the ceiling glowing with tiny points of light, like the Milky Way.
Hopper saw Mackey looking up
ward. "It's a lava tube," she said. "Mt. Shasta is a volcano, though it hasn't been active in two centuries. Those are microbes, living off the minerals in the rocks."
"Don't lava tubes normally travel just underneath the surface?" Ross whispered.
"This one is taking us down underneath the mountain," Parsons said.
They must have traveled nearly half a mile under the rock, sloping downward on the smooth, sandy floor, before the tunnel began to widen. It opened into a chamber hundreds of yards wide, and what might have been a quarter of a mile long. Out in the open area were more crates of equipment, a number of modular shipping containers, and three odd-looking aircraft, apparently in different states of repair. How did they get these vehicles into the cavern? They were too large for the tunnel they had just descended. Above them, the ceiling was not visible in the gloom, though a strange light, blue like the bottom of a mountain lake, cast an eerie illumination over everything.
In the distance, an animalistic roar filled the air. Everyone froze. It sounded primordial, deep and guttural, as if forced from the lungs of the cave itself.
"Spread out," Hopper commanded. "This is where it happens."
And she was right. From across the chamber came a rushing wall of grey fur. Massive beasts, shaped roughly like bears but as large as elephants, with large flat noses and long curved claws, came thundering out from behind the obstacles scattered across the hall. They could smell them—a soggy, matted stink of dried saliva and sweat, musty like a zoo, grimy with the congealed filth of the underground. They charged, long tongues wagging in the low light. The ranks of the prehistoric monsters were a surging sea of animal rage.
The Assistant Secretary looked at the scene, open-mouthed surprise showing on her face. It was the first time Mackey had witnessed any such emotion come over her. "My goodness—ground sloths," she breathed. "Actual, literal Megatherium." But her astonishment lasted for only a second, and was instantly replaced by the culination of decades of command. "Open fire!" she barked.
The Inspectors opened up with their weapons, sending the shrill chatter of automatic fire rebounding off the distant ceiling and walls of the volcanic gallery, a machinic roar to challenge the extinct herd in bestial supremacy. Dusty clouds revealed hits bursting over the charging ground sloths, but the rounds were like mere fly bites, angering them, focusing their rage into a bloodlust.
Behind the charging horde, a group of tall, pale men wearing long cloaks stepped out, carrying staffs. Their skin shone a sickly white in the blue glow of the invisible cavern roof. They gathered together, chanting, holding their staffs in the air. Between the upturned points a shining silver cloud gathered, as if drawing moisture from an invisible depression in the air, rolling it over and over like atmospheric dough, gaining in size, in opacity, in luminous malice.
"White shamans," Ross muttered, spitting onto the ground.
"Parsons!" Hopper ordered. "Break up that sloth charge!"
Parsons needed no second order. Biting his cigar in the corner of his mouth, he dropped to one knee, pointing the bottom of the Wizard's Hat up at a forty-five degree angle, right in the direction of the leading sloth, now just one hundred yards away. Quickly tapping on the control console of the weapon, he sighted loosely one more time, and mashed a fat red button once, and then twice.
Two spherical rounds popped out of the Hat, sailing upward like corks from a champagne bottle. Completing their lobbed arc, they impacted on the sandy hall floor just in front of the forward Megatherium. After single, low bounces, they popped open, squirting a blanket of flammable gel in a radius of five feet, which then was ignited by central blasting charges. Twin fat mushrooms of solid orange petroleum flame gushed upwards, blotting out the darkness and blue gloom before fading into thick black smoke. Three of the giant sloths caught fire about their narrow faces, and in shock and pain gave up the charge, catapulting outward through the ranks, causing confusion among the giant prehistoric beasts, slowing their progress. They shook their heads in the hail of fire from the Inspector troops, as if trying to decide whether to proceed or retreat.
"Ross!" Hopper ordered next. "Cancel that shaman party in the back!"
"With pleasure," she muttered, releasing a magazine from one of her guns into her hand and slamming another home. She chambered a round and raised the weapon to her shoulder, aiming high at the ceiling of the cave. Looking upward, making some mental calculations, she punched digits into a keypad along the forward grip of the weapon, then squeezed off a quick burst. Mackey watched in amazement as tracer rounds cut upward, and then with a shower of sparks in the air like fireworks, rebounded down again towards the group of cloaked figures, impacting at their feet. The figures did not react, continuing their chant as the silver cloud between their raised staffs grew thicker and darker.
"Just another few microseconds should do it," Ross said, keeping her feet carefully still and entering a new calculation into the gun. She squeezed off another longer burst. The rounds arced upward over the Megatherium, then released the same shower of sparks as secondary charges redirected their flight downward, scattering bullets down across the group of shamans. Mackey watched amazed as six of their number fell to the ground.
The silver cloud between them shivered, but continued to glow, cracking with electric light, and beginning to rumble loud over the noise of the sloths and the automatic weapons. The cloud condensed, clenching like a fist, and then arced out with a lightning bolt, illuminating the hall with blinding blue light in the same instant as it impacted in between a number of Inspectors, blowing them sideways, sending the smell of charred flesh across the squad.
"Smoke!" Hopper shouted. "Then forward, into the sloths! Don't give the shamans a clear target! Use fragmentary grenades if you have to, but watch your crossfire!" Inspectors rolled smoke charges out into the floor, creating a veil of grey fog that obscured the incursion force from the shamans in billowing curtains of blue and black. The Postal Inspectors moved forward as the sloths found their collective rage again, and continued their mad, frantic run through the smoke towards the human beings.
Ross changed ammunition in one gun and opened fire, laying a row of incendiary rounds across the Megatherium, causing minor fires in their fur that glowed like candle points in the thickening haze. Parsons dug into his bag and pulled out a small length of pipe, then used his glowing coal to set the fuse before tossing it overhand out into the fog. As the Megatherium charge galloped over top of the pipe bomb it exploded, sending the animals shrieking, slipping in great flows of blood, but not sapping their fury.
Hopper stepped to the fore, raising her walking stick ahead of her, pointing it towards the leading sloth galloping towards her with furious thunder. Mackey turned to Ross, pleading, "Do something! She'll be trampled!"
Ross turned, the Megatherium now only yards from being on top of the Assistant Secretary. Hopper knelt to the ground, looking up through her glasses at the prehistoric monster, tongue outstretched, feet raised to crush her small form. Mackey heard an odd ringing cut through the melee, like a mechanical mosquito's whine. And then, with an overhand motion, the Assistant Secretary forcefully smacked the tip of her staff into the sand of the cavern floor.
A dry crack rang out in the cavern, like the shatter of a tree trunk broken by a gale. The floor ahead of Hopper split open, dropped by the force of the resonant harmonic vibration into a wide rift, the rock shedding sand into a dusty cloud as it fell downward, impacted as if by a vast, oblique spearpoint. The Megatherium was instantly sliced in two as if by an invisible scythe, like time and space were ripped in half with a single, sudden yank of a thin piece of paper along the edge of a desk. The halves of the sloth's carcass plugged the rift that had opened below it with a sickening thud, as its blood and entrails sloshed out into the sand.
"She always does manage to take care of herself," Ross said to Mackey, as the engineer stared through his eyeglasses, forehead wrinkled and jaw agape.
Hopper looked back at them and gestured with two fingers. "Ross, Parsons—on the left. Tikhonov and Mackey, find the control room, it has to be nearby. Find it and see what you make of it. Wait for us there."
In the burning fog enveloping the cave, the four made their way around to the wall as the Inspectors began engaging the Megatheriums with machine gun fire and grenades. The beasts seemed easy enough to wound with explosives, but the tough part was keeping them at a distance. Mackey watched in horror as a giant sloth loomed out of the fog and, swiping upward with a set of razor claws over a foot long, caught an Inspector under the armpit, sending both Inspector and limb flying through the air in opposite directions.
Ross laid down covering fire with incendiary rounds, setting small wildfires in the fur of the animals, which caused them to rub themselves against the floor as if stuck with a burr or a thorn. Parsons tossed small bombs when he could get a clear throw, each lit with his cigar and lobbed through the air at the animals. Through the smoke, Mackey couldn't make out the shamans at the other end of the hall.
Sneaking around one of the disassembled aircraft, the group looked for a clear path, but only found more sloths. Ross turned to Mackey and Tikhonov. "You two hug the wall and head forward. We'll cut in from here and cover you."
"What was that advice about bears, Tikhonov? Just don't back down!" Parsons grinned, puffing his cigar.
Suddenly, a Megatherium cut through a wisp of smoke, carrying one of the shamans on its back, waving his raised staff, purple flame gathered across the point. The animal reared, and Mackey, in reaction, fired his dazzle pistol. The green bolt missed the shaman, but hit the sloth dead on. It stumbled wildly, screaming that deep prehistoric groan, its long tongue lashing like a whip. The shaman lost concentration and fell to the ground, the flame vanishing from the tip of his staff as if quenched in water. Reaching within his cloak for a weapon, the shaman struggled to his feet, only to find Ross waiting, gun at the ready.
Orthogonal Procedures Page 24
