by Bob Mayer
None of the Americans seemed sure of the origin of the phrase. One ventured it had something to do with the Roman soldiers who saw Hannibal’s elephants after they crossed the Alps. He suggested that must have been quite a shock.
Being a student of military history, Rennie knew that might not be the case because, contrary to legend, it was contended by many historians that none of the Carthaginian elephants survived the journey over those mountains. Also, Romans had faced war elephants before Hannibal.
Being a student of military history, and having seen the proverbial elephant, Colonel Rennie was a fan of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It was a book often viewed by fellow officers as full of simplistic catch phrases. Rennie believed the sayings were still around for a reason.
Mrs. Parrish was gone, along with Turcotte. The latter meant his mission here was without a purpose. The former was troubling. She did not seem the type to take no with equanimity. The helicopters had turned back the way they’d come, disappearing over the adjacent mountain range to the south. Night was just beginning to fall, EENT, end-evening-nautical-twilight. The temperature, as it did in the desert, was dropping fast.
Rennie commanded an under-strength Infantry company, just eighty men. They’d been on their way to training at the United States Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center when he’d received new orders from his government, ‘diverting’ them to United Nations Command, orders that were as vague as any he’d ever received.
He was acutely aware of his men looking at him, their lightly armed vehicles idling on the edge of the long runway adjacent to Groom Mountain. The blasted hangar doors indicated a degree of violence that filled him with foreboding.
He keyed his secure satellite link to United Nations UNAOC and tried raising someone. Anyone. There was no response. He switched to secure text and sent a query. The cursor remained blinking with no reply.
Which was odd since he’d received the verbal order from Under-Secretary Kaong to allow Mrs. Parrish to land not long ago. It was evening in New York City but someone should be manning the UNAOC desk.
Rennie waited another minute, but still nothing. He keyed the FM radio on the company frequency so he could directly address every soldier. “We will withdraw to the emergency rally point. Noise and light discipline, NVGs. ASAP. Out.”
Rennie led the way in his vehicle, lights out, wearing night vision goggles. They raced to the southwest, toward Groom Mountain. During his initial reconnaissance shortly after arriving here two days ago he’d found a small dirt road leading to a dry gulch cutting into the mountain. He’d gone further, following a time-tested military stratagem to always have a viable line of retreat.
He’d found one, or at least thought he had. He hadn’t had the time to take it all the way, but now, as he came to the end of the road and into the ascending gulch, it was time to put it to the test.
In the darkness, the convoy of up-armored humvees and pick-up trucks slowly climbed. After a few minutes, Rennie checked his GPS. They were near the crest of a ridge that was part of Groom Mountain.
“Sir,” a voice came over the FM net. “Behind us.”
Rennie ordered his driver to halt. He turned the turret back toward Area 51.
A flotilla of helicopters were inbound to the base. Apache gunships flew low over the airfield and buildings, their gunners searching with night vision and thermal sites. Two flew into Hanger One, passing between the damaged doors.
Then the dozen CH-53s came in, each disgorging thirty heavily armed men, who quickly began to secure the place.
“They’ll come looking for us,” Rennie told his men. “Let’s keep moving.”
CAMP ROWE, NORTH CAROLINA
“When I trained here,” Turcotte said as he maneuvered the Fynbar to a landing on a pitted concrete taxiway, “we didn’t have all these buildings and a chow hall.”
“You probably slept on rocks and ate dirt for breakfast,” Yakov said. “Correct, comrade?”
Turcotte spared the Russian a nod. “Yep.” The Fynbar settled in place and Turcotte shut it down.
“Are you truly the only one who can fly this?” Yakov asked, indicating the depression in which the pilot’s seat was set.
Turcotte pointed at his head. “Do you have Duncan’s implant with the correct procedure?”
“I hope not,” Yakov said. “And perhaps you have other information in there?”
“I’m sure I do,” Turcotte said, “but the only one who knows is dead.”
It was night and there was no sign of life in the fenced compound adjacent to the large open space which contained a long runway and taxiways with a drop zone in the center. The area was Camp Mackall, where the 11th Airborne Division had trained prior to being deployed overseas in World War II. During the Vietnam War, the Son Tay Raiders had conducted their training here. The initial Delta Forces mission, Eagle Claw, had been prepared and trained here.
At Camp Rowe, a cluster of single-story prefab buildings, Special Forces students were assessed and trained. Right now, the camp seemed abandoned. There were two communications trailers nearby, underneath camouflage netting. They’d been brought here when Turcotte and the others had used this locale as their command post after the last time they were chased out of Area 51.
“It’s pretty empty,” Leahy observed, pointing at the displays.
“No lights in the compound,” Turcotte said. “That’s unusual. This never shuts down. They’re always training.”
“Not now,” Yakov said. “Perhaps this was not a good choice?”
“Where else?” Turcotte said. He looked around the interior, then settled on the only weapon available: the MK-98 attached to the right arm of the TASC-suit. He removed it.
It resembled a jackhammer with an open tube instead of the chisel. It was flat black with a laser sight on top. A two-foot long cylinder was loaded in the magazine holding ten depleted uranium darts, each six inches long and an inch in diameter. The darts were fired by a compressed high-tension spring. When fired, the dart lost no speed due to friction going down the barrel because an electro-magnetic field kept it in the exact center and on course. It also was very heavy since it had been designed to be used in space.
“It is too quiet out there,” Yakov said. “In your American horror movies that always means don’t go outside.”
“We need the comms,” Turcotte said, indicating the vans.
“To talk to whom?” Yakov asked. “UNAOC is impotent. It looks like our former friends here are deployed. Majestic is gone. Who do you want to talk to?”
“Kelly Reynolds for one,” Turcotte said. “And I need find Colonel Mickell.” Turcotte put the heavy gun over his shoulder and climbed up the ladder. He threw open the hatch. He looked down, framed against the starlit night. “Coming?”
They climbed outside after him.
“See if the generators are fueled and will crank,” Turcotte ordered Quinn, Kincaid and Leahy once they all got to the ground. “We need to get uplinked. At the very least, get an intel update. Contact UNAOC and find out about the two Perdix launches.”
“Roger that,” Quinn said. He switched on a flashlight and walked with Kincaid and Leahy over to the generator next to the commo vans.
Turcotte turned to Yakov. “I’m going into Camp Rowe. They’ve got commo gear there too. Plus I think we need more appropriate weaponry. And somebody should be there.”
“It does not look like it,” Yakov said. “The American military must be stretched thin with deployments. Also, if some of your states are seceding, perhaps your Federal government is not letting them go so easily?”
“I was sure Colonel Mickell would be here,” Turcotte said, his initial enthusiasm fading.
They heard the stutter of the generator trying to start.
The night was seared by the bright flash of an explosion from the vicinity of the generator, the sound following.
Turcotte and Yakov sprinted there, partially blinded. The generator was gone, blasted apart. The explosion and shrapnel
had shredded the two communications vans. Both were on fire and flames were spreading outward, fed by fuel pouring from a cluster of barrels.
“Quinn? Kincaid? Leahy?” Turcotte called out.
Yakov pointed. “There.”
Turcotte joined the Russian. Just a leg, part of a torso, charred meat. Other pieces and parts of what used to be their comrades were being consumed in the flames, a testament to the force of the blast and the inferno. The heat was forcing them back.
“We have to get out of here,” Yakov said.
“Quinn!” Turcotte yelled. “Kincaid! Leahy!”
“They are gone, my friend,” Yakov said. He pulled on Turcotte’s arm as the flames rolled closer. “We must go!” He indicated the surrounding darkness. “Why do you think no one is here? Something is very wrong.”
Turcotte had the MK-98 at the ready, turning, trying to find something, anything, anyone, to shoot at.
Yakov slapped him on the shoulder, hard. “Mike! We must get out of here.”
Turcotte allowed Yakov to push him toward the Fynbar.
They climbed into the ship. Yakov secured the hatch, then slid into the co-pilot’s depression, opposite Turcotte.
Turcotte powered the craft up and they took off.
Below them, flames flickered, consuming the two vans and the remains.
INSIDE THE HELIOSPHERE
The two warships rendezvoused with the scout buoy. One of them downloaded all data and transmitted it back to the Battle Core. The data indicated that the first Scout had gone off line and was presumed lost. The second Scout had touched base with the buoy, checked the same data, then headed into the system.
It too had never checked back in to the buoy. Those dual losses indicated a very high probability there was a threat in the solar system. Or perhaps two accidents.
Two accidents strained probabilities, but was not impossible.
The warship also sent back another tidbit of information. On its way to the buoy, it had tracked an object on an outward trajectory. There were numerous natural objects moving in all sorts of directions, but analysis indicated this particular one gave off a radioactive signature. A very, very slight one, certainly nothing that could power a threat to the Swarm, but it did indicate the object was not natural.
This required further information so the two warships were diverted to investigate.
With an artificial object and two scout ships missing, there was no decision to be made, only the next steps to be taken.
Given the size of the Core, the deployment of eight more warships was but a speck of action. But each warship was twice the size of an Airlia mothership. A warship is an orb two miles in diameter with eight, evenly spaced, protruding arms bristling with weapons and launch ports. Each arm is a quarter mile in length.
The eight warships used their incipient velocity from the decelerating Core to continue into the Solar System, gaining distance from the Core as it continued to decelerate. Their own engines were throttled down, just supplying life support and imaging, as the speed was sufficient for now. They would eventually need to slow down further in order to enter orbit around any of the planets in the system, but for now they needed to be out in front.
As they left the Core behind, the maneuvering engines flared briefly to spread them out in a tactical formation in order to adequately reconnoiter the system.
To find the life they would consume.
A DECISION
AIRSPACE, NORTH CAROLINA
Turcotte released the controls, leaving the Fynbar in stasis forty-five thousand feet above Camp Rowe. He leaned his head back, taking several deep breaths.
Finally he looked at Yakov. “I got nothing. No idea what to do.”
Yakov was pragmatic. “I wish we would have had time for the vodka at Area 51. My flask needs refilling. At the least to toast our dead. There have been too many.”
Turcotte slid out of the pilot’s depression and sat on the lip. “This doesn’t make sense. Diesel doesn’t explode. Not like that. And I don’t remember those barrels of gas. Why would they be there?”
“It was booby-trapped,” Yakov said. “It had to be. Explosives. The gas was an accelerant.”
“Why? Who would do that?”
Yakov shrugged. “No clue. UNAOC?”
Turcotte shook his head. “Doubtful. I don’t understand what’s going on. We beat the Airlia. Lisa destroyed their array. We’re free of alien influence for the first time in our history and everything’s gone to shit. Kincaid, Quinn and Leahy just got killed and I’ve got no clue why. Who planted the explosives? Why?”
“Ah,” Yakov said. He got out of the co-pilot’s depression and stretched his arms. “Perhaps we weren’t ready to be free?”
“Bullshit,” Turcotte said. “We had to get rid of the Airlia. The Airlia loosed the Black Death on us 14th Century. They tried to do it again from the Mission and we were lucky to stop them. They did a lot more nasty shit over the years. Hell, Artad’s Shadow was Genghis Khan. We’re better off without them. Like Kelly Reynolds said: they were keeping enough of us around to be cannon fodder for their war against the Swarm.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Yakov said. “There is another possibility.”
“What is that?” Turcotte asked.
“That we’re here as bait,” Yakov said. “A distraction for the Swarm.”
Turcotte considered that. “A sound strategic move.” He shook his head. “Right now, that doesn’t matter. We’ll have to talk to Kelly Reynolds.”
“We don’t know all the truth,” Yakov said, “but what little we do know is too much for most people to handle. We learned much of what you and I know bit by bit, with Kelly Reynolds supplying the last part. For the rest of the planet, it’s a lot at once.”
“That last part we can’t let out,” Turcotte said. “The info about the Airlia, the Swarm, Atlantis, the Grail and the rest is bad enough. If people found out we were manufactured for their war against the Swarm, can you imagine how much worse it will get? This is way beyond my pay grade.”
“That is what Colonel Rennie said,” Yakov reminded him.
“Yeah. And he’s right. We’re just soldiers.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where to go. What to do next.”
“Let us progress one step at a time,” Yakov said. He held up a finger. “The first thing that happened when we landed at Area 51 was UNAOC wanting to protect us. It’s obvious we do need protection.”
“You saying we go to UNAOC? For all we know they set the explosive, although I doubt it.”
“No,” Yakov said. “They obviously cannot protect us, given we had to run.”
“Then what?”
“Bear with me,” Yakov said. “Next, Mrs. Parrish somehow gets permission to land there and wants to buy this—“ he pointed down—“from you. But you said she has already launched spacecraft to rendezvous with the mothership and talon. Then why does she want it? If she gets the talon and it’s functional, it can do everything the Fynbar can. Correct?”
“Yes.” Turcotte looked toward the rear of the crew compartment at the two regeneration tubes. “No. Not everything.” He went to the occupied tube. The blank face of the empty host for Duncan’s long-lost partner, Gwalcmai. “This is what she wants.”
Yakov frowned. “A body? Why?”
“Leahy said there was a Mister Parrish. Did you see a Mister Parrish at Area 51?”
“No.” Yakov got it. “Ah! Mister Parrish is no longer with us. But then she needed to have uploaded his essence into a ka. Where would she get the technology to do that?”
Turcotte put his hands on the surface of the tube. “Who knows? Plenty of possible places. Ararat? Qian-Ling? Easter Island? Temiltepac? Dulce? Some Airlia outpost on Earth we haven’t even come across yet? If she’s the richest person on the planet she could get her hands on the technology.” He tapped the tube. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. What could be so important to her that she’d make me the richest man on the planet? Ther
e’s only one thing that valuable. Life itself.”
“But, if she was able to upload her husband’s essence,” Yakov said, “wouldn’t she also have a regeneration tube?”
“An Airlia tube perhaps,” Turcotte said. “But notice. This one can only fit someone human sized, not Airlia. It’s what, six and a half feet long on the inside? Most Airlia are around seven feet. Maybe this one, modified for humans, is different in other ways? Regenerate human shells instead of Airlia? I don’t know. Maybe there’s a difference between a deep sleep tube and a regeneration tube? It’s the only thing that makes sense. She didn’t seem to care when I told her I was the only one who could pilot the Fynbar.” Through the portal, he noted something at the bottom edge of the field of vision, resting on the body’s chest. “Hold on.”
Turcotte hit the button to open the lid and removed a folded piece of paper.
Turcotte retrieved it, then shut the lid. He unfolded the paper. “It’s from Lisa Duncan.”
Yakov took a step back. “I will leave you to it, my friend.” He moved a polite distance away, as polite as one could inside the crew compartment.
Duncan’s handwriting was thin, block letters.
Mike,
I am sorry for so many things. Above all for using you without your awareness. But as you now know, I used myself the same way, blocking my own memories in order to accomplish the mission. It is what was needed.
That is something we share no matter what: accomplishing the mission.
My ka is with me. If I am gone, it is gone. Which means I am now part of whatever larger power rules this universe; if there is such a higher power. I have my doubts with all the evil and death I have seen. But there have been moments, golden moments, when I have felt the sublime touch of something more. Something better.
I also have what remains of Gwalcmai’s ka. It was broken, his essence irretrievable lost, smashed by Excalibur, at the battle of Camlann where Artad’s and Aspasia’s Shadows battled over the Grail.
