Redemption: Area 51, #10

by Bob Mayer

  “You can’t know that,” Nyx says.

  “It is as likely as any other rumor,” Yerz says. “Surely you know your own rumors?”

  Nyx almost lies, but her previous one burns. “A human colony most likely.”

  Yerz looks to the right. At the front display. Seven motherships float in orbit. Dozens of shuttles flit about, flies among the beasts.

  A refurbished talon is locking onto the end of one of the motherships.

  “Even if a deployment ends,” Yerz says, not letting her get off so easily, “FTLT insures we will be of different times. We will never see each other again or even speak. FTL messaging is being restricted to official channels.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Nyx asks, wondering how he can know so much more than she. But he has friends, some of them on this shuttle, fellow warriors, newly selected. She only has him.

  Yerz puts his arm around her shoulder. “I am glad you will finally be able to do what you were trained to. I know your dream. It is important.”

  Nyx glances about, but there are no Kortad.

  The shuttle co-pilot announces a mothership number. Eight Airlia stand and make their way to the airlock at the rear of the shuttle, carrying their deployment bags. They enter, putting their helmets on. The door slides shut behind them.

  For the first time Nyx wonders when they stopped naming motherships and just gave them numbers. She remembers the names of some of the historic motherships from her childhood. Now it seems that tradition can’t be bothered with. Or does it have something to do with security? Or have too many gone missing? Numbers are easy to forget, but not names.

  She is thinking about anything other than what is going to happen. She is grateful this ship is not their assignments. They will have a few more minutes together before an eternity apart.

  “What you dream of is the future, mother,” Yerz says. “We must learn to live in harmony with other Scale.”

  Nyx gives the response she was taught, but doesn’t believe. “History and the calculations say it is not possible.”

  The shuttle pauses next to a small open bay of the mothership. The sound of the outer airlock opening, the red warning light blinking. Through the display, the eight jet across into the larger ship, their deployment bags trailing on tethers. The mothership’s airlock slowly shuts. The shuttle is already moving on. The light in the rear becomes green.

  “Mother.” Yerz removes his arm and shakes his head. “You let obstacles daunt you. They are challenges. I’ve known you all my life,” he jokes. “You can defeat challenges. And future history is for us to make.”

  “You must be careful,” Nyx says, knowing she is being every-mother. Selfishly grateful that she has this time that the other parents, not deploying, don’t. They said their good-byes on the landing field, next to the shuttle.

  Yerz gives a strange smile. “I know my destiny, mother. You need not worry for me.”

  “I will always worry for you,” Nyx says, strength in that truth.

  “I want you to be for me,” Yerz says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Live for me,” Yerz says. “Every moment. Be who you are, who you can be. Promise me.”

  “Of course,” Nyx says, confused.

  The co-pilot calls out a number.

  “That’s me and my friends,” Yerz says. He stands, leans over and kisses her on the forehead.

  Nyx puts her hand on either side of his head. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” Yerz responds. Others warriors are pushing their way through, to the airlock. “I have to go.”

  Nyx nods, no more words can come.

  Yerz is the last of ten entering the lock. He turns and smiles at her. “Don’t be afraid. Be the change.” He puts his helmet on, sealing it.

  Then he is gone, the door shuts.

  They are off the bow of his assigned mothership. There are six talons attached. A small airlock on the mothership opens between the tips of two talons.

  Nyx sees the light turn red, hears the shuttle lock open. She looks to the right. Sees the new warriors jetting.

  She knows something isn’t right. Why would all his friends be assigned the same ship?

  She realizes they don’t have their deployment bags on tethers. They must have left them in the airlock. That makes no sense.

  They jet out, away from the mothership. Others on the shuttle are consternated. What are they doing?

  The pilot calls a query over the net to the mothership.

  Nyx stands. Stumbles forward, not aware she is walking. Passes between pilot and co-pilot. Doesn’t hear their order for her to return to her seat. She puts her hands on the display.

  The new warriors form a line in front of the mothership, tiny specks.

  “No,” Nyx whispers. “No.”

  She recognizes Yerz’s voice over the net between shuttle and mothership.

  “For peace among the stars.”

  The shift from regress to consciousness was the most abrupt Nyx had ever experienced. Her legs were locked, her head back, her body not yet responding.

  Labby was barking furiously, running in circles around her.

  She hadn’t dissolved the dog?

  Nyx was utterly confused, part of her, most of her, still seeing those dots in space, facing the massive mothership.

  Labby oriented her.

  Nyx’s legs unlocked and she had partial control of her muscles. She staggered to a chair, dropped into it. Without hesitation she went through the familiar sequence, sliding the control to vent oxygen.

  The warning light became red. She over-rode the automated correction.

  Nyx got up and walked away from the controls as the gauge dropped below fifty percent. She sat down in the center of the control room, cross-legged.

  Labby stopped barking and came over, sitting in front of her, staring into her eyes. She stared back.

  Forty percent.

  The dog dropped down from a sit, pushing its paws out in front, as it began to pant.

  “I’m not afraid,” Nyx said.

  The dog cocked its head as if trying to comprehend.

  Thirty percent.

  Nyx tried to stop herself from breathing hard, but couldn’t override her autonomic nervous system. She gasped.

  Twenty percent.

  Nyx looked from the dog to the console. She was past the point of being able to get up.

  The same alarm boomed through the complex, which confused her. She was already aware the Swarm was inbound.

  It was hard to see, her lungs were on fire.

  Nyx fell over on her side, trying desperately to crawl to the controls. She barely made it a foot.

  But then she was able to draw in a little more oxygen. And then more. Her vision cleared, her lungs filled.

  Nyx got to her knees, confused. The room was filling with fresh oxygen. The vent alert went from red to yellow to green. It was closed.

  Nyx went to the console. The system was normal. She sat down and her fingers traced out an interrogative to the computer, trying to understand what had just happened.

  “No!” she screamed as she comprehended the hieroglyphics scrolling across the display, summarizing her predicament. As part of the facilities’ fail-safe, the last Airlia alive was designated the custodian. She had not fulfilled those final responsibilities bestowed upon the custodian, so the facility was not going to allow her to use it to suicide.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Nyx said. What was the computer going to do if she slit her wrists? And she knew the answer. The nanites in her veins would receive directions to keep her alive. She’d have to do something extraordinarily drastic, such as decapitate herself, in order to die.

  The list of her duties wasn’t very long. And would result in her death. Eventually. But the duties had to come first. The war always took precedence.

  Nyx slumped back in the seat. Labby was sitting, watching her, much less perturbed about extinction than she.

  Nyx nodded and admitted:
“I was afraid.” She put her head in her hands. “I still am.”

  EARTH GETS THE BAD NEWS

  NEVADA TEST SITE

  A nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site used to be a tourist attraction at Las Vegas, over one hundred miles away. Until the party-poopers, worried about things like fall out, ended surface and air burst testing. The last atomic cloud seen from the balconies of hotels in Sin City occurred in 1962. The government didn’t stop testing bombs then; just moved them underground. All testing supposedly ended in 1992, but governments and treaties are iffy things, especially regarding weapons. The radiation left behind by the officially acknowledged 928 nuclear detonations didn’t disappear just because some paper had been signed.

  Underground is where Colonel Rennie and his understrength Infantry company was hunkered down. When the moratorium came in 1992, several more below surface tests were in the almost ready to be blown up phase. One of those was in Area 1 of the Test Site and code named IceCap. A large drill housed in a tower marked the spot. It had not quite been at test depth when the moratorium was announced so work was halted, mid-preparation. Next to it was a partially shielded warehouse for equipment parked during construction.

  ICECAP TOWER

  Abandoned for all these years, Rennie had read about it while doing his research on this assignment. The company’s vehicles were parked inside the warehouse while the men were inside the shaft, safe from direct exposure to radiation. They sat or lay on a metal spiral staircase that curved down around the shaft. Rennie was near the surface, his radioman a few steps below him.

  This was far as his planning went. He had no radio contact with the UN; or anyone for that matter. The only way out, unless they wanted to trek across the moon-like, radiated surface of the rest of the Test Site, was back the way they came; to the northeast and Area 51.

  Rennie was loath to do that, given their experience, but he also accepted that this decision was going to be taken from him as their supply of drinkable water was dwindling.

  *****

  Nevada State Route 375 connects no place to no place.

  The Nevada Commission on Tourism tried to cash in on the myths around Area 51 by designating it “Extraterrestrial Highway” in 1996. They invited the cast of the newly released movie Independence Day to a ceremony renaming it.

  Irony would not begin to describe that event given the current situation.

  While normal traffic is less than 200 vehicles a day, right now there were two thousand trucks traversing Route 375, all heading in the same direction. Toward Area 51. The drivers had no idea what they were involved in; they only knew that they’d been paid not only to haul whatever was in the trailers, picked up at pre-designated locations all over Vegas, but triple price for their rigs too. Thus there were no trucks coming back the other way. The end of their journey was the long airstrip, where mysterious men dressed in black fatigues took over, driving the rigs out of sight toward the southern end of Groom Mountain.

  Drivers were flown back to Vegas on board a 737 to blow their obscene amount of money.

  The end of the journey for the trailers was Hangar Two. Ramps led to open cargo bays. Rigs were driven into the mothership, negotiating the slight tilt. Trailers were detached, and the rigs were driven out into the desert and abandoned. The trailers were coded and loaded in a predetermined manner that would make an Amazon warehouse supervisor ecstatic.

  This was the result of eight years of planning. The trailers had long been loaded and parked in locations all over Las Vegas, dispersed not to arouse suspicion. Not that the contents, at least most, should interest the law. They were the basic supplies that the most ardent survivalist would applaud and much more.

  When the message from Mrs. Parrish came ordering a backup plan to be initiated, trailers were shifted about and orders went out for more drivers and rigs to pick up a second set of trailers from different locations in Las Vegas.

  Inside the hangar, the gash in the side of the mothership was framed with steel beams, braced into the original Airlia bulkhead. A crew was emplacing pre-cast plating, which one of Mrs. Parrish’s subsidiaries had constructed based on observations of the mothership while it was in orbit. The pieces were welded into place.

  Bit by bit, the damage was disappearing.

  TESLA LAB, CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, COLORADO

  “You had to kill them all? You couldn’t save one for me?”

  Turcotte glanced over at Yakov in the co-pilot’s seat and rolled his eyes. Nekhbet had been complaining about the lack of fresh blood since they departed the ambush site in the Fynbar. Nosferatu, Nekhbet and Colonel Mickell were crowded behind them as Turcotte followed the directions sent by Leahy via flexpad.

  He was keeping the Fynbar low, zipping along the foothills. He saw the unique chapel for the Air Force Academy and banked right, going around Cheyenne Mountain.

  “And that is fresh blood on your collar,” Nekhbet added. “I can smell it.”

  “I tried saving the one wounded man for you, my dear,” Nosferatu said. “But he was gone by the time I could get you.”

  Yakov made a small noise, but didn’t say anything.

  Turcotte had a much easier time landing on the short airstrip, setting the Fynbar down. Leahy was waiting for them at the tree line.

  “Easy,” Yakov said as Turcotte led the way toward her. “Let’s hear her story. And she did send our Undead friend to help us.”

  “Right,” Turcotte said. “Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” Yakov said.

  Leahy held up a hand both in greeting and defense. “Major. Colonel. Mister Yakov. Nosferatu and Nekhbet. Welcome to my grandfather’s Colorado lab. If you’ll follow me.”

  Turcotte was going to say something, but Yakov waved a finger.

  They trudged up the path, entered the tunnel and made their way to the lab. None of them were quite prepared, even Nosferatu, when Nekhbet leapt upon one of the brain-fried pilots and tore into his throat.

  “They work for Mrs. Parrish,” Leahy said, making no move to stop Nekhbet. “I juiced them. They’re essentially brain dead so she’s just putting him out of his misery. I left them alive for you and your companion,” she added to Nosferatu.

  “Such compassion,” Turcotte said.

  “That’s ironic coming from you,” Leahy noted. She looked around. “We’ve all done some rather ruthless things to end up in this place. Together.”

  “And why are we together?” Yakov asked. “You said it was urgent.”

  Leahy turned a large flat screen monitor on.

  “What is that?” Mickell asked.

  “That is a Swarm Battle Core,” Leahy said. “It’s heading into the asteroid belt. I estimate it will arrive at Earth, perhaps with a brief stop at Mars, in around three days. Hard to calculate exactly as it’s slowing down.”

  Yakov muttered some curses in Russian.

  “The Ancient Enemy,” Nosferatu said.

  “I don’t understand,” Turcotte said. “It can’t have just showed up. It had to have been coming here for a while. Why?”

  Leahy shrugged. “Who knows? The fact is it’s here. We have to deal with that fact.”

  “Hold on,” Turcotte said. “Who the hell are you exactly?”

  “You know my name,” Leahy said. She spread her hands. “This lab was built by my grandfather, Nikola Tesla.”

  “Tesla did not have children,” Yakov said.

  “I’m proof he did,” Leahy said. “My mother was born illegitimate in 1937. Her mother, my grandmother, died in childbirth. My grandfather kept my mother a secret, passing her off to—“ Leahy stopped. “I’ll give you the entire family saga when we have time. Which we don’t at the moment. When that—“ she indicated the screen—“gets here, it’s lights out for everyone.”

  Turcotte was shaking his head. “We need something. Something solid to put our feet on. Too much has happened since we got back from Mars.” He glared at Leahy. “You were part of the deception that killed Kincaid and Quinn
. And—“

  “I explained that,” Leahy said. “And I avenged their deaths. I killed their assassin. I saved your spaceship, Major. I warned you and I diverted our friend to help.” She indicated Nosferatu. Then she pointed at the corpse and soon to be corpse as Nekhbet moved from the first to the second to dine. “They worked for Mrs. Parrish. Do I care? No. I do care though, about Mrs. Parrish’s Strategy and that’s why I’ve asked you to be here, Major Turcotte. And you, Mister Nosferatu.”

  “My friends call me just Nosferatu. Or Prince.”

  “Whatever,” Leahy said.

  Everyone paused as Nekhbet’s teeth ripped into the second man’s neck and she began drinking, loudly. Then they turned back to Leahy.

  “Listen, please,” Leahy said. “Give me a minute to explain what is happening. Because it’s all connected. Or going to be connected. I was raised by the Myrddin. It’s all I’ve known. They groomed me. Sent me to the best schools. I am the foremost expert on Tesla in the world. The real Tesla. The Tesla who was a Myrddin. The Tesla who traveled to Ararat and went inside the mothership. Who examined the master guardian without being corrupted. Who shot down the Swarm scout ship in 1908.”

  Yakov interrupted. “Will your weapon work on that?” he indicated the image.

  “That,” Leahy said, “is a Swarm Battle Core.”

  “Get to the headline,” Turcotte said. “What can we do?”

  “Do what the Airlia do,” Leahy said. “Run.”

  “How?” Turcotte shook his head. “The Fynbar can’t do FTLT. There’re only two regeneration tubes.”

  Leahy pointed up. “Do what the Airlia do. Take the mothership and run.”

  Turcotte poked a hole in that. “It has no power for the FTLT drive. No ruby sphere. We used the one recovered from the Rift Valley to kill Aspasia on board the mothership in orbit. The second crashed into Mars with the other mothership.”

  “There’s a third,” Leahy said.

  “Where?” Turcotte demanded.

  “Not on Earth,” Leahy said.