Hill nodded and remained silent.
Time passed as the team reached the second ring corridor and entered. Again, nothing. “Empty, Commander,” Carter said.
“Copy that; we see the same on camera from here,” Jules said.
Maria surprised them all and spoke. She was not wired with a headset so only the trio in the room could hear her. “Tell them to go the other way.”
“Maria, why should they go the other way?” Jules asked.
“There are four main access points to the center of the construct,” she began. “The one they’re heading to is guarded. The one further away is clear.”
Hill shrugged, and Flores peered at Julie intently. She keyed her mic. “Major, Maria says to go the other way.”
Carter motioned for the colonel and he pointed the opposite way. At first, the man shook his helmeted head and started to continue when Carter headed in the opposite direction. There was some kind of heated debate in Russian, then the translator said, “The colonel says you have to give more warning if you’re not going to follow.”
“Tell the good colonel that we’ve discussed this in the mission briefing. Our science officer is guiding us, and she may not make decisions as quickly as the colonel desires.”
More Russian, then the colonel spoke in halting English: “Okay, you no go first.”
Carter nodded, but said nothing. It took a good ten minutes to traverse the corridor until they reached something other than a bay looking door. “Is this it?”
Maria nodded, and Jules said, “Affirmative, Major. Don’t press the button, though.”
“I think we’ve figured that part out,” Carter said. “Crowbar, Anderson.”
“Here, sir,” the man said. In short order, they opened the door and looked into what appeared to be another long corridor.
“Damn,” Hill said. “It looks like a rat’s maze.”
The Spetsnaz were discussing something with their ship’s commander, and Carter said, “This looks like a long one. We may need to splice our reel once it runs out.”
“Understood, Major,” Jules said. “Take your time. I don’t see an issue right now and it’s imperative that you maintain communication with us.”
“Agreed,” he said.
They moved into the corridor, their helmet-mounted lights illuminating the darkened area. After a long while, they found a third center ring and entered it after manually opening the doors.
Maria was pointing to another, slightly offset door, and Jules said, “Take the door to your left.”
Carter motioned for his men to open it and, once done, the Soviet special forces unit entered in two by two formation, three sets of them holding their crossbows and electrical guns out in front of them.
Flores finally spoke softly, for only the room to hear. “We should have thought of ranged weapons.”
“I wouldn’t be too hard on yourselves for that,” Jules countered. “Who could have guessed that gunpowder would be inert in there?”
“Quite right.” Hill gave Flores a nod of approval.
Halfway down, they stopped at an open door to the side. The entire corridor had doors on either side, spaced about ten feet apart. Each door was singular in nature, unlike the double doors that opened at the middle. This one had what looked like a cell with a flat space built into the back of the room at waist level.
“What is that?” Hill asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Carter said.
Maria spoke softly. “Holding cell.”
“To hold what, Maria?” Jules asked.
“Us.”
Jules leaned back and spoke louder, broadcasting to the mission crew. “Maria says it’s a holding cell. Don’t ask what they’re designed to hold.”
“Gotcha,” Carter said. “Moving on.”
It took fifteen minutes to traverse the corridor, and two of those were to splice a second communications wire into the first. They repeated the semi-circular rings two more times before splicing a third reel, and Carter said, “I hope we don’t run out of wire.”
“Each wire is nearly a mile long,” John Royal said from his station in engineering, where he and Dave Dakos were monitoring the radio traffic.
“Well, we’re down to two more wires,” Carter said.
“Remember, we may need that wire, so reel it up when you return,” Dakos added.
“That’s the plan.”
Jules interrupted. “Alright, everyone, we had our briefing on this so no need to repeat what was agreed to. Man your stations and be ready.”
There was silence until Carter said, “I think we see something.”
“What is it?” Jules asked.
“Red light from around a doorway.”
“I thought the doorways were sealed?” Neil asked. “Light shouldn’t be visible.”
“Only if the doorway is closed,” Carter said. “This can’t be good.”
Jules noted that Maria was starting to shake slightly, and that her eyes had rolled up a bit. She gripped the table to hold onto something and she tried to shake her head.
Jules asked, “Maria, what is it?”
With great effort, Maria put her head down slightly and leveled her gaze at Jules. She spoke in a deep voice at first. “This is the....” Then she stopped, her mouth shutting and her eyes lowering from the top of her skull. With a final wrenching motion, she gasped as if freed from something, saying in her normal, higher pitched voice, “They’ve arrived.”
“What did she say?” Hill asked.
Neil spoke up. “Commander Monroe, is everything alright?”
It dawned on Jules that Maria had spoken loudly enough to activate her own microphone and her words had been broadcast to the mission team. “She’s fine. She’s indicated that you’ve arrived at the source of the alien’s ... whatever.”
“What?” Hill asked.
“Can you be more specific?” Carter asked.
Jules turned back to Maria. “Where have they arrived?”
Maria spoke normally now. “Julie, they have reached the control and power center for the construct. It’s guarded.”
“Did you copy that?”
“Loud and clear,” Carter said. “Give me a moment to brief the Russians.”
“Roger,” Jules said, whispering to Maria, “Tell me what we need to do.”
Maria was suddenly gripped again by an unseen force as she fought it off. “Go to the ... center ... the center ... go,” she stuttered. “Destroy the chip ... in the center, Jul ... Jul ... Julie. Like what you sa ... saw....”
“Maria, there’s a genetic chip like the one on the Moon and at the obelisk here?”
“Not gen ... genetic. Com ... Com ... mand ... chip.”
“Jules to Carter. There will be a chip at the center of a room. That is your target. Destroy it.”
“You don’t want to bring it back?” Hill asked.
Jules ignored him. “The room is guarded. Be careful.”
There was Russian being spoken as the Spetsnaz soldiers were briefed. Then they found the door partially cracked, allowing the intense red light to seep through. They manually opened the door.
There was a collective gasp from the commandoes.
It took a few seconds before Carter spoke. “Ah, Commander Monroe, I really don’t think I’d call this a room.”
Jules knew that the camera didn’t do the chamber justice. There was an immense dome, the ceiling reaching so far overhead that it was barely visible. The red light was coming from four columns of pure energy, a form of red plasma that was streaming from the top of the room where four large cylinder heads emitted copious amounts of energy flowing into four collector panels below. They were standing roughly on a circular ledge halfway in the middle of the chamber, height wise.
The chamber had a ball-shaped building in the middle, suspended by what looked like three catwalks, and Jules got the idea that opposite their view-point, there would be a fourth even though it wasn’t visible to them. The catwalks
were wide, at least twenty feet across, but dwarfed by the cylindrical energy beams at least one hundred feet wide, one per quadrant on each edge of the circular room. It was easily more than three hundred feet to the center of the chamber, which must have had a span approaching a quarter mile.
“That’s what I saw,” Maria said, her voice returning to normal now. “I saw that. They didn’t want me to see it, but I did.”
Everyone heard her, and then Carter said, “Harris, secure the transceiver and the door. Anderson, you’re with me.”
Harris said, “Something moving at our ten-o’clock.”
Maria broke everyone’s concentration by screaming, “Run!”
Carter heard and didn’t need encouragement. He took off running down the catwalk and away from the relative safety of the curved wall. The Spetsnaz colonel ordered two of his troops to stay and guard the door with Harris while he and three others ran after Carter and Anderson.
A black orb rapidly approached Harris and a Soviet commando and shot a metallic projectile at them. Both men avoided it, Harris by ducking back into the corridor and the Russian by rolling along the grated floor with his weapon. It looked to be a long drop if one of them fell. The projectile pierced the wall with a velocity that could kill.
“Major, that thing is shooting to kill, not maim!” Harris said.
“Understood,” Carter replied.
“Pizdyets,” the Spetsnaz soldier said, rolling, coming to his feet in a crouch and firing a bolt at the orb.
Interestingly enough, the man’s aim was better than the alien construct’s. The bolt pierced the orb which twirled in a counterclockwise fashion, out of control, until it fell on the grated floor, spilling the clear, hot liquid from its innards.
“Incoming,” Harris shouted, feeling more than helpless with only a drill in his hand to defend himself.
Several more orbs shot at them. The special forces team of two men shot two more bolts each, scoring hits on three out of four. Carter was quickly caught by two Spetsnaz members and overtaken as they rushed to the center room.
“Watch out!” Carter said, not sure how to say that in Russian.
The hail of darts was hardly seen as they whizzed through the air. One Spetsnaz commando took a direct hit in his shoulder and the impact drove him into the ground. Blood spewed everywhere, and Anderson dropped his crowbar and picked up the man’s weapon. The whole team had to drop on their bellies to avoid the mass of fire.
Colonel Popov spoke in Russian and his translator, one of the two men in front, said, “We’re pinned. The colonel says he will draw their fire behind us while you go ahead with us.”
Carter answered, “Roger—say when.”
The Spetsnaz translator looked back through his visor and the look of confusion was evident.
Jules’ voice came over their radio set. “Maria says you have to go now; more orbs are inbound.”
“More?” Anderson complained. “We can’t handle what we have now.”
The two Spetsnaz in front fired from their bellies and managed to bring down a pair of orbs that had closed the distance. At least a dozen more were seen approaching from around the large plasma columns.
Carter said, “Run to the other side of that column. It should shield us from the orbs on the left.”
The translator looked forward, then nodded. He spoke quickly in Russian, and then said, “Raz, dva, tri!” standing with his comrade and running in a low crouch.
Carter took his cue and did likewise, with Anderson bringing up the rear. Colonel Popov stayed with his injured soldier and shot at an orb that was closing on them from the opposite side.
“There’s too many of them,” Harris said. “They’re flanking us on either side and at least several are moving around the energy beams to cut you off, Major.”
“We see them,” Carter said.
Jules watched in horror as the projectiles started to become more accurate. While it didn’t look as if the orbs were acting in an intelligent manner, they were reacting to the counter-actions of the commandoes.
“Another one down,” Anderson said, shooting his second from a kneeling position between the two plasma fields.
Flores couldn’t resist. “Good shooting, Anders.”
“We must go,” the translator said. “The colonel is pinned down and hit in the leg.”
“Okay,” Carter replied, looking at the man through his visor. “Time to go, Anderson.”
“Right behind you, sir.”
The four men ran as fast as they could, and another hail of barbs whizzed through the air or ricocheted off the catwalk. The second Spetsnaz turned and shot at an orb that had flanked them and was positioning itself to their rear. The bolt landed home and the orb careened into the plasma field, where it vaporized instantly.
“Definitely don’t touch those,” Hill said, seeing the same thing from Harris’ helmet cam.
The colonel used his electrical gun to shoot a high-voltage wire at another orb to good effect. It simply floated downwards, disappearing in the dim light below.
One Spetsnaz went to the catwalk and lay belly-down next to his comrades, shooting bolts as fast as he could load them. The other retreated into the corridor with Harris. He had been hit twice and had to crawl the last few feet to get in. Harris grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him in.
“You’re cut off, Major,” Harris reported.
It wasn’t clear if the man meant retreat was cut off or if he was referring to the pair of orbs that had moved into position to block their entry into the suspended, egg-shaped room in the center of the chamber. Two more orbs flanked the pair that were blocking them.
“Understood,” he said, lacking any other words to say.
The Spetsnaz in front fell to the catwalk’s floor and shot at the orbs, but too late. They sent their projectiles all aimed at Major Carter.
Anderson loosed a bolt at the nearest, and ran directly in front of Carter as they arrived.
Carter ducked, but Anderson took two to the torso and one to the head through his visor. He fell dead instantly.
“Man down!” Carter reported, standing upright again and running at the orbs. The center two had fallen and the flanking two moved into their prior position to block their entry into the room. The double doors were familiar and closed.
“Umri,” the translator said, shooting one as he ran and then taking a hit to his leg and falling face-first in front of Carter. His comrade dropped beside him and shot the same orb.
Carter gave a burst of speed and reached the last remaining orb, using his claw hammer at close quarters to smash it. For a split second, he started to float as it attempted to manipulate gravity—then it cracked under the blow, dropping it and the Major onto the grated walkway.
The last remaining Spetsnaz rushed by Carter, hitting the “open” symbol on the control pad and entering the room as soon as the doors opened.
Carter scrambled to gain his feet and ended up stumbling past the hollow shell of the orb, yelling at the man, “No!”
There was a familiar layout to the space. It reminded Carter both of the room in the obelisk on the moon, per Julie’s description, and the one on Mars that was now destroyed. In the center of the room was a major symbol-operated console very much like the antechamber console Maria had spent three days trying to work it. In the middle, suspended in a brightly-glowing force field, was a large, clear chip with a holographic image of some kind inside it.
The Spetsnaz commando reached for the object and his hand vaporized as it penetrated the field. He pulled it back but there was no blood. There was nothing but a stump where his hand had been.
He swooned backwards, falling to his knees as he cupped the stump in the crook of his good arm.
“No!” Maria yelled over their comms link, but her voice was staticky and hard to hear.
Carter moved past the man and reached the console, looking at over a hundred symbols on various buttons covering it. “Now what?”
“Go to your
right, look for the symbol that has an isosceles triangle on it with two waves above it.
“Found it, now what?” Carter said, hearing a commotion over his set as the Russian colonel and Harris were yelling something.
“Hit it,” Maria said, her voice almost inaudible.
Carter depressed the button. Nothing. “Damn.”
“Hit it again,” Jules said.
Carter pumped it three times, to no effect. “No good.”
“Pour the acid on it,” Jules offered.
“No time,” Carter said, spotting another pair of orbs moving over the catwalk, preparing to enter the room.
“Their reinforcements have arrived—time’s up, Major,” Harris said, desperation in his voice.
There was only one thing he could think of. Carter gritted his teeth, taking his hammer and holding it high overhead. “This is for Anderson, you bastards.”
The hammer bashed the console, sending the now all-too-familiar hot, clear liquid in all directions. It sizzled his suit, but Carter ignored it pounding the console to rubble. The blue force field light started to flash intermittently and diminish in strength before starting to fail completely.
He felt a stab of pain in his right arm as it no longer responded to his commands. The hammer dropped to the floor and his arm went limp. Only then did the pain hit him as he felt blood flowing in his suit down his elbow.
“Damn it,” Jules said.
Carter turned to see an orb as it lined up for another shot. He didn’t know why, but he spoke what he thought would be his final words: “I hate losing.”
The orb exploded in a glorious display of energy as both a bolt and an electrical blast hit it from behind. Carter watched as it fell, revealing the Russian Spetsnaz colonel, who smiled at him for a moment then closed his eyes and fell face down, two barbs sticking out from his back in double pools of blood.
“You’re clear, Major! Take that thing out.” Harris said.
Carter turned to look at the chip, but it was still suspended in a lighter blue field. This color was like the sky on Earth, while the prior color had been like the ocean, a much darker, navy blue.
Black Infinity Page 25
