“If you look at a depiction of the god Vishnu,” Banyon explained. “You will find that he wears a tunic and a helmet. He is very tall and blue in color. He also carries a variety of hand-fired weapons. In most portraits of Vishnu, he appears to have four arms, but the artist might have given him extra arms to emphasize the fact that he had many hand-held weapons.”
“My God, so was he a Sumi?” the President uttered.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Banyon acknowledged. “But if he was a Sumi, it would explain many things.”
“From what I know, the Khmer empire suddenly disappeared. So, why did it decline so rapidly?”
“King Yuk told me that the King of Maltos at that time was incensed and offended when the Khmer people built a copy of the Sumi sacred structure. He felt it was an insult to his people and decided to make the Khmer pay. On his next trip to earth, over a hundred years later, he released a disease that spread to the Khmer people. It not only killed them, but later spread to Asia and then Europe. It was called the Black Plague.”
“This is unbelievable,” the President cried out. “The Black Plague was started by the Sumi?”
“Which is why all bio-genetic weapons were banned on Maltos up until Erox brought his special gas to fight us.”
“We must stop him,” the President roared.
“That’s exactly what I intend to do tonight,” Banyon confidently replied.
“The attack on the starship is starting. I have to go,” the President informed Banyon. “But I have one more question.”
“What’s that, sir?” Banyon asked.
“Who gave the original plans to the Sumi?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer to that,” Banyon said sadly.
Chapter Thirteen
The men on the shore of the Mississippi River braced themselves for close-quarters, hand-to-hand, fighting. Sumi warriors were still being shot and dying, but there were too many of them. Everyone knew that some would get through the wall of lead.
Suddenly Pete LaSalle felt a strong wind blow down on him and a dark shadow passed over his head. When he looked up, he was relieved to see a line of fourteen Cobra gunships. Once the helicopters cleared the shoreline, they dropped down near the water and began to fire their 20mm guns. They cleared the sky in front of the defenders even as more Sumi came out of the far portal. Four more Cobra gunships took up a position in the back of the spaceship and when they began firing their guns, the stream of Sumi quickly slowed down to a trickle. Suddenly, the door to the front portal slammed down leaving thousands of Sumi stuck outside. The Cobras made short work of them. Almost all fell into the big river.
“You men,” Pete heard. “Get away from the shore,” a loud voice demanded over a loud speaker. When Pete turned to see where the sound came from, he was in awe.
Twenty Osprey troop carriers hovered over the park. Soldiers began sliding down ropes from the stationary planes. When they reached the ground, they pushed the defenders back towards the street so the cargo ships could land.
Osprey after Osprey landed and discharged its cargo as the men watched from across the road. It included fuel for the Cobra’s, ammunition, medical supplies, doctors and marines. As soon as the first wave finished unloading, a second wave came in.
Suddenly, the red laser beam shot out from the tower. Everybody ducked and wondered what destruction it would cause, but the beam wasn’t as strong as before and didn’t even reach the shore. It faded out in five seconds.
A general casually strolled out of one of the Ospreys. He walked to a command tent which had already been set up at the edge of the park. When he reached the tent he picked up a bull horn.
“My name is General Woods,” he shouted into the horn. “I am here to destroy the starship. As you can see, it is has been damaged, but it still could be lethal. We believe that there are still many Sumi inside, so you defenders please back off and let the military do its job. We strongly thank you for your effort in defending St. Louis.”
Within a minute, a marine lieutenant and six marines trotted up to where Pete LaSalle stood with his group of men.
“We need to clear the city and make sure that all the Sumi are dead. Do you want to help in my sector?” The marine asked.
“Let’s go,” Pete replied without hesitation.
***
Inside the command tent, the general was issuing orders and getting his commanders up to speed.
“I want the fifty calibers set up on the four corners of the starship.” He pointed the locations out on a large computer screen that stood on a stand. It had a live satellite feed of the area. “The Cobras will fly over the ship in a circle and keep the Sumi from getting loose again.”
“I’ve deployed my men to clear the city,” a marine major noted. “We are using some of the original defenders to help.
“Good,” responded General Woods. He glanced at his watch. “Two Navy destroyers are coming up the river at flank speed from New Orleans. They will be here in two more hours. We also have the use of a fighter squadron of F-15s. They are on route to Fort Leonard Woods, but I don’t want to use them unless we have to. They usually create too much collateral damage.”
“Sir,” another commander shouted out urgently. “The news media has begun to arrive.”
“Take some men and confiscate their cameras. Put them in lockup until we handle this ship. They will cause too much confusion right now.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied and headed out of the tent.
“Do we have a way to get into the starship?” one commander then asked.
“No,” the general replied. “We need to land some people on the top of the ship and search for a way in. We already know that our weapons can’t harm the protective coating around the machine.”
“This is right out of Star Trek,” another commander exclaimed. “Scotty, raise the shields.”
The general ignored the man’s remarks. “You,” the general pointed at the man. “I want you to organize the assault. I want men on that ship within an hour. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the commander replied. He saluted and left the tent.
***
Meanwhile, Pete LaSalle’s men and a contingent of marines were clearing the city. Each group was assigned a street and moved in unison. Whenever they reached a cross street, they waited until the group on the next street was visible. When they ran across a wounded defender they called it in and a team of paramedics were sent to the location. When they found a Sumi who was still alive, one of the marines shot him in the head. They had no ability to take prisoners. They also collected any weapons they found, but no one could make them work. Pete held the weapons for his group in a plastic bag he found on the street.
Pete suddenly noticed something strange and sang out. “Look at this,” he shouted. He pointed to a dead Sumi, but this one was different. It had no clothes. All his weapons were gone too.
“Looters and souvenir hunters,” the lieutenant responded knowingly. “They are already in the city. We need to stop them too.”
Chapter Fourteen
One hundred and fifty marines roped down to the top of the starship from the Ospreys. Once on the surface, they broke out into teams of four and went hunting for a way inside. After an hour of searching, the commander on the scene radioed the general that there was no way to get inside the hull.
“The only imperfections that we can find are where the Sumi used their lasers to weld the anti-gravity devices to the ship. You know the ones that are preventing the ship from listing,” the commander reported.
“This could be harder than we thought,” the general said to everyone around him. “The Sumi could stay inside indefinitely. We know that it took them three years to travel here.”
“Sir, what if we could remove the anti-gravity devices attacked to the ship?” one of his men asked.
“Yes,” another soldier responded. “The ship would tilt and the right side would go under water. I think that
the bottom of the river is deep enough so that the portals would be submerged. We already believe that the Sumi can’t swim or float. It would prevent them from ever getting out until we find a way in.”
“My job is to destroy that thing, not just disable it,” General Woods replied hotly. “Besides, how would we pry the devices off of the surface?”
“The same way that they were attached,” a commander explained. “We use the Sumi lasers.”
“Hmm,” the general responded. “Get me some of those lasers,” he ordered.
A call went out to the marines clearing the city. Pete’s lieutenant sent him back to the command center with his plastic bag filled with Sumi weapons.
Pete ran the entire way and entered the command center short of breath. “You wanted some of these?” he asked between gasps of air. He handed the bag to the general.
General Woods took one of the laser weapons from the bag and stepped outside. He then pressed the button on the weapon, but nothing happened.
“How do you turn them on?” he asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” Pete replied. “After you press the button, it takes a few seconds to start up and the Sumi always say some words before it shoots out the laser.”
“Maybe its voice activated,” the marine commander said.
“Or maybe it requires a specific command,” another said.
“Maybe the brass can tell us. It’s worth a shot,” another commander added.
“Alright, I’ll run your idea up the flagpole and find out if they can tell us how to activate these things. Get me the Pentagon,” he said to an assistant. The face of General Whitehead quickly appeared on the screen.
“What have you got?” General Whitehead asked. The brass at the Pentagon were monitoring the progress in St. Louis, but were not up to speed on the issues.
General Woods quickly explained the situation. He then asked if they knew how to activate the weapons.
“I’m afraid that I don’t know the words,” General Whitehead told his disappointed field commander. “But, I believe that I do know someone who might,” he added.
“How do I reach him?” the impatient General Woods responded.
“You don’t,” General Whitehead said strongly. “He is on a top secret mission, but stay by your satellite phone. I’ll have him call you.”
“Yes, sir,” the now hopeful commander replied.
Chapter Fifteen
Colton Banyon and Timmy, the geek, were about to conduct an experiment. Wolf had told Banyon that he thought he knew a way to destroy the glass cells that held Vril. He had picked the information up while observing what Kenny had done in the lab. They were about to find out if it was true. Steve and Heather crowded around the table. Gunny Joe, Chase Sanborn, and Kenny guarded the Sumi King and his assistants in another room.
Suddenly Colonel Jerry Cole came rushing into the room at the safe house in Turkey. He had been manning the computers with Carol when his cellphone rang.
“I’ve got an emergency,” the colonel yelled out. “I need the chant to activate a Sumi laser so the military in St. Louis can stop the starship. I’m told that they need to use the lasers to destabilize the Sumi anti-gravity devices.”
“I don’t know it,” Banyon shot back with alarm. “Only Maya and maybe Previne know the words from the codex. We have the book here, but none of us can read cuneiform.”
“And I don’t think the King will give us information on how to destroy his men,” Heather added.
“I tried Maya’s cellphone, but the call didn’t go through,” the colonel explained. “None of the others there are answering their cellphones either. I hope that they are okay!” There was a hint of panic in is voice.
“The Sumi did considerable damage to the cellphone system in central India,” Banyon informed the colonel. “But I’m sure they are just fine.” Banyon had just recently checked with Wolf, who told him that the team was at the museum and picking up the two statues. There were no Sumi warriors in the sky.
“But I need to get the chant to General Woods in St. Louis immediately. What should we do?” The colonel said as he rubbed his hands through his wavy hair nervously.
“I think I have the answer,” Timmy spoke. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a memory stick. He inserted it into his computer drive and accessed the contents.
“What the hell is that?” the colonel wondered out loud.
“It’s a recording of all the chants to turn on the Sumi devices and also to turn them off,” Timmy responded as he worked the keyboard.
“Where did you get that?” Banyon curiously asked.
“Maya gave it to me,” Timmy said proudly because she trusted him. “She said that in case she didn’t make it back from India we would at least have a way to stop the weapons.”
“Wow,” Heather exclaimed in a near sobbing voice. “She really thought through the situation.”
“She recorded everything on her cellphone and then sent it to her laptop where she organized the information. Almost everything she knows about the codex is here,” Timmy told everyone. “She’s a pretty clever little lady.”
“Let’s hope she stays that way — alive I mean,” Steve spoke for the first time.
“There are only three chants to turn the devices on and only one to turn them off,” Timmy explained as he scrolled through the directory. “The same chant works for all the weapons. To start a weapon, you need to press the button and then chant, otherwise it won’t activate.”
“Why do they have three different chants to turn them on?” Heather quickly asked.
“It’s kind of like small, medium and large,” the geek responded absently. “Look, here is the chant to turn on the laser at the highest level.” He pushed the button on the keyboard.
The sweet sound of Maya’s cultured voice came out of the computer. The chant was only eight words.
“I need to get this to General Woods,” Colonel Cole said excitedly.
“Before you call him,” Banyon said. “Let’s see if we have even better news to tell him.”
“What news?” the colonel asked.
“A way to destroy a Vril cell,” Banyon responded.
Chapter Sixteen
“Get me fifty marines who have cellphones immediately,” General Woods ordered as soon as he hung up the satellite phone. There was a small smile on his face.
“Did you get the chant?” a commander asked.
“Much more,” the general replied cheerfully. “I now know how to turn off the starship’s force field. The man on the phone told me how to do it.”
“What was his name?” another commander inquired.
“He didn’t say,” the leader replied. “Now here is what I want you to do.”
***
Twenty minutes later, fifty marines stood at attention before the general. They had been shown how to turn on and also turn off the Sumi weapon in their hands. The chants were uploaded to all their cellphones so all they had to do was press the start button on the weapon and play the chant. They also all wore a webbed harness so the Ospreys could pluck them from the ship when it began to fall into the river. Each man would be tethered to a rope from an aircraft.
A number of military and also civilian personal crowded into the park to watch General Woods demonstrate the procedure several times. One enterprising civilian recorded how to turn on the laser weapon on his cellphone. He believed that he could make a small fortune if he put it up on YouTube on the internet. He didn’t think about the consequences.
General Woods addressed the men. “Your job, marines, is to sink that ship,” he ordered and pointed to the starship. “Do you think that you can do that?”
“Ooh-Rah,” the marines shouted back.
“Any questions?” the pleased general asked.
“Just one sir,” a marine in the front row said. “When we disengage the anti-gravity devices from the ship, won’t they just shoot off into the sky?”
The question rattled General Woo
ds for exactly two seconds. “This will be a two-step process. You will use the chant on your phone to turn off the anti-gravity device before you detach it from the hull. Is that clear?”
“Ooh-Rah,” the marines shouted back.
***
The fifty marines were dropped down on the right front corner of the starship. Four heavily armed soldiers were added for protection. They took up positions around the workers to guard them from any Sumi attack.
The strategy was simple. The starship was a mile long and the general didn’t want to spread his men out too thin. Once the marines cleared the corner, then would work their way across the hull. Meanwhile, the general’s men began to train fifty more marines, who would be the relief crew for the men on the huge hull. They were to work in two hours shifts.
The general stood at the shoreline and watched the progress through binoculars. He soon realized that the process of detaching a single anti-gravity device took about three minutes. It was very similar to shucking a stubborn clam. After the device was free, the marine tossed it into a basket that hung from a rope. He quickly calculated in his head that it would take about ten hours to detach all the anti-gravity devices.
Suddenly, a hatch flew open in the middle of the ship and five Sumi warriors popped out. They ran straight at the marines, but they didn’t get very far before one of the Cobras began firing at them. Another fired at the hatch and it quickly closed. The warriors were cut down before they had covered fifty feet. While the attack didn’t stop the marines, it did slow down their progress on the devices. The general then revised his estimate to complete the task to twenty hours.
“Sir,” one of the commanders said as he approached. “What’s to stop the Sumi from attaching their anti-gravity devices to the inside of the hull?”
“I’m pretty sure that they have already done that,” the leader replied. “That’s what I would do. Their captain seems very competent. The question is this. Will the removal of the devices on the outer hull be enough to make the ship list and drop into the river?”
The Society of Orion: Book Eight The Sumi Collision (Colton Banyon Mysteries 22) Page 5
