Freedom Express (Book 2 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  “Technology we’d given up hope of ever being able to use,” Cabot said. “Without power or a controller, we had no way to activate it. Let’s just hope it does what it’s supposed to. My people have been waiting a long, long time for this moment.”

  The mist cleared and Queen could see the impossible. A large room on the other side of the arch where the scaffolding had been a moment before. Hell, where the scaffolding still was.

  He wanted to ask more questions, but Cabot was walking forward, her hands in the air. The room, he belatedly noticed, had a number of armed people in spacesuits. Ones surprised by her appearance.

  “I mean you no harm,” Cabot said as she passed through the arch. “I’m Agent Brenda Cabot of the FBI. I need to speak to your leader.”

  Jackson nudged Queen forward. As soon as he passed through the arch, he realized the scale of what he thought he’d seen was wrong. The chamber on the other side was huge.

  A glance over his shoulder showed an arch on this side, too. It was built into a stone wall. There were several others. One of which was open to another place.

  He ducked low under Jackson’s arm and dodged through the second portal.

  * * * * *

  Nathan took his mother inside the base as soon as they arrived. He sent one of his men to move their van somewhere else. He didn’t want to lead the bastard right to his front door.

  He’d called for backup as soon as they left the city. Several dozen men were less than twenty minutes behind them. He’d have the devil of a time keeping this place a secret with so many people in the know, but he didn’t really have a choice.

  “What have you found?” his mother asked as soon as they were inside.

  “An armory and a room with combat aircraft. Oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get them out.”

  “Then you missed something. These people don’t build things for the hell of it. Take me to see.”

  He tasked one of the guards to watch the approach outside with a radio. If he spotted anyone, he’d call the team leader.

  Nathan decided the armory would be a good first stop. He could compare the weapon his mother had brought to the ones there.

  She smiled when she saw all the hardware. “Now this is worth something. They tested a pistol back at the lab and it was quite destructive. I can only imagine how these compare.”

  “Why imagine?”

  He grabbed one of the rifles off the wall and snagged a magazine from the slot it was sitting in. The light below it was orange. He had no idea if that meant it was ready for use. Well, he’d find out soon.

  It didn’t have a means of chambering a round after he locked the magazine in place, so he looked for a safety. It had a selector switch that seemed to indicate four possible conditions. Odds were very good the first one was with the safety engaged. The next might be single fire and the another full auto. He couldn’t guess what the last one was for.

  It never ceased to amuse him when the idiots in the liberal media insisted on calling a semi-automatic weapon an automatic. Or an AR an assault rifle. Neither classification was accurate.

  On a whim, he’d done a little research on the mass shootings they were always raving about. Based on the number of rounds expended by the shooters and the time they were alone with their victims, a single shot pistol could do the same amount of killing. Or a muzzleloader. Or a machete.

  So, all their arguments calling for smaller magazine sizes and forbidding so-called assault rifles were nothing more than sniveling bullshit. If they really wanted to stop mass killings, they’d outlaw the moronic gun-free zones that attracted the mentally deranged killers in the first place. They usually killed themselves as soon as anyone resisted, the cowards.

  He pulled his thoughts back from that particular annoyance. Maybe he could make a PSA some other time.

  Nathan aimed the rifle down the hall and squeezed the trigger. The first setting was safe. Or the weapon was broken. He flicked the selector to the second setting. A single shot blasted down the hall.

  There was no “bang,” but there was a significant kick and a loud “crack” from the wall. The rifle didn’t eject a shell casing. The next setting was still a single shot, but the noise of the impact was much louder. He wagered the round was traveling at a much higher velocity.

  He flipped to the final setting and braced himself. It was burst fire. Three rounds, most likely. He engaged the safety and walked down the hall to examine his handiwork.

  The slugs had torn mighty divots out of the wall, except for one chip he decided came from the weaker shot. “Damn! I’ve got to get me one of these!”

  He walked back to where his mother was sitting and smiled. “These will go through any body armor I can imagine quite handily. The technology will redefine how combat works. And if those rag headed bastards come calling, they’ll be screwed.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “That kind of fight will get the attention of the French authorities. Then they’d take this place away from us, too. What’s on the other levels?”

  “The only other area we’ve looked at is the bottom level. It has the combat aircraft, but no way to get them out.”

  He had two of the men carry his mother down while he slung the rifle across his shoulder, found a holstered pistol for himself, and grabbed extra magazines for both. There was body armor, which had to be damned tough, but he didn’t have time to try it on.

  His mother was examining the arches when he arrived, seated on a piece of equipment someone had dragged over with her injured foot up. “They don’t go anywhere,” he said as he stepped beside her.

  “It certainly appears that way, but what are these? Step inside and look up.” He did and spotted some kind of small mechanism.

  “Damned if I know. I can tell you it doesn’t make solid stone vanish.”

  “Almost nothing would surprise me about these people. See how all the ships are oriented toward these arches? I think those projectors do provide a way out. We just need to figure it out.”

  His new team leader came up to him. “The extra men from Paris have arrived. Where shall I put them?”

  “Get them down here,” Nathan said. “Have the cars taken elsewhere. I want as little evidence of this place on the outside as possible. Leave a team upstairs to defend the facility if they arrive in force.”

  The man nodded and went back upstairs.

  His mother insisted the men take her to a ship, even though the movement was obviously painful. Getting her inside it was an ordeal that involved a lot of swearing.

  He stood outside one where they’d raised the canopy. It looked like a fighter jet inside. Surely, his mother couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  “What are you expecting to find?” he asked.

  “I’ll know when I see it. I spent a little time going over the console on the crashed ship.” She brought the controls to life and moved through a number of screens. She was obviously being careful not to activate anything.

  “It would be useful if we could understand what these words mean,” he said after a few minutes.

  “True. Ah, here we go. This ship has cockpit recording software, too. Wagner sent me a video of this from the one we used to have. It showed the man flying it. Perhaps we’ll get lucky here, too.”

  She tapped one of the icons and the console area on the right cleared to show both an interior and exterior view of the ship. A man in a flight suit and helmet was manning the controls while other men worked on various ships on the floor around it. They all looked as human as Nathan did.

  The man brought the fighter to a hover. The quiet was astonishing. No roaring engines. It was floating silently above the floor. He edged it over toward one of the arches and brought up a control panel that Nathan hadn’t seen before. A numeric keypad.

  The pilot referenced a tablet and slowly entered a long string of digits and pressed the grey button. The numbers changed to gold and the arch ahead of the ship filled with mist. Little
bolts of lightning shot through it and then it cleared.

  The stone was gone. Now he was looking at a night sky full of stars above a darkened landscape.

  Nathan cursed in awe. This wasn’t possible. One didn’t simply open a gateway to some other place like that. That wasn’t science. That was magic.

  The man in the fighter edged through the arch and into the night sky. One of the camera views showed the fighter emerging from the side of a mountain. The pilot put on the gas and accelerated into the sky.

  His mother ended the recording and found a second one. This one was very similar, but the craft didn’t come out on the planet, but in space. On the moon, to be precise. Nathan recognized the view of Earth when the ship emerged.

  His mother turned to him, her eyes almost glowing with little gold dollar signs. “Do you realize what this means?”

  “No,” he said honestly. “I’m having trouble getting my mind to wrap around it.”

  “Imagine gates like this that people could use to get anywhere on Earth. Or to the moon. Maybe even further. Transportation would change everywhere and we’d get a cut of every transit. We’d be richer than our wildest dreams of avarice.”

  “Beyond a certain point, it’s just keeping score,” he said. “Right now, we need to worry about surviving our enemies.”

  His team leader cleared his throat. Nathan hadn’t heard him approach. “We have visitors.”

  “Don’t do anything hasty, Mother. I’ll see to our guests.”

  The two men went back up to the top level. The short tunnel into the hill shielded the exterior door to the facility, so he wasn’t worried about intruders spotting light from inside.

  He edged out until he could see the nearest cleared area. That was where they’d been parking. The first thing he noticed was the large number of cars. There were hundreds of people out there, all armed.

  Nathan watched one man whipping them into a frenzy. It must be the bastard. He knew what the prize was and he’d called in enough people to take it.

  Or so he thought.

  With the alien weapons, Nathan was betting he could pull off an upset victory. It was going to be one hell of a fight. That made him smile with anticipation.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Clayton laughed. “Well, this certainly changes things, doesn’t it?”

  Ulysses frowned at the soldier who’d led them back to the arch. “This obviously isn’t the same way we came in. Spread out and find the real exit.”

  The gunnery sergeant shook his head. “This was a straight line path. No branches. It comes right from here to where we found them. There’s no other way to go. This is the exit. You can see the support right there.”

  Commander Krueger stared at the wall for a moment and then turned to Clayton. “Humans that traveled into space, huh? Okay. You’ve provisionally convinced me. What is this?”

  “A means of long range transport. My son calls it quantum tunneling. A device in the base you chased us into opened a path here—wherever here is—without going through the space in between. Considering that my son went to an alien world, we could be anywhere. Literally.”

  Ulysses grabbed Clayton by the collar. “Open it back up. Now.”

  “And if I say no, what will you do, toad? What will these strapping young soldiers allow you to do to make me talk?”

  The CIA man glared at the Navy officer. “Search them. They have something on them to open this thing.”

  At Krueger’s nod, the gunnery sergeant took their packs and patted them down thoroughly, but professionally. He paused at Penny. “My apologies in advance for the indignity, ma’am.”

  “Do what you have to do, Gunnery Sergeant,” she said.

  He gave her as complete a search as he gave Clayton. He spared no area, but didn’t linger.

  Krueger leaned over to Clayton. “They aren’t soldiers, by the way. That’s an Army term. They’re either sailors or marines, depending on their branch.”

  Clayton nodded. “How should I refer to them, then?”

  “Look at the insignia. You can tell one from the other. As a general term, just refer to them as the men.”

  Once the gunnery sergeant had everything laid out, he started going through it. The haul wasn’t much to scream about.

  Krueger picked up the tablet. “This doesn’t look like something you bought at a box store. Is this alien tech?”

  Clayton nodded. There wasn’t much point in denying it. As soon as the man turned it on, he’d find the gate controls. “It is.”

  The commander examined it for a moment and pressed the power button. He frowned. “What am I doing wrong? How do you turn it on?”

  “You press the button you just pressed. Didn’t it come on?”

  The officer shook his head. “Gunny, cut Mister Rogers loose. I want him to show me how this device works.”

  The large noncom pulled out a wickedly sharp looking knife and freed Clayton.

  After he rubbed his wrists, Clayton took the tablet and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. He held it down, but that didn’t make a difference. The device was dead.

  “Hmmm. This isn’t good. We found it attached to the machine on the other side of the gate. Perhaps it was only getting power from it. That would make sense, I suppose. Every other small device we’ve found had a dead power supply.”

  The officer stared at him. “So, you’re saying that we’re trapped here? Wherever here is.”

  Clayton stared at the arch. “It certainly appears so. I hope you brought enough food and water for an extended stay. We might be here for a while.”

  * * * * *

  Jess led a search around the area near the control room and found a locked hatch that indicated it contained the ship’s computer. She suspected that was what was in control of the ship. In some ways that made things simpler, but she really had no idea what its goals and criteria were.

  After a half an hour of them searching the various rooms, the computer decided that it should just turn all the lights and heat on. A little experimentation determined that the gravity was now set at what they’d call normal, even without the devices they wore around their necks.

  They checked in with the lifter and Freedom Express regularly. The ship showed no signs of powering up in a more significant way. If it did, they’d get out as quickly as they could.

  One thing was certain after a while. There were no people on this ship. There was no food, either, so that seemed a purposeful decision. Harry thought the ship was sitting here in a mostly powered down state so that someone could use it at some future point.

  She wasn’t so sure. If that were the case, they’d have powered the ship down completely. The computer was on, so there was some set of circumstances where the thing would act. And based on the hostility that the heavy-worlders had shown to the regular humans, it wasn’t benign.

  They eventually found the transport room. It had the standard three arches and was exactly like the images in the dead soldier’s helmet cam. This ship—or one much like it—had launched the attack on Freedom Express.

  They’d recovered a controller from one of the dead fighters. He’d been an officer of some kind, based on the different type of armor he’d worn. The techs had repaired the battery and charged it up, so the lander went to get it.

  Once it arrived, she opened a quantum tunnel to Freedom Express. They had one open to Mars there, so they now had a quick exit, if they needed one. All they needed now was an address on Earth that was under their control and they’d be able to move around the system freely.

  Of course, that also had its negative consequences.

  Such as when someone they didn’t know opened a tunnel to Mars and a man ran through the tunnel to Freedom Express, and then to the alien ship. Like was happening as she looked on right now.

  She knew every member of the crew on Liberty Station, so Jess knew right away that this was an unknown person. The way he looked around with a desperate expression helped make that determination
, too.

  Jess pulled her pistol and trained it on the man. She was still in her suit, but had her helmet back on the hinged holder. “Freeze!”

  The man stopped and raised his hands. “Well, it was worth a try.”

  Men and women from Freedom Express rushed in behind him and looked to her for guidance.

  She holstered her pistol. “Who are you and where the hell did you come from?” she asked as they took him into custody.

  “My name is Josh Queen. I’m the secretary of state for the United States of America. Someone kidnapped me and I just escaped. You work for Clayton Rogers?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I’m Jessica Cook. Someone search him for weapons. Who kidnapped you?”

  “That’s an excellent question. I’m not sure I really know the answer. They’re back at the first place these arches led to.”

  One of the women from Freedom Express started searching him. “They’re back on Mars. This guy came running through and dodged in here before we knew what was happening. The folks on Mars are trying to find out who the new people are. They’re not with Mister Rogers, though.”

  Jess triggered her radio. “Harry, this is Jess. We have some new folks coming through on Mars. I’m heading back that way to sort this out. I’ll leave the search here in your hands.”

  “Roger that. Call if you need me.”

  “Will do. Be careful.”

  They went back to Mars via Freedom Express. The new people stood in front of a freshly opened tunnel. The other side of that one went to a large room with curious people staring through.

  A confident looking young black woman seemed to be in charge of the new group. Beside her stood a very large man. One whose body immediately reminded Jess of a heavy-worlder. The third member of their group was a man with Asian features in a lab coat.

  The other woman slowly stepped forward and held out her hand. “You must be Jess Cook. Your friends here said you were on your way. I’m Brenda Cabot. I’m with the FBI. Rather, I used to be.”

  She inclined her head toward Queen. “Once it gets out that I kidnapped him, I suppose I’m just a regular fugitive.”