by Terry Mixon
“In any case, there was a lot of fighting, and humanity made its move. This ship was part of an underground inside our system to supply various bases. Just in case something terrible happened.”
“And it did,” Jess said. “They came in and killed you. But not humanity as a whole.”
Cabot smiled wryly. “One doesn’t just kill the golden goose. Humanity was valuable, at least potentially so. They modified Jackson’s ancestors to be heavy gravity warriors. Indoctrinated them and used them in their fighting as Janissaries.”
“I’m not familiar with that term,” Queen said. “Is that like mercenaries?”
“Sort of,” Jess said. “People raised to be loyal and fight for their masters. Slaves that didn’t really know any better.”
“The bottom line,” Cabot said, “is that the Asharim had too many irons in the fire and thought they might need humanity once everything settled down. They did everything they could to exterminate the rebels. Quite effectively, I might add. Then they left a ship here to watch. If humanity becomes a threat again, it’s supposed to go tell them.”
“You people have put everyone in danger,” Queen said. “This has to stop. The United States is taking over here. We’ll protect Earth. You people have done more than enough.”
Harry gave him a flat look. “I’ve seen firsthand how people like you deal with problems. You line your pockets and then keep things going until you can’t control anything. No thanks.”
“You seem to think you have a choice in the matter. We’ll find our way out here in force and take over your ships. You know how powerful the US military is, I believe. Do you want to fight them?”
Harry shook his head. “No, but you mistake your place in this. Your mandate ends on Earth.
“And I didn’t cause this disaster. Something drove my damned brother to bring a bunch of Middle Eastern fighters after him. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you, Secretary Queen?”
Queen sneered. “You people found this stuff and failed to say one word about it. Now you’re responsible for what you’ve done. We already have your father in custody. You’ll join him shortly and we’ll clean up this mess. We’ll also put you maniacs in prison for the rest of your lives.”
The pilot cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt your diatribe, Mister Secretary, but the ship we’re chasing just reached the target area and disappeared.”
Harry returned his attention to the console. The icon representing the ship they were after was gone.
“What does that mean? Did he go into hiding? Some kind of supralight drive?”
“They don’t have faster than light drives,” Cabot said. “The quantum tunnels are faster than light, but they have to fly a ship across space to get something built at the destination. They use automated ships to handle that kind of exploration. He must’ve went to the gate on this end.”
Harry blinked. “A gate big enough to transport a ship like that? It was huge!”
She nodded. “So the old stories say. The Asharim are very, very advanced.”
“Are you going to continue to hold me prisoner?” Queen asked. “This woman kidnapped me.”
Harry turned around and fixed the man with a stern glare. “Considering you have my father, I think that might be showing a somewhat hypocritical stance on your part, Mister Secretary. Or is it only kidnapping when someone does it to you?”
“I don’t expect someone of your background to understand affairs of state, Mister Rogers. As the present leader of your company, I hold you responsible for any and all of this, so you’d be best advised to release me.”
Jess stepped between them as Harry balled his fist. “Boys. Put them back in your pants. Secretary Queen, you seem to be operating under a mistaken impression. I’m the second largest stakeholder in Humanity Unlimited. Harry is only a minority partner. With Mister Rogers out of communication, I’m running the company now.
“Let me give you one piece of advice, sir. Your country is attacking us and if you do not cease, we will feel no compunction against defending ourselves. You and your friends are so corrupt that I cannot and will not trust you to operate in good faith.
“I should just lock you up, but I won’t. Against my better judgement, I’ll see you returned to Earth.”
She took a step into his personal space. To his credit, he didn’t back up.
“But let me make one thing crystal clear. I hold you personally responsible for Mister Rogers’ safety. If any harm comes to him, the gloves are off. I’ll start by making a broadcast to everyone on Earth telling them the whole story. Then let’s see you secure any of the sites on the planet. Hell, you’ll be lucky China doesn’t come after you for real.”
Queen smiled. “Now you’re in my territory, Miss Cook. If you get the Chinese going, you’d very quickly be wishing you only had me for an enemy. They’re ruthless. They wouldn’t hesitate for one second before slitting your throats and taking whatever they want.”
“So, our little conflict stays covert,” she said. “Keep my warning in mind. Miss Cabot, would you and your people be so kind as to return Secretary of State Queen to wherever the hell you found him?”
The former FBI agent inclined her head. “He doesn’t know where our base is. After this, we’ll relocate it somewhere outside Chicago. The breakdown and move won’t take long. Then we can cut him loose.”
The short black woman turned her attention to the government official. “One thing you should keep in mind, Mister Secretary. We’ve been around as an organization for far longer than America has. We’ve used advanced technology to place ourselves in positions that you wouldn’t dream possible.
“Look around, Mister Secretary, and wonder which of your friends is really one of us. Aren’t secret societies great? Who do you think invented the story of the Illuminati? People that knew a bit about us. Be warned.”
“We’re slowing down and coming into visual range of the destination,” the pilot said.
Harry turned his back on the others as Rex led Queen away. The small dot on the screen expanded slowly until everything clicked for him.
“I know that place,” he said. “We were just exploring that massive tube. The one that could hold all of New York and not feel crowded. It’s powered down into standby mode.”
They came flying in and got a good look at the massive structure from the outside. It was, as he’d expected, a tube over a kilometer thick and ten times as long. Many smaller branches came away to form pods away from the hull, making it look like a massive tree trunk awaiting trimming.
It orbited a large, dark globe. He had no way to judge size, but whatever it was looked larger than the comet by a big margin.
“Where did the ship go?” Jess asked.
“The sides of the station look solid,” Cabot said. “What about the ends?”
The pilot brought the comet around to look at one of the endcaps. It was solid as well, but they could see projectors similar to those in the arches on the edges, only on a massive scale. That was a quantum tunnel generator capable of taking a huge ship across the galaxy in a moment.
“Well, I suppose we know where it went,” he said. “How do we follow it?”
No one had a good answer. Obviously, the ship had sent a signal to activate the quantum tunnel. If it ran like its smaller brethren, it would have a log of the address. They just had to access the system and find a controller to open it for themselves.
And that wasn’t happening right now. The ship had escaped. Whomever it was going to warn would soon know that humanity was a threat to them.
“I think that’s a planet,” the pilot said.
“Excuse me?” Jess asked.
“Look at the distance the station is orbiting around that object. It has a similar mass to Earth. And it’s completely circular. A globe. I’m also not seeing any debris. It’s cleared its orbital area. That’s the definition of a planet.”
Harry looked at the screen. “How good is this thing? Can we see the surfa
ce?” It was darker than the cave under the Mayan pyramid, so he wasn’t sure what he expected, but he was curious.
“Let me try.” The pilot manipulated the controls and the view shot down. The sky was clear. Out this far, it might not even have an atmosphere.
Only it must have at one time. The dim light made it hard to see, but he was looking at something that looked very much like a city. One on the surface of this world. It was dark and dead, but once it had supported life.
“Holy cow,” Jess said as she took over the controls. “Look at the size of that thing. It’s everywhere.”
“The planet?” Cabot asked.
“No, that city. I’ve been moving the view around and it doesn’t end. It’s as if a massive city is covering the entire surface. Those buildings must be huge.”
Now they had another set of questions. Who had these people been, how had their planet gotten here, and what did it mean for humanity?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kathleen hobbled around the small set of rooms Nathan had left her in, both terrified and bored. A length of pipe made a terrible crutch.
Yesterday, she’d been a powerful woman with tens of thousands of people jumping to obey her smallest command. Today, her domain was these few rooms that she couldn’t even place on a map.
The two men left to guard her were French, hired thugs of Nathan’s. Other than him, she had no one to call her own. It sucked.
Nathan was off with most of the men, trying to kill the rest of the bastards that had followed them through the gateway. Only one set of people would control all this. Whatever it was. And she swore it wouldn’t be that bastard. She’d cut off his toes and feed them to him first.
Her son seemed to think that outright victory was possible. Perhaps with those alien weapons he was right. That didn’t make her feel any better about her situation, though.
Even if they won, she’d watched Nathan destroy some or all of the gateways. They might be trapped on the ass end of nowhere for all eternity.
Harry and his people had been here, but Nathan said they’d gotten away. Was she on Mars? Shouldn’t it feel lighter? She wasn’t any expert in this, but she thought she weighed about the same as on Earth.
And her foot was throbbing. Gods above, it hurt.
The end of the corridor that she hobbled to was a lab of some kind. She’d seen enough of them over the years to recognize one. Or it might be part of a hospital. Some of the equipment suggested that.
One thing was sure, that thing in the middle of the room was spooky.
It looked like an over-sized coffin. Or a sarcophagus. A technological one, with subsidiary machines arrayed around it. The control panel beside it was on and displayed a human form.
She eyed the room again. Lab or hospital? If this was a medical center, she could use some miraculous first aid on her foot.
What she didn’t need was any weird experimenting on her body. Or probing. No probing.
Without being able to read the alien language, she had no way of knowing what this was or what it did.
The color of her foot and its size was worrying. If it became infected, she’d have to let Nathan cut it off. That decided her in the end. She’d try the device. Better dead than a cripple.
And without anyone looking over her shoulder, now was the time to try it. Her son would stop her if he were here. Not unreasonably, really.
She sat on the edge of the cavity and put her foot in. Maybe it would work with only that and she could yank herself out if it went crazy.
No dice. She sighed and slid into the cavity. It was obvious by the shape where her head went and where her feet went.
Unsure of what to do, she lay there waiting, more afraid then she had been in a long time. Even counting when the terrorist had tortured her.
The console beeped and the slab beside her slid over her before she could do more than squeak in terror. She was committed now.
* * * * *
Clayton watched with sympathy as the soldiers struggled to adapt to the idea they were trapped somewhere other than Earth. These men were obviously serious professionals, but the situation was far outside their belief system. It had rocked them hard.
The military men spent some fruitless time trying to get the tablet controller working. Once it became clear that wasn’t happening Commander Krueger set two of his men scouting for an opening to the cave system.
Personally, he thought the path was the best clue, but that could also lead them right into some kind of ambush. Based on what he’d seen in the videos, he didn’t want even the best of the US forces having to defend him from that.
He stepped over to the officer. “Commander, a word, if I might.”
Krueger stepped away from the man he’d been speaking with. “Yes, Mister Rogers?”
“You need to see some of the things we’ve found. If you’ll get my computer, I’ll play some of the video for you.”
The officer looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “Gunny, bring Mister Rogers’ pack.”
That also got the attention of the obnoxious CIA agent, but no plan survived contact with the enemy. He walked them through logging on. At this point, every bit of information became a possible key to their survival.
They all watched the videos Jess had taken of the battle scene closely. Once it was over, Gunnery Sergeant Danvers turned to Clayton. “Who were these people?”
The CIA man opened his mouth, but the large soldier held up his hand. “Can it. This is about getting out of here alive now. It’s your sorry ass on the line, too. Give me any crap and I’ll hog tie you and duct tape your stinking mouth shut.”
The other man glared, but closed his mouth.
Clayton shrugged. “We’re a little at a loss on that, ourselves. The large people were from a heavy gravity world. Very, very strong, I assume. And obviously capable of fighting. They had it in for the normal humans and the weapons they used were quite advanced and deadly.”
“Well, whoever they are, we need to be careful not to meet them,” Krueger said. “We’re tough, but not that tough. Especially when we’re understrength like this.”
The scouts made their way back, looking a little shell-shocked. “We found an exit at the end of the path, Commander. It’s dark out, but starting to lighten up. The entrance is on a hill in deep woods. I’m not familiar with the trees. I figure dawn in half an hour.”
“Then let’s get out of here before full dawn. I’d rather not have an early riser spot us coming from this cave. In the woods, we can hide until we scout a bit.”
The military men hustled the three prisoners into the middle of their group and made their way to the exit. The scouts once more led the way out.
It was light enough to see the trees and even the hillside across from them. Definitely a wilderness area. The men didn’t speak, communicating with hand gestures that Clayton had seen his son use with his people.
An overgrown path led to the cave. It ran down the hill like a snake slithering around. Rather than follow it down, Krueger sent his men up the hill. Without a path, that made the going slower, but they had less chance of running into someone who wanted to kill them.
The sun was up by the time they reached the crown of the hill. The trees there were younger than the ones on the slope. It looked as though someone had cleared it at some point in the past.
Clayton could see the remains of a low stone wall. Based on its condition, no one had been up here to maintain it in a very long while. A different path led down on the other side.
“These trees aren’t from Earth,” Mick said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like them.”
“And there’s something wrong with the sun,” Penny added. “The shade is off. It’s more bluish. Not much, but enough to tell. We aren’t on Earth.”
“That’s not really much of a surprise,” Clayton said. “These people obviously had a very large galactic civilization. Based on the condition of the sites we’ve found, it certainly looks as though somethi
ng went wrong in the not so distant past.”
“The war?” Mick asked.
“Perhaps. It hardly seems as though the humans of the time had what it took to fight someone this spread out, though.”
Krueger came over to them and spoke softly. “You’d best come see this.”
It seemed as though the center of the hilltop had once had some religious significance. At least, the large slab of stone certainly looked like a massive altar to Clayton.
What lay on it chilled him, though. Bones. Scavengers seemed to have picked them apart, but it was obvious that more than one person had met their ends here, based on the four skulls he saw.
“I’m somewhat surprised that local scavengers would eat humans,” he said softly. “It seems as though something from a different biosphere would be inedible.”
Krueger gave him a look. “That’s your takeaway from human sacrifice? At least I think those are human.”
“We all respond to stress in different ways, Commander. Whoever killed these people did so a long time ago. A very long time ago.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, Mister Rogers,” Mick said, “but these haven’t been out here for a thousand years. They’d be broken down if they were. They’re a few years old, at most. Maybe only a few months. Whoever killed them is very likely alive and well as we speak.”
Gunnery Sergeant Danvers came over to them. “We found something to the east. Or whatever direction the sun is rising from. The magnetic field isn’t laid out the same as on Earth, so we’re going to have to figure it out. Come on.”
They went to the far side of the hill and to the base of a large tree. Someone had built a large platform about ten meters up the bole, but it looked a bit rickety.
“It’s more stable than its appearance suggests, but come up carefully. The stairs are shaky.”
They ascended one at a time until they all stood on the platform. Danvers was right. It was still very stable.
