* * *
Turcotte opened his eyes and his screen slowly came to life. “Did we get a hit?” he called out. “Dead on,” Yakov yelled, causing Turcotte to flinch as the sound echoed inside the helmet. Turcotte looked ahead. He saw the ship, not far away. “Range?”
“One kilometer and closing,” Yakov said. “It was doing evasive maneuvers, but it’s on a steady and straight trajectory now, no acceleration.”
There was a black mark along the top of the craft where the Tesla gun had hit it. Turcotte didn’t see a breach in the hull. “We need an opening. Leahy, can you punch a hole in it?”
“I can try,” Leahy responded.
* * *
Duncan cut through the restraint across her chest and arms as the Swarm tentacle cleared Garlin’s now-dead body. She sat up and used her good hand to unbuckle the other straps. The tentacle slithered to the floor and crept toward the Swarm orb, which was still at the controls.
Free of the gurney, Duncan looked about. She could see the display screen in front of the orb. A mothership filled the view. She could even see an open hatch near the front of the ship and several figures dressed in TASC suits waiting at the edge. There was another open hatch to the right of it and some sort of machine in the bay. A machine that suddenly began sparking.
A weapon, Duncan realized. Getting ready to fire. She looked about wildly, then made her decision.
* * *
Turcotte shut off the night vision for his helmet and watched the next bolt of power streak from the mothership to the other spacecraft. The blast knocked the craft sideways, sending it tumbling, a small hole punched in its top. The ship vented atmosphere and debris out of the hole, but no bodies that he could see. They were now within five hundred meters.
“Let’s go,” Turcotte said as he jetted out of the cargo bay.
He headed across, weapons at the ready. Checking his rear view, he could see the rest of Manning’s team following. He concentrated his attention forward as he got closer. When he was less than fifty meters from the spaceship, he slowed as the team deployed on either side and above and below.
“Hold and cover me,” he ordered.
The men spread out farther and jetted to a halt. Turcotte continued forward, toward the breach in the hull. He kept the reticule that aimed the MK-98 directed at the opening. His feet hit the deck and he slipped, then tumbled as he tried to balance himself. He slapped the barrel of the MK-98 against the hull to stop.
Turcotte got to his feet and edged closer to the opening. The plating had been torn up, leaving a six-foot-wide, irregular gap, just large enough for him to slip through. He went to night-vision mode as he entered the dark interior.
“I’m going in.”
Turcotte stepped into the hole and jetted down, spinning so that as he entered, he was turning, weapon at the ready.
A tentacle coiled around the barrel of the MK-98, pulling it and him sideways. Turcotte fired, rounds ricocheting off metal. He pulled back, trying to regain control of the weapon as he saw the Swarm orb next to him, one tentacle on the gun, another tentacle holding something shiny. With his other hand, Turcotte grabbed Excalibur, using the MK-98 for leverage to swing around as a red bolt came out of the shiny object and just missed him.
He swung the sword, severing the tentacle holding the gun. He brought the barrel to bear as a second red bolt hit him in the chest and knocked him backward. An alarm was chirping and something was flashing on the display panel, but Turcotte ignored that as he fired, the depleted uranium rounds ripping into the Swarm orb and through it, splattering the hull behind with grayish fluid. Turcotte emptied the entire cylinder into the creature and when that was done he jetted forward, the point of Excalibur leading.
He slid the blade into the creature to the hilt and jerked upward, slicing through the Swarm as if it were butter. The blade came out of the top of the orb with a spray of gray blood and viscera.
Turcotte moved back. The Swarm orb was sliced open from midpoint to top. Neither tentacle moved and he had to assume it was dead. The eyes he could see were blank and dull, showing no sign of life.
He took in his surroundings, searching for Duncan. He saw the gurney she’d been strapped to, but she wasn’t on it. He focused on an object floating next to the table — an arm severed at midforearm. A woman’s arm to judge from the hand.
“We’re reading damage to your suit,” Captain Manning’s voice filled the helmet. “You’re venting oxygen.”
Turcotte checked the readouts. He was down to 22 percent oxygen, and as he watched it went to 21 percent. He didn’t feel any pain so he assumed the suit had taken the brunt of the Swarm’s firing.
Where the hell was Duncan?
He scanned the interior of the ship but didn’t see her. Had she been vented and he hadn’t noticed? Then he saw the two tubes crammed in the rear right corner of the ship. He moved over and looked into the first. A body wrapped in white linen was inside, the face uncovered. He moved over to the other tube and looked in. Duncan lay inside, her eyes closed. There was a mist about her. Turcotte figured the tube was sealed and she had an atmosphere.
“You’re well below safety levels,” Manning announced. “We’re coming in for you.”
Turcotte was feeling a little light-headed. He looked about the interior of the ship. The command chairs were human-sized. Not Swarm. Not Airlia. Designed for a human.
“Strange,” Turcotte muttered, then he passed out.
CHAPTER 19: THE PRESENT
Mars
The green crystal was set in the wire mesh basket and the Airlia climbed on board the vehicle. It headed out of the bowl as the cables began to retract, lifting the crystal upward above the array.
Space
Turcotte regained consciousness to find Yakov’s bearded face leaning over him. He immediately closed his eyes. Yakov laughed.
“Wake up, my friend. We are getting close to Mars. Closer than anyone has ever been.”
“Anyone from Earth,” Turcotte muttered as he reluctantly opened his eyes and sat up. He was in the room they had commandeered for their sleeping area. “What happened?”
“Captain Manning brought you back just in time. You were out of oxygen.” Yakov pointed. Turcotte’s TASC suit was on the floor. There was a rip in the upper right chest. “You were lucky.”
“Duncan?” Turcotte asked. Looking down, he saw a large purplish bruise on his skin, beneath the place where the suit had absorbed the force of the Swarm’s weapon, another minor injury to add to all the others.
“She is still in the tube. She appears to be in some sort of deep sleep and I didn’t see a need to disturb her.”
Turcotte knew Yakov didn’t trust Duncan and the reality was that he didn’t see a need to have to deal with her right now. Turcotte thought differently.
“We brought the ship into one of the large cargo bays,” Yakov continued. “The Swarm orb is dead.”
That was one thing Turcotte had had no doubts about. Everything else, however, was up in the air. “How far out are we from Mars?” Turcotte headed for the door.
“Two hours.” “Artad’s Talon?”
“Arriving at Mars in a few minutes.” “Kincaid got anything further on the array?” “He thinks it’s just about complete.”
Turcotte felt a moment of panic as they headed toward the control room. “‘Just about’? How just about? Can they transmit?”
“There’s been no indication of that yet, but Kincaid doesn’t really know. He says all three pylons are complete and they are bringing something up in the center of the array on cables. Some sort of green crystal. Probably a power source or means of focusing power for the transmission is Kincaid’s best guess.”
They entered the control room. Captain Manning was there along with Kincaid, Quinn, and Leahy. Turcotte nodded at the Space Command captain, silently acknowledging his thanks.
Turcotte immediately turned to Leahy. “How far out can you hit the array with the Tesla gun?” “I can’t.”
>
That stopped Turcotte. “What?”
“The second shot fried the central coil. I don’t have the material on board to make another one.” Turcotte stared at her in silence for a few seconds, processing this piece of bad news. Then he shifted to Manning. “How far out before we can nuke it?”
The Space Command captain shifted his feet nervously. “The nukes weren’t our idea. The Pentagon delivered them figuring we could use some firepower. They’re actually Tomahawk cruise missiles and the problem with that is—”
“A Tomahawk has an oxygen-fueled rocket engine,” Turcotte completed the sentence. “We can lob them, using the mothership’s velocity and direction,” Manning suggested.
“I don’t think Artad is just going to allow us to do a bombing run,” Turcotte said. “The Talon could pick them off at will as they come in on a straight trajectory.” He looked at Yakov. “Can you show us what we’re facing?”
Yakov tapped the control panel and a large display came alive with a view of Mars. The Red Planet hung against the darkness of space. Yakov continued tapping the same key and Mars grew larger with each touch.
“It is the only way I know how to do this,” Yakov said apologetically.
Soon the fourth planet filled the screen, but Yakov continued to zoom in. “I’ve got us heading directly toward Mons Olympus,” he explained.
There was no mistaking the massive mountain as it first became visible. The base was hundreds of miles wide, gently sloping up to the top of the extinct volcano.
“What’s that?” Leahy asked, as a line from the base extending inward became apparent. Kincaid answered. “That’s the track the Airlia mech-machines made from Cydonia to the transmitter site.” He stepped closer and pointed. “There’s the transmitter.”
Yakov stopped hitting the controls as the large bowl carved out of the side of the volcano just short of the top became clear. The three pylons towered over the bowl. And in the center there was a glowing green dot.
“That’s what they just put in place,” Kincaid said, tapping the dot. “So is it ready to transmit?” Turcotte asked.
“Hell, I have no idea,” Kincaid said. “I don’t even exactly know how it works. We use our version of this at Arecibo in Puerto Rico as a receiver, which is a passive activity. If this thing in the center is a power source, then they must be close. If it isn’t, then they still need to get power from something. I would assume sending a message as far as they need to would require a tremendous amount of power.”
Guesswork. Turcotte stared at the screen. Had he made a mistake going after the Swarm first? He realized the answer would be yes if Artad got a message off in the next two hours. He shook off his uncertainty.
“Anyone have other options than trying to lob some nukes on that thing?” “We could land the mothership on top of it,” Yakov suggested.
“While Artad attacks us with the Talon?” Turcotte threw back. “Can a Talon hurt this ship?” Yakov replied in turn.
“Can we take the chance?” Even as he asked, Turcotte realized they were going nowhere fast. He stared at the array. “We’ve got two problems. The array and Artad. Our priority is destroying the array. Then we can deal with Artad. The problem is that Artad doesn’t want us to do that, so we’ll probably have to deal with him first.”
There was no answer. Turcotte threw the variables up in his mind. Artad. The Array. The mothership. The nukes. The TASC suits. Then he realized they had an additional card up their sleeves.
“I’ve got an idea.”
Mars
The cables pulled tight and halted. The green crystal was centrally located above the center of the dish. Along the crest of the dish, the Cydonia Airlia stood, looking down at what they had done.
Their sense of accomplishment disappeared, though, as a long, lean, slightly curving black form appeared overhead.
Tripler Army Medical Center, Oahu, Hawaii
Nurse Cummings massaged Kelly Reynolds’s left leg, making sure that blood got to the unused muscles. They were on the roof of the main tower of Tripler, with the south coast of Hawaii laid out in all its splendor. The doctors were still pessimistic about the possibility of Reynolds recovering, but Cummings saw no reason why the woman shouldn’t. As far as she was concerned there was nothing wrong with Reynolds that more rest, nutrients, and sunshine couldn’t cure.
A young doctor, one of the team that had basically written Reynolds off, came onto the roof to smoke. He saw Cummings with Reynolds and appeared embarrassed. Whether because he had given up on a patient, or she had caught him smoking, Cummings wasn’t sure.
As he puffed furtively a short distance away, Cummings switched from the left leg to the right. The calf was barely larger than the bone, most of the muscle having been consumed by the body as it had attempted to keep itself alive during the stay under Easter Island.
Cummings pressed her fingers into the flesh, massaging what little muscle she could find. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement and she looked up quickly. But Reynolds’s eyes were still closed and she was still, a strap going around her chest and forehead, holding her upright in the wheelchair. As she went back to work, Cummings kept her attention split between leg and upper body. “There!” Cummings cried out.
The startled doctor quickly stubbed out the cigarette. “What?” “Did you see that? Did you?” “See what?”
“Her hand. It moved. She lifted her forefinger.”
The doctor shook his head. “She can’t. Her brain has—” His words came to an abrupt halt as Reynolds’s right forefinger lifted a half inch off the armrest of the chair. “I don’t believe it.”
Cummings leaned close to Reynolds’s ear. “Do it again.” The finger lifted once more. “She understands.”
The doctor put his stethoscope to Reynolds’s thin chest. “Her heart rate is accelerated.”
“Of course,” Cummings said. “She’s putting everything she has into moving that finger.” She peered at Reynolds’s face, noting the quivering around the eyelids. “She’ll be talking soon. Very soon.”
Mars
Artad exited the Talon with a dozen Kortad backing him up. As soon as he was clear of the airlock, the ship rose into the Martian sky and took up an overwatch position ten kilometers above Mons Olympus.
The Airlia who had finished the array were in front of him. As he approached, they prostrated themselves. Their leader, whom Artad had known briefly many years previously, dropped to one knee.
“We have prepared the array for you.”
They had prepared the array for him because they had no other choice, Artad knew. They could not call back to the empire and ask for help after their role in the civil war here so many years ago. They were criminals, traitors, who could only throw themselves on his mercy.
“Is it ready to transmit?”
“Shortly. It is powering up.” The Airlia got to his feet and led the way to a tracked vehicle that was linked to the array with numerous cables.
Artad paused before following. He looked about. He saw the army of mech-machines that had been stopped in their tracks when the humans took over the Master Guardian and shut down the subordinate guardians. The magnitude of the loss of a master along with its Excalibur control was staggering. His reprimand when the fleet arrived would be great. And after over ten thousand years, what would his status be? He didn’t even know what the status of the empire was. He assumed it was strong, as it had existed for many times that length of time. But what if—
Artad looked up. He knew the mothership was en route, with humans on board coming to stop him. And the Master Guardian was on board the mothership. Their arrogance was beyond belief.
It would be a much better message if it contained a more positive summary than the current status report, Artad realized.
Space
They had a plan. It wasn’t the best, but Turcotte had served in Special Forces and he knew there was no such thing as a best plan, other than staying home and pulling the covers over on
e’s head.
They were just under an hour out. Everyone else was in the control room, watching the array. Turcotte knew watching wouldn’t make the time go by any quicker. He went down the main corridor until he reached the crossway leading to the hangar bay in which they had brought the ship with Duncan on board. Turcotte went into the bay and up the ramp into the ship.
Duncan was in the tube, eyes closed. A light on the side of the tube was green. Turcotte had to assume that meant it was functioning correctly, although he could not see her chest rise and fall. Her breathing must be down to an extremely slow rate, he figured.
Turcotte went over to the other tube. The light on this one was red. The man’s face was slack, the eyes full of a dullness Turcotte had seen too many times before — he was dead, of that there was no doubt.
Turcotte swung the lid open and examined the body. The skin was flawless, with no scars or other marks. The man appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties, in excellent physical shape at the time of death. He didn’t even have any calluses on the bottoms of his feet. It was as if the man had never left the tube.
Which he hadn’t, Turcotte knew. He’d seen a tube like this before. Deep under Mount Sinai. The one Aspasia’s Shadow had used to regenerate his new body. Apparently it had two functions, he realized, glancing over at Duncan’s tube. It not only could regenerate a new body, it also could put someone in deep sleep — a necessary thing, he supposed, for travel in deep space.
Turcotte looked about. The interior was sparse, emphasizing function over comfort, much like a present-day submarine. He walked to the front, where two chairs faced a control console. He sat down in the right-hand seat. It felt familiar, which irritated him. What had been in his brain? He had a good idea who had put it there.
He scanned the console. If the seat felt familiar, then perhaps other things would strike a chord. A flat screen to the right, set at an angle in the console, caught his attention. There were five buttons with markings below it. He reached and tapped one. The screen flickered, then came alive.
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