“No, just buy some insurance.”
Two flexible arms extended from the machine in the center of the compartment, brought a pole and a crossarm together, then the wall irised open and the cradle carrying them both slid out. Beckman dragged Virus to the circular opening and passed him down to Hooper, waiting below with Timer and Cougar. Once Virus was clear, Xeno dropped the packs down and climbed out.
Beckman pulled Timer up into the vehicle. “Put charges on two of those cross arms.”
“You got it,” Timer replied, pulling two radio controlled explosives from his pack.
Outside, Virus was carried into the trees, then Xeno retrieved the med kit from her pack and began checking his vitals. Beckman watched the pole finish sliding into the earth until the cradle released it, then glanced at Timer who was taking forever to attach the explosive.
“What’s the hold up?”
Timer shook his head in frustration. “Can’t attach the C4. No grip. These things are nonmagnetic, nonstick. Got to tie them on!” He pulled a reel of wire from his pocket and cut a length, then wrapped it around one of the cross arms. Once the wire was secure, he began attaching the first explosive package to it.
“How long?”
“Almost got the first one,” Timer said, tying a knot.
The arm and cradle slid back into the beetle signaling the circular opening was about to close.
“One will have to do,” Beckman said, wary of being trapped inside the vehicle. “Get out!”
Timer checked that the first explosive was secure, then pocketed the second charge. He darted past the cradle as it slid back towards the machine in the center of the compartment and leapt out. Beckman dived after him as the hatch began to iris shut. They landed heavily on the artificial surface near the newly planted pole while the beetle began creeping forward again toward its next delivery point.
“Should I blow it now?”
“No.” Beckman said, dusting himself off as he climbed to his feet. “Set up a radio relay. Put your detonator close enough to blow the charge, but rigged so we can radio detonate it from twenty-five clicks away.”
Timer looked confused. “That’ll take most of my radio detonators.”
“Understood,” Beckman said as he headed to where Xeno was attending Virus, silently watched by the rest of the team. The communications specialist’s skin was pale, his body trembled and his eyes fluttered as if he was dreaming intensely.
“He’s in shock,” Xeno said. “There’re no physical injuries, but we need to get him to a hospital.”
“There’s no possibility of evac.” Beckman said. “Even if a chopper was available, it would probably be shot down. We’ll carry him. Rig a stretcher.”
Tucker produced his bowie knife, and began cutting branches from nearby trees for stretcher poles.
* * * *
While Xeno tended Virus and the others prepared his stretcher, Markus slipped silently away to the edge of the spongy road. He checked no one was following him, then used the tiny digital camera mounted above the LCD screen to photograph the beetle and the pole-like device in the center of the road. Markus knew sending pictures would extend the burst transmission time, but he decided the building of a permanent construction had implications the assessment team at Langley needed to consider.
He slid out the small keyboard and typed rapidly, describing the photographs:
Ground vehicle constructing perimeter.
Purpose unknown.
When finished, he extended the transmitter’s antenna, preparing to transmit.
“What are you doing?” Laura asked.
Markus turned slowly toward her, shielding the transceiver with his body. She stood a few meters away, watching him curiously. He wondered how she’d gotten so close without him hearing her approach. “Taking a last look at that machine. That is what I do, you know.”
“What’s that thing?”
Markus hid his irritation with a smile. “Spy stuff,” he said, ceasing any attempt to hide the transceiver. “I could tell you what it is, but then I’d have to kill you,” he joked, then added, “It’s a communications device, simple as that.” Markus glanced back through the trees, ensuring none of the military team were in sight.
“I’m alone. Should I be worried?”
“Not because of me.” He said, then hit the transceiver’s send button. “I’m going to have to ask you not to mention this to the others.”
Laura gave him a doubtful look. “Why should I agree to that?”
“Do you want to see your husband again, alive?” This time his tone was serious.
She sobered. “Of course!”
“Then you need to trust me.” He kept his eyes on the LCD screen until the acknowledgement came back from the DSD team to the south, indicating the signal strength had dropped to eighty-two percent due to the increased distance separating them.
“You mean trust you, not them?” she said, nodding towards the soldiers.
“I don’t want to destroy what’s up ahead.”
“And they do?”
“Not yet, but the military destroy what they don’t understand. Not me. Anything I don’t understand is potentially useful information.”
“Which you steal for Uncle Sam?”
He shrugged evasively. “Your husband’s chances of survival are better if we capture, rather than destroy, that ship.” Markus’ eyes narrowed. “If you tell Beckman about this,” he said holding up the transceiver, “He’ll take it.”
She bit her lip uncertainly, yet sensed he was being strangely honest with her. “You know my price.”
Markus nodded. “I’ll do everything in my power to see your husband is returned to you unharmed.” He paused in thought. “How well do you know this terrain?”
“Not as good as the aborigines, but I can find my way around.”
“Could you lead me out of here, if I had to get out alone?”
“Where would you want to go?”
“South.”
“There’s nothing down there for hundreds of kilometers.”
“We wouldn’t have to go far, no more than a hundred clicks.” He lifted his transceiver. “I can call in a ride, once we reach the . . .” he paused uncertainly, “Numwar Road?”
“Numbulwar Road,” she corrected. “It’s not much of a road, but I can find it. The question is, why should I? How does that help my husband?”
“Leave that to me.”
She pulled the straps on her backpack forward, adjusting the weight. “All right Mr Markus, your little secret’s safe with me. For now.”
His face showed the barest hint of relief. “You better get back, before they miss you.”
Laura hesitated, giving him a curious look.
“I’ll be along in a minute,” he reassured her.
Laura turned, and picked her way back through the trees. Before she had reached where the others were gathered, an incoming message appeared on the transceiver’s LCD screen:
Vehicle origin unknown.
Orbital activity nil.
Recovery remains viable.
Markus pocketed his transceiver and started back toward towards the soldiers, deep in thought. The assessment team at Langley believed the alien vehicle’s design did not belong to any of the civilizations in regular contact with Earth, and deep space tracking stations worldwide had been unable to locate any craft arriving in orbit to render assistance. It suggested the downed ship was far from home and its location may even be unknown to those who built it. Markus could barely contain his excitement as he realized the magnitude of the opportunity almost within reach.
This could be the holy grail!
* * * *
The team hiked deeper into the forest for three hours, then they began to feel a strange prickling force choke the air. Their hairs stood up on end and the radios began to hiss with static. The electrostatic effect strengthened rapidly, silencing the birds, ending the interminable thrumming of the insects, and paralyzing every animal wi
th fear. It was as if a switch had been thrown and the forest fell deathly silent.
Beckman called a halt to watch the sky and listen to the eerie silence. Several of the team shuddered involuntarily from the tickling effect of the static force on their skin.
Nuke scanned the tree tops apprehensively. He bumped into Steamer, then jumped as a spark of electricity arced between them. “Ow!” Nuke declared, rubbing his arm. “You zapped me!”
Tucker winked at Steamer, then hovered a finger at the back of Nuke’s neck, beneath his helmet. He watched curiously as the tiny flash of energy flicked from his finger into Nuke’s neck.
Nuke spun around slapping at his neck like it was a mosquito bight. “What’s wrong with you, man?”
Tucker chuckled as Beckman turned to Dr McInness. “Doc?”
The scientist stared at the clear blue sky curiously, then shrugged. “It’s an enormous build up of static electricity, but I have no idea what’s causing it.”
Markus ran his hand over the hairs on his arm, fascinated by how rigidly they stood to attention. Beside him, Laura combed her fingers through her short red hair, finding the moment the hair cleared her hand, it shot back up again.
“Anyone see anything?” Beckman asked.
Vamp whispered to Xeno, “I don’t see anything, but I’m itching all over.”
“You should get the boy scientist to scratch that itch for you.”
“That could work,” Vamp said with mock seriousness.
A shattering thunder clap rumbled over the land from far away, then in an instant, the static charge vanished.
Laura found her hair was suddenly flat and lifeless. “This gives new meaning to having a bad hair day!”
Tucker aimed his finger at the back of Nuke’s neck again, disappointed when nothing happened. “It’s gone.”
Nuke saw what Tucker was doing and backed away warily, gesturing with his middle finger.
“No, it hasn’t!” Laura exclaimed, pointing up through the trees at the eastern sky.
They turned as one to see a translucent curtain rise into the air, blurring the sky as it climbed. Slowly it arched over their heads as it angled toward a point high in the sky. The curtain rose like a curved wall from one end of the horizon to the other, turning the bright blue tropical sky into a shimmering, soft blue white blur. It became increasingly dome shaped as it rose on all sides toward a rapidly shrinking central hole far above the ground. The blue sky, visible through the circle at the summit, shrank to nothing, then a white flash burst from the apex and rolled down the sides in a single stabilizing wave. The harsh tropical sunlight was gone, replaced by a gentle milky light that cast soft shadows across the forest floor.
“What the hell?” Timer muttered.
“Now that’s shock and awe, man!” Nuke declared.
Beckman turned to Dr McInness. “Still think those towers are just weather balloons?”
Dr McInness glanced at Beckman uncertainly, then returned his gaze to the shimmering energy curtain.
“What is it?” Laura asked.
Beckman realized the entire team was watching him, hanging on his response, except for Markus who had already drawn his own conclusion. When he spoke, he pitched his voice loud enough for them all to hear.
“It’s not a crash landing, it’s a bridgehead.”
CHAPTER 8
Nemza’ri finished her third protein pack, feeling her strength slowly returning. She normally wouldn’t consume cloned protoplasm, but she was desperate. She’d found the tasteless, colorless nutrient in the emergency rations of an escape pod. The pod could sustain twenty of her kind for a thousand hours, and while it could land, it had limited in-atmosphere flight capability. The tiny lifeboat was undamaged, but its power supply had inexplicably failed, forcing her to manually crank open its hatch. It never occurred to her that in those first desperate hours, the Command Nexus had drained the power reserves of more than three thousand escape pods to stay alive. The gamble had bought enough time to repair one of the secondary power plants, providing a trickle of energy sufficient to revive the ship and restore limited maneuvering control.
Her hunger satisfied, she discarded the empty rectangular container and stared at the pod’s small command terminal wondering if there was any way to activate it. She’d pinged it several times with her biosonar and tried to manually activate its proximity sensor, but the glossy black surface had remained inert. She hoped if she could activate the terminal, she could call for help via its direct data link to the ship.
Nemza’ri activated a memory implant which projected the escape pod’s technical specifications into her mind. The pod was little more than a life support system with sub light propulsion, but it was equipped with a basic repair kit stored on its lower level. She decided to recover it and climbed down through a crawl space in complete darkness, searching for it with her biosonar. The cramped metal walls reflected her pings, blurring her sonic vision, but with the help of the tech specs, she quickly located the kit.
She returned to the habitation level where the open hatch let in enough light from the corridor to see by. Nemza’ri found the kit contained no spare energy cells, but it did hold a pair of cylindrical power transceivers. In the scramble to board life pods, some would be overcrowded, while others would be undermanned. The transceivers compensated for this, by allowing a swarm of escape pods to share power while under way.
She placed the first power transceiver close to one of the escape pod’s energy conduits, then climbed out into the corridor with the backup transceiver, and positioned it beside the nearest emergency light. The transceiver automatically tapped into the light’s energy source and retransmitted power to the transceiver in the escape pod. It was enough to bring the pod’s control terminal to life. Nemza’ri plunged one of her hands into the terminal, instantly registering a link between it and the synapses of her central nervous system. The synaptic link allowed the implants in her brain to meld perfectly with the terminal, making her part of the escape pod, and through its docking link, part of the ship.
With a wave of relief, she sent her crew designation to the ship and summoned assistance, then waited as seconds passed without response. The Command Nexus and its myriad sub foci could hold billions of conversations simultaneously without taxing its powers. It should have responded instantly. The fact that it didn’t was puzzling. She then tried a crew only emergency channel, this time receiving a response, but not the one she expected. It told her that because she lacked command rank, she was not authorized to communicate directly with the Command Nexus. It was the wrong response, which was impossible, because the ship never made such mistakes!
She tried the emergency channel again, wondering if she’d made an error. This time the response was sharper, informing her that because she’d ignored the first directive, her crew status had been suspended pending a fitness evaluation, and she was ordered to report immediately to Urban 4432 for a full biodiagnostic.
She stood alone in the shadows of the escape pod, stunned. Now she knew something was wrong. Urban 4432 was an orbital city thousands of light years away!
How could the Command Nexus give such a patently illogical order?
She triggered another memory implant, searching through millions of Command Nexus protocols for an explanation, but there was none. A simple thought appeared in her mind, a thought that filled her with dread, and a sense of hopelessness. Yet, it was the only possible explanation. For a moment, she refused to believe it, but her lightning fast mind, working in perfect harmony with her cerebral implants, eliminated every other possibility. Nemza’ri knew it was true, the worst disaster imaginable.
The ship had lost its mind!
CHAPTER 9
Bill steered his half cabin fishing boat past an outcrop of bleached rocks jutting into the river from the mangroves. The big V6 outboard was on full throttle, keeping the boat planing high and fast through the murky waters. Its wake rolled onto the muddy banks, occasionally disturbing the crocodiles l
ying in wait there. Behind the wheel, Bill looked up at the strange shimmering curtain that towered in front of them. Behind him, his three companions stared in silence, more confused than afraid.
The fishing boat rounded a gentle bend, bringing the base of the translucent wall into view. The energy curtain sliced across the water like a dam, causing the river to break its banks and inundate the surrounding trees. Beyond the curtain’s oscillating energy waves, the forest and sky appeared as a shifting green mirage beneath a blur of blue.
Bill throttled back until the engine was idling, letting the boat drift fifty meters from where the curtain blocked the river.
“I bet whoever put that there didn’t have a permit!” Wal declared indignantly.
Bill pointed to a dirty brown smear beyond the energy curtain. “That’s the bloody river bed! It’s dry!”
Slab’s eyes followed the curtain up and over their heads to where the dome peaked far up in the western sky. He tried to gauge how high it was, but struggled to gain perspective against the monotonous blur that enclosed the sky. He spotted a small black dot circling slowly to the southwest, an eagle or falcon hunting its prey. The bird was hundreds of meters in the air, yet the top of the dome soared high above it. “It must be ten kilometers high!”
“A lot more than that, I reckon. Twenty or thirty kilometers, at least,” Cracker guessed as he pulled a battered pair of binoculars from a locker and scanned the base of the curtain from north to south. “Someone’s bulldozed a bloody road through there! And there’s some kind of light pole over near the trees.”
“Let’s take a look,” Bill said, easing the throttle forward.
They motored slowly toward the southern bank where the curtain emerged from the river. As they approached, they became aware of the faint hum generated by the vibration of air particles disturbed by the curtain’s oscillations. Bill throttled back when they neared the retreating river bank, holding position a short distance from the edge of the submerged mangroves. The road through the forest ran down into the river, emerging on the far side, while the metal pole stood a dozen meters from the shore, inside the base of the energy curtain. The diamond-shaped objects either side of the cross arm glowed with the dazzling white intensity of the sun. Wal picked up his hunting rifle and tried to sight while squinting against the blinding point of light. He squeezed off a well aimed shot that sparked harmlessly against the curtain shielding the pole.
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