Cougar swept his telescopic sight over the ship, finding not a single window anywhere along its length. “Ship in sight,” he called back when he got over his initial shock at the mothership’s great size.
Beckman issue a muted order to take cover, then he and Markus approached the sniper’s position. When they saw it, Beckman said in a low voice, “We need more bombs.”
“They said two million tons!” Markus exclaimed, knowing the behemoth blocking the valley was many times that.
“You can tell them to check their math when we get back,” Beckman said, silently cursing himself for not expecting the brainiacs to get it wrong. “We’ll have to get the bomb inside.”
“Inside?” Markus asked surprised.
“It’s too big to detonate outside. We’ll have to set it off where it can do the most damage, next to power plant or a weapons stockpile. We’ll use the timer, that’ll give us twenty-four hours to get clear.” Beckman began studying the ship with his binoculars, for the first time beginning to take in the small details that its sheer size had hidden at first glance. “What the…?”.
“What is it?” Markus asked, reaching for his binoculars.
From their distant vantage point, the black pockmarks appeared to be no more than dots on the immense hull, but magnified, they became gaping circular wounds seared into the hull. In a few places, tiny repair drones floated inside the holes, nibbling at the damage like insects buzzing around an enormous carcass. Waterfalls of sparks cascaded down from the repair drones as they cut charred and twisted metal away from the hull.
“That couldn’t have happened when it landed,” Markus said.
“How could it fly like that?” Cougar asked as he watched it through his sniper scope. He wondered if he could hit one of the repair drones from there, always keen to test his aim. He’d like to try, but he knew it would alert the ship to their arrival.
Beckman studied the dozens of holes blasted through the massive hull, wondering what could have caused so much damage. A meteor shower? An internal explosion? Whatever the cause, he was sure of one thing. “It’s not flying anytime soon.”
“From the looks of it, it’s no threat to us,” Markus said.
“Thank God for that,” Cougar said as he lowered his sniper scope. “No invasion!”
Beckman’s jaw tightened. “Our guys tried nuking it. They must have had a good reason.”
“Did they?” Markus asked doubtfully.
“We all saw the flash.”
“We don’t know it was one of ours. Suppose the Chinese or the Russians figured out what we’ve got here, and decided they didn’t want us getting our hands on it.”
“And risk starting a war?” Beckman said. “No chance.”
“Well, there’s no way we’ll be sharing this with them.” Markus said. “You can’t attack without confirmation.”
“I can’t get confirmation.”
“My God!” Laura exclaimed as she edged up behind them, eyes riveted to the valley of devastation. Crouching behind her was Bandaka whose face was a mask of foreboding.
“We’ll stealth in while there’s still light,” Beckman said, remembering the stealth gear was tricky to use during the day, impossible at night.
“You have to wait,” Markus said.
“No,” Beckman said, certain that the nuclear attack could only have been made with Presidential authority. “We’ll destroy the core of the ship, then you and your vultures can pick over what’s left.
“That’s a mistake,” Markus said bitterly as he glanced at Laura. Without a word, she knew he’d made up his mind to stop Beckman.
“It’s my mistake to make.” Beckman turned to Bandaka. “Can you get us down there, without being seen?”
The aboriginal hunter stared at the blasted wasteland below, then nodded slowly. “I know a way.”
* * * *
Dan McKay’s world lacked form. He didn’t know how long it had been since his capture at Laura’s zoological station, as he no longer measured time in terms of days, but in terms of dreams.
Now the dream was a golden ellipse that morphed into a ring, then two rings. A glowing red line threaded the rings then both ends of the line curved up to join together forming a third ring, locking the first two together.
Dan gave the equivalent of a mental sigh.
When the geometric patterns had first formed, they’d been simple shapes; cubes, pyramids, spheres and the like, then they’d become progressively more complex. Though he didn’t realize it, the more complex shapes correlated with advanced scientific concepts, none of which he recognized. To him, they were simply perplexing shapes and colors, not the keys to the mysterious inner forces of nature.
His captors had mapped every molecule in his body, unlocked the key to his DNA, and now they probed the inner recesses of his mind, precisely measuring his intelligence. By determining his brain responses, they discovered if he was capable of understanding fundamental and obvious relationships. To their surprise, their specimen was found wanting in other respects.
For Dan McKay, the meaningless dreams continued without interruption or purpose.
* * * *
Bandaka led them along the forest covered ridge until they reached a narrow trail that led down into the scorched valley. It was there Beckman called a halt, to eat and rest before the payload delivery team went down to the ship to plant the bomb. When everyone had stripped off their packs and opened cold rations, Markus nodded once to Laura. She put down her ration pack and leaned toward Xeno.
“Could I borrow that, please?” she asked, pointing to Xeno’s entrenching tool.
“Sure,” Xeno said, retrieving the collapsible spade with one hand.
Laura took the spade and quietly walked into the trees, following the instructions Markus had whispered to her shortly before they’d made camp. When she was well out of sight of the troops, she dug a small hole and peed in it. He’d been adamant, she had to pee. When she finished, she fixed her clothes, took a deep breath and screamed with all her might. She peered into the trees, holding the entrenching tool up as if ready to swing it in self defense. Behind her, heavy footsteps approached, fanning out on both sides.
Tucker was the first to reach her, aiming his M16 in the direction of her gaze. “What was it?”
Beckman hurried up beside them as she replied.
“One of those four-armed things. It was watching me, while I was…” She motioned toward the small pit with wet soil at the bottom, then nodded back along the ridge. “It went that way.”
Beckman thumbed his mike, worried their position had been discovered. “Hostile contact to the east. Sweep out a hundred meters and engage on sight.”
Laura saw the troops move past her on either side in a skirmish line, advancing with weapons ready. Bandaka’s group accompanied them, searching for tell tale signs they could track, and watching the trees with trained eyes.
“Take her back to camp,” Beckman said, then started after the troops.
“Come on,” Tucker said, taking a step toward camp.
“Wait.” Laura turned to slowly fill in the hole. Markus had told her to take as much time as she could filling in the hole.
Markus waited in camp until the troops were out of sight. Only Nuke and Hooper remained guarding the packs, watching after their departed comrades. Markus put his ration pack down and climbed to his feet, keeping his eyes on the other two. He reached into his pocket, feeling for the small, silver, recovered device he carried. Unlike the troops who wore their weapons openly, he kept this device hidden. It was a weapon of sorts, but it lacked the raw destructive power of the energy and particle weapons Beckman’s team carried. The general consensus was that it had been used by scientists to subdue specimens for examination, perhaps even human specimens, but it was certainly not a military device.
Markus touched the stunner’s control surface, setting it to minimum power, then made sure Nuke and Hooper were staring after the rest of the team. He slid the stunner out
of his pocket and shot Nuke and Hooper in the back. The bent cylinder emitted short white flashes that knocked them both out instantly. On the minimum setting, they’d be out for only a few minutes, but would suffer mild headaches and dizziness for several hours after they came to.
Their bodies twitched involuntarily as he ran to Nuke’s pack, pulling it open to reveal the antimatter torpedo inside. He knew how the trigger mechanism designed by the Groom Lake adaptation team worked, and he knew its weakness. There wasn’t time to disassemble the detonator, so he set the tiny stun gun to full power, aimed obliquely past the torpedo at the delicate electronics and fired. The stun gun’s powerful electrical field fused the circuitry installed by the Groom Lake engineers, without affecting the torpedo or showing outward signs of damage.
He resealed Nuke’s backpack, powered the stun gun down to the lowest setting, then carefully buttoned it into his pocket. He hurried to his own backpack and fired several bursts from his submachine gun into the trees in the opposite direction to where the troops were patrolling.
In his earpiece, he heard Beckman’s voice barking, “Who’s firing?”
Markus let off another burst, then thumbed his mike. “Markus here, we’re under attack! Nuke and Hooper are down.” He fired again while he held the transmit button, to be sure Beckman heard it. “It’s one of those–” Markus switched off the transmitter before finishing his sentence, then lay on his back and tossed his MP-5 out of reach. Feeling for the stun gun through his buttoned up pocket, he winced in anticipation of what was to come, then pressed down hard on the firing surface. The tiny recovered stun gun discharged, causing his body to convulse briefly as he crashed into unconsciousness.
* * * *
Markus was the last to regain consciousness. Hooper and Nuke were sitting up, blinking spots from their eyes, sipping water, while most of the other troops were strapping on their stealth gear. Laura sat quietly by her pack, watching Markus apprehensively.
“What happened?” Beckman asked as Xeno checked Markus’ pulse.
The intelligence officer took a slow breath, tried to rise, then thought better of it. He found the leg that took the stun gun blast was completely numb. “It was a four-armed machine . . . came in fast . . . I only got a few shots off before it hit me.”
Beckman looked around the camp, wondering why the machine had attacked. It hadn’t killed the three men in camp, so it wasn’t after them, and the short wave radio was useless while the dome was up. It had to be something the machine wanted. Or feared? “Nuke, run a system diagnostic.”
The payload specialist gave Beckman a puzzled look, then swore silently under his breath. Ignoring his nausea, he tore open the backpack flap and launched the torpedo’s diagnostic system. To his dismay, the display remained blank. He removed the access plate covering the electronics package and examined the circuitry. At first glance, it appeared undamaged, then he noticed black marks at key connection points where high voltages had shorted out the system.
When Beckman saw the look on his face, he walked over to see for himself. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. The whole electronics assembly is fried.”
“What about the torpedo itself?”
“I’ll have to decouple it from the housing, to get to the control surface. It’ll take at least an hour.”
“You’ve got five minutes.”
Nuke gave Beckman an incredulous look, then nodded. “I guess I can cut through the electronics.”
Beckman approached Hooper, running an eye over the sergeant’s charred and blistered wounds. Hooper nursed his special in his left hand and still wore his big Model 500 pistol low on his left hip. His burns had forced him to pass his pack to Laura and abandon his shirt, and from his pallid complexion, his strength was almost gone.
“Never saw it coming,” Hooper said through clenched teeth.
“You up to getting back across the ridge, with Laura?”
Hooper nodded wearily. “What have you got in mind?”
Beckman unzipped a pocket and produced one of Timer’s small radio transmitters. “This is the detonator for the charges we left back on one of the towers. You’ll have line of sight to the tower from the east side of this plateau. If you get the shield down, transmit the word ‘citadel’, then hide because all hell will break loose.”
“Citadel, got it. What are you going to do?”
“That depends on whether we still have a weapon.” He glanced at Nuke, who had removed the antimatter torpedo from his backpack, and was aggressively cutting through the electronics assembly with a pair of metal cutters.
Hooper drew a slow breath, marshalling his strength. “When do I move out?”
“Ten minutes.” Beckman said. “Virus, you’ll go back with Hooper.”
“No sir,” Virus replied. He lay against his backpack, eyes closed. Shutting out the light helped to temper the pounding in his head. “You need me.”
“Not if you can’t make it.” Not if they’ve damaged your mind. One look told Beckman that Virus was incapable of hard marching. His skin was pale and clammy and dark shadows had formed beneath his feverish eyes.
Virus washed down two painkillers with a swig of water. “I understand … their stuff, some of it anyways. They forced it in here.” He tapped his temple. “I remember fragments about systems, machines, symbols. They fed me instructions for . . . species like us.”
“Like us?”
“Lesser species, conscripts. They use them to operate support machines. The console thought I was there to be trained. It learnt everything I knew, drained every memory I had, learnt to talk to me, then it shoved a lot of stuff into my head. Too much, too fast.” He pressed his palms against his eyes, relieving the pressure momentarily. “I wasn’t smart enough. That’s why I couldn’t handle it. Lesser species . . . are smarter than us.”
“You think you can use this information?”
“It’s complicated.” Virus blinked slowly, trying to organize his thoughts. “They think in more dimensions than us, see things differently, but . . . I know enough.”
Virus should have been a stretcher case, but right now, Beckman could use any break. “We’ll have to leave you behind if you can’t keep up.”
“I know.”
“OK. Strap up. And strip the short wave down to the minimum. Hooper’s taking it with him.”
“Yes sir,” Virus said.
“Looks like it’s just you and Laura,” Beckman said.
“We’ll make it. I still have a few slugs left,” he said, patting his oversized sidearm.
“Your mind is your best weapon,” Beckman said as he shook Hooper’s good left hand, holding it firmly.
“Ain’t it the truth,” Hooper said with the hint of a grin at Beckman’s use of an old Delta saying. “Give them hell.”
Beckman returned to his pack and pulled his stealth gear on. The equipment comprised two circular emitters worn front and back of the torso. They were held in place by vest-like webbing and leather straps which also held the power pack. The emitters had been recovered last century, the vests were from Groom and the power packs were a classified technology from General Electric. The reverse engineering boys had never been able to identify the emitters’ real power source. It was lost among the thousands of recovered artifacts in storage whose purpose remained a mystery. The GE packs were outrageously expensive, ridiculously heavy for their size, and lasted barely forty-five minutes. With four kilometers of ashen wasteland to cross, Beckman knew if the packs failed while they were in the open, they’d be sitting ducks. He tied off the last of the straps while Tucker helped Bandaka into Steamer’s stealth kit nearby.
“When you press this,” Tucker explained, showing Bandaka the on switch at the bottom of the vest. “No one can see you.”
Bandaka looked confused. “No one see me?”
“Invisible.”
“How can no one see me?”
“It bends light around you. If the light doesn’t hit you, no one can see you.”<
br />
“Will the great spirits see me?” Bandaka asked apprehensively.
Tucker looked puzzled. “Great spirits? Don’t know–”
“They’ll see you,” Beckman cut in, “but no one else will.”
“How it turn off?” Bandaka asked.
“It turns off,” Tucker said, “When the power runs out.”
Beckman made his own check of Bandaka’s gear. “Don’t turn it on until I say so. OK?”
“OK. Beckman say.” Bandaka wriggled uncomfortably as the vest rasped on his bare skin.
Markus, now sitting up, took everything in around him with growing concern. He’d assumed with the torpedo inoperable, they’d all withdraw together, but it looked as if Beckman still planned to approach the ship. Nuke was hastily cutting through the torpedo’s electrical components, Virus was stripping the short wave and instructing Hooper, while the rest of the team were strapping on stealth emitters.
Surely he’s not going to send the ‘citadel’ code! Markus thought with alarm. Why else would Hooper be taking the short wave? He forced himself to his feet, then hobbled toward Beckman.
“Beckman,” Markus said, “What are you doing?”
“Not now,” Beckman said urgently, passing him without stopping. In Beckman’s mind, their camp had been attacked, their main weapon neutralized, and the enemy could be upon them in strength at any moment. He halted in front of Nuke, and the small pile of electrical components scattered on the ground nearby. “Well?”
Nuke looked up grimly. “Not good. The solenoid’s still working. The torpedo must have shielded it from whatever hit my pack. It means I can generate a magnetic field, and the torpedo itself is OK. It’s shielded against every type of radiation we know of, and probably a few types we don’t. The computer’s dead, that means no detonator, no timer, no diagnostics, but the killer’s the power pack. It’s wasted.”
The Mothership Page 26
