Countdown Amageddon (The Spiral Slayers Book 2)
Page 37
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Grace felt much better after she and Isabella had lunch. Her worry for her husband and her son always remained, but what helped her soldier on was her determination to save her daughter.
The three ark ships were named The Sanctuary, The Protector and The Guardian, and they had wound up on the latter. Finally, everyone had boarded and all three ships seemed ready to lift off, but the only estimate you could get was ‘soon’.
It was about half an hour later when they heard someone knock on their cabin door. Grace answered it and immediately recognized Mrs. Abigail Wicker, the President’s wife. With her were her son John and her daughter Angie—eight and six years old respectively.
They had only met twice before, but Grace liked her and was very happy to see her now. “Abby!” The women embraced. “Please come in.”
“Grace, it’s good to see you,” the First Lady said. “John, Angie…you remember Isabella, don’t you?”
The children said hello to each other and went into the hallway where Mrs. Wicker’s children had their bikes and other children were playing. Grace left the door open to listen.
Grace immediately asked Abby if she had heard anything about the alien, their husbands or the lift off time.
“No, yes and no, I’m afraid,” Abby lied—they were keeping events on the other side of the planet a secret to avoid a panic. “I think things are too hectic right now to get reports. Thank God, Adamarus and James are all right.”
Grace lowered her voice, “Unless we’ve slowed it down, it has arrived here and is in orbit.”
Abby chose her words carefully. “Yes, but it’s still by the Larger Moon—pretty far away.”
It took all that Grace had not to inquire about Nero. She knew if Abby had heard anything, she would say so.
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Wicker, Burnwall and Donnelly had walked to the front of the room and stood before the main display. On it was a satellite image of the Larger Moon and the Blackship. Its long thin arms were moving very fast now. From the surface of the planet, the arms were too thin and moving too fast to be seen by the naked eye. This was something everyone was thankful for because it was a terrifying sight.
“Any idea what they’re doing?” the president asked, fear evident in his voice.
“I have absolutely no idea, but I do not like it at all,” Donnelly said in a whisper.
Burnwall touched Donnelly’s arm, calling attention to an aide who had approached. The aide handed a piece of paper to Donnelly who thanked him. He read the sheet of paper while both Wicker and Burnwall looked expectantly at him. “It’s the gas giants, Aster and Serena. Both are definitely shrinking.” He looked up at the president whose face was white.
“So,” Wicker said, “both are being eaten up by black holes the alien dropped into them.”
“So it would appear,” Donnelly answered.
Half an hour later, another aide approached and spoke to Donnelly in a low voice. Wicker had been pacing and Burnwall had been off to the side talking to some of his staff. They both converged on Donnelly to find out what was going on.
“The speed of the arms is now relativistic. At times, the ends are approaching the speed of light.”
Now blurred, the waving arms formed an intricate pattern that fanned out from the Blackship toward Amular.
“What the hell is it doing?” Wicker asked for the umpteenth time.
No one answered—no one knew.
“Look,” Burnwall said. Flickers of energy had formed where the arms met the black sphere. The glowing white arcs began to move along the pattern toward the ends of the moving arms. Then the end of the blurred pattern began to glow. Soon an arc of radiant energy formed miles above the planet at the ends of the waving arms. It ran perpendicular to the equator and stretching out toward both poles. The energy arc soon grew in length until it reached the ends of the waving arms curving around the planet just above the atmosphere. Then it stretched beyond the reach of the arms, reaching toward the planet’s poles.
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Outside in the hallway the other children played and rode their bikes but Isabella stood off to the side thinking of Puddles. Suddenly she became worried that the kitten might not have food and water. She’d noticed the empty containers.
One of the other girls road her bike up to Isabella and asked, “Do you want to ride?”
Isabella considered then shook her head, “I’m worried my kitty doesn’t have food and water.”
The other little girl said, “Go check, then come back and you can ride my bike.”
Isabella looked around at the other children then toward her cabin’s open door. Right behind her, the elevator door opened and a man and woman came out and walked the other way. Deciding she could get back before anyone noticed she said, “Okay.”
The other little girl said, “Okay, hurry back,” and rode off.
Isabella turned and marched into the elevator and pressed the button labeled ‘Freight Level.’ Within seconds, the doors opened and Isabella retraced her steps to Puddles cage. She bent down and saw that Puddles’ water and food dish were full. She smiled then decided she wanted to pet Puddles before leaving so she unhitched the cage door and lifted the kitten out. As she did, a loud speaker came to life saying “Attention. We’ve gotten the go ahead for lift off. Everyone please proceed to your designated cabin, secure any loose items and then get into your launch seats and put your safety belts on.”
The announcement made Isabella jump and Puddles jumped from her arms, ran to the hatch, and darted under the canvas strips.
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The arc of light that extended across the half-dark sky was the most horrifying sight so far. It was as if the sun had been stretched out to encircle the planet. It was too monstrously big, too completely out of place, like something straight out of a nightmare.
President Wicker was informed that the arks were ready to lift off. He thought of Abby and his children. “Please tell them to get the hell out of here as soon as humanly possible.”
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Hearing the announcement, Grace and Abby got up and went into the hall to gather the children. Abby scooped up her two and hurried off down the hall saying, “Let’s get together later.”
Grace was looking for Isabella among the other children and mothers. “Isabella?” Grace could not see her anywhere. “Isabella!”
One of the girls on a bike riding off down the hall to her mother’s beckoning arms turned and yelled, “A little girl said she was going to check on her cat.” She turned and rode off.
The hallway was now clear and Grace stood there dumbfounded. She ran back in the room and looked around, then not finding her, rushed out again and made for elevator. Taking it down to the Freight level, she got off and ran to the location of Puddles’ cage. It was open and neither the kitten nor her daughter were anywhere in sight.
“Isabella!” she screamed.
A loud sound made her spin toward the hatch. It was closing. She ran to it and tore through the canvas strips. A long ramp extended down to the ground. As she watched, it began to rise. She looked around but saw nothing at first. Then from the side of the rising ramp, Isabella appeared holding Puddles. They were down on the ground. The ramp had risen too high for the little girl to get on, and with a frightened look, tears running down her face, Isabella looked up and cried, “Mommy.”
“Isabella,” Grace yelled. She looked around, frantically trying to find a way to stop the ramp from closing, then ran out onto the ramp and tried to reach down for her daughter. The ramp had risen too high and, in fact, the angle was getting too steep for Grace to remain where she was.
The distance to the ground was only eight feet or so; Grace jumped. She stood and Isabella ran to her and grabbed her leg. Grace looked up at the towering ship and started yelling and waving her arms.
The ramp closed flush against the ship. Grace was now frantic. She continued to yell for help and wave her arms.
Suddenly a roar came from under the ship
and a hot wind hit them, driving them back. Grace tried to wave her arms and yell again, but an even stronger and hotter wind hit them.
She grabbed Isabella, kitten in tow, turned, and started running away from the ship. After twenty feet, all three came to a sudden halt, almost falling into a trench that dropped straight down a dozen feet.
The wind grew stronger, the roar grew louder, and Grace looked up and down the trench. She spotted a ramp leading down into it. They ran for it. They were almost there when an unbearable wall of hot air pushed them over the side. Luckily, they only fell five feet to the ramp. They rushed down into the trench. Grace spotted a hatch and opened it, and they rushed in, closing it behind them.
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Nero saw his new second in command headed for him. “Excuse me,” he said to the group he’d been talking to and met his second halfway. Looking around to make sure they could speak privately, Nero spoke in a low voice, “What do you have, Newman?”
“We have fifty-two survivors, sir.”
“That’s all?”
Newman nodded, then looked toward the area being used by the doctors for the injured. “A couple are in serious condition, but the doctor thinks they’ll make it.”
Nero rubbed his nose, “Go on.”
“We’ve sealed the bodies in Foreword Section Ten and exposed it to vacuum,” Newman continued. “Also, I’ve talked to Maggie about drilling through the hull and extending some kind of antenna. She says there’s no way to do it. Even if we had a drill bit that could get through the battle armor, which we don’t, there’s nothing we can use as an antenna.”
Nero looked around the dimly lit bridge again. People were too busy right now to really think about their situation, but that wouldn’t last. He motioned Newman in closer, “What you just told me goes no further than myself. Go tell Maggie right now that no one else is to know and that her report is not acceptable. She is to continue looking for a way to send a message. Tell her under no circumstances is the rest of the crew to know that we are in a hopeless situation. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Make sure that she understands as well.”
“Aye, sir.”
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“Captain,” Commander Grayson said quietly.
Captain Zimmer heard the urgency in his first officer’s voice, turned, and raised his eyebrows. Grayson motioned with his head and the two walked off the bridge and into the captain’s side room.
As soon as the door was closed, Grayson said, “Mrs. Maximus and her daughter are missing.”
“Missing,” Zimmer said, shocked and confused.
Grayson motioned Zimmer over to the display screen on the Captain’s desk. As he activated it and brought up the records he wanted, he said, “We checked her cabin, paged her and had the computer speed check interior and exterior security cameras.” He found the video records he wanted. “Look…”
They both watched Isabella go down to the animal hold, saw the kitten jump from her hands and dart out the hatch and saw her follow.
“Oh my God,” Zimmer muttered as he saw Grace jump to the ground and then start waving her arms and shouting. When they disappeared into the trench, Zimmer fell back into a seat and ran both hands through his hair. “Unbelievable. Okay, I’ll make the proper notifications. Unbelievable.”
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General Burnwall came on the line, “Adamarus?”
“Hello, General,” Adamarus said.
“It’s good to hear your voice. What’s your status?”
Adamarus recounted what had happened on his end and the losses to his crew. When he was done, General Burnwall said, “Adamarus, I have bad news and good news. What do you want first?”
Adamarus raised an eyebrow. “Let’s have the good news first, we need some.”
Burnwall barked a humorless laugh, “Ha, then this comes out a little backwards but I did give you the choice. The good news is you are in position and we want you to go find them.”
“Them?”
“Yes, them—your wife and daughter.”
The color drained from Maximus’ face. “I don’t understand—we just heard that the arks lifted off and were headed toward orbit.”
“They are, but—and this is part of the bad news—your wife and child weren’t on the arks.” Burnwall related what had happened as Adamarus sat there with his mouth open in disbelief. When he finished, he said, “However, here’s the rest of the bad news. We think we’ve figured out what the Slayers are up to. As you know, the Blackship has attached itself to and relocated our Larger Moon and it’s now in geosynchronous orbit over Amular’s day/night terminus.”
Adamarus had already changed course toward the Trinity facility and gone to full speed. “So when the sun sets, the Slayers arrive?”
“Exactly. The thing is, thousands of smaller ships, they look like staples—have deployed from the Blackship. They are descending and forming up into a single file, and they are spreading out. Once again, these ships are on a precise course and if we project that course forward, they will arrange themselves so that they form a line stretching pretty much from the North Pole to the South Pole, the ships evenly spaced apart by five miles. They will reach this formation at the same time they become aligned under the Blackship on Amular’s terminus. We believe the attack will start when this happens. Adamarus…at this point the alien battle line will be only thirteen miles east of Trinity.”
The three of them were shocked. Adamarus asked, “How much time do we have?”
“Thirty minutes,” Burnwall said. “You need to hurry.”
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Whitehall lit another cigarette and took a long puff. He could still feel the shot of bourbon. It, along with the feel of the black box in his side pocket and the dry hot wind in his face, made him feel kind of Godlike. The tinny chatter from the ear bud connected to the radio seemed appropriate for the barren landscape that stretched out around him as far as the eye could see.
He glanced over at the jeep. Johnny had his head tilted back, his eyes closed.
Whitehall lifted the binoculars and found the three pale white football shaped objects, and just as he did, he heard what he’d been waiting to hear come through the ear bud.
“Entering orbit—preparing for departure.”
He flicked his cigarette away and pulled the black box out of his pocket. A gust of wind almost blew his cap off and he pulled it down tight on his head.
Focus or die, motherfucker!
He slowly reached down and unsnapped his gun holster then re-focused on the black box. He turned it on, but the LED was impossible to see through his sunglasses in the bright light. He smiled, everything is fighting me on this, he thought. He slowly took off his sunglasses and placed them in his shirt pocket. He still couldn’t see the LED. Everything. He cuffed his hand around the LED—yes, the device was on, and yes, it was in contact with all three units. He took a breath then pushed the red button.
The black box emitted an incredibly precise radio signal that radiated out in every direction at the speed of light. Point two three seven seconds later, it repeated the signal.
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Abigail Wicker was still in shock over the fact that Grace Maximus and her daughter had been left behind.
Her six-year-old daughter, Angie, interrupted her thoughts, “Mommy, what’s this?”
Abigail looked over. Her daughter was pointing to a picture on her PDA. Abby forced a smile and stepped over to look. “Oh my goodness. That’s one of those…let me think…”
She never finished the sentence.
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At that same instant, 250 feet away on the bridge, Captain Zimmer had not been thinking about Grace Maximus. He had been preoccupied thinking about sneaking out of orbit, then out of the star system, with that monstrosity sitting on the night/day terminus just over the horizon.
It meant he’d have to head out of the star system at an uncomfortable angle, only able to fire his engines for maybe 2
0 hours while the alien ship stayed on the terminus and, most likely, destroyed his whole goddamn planet. After that, he’d have to depend on tight beam transmissions from Woodworth, who would hopefully still be watching the Blackship to tell him what the alien did. He’d have to cut his engines and coast if the alien repositioned itself where it could see the arks.
Ground control had just come over the com, “You are now cleared to break orbit. Good luck.”
Zimmer leaned back in the captain’s seat, looked at his first officer and said, “Break orbit and take us…”
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At that same instant, inside each of the three arks, in the main engine room, the same things happened.
Within one of the hollow cast iron poles supporting a chain link fence that surrounded one of the reactors, inside what looked like a large plastic water bottle, things started happening at speeds counted in nanoseconds.
Wires running through the plastic walls of the phony water bottle that served as an antenna received an incredibly precise radio signal and relayed it to a small processor powered by a small battery in the phony water bottle’s cap. As it had for all the billions of radio signals it had received continuously in its years of existence, the signal was compared to one that was stored in ROM. For the first time it matched, so a single bit that had been set to zero was set to a one and a timer started. Point two three seven seconds later, another matching signal was received and a second bit was set, closing a microcircuit, allowing an electrical charge to pass through a short wire that entered the stainless steel canister that the phony water bottle contained.
Inside the canister, the electrical charge closed another circuit and high-voltage capacitors began charging. Tiny pyrotechnics fired at both ends of the canister, driving tritium down small metal tubes that led to both the ‘Primary’ and the ‘Secondary’ mixing lithium-deuteride with the fusion-friendly tritium atoms.
After this, the now charged capacitors fired a pulse into krytron switches that used pulse-compression to increase amperage. This enhanced pulse ran down 35 gold wires, each exactly six inches long, so that the pulse reached the 35 detonators and their associated explosive blocks at exactly the same time. The explosive blocks were pointed inward causing an implosion. This process took 3.9 nanoseconds.