Shaila left the forward landing thrusters on and diverted the remaining fuel to them. “Roger, Giffords. Just trying to get you vertical.”
“Vertical?!” the pilot barked. Shaila ignored him as she watched as the attitude readout climb higher. Forty percent angle. Fifty . . . sixty . . . seventy.
Finelli turned to the colonel. “I have a visual now. Some of the outside sensors are back up.”
“Give it to us,” Diaz said.
Shaila watched out of the corner of her eye as another readout came to life, showing the image of the little ship from a faraway vantage point. It was still flying, and its nose continued to rise.
Yet it was slowing down, and that was the point. Problem was, it was also starting to drop. Fast.
“OK, Giffords. Prepare for main engine fire.”
“What?” the pilot screamed. “We won’t make orbit!”
“Just hang on,” Shaila said. She watched as the nose got up to 85 percent—and dipped slightly. The controls in her hands started to vibrate a bit, and she was getting feedback on her palms as she tried to keep the ship vertical. That was all the thrusters were going to give her.
“Firing main engines,” she said. “Twenty-five percent thrust.”
A moment later, the large nozzles at the base of the ship roared to life. But the Giffords continued to fall alarmingly fast.
“Shit. Increasing engine to 40 percent,” Shaila ordered.
“We’re still falling, McAuliffe.” The pilot sounded like he was barely keeping it together.
“Ramping up main engine thrust to full,” Shaila said. She tapped the ship’s landing thrusters in an attempt to keep the ship as vertical as possible. “Any emergency chutes left?”
“First thing we tried,” the pilot said.
“Thousand meters,” Finelli reported from his seat next to Shaila. “Still falling.”
“Engines at 65 percent,” Shaila said. “I’m showing your rate of descent is reducing.”
“Not enough!” the pilot yelled.
“Crap. All right,” Shaila said. “Full engines—now.”
Shaila saw the ship’s engines spit gouts of flame . . . just as it fell out of the camera’s view. “My visual’s gone!”
Finelli’s fingers scrambled across his workstation. “I can’t find them!”
Shaila saw alarms going off on her VR controls; the ship’s hull integrity was starting to weaken under the strain. “Giffords, what’s your status? Over.”
Silence.
Shaila turned to Diaz, who looked straight ahead, her fingers steepled in front of her. “Try again,” she said.
“Giffords, come in. Over.”
The VR controls suddenly winked out. Shaila’s fingers flew across the workstation as she tried to access them again.
It wasn’t working
“Ma’am, I think we’ve lost them,” Shaila said quietly.
It was at that moment that a soft boom was heard from outside the base. Shaila closed her eyes. It didn’t sound good.
She opened them when the radio crackled back to life. “McAuliffe, this is Giffords,” the pilot said jubilantly. “We are on the surface. Repeat, we are on the surface. Over.”
Shaila slumped in her chair as the command center erupted in cheers. “Roger that, Giffords. What’s your status?” she said.
“Well, we landed on our engine nozzles, then fell over on our back. And we missed the base by only about three hundred meters. But fuck it, we’re alive. Over.” They could hear cheering aboard the ship as well.
“Roger that, Giffords. Welcome to Mars. We’re en route to your position now. McAuliffe out,” Shaila said, beaming while her crewmates slapped her back and mussed her hair in celebration. She could also hear cheers emanating from the Hub. She looked over at the ops board—and found that someone had put the entire radio exchange on the base-wide intercom, so that every pissed-off miner could hear what was happening loud and clear—hence the odd echo in her headset.
That’s when Shaila started shaking a bit. Damn good thing nobody died.
“All right, people!” Diaz shouted above the din. Nonetheless, she was smiling pretty broadly as well. “Jain, get a team out there for some search-and-rescue. Finelli, get with engineering and figure out what the hell happened to the MarsSats and sensors. I want them back up and running ASAP.”
Shaila got up and headed for the door, but Diaz reached out to lightly touch her arm. “See what you can do when your head’s on straight?” the colonel said.
“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. “Big risk putting that on the ’com. What if they didn’t make it?”
“You’re a pilot, Jain,” Diaz said with a slight smile. “Go outside and get ’em.”
Shaila turned to go, but Finelli stopped her. “Lieutenant, wait!” He held up a datapad, showing a map of the outside sensor array in the base area of operations. “What is this?” he asked.
More than two hundred sensors were offline.
And the outage was in a perfect circle, almost directly centered on the lava tube. The perimeter was nearly identical to the presumed ring of EM energy Shaila had laid out for Diaz earlier that afternoon.
“It’s a big fucking problem,” Shaila said, her euphoria draining away. “Get that image to Diaz. She’s going to need it.”
CHAPTER 17
May 4, 1779
Weatherby staggered out into the hallway, his arm around Finch’s shoulders for support. He felt weak, as if his blood were only now resuming its normal course through his body—which, he now understood, was precisely what was happening. However, the Count St. Germain insisted that Weatherby was not dead all that time, despite his lack of heartbeat. He’d been close, of course—bare minutes to spare, really—but alive enough to be revived through St. Germain’s queer little stone.
“Mr. Weatherby, good to see you up and about,” said Captain Morrow as he stepped into the same hallway from another room. “I trust the wound was not severe, then?”
Weatherby couldn’t help but smile. “I’m told it was a close thing, but here I am,” he replied. “You’ve met my savior?”
“I have. You and Finch were the last ones to be fetched,” Morrow said. “Ah, there’s the ambassador now. Shall we? We have an appointment with the Xan.”
Franklin stood up ahead, looking far less distressed than he was upon the beach. Indeed, he was staring up at the ceiling, at one of the glowing orbs that illuminated the hallway. “I daresay they might have done it,” he murmured as the group approached.
“Done what?” Anne asked. She looked up with curiosity.
“Harnessed the forces of electricity!” the ambassador said excitedly. “I cannot think of anything else it might be. Do you not hear the low hum that permeates the hallway? It comes from these lights. And the light is steady, without fail. Even the greatest alchemical light sources must needs falter at some point, and I dare say—”
St. Germain pushed his way past Weatherby and Finch and continued down the hallway. “Really, Franklin. There are far more important matters at hand.”
Frowning, Franklin tottered off after him. “You still have yet to explain your presence here, Francis. I pray to God you’ve had no hand in the theft of this sword they’re on about.”
“Of course not,” St. Germain said dismissively as the group hustled to follow the two alchemists. “You know very well why I’m here. I’ve followed that bastard across the Known Worlds to this spot. And now the Xan have thwarted me from not only stopping him, but from cleaning up their mess as well!”
“And what do you mean, exactly, my lord?” Morrow asked, stressing the title slightly. St. Germain’s assumed peerage was something of a mystery, after all, as the crowned heads of Europe either claimed him or rejected him regularly, and often depending on the particular tale at hand.
“I’ve no wish to repeat myself, Captain,” St. Germain said. “All will be revealed soon enough.”
Weatherby, Finch and Anne fell back from the others as Mor
row and the others attempted to glean more from the recalcitrant St. Germain. Weatherby was still moving slowly, his limbs struggling to regain their strength. “Tell me, Miss Baker, how did you secure our release?” he asked quietly as the shuffled toward the end of the corridor, where a large archway promised entry into a far more cavernous space. “Were you not the one who would have struck Ca-gliostro down?”
“Well, yes, Tom, I was,” she said, turning red. “As hard as it might be to believe, it seems as though I’m the very first woman the Xan here have encountered. The fact that I accompanied you upon the beach here was seen as something of a curiosity, and I was immediately brought to one of those salons, and they asked me many questions.”
Finch nodded, huffing slightly under Weatherby’s weight. “Yes, well, I could see that. What ship of war or exploration carries women? But still. How did you convince them?”
The girl merely shrugged. “I really don’t know. I stated our intentions plainly. They asked me about my alchemical knowledge, of which I have a little. I told them of Cagliostro’s plot, about the planetary essences. The voice left for a long time after that, and when it came back, it somehow judged me worthy, I suppose. They said something to the effect that we were more knowledgeable and ‘enlightened’ than they had first believed.”
Weatherby frowned slightly at this. He only now remembered Cagliostro’s words on the beach, and his heart ached from more than a mere pistol shot. Apparently, the Xan had a different definition of moral enlightenment than humanity. “And St. Germain?” Weatherby asked, eager to change the subject. “What of the former Mr. Bacon?”
“They believed he had stolen their sword on his own. They caught him in the city here, sneaking about. I recognized him from a portrait Roger had of him in his study,” she said. “They seemed to be quite impressed with the notion humans could be merciful.”
“Only when we’re not shooting at each other,” Finch quipped. “And . . . oh, my.” He fell silent as they passed the archway and entered a new and utterly alien chamber.
The room was massive; Weatherby estimated it could hold a three-story building inside with ease. The vaulted ceiling was arched, somewhat in the manner of a cathedral, but without nave or steeple. It was also windowless, the light coming from several glowing orbs set in the walls and ceiling, high above. Every surface was hewn by a strange, hypnotically veined pink stone completely unadorned, incredibly smooth and highly polished.
And this massive hall was completely bare, save for a single object in the center—a table-like structure, five feet tall, five wide and easily twenty feet long. It looked, to Weatherby’s eyes, like an altar, and he suddenly feared that they could become a sacrifice to some heathen, Saturnine god. Upon the table was a simple stand of some sort, much as one might see a sword stand on Earth. It held nothing, however.
“This is the Temple of Remembrance,” said the now-familiar voice, sparkling with beautiful harmonies that echoed throughout the chamber. “It is here that we remember what we once were, and strive to evolve beyond it.”
St. Germain had walked to the center of the room and now stood mere feet from the table. “You are missing something,” he said. Whether it was a challenge, an inquiry or mere observation, Weatherby could not tell. “I assume Althotas’ student took it.”
“You know much, son of Earth, including a name we do not say lightly,” the voice said, its chords echoing minor keys. “Gather and watch.”
“Who’s Althotas?” Finch whispered to St. Germain. He was met only with a deep frown and a shushing sound.
The lights in the room dimmed, save for one directly above the altar—given that this was a temple, Weatherby felt justified in calling the table such. This light began to swirl oddly, coalescing into a large orb hanging over the altar. Shapes soon appeared. Before long, an image of the Known Worlds, as if seen from the far reaches of the Void, appeared clearly in view—some twenty feet in diameter.
“Long ago, there were two civilizations in the Known Worlds,” the voice said. “We are, of course, an elder race, with 20,000 years of history. And there was another, a race of beings whose name we will not speak here. They were of the planet you call Mars, and they were an aggressive, warlike race, as we were earlier in our history.”
The images shifted, showing a lush, verdant world. Long, spindly green hands worked fields, built buildings—and forged blades. As much as Weatherby tried, he could not make out faces, or even full bodies. An arm here, long limbs there. It was as if they were being deliberately concealed from view.
“It was only a matter of time and innovation before we met, five thousand years ago, and we soon fell to quarreling and, later, outright war,” the voice continued. “For two hundred years, we battled these Martians. I am most ashamed to say that both sides acted with equal abandon. Millions died. Worlds were razed. Trails of blood were left across the Void.”
Once again, the images shifted. The green hands took up weapons, the blurry bodies charged, meeting other creatures in battle. These others were covered in strange armor, it seemed, and they too could not be fully realized to Weatherby’s eyes. There were fires, the clash of metal, flashes of multicolored lightning, explosions in the Void— and screams no man could possibly reproduce, let alone want to hear ever again.
“Then came a singular Martian warlord, perhaps one of the most brilliant military and occult minds ever seen. His mastery of the mystic arts was immense, and it was said he could even master Death itself. He rallied his people and went upon the offensive. We lost these very moons and our other holdings, and suffered heinous attacks upon the very satellites of Great Xanath, the world you call Saturn.”
A flotilla of strange Void vessels, with bloated hulls, broad wings and sails at all angles, swooped in toward Saturn. Aboard one of them, a green-skinned fist clenched a wickedly barbed blade of alien origin.
“We were at a loss, so we delved deeply into our alchemical and occult lore. We created machines of unspeakable destruction to combat this creature, and we drove him back to Mars—but at a terrible price. An entire world, a colony of these Martians, was destroyed.”
Weatherby watched in horror as other ships—their silver ovoid hulls marking them as Xan to his eyes—gathered around a pale blue world. A moment later, this world exploded into a billion shards of rock, destroying the ships.
“Soon, desperation became his, and fearing an end to Mars itself, he turned to Earth, where your people were just barely evolved into sentience. Appearing as gods under the direction of their warlord, the Martians taught you some of their lore and prepared to turn you—all of you—into new soldiers in their battles against us. And so we did the same, attempting to win new allies among your people.”
Images of primitive men appeared. They wore skins and coarse linen, feathers and beads and rough-hewn metal jewelry. They were seen in deserts and forests, mountains and swamps, all looking up at the blurry, green-tinted beings before them, or armored beings of impossible height. And they seemed to listen intently.
“But this warlord was too late. Even as we competed for your loyalty, we launched our final offensive, turning Mars into the barren world you know today and decimating the Martian people. It was our last, greatest crime that we committed genocide against them on a massive scale—such a crime that we ultimately stopped our mindless raging and adopted the customs and philosophies that keep our past in check, allowing us to better ourselves.”
The armored beings were seen marching across a red desert toward a basalt citadel. Flames set the horizon aglow, while green-skinned bodies lay at their feet, their blood turning the red sands purple.
“Yet we had one more crime to commit. We captured the warlord, forcing him to watch as we eradicated his people. Instead of putting him to death—for what was death to one so powerful as he?—we did something far worse. Using our darkest and most secret lore, we created nothing short of a hell for him, a place between worlds in which he would suffer an eternity of torment. They say hi
s screams were heard even after the portal to this realm was sealed.”
Weatherby saw green-skinned hands, chained. Robed figures surrounded the alien. And a bright light flowed into the room, with only a last, terrible cry piercing the silence.
The light before the altar faded, the orb disappearing as the room’s lights began to shine brighter.
And now, someone stood behind the altar, prompting the assemblage of humans to gasp and step back.
This figure was tall—at least nine feet in height—but still shaped like a man, with discernible arms and a head and, Weatherby assumed, legs. It was hooded, however, and cast in shadow besides. A glimpse of pale salmon beneath the hood? A wisp of something that seemed like a cross between hair and . . . tentacle? Weatherby could not say, and he drew his eyes away despite himself.
“We call this the Temple of Remembrance because we need to remember what we once were, so that we do not become so again. Many of our kind make pilgrimages here in order to maintain the calm within themselves,” the voice said. This time, it emanated directly from the creature—the Xan—standing before them, and its harmonies were laced with minor chords and regret. “Here, upon this altar, was the Sword of Xanthir, forged from the diamond core of our ringed homeworld. It was the bane of all Martians, and it was used in the occult rite that sealed the warlord away from our worlds forever.”
St. Germain cleared his throat. “Your seals were not entirely effective, it seems,” he said, attempting to be gentle and only partially succeeding. That he had the temerity to talk at all struck Weatherby as monumentally arrogant.
“We have told you our story,” the Xan said. “You, son of Earth, need share yours now.”
St. Germain turned slightly so he could address both the Xan and the delegation from Daedalus. “Very well. First of all, I must apologize for not having announced myself upon my arrival in your city, but the opportunity to do so was unavailable to me, considering the nature of my mission, for I came here to intercept and stop the fiend known as Cagliostro. And to do this, I had to stow away aboard Daedalus when I spied your ship in Philadelphia. So I must offer my apologies to you as well, Captain Morrow.” St. Germain nodded at Morrow, who frowned deeply, before continuing.
The Daedalus Incident Revised Page 29
