Ruins

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “At least for now,” Cassandra said.

  Together, they scrambled up the steep ramp, leaving the murderous police chief trapped in his coffin of light. If everything turned out all right, Mulder could always come back and arrest Barreio later.

  Cassandra led the way upward, her hair flying all about her face. Mulder shone his flashlight ahead as the passages became dimmer, where the skeletal remains of the derelict gave way to limestone and hand-carved blocks.

  Eager to escape, Cassandra pulled ahead of him as they reached the partially blocked passage where the stones had tumbled across the corridor. The barrel-chested Barreio had opened a wide enough passage for both of them to crawl through.

  Cassandra scrambled up and into the dusty opening, wriggling her way ahead. Mulder gave her feet a push, and the muscular young archaeologist disappeared into the shadows. She twisted around and returned, reaching across for his hand to help him up. With surprising strength, she dragged him across the broken stone and into the cramped opening. He pushed his way past a shard of rock and tumbled beside Cassandra, into the upper corridors of the Xitaclan pyramid.

  Mulder looked around and brushed himself off.

  More thunderous booms sounded from above and outside, closer now. Mulder shone his flashlight beam to see a snowfall of dust pattering down through the ceiling stones. One of the support beams began to groan from the strain.

  “We’d better hurry before it gets even cozier around here,” Cassandra said. Running along the winding tunnel, they followed the line of vitrified blocks of the inner temple that covered the entombed derelict like a shrine.

  “Just a minute!” Cassandra reached into her back pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of graph paper on which she had sketched her explorations through the pyramid’s lower levels. “Let’s check our route. You’ll have to read it—I still can’t focus well enough.”

  “I got to this point myself two days ago,” Mulder said, remembering how Scully had called him upon finding Vladimir Rubicon’s body in the cenote. “I didn’t get any farther though,” he said. “I was…interrupted.”

  Cassandra did not pick up on the grimness in his voice. She licked her lips and said, “Well, in my mind it’s only been an hour or so. I believe it’s this way.” She turned down a different passageway leading upward.

  Another explosion struck much closer. The pyramid floor and the thick stone walls rocked. The hand-hewn limestone blocks rattled together like chattering teeth.

  “That sounded awfully loud,” Cassandra said. “The good news is, we must be close to the opening.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Mulder said, then he heard another thump and whoosh of air, moments before another equally loud detonation. “Hey, those are mortars. Somebody’s launching mortars.” Then he swallowed hard as he remembered Major Jakes and his covert search-and-destroy mission. “I think they’re aiming to take down the pyramid.”

  “Nothing like respect for antiquities,” Cassandra said.

  They turned the corner and just up ahead saw the opening that led out into the wide plaza. Outside, the night was lit by fires in the jungle and dwindling white flares from burning phosphorus.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to run out into the middle of that,” Mulder said. “Keep your head down.”

  Just then he saw the flash, heard the whistle, and instinctively grabbed Cassandra. He dove with her against the wall. One of the mortars hurtled into the stairstepped facade just above the doorway, detonating with a monstrous roar of fire and smoke and blasted debris. The shockwave made his ears pop.

  An avalanche of rubble, rocks, and chiseled limestone blocks collapsed to block the entrance. The low ceiling of the claustrophobic corridor split open and fell in as Mulder dragged Cassandra deeper into the tunnels, both of them blinded by the flash and the sudden darkness.

  He breathed a searing mixture of hot gases and pulverized limestone dust, choking and coughing. They staggered back the way they had come. “This is getting ridiculous,” Cassandra wheezed. “We’ll never make it out of this pyramid.”

  “Back to the drawing board,” Mulder said. “Let’s try the passage I used to enter this place. Third time’s the charm.”

  Down, down, deep underground, Mulder followed the image in his excellent memory, though he cheated a little by spotting his own footprints scuffed in the dust of the long-abandoned corridors.

  “This passage leads out to the cenote,” Mulder said. “Once there, we’ll have to climb up, hand over hand.”

  “The cenote?” Cassandra said. “We must be below the level of the water. Are we supposed to swim, or what? At least I can wash the rest of this slime off.”

  Mulder looked at her, surprised. “Oh, I forgot to tell you—the sacrificial well is just a big empty hole in the ground now, thanks to the last tremors.”

  “Tremors? What tremors?” Cassandra asked.

  “You’ve been sleeping for a long time.”

  They arrived at the ancient door hatch, the metal bulkhead that Mulder had reached by climbing down the cenote walls. Standing in the mysterious entrance to the derelict, Cassandra stared out at the dripping corkscrew walls of knobbed limestone. The empty well remained wet, still stinking of sulfurous volcanic gases.

  “I’ve heard complaints about how pristine archaeological sites are destroyed as soon as outsiders arrive at the scene,” Cassandra said. “But this goes beyond my worst nightmares.”

  Up above, flashes from continued mortar fire and smoldering forest blazes lit the sky.

  “Steady.” Mulder reached out to take her hand as they both stepped out onto the algae-encrusted limestone ledge. “We’re on our own for the first half of the climb,” he said, “but from that point we can use the ropes we hung down.”

  “Ropes? What did you need ropes for?” Cassandra asked.

  Mulder swallowed. “Well, my partner, Agent Scully, used your own diving suit to go underwater to explore. That’s where she found the bodies of your team members…and I used the ropes to retrieve your father. We found him floating here in the sacrificial well.”

  Cassandra’s lips whitened as she pressed them together. Then she nodded. “I’m glad you got him out before all the water drained into the ground…though I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate burial for a hardened relic digger like himself.”

  Mulder reached up for the first handhold and climbed cautiously, finding the ascent somewhat less terrifying than the downward climb. This way he could look up and see his goal, rather than slipping and working his way down to the unknown depths of a bottomless pit.

  Wiry like a wildcat, Cassandra found tiny outcroppings that even Mulder didn’t dare try. They picked their way around the circumference, ascending at an angle, completely encircling the sacrificial well until they reached the right height to grasp the ragged ends of the dangling ropes.

  From deep below, volcanic vapors continued to gurgle and belch and gasp. Mulder knew that the eruption had not yet peaked, but had merely paused to gain its second wind.

  His shoe slipped, and he dropped, grabbing for a hold. Cassandra reached out, her hand as fast as a rattlesnake strike, as she grasped Mulder’s wrist. His other hand maintained its grip on the rope. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Any time,” she answered. “Just make sure you do the same for me.”

  Once he regained his footing, they climbed the last few meters up to the edge of the cenote, the flat limestone rim where drugged sacrificial victims had once been hurled down into the deep well that would swallow them up for thousands of years.

  Silently deciding to keep themselves low, Mulder and Cassandra raised their heads up, peeping over the edge to where they could see the Pyramid of Kukulkan silhouetted in the firelight.

  Half of its side had sloughed down. Mortar explosions had gouged great craters into the carefully crafted hieroglyphic stairs. Mulder saw other people running in the plaza, dim forms scurrying for cover.

  Both of the carved feathered serpent stelae had t
oppled over, and only one of the tents remained upright. Mulder could see cautious figures scrambling about in camouflaged uniforms; one wore a different outfit. Scully.

  Before he could haul himself over the ledge, though, a renewed outcry came from the jungle, shouts in the guttural Maya language. A loud crackle of gunfire came in a staccato burst as the regrouped guerrillas charged out of the cover of the trees. The revolutionaries fired at the surviving members of the military team, who responded in kind.

  Gunshots grew into a deafening hail of sound in the sky. Two more phosphorous flares soared into the night, overwhelming the light of the moon.

  Mulder held on, and watched, thinking of the relative peace inside the derelict spacecraft.

  33

  Xitaclan ruins

  Wednesday, 3:26 A.M.

  Scully covered her ears as the mortar launcher fired another projectile toward the half-demolished ziggurat. She cringed, and the other soldiers ducked away, also covering their ears.

  The mortar struck the base of the great pyramid, dead on target. With the explosion, fire and smoke and shrapnel blossomed outward, hurling chunks of broken rock in all directions. After the impact, cracks appeared along the steep ceremonial stairsteps—steps she had climbed only days before to get a panoramic view of the surrounding jungle.

  The pounding had continued for nearly an hour, but the ancient structure withstood the most vigorous barrage from Major Jakes.

  So far.

  Scully had repeatedly argued with Jakes, insisting that he cease the destruction, that he and his troops stop pummeling the archaeological treasure. But foremost in her mind was an engulfing dread about where Mulder might be. She didn’t know where he had run—but no matter what, she knew Mulder would be in the thick of things.

  “How long are you going to keep this up?” she screamed, her voice muffled in her ringing ears. “There may be people inside that pyramid!”

  “Regrettable casualties,” the major answered.

  “Don’t you care?” she said, grabbing his sleeve like a persistent child…and feeling as helpless. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”

  Jakes turned his emotionless gaze down, staring at her. The weird light splashed colors across his dark skin. “No, Agent Scully—I don’t care. I am not allowed to care. That’s too dangerous.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself, just to keep ignoring your ill-advised actions? Can’t you think about the consequences?”

  He didn’t move. “My mind is my tool, capable of accomplishing seemingly impossible missions—but only because I never allow myself to deviate from orders. Too much thinking creates confusion, double-talk, doubts.

  “I have been through hell numerous times, Agent Scully. The maps called it Bosnia, or Iraq, or Somalia—but it was hell.” Now his eyes flared with embers of emotion. “And if I ever let my conscience get too heavy, then I would either be insane or dead by now.”

  Scully swallowed, and the major turned back to face his remaining men.

  After repeated direct hits from the mortars, the ancient pyramid looked ready to collapse. Heavy blocks jarred loose from where they had rested for centuries, tumbled down, smashing the intricate carvings and glyphs. The pillars of the apex temple platform had all fallen over, the feathered serpent statues blasted to dust. An avalanche began along the eastern face of the ziggurat, roaring down the steep stairs and adding to the nighttime din.

  “We’ve almost got it,” Major Jakes said. “A few more direct hits, then our mission will be accomplished. Gather the casualties. We can fall back.”

  “No! We can’t leave Mulder!” Scully shouted. “We have to find him. He’s an American citizen, Major Jakes. Your actions have put him into the middle of an illegal military action—and I hold you personally responsible for his safety.”

  Jakes looked at her again with his placid dark eyes. “Agent Scully, I am not even here. My team is not here. Our mission does not exist. We are not officially responsible for you or anyone else.”

  Then a bullet took him high in the left shoulder, spinning him around and hurling him into Scully, knocking them both to the ground. He grunted, but did not cry out in pain.

  “The snipers are coming back,” one of the commandos yelled.

  The other soldiers scrambled away from the mortar launcher as a renewed shower of gunfire came from the jungle. The guerrillas howled their challenges.

  The commandos took shelter, ducking beside the all-terrain vehicles and the mortar launcher. They leveled their automatic weapons and shot at will, targeting on the bright spitfire that came from the shadows, the surging forces of the Liberación Quintana Roo guerrillas who charged out of the trees.

  Major Jakes heaved himself off of Scully with a barely restrained hiss of pain. He stood up and squeezed his shoulder. Blood welled up in his uniform. He looked down at her, and she saw the splatters of blood staining her own jacket.

  “I apologize for bleeding on you,” he said, then offered her a hand up.

  The commando closest to the mortar launcher fell backward without an outcry, his head suddenly splashed with bright red.

  “Another down,” Major Jakes said. He looked at his own bleeding shoulder. “My team is dwindling with every moment.”

  “Then we’ve got to get out of here,” Scully said, clamping her teeth tightly together. “Find Mulder and go.”

  “The mission is not yet accomplished,” Major Jakes said.

  The guerrillas, bolder now, came out of the trees, firing. Major Jakes’s commandos shot back, though their defense seemed to be crumbling. One of the soldiers launched a grenade into a knot of Liberación Quintana Roo fighters. It exploded right in their midst. Broken bodies flew, arms and legs akimbo, hurled into trees that also burst into flames from the backwash of the exploding grenade.

  The viciousness of the response caused the guerrillas’ surge to falter. Major Jakes grabbed Scully’s arm. “Come on, I want to get you back to your tent. You’ll take shelter there, so I can concentrate on our defenses.”

  “I’m not going back to my tent,” Scully said. “I need to be out here, looking for my partner.”

  “No, you don’t,” Jakes retorted. “You’ll follow my orders. Period.”

  “That tent isn’t going to offer me any protection whatsoever.”

  “It’ll offer enough,” Jakes said. “The attackers won’t be able to see you. You won’t be a specific target. That’s the best I can do.”

  “I didn’t ask you to—”

  “Yes, you did,” Major Jakes said. “You said I was personally responsible for your safety. Therefore I want you away, where I don’t have to worry about you—and where I don’t have to listen to your constant insubordination.”

  With his good arm he wrestled her into the flap opening of the tent. She struggled and turned around, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Mulder!”

  “He can’t help you, wherever he is,” Major Jakes said. “I’m trying to protect you, ma’am.”

  She glared at him. “I need for him to know where I am.”

  “Just get inside the tent, ma’am.”

  She bristled. “Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “Don’t force me to be rude.”

  Defeated and helpless in the middle of a war zone, Scully crawled into the dim confines of the tent, huddling among the blankets. Major Jakes dropped the tent flaps back down.

  Scully felt as if she were inside a cloth tomb. The sounds outside were muffled. Moonlight filtered through the heavy canvas, intermixed with staccato bursts of light from flares, gunfire, another mortar launch, and distant explosions.

  She listened to the deafening, chaotic sounds of the assault and knelt on her blanket. She rapidly lifted up her pillow, checking that no scorpions had snuggled under the rolled-up cloth.

  More gunfire rang out. Scully heard a gasp from Major Jakes and a thump. Outside she saw silhouettes, shadowy figures—then a bullet tore through the tent, missing her head by inches. Another small circu
lar hole ripped through the fabric, singed around the edges.

  She ducked down, flattening herself to the ground, and listened as the fighting continued outside.

  34

  Xitaclan battleground

  Wednesday, 4:06 A.M.

  Mulder helped Cassandra over the limestone lip of the sacrificial well, then stretched out, relieved just to be on solid ground again. Exhausted, he tried to decide which direction to run that would have the least likelihood of getting both of them killed.

  Mulder felt sick in the pit of his stomach as he watched the destruction of the pyramid continue. The artifacts buried in the derelict ship would answer the questions archaeologists had wondered about for nearly a century. But every blast pummeled and crushed the evidence of extraterrestrial influence on the Maya culture. Now the answers were reduced to rubble and debris.

  He and Cassandra sprinted for cover every chance they could, stealing around the perimeter of the ziggurat. He intended to reach the base camp in the plaza. Despite its dangerous openness, the plaza was the most likely place for him to find Scully. That was his first order of business…that and preventing them from getting killed.

  Another mortar sailed high and dropped like a wrecking ball onto the top platform where ancient priests had performed their bloody sacrifices. The pillars that supported the delicate Temple of the Feathered Serpent had already crumbled and collapsed, slumping down into a mound of debris.

  Rubbing her eyes, Cassandra watched in dismay, her face seething with anger. “First my team, then my father—and now this…this desecration.” She snarled and then stood tall, balling her fist and shouting into the night. “You can’t do this!”

  As if to defy her, another explosive detonated. The shockwave blasted debris from one of the stairstep terraces directly above them, causing a rain of broken blocks.

  “Look out!” Mulder said and dove toward Cassandra, but the shattered rubble dropped down on her like the proverbial ton of bricks. A jagged chunk of stone emblazoned with a partial Maya glyph clipped her across the top of the head. With a thin gasp of pain, she collapsed, bleeding from her scalp, a scarlet stain oozing into her mussed cinnamon hair.