by Toby Tate
After hiking uphill for what seemed like miles, they came to the end of the tunnel and saw that dawn was just beginning to break. They stopped and Scooter and Bio stood just outside the opening, trying to raise Mad Dog and One Shot on the radio.
Gordon gently laid Gabe’s body on the floor to catch his breath, and as he did so, he gazed at her sweet face, reached down and wiped a few streaks of dirt from her forehead. He imagined that she was only sleeping, that she would awaken any moment and whisper his name. God, he would give anything to talk to her one more time, to feel her touch. The few short days they spent together back in his house on the island seemed so long ago. He smiled at the memory of her catching his eye as he watched her—how beautiful she had looked sitting there in the sun, all tanned legs and long, brown hair, like a goddess.
Gabrielle.
A tear fell on her cheek and made a streak in the dirt there as it wound its way down like rain on a window pain, and he realized it was his tear. If only he would have had the courage to say all the things he had wanted to say, about how he truly felt, about the way she made him feel. But those moments were gone forever and there would be no getting them back.
At that moment, he just wanted to lie down next to her and die. He was certain they could have, would have had some kind of life together. Images of the two of them running down a sandy beach, hand in hand, stopping to gaze at the sunset suddenly filled his mind. He fell back against the wall of the tunnel, buried his face in his hands and for the first time in as long as he could remember, felt sobs racking through his body as tears began to spill through his closed fingers.
“Gordon,” he suddenly heard a voice whisper. “You’re crying.”
He lowered his hands from his face and saw Gabe staring back up at him from the floor of the tunnel. For a few seconds, all he could do was stare in stunned silence. Then, he fell to his knees beside her and laid a hand on her face.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “I...I don’t believe it. I thought you were...”
“I was,” she whispered back.
“But how?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Gordon turned to call Scooter and Bio. “Guys, you’re not going to believe this, but Captain Gabrielle Lincoln has risen from the dead.”
They poked their heads back into the tunnel, their mouths agape, as if they didn’t quite believe what Gordon had said, and then ducked back inside.
“Holy shit!” Scooter said, a grin on his face. “I don’t believe it!”
“How the hell...” Bio said.
She sat up, groaning as she did so, and Gordon gave her a hand as she slowly stood. She swayed for a moment as the blood rushed from her head, and then stabilized. Gordon held her by the arm just in case.
“Abel sent me a message by brain wave,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. “He said he was going to slow my heart to less than a beat per minute, but that I would be okay. It was just long enough for Cain to believe I was dead. He also told me his plan.”
“Plan?” Bio asked.
“Yeah. He’s going to blow up the ship.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“So you mean Abel’s not an asshole after all?” Gordon said. “How did he keep Cain from knowing what he was doing?”
“Remember when we found the construction workers and scientists in that room? While we were busy with them, Abel went down to the machine, got inside and placed a C4 charge on the side of the sphere where he couldn’t see it unless he was looking for it.”
“How did he know where to go?”
“Because, he dreamed about it, or had a vision, or a memory, or whatever you want to call it. He knew it was there because he had already seen it. He wasn’t lying to Cain when he told him he had known about the machine. The one thing he didn’t know about was the Lilitu, the ones he grew from embryos. For some reason, Abel can’t read thoughts through strong emotion, and Cain has a strong emotional attachment to his race.”
“Look, that’s antimatter inside that sphere,” Gordon said. “If that stuff comes into contact with matter, there’s no telling how big the explosion will be. It’ll be like a nuclear bomb going off. I’ll have to go back and get those people down below. You go on without me.”
He was turning to go when Gabe grabbed his arm. “He’s going to blow it up soon. You’ll never make it. If they stay in the bunker, they should be fine. We can have a construction crew dig them out if we have to.”
Her eyes seemed to sparkle a golden brown in the growing light of dawn and he found himself mesmerized, drawn into them like a patient under hypnosis.
“Gordon, I know this may sound cold, but I’d rather have you alive and here than have you take a chance on saving them and never return.”
“Why?” he asked.
She took his hand in hers. “Because, I need you.”
After what had just happened, Gordon knew he couldn’t stand to lose her again.
“Okay,” he said, “You’re right. They’ll be fine.”
Scooter and Bio appeared back inside the tunnel, radios in hand. “These assholes have jammed our frequency,” Scooter said, “which was supposed to be encrypted, so we have no way of notifying Mad Dog and One Shot. We need to get to them ASAP.”
“Lead the way, Major,” Gordon said as he helped Gabe to her feet.
They weren’t more than a couple of meters outside the bunker when bullets peppered the sand around them and they dove back inside the tunnel.
* * *
“What the fuck?” Scooter yelled. “Where is that coming from?”
“I don’t know,” Gabe answered, “But I hope One Shot and Mad Dog find them soon and take them out, or things are going to get very hot.”
They kept well inside as they heard shots pinging off the concrete and sending shards flying everywhere. Then they heard the sound of the big M240s, followed by silence. They waited several seconds, listening.
“I think our guys took them out,” Scooter said. “Let’s make a run for it while we have the chance. Gabe, can you make it?”
She nodded. “I think so. I just feel a little weird, but I’ll be alright soon.”
The four of them made a dash outside and across the sand toward the dune where they had left One Shot and Mad Dog, running around and between construction vehicles, equipment and solar panels until they were in the clear and climbing up the dune.
“Man, I didn’t think you guys were gonna make it,” One Shot said.
Gabe saw Scooter’s eyes go wide and followed his gaze down the back of the sand dune. The MRAP and the troop carrier were nothing but burned-out shells, the smoke still rising into the air in curling trails. A few feet away was the charred wreck of a Humvee.
“They came around behind us and took out our vehicles with an RPG,” Mad Dog said. “They didn’t get away with it, though, the little pricks.”
Scooter shook his head. “Damn, that thing cost me half a mil.”
Gabe heard engines revving and turned to see an MRAP coming over a sand dune, followed by several Humvees, all with machine gun mounts.
“Uh oh,” Mad Dog said. “Better break out the AT4s.”
They dropped to the sand on the other side of the dune from the incoming assault and began to get the vehicles in their sights. But Gabe was starting to realize there was no way they were going to outgun dozens of mercenaries in that many vehicles.
“Did you call Max in?” Scooter asked.
“Can’t,” One Shot said. “They jammed our frequency just like we jammed theirs.”
“Then we’ll be lucky if we come out of this alive.”
* * *
One Shot grabbed the anti-armor weapon and removed the pin at the rear of the tube to unblock the firing rod. He glanced over the dune and judged the distance to be about two hundred meters, well within range. He lay prone in the sand with his legs to the side to avoid burns from the rocket blast. He moved back the front and rear sight covers, allowing the iron sights to pop into fir
ing position, removed the safety and sighted the target. The AT4 was disposable, so he only had one chance—he had to make it count. The MRAP was moving quickly, swerving around construction vehicles and creating a fantail of sand behind it as it drove. One Shot thumbed off the second safety and squeezed the trigger. He watched the rocket buzz through the air on its way to the target and a split second later there was a deafening explosion, followed by the MRAP erupting into a fireball. Several men leaped from the burning vehicle, some of them on fire and screaming, as it careened off to one side and struck a huge solar panel, smashing it to bits.
Scooter and the others cheered their approval.
“One shot—just like his name says,” Scooter yelled.
One Shot glanced over at Mad Dog just in time to see him fire and take out one of the Humvees. The vehicle was blown into shrapnel. Unfortunately, several more Humvees were now less than a hundred meters away, and there were no more AT4s. Although they could hold their own for a while with carbines, machine guns and grenade launchers, they were outmanned five-to-one. He glanced behind him at his own team’s MRAP, now just a burned-out shell. They wouldn’t be getting out that way.
Barring a miracle, One Shot figured they were pretty much screwed.
He heard the distant sound of rotors just as pain erupted in his shoulder, and then his head. He turned to Gabe and was about to say something when a wave of dizziness washed over him and he fell into a dark abyss.
Chapter Sixty
The hum of the machine underground reminded Gabe of some kind of gigantic magnet, and the sound was making her ill. She was still feeling weak, the effect of having her heart slowed almost to the point of death, and her injured finger was throbbing again. She glanced around and noticed her comrades were looking a little green as they watched the Humvees close in. The strange creature that powered the vessel must have been generating alpha brain waves of gigantic magnitude, touching every living thing around it. The whole area was vibrating now, building up to a crescendo of violent activity.
But she also heard something else in the distance. It sounded like the thump of rotors. She turned and glanced behind her—a couple of hundred meters away was the AH-6 Little Bird, the early-morning sun gleaming off its metal shell.
Gabe glanced over and noticed One Shot lying with his head in the sand. She scooted up next to him and said, “One Shot, you okay?” Then she noticed blood on the sand beneath him.
“Scooter, One Shot has been hit!”
She checked his breathing. It was still good, but ragged, and his pulse was steady. But who could tell how long he would hold out?
Scooter appeared next to her. “Is he alive?”
“Yeah, but we need to evacuate him back to the UNICAT and have Bio check him out.”
Then they heard the unmistakable sound of bullets striking the sand behind the dune—Cain’s men were shooting at them. But she knew Cain hadn’t sent them—they were out for blood in retaliation for the deaths of their comrades.
Scooter glanced to the north and said, “Looks like Max got the message by ESP. As soon as we take these bastards out, we’ll get One Shot on the Little Bird and get him out of here.” He lay back down in the sand and sighted the enemy with his carbine. “Okay, let’s give ‘em hell.”
Gabe grabbed the M240 and everyone began to fire at their own targets, the M240s making the biggest impact. A couple of the Humvees swerved off to the side and stopped, but the rest continued ahead like charging rhinos, their own machine-gunners raking the sand below the dune. Gabe could hear bullets whizzing through the air above her head.
“Man, these motherfuckers don’t know when to quit, do they?” Mad Dog yelled over the noise.
A couple of people launched grenades from their carbines, but did little damage to the Humvees. In mere seconds, the vehicles would literally be on top of them and then it would be all over. Gabe could hear the engines revving as they climbed the side of the dune and she ground her teeth together in anticipation.
Max and the Little Bird suddenly screamed overhead and a rocket streaked from its launcher. It made a direct hit on one of the Hummers and sent it flipping end over end in a ball of flames, leaving a trail of bodies behind.
“Hell yeah!” Scooter yelled as the chopper’s mini gun began to rake across the sand, putting two more Hummer’s out of commission. Max took the gunship around for another pass and raked across the vehicles that had been climbing the dune. As men began to run for cover, Gabe and the others sighted them and took them down.
Then one of the Humvees stopped and a man popped out of the top with a rocket launcher, aiming it right at the Little Bird.
“Oh, shit,” Scooter said.
“I got this,” Mad Dog said. He aimed the M240 and Gabe saw the enemy combatant twitch and spasm as over a dozen of the big rounds ripped through his body.
There were only three Hummers left, and as the Little Bird came around for another pass, they apparently had decided they were no match for Max and his piloting skills. All three vehicles turned and began heading in different directions, away from Gabe and the others.
“Smart move, assholes!” Scooter yelled.
The Little Bird flew over the enemy without shooting and Max waved as he passed overhead. He landed behind the dune, near the burned-out MRAP.
They watched the last Humvee disappear over a sand dune and then stood to head down to the chopper, several of them carrying One Shot. As they began to move, the ground shook so violently that everyone lost their balance and fell headlong into the sand. Gabe rolled a few feet and then managed to stop herself, jamming a booted foot into the side of the dune. She looked back in the direction of the huge alien vessel and didn’t see anything, but she knew something big was happening.
* * *
Abel watched in awe as Cain stood in the center of the control room—at least that was what he called it. In the original language of the Lilitu, the meaning of the word was closer to “cerebral cortex.” Everything in the Lilitu culture seemed to center around the sensual, the physical, never anything spiritual. They were dead inside, just an empty shell of logic and existential philosophy. They lived only to survive, to pass their genes on to the next generation. He actually felt sympathy for them. If not for the things Lydia had taught him about his inner being, about the existence of a world that could not be seen with mortal eyes, he would be just like Cain. He silently thanked God for her and for the short time they had been allowed to be together. It had indeed been heaven on Earth.
The craft began to move under their feet and Abel felt the sensation of upward motion, like rising in an elevator.
In front of Cain were several rectangular view screens, but they weren’t really screens—they were more like three-dimensional holograms that floated in the space before him. He touched nothing, because there were no controls. Everything in the Lilitu universe was controlled by brain waves, which made sense given the incredible capacity their brains possessed. Their formidable mental powers had helped them survive whatever apocalyptic event had taken place those many eons ago, reborn through the woman named Lilith. Unfortunately it wouldn’t help them now.
The floating images showed the various views around the vessel, which so far was nothing but the inside of the cavern-like space that housed the excavation. As Abel suspected, they were rising, the hum from the creature below steadily increasing in volume. One of the screens showed a view of the cavern ceiling. Abel saw a crack form and realized it was actually two enormous metal doors sliding open. Sand began to poor in and fell on the craft, cascading off its convex hull. They slowly rose up through the opening, and as they did, there appeared daylight through the top of the vessel beneath the dome they had all seen there earlier.
Cain turned his face up to the dome and spread his arms wide like Moses calling upon the powers of heaven. A shaft of white light more intense than anything Abel could have imagined shot down through the dome and enveloped Cain like a cocoon. There was a concussive wave so stron
g that it knocked Abel back with an invisible fist and he slid across the floor unconscious.
Chapter Sixty-One
“Oh...my...God,” Scooter said as they all eyed the shaft of swirling white light shooting down from somewhere up above, colorful auroras dancing and shimmering in the early morning sky. Huge roll clouds had formed and were rotating in opposite directions, away from the beam, like a gigantic scroll unrolling itself across the horizon.
“The magnetic field is weakening.” Gabe had to yell over the sound of the vessel and the Little Bird. “Like Cain said, he’s using his body like a conduit to tap into it. That power will be transferred via brain waves to the creature inside the sphere, and in turn, it will move the vessel from here to the other planet.”
“I sure hope Abel comes through,” Gordon said. “But so far, I don’t like the looks of this.”
“He’ll come through. But we need to get the hell out of here while we still can.”
Max, who had climbed out of the Little Bird, was standing between Gabe and Scooter, and said, “There’s one problem with your plan.”
“What’s that?”
“The chopper only carries five people. There are seven of us. Normally I could carry more, but I can’t fly low with all this sand. Somebody is going to have to stay here and wait for pick-up.”
“I’ll stay,” Gordon said.
“I’ll stay, too,” Scooter echoed. “Everyone else, get aboard.”
But Gabe wasn’t buying it. “Wait a minute, who says you guys are staying?”
Gordon and Scooter glanced at each other, then at her. “We did,” they said in unison. “Now get on board so Max can come back here and pick us up,” Gordon said.
