The Stranded Ones

by Jay B. Gaskill

  “Unless he’s dealing with ETs,’ Finnegan said. “The latest underground news is that Diablo’s deal hit a snag and the Japanese won’t pay.”

  There was a long pause. “That’s it?” Hugh finally asked.

  “That’s it. Except that we’ve just learned the price the buyers had agreed to. Are you ready? Two point five billion dollars.”

  Hugh and Lew looked at each other. “We’d like to go over that database of yours,” Hugh said.

  “We were hoping you would.”

  “Excuse me.” It was Ruth “Just before you came in, I caught another encrypted message from Jay Robertson. I wasn’t going to interrupt, but I’m afraid it may relate to this Diablo business.”

  “How is that?”

  “An old friend of Jay Robertson’s in Patagonia called him on an encrypted line. This friend wants help with something very sensitive. He is calling it a ‘rescue operation.’ I just realized that Jay’s contact lives very close to the area of the first pod impact.”

  Falstaff suddenly stood, looking very concerned. “A rescue in Patagonia. That smells like a connection with that rat bag, Diablo and these suspected ETs, doesn’t it? If you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better try to reach Jay or Donald before we do anything else.” Finnegan nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Then Sam turned to Hugh. “If this really is a break, I should check in on Schröd for a minute.” Then she looked over at Finnegan. “Would this be a good time?”

  “Perfect,” Finnegan said. “Let’s all take a stretch.”

  “I’ll come along, if that’s okay,” Hugh said. Samantha nodded. “Meet you back here?” he asked Finnegan.

  “We’ll save you two some brandy.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said.

  Hugh was again very conscious of Sam’s physical closeness as they walked together to the back porch. “If some of these critters are still alive, it makes sense that anyone could be trying to extract information from them and sell it,” Hugh said.

  “I wonder what the US really did to follow up, after pulling up a pod of dead ETs?” Sam said.

  “Probably buried them with the Roswell bunch,” Hugh cracked.

  Then they reached the porch. Hugh felt a chill as Sam opened the door. The blizzard had stopped, but the windows had begun to frost on the inside. Schrödinger was dozing near the doorway; he rose and elaborately stretched his muscled frame. Sam leaned down to pat his head. “HUGH!”

  The shocking sound of crashing glass changed everything. Schröd growled. Sam and Hugh froze in place, suddenly alert. When the sound of Ruth’s scream reached them, each knew with certainty that events had sheared off into a dark new course. They looked at each other for a split second. Hugh held out his hand and Sam took it. A beat later they were jogging down the long hallway in the direction of the dining room with Schrödinger loping behind.

  Hugh felt then heard the thump, thump, of large weapons. “Hold back!” he said. Samantha stopped in her tracks but Schröd leapt ahead of them.

  “Schröd!” Sam barked. The big cat came to a reluctant halt just outside the dining room. The air cracked, snapped and thumped with the deafening sounds of a full-on firefight. Hugh cautiously peered around the corner. There he saw Springer firing his weapon-of-choice, “Moses”, his Israeli hand cannon, through a broken window. The whump, whump reports of Lew’s weapon were almost lost in the general noise. Sam peered in, too, seeing Finnegan Gael sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. Snow was blowing in through melted glass, and Ruth was struggling to press her hands against Gael’s chest.

  “Oh dear God,” Samantha said as she and Hugh dashed into the room. Dr. Delaney quickly knelt down to take over the CPR. Just as Gael began to revive Hugh looked up. Falstaff was entering the room from the far side.

  Sam pulled at Hugh’s sleeve. “Looks like a mild heart attack. Weak pulse; shock…”

  “Don’t leave us, Finnegan!” Ruth was talking loudly to Finnegan, her voice barely audible over the clangor.

  “Elizabeth Hoopes is dead,” Jack Falstaff announced. His voice was tight and cold as steel.

  “What?” Hugh stood up.

  “The west wall collapsed on her.” Then Jack noticed Finnegan Gael for the first time. “Good God!” he shouted. “PULL FINNEGAN AWAY FROM THAT WALL! This place is under a coordinated attack from all sides. Two walls have already collapsed.”

  “Give me a hand!” Hugh grasped Gael about the shoulders, sliding him away from the window.

  Falstaff strode toward his fallen business partner. “Everybody! We need to get Finnegan aboard the shuttle, STAT.” Jack picked up Gael’s legs. “WHEELS! GET IN HERE!” Jack had shouted the command over his shoulder.

  As Gael was mumbling, “I’ll be all right, I’ll be all right,” Jack had lifted his partner’s rear off the floor. Falstaff carried Gael sideways, knees dangling, while Hugh held the older man’s shoulders. As the two of them moved Finnegan into the center of the room, Finnegan gasped. “So bloody sorry…I thought we’d be secure here.”

  Springer pulled his hand cannon in from the broken window and turned to Gael. “Save your energy Finnegan!” Then he helped Falstaff and McCahan with Gael, using his right arm, his left still cradling the large weapon.

  Just then, Wheels rolled into the room and Lew set his hand-cannon down. The robot moved next to Finnegan while Falstaff, McCahan and Springer lifted Gael over Wheels’ cowling. Then Hugh and Jack helped balance Gael’s mass while Springer scooped up his weapon with a free hand, stealing a look outside through broken glass. “Which way out?” he asked.

  Ruth was still holding Finnegan’s hand and hovering like a protecting angel, while Sam was scanning the room for a plausible exit and Jack stepped over to the window for a final look. “They’re coming at us from the air!” Jack said. “And it looks like an armored vehicle is entering the property on the south side.” Falstaff was straining to see through the smoke. “The back path to the secondary parking area is still open.” He turned to face the rest. “We need to split up into two groups.” No one reacted. “Hugh, would you kindly go with Sam and Ruth out the back way?” Hugh nodded. “Lew and I can take Finnegan out through the tunnel. Ruth? Ruth?” Lew gently tugged at her shoulder.

  “No!” Ruth shouted. She was still clinging to Finnegan’s hand, shrugging off Springer’s touch. “I’m not leaving Finnegan’s side. Hugh, you go on with Sam. Lew, help us get Finnegan out of here. Now, move!”

  Wheels began rolling away toward Gael’s study. Finnegan was still draped like a sack over the robot, balanced by Springer and Falstaff. One of Gael’s hands was dragging on the floor; the other was still being clutched by Ruth.

  “The escape doorway is too narrow, Ruth,” Jack said gently but firmly. “You need to let go of his hand.” Just then the building shuddered.

  As Ruth relinquished Finnegan’s hand, the escape doorway slid open in the wall opposite Gael’s study, activated by the auto-alarm.

  “That’s our cue. There is a medical unit aboard the shuttle,” Jack said. “It’s Finnegan’s best option. Lew, you have paramedical training, correct? “

  “Yes, I can help with that.”

  Just as Jack, Wheels and Lew crowded through the opening, leaving Ruth just behind them, the building lurched again and the door snapped closed, jamming with a crack to spare. Springer shoved fingers through, pulled at it futilely. “Damn!” The sliding door mechanism was crushed when the building shifted.

  “Ruth! We’ve got to go now!” Jack shouted

  “Agreed,” Lew said, giving up. “Bye all.”

  “Ruth, take the little plane to Vancouver!” It was Jack’s retreating voice. “Think about it! We have a safe house there. I’ll call ahead…”

  Ruth just stood, momentarily paralyzed by indecision and grief. She stared through the tiny crack in the door while the serving robot rolled Finnegan Gael down a brightly lit ramp that led to a subterranean elevator door. Her last glimpse: Lew Springer was loping alongside Wheels down th
e ramp, keeping abreast of Jack Falstaff’s giant strides, then the elevator door parted. As the elevator door closed, Ruth shouted, “Stay alive! Good luck…”

  Hugh reached out and gently pulled Ruth away. “This way,” he said softly. He guided her through the dining room. McCahan pulled out the 10 millimeter pistol he carried strapped to his right calf and chambered a round. He motioned to Ruth and Sam, then began running down the hallway to the back porch, Sam and Ruth running with him, Schröd directly behind. Hugh pulled the back door open a crack.

  A winter postcard scene was bathed in brilliant light. The illumination was artificial and it was descending from the sky. A man dressed in coveralls bearing the GFE logo stood across the walkway shooting at something overhead. Shell casings spat out of his automatic weapon, making a succession of dull thumps as they exploded on contact. Then the actinic flash of an incendiary weapon blanked the entire scene and was followed by an eruption of snow and steam. Hugh closed the door; his last image was burned temporarily into his retina. With his eyes closed Hugh could still see a man on fire.

  “Follow the emergency exit signs please.” The voice was from a recording, the speaker in the wall, an island of irrational calm at the center of the chaos. Still blinded, Hugh let Sam and Ruth lead him back into the den.

  “Are we trapped?” Sam asked.

  “There is a second emergency passageway in here,” Ruth said. Hugh’s vision began to clear as a panel on the wall opened, revealing the second opening.

  “LEAD Schröd!” Even as Sam shouted, Schrödinger was already bounding in ahead of them. Sam and Ruth quickly followed the cat, but Hugh hung back, thinking he would cover their retreat. Sam called out to him just as the room lurched violently. Hugh lost his balance and sprawled back into the den.

  As Hugh got to his feet, he felt then heard a shuddering impact as the curtains billowed in and then parted. The blowing curtains framed the room’s largest window a few steps to his right. The reinforced, bulletproof glass was cracking and the hardened steel window frames were buckling under the stress of something very large, just outside the lodge.

  Hugh recognized the business end of an articulated assault vehicle. He fired three rounds at it; then he turned away, momentarily disoriented. “HUGH! THIS WAY!” Sam’s voice was calling from somewhere deep in the darkness of the escape passageway. Hugh blindly trotted in the direction of her call, risking one glance back at the changing light behind him. Something very large was crawling over the top of the assault vehicle, methodically trying to fit into the passageway behind him. Hugh dashed down the dark corridor without risking another glance back. After a full minute of running in nearly impenetrable blackness, he trotted more cautiously toward the dim glow ahead until he reached Sam. She was standing next to a metal ladder leading up to the parking area, dimly lit by an emergency lamp. Another dim light came from above. Ruth was standing next to Sam, hands on hips, contemplating the climb.

  “What were those shots?” Sam asked, taking Hugh’s hand.

  “Something was trying to follow us. Where’s Schrödinger?” Sam pointed up the ladder. “How did you get him up that?”

  “Don’t ask,” she muttered.

  “Time to go,” Ruth said. Sam began springing up the ladder herself.

  “No argument…none at all,” Hugh muttered. He helped Ruth climb ahead of him, then he mounted the steel rungs himself.

  The entire climb took place in deep shadow, consisting of thirty metal rungs so cold that they stung the hands. At the top, the three huddled for a moment, finding themselves about a block from the lodge proper. The big cat had already located the rear door to Sam’s car, a Nymbus Hovercraft, and was standing there a few yards away, shivering.

  “How did you do that?” Hugh asked the cat. Schröd mewed miserably.

  Through the trees, they could see that Toad Hall was completely lost. Its remains were a shimmering indistinct shape masked by the roiling flames. The Rolls lay upside down 30 meters away from Sam’s car, still partly under the twisted metal of the carport, black smoke spouting from the broken front windshield.

  Ruth was still panting from her climb. Her small truck was parked next to Sam’s Nymbus. “I’m afraid that our little plane can’t carry all four of us, including the cat,” she said.

  “Then come with us,” Sam said. “We’ll all stick together.”

  “I probably should go in the plane. Better that we scatter in separate directions. Hugh, you need to stay with Sam. I’m very familiar with our plane.”

  Before Hugh could form a reply, Ruth had dashed to her truck. Seconds later its wheels were spitting snow.

  “Look up!” Sam said. Gael’s shuttle, the Snark, had rolled up the camouflaged five kilometer long maglev sled, gaining speed up the mountainside with each second. It had just reached the ignition point as it left the sled, airborne at 900 kph and trailing a spectacular sparking flare. Two seconds later, a brilliant orange ball of fire seemed to blossom from a crack in the side of the mountain. The fireball was rising into the sky. Ten seconds later, there was a loud sonic boom. “That’s our cover, Hugh. Let’s GO!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE - FLIGHT

  Sam’s rented Nymbus unlocked itself automatically as she approached. She immediately slipped behind the wheel. “Okay, guys!” Her next shouted words were lost over the muffled sounds of explosions from Toad Hall’s funeral pyre, but Schröd obediently jumped in the passenger side and Hugh followed. The Nymbus Hovercraft lifted immediately on a blanket of air, and Sam backed it to the edge of the woods.

  “Excellent idea,” Hugh said, when it was clear that Sam planned to avoid the road altogether. “I’d bypass all the roads until tomorrow,” he added. “There should be enough clearance in the brush back of the lodge to get to a creek that I noticed on the map of this place. Then we can take it north until things cool down.” Hugh pointed through with his finger. “There! See that path between the trees?”

  “For somebody who has never been in this area…” Sam was bringing the vehicle about, “…you seem pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Homework” Hugh said. “…And my wrist mounted GPS. Unfortunately, the GPS might be traceable, so I just turned it off and removed the battery.”

  Sam maneuvered the ground effect car while keeping its lights off, deftly picking a path through a ghostly copse of snow-covered pines. In a few minutes the predicted creek appeared as a frozen meandering depression in the snow.

  “See it?” Hugh asked. Sam nodded and turned the foreword lights on dim. The Hovercraft’s display panel indicated that north was to the right. Hugh pointed and Sam nodded again. She aimed the Hover straight down the creek bed, and gunned the vehicle’s six fans.

  After an hour of travel, Hugh had begun to relax but Sam continued to grip the wheel with fierce intensity, eyes fixed ahead. Hugh touched her arm gently. “That was outstanding driving, Sam. In a while, I think we should power down long enough to reduce our infrared signature.” The Hover sailed through the narrow passage in the forest for a few minutes more until Sam reduced their speed to a crawl.

  After another few minutes, with trees towering darkly on either side, Sam took a deep breath. “Now?” she asked.

  “Now,” Hugh said. Sam cut the fans. With a barely audible crunch, the hover car settled into the snow-filled creek bed. She killed all the lights. In a moment, there was no sound but the wind, the ping of cooling metal and the purring of a giant cat who had managed to sprawl across both laps.

  Hugh looked at Sam. He was wet and exhausted; she was disheveled and worn. Then Samantha placed her head on Hugh’s chest. He realized after a time that she was crying.

  “Okay,” she said eventually, sighing. “What the in the hell do we do now?”

  “That depends on what in hell we are up against.”

  “Oh, Hugh, I’m so scared.”

  “We are safe here for now…What more do you know about all this?”

  “A lot, not that it makes sense…I talked to Finnegan for about a
n hour after the encryption was broken.”

  “Do you feel like briefing me right now?”

  “How about an executive summary? Then we try to sleep for a while...”

  “Deal.”

  Sam sat up, causing Schröd to groan slightly as his comfortable position was disturbed. “You do know about the crash explanation?”

  “Meaning what?” Hugh turned to face her.

  “Well the object came from high orbit. The fractures in the ice described in recordings from the spotter plane’s observations were not consistent with the kind of shatter cone effect that would be left from a large meteor or small asteroid. These things impact at very high velocities, imparting huge impact energy. This was more consistent with a very large object, traveling much slower.”

  “As in a vehicle?”

  “Yes. We think it was a huge spacecraft”

  “Just how big is huge?”

  “Say, 2000 meters by 1000 meters.”

  “Holy…” Hugh was genuinely worried for the first time. This was no ordinary dustup between competing tech dealers. “My God, Samantha. That’s bigger than an ocean liner. What country on earth has something that size?”

  “To ask the question is to answer it. Hugh, I am sure that it was a huge spacecraft, piloted by whoever or whatever made that hole in the ice. Scary implications, without a doubt…” Sam squirmed, pushing Schröd away. “…I’ve really got to rest.”

  “I know, I know. Tomorrow will be tough for us. I’ll get in the back seat.”

  “Stay, please. Schröd! To the back with you.” With a thump and a deep throated whimper, the big cat complied.

  A few minutes later, Sam moved closer to Hugh. “Do you suppose Finnegan will be all right?”

  “He’s probably doing better than we are…as long as he gets to his Australian base in time…” There was a long silence in which breathing became regular, eyes were closed, and the big cat and its human friends embarked on an uneasy rest. Several times during the night, Hugh awoke to the sound of the car settling deeper into the creek bed. Every time Hugh looked over at Sam, deep in slumber, somewhere in the dark of the back seat, two eyes stared at him patiently. Good cat, he thought.