After a few nods and okays, Jeff looked upwards and said, "I understand, good luck my friend. And goodbye."
A tear rolled down his cheek as he looked over at the others and solemnly said, "He wants to stay. He said he can help with the vortex generator repairs. That should be the highest priority."
Holly gave him a hug to try and ease the loss he felt from never seeing Whittenhouse again.
“It’ll be the four of us then,” Holly said.
Mattie looked at his ex-lover, Melinda Rider, standing silently next to Paulson. Even through the stress and tension of the moment, she looked just as beautiful as ever. He whispered in Jeff’s ear, “What about Melinda?”
Jeff shrugged. “Why not? Melinda, would you like to join us?”
Her eyes opened wide, and she looked from Jeff to Mattie, realizing immediately what he’d just done. She opened her mouth, but closed it again before any words came out. Paulson smiled at her and nodded.
“Good choice, Senator. Melinda, you should join them.”
“But, sir, I should stay here. You need me.”
“I can get by. Go with them. It’s your best chance.”
Paulson hugged her, then turned to walk away before she could say anything else. A single tear ran down Melinda’s cheek. Mattie felt a twinge in his stomach—empathy for Melinda’s grief. He wanted to wipe away her tear, comfort her, but he suppressed his feelings. He had work to do.
“Come on, time’s running out,” he said, urging them on.
Melinda rubbed her eyes. Then she drew herself up strong and straight and marched forward. That was the Melinda he’d fallen in love with, the fighter.
“Follow me,” she said.
They ran out of the vortex building, leaving the repair crews behind, and retraced their steps to the metro. Military personnel were running all around them, readying a barrier of protection around the main building. This would be their last line of defense when the swarm broke through from the surface. And break through it would. Mattie knew there was no way to stop it. The best they could hope for would be to slow it down and give the repair crews a chance at the vortex generator.
They shared the elevator ride to the surface with troops and mech units taking the last of the battle gear out to meet the alien threat.
“Give ’em hell,” Mattie said to a young man in a battle suit.
“Sir, yes sir!”
The elevator ground to a halt at the surface. Instead of finding the quiet emptiness of the old airplane hangar, they emerged into a flurry of activity as units were deployed in a protective grid for hundreds of yards around the entrance to the base. Mech units patrolled the perimeter, roving missile launchers pointed to the north, troops had dug bunkers into the desert sand, and dozens of aerial drones buzzed overhead in strike formation. All that remained of the once great United States military left defending a patch of ground in the Iraqi desert.
For a last stand, it looked pretty impressive.
The horizon began to brighten. Sunrise was moments away.
A young soldier hurried over and saluted Mattie.
“Colonel Tedrow?”
“Yes.”
“Your tank is over here.” He pointed to the west. “It’s one of the newer, faster models, and heavily reinforced. Is there anything else you need?”
“We’re good, thank you, Sergeant.”
The growing crescendo in Mattie’s head was now almost unbearable. The swarm was close. He tried to keep a stern face, but he felt like curling up in bed and hiding from the pain.
He scanned the horizon again. There it was, the swarm. A vast cloud stretching from the surface of the earth far into the sky. Right in the middle of the dark purple cloud, skimming close to the surface, were the bulbous bodies of the floating man o’ wars. Their tendrils dragged behind them, quivering, nearly touching the ground. For one of the few times in his life, Mattie was scared.
This was no paltry disagreement between families or clans or nations that had played out through the long scope of human history. Those battles and wars transferred power from one group to another and back again countless times. And yes, some wars had been brutal, wiping entire cultures off the face of the earth.
But loss hadn’t meant the end of the human race. Man had had a chance to regroup and assert himself. But this . . .
This might truly be the end. And not for only one group. The end for them all.
A whistle blew and the fight began.
A barrage of hundreds of missiles fired from all positions, and a squadron of attack drones zoomed out to meet the dark cloud. Mattie felt the power of the weaponry.
They needed to get out of there fast. They ran to the tank and climbed in through the hatch. Mattie immediately jumped into the driver’s seat and linked with the AI. Dr. Corvin began setting up the temporal bubble generator while the others found their seats and buckled in. Mattie initiated the autopilot to take them to what he felt would be the safest location in what would soon be a major battle zone.
Then he turned to the others.
“I’ve set the coordinates for a safe hiding place, but I’m not going.”
Melinda cried out. “What are you talking about, Mattie?” she said. “You need to hide with us. There’s nothing you can do here.”
“But there is. I can buy time.”
Jeff nodded solemnly and wrapped his hand around Holly’s.
“He’s right, Melinda. He’s linked with them—the alien swarm. Perhaps he can slow down the onslaught long enough for the crew to get the vortex generator repaired.”
Melinda started to cry again. “But can’t someone else . . . ”
She knew there was no one else. Maybe what he could do wouldn’t be enough, but he had to at least try.
Mattie watched her swallow back a sob. Did she still feel something for him? He quickly put the thought out of his mind. As much as he wanted to move forward with Melinda, he knew this was not the time or the place for rekindling lost romances. Plus he was never much for dramatic goodbyes.
He simply said, “May God be with you,” and then hugged Melinda and Holly, and shook Jeff’s hand.
“Thank you for getting her here,” Jeff said, putting his arm around Holly. “Good luck to you. Give ’em hell.”
Mattie looked at Melinda one last time—his one true love that he’d given up. He should’ve done things differently, not pushed her away, and been there when she needed him and not out on some mission. But it was too late for them. Anything he said now would be meaningless. Instead he did the only reckless thing he could think of. He grabbed her by the neck and kissed her passionately.
For the last time.
Then he jumped out of the tank.
The AI kicked in and it sped off, and Mattie returned to the front line, ready for battle.
The swarm was almost on their location, and the missiles had done nothing to stop it. EM pulse cannons fired and non-nuclear pulse bombs exploded high in the air.
But still they came.
The first wave hit the outer rim of mech units with the sound of insects splattering on the window of a speeding car. The mechs had no chance and were devoured in seconds. Next the aerial drone units went down, lost in the dark purple cloud buzzing overhead. Finally the men around him disintegrated, their cries lost to the buzzing wings of millions of locust bots.
Mattie stood on the elevator platform as the airplane hangar was shredded around him. He and a small group of soldiers were making a last stand. The brave men and women fired everything they could at the swarm cloud, screaming in anger, knowing full well that this was the end for them.
Now was the time.
Mattie reached out with his mind.
He could hear their commands, their voices, billions of tiny minds working as one.
His hand shot into the air.
And the swarm stopped.
A gap opened up about twenty feet around Mattie and the others. The bots simply swirled around the platform, creating a tornado
funnel with him and the others in the center.
The level of concentration required to hold the creatures back was excruciating. His hand shook and sweat poured down his face. The power and desire of the swarm to devour everything in its path was too strong. He wouldn’t be able to hold them for much longer.
Suddenly the swarm parted, but not because of anything he did. They were opening up for the man o' wars entering the field of battle. The horrible things were floating forward, tentacles quivering under their enormous bulbous bodies.
Mattie tried to reach out with his mind to control them, but something blocked him. Those things were stronger than the bots that made up the swarm. They were smarter. But he could sense their intent. He had just a second.
Time slowed.
Mattie crouched and jumped as high as he could, flying at least one hundred feet up.
The soldiers still fighting below him shrank away. Then in an instant, a singularity formed in the middle of them. It was too small to see, but Mattie knew it was there. He could feel it pulling him. Everyone and everything within reach of the singularity black hole was sucked into it.
In a flash they were all gone.
Nothing was left but a gaping crater fifty feet wide and fifty feet deep. The elevator shaft to Chronos Two was exposed. The circling, snarling swarm waited on the edge, Mattie still holding them back.
He fell.
As he plummeted into the crater and down the shaft, his mind lost its hold on the swarm and it surged forward.
And still he fell, deeper and deeper.
Chapter 40
6:30 a.m. Local Time, January 17, 2038
Chronos Two, Hillah, Iraq
The wind hit his face and darkness leapt up around him as he fell. The opening to the surface became a tiny rectangle far above. Mattie felt the swarm surging forward, following him down, hunting for the hidden base.
He was going too fast; he needed a way to slow his descent. Even with his healing powers, hitting the bottom from a mile up would kill him. He twisted his body so that his descent angle would move him closer to the center elevator cables. Then he reached out.
He grabbed onto one cable, and the coarse metal cord cut through his right hand, ripping skin and muscle as he gripped tighter and tighter. The pain was excruciating. Just when one hand could take no more punishment, he reached out with the other. His fall slowed. Finally he wrapped his legs around the cable, giving him full control of his descent.
Ten seconds later he reached the bottom of the shaft, gliding to a halt. Above him the swarm was pouring down, filling the entire shaft. He quickly pried open the elevator doors and burst outside, only to find hundreds of weapons pointed at him.
Shots rang out, piercing his skin.
He held his arms up and yelled, “Hold your fire!”
A couple of commanders called out for the others to cease fire as two medics rushed over to pull Mattie off the platform.
“They’re right behind me,” he managed to sputter. “Collapse the shaft.”
“Collapse it! Fire in the hole!”
Huge explosions resounded from the elevator shaft as they employed their final fail-safe. Rocks and debris fell and sand blew out into the entrance area.
Mattie’s body healed in seconds, and the bullets were ejected from his flesh. He sprang to his feet and balled up his hands, shedding dead skin destroyed by the cable burns. He could feel millions of the bots trapped under tons of rock in the shaft. Most were still functional, but it would take them some time to chew their way through the rock.
But the singularity weapons could easily create a path through the debris, and he doubted they much cared about sacrificing the bots. His best chance for a last defense against the swarm would be at the vortex generator. Right now, preserving that device was all that mattered.
He turned away from the shaft entrance just as the ground began to vibrate and a sucking sound emanated from deep in the rock. He could feel the pull coming from the shaft. Mattie knew there must be a black hole sucking up tons of rock, creating a tunnel down through the debris field. The next one would hit the entrance room, obliterating the men and women defending the vortex generator—defending humanity’s final hope.
He turned and ran, sprinting as fast as he could.
He had to get to the vortex.
He was back at the command center in minutes, running past the fortifications in a blur. He burst into the vortex room and found them still working on the doughnut. Paulson paced nearby.
“We’ve done everything we could,” Mattie sputtered, his breath a bit ragged. “They’ll be here in minutes. I can delay the swarm, but not the man o’ wars, and it only takes one of those to wipe out all of this in an instant. I’m sorry, sir. I’m so very sorry.”
Mattie had let them down. He was the only one who could hold the swarm back. They were depending on him. And now all those men and women were dying because he was too weak.
“I’m going to try again,” he said, spinning back to the entrance.
“Mattie, don’t be ridiculous.” Paulson grabbed him by the arm as he tried to charge off. “Remember what I taught you: battles are won and lost by the sword, wars are won and lost by the mind.”
Mattie didn’t want to hear any of Paulson’s stupid war philosophy. He was a fighter and he wanted to use his fucking sword right now.
“Let go of me, I’m headed back,” he snarled.
“You’ll do us no good there. Try not to think about the men and women we’ve lost. Think about the ones we can save. I need you to hold the swarm here, in this enclosed space. It will at least give us a chance. Do you understand me, soldier?”
Despite his age, Paulson twisted Mattie around and stared him square in the face. And he wouldn’t look away.
Mattie saw the determination, the raw courage, that had Paulson still fighting, still pushing for victory. The man wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t give in.
Mattie let out a long breath.
Paulson was right; Mattie needed to control his anger and pain. Doing something rash wouldn’t bring anyone back. He needed to focus on buying them time. They needed to get the vortex repaired and the jumpers through. He nodded to Paulson and took up a defensive position near the door.
“Patrick, Whittenhouse how does it look?” Paulson yelled out.
Both men were working feverishly on the device.
“It would go faster if you stopped asking me that every five goddamn minutes,” Chen retorted.
Another older man, with short white hair, who must've been Whittenhouse, replied, "Almost there!"
Paulson turned away, walked over to a metal chair and sat with the men and women of the jump team. He gestured Mattie to an empty chair beside him.
Mattie felt too restless to sit at this moment of high tension—their last stand. But he acquiesced to Paulson's request and tried to calm his nervous energy. His moment of action would come soon enough.
“So, Mattie, did you see our friends off?”
“Yes, sir. The tank should be out of harm’s way by now.”
Paulson nodded. “And Melinda?”
Mattie shrugged.
“Cute girl. I always thought you two made a nice couple. Maybe in another timeline.” Paulson laughed lightly, then he sighed.
“All the planning, all the preparations, the foreknowledge . . . All of it for nothing. The result is just the same. Makes you wonder if we should’ve just lived our lives and let this all play out as it was meant to be.”
Paulson looked to the ceiling, then at his wife and family who were standing off to the side with the family members of others in the jump group. They’d said their goodbyes and were all waiting for the end to come. Many were crying and hugging one another, some praying. Others had panicked looks on their faces and were eyeing the door and the vortex generator, looking for some sort of escape. Mattie recognized a handful of elected officials and their families who'd come to watch the departure—those that were left behi
nd after Diaz's hasty exit.
“You don’t believe that, do you, sir? There’s always a way. Even in the darkest hour we should never lose hope. Hell, that’s the only time we truly need it.”
Paulson patted him on the leg, then stood.
“You’re right, Mattie. There is always hope.”
Paulson walked over to his family and put his arms around his wife, children, and grandchildren. Was that a tear running down his cheek? In all the years he’d known him, Mattie had never seen Paulson cry, even in the direst situations. But realizing that your entire family could soon die would be enough to break even the hardiest of souls.
As Mattie watched Paulson and his family, Claire joined him. “Mattie, I’ve decrypted the com-link data from the device sent back in time at Chronos One.”
“What?”
With the alien attack, Mattie had forgotten that they were also dealing with a traitor in their own group.
“Claire, Paulson should hear this too.” Mattie gestured him over. “She decrypted the message sent to Chronos One.”
“What was it?” Paulson asked.
“Two signals went out, which was why it was so hard to decipher them. The first signal was sent to Howard Nichols, the second went t—”
Boom!
A huge explosion rocked the air around them, cutting Claire off. Heavy-weapons fire echoed through the vast underground chamber.
“Hold that thought, Claire,” Mattie yelled as he ran to stand guard in front of the door.
The explosions and gunfire continued for several moments more before fading. Then the metallic buzzing sound that Mattie knew all too well quickly followed.
“Done!” Chen exclaimed as he and the others backed away from the vortex generator.
“Boot her up!” Paulson yelled out. “Jump team, move!”
The black hole generators powered up and began humming and vibrating with energy. The jump team moved into place, hugging and kissing their families goodbye. One small child clung to his father’s leg, not wanting to let go.
“No, Daddy, no. Don’t go, don’t leave us!” the little boy cried out, tears streaming down his face.
NanoSwarm: Extermination Day Book Two Page 34
