Azrael took his foot off Lemke. The vice president gasped for breath. A nearby Chimera handed him a cutlass.
“Or if you do not submit, then understand that we will destroy you and what’s left of your country.” Azrael aimed the cutlass at the vice president.
“No,” Lemke said, voice rasping. “Don’t submit!”
Azrael swung the cutlass down, separating his head from his body.
“You have three days to decide,” Azrael said.
The video ended.
General Souza bowed his head.
Ringgold shivered, unable to contain the emotion boiling inside her. Soprano put a hand on her back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Souza said.
Ringgold shook away the shock, wiped at her tears, and looked at the team.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Should I…”
She didn’t want to bring herself to say it, but she was no longer sure about their future.
“Do we surrender?” Vance asked, completing the question she was afraid to voice aloud.
“No, hell no,” Cornelius said. “If we do, that son of a bitch will kill every one of us and enslave our families.”
“Slavery is worse than death,” Soprano said.
“After Puerto Rico, Vegas, your entire country, you think we can actually win at any point in the future?” asked General Vance. “That thing is too powerful now.”
“What choice do we have?” Souza said.
“He gave us a choice,” Vance replied.
Hernandez snapped out of his shock and slammed his fist on the table. “I would die before I become a creature like him. You ask my people, and they will tell you the same!”
All eyes turned toward Ringgold. She fought to control herself and push the images of Lemke’s horrific death from her mind.
There was only one way forward. Giving in to the New Gods, as Lemke had said in that video, was not an option.
“You should not have to ask me.” She stifled the sobs threatening to overtake her. “I spent a few years in New Hampshire. You know the motto.”
“Live free or die,” Cornelius said. “I’m with you, Madam President.”
“In three days, I will defend Galveston by myself if that’s what it takes,” Ringgold said, speaking as clearly as she could, stymieing the tide of grief building inside her. “If any of you want to submit to him, know that you’ve made yourself our enemy. Otherwise, in three days, we’ll stand right here on this soil and fight.
One by one, the others nodded in agreement.
“Notify Commander Jacobs immediately to recall all operations from Houston, consolidating them here in Galveston,” Ringgold said. “We need everything we’ve got in one location. That includes ensuring every single person who can lift a gun. Everyone must help to defend this base. No exceptions.”
“We’ll get the message out,” General Souza said.
“That includes me,” Ringgold said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve fired a weapon, but General Cornelius, I was hoping you could give me a refresher.”
“Absolutely, Madam President,” he replied.
“Good,” Ringgold said.
“I’ll begin preparing our forces,” Cornelius said.
Hernandez started to stand. “I will request reinforcements immediately. We cannot sit idly by while one of our closest military and economic partners is destroyed by this beast and his monsters.”
“Thank you,” Ringgold said. She looked to General Vance. “Are you ready to send those thousand troops your country initially promised, too?”
“Please understand that it’s out of my control, but I think this latest video will serve to change a lot of minds up north.”
“Thank you,” Ringgold said. “For those doubting we can win, remember this. Our enemy believes they are Gods, but they bleed and feel pain. And they’ll soon learn they’re mortal like the rest of us.”
— 18 —
Kate wrinkled her nose at the smell of rot and death wafting around her when she entered the parking garage beneath the hospital outside of Outpost Houston.
Banks of lights illuminated the tunnel plastered with red webbing. Commander Jacobs had doubled the number of men down here since President Ringgold had sent word that an attack on Galveston was imminent.
Kate didn’t feel any better with the increased troops. The video from Azrael’s throne room continued to haunt her. This monster had single-handedly brought the Allied States to its knees, and his forces only seemed to grow stronger by the day.
At least she wouldn’t be stuck in this hellhole for much longer. As the president withdrew their defenses from Houston, she had requested the science team return as soon as possible with them.
The team would have to abandon their efforts outside the tunnel and figure out a new way to help the war efforts.
All in the matter of three days.
Kate wasn’t sure how they could accomplish anything of scientific merit in that short amount of time.
A cry of pain distracted her from her thoughts and Kate turned away from the tunnel. Leslie jerked in the chair near the tunnel where she was tapped into the network, her eyes closed.
Ron and Sammy stood nearby, watching the computer.
“Anything useful before we pack up to leave?” Kate asked Sammy.
Sammy squinted at the monitor, scanning the spikes of communication signals she had intercepted. “Everything is gibberish.”
“They knew the whole time we were listening, and they used it against us,” Kate said. “We missed the scouts they sent all around the country. We missed the attacks on Puerto Rico, and we still don’t know for certain if the Prophet is Charles Morgan and if he is at Los Alamos. But we do know they are coming after us again, only because they told us.”
Ron lowered his head and rubbed his eyes.
She could tell the researcher was exhausted and scared. She didn’t blame him. Fear was a constant companion in all their lives. Part of her just wanted to give up and spend the last few days with her family.
But so long as they still lived and she had a chance of saving them, she could not give up.
“Sammy, is there any hope you can follow their communication signals again?” Kate asked.
“They’ve re-encrypted everything.”
“How long would it take for you to decode?”
“Days, maybe a week. Maybe longer, even with the software we’ve got.”
“We don’t have a week. We’ve got three days.”
“I know, but…” Sammy slapped the desk.
“It’s okay.” Kate put a hand on the young woman. “Just breath. We can figure something out if we work together.”
Leslie cried out again, drawing stares from several soldiers.
“Should I disconnect her?” Ron asked.
“Not yet,” Kate said. “I need to know more about this new encryption before we head back to Galveston. What’s the issue?”
Sammy took in a deep breath, exhaled, and stepped back to the computer.
“They’re using what I can best describe as a kind of rolling code. Or something similar. Every time I think I’m remotely close to figuring out how they’re encrypting their signals, everything changes,” she explained. “Suddenly the frequencies and data they were sending are all altered, so I can’t track down what anything means anymore.”
“You’re saying it’s impossible to figure out what they’re saying?” Kate asked.
“Impossible? No, it can be hacked. But not in three days.”
Kate considered it. Understanding the Variant communication signals once again might give them some leverage. If they were lucky, maybe Sammy could figure it out earlier than she estimated. They might be able to get a read on how many beasts were headed their way.
But she did not want to rely on luck. Not with the future of the Allied States at risk.
“You’re positive you can’t solve it
in three days?” Kate asked.
“Positive as a proton.” Sammy said, cracking a quick grin. “Okay, probably not as funny given the circumstances. Basically, we’re screwed.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kate said, starting to pace behind the computer station. “There must be something else we can do.”
“I’m telling you, there’s not a damn thing I can do to decrypt these messages any faster. It’s like creating a vaccine for a virus in a week instead of a year.”
“I understand…” Kate said. She stepped away to think.
Sammy was right that they wouldn’t be decoding messages anytime soon, and the New Gods had seemingly weaponized the organic network against the Allied States. But that did not mean there weren’t other options to use the network against them.
Perhaps there was something they could do to disrupt the upcoming attack—and better yet, prevent the New Gods from ever using the webbing again.
“Sammy, Ron, pull Leslie out of there,” Kate said. “I’ve got an idea.”
A few moments later Leslie was detached from the microarray connections and webbing. She rubbed the back of her neck where the webbing had been removed, wincing.
“You okay?” Kate asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Leslie replied.
“Good. Everyone, gather around.” Kate waited for her team before starting in on her idea. “Unless anyone has an idea, I think trying to intercept messages from the webbing network is a waste of time. Ringgold wants us back in Galveston.”
“So everything we’ve done… it’s been for nothing?” Leslie asked.
“No,” Kate said. “We stopped plenty of attacks when we first figured this out. We bought time for outposts that were able to evacuate, and most importantly, we found intel that helped us identify our enemy.”
“True,” Sammy said. “And with all our work behind-the-scenes, I was able to run some image analysis programs. I can say with an eighty percent certainty that Prophet Azrael in the video was Charles Morgan. Everything he said matches exactly what Ron guessed.”
“Eighty percent certainty isn’t good enough,” Kate said. “But if we’re assuming we know who this guy is, thanks to that video, we have a better sense of our enemy. It seems like a man who might think he was wronged by our government, by our science. And who feels like he is truly delivering the future of mankind to us in the form of the Chimeras.”
“Basically, a huge fucking asshole,” Sammy said.
“I won’t argue with you about that,” Kate said. “But we know he’s intelligent. He understands a variety of technologies and isn’t afraid to use them to his own benefit.”
“He’s an evil, arrogant bastard,” Leslie said.
“Perhaps we can harness his arrogance,” Kate said. “Science is only good with the proper checks and balances. I always found that my best results came when I was working with people smarter than me, unafraid to tell me when I was wrong or when we should consider different experiments.”
“This guy is working with a bunch of monsters,” Ron said. “I wonder how many brains they’ve got behind their operations.”
“I have a feeling he doesn’t like when people tell him he’s wrong,” Kate said. “But he’s not surrounded by idiots. We can’t forget about the masterminds and the Chimeras, plus everyone connected to the network and those that helped build it.”
“I wish we could just burn it all down,” Sammy said.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” Kate looked at the webbing around the tunnel. “We don’t need the army. That throne, that entire room, was covered in organic webs. I would be willing to bet that even the webbing around Houston shares enough connections for those webs to transmit signals directly into that throne of his, whether it’s in Los Alamos or somewhere entirely different.”
“But we can’t listen to anything coming from that throne room, though,” Ron said.
“I don’t plan on listening to it anymore. I want to destroy it. Like killing a weed by destroying its roots, I want to poison the whole network.”
“With what?” Sammy asked. “I could maybe come up with a computer virus that scrambles their signals or something, but that’ll still take days and will only work on those physical computers attached to their network.”
“We’re not talking about computer work anymore,” Kate said. “A mentor once told me that to destroy a monster, I would have to create one. And we’re going to do that again.”
“You want to develop a new bioweapon?” Ron said, bottom lip shaking.
“Not exactly,” Kate said. “The development work has already been done for us. We still have the concentrated weaponized anthrax from that grenade, right?”
“Yes,” Leslie said. “More than enough to kill a quarter of the outpost here if we released it.”
“Good. We can move our operations safely back to Galveston, and culture more of the anthrax bacteria.”
“More? We’re talking about a weaponized pathogen! You want to use it against the New Gods?” Leslie asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s insane,” Ron said. “If we deployed it and the wind blows wrong, it could infect our people. I know it’s not contagious, it won’t spread once it infects people, but it will still kill so many.”
“We won’t be aerosolizing it,” Kate said. “I want to grow as much as we can in the next two days. The anthracis bacteria that causes anthrax is extremely easy to culture and divides rapidly. It won’t take long. Then I want to aliquot boluses of the bacteria into syringes.”
“Inject the anthrax?” Ron asked.
“I get it,” Sammy said. “Instead of a digital computer virus, we’re going to use a biological one.”
“You got it,” Kate said. “Only it’s not a virus. It’s a bacterium. We can selectively inject it into various webbing network sites our scouts and other outposts have uncovered. Those vines will die off as the bacteria spreads, and even better, they’ll actually serve as living bioreactors for the anthrax bacteria, allowing the bacteria to spread up and down the network, slowly killing every connected piece of webbing.”
“It’s like we’re setting an unstoppable forest fire,” Leslie said.
“And if we spread out the injections, we can avoid any dead ends and ensure they can’t prevent its spread before it’s too late for them,” Kate said.
“Why not just bomb the network or physically burn it for that matter?” Ron asked.
“We have no idea how widespread the network really is,” Kate said. “And we already know bombing is ineffective from the tactical nuclear weapons we previously deployed. While the tunnels help conceal the webbing network from the air, they don’t do anything to shield them from microscopic bacteria traveling through the cells inside the webbing. Any other questions?”
Sammy raised her hand. “Are you going to teach me to help culture the bacteria, too? I need to do something helpful.”
“You got it,” Kate said.
“By infecting the network, don’t we also risk killing off everything attached to it, including every human and animal prisoner.”
“I’m afraid this is the only way,” Kate said. “Whether we win or lose the battle for Galveston, the bacteria will keep fighting, routing out any surviving masterminds, beasts or hives attached to the webbing.”
Kate stared at the tunnel, picturing the bacteria spreading like a wildfire with grim satisfaction. “It will be our last gift to the New Gods.”
***
Fitz basked in the warm sun at Seawolf Park on Pelican Island, an island situated across the water at the northern edge of Galveston. The USS Seawolf, a submarine from World War II, along with a destroyer escort, the USS Stewart were drydocked there. Both had served as an open-air museum before the Great War of Extinction.
Today the site had transformed to allow for a memorial service for all the lives lost in the battle for Las Vegas. Men and women in uniform lined up, facing President Ringgold at a podium.
As the wind whipped at her hair and pantsuit, soldiers stood around a few caskets sitting in a series of small wooden rowboats in the grass near Ringgold. Each casket had an Allied States flag draped over it.
“Today we say goodbye to those who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Ringgold said. “Today we carry their memories and spirits into the crucial days ahead. Know that they are watching over us and fighting beside us, as determined as any of us to preserve the freedoms we have so valiantly fought for.”
President Ringgold saluted when the soldiers positioned near the small boats moved them toward the concrete pier surrounding the park. Another group of soldiers removed the flags from the caskets and began folding them.
Fitz watched in reverence as they finished folding the flags, retreating as others placed the boats with their casket cargo into the Gulf, setting each on fire, then pushing them to sea.
A bugler played “Taps” as the boats drifted out in flames. What remained of the caskets and the few bodies they had brought back from Vegas would find their final resting place at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
He felt tears forming over his eyes as he maintained his salute. He sensed the same despair in Rico and Dohi who were next to him. How many times had they stood side by side to say goodbye to their brothers and sisters?
They were all that remained of Team Ghost. He regretted that they had not even been able to bring Ace back to give the man the burial he deserved. The older man should not have even had to fight this war. He had been past retirement age for a special ops group like Ghost, but Ace had never shied from a fight or the calling to protect the country and people he loved.
The bugler finished, and Fitz let out a sigh. Most of the people who had come to pay their respects dispersed.
President Ringgold lingered for a moment, watching the fingers of smoke streaming away from the boats before following her cadre of Secret Service agents to a Jeep. It drove away, accelerating back to the EOC to continue planning the outposts’ defenses.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 118
