Legacy (70 page)

“You don’t think there could be a power source still active on whatever it is we have uncovered here, do you?” Jarneux asked.

“All I can say is that I doubt very much this thing is active. It’s hard to tell its age because there looks to be no deterioration of the metal properties due to the lack of an atmosphere. And since this is no earthly design, unless the colonel here has been hiding a Chinese leap in technology we didn’t see coming, I would say it’s old. I doubt anything on it could possibly be working.”

“I hope you are right, Lieutenant,” the French captain said, and went to begin directing the efforts of his men.

Unlike Jack in Ecuador, Sarah didn’t connect the use of her electronic communications equipment to the strange vibration. She never even felt the first effects when she tried to contact Jason in
Altair
.

“Will, General Kwan, we should be off,” Sarah checked her chronometer. “I would like to send two men back to the
Altair
soon to make contact with Ryan and find out who could be jamming us.”

“I wish to send someone back also, Lieutenant, and since our two landers are on the same compass heading, may I suggest a joint effort? It would leave us shorthanded, but I would rather err on the side of caution in this instance,” General Kwan said, looking around the area.

Sarah again nodded her head. “Sergeant Tewlewiski,” Sarah said over her shortwave. “Join us, please.”

The general called over one of the men who was preparing for the short trek into Shackleton. The two men joined them and they were given instructions.

“I suspect we’re far beyond secrets here,” Sarah said as she looked the two men over, “and since
Altair
is closer, you should replenish your air there before moving on to
Magnificent Dragon
. Regardless, continue to try to raise Ryan as you go. Maybe this jamming will let up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant said as he half bowed to his Chinese travel companion and gestured that they should start out.

“Shall we go, General?” Sarah said.

The Chinese general looked around the airless void, then turned to McIntire. “Yes, Lieutenant, because in all honesty, I would wish to conclude our business here as quickly as possible.”

*   *   *

Sergeant Tewlewiski tried to make small talk, but with the two communications systems sounding scratchy at best and the two soldiers unable to speak the same language, he had given up any attempts at conversation as they trudged through the lunar dust toward
Altair
. He knew that the Chinese soldier was a sergeant too and that his name was Chao. He didn’t understand the man’s first name so Tewlewiski just called him Chao; for everything else he used hand gestures. He would point to his wrist when it was time for Chao to attempt contact with
Magnificent Dragon
. The signal transmission was still being jammed, but by what they didn’t know. All of their attempts to raise
Altair
or the Chinese LEM were being made while they were on the move. Like Sarah, the two soldiers never felt the vibrations coming through the lunar dust. After attempting contact, they would simply bound away, actually enjoying the walk toward
Altair
in the light lunar gravity.

Finally Tewlewiski saw the
Altair,
only sixty-five feet away. He saw no movement at the large triangular windows on the upper deck, so he assumed Ryan was either on the crew deck or going through his preflight checklist as ordered by the lieutenant. He pointed his gloved hand almost proudly at the LEM. Chao nodded in the exaggerated way necessary in the bulky environment suits. The sergeant raised his left wrist and pushed the blue button just above the wrist.

“
Altair
, this is ground team, do you copy, over,” he called through the embedded microphone in his helmet. He didn’t want to surprise Ryan without making a last attempt to contact him. “Come on, Ryan, you got your ears on?” Tewlewiski said, breaking proper radio protocol.

Sergeant Chao grabbed Tewlewiski’s wrist and held it still. He raised his right boot from the dust and nodded his head downward.

Tewlewiski didn’t understand at first, then he felt it. There was a vibration emanating from the lunar dust. He tilted his head and wondered what it could be. As he went slowly to his knees he felt the same vibration through his gloves, only stronger since the gloves weren’t as thick as their boots.

“What the hell is that?” he asked through the COM system.

“This is
Altair
. Is that any way to talk on the radio, you Army puke? You want the FCC to fine us?”

Tewlewiski gave out a yelp as Ryan’s signal blasted through loud and clear. Even Sergeant Chao jumped when he heard the call. Tewlewiski rose to his feet with heart racing. Both men started to laugh.

“Damn, Ryan, we’ve been trying to raise you for the past two hours, over.”

“Well, that’s funny. I’ve been trying the same thing with you guys. I was about ready to suit up and come out there looking for you. I do have some more bad news. The Russian command module went off the air. It seems they may have COM problems too. Or maybe they lost the whole shebang, I don’t know. I could hear them one minute and nothing the next. We can still receive from time to time, depending on the orbits of COM satellites, but we can’t broadcast. So it looks like the Russians are out of the ball game altogether.” There was a pause as Jason climbed onto the command deck. “Hey, I see you brought a friend with you.”

Tewlewiski looked over at Chao, who was not looking at him in return. He was staring down at the surface of the Moon and not moving. Then the American understood why, the vibration had increased to the point it felt as if a bus were passing by just underneath the surface.

“Hey Ryan, do you feel anything?”

“Yes, dear, I feel lonely out here all by myself.”

“Nut, that’s not what I mean. There’s a vibration that keeps—”

Suddenly the ground between the two men erupted skyward, sending Sergeant Chao flying through the airless space to land twenty feet away. As the ground sprayed upward in the thirty-yard arc, a massive shape seemed to rise above Tewlewiski.

“Jesus, what the hell was that?” Ryan called out, as he gripped the triple window pane on the command deck of
Altair
. Then he became silent as he saw for the first time just what was standing over Tewlewiski. “Oh, shit, get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The American finally raised his helmeted head and saw what was looking down at him. The machine stood just shy of twenty feet tall. He could see the stainless steel gears spinning and grinding inside its humanoid frame. The torso was thick and covered in armor plate. The arms looked as though they were made from six different lengths of thick hardened steel, culminating in a hand with three sharpened fingers. The head was rounded and there was no mouth, only two giant red eyes that rotated left and right as they took in Tewlewiski. As the sergeant watched in shock, he saw two more arms exit the armored torso. The thick left leg lifted and took a step toward the sergeant.

“Oh, shit, Ryan, tell me you’re seeing this?”

“Tewlewiski, just get the hell out of there!” Ryan called out.

The giant mechanical monstrosity tilted its rounded head and swiveled to the right. The neck elongated and spiraled outward toward the spot where Sergeant Chao had landed. He was attempting to rise to his feet when he saw what was confronting him. Chao hesitated as he gained his knees. As if in a slow-motion dream he tried to remove the weapon from his back, but the strap caught on his oxygen container. The beast’s eyes rotated; it was following what Chao was doing. Its neck retracted into its body. The mechanical monstrosity took two steps backward and halted. Tewlewiski froze, but the Chinese sergeant didn’t. He finally maneuvered the kinetic weapon from his back and without aiming he fired it three times, launching the faster-than-sound bolts of tungsten steel toward the beast. The first two rounds slammed into the steel plate of the torso; the third hit a shoulder blade that was nothing more than hardened plate. The machine rose and waggled as if it were a man who had accidentally hit himself on the thumb with a hammer. A solar panel rose from the area under the plate and then vanished again almost as quickly. The beast turned its eyes toward Chao. It moved faster than either man could believe. It reached Chao in three giant steps and picked him up. While holding the sergeant in one hand, the beast swiped at Tewlewiski with the other. He managed to duck, but the Army sergeant knew he’d be dead in a moment anyway as he felt the sharpened steel fingertips penetrate his suit at the waist. He cursed just as several kinetic energy rounds struck the metal giant in the back.

Chao was firing a continuous stream of tungsten rounds at the mechanical beast and he could see the giant flinch as the half pound missiles struck its back. It was as if the rounds were causing it pain.

“The solar panels on its back, can you hit them?” Ryan called as he scrambled inside the command deck on
Altair
.

The Chinese sergeant took aim and fired again. The beast turned its full attention on the struggling Tewlewiski. Chao heard the desperate sounds coming from the American’s COM system and knew the sergeant was being squeezed to death. Chao kept up the steady stream of rounds, trying to aim for the spot where the double blades of steel covered the solar panels that Ryan must believe was its power source. Except for the loud pinging coming through the Chinese radio system, the small battle was as silent as the grave.

Finally it was if the beast had had enough of the game. It turned partially toward Chao and smashed the American astronaut with its free hand. The two steel claws slammed into the helmet and smashed it flat.

“No!” Chao shouted, as he advanced. The robotic killer turned toward him. It charged, but the sergeant held his ground. The beast jumped. Chao kept up the fire even as the beast came down on him, pounding his crushed body into the soft soil.

Ryan stared through the triangular window with the environmental suit only up to his waist.

The mechanical assassin straightened, its steel foot still firmly planted on the body of Chinese soldier. Its head rotated left and then right, and then went completely around in a circle. It seemed to look straight at Ryan, but paid him no attention. Then the robot simply fell over into the dust, curling into a large ball. It started to roll like tumbleweed in the direction of Shackleton Crater.

GALLERY NUMBER TWO, MÜELLER AND SANTIAGO MINING CONCERN, 100 MILES EAST OF QUITO

Alice Hamilton watched Garrison Lee as he mumbled in his drug-induced sleep. She had been against his traveling, but she knew that arguing with him would have been as useless as shouting at a brick wall.

She was sitting on a small camp chair in the darkened tent next to his cot. She reached out and took his hand and squeezed it. He stopped mumbling and settled down. She heard him call out her name softly and then his face relaxed. She reached up with her free hand and wiped a tear away that had slid down her cheek. Alice had never been one to cry, even when sorrow was bursting to break free of her soul.

She took a deep breath and reached over to retrieve his old brown fedora. She looked it over and sighed. She always wondered why he insisted on wearing that particular one. She was getting ready to place it back at the foot of the cot when she heard men outside of the tent. She looked at Lee for the briefest moment to make sure he had indeed settled into a deeper sleep, and then she eased her hand out of his. She stood and made her way to the tent flap.

Outside, underneath the hanging lights of the first gallery, Alice saw four men talking to three of Jack’s people that he had left behind after the main force had advanced. She overheard part of the conversation and stepped out of the tent.

“Excuse me, did you say that Colonel Collins has sent you to bring in more men?”

One of the soldiers, a Special Forces sergeant, saw Alice and nodded his head.

“Uh, yes, ma’am. He wants a backup force brought into gallery number two.”

“Has the colonel found something?” she asked, hoping for any information that would take her mind off Garrison.

“So far, ma’am, all I’ve seen are skeletons—Nazi skeletons, close to a thousand or so. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, we’d better get—”

That was as far as the sergeant got before the bullets cut him down. The six men with him didn’t even have time to bring their weapons up before fifty silenced bullets struck them down as well. Alice barely escaped being hit as one of the bullets slammed into the tent pole where she had placed her hand. As she ran to the closest of the fallen men, a hand reached out and took her by the arm.

“I’m sure he is far beyond the need for your attention, madam.”

Alice looked up into the dark eyes of the Mechanic.

She had seen the dossier on him that the FBI had sent Jack. She easily recognized the eyes. The beard was gone and the hair was longer than he wore during his insurgent days in Iraq, but it was the Mechanic.

“Azim Quaida, the Mechanic. Which do you want to be called, young man?” Alice asked. Her gray eyes never left the dark countenance staring at her.

“You know me and yet I do not know you. CIA?” he asked and released her hand.