Protocol 7 (47 page)

Hayden himself was at the Ops station. Two of the AIs had been badly fried, but their processing load was easily assumed by the remaining units. Most of the external sensors came back online with full power as well; all they really lost was one of the external cameras for the forward-facing screens. It had been shattered by one of the scientist’s bullets.

Andrew pulled himself out of the maintenance corridor under the bridge. “Treads look five-by-five,” he said. “I don’t think any of the bullets got down there at all.”

Samantha stood up and left the science station, still looking for the inhaler or the med pack. Andrew had insisted Nastasia had put the nebulizer inside the pack, which didn’t make any sense at all. She had already checked every cabinet in the ready room, under the oddly watchful eyes of Lucas’ scientists.

“Nav’s up,” Ryan said from the co-pilot’s seat. Then he checked a second, different indicator. “Another three minutes, and power will be at one hundred.”

Suddenly Hayden pulled himself to his feet, still staring at the Ops console. “Okay!” he said. “I overrode the security and safety protocols, set up instructions to channel the entire power output to the shields. All we have to do is give it the command from this little tab here,” he held up a dedicated transmitter, no larger than a key chain fob, “and she’ll heat up and start melting ice ‘til we tell her to stop.”

Andrew touched one last glowing panel and stood up as well. “Ready,” he said.

Ryan was already on his feet and packing his tools. “Ready here,” he said.

“There you are!” Samantha said.

The little black insulated med pack was wedged in a tiny space by the security console—the one nobody used. She leaned forward, twisted her torso, and curled her fingers around the edge, right as Lucas said, “Good,” and raised his rifle.

There was something in his voice. Hayden turned to him and suddenly stopped moving. Samantha straightened very slowly, black bag in hand.

Hayden was gaping at the rifle. It was aimed squarely at Ryan’s chest. “Lucas,” he said, “Are you out of your mind? What the hell are you thinking?”

One of Lucas’ other men was filling the door to the ready room, blocking escape. The third was standing directly in front of the exit hatch.

“Shut up and get out of the vessel before I blow his brains out,” Lucas said.

“Lucas,” Hayden shouted, “Whatever the hell your problem is, once we’re out—”

“No,” Lucas said, “There’s no we, Hayden. There never was. You’ve been in hell for hours—a day at most. I—my men—we’ve been here for months. For years. I’m not staying a minute longer.”

“But—”

“Shut up! Get out!”

The third man who was not blocking the exit grabbed Samantha by the arm and shoved her toward the hatch. She snatched her arm away as the man pulled the small black case from her hand and pushed her out of the vessel. Ryan followed close behind her.

Still inside the Spector, Andrew wouldn’t cooperate. “Lucas,” he said. “You are fucking crazy. You can’t pilot this thing. You don’t even know how to turn it on. And if you think any one of us is going to help you steal it and—”

Lucas hit him on the side of the head—one sweeping, vicious blow—and Andrew fell unconscious before he hit the floor of the cabin. Then he too was thrown from the vessel like a rag doll, hitting the icy floor right outside the exit hatch. Samantha rushed toward Andrew.

“He’ll die there,” Samantha screamed.

Lucas ignored her scream outside the Spector. Still pointing the gun directly at Hayden, he said, “You’re next. Get the fuck out before I kill you.”

Hayden simply refused, “Without me the Spector won’t go anywhere,” he said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lucas snapped.

Hayden held up the tiny command unit. “It’s keyed to my thumbprint, Lucas. Only I can trigger the melt.”

Lucas just shook his head. “God damn it, Hayden,” he said, sounding almost sad. He lashed out again, this time with the butt of his rifle, and put Hayden down with a single blow.

The Hatch was still open, and Samantha could sense what was about to happen next. She screamed as Lucas bent over and stripped the glove from Hayden’s right hand.

“Lucas please!” Samantha begged. But it was too late.

Ryan seized her shoulder. “Sam! We’ve got to get them out of here! We’re too close to the Spector!”

Holding Andrew’s unconscious body, she couldn’t look away from what was happening inside the vessel.

Lucas had the command tab in his hand. He was wedging it between Hayden’s limp, unmoving fingers.

“If they trigger the melt from this close, we’ll all die,” Ryan said.

Hayden’s body was thrown out of the vessel as the Spector’s outer hatch closed shut with Raymond and his two men inside. The massive vessel’s treads retracted within its body as the entire submersible lowered itself, now sitting on the icy floor completely watertight. Its surface began to heat up less than five feet from Andrew and Hayden’s body.

Ryan rushed forward and dragged Hayden’s body back as Samantha struggled with Andrew.

The outer shields of the Spector exploded in a bright flash of light. The heat followed an instant later, searing Samantha and Ryan’s face, driving them back.

Now less than twenty feet from the burning Spector, Ryan continued to pull Hayden’s body away from the burning heat. He struggled to shield his face from the inferno. Samantha screamed, “Andrew! No!” She turned back, into the impossible heat, threw herself toward Andrew’s body, and grabbed onto the shoulders of his suit. She dug in and pulled back.

He was so heavy, and the floor of ice was already starting to soften, to melt.

Struggling with the weight of Hayden’s body, Ryan had reached an alcove fifty feet from the Spector—a spot that afforded the protection of a crack in the large ice wall and hid them from the worst of the heat. He had managed to drag Hayden, still unconscious, to the shelter with him. They were as safe as they could possibly be.

But Samantha wouldn’t leave Andrew. She faintly heard Ryan’s voice over the sizzling roar of the burning shields as her face burned from the heat. “Sam! Leave him!”

“No!” The ice under Andrew’s body had already fallen away by at least a foot, leaving him in a deepening pool of steaming water.

Everything was melting.

Samantha braced her feet against the slush and pulled at him as hard as she could.

“Sam, you can’t do it!” Ryan called. “Get out of there!”

No, she thought. Not this time. She hauled at him with all her strength, and he moved six inches closer to her, but no more than that.

The ice beneath her boots gave way. She fell, losing her grip on his suit. She looked up at the Spector, barely ten feet away, and watched in horrified fascination as it started to sink into the tunnel floor. It created an eerie glow in the surrounding pool of water—the pool that, as she watched, grew wider and deeper, swallowing Andrew’s body completely.

“SAM!”

The heat drove her back. She tried to push herself forward again, groped in the water to find Andrew’s shoulder or hand, anything to grab onto, but he was fully underwater now. She had to struggle to keep from sliding forward through the slush, where she knew she would sink into the melted water herself.

Moments later, the Spector disappeared into a vertical pool it had created. Soon after, the melted ice it had left behind with the heat of its passing started to re-freeze.

Sam saw what was going to happen an instant before it did.

“Wait!” she screamed and lunged forward. “Wait!” The brilliant light from the shaft began to fade to a ghostly glow as the Spector fell deeper and deeper. Samantha pushed even deeper into the freezing pool where Andrew had disappeared, searching.

Ice was already forming on its surface, impossibly fast.

She jerked her hands free, struggled to her feet, and kicked out a boot at the skin of ice as it formed. It cracked with the sound of a gunshot, and she threw herself forward, trying to thrust her hands into it again.

She was hysterical. Andrew’s down there, she told herself. I can do this; I can pull him out.

She felt the ice form around her wrists. It was happening so fast.

She felt Ryan’s hands on her shoulders, his arm around her waist. She felt her hands fly free of the confining ice as he pulled her back, hard, and they fell sprawling on the ground.

But that was all she felt. She could think of nothing more.

“Andrew,” she said turning around, crawling onto her knees. “Andrew.”

The ice turned solid as rock as she knelt there weeping.

He was gone.

The pilot’s flesh wound burned like fire as the DITV made its last turn and paused at the entrance to the Dragger Station Bridge. They were less than five hundred yards from the edge, and Simon was still holding the pistol firmly against the pilot’s neck. He didn’t seem to care that the Vector5 solider was bleeding heavily.

For the first time, Simon was aware that Nastasia was standing close behind him.

The sensor array on the console showed them the image of what lay ahead: the chasm, and then three chambers on the far side. Beyond that was a network of tunnels even more complex and ominous than the labyrinth they had just navigated. In the center of the dome, there appeared to be three vertical shafts—huge elevators that went even lower, deeper into the ice, toward the depth of the icy underworld.

“Where the hell is this leading us?” Max asked in a strangely hushed voice.

The pilot was getting woozy, but he tried to answer anyway. “The tunnels to…Central…you can only get to them through those vertical shafts. Watch…”

The DITV rolled across the bridge very quickly. On the far side, they were abruptly thrown into complete darkness as the shadow of the structure fell across them. The only light that survived was the glow from the digital displays.

The pilot activated the forward headlamps with one shaking finger. The three elevator doors were just a hundred feet ahead of them; each elevator was large enough to accommodate a vessel the size of the DITV.

The indicators above two of the doors read 000. The indicator above the third, the one to the right, read +480…and grew smaller as they watched: +470…+460…

The soldier slouched forward, losing the last of his strength. Max moved quickly in trying to grab the man as he fell, but he was a beat too late. The DITV started rolling slowly forward, toward the door of the elevator that was about to arrive.

“Stop him!” Simon said.

“Too late! Brace yourself!” The DITV moved relentlessly forward; nothing could stop it. In less than twenty feet, they would crash directly into the gargantuan doors.

Simon reached past Max and slapped the pilot, hard as he could. It shocked the man half-awake, if only for an instant.

“Look!” Simon shouted straight into his face. “LOOK!”

The pilot’s eyes widened. He saw the metal doors of the elevator surging toward him.

“NO!” he said. His hands darted out, found the controls, and pulled.

The vehicle skidded to a halt, three feet from the elevator doors.

Still the one elevator descended: +280…+270…

The pilot fell back in his seat, his mouth working as he tried to speak.

“Doesn’t matter,” he gasped. “We’re all dead now.”

“What’s down there?” Simon said. “What’s happening?”

The pilot’s eyes fluttered. He closed his eyes. His head fell to the side as he lost consciousness entirely, slumping over in the chair.

+230…+210…

“Shit,” Max said. He hesitated for an instant, then jumped forward, and ripped the unmoving pilot’s uniform from his body.

Nastasia blanched. “What are you doing?”

With sudden ferocity he grabbed her by the collar of her exo-suit and dragged her to him, putting his mouth close to her ear, speaking in a very fast, nearly-silent whisper.

“The AI hasn’t noticed us coercing him. Which means there’s no voice recognition—she doesn’t pay attention after the first security check. So I have to try this. Help me.”

It was a thirty-second struggle to get the suit off the dying pilot and on to Max. The instant it was in place, he threw himself into the pilot’s seat and scowled at the freight elevator’s indicator:

+120.

He looked frantically around the console, trying to understand the complex array of gadgets. Where was the starter? Where was the fucking weaponry? Whatever was coming down that shaft was not going to be friendly; he had to be ready for it.

+50…

They began to feel the vibration of the massive elevator as it approached. Only then did Max decide what to do.

He put his hands on the control and pulled back, just a little. The DITV obeyed and moved back.

“Lazarus-9905,” he said. “Open central shaft.”

The door to the left of the approaching elevator obediently, swiftly, opened wide.

Simon lifted the rifle that he was holding, well aware that it would be useless to stop any real threat.

+20…+15…

Bright light poured from the elevator door as it cracked open. Max had made sure the DITV’s sensors showed the space inside was empty, so he didn’t hesitate. He moved his wrist forward, and the DITV responded instantly, trundling into the massive elevator. To their surprise, before the treads had engaged the edge of the door, a voice command prompted permission.

“You are clear, 9905, for your coordinates at 2,435 meters. Please confirm depth.”

“Affirmative,” said Max. He had no idea if that was the correct response.

He had guessed right. The doors slid shut and the lights blinked off, plunging them into total darkness yet again.

Their stomachs sank as the descent to Central Command began.

Two seconds later at Dragger Station, the elevator to their right opened wide, and Blackburn emerged.

“Report?” he demanded.

No one said a thing.

“Report!”

* * *

Below him, falling away, Nastasia felt her world closing in.

She didn’t belong here. She knew that. But fate had chosen her, and it was time to do what had to be done.

* * *