Redemption Protocol (Contact) (41 page)
There was so much to explore, it was exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time. Weaver knew where she wanted to start. The plinths on the main floor of the cavern appeared to be access points and if this was a library, well, it could be the single greatest discovery in human history. She shivered at the thought of it.
She checked the sample chamber that she'd attached to the front of a plinth. Karch had erected a screen lock over the entrance to the cavern, but it would take time to fill with air. Weaver’s heart sped up a little as she looked at the plinth. She was ready to go. She tried to relax her breathing.
“I'm going to try and access it now.”
Karch stood nearby, disconcertingly tall in her combat suit.
“Pull you out after two minutes?”
It was what they’d agreed.
“Yes.”
Karch's big eyes looked reassuringly confident.
“You got it. Good luck, honey.”
A shiver of excitement passed through Weaver.
“Thanks.”
She pressed her hand against the plinth.
70.
The pyramid reared up in front of Havoc, dark and foreboding, with storm clouds seething around its summit. Havoc looked along the line at Kemensky, Tomas and Charles, all rigged with jetpacks and hovering near the top of the wall. He’d gathered two clusters of three drones behind them, on either side of their team. The drones would be their decoys. Ten targets in all, with the four of them in the center.
“Novosa?”
Novosa was in the shuttle, a kilometer behind them on the surface, overseeing the drones and the four platforms that loitered in the sky behind them.
“You’re clear.”
Havoc had slaved Kemensky's suit to his own, though when he’d suggested that option to the esteemed young diplomats they’d rejected it out of hand. He didn’t blame them – he would of as well. The princes bobbed in their silver and gold suits, the insignia of their houses and bright red creatures emblazoned on them.
“Remember lads, courage in the face of experience is stupid and irresponsible. Especially if you put the team in danger.”
“I understand,” Charles said.
Tomas smirked.
In one ear and out the other, Havoc thought. Nothing as dangerous as a man with something to prove.
“We'll do five sweeps in total. We'll increase penetration each time. No more than a kilometer in, maximum, on the first sweep.”
> They'll be disappointed.
> Disappointed but alive.
“If you reach the entrance for any reason then enter and wait. Don't wander. For all we know there could be another set of those guardians inside.”
And then we'll die, probably, Havoc thought.
“We’re ready,” Charles said.
“Let’s go!” Tomas said.
“I agree. Can we get on with this now please?” Kemensky said.
Havoc glanced at Kemensky. Weaver had pretended to think about it for a whole three seconds before volunteering Kemensky for the pyramid – he was as enthusiastic as a cat on bath day.
“Still no thoughts about the entrance, Kemensky?”
Kemensky brightened at this scientific conundrum.
“Really no idea at all.”
Havoc nodded, still adjusting to the scientists’ perverted value system. They couldn't get any readings from the dark pyramid entrances – if they were, in fact, entrances at all.
Havoc simulcast to text and speech. From now on he would simulcast everything so it was received the instant he thought it.
“Alright, drop back half a klick.”
The four of them flew back from the wall.
Havoc reviewed the terrain across the inner plaza to the entrance in the middle of the east wall. It was only three kilometers. The issue was that he wanted to get there as fast as possible, but he also wanted to slow down enough that he didn't crash into the pyramid like a fly hitting a windscreen.
The cloud lifted off the pyramid and its summit appeared with a contrail twirling from it like a banner. He checked the line. It looked good. He sent the six drones ahead of them.
“Advance.”
They accelerated in a line like a flying cavalry charge.
“Novosa.”
Novosa sent her diversionary drones curving over the north and south walls to draw warning fire.
The wall and its line of ideograms rushed toward them. They swooped down over the wall, still accelerating.
Havoc watched the tracks of the northern and southern guardians on his battlespace. The guardians had to travel two kilometers to reach the corners of the pyramid before they had a clear shot.
They moved fast.
Havoc reached five hundred meters in, still accelerating. The guardians were halfway to the shot.
“Turn back.”
Tomas gave a frenzied cry as he pointed ahead.
“Go, Charles!”
Havoc watched with disbelief as the silver suited wannabe hero curved away, accelerating toward the south east corner of the pyramid.
“Oh no you don't.”
“Oh no,” Kemensky said.
Tomas turned after him.
“I'll stay with him.”
“No, don't.”
Decision time
. Havoc had to go with them if he was to protect them, but if they reached the pyramid and found an access panel they would need Kemensky to get to safety.
“We all go.”
Charles accelerated toward the southeast corner.
“I'll cover you.”
Havoc couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Cover them? What was he planning to do, fight the things?
“You are fifteen hundred meters in,” Novosa said, “north and south guardians are converging on the corners and we have activity from west.”
The western guardian shouldn't be a problem, Havoc thought. It should all be over by the time the western guardian made it round from the far side.
“West is coming over the top,” Novosa said.
“Oh no,” Kemensky said.
On the battlespace the western guardian sped straight up the far side of the pyramid. So, depending on its speed, it would fire shortly after north and south. This was very bad news.
Havoc made a critical, irreversible decision and acted on it. He flew over the ground at three hundred kilometers per hour with Kemensky just to his right. Tomas had drifted to their left and Charles was way out on his own.
Novosa’s voice was calm as she described their impending encounter.
“North and south imminent, west is nearing the summit.”
Charles’s silver suit was a magnificent target. Havoc advanced the three drones in front of him.
“Get to the entrance, Charles. The entrance!”
Charles altered course slightly, jetting for the entrance.
“I'm covering you.”
Spare me, Havoc thought.
“Novosa get two blades over the wall.”
“Copy.”
“Watch your speed everyone.”
The two guardians burst round their respective corners like two Gods of War consumed by bloodlust and hell bent on battlefield slaughter. They reared up, wings flaring out, and each raised a clawed appendage.
Kinetics screamed over the drones. Warning shots. The hypersonic javelins left the guardians' weapons traveling over three kilometers per second. Hard to dodge, Havoc thought, as the massive kinetics seared over his head. He lased the shit out of the spread heading past him, but they were of sufficient mass that it didn't make any difference. The energy imparted by a hit was going to be colossal. Fatal. Don't get hit.
The hypersonic double crack of the projectiles reached him after the kinetics had passed.
“You’re nine hundred meters out.”
Havoc scanned ahead into the entrance but as before he sensed nothing, his signals simply absorbed. He needed to make the call. If a tunnel ran inside behind the black curtain they could hit it with higher speed. If it didn't and they hit a wall then it would hurt. But if they slowed down the guardians would obliterate them.
“Go in straight at one fifty, we'll slow down inside. Charles, get in line with the entrance.”
The guardians were firing for real now.
The first two drones vanished in a puff of smoke like a conjurers trick. Four drones left.
“You’re five hundred meters out.”
Havoc jetted toward the dark entrance that was completely obscured to sensing. A pool of blackness. This was fucking crazy.
The next two drones went down. One volley from each side and they ceased to exist. Two left.
“Three hundred meters.”
It was too far. They were too slow.
“Head’s up, west is imminent.”
The last two drones went down, annihilated into smoke and splinters.
Novosa’s four blades hurtled directly at the guardians. They were obliterated as if Thor himself had swung his hammer.
“One hundred and fifty meters.”
The others were yelling as if on a roller coaster ride going over the top. Havoc launched nanoscreen cartridges like a dog shedding water.
“Chaff, everything.”
They would have hit the inky darkness at two hundred kilometers per hour. But they weren't going to make it.
Nanoscreen, shimmers, chaff, screamers and decoy rockets streamed out of their suits.
The guardians lined up.
Their suit decoys were exhausted.
“One hundred meters.”
They'd needed two more seconds.
The southern guardian opened fire. The first twenty centimeter long kinetic ripped through the atmo.
Charles screamed, his hand blown off, or some fingers.
Havoc braced for impact.
71.
In the vault under the Colosseum, Weaver pressed her hand against the alien plinth. As before, she felt the invigorating rush and displacement to an abstract location, but this time there was no sequence pushed toward her.
Instead a ghostly carousel, like an abstract catalog, spun in front of her. She knew intuitively she could move toward it, navigating the carousel with her mind. The carousel provided page after page of different sequence levels to choose from. She recognized the power level symbol next to the difficulty levels. They were zero, nada, nothing. Ascending levels of difficulty but each with a zero power level accompanying them. Perhaps no threat, she thought. She hoped, anyway.
She was in this abstract environment with all her senses replaced, buzzing with intellectual stimulation. In contrast to the gate, this time there was no sense of urgency and she didn't feel trapped. There was a clear intuitive doorway out and she took it.
She blinked into reality, feeling energized.
“Wow.”
“Already?” Karch said.
“It's different. It's more of a choice.”
“How does it feel?”
She realized the truth of it as she answered.
“It feels fantastic. It's like stepping on top of a mountain on a clear day. You can see forever. The awareness has a quality to it. Sorry, I'm blathering.”
Karch smiled at her.
“You going back in?”
“Yes. I just wanted to make sure I could get out.”
Karch nodded.
“Sounds good to me, girl.”
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
Weaver pressed her hand back against the panel.
72.
The consequences of Havoc's earlier decision manifested themselves with divine authority.
His three sky lances burned down through the atmosphere traveling six kilometers per second. The sky lances were fin-guided kinetic weapons massing a tonne each and their force was equivalent to a nuclear warhead. The guardians had time to register the threat and then they were obliterated. Shockwaves burst out across the plaza.
Havoc hurtled toward the entrance, way too fast. He thrust his and Kemensky’s suits at maximum, trying to reduce the speed at which they would hit, or ideally go through, the black entrance.
Kemensky waved his arms like he was trying to swim out of trouble.
“Waaahhhhhh!”
Havoc’s suit jets screamed at overload. Charles curved ahead of him. Charles was going to hit at an angle. It was the moment of truth. Was the mysterious blackness an entrance? Or an ending?
The gap with the entrance closed to nothing. Kemensky, at least, was convinced he was going to die.