The Mothership (25 page)

“The vehicle is landing on the east side,”
Hooper reported, “Under the gun emplacement.”

Where it’s protected!
Beckman realized, now certain this was not
a maintenance team. “Can we extract?”

“Negative. The golf ball is covering the
entrance.”

“What about the runners on the roof?”

There was a moment’s silence as Hooper
scanned the column of steam masking the roof with his binoculars. “I got zero
visibility. Enemy position unknown.”

Enemy!
Beckman thought, thinking how quickly Hooper had
instinctively classified the seekers. “Cougar, take out the sensor.”

“Affirmative.” A few seconds later, they
heard the clang of metal striking metal, then Cougar’s clinical voice sounded
in their ear pieces. “The target is down!”

“The machines on the roof could be waiting
for us to step outside.” Markus warned.

Beckman shook his head. “No, they’ll try to
protect the drill. They need it.” He knew every second counted now. The
transport outside could be unloading a combat force, cutting off their escape,
while the seekers in the control room disarmed the demolition charges. He
glanced at Markus, who had already guessed his dilemma. “You’ve got to do it.”

“Do what?” Xeno asked, puzzled.

Beckman looked away, hating himself for the
order he had to give.

“Do what, Major?” Xeno demanded anxiously.

“We’ve got to blow it. Now!” Markus said,
“Before they disarm the charges.”

Xeno looked shocked. “Our people are still
in there!” She turned to Beckman, “Sir, you can’t!”

“I don’t have a choice,” Beckman snapped,
then thumbed his mike. “Timer, we can’t get you out. Hostiles are enroute to
the control room. Blow the charges in thirty seconds.”

There was a moment’s silence as Timer
processed the order, then the combat engineer’s voice sounded calmly over the
radio. “Roger that, detonate in three zero seconds.”

“They’ll be killed!” Xeno declared angrily.

Beckman ignored her. “Head for the tree
line, western side. Go!”

Xeno hesitated, then seeing Beckman had
made his decision, she led the way through the hole in the wall. As they ran
toward the trees, Beckman glanced up at the top of the building, checking for
incoming fire, but there was none.

The runners are going for the control room!

* * * *

“Don’t . . . do
it!” Dr McInness wheezed.

Vamp grabbed the scientist and dragged him
to his feet. “Run or die!”

“We can reason . . . with them,” he said,
resisting her.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she said, lifting him
onto her shoulder and starting for the subway tunnel with the scientist
struggling to break free.

Timer glanced from the elevator plate to
Vamp and Dr McInness, seeing they were already halfway to the tunnel entrance.
“We’ll be trapped in there!”

“Better trapped in there, than dead out
here!” she yelled without looking back.

“Oh crap,” Timer muttered, resigned to his
fate. He unclipped a hand grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and rolled it
onto the elevator plate. It instantly vanished when the gravity lift carried it
up to the control room, buying them a few more seconds, then he turned and
sprinted for the subway tunnel, pulling the aerial out on the remote detonator
as he ran.

* * * *

When they were
halfway to the tree line, Beckman spotted Steamer kneeling at the edge of the
forest with one of the two Predator missiles on his shoulder. He knew the rest
of Hooper’s squad lay camouflaged in their firing positions nearby.

“Contact! South side,” Hooper’s voice
sounded with professional coolness.

Beckman had heard that tone before. The
master sergeant had slipped into the controlled, urgent mindset of a
professional warrior entering battle. Beckman glanced over his shoulder to see
a large black machine almost twice the height of a man rounding the central
tower’s southern wall. It floated off the ground on two glowing sled-like
supports that reminded Beckman of tank tracks. Mounted on the sleds was a thick
black cylindrical torso encircled by two rings. The lower ring mounted eight
short flexible arms, each fitted with a silver dish-like device. The upper ring
had eight long snaking arms, each tipped with a slender pyramidal device. The
arms aimed the apexes of the pyramids in a manner Beckman immediately knew
meant they were weapons. Mounted atop the torso was a sensor disk unlike any
he’d seen so far. Its edge was no more than a slit sandwiched between thick
casings which extended beyond the disk’s edge. Certain the machine was armed,
he knew at a glance its bulky torso was heavily armored. It meant the lumbering
black machine was purpose built for war.

The warnings drummed into him by the Groom
Lake brains trust flashed through his mind: They’ll have superior firepower,
absolute precision and may be invulnerable to your weapons. Under no
circumstances should you engage nonterrestrial ground forces in the open.

This is as open as it gets!
he thought bitterly as he thumbed his
mike. “Fire!”

Steamer had the hulking black battloid
already targeted. He depressed the trigger as soon as Beckman’s command sounded
in his ears. The Predator launcher bucked as the small missile ejected on low
thrust, then the rocket motor kicked over to full burn. The missile streaked
out of the trees and passed under the energy transmission beam between the
north western power plant and the central structure. Steamer kept the target
reticle on the machine’s torso, expertly guiding the Predator all the way in.

The battloid snapped a disk arm up to face
the missile as it exploded. The invisible counter force radiating from the disk
deflected the shockwave harmlessly away to the sides, while electric blue force
lines rippled over the disk’s surface. The shield arms arranged the disks
equally around the battloid, overlapping their edges to provide full three
hundred and sixty degree protection, while the top tier of weapon arms rose up
like cobras, aiming their weapons over the top of the shields.

“Down!” Beckman yelled.

They threw themselves onto the spongy
smooth surface as globules of yellow light streamed from the weapon’s tips,
rending the air with the screech of supersonic particles.

After a moment, the streams began to arc
down toward where they lay.

* * * *

Laura watched in
horror from the ridge top. “Do something!”

Nuke shook his head slowly, his face was
white with anguish. “I can’t. I have my orders.”

“What orders? To hide?”

Nuke glanced unconsciously at his backpack.
If he had to choose between helping the team, and saving that pack, he was
under strict orders to abandon the team. “Yes, hide.”

“Screw your orders!” Laura snapped as she
tore open the nearest pack and began frantically pulling its contents out.

Nuke stood up. “What do you think you’re
doing?”

“They’re going to be slaughtered down
there!”

Nuke stepped toward her. “We can’t give
away our position.”

Laura spotted a squat silver pistol in the
pack. She pulled it out and darted out of his reach, running toward a rock
ledge with a clear view of the core mining facility below.

Nuke caught her arm as she tried to aim,
yelling, “That’s a flare gun. It’s useless.”

Laura slammed her elbow into his chest,
taking him by surprise and knocking him back. “It’s better than nothing!” she
said, as she fired the flare gun horizontally. A smoke trail shot over the
battloid below, then the flare exploded into a miniature star.

“Now you’ve done it!” Nuke declared.

* * * *

The battloid’s
thermal sensors detected an intense heat source floating in the air above. It
matched no known weapon signature, but the battloid’s programming automatically
elevated the thermal contact to the top of its target list. Its eight particle
cannons turned skyward as it repositioned several shield emitters to meet the
airborne threat. When the particle streams intersected, they ignited all of the
flare’s magnesium fuel simultaneously The battloid’s tactical intelligence
concluded the threat was growing more powerful, and felt compelled to keep all
weapons focused on the fireball overhead until the threat was neutralized.

“Use specials!” Beckman yelled when he saw
the battloid was distracted. He knew if a predator missile couldn’t punch
through its shield, their conventional weapons would be useless.

Tucker had already switched to Conan, the
largest of the specials. It was the most powerful infantry weapon ever used by
man, but was notoriously slow to recharge. He aimed it at the battloid and
touched the firing surface, shielding his eyes as he waited for the weapon to
find its target. When it fired, the flash lit up half the mining facility as a
sliver of radiant orange light streaked across open ground. The blast struck
the nearest shield disk with a dazzling white flash, then electric blue sparks
flickered across the shield’s surface as it teetered on the brink of collapse.

Beckman blinked spots from his eyes to
discover that even though the shield was shorting out, the battloid itself was
undamaged.

The armored machine’s lower ring rotated,
moving the weakened shield away from Tucker to where it could recharge safely.
Hooper immediately fired his fatboy, peppering the battloid with a stream of
densely packed plasma bursts. One of the weapons peeking above the shields shattered,
showering flaming hot metal fragments behind the battloid. The remains of the
weapon arm swayed like a headless snake, while the other weapon arms ducked
down behind the safety of the shields.

Beckman glanced back at the central tower,
dismayed that it was still intact. He wondered if the seekers had already
disarmed the explosives, or had they got to Timer?

“Concentrate all fire on the nearest
shield!” Hooper barked over the radio.

At least one of us is thinking straight!
Beckman thought, once again thankful for
the master sergeant’s coolness in combat.

Streams of glowing white light burst from
the trees as Hooper and Steamer concentrated their fatboys on the shield facing
them. Slowly, electric sparks rippled across its surface, then another dazzling
flash lit up the installation as Tucker unleashed a second blast from Conan.
The battloid’s disk shield sparked and collapsed, then the shield ring rotated
the emitter disk away. The failed emitter slid past Xeno, presenting her with a
gap in the battloid’s shields. She let loose with her special, firing tiny
spurts of energy through the opening, striking the battloid’s heavily armored
torso, scarring the surface without penetrating it. Markus, lying prone in the
position of a trained marksman, saw the opening and fired a well aimed burst
from his MP5, raking the naked emitter disk with nine millimeter slugs. The
disk exploded, then was quickly rotated away behind the battloid, as fresh
shields slid into place.

Beckman thumbed his mike. “Timer, blow the
charges!” He listened for acknowledgement, but none came.

The flare overhead flickered and died as
three of the battloid’s weapons peeked above the shields and fired at Hooper’s
position. The surrounding forest exploded in flames while one burning tree, its
trunk shattered, toppled over with a whoosh. An agonized scream sounded briefly
as the battloid’s weapons ducked down behind its shields, before they could be
targeted.

“It can’t shoot through its shields!”
Beckman yelled as he opened up with his midget. “Aim high, for the weapons!”

The streams of fire arcing toward the
battloid from Beckman’s squad snaked up to the top of the shields, ready to
destroy any weapon that tried to peek and shoot. The battloid turned its
attention toward them, dropping one of its arms down low as the shields angled
to create a gap near the ground. Beckman rolled sideways as the armored machine
unleashed a blast that flashed so close, the heat blistered his skin. His
squad’s fire snaked down toward the weapon, but the battloid snapped the gap in
its shields shut, while another weapon popped up high to shoot over the top.

It’s analyzing our tactics, reacting to our
moves!
Beckman realized,
leaping away again as the elevated weapon fired.

The clank of a machine gun sounded as a line
of tracer shot out from the forest, close to the burning trees, raking the
battloid’s high weapon, but failing to penetrate its reinforced metal skin. The
raised weapon ducked down behind the shields as another shot up, aiming at the
trees. The machine gun tracer immediately stopped, as a heavy set form darted
away into the forest.

Tucker!
Beckman thought as he watched the SEAL’s unmistakable
profile vanish into the shadows. Somehow he’d escaped the inferno that had
consumed Hooper’s position.