The Mothership (35 page)

“We’ll stealth in while there’s still
light,” Beckman said, remembering the stealth gear was tricky to use during the
day, impossible at night.

“You have to wait,” Markus said.

“No,” Beckman said, certain that the
nuclear attack could only have been made with Presidential authority. “We’ll
destroy the core of the ship, then you and your vultures can pick over what’s
left.

“That’s a mistake,” Markus said bitterly as
he glanced at Laura. Without a word, she knew he’d made up his mind to stop
Beckman.

“It’s my mistake to make.” Beckman turned
to Bandaka. “Can you get us down there, without being seen?”

The aboriginal hunter stared at the blasted
wasteland below, then nodded slowly. “I know a way.”

* * * *

Dan McKay’s world
lacked form. He didn’t know how long it had been since his capture at Laura’s
zoological station, as he no longer measured time in terms of days, but in
terms of dreams.

Now the dream was a
golden ellipse that morphed into a ring, then two rings. A glowing red line
threaded the rings then both ends of the line curved up to join together
forming a third ring, locking the first two together.

Dan gave the equivalent
of a mental sigh.

When the geometric
patterns had first formed, they’d been simple shapes; cubes, pyramids, spheres
and the like, then they’d become progressively more complex. Though he didn’t
realize it, the more complex shapes correlated with advanced scientific
concepts, none of which he recognized. To him, they were simply perplexing shapes
and colors, not the keys to the mysterious inner forces of nature.

His captors had mapped every molecule in
his body, unlocked the key to his DNA, and now they probed the inner recesses
of his mind, precisely measuring his intelligence. By determining his brain
responses, they discovered if he was capable of understanding fundamental and
obvious relationships. To their surprise, their specimen was found wanting in other
respects.

For Dan McKay, the meaningless dreams
continued without interruption or purpose.

* * * *

Bandaka led them
along the forest covered ridge until they reached a narrow trail that led down
into the scorched valley. It was there Beckman called a halt, to eat and rest
before the payload delivery team went down to the ship to plant the bomb. When
everyone had stripped off their packs and opened cold rations, Markus nodded
once to Laura. She put down her ration pack and leaned toward Xeno.

“Could I borrow that, please?” she asked,
pointing to Xeno’s entrenching tool.

“Sure,” Xeno said, retrieving the collapsible
spade with one hand.

Laura took the spade and quietly walked
into the trees, following the instructions Markus had whispered to her shortly
before they’d made camp. When she was well out of sight of the troops, she dug
a small hole and peed in it. He’d been adamant, she had to pee. When she
finished, she fixed her clothes, took a deep breath and screamed with all her
might. She peered into the trees, holding the entrenching tool up as if ready
to swing it in self defense. Behind her, heavy footsteps approached, fanning
out on both sides.

Tucker was the first to reach her, aiming
his M16 in the direction of her gaze. “What was it?”

Beckman hurried up beside them as she
replied.

“One of those four-armed things. It was
watching me, while I was…” She motioned toward the small pit with wet soil at
the bottom, then nodded back along the ridge. “It went that way.”

Beckman thumbed his mike, worried their
position had been discovered. “Hostile contact to the east. Sweep out a hundred
meters and engage on sight.”

Laura saw the troops move past her on
either side in a skirmish line, advancing with weapons ready. Bandaka’s group
accompanied them, searching for tell tale signs they could track, and watching
the trees with trained eyes.

“Take her back to camp,” Beckman said, then
started after the troops.

“Come on,” Tucker said, taking a step
toward camp.

“Wait.” Laura turned to slowly fill in the
hole. Markus had told her to take as much time as she could filling in the
hole.

Markus waited in camp until the troops were
out of sight. Only Nuke and Hooper remained guarding the packs, watching after
their departed comrades. Markus put his ration pack down and climbed to his
feet, keeping his eyes on the other two. He reached into his pocket, feeling
for the small, silver, recovered device he carried. Unlike the troops who wore
their weapons openly, he kept this device hidden. It was a weapon of sorts, but
it lacked the raw destructive power of the energy and particle weapons
Beckman’s team carried. The general consensus was that it had been used by
scientists to subdue specimens for examination, perhaps even human specimens,
but it was certainly not a military device.

Markus touched the stunner’s control
surface, setting it to minimum power, then made sure Nuke and Hooper were
staring after the rest of the team. He slid the stunner out of his pocket and
shot Nuke and Hooper in the back. The bent cylinder emitted short white flashes
that knocked them both out instantly. On the minimum setting, they’d be out for
only a few minutes, but would suffer mild headaches and dizziness for several
hours after they came to.

Their bodies twitched involuntarily as he
ran to Nuke’s pack, pulling it open to reveal the antimatter torpedo inside. He
knew how the trigger mechanism designed by the Groom Lake adaptation team
worked, and he knew its weakness. There wasn’t time to disassemble the
detonator, so he set the tiny stun gun to full power, aimed obliquely past the
torpedo at the delicate electronics and fired. The stun gun’s powerful
electrical field fused the circuitry installed by the Groom Lake engineers,
without affecting the torpedo or showing outward signs of damage.

He resealed Nuke’s backpack, powered the
stun gun down to the lowest setting, then carefully buttoned it into his
pocket. He hurried to his own backpack and fired several bursts from his
submachine gun into the trees in the opposite direction to where the troops
were patrolling.

In his earpiece, he heard Beckman’s voice
barking, “Who’s firing?”

Markus let off another burst, then thumbed
his mike. “Markus here, we’re under attack! Nuke and Hooper are down.” He fired
again while he held the transmit button, to be sure Beckman heard it. “It’s one
of those–” Markus switched off the transmitter before finishing his sentence,
then lay on his back and tossed his MP-5 out of reach. Feeling for the stun gun
through his buttoned up pocket, he winced in anticipation of what was to come,
then pressed down hard on the firing surface. The tiny recovered stun gun
discharged, causing his body to convulse briefly as he crashed into
unconsciousness.

* * * *

Markus was the
last to regain consciousness. Hooper and Nuke were sitting up, blinking spots
from their eyes, sipping water, while most of the other troops were strapping
on their stealth gear. Laura sat quietly by her pack, watching Markus
apprehensively.

“What happened?” Beckman asked as Xeno
checked Markus’ pulse.

The intelligence officer took a slow
breath, tried to rise, then thought better of it. He found the leg that took
the stun gun blast was completely numb. “It was a four-armed machine . . . came
in fast . . . I only got a few shots off before it hit me.”

Beckman looked around the camp, wondering
why the machine had attacked. It hadn’t killed the three men in camp, so it
wasn’t after them, and the short wave radio was useless while the dome was up.
It had to be something the machine wanted. Or feared? “Nuke, run a system
diagnostic.”

The payload specialist gave Beckman a
puzzled look, then swore silently under his breath. Ignoring his nausea, he
tore open the backpack flap and launched the torpedo’s diagnostic system. To
his dismay, the display remained blank. He removed the access plate covering
the electronics package and examined the circuitry. At first glance, it
appeared undamaged, then he noticed black marks at key connection points where
high voltages had shorted out the system.

When Beckman saw the look on his face, he
walked over to see for himself. “How bad is it?”

“Bad. The whole electronics assembly is
fried.”

“What about the torpedo itself?”

“I’ll have to decouple it from the housing,
to get to the control surface. It’ll take at least an hour.”

“You’ve got five minutes.”

Nuke gave Beckman an incredulous look, then
nodded. “I guess I can cut through the electronics.”

Beckman approached Hooper, running an eye
over the sergeant’s charred and blistered wounds. Hooper nursed his special in
his left hand and still wore his big Model 500 pistol low on his left hip. His
burns had forced him to pass his pack to Laura and abandon his shirt, and from
his pallid complexion, his strength was almost gone.

“Never saw it coming,” Hooper said through
clenched teeth.

“You up to getting back across the ridge,
with Laura?”

Hooper nodded wearily. “What have you got
in mind?”

Beckman unzipped a pocket and produced one
of Timer’s small radio transmitters. “This is the detonator for the charges we
left back on one of the towers. You’ll have line of sight to the tower from the
east side of this plateau. If you get the shield down, transmit the word
‘citadel’, then hide because all hell will break loose.”

“Citadel, got it. What are you going to
do?”

“That depends on whether we still have a
weapon.” He glanced at Nuke, who had removed the antimatter torpedo from his
backpack, and was aggressively cutting through the electronics assembly with a
pair of metal cutters.

Hooper drew a slow breath, marshalling his
strength. “When do I move out?”

“Ten minutes.” Beckman said. “Virus, you’ll
go back with Hooper.”

“No sir,” Virus replied. He lay against his
backpack, eyes closed. Shutting out the light helped to temper the pounding in
his head. “You need me.”

“Not if you can’t make it.”
Not if
they’ve damaged your mind
. One look told Beckman that Virus was incapable
of hard marching. His skin was pale and clammy and dark shadows had formed
beneath his feverish eyes.

Virus washed down two painkillers with a
swig of water. “I understand … their stuff, some of it anyways. They forced it
in here.” He tapped his temple. “I remember fragments about systems, machines,
symbols. They fed me instructions for . . . species like us.”

“Like us?”

“Lesser species, conscripts. They use them
to operate support machines. The console thought I was there to be trained. It
learnt everything I knew, drained every memory I had, learnt to talk to me,
then it shoved a lot of stuff into my head. Too much, too fast.” He pressed his
palms against his eyes, relieving the pressure momentarily. “I wasn’t smart
enough. That’s why I couldn’t handle it. Lesser species . . . are smarter than
us.”

“You think you can use this information?”

“It’s complicated.” Virus blinked slowly,
trying to organize his thoughts. “They think in more dimensions than us, see
things differently, but . . . I know enough.”

Virus should have been a stretcher case,
but right now, Beckman could use any break. “We’ll have to leave you behind if
you can’t keep up.”

“I know.”

“OK. Strap up. And strip the short wave
down to the minimum. Hooper’s taking it with him.”

“Yes sir,” Virus said.

“Looks like it’s just you and Laura,”
Beckman said.

“We’ll make it. I still have a few slugs
left,” he said, patting his oversized sidearm.

“Your mind is your best weapon,” Beckman
said as he shook Hooper’s good left hand, holding it firmly.

“Ain’t it the truth,” Hooper said with the
hint of a grin at Beckman’s use of an old Delta saying. “Give them hell.”

Beckman returned to his pack and pulled his
stealth gear on. The equipment comprised two circular emitters worn front and
back of the torso. They were held in place by vest-like webbing and leather
straps which also held the power pack. The emitters had been recovered last
century, the vests were from Groom and the power packs were a classified
technology from General Electric. The reverse engineering boys had never been
able to identify the emitters’ real power source. It was lost among the
thousands of recovered artifacts in storage whose purpose remained a mystery.
The GE packs were outrageously expensive, ridiculously heavy for their size,
and lasted barely forty-five minutes. With four kilometers of ashen wasteland
to cross, Beckman knew if the packs failed while they were in the open, they’d
be sitting ducks. He tied off the last of the straps while Tucker helped
Bandaka into Steamer’s stealth kit nearby.

“When you press this,” Tucker explained,
showing Bandaka the on switch at the bottom of the vest. “No one can see you.”