Vengeance (The Kurgan War Book 4) (22 page)

“They’ve jettisoned the greenhouse out into space,” explained Cunningham. “That’s why the alarm went off. If we hadn’t gotten beneath the steel safety barrier, we would have been sucked out as well.”

“I guess we owe you our thanks,” said Sheridan, attempting to sound better than he felt.

“I didn’t want to die either, sir.”

Cole asked, “Anyone got a light?”
 

“I’ve got one in my pants pocket,” said the private.
 

Cole reached over. Right away Cunningham winced in pain. “Easy does it,” Cole said as calm as he could. He found the light and switched it on.
 

Sheridan looked over and saw why the young tech had gasped; his left foot was broken just below the ankle. “Hold still, Private, while Master Sergeant Cole and I check your injury out.”

“Looks like a clean fracture to me,” said Cole.

“I agree. We’re going to need something to splint his leg with.”

Cole shone the light around until he spotted an old technical manual jammed behind an empty metal box. He grabbed it and formed it into an expedient splint which, with Sheridan’s help, he placed it underneath the damaged ankle. Next, he took Cunningham’s belt and wove it around the splint until he pulled it tight. causing the young private to moan in pain.

“That’ll hold you for now,” reassured Cole. “You’ll be up and playing soccer in a week.”

“I hate the game,” griped Cunningham.

“You know, I don’t see a way down from here,” said Sheridan as looked down at the roof of the elevator they had landed on. It was a smooth, seamless metal surface.

Cole moved the light across the roof. “Damn, you may be right.”

“Well, one thing is for certain, we can’t go back up the way we came, so we have to find a way down.”

“I think I can help,” said Cunningham. “See if you can find a circuit breaker or a power box.”

Sheridan and Cole jumped to their feet and scoured the side of the shaft, desperate to find a box.

On the screen, the stadium-sized arboretum floated farther and farther away from the station. Tracked by a battery of guns, it was only a matter of seconds before the order was given to blast it into a million pieces.

Harry Williams stood silently watching the dome as it drifted out into space.

“Sir, the greenhouse is at a safe distance from the station to engage,” reported one of his weapons technicians. The last thing they needed were jagged fragments of the dome hurtling back at them causing catastrophic damage to the outer shell of the base.

“Are you locked on?” asked Williams.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then open fire and send them both to hell.”

The man pressed a button on his console. Outside, a row of forty-millimeter guns opened fire spewing thousands of rounds in a matter of seconds which ripped hundreds of holes in the bottom of the greenhouse. Mere seconds later, violent decompression finished off the dome as it collapsed in on itself. The once majestic forest floated free in space with the rest of the debris field.

“Now that that’s behind us,” said Williams to the people in the room, “let’s get back to work. Have we heard anything from the ADF regarding our demands?”

Chapter 30

“What the hell was that?” asked President Martinez, almost jumping out of his seat.

“Sir, looks like they just destroyed the station’s greenhouse,” reported a lieutenant-commander sitting behind a computer at the back of the president’s situation room.

“Why would they do that?”

“Maybe to send you a signal to hurry along with your decision, sir,” offered General Sadir.

A slender woman in a tight charcoal-gray suit stood up from her chair at the back of the room and handed the president a tablet. “Sir, World News Network caught the whole thing. It’s being carried on every station out there.”

Martinez placed the tablet down and rubbed his throbbing temples. He had already taken several pills for his migraine, he doubted a couple more would take the edge off the hurricane raging in his head. He took a deep breath to ease the pain and looked over at Sadir. “General, scrub the rescue mission, we’re far beyond that now. How long will it take you to place all of the Chosen detainees on Mars on a transport ship?”

“Sir, Home Guard Command has assured me that they can have them loaded onto a ship within an hour. He has people in place on Mars ready to give the order.”

“Give it.” The words felt like bile in the president’s throat. He had been forced to give into terrorism, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Mister President, what about the offer to evacuate people from the station?” asked Sadir. “Shall I order the fleet to extract those people?”

Martinez sat back in his chair with a crestfallen expression on his face and nodded.

All around the room, staff officers hurried to get the orders passed. Martinez didn’t hear them, he sat staring at the picture of his predecessor hanging on the wall and wondered why all of this had to happen while he was in power. It seemed so monumentally unfair. He was about to reach for a glass of water when a warning light went off in the back of his head.

“General, what about the virus? We still don’t know where it is. If we evacuate those people, the virus could be hidden among them, or they could already be infected with it.”

Sadir pondered the president’s words before saying, “Sir, we can quarantine the ships that are used to pull our people from the station until they have been checked out medically. Also, we could take this opportunity to try to sneak some of Colonel Valens’ men on board during the evac process.”

“Do it!” The president’s sour mood lifted a little. If the virus could be found, then perhaps some good could come from the debacle unfolding on Tranquility Station.

An army colonel stood up and looked over at General Sadir. “Sir, the terrorists want to speak with the president.”

“Put them on,” said Martinez.

Harry Williams appeared on a wall-sized screen. “Good evening, Mister President. I take it you saw my little demonstration of this station’s firepower?”

“Yes, we saw it, Mister Williams. How may I help you?”

“Have you decided what you are going to do, or do I need to open the airlocks on one of the floors to help you make up your mind?”

“That won’t be necessary. I have given the order for all of the detainees on Mars to be loaded onto a transport ship. They should be on their way to Kurgan space within an hour.”

Williams smiled. “What of my offer to evacuate ten thousand people from the base?”

“That too is in hand. Once the fleet has sorted out the ships that are available to evacuate those people from the station, they will dock on the lower levels and begin the extraction.”
 

“A jump-capable ship?”

“That will be brought to the station within the hour.”

Williams nodded. “So far so good. Now let’s talk about the reason for this unfortunate incident. Have you sent a message to the Kurgan High Council asking them to engage in ceasefire negotiations?”

Martinez clasped his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward. He looked deep into Williams’ eyes. “Mister Williams, I don’t think you are a fool, so don’t play me for one. Even with relay satellites, you know any message sent that far will take weeks for it to get there and weeks for a response to be sent back here to me. I have asked the Kurgans to talk, but you and your people from the detention centers on Mars will be home long before I ever get my answer.”

“That is good enough for me. Now, President Martinez, keep your soldiers on a short leash and this will end in just under two hours with no further need of bloodshed. Just remember, if a single soldier steps foot inside this station, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people up here will be on your head, not mine.”

The screen went blank.

Martinez sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to look at Sadir. “General, something isn’t right about all of this. What it is, I’m not sure . . . at least, not yet.”

Sadir agreed, “He’s hiding something.”

“The more I think about this, the less convinced I am that they intend to release the Alpha Virus. They lost thousands of operatives staging worldwide attacks in an attempt to discredit me politically. The same goes for taking Tranquility Station. This was all a carefully conceived information operations stunt. The virus is the wildcard here. Why release it when they are asking us to sue for peace?”

“It doesn’t make much sense to me either.”

“I trust this Williams character as far as I can throw him. Tell Valens to put as many people as he can on the station. I want the virus found before it can leave the base. Whatever Williams is up to has to be stopped.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the general before waving over an aide to his side to get the word to Valens.

Chapter 31

Cole opened the metal box and shone his light inside. “I think I found it!”

“What does the interior of the cover have written on it?” asked Cunningham.

“Wait a tic, there are a dozen languages written in here. I got it . . . it says that it is an electrical box.”

“Okay, that’ll do.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’ll probably electrocute yourself, Sergeant, if I try to talk you through the process. Someone has to help me up so I can see inside the box.”

Sheridan helped the tech up onto his good foot. The man was in pain but tried his best to hide it from the two Marines. Together they climbed up until he could see inside the electrical box. Cole helped steady the technician by placing a hand on the man’s back to stop him from falling off the ladder.

“I thought you said you were a computer technician, not an electrical technician,” said Sheridan to Cunningham.

“I am, sir. I failed electrician school before switching professions.”

“Whoa,” said Cole. “Before you start tinkering with the elevator’s wiring, care to tell us what you’re planning to do?”

“Master Sergeant, the only way for us to get down from here is to override the emergency brakes that have been activated. Once I have done that I can order the elevator to move down the shaft until we reach the next floor.”

Sheridan looked over at the magnetic brakes holding the elevator in place. “Private, what happens if you cut the wrong wire or something?”

Cunningham said, “As this is a magnetic elevator, if I were to screw up, and we were on the roof of the elevator, we’d most likely plummet down until we smashed into another stationary elevator. In short, sir, we’d all be dead.”

“What do you want to do, sir?” asked Cole.

“As we’re all on the ladder and relatively safe, I say we let him proceed. If the elevator goes for a ride, we won’t be on it and can climb down until we reach the floor with the station’s mainframe on it.”

Cole tapped Cunningham on the shoulder “You heard the man, get to work.”

The tech nodded and poked his head inside the electrical box. He hummed and hawed for a few seconds before looking at Cole. “As I don’t have any tools on me, would you happen to have a knife on you?”

Cole pulled the one he had from his belt and handed it over.

“Not wanting to seem impatient, but how long do you think it will it take you to release the elevator’s brakes and get it moving again?” Sheridan asked.

Cunningham pursed his lips and shook his head. “I have no idea. An hour, maybe less.”

Sheridan glanced at his watch. “Try your best to work as fast as you can. A quarter million lives are in your hands.”

“No pressure,” added Cole with a wink.

Right away, sweat began to pour from the young technician’s forehead. He felt like he was going to be sick. With his hand shaking, he reached inside the box and began to unscrew the faceplate so he could get at the inner wiring.

Sheridan tried to make himself as comfortable as he could on the narrow metal ladder. For the first time in days, he wondered how Tarina was doing. He found comfort knowing that she and her friends were safe and sound somewhere on Earth, most likely far away from all the madness.

Chapter 32

The wait in the cold was beginning to fray Tarina’s already stressed nerves. It had been an hour since they had escaped the massacre. She had expected someone to come looking for them by now. The only reason she could think was that their pursuers got lost in the blizzard. She was about to crawl out from her hiding spot underneath the snow plow when she thought she heard two men talking to one another on the other side of the door. Her heart began to beat faster as the door handle started the turn. She clenched her rifle tight in her hands and held her breath.

The door swung open and two men rushed inside, firing at anything that could hide the two women. The cab of the plow received the majority of the insurgents’ fire. The sound of glass shattering and metal being torn apart filled the shed. Within seconds, the attack was over. Both men ejected their empty magazines and reached for fresh ones.

It was not to be. Tarina took aim at the men’s knees and pulled back on the trigger of her weapon. Flesh and bone were cut to ribbons as she fired off a long burst, dropping both men to the ground.