Weapon of Atlantis (17 page)

“Probably a good idea,” Javi said simply.

He took back the disk from Roger and headed into the engine compartment. He nodded to Stan and Fred in hello, then headed to left, to the middle of the engine room.

As Jack and Javi knelt down on the floor, the two agents stood over them and watched with intense interest.

“Ok, these all have different diameters so this should be a piece of cake,” Jack stated matter-of-factly.

With the ruby disk in hand, he matched up the outer diameter with a hole that fit. Carefully, he inserted the red stone into the open cavity. The fit was tight and secure. Next, Javi handed the diamond disk to Jack. Again, he did the same: finding its correct location and carefully pressing it into its hole.
One by one, he reinstalled five of the six disks remaining.

Javi handed the last disk to Jack and stood up. He smiled and said, “Think you can handle this one?”

“Better stick around. It looks a little tricky,” Jack shot back sarcastically.

Javi grinned, then motioned for the agents to head toward the exit. Jack raised the disk to the last open cavity. In one quick move, he shoved it into the hole. Instantly, the panel of fuses lit up. A bolt of light shot out of the glass dome at the top of the engine, illuminating the entire room. In seconds, a slow winding hum began to sound from inside the motor.

At the front of the craft, Roger’s hand touched a button within the hologram. Instantly, the craft lurched sideways a foot from its make shift stand. As it toppled over, so too did the spacecraft, coming to rest at an angle on the ground. Every man inside the craft lost his footing and fell to the floor.

Jack quickly pulled the diamond fuse, instantly breaking the circuit and cutting the power to the engine.

“What the hell happened?” Price shouted aloud.

“Is everyone all right?” Javi shouted
next.

Jack steadied his hands against the wall and stood up.

“It was the fuses. They work,” he yelled back excitedly.

As Roger worked his way toward the engine compartment, those already inside, converged on Jack’s position.

Jack held out the diamond disk and smiled.

“I inserted it into the remaining outlet and
presto
: the panel lit up!” he exclaimed excitedly. “You want to see it again?”

“
NO!
” all voices shouted in unison.

Jack smirked back at them.

“Just kidding,” he teased. Looking to Roger, he said, “I’m guessing you were playing inside the hologram just before this thing moved, huh?”

Roger nodded. “Yeah, but I wasn’t interacting with any of the flight controls. We were working on one of the engine systems.”

“Interesting,” Stan said aloud. “My guess is the lateral movement we felt must have been caused by the last flight command executed just before this thing crashed. Once the circuitry was restored, it probably tried to continue on that path. Before we reinstall that fuse, we’re going to have to make sure all controls are placed in a neutral state, else we could find ourselves flying sideways to who-knows-where.”

Roger shook his head in worry. “I think before we do anything else, we better have a look and see if anything was damaged in the fall. That drop felt pretty hard,” he said.

The seven men filed outside the craft and began inspecting for damage. Aside from the longitudinal scratches that ran along the bottom of the craft cause by the crash seven thousand years before, nothing seemed out of place. Not a single dent or scratch was detected from the fall.

“This is amazing. I was certain we’d find at least a few scratches on the outside edges, but there’s nothing,” Fred said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Any modern aircraft would have sustained at least minor damages. At some point, we’re going to have to test the outer skin for material composition. This is some pretty resilient stuff,” he finished, knocking on the exterior with his knuckles.

Jack stood back and studied the spacecraft. He seemed to be staring through it. Javi noticed the expression of alarm that stretched across his face. It was the same expression he learned not to ignore. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pretended to read through a text message, conspicuously forcing a look of concern on his face.

“Bad news?” Jack asked.

“Possibly,” he responded simply. “It concerns you and me.”

He glanced to the others and excused themselves momentarily. Standing out of listing range, he pretended to show Jack the message on his phone.

“Jack, I’ve seen that look on your face a thousand times. What’re you thinking?” he asked suspiciously.

Jack
could see the worry in Javi’s eyes and immediately understood the nature of the meeting.

“Something just isn’t adding up,” he responded. “How is it that the only damage in the crash were two blown fuses? It just doesn’t make any sense. A blown fuse is typically caused when energy exceeds the capacity of the fuse. Admittedly, I don’t know anything about the electrical circuits in this spacecraft, but I feel fairly certain that this craft would’ve had to have sustained a substantial amount more damage to have cause those fuses to blow… and if it
had
received that much damage, almost certainly, we would’ve seen other damage within the craft.”

“What are you getting at, Jack?” Javi asked.

“I don’t think the crashed caused the fuses to blow. I think the fuses blew and caused the ship to crash. The question is: what caused those fuses to blow?”

“Jack, fuses blow all the time,”
Javi responded. “Systems malfunction, overheat and cause fuses to blow. We replace them instead of the whole system. It’s why we have fuses in the first place.”

“I agree that it’s certainly possible that there was a simple overloa
d and the fuses could’ve blown, but the lack of damage inside and outside this craft raises a big flag in my mind. I’m betting something caused this thing to go down.”

Javi listened intently as Jack continued to explain:

“I’m sure this craft was built to withstand the rigors of extended spaceflight. To have two fuses blow at the same time seems improbable to me. I’m guessing an external energy source overloaded them somehow.”

“What kind of external source are you talking about, Jack?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“I’m guessing a source from another spacecraft, a weapon maybe,” he answered.

“You think this ship was attacked?” he asked, the sound of his own words shocking him.

Jack nodded. “It makes sense to me,” he responded.

“But why…
by who?” Javi asked skeptically.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know… but I’m betting it has to do with biological weapons. I’m sure the answer lies somewhere i
nside that ship’s log,” he said, pointing.

Javi nodded in understanding. Then shot the two CIA agents a fearful glance.

“We’ve got to keep this quiet until we know more. This is the kind of stuff those guys live for.”

“And kill
for, I’m guessing,” Jack added bluntly.

Javi’s eyes grew in intensity.

“We better get back,” he said simply.

As they rejoined the team, Jack forced a jovial expression across his face. He smiled at the other
s and said, “So what’d we miss? You guys throwing a party without us?”

“You just missed it,” Fred responded, now grinning. “We had booze, music and d
ancing girls.” He pointed to Price and Hammond standing behind him. “And these two stiffs were the life of the party,” he joked.

Jack grinned at the two stoic agents. “Story of my life: always a day late and party short.”

Price and Hammond stared, unimpressed.

Stan cleared his throat and cut in, bringing the conversation back on topic, “As I was saying, how are we going to get this thing back up on its stand? I suppose we could use a couple of jacks to lift it back up into place,” he suggested, pointing to the equipment trailer nearby.

“Leave that problem to us,” Price commented from behind the team.

He pointed to the Blackhawk helicopter still sitting on the makeshift helipad.

“We’ll organize a team and have the chopper lift it back in place before morning,” he added.

“You guys need any help,” Stan responded, relieved by the offer.

Hammond shook his head. “We have all the resources we need,” he said cryptically.

Jack shot th
e agent a suspicious glance. Hammond stared back coldly.

----- ----- ----- -----

The next day…

With the spacecraft back up on its stand, Roger, Stan and Fred now concentrated on their work. Deep inside the parameters of the hologram, one by one, they began the tedious chore of adjusting every detail of the craft’s flight controls, resetting them to a neutral state. After six hours, they barely scratched the surface of the thousands of computer inputs they knew lay ahead.

While the three worked the hologram on the right side of the cockpit, Javi and Jack worked the hologram on the left. In between preforming translations for the three men, they secretly located the spacecraft’s mission log on their own hologram and began to study its content. Jack stood with his back to the team on the right, casually blocking their view and keeping their own work private. In the hours that passed, the two quietly recorded the details of the alien mission on small notepads.

Javi’s eyes stopped and focused. Looking over to Jack, he pointed to the document in front of them with intensity. Jack nodded and began to read. With minutes, both men felt their stomachs churn with both excitement and anxiety. After nearly two hours, ten hours since they began, they came to the end of the document. Both felt exhausted from the stress of their new knowledge.

Javi stood from his chair and pointed outside. Jack nodded in understanding. As they stood up, Jack casually said, “Time
for a bit of fresh air.”

Fred smiled to them and said simply, “Slackers.”

Outside, they searched for the CIA agents. Standing on the opposite side of the craft, they glared at the two agents with suspicion, then Javi spoke:

“We’re you able to translate the mission log?” he asked in ominous tone.

“Most of it, I think. I’m still in shock,” Jack responded bluntly.

“Yeah, me too. It seems hardly real, but
I know it has to be. We both read it,” he said, still shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it too,” Jack concurred. “Finding the pyramids and spacecraft were one thing, but to learn of a secret alien laboratory is on a level that seems far more surreal.”

Javi nodded. “And the fact that somewhere here on Earth, there exists a biological weapon that could destroy mankind, is beyond frightening.”

Jack’s face looked puzzled. “I didn’t read that part. I thought they were still in the development stage,” he responded.

Javi looked around them, insuring their conversation was private. Seeing no one in sight, he continued.

“Th
ey were developing it, but it appears they had worked out the formula and were simply waiting for the last component to arrive to complete the process. I suspect that any biologist here on Earth would eventually be able to synthesize that last component and create the weapon.”

Jack only nodded.

“I’m scared Jack. This is
way
more than we bargained for. We
have
to destroy that log. For the sake of mankind, for the sake of every living thing on Earth, no one should ever learn of this secret,” he said adamantly.

Jack nodded once more with intensity. “I agree. I’ve said it before: this world has enough dangerous weapons. We need to get back in there and delete any trace that this ever existed.”