CHAPTER 11: The Present

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EARTH ORBIT

Artad stepped up, placing the front of his feet into the toe openings in the front half of the space suit and pressing himself against the interior padding. The rear half swung forward, locking shut. He scanned the display just below his visor, making sure all systems were working correctly.

The report from the scouts he had sent over to the derelict mothership had intrigued him. He felt little sense of time pressure as the last reports he had checked indicated the array on Mars was not yet completed. The humans might attempt to fly the mothership to Mars, but then what? He doubted they had more than the most rudimentary understanding of the craft. In fact, as he considered the options, he hoped the humans would fly the mothership there, so he could assault it and regain control. That would look much better when the fleet arrived. He paused — certainly it would be better to send the first message with the mothership under his control. As it stood now, he was calling for help in a situation that had gotten far out of control.

Secure in the suit, he went to the Talon's airlock. Locking one door behind, he waited as the outer door slid open. They were adjacent to the main cargo bay of the mothership. A massive explosion had torn the doors off and ripped a quarter-mile-long gash along the side of the craft. Artad jetted across to the larger ship. Entering the large cargo bay, the first thing he noted was the devastation. While the rip in the outer hull was bad, the interior had been gutted, as the interior bulkheads weren't quite as strong as the external skin.

There were also the smashed remains of several Talon craft -Aspasia's fleet from Mars. Artad headed toward one of the Talons, where several of his suited Kortad waited for him. They shepherded him inside, through a hatch and into a corridor. There were several Airlia bodies floating inside, perfectly preserved by the vacuum of space. Artad ignored them, even though he recognized some, as one of his Kortad led him forward to the control room.

A half dozen dead Airlia were strapped to their chairs. They weren't even in their space suits, indicating they had met disaster unexpectedly.

And in the command seat — Aspasia.

Artad came to a halt in front of his old nemesis. Over ten thousand years had passed since they had first fought. Their Shadows and their followers had continued the fight through the millennia. He had never expected that it would end like this, with Aspasia dead by human hand, depriving him of his revenge.

Artad reached a gloved, six-fingered hand forward and grasped Aspasia's chin. He lifted the drooping head. The red eyes were cloudy, vacant.

Artad turned his head toward another Airlia body, behind Aspasia's, still holding his adversary's chin. A female. Artad's fingers tightened on Aspasia's chin, digging into the dead flesh. He remembered her. Remembered when she had left on the mission to this forsaken corner of the universe. Remembered their time together so long ago.

His arm jerked, snapping Aspasia's neck. Artad looked once more at the female's body, and then turned for the exit. Without a backward glance he departed.

 

 

MARS

Mars Pathfinder was launched on December 4, 1996. On July 4 the following year, Pathfinder reached Mars, taking an orbit that did not overfly or even come close to Cydonia. The lander entered the atmosphere and five miles from the surface its parachute deployed. Sixty-nine feet above the surface near Ares Vallis, the parachute was cut loose and Pathfinder, surrounded by airbags, fell to the surface and bounced. It continued bouncing for over half a mile before coming to a halt. The airbags deflated.

Four petal-like blue solar panels slowly unfolded. A weather mast extended upward along with the IMP, the Imager for Mars Pathfinder. Resting on one of the solar panels was a small vehicle, the Sojourner Truth, named for a nineteenth-century African-American antislavery crusader. The Rover was twenty-six inches long by nineteen inches wide and twelve inches high, weighing in at twenty-two pounds.

As dawn came to Mars on July 5, 1997, the IMP, which actually had two slightly offset cameras that produced a three-dimensional image when used together, took the first pictures of the surface of the planet from the surface. Sojourner's wheels, retracted while in transit, slowly extended and locked into place. It rolled down onto the Martian surface, the first human moving vehicle on another planet since the last Apollo missions to the moon. Sojourner moved about sixteen inches to a rock, which controllers had given the name Barnacle Bill, and analyzed it using the APXS, Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer. The APXS bombarded the rock with alpha particles and measured the radiation that bounced back. The resulting data was relayed to Pathfinder, which then transmitted it back to Earth. Analyzing the results, scientists were able to get a very good idea of the rock's composition.

One of the problems with moving Sojourner about was that it took two and a half minutes for images and data to make it to Earth and then the same amount of time for controlling information to be sent the other way. Thus, the controllers only could see where the vehicle had been and had to plan future movements very carefully. So fascinated was the American public with this accomplishment that forty-four million people logged onto NASA's web site the first day Sojourner moved.

Designed to last only seven days, Sojourner continued to function well past that limit. In August it was moved to a spot about thirty-three feet away, where it measured the composition of several rocks. On September 26, with power indications down to 30 percent, Sojourner was sent off on its greatest journey, a 165-foot trek around the Pathfinder lander. However, the next day, the signal from both Sojourner and the Pathfinder lander were lost. Scientists believed that the onset of the Martian autumn had caused Pathfinder's temperature to fall below the point where the transmitter conuld function.

Still, scientists continued for several weeks to send orders to Sojourner, on the chance that while it could not relay data back through Pathfinder, it still might be able to receive orders and function with power from the solar panels.

Unknown to the scientists, their orders were indeed relayed through Pathfinder to Sojourner, and it continued its journey, moving across the Martian surface at a very slow pace, using the rudimentary laser guidance system that allowed it to avoid obstacles directly ahead. Sojourner traveled almost a quarter of a mile, over four hundred yards away from the lander, before its batteries finally gave out. It came to a halt in the center of an open area, a small symbol of mankind's ability to travel to other worlds.

It was still dead in that spot years later when a plume of red dust on the horizon indicated something was headed toward it. The main Airlia convoy was almost to the base of Mons Olympus. Miles behind it, the vehicle that had recovered the crystal from the rubble of the Face hurried to catch up. Huge treads tore into the Martian landscape, spewing a long plume of red dust behind them.

A track pad on the Airlia vehicle approaching was larger than the entire Rover.

And one of those track pads ground the Rover into the Martian soil as a man might step on an ant without noticing.

The Pathfinder lander, a quarter mile away, wasn't even noticed as the Airlia crew hurried to catch up with the rest of the convey headed toward Mons Olympus.

 

 

AIRSPACE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES

Aspasia's Shadow had the Talon flying at an altitude of over eighty thousand feet, well above the paths crisscrossed by commercial airlines, as he pondered his current situation. He wasted no time on anger or regrets, but simply reviewed the facts.

The nanovirus no longer functioned, and those who had once been his unwilling slaves were now free.

By his own hand Easter Island was no more.

The Mission in Mount Sinai was crawling with Israeli forces.

Aspasia had died in space.

Artad was free, currently being tracked in a Talon by the humans, apparently on his way to Mars.

Aspasia's Shadow had lost much. And all he had was a Talon, incapable of warp speed.

Unacceptable.

Aspasia's Shadow had known that even as he made the deal. He would not spend eternity slowly flying between star systems at sub-light speed. He would not do so even in suspended sleep. He had waited too long to accept such a fate.

He still had some options. The Guides. He had recruited many people over the years, bringing them to Sinai and forcing them to make direct contact with the guardian. The machine had literally "rewired" their brains to make them his servants without the necessity of infecting them with the nanovirus. And since the programming was imprinted on their minds, it would still function even without Aspasia's Shadow having control of a guardian. He had sent these people back to wherever they had come from, agents ready to do his bidding when given the proper code word. Always have a backup plan. That was a lesson Aspasia's Shadow had learned over the millennia in his various reincarnations. The ultimate backup had always been to have a cloned body in the ka tube and his memories up to his last visit loaded into the computer. Thus if he were somehow killed, as had happened on occasion, the ka machine would activate on a preset date, load memories into the clone, and he would be "alive" once more. Of course whatever had happened from the last time he updated the machine until his "death" would be lost, but he had always tried to keep the machine relatively current, rarely letting more than ten years elapse before an update. The Israelis controlled the machine now, as it was deep inside the base at Mount Sinai, but that didn't concern Aspasia's Shadow at the moment, He had something much better as the ultimate backup — immortality.

He also had a backup emergency plan for support in case things went terribly wrong, which they had. Aspasia's

Shadow checked his location. He was over west Texas, where the Rio Grande took a long turn, near Big Bend National Park

He dropped the Talon down through the atmosphere at high speed, decelerating only when he was just above the desert floor. There were no lights in sight, no sign of civilization. That wasn't unusual, as Big Bend was the least visited national park in the United States, sprawling across over eight hundred thousand acres. The Indians had called the area the Great Spirit's rock storage facility, giving one an idea of the terrain. The early Spanish explorers had called it El Despoblado, the uninhabited land.

The Talon landed at the base of Chilicota Mountain, a four-thousand-foot-high mountain with no road within forty miles. Once the Talon was securely on the ground, Aspasia's Shadow turned on a strobe light near the top of the vessel. The beacon flashed across the darkened terrain, visible for over thirty miles where it wasn't obstructed by the mountain.

Then Aspasia's Shadow leaned back in the command chair and waited.

 

 

TRIPLER ARMY MEDICAL CENTER,
OAHU, HAWAII

A steady stream of doctors entered the room, checked the charts, examined the patient, then left. Not because they thought that there was anything more any of them could do, but because no one could believe she was still alive, and they had to see with their own eyes.

Kelly Reynolds weighed about eighty pounds, a significant drop from her normal 165. Simply getting intravenous feeds into her emaciated body had proven an almost impossible task. But since there was no other way to get essential nourishment into her body, the doctors had persisted until finally the had two lines directly into arteries. She had not regained consciousness since being transported here from Easter Island and there was little hope she would. Not a single one of the doctors who were amazed she was alive was willing to wager that she would still be in a few days. She had lost too much critical body mass and there was too much damage to vital organs. They couldn't explain why she wasn't dead already. But she lived. And one nurse on the intensive care ward thought differently than the doctors. Terry Cummings had worked at Tripler for over thirty-five years. She'd cut her teeth on the planeloads of wounded brought in from Vietnam near the end of that war. She'd seen people who should have lived give up and die and she'd seen those the doctors had written off fight their supposedly fatal wounds and live.

She believed Kelly Reynolds was one of the latter. After all, she'd survived so far. That indicated a strong will. So while the doctors gaped at the bony body and shook their heads, Cummings treated her as a person, holding her hand, talking to her even though there was no reply.

Deep in her mind, in the part she had escaped to when hooked up to the Easter Island guardian, Kelly Reynolds was more than alive, she was thinking. Reviewing the torrent of data she'd accumulated while in symbiosis with the guardian. So much history, most of it very different than what she had learned in school or read in books.

And the beginnings of it all, going back to the time when the Airlia first arrived on the planet. The guardian had shown her some of that, but every time her mind went to it, she recoiled, terrified of seeing the truth. And because of that, she couldn't break through the coma she was in.

 

 

STONEHENGE

Turcotte stared at the crater in which the massive stones that had once formed Stonehenge lay tossed like a child's building blocks after a tantrum. He keyed his radio.

"Yakov?"

"Yes?"

"Where are the two craft?"

"They headed off to the southwest. I've contacted Major Quinn and told him to get your Space Command to track them as much as they can."

"I saw Duncan."

There was only static in reply.

"I couldn't save her. The Swarm still has her. She looked to be in pretty bad shape. One hand had been cut off. She said she was sorry."

Yakov finally replied. "For?"

"I don't know."

"We need to go," Yakov said. "Come on board."

Turcotte turned and saw the gangplank extending from the mothership. Spearson was ordering his men to make a perimeter around the site. The SAS colonel came over to Turcotte.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know." Turcotte had neither the time nor the inclination to explain the Swarm and Duncan or Mars. "I have to go."

"Do you need help?" Spearson asked.

Turcotte gave a tired smile. "I appreciate the offer. But the next battle isn't going to take place here" — he pointed down — "but rather there" — he pointed up.

 

 

AIRSPACE NORTH ATLANTIC

The pod hung in the air next to the spaceship five thousand feet above the ocean, hidden in the darkness. A hatch on the top of the spaceship opened and Garlin climbed out onto the craft, moving carefully but with no safety line. He moved to the center of the top of the ship and waited as the pod maneuvered closer. He stepped back as the pod descended and landed on the top of the ship itself. Garlin then opened a couple of small hatches on the deck of the ship, retrieved high-tensile mooring lines, and secured the pod to the ship. The ramp on the side of the pod came down and Garlin entered. He soon exited with Duncan in his arms. He carried her into the ship, tying her down in one of the seats inside. He then made a second trip, dragging the Ark of the Covenant on board. On his third he brought the priest's garments and crown. The pod sealed and Garlin reentered the spaceship, shutting the hatch behind.

The spaceship slowly accelerated, heading upward, passing through the atmosphere until it was in Earth orbit. Once more the hatch on the pod opened. The Swarm orb, with only two full-sized tentacles attached, now moved.

No intelligent species in the cosmos knew the origin of the Swarm. Scientists of those races that survived contact with the species and managed to inspect the corpses recovered after battle had only been able to determine a few things. One was that the orb was basically a large skull containing a massive four-hemisphere brain. The tentacles contained a basic brain stem at the base that could communicate with the main brain when attached and control any organism it entered when separated. Another interesting thing that those species familiar with space travel had discovered was that it appeared as though the Swarm had developed in zero gravity. An orb could move only with great difficulty on a planet's surface, and that required almost all tentacles to be attached.

However, in zero gravity, the Swarm could move swiftly and with great efficiency even with just one tentacle attached to the orb. It also could survive for a limited amount of time without oxygen. With eyes spaced equidistant around the body, the Swarm could navigate in any three-dimensional direction with equal dexterity and ease. There was no forward or back, up or down, for the Swarm. On those rare occasions in space battles where ships were boarded, the Swarm were vicious and practically unbeatable antagonists. There was some speculation among Airlia scientists that the Swarm had not evolved naturally, but rather were a race manufactured to be a weapon — one that had consumed its own originators and become a plague on the universe.

Here the task was simple. The Swarm crept along the surface of the spaceship until it reached the airlock. The hatch swung open and it entered, the hatch shutting behind it.

Inside, Lisa Duncan heard the outer hatch opening. She recognized where she was — the inside of her own spaceship. And she knew she was in space because of zero gravity. She was tied to a seat near the rear of the pilot's chamber. She was coated with dry blood, her hair in knotted tangles.

She turned her head as the inner hatch opened. The orb swung in smoothly. Duncan's skin crawled as she watched the grotesque creature. It floated to the seat next to where Garlin sat and grasped hold with one tentacle. After it settled into place, Garlin unbuckled from his seat and came over to Duncan.

"Are you there?" she whispered. "The real you?"

Garlin stared at her blankly for a moment, then opened the lid to the Ark of the Covenant. He picked up the crown and set it on Duncan's head.

"Haven't you got everything you need?" Duncan asked. "What more do you want?"

"We want to know why you came to this planet in this ship," Garlin said.

"Who was Garlin?" she asked. "I know you're in there somewhere, some part of you. Some human part."

"He is in here." Garlin pointed at his head. "But we control everything. You will get no aid from him." "Why didn't you take me then?" Duncan was stalling, anything to keep it from activating the probing. Garlin shook his head. "We can't. The virus that is in you. the Airlia's Grail. It attacks anything that infiltrates the body." He turned to the Ark and put his hands on the controls, Duncan screamed as the probe sliced into her brain.

 

 

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK

Aspasia's Shadow had prepared this operation years earlier and had given the initial implementation order when he first arrived at Easter Island. It was one of many orders he had dispatched, unsure how many of them he would actually have to follow up on.

So he wasn't surprised as a dozen headlights appeared in the distance, heading toward his location. He'd planted thirty Guides, all ex-military, in sleeper cells here in this remote part of Texas to wait for his call, which he had hoped he would never have to make.

The twelve off-road vehicles drove up to the base of the Talon and the men exited. They pulled weapons and backpacks out of the trucks. Quietly they walked up the narrow stairs Aspasia's Shadow had extended from the Talon. Once all were inside, he shut the hatch and took off. For step two in his emergency plan.

 

 

CAMP ROWE, NORTH CAROLINA

Things were different. That was Turcotte's impression as Yakov brought the mothership down toward the side of the landing strip, where there was a large open field. There were many lights blazing and activity all over the place.

Helicopters flitted about, getting out of the way of the descending alien ship. A half dozen C-130 cargo planes were lined up off to one side.

As soon as Yakov brought the ship to a halt, just above the ground, the two walked back to the nearest hatch and exited. Turcotte carried Excalibur, wrapped in a cloth. Major Quinn was waiting, flanked by Colonel Mickall and another man wearing a very nice suit.

"Major Turcotte, Mr. Yakov" — Quinn had quickly stepped forward to make the introductions — "this is Deputy Secretary General Kaong, the new director of UNAOC."

Turcotte almost laughed. UNAOC — United Nations Alien Oversight Committee — had been practically a nonentity ever since it was formed after he and Duncan publicized what had been hidden at Area 51. Kaong had a very serious demeanor as he stiffly held out his hand. Turcotte shook it briefly.

"What can we do for you, Secretary Kaong?"

"We are trying to determine what threat remains," Kaong said. "We know that Aspasia's Shadow is still on the loose, as is Artad."

Turcotte tried to figure out if there was a tone of accusation in Kaong's voice. "Major Quinn could tell you more about that than me."

"What happened at Stonehenge?" Kaong asked. "We received only the barest sketch of details from the British. They aren't quite sure themselves."

"The Swarm recovered some sort of spaceship there," Turcotte said. He was looking about, over Kaong's shoulder, searching for the Space Command troops who should be here.

"And this Swarm's goal?" Kaong asked. "I assume the same as Artad's. Get to Mars and take over the transmitter. Call home and ask for reinforcements." "Most grave," Kaong said.

Turcotte brought his attention back to the United Nations representative, again not sure of his tone — was he being factitous? "Yeah. Grave. That's a good word to use." "How can we help?"

Turcotte wondered where all this help had been while he was on Everest. "There's not much you can do right now." He turned to Quinn. "Are the Space Command people here?"

Quinn nodded. "A full team with equipment and TASC suits. Ready to go." "And status of Artad's ship? The Swarm's?" Quinn directed them toward the hangar. "Artad stopped at the derelict mothership for a while. His Talon only just left it about twenty minutes ago. Based on how long it took Aspasia to come here, we estimate around two days for him to reach Mars. The Swarm ship just broke orbit. We don't have a speed for it yet, so we don't know who will get to Mars first." "And Aspasia's Shadow and his Talon?" Turcotte asked as they entered the hangar. He saw a man standing nearby wearing a black jumpsuit with the Space Command patch on the shoulder.

"We lost track of him somewhere over Texas." "That gave Turcotte pause. "Texas? He's not in space?" "We haven't spotted anything else escaping the planet's gravity."

"Damn," Turcotte muttered. He slumped down in a chair. "All right. Talk to me about Tunguska and Tesla. I want to have something with a bit more punch than this" — he held up the sword — "when we go after them."

 

 

MARS

The Airlia convoy was well up on the hundred-mile-long ramp that led to and through the four-mile-high escarpment surrounding the Mons Olumpus Aureole. A long plume of red dust trailed behind the convoy. The actual cut in the escarpment, even with the ramp, was two miles deep, a testament to the efficiency and immense capabilities of the mech-machines. A dozen of those machines were scattered about in the midst of whatever task they had been about, their system crashing when the Cydonia guardian went off-line.

The lead vehicle cleared the escarpment and rolled onto the slope of Mons Olympus. The volcano was so large, that the angle of ascent was actually relatively gentle, only about five degrees. Far ahead, and near the summit, the arcs of two completed pylons and a third incomplete one were visible. And fifty miles behind the convoy, reaching the beginning of the ramp, was the trail vehicle carrying the core element of the transmitter.