CHAPTER 18: The Present
MARS
Six space-suited Airlia clung to the top of the quarter-mile-high third pylon. Below them was the bowl the mech-machines had dug out, covered with black mesh laid on top of struts. Other Airlia were in the center of the bowl, having secured cables from the tops of the other two pylons and awaiting the last set of cables from this one.
The final piece of pylon was secured in place. The six Airlia stood on a narrow platform to the side and activated a control. Cables inside the pylon spun out, slowly descending in the weak Martian gravity.
Once the cables reached the bottom, they were secured by the waiting Airlia to a large wire mesh basket. Then they turned and looked toward the lip of the bowl, where the track that carried the green crystal had been parked. With a lurch it began to move, heading down toward the center, moving very slowly underneath the metal array.
SPACE
"I think Aspasia's Shadow disabled the mothership's weapons system."
Turcotte kept his eyes closed. He recognized Yakov's voice and assumed it was the Russian's large hand on his shoulder that had just woken him.
"I've been trying to work the console he was using," Yakov continued, "and it's dead."
Turcotte sighed. "So even in death he still tries to foil us." He opened his eyes and swung sideways, putting his feet on the deck. "We didn't know if we could use the mothership's weapons anyway. So we stick with our original plan. How is Leahy doing with Tesla's weapon?"
"I don't know."
Turcotte stood. He felt better but still tired. It would take a week of sleep for him to make up for all he had recently been through. "How far from intercept with the Swarm ship?"
"An hour."
Turcotte left the room and turned right down the main corridor. The hatch to the hangar Leahy and Quinn were in was open and Turcotte paused in the opening, taking in the strange device that the two were laboring over. It looked more like a power substation than a weapon. A center twenty-foot tower stood among a series of looped coils. On top of the tower was a platform with six marble columns and wires wrapped around them.
"Is it ready?" Turcotte asked, not expecting a positive response.
"Almost," Leahy replied.
"We're less than an hour out from the Swarm ship," Turcotte said. "Will it be ready by then?"
"Theoretically." Leahy had a wrench in her hands and was tightening something down at the base of the tower.
"'Theoretically'?" Turcotte repeated. "Why doesn't that give me a warm and fuzzy feeling?"
Yakov cleared his throat. "Do we have a plan B for intercept if we can't use that?" He indicated the Tesla weapon.
"I wasn't too clear on the details of plan A," Turcotte said. "Never mind come up with a plan B. Theoretically," he continued, loudly enough so that Quinn and Leahy could hear him, "plan A should be ready by the time we make intercept." He turned toward the main corridor. "I'm going to suit up."
"What kind of weapons does this ship have?" Duncan stared at Garlin. "None." "You lie."
"Why do you need weapons?" Duncan asked.
"What kind of weapons does this ship have and how are they activated?"
Duncan shook her head, trying to clear the pain of the most recent probe. "This ship has no weapons."
The drip of blood from Garlin's left ear was a steady trickle. His skin was paler than it had been. The side of his face was constantly jumping as if from a nervous tic.
"Nothing? Particle beam? Plasma? Arrayed pulse?"
Duncan laughed bitterly. "Those were all beyond our capabilities."
"Then how did you overthrow the Airlia on your planet?" "Blood. Lots of it. And we helped them defeat themselves."
Garlin remained still as the tentacle inside absorbed this information. Her answers were not acceptable. The orb had detected a mothership closing on this ship with an intercept coming shortly. A scan of the oncoming craft revealed its weapons systems were off-line, which reduced the threat considerably. The Swarm was evaluating options.
"Defensive capabilities?" Garlin asked.
"Is someone chasing us?"
"If this ship is destroyed," Garlin said, "you will be adrift in space. You will die, come back to life and die again. For eternity."
"Who is after us? The Airlia?" Duncan's eyes widened. "Turcotte. He's coming."
"It would do you well to tell me about the ship's capabilities."
Duncan laughed. "I will never help you."
"Then you will suffer until you tell us." Garlin picked up the saw he had used on her hand. He slashed down with it across Duncan's right arm, cutting through the forearm.
Duncan screamed and thrashed against the straps holding her down.
Just as Garlin finished cutting through her arm, there was an explosion, and the ship canted hard left. He fell forward, the saw cutting into his own chest, splattering his blood on lop of Duncan's. Garlin staggered back from the gurney, looked at the hole in his chest, and died.
At the controls, the Swarm orb jerked the ship about to avoid hitting another mine.
"Range?" Turcotte asked.
"One thousand kilometers and closing rapidly," Yakov replied over the radio net. "Hold on. It's changing course. Taking evasive action."
"Then it knows we're coming," Turcotte said.
"Hard to hide this ship," Yakov said. "We're still closing."
Turcotte was in a forward cargo bay along with the rest of Captain Manning's team. They were suited and ready to go.
"Quinn," Turcotte said. "Status on the weapon?"
Leahy's voice responded, "I think it's ready."
Turcotte bit off his retort. He realized her life in academia had not exactly prepared her for the realities of their current predicament.
"Six hundred kilometers," Yakov announced. "Leahy's set up a remote firing system for the Tesla gun."
Gun? Turcotte wondered. They didn't even know if it would work. "What kind of range does she think we can fire from?" he asked.
"The closer the better."
Again, Turcotte choked down a smart-ass retort. He considered the situation and came up with the only possible solution. "We don't know what kind of armament this ship we're approaching has. Tell Leahy if it fires anything at us, she fires immediately. If it doesn't fire, let's get within five hundred meters. Then she fires, hopefully breaches the hull, and we assault."
"And if the weapon doesn't breach?" Captain Manning asked.
Turcotte shrugged even though no one could see the gesture inside the TASC suit. He was tired of being the one people turned to for plans in situations where there were no established parameters from which to work. "Then we back off and lob a Cruise missile at the damn thing."
"And Ms. Duncan?" Yakov asked.
"Now you're worried about her?" Turcotte didn't wait for a response. "We don't have any choice. We've got to stop the Swarm first. If we can rescue her, fine. I don't see any other way to do this. Do you?"
A long silence answered his question.
"One hundred kilometers and slowing," Yakov finally said. "It's no longer trying to evade."
"Open the cargo doors," Turcotte ordered.
A fifty-meter-wide door slid open in front of the team. Turcotte looked ahead but he couldn't see the Swarm ship, even when he shifted to night-vision mode. It was somewhere against the blackness of space.
"Fifty kilometers."
"Anyone see it?" Turcotte asked.
No answer.
"Ten kilometers."
"I see something," one of the team members called out. "Ahead and slightly to the right."
Turcotte oriented himself, went to maximum amplification, then he saw it too. The same ship that had escaped him at Stonehenge. He could tell Yakov was slowing the mothership as the objective got closer.
"Leahy?" Turcotte found he was almost whispering. He half expected some sort of weapon to be fired at them from the craft.
"Yes?"
"Are you ready?"
"Yes. I've got a lock on the target."
Why hadn't she said so? "Then fire now," Turcotte said. He saw no point in waiting.
For several seconds nothing happened, then the display inside his helmet went bright white and he closed his eyes as the computer shut down the night-vision mode to prevent it from burning out.
Duncan felt the throb of pain from her right arm. She turned her head and saw that Garlin was lying on the floor dead. Then the ship rocked once more. There was smoke billowing from several panels.
If the Swarm had wanted to know about weapons, then someone must be after them. Duncan looked down at the straps holding her to the gurney. Her right arm was severed halfway down the forearm. The spurt of blood ceased as she watched, but the jagged edge of the two bones poked out unevenly because of Garlin's aborted cut. She jerked back on the arm, slipping the shortened length under the restraints. She twisted her body and jabbed the end of the bone into the restraint on her other arm. The sharp end punctured the nylon. She began sawing, using her own bone to cut, ignoring the throb of pain.
She heard a cracking noise and turned her head to the left as she continued sawing. Garlin's mouth was wide open and the tip of the tentacle appeared, forcing its way out of the dying host.
Duncan sawed faster.
Turcotte opened his eyes and his screen slowly came to life. "Did we get a hit?" he called out.
"Dead on," Yakov yelled, causing Turcotte to flinch as the sound echoed inside the helmet.
Turcotte looked ahead. He saw the ship, not far away. "Range?"
"One kilometer and closing," Yakov said. "It was doing evasive maneuvers, but it's on a steady and straight trajectory now, no acceleration."
There was a black mark along the top of the craft where the Tesla gun had hit it. Turcotte didn't see a breach in the hull. "We need an opening. Leahy, can you punch a hole in it?"
"I can try," Leahy responded.
Duncan cut through the restraint across her chest and arms as the Swarm tentacle cleared Garlin's now-dead body. She sat up and used her good hand to unbuckle the other straps. The tentacle slithered to the floor and crept toward the Swarm orb, which was still at the controls.
Free of the gurney, Duncan looked about. She could see the display screen in front of the orb. A mothership filled the view. She could even see an open hatch near the front of the ship and several figures dressed in TASC suits waiting at the edge. There was another open hatch to the right of it and some sort of machine in the bay. A machine that suddenly began sparking.
A weapon, Duncan realized. Getting ready to fire. She looked about wildly, then made her decision.
Turcotte shut off the night vision for his helmet and watched the next bolt of power streak from the mothership to the other spacecraft. The blast knocked the craft sideways, sending it tumbling, a small hole punched in its top. The ship vented atmosphere and debris out of the hole, but no bodies that he could see. They were now within five hundred meters.
"Let's go," Turcotte said as he jetted out of the cargo bay.
He headed across, weapons at the ready. Checking his rear view, he could see the rest of Manning's team following. He concentrated his attention forward as he got closer. When he was less than fifty meters from the spaceship, he slowed as the team deployed on either side and above and below.
"Hold and cover me," he ordered.
The men spread out farther and jetted to a halt. Turcotte continued forward, toward the breach in the hull. He kept the reticule that aimed the MK-98 directed at the opening. His feet hit the deck and he slipped, then tumbled as he tried to balance himself. He slapped the barrel of the MK-98 against the hull to stop.
Turcotte got to his feet and edged closer to the opening. The plating had been torn up, leaving a six-foot-wide, irregular gap, just large enough for him to slip through. He went to night-vision mode as he entered the dark interior.
"I'm going in."
Turcotte stepped into the hole and jetted down, spinning so that as he entered, he was turning, weapon at the ready.
A tentacle coiled around the barrel of the MK-98, pulling it and him sideways. Turcotte fired, rounds ricocheting off metal. He pulled back, trying to regain control of the weapon as he saw the Swarm orb next to him, one tentacle on the gun, another tentacle holding something shiny. With his other hand, Turcotte grabbed Excalibur, using the MK-98 for leverage to swing around as a red bolt came out of the shiny object and just missed him.
He swung the sword, severing the tentacle holding the gun. He brought the barrel to bear as a second red bolt hit him in the chest and knocked him backward. An alarm was chirping and something was flashing on the display panel, but Turcotte ignored that as he fired, the depleted uranium rounds ripping into the Swarm orb and through it, splattering the hull behind with grayish fluid. Turcotte emptied the entire cylinder into the creature and when that was done he jetted forward, the point of Excalibur leading.
He slid the blade into the creature to the hilt and jerked upward, slicing through the Swarm as if it were butter. The blade came out of the top of the orb with a spray of gray blood and viscera.
Turcotte moved back. The Swarm orb was sliced open from midpoint to top. Neither tentacle moved and he had to assume it was dead. The eyes he could see were blank and dull, showing no sign of life.
He took in his surroundings, searching for Duncan. He saw the gurney she'd been strapped to, but she wasn't on it. He focused on an object floating next to the table an arm severed at midforearm. A woman's arm to judge from the hand.
"We're reading damage to your suit," Captain Manning's voice filled the helmet. "You're venting oxygen."
Turcotte checked the readouts. He was down to 22 percent oxygen, and as he watched it went to 21 percent. He didn't feel any pain so he assumed the suit had taken the brunt of the Swarm's firing.
Where the hell was Duncan?
He scanned the interior of the ship but didn't see her. Had she been vented and he hadn't noticed? Then he saw the two tubes crammed in the rear right corner of the ship. He moved over and looked into the first. A body wrapped in white linen was inside, the face uncovered. He moved over to the other tube and looked in. Duncan lay inside, her eyes closed. There was a mist about her. Turcotte figured the tube was sealed and she had an atmosphere.
"You're well below safety levels," Manning announced. "We're coming in for you."
Turcotte was feeling a little light-headed. He looked about the interior of the ship. The command chairs were human-sized. Not Swarm. Not Airlia. Designed for a human.
"Strange," Turcotte muttered, then he passed out.