Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch (3 page)

But why did it have to be Peter who did the deed?
Because it had to be someone
, he thought. If it had not been Judas who had betrayed Jesus, it would have been someone else. If not for that betrayal, Jesus would not have been able to sacrifice himself to wash away the sins of all mankind. And if Pope Pius needed to die, someone had to do it. Someone had to make a sacrifice for the greater glory of God.

Why me? Well, why not me?
Peter tried to console himself with the thought that he had been chosen because of the strength of his faith, because God could count on him. It was little consolation.

As he lay on his bed, wallowing in fear, confusion and self-pity, Peter said one final prayer for understanding before drifting off to sleep. He did not really believe he would receive the answer he was hoping for, but he was not yet ready to give up. He was not yet at the point of cursing God. Not yet… but he knew he was much closer than he wanted to admit.

WHEN ADMIRAL LONG walked into the conference room aboard the
Vigilant
, he glanced at the assembled crewmen. There were several who were not from his senior staff, but he knew who they were.

He nodded at the man nearest to him. “Your name?”

“Ensign Crane, sir.”

“I received your report, Ensign. I read through it, but if you don’t mind, I want to hear everything again in your own words. Something new might occur to you in the retelling. What happened on Mars?”

Ensign Crane nodded. “Well, sir, I can only speak for what I saw, but from what I’ve been able to gather, it was the same for all the other rescue teams.”

Long glanced down at the tablet in front of him. “These… creatures?”

“Yes, sir.” Ensign Crane blinked rapidly several times and looked around the table.

Long turned to the officer on his other side. “Bring the footage up on the main screen.”

A 3-D image projected itself upward from the center of the table. Long watched the shaky camera footage from one of the rescue teams. “Is this from your team, Ensign Crane?”

“No, I don’t believe so, sir.”

“But this is the best footage we have, sir,” said the man next to him.

“Very well. Proceed.”

As Admiral Long watched, a lanky creature with reddish skin loped into frame. A stained white suit clothed its head and torso, and a reflective visor covered its eyes. The creature leapt forward toward the man holding the camera, and the camera fell to the ground. It was kicked or pushed a few times, dizzily shifting the image, but the final shot was of the creature leaning in toward the prone cameraman. It ripped into his throat with its teeth and began eating.

Long glanced at Ensign Crane. He had turned away. “Ensign, is this the same sort of creature you saw?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And something similar happened to your team?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you see any ships that the aliens could have arrived in? They had to have come from the larger ship somehow.”

“I didn’t see any, sir.”

One of his officers spoke up. “Sir, perhaps they possess some sort of teleportation technology. Or they can send biological beings through hyperspace unshielded.”

Long nodded. “I’ve thought of that.” He looked back at Crane. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Ensign? Anything that will help us understand what happened on Mars?”

“Yes, sir. It was absolute chaos down there. As soon as we thought we were safe, another one of those things would jump out at us. They were relentless, like they didn’t even care if they lived or died. They just… they just wanted to kill, sir.” Ensign Crane paused and looked down at his hands.

“Anything else?” Long said, trying to keep his voice reassuring.

“They’re hard to kill. At one point, I was able to fire my sidearm at one of them. I hit it two or three times squarely in the chest, but it barely even flinched.”

“The bullets didn’t penetrate?”

“No, sir. They didn’t even make a hole in the suit it was wearing.”

“Armor of some kind?” offered one of Long’s officers.

“Possibly.” Long stood. “Ensign, thank you for your report. And I’m sorry for what you had to see down there. We’ll do everything we can to deal with this.”

“Thank you, sir.” Crane stood, saluted and was escorted out of the conference room.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Long said, “you’ve all seen this footage. You also know that of the five hundred rescue personnel we sent to Mars, only one hundred and seven returned. They were able to rescue only eight survivors. Out of two million people on Mars, only eight made it out alive.”

Long cleared his throat and took a sip of water before continuing. “Most of the loss was due to the direct attack from the alien ship. That weapon they have is more powerful than anything we can throw at them. If they attack again, let’s just hope their defense isn’t as formidable as their offense.

“But that’s
if
they return. For whatever reason, this alien ship attacked Mars and has now left, either via hyperspace or using some other technology. They sent these grotesque creatures to the surface to mop up, finish off any survivors, but they’ve yet to attack Earth or any other inhabited body in the solar system. Why is that?”

“Testing our defenses, sir?”

Long pursed his lips. “That’s my read on it. There’s no way of knowing if they’ve attacked the other inhabited systems or not. We’ll hear from Virdis first, I imagine. They’re the closest, just under two months away via hyperspace. But whatever happens in the other inhabited systems, we must protect Earth at all costs. The
Vigilant
is only one of three ships of its kind and the only one in this system. If any of the outposts on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn are attacked, we will not take the bait. We will stay here to protect Earth and remain at full alert. The
Oberon
and the
Izumo
will patrol the outer system. The
Artemis
and the
Europa
have been recalled to Earth, and they will remain here in orbit with us.”

“Sir, are the
Oberon
and the
Izumo
enough to protect the outlying settlements?”

Long leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers. “I think we were all stunned by the amount of devastation the alien ship was able to deliver to Mars within such a short period of time. I hate to say it, but I do not believe we can match them ship for ship. The
Oberon
and the
Izumo
have orders to draw any attacking ships away from the settlements. I don’t know what they’ll be able to do beyond that. I think our best chance is to keep our three largest ships here so we can outnumber them if they attack Earth. I think that now that they’ve tested our defenses, they won’t bother with stations and outposts of a few thousand people. They’ll go for the big prize.”

“And what about those red creatures that attacked on the ground?”

“I’ll be coordinating with General Adams; he’s the highest-ranking officer on the planet right now. But up here, we’ll see the ships before they have a chance to organize a ground attack. We’re the first line of defense, and if we can take care of the enemy ships quickly, we may keep everyone safe on the ground.”

“Unless they just decide to attack from space, sir.”

“I’ve thought about that, too. If their goal was simply to destroy us, why did they bother sending their ground forces in? They could have just intensified their fire on the Mars settlements to ensure that there were no survivors.”

“Recon?”

“Yes, but for what? Maybe to test our strength biologically? They wanted a look at us up close. They want to know how we’ll be in a fight, not just our ships, but on a man-to-man level. They want to see what kind of weapons we carry.”

Heads nodded around the table.

“I believe,” said Long, “that we’re facing the threat of invasion. They want our planet, and hopefully that means they don’t want it destroyed.” He rubbed his chin. “The only good news here is that they haven’t—as far as we know—seen this ship or the other defenses around Earth. We can hope they’ll base their assessment of our capabilities on the resistance they found at Mars, which was minimal. We can’t rely on that hope one hundred percent, but it’s something, and I’ll take it.”

Long stood, and the others around the table followed suit. “I have a conference call with General Adams then with representatives of the Stellar Assembly. You all know what you need to do. Make sure your people are ready. Keep them calm; keep them alert but confident. Let’s reconvene at fourteen hundred hours. If there are any new developments, we’ll go over them then.”

GENERAL WILLIAM ADAMS tapped on the screen in front of him and nodded as the face of Admiral Long appeared. “Hello, Ryan.”

“Will. Did you get the footage from Mars?”

“Yes. I’m concerned about that body armor they’re wearing. It can at least resist small-caliber solid-projectile fire. Hopefully, if the time comes, energy weapons will have better success. I’m pulling every energy weapon I can find out of the armories and having them issued.”

“Good idea.”

“We’ve also begun setting up strong points throughout the major cities. If the aliens do get on the ground, we can hopefully tie them up at these locations long enough for reinforcements to arrive. But those things on the videos… they move damned fast. And they don’t seem to act like an organized force.”

“I noticed that. They’re like animals on a rampage.”

“Shock troops.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, either way, we’ll be ready for them. All units are on active duty, patrolling the cities, the highways, the countryside. What about defenses for the colonies?”

Long frowned. “Minimal. The
Izumo
and the
Oberon
. I’m keeping all our big ships here at Earth. If this is an invasion, we need to be able to defend ourselves with everything we can muster.”

Adams sighed. “Alien invasion. I know that was a real concern shortly after hyperspace was discovered and we began spreading out to other star systems. But in all the centuries since then, we haven’t come across a single intelligent species. Where did they come from?”

“I’ve wondered that. It would have to be a long way off. A civilization like that, capable of building a ship like that, couldn’t stay hidden, and we’ve sent probes through hyperspace to all the nearby star systems we haven’t personally visited.”

Adams cleared his throat. “My brother was on Mars.”

“I’m sorry, Will. They did find a handful of….”

“No, I’ve already checked. He’s not among them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Fortunately, this has kept me pretty busy. I haven’t had time to deal with that just yet.”

“They’re… they’re recovering the remains from Mars now. If they find him, I’ll let you know immediately so arrangements can be made.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I’ll see you at the teleconference with the Assembly. I just hope the bureaucrats aren’t planning anything that’ll interfere with our ability to defend the planet.”

“Even if they are,” said Adams, “I plan to ignore them. This is bigger than politics. If they don’t give me—and you—carte blanche to defend Earth, I’ll take it anyway.”

“Whatever you need to do, Will, I’ll back you.”

“Likewise. Good luck, Admiral.”

Long smiled. “And you, General.”

JEFFERSON IVES THOUGHT about Abilene quite a bit. It was on that miserable planet that he’d lost his friends John Takemitsu and Liz Wagner. He’d also been separated from another friend, Frank Allen, and while he knew that Allen had checked in on Silvanus some months later, he didn’t know what had become of him since then.

It had been difficult to bring the bodies of John and Liz home and make contact with their families. It had been even more difficult to explain to Director Blanco exactly what had happened. Bureau agents had teamed up with the man they were hunting to try and take down the warlord Orion Zednik. Not only that, Zednik had escaped, and Richard Sullivan hadn’t been apprehended either.

At the time, Ives had agreed with Allen’s decision to help Sullivan take down Zednik and rescue Kate Alexander. Sullivan had promised to turn himself in once that was done. But that had never happened. Ives had heard through Bureau channels that Frank Allen had quit the Bureau. He was also suspected of aiding and abetting Sullivan and may have even been involved in the civil war on Edaline. Ives didn’t doubt it. After Liz Wagner’s death, Allen had become detached. His behavior had grown increasingly irrational.

As Jeff Ives stood in his apartment looking down at the street below, he thought about his friends, both those who were dead and the one who was missing. Richard Sullivan was still at large. Was Frank with him? Was Frank even alive?

Ives was about to step away from the window when a surge in the crowd caught his attention. A few dozen people had rounded the corner from the cross street and were running toward his building. As they went, those who had been moving in the opposite direction turned and followed.

Ives took his handheld out of his pocket, activated the camera and zoomed in on the crowd. There was fear and panic in their eyes.

The handheld rang, and he switched off the camera to see who was calling. It was the Bureau.

“Yes? Yes, sir. I can see something happening, but I don’t know what it is yet. It looks like… are you sure, sir? Yes, sir. I’m heading down now. I’ll report as soon as I know something.”

Ives shoved his handheld into his pocket, grabbed his holster and sidearm off the table and rushed out the door. When he arrived in the lobby of his apartment building, the crowd had grown. Scores of people were running along the street.

He pushed open the doors and tried to see through the crowd, tried to see what they were running away from. A flash of movement above the crowd caught his eye. It looked like someone had leapt ten or twelve feet into the air.

Ives trained his eyes above the heads of the onrushing throng. Another figure leapt above the crowd, but a large man shouldered his way past Ives at the same instant, knocking him off balance and obstructing his view.