The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) (44 page)

Swearing, Calderon started toward the chair.
I can't wait until we're free of this damned world. Just a few more hours.
"All right, then where is it aiming?"

The technicians looked at each other, whispering, then pointing back. One of them ran inside the control room as the other raised up a hand to wait.

"Oh for heaven's sake." Calderon took another step toward the machine, which was still humming, still throwing off waves of photo luminescent energy, then stopped as one of the boys wasn't standing still any longer.

Alexander had slipped by on the right, and was kneeling by Montross. Leaning over, whispering something as he tried to apply pressure to the stab wound.

Montross?

Calderon spun his head back around to the device, and for a glimmering instant, saw him: the flaming red hair, the shining blue eyes. Everything scintillating in an emerald radiance.

Montross! Sitting like an emperor on his throne. Like Loki after usurping Odin. Like Lucifer on the throne of Heaven, or just like Thoth, imagining he could usurp the rule of Marduk.

"Where is it aiming!?"

"Sir," came the voice from above. "Nowhere right now. Just up in a straight line towards the east." The tech's voice cracked. "But in three hours and twelve minutes, after the scalar wave of destruction has traveled a distance of two hundred and fifty million miles..."

Calderon closed his eyes. "No."

"...entering into the path, will be the planet Mars."

"I assume," Calderon said in a dull voice, "You've calculated the precise point on the surface that will be affected?"

"We have." Another pause. "Cydonia."

Throwing down his cane in frustration, Calderon dropped to his knees. Basking before the Emerald Tablet's glow, he prepared himself.

"He's got you," Alexander whispered, glaring at him from his uncle's side.

"Shut up."

"Tricked you good."

"Shut him up!" Calderon pointed and the guards moved in, past Isaac and Jacob, who were still standing, open-jawed, unsure of what just happened. "And if the dead man stirs, shoot him!"

"Father?" Isaac was at his side.

"Be quiet, and be ready. I'm going to stop the traitor. Beat him at his own game."

"But has the pulse already fired?"

"Not long enough," shouted the tech above. "Another thirty seconds and the power level of the scalar wave will be sufficient to penetrate the depth of the Cydonia installation, smash the barriers and reinforced supports, and—"

But Calderon had tuned him out. Or, more appropriately, he no longer had ears with which to hear.

He stood on gossamer legs, his form shimmering with plasma-like sparks.

Everything was as he had foreseen.

Freed from flesh, he was power.

Freed from all restrictions, he was invincible.

He was a god.

And his enemy sat before him, startled at his sudden appearance. And unable to extract himself from the machine. Unable to defend himself.

Thirty seconds
, Calderon thought.

Plenty of time.

10.

Ten minutes earlier, while three F-16 Fighting Falcons roared overhead, dispatched from Eielson Air Force Base, the Jeep Cherokee rammed through the chain wire fence at the southwest edge of the facility.

"Think it'll work?" Caleb shouted over the tortured metal-on-metal collision that sent them rocketing off-road for a moment. The tires dug into the fresh snow, spun, then Nina got the Jeep back on the old service road and accelerated for the dimly-visible supply center, adjacent to the office buildings.

"Well, we heard the jets but I'm sure their security people picked them up on radar long before that. Their attention has got to be on the sky."

"Temple said he ordered radio silence, too. So if they tried contact, they'd get nothing. Which would have to scare them a bit."

"And the scalar weapon, I imagine, isn't good for knocking out fast-moving aircraft, only motionless enemy sites."

Caleb cringed, thinking about the Library of Alexandria, the devastation and loss of life, not to mention the original copies of all that wisdom.

As the snow and ice slapped the windshield, keeping the wipers working in hyperspeed, Nina shifted and threw caution out the window. "Wish our boys weren't in there, otherwise we could have had them just level the damn place. Napalm it up."

Caleb gripped the shrouded Spear in both hands, hefting it, feeling the rough rounded edge, just enough of a hilt-like handle, wishing he had a long staff to fit on it to truly make it a lance-like weapon instead of what it was now: a glorified dagger. He thought of his last vision, that of Alexander about to be attacked by Isaac.

"They're hardly out of danger."

"I know." She shot him a quick look. "And I'm sorry. I wasn't there, I didn't know."

"We'll get there in time," Caleb said, staring ahead, seeing the dark shape approaching. "We'll get there."

"Now that's some confidence even I don't have." Nina slowed, seeing two smaller shapes peel away from the building. "Especially since we've got company."

"Of course they've guarded the back." Caleb unraveled the Spear point. "But they're woefully unprepared."

"No idea what's going to hit them."

The men, visible now in the brutal maelstrom, raised their guns.

Caleb responded, raising the Spear, pointing it at them through the windshield. "Confident or not, I have no idea how this works."

Nina shrugged. "Then I'd suggest ducking."

The windshield cracked just as Nina lowered her head and peeked around the steering wheel, aiming for the pair of defenders. But Caleb merely sat still, Spear held out before him like a narrow shield. Two more cracks in the windshield. A bullet whizzed past and then—SLAM—one of the guards went flying over the roof, while the other just managed to dodge out of the way.

"No chance to shut him up," Nina said, sitting upright. "They know we're here, but with any luck, they think we've got a whole army with us to go along with the air support. We've still got some element of surprise and distraction. Time to use it."

The Jeep picked up speed as the building loomed in their view. Two double doors were no match for the head on greeting they provided at eighty miles an hour. The Jeep smashed through a metal railing and launched down into the warehouse floor. It slid and then Nina braked hard and spun it in a one-eighty, slamming Caleb's side into two more astonished guards and pinning them against a rack of steel replacement girders.

One, still alive, managed to raise his MP5 and before Nina could recover and reach for her Beretta, he fired.

But Caleb was directly in his path. He instinctively held out the Spear tip and closed his eyes. Heard the gunshots, then what sounded like his own cut-off scream, but felt no pain.

"Holy crap," came Nina's voice. Caleb blinked and opened his eyes, registering the fate of the shooter: the MP5 had exploded as it fired, sending shrapnel backwards; his face was blackened and bloody, and the ruined gun fell from his limp fingers.

"I guess no instruction manual needed," Nina commented as she unhooked her belt and withdrew her Beretta. "Now let's move. Out my side, on three."

Caleb looked past her, seeing several dark-clad forms running from shelter and hiding behind crates and piles of equipment.

She counted to three, kicked open the door and went out low, rolling, then shooting at two guards who came charging out of cover. By the time Caleb was out, she had fired three more times, and there were four bodies on the floor.

She ran to the edge of a stack of piping, aimed through it and fired again, taking out someone hiding on the other side. Reloading, she glanced back. "Move it, darling. Or else just stroll out there and draw their fire. We'll see how well it protects you."

Caleb crouched and moved to her side. "I think I'll err on the side of caution for now."

Nina shrugged. "You know, anything happens to you, I promise to take the Spear and do what has to be done."

"I appreciate that. Just come back and give me a proper burial after you save the world."

"No problem."

Caleb winced as gunfire erupted from the back of the warehouse, and impacts ripped through the canisters and sparked off the floor. He looked to where the dead guard's operable MP5 had fallen beside the broken one.

"Just the same, I'm adding to my arsenal." He slid the spear point-down under his belt, hooking an edge, then scampered back for the weapon.

When he returned, keeping his head low in the barrage of incoming fire, Nina said: "You, a gun? Ever actually use one?"

"Yes."

"Other than a BB gun?"

"Yes, one of these in fact."

Nina gave him a disbelieving look after another burst of gunfire, which she answered. "And did you actually hit anything?"

Caleb peered around the edge, sighting. "Now you're just being mean."

"Oh just pull the trigger and aim that way." She nodded to the left as she crouched and took off to the right.

Darting out of cover, he aimed and fired. A momentary panic as two black-clad guards stood up and leveled guns at him from twenty yards away, but then red splotches exploded on their foreheads and they went down, just as fast.

Caleb held down the trigger, struggling to maintain control against the recoil. He sent a long burst that took out lights, shattered crates and ricocheted off metal girders and frames. Two screams as the bullets punched through soft cover, and another as a guard took off and Caleb's uncontrolled sweep happened to catch him in the shoulder.

Three more guard-soldiers ran out, charging him. Two fell to Nina's expert marksmanship before they could take aim, the third ducked for cover. Caleb could hear him slinking around the side of a massive crate. He aimed for the far side, then saw a flash in his mind.

Behind his position: men had circled around outside. A team of six, guns drawn, running fast.

Crap! He thought. No time. He dropped to his knees, spun and let loose a screaming volley of fire out the open doors into the swirling snow that obscured the men running inside. All four, bunched together, caught the slugs square on and spun back, falling. One made it inside only a few steps before the last few rounds stopped his progress.

Now he'd hit something, Caleb thought. But he knew it was all for nothing. The last soldier, hiding behind the crate, would have sensed his opportunity. He's out, aiming, and Nina's not in position.

Caleb dropped the gun and reached for the spear the instant he heard the gunshot. He winced and dropped into a ball. The bullet sailed overhead, striking the pillar beside him. Then he turned, raising the Spear point as another gunshot went off. The Spear shook in his grasp, and then lit up as if struck by lightning. Electric charges crackled along its outline and darted outward.

The guard froze, so mesmerized by the light show that he didn't see the sleek form pulling out of the shadows behind him; the figure that raised then lowered something at his head. A
thwump
and he went down, out cold.