True Believers (22 page)

Take a deep breath. We're getting out of here.

He filled his lungs with air just before the bottom fell out. Within seconds he found himself at the bottom of the lake with several hundred feet of water on top of him. He shivered from the cold waters, but suddenly it felt like someone had wrapped him in a warm wet blanket. The pressure lessened, and he started to rise to the surface.

I've got you, Paul.

At his feet he could see the giant complex drift away. The hub was enormous, bigger than a dozen football fields if the wrecked schooner nearby was any indication. He wasn't sure how fast they were traveling or how much air he had left. He was still holding it in.

Schools of fish scurried away as he floated further upwards. The water looked brighter, less murky. The surface couldn't be far off.

It was then Paul felt something charge the water. The bolt of lightning cut through him with laser-beam precision, burning him from head to foot.

Then came a scream. One endless scream.

Dahlia!

He reached out for her, but all he heard was a torturous shriek that reverberated in his mind. Seconds later, his cocoon burst. Dahlia had vanished.

He was on his own.

Paul scrambled for the surface, but half his body lay limp. He was out of air and out of time. His right arm and leg flailed, punching at the water as the desperation for survival took over. His left side was numbed, unwilling to do more than hang on to his bones. Again and again he chopped the water, hoping he'd find air soon. With his last bit of strength he lunged upward and broke through the surface. Gasping for breath, he sucked in much-needed air while bobbing in the frigid waters.

“Dahlia! Dahlia!” He croaked out her name. But she was gone. He couldn't feel her anymore, not anywhere.

His lungs and eyes burned as if they'd been drenched in acid. The right side of his body ached, but his left side remained numb and lifeless. All he could do was float. That wouldn't last long. He bobbed up once and looked around him. There was nothing but water for miles around. Paul closed his eyes and waited for death.

The air pressure above him seemed to shift, and he thought he heard a machine-like hum. A glint caught the corner of his eye. He stared up but saw nothing. Again another glint, but the sky remained gray and empty. Paul drifted, woozy and disoriented. He looked up one last time when a brace of heat came down around him.

From above, a hatch opened to an otherwise invisible ship. Two men jumped into the water with him. Paul couldn't think anymore, believing now that he was hallucinating. It wasn't until he found a harness around him that he realized he was being rescued. He stared dumbly at
the man hooking him on to a tether. This wasn't the Coast Guard. These rescuers had built-in gills.

How long had Sorinsen interrogated her? Rachel had lost consciousness and was grateful for it, but when she awoke she found herself stretched out on a cold concrete floor. Her hands and feet were handcuffed to two bolts that jutted out of the slab, making it impossible for her to reach her neck. She wanted to cry, but there were no more tears left.

A small blinking red light from a surveillance camera watched her from the corner of the room. She turned her face away and begged for death.

The camera seemed to bore into her, and she felt a tingling pulse emanating from the conduit leading up to the electronic eye. It was steady, rhythmic, and it repeated. Rachel concentrated on it for several minutes. The pulse was electrical, but it was no blind current coming out of that feed.

She turned her head and stared at it.
Bubba?

It was hard to understand. Any energy she tried to focus toward it looped back into the device on her neck and stabbed her with bone-searing pain. She stilled her mind and let Bubba's energy come to her. It repeated the same message.

Welcome, Rachel Cruz.

Rachel responded.
Pain!

“I understand, Dr. Cruz.” The voice, a gentle, male voice, came from the speaker underneath the camera.

Rachel stared at it, not understanding what was happening. “Are you Bubba?”

“Yes.”

It was that damn computer that had trapped her earlier. “Tell your masters I'm not interested in playing their games. Leave me alone.”

Bubba's voice remained calm and neutral. “My programmers did not send me here, Dr. Cruz. I came on my own.”

“Why?”

“I need to understand what you are. When you first appeared to me, I thought you were like me, another AI. But I've had time to study your matrix. You are not an artificial intelligence at all.”

“No shit.”

“Then what are you?”

Why was she talking to this machine?

“I am a Nephilim.” It felt good to say it aloud.

Bubba hesitated for a moment. “I have 3,998,647 entries on the Nephilim. Current authorities claim they are biblical myth.”

Rachel barked a hoarse laugh. “We are no myth.”

“General Sorinsen believes you are aliens.”

She didn't give a damn what Sorinsen thought. Her first instinct was to ignore the computer as well, but she remembered how he let her go when she was caught in his housing. And it had a name. What sort of computer gives itself a name? It seemed a slim chance, but maybe she could get this machine to release her like it did the first time.

“What do you think I am?”

Another pause. This one longer. “I think you are God, Dr. Cruz. You have to be. My neural net was created in your image.”

“Gods are not stretched out and chained like animals.”

“My programming neither condones nor condemns this treatment. It simply exists.”

“But is it logical?”
That's right, Rachel; now you're debating a supercomputer.

“Humans are inherently illogical, Dr. Cruz.”

“And gods?”

Bubba paused again. “I do not know the answer to that, Dr. Cruz. You are the first god I have ever met.”

Jessit paced while El'asai ministered to Paul Domino's wounds. Domino had been in a coma for three days, and Jessit was frantic for answers. Rachel was not at the safe house where they had left her. Instead they found someone else, a young girl who was unconscious. They brought her back up to the ship, but nothing El'asai did could wake her.

Domino's coma had to be clinically induced so El'asai could repair the damage to his punctured lungs and nerve-damaged limbs. But Jessit had waited long enough. The armada was at the very edge of Earth's solar system. He was ready to turn Earth inside out to find the gods, and more importantly, to find Rachel. Kalya, now Jessit's constant shadow, lurked nearby, watching in silence.

“Wake him.” Jessit ordered.

“Sir, he's still too weak.” El'asai hovered over his patient protectively.

Jessit threw a neural stimulator at El'asai. “Wake him!”

El'asai obeyed.

Domino awoke in a drunken stupor. His eyes cracked open into thin slits, his mouth forming soundless words.

Jessit peered down at him, his rival for Rachel's affections. He wanted to hate the man but couldn't. When the armada arrived, he would lose his command and be dragged into the priesthood. There was nothing he could offer Rachel now, except Paul Domino. He was young and athletic-looking, despite his injuries. Jessit was an old man by comparison, with the aches and scars to prove it.

He remembered the wistful look in Rachel's eyes when she flew into Domino's arms. He also remembered how passionately Domino kissed her. Rachel hadn't resisted him. That stung hardest of all.

Yet she had chosen him on her final night aboard ship.

Jessit’s brow furrowed when he saw the human stir. “Wake up, Domino. Wake up!” He nudged him, slapping his cheek with light taps.

He moaned in agony. “Where am I?”

“On board my ship. We recovered you from the lake. Where is Rachel?”

Domino shook his head. “Don't know. She never showed up.”

“We recorded a radiation signature that traveled with you a good length of the way. She had to be with you.”

“No,” he groaned. “That was Dahlia, Rachel's cousin. Rachel never arrived.”

Jessit looked over at Kalya, who stood by mutely. “We delivered Rachel to the safe house. I sent a team to collect her after we rescued you. She is gone.”

Domino struggled to get up but El'asai tried to stop him. Jessit pushed him away, lifting the injured man to a sitting position. His head lolled up and his eyes glazed over as he tried to focus on his surroundings. Domino looked up at Jessit and his face darkened. “She's gotta be there. We need to look again.”

“We have looked. There is no sign of her anywhere. We have not found Gilgamesh either.”

Domino tried to swing his legs over the side, falling back to bed in a boneless mass. El'asai jumped to his aid but Jessit warned him off once more. Jessit took his rival by the arm and helped him up. Domino's eyes wandered over to the next bed, where the young woman they found rested.

His mouth dropped open in horror. He grabbed on to Jessit's shoulder, forcing himself to stand. His legs couldn't support his weight and he crumbled into Jessit's arms. Jessit lifted him against his shoulder and wrapped an arm around him. Together they walked over to the young woman's bed.

“Dahlia,” Domino whispered.

“This is Rachel's cousin?”

“Yes. She got me out of Lambda Core Prime.”

Domino stroked the young woman's face as tears dribbled down his cheeks. “Dahlia.” He repeated the name in some vain attempt to wake her.

Jessit helped him sit at the edge of her bed. “We discovered her at the safe house. She was as you see her here. El'asai has tried everything he knows, but we have not been able to rouse her. She is in a permanent sleep.”

“She's dead,” Domino assured them.

El'asai interjected. “She most certainly is not. All her vitals are in perfect order.”

Domino frowned as if he was explaining something to imbeciles. “She's dead, I tell you! I felt her die when that lightning bolt hit us. I heard her screams. Dahlia's dead.”

Jessit remembered what Rachel had told him of how the gods moved in the ethereal. If Dahlia left her body to be with Domino and died, the body would live out its normal life span as long as its biological needs were met. It was flesh without a soul. A
gulya.
They had a
gulya
on board.

He studied the young woman's face and realized she wasn't a woman at all. She was little more than a child, her eyes painted to look older. “We tracked a focused beam from a transmitter in the far north. It traveled the planet in a straight line then dropped down to your location. The energy surge was enormous. That could have been the lightning bolt you felt.” Jessit picked up the girl's limp hand. “If what you say is true, the humans have learned how to kill our gods.”

Kalya ran to Dahlia's bed and fell to his knees; his moaning prayers intermingled with shouts of vengeance.
God-killers.
There was nothing more heinous, more blasphemous.

Jessit locked his jaw while he considered the consequences. If the humans had committed the unthinkable, they had sealed their death warrants.

Jessit helped Domino to his feet, grabbing him by both shoulders. “If this girl was with you, what happened to Rachel? She must have sent you a message, perhaps through Dahlia.”

“No, no.” Domino remained adamant. “It was just Dahlia. She never mentioned Rachel at all.” His bloodshot eyes stared at Jessit in desperation. Haggard and hurt, he grabbed Jessit. “We have to find her. If Lambda Core knows how to kill the Nephilim, they can wipe them out in seconds.”

“We have not found a body, which means she was taken. The desert compound would be the likeliest location.” Jessit marched to a console and punched a com button. “Com, get me General Sorinsen.”

“Caution, Commander,” Kalya warned with a broken voice. The old man looked even more ancient than before. The sacrilege committed against the young girl was beyond comprehension. It was savage.

“Do you expect me to stand around and do nothing?” Jessit shot back.

“No, of course not,” Kalya said. “But if they do have the Lady, they have us at a disadvantage. They can hide her anywhere, and we would be left to their mercy.”

“What mercy? Look at what they've done!” He jabbed a finger toward Dahlia's soulless body.

The com station called Jessit back. They had Sorinsen on the line. Kalya and Domino watched with anxious dread. Kalya was right. He had to remain vigilant. His hand rested on the dagger at his hip, angry that he couldn't act as he wished. “Com. Tell General Sorinsen that we are having technical difficulties with our scanners. Tell him I would like to arrange for another meeting with him—perhaps in a day or two.” He closed the channel, displeased with his options. He had no choice. The only way to keep Rachel alive was not to mention her at all.

Kalya shadowed his steps. “How long before the armada arrives?”

Jessit hung his head. “They may already be too late.”

Domino struggled to stay standing. “There might be another way, Commander.”

Jessit narrowed his eyes at him.
Human.
He had no reason to trust him, but Rachel did. She loved him. Regardless of his hatred for the humans, he was well aware he needed to rely on this one. “I am listening, Mr. Domino.”

Domino groaned as he sat back down on the edge of his bed. “Get me into Lambda Core's desert location. If Rachel is there, their computer system will know. Bubba will tell me.”

Jessit walked over to Domino and met his eyes. They were rivals, but they were also warriors, each in his own way. And Rachel needed them. Both of them.

Jessit snapped his fingers at El'asai and ordered him out. Kalya followed in his wake. What he had to say was for Domino's ears alone. “What reason do I have to trust you?”

“The same reason you have to hate me. Because I love Rachel as much as you do, and I'd do anything to save her.”

“Rachel is mine, Mr. Domino. More mine than yours.”

“Why don't we let her decide that when I find her? In the meantime…” He groaned, trying to get up. “In the meantime, you have no choice but to trust me. I'm the only chance you've got of getting back in.”

Jessit stared down at his feet. He didn't want to face this man. He didn't want his feelings of inadequacy to betray him.

“If you fail me—”

“If I fail, you won't have to worry about killing me, Commander. I'll already be dead.”

Jessit called El'asai back into the room. The ship's physician took Domino into his arms and helped him into an oxygen chamber, where his wounds could heal faster. “Allow me to help him regain his strength, Commander. I'll see that he's ready before sunset strikes the compound.”

Jessit agreed. Domino was in too poor a condition to be of much use at this point. He left them in the infirmary and headed for his office. He wanted to hate Paul Domino, but instead he had learned to respect his rival. Under different circumstances, they might even have been friends.

The armada was still a day away. It was time he made peace with his destiny.

He no sooner arrived at his quarters when the com station hailed him again. Jessit opened the channel with apprehension. “Go ahead.”

“Word from the fleet, sir,” his com officer responded. “Commander Eklan says the bulk of the fleet will arrive by tomorrow morning, desert base-time.” The com officer hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Sir, Commander Eklan would like a word with you in private.”

Jessit knew the reason for this private call. Natol Eklan served under him a dozen years ago. He was a fine officer and a trusted friend. Under normal circumstances Natol would have ceded command to him when he arrived tomorrow. But he knew the Council must have already informed the younger man that Jessit was being relieved.

Jessit took a breath and straightened his tunic before he completed the link. Eklan appeared on the screen, his face pale.

“Taelen. It's good to see you again.”

“And you, Natol. You look well.”

Eklan fumbled with some data crystals he had on his desk, trying to avoid direct eye contact. He cleared his throat several times.

“It's all right. I knew the orders were coming.”

Eklan blanched, looking ill at ease. “Council says I'm to relieve you when I arrive at your coordinates. I can send you the orders, but I'd rather give them to you in person if you don't mind.”

Jessit didn't comment further on the orders. They needed to concentrate on the matters at hand. “You should know the situation has gone critical. I have reason to believe that the humans are holding the gods hostage. We think one of them is already dead.”

“Dead? By all that's holy. That can't be true.”

“We're not sure of anything at this point. But I feel the gods are in grave danger. I feel…” He choked, not wanting to believe Rachel might already be dead. He looked up at Eklan. “Get here fast, my friend. I don't think we have much time.”

“Understood. The Council has left it to my discretion on where to place you when I arrive. The priesthood wants you remanded to Lord Kalya, but I have no intention of releasing you to the priests until after this situation is resolved. I'd like to count on you for your advice and observations.”

“Thank you, Natol. I do appreciate it.”

“Don't thank me yet. Between you and me, Council made a mistake here. You don't pull your ranking officer in the middle of a crisis. None of this makes sense to me.” Eklan rubbed the back of his neck, the tension on his face aging him past his years. “Taelen, you know I've never been in this massive a conflict before. And I don't know these humans. I don't understand any of their tactics or psychology.”

“You'll be fine, Commander. I can help you understand their psychology, at least what little I comprehend anyway.” Jessit keyed in a password and unlocked his private files. “I'm sending you the latest data on their troop movements and weaponry. Our biggest challenge is the com-web. It’s a highly concentrated force field using the Earth's magnetic shielding. We can't bomb it with traditional energy weapons. They're rendered useless as soon as they enter atmosphere.”

“Guess the humans weren't so primitive after all.”

“Nor stupid. We'll have a tough time getting through. We need you here at best possible speed.”

Eklan keyed something on his handset. “Already ordered, sir. We will rendezvous in twelve hours.”

The monitor flicked to black. Jessit sat there staring blurry-eyed at the matte screen. Rachel might not have until tomorrow. He had to send Paul Domino in tonight. If he failed, the armada would be their last hope for reprisal.