Mercer singled out the man who’d spoken earlier. “Can you scram the reactor?”
“Not from here. And the reactor room is better sealed than here. You cannot get in unless Dr. Fortescue lets you.”
“Book?”
Sykes swung the Kriss toward the window and moved as close as he dared. He fired as rapidly as the gun would cycle, keeping his shots to such a tight group that each divot in the thick glass overlapped its neighbor. He mechanically switched out the magazine once it was depleted and kept firing until the weapon ran dry again. Glass dust and powder blew back from the impacts, but the heavy .45-caliber bullets gouged only a fraction of the way through the armored window. It would take high explosives to get into the next room, something they didn’t have — or have the time to improvise.
Fortescue had ducked for cover behind a pair of computer blade servers at the first violent blasts, but soon righted himself when he realized the window wasn’t going to shatter. He wasn’t brave enough to move closer to the dinner-plate-size spot where the rounds pummeled the glass, though a contemptuous smirk crossed his lips at the bullets’ impotence.
Mercer checked the monitor again. The storm looked like it was growing exponentially, and a hellish blue-green corona was forming like a halo thousands of feet above the ship. The light was otherworldly. Soon, tendrils of energy were arcing out from it on north-south vectors as they followed the planet’s magnetic lines.
“Look, for Christ’s sake!” he shouted at the Frenchman.
Fortescue seemed less sure of himself but said with some defiance, “That is nothing but a quick rebalance. The storm will blow itself out quickly.”
Mercer didn’t know how much time he had. Jason had been unsure of the effects, but he knew it would be minutes, not hours. The storm raging around the ship continued to grow in ferocity, while at its center the invisible streams of energy were being beamed up from the Admiral Zhukovsky’s main antenna. Mercer wasn’t the type to surrender to panic. He was logical, methodical, and generally found a solution to any problem, but at that moment he was completely blank. He stared in horror as the sky became a dome of tortured clouds and polarized ions.
He scanned the nearest workstations. Much of the original equipment was still in place, old analog switches and dials labeled with indecipherable Cyrillic letters. The newer stuff was secured onto the workstations rather than embedded into them, and was labeled in French. He ignored all the old stuff. That would do him no good. Mercer thought about finding cover, but no place would afford protection, not during a pole shift.
And that’s when it hit him.
Protection.
The stones had to be protected to prevent them from attracting lightning, and with the monster storm surging overhead, the ship should have been attracting strike after strike. The machines beyond the glass barrier appeared fragile. They were delicate electronics, not industrial shielding. The room, too, didn’t appear to have any kind of system to counter the effect, and suddenly Mercer understood the wires welded to the hull and strung up to the antenna. They had encased the entire ship in a countermagnetic field, almost like they were degaussing the hull to prevent a static buildup. Unlike Abe Jacobs’s copper box or the handful of brass bullets Mercer had cadged together, this was an active Faraday cage — like system protecting an entire ocean-liner-size ship.
He scanned the workstations again and found exactly what he’d expected. One was dedicated to monitoring the ship’s electromagnetic shielding. He moused open the dormant computer monitor, and when it came to life he quickly found an override to shut off the protective layer of shielding.
“What are you doing?” Fortescue asked from behind the glass.
Mercer ignored him by yanking off his headset and tossing it on the console. He said to Booker. “How are we on time?”
Sykes checked his watch. “We’re still a few minutes early for the Jet Ski’s alarm, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” he said to Booker. He then turned to the technicians and scientists and shouted, “Everyone get off this ship as fast as you can. Tell the rest of the crew. They must evacuate now! All your lives are in danger.”
The storm had worsened, now an angry spinning gyre that was filling the heavens from horizon to horizon, seething with the unimaginable force of a magnetic field gone awry.
Mercer double-clicked an icon on the computer to depower the shield. When he saw the status bar change to “stand-by,” he raised his pistol and put three rounds through the computer wired under the table that controlled the system.
Fortescue pounded on the glass in rage when he realized what Mercer had deduced and then destroyed. The vessel was now vulnerable to lightning strikes, and the most powerful thunderstorm in the planet’s history was raging overhead.
“Let’s go…now,” Mercer said to Sykes, and started running for the exit.
“No!” Fortescue screamed. The French scientist began working the lock to gain access to the control room in the vain hope of somehow reestablishing the protective shield, but it was a useless gesture. The computer was ruined, and he had no idea how long it would take to jury-rig a backup.
Mercer turned to follow Book, and the headlong rush out of the control room. A hand grabbed his ankle. He’d forgotten about the South African, Niklaas.
“I just want you to understand something…” he gurgled, blood and saliva on his lips. “All those years ago in Africa, we were sent out to look for some kidnapped missionaries. It was a rescue mission. When my men saw your white faces, they believed you were victims, and they shot at the armed blacks they thought were holding you. It was an accident…call it friendly fire.”
“Call it whatever you want,” Mercer said without mercy as a flood of anger poured out of him. “A good man named Paul died that day…and his death is just as much your fault as the death of a saintly man named Abraham Jacobs, who you killed in the Leister Deep Mine two weeks ago. You’ve made choices, and so have I. Don’t think that scar made you the rotten murderer you are. That happened long before I shot you. I’ll tell you this, I’m going to sleep easier tonight knowing that you’re dead, and Abe and Paul and Roni Butler and God knows how many others have been avenged.”
Mercer began to turn away, but he pivoted back toward the South African. “I’ll give you a shot at some redemption you don’t deserve,” he offered.
“What’s that?” the South African choked, his eyes rolling in his head.
“Give me the name of the man who paid for all this.”
The mercenary grinned at Mercer and started coughing. He struggled to get words out, until he finally convulsed and went still.
Mercer stared down at him, then turned and jogged over to join Booker outside the control room doorway. That was the moment the first searing fork of lightning struck the ship. The blast of electricity overwhelmed the power stream that pulsed up through Fortescue’s apparatus, and the relays exploded at the onslaught. Drawn to the heart of the equipment where the dun-colored crystals lay, the lightning bolt shot through the wiring in an instantaneous flash that burned everything in a blinding white flash. When it subsided, Professor Fortescue was just a shadow outline of carbon dust left on the glass.
Side by side, Sykes and Mercer ran through the ship, climbing where they found stairways. The handful of people Mercer had warned were now scattered, trying to get others to listen to them about the danger. It appeared none of the crew were listening. No seaman would dare abandon ship into such a tempest, and the scientists couldn’t convince them the real danger was still to come.