“As fast as you can pull the trigger,” Kopina said, “which is not as fast as you can pull the trigger. It’s as fast as the ninety-eight will allow you to pull. The trigger locks up until the barrel is set. The cylinder also rotates, aligning a new round. You can fire once every one point seven seconds. It will be attached to the firing arm of the TASC-suit.” She slid aside the back plate of the gun and showed Duncan. “See these adapters? They go right onto the end of the TASC-suit arm.”
Kopina slid the place back. She moved down the table to another weapon that looked very similar to the MK-98. “This packs a bigger punch. Works on the same principles as the ninety-eight — spring-fired — but the round is different.” She picked up a black pod, about six inches long by two in diameter. “This is the round. It’s not solid. Rather, it’s filled with high explosive. I’d test it for you, but it would piss off the NASA people if I blew the wall of the hangar out. This is the MK-99, and they’re taking a few of these with them.”
“I still don’t understand why the military is in on this,” Duncan said. She found it strange that the TASC-suit and its helmet were so advanced yet these weapons so primitive in comparison. She remembered Yakov telling how The Mission had controlled human development, increasing one thing while taking away in another.
Kopina turned her back on the weapons. “That’s a question I don’t have an answer to.”
“Who are you?” Che Lu asked.
The figure in the black robes finished directing the mercenaries to deploy around the entrance to the tunnel above their heads. Che Lu and Lo Fa had been forced inside the tomb at gunpoint, carefully using the ropes to get down the slope to the large storage area inside the mountain tomb.
The light had come on as they entered, just as it had the previous week when they’d come from the other direction, through the tunnels of the tomb.
They were inside a large open space. Metal beams rose from the nearest wall, curving overhead to follow the dome ceiling around to come down the far side, which was hard to see because of the obstructions in the way. There were numerous black rectangles spaced across the floor ranging from a few feet in size to one over a hundred meters long by sixty high. There were other shapes scattered about here and there also. The far wall was over a mile and a half away.
To the far right a bright green light glowed, brighter even than the one overhead. Che Lu knew that inside of the room that green light came from was a guardian computer, hidden behind a wall.
At the base of the sloping tunnel they had come down, the mercenaries were building a barricade pointing machine guns toward the outside. Che Lu wondered how long it would be before the People’s Liberation Army returned to the area in force and what would happen then.
“My name is Elek,” the figure replied, pulling a hood down, revealing pale skin and sunglasses.
“What do you want here?” Che Lu demanded.
“Perhaps the same thing you want,” Elek said.
“The lower level,” Che Lu said. “Can you get past the ghost guard?”
“The ghost guard?” Elek bared his smooth white teeth in a quick smile. “I can get past that with the proper information and equipment.” He lifted a long thin hand and pointed. “You recovered Professor Nabinger’s notebook, did you not?” Che Lu knew there was no use lying. “Yes.”
“And what did he discover?”
“He believed Artad and other Airlia are in the lowest level.”
“What else?”
“There was something about the power of the sun.”
Elek nodded. “Very good.” He yelled some more commands at the mercenaries. “Come with me,” he said to Che Lu and Lo Fa.
They followed, guards with weapons ready surrounding them. There were a half-dozen control panels of the type Che Lu now associated with the Airlia, hexagon-shaped patterns filling the surface with Airlia high rune symbols inside of each hexagon.
Elek walked right up to a console in the front of the room, facing a wall where the trace outline of a door was visible. Che Lu knew the guardian was behind that door.
“You are with Artad?” Che Lu asked. She remembered what Nabinger had said after making contact with the guardian behind the wall.
Elek said nothing.
“STAAR?” Che Lu tried.
“Very good,” Elek commended her. “STAAR is one of many names we have had over the years.” He put his right hand on the console. A red glow suffused the black top, outlining more high rune symbols. A new group of hexagons, fitted tightly together, appeared. Elek’s hand flew over the pattern, touching.
There was a loud humming noise. A crack appeared along the edges of the door in the far wall as it began to slide upward. Che Lu noted that the mercenaries brought their weapons up. Lo Fa had not said a word since they had encountered the mercenaries and their strange leader.
Elek disappeared into the next room. Che Lu and Lo Fa followed. A six-foot-high pyramid, the surface glowing with a golden haze, rested in the center of the room. Elek stopped and looked at it. Che Lu picked up in him the same reverence she felt when in the presence of her ancestors’ tombs; a deep reverence.
“What are you going to do?” Che Lu asked.
“We need the power — the ruby sphere.”
“The ruby sphere was destroyed,” Che Lu said.
“One of the ruby spheres was destroyed,” Elek said.
“The second one is down there?” Che Lu pointed to the floor.
“It had better be,” Elek said.
Elek walked forward and placed both hands, palms out, on the glowing gold surface. Within a second, he was completely covered by the glow.
CHAPTER 16
The patrol was making good time. They were moving along the east bank of a river. The patrol crested a tall, grassy ridge and Toland halted briefly to peer about. He could see a long way in every direction, and there was nothing. No sign of civilization. They could be the only people on the face of the planet, based on the information his senses were giving him.
Toland glanced at Baldrick. “Got a reading?”
Baldrick pulled his pack off.
Toland gestured for Faulkener and the two remaining merks to form a close perimeter.
Baldrick was opening the plastic case when one of the men leapt to his feet, cursing. A thin strand dangled from his right arm.
Toland whipped his machete out of its sheath and dashed toward the man. With one sweep of the blade he cut the snake in two just under the head, which was still attached by its teeth to the man’s arm.
“Hold still!” Toland ordered. “You’re just pushing the venom through you.” Toland carefully reached and spread the teeth, pulling the head off. He knew the make — a krait. He pushed the man to the ground. “Take it easy.”
Toland knelt down to the man, whose screams had descended to gasps of pain-filled breath. “Easy, man, easy.” He shifted around to the side of the man, one hand on his shoulder. With the other he brought up the Sterling, out of the man’s sight, and holding the muzzle less than an inch from his head, fired a round into his brain.
Baldrick didn’t react.
“Do you have a fix?” Toland demanded.
Baldrick pointed. “Five kilometers that way.”
“Let’s move.” Toland got to his feet.
As they left behind the body, Faulkener moved over next to Toland. “Well, more for each of us now.”
“I know,” Toland repeated. He felt warm, and his head was throbbing. He looked down at his hand. There were faint traces of black under the skin. He remembered the bodies being carried by the patrol they had ambushed.
“You all right, sir?” Faulkener asked.
“No.”
“I got you!” Waker yelled out, startling the men and women in the other cubicles in the NSA surveillance room. “I got you!” he repeated, his fingers tapping keys quickly.