“Let’s go!” McCarthy ordered as he sprinted for the side of the building. Adam was only a breath behind.
The building was very ornate, with all kinds of decorative quoins and plant trellises adorning its surface. The two Humans began to scramble up the walls, made easier in the three-quarters gravity and their Earth-toned muscles. As they reached the top of the four-story building, they threw themselves over the top ledge and ducked behind it for cover. They could hear shouting and the whining of electric vehicles rising up from the ground below. Adam was sure the Klin were wondering what had happened to thirteen Humans and two aliens in the span of only fifteen minutes. Their search would naturally move to the parking lot.
The communications antenna took up about a quarter of the vast roof area of the main estate, and Adam could see now how it had been hidden from the front view of the building by a false wall about fifteen meters tall. The antenna itself was very compact, and was a series of three cylindrical tubes surrounding a central spire and connected to each other with side supports. The array reached about twenty meters into the air, with the top third of the antenna painted green to blend in with the backdrop of the forested hills on the other side of the lake.
The antenna rested on an eight-sided platform that appeared to rest on rollers, allowing for the structure to rotate. McCarthy ran for the antenna. “Place the charges equal distance around the base.”
Adam moved to the other side of the antenna array and opened one of the satchels. He withdrew a charge containing three wrapped bricks, each about the size of a sleeve of crackers, and after inserting the radio-controlled detonators into the soft material, slipped it into the area between the base and rollers. “This is all well and good, McCarthy, but have you figured out how we’re going to get down from here, what with the whole Klin army running around below us?”
McCarthy rose up after placing a charge of his own and ran further around the antenna. “I have to admit, when I originally planned blowing the comm antenna, I didn’t think I’d have to do it with the Klin looking for me. This does change things.”
“So you don’t have a way off the roof?”
“I thought we’d improvise.”
Adam placed his last charge and stood up, his arms hanging limply at his side. “So why did you want me to come along with you on this suicide mission?”
McCarthy pulled a small remote detonator control from his last satchel placed it in his pocket. He smiled over at Adam. “It’s because I’ve always fostered an intense hatred for you, Mr. Cain.”
“Why? What have I ever done to you?”
“You have disrupted my plans ever since the first moment you showed up in the Fringe three years ago. I had a pretty sweet gig going here until you came along.”
“Yeah, about that — why are you working with the fucking Klin in the first place?”
“They promised me a planet of my own after all this is over with — the planet Earth.”
“And you believed them?”
“To a point. Like I said, I never fully trusted them in the first place. But you have to admit, it was a tempting offer.”
Adam ran to the edge of the roof and looked over the edge. He was looking down at the parking lot and lake beyond. Below, dozens of aliens were now moving about, most armed with flash rifles and looking angry. McCarthy came up beside him and looked over the side as well.
“I guess they never figured we’d climb to the roof the building,” he said.
Adam noticed something off to his right. He looked up and saw a long cable running above him; he followed it behind him until he saw that it connected with the antenna at the central spire. McCarthy followed Adam’s gaze as well. In unison, they both turned and followed the cable with their eyes, off the roof and toward the lake. There was a tower located near the lake’s edge where the cable ran, along with several others that came up from the ground, as well as others from along of the roof. The two men looked at each other.
“It’s worth a shot,” Adam said. McCarthy simply nodded. They ran for the antenna.
They climbed to the top of the antenna array and Adam took a closer look at the cable. It was about three inches in diameter and made of spun metal. It didn’t appear to carry an electrical charge, at least not on its exterior. It appeared to be more for support.
“Do you think it will hold us?” McCarthy asked.
Adam grabbed hold the cable and tested it with his weight. “Looks like it. But what I’m worried about is whether it will break loose when the charges go off.”
“What choice do we have?”
“We could have just left the damn antenna alone and gone with the others — that was a choice!” Adam said pointedly.
McCarthy grinned. “Like they say in America — my bad!”
Adam grabbed onto the cable and swung his legs up to wrap around it. He then began to caterpillar his way along the wire. Soon McCarthy was doing the same.
Navigating a cable such as this was all part of routine training for SEALs, as well as other military personnel, even though Adam had often wondered when such a skill would come in handy. Now he knew. However, Adam had not done anything like this for years, so even in the light gravity of the planet, it wasn’t long before his arms began to ache and his shoulders burned.
They were now off the roof, crawling along the cable a good fifty meters above the ground. Adam chanced a look over his shoulder and for the first time realized just how high up he was. And all it would take is for one of the aliens below to look up and then they’d be sitting ducks-
A yell rose up from below and Adam once more glanced over his throbbing shoulder. Several of the aliens were now pointing at them and yelling, as more of them came over to join in, these carrying flash rifles. Xan-Fi’s were accurate up to about a hundred meters, yet their charge dropped off dramatically after only about thirty. Even still, with the two of them dangling so high off the ground, suspended on a three-inch diameter cable, it wouldn’t take much to knock them off.
Soon the flash of bolts began to ping past them; once a targeting computer locked on, that could be all she wrote.
Adam wrapped his legs tightly around the cable and let go with his hands. As he dangled there upside down, he quickly removed his shirt, and then using all the abdominal strength he could muster, he bent back up until his hands gripped the cable once more. Next he draped the shirt over the cable and began to tie the ends together, forming a loop. McCarthy saw what Adam was doing and understood immediately; he mirrored the maneuver.
Adam began to twist the cloth, wrapping it tighter around the cable, yet leaving a loop at the end. Once it was about as tight as he could make it, he placed his right arm into the loop and gripped it with his left. McCarthy did the same with his own arm.
“Blow it!” Adam cried out.
McCarthy reached inside his pocket and pulled out the small detonator. He flicked the device on with his thumb and then, without hesitation, depressed the trigger.
The explosion was extremely powerful, hot and loud; the concussion and heat hit them almost instantly, causing them both to lose their grips on the cable with their legs. Now they hung there, held only by the loops in their shirts. And then, much to their surprise, the antenna array did not topple over. Instead, the roof supports surrounding it gave way, and the entire structure simply disappeared into the bowls of the building, crashing in to what would have been the office of the Pleabaen.
The cable the two Humans dangled from suddenly sprang upward, becoming incredibly taut. Both Adam and McCarthy were tossed upward above the cable, yet their arms, looped within their shirts, kept them from flying off into the air. And then they dropped back down again, Adam crying out in pain as it felt as if his whole arm was being ripped out of its socket.