The two men only smiled. They were in the mood to tolerate a lot of guff from the admiral; after all, they each considered it a miracle they were looking at him at all. Everett ceased his joking as he glanced at the doorway as it was about to be powered up. He looked at the faces around him. The kind look even extended to Henri Farbeaux as he joined the group.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, as he felt he couldn’t face the people who had gambled so much in their attempt to bring him home.
“You’re a navy man — why is that so surprising? You guys never know what to say,” Collins said with his brows raised, meaning for Carl to knock off the thank-yous.
“Regardless”—he looked at his friends and then his eyes settled on the Frenchman—“thank you. All of you.”
Farbeaux noticed most of that was directed at him, but the Frenchman couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He was resentful of the fact that these men and women made him examine his life, and he did not like that at all. He only nodded in response to the debt of gratitude.
“Okay, everyone better cross their friggin’ fingers,” Jenks said as everyone turned and watched as he crawled out from underneath the circular collider after connecting the main power source. Jenks nodded as the others shied away, making the older navy man laugh out loud. “Oh, come on, the least that will happen is that this magical erector set explodes and fries us all just like that volcano will do eventually, so what in the hell are you afraid of? Hell, I would be more afraid if this thing doesn’t work and we are left here with the Colonel Sanders army chasing us until Erebus blows her top.” He looked at his watch as a joke. “Which should be in about thirty minutes by the feel of the ground.” He saw the others relax. Maybe he was gaining some humanity — who knows?
“Uh, would you mind ceasing with the jokes and start that damn thing up?” Ellenshaw said as he turned away from the trailers. “We have a lot of company heading our way.”
The others walked over and saw what Ellenshaw meant. In the veil of falling ash they watched as the raptors came out of the trees by the thousands. They pushed, screamed, hissed, and fought each other as they came. A large rooster was in the front and it held what looked like one of the ancient Roman spears at its side.
“Yes, now would be a good time,” Jack said as he turned to Jenks.
“Okay, Slim, let’s see if we can jump-start this damn thing.”
Virginia mentally crossed her fingers as she reached into the last trailer and raised the clear plastic cover of the world’s most expensive portable power source. She closed her eyes as she flipped the red switch.
They all felt the ozone in the air as the battery generator kicked in. Its small reactor core sent an electrical charge through the very ground as it slowly amped up in power. As Jenks turned to the doorway he cursed as the collider didn’t move. Then he mentally kicked himself and ran to the collider and released the static pins holding it in place. It was only a second longer that the large collider started to slowly rotate on its axis.
“Start with fifty percent power only, Slim, until we get a return lock-on signal from Europa.”
“Right,” Virginia said. She was soon joined by Sarah.
As they watched, the doorway started to spark and hiss as it revolved faster and faster.
Master Chief Jenks sniffed the air and then cursed himself again. He was screwing up in his anxious state to get the hell out of there. He turned to Virginia. “Release the coolant reservoir, slowly. She’s starting to sizzle a little.”
Virginia did as ordered and then crossed her fingers as she watched Jenks go to the main control panel in the trailer. He adjusted the audible signal and turned the knob all the way up. At first they didn’t think it was working, then they all felt the minute irritation of the signal as it penetrated their eardrums.
“Signal is broadcasting,” Virginia said as the others gathered around and watched the sparkling doorway slowly open to another dimension with eye-hurting brilliance.
Virginia wanted to jump when the needle on the return signal pegged out in the red.
“Europa is on the line!”
Before any of them could react to the good news, the world exploded in flame and shrapnel.
23
The return team was shocked as the warning alarm on the doorway sounded three times, almost breaking the monitors along the technician’s stations.
Niles went to the window where Moira was sitting in her chair. Alice bit her lip as she was confused as to how the return trip would work. They watched as the young technicians ran to their various stations. The activity was vivid and exciting as they speculated on the success of the mission. Most though worried about the missing security team that had deported with the Russians. Xavier Morales was most worried about that fact since it had been him who had so unceremoniously sent them away.
“Los Angeles, we need fifty percent reactor power,” called out the young UC Berkeley grad who was now in charge of doorway operations.
“Los Angeles reports her board is in the green. Going to fifty percent.”
“Open the collider and send out the return.”
The doorway slowly started its revolutions. The sound was piercing as most placed the headphones over their ears. They had learned that fact the last time — it was painful when the audio tones began.
“Signal acquisition at twenty-two thirty hundred hours and twenty-two seconds.”
The loud cheer went up inside the control room and at the science labs at Nellis.
Niles nodded his head as the first hurdle was jumped successfully. He turned and looked at the large monitor where Xavier was sitting, patiently and nervously waiting with the rest of them.
“What are the chances of us accidentally bringing something back that we don’t particularly want?” Compton asked. Moira had not thought of that. The worst thing they had ever feared bringing back was a batch of angry Nazis, not monsters from a long-dead world.
Morales smiled. “Group locators will tell us; even our French friend was fixed with a tracking bug. We injected him the day before his departure.” Xavier watched as Niles clearly understood.
“You can stop an intruder from entering based on their transmission signal?”
“Yes and no. We can’t stop them from transiting once they are through the doorway, but we can redirect an undesirable to another location if we prefer.”
“Where’s that?” Niles asked, but as he looked at the Traveler he could see by her smile that she already knew.
“There are only so many operational doorways emitting signals, Doctor.”
Compton fully understood then.
Jack shook his head and tried to clear the fog that clouded his memory. One minute he was standing next to Sarah as they were both exhilarated that a return signal had been acquired, then the world went crazy. He felt a sharp sting in his back and Sarah’s small fingers digging into his skin. He hissed as she pulled out a smoking piece of metal shrapnel. He slowly looked up from his prone position and saw the others as they recovered and started moving. Charlie had his hair in his accustomed state, but he was bleeding from a large wound on his forehead. Others were tending to people who were slow to get up from the devastating explosion. The first thing a bleeding Jenks did was check Virginia, and when he saw that other than a broken nose she hadn’t taken a big shot, he immediately crawled to the still-spinning doorway. He looked and saw that it was still functioning. He was about to turn and tell Virginia the good news that it hadn’t been the doorway that exploded, but the gun pointing in his face explained the real reason behind the shocking and brutal attack. Doshnikov was standing over him. Jenks slowly stood on wobbly legs and saw the other four torn and battered mobsters as they held the team at bay with their sidearms.