Aspasia’s Shadow entered the end module, the US Destiny laboratory. The woman had backed away from the hatch and was next to the other male member of the crew, who was desperately making a radio call to mission control. Aspasia’s Shadow wasted no time, firing the spear twice, knocking both out.
He directed Thayer into the module. As the officer hooked his computer and satellite radio to the space station’s power and antenna array, several of the Guides Aspasia’s Shadow had gathered in Texas boarded the station. He had them take the three unconscious astronauts and unceremoniously dump them in the airlock and purge it.
Aspasia’s Shadow stood near the lock, peering out a port at the three bodies floating nearby. He glanced at a clock. Forty-five minutes since he’d issued his ultimatum to the United Nations. A few minutes until Thayer was ready to launch the salvo of nuclear warheads. Aspasia’s Shadow looked past the bodies, down at the planet below. “Your move, Mr. Turcotte,” he said, before putting his helmet back on.
Garlin watched the Ark of the Covenant’s screen impassively. Now that the Swarm had the ship and knew where Duncan had come from, she was no longer a priority. The major purpose of continuing the probing was to learn as much about humans as possible so that a complete report could be rendered once they reached Mars and took over the communications array.
As the Ark probed into Duncan’s brain, the artery gave way once more. The shunt kept her alive and the brain functioning, and soon Garlin was rewarded with a vision of a cluster of men dressed in armor gathered at a circular table set in the center of a wooden hall.
And in the shadows of the hall stood Duncan, dressed in a white robe trimmed with silver.
Turcotte was feeling more comfortable flying the mothership. The controls he used were quite simple, although there were a number of displays and controls whose function he had no clue about. He could see the curvature of the Earth now, indicating they were very high up. He indicated for Yakov to take his place.
“I’m heading forward to join the team.”
The Russian was less than happy. Once more he was being kept out of the action because none of the TASC suits were large enough for his bulk. He reluctantly took the pilot’s seat. “How do you want me to approach the space station?”
“It’s not like we’re going to be able to sneak up on them,” Turcotte said. “Just get us close. About a hundred meters away will work.”
“What if Aspasia’s Shadow uses the Talon to attack the ship?”
“He wants this ship,” Turcotte said. “He won’t take a chance of damaging it.”
Not wasting any more time, Turcotte ran from the command room to the forward cargo bay. A half dozen commandos were already suited up and waiting. He forced himself to be still as the SARA link pad was carefully wrapped around his head. He then stepped back into the rear half of the suit. The front portion swung shut, and he was sealed in. He could feel the flow of oxygen from the pack on the back.
Turcotte had worn a TASC suit before, during the mission into the Giza Plateau to rescue Duncan. As soon as the suit was sealed, he was ready to move; but Manning’s voice echoed inside the helmet.
“Hold on.”
“What?” Turcotte demanded. He could see the interior of the cargo bay on the curved screen directly in front of his eyes.
“It takes a minute or two for the SARA link to get in synch with both your mind and the computer.”
Turcotte forced himself to remain still. He felt nothing different.
He had an MK-98 attached to his right arm. It looked like a jackhammer with an open tube at the end instead of a chisel. It had a laser sight on top and, like the suit, it was painted flat black. A two- foot-long cylinder was loaded in the magazine hold. It held ten depleted uranium darts, each six inches long and an inch in diameter. Each tip was sharpened to a point. The darts were fired by a compressed high-tension spring. When fired, the darts lost no speed to friction going down the barrel because an electromagnetic field kept them in the exact center and on course. It was the best the Space Command had been able to come up with to use as a weapon in a zero-g, no-atmosphere environment. Since there was no atmosphere in space, the rounds would keep going until they struck something.
On his left he had a fully functional oversize replica of a hand, with eight-inch-long fingers. Two of the commandos had MK-99s, which were similar except they fired larger rounds, about the same length but two inches in diameter, that contained high explosive.
“Can I move now?” Turcotte asked. “Go ahead,” Manning said.
It was different with the SARA link, Turcotte quickly learned as he brought his “hand” up in front of his visor. The suit’s arm was moving with his own arm, not in response to it. A small, but significant difference, he realized. The last time he’d worn the suit, the ever-so-slight delay until the suit reacted to interior movements had been something he had just taken as the price to be paid for the additional armor and strength. But now — all he had to do was move as he normally would and the suit was in synch.
Turcotte picked up Excalibur and slid it into a leather sheath he’d had one of Manning’s men rig, attached to the side of the suit with a Velcro strip.
Yakov’s voice echoed inside the helmet. “Space station is directly ahead, about five kilometers away. I’m closing on it. No sign of the Talon. It is not answering hails.”
Turcotte had fought Aspasia’s Shadow several times now. He had learned that nothing was as it seemed and to expect the unexpected in such encounters. He doubted Aspasia’s Shadow would abandon the Talon, even if he left Guides on board the spacecraft. But he also knew that the alien creature’s goal was the mothership. There was the added factor that Aspasia’s Shadow had shown a strong inclination for vengeance, such as rigging Easter Island, and subsequently the entire Pacific Rim for destruction, and now targeting twenty-five major cities for destruction.
“We’re a kilometer away,” Yakov said. “Closing slowly. I’m going to open your outer hatch. Is everyone suited?”
“Roger that,” Manning replied.
The lights in the bay went off, leaving them in pitch-blackness for a few seconds, then a sliver of starlight appeared at the cargo bay door, growing larger as the door opened. The bay decompressed with a puff of air. Manning and his men moved forward, weapons at the ready. Turcotte followed right behind them, switching his display over to night vision, amplifying the starlight.
The space station was directly ahead, three connected modules and the large solar panels extended. And three bodies floated nearby, dressed in blue jumpsuits.
“What was the crew of the station?” Turcotte asked.
Quinn quickly responded. “Three — two American, one Russian.”
Three more dead, Turcotte thought. A small number when considered against the toll from the recent world war, but still — why had Aspasia’s Shadow taken the space station? Turcotte wondered. He didn’t need it. And Turcotte also knew that Aspasia’s Shadow knew him.
“The crew are dead,” Turcotte said. “We can see that,” Manning said.
Turcotte realized he shouldn’t have pointed out the obvious to Manning, but he wanted the captain to realize that only hostiles were on board the space station now.
“Holding in place,” Yakov said as he brought the mothership to a halt less than one hundred meters from the space station.
“On me, circle wedge,” Manning ordered. The dozen commandos jetted out of the cargo bay, spreading out, left and right, up and down. Turcotte realized this was a very different venue for combat, one where three dimensions had to be considered constantly. He held back, on the edge of the cargo bay. He waited until the lead commando reached the space station.