Turcotte moved back. The Swarm orb was sliced open from midpoint to top. Neither tentacle moved and he had to assume it was dead. The eyes he could see were blank and dull, showing no sign of life.
He took in his surroundings, searching for Duncan. He saw the gurney she’d been strapped to, but she wasn’t on it. He focused on an object floating next to the table — an arm severed at midforearm. A woman’s arm to judge from the hand.
“We’re reading damage to your suit,” Captain Manning’s voice filled the helmet. “You’re venting oxygen.”
Turcotte checked the readouts. He was down to 22 percent oxygen, and as he watched it went to 21 percent. He didn’t feel any pain so he assumed the suit had taken the brunt of the Swarm’s firing.
Where the hell was Duncan?
He scanned the interior of the ship but didn’t see her. Had she been vented and he hadn’t noticed? Then he saw the two tubes crammed in the rear right corner of the ship. He moved over and looked into the first. A body wrapped in white linen was inside, the face uncovered. He moved over to the other tube and looked in. Duncan lay inside, her eyes closed. There was a mist about her. Turcotte figured the tube was sealed and she had an atmosphere.
“You’re well below safety levels,” Manning announced. “We’re coming in for you.”
Turcotte was feeling a little light-headed. He looked about the interior of the ship. The command chairs were human-sized. Not Swarm. Not Airlia. Designed for a human.
“Strange,” Turcotte muttered, then he passed out.
CHAPTER 19: THE PRESENT
The green crystal was set in the wire mesh basket and the Airlia climbed on board the vehicle. It headed out of the bowl as the cables began to retract, lifting the crystal upward above the array.
Turcotte regained consciousness to find Yakov’s bearded face leaning over him. He immediately closed his eyes. Yakov laughed.
“Wake up, my friend. We are getting close to Mars. Closer than anyone has ever been.”
“Anyone from Earth,” Turcotte muttered as he reluctantly opened his eyes and sat up. He was in the room they had commandeered for their sleeping area. “What happened?”
“Captain Manning brought you back just in time. You were out of oxygen.” Yakov pointed. Turcotte’s TASC suit was on the floor. There was a rip in the upper right chest. “You were lucky.”
“Duncan?” Turcotte asked. Looking down, he saw a large purplish bruise on his skin, beneath the place where the suit had absorbed the force of the Swarm’s weapon, another minor injury to add to all the others.
“She is still in the tube. She appears to be in some sort of deep sleep and I didn’t see a need to disturb her.”
Turcotte knew Yakov didn’t trust Duncan and the reality was that he didn’t see a need to have to deal with her right now. Turcotte thought differently.
“We brought the ship into one of the large cargo bays,” Yakov continued. “The Swarm orb is dead.”
That was one thing Turcotte had had no doubts about. Everything else, however, was up in the air. “How far out are we from Mars?” Turcotte headed for the door.
“Two hours.” “Artad’s Talon?”
“Arriving at Mars in a few minutes.” “Kincaid got anything further on the array?” “He thinks it’s just about complete.”
Turcotte felt a moment of panic as they headed toward the control room. “‘Just about’? How just about? Can they transmit?”
“There’s been no indication of that yet, but Kincaid doesn’t really know. He says all three pylons are complete and they are bringing something up in the center of the array on cables. Some sort of green crystal. Probably a power source or means of focusing power for the transmission is Kincaid’s best guess.”
They entered the control room. Captain Manning was there along with Kincaid, Quinn, and Leahy. Turcotte nodded at the Space Command captain, silently acknowledging his thanks.
Turcotte immediately turned to Leahy. “How far out can you hit the array with the Tesla gun?” “I can’t.”
That stopped Turcotte. “What?”
“The second shot fried the central coil. I don’t have the material on board to make another one.” Turcotte stared at her in silence for a few seconds, processing this piece of bad news. Then he shifted to Manning. “How far out before we can nuke it?”
The Space Command captain shifted his feet nervously. “The nukes weren’t our idea. The Pentagon delivered them figuring we could use some firepower. They’re actually Tomahawk cruise missiles and the problem with that is—”
“A Tomahawk has an oxygen-fueled rocket engine,” Turcotte completed the sentence. “We can lob them, using the mothership’s velocity and direction,” Manning suggested.
“I don’t think Artad is just going to allow us to do a bombing run,” Turcotte said. “The Talon could pick them off at will as they come in on a straight trajectory.” He looked at Yakov. “Can you show us what we’re facing?”
Yakov tapped the control panel and a large display came alive with a view of Mars. The Red Planet hung against the darkness of space. Yakov continued tapping the same key and Mars grew larger with each touch.
“It is the only way I know how to do this,” Yakov said apologetically.
Soon the fourth planet filled the screen, but Yakov continued to zoom in. “I’ve got us heading directly toward Mons Olympus,” he explained.
There was no mistaking the massive mountain as it first became visible. The base was hundreds of miles wide, gently sloping up to the top of the extinct volcano.
“What’s that?” Leahy asked, as a line from the base extending inward became apparent. Kincaid answered. “That’s the track the Airlia mech-machines made from Cydonia to the transmitter site.” He stepped closer and pointed. “There’s the transmitter.”
Yakov stopped hitting the controls as the large bowl carved out of the side of the volcano just short of the top became clear. The three pylons towered over the bowl. And in the center there was a glowing green dot.
“That’s what they just put in place,” Kincaid said, tapping the dot. “So is it ready to transmit?” Turcotte asked.
“Hell, I have no idea,” Kincaid said. “I don’t even exactly know how it works. We use our version of this at Arecibo in Puerto Rico as a receiver, which is a passive activity. If this thing in the center is a power source, then they must be close. If it isn’t, then they still need to get power from something. I would assume sending a message as far as they need to would require a tremendous amount of power.”
Guesswork. Turcotte stared at the screen. Had he made a mistake going after the Swarm first? He realized the answer would be yes if Artad got a message off in the next two hours. He shook off his uncertainty.
“Anyone have other options than trying to lob some nukes on that thing?” “We could land the mothership on top of it,” Yakov suggested.
“While Artad attacks us with the Talon?” Turcotte threw back. “Can a Talon hurt this ship?” Yakov replied in turn.
“Can we take the chance?” Even as he asked, Turcotte realized they were going nowhere fast. He stared at the array. “We’ve got two problems. The array and Artad. Our priority is destroying the array. Then we can deal with Artad. The problem is that Artad doesn’t want us to do that, so we’ll probably have to deal with him first.”
There was no answer. Turcotte threw the variables up in his mind. Artad. The Array. The mothership. The nukes. The TASC suits. Then he realized they had an additional card up their sleeves.
“I’ve got an idea.”
The cables pulled tight and halted. The green crystal was centrally located above the center of the dish. Along the crest of the dish, the Cydonia Airlia stood, looking down at what they had done.