In the control room, Yakov saw the ship depart, then hit the controls. The mothership slowed abruptly and halted. Maintaining the momentum, and no longer attached to their cradles, the cruise missiles kept going, exiting the bay and spreading out in the pattern that Kincaid had programmed.
Inside the Talon, Artad watched his tactical display. The mothership had halted and ten objects were still coming forward from it. A craft also had exited the mothership and was descending toward the planet.
He issued orders to his crew quickly.
Once the cargo door sealed behind her ship and pressure was restored, Duncan reentered the bay. She ran over to the empty tube and hit the keys on the side as she slid her ka into its slot. The top swung up and she climbed in, lying down. She put a thin metal band around her head. Her right arm had regenerated to the wrist so far. The top closed and the metal band sent microfilaments into her brain.
The machine powered up and removed the memory blocks she had installed.
It took all of twenty seconds. The machine shut down, the lid opened, and Duncan exited. She stood still in the cargo bay for several moments, absorbing the impact of the complete truth. It did not surprise her, given what she had allowed herself to know. It all made sense.
This was the end for her, the end of a millennia-old mission. A mission her partner had given his life for over a thousand years earlier. She went to his tube, leaned over, and kissed the clear covering. She was glad she had buried the real body on Earth.
Then she left the cargo bay and headed for the control room.
“Everyone sealed?” Turcotte asked.
He received positive responses from the other commandos as he stared at the display monitor. They were descending quickly toward Mons Olympus, the Fynbar’s engines supplemented by the gravitational pull of the planet.
“Open the hatch,” Turcotte ordered.
The Airlia in the control center for the array had the incoming spacecraft locked in. The leader of the survivors hit the hexagonal buttons in front of him, building up power in the array.
Turcotte saw the glow intensify in the center of the array. “Go!” he screamed. They were moving too fast but there was no time to wait.
Instead of a message, the first thing projected outward by the array was a broad pulse of power toward the Fynbar.
Turcotte had done several hundred parachute drops during his time in Special Operations. From almost every type of aircraft the military owned from Blackhawk helicopters through massive C-5 cargo planes. But shooting out of the open hatch of the Fynbar as it descended toward Mars was a new experience. He was the last one out of the hatch and as he cleared it, he kicked in the jets attached at the base of each leg, keeping himself oriented head down toward the planet at a slight angle from straight descent.
It almost wasn’t enough as the pulse of power shot up from the array. It caught one of the commandos as it passed.
The blast ripped open his suit and pulverized the body inside. He didn’t even have a chance to scream.
It hit the spacecraft, knocking it off its trajectory and sending it tumbling toward the planet below.
On his display, Artad saw the spacecraft knocked aside. Then he turned his attention to the incoming warheads, which were getting very close. A puny attempt by the humans to attack, but one that had to be dealt with immediately nevertheless. They were on a fixed trajectory with apparently no maneuvering capability.
A golden beam shot out from the tip of the Talon, hitting one missile after another.
The damaged, unmanned Fynbar tumbled toward Mars. It hit the edge of Mons Olympus about two kilometers from the array, producing a large puff of red dirt. It bounced, flipped, and skidded along the edge, then down the side, gouging out a three-meter-deep trench in the soft soil until coming to a halt a kilometer from the summit.
Turcotte cursed as he tried to reorient himself. He was coming in very fast. Too fast in his estimation. He got legs down and burned the solid fuel rockets attached to the ends, trying to slow. A small number displayed on the screen in front of him indicated altitude and it was clicking down at an alarming rate. He was slowing, but would it be enough before impact?
“There’s an escape pod through there.” Duncan was pointing to the left, where a door slid open at her command.
Yakov, Leahy, Quinn, and Kincaid looked at her dumbly for a few seconds. The screen was filled with the sight of warheads exploding just short of the Talon.
“What do—” Yakov began, but Duncan shoved him in the shoulder.
“Go now! It is better to get down to the surface and have half a chance, than stay here, where you will have no chance at all.”
Yakov stared at her, the shove moving him not in the slightest. He looked into her eyes for several seconds. Then he nodded. “Let’s go.”
As they rushed through the hatch, Duncan sat down in the command seat.
The first commando who’d exited the spaceship hit the array, smashed through a panel, and hit the surface of Mars at such velocity that the suit, with man inside, went four feet into the ground. Blood and oxygen poured out of the resulting tears.
The second and third fared little better, their screams just before impact echoing to those still descending. Turcotte realized there was no way he would be able to decelerate quickly enough and he would share their fate.
The fourth man slammed in and died.
Turcotte used a small side jet to change his trajectory slightly.
The fifth jumper, Captain Manning, hit the array, passed through, and died.
Turcotte hit the top of one of the pylons at an angle, the impact jarring him hard inside the suit. He slid along the curving outer edge at high speed. With his free hand he jabbed the tip of Excalibur at the metal. It cut in and was almost wrenched from his grip. Only the power multipliers built into the arm allowed him to hold on to the handle.
The sixth jumper died.
Turcotte’s jets were still firing as he continued downward, with Excalibur tearing a gouge along the side of the pylon.
The communications specialist from Fort Shafter seemed uncertain about why exactly he was here. Kelly Reynolds didn’t find that surprising. She’d had Nurse Cummings hold up a mirror so she could see herself, and she knew she looked like hell. Breathing took a major effort.
“Move the microphone closer,” Reynolds whispered, unable to make her withered vocal cords produce anything louder.
The specialist slid the mike nearer to her.
“Are you sure they’ll get this?” Reynolds asked.
“It’s on the guard frequency they were monitoring, relayed through their site outside Fort Bragg,” the man replied. “There is, however, the issue of time lag.”
“What?”
“It takes over two and a half minutes for a radio wave to go from Earth to Mars. The same for return. So it will take five minutes before we find out if anyone hears you.”
Reynolds weakly nodded. “Turn it on.” The specialist flipped a switch.
“Mike. Mike Turcotte. This is Kelly Reynolds. Acknowledge if you can hear me. I know the truth now. I know it all. I know who we are. Who humans are.”
She let her head fall back on the pillow and waited.
Duncan hit one of the hexagonal buttons, and the escape pod was shot out of the side of the mothership, arcing toward the planet below.
She looked forward. The Talon was coming in fast. She knew the shields and weapons had been deactivated on the mothership, which left her essentially defenseless against the incoming ship. She also knew Artad was coming to recapture the mothership, not destroy it. Which was just fine with her.