"Thanks for the signal report. You'll have to boost, we're in a bad position," said Wolff, carefully not mentioning the "bad position" was due to being rotated slightly out of phase to the realspace continuum. "The mission is to hold on call for KKW fire on this general position, which I will narrow down with a standard target designator. When I call for it, I will need it immediately, and I'll provide BDA and let you know if I need it repeated. You can double-check with the Commandant if you like, but be aware I haven't called him yet because I didn't want to waste time getting the fire mission set up."
"This is Captain Macdonald," came another voice. "John, what's happening?"
"Compartmented, Mac, but it would be really, really bad if this artifact we're looking at is what we're beginning to think it is. If it opens up, we're going to try to take it out with our beanshooter plasma cannon, but I'm not at all sanguine about how well that will work."
"Okay, my friend, we're going to take your word for it, but do call Buford and give us some shade. We're maneuvering for a better angle, setting up the fire mission, and we'll stay in touch. Just give my communications officer a shout when you need us."
"Will do, Mac. Thanks, and will call Buford next. Wolff, out."
"Constitution, out and listening."
Wolff punched in a speed dial code.
"Space Force Commandant's office, how may I help you sir or ma'am?"
"Hi, Janet, it's John Wolff, I need to talk to the boss and it's damned important."
"Yes, sir, I'll connect you right away."
"Go for Buford. What's up?"
"We've got a mess in Iraq."
"Yeah? What else is new?"
"No, I mean we have a compartmented mess in Iraq."
"Okay. I assume that means it's more than just bad."
"Potentially. We think the Darkness have shot a scout in. Their aim is really bad, though. It ended up two miles down and my daughter Yehudit found it and brought it to the surface."
Buford chuckled. "Just can't leave well enough alone, can you?"
Wolff shook his head, even though Buford couldn’t see it. "Beam is here, he's the one who told Yehudit to come here and find it. He couldn't see it, all he could see was a fold in the Mesh that was covering it up; and he still can't see it, other than visually, even now that it's lying on the ground outside the ship."
"You have video running, of course."
"Yes, sir. Full 24K holo. If it moves, we'll see it move." Wolff looked at the comms panel again, and flipped a switch. "Streaming it to you now."
A couple of seconds went by, then: "Looks like a bowling ball."
"Thanks, we established that," replied Wolff, though not without some humor.
"Got any scans?"
"No, it's seemingly impervious, even to Beam, as mentioned. Yehudit says she can see inside it; says whatever it is seems to be compacted or rolled up, and she says it's moving and probably alive."
"Oh." Buford considered for a moment. "That's bad."
"Yep. That's why Chris is up in the turret and I've called in a fire mission from Constitution, to be triggered when I yell, just in case."
"Approved. I'll have Janet send orders up for Captain Macdonald, to cover him. Janet, you listening to this?"
"Yes, sir, it's being done right now."
"Thanks. A fabulous and meticulous confidential secretary is a joy in this crazy world. We're probably going to have to read her in, by the way."
Wolff shrugged. "I have no problem with that. You should probably give her a raise, too."
"No problem here," called von Barronov, from the turret. "And, ditto."
"We're also going to have to read Yehudit in," said Wolff.
Buford chuckled again. "Got her momma's powers booting up, eh?"
"Maybe." Wolff looked at Yehudit. "Probably. Wouldn't be the first one. And it would probably make sense to read them all in, at this point."
"Well. I'll call the President and suggest he call the Iraqi president and suggest he might want to move people out of the general area of . . . what coordinates?"
"Epicenter approximately 45 degrees east, 32 degrees north."
"Okay, those coordinates, in about a fifteen-kilometer radius. We'll figure out how to BS him regarding what's going on."
"Grumpaw," said Yehudit, urgently, her eyes closed, "something is getting ready to break out of that shell."
"Shit. Chris?"
"Heard. Got a bead on it. Turn on the target designators."
Wolff reached over and flipped a couple more switches. "Designators on . . . " He looked at a holoscreen and spun a small trackball on the console. " . . . and locked in."
"Calling the president now," said Buford, tersely. "I'll leave the line open. Janet, keep listening, let me know if I need to come back to it."
"Yes, sir. I have the Oval Office on line two for you."
"Okay, Buford 'on the side'."
"What are you seeing?" Wolff asked Yehudit.
"It's uncoiling," she said. "Don't know how, it is really tight in there. And . . . uh oh."
"What?"
"It knows I'm watching," said the woman, evenly. "It's watching me back."
"Telepathy?"
"No, it just – knows. I think because I'm breaking through whatever stealth it's putting up to keep our scans – and Beam – from looking at it. That doesn't seem to have been expected. But it seems . . . confused? Because it can't figure out where I'm looking from."
"Because we're out of phase," grunted Wolff.
"Ah, could be. At any rate, that seems to have stopped it from breaking out."
"I have visual on choppers flying in over the villages," reported von Barronov. "I think they're warning the people to get out."
"The entity is looking that way now," agreed Yehudit.
"Damn it, one chopper is peeling off and coming this way," said von Barronov, disgustedly.
"Are we going to need to wave it off?" asked Wolff.
"I could put a shot across its bow, but we need to phase back in to do that."
"No telling what this thing will do if we do that."
"Concur."
"Too late," said Yehudit, sighing. "The ball is cracking open."
"Phasing back," replied Wolff.
"Oh! It did NOT like that!" cried Yehudit, her eyes opening, wide.
"Chris, FIRE!"
Von Barronov let off a plasma blast from the topside turret. It hit the ball and did . . .
. . . nothing. The ball just sat there. Still cracking open.
"Well, that's doubleplus ungood," he understated.
"It is dark matter," said Beam. "I was afraid of that."
Wolff turned and looked at him. "What will happen if we hit it with a Rod?"
Beam shrugged. "I do not know. It might crack it. But it's opening anyway, so it might also kill the creature. Once the crack widens, though, the plasma still might work."
"Extend the field, take it with us out of phase, contract the field, leave it there?"
Beam shook his head. "Unknown."
Wolff slapped the comm button. "Constitution, stand by for fire mission. I say again, stand by. Danger close. Civilians still in range. Stand by."
"Aye, aye, General. You're coming in five by five now."
Wolff ignored the signal report, yelled, "Take hold!", and took the Bandersnatch straight up. The nosy helicopter turned around in a wide arc and fled the scene. Smart pilot, thought Wolff, absently, as he fought turbulence caused by their near-supersonic takeoff.
"Janet, tell General Buford we're going to have to drop a load."
"Yes, sir. They're trying to get the villages evacuated."
"There's zero time. If this thing comes out of its shell, I'm ordering an immediate KKW fire mission. And make no mistake, it's coming out of its shell."
"It's probably Marvin the Martian," yelled von Barronov.
"If that was supposed to be funny, I hope like hell it doesn't have an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator with it!
" shouted Wolff, irritated.
"The crack is widening," reported Yehudit.
"Come up here," ordered her grandfather. "Do what I tell you when I tell you."
Yehudit quickly unstrapped from her seat, and moved into the nav position, strapping in again. "What do you need?"
"Nothing now, but with Chris in the turret, if I have to maneuver fast, I'll need you to set things up. I'll tell you how, don't worry," he added, seeing out of the corner of his eye the worried look on Yehudit's face. "Right now you concentrate on that thing down there."
"Okay."
"I can see the crack," noted Beam. "I would recommend you try the plasma again."
"Chris, hit it again!"
"Firing!"
The beam of hot plasma hit the ball again.
"Ow!" yelped Yehudit, plaintively. "That hurt!"
Wolff glanced at her. "Sorry! Break off, honey, don't get in too deep. Just keep an eye on it."
"Yes, sir," she replied, wincing in pain.
"Again, Chris!"
More plasma. Another direct hit. No cry from Yehudit this time.
"It's not happy with you at all," was all she said.
Wolff grunted. "I'm not here to make it happy, I'm here to make it dead." He looked over his shoulder at the turret. "Again, Chris! Sustained fire! Shoot the barrel out if you have to."
"John, I'll shoot it, but you may want to take another look!"
Wolff looked out the front port.
"Oh, shit."
He punched in commands. The Bandersnatch fell off and soared away, heading toward the Persian Gulf. Below them, a huge, black, clawed, spiny thing had unrolled itself from the ball, which had finally cracked all the way open and lay in two halves on the ground. The thing itself looked to be something on the order of two or three hundred feet tall. It had more spiny arms/legs/tentacles than could easily be counted, and they all ended in very small hands/feet that appeared to be specialized for intricate work of some sort.
"'How did he do such fantastic stunts with such little feet?'" mused Wolff, absently, then, "Janet, status of the evacuations?"
"Unknown, General. Last we heard, it was a low percentage that had made it fifteen klicks."
"Roger, I can see the convoys from here, they haven't even finished moving out. Please impress on them that they need to make all speed, I can't wait much longer before I'm going to have to order fire on this thing." He looked over at Yehudit. "Hon, make sure the video is still streaming and give them a good look at that beast."
Yehudit scanned the panel and found the video controls. They were fairly standard, she saw with relief. "I need to swing the camera around and auto-lock its pointing mechanism so it stays on target, no matter how the ship moves, right?" she asked.
"Yes. Can you see how to do that?"
"Uh-huh. Thankfully this looks like a more-or-less standard rig. I'm on it."
A gasp came from the comm as she focused the cameras on the thing and locked in the auto-pan system. "What is that?" screeched Janet.
"No idea," said Wolff, as he played the controls and swung the ship around in an arc. "Shall we name it after you?"
Janet's panic was apparently short-lived. "Asshole," she laughed.
"You got me." He pointed the ship at the . . . thing . . . damn it, we need a name for it . . . and put the vessel in a dive. "Shoot that bastard, Chris!" he shouted.
The plasma cannon opened up again, and kept firing. Von Barronov kept the beam centered on the alien's upper torso as the ship came near the bottom of its trajectory. The thing was exceedingly upset by this, and sank to its . . . knees? . . . in the sand, apparently roaring some kind of noise that couldn't be heard aboard the Bandersnatch.
"That thing looks really pissed off at you, John," came Buford's voice over the comm.
"I'm pissed off, too," replied Wolff, "because we're using up a Very Expensive Barrel and doing little more than giving it a case of advanced sunburn."
"Well, stop tickling it. The president says to hit it with a Rod, now. I have official orders taking responsibility for any civilian casualties."
"Acknowledged, let me get this thing out of here. Chris! Cease fire, get out of there and come down here. Yehudit, see that control group marked, 'rotation'?"
She looked at the panel and spied it. "Yes."
"There's a preset for 'home'. Push that red button at bottom left, it will bring up a holoscreen, click the preset."
She did so. "Done."
Von Barronov was out of the turret. He slipped into the seat behind Wolff so he could see Yehudit, and strapped in. "Yehudit, way over to the right, button marked 'turret', hit that and the turret will close up."
She did that, too. "Done."
"John, I'm going to rotate home as soon as I give the order to the Constitution," said Wolff over comm. "We'll come back after a few minutes to do BDA."
"Okay. Be careful."
"Constitution, state your readiness."
"Ready to fire." That was Macdonald, Wolff noted.
"Okay, Mac, we have presidential orders. I don't like dropping those things on civilians, but hopefully most of them are far enough away. Fire a spread of three Rods."
"Fire spread of three Rods, acknowledged. Shot out and over."
Wolff reached above his head and flipped the safeties off the big red switches. "Emergency rotation," he called out, and slammed the switches home, just as a flare of bright white light appeared at the location of the alien and its bowling ball . . .
And then they were home in the Bandersnatch's hangar.
"John," came from the comm. "Mac. You know, we could see that thing from orbit. I won't ask what it was."
"I imagine you could, and thanks, because frankly I don't know, either. Did you get it?"
"Looks like the shots all landed right on target. Unfortunately it looks like we collateralized those nearby villages, too."
Wolff sighed. "If any more of those things land, we're going to have to find another way to deal with them."
"Too right. I sure don't want to get orders to drop on a city. Are you going back to do the BDA?"
"Yes. If that thing is still there, Yehudit will see it."
"Our scans show that the splash seems to have subsided and it should be safe to go back."
"Thanks. I was going to wait a few more minutes, but better go now and find out."
"We're hanging on and waiting to hear."
"Okay, Mac. Wolff out."
"Constitution is listening."
"Switch with me," von Barronov said to Yehudit. They swapped seats, and von Barronov entered fresh coordinates. "Coming in at angels 30," he said. "ATC notified, but if there's anything flying there right now, I'll eat my hat."
Wolff flipped the safeties off again. "Any objections to going back?"
Hearing none, he continued, "Rotation in 3, 2, 1," and flipped the red switches.
They appeared, as von Barronov had programmed, 30,000 feet above mean sea level over the impact area. It wasn't so much a crater as it was a huge jumble of limestone and baked mud rubble, extending out about a kilometer and a half.
The nearest village had been about 750 meters away.
"Damn it," swore Wolff. Von Barronov said nothing, but just looked grim.
"It's still down there," said Yehudit, concentrating, "but it's not moving."
"That's one tough bastard," observed von Barronov. "It should have been vaporized."
"It is probably wearing dark matter armor," said Beam, who was still standing in the back. They'd forgotten he was there.
"Come and sit," invited Yehudit, indicating the seat next to her. Beam smiled, walked forward, and sat down.
"I'm less concerned about the armor than I am the thing that was wearing it," noted Wolff.
Yehudit concentrated again. "I don't see any indication of life," she said, finally. "I think it's dead in the armor. If it's even in the armor; it could have been cooked out of it."
"Mac," said Wolff.
"I'm
here, John."
"Good strikes, all three. Tango is down, repeat, tango is down."
"Acknowledged – but down, not vaporized?"
"That's what we said. Looks like the being itself is dead, the armor survived."
"I want me some of that armor."
"No, you probably don't," replied Wolff, "since it's dark matter."
"Ah. Request for procurement withdrawn," chuckled MacDonald.
"Just as well, I think. Anyway, thanks, Mac. Your people are superb as always."
"No problem, and you're welcome; call us any time for your rubble creation needs. Constitution out."
Wolff snorted. "Bandersnatch, out."
"Do you still need me?" came Buford's voice.
"I don't think so. We're going home."
"Okay, let me know if anything else like this pops up. Buford out."
"Will do, and say thanks to Janet. Wolff out."
"We need to retrieve that armor," Beam said, suddenly.
Wolff looked around. "Do we?"
Beam nodded. "I need to look at it and see if there is anything I can ascertain, whether or not it really is dark matter, for one thing, but also whether there is anything else we can learn from it. A scrap of tissue from the dead alien would be useful. Communications and computer protocols if we can get them. But I can't do that alone, as this body I inhabit is just as human as yours."
"How will you transport it back to the Guardians?" asked von Barronov.
"I shan't. It needs to be dumped into the Sun, or into Jupiter. Either way, something with a heavy gravity well and a lot of heat at the core."
"What about," mused Wolff, "a singularity? That would eventually dump the remains into the Abyss, correct? And being matter rather than anti-matter, even if 'dark', wouldn't that finish them off?"
"Possibly," agreed Beam. "But the only method I know of disposing of dark matter is high gravity plus high heat. The dark matter will crumple; it just requires a lot more gravity than can be generated outside of a gas giant such as your Jupiter, which is a sub-stellar object, or a star."
"No!" screamed Yehudit, just as suddenly as Beam had interjected before.
"What?" Wolff and von Barronov spun toward the viewport, half expecting the alien "thing" to be up and walking around again.
"Devorah! Chicago . . . oh my God! Grumpaw, there's a building down . . . the Hancock Center . . . something hit it and knocked it over!" The woman was crying, and shaking; over and above the fact that she appeared to be getting a communication directly from her younger sister, whatever she'd seen in that communication was apparently a real shock to her system.
The Lion in Paradise Page 25