As with the shorter buildings, they all looked the same: featureless and white. No windows and all the corner doors closed tight. Also, even though the street hadn’t changed in dimension, it felt much, much narrower than when they’d started.
She glanced around at the others after they’d crossed about ten intersections. Everyone else looked as edgy as she felt. They mimicked Sergeant Malone’s head movements as they went. Back and forth, back and forth, scanning all the buildings and the street ahead.
Even though they were moving slowly, this was one of the most tiring treks Stephanie had ever taken. And not for one step of it had she taken her hand off the pistol in her pocket.
Suddenly, Sergeant Malone put a hand to the side of her helmet where her earpiece was. Then she looked up. “Halt. Take up standard cover positions.”
She signaled that they should follow her over to a spot against one wall. “Waters,” she said to one of her men, “I need the orbital link up and running. Hook in all cameras and audio feeds. Stat.”
Waters nodded and hopped to it immediately.
“Something wrong?” Hank asked.
Stephanie came up to where she could hear what was happening.
“Got a scrambled message from the facility,” Malone said, her gaze scanning the nearby streets as she talked. “They’re losing the camera images and audio feeds we’re sending back. The buildings here are too tall for regular commlinks, which means we have to reroute everything through our orbital stations.”
Stephanie didn’t like the sound of that, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Even with the cameras running and communications solidly in place, she doubted that anything was going to make her feel better until they were safely off this ghostly place and back on the mainland.
Private Waters handed Malone the small headphones. She quickly put them on, adjusted the mouthpiece, and said, “Island Mission to base. Repeat previous transmission.”
She waited.
Around them the silence seemed to weigh even more heavily as they all waited, too.
Finally, Malone said, “Copy that. Understood.”
She took off the headphones and handed them back to Waters. “Pack it up and be ready to move.”
Waters nodded and set to work.
“Well,” Hank asked, “are the cameras back on-line?”
“They are,” Malone said. “But we’re going to lose them when we go inside buildings. We don’t have the power to boost them through the buildings and all the way to orbit at the same time.”
Stephanie looked at Malone, whose usually impassive face suddenly showed some concern. It was the first time Stephanie had seen Malone show even a hint of emotion.
“There’s something more, isn’t there?” Stephanie asked.
“We’ve got company,” Malone said. She keyed her commlink open, then said to both the scientists and her men, “Listen up, people. What main base thinks is an alien craft just came in, breaking through Union defense screens to land on the northern tip of the island. We’re going to need to stay extra alert.”
“What?” Bogle almost shouted, his voice echoing off the buildings around them.
“Shit,” Stanton said, much more softly.
Stephanie was having trouble grasping what she was hearing. Up until just a few short hours ago, she knew nothing of aliens in the Maelstrom. Now she was standing in an old alien city and some kind of alien aircraft had just landed. This couldn’t be happening.
“We need some answers,” Hank said, facing Malone. “What do you know about these aliens?”
Malone stared at him without a sign of emotion, then glanced at Stanton. “We’re not sure, but they think it might be Pharons. You want to brief these people, Dr. Stanton? You were there.”
In the deadly silence of the buildings around them, they all turned to Bradly Stanton. Stephanie forced herself to take a deep breath.
Stanton shrugged, but Stephanie could tell he was frightened.
“Two years ago,” he said, “a Union expedition found a small planetoid we now call the Cache because of all the information we found there.”
“Were you there?” Hank asked.
Stanton nodded. “As one of a team trying to find out what happened and to secure any technology for study. I’ve worked on nothing else, basically, for the past two years.”
“So the Union has known there were aliens for two years?” Bogle asked. “And told no one.”
“By and large,” Stanton said. “We know of three different alien races that inhabit the Maelstrom at this time. We call one the Shard, the second Growlers, and the third Pharons.”
Stephanie still couldn’t really grasp what she was hearing. This was changing everything she had ever assumed about the world around her.
“So which aliens were on the planetoid?” Hank asked.
“Dead ones,” Stanton said. “About a year ago my team managed to decode a five-minute recording of part of the battle between the original inhabitants of the Cache and the race we’ve named Pharons. It was a brutal sight.”
“The Pharons wiped them out?” Lee asked.
“Completely, it seems,” Stanton said, his hands moving in that nervous fashion again. “And from what we could tell, without mercy.”
“So what do these Pharons look like?” Edaro asked.
“At one time, humanoid in shape,” Stanton said, his eyes distant as he remembered. “But from what we saw and the evidence we gathered in other places on the Cache, it seems they are now nothing more than decayed, walking mummies. Most of them are just shambling husks of gray flesh, held together by beautiful and ornate golden armor. They seem to wear some sort of pack on their back that supplies their body with fluids.”
“What?” Bogle said. “You’re kidding, right?”
“We’re standing in a deserted alien city,” Stanton said. “I would not kid.”
“That description is accurate,” Sergeant Malone said. “I have seen the film. But we don’t know for sure that the ship that landed is Pharon. We only know an alien ship is here.”
Stephanie glanced at the sergeant, who seemed to be back to her cold, normal self.
“We have schematics of the Pharon armor and the life-support tanks that pump fluids through their dead bodies,” Stanton went on. “All very advanced technology, far beyond anything humans have come up with.”
Stephanie just wanted to sit down. Or better yet, get off this infernal island and back inside the facility with its blast doors. There she might feel a little safer. But she doubted she would ever feel completely safe again. Not with knowing there were aliens all around them.
“The Pharons were called The Rotten by the inhabitants of the planetoid,” Stanton said. “We’ve still got a great deal of data to decode, but from what we’ve got so far, the Pharons seem to attack without warning and without reason. They take both living and dead prisoners, turning them into slaves to fight and work for them.”
“So if they kill us, we could still end up their slaves?” Edaro asked.
“That’s right, from what we can tell,” Stanton said. “Again, we’ve only been working on this for two years. We have a long way to go.”
Silence again descended until finally Hank turned to Sergeant Malone. “So base doesn’t know what kind of ship landed? How big?”
“Small ship,” Malone said. “Only one. They do not know what type.”
“From the information we got on the Cache, if it is Pharon, it would mean maybe a dozen Pharons inside,” Stanton said. “But it doesn’t matter how many there are. I doubt we’re a match for even five of them.”
Malone snorted, a sound that surprised Stephanie. The sergeant turned and glared at Stanton. “I think you either overestimate the Pharons or underestimate my Special Ops squad.”
Again Stephanie was stunned. She had no idea that the Union troops with them were Special Ops. No wonder Malone had them working so smoothly together. They were the best the Union had.
This time Stanton sno
rted. But he didn’t argue with Malone.
The last thing Stephanie wanted to do was end up as a reanimated corpse slave of some mummified alien race. The thought made her stomach twist into a hard knot of fear.
Hank stared at Malone. “Are you recommending we continue?”
“I’m not recommending anything,” she said. “This is our mission, and we haven’t finished it yet.”
Stephanie was impressed that Hank held his ground. He stood there, eye to eye, then after a long few seconds nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “We came here for a reason, and we need to keep going.”
“What?” Stanton said. “Are you crazy? I’ve seen what those aliens do to other creatures. Trust me, we don’t want to run into them.”
“I’m with Stanton, and I haven’t even seen the tapes,” Bogle said.
Lee nodded agreement. “Yeah, going on sounds somewhat suicidal, don’t you think?”
Hank glared at Stanton, then at Bogle. “We came here to investigate,” he said, his voice cold and very intense. “And to gather as much information as possible about this place. We have a job to finish.”
“Not under attack we don’t,” Lee said. “At least I don’t. I was hired to do research, not fight aliens.”
“Look,” Hank said, “the aliens are here, which means they think there’s something worthwhile on this island. I think we should try to find whatever it is first, at least until Major Lancaster calls us back. And at the moment, they aren’t doing that, so they must not feel it’s time yet. Am I right, Sergeant?”
“I’ll check,” Sergeant Malone said. “Island Mission to base.”
She waited as Stephanie and the rest watched.
After a moment Malone said, “Confirm status of alien craft and Union response. Is our mission in jeopardy?”
She listened for a moment without so much as a blink of an eye or a nod of the head.
Stephanie could feel her stomach tightening even more, as if the silence around them was getting heavier and heavier. If it got much worse, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Finally, Malone said, “Understood. Out.”
Then she looked directly at Hank. “The alien craft is confirmed to have landed on the northern tip of the island. Union ships have it under surveillance and have monitored no movement at this point. Our forces are building strength for a possible attack. Our mission hasn’t changed, with all standby and evacuation measures still in place.”
“Good,” Hank said. He glanced around at the others. Stephanie had seen a lot of different looks in Hank’s eyes over the past few months, but never one this cold and calculating.
After a moment of no one saying anything, Hank turned back to the sergeant. “We’re ready to go forward when you are.”
She nodded and spoke into her commlink to her men. “Two by two on point. Move it out. Pick up the pace.”
Then she turned back to the young private beside her. “Make damn sure you keep one eye on that motion detector. I want a warning if something’s coming at us.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the private said.
Malone strode into the middle of the street, not waiting to see if the civilians were following.
Stephanie didn’t hesitate. With one hand on the warm metal of the Pug pistol in her pocket, she moved into position beside Hank and behind the sergeant.
“We’re dumber than we look,” Bogle said, falling in.
“No one could look this stupid,” Edaro said.
A moment later they were walking at a slightly faster pace toward the towering alien skyscrapers ahead.
And in all her life, Stephanie could never remember being so afraid.
9
Time: 12:02 P . M . Pacific Time
10 hours, 31 minutes after Arrival
Darkness in the middle of the day.
The towering skyscrapers let little of the Maw’s white light reach ground level of the city, making it seem as if they were walking the streets in a perpetual twilight. Even when looking up at the sliver of blue sky far above, there didn’t seem to be anything bright. Just gloom.
Hank couldn’t even imagine what this place was going to be like in the dark. He pulled the zipper on his jacket up closer to his chin. The air was damp and smelled like mold and rot. Everything was so still, as if not even the wind was allowed to blow in these alien canyons.
Hank glanced around at the high, plain walls and side streets. Everything now looked threatening and ominous. The shadows were deeper, making the crumbling holes in the sides of the alien buildings look like black death pits. And out of the corner of his eye he was always seeing something move, but when he turned there was nothing there.
At least at the moment.
He wasn’t letting himself think about the alien ship that had landed on the north end of the island. So far they’d heard no sounds of combat or other commotion. He wondered if it was because the sounds weren’t audible this deep among the high buildings.
For the last twenty minutes of their advance up the street, no one had spoken. They had simply continued on, their progress unimpeded on the wide avenue. But the moment they got in among the skyscrapers, more and more debris filled the street, until finally the road ahead was completely blocked by the remains of what had been the top fifty stories of a nearby building. It was piled a good three stories high and covered most of a block.
Impassable.
Malone called a halt and ordered a guarded perimeter around them while Private Waters checked the location of the energy source they were using as a Holy Grail.
“Ahead four hundred paces and a few hundred paces to the north,” Waters reported.
Toward the north, the direction the alien ship had landed.
There was no way Hank wanted to bump into them, but he knew Malone was immune to protest. He forced the idea of alien soldiers out of his mind and looked over the massive pile of debris up the street. He couldn’t see which building the power source might be coming from. More than likely it was blocked from sight by the other structures towering around them. But something must be there.
“We go north then,” Malone said.
“We’ve got movement, Sergeant,” Private Waters said, turning the motion detector around so that she could see the face.
“Here we go,” Bogle said softly to himself.
“I knew we should have gone back,” Stanton muttered. “I just knew it.”
Hank ignored Stanton and went to look over Malone’s shoulder at the screen.
From what he could see, there were three scattered single beings on the other side of the mound of debris, marked by red dots on the screen, moving slowly along what seemed to be an open street, heading south.
“Could be anything,” she said. “More than likely a few animals.”
“Or the residents of this place,” Stanton said from behind Hank.
“Any chance of Neo-Soviets?” Stephanie asked.
“No,” Malone said. “None have landed on the island. I would have been informed.”
“How about we check with base to see if those things moving might be the aliens,” Stanton asked.
Malone threw him a cold look. “Nothing has yet to leave the alien ship. I’ve been getting steady reports.”
Stanton looked relieved.
“So you’re saying,” Lee broke in, “that whatever is moving on the other side of that debris pile is something brand-new that we don’t know about?”
Malone didn’t answer.
Edaro had his golf ball out again and flipped it into the air and caught it, a mute commentary of his own.
Silence filled the street.
“We head north up the side street,” Malone said, speaking into her commlink and to the scientists at the same time. “Same point and cover formation for two blocks, then we stop to see if we can get through. Let’s move out.”
The four squad members who had stopped ahead of them near the wall of debris jogged quickly past, immediately starting their sta
ndard leapfrog cover headed north along both walls on both sides of the street. Malone waited until they were a good distance ahead, then led off, moving to the middle of the narrower road.
Hank took his position behind her and glanced over his shoulder as the two soldiers who were guarding their rear fell in, too. He certainly had to hand it to Malone. She ran a very tight, very well disciplined squad. And he was damn glad they were Special Ops.
The rest of the group looked serious and obviously unhappy with the situation. Bogle’s face looked pale, and even Lee wasn’t smiling. Stanton looked like a walking ghost, with sweat dripping off his face. More than likely it was because he could more easily imagine what kind of horror they might be facing. It was enough to scare Hank half to death just hearing that aliens had landed. He couldn’t even imagine his terror if he knew anything more.
Stephanie seemed to be doing just fine, but her hand never left the pocket with the pistol. Hank, too, was very glad he had the rifle in his hands. He didn’t want to have to use it, but it was good to have it.
A lot of debris from the buildings above had fallen onto this street also, but they managed to pick their way over it for the first block. At the next intersection they saw that the street leading west was also blocked.
“We still have movement, Sergeant,” Waters said. “Pacing us two blocks to the west.”
“How many?” Malone asked.
“Still just three,” Waters said. “No cover formation, just slow movement up the middle of that street there.”
Malone only nodded and didn’t miss a step.
Hank didn’t bother to ask why she thought something or someone would pace them. She wouldn’t have any more idea than he did.
At the next intersection they stopped and took cover against the side of one structure. The way was also blocked to the west. The pile of fallen debris was even bigger there, filling the street to a height of at least four stories. There was no going over it.
Without being ordered to do so, Private Waters quickly set up the equipment to detect the energy source. “We’ve gone too far north,” he said. He pointed at the pile of debris. “Over that about twelve hundred feet. And down some.”
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