by Greig Beck
Some sort of communication passed between the creatures as, all at once, they moved aside to show the two remaining captives.
One was the senior biologist, cowering in the corner with her hands held over her face. Beside her was an ashen-faced Rudolph Schneider, but his eyes weren’t on the creatures or even on Borishenko. Instead they were on a wooden case open just a crack on a tabletop. His lips seemed to be moving as if he spoke to it.
“What is the German doing?” Borishenko asked.
“What?” Verinko turned. “I don’t know. We need to get them out.”
“How?” Borishenko shrugged.
“They’ll kill them.” Verinko’s face screwed with panic.
“So what?” Borishenko looked at the diminutive scientist for a moment. “You said you had this under control. This is all your fault.”
“But, they got smarter. They only pretended to become docile.” Verinko grimaced. “They deceiv—”
“No, you just got sloppy.” Borishenko looked back through the glass. “They’re as good as dead. No one is to go in there.”
One of the things reached out one long shiny black claw-like hand to gently lift the card key that was on a lanyard around the senior biologist’s neck.
“Oh no,” Verinko whispered.
“That can’t be possible.” Borishenko’s eyes bulged. “Are they that smart?”
Verinko’s mouth trembled. “I can’t tell anymore.”
In the chamber, Schneider turned to the creatures and began to yell. He then shot to his feet and marched stiff-legged to the table that held the case. He opened it wider and then pointed from it back to the silachnids.
“What the hell is he doing?” Borishenko frowned.
Verinko turned on the sound.
“Im Namen von Adolphus Hitler, Führer und Reichskanzler of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, befehle ich Ihnen, sich seiner Regel zu unterwerfen!”
The man’s face was so apoplectically red he seemed on the verge of a heart attack. He kept repeating the sentence and walked forward toward the lead creature.
“What’s he saying?” Borishenko asked.
Verinko’s brows knitted. “He’s saying: ‘In the name of Adolph Hitler, leader and Chancellor of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, I order you to submit to his rule.’” Verinko turned. “In the name of Hitler?” He shook his head. “He’s gone mad.”
“You think?” Borishenko scoffed. “Look in the fucking case.”
Verinko turned back, and craned forward.
Just showing in the half-open case was a human head. The skin was dry and flaking, under the nose was a graying toothbrush mustache, and half-lidded eyes seemed to stare into the distance.
As they watched, Schneider approached the creature, and looked up at the thing’s grotesque face, which now loomed a foot above him. He pointed from the case to the creature, all the time continue to scream his order.
Almost lovingly, the creature reached out a single insectoid arm, bristling with spikes and thick hairs, and grabbed the front of Schneider’s tough suit. It pulled him closer.
“I think we can agree his solution is a failure, yes?” Borishenko said softly and couldn’t tear his eyes away from the chamber.
Schneider was pulled closer and the thing lowered its huge head. Its mouthparts bloomed open like a fleshy flower, and it used them to cover the entire lower half of the German’s face. His words were immediately muffled as his eyes widened.
Undoubtedly the proboscis was engaged, as Schneider shuddered as though receiving an electric shock, and his eyes were wide and rolling in both fear and pain. Soon his body shriveled within the suit, and then hung bonelessly limp. The silachnid then dropped Schneider, who flopped and folded onto the ground in a pile.
The creature stepped over him, and also past the still cowering female biologist. It held up the card key, and it, and all the other creatures began to move together. Toward the exit.
“I don’t think so.” Borishenko reached out a hand to the console in front of the glass.
Verinko, seeing what he was planning, lunged. “No!”
Borishenko held him off easily and changed hands. The creature had the card key held out and moved toward the exit panel. The Russian colonel flipped up a clear cover, and jammed a thumb down on the red button underneath.
The entire room was flooded with flame. Even though the glass was heat resistant, they both felt the warmth through the pane. There was a high-pitched scream, but it ended quickly.
Was that the woman? Borishenko wondered. It didn’t matter – the deaths were all Verinko’s fault.
The flame shut off and the windows were stained with carbonized material. The boiling smoke filled the room, and Verinko hit the extractor fans to clear it.
After a moment, the smoke was sucked out enough for them to see. The furniture, technical equipment, and human bodies were all reduced to charred lumps. But standing in the center of the room, with smoke still curling from their shining black bodies were the insectoid creatures. Unharmed.
“They are now impervious to even these temperatures,” Borishenko observed. “But they are trapped now.”
The card key had been destroyed. In response, one of the creatures threw itself at the glass so fast and forcefully, it made Verinko fall backwards, and Borishenko stepped away from the console.
The colonel retained his balance and watched as the thing threw its armor-plated body at the window again, and again. Though the glass was shatterproof and heat resistant, the heat had weakened it, and after another charge an impact star appeared in the heat-darkened glass.
“Shit,” Borishenko whispered.
He took another step back and then turned to Verinko. “Hit the flame again. Make sure they don’t get out – that is an order.”
The small man stared at him open-mouthed for a moment, but jammed a hand down on the button again, flooding the room with boiling, blood-red flames.
Borishenko headed for the elevator, and quickly sealed himself in. As he headed upwards, he lifted the internal phone to speak softly to the building’s engineers.
“Seal off sub-basement four immediately. No elevator access, no door access, all phone lines and internet connections to be cut, nothing in or out. The entire floor has suffered a contamination outbreak and is under quarantine until further notice. Is that clear?”
After getting agreement, Borishenko disconnected and stood silently as the elevator took him high above the lower-level facilities.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Would the creatures get out? he wondered.
They were getting smarter, Verinko had told him. He believed the man.
The elevator doors opened and he headed for his office at a rapid pace. Maybe it was time he took a little vacation at his chalet at the Dead Sea. Things could look after themselves here for a while.
CHAPTER 46
Lanesboro, Fillmore County, south-eastern Minnesota
“You are GO for MASS dispersal. Good luck and God’s speed,” Hammerson said.
“Roger that, sir. Out,” the steady voice replied.
The fleet of aircraft had been ready to roll and the pilots all had experience in aerial dispersal. Just recently they had deployed a Modular Aerial Spray System, or MASS, from the rear cargo deck of a C-130H Hercules aircraft.
Until a day ago, Hammerson’s options had been to carpet-bomb the plague areas with the new thermobaric warheads. They grabbed the oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, and the blast produced was significantly hotter, and of a longer duration, than anything delivered by conventional ordnance.
The bombs could be used against an individual building, block, or an area of a half-square mile. But given the prevalence of high-grade concrete structures in the target zone, plus subways, service tunnels, and basements, then the results were expected to be imprecise, and not one hundred percent fatal.
So that’s where Doctor Lana Miles�
�� fungal solution came in.
In ordinary times, no government body, or even military command, would authorize the use of weapons carrying a biological substance that hadn’t been tested for long-term adverse effects on the human population. But taking risks was why Jack “The Hammer” Hammerson had the job he did.
Hammerson had no doubt that a lot was riding on the success of the mission. Lana had told him the fungal broth would spread like a virus, being passed from an infected bug to the uninfected. Given they were swarm-based creatures, none in a group should be spared.
If it was successful, then they had a weapon they could use. If not, and they failed to stop the spread of the swarm, then perhaps the human race might end up as nothing more than a sedimentary line showing as just another mass extinction.
“Freighter entering Hudson Bay, sir,” the war room technician said mechanically.
“Roger that.” It never rained, but it poured, Hammerson lamented. He had another issue to address. A Ukrainian flagged freighter, the Illiansk, was coming into the mouth of the Hudson Bay.
His split screen on the wall showed a satellite image of the nondescript battered freighter. When they had first spotted the non-responsive craft, communication efforts had proved fruitless and a scan of the boat had shown that there seemed no crew onboard.
Alarm bells had rung, and reviewing historical stored satellite images had shown the crew disembarking and boarding a high-speed boat. The crew had been quickly picked up as they attempted to board another ship up near Fire Island. Unfortunately, the Russian captain had chosen to commit suicide. But after intense and aggressive questioning of the crew, it was shown they had no idea what it was they carried, but they all knew it was important, and they had to be a long way away when it arrived at its destination – New York.
General Chilton had growled like an angry grizzly, and told Hammerson he was to totally obliterate the freighter.
Hammerson watched as the nose camera showed the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II bearing down on the ship.
“In range, on scope,” the pilot said.
“Permission to engage.” Hammerson didn’t blink as he watched with a dispassionate gaze.
“One away, two away.” The pilot then turned the Lightning away as two streaks hurtled toward the freighter.
The bombs were Hellfire AGM-114N metal augmented charge missiles. They were twin bolts of pure death and, when detonating, burned hotter than the sun.
The Lightning came back around in time to see the missiles hit – the ship turned into a glowing ball with the same radiance as a supernova. In seconds there was nothing left but molten steel heading straight to the bottom.
The ship and its cargo were gone, but there was one last loose end – the architect of the mission. Hammerson’s teams would see to that one personally, to send a conclusive message.
Hammerson checked his watch. Matt Kearns should be approaching his own mission profile now. If the MASS dispersals were successful, they’d know pretty quickly if they’d won and dodged an extinction event. Or was there more to come? They also still needed to know when these events were likely to happen again. And that was where Kearns came in.
Hammerson watched as the seawater boiled and the last scraps of the molten freighter sank, leaving nothing but a few wisps of black smoke. He switched off that portion of screen and concentrated on the dispersal bomber’s approach to the Minnesota front line.
“Dropping to one thousand feet and commencing dispersal,” the pilot said.
Hammerson’s jaw set and his large hands curled into fists as he willed them success.
“You can do it,” he said through clenched teeth.
CHAPTER 47
Macquarie Island, South Pacific, Australian Administered Zone
The enormous military helicopter set down and Roy Maddock, Matt Kearns and Lana Miles immediately leaped out onto the bare rock of the Macquarie Island shoreline. Maddock leaned back in to pull out two huge bags of kit and threw them to the ground.
The wind blasted them and Matt groaned and closed his eyes to slits. Macquarie Island was only just over twenty miles long and three wide and was home to seals, penguins, and tough lichens, all sitting on a remote, wind-blasted rock halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica.
“Freezing,” Lana said in muffled voice.
Maddock yelled for them to move, and the trio ran from under the chopper blades.
Matt tugged his fur-lined windbreaker hood tighter around his face, and Lana bumped into his side and yelled up at him. “I can’t feel my lips.”
Which sounded like “I arn eel I ips” to him.
Matt smiled and regretted it – the wind stung his front teeth. He settled for nodding in return, and then slowly looked at the landscape. Many of the island’s raw and exposed rocks were a greenish color and exactly why they were here.
Macquarie Island was the only place in the Pacific Ocean where there was an uncovered ophiolite layer, which was a section of the Earth’s deep oceanic crust, and the mantle that has been uplifted and exposed above sea level.
The green-tinged rocks were the first clue the geologists picked up following their analysis of the stone tablets. And given that the German submarine had been returning from somewhere in the Southern Pacific Ocean meant that odds were high that this is where the stones had come from.
They’d learned a lot but there were still so many gaps in their knowledge about any future upwelling it demanded they seek out the source of the stones. Now they had that chance.
Maddock moved them to a huge rocky outcrop and hunkered down in its lee. Matt quickly looked about and then grimaced.
“We’re looking for a cliff face, a cave, or somewhere that they may have lain undisturbed for a long time.”
“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news – there’s been researchers here on and off for decades, and no one has ever reported seeing anything like that.” Maddock grinned. “Above sea level that is.”
“I knew you were gonna say that.” Matt looked out at the choppy, iron-gray water. “Crap.”
“How cold is it?” Lana grimaced.
“Damn cold,” Maddock replied. “This time of year, the seawater is about forty degrees. But the wind here is always blowing at about fifty miles per hour, and some gusts up to two hundred. That wind chill means the water actually feels like the warmest place to be.” He winked. “Least that’s what they tell me.”
She groaned.
“I’m thinking that cliff face, cave, or undisturbed area must lay offshore.” He turned to point at an uplifted fold of craggy rock rising a hundred feet and touching the dark and foreboding water about half a mile along the shoreline. “There’s deeper water there, and a good place to start.”
Matt nodded. “Looks promising.”
“Well then …” Maddock straightened. “This is why we’re here.”
The trio set to changing from their thick woolen clothing to cold-water dry suits. These ones had full-face masks with speakers built in so they could communicate. The dry suits didn’t fit snugly like normal wetsuits – they worked on the basis of keeping water out, and keeping a layer of warm air around the body.
Lana slid the waterproof computer onto her forearm. “So, I get to be the mobile calculator, because you can’t do math.”
Matt shrugged and grinned. “I can’t be good at everything, can I?”
When done, Lana stood with her swim fins under her arms. “Okay, I’m hot now.”
“Good, keep that frame of mind.” Maddock grinned.
Matt noticed that the baggy suit still looked good on the tall HAWC captain’s physique, but he and Lana just looked like those dog breeds with excess skin folds.
“Ready when you are,” Matt said.
“I’m ready now,” Maddock replied. “Comm test.” He pulled his facemask down, it fitted from his forehead to his chin. Matt and Lana did the same.
“Check, one, two,” Maddock said.
“Three, four …” Matt’s
eyes were on Lana.
“And open the door.” Lana grinned.
Maddock pushed up his visor. “Okay, we are good to go.”
Lana groaned theatrically and Matt knew exactly how she felt. It was bitterly cold in the wind, the water would be like stinging needles if it touched any exposed skin.
Maddock led the way over the bleak and stony ground toward the shoreline. With their full-face masks pulled up, the wind pricked their cheeks and tips of their noses, and Matt felt the cold radiating up from the stones and through the insulating rubber to his feet.
They maneuvered around a few lazy seals, laying like bloated barrels on the shoreline. The seals turned dark liquid eyes on them to stare disinterestedly for a moment before then rolling back over in post fish-meal torpor.
After a few more minutes, they came to the towering rock face that ended their shoreline. Maddock checked his equipment one last time, and then waded out into the freezing water. Matt and Lana checked each other’s breathing lines, tank pressure, and then pulled their masks down. She looked up at him, eyes wide, and blew air between her puffed cheeks.
“Yeah, me too,” he said and stepped into the water, still carrying his fins. After a few more steps, with the water at his knees, he could feel the biting cold right through the suit’s skin. Underneath they wore thermal underwear, but the cold still pressed in on them.
They waded out some more, and when the water got to their waists, they pulled on their fins. Matt sucked in a breath, dived forward, and began to swim. Even though the insulation helped, he couldn’t help catching his breath from the shock of the freezing water.
Matt liked diving, snorkeling, surfing, and swimming, but the water here confirmed he only really liked doing those things in warm places. Here there were dark kelps and other weeds. The sea urchins, conches, and starfish grew huge in the clean, plankton-rich waters, and things with all manner of spikes and knobs crowded the algae-rich rocks.