Without taking his eyes off Logan’s face, Cap said, “He’s having a seizure.”
“What?” she asked in a surprised voice. Then she looked again at Logan. “What can we do?”
“Nothing,” replied Cap. “We just need to make sure he doesn’t accidentally hurt himself. He’ll snap out of it in a minute or so.”
“I remember this happening to him during a final exam,” she said. “I was too wrapped up in answering the questions to pay much attention.”
Cap noticed Ravenwood was watching them from the other side of the cave. He looked him in the eye and said, “He’ll be okay.”
Ravenwood said nothing but kept watching.
After about two minutes, Logan blinked and looked around him. “What happened?” he asked, confused. He noticed that everyone was silent and wore concerned expressions.
“I see,” he said as he scratched his head. “I had a seizure. I remember now.”
“What kind of seizure was it?” asked Ravenwood.
“A complex partial seizure,” said Logan. “I don’t get them very often and they don’t last long.”
“But you are incapacitated when they occur?” asked Ravenwood.
“I can feel them coming, so I can take precautions.”
“How often do they happen?” asked Lena.
“When I was a kid, before I started taking the medication, I had them about once every other month. They’ve just started to happen again. I hadn’t suffered any for a long time, but this was the second one in about a week.”
“Your medication is at the apartment, isn’t it,” said Cap.
Logan nodded.
Ravenwood could see that Logan was uncomfortable talking about the seizures. “Well, we won’t discuss it any further. But please let us know when you feel one is about to happen so we can make sure you’re safe. As for now, I recommend we all eat a little something and then get some rest.”
Chapter 31
Attika pulled the small hypodermic needle out of her arm and grabbed the pistol off of the table. She pointed it at the door. The echoes from the burst of automatic gunfire reverberated throughout the ancient factory. Still pointing her pistol at the door, she removed the encoder card from the PDD, dropped it on the concrete floor, and crushed it with the heel of her boot. Then she launched the scrub-and-dump virus on her PDD.
There was another burst of automatic gunfire, followed by the boom-boom of Gregor’s 10mm long-barreled pistol. More automatic gunfire. Then a scream followed by a thud. Attika stood and kicked the small pieces of the shattered encoder card into the corner then silently glided to the door. She opened it a little and peered through the crack.
Her eyes scanned the four floors of the balcony encircling the old factory work floor. There was an SPD Tactical Assault Corp unit on her floor, five officers dressed in dark blue battle armor with SPD written in large white letters on their Provex breast plates. She could hear the faint hum of their antiballistic shields as they quickly but carefully swept through the rooms on her level. Looking up to the fourth-floor balcony, she caught a glimpse of Gregor disappearing into a dark hall just as a second TAC unit appeared on the stair landing to his right.
Attika stepped away from the door and slipped her pistol into her shoulder holster. Hearing the sound of fast-approaching vehicles, she walked to the room’s exterior wall and peered through the empty window frame down to the ground below. Several SPD patrol cars had just pulled up to the main doors, and half a dozen SPD officers in standard uniform quickly deployed behind the cars with their guns drawn.
She heard footsteps outside her door. In the blink of an eye, she stepped through the empty window frame onto the ledge just as a TAC officer threw open the door. She grabbed hold of the frame of an empty window in the room next door and swung herself inside. She landed in a crouch and froze, hardly daring to breathe as she listened to the TAC unit in the room she had just left.
Nothing. No sounds of alarm.
When she heard the TAC unit move to the next room, Attika quietly approached the door. Halfway there, she heard the unmistakable ringing sound of blades striking each other. It sounded as though it was coming from the fourth floor. Gregor was a Baku-trained swordsman, but Attika doubted he could hold out against two SPD TAC units in battle gear.
A woman’s voice yelled, “Here! Cut him off! He’s going for the stairs!”
Attika cracked the door open and peered through. She saw TAC officers running along the fourth-floor balcony toward the stairs. The TAC unit on her floor dashed for the stairs in an attempt to cut Gregor off. The sound of swords striking each other came from somewhere above. Then she heard a scream of pain.
Attika took one last look through the door, then swung it open. She took two steps straight ahead and rolled over the balcony railing. She grabbed hold of the lowest rung and swung her body toward the opening of the second-floor balcony. She rotated her body as she fell in order to face the railing, landing in a three-point stance.
“We got one down here!” yelled a nearby voice. Attika looked to her left and saw a TAC officer standing in the corner. Another one emerged from the shadows of the corner to her right and rushed toward her.
“Down on the ground!” yelled the first TAC officer with his automatic weapon pointed toward her.
Attika spun to her right and leapt through an open door into a dark room. The windows in the room were covered by rotted boards, making it difficult to see anything. A second later, the two officers appeared as silhouettes in the door. One of them pulled a small round object from his belt, pressed a button on the top, and tossed it into the room. The silhouettes stepped out of sight as the object landed with a thud and rolled toward Attika.
Attika quickly pressed the concealed button on her belt to engage her shield and dashed for the door. The stun grenade went off just as she rolled out of the room.
Though somewhat dazed, Attika quickly stood up. As she stood, she reached under her jacket to pull out two long knives from sheaths strapped to her back. The TAC officers opened fire and several of the slugs hit her. She felt the muted force of the bullets through her shield, but it was not enough to slow her down. She attacked the TAC officer on the right. He pressed a button to deploy his M-35’s bayonet just in time to block Attika’s blade.
The TAC officer on the left quickly slid her short M-35 urban assault gun into its slot in her battle pack and drew her sword. She sliced at Attika’s neck, but Attika ducked low and quickly drove both knives into the TAC’s sides between her Provex breast plate and battle pack. The woman tried to gasp, but the air in her lungs had escaped through the two wounds and she collapsed to the ground.
Attika turned her attention to her second opponent, who had secured his M-35 in his pack’s slot. He drew his sword and locked his arm guard into place. She saw Gregor out of the corner of her eye. He was battling two TAC officers on the same level as Attika, desperately trying to break through to assist her. He downed one of them with a thrust to the neck and crippled the other with a vicious slice to the back of his knee.
The second TAC officer launched a deadly combination of slices and thrusts at Attika. She dropped back, desperately parrying and dodging the swinging blade. She managed to lunge forward with her left-hand knife, but the TAC used his sword to push the blade to the side. She sliced with her right blade, but her opponent blocked it with his guard. Then the TAC officer delivered a crushing blow to her jaw with his arm guard. She staggered to her right, reaching for the wall to steady herself but couldn’t find it. She fell to the ground and looked up at the spinning balcony above her.
Attika’s opponent was nearly on her when Gregor stepped in to block his advance, kicking him in the side of his right knee and driving his sword into his thigh. Gregor immediately spun around to deflect the blades of two TAC officers who had raced up behind him, but lost his footing and slipped. One of the TAC officers seized the opportunity and stepped forward to drive his blade deep into Gregor’s back. He screamed out in pain and fell to o
ne knee. The other officer drove his blade into his chest. Gregor gazed at Attika for a moment with eyes filled with sorrow and fell to the balcony floor.
Still lying on the ground, Attika screamed in rage and drove her right-hand blade into a TAC officer’s groin. He howled in pain and collapsed as she stood and swiftly ran into the darkened room from which she had recently escaped. She dashed straight for the boarded window and threw her body at it. The dry rotten wood splintered into a hundred pieces as she burst into the morning sunlight four meters above the ground. She landed on the hood of an SPD patrol car, and rolled off it to the ground.
Lieutenant Fischer had instinctively crouched behind the patrol car when he heard the boards breaking above him, and he was still in that position when something heavy landed on the hood of the car next to him. Looking up, he found himself face to face with Attika. In the blink of an eye, she thrust her knife deep into his unprotected chest just before another SPD officer knocked her unconscious.
Fischer cursed and wrapped his hand around the knife grip. With a great heave, he pulled it out of his chest. He looked down and watched as blood gushed out of the large wound.
“You bitch!” he said to Attika’s unconscious body.
Then he dropped the knife and fell face forward onto the broken pavement.
Chapter 32
In high orbit above Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, repair droid KB923, brought a replacement part from the manufacturing module to the gate’s power source. The droid inserted the thin disk under the poloidal coil and fused it into place. The iron, nickel and other metals that were used to create this replacement part and so many others had been mined by ZT1441 from asteroids millions of kilometers away and loaded onto a little makeshift delivery shuttle. The shuttle, which KB923 had adapted from a deep space probe found drifting in the wreckage of the mothership, was powered by a cannibalized but extremely efficient fusion ramjet rocket.
The shuttle had made the long voyage from the asteroid belt to Ganymede hundreds of times. With each delivery of raw materials, KB923 programmed the manufacturing module to create various replacement parts, which KB923 then inserted into the ancient gate.
The repairs had taken much longer than typically necessary, a consequence of the unexpected explosion of the mothership in the asteroid belt. The situation was made worse by malfunctioning companion repair droids, caused in large part by the fact that the droids had not been designed to operate independently for such long periods.
These malfunctions manifested themselves in different ways. VR779 had simply stopped its work and fired its thrusters in the direction of a distant constellation without warning or apparent purpose. Another droid, SQ224, began dismantling rather than repairing the gate. KB923 had to completely shut down SQ224 when reprogramming proved to be impossible. That left only KB923 to complete the large majority of repairs to the gate.
KB923 closed the power source’s protective paneling and sealed it shut. The droid then ran a series of diagnostic tests to ensure there were no more systems failures, an exercise that had failed hundreds of times before when testing revealed some new malfunction. But not this time. When all testing was complete and no errors were detected, KB923 gave the command code for the gate to initiate loading procedures. Shortly thereafter, the space between the two massive pillars shimmered slightly as it came online.
The gate immediately began transmitting routine data to other gates in the network through the micro wormhole it had just opened. Moments later, it began receiving similar transmissions from those gates. KB923 monitored the gate’s operations for some time thereafter, but it did not detect any malfunctions. After running a final series of tests, the droid powered down the manufacturing module and returned to its recharge station. It signaled ZB1441 on its distant asteroid that the gate was operational. Then KB923 went into low-power mode and awaited further instructions.
Chapter 33
“I recommend we postpone the attack,” said Guardian Bishop.
Though surprised by the statement, the other Guardians did not respond. Instead, they looked at the thin figure of Grand Guardian Harken, who was seated at the head of the conference table. Harken placed his hands on the arms of his chair and looked at the Justice Guardian. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Why?”
Bishop looked Harken squarely in the eye and said, “Simple. Because we’ve lost the Apollo Stone. Without it, we will not be able to hit vital targets behind enemy lines, disrupt supply lines, or draw strength away from their river defenses. And let’s not forget that after our forces cross the river, the gunship Blackhawk was to be used to keep up the pressure on League troops retreating to their fortress at Deep Six. None of these things are possible without the Apollo Stone.”
“Grand Guardian Harken,” said Defense Guardian Castell. “We don’t need the Blackhawk to achieve our goals. Our forces are strong enough to cross the river on schedule. We have the tools and the numbers necessary to overwhelm their fixed defenses. And with the air superiority we will enjoy thanks to the Phantom 2 fighters, we are less dependent on the Blackhawk than previously believed.”
Harken looked at the Justice Guardian. “Am I correct in assuming that your recommendation to postpone the attack indicates a lack of faith that you will soon recover the Apollo Stone? Which your people lost, I don’t need to remind you.”
“Of course not, sir,” said Bishop. “I have complete faith we will recover it. As a matter of fact, I’ve just been informed that we’ve made a significant breakthrough in this effort. We’ve captured the woman who facilitated the escape of the three fugitives.”
“Very good,” said Harken. “I want to know every detail of her debriefing.”
“Certainly,” said Bishop with a slight nod. “But my recommendation to postpone the attack stands, if only for a week or two in order to recover the stone.”
Castell shook his head. “One or two weeks? Can’t be done. We already hit the start button. The clock is ticking.”
Bishop began to speak, but Castell cut him off, repeating his words with greater emphasis. “The clock is ticking. The timetable for troop and supply deployment must be followed without any deviation whatsoever. There’s no other way to effectively move hundreds of thousands of troops two thousand kilometers across the country, not to mention tanks, artillery, fuel, munitions, medical supplies, food, water, and all the rest.”
“I understand your point,” said Bishop, “but I don’t agree.”
Castell chuckled lightly and said, “You don’t agree.” He looked around at the other Guardians and said, “What are they going to do with the stone anyway? They don’t have the navigation system. It’s useless to them!”
Bishop ignored Castell and directed his attention to Harken. “Sir,” he said. “I appreciate the complexities of launching this operation. Believe me, I do. But let me ask you this. What if the League and their allies were aware of our plans? What if they had detailed knowledge of our troop concentrations, points of attack, and contingency plans?”
Harken gave Bishop a sharp look. “What do you mean? How would they know any of that?”
Bishop shot a quick look at Guardian Castell and continued speaking to the Grand Guardian. “I’m afraid I must report a security breach of significant magnitude. We have confirmed that Lena Castell is the unidentified third defector. Who knows what sort of classified information she was feeding to our enemies before she fled? Who knows what information she might be carrying to the enemy now? Given the risk her defection represents, I recommend we delay the military operation until we can retrieve the Apollo Stone and apprehend her.”
Harken looked at Castell. “Is this true?”
Castell’s face grew red. “No! It’s not true. And even if it were, she doesn’t know anything.”
The Grand Guardian stared at Castell for a few moments, then looked at Bishop. “You’re certain about this, Bishop?”
“Quite certain, sir,” Bishop replied with the hint of a smile on his lips.
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p; Harken closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. He looked at Information and Public Affairs Guardian Hyatt.
“Are your people prepared for the launch?”
“Yes sir,” she replied. “The information campaign has been underway for weeks and will soon rise in urgency. By the time our soldiers are ready to cross the Mississippi, the people will be screaming for war.”
Harken looked at Commerce and Industry Guardian Hoffman. “How long can we keep the troops supplied before the Capitol District, New York, and Boston residents see food shortages on the shelves?”
Hoffman tapped the end of his pencil on the table and said, “We project that people will begin feeling the pinch by mid-summer. I’d say six weeks from now.”
Harken shook his head. Looking around the table at the other Guardians he said, “Six weeks. Six damn weeks. If we haven’t secured victory by then, we’ll have to implement austerity measures. Extreme austerity measures. There will be unrest in the countryside by week ten and chaos everywhere by week fifteen.”
Defense Guardian Castell opened his mouth to say something but Harken cut him off.
“Do not speak!” said the Grand Guardian in an angry tone. He looked around the table at each Guardian and said, “This war is not just about securing a quick victory over our enemies or keeping the people focused and dedicated. This is about the survival of this nation! Look around the world. The old powers and ancient rivalries are reemerging. British warships once again dominate the Atlantic. The Japanese are extending their influence around the Pacific Rim. The Indians, Chinese, and Russians are fighting over old territories in Central Asia. The Germans and French are vying for dominance in Europe. The Turks, Iranians, and Egyptians are expanding their spheres of control throughout the Middle East.”
He sat back in his chair and raised his hands in frustration. “Yet, here we are, the former United States of America, still broken into weak rump states, even minuscule city states. We squabble over borders, access to waterways, and tariff levels. And in the PRA, our industrial capacity is crippled by chronic shortages in raw materials, leading to missed production quotas and few goods for consumers to buy, though the black market continues to thrive despite our best efforts to shut it down.”
The Navigator (The Apollo Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 18