Mount Vernon
The Brick’s legs pound the tunnel floor. With the enemy so close, all he can think about is putting distance between himself and the deadly trap he set.
One minute stretches to two, then five, and in the monotonous race Argo’s mind wanders to Thompson’s radiation exposure, Beckert’s discoveries, the surrounding crush of enemy forces. More than anything else, however, he thinks about the slender reporter and her revelations.
We started it all, he recalls. Keller’s young face comes to the fore, and he thinks about the aged captain as he is now.
What would I say to him?
A violent shudder shakes the tunnel, and a shock of air catapults Argo onto his chest. He skids several meters before picking himself up and resuming his thunderous strides. The trap is sprung and now, nothing stands between him and his pursuers.
Standing water ahead reflects his helmet lights onto the round walls in web-like ripples. When he nears, he sees two sets of boot prints entering, and the walls are soaked with splashed water. The Brick charges in, first high stepping then hurdling through the gradually deepening water.
The higher the flood, the harder Argo’s progress becomes. His bulk fills most of the tunnel, forcing the water to rush under his arms and by his legs. A short wave builds up in front of his chest, pressing against his travel. He turns his broad shoulders sideways to lessen the resistance.
Soon, he is completely submerged, pressing against the water like the plunger in a giant syringe. Unable to keep up his pace, Argo drops to his hands and crawls into the flooded darkness.
After tedious hours, a faint light source registers in Argo’s visor. He switches off his helmet lights and moves toward it.
Near the roof of the tunnel, a milky blue radiance undulates at the water’s surface. It grows brighter at his approach, seemingly activated by the currents his movements create. As he stands amid the milky haze, he distinguishes individual grains winking on and off.
It’s like electric dust, he thinks.
The big man reaches his large hand up to the haze and stirs it. Eddies of light swirl in the wake.
Impressive.
With a jolt, he remembers the enemy behind him and whirls about.
Gently illuminated walls recede behind him to a deep and empty blackness.
Thompson’s warning echoes in his mind, There’re plenty of things here that’ll distract us…The Brick curses himself and surges on through the glowing tunnel.
The tunnel diverts up and to the left like a kink in a tight coil. Argo pauses to inspect the deformation, guessing the surrounding earth shifted in some seismic event. Gaps at the lower edge of the deformation release strings of minute bubbles. Skidding boot prints mar the brown sediment on the ascending floor
Argo steps onto the lifted deformation, and his visor breaks the water surface.
Ah, at last.
He clicks on his helmet lamps and looks up the slope. The walls are rumpled with stresses, peeling the inner metallic skin. Twenty meters up, the lifted tunnel crests and another tear separates the roof above the crest. Water seeps through it as if from a leaky faucet.
Argo’s first step up the slope slides out from under him, and his thick arms fly out to brace the fall. Pressing against the walls of the tunnel, he gets his feet beneath him, and staggers his way up the slope.
Once clear of the standing water, the slippery sediments thin to a trail down the middle of the floor. Argo avoids it by hopping over it in a zig-zag to the top. Hope of easier progress is dashed, however, when his lights shine into another flooded section of tunnel just ahead. A long runner of greasy sediment, marked with boot treads, leads down to murky water. He shakes his head and takes a wide stance, skating down the slick grade to a dramatic splash.
The last section of tunnel is far shorter than he expected, and the Brick emerges into a flooded escape chamber identical to the one at the command complex. Disturbed sediments cloud the water. Skittish fish dart from his movements.
I must be getting close.
The big man looks for the hatch and finds it forced aside. The hinge is broken off at knobs of rust.
Stepping out of the hatch, Argo turns sideways and works his way down a slim passageway. The passageway opens to a slightly wider room with a disintegrated terminal recessed into the left wall. A red exit sign dangles from a bundle of wires above an opening in the opposite wall. The opening is two meters square, beyond which is watery stillness. He clicks off his lights and takes cover at the edge of the opening. Peering past the edge, he finds only darkness.
“Where are you two?”
Argo clicks his lamps on and leans past the opening again. Heaps of rust and composite parts stand in regular intervals on a level floor. Heavily reinforced concrete walls and buttresses rise fifteen meters to an arched ceiling.
Just outside the square opening, a severely corroded vault door lies flat on the deck. Sediments on the deck are blasted away from around the vault door, telling the Brick it recently fell.
Definitely getting close.
With a reassuring squeeze of his weapon grip, Argo ventures into the open. Curious fish, drawn by the light, emerge from nooks in the rusted heaps. A large mouthed eel juts its head from a burrow, watching with round eyes and gulping continuously.
The fish hover at a safe distance, startling at his movements, then returning a bit closer. He labors to keep his fascination at bay while radiant colors and myriad shapes mingle in the light from his helmet.
The crowd presses close enough to block the big man’s line of sight, and he throws up his arms. Flashes of color streak away to their safe nooks and loiter at the entrances.
Freed of the obscuring huddle, Argo discovers deep tracks in the sediment. Tiny crustaceans flit and scamper in the prints.
He follows the tracks into the middle of the enormous cavern, careful to step inside each print, and arrives at an intact fuselage. Still propped upon its triple landing gear, the fuselage is streamlined from a sharply rounded nose to a tapered tail. Long rotor blades lean haphazardly against the airframe. Random patches of metallic green and white paint cling to ceramic armor-plating several centimeters thick.
As the Brick moves closer, he shines his lights in through a side window. The roof of the craft has fallen in, and a dense heap of rust occupies the roomy interior. Composite parts and white ceramic plates jut from the pile. One of the largest plates bears a rectangular emblem—a blue field occupies the upper left quadrant with ninety-one stars, the rest filled with alternating red and white horizontal stripes. Argo steps back, sizing the whole vehicle up, mentally reassembling the eroded parts.
He turns to the dozens of corroded heaps around him, recognizing many of the same composite and ceramic parts, but none of the surrounding wrecks are as well preserved. The Brick returns his attention to the long, green- and white-flecked airframe.
Made for someone special, were you?
He steps away from the airframe and picks up his comrades’ trail in the sediment, following it around the aircraft. From the far wall, a light winks on and off.
The Brick saves the location in his visor and clicks off his own lamps. Guided by his visor and sense of touch, he works his way around the orderly piles of rust and ceramics to a low hill of sand at the far wall. Thompson crouches atop the sandy hill at the base of the wall. Directly above Thompson, Argo sees an area near the roof a shade lighter than the black interior.
Thompson waves Argo up the hill and takes the Brick by the helmet. He presses his visor hard against Argo’s visor and yells for sound conduction.
“We’re in another bunker, but it’s breached. We’ll get out, easy.” The Gun turns Argo’s head up to the less darkened area. Their helmets thunk together again.
“The space port should be due west of us. Keep lights off and stay close.”
Argo nods his understanding.
Beckert emerges from the darkness carrying a very long rotor blade. He guides one end into the wall
gap near the ceiling and plants the other into the sand. Thompson pats the Geek appreciatively, slings his rifle, and shimmies up the blade.
The Geek gestures for Argo to go ahead, but the Brick shakes his head. Beckert shrugs and follows the Gun up to the wall breach.
Argo looks back at the expansive hangar bay one last time and climbs after his comrades. He tops the improvised ladder and looks across broken concrete seven meters thick with alternating layers of reinforcement and shock absorption.
Thompson and Beckert are perched at the outer edge of the breached wall. Argo strides over and squats beside his teammates, looking out into open water. A blush of light from the east tints the shallows a deep blue. Beneath their feet, a manmade cliff drops out of sight into a sparse forest of rope-like plants that undulate in the currents.
Thompson turns toward the bunker and looks up at the roof line. With arms pointed overhead, he launches himself like a missile. Despite the drag from his cargo sacks, he catches a crack near the top and hauls himself over the roof line. Beckert follows, sailing past the roof edge and flipping gracefully onto his feet. Argo does the same.
The three look out over naked concrete, arching to the left and right. Thick, conical spars jut from the arch at all angles like a matted porcupine.
Where the team stands, the spars are broken away. Argo kneels to inspect the broken base of one close to him. Its foundation is hollow, the interior encircled by a rusty lattice.
A tap on his shoulder steals his attention. Beckert stands beside him motioning him along. The big man acknowledges with a nod and follows.
The team weaves through the leaning spars toward shallower water. Sandy sediment fills in between the spars, sloping up toward the shoreline. Diverse plant life anchors itself to the cement fragments. Some are mere tufts of corkscrewed grass; others are vine-like with thick runners and leaves made buoyant by air-filled bladders. The pliant vines sway with passing waves overhead.
Spiny, hard-shelled creatures proliferate the dark vegetation, clinging with segmented legs. They watch the operators with eyes on stalks and flare their pincers menacingly.
Translucent globes drift by, trailing fine tentacles. Beckert loses himself in the rhythmic pulsing and cups one in his hand. It seems insubstantial, merely sliding around his grip without sensation. Imagining Argo’s stern glare behind him, he forgets the delicate beauty and resumes the underwater march.
Dawn sun lightens the oscillating shallows. Thompson looks back at his comrades, seeing what a stark contrast they will cut against bleached sand and cement. He looks ahead to the surf zone, to the empty sandbars, to the lack of cover.
That won’t do.
The Gun cuts left, following the arch of the bunker to its edge, and he drops off. His boots plunge into loose sand at the base. The water is darker, but he can see a dense cluster of undulating vines a few meters away. Thompson lifts his mired feet with effort and plods into the weeds.
Beckert raises his arms, points his toes, and dives off the edge, streaking toward the weeds. At the last moment, he curves his back and legs, swooping upright to gently land on his feet beside Thompson.
Argo leaps off the edge and drops like a bomb, disappearing in a cloud of sediment on impact. He steps out of the swirling murk with the determination of a steam roller.
Thompson forges ahead, sweeping thick vines aside and ignoring the crunches underfoot. The air in his helmet is far beyond stale, and a metallic taste coats his tongue.
For hours, his stomach has been trying to escape through his mouth, and he has bested its attempts with forceful swallows. Now it seems to be trying the other end. His gut seizes with cramps and sharp pressure as though being stirred by a knife.
A leisurely shadow slips across Thompson’s path. In a flash, he pulls his rifle from his shoulder and extends the bayonet. He crouches in the weeds, scanning for the enemy.
Gracefully, elegantly, an elongated creature circles back and swims around the team. Flat lobes protrude on each side of the creature’s head, dark eyes embedded at the tips. A frowning parabolic mouth, brimming with triangular teeth, scoops mouthfuls of water and squirts them through five vertical slits behind its head. Pointed, back-swept fins jut from the creature’s spindle-like body; and a vertical tail fin propels the six-meter creature with effortless strokes.
Thompson fixates on the pointed teeth.
Does everything on this planet eat the other?
The tremendous fish orbits twice and departs.
When Thompson resumes his trek, he notices a bright spot in the water ahead. He squats and squints at it. Beckert crouches nearby and keeps watch while Argo kneels beside his leader. The elder operators contemplate the oddity in wary non-understanding until Argo looks toward shore. In the brightening blue, he discerns the barely perceptible edge of a tremendous underwater dome. The Brick’s hand reaches out and traces the outline for Thompson. The shining spot is light from the rising sun, reflecting off the smooth hemisphere.
Thompson’s jaw drops at the scale. The bottom of the dome is still cloaked in darkness; but, extrapolating the dome’s curvature, its base is more than a kilometer in diameter.
Argo grabs Thompson’s helmet and presses his own against it, visor to visor.
“This must be the launch facility! We’re right on top of it!”
Thompson smiles a mouthful of red teeth. Argo grabs Thompson’s helmet on each side and stares hard at the Gun’s face. Thompson’s eyes are inflamed and recessed in the sockets. His nostrils are ringed with crusty black flakes.
The Brick knocks their helmets together.
“You require treatment.”
Thompson pulls free of his comrade and taps Beckert with his rifle, flicking his head to follow. Beckert acknowledges with a stiff nod and takes rank behind his leader. Argo sighs with concern and follows obediently.
Using his rifle like a needle, Thompson threads his way through the shifting vegetation. Angled sunlight dances across his shoulders, soaking into the dark plants around him.
Couldn’t hope for better camouflage, he thinks.
Distorted aircraft hover above the waves, gouging circles of foam into the water’s surface with bright blue jets. The tall operator watches them with interest until his bayonet tinks into something solid. He sweeps the dark plants aside and finds a dark gray material, rock-like and monolithic, barring his progress. The stony mass stands several meters above the swaying vegetation, and runs out of sight to each side.
Thompson spins and points at Argo. When the Brick steps up, Thompson hand gestures to the base of the monolith. Argo squats where directed.
Thompson climbs onto his teammate’s shoulders and crouches. With a tap of the foot, he triggers Argo to spring. As Argo thrusts up, Thompson pushes off and flies up to the top of the stone. He settles onto a narrow, curved foundation supporting a massive geodesic structure. Great panes of triangular glass are anchored in hexagonal sections with substantial bracing at every vertex. Enclosed by the thick panes of glass are tall buildings, paved roads, and cultivated fields.
Mobs of azure-skinned creatures fill the streets between buildings, most clutching a personal belonging, case, or young one. Thousands of saffron eyes dart back and forth among the crowds, tails swishing anxiously as the mobs shuffle toward the city center.
The Gun glares with malice at the permanent structures and the shuffling crowds.
So you’ve come to stay? We’ll fix that.
Thompson turns from the thick glass and leans over the ledge. He waves at Argo and hangs his rifle over the drop.
Argo climbs onto Beckert’s shoulders and leaps. The big man grasps the rifle firmly and Thompson hauls him up. The operators crouch on the gray foundation and knock visors together.
“Can you take out this window?” The Gun yells.
Argo glances at the triangular pane and smirks knowingly. He pulls a compartment from his rack, opens it, and removes what he needs.
While Argo fashions the charges, Thompson
looks through an adjacent pane. The enclosed city is bright with natural and supplemental lighting. Orderly fields of agriculture, wide pools fed by terraced waterfalls, and recreational parks shaded by sculpted trees intersperse the clean buildings.
The Gun looks down, discovering the interior floor is many meters below the foundation.
Quite a drop.
Turning from the glass, he leans over the foundation edge and beckons Beckert. As the Geek crouches, Thompson grips his rifle by the barrel and lowers it over the side.
Beckert launches, catches the edge of the ledge, and pulls himself up, not needing the lowered rifle. He kneels, awaiting instruction.
Black Hawks From a Blue Sun Page 24