path to conquest

by Unknown Author

  Diana fired up the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters. “Commanders take responsibility, Lydia.”

  The blond officer had no comment. Diana accelerated out the hangar port and banked the small craft steeply as they flew down along the Saudi Arabian coastline.

  The Zodiac’s little outboard labored against the Gulf’s currents. Abdul kept correcting for the drift by angling the rudder handle. Pete had a radio transmitter at his lips.

  “Neville, you son of a bitch, we’re on our way. Estimate arrival in three minutes. Get the hell out of there and be ready.

  No time for waiting around for you to satisfy your goddamned ego.”

  “Uh, Yank,” Abdul said from the back of the launch. “I think we’ve got some additional company.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look up, about three o’clock.”

  With a quick mental alignment, Pete looked over his right shoulder, up into the dark southern sky. There was no mistaking it. The duckbilled, pod-shaped form of a Visitor shuttle was approaching at high speed, swinging wide around the drilling rig.

  “Diana?” Pete wondered.

  “Who else?” There was a silent pause as they both considered the implications. Abdul spoke first. “We keep going, we could be her first target.”

  Pete grunted in acknowledgment. “We turn around, Neville’s defed.”

  “You're in charge, Yank.”

  With gritted teeth, Pete was disturbed to sift his own thoughts and find he was thinking, After what he did, why risk our lives for Neville More?

  Lavi Mayer glanced aimlessly out the van’s side window. Something, some shadowy shape overhead caught his eye and he sat upright.

  “What’s wrong?” Lauren whispered, her voice thick with fatigue.

  But Lavi didn’t reply. Instead, he slowly opened the VW’s door and stood on the lower sill for a better view. Lauren leaned over his seat, trying to glimpse what he saw. She couldn’t, so she got out on her own side and walked around to where he stood, his elbows on top of the door.

  “Trouble, Lauren.”

  She rubbed her eyes, trying to sharpen her vision. Then she saw it, too—the Visitor shuttle circling the Gulf port.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Pete and Abdul are out in open water.”

  Lauren and her Israeli companion looked at each other, faces clouded by the realization there was nothing they could do. Whatever was about to happen, they would only be spectators.

  * * *

  Lydia adjusted the ground scanner. Something had attracted her attention and she narrowed the field. Her eyes revealed a flicker of satisfaction. “Diana.”

  “What have we here?” Diana scrutinized the schematic grid displayed on the control panel screen. Her practiced fingers keyed the computer to a higher magnification, then switched to an actual visual analog—two people in a small boat scudding across the surface of the Persian Gulf below the Visitor aircraft. “Triangulate and track, Lydia.”

  Lydia reached for the keyboard, tapping in the appropriate commands. “Tracking, Commander. Obviously, they’re with the resistance,” she said, an accusatory hardness in her tone. “Now you know where your trusted aide Neville More went when he absconded with Dr. Donnenfeld under his arm.”

  It was Diana’s turn to squirm now, and Lydia pressed her advantage. “Would you care to bet on whether More is on that platform right now? He’s the only one who’d be able to break the security system. After all, he did create it. You gave him every chance he needed to sabotage your precious project. I warned you not to trust a human traitor.”

  “I didn’t trust him,” Diana snarled. “I don’t trust anyone— least of all you. If he’s down there, I’ll have the last word. But first ...”

  “Oh, shit.” A chill made Pete shiver. No question about it—this was cold, solid fear. As the Zodiac held on course for the offshore drilling rig, the intruding alien ship was diving right for them.

  “Abdul, do something!”

  “Hold on, Yank.” The Arab prince jerked the tiller as far to starboard as it would go. The inflatable craft bucked as it broadsided a rising swell, then heeled over so violently it seemed certain to roll. The shuttle loosed a volley of laser bolts that sizzled the water where the Zodiac would have been had it not changed direction so sharply.

  All Pete could do was grasp the straps attached to the boat’s rubbery side walls and hold on for the ride. The rest was up to Abdul’s panic navigating. The Zodiac shuddered as it was forced to skip across its own wake. Abdul threw it into a serpentine pattern of desperate turns, and Pete’s stomach heaved with every gut-tossing swerve. But he noticed his partner was aiming for the safe haven of land.

  Up above them their hunter was making a second pass.

  “Mother Ship to command shuttle—urgent!"

  The quavering voice of Ilene, the young computer officer, blurted from the speaker. Diana was intent on her next strafing attack and Lydia took the call.

  “Shuttle here. What—”

  Ilene cut her off. “We have a red alert—critical computer malfunction.”

  Diana could hear the alarm klaxon sounding in the background and she veered off her intended assault.

  Braced in the bottom of the boat to keep from being pitched overboard, Pete peered wonderingly toward the sky as the enemy ship whipped past them without firing a shot. “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” said Abdul. “And I don’t care.”

  “Let’s swing back—”

  “Are you bonkers!” Abdul screamed. “There’s not a bloody thing we can do for him, Pete.”

  With that, Abdul straightened their heading and the Zodiac raced toward shore.

  Diana’s face was taut with frustration. “Status, Lieutenant. ”

  “We have—we have a complete memory breakdown in the science data banks, Commander,” Ilene radioed. “We can’t stop it, and it’s spreading to other banks. If we don’t take immediate action, we project the malfunction will destroy all systems memories and programming throughout the entire fleet.”

  Diana looked to her second in command. “Analysis confirmed, Diana. All our shipboard computers are linked. The only chance to halt the spread is to purge all science banks and totally disconnect them from the rest of the system.”

  “That means we’ll lose all science data.”

  “Now, Diana. ” There was no pleasure in Lydia’s voice. This was a shared defeat.

  Diana pounded her clenched fist on the control panel. “Purge science banks, Uene,” she hissed. “Cut them off now.” She took a deep breath, a growl rolling savagely in her throat. “I want Neville More.”

  As Diana dipped the shuttle’s nose for an attack on the drilling platform, Lydia swiftly pecked at the computer keyboard. “It’s too late, Diana.” A single phrase appeared on the readout screen: platform sequence d engaged. Then, numbers: —-10—9—8—

  “Diana, you’ve got to pull up!”

  “What are you talking about? He’s down there.”

  “No time to explain.” Lydia’s tongue flickered across her lips nervously.

  The silent count: —4—3—

  Lydia wrenched the steering control from Diana’s hands and sheered out of their dive. The shuttle’s frame moaned in metallic protest and the engines whined under the strain of an emergency climb nearly straight up. G-forces pinned them back into their seats.

  Behind them, the Gulf rig exploded, rocketing shards of metal and a rippling fireball high into the night sky.

  The shock wave slammed into the fleeing Zodiac, and Abdul wrestled the engine tiller with all his weight. Flaming debris arced through the sky, changing darkness to daylight, and the churning water sent out concentric circles of turbulence that hit the launch just as Abdul was slowing down to negotiate the tight space between the pier and the freighter. The Zodiac pitched a bit, but Pete managed to grab the piling and hook the anchor rope around it. He was already scrambling up the hanging ladder as Abdul cut the outboard motor. When he got to th
e top, he swung a hand down to pull the Saudi up the last couple of rungs.

  Secondary blasts continued out at the platform, which was a fiery skeleton now. Taking one final look back, Pete and Abdul sprinted for the van. Lauren spotted them, started the engine, and was already rolling when they leaped through the open side doors on the run.

  * * *

  Like a bird of prey returning to its nest with empty talons, Diana’s shuttle swooped toward the Mother Ship.

  “Don’t worry,” Lydia insisted. “I’m sure Neville More is quite dead. He had to be on the platform at the time we noticed his tampering. That boat was heading out when you shot at it, no doubt on its way to pick up More. It never got there. But he might be alive if I hadn’t taken precautions.”

  Diana continued looking straight ahead, her darkly beautiful human face glowering. “ What precautions? I want an explanation, Lydia.”

  Lydia smiled, not bothering to hide her gloating. “I didn’t trust Neville, and you wouldn’t heed my warnings. So I had no choice but to act on my own. I programmed an automatic destruct sequence into the platform’s circuitry. It was set to engage if cut off from the main computer system.”

  “By not informing me, you’ve committed a breach of regulations possibly punishable by execution, Lydia. The Leader will want—”

  “Will want to know how you allowed a human spy to become privy to our most classified computer secrets.”

  The two alien women glared at each other in meaningful silence. A wordless bargain had been struck once again, in the interests of self-preservation.

  “There’s something I’d like to know,” Diana said. “If I hadn’t brought you with me, the destruct sequence would have been activated anyway, wouldn’t it?” It was not a question. “Of course. For the good of the fleet and our mission.” “Possibly killing me in the process.”

  Lydia gave a partial nod. “Possibly. Every victory has its price, Diana. I’d have recommended you for a medal.” She paused for effect. “Posthumously.”

  EPILOGUE

  Cutting across two lanes of honking traffic, the battle-scarred taxi screeched to a stop at the comer of River Avenue and East 161st Street, alongside Yankee Stadium. The old Bronx ball park’s white concrete hide gleamed in pristine autumn sunshine.

  Lauren Stewart got out of the cab while her father paid the driver. Shafts of brilliant light filtered down through the ancient cantilevered tracks of the elevated subway line high over the street. The beams flickered as a train clattered past like a graffiti-skinned dinosaur creeping toward extinction.

  Dr. George Stewart slammed the taxi door and tugged at his daughter’s arm. “Come on, honey, we’ll miss the beginning of the game.”

  As they started toward the stadium entrance, they heard a car horn beep and saw the President’s limousine pull over to the curb at the spot just vacated by the cab. They traded nonplussed glances, then burst out laughing when the chauffeur hurried around to open the long rear door, only to be waved off by the spindly arm of the irascible Hannah Donnenfeld. Her Red Sox cap was clutched firmly in hand.

  “Tell President Morrow thanks for the lift,” she called as she caught up to the Stewarts with a sprightly step. She was wearing her Yankees warm-up jacket.

  “Hannah, what the devil are you doing with the presidential limo?” George Stewart demanded.

  “I had to stop off and give him an updated report on our work. Then I told him he was making me late for the ball game, so he sent me over in his car. Nice young fella, that Bill Morrow. Anyhow, let’s get a move on. Game’s almost starting.” She marched ahead and the Stewarts trotted along, trying to keep up.

  “You look like you’re fully recovered,” Lauren said cheerfully as they passed through the stadium turnstile.

  “Yep.” Hannah reached into her windbreaker and slipped something out, wrapped in a blue velvet cover. She held it as stealthily as a street vendor displaying a hot wristwatch. Then she cleared her throat. “Got something to show you both,” she said sotto voce.

  They stopped on the ramp leading up to the field-level seats, and Hannah looked both ways before unveiling the item cupped in her hands. It was a bronze medal attached to a red, white, and blue ribbon, and it bore the presidential seal.

  “What, did you find that in the limo?” George Stewart asked caustically.

  “I beg your pardon!” Hannah was righteously indignant. “President Morrow gave this to me for standing up to ol’ lizard-lips Diana. He wanted t’ have a whole big ceremony, but 1 told him to hell with that, I’d just take the medal on the spot. ”

  George guffawed. “I’ll bet you did, too.”

  “Course I did.”

  Lauren touched the relief casting of the eagle. “Wow, Daddy, this is really something,” she said reverently.

  “Course it is,” George asserted, echoing Hannah’s New England accent.

  Holding it up, Lauren read the inscription on the back. “ ‘To Dr. Hannah Donnenfeld, for wartime bravery . . .’ I can’t wait for everyone to hear about this!”

  “Ah, Lauren, I’d just as soon nobody else knew. Don’t make a big deal, huh?”

  George Stewart frowned. “Are you crazy, Hannah? This is a big deal.”

  She snatched the medal, re wrapped it, and stuffed it back into hiding inside her jacket. “I didn’t exactly volunteer to visit Diana, y’know. I told the President that, but he said it’d be impolite not to take the medal, and I’m the only Hannah Donnenfeld he knows, so who the hell else could he give it to?”

  Lauren looked distinctly disappointed. “So what are you going to do with it?”

  “Oh, I’ll keep it in a safe place,” Hannah said consideringly. “Then when the kids at the lab give me a hard time, I’ll flash it at ’em and tell ’em they better listen to me ’cause I’m a presidential medal-winner. That’ll impress the hell out of ’em.” Her chuckle was self-mocking.

  They heard cheering coming from inside the ball park, and they hurried up the last ramp and out the accessway leading to the stands. The voice of the public-address announcer resonated off the walls of the cavernous arena, which was about half filled. By now, Lauren knew that meant about 25,000 fans attending. Keeping company with Peter Forsythe, she’d learned more than she ever thought possible about baseball lore.

  She’d also been to enough of the makeshift league’s games with Pete to know the location of his box, down in the front row at the home-plate side of the Yankee dugout. She led the way and they found Sari, Mitchell, and Denise Daltrey already seated and supplied with hot dogs, Cracker Jacks, and beer in paper cups.

  “Where’ve you all been?” said Denise. “We thought you were going to miss the game.”

  “Cab got caught in traffic,” George explained. “Speaking of missing the game, where’s Pete? Off getting more food?” “No, no,” Sari said, making an effort to be cool. “He’ll, uh, he’ll be here any time now.”

  Out on the field the announcer had been introducing the players in today’s lineup. The opposing team was already out, queued along the third-base line. The home team, largely made up of Yankee team members who lived in the metropolitan area, was nearly complete.

  “Next, playing shortstop for the Yankees as a change of pace, that great young long-ball hitter, Joey Vitaleeee!" The PA voice echoed in warm harmony with wild applause for Joey.

  The group in Pete’s box stomped loudly for their friend and sometime resistance comrade.

  With a few lanky strides, Joey loped out to join his teammates, tipping his hat and flashing his charmingly lopsided grin. Several teenage girls in the next box screamed in glee as Joey turned their way, warm brown eyes seeming to look right at them. Lauren smiled to herself. With his wavy dark hair and rugged features, he was still a heartthrob.

  George Stewart sighed. “Been a long time since the girls swooned over me like that, honey.”

  Lauren rested her head on her father’s shoulder. “You’ll always have that effect on me, Daddy.” She watched the love-stru
ck teens for another minute. “Too bad they don’t know Joey’s back with that cute little girl who lives next door to his parents in Brooklyn.”

  “Why ruin their fantasy?”

  Sitting up again, Lauren frowned. “Speaking of fantasies, where is Peter?”

  “Don’t worry,” Mitchell said. “He’ll be here.”

  “Is something going on here that I should know about?” asked Lauren suspiciously.

  Now it was Denise’s turn. “Of course not.”

  George turned to Hannah. “You said you had an updated report for Morrow. Anything you can tell us?”

  “Oh, sure. Well, where to start. . . . First, from fifth-column messages, it looks like Neville got his full measure of revenge. The Visitor’s entire science data banks were wiped clean, including every shred on that nasty little oil bacterium. There was also quite a bit of damage to their other computer memories.”

  “Do you think they’ll be able to reconstruct the oil bacteria?” said Lauren.

  Hannah gave a dubious tilt of the head. “More’n likely, but it’ll probably take months. And now that they’ve lost the element of surprise, they may not bother.” She chortled and her eyes crinkled in delight. “Yessiree, ol’ Neville certainly did a job on the lizards. I guess he wasn’t so bad after all.” Sari made a sour face. “For a slime-bucket.”

  Hannah threw her hands up. “Oh, the best news of all!

  We’re mighty close to coming up with a counteragent for that oil scum, so even if the Visitors do try again, we probably won’t have to worry.”

  Mitchell raised a pedantic finger. “And I am working out ways to guard against any more computer viruses.”

  “Speaking of viruses,” Lauren said archly, “where is Dr. Forsythe?”

  Out on the field the players, still arrayed along the baselines, were shifting uncomfortably, turned every which way, kicking at pebbles. The fans were getting restless, too, and a group in the upper deck began a rhythmic clap of disapproval.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the PA announcer. “Sorry for the delay. We have a very special guest player today, someone you haven’t seen in a Yankees uniform for a long time now.” Lauren’s mouth dropped open in dawning revelation. “I think I know where Pete is.” She stood up and leaned over the railing, trying to crane a peek past the roof and wall of the dugout. But the angle was impossible.