Clawing Back from Chaos: Book 9 in the Cat Among Dragons Series (A Cat Among Dragons)

by Alma Boykin

  They were about to move to the more specific details of the debriefing when both commanding officers’ phones rang. Khan excused himself and caught his, turning away from the others to answer. “Khan here, go ahead,” he started.

  Major De Alba replied in German, “Command One, be advised that two earthquakes have occurred within five kilometers of Exeter, plus a small swarm of them near London. The London ones weren’t strong enough to do damage, but people are upset, and the temblors seem to be getting stronger.”

  “Understood. Any word from Command Two?” Khan glanced over his shoulder and saw that Terry Sandborn’s news was apparently good, judging by his expression.

  “Affirmative. They located the place in question but are experiencing jamming and have lost contact with Manx One and Boer One.”

  Rahoul cringed inside a little at the news. Well, if anyone could keep Rachel out of terminal mischief, it would be Boer One, he sighed to himself. “Thank you. Let me know if any more geologic anomalies occur.” He rang off and turned back to the others.

  “Is there a problem, sir?” Sandborn inquired. He seemed re-energized by whatever news he had received and suddenly more confident.

  “Other than more earthquakes, including one close to Exeter that caused some damage, not really, Colonel.” Khan’s alarms began going off, although he had no idea why. Could it be that emotions from animals upset by the earthquakes were leaking in through his shields? He ran a quick check, but didn’t sense anything unusual—none of the pressure he associated with someone trying to push through. But the South Asian officer felt restless and uncomfortable for some reason.

  He returned to his seat and the 8th Foot’s transportation s officer began outlining his report. Khan couldn’t seem to focus the way he should have, and he noticed Terry Sandborn busily sending a text message. The rudeness and unprofessionalism of it irritated Khan, and he started to reprimand the colonel, but whatever he might have said was lost in a creaking, cracking, groaning rumble. Khan ducked under the table. The room swayed, shaking as an earthquake rocked the army base. Several people swore, and the white boards and display screens clattered and crashed to the floor. Khan had ridden through a few earth shakes in Afghanistan, and this was no different, except that there he hadn’t been worried about a first floor above him falling in on his head.

  Then it stopped. “Everyone OK?” a shaky voice asked. An array of responses—“Yes,” “affirmative,” “I think so,” “yes,” and “what the fuck was that?”—came from under and around the meeting room furniture as people got to their feet.

  “Out. Now,” the two senior officers chorused, both pointing toward the doorway. No one objected, and soon soldiers and a few civilian staff had gathered in the parking lot, well away from any buildings and trees.

  Khan and his aid stopped next to their vehicle as their driver inspected the car and the pavement around it for damage. The general quickly rang up Col. Selassie. “Command Two, Command One,” he began quietly in German.

  “This is Command Two, go ahead,” came the instant reply. Before he could start, Khan heard the sound of something breaking in the background and muffled swearing.

  “Situation report,” Khan demanded.

  In Exeter, Desta Selassie forgot about the cold wind and misting rain as she took stock of the damage caused by the earthquake. “All present or accounted for except Manx One and her escorts. The most recent temblor caused minor damage to everything not sitting on the volcanic rock in Exeter. Over.”

  Khan made a swift decision. “Command Two, the instability is spreading. We just had a quake up here. I’m en route to Exeter. Call in the rest of the detachment and plan on assisting the police with evacuations, or keeping order, if necessary.” He gestured to his aid, and Lt. Danton gave the message to their driver.

  “Command One is en route. I’ll assemble the rest of the detachment and coordinate with local officials,” Selassie repeated back crisply.

  “That is correct. Any word from Manx One?”

  “Negative.”

  Khan had not expected any and he wondered what trouble Rachel had found this time. He made a mental note to see if it would be possible to permanently assign Sgt. Lee as her escort-cum-bodyguard-cum-keeper without ruining Lee’s career, then signed off. “Col. Sandborn,” Khan called, catching the other officer’s attention during a lull in his assistant’s damage reports. “Given the situation I’m afraid I’m going to have to temporarily halt the debriefing until further notice.”

  Sandborn nodded his agreement. “Absolutely, sir. Whenever it’s convenient for you.” Everyone flinched as a flock of rooks launched from one of the trees, calling wildly. “Damn it, I hope that doesn’t mean another one,” he hissed under his breath. He watched his former classmate moving quickly toward his car and getting in. As the vehicle pulled out of the lot, the colonel turned to a security officer who had come up beside him. “Are you tracking him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. You, you, and you lot,” he pointed to some of the gathered soldiers, “come with me.” Sandborn half-trotted towards several parked vehicles. He’d rather have taken the helicopter and intercepted the arrogant ass, but it couldn’t carry enough weight and couldn’t land close enough to the entrance of the lab complex in Exeter. The low clouds posed another problem. “One scare is enough, thank you,” he reminded himself. He and Christine were too close to success for him to risk his life just to try and catch a fool.

  As the 58th Regiment’s commanding officer and his shadows hurried toward Exeter, two women stared at each other in a laboratory under the old city. “Who are you and how did you get past security?” Dr. Christine Meecham demanded of the interloper standing beside a very fragile piece of equipment.

  “I’m here to see why your generator is overloading the local power circuits and I have a pass from Col. Sandborn,” Rachel explained calmly, fingers crossed out of sight of the angry scientist.

  “Oh?” The woman hesitated, looking doubtful. Then she shrugged and relaxed a touch. “I was told that the problem was outside the facility.”

  Rachel shook her head and gestured vaguely toward the wall and the batches of electrical conduit running up from the large, boxy device. “There is an external component, ma’am, but there seems to be an internal load spike that’s exacerbating the situation.” Rachel took her data-link, which resembled a PDA, out of its case on her belt and tapped the face with the stylus. “Here, you can see the problem.” She passed the hand-sized box to the scientist.

  “What scale is . . . ah. Hmmm” Dr. Meecham frowned at the display. “That’s not supposed to happen. There’s a frequency filter and step-down transformer between the generator and the main power line.” She handed the box back to Rachel, then walked over to a grey steel tool chest and slid open a drawer, pulling out a very sophisticated multi-meter. The woman bustled over to part of the “generator” assembly and took a reading. “Oh blast. The filter dropped out of the circuit and pulled the transformer with it.” She shook her head, her short, grey-brown curls bouncing a little. As Rachel studied part of the machine, trying to sort out what she needed to look for and where, the human opened more drawers on the tool-chest and pulled out several insulated hand tools. She marched up and pushed them towards the Wanderer. “Here, be useful and open panels two, four and,” she looked down the side of the device, “nine, in case I need to reset the main circuitry.”

  Since that’s exactly what Rachel wanted to do, she meekly took the screwdrivers and other items. “Yes, ma’am.” The panels in question had small numbers stenciled on their corners, and Rachel quickly found her targets. She began with nine, the farthest away from where she thought she needed to look, and moved forward. Meanwhile, Dr. Meecham sorted through several insulated bins of expensive electrical parts until she found what she wanted. Rachel wondered where the budget for those had come from.

  While the human’s back was to her, Rachel peered into the “generator,” then rocked back on her
heels. She covered her surprise by pivoting and starting work on the last panel. Oh my. Blessed Bookkeeper, no wonder Logres is pissed. That’s a very interesting use for one of those. And how did it get here? Rachel could think of a few possibilities, none of which fit with what the 8th Regiment of Foot was supposed to be doing. She undid the third panel and blinked again. “Ah, ma’am, I’m afraid there’s another problem here.” She backed away.

  “What?” Meecham set down the filter on a static-proof mat and hurried over to the open panel. “Oh blast. That’s exactly why I told Terry we needed the highest grade of material! Well,” she straightened up. “His parsimony just set us back several hours at least. Come here.” She led Rachel over to a computer display. “Monitor for me. When this,” she pointed to the line indicating the strength of the generator’s energy output, “reaches nil, tell me. Then count up as it comes back on line.”

  “Tell you at nil, then count as it increases. Yes, ma’am,” the Wanderer repeated back.

  “And what happened to your face?” Meecham asked as she got the replacement filter and carefully set to work replacing the failed piece. “Car wreck?”

  “No, Dr. Meecham. I was assaulted,” Rachel noted the display. “Output at nil.” As she said it, she sensed tension building inside her, and outside as well, as power began building up. Meecham, oblivious to the change, continued carefully replacing the frequency modulator as the hair on Rachel’s neck started rising. The alien suddenly understood what was happening and why the power flows were shifting. Oh shit. And she has not the faintest bloody clue. I’ve got to warn Lee and the others to get out of here.

  But before Rachel could do more than start to turn, the room began to shake. Then it stopped abruptly as the power flow moved back into its correct “channel.” The whiplash of energy almost knocked Rachel off her feet, and it sent a spike through the “generator.”

  “Damn it! The secondary capacitors are supposed to buffer that. And now what’s this,” Meecham groaned, comparing the reading on her meter to a display on the putative generator. “Output level?”

  “Five and climbing, no, five point two and holding steady,” Rachel managed, hanging onto the heavy table in order to keep her feet under her as her head settled. Very carefully, she turned her head and saw a worried Sgt. Lee peering into the room. “Get out” she mouthed at him.

  He frowned, puzzled. She repeated it with a hand signal. His mouth opened, then closed, and the English NCO looked torn. “GO!” the alien repeated with her free hand. Lee nodded curtly and vanished. “What’s it saying now?” an irritated voice demanded.

  “Five point nil and steady,” Rachel read. She didn’t want to help Meecham, but neither did she want the woman calling in Army troops or blowing up Exeter. For that matter, Rachel was not completely sure what Meecham had done with the extraterrestrial pieces that Rachel had found within the installation. Better to keep playing along until she knew what wire to cut, she decided. “Still five point zero,” she announced.

  Out in the tunnel, Lee halted just beyond the pressure door. “Zon, go tell the colonel what we’ve found, then come back,” he ordered. As the Dutch corporal scrambled up the ladder to the courtyard, Lee took a deep breath and then another. The dark walls seemed to be closing in again and he wanted to flee the passage. Before the tunnel battle in Germany he’d never been bothered by small spaces. The NCO suppressed a shiver, reminding himself that nothing was going to happen. They were in solid rock that wasn’t going to just fall in of its own free will.

  “What the . . .” Cpl. Lee started, looking at the pressure door. “Don’t . . .” A dull thud resounded as the massive panel swung shut.

  Oh bugger, the sergeant groaned silently as he and the Singaporean corporal tried to get the thing open again. I did not need this. Not with Rachel on the other side!

  Boots on metal sounded from behind them, and Zon returned looking rushed. “The earthquakes are getting worse, Command One should be here soon, and we’re supposed to stay with the . . . oh.” He took in the closed door.

  “Open it again,” Lee ordered, stepping out of the way as the Dutchman began trying to find the latch he’d accidently found before.

  Rachel’d gotten in over her head, and there was no one to bail her out this time. I should have put a blaster bolt or three in the thing, stunned Meecham, and had Lee drag her to the surface, Rachel groaned, teeth clenched as she fought to keep Logres from taking over her mind. I don’t do electronics—that’s Ahkai’s turf. But Capt. Ahkai wouldn’t know what to do with the strange bits inside the so-called generator. Oh, I’m in trouble.

  The generator generated nothing—instead it converted the basal power that Logres used into electricity, wreaking havoc through its overspill and channel disruptions in the process. And it shouldn’t be possible for Dr. Meecham to accomplish—wouldn’t be, except for the three devices Rachel had seen within the larger circuitry. She wondered how she could cut the devices out of the energy path without triggering a backlash or getting electrocuted. If she put a shot into the device now, the cascading back-flow of energy would kill her and probably cause a lot more damage before Logres re-channeled it.

  Someone came trotting up the corridor outside the lab loud enough to wake the dead—or distract Christine Meecham. The scientist turned, forgetting her erstwhile assistant. “Terry what are you doing here? I thought you were out keeping the visiting team busy,” the woman exclaimed as Col. Sandborn slid into the room, not quite out of breath.

  Oh shit was all Rachel managed to think before Logres used her distraction to force its way past her defenses and take control of her mind and body. It held her still, observing the lab and the situation.

  “The bleed over is getting worse, Chrissy,” he explained, giving her a quick kiss before caressing her shoulder. “The entire Exe Valley power grid is having problems, and those earthquakes are getting more frequent. Have you found anything about them yet? I don’t care to have Westminster turn into a pile of rubble before we can finish your research.”

  The woman removed the officer’s hand from her shoulder but not before she squeezed it. “No idea, Terry, although I would not be surprised if the oil drilling doesn’t have a great deal to do with it. Earthquakes and oil wells tend to be found together, and you know how much sideways drilling there’s been in this area.”

  Sandborn frowned, then shrugged the matter off. “All the more reason to finish your research, then. How far away are we?”

  She picked up her tools and turned back to the generator. “We’d be an hour away except that the buffer circuits failed and took the transformer out when they collapsed, among other problems. Give me another three hours and I can restart the final initiation sequence.”

  The colonel watched her returning to work and made as if to leave. As he did, he caught a glimpse of a second figure in the room and hesitated. “Chrissy, who’s your assistant?”

  “The technician who was sent to work on the power grid overload,” Meecham said, not looking up from replacing a very delicate circuit board. “You passed her in, remember?”

  “No, I don’t,” he started, then stopped again as he heard noise outside the lab.

  Sgt. McIlroy set a new speed record getting from the Army base to Exeter. Then he had to stop because of the flow of outbound traffic. Brigadier Khan pulled rank and ordered the constable manning the traffic barricade to allow him into the city. Cracks in the roadbed finally forced the general to proceed on foot, and he all but ran. The rest of the regiment’s troopers stayed behind to help the police and to accelerate the evacuations along the route out of the Exe Valley. Col. Selassie had moved from the museum hill to a better, more open location, where she could set up their communications and command system without fear of having a wall fall on it. Khan approved of everything she’d done thus far. “Any word from Manx One?” he asked after she finished briefing him.

  The tall Ethiopian shook her head and pointed up the hill toward the old city. “Cpl. Zon popped u
p just as we were relocating and said that she’d found something, but that a scientist had caught them lurking and ordered them out. Lee did as she said in order to keep an alarm from being sounded, while Manx One apparently started working with the other woman—presumably under some pretense. The scientist told Lee that it would be two hours before things were ready for Col. Sandborn. That was, hmmm—two hours ago or a little longer,” Selassie concluded.

  Khan looked up the hill, over at the river, and tried to decide what to do. He should stay out and take overall command of the situation and send Col. Selassie or Lt. Gretchkaninov to help Rachel. But if Sandborn were there, he’d ignore Selassie and probably have Gretchkaninov arrested. Khan ground his teeth and felt a headache starting. “Right. Continue as you have. If I’m not back in half an hour, or if De Alba reports another shake near London or Edinburgh, send a heavy squad after me.”

  A very unhappy colonel repeated back his orders and watched him trot up the hill with a single guard. General officers never went into combat, not since the last world war, and she didn’t care for it one bit. Desta Selassie made a note to bring the matter up at the next staff briefing, then returned to the crisis at hand.

  Lt. Gretchkaninov saw the general coming and waved him into the museum’s open courtyard. “Manx One and Boer One are down there, sir.” She pointed with the butt of her rifle toward the draped enclosure in the center of the square, her eyes never leaving the street.

  “Thank you,” Khan replied, patting her shoulder as he passed. He slowed and peered into the hole, then slid down the ladder as quietly as possible. Khan’s heart almost stopped when he heard a rifle bolt snick, and he froze.