She barely heard Hawker as she realized what had happened.
‘The people are immobilized,’ she said, ‘only the shape shifters can move freely because they would presumably take forms of various types and not just humans, things that we wouldn’t recognize as a threat or even a…’
Arianna’s blood suddenly ran cold in her veins and she turned to the broad windows. Outside, wheeling on the buffeting winds, the lone gull drifted back and forth. Its beady black eyes watched her and suddenly she knew without a doubt that the enemy was relying on humanity’s reaction to the crisis to complete its objective. Divide and conquer.
‘We need to make a news statement immediately,’ Arianna said as she turned back to Hawker. ‘Having us hiding out in our buildings and fearing each other is precisely what the enemy wants us to do!’
Hawker struggled to keep up with her pace of thought.
‘But you said it yourself, the enemy could be anybody. It could be me.’
‘Then stay here and lock the door!’ Arianna snapped as she marched for the exit. ‘I’m going to tell the people what’s really happening.’
Arianna reached the chamber door but came up short as it failed to open for her. She frowned in confusion and Hawker’s voice reached out to her.
‘You handed all control to the military, remember Arianna?’
Slowly, she turned and looked at Hawker, who stood calmly with his hands behind his back.
‘Open it, commodore,’ she ordered him. ‘Millions of lives may depend on what you do now.’
‘Yes,’ Hawker said as he lifted his chin and steeled himself, ‘and to let you out of this building and perhaps see you occupied by one of those creatures out there would further their aims immensely. In fact, letting you out there to spread a message that might cause even greater chaos could also play into the hands of our enemy, and as I said, I can’t quite be sure of who you really are.’
Arianna struggled to understand why the commodore would suddenly turn against her.
‘You think that I’m an imposter? I haven’t left your sight or anybody else’s since this whole thing began!’
‘But you did before it began,’ Hawker pointed out, ‘as did we all. They have been here for a very long time, Arianna, and anybody could now be on the verge of causing the fall of mankind. I cannot, will not, let you leave this room.’
Arianna nodded and sighed.
‘I understand, Commodore,’ she said.
Hawker relaxed visibly. ‘Good, let’s sit down and discuss…’
Arianna pulled a plasma pistol from beneath her robes and took aim at Hawker. The commodore’s eyes flew wide and he hurled himself behind the large table as a plasma bolt blasted from the weapon.
***
XXXVI
‘Interceptors, ten o’clock low!’
Foxx pointed at the display screen in the center of the shuttle’s console as two angry red blips appeared on it, rocketing up on an intercept course from the surface below them.
‘They look like Corsair fighters,’ Vasquez said from the rear seat. ‘They’ll take us down in no time if we don’t reach NYC first.’
Betty glanced at the radar scope and then ahead of them to where the last of the heat glow from re entry was dissipating.
‘They’ll get there first but they don’t know that we’re headed for CSS HQ,’ she pointed out. ‘Maybe I can tease them out of there.’
‘How you gonna do that?’ Nathan asked, almost not wanting to know.
Betty grinned as she pushed the shuttle into a steep dive. ‘We’re gonna do some flyin’!’
Nathan felt his guts rise up into his throat as the shuttle plummeted out of the high atmosphere toward a vast weather system spinning off the North American coast. Nathan saw towering cumulonimbus clouds circling a central eye, and he knew instantly what he was looking at.
‘That’s a hurricane,’ he said.
‘It’s a major depression,’ Betty corrected him, ‘probably the remains of a hurricane cell that’s spun up here from Florida. Best thing we can do is get down in there and hope the interceptors don’t try to follow us.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Detective Allen said from the back seat. ‘Even you’re not crazy enough to try to pull a stunt like that!’
‘You sure about that?’ Betty asked as the shuttle plunged toward the turbulent clouds below. ‘Hold on!’
The shuttle soared downward and the blanket of thick clouds rose up before Nathan through the windshield until they plunged into their embrace and the horizon vanished. The shuttle’s wings rocked violently as turbulence slammed into the fuselage and Betty fought for control as they plunged down.
Nathan caught glimpses of towering white pillars of cloud against the blue above them and then there was nothing but the pure white and gray cloud surrounding them in a featureless haze. He looked out to his right and saw the shuttle’s wings rippling and flexing on the wind currents, then looked left into the cockpit and saw Betty focusing intently on her instruments as she flew the shuttle manually through the storm.
‘You’re not going to use the autopilot?’ Vasquez asked, his voice higher in pitch than usual and his knuckles white on the rests of his seat.
‘Autopilot is for wimps,’ Betty replied without looking back at him, ‘and the avionics can be used to lock the fighters onto our position. We need to get right into the storm so that the electrical interference hides our location.’
The clouds outside grew darker suddenly and without warning.
‘Man, it just got real dark out there,’ Nathan gasped.
‘We’re in the shadow of a cumulonimbus cloud,’ Betty replied. ‘That’s where the real action is and they form chains in systems like this, so there should be some more up ahead somewhere.’
The darkness deepened and the shuttle rocked more violently but Betty did not alter her course. Nathan saw the altimeter wind down through ten thousand feet and almost before he realized it the shuttle plunged headlong into an intense thunderstorm.
The darkness outside the windshield was split by a thunderous barrage of hailstones that pelted the screen with ice and scared Nathan half out of his wits. He reared up in his seat, one hand grasping his harness and the other pressed against the console before him as the hailstones hammered the fuselage around them like thousands of boots sprinting across a tin roof. The shuttle veered this way and that, tugged by powerful updrafts as it plowed through the center of the violent storm.
‘You see!’ Betty shouted jubilantly above the thunderous hail. ‘We’re losin’ ‘em!’
‘We’re gonna lose our lives too if we stay in here much longer!’ Vasquez called back.
Betty didn’t reply, cackling in delight as a flash of lightning illuminated her face like a grotesque demon. Nathan flinched as lightning bolts flashed all around them, reaching out for the shuttle as it plunged through the hailstorm and then the hammering of the ice changed to the hiss of rain as the shuttle descended further.
‘Okay, here we go,’ Betty chortled and banked over, relying entirely on her instruments for navigation in the thick cloud.
The shuttle began to turn, but with the turbulence and the darkness Nathan couldn’t tell if he was right side up or upside down. The craft was jostled and rocked as it plunged through the thick cloud banks surrounding them.
‘Once we punch out of the cloud to land those fighters will be back on us in no time!’ Betty said to Foxx above the noise of the rain hammering the fuselage. ‘They share a datalink with the more powerful radars at CSS and they’ll pick us up real quick, so you’ll all have to get off and run when I touch down.’
Foxx nodded.
‘You too Betty,’ she replied, ‘there’s nothing up there for you now anyway. This is the end of the line, and for all of us if we’re too late.’
Nathan reached down and with one hand checked his plasma pistol, tucked as ever into its holster under his left arm. He had no idea what was awaiting them but if Hawker was an alien imposter the
n the entire defensive network of the planet could be under threat and the invasion might begin at any moment.
‘Sixty seconds,’ Betty said as she watched the instrument console before her, the glow from the countless dials and screens a soft green in the otherwise dark cockpit.
Nathan saw veils of rain pelting the shuttle’s windscreen as it descended, but some of the darkness began to subside and he looked down to his left to see slate gray ocean waves churning with white crests through veils of cloud racing past beneath them.
The shuttle descended down below the cloud base and Nathan saw New York City crouched on the horizon, its soaring towers lost in the low cloud and misty rain, its parks rain sodden and dark. Street lights glowed and he could see the immense domed superstructure of the CSS Headquarters looming before them.
‘Thirty seconds,’ Betty said. ‘The defenses could open up at any moment so brace yourselves!’
The shuttle bucked and rolled in the heavy turbulence and Nathan heard the engines whining in protest as Betty rocked the throttles back and forth to keep the craft airborne as it closed in on the CSS landing pads. Even from this distance he could see the gun emplacements that were discreetly positioned beneath the landing pads, able to shoot at approaching enemy craft while using the pads as natural shielding against attack.
They waited, but suddenly he realized that there was no plasma fire coming forth from the platforms.
‘They’re not shooting,’ Vasquez said in confusion. ‘We’re within range.’
‘Maybe they believed what we told them?’ Allen suggested.
Lieutenant Foxx shook her head as she looked at the shuttle’s sensors.
‘They’re not doing anything,’ she said. ‘Betty, switch the communications back on.’
Betty obeyed as they closed in on the CSS building and instantly the cockpit was filled with the bland static of an empty broadcast. Nathan looked around at Foxx.
‘Why wouldn’t they be broadcasting?’
Foxx drew her pistol and made ready to disembark. ‘Because the safety systems have been shut down,’ she replied. ‘Everything’s been shut down. It’s started. The enemy are opening us up for the invasion.’
Betty swung the shuttle up into a climb that brought it level with the nearest platform as she extended the shuttle’s landing gear.
‘We’ll touch down here and then…’
Her voice was cut off by a blast of plasma fire and the shuttle rocked as plasma bolts smashed into it and crashed into the landing platform before them. Nathan saw explosions billow against the building and wash across the shuttle in waves of flame as Betty hurled the throttles open and veered hard to starboard away from the attack.
Alarms blared in the cockpit and pierced Nathan’s ears as two CDF fighters rocketed past overhead their position. He looked across at Betty and saw her face creased with the effort of controlling the shuttle.
‘We’re hit!’ she shouted as the shuttle lurched awkwardly to one side. ‘I’m going for a lower platform, be ready to get out before those fighters come back!’
The shuttle’s engines clattered and smoked as the shuttle careered around in a wide circle, leaving a trail of smoke that swept past the windscreen as Betty kicked in a boot full of left rudder and aimed for a landing pad right in front of them. The shuttle strained and the remaining engine screeched as it tore itself apart and the shuttle crashed down heavily onto its landing gear which promptly collapsed beneath it.
The shuttle ground to a halt on the landing pad to the sound of screeching metal as Betty hit the emergency exit switches and the side panels opened automatically.
‘Thank you for flying Air Luther, have a nice day,’ she groaned as she nursed where the side of her head had hit the console in front of her.
Foxx, Vasquez and Allen vaulted from the shuttle as Nathan unbuckled from his seat and jumped out after them, his pistol in one hand as he turned and reached out for Betty.
‘Come on!’
Nathan grabbed Betty’s hand and hauled her out of the cockpit and out into the rain as he heard the fighters swooping in from the clouds above them. He ran hard, forcing Betty to keep up as he heard a crackling sound and saw two plasma bolts rocket down from the fighters and hit the shuttle square on.
Nathan threw himself down onto the wet landing pad and Betty thumped down alongside him as the shuttle exploded. A wave of heat washed over Nathan and a cloud of scorched metal fragments pelted the walls nearby as the shuttle was blasted to pieces and a hail of debris clattered down around them.
Nathan looked over his shoulder and saw the shuttle’s ruined fuselage engulfed in flames as he staggered to his feet and helped Betty up. Together, they hurried across to the exit where Foxx and Vasquez were struggling to open the door with Allen.
‘Everything’s shut down,’ Allen explained as they joined him in the shelter of the doorway. ‘Nobody’s come out to meet us and we can’t call in as there’s no communications working.’
Nathan knew that something major had happened already.
‘They could have sent armed troops to arrest us,’ he said, ‘but they didn’t, which means Hawker doesn’t have total control over everybody inside.’
‘There can’t be many of them,’ Vasquez agreed, ‘just enough to shut the building down. Only Hawker could do that, and maybe Arianna Coburn herself.’
‘Let’s focus on what we can do,’ Nathan said. ‘How long until you can get through that door?’
‘It’s gonna take a few minutes,’ Vasquez replied. ‘I haven’t had to hot wire a modern door for a long time and CSS sure build ‘em tough.’
Nathan frowned. ‘Have you thought of knocking?’
‘Say what now?’
Nathan stepped past him and reached up, and with one hand he knocked loudly on the heavy metal door. The sound was loud enough to hear above the rain clattering down on the landing pad behind them, and for a few moments there was nothing but that to hear.
‘There’s nobody in there.’
Nathan smiled. ‘A shuttle just blew up on this landing pad,’ he replied. ‘Somebody’s gonna be watching.’
A few more moments passed and Nathan knocked again, more loudly this time. Almost immediately a voice replied from a speaker above the door.
‘What do you want?’
‘To come in,’ Nathan replied. ‘We’re under attack out here.’
‘The building’s on lockdown, nobody is allowed in or out.’
‘Case you hadn’t noticed there’s an invasion going on,’ Foxx called out. ‘We know that there are infiltrators inside the building and we know how to identify them!’
‘Sure you do, and if we just let you in you’ll start sucking our insides out! Get lost or we’ll blow the landing pad!’
Nathan stepped closer to the speaker.
‘This is precisely what they want,’ he insisted. ‘They want to divide and conquer, to keep us from trusting each other. Right now every defensive system on earth is being shut down and it’s being done from inside the building! If we don’t get inside there and put a stop to it there’s going to be nothing to save us from the invasion!’
There was a momentary pause.
‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?!’
‘It’s water,’ Nathan called back. ‘The shape shifters don’t hold much water because they’re more machine than biological, they don’t have much fluid inside their bodies. It’s the only way we have to tell them apart!’
There was another long pause.
‘Who do you think the infiltrators are?’
‘Commodore Hawker may be one of them,’ Foxx replied. ‘Where is he right now?’
‘He’s in lock down with the senate chamber.’
‘Damn it,’ Nathan said, ‘we need to get in there right now. You can escort us under armed guard if you want but at least let us check that Director General Coburn is not under any threat!’
There was another pause that felt as though it lasted for ages, and then
suddenly the hard light door shimmered out of existence and Nathan found himself staring down the barrels of six plasma rifles.
***
XXXVII
Nathan threw his hands in the air as six heavily armed CSS guards confronted him, their heads ducked down behind rifle shields and the weapons humming with restrained energy.
The guards silently waved them inside the building as one of them spoke in a gruff voice.
‘Turn around, hands on your head and walk backward into the building. Any of you make a move for a weapon, we’ll fry you all right here and now!’
Nathan obeyed, but he saw something flitting through the clouds outside and he knew they were out of time.
‘Those fighters are manned by infiltrators,’ he said, ‘they just blew up our shuttle and now they’re coming back.’
Nathan walked quickly backward inside the building, Foxx and Betty hurrying with Allen and Vasquez until they were all inside. One of the CSS guards jogged forward and peered outside to see a pair of Corsair fighters rocketing in toward the platform. The fighter’s plasma cannons lit up and instantly the soldier sealed the door shut and backed away.
Nathan flinched as he heard the plasma rounds smash into the exterior of the building, dull booms echoing down the corridor in which they stood, but the hardened shell of the building was more than a match for a fighter’s weapons.
‘They intercepted us when we left New Washington,’ Foxx said by way of an explanation. ‘We barely got down here with our lives.’
The rifles didn’t waver from pointing at them as the squad leader replied.
‘Doesn’t mean they’re the infiltrators.’
‘We need to reinstate the holosaps,’ Vasquez said. ‘They’re the key to identifying all of the infiltrators.’
‘The holosaps were shut down by Commodore Hawker to secure our communications channels.’
‘That’s the point,’ Foxx said. ‘They’re the only sentient beings immune to the invasion. The infiltrators couldn’t allow them to be active because they would be able to continue work on identifying who was who. One of them was on the verge of cracking the case when they were shut down.’
Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3) Page 28