“Not to mention the doses of radiation they’re exposed to,” Dag said enthusiastically. “In fact, shielding a craft against cosmic radiation is one of the biggest obstacles to manned interplanetary space travel.”
“Which leaves HOK3,” Jack said, the words pouring out slowly like a fine wine.
Yuri eyed him strangely. “Hock what?”
“It’s the final gene to populate Salzburg,” Jack told them. “Mia’s been running experiments on the twins to try to understand how it works. Seen in this context, what other purpose could telepathy serve other than communication over great distances?”
“Holy crap, you’re right,” Gabby bellowed with excitement. “Radio signals are limited by the speed of light, so sending even the simplest message to a planetary outpost ten light years away would require a twenty-year round trip.”
Dag laughed picking up an imaginary telephone and dialing. “Hello? Twenty years. Who is this? Twenty years. Earth. Twenty years. I think you have the wrong number. Reminds me of conversations I used to have with my great-grandfather.”
“Imagine a colony hundreds of light years away or farther,” Gabby said. “The only practical way to stay in contact would be with instantaneous communication.”
“But Grant, you have Salzburg,” Gabby said.
“Yes, but clearly not with all the associated genes or I’d have this thing humming like a juke box.”
“The twins!” Jack exclaimed. “They’re the only ones among us who possess the full chromosome. And the only ones capable of using the pedestal to contact the ship.”
Just then another voice came over the channel. “Jack, it’s Admiral Stark. Are you there? Over.”
“Listen, Admiral,” Jack replied. “I need you to do something for me.”
“There’s no time, Jack. I’ve come through the portal and wasted precious minutes scouring the available channels to warn you. Alan will be at your location any minute now and he’s got an armed group with him. I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do. I think your best bet is to steer clear of him.”
“What’s that crazy bastard up to now?” Jack shot back. “Doesn’t he realize he’s gonna get us all killed? I need you to send Mia a message from me. Tell her to bring the twins as soon as possible.”
“Alan’s got the twins locked up on Northern Star.”
Jack pulled up the countdown clock and saw the ship was set to impact the Earth in less than ten minutes. There just wasn’t enough time. Even the ever-present gambler within him recognized the odds were long, but that it was still worth a shot. “Listen, Stark, take the SEAL team and free those girls. We need them here in nine minutes or all of this will have been for nothing. And bring Mia with you.”
“I will, Jack. But about Mia…” Stark paused and Jack’s heart began to sink.
“Please tell me she’s okay.”
“She’s with Alan, but he’s threatening to kill her if he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Chapter 53
0 hours, 9 minutes, 13 seconds
“Perhaps we should do as he says and leave,” Yuri suggested, turning to leave.
“Everyone just stay put,” Jack ordered. He switched channels. “Stokes, wherever you are I need you back at the map room immediately.”
“Is it an emergency? Because we’re at least five hundred meters from your position. We pushed past the main structure and there ain’t nothing but more jungle back here. I think we’re done for, Jack.”
“Just get here as soon as you can.”
“Roger that,” Stokes said, calling out to his men as Jack left the channel.
Jack caught a low rumble and checked his weapon.
“Do you really think that will be necessary?” Gabby asked, eyeing the rifle.
“Yes, and I suggest each of you make sure you’re locked and loaded as well. Stark’s gonna free the girls and head here as soon as he can.”
Dag checked the timer as the minutes ticked down. “You and I both know there isn’t a chance in hell they’ll make it.”
“That may be,” Grant said, annoyed by Dag’s pessimism. “But what else would you have us do?”
“Well, for starters, you can drop your weapons,” Alan said, entering the map room flanked by ten armed men. The two nearest him were holding prisoners. One of them was Mia. And even from here he could see her frightened face staring back at him through the visor of her biosuit. Next to her was a male figure he didn’t recognize.
Jack and the others leveled their weapons anyway. It was a standoff.
“Make sure none of those things followed us inside,” Alan told two of his men, still consumed by whatever they’d encountered along the way.
“I see you’ve met the wildlife,” Jack said, tightening the grip on his weapon.
“Would you believe twenty of us stepped through that portal? Five were taken by something in the water and the rest were killed outside by a giant.”
“Behemoth,” Jack said. “That’s what we call him.”
“Oh, how cute,” Alan replied, discreetly removing his pistol and holding the weapon behind his back.
“What I don’t get is how you even knew where to find us?” Jack said, trying to buy time for the others to arrive.
“General Dunham warned you about a spy in your midst,” Alan said. “It appears you didn’t listen.”
Jack looked around at those standing nearby. His narrowed gaze settled over Yuri, who looked away at once. Jack swung the barrel of his rifle toward the Russian. “I guess Ivan was just a convenient excuse to imbed yourself in our team.”
Yuri shook his head. “What? No, it wasn’t me, I swear.”
“Who can you trust these days, eh, Jack?” Alan asked, smirking with delight. “Listen, fire up the ship and get that blast wave going. That way no one will get hurt.”
That rumbling sound again, only this time it was louder. Suddenly Jack realized Alan had led the behemoth right to the map room’s front door, effectively blocking Stokes or Stark from getting anywhere close.
Alan’s mysterious prisoner was watching his jailor with keen interest.
“What you’re asking us to do is impossible, Alan,” Jack tried telling him. “The only people who can interface with the ship are the girls.”
Gabby cleared her throat. “Uh, well, strictly speaking, that isn’t entirely true.”
Jack gave her a look that told her to keep quiet.
“The man next to you isn’t a man at all,” Gabby told him.
Alan took a closer look at the prisoner in the biosuit and pointed.
Gabby nodded. “He calls himself Caretaker and he’s some kind of cyborg we discovered in another part of the ship.”
“Is this true?” Alan asked the man, clearly uncertain.
Caretaker nodded stoically. “This is indeed my ship.”
Alan turned to Gabby. “Fear not, Dr. Bishop, your mother will be well cared for in the underground facility.”
Jack turned to Gabby, who struggled to hold his fiery gaze.
“I’m sorry, Jack. The doctors’ bills were piling up and when we got news of the doomsday ship, I had to make sure she was somewhere safe.”
He opened his mouth to say something and couldn’t find the words. “Y-you were spying all along?” he stammered.
She nodded, her head bent forward in shame.
“So it was you who ransacked my cabin on the rig, looking for information.”
She clasped her hands together in forgiveness. “I did whatever he asked me to do. She’s my mother, Jack. I couldn’t let her die, not like that.”
Jack felt the rifle go slack in his hands. It wasn’t rage he was feeling, but an utter and bewildering sense of shock and betrayal. She had been with him from the very beginning, colleagues for years, friends for even longer.
“Jack, I―”
“Stop,” he shouted. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth, not now, not ever again.” He turned back to Alan, who was pointing his pistol at Mia�
��s head.
“It hurts, doesn’t it, Jack?”
“Take it easy, Alan,” Jack pleaded.
“Then tell your friend to do as I say or I’ll blow her brains right out this helmet.”
Grant, Dag and Yuri were all frozen in fear. They were outnumbered and outgunned with no hope of escape or rescue.
“Caretaker, will you do as he says?” Jack asked him.
“I am forbidden from interfering with the process,” Caretaker replied.
“Process?” Alan repeated. “What is he talking about?”
“Humanity is being tested,” Jack told him. “If we can learn how to prevent our own demise then we live. If we don’t, we all die.”
“He’s refusing,” Alan said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Jack nodded.
Alan pressed the gun against Mia’s helmet just as Jack drew his weapon up to his eye. The others all did the same. “You know, the only good alien is a dead alien,” Alan said and swung the pistol out, unloading six rounds into Caretaker’s visor. The being crumpled to the ground. Anna cried out and rushed to his side.
“Anna, stay back!” Jack ordered, his sights still trained on Alan. He could fire now and probably kill the man and in the process doom all of them to certain death.
Anna cradled Caretaker’s limp form, rocking him back and forth.
“You said the girls were on their way,” Alan told Jack nonchalantly. “We’ll simply wait for them.”
The countdown lock had less than three minutes to go. “It won’t matter,” Jack told him. “By the time they arrive, the ship will already have impacted the planet.”
“Yes, I know, it’s a terrible shame,” Alan said. “But I’ve come to believe the world will be better off this way. In the long run. You might be surprised to hear me say this, but…”
Jack suddenly became aware that the rumbling had stopped. He glanced to his right and spotted a long silver worm undulating through the archway and into the map room. The crest of it came to a stop behind Alan and his men and began collecting in a large pool. Alan was still expounding on his twisted vision of the future when the silver goo began coalescing, rising up, a monstrous form taking shape before their eyes. First with two stout legs, followed by a powerful torso and a rounded head, covered in rows of tiny piercing eyes. Last to emerge was the single arm protruding from the behemoth’s hulking chest and the clawed hand perched at the end of it.
Alan and his men began to turn around right as that arm swung down. Alan let out a terrified shriek as the behemoth’s clawed fingers plucked him off the ground and carried him through the air and toward its awaiting jaws. He screamed, his arms and legs pinwheeling, until the creature’s serrated teeth severed him in two. For a stunned moment, Alan’s men stood watching in muted horror. Then the hand came down again, scattering them across the room. Some were flung against the walls, where their bones were shattered beyond repair. Others attempted to flee and were stomped flat beneath the behemoth’s enormous feet. It only took moments for the threat to be neutralized and it was then that the behemoth turned toward Jack and the others.
“Oh, shit!” Jack shouted.
Anna was still slumped over Caretaker’s body. She and Mia had been in the midst of the creature’s rampage of death and yet neither of them had suffered a scratch. The creature took a single step toward Jack when Anna raised one of her thin, robotic arms, freezing it in place.
The countdown was at sixty seconds.
Jack ran to Mia and caught her as she stumbled on wobbly legs. “Anna,” Jack called out, at a loss for words. “I didn’t know you could… I mean, how?”
“A gift from Caretaker,” she replied, in a low somber voice.
“Maybe she should give it a shot,” Grant said, pointing to the pedestal.
Anna shook her head. “My previous attempt was not successful, Dr. Holland. Do you not recall?”
Suddenly, the synthetic flesh on Caretaker’s face rippled as the bullet holes that had punctured his skull began to fill in. Even his helmet was reassembling itself.
Shocked, Anna stood, watching him rise before her.
Jack rose too. “You’re alive?”
“An important data processing center was ruptured, but I managed to repair the damage.” He turned to Anna. “Are you done selling yourself short?” he asked.
“But Caretaker,” she protested. “I do not possess the Salzburg chromosome.”
“No,” he replied. “But I have given you something much greater.” His gaze moved over her shoulder to the pedestal beyond. She turned and walked over, placing her hands on the sphere. The chamber was suddenly engulfed in a brilliant display of blue lights. The star map was up and holding firm. In the center of the hologram was Earth and inches above it a diamond-shaped craft.
Anna closed her digital eyes and sent the message.
Chapter 54
Jack and the others emerged from the portal to find Admiral Stark and his team preparing to enter. They passed through decontamination and came out the other side.
“You won’t believe what just came through from the comms room on Northern Star,” Stark said. The twins were standing next to him, each wearing biosuits several sizes too big. Mia ran over and hugged them.
Jack found Anna and winked. “The doomsday ship didn’t hit us.”
“Not only that,” Stark said, “they say it’s now hovering directly above us.” The admiral looked over at a man he didn’t recognize.
“Oh, that’s, uh, Bob,” Jack said, introducing him to Caretaker.
They started to leave, beginning the long journey through the frozen ruins of the Mesonyx city and back up to Northern Star, each of them anxious to see the ship. Anna stopped when she saw Caretaker wasn’t following.
“Will you not stay a while?” she asked.
He shook his head. His features were perfect now, even down to the mop of dark hair that fell down over his forehead. “I will be leaving soon.”
“Leaving? Where will you go?”
“Back home,” he said wistfully. “The journey is far and will take many of your years, but I must know whether I am the last of my people.”
Anna took his hand. “And if you are? Will you return?”
“Do not worry. You are different now, Anna. You need only think of me and I will be there.” He gently touched the pads of his fingers to her temple.
She wrapped her arms around him in a hug. “This is how we say goodbye on Earth.”
Caretaker remained still, his hands by his sides, until Anna reached down and coaxed them around her waist.
Afterward, he handed her a clump of nanocells. “Use it wisely,” he said, before raising a hand in farewell and stepping through the portal. A second later, it shrank down to the size of a pinhead and was gone.
Chapter 55
Jack and Mia stood at the top of a snowdrift. Behind them was Northern Star and the setting sun, casting shadows along the snowscape. Silently hovering a thousand feet off the ground was the doomsday ship, or at least what might have been. They had been observing the craft with wonder for what felt like hours, standing in the frigid Greenland air, protected by their biosuits.
“Can you imagine their disappointment?” Mia said. “Flying all this way for nothing.”
Jack gave a hollow-sounding laugh as he noticed a plane flying in low and touching down next to the habitat. “There’s one pilot who’s probably wondering if he’s seeing things.”
“I noticed you didn’t retaliate against Gabby for turning on you.”
He drew in a cold breath, the freezing air hitting his lungs like a thunderbolt. “I hated what she did, but I suppose I understand why she did it.”
“Do you think you’ll ever speak to her again?”
“That’s hard to say,” he replied, staring up at the bottom of the craft and the shimmering waves of energy it was giving off. “Perhaps, given enough time. And you? I suppose you’ll be off to see your daughter the first chance you get.”
“It’s a deal,” he said and meant it.
A nearby voice called out. “It sure don’t get weirder than that, does it?”
The Aussie accent caught them both off guard.
Mia swung around to see Ollie, wrapped in a parka, sauntering up the mound of packed snow. She flew into his arms, nearly knocking him over, kissing every inch of his face.
“All right, there’ll be plenty of time for that later.” He looked over at Jack and stuck out his hand. “Jack.”
Jack returned the gesture. “Glad to see you’re in one piece.”
“I was one of the lucky ones, mate. We lost some really terrific people.” He motioned to the ship. “And I reckon we might have lost a lot more if that bugger hadn’t been stopped.”
“We were seconds away,” Mia told him.
“You like living on the edge, don’t ya, Jack?”
Jack grinned. “I’ve been known to cut it close.”
Blue lights danced along the body of the craft, winking on and off at an ever-increasing speed.
“Looks like they’re trying to tell us something,” Mia said, cupping her eyes.
Ollie gave a wry grin. “I have an idea what they’re saying.”
Jack mirrored the Aussie’s expression. “So do I. ‘See you again in fifty million years.’”
And just like that, the craft lifted into the air and shot into space.
Chapter 56
Three months later
After a three-hundred-mile journey north of San Francisco, Jack finally arrived at the Allen Telescope Array, the home of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. A small collection of single-story buildings made up the new research wing and the destination he had travelled so far to find. He reached the first building, climbed a small set of stairs and let himself in.
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