“Come on,” Emily said, a narrow but sharp anger at the seemingly unstoppable growth of the alien plants that had materialized from nowhere clutching at her chest. She kicked at one of the tiny shoots, splitting the bulb from the rest of the plant with a satisfying splat and gush of liquid that brought a smile to her face. She crushed the remaining shoot under the heel of her shoe.
As the two men looked on, Emily began to climb the embankment toward the summit, Thor scrambling up alongside her while MacAlister and Reilly looked wordlessly at each other, then began to climb too.
Emily used a branch protruding from the dirt wall to pull herself up the final few feet to the crest of the ridge, her breath relegated to short panting gasps of the hot, dusty air. She stopped mid-inhalation when she gazed down into the valley of the gouged-out ravine she now stood above. While the wave of dirt thrown up from the impact was all of thirty feet high on the side she had just climbed up, the drop down to the apex of the V-shaped ravine below was closer to one hundred or more. The brown clay strata lay bare and turned light pink by the unfaltering attention of the sun, a knife wound sliced deep into the flesh of the earth.
“Jesus!” said MacAlister as he pulled himself up next to Emily and looked over the devastated landscape. Up here the breeze, which had been barely noticeable on the ground, had turned into a gusty, hot wind that periodically pulled splattered dirt and dust over the three humans as they stood on the thin curve of ground looking down into the trench. Emily found herself spitting the crap from her tongue every time she opened her mouth to speak.
MacAlister’s navigation had successfully directed them to just north of the midpoint of the trench. It stretched out toward the northwest and the hills where the object had finally come to rest, and to the southeast where the trench eventually tapered away to nothing, disappearing into the welcoming red foliage of the jungle as though it had never existed.
On the other side of the pit from where they stood, the remains of the housing division teetered precariously, the bank of dirt thrown up high enough to bury a lot of the houses on the estate, but here and there, the fleshless skeletons of homes appeared from within the dirt wall like ancient Egyptian tombs.
“While I enjoy a bit of sightseeing as much as the next man, we better get going if we intend to make it back to the chopper before dark,” MacAlister said after a minute of staring at the devastation. The wind was kicking up foot-high tornados of dust that skittered across the surface of the cut, the only movement on this barren, lifeless ridge. There was barely enough room at the top of the berm for one person to walk safely, so they resumed their Indian-file line as they moved out northeast in the direction of the mountains and whatever it was that lay in the crater.
It was only a matter of minutes before Emily found herself wishing she was back in the jungle; the sun was pitiless. It had to be one hundred degrees and the exposed parts of her body were already beginning to tingle and flush pink. She undid the jacket she had tied around her waist and threw it on. It would give her some protection, at least. This was no place for an East Coast girl who spent the majority of her time under cloudy skies and in darkened rooms where the most UV exposure she would get would be from the glow of her computer laptop’s display.
“We’ll lose too much time picking our way along the base of this thing,” MacAlister said, as if reading her thoughts. He had pulled the scrim-net scarf he wore around his neck up to cover his mouth from the dust kicked up by the wind. “But we shouldn’t have to go too much farther to get a decent view of the target with these.” He tapped the binocular case hanging over one shoulder.
“God, I hope not,” said Reilly. “This sun is frying me from the outside in.”
“Quit moaning,” MacAlister shot back over his shoulder, his attention already focused on carefully picking his way along the debris-strewn peak.
Although a fall down either side of the berm would not spell certain death—the slope down to both the valley and the jungle was just too gradual for that—there was more than enough chance of hitting something that could break a bone or cave in a skull on the way down. It’s not the fall that kills you, Emily thought, remembering one of her father’s favorite aphorisms, it’s the sudden stop at the end. Or in this case, the snapped branches, huge boulders, and millions of other pieces of detritus that lay scattered over the slow curve of the trench on either side of them. They continued on in silence, the narrow shoulder at the top of the berm more or less free of the debris. The earth that had been pushed up here had dried to form an almost natural pathway.
The ghosts of the homes that had haunted their every step finally faded away, exorcised as they reached the edge of the development, obscured somewhere on the opposite side of the furrow in the surrounding red jungle.
The farther along they walked, the deeper the gulley to their right grew, a result, Emily assumed, of the object finally colliding with the earth and dissipating the energy it carried with it out into the surrounding ground. The deeper the ravine became the more nervous Emily became that a sudden gust of wind would knock them from their precarious path and send one, or all of them, tumbling down the litter-strewn sides.
She was so focused on placing one foot carefully in front of the other while keeping a tight hold of Thor’s leash that she only realized MacAlister had stopped when she walked head first into his back. MacAlister didn’t seem to notice. His broad shoulders obscured the way ahead but Reilly spotted what MacAlister had seen and he deftly sidestepped around Emily and then in front of MacAlister. He dropped to one knee and unslung his rifle from his shoulder in a single motion, training the barrel ahead of them.
Emily took a step sideways and looked past MacAlister’s right shoulder.
About a mile distant of their position, the opposite wall of the ravine sloped suddenly away, dropping down to ground level then curving sharply to the right before it rose skyward for two or maybe even three hundred feet.
It was the crater. They had found it.
From this angle, only a slice of the enormous depression was visible, but it was more than enough for them to know they were now just a stone’s throw from their target.
MacAlister pulled the binoculars from the case and glassed the distant sliver.
“What do you see?” Reilly asked. His voice had a nervous edge to it.
“Hard to tell. There’s an awful lot of shadow from the mountain and the lip of the crater.” MacAlister continued to scan the area, then replaced the binoculars into their case. “We’re not going to see anything from here. The angle is too tight,” he said, never taking his eyes off the distant crater.
“So we have to get closer?”
“No, not closer, that’s too risky,” said Emily to Reilly. She had already guessed MacAlister’s plan. “We need to cross over the culvert and get up to the mountain next to the crater. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to see down into the pit without getting any closer.”
MacAlister nodded. “If we continue this way, we’ll be close enough to kiss whatever is in there. No way can we take that chance. Emily’s right, the only way we’re going to be able to get a clear idea of what’s in there is if we get above it. Getting up the side of that mountain is our best option.”
Reilly did not look convinced. “Can’t we just go back and climb in the helo and get some pictures from the air?”
“Can’t risk it. You saw what happened to the UAV. This is the safest choice. You two can stay right here; I can do this on my own.”
“No,” said Emily. “We’re coming with you.”
“Jesus!” said Reilly with a huff, knowing he had no choice in the matter. “I thought I joined the navy, not the infantry.” He swung his pack over his shoulder and started to climb down the slope toward the valley floor.
MacAlister smiled and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Emily: You sure about this?
“Come on, let’s g
et this over with.” She peeked over the edge and picked what looked like the safest route down to the wide rugged bottom of the valley floor. Then she and Thor followed Reilly down the side of the wall, MacAlister close behind.
The scramble down to the valley floor wasn’t as difficult as Emily imagined it was going to be. The clay kicked out by the object’s entry was dense enough to support their weight, and it had formed a number of almost sedimentary levels, creating a natural set of steps that at least allowed for some confident footholds on the way down. The hard part was the exhausting climb back up the opposite side.
Emily winced when Thor yelped in pain as she tried to encourage him to climb up the sun-scorched side. Hours of exposure to the heat of the day had baked the ground to the point that it was just too hot to touch, and the pads of Thor’s paws were as tender as a human’s bare feet on the scorching clay.
“I’m not leaving him,” said Emily as she shaded the dog the best she could with her body.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” said MacAlister as he knelt down beside the panting dog. “But if we don’t get him out of this sun as quickly as possible he’s going to get heatstroke. Thor, come here, mate.”
The dog obediently trotted the couple of steps to MacAlister’s side, tail and head down, ribbons of drool dropping from the soft lips of his muzzle.
MacAlister stripped off his own backpack and laid it on the floor, quickly retrieving his water canteen, rifle, and binoculars and slinging them over his shoulder. “I’ll grab the pack on our way back,” he said, as he reached down and picked up the dog with both arms as if he weighed nothing.
Emily wasn’t quite sure who was more surprised, herself or Thor, as MacAlister began climbing up the wall toward the top of the embankment. MacAlister positioned the dog against his chest and slipped one arm securely under his furry butt while he used his free hand to pull himself up the slope of the trench. Thor, his head perched over the soldier’s right shoulder, regarded Emily wide-eyed and unblinking.
“Don’t look at me,” Emily mumbled to the dog, “you wanted to come along.” Then she grabbed a handful of roots jutting out from the valley wall and began to pull herself up after them.
Emily heaved herself over the lip of the embankment and rolled over onto her back, her heart pounding in her chest, utterly exhausted. Her hands felt raw and her shoulder muscles throbbed, stiff from the climb. Her legs were the only thing that didn’t ache, and she again thanked her years of biking for providing her with a good strong pair of pins. She fumbled her canteen and unscrewed the top, spilling some of the water over her face to wash the stinging sweat from her eyes. Sitting up she took two long pulls on the water that was now just a degree or two short of being reclassified as hot.
“You okay?” MacAlister’s voice sounded as though he had just taken a light stroll rather than pulled himself and a dog weighing close to one hundred pounds up a two-hundred-foot embankment. Thor padded over to her, sniffed her once in greeting, and proceeded to clean himself as if being carried around was the most natural thing in the world for him.
“I’m fine,” said Emily as she climbed to her feet and offered her hand to Reilly, whose head had just appeared above the edge of the chasm. He took it and allowed Emily to help pull him over the lip. He looks how I feel, she thought.
This side of the chasm had suffered a similar fate to the one they had just hiked over from: half-incinerated with shattered, spikey remnants of the alien flora stuck up from the ash-covered ground like Punji stakes, waiting to impale them. The red jungle started up again just a few hundred feet away. But beyond it, rising above the canopy as though it had been Photoshopped into place, Emily could see the mountain range they needed to reach, just a few miles away it looked like. Its west face was covered to the midpoint by alien plants, but from there on up, only sporadic clots of red ran along the mountain.
“Catch your breath,” said MacAlister as he swallowed water from his canteen, sloshing some over his face.
Minutes passed and Emily pulled herself to her feet as they set off again. They picked up the pace, moving at a fast walk as they headed out, and Emily welcomed the shade of the giant leaves of the canopy as they once again stepped into the jungle and pushed on toward the mountain.
The gradient of the ground beneath their feet began to increase the farther in they walked. Emily could tell when they hit the foothills of the mountain range because ahead of them; she could see the black-and-purple roots of trees rising above the ones they still had to climb over. They moved quickly now, with a definite sense of purpose.
“Let’s get to the top ridgeline of the jungle. We’ll stay under cover to avoid detection and then move closer about a half mile or so; that should give us enough elevation to get a clear view of the crater,” MacAlister ordered.
Emily could feel the muscles in her calves complaining as the gradient increased sharply. They climbed higher and higher. The canopy overhead began to thin out as the alien trees and plants grew less and less abundant. The ground lost its almost carpet-like softness of fallen leaves and lichen, replaced by rocks about the size of apples that threatened a twisted ankle or a sudden landslide with every step they took.
A quarter mile of walking later and MacAlister signaled for them to stop.
“This should do,” he said, hunkering down in the bowl of a nearby tree’s roots. He pulled the binoculars from the case again, and Emily took that as a sign to pull out the digital camera he had supplied her with when they’d landed. She fit the telephoto lens onto the camera body and turned it on, sighting through the viewfinder to check it worked.
“Reilly, you’re providing cover. Let’s keep as low to the ground as we can, follow my lead, and then we can all get the hell out of here. This place gives me the bloody creeps.”
That was the first time Emily had heard MacAlister give any kind of admission of nervousness. The light-hearted delivery did not match the frown lines crinkling his forehead.
“Okay. Ready?” asked MacAlister. Emily and Reilly both nodded. “Let’s go.” He headed directly up the slope of the hill at a jog, crouched low, past the final line of trees toward an outcropping of rock he had spotted about seventy yards farther up the side of the mountain. Emily followed his lead, avoiding the occasional rock that bounced past her, dislodged by MacAlister’s combat boots. She found herself denying the temptation to stop and look back, to just take a quick peek at what was in the damn hole.
All three made their way to the outcrop, using the enormous chunk of stone that jutted out from the mountainside to block any view of their presence from below. They leaned against the cold rock, panting for breath in its shadow.
The outcropping was a wedge-shaped protuberance of limestone and granite, the top rough but comparatively flat considering it was on the side of a mountain. It formed a perfect ledge to observe the crater from. MacAlister led them up the blind side before dropping down onto his belly as he began to slither across the ledge toward the lip that overlooked the crater, less than a mile away.
“Sit and stay,” Emily told Thor, making sure the dog understood he was to stay in the shadowed coolness of the high leeward edge of the outcrop. She followed MacAlister, sliding herself across the rough surface of the outcropping on her belly, holding the camera off the ground in front of her with one hand as she crawled forward. Pieces of gravel dug into her knees and chest, but she barely felt the discomfort, her eyes fixed on the ledge and MacAlister, who was propped up on his elbows, his binoculars already to his eyes. Emily slowly edged herself elbow-by-elbow next to MacAlister. When she finally slipped in beside him she had an unobstructed line of sight down into the crater.
“Holy…shit!” she whispered.
Even without the aid of the telephoto lens or Mac’s binoculars, Emily could see that what was hidden in the shadowed crater could not possibly be from this planet. As the ship—and there was now no doubt whatsoever in her
mind that this thing in the crater was a starship, a spaceship, whatever you wanted to call it—had slid along the ground creating the ravine they had just travelled along. It had also pushed a huge bank of debris and dirt ahead of it and off to the sides. Part of that wall had collapsed over the front of the ship or its momentum had buried it into the ground. Either way, only the rear portion of the craft was visible.
It was a dull metallic gray. A bulbous abdomen, pitted with circular concavities, jutted out from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle into the air. What looked like giant, articulated mechanical legs sprouted from a thick tubular body, the ends of each leg had punched deep into the ground, stabilizing the craft. Emily counted ten of the legs thrust into the surrounding walls of the crater.
If there was more of the ship than that, it was below ground, buried in the wall of the crater.
Emily raised the digital camera to her eye and instinctively started taking photographs of the machine. Although she wasn’t sure “machine” was the right classification for what she was looking at. It looked almost alive, like it was some kind of massive creature, yet, it was obviously manufactured. She pulled back the focus and got several wide-angle shots, then zoomed in to get more detailed photos.
“A fucking spaceship,” she heard MacAlister whisper in disbelief, his eyes locked onto the binoculars. “Who would have believed it?”
What looked like either smoke or steam rose in thin streams from outlets periodically dotted along the length of each leg, rising into the air before dissipating quickly. And there was an odd glow around the edge of the craft, a halo of sorts; it shimmered like a heat haze distorting the view as though it was an image cast on the surface of a lake. A dull, low throbbing reverberated through the ground like a heart beating deep in the bedrock. Even at this distance, Emily could feel the throb transmitted through the stone of the outcrop she lay against and into her chest cavity.
Revelations (Extinction Point, Book 3) Page 21