“I saw your interest in the meteorite. Use this and the O transfer tube from your backpack. That will give you the reaction I think you’re looking for.”
Mendenhall reached out and took the water pack. Then he looked at Sarah, who couldn’t wipe away the tear that was rolling down her cheek.
“Take care of that Navy guy. He’s a real dick when it comes to blaming someone when the right result isn’t achieved.”
“I will,” she said, taking his gloved hand into her own smaller ones.
“Tell the colonel that I said this was his final test. Ask him if I passed. If not, tell him I think he needs to relax a little on the grades.”
Sarah just nodded as she stepped from the vehicle. She reached in and took the small meteorite, tossing it to Mendenhall.
“See ya, Will,” she said with a choked voice.
“Not if I see you first.”
Sarah stepped back as Will Mendenhall shot out from behind the crater. He sped to the right when he saw how close the robot was.
Sarah watched for a split second and then started bounding for Altair fifty yards away.
Will came close to panicking when he saw that the robot didn’t change course. It went after the men on foot instead of turning and following the vehicle. He turned the rover sharply to the left, bringing it up on two wheels and nearly tipping it over. The vehicle shot forward as soon as the tires gripped the dust. He steered straight for the robot, which had targeted as its first victim the bouncing Sarah as she made her way toward the rest of the men. It took a few seconds for the alien rover to cover the distance. Will braced himself as the front end of the vehicle slammed into the giant’s foot. The robot stumbled, fell to one side, and rolled. Mendenhall bounced over one of its legs and felt a serious blow to the chassis of the solar-powered car. He could feel a harsh grinding through the seat as he pushed the rover to the right. He chanced a look back and saw the robot rise its feet with a look at Altair and the men climbing its ladder. It was as if the robot were memorizing its location. Then it turned and sprinted toward the slowly retreating Will and the damaged lunar rover.
“Well, this was a good idea,” Will muttered, as he reached behind himself and pulled free the line for transferring emergency O from one tank to another. Then he gripped the meteorite and the water bag. He started to knead the plastic-lined nylon. The water inside felt a bit slushy from the zero-degree temperature. He placed the meteorite on the passenger’s seat and tore open the water bag, and then tugged on the stitch-covered air hose. Just as he poured the water onto the rock, the robot slammed its large fist down and into the back of the rover.
***
Sarah was the last through the air lock. She closed and secured the hatch and was rewarded with a green light and the sight of the others getting into their seats. Ryan disappeared up the ladder to the command deck. Sarah passed the other men as they silently strapped themselves in. She then climbed the ladder and poked her head into the command deck. Ryan was prepping Altair for the launch sequence that would send them back into space.
“Jason?”
“Stay with the others, Lieutenant. I don’t need you here.”
Sarah closed her eyes at Ryan’s hurtful words. She moved slowly down the ladder and to her chair. Without being aware of what she was doing, she reached out and strapped herself in. All the while she couldn’t hold her grief as she looked from face to face of the men that Will Mendenhall had saved.
***
Will felt the rover flip upward. He didn’t realize at first what had happened. He knew he was airborne for the briefest of moments before the rover came crashing back to the lunar surface. He was upside down and felt like his back had been busted in two. Then he started to feel his legs and arms and knew that he wasn’t dead yet. He did, however, see the killer machine standing over the smashed rover, as if examining its downed prey.
“Yeah, keep looking, asshole,” Will said as he found the oxygen line and pulled on it just as the robot spotted him in the upside-down wreckage. It had just started to reach for him when Mendenhall applied the O to the wet meteorite. He dropped the rock and tried to scramble out into the open. As he fell to the rover’s ceiling, he momentarily wedged himself in tight between the two front seats.
“Shit,” he cursed. He felt the shaking of the vehicle as the giant reached for him. As the three fingers closed around his right leg, the robot’s attention was snatched away by a bright, momentary flash that filled the airless void. Will closed his eyes as he realized that his plan had worked. His friends were free from this nightmare world. As the robot watched, the two upper decks of Altair separated from the first and shot upward like a bullet in a soundless chamber. Will saw a brief image of metal skin as Ryan blasted Altair free of the Moon’s hold on it.
As he watched Altair rise into the black sky, he realized his leg wasn’t being held by the robot. He chanced a quick look to his right and saw that the meteorite was starting to glow a silverish color. He thought about lying there and going up with the chain reaction, but decided that he would rather find some other horrible way to die. Mendenhall began to crawl as fast as he could. He made it clear of the wreckage and turned over onto his back just as the giant metal beast lifted the rover from the lunar surface. Mendenhall could see the chain reaction beginning as the mineral continued to grow hotter.
“Jesus,” he said, and turned over onto his stomach and found himself on the rim of Shackleton’s sister crater, Andromeda. He looked over the edge of the deep hole in the ground and made his decision-the robot could die alone.
The beast saw Will stand up. It lowered the damaged rover and as it did, the small meteorite fell free of the vehicle and landed in the lunar dust at its feet. Mendenhall saw the small flamelike glow and made the leap outward into space. Very soon the limited gravity grabbed hold and he started heading down. Almost at the halfway point in his descent the chain reaction reached its critical stage. The explosion from high above pushed Will with dramatic force toward the opposite wall of the crater. He hit with such force that he felt his right leg snap in two. He screamed and then he landed, sliding down the crater wall. When his slide toward the bottom stopped, he opened his eyes and looked at the star field above him. He was glad he had saved the Altair, and Jason and Sarah. He knew that they would never be able to speak of Will Mendenhall again without choking up.
Will smiled through the pain of his broken leg.
“Yes,” he said aloud as he lay on the side of Andromeda.
He would like that very much.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Hugh Evans was once more sitting with his red eyes glued to the main viewing screen. It had been an hour since the remote telemetry team had ordered John away from the crater after six separate observatories around the world saw one large blast on the surface of the Moon preceded by two smaller ones. He feared the worst as John the Beatle moved northwest from Shackleton in an attempt to verify if Altair ’s landing site was still there, or if had lifted off as they hoped. What worried them at NASA far more than anything was the newly formed crater that John had had to bypass as it struggled to reach the landing site. They surmised that there had been another large detonation on the surface not a hundred yards from where Altair once sat.
As Evans watched he must have missed something, because the others in mission control gave out a collective cheer as the view of the landing area came into focus in John ’s camera eye. There, turned over and crushed on one side, were the four landing struts of Altair. They were sticking up at an angle. Hugh wanted to ask them what they were cheering about when he finally saw. The command and crew decks of Altair were gone. They hadn’t been there when the landing package had been knocked over by the huge explosion.
“Long-range radar, I want a tight scan of anything in orbit around the Moon. Get me evidence that Altair and Magnificent Dragon are both in the sky.”
Mission control jumped back into action. John was turned around to study the effects of
the explosion. The Beatle came close to the rim of Andromeda as it made a wide turn. That was when someone on the floor shouted.
Evans looked up and saw what the camera had picked up.
“REMCON, stop John!”
The remote kept traveling and it took two minutes for the rover to make it back to where it was due to the time delay. By that time they were all standing, as a full-view shot of a space suit came into view. As they watched the main view screen, the man inside that suit rolled over. He saw John looking at him and waved his hand, and then lay down again.
“My God, someone was stranded on the Moon,” a tech said.
Hugh Evans slammed his pencil onto his console.
“That man is alive and we’re going to keep him that way until we know for sure if he’s stranded.”
“The only hope we have is to get him air, and hope the Russians make a successful landing,” CAPCOM said from below.
“Yeah, we need that, and we also need the luck that we haven’t had for the past two weeks! Now let’s start with problem one, how to get John to give this man some oxygen.”
On the main view screen, little John the Beatle turned away and started its own rescue operation.
Hugh Evans was damned he was going to lose one more man on this godforsaken mission.
QUITO, ECUADOR
The turmoil was just settling down.
The American aircraft had requested permission to land three hours before.
The blue-on-blue aircraft.
The president of Ecuador had raced from his home and the armed forces were placed on alert, watching the aircraft as the last of the surviving German and Polish commandos, the Australian, Japanese, New Zealand, and Vietnamese embassy guards, were escorted by the American Secret Service agents on board. The only surviving member of the Vietnamese soldiers refused to give up an old and battered M-14. With the intervention of Captain Everett and a few very angry soldiers, it was decided that the man known as Tram could board the aircraft as long as he carried no ammunition with him. After all, they were boarding the most secure aircraft in the world-Air Force One.
The president personally greeted each soldier as they settled into the comfortable seats. They were given appetizers and for the first time in forty-eight hours the soldiers had no fear of being shot at or terrorized by machines that were supposed to have stopped operating more than 700 million years before.
The president finally made it to the forward portion of Air Force One. He saw the man he was looking for as he sipped on a bottle of water outside the main conference room, where a makeshift medical clinic had been set up. The Air Force had wanted a C-130 Hercules to bring the troops back to American soil, but the president wasn’t about to be denied the chance to thank every man individually for his sacrifice before their governments snatched them away for debriefing. Niles Compton saw his old friend and nodded.
“Good to see you, baldy,” the president said, and took both of Niles’s hands into his own, spilling the water he was holding as he shook hands vigorously.
“You too.”
“How’s Jack?”
“It was touch-and-go for a while, but it looks better than it did. I think he’s going to ask for a raise after this.”
The president nodded and gestured toward the conference room. On the way he shook hands with Pete Golding, who never wanted to venture outside the Event Group complex again. Then he shook hands with Appleby and Dubois, and then finally with Charlie Ellenshaw. He thanked them all and followed Niles into the conference room.
Colonel Jack Collins was sitting up on the bed with several other wounded men around him. The most severely wounded had been taken to four hospitals in the Quito area with a guarantee of protection from the Ecuadorian government. Collins was arguing with Everett and Sebastian about something and they were having a hard time helping the doctor keep Jack on the gurney. They all stopped when the president stepped inside. Jack could see that the man was still shaken from his brush with death aboard Marine One. He was white and his hands were still bandaged.
“What’s this all about?” the president asked, standing in the doorway. Then he reached out and took Everett’s hand. “It’s good to see you made it, Captain.”
“Mr. President,” Carl said. Then he stepped aside and introduced Sebastian Krell.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Major,” the president said as he shook the German commando’s hand. “I understand you think these two are a bad influence on you and your men.”
“They are, sir,” Sebastian said, shooting a glance at Collins.
“I think your own chancellor wants a few words with you. Something about a promotion, I believe-probably for breaking people out of jails.”
Sebastian smiled and stepped back.
“Colonel Collins, I take it you don’t like my aircraft,” the president said as he held out his hand. He saw the still bleeding bandage Jack was sporting after the surgeon had removed the bullet and part of his fourth rib. He had a liter of blood dripping from an IV.
“No, sir,” Jack said, taking the president’s hand and shaking it weakly. “It’s just that I don’t like to be told I can’t do something I’m capable of doing.”
“And that is?”
“I want to see Alice and the senator.”
The president released Jack’s hand and looked from the colonel to Niles. The sound of Air Force One spooling up its engines reverberated throughout the aircraft.
“Then you’d better hurry. The pilots are particular when it comes to people fastening their seat belts around here. Captain Everett, Niles, assist the colonel to his feet and show him into the bedroom, please.”
Jack saw the look the president gave Niles. He turned away as Everett helped Jack off the gurney. It was a short walk across the hall to the presidential sleeping quarters. Niles reached out and tapped lightly on the door. Alice told them to come inside.
When the door opened, Jack saw the senator stretched out on the large bed. Alice was sitting beside him with her feet tucked under her legs. She had a hand on Lee’s and she smiled when she looked up and saw Collins.
“Thank God you made it, Jack,” she said.
Jack cleared his throat as he looked from Alice to the senator.
“How’s he doing?” he finally managed.
Alice reached over and brushed some of Lee’s silver hair off his forehead.
“He died twenty minutes ago, Jack. Niles and I were with him.”
Collins felt his heart fall for the woman he was now looking at.
“I… I…”
Alice stood and walked over to Collins. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
“He said to tell you and Mr. Everett, and that little girl Sarah, that he said good-bye.”
Jack lowered his head and Everett closed his eyes. Niles turned and opened the door with tears in his eyes and allowed Jack and Carl to leave. He looked at Alice and she shook her head.
“Now, you know that kind of display would only get you yelled at,” she said as she wiped a tear from Niles face.
“Yes, it would. But not anymore.” Niles turned and left the presidential bedroom.
Air Force One started rolling soon after, taking the body of Senator Garrison Lee home for the last time.
EPILOGUE
GENESIS ACCORDING TO COLUMBUS
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
The room looked like a hospital ward. Charlie Ellenshaw was sporting a cast from the backfire explosion of the alien weapon on its last discharge. Virginia Pollock had pulled through her surgery with flying colors and she had even learned from Niles that there would be no delay in getting her labs repaired. Jack, still sore and bandaged, sat at his usual spot, with Everett next to him. The guest of honor was at the head of the conference table next to his friend, the president of the United States. Niles Compton sat next to him. The room had been silent since everyone had sat down.
“Before we get started, I have something I want to
present to this group.” The president nodded his head toward the double doors and a Navy signalman opened them. When Jack saw who it was, he closed his eyes and then blinked. Everett patted his forearm in support.
Sarah McIntire and Jason Ryan walked into the room and everyone with the exception of Collins rose and applauded. Sarah accepted their congratulations as her eyes found Jack. Ryan only half smiled, then stopped and looked almost angry. Sarah finally broke away and walked over to Jack. She took his hand quickly and squeezed. Then she turned and sat in a chair next to him. Ryan sat across from them, still not smiling.
“Welcome home. They just touched down three hours ago after transferring to the Atlantis. I suppose you’ve both had it with space travel?”
Ryan said nothing, just staring straight ahead. Sarah politely smiled as she leaned over and whispered to Jack, “I’m sorry about Will, Jack. My heart is breaking.”
“Is that what’s gotten into Ryan?” Jack inquired.
“Yes,” she said as she saw the strange smile cross his lips.
“Well, he damn well better get over it soon.”
“Jack, that was his best friend, I think-”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant McIntire. Is there a problem?” the president asked from the head of the table.
“Not at all sir,” she answered and then looked back at Jack, who only raised his right brow. He had that old “What?” look on his face.
“Go ahead, Niles,” the president said.
“If I may have your attention, this was picked up by Europa not five hours ago. It’s a live stream from Russian television that she hijacked and beamed to us.” Niles punched a button and the monitors around the table burst to life.
Jack looked from Sarah to Jason Ryan, who still stared down at the conference table.
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