Doomsday Exam [Bureau 13 #2]

by Nick Pollotta

  With obvious intent, George primed the action on his Masterson, its bulky backpack making him resemble Donaher in the dark. “There's a bank nearby. Want me to rudely summon the cops?”

  “Against this guy?” I retorted. “No. We got to take him ourselves.”

  “We did not fare well last time,” Ken reminded, his hands moving restlessly along the encased feeder belt to his Masterson Assault Cannon in a kind of military rosary.

  On the port railing, the Harrier sharply whistled and a French Saber, a Delta Dagger and a Spitfire joined it at the gunwales. Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The four fighters watched the dock with particular intent. My radio broadcast had been heard.

  I glanced at my watch. Sweet Jesus! Time was ticking away, no assistance from either the Bureau nor standard military was possible and I still had no idea how to get onboard the ship without dying. A major prime prerequisite for us to work.

  “Sanders, what else is on that bulletin board sign?” Father Donaher asked curiously.

  He gazed in the proper direction. “The times the museum is open to the public, prices for admission, a simplified sketch of the carrier and several photographs.”

  “Of?”

  “The first captain, two major battles in the South Pacific and some interior shots.”

  “Interior pictures?” Mindy breathed hotly. “Sanders, you dolt!”

  The big man seemed confused. “What did I do?”

  Rummaging in his haversack of munitions, George produced a set of Starlite binoculars and gave them to Raul. Frantically, the mage studied the distance sign. “With a photograph, we can teleport inside bypassing the defenses!”

  In shame, Ken hung his head. “Sorry.”

  “No problem, kid,” I said, watching an assault helicopter lift into view off the flight deck. “That's why you're still a student and not out on your own yet.” Two more gunships swiftly followed. Briefly, I wondered if my insurance premiums were fully paid?

  “Well, Mr. Wizard?” Donaher asked tersely.

  Minutely rotating the dial, the mage fine adjusted the focus. “I think, no, yes! There is the engine room!”

  Just then, a dozen planes launched from the carrier. A cumbersome double-prop Bell & Howell helicopter, a bulky Grumman Hellcat, a Curtis two-man Helldiver, a MiG, two Corsairs, a sleek Harrier jumpjet, a squat Spitfire and a Japanese Zero. Half of them were antiques, propeller driven logs made of wood and cloth. Yet massed together, the assemblage of airplanes had sufficient firepower to level East Manhattan. But only if LaRue had taken the time to conjure them ammunition.

  He had. Banking sharply in the starry sky, the Harrier angled for an attack run and the street exploded, chunks of macadam jumping into the air. Parked cars exploded into fireballs in a steady progression of violent detonations, a man walking his dog was cut in half by the streams of large caliber bullets, a sleeping bum exploded from a 40mm shell, the stout wire fence about the carrier was torn to pieces and massive chunks of concrete were torn from the Parkway overhead.

  Boulders of roadway crashed into the street before us. Utterly helpless, I grit my teeth and cursed. Freaking jet was firing blind! Probably thought we were invisible. An off-duty taxi cab turned the corner and was promptly annihilated. More civilians were dying! I was going to kill LaRue with my bare hands! Twice! Then do it again just to be sure!

  “Raul, teleport us now!” I shouted as metal decks and walls appeared around us.

  In the muted rumble of the house-size engines surrounding us, the mage rested an arm casually on an operating fuel pump larger than a watermelon. “Gosh, what a swell idea,” the mage said stiffly.

  Diplomatically, I forced a grin. “Sorry.”

  Looking about the place, I saw that a simple catwalk lead straight down the middle of the twelve towering gas turbines which filled the engine room with their throbbing presence. The air was pungent with the oily smell of diesel fuel and hot metal, tainted with the bitter stink of ozone. Steam pipes capable of conveying a whale joined collector reservoirs above us in a soaring archway of leviathan plumbing.

  Power transformers large enough to electrify a city, crackled inside safety cages made of industrial gauge insulated wire. Bigger-than-a-buffalo-busbars glowed from the ionization effect of the tremendous voltage passing through them to the drive motors below. I could not even begin to calculate how much pressure these furnaces had to generate in order to push the giant turbines which supplied the staggering electrical current needed to power the behemoth motors which moved a ship as big as the Intrepid.

  Passing a workstation of controls and tools, we prepped for battle and started for the oval steel door set in the metal bulkhead.

  Hatchway, supplied Jess.

  Thank you, O fount of wisdom.

  S'okay.

  “Kill on sight,” I reminded them. “No dicking around.”

  Then the thick hatch slammed in our faces, its wheel handle spinning to latch and dog the lock shut.

  “Red alert,” a calm voice said over a PA speaker set in the ceiling. “Intruders in the engine room.”

  Quickly drawing his Bible, Father Donaher muttered something in Latin, and it didn't sound like a blessing to me.

  “How could they have found us so fast?” Mindy demanded, her sword held in both hands while a rainbow of colors played along the deadly curved length. When she got nervous, it did also.

  “The ship told him,” Jess said softly, both arms wrapped round her chest.

  “Eh?” I spun about. “What was that?”

  “The ship,” she repeated, staring at the pulsating walls. “Its alive. Same as the planes.”

  I broke four regulations by shouting, "The whole freaking air craft carrier is sentient!?"

  As if in response, the lights dimmed. The titanic engines revved to thundering fury. An intake value snapped open and billowing clouds of hot exhaust fumes from the diesel engines spewing forth gentle as a summer breeze from hell.

  Coughing and hacking, we retreated from the noxious fumes as a distant humming made itself felt in the perforated metal deck. The harsh vibration was augmented by a crackle of sheet lightning and the howl of rising winds.

  Wilson LaRue was starting the doomsday spell again.

  SIXTEEN

  Half blind from the deadly exhaust vomiting from the hundred giant diesel turbines, we took refuge in a clear area with nothing overhead but bare ceiling. My team had some rough idea of what to expect having fought living houses before. But an animated war ship? This was an experience I would have gladly denied myself. Suddenly, a transfer to Clerical didn't sound like such a bad career move.

  The PA speaker continued to bleat a warning until Mindy sliced it off the wall with her sword. Lifting the face shields of our helmets, we tied handkerchiefs over our noses and mouths to get a bit of respite. But we had to move fast or die of plain old-fashioned asphyxiation. Crude, but effective.

  Retaining bolts spinning by themselves, a huge tool rack fell from a bulkhead and almost crushed Raul, but he jumped out of the way. A pipe burst and sprayed Donaher in the back with scalding steam. His cassock dissolved and Mike gave a howl, but his body armor held and the priest lived. Wiggling like a canvas snake, a fire hose tried to strangle Jessica. She gutted it with her pocketknife. The spring assembly on a pump snapped free and nearly succeeded in punching a hole through my helmet. A rolling chair rammed in Katrina's leg cracking her shin armor, and a Supply cabinet door slammed open, nearly succeeding in swatting Sanders flat. I pumped a few rounds into a trashcan that seemed to be loitering suspiciously nearby, and Raul cast a Seal spell on a wooden locker full of power tools. We did not need any dancing chainsaws.

  Steam spurted at irregular intervals from joints keeping us hopping. The exhaust fumes grew thick enough to chew. Raw fuel got George in the facemask and dripped onto his weapon. Moving fast, Father Donaher washed the highly flammable fluid off the Masterson with his Holy Water pistol. Smart move.

  U
nexpectedly, at every corner and crevice, sparks jumped from deck to wall and our hair began to stick straight out from our heads. I guess a few trillion volts were being shunted through the floor, but our shoes were insulated against such an old attack. However, if we even fleetingly touched anything made of metal directly connected to the ship with our bare skin it would be instant barbecued agent. Retirement option #37, if I remember correctly.

  Nobody was stupid enough to try and shoot the vessel. Bullets would simply ricochet off the metal walls and might finish the job the carrier was so valiantly trying to do. We had plenty of explosives and two primed mages, but so what? How the hell do you kill a 250,000 ton ship? Stab it with the Eiffel Tower? Smack it with the Kremlin?

  Listening to the noise of air vents sucking in and exhaust pipes blowing out, the noise sounded like breathing and that gave me an idea. If magic followed the intent, not the letter, and the ship was alive, then it had a heart equivalent. I glanced around at the turbines and engines towering above us.

  Here most likely. Yeah. The bridge would be the brain, radar it eyes, and the fuel tanks its stomach.

  “Gloves!” I cried, pulling on my kid leather beauties.

  Ken grabbed a pair of engineer's gloves from a worktable and wrestled them on, George produced electrical mittens and Katrina donned her velvet slammers over the insulated lab gloves. Working together, the four of us managed to pry the cover off a fuel vapor exchange unit. It didn't want to leave, but we convinced the flanged plate otherwise. Normally this piece of machinery trapped rising fuel vapors and condensed them for return to storage. But I had a different function in mind.

  “Jess, whack it!” I ordered, straining to keep the lid away.

  Shoving the nozzle of her spray gun down the pipe, she triggered the spray. In only seconds, a loud knocking sounded from all around us. Rapidly it grew in volume and tempo. The engines revved to overload and the lights began flashing insanely. The vessel rocked from side to side as if in a storm on the high seas, we slipped and slid on the rough floor fighting to keep our footing on the deadly electrified deck. Jessica lost her balance, but Mindy kicked my wife upright. Wrapping her armored legs tight around the big fuel pipe, Jess shoved the spray gun in deeper and locked the trigger into position.

  Klaxons rang, sirens howled, alarms buzzed, the hatch slammed open and shut. Every valve in the place was spinning wildly. On the control board, switches flipped, buttons rose and depressed, dials turned, yet every meter hit the red line and went beyond. In rattling fury, the entire cubic mile of Navy property gave a mighty shiver, decks buckling and walls cracking. Then the vessel went still, and in faltering stages, the engines slowed to a halt, the lights gradually dimmed and went out.

  Darkness and peace engulfed us. A second later, the battery lights came on, illuminating hatchways, controls panels and not much more. But it was just an automatic programmed response, the ship was dead.

  The MSG and DMSO couldn't have done much, but there was enough assorted poison in that mixture to kill a battalion of rabid rhinos. Just about the correct amount for a sentient aircraft carrier. Then again, maybe the ship was only stunned.

  “Triple time, harch,” I whispered, checking my weapon. “George and Sanders on point. Donaher and Katrina take the rear. One meter spread. Silent. Stop for nothing.”

  As the team got into order, Jess removed her empty tanks and set them in a utility closet. Not used in the manner planned, the poison spray had still saved our butts. Lucky we had it along. I had thought of two other ways to kill the ship, but each had been more chancy and dangerous than the other. Besides, I didn't have an atomic bomb, or a cucumber on me.

  Now the humming of the siphon vortex was clearly audible and both our mages began sliding across the floor sideways. I smiled. As LaRue drained the world of magic, at close range, the spell was sucking in our mages. We could find LaRue easy as floating with the currents of a river. Just had to do it fast.

  Sprinting down the dim main corridor, Donaher tried a running exorcism, to no avail. Either LaRue was too powerful for him, unlikely, or else the alchemy had been used to animate the warplanes. Something the Catholic priest could do nothing about.

  Bypassing a freight ramp, Raul and Katrina angled to the right, and we followed. Their twin Masterson cannons at the ready, Sanders and George covered each other as they swept constantly forward, searching for danger, or LaRue.

  The team went up a level to Storage, then on to Ammunition. It was empty. Damn, I had possessed a fleeting hope of blowing the ship it smithereens with its own explosives. Sleeping quarters came next. As we broached an intersection with stairs and an elevator, Ken and George jerked to a halt. A raised hand with fingers upright stopped the rest of us, and a closed fist made us gather together. Creeping forward, I peeked round the corner to see what they had spotted.

  Silver and sleek, a Harrier jumpjet was stalking along the corridor, its delta wings held flat to its fuselage like the wings of a bird. The wheeled landing gear was extending and contracting in a gross pantomime of walking. The British jet fighter nearly filled the passageway it was so big. Close behind was a stubby yellow Corsair, and a Russian MiG fighter.

  “This is bad,” George said out of the side of his mouth while prepping the Masterson Assault Cannon.

  “How so?” I asked, checking the load on my .357 Magnum. The small caliber tumblers of the M16, and the wooden bullets of the .44 AutoMag, wouldn't scratch the paint of a Harrier.

  “Most of these planes are incredibly easy to destroy,” he explained. “Especially the jet fighter. A single HE round into the main turbine and they'll tear themselves apart.”

  His weapon at the ready, Ken raised an eyebrow. “Sounds great.”

  “We're in a steel corridor,” George said, tapping the wall with a knuckle. “When a plane detonates, the debris will travel along this corridor like a shotgun blast along a barrel.”

  Going pale, Katrina added, “With us sitting in muzzle.”

  “Great,” I snorted, feeling trapped. “Well, we have to shoot to protect ourselves. So any suggestions?”

  “Fire and duck?”

  That was hardly a masterful strategy whose clever feints and ploys would leave the enemy gasping in shock, but it sounded faintly plausible. Our armor could take a lot of punishment, and our options were severely limited.

  “What the hell,” I said. “Pass the word.”

  But suddenly feeling extremely clever, I turned and ripped the cover off an air vent. With the infrared visor of my helmet, I could see razor sharp metal plates studding the vent along its whole length. I stood and frowned. Damn Navy efficiency! They probably had barbed bars in the bilge, spikes in the sewage pipes, daggers in the drains and forked flails in the flues. I know I would, but then, I'm paranoid.

  “The currents go this way!” Raul shouted, and we happily ran away. Discretion and valor, yep, that's us.

  The dim lights worked for us, making it difficult for the warplanes to spot their targets, at least for the older planes. The Harrier and the Ashanti helicopter had chemical & thermal scanners and infrared viewers better than what we had in our van. If the planes thought of using their sonic guidance systems, they'd have us in a minute.

  Just then, a small red missile on a column of flame and smoke shot by the end of the corridor we were in. A moment later, another turned to curve into our passageway. Holy Hannah, a heat seeker!

  From the waist, I fired my 40mm shell hoping for a lucky shot and Donaher triggered his flamethrower attempting to prematurely detonate the warhead. Frantically, Raul threw a fistful of coins and a steel wall appeared directly in front of us. Mike cut the flames. One second later, the wall violently exploded, the concussion hurling us brutally to the floor. Flames cooked the air from our lungs and shrapnel pounded us mercilessly.

  Lying limp on the deck, I ached in every part of my body. But I was alive, at least technically. My clothes were black with blood, the stains spreading. Frightened, I grabbed my neck but appar
ently my anti-vampire collar had deflected most of the impromtive flechettes.

  Crawling on hands and knees, Katrina gathered some blood from everybody on a strip torn from her uniform. Then neatly tearing the cloth into eight pieces, she breathed heavily upon them and stared with visible force.

  “Go!” Katrina bellowed in a Voice of Command. “Rise and run until you die!”

  Obediently, the drops of our blood stood tall and exact duplicates of the team dashed away down the far corridor. A barrage of yammering machine guns, rapid-fire cannons and explosions greeted their appearance. Gradually, the sound of battle faded into the distance.

  “Nice move,” Raul moaned, using the wand staff to lever himself erect.

  “Thanks,” she croaked. “You also.”

  Assisting each other to stand, we shambled along, still following the current. En route, the team affected repairs as best we could. Looking weary, Jessica dropped some of her combat armor to lessen her weight load. Lithe and beautiful, my wife was not a muscle-bound samurai like Mindy and had limits.

  Going up a dark staircase, we moved silent as possible along a main access corridor, then took a branch hallway and went north. The ethereal flow was becoming thicker, almost visibly dense. Tendrils and streamers of wispy fireworks flowing swiftly onward, ever forward.

  At an intersection, we hid in a Map Room as a lumbering French Saber interceptor moved by. It was so close, I could read the serial numbers stenciled on the missiles tucked under the clipped delta wings, and the museum plate attached to the white striped fuselage. The brass square detailed the noble craft's history, evolution and attributes. Unfortunately, the plate did not list any known weaknesses. An oversight, surely.

  There was nobody in the pilot, or co-pilot's seat. Where were the guards? In a silent gesture, George proffered his Masterson, but I shook my head vehemently no. Not yet.

  Whether by alchemy, or the magic of the Aztec book, these planes were fueled and brimming with armament. When one died, they would let the whole world know. At a range of two feet, the resulting blast could make us go permanently deaf.