Dylan switched off his UV sensor. “What the hell?”
“What?” Sara asked.
A metallic shape the size of a bloodhound reflected his floodlight. It sprinted on six legs, each bent at odd angles, toward them.
“Look out!” Dylan said. He pushed Sara away from the charging contraption. “Turn off your UV sensor, there’s something here.”
The thing jerked to a stop just shy of them and shot a high-pressure jet of gas first at Dylan, then at Sara.
“What the-” Sara asked. “You OK Dylan?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Whatever its spraying is not getting through the suit. Let’s back out-”
A slender, whip-like tongue darted from the robotic aggressor, wrapped around Sara’s ankle, and yanked her off her feet. It charged into the low passage, dragging Sara behind.
“Dylan!” Sara screamed. “Help! The shaft!”
#
Dylan scurried after her, banging his air scrubber and emergency oxygen tank against hard rock. “Hold on, Sara. Hold on.” His eyes stinging from sweat, his vision blurred, he reached the ledge. “Sara!” He saw her, flopped on her side, one arm dangling over the edge. Dylan grabbed her feet and pulled her to safety. “Talk to me, now.”
“I’m… I’m OK,” she said, attempting to sit up. She banged her head against the ceiling.
“Just hold up a minute,” Dylan said. “Catch your breath.” He unclipped the rifle from his back and pointed it toward where they had come from. “I don’t see it. Did you get a sense of where it went?”
“No. Sorry.” She rolled onto her stomach. “Whatever that thing was, I’m pretty sure the natives didn’t make it.”
“No kidding,” Dylan said. “I see nothing on infrared. Either it matched the cave’s temperature, or it’s not close by.”
Sara pulled the pistol from her hip. “Let’s go back, then. We’ve got a planet to save.” She crept forward, her weapon clenched in her fist. “I don’t see another path through these old roots,” she said. “Either it went down the shaft, or back where we found it. You know what my money’s on.”
Dylan crawled on elbows and knees, rocking back and forth next to Sara, his rifle held in both hands. He strained to look forward, his helmet scraping the ceiling and sweat still trickling down his forehead. “Hold up. I see something. Five meters, scurrying toward us.”
“I see it, too.” She trained her pistol on it.
It lunged.
They fired.
Sara emptied her clip, every round striking her target center of mass.
Dylan shot on full automatic, thirty armor-piercing bullets ripping across the thing’s metallic body. The tight passage filled with dust. “Did we get it?” he asked.
Sara switched out the clip and inched forward. “Hell, yes we did!” Pieces of the six-legged, dog-like robot lay spread across the cave floor. She poked it. “Good shooting, Tex.”
Dylan joined her and inspected the damage. “Here in what I’d call its head, there’s a hole that looks like it was made by a tight grouping of nine-millimeter rounds. I’d say, you’re not such a bad shot, yourself.” He picked up a chunk of the robot. “I’ve seen nothing quite like it. Chad will want to get a look.” He tucked the piece into a belt pouch and pressed forward. When they could stand again, he pointed his rifle forward and down, at the ready should another threat appear. “Keep going?”
“Yep,” Sara said.
The tunnel was uneven, formed of massive boulders with smooth surfaces piled on each other. They climbed up a forty-five-degree incline then over a scramble of loose, football-sized rocks. Even in diminished gravity, it was a treacherous climb. The passage flattened, now three times taller than them but narrow enough to force them single file.
Dylan stopped. “Holy crap.”
Sara squeezed by him.
The passage opened into a vast cavern, and the ceiling, barely touched by their lights, reflected blue and red sparkles between massive, milky-white stalactites, some of which draped all the way down. The walls were dull green, veined in places with copper ore save the wall closest the outside of the mountain which was a collapsed pile of rubble. In the center of it all, covered in fallen debris, was a thirty-meter-diameter disk-shaped craft the color of molten silver, elegantly round in profile, with a smooth, crystalline bulge at its top.
“Holy crap, indeed,” Sara said.
#
“I must’ve hit my head when I went chasing after you,” Dylan said. “That can’t be.”
Sara walked toward the object at the cavern’s center. “That looks like it came straight from a 1950s pulp sci-fi novel.”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “It does. Look at the damage to that wall and how those stone pillars snapped off. This thing crashed here.”
“Crashed and ended up inside a mountain?” Sara asked. “Is that even possible?”
“Modern bunker busters can penetrate a hundred meters of earth,” Dylan said. “And we haven’t even developed interstellar space travel on our own. I imagine this here’s a good deal sturdier than anything we could dream up.”
“But,” Sara said. She reached out to touch it, paused, and withdrew her hand. “There isn’t even a scratch on it.”
“Maybe it was damaged but regenerated?”
“Chad will be pissed I didn’t let him come,” Sara said.
Dylan chucked. “You got that right. How long you suppose it’s been down here?”
Sara scanned the cavern, focusing on the object’s path from the wall to its resting place. “The stalactites it broke off have started growing again. I don’t know about conditions here, but if we were back on Earth, I’d ballpark it at a few decades. I could be way off. It all depends on how wet it gets here and on how fast the minerals drip down from up above.” Sara turned her UV sensor on. “The ultraviolet pulses are coming from the dome. A distress signal, perhaps?”
“Could be.” Dylan flew the drone over the saucer. “The clear part up top doesn’t seem to have room for humanoid occupants. It looks to be a bunch of mechanical stuff. Sensors, maybe.”
“No alien bodies?” Sara asked.
“None I can see,” Dylan said. “What now?”
“I’m out of ideas,” Sara said. “I’d say it’s time to regroup.”
“Yeah.” Dylan paced the length of the craft. “I suppose so.”
They made their way down the boulder scramble and to the low area. It was as they left it, with fragments of the alien robot still scattered about. By the time they reached the shaft, their limbs were weary.
“Does that mist look thicker to you?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, it does,” Dylan said. He peeked past the ledge. “I can’t see the tunnel we came in through. Hell, I can barely see the closest ledge. The waterfall sounds louder, too.”
Sara clipped into the first rope and lowered herself over the edge. “Clear,” she said upon reaching it.
“We’re on our way back,” Dylan said. “Ji-min? Sydney? Do you read me?”
Static.
He lowered himself to Sara and tried again.
More static.
“I don’t like it,” Dylan said. He clipped into the next rope, disengaged the winch, and repelled down manually.
Sara followed the same way.
“Ji-min?” Dylan called.
“…you weakly…the cave…turned bad…OK?” Ji-min answered.
“You’re breaking up,” Dylan said. “We’re headed back now.” He lowered himself to the final ledge. When they ascended, the cave water streamed over it. Now, it was a raging waterfall. “Hold on, Sara. I'll secure another line to the wall here." Grasping the cave wall, he pulled himself a few meters upstream, his boots finding occasional purchase along the edge. He wedged a climbing nut into a crack, threaded a line through, wrapped it around his waist and through a carabiner on his belt, finally securing a loop on the end of the rope to a second carabiner. “I’m off the vertical rope, just inside the bottom cave. Come on down and try not to sma
ck me on the head.”
Sara descended the final line, alighting on a jut of rock centimeters over the rushing water. “Pass me the other rope?”
Something long and thin, like stretched-out gum but tough like rubber, reached out of the mist and wrapped around Sara’s chest plate. It tore her from her perch, shaking her body to and fro in a violent rage and pulling it down, her descent abruptly halted when the line snapped taut. She was tossed upward and yanked down again. The line whipped up.
Sara was gone.
#
“Sara!” Dylan shouted. He clutched the horizontal line with his left hand, pulling outward to control the friction on the rope. His right hand grabbed his rifle. He inched toward the edge, finger on the trigger, barrel forward.
A rubbery tentacle thrashed at him from the fog, savagely flailing the water in front of him, throwing water on his visor. Another appendage emerged, latching onto the rocky wall.
Holy crap, how big is this thing? “Sara! Answer me.” He pulled against the torrent of water, struggling to escape the advancing beast.
A third tentacle appeared, grasping the opposite wall.
I won’t make it. Shit. Dylan let go of the rope, whipped about so his back was facing the vertical shaft, and backpedaled with the current. That nut better hold or I’m done for. Almost at the edge. The ground abruptly dropped away under his heels. He leaned back, pressed his legs down, and snapped to a stop as the safety line tightened. He hung at the edge of the falls, water rushing over his knees and down his chest, body back at a steep angle with a hostile alien rushing up at him. This might just be it, son. He shoved the assault rifle between his legs and held the trigger.
Bam. Bam. Bam. The shots echoed up and down the shaft until the clip was empty and the weapon fell still.
Goddamn, I’m still here. “Sara!” Where the hell’s the creature? Is it down by Sara? His feet slipped. Dylan fell a meter and slammed against the wall. He was now entirely submerged in the waterfall. “Ji-min? Do you read me?”
“I hear you,” came the reply.
“Something attacked us, like a giant, rubbery starfish. Sara fell down the shaft.” Is she alive? Why doesn’t she answer? “I’m going after her.” He pulled a short blade from his belt, diamondoid-tipped like his jungle knife, and cut the line. That was a bad idea. Bad. In the reduced gravity, the fall seemed to last an eternity. He struck a lake below, pushed under by the force of cascading water. As he swam away from the falls, his vision cleared. The suit-mounted LEDs lit the crystal-clear pool. The alien scraped along the rocky bottom, twitching, bleeding. Got you, you sumbitch. A few meters under the surface, Sara’s limp body floated. Damn damn damn. His suit was lighter than water, its buoyancy forcing him toward the surface. He struggled toward Sara. With a final kick, he reached her elbow and held tight. His chest heaving and his limbs burning from exhaustion, he yanked her upward. They broke the surface, and he forced his legs to kick them to a wet, gravely beach. Dylan dragged her from the water and turned her on her back. Sara’s helmet was filled with water. No, goddammit. No. He released the pressure seal and ripped the helmet off. Water gushed out.
Sara was blue.
Damn, she looks like a corpse. Don’t die. You can’t die. We need you. Dylan turned her on her side. Water spewed from her mouth. Chest compressions. He rolled her on her back, sat astride her motionless body, and bore down on her chest. One. Two. Three. Nothing. Four. Five. Six. Shit. She’s not moving, not in the slightest. “Oh, to hell with it all.” Dylan tore off his own helmet, pinched her nose, and blew air into her lungs. One. Two. Compressions again.
Nothing.
The suit’s so damn stiff. He pulled her pressure suit off, pausing at every step to deliver chest compressions and a pair of rescue breaths. No no no. “Stay with me now, Sara! Don’t you dare go.” When she was free of the suit, his arms were burning but he kept delivering compressions. “Stay with me, now. You’re not dying here.” He blew in another pair of breaths. A voice crackled from his discarded helmet, but he didn’t comprehend the words. “Breathe, Sara!”
Sara coughed, wet air sputtering from her throat. She gasped.
Dylan rolled her on her side. “That’s it. You'll be fine,” he said with the last of his strength. He collapsed next to her, his arm draped over her shoulder, meager protection against whatever else roamed the caves. “You’re going to be fine.”
HIDERS AND SEEKERS
Outrage
Addie’s holographic torso hovered over the Resolute Desk II, a passable replica of the original that technicians 3D printed to restore some semblance of normalcy to the replacement Whitehouse located deep under the Appalachian Mountains. General West’s image materialized to Addie’s left.
“How in the name of God did you lose five hundred attack drones?” the President demanded of General West’s hologram.
Her face was set firm. “I didn’t misplace them, sir. You ordered me to dispatch them to China. I followed your order.”
“The hell I did! How do you expect us to survive if the military overrules my authority? There’s a word for it, General. Treason.”
“You. Gave. The. Order.” General West crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not a traitor and I’m not crazy.”
“You think I’m crazy? Is that it?” President Billmore gulped an ice-cold mint julep, this one with a heavy pour of bourbon donated by the militia guarding the hills around the cave complex that sheltered what remained of the executive branch of the United States government.
“If I may,” Addie said. “It might be that you’re both telling the truth.”
“Have you gone nuts, too, Addie?” the President asked.
“Your communications may have been compromised. It’s possible the alien impersonated the President to give the order.”
President Billmore took another long sip. “Impersonated me? Is that possible?”
“The aliens breached more than one network we thought impenetrable,” Addie said. “If they hacked secureNet, they would only need to observe communications for a short time to build a passable simulation. Humans had the ability to make a near-flawless deep fake video since the late twenty-tens. No doubt, the enemy can, too.”
“If that’s true, we’re well and truly screwed beyond the nightmare we already live in,” the President said. “How are we supposed to communicate now? Carrier pigeon?” He took another swig and ran a sweaty palm over his hair. “Why? I mean, why give an order like that? Why not order US forces to surrender?”
“Why haven’t they wiped us out?” Addie asked. “They could have, a hundred times over, given the technology gap.”
“Why, indeed,” President Billmore said. His eyes glassy, he shoved the cocktail away. “General, did ‘I’ mention why I wanted you to send the drones to China?”
“Yes, sir. You, the impersonator, claimed to have struck a deal with China for plasma beam generators.”
“Plasma beam generators. Like a ray gun or something? Would that even work against the aliens?” President Billmore asked.
“They well could,” Addie said, “based on analysis of the alien fragments.”
“Well, then. Let’s hope the impersonator wasn’t lying. We sure as hell could use an effective weapon.” He stood and paced behind the desk. “I want a full investigation. No damn excuses about how our resources are spread thin. Figure out how they deep faked me and how to prevent it in the future. I mean now, General.” He ended the call.
“Are you all right, sir?” Addie’s hologram asked him.
“No, Addie. No, I’m not.”
Breadcrumbs
A powerful beam of white light flooded down from above, piercing the waterfall’s mist and waking Dylan from his stupor. He raised his arm in a futile effort to block the glare. Sara. He checked her. She was still breathing.
“Are you injured?” Musa’s voice called from far up the vertical shaft.
“Sara.” The words croaked from Dylan’s throat, barely audible even to himself.
His arm collapsed back over Sara’s shoulder. In minutes, Musa and Dr. Skye stood over them.
“Good lord, what happened to them? Sara’s worst off,” Dr. Skye said. “Let’s get her out first.” She ran a portable MRI scanner over Sara’s spine. “Three cracked vertebrae and a broken rib. I’ll stabilize her spine before we move her.” Dr. Skye wrapped Sara’s torso with a broad, self-adhesive, silvery-black cloth. When it was snug, she ran current through it, causing it to contract and harden into a form-fitting, protective shell. “Get the harness around her. Be gentle.”
“Always,” Musa said. He cautiously rolled Sara, sliding a climbing harness around her legs and under her bandage-protected armpits. Musa connected a rope to the harness, floats around her neck, and gingerly slipped Sara into the water, toward the falls. He fit a full-face oxygen mask over her then said, “Bring her up.”
The line tensed, and Sara ascended the falls. Up top, Chad and Ji-min eased her to level ground.
“Dylan, now you.” Dr. Skye checked him for injuries. “He’s dehydrated.”
“I didn’t want to drink the water,” Dylan said. “Montezuma’s revenge and all that.”
“You’re burning up.” She checked his eyes with a penlight. “Can you drink? I don’t want to start an I.V. here. You’ve been exposed to the alien microbes but puncturing a vein could make things a lot worse.”
Dylan nodded. “Yeah.”
Dr. Skye unsealed a water pack and held it to his lips.
“Thanks,” Dylan muttered.
“That’s enough for now. I’ll give you more in a few minutes.” She scanned him for injuries. “You broke your wrist. It’s a simple break that should heal well enough.” She wrapped it with the self-hardening bandage. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Dylan tried to sit up, but Musa restrained him. “Hold on,” Musa said. “You’re going out the same way Sara did, no matter what your inner cowboy thinks.” He secured Dylan in a harness and floated him out to the waterfall where the others pulled him to safety.
“What the heck’s that?” Dylan asked when he reached the upper cave.
The Gods We Seek Page 20