Excalibur

CHAPTER 18: THE PRESENT

Mike Turcotte sat down in the snow. All he wanted to do was sleep. The snow felt very comforting, like a nice blanket. He leaned back, enveloped in it. So nice. He remembered Sunday mornings in Maine, his only day off from cutting, when he could sleep in, his body completely worn-out from a week on the saw. This was so much better.

A bolt of pain spiked through his brain. Duncan.

He sat up, snow falling off his parka. Turcotte opened his eyes, but all he could see was formless white. The pain, though, was still there.

His goggles were frozen over, he realized. He wasn’t in Maine. Goggles, why was he wearing goggles? He reached up and fumbled, pulling them down. He was in a depression in the snow. The sky above was clear blue, the clearest he had ever seen. Beautiful. It reminded him of someplace in his past, someplace very safe, very home.

Duncan.

What was happening?

A form intruded on the bluest sky. A figure swaddled in Gore-Tex. It stepped over him and disappeared up the mountain.

Turcotte rolled his head back. Ice. Snow. Rock.

Duncan. The pain was worse than the cold. It brought him out of his desire to sleep, to fade away, to become part of the nothingness that the mountain was part of.

The mountain.

Everest. He knew where he was. Sitting up again was the hardest thing he ever did.

He got to his feet. Mualama was about ten meters away, moving upslope. The last twenty-four hours with the archaeologist flooded over Turcotte. Mualama reminded him of a sphinx. Silent. Brooding. Waiting. Waiting for what, he wondered.

Lisa Duncan.

Turcotte turned toward the peak. He took a step. He saw that about two hundred feet above them the ridgeline steepened. Turcotte felt a shiver run up his back, not from the cold, but from the man ahead of him.

The “elevator” in the strut had started slowly up the massive leg and then begun moving in a horizontal direction as near as Yakov could tell. The pace was incredibly slow, something he found strange for a piece of machinery associated with such a spectacle as the mothership. He had expected to be swiftly transported into the front of the mothership, but instead they seemed to be traversing the entire length of the ship at a snail’s pace.

“Do you think there’s a control panel that we don’t see?” Major Briggs asked. The walls of the room were smooth black with no visible markings, but Yakov remembered that the door to the room had been invisible on the strut.

“There might be,” he acknowledged, “but I do not know how to access it, if there is one.”

“We seem to be taking the—” Briggs began, but he shut up as the room came to a halt.

The three faced the door and were startled when the wall behind them opened. They spun about, weapons at the ready. An empty corridor beckoned, the walls made of the same black metal.

“Come,” Yakov said as he stepped into the corridor. The American and Kurd followed. The corridor curved slightly to the left so he could only see about fifty feet ahead. The sound of his boots hitting the floor bounced off the walls. Yakov came to an abrupt halt as the corridor straightened out.

“Oh, man,” Major Briggs muttered as he came up next to Yakov.

The corridor extended straight ahead, for what appeared to the length of the mothership. Close by they could see cross corridors.

“Where to now?” Briggs asked.

Yakov studied the sheet of paper. He couldn’t read the rune markings, but he did find the corridor. “That way.” He pointed down the corridor. “Thirty-eighth hall to the right.”

“According to the reports we have,” Admiral Kenzie said, “they are going to have to turn off the shield when they launch their aircraft.”

His senior air officer, the CAG, or Commander Air Group, considered that. “We’d have to be close by and act quickly.”

Kenzie nodded. “It’s our only shot to get at those ships.”

They had the Alien Fleet positioned eight hundred air miles to the southeast according to the intelligence report radioed back by Seawolf. The news of the destruction of two alien submarines by the attack sub had raised morale a little, but everyone was also aware that the subs hadn’t been shielded.

“I want half your planes in this initial assault. Launch in five minutes. We hold half back just in case—” He didn’t finish the sentence. No word had been heard from the Area 51 survivors and the messages coming out of Washington were garbled at best. “Get to it.”

The Kanshung Face extended to the SEALs’ left and down over a mile. It had never been climbed for the simple reason it made absolutely no sense to climb it, as pretty much any other approach to Everest was less difficult. McGraw and Olivetti had taken the easiest route they could to get to the same height as their goal, and now they had about fifty meters of lateral traverse across a ledge near the top of the face to their objective.

McGraw put in the first piece of protection, hooked a rope through it, attached a sling from his harness to the rope, and set out onto the Face. When he put the second piece of protection in, Olivetti clipped into the rope and began following.

Lexina looked dispassionately at a body clad in ancient clothing lying in the snow. That humans, rogue Watchers, had climbed this high so long ago in their attempt to hide Excalibur, she found quite remarkable, but foolish. That no one had removed Excalibur in the millennia since it was hidden wasn’t due to the efforts of these humans but rather the fact that the sword was so critical that any attempt by either side to recover it would have resulted in what was happening now: all-out war. And that had been avoided for one major reason — they had no idea what the status of the other war was.

Lexina could hear the Chinese climbers talking excitedly among themselves about the body, but she simply stepped over it. Aksu snapped out orders and the men fell silent, continuing along the ridge until they came to the edge of the Kanshung Face. Lexina pointed out along the Face. “It is out there.” Aksu nodded and edged out onto the Face, putting in protection.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Stop. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Left. Right. Left. Right. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

The rhythm was like a drumbeat in Turcotte’s head, propelling him up the ridgeline. A distant part of his mind knew he should be alert for ambush or another trip wire across the path cut in the snow that he was following, but a larger part almost wished a mine would explode in front of him and put him out of this miserable state of affairs.

He could barely see five feet in front of him because his head was bowed, his eyes focused on a spot just ahead of where his next step would be. Beyond that he dared not look or else he feared he would lose what little energy he had left.

Left. Right. Left — Turcotte paused, right foot lifted barely six inches, all he could manage. The trail disappeared, because the mountain disappeared. Ridgeline gave way to vertical face. Turcotte slowly lifted his head. A rope was clipped into the mountainside. Looking farther, he could see two figures edging their way along the rock face, attached to the other end of the rope. They were about fifty meters away and, even as he watched, the first one disappeared around a cornice of rock and ice.

Turcotte fumbled for his MP-5, bringing it up to his shoulder. The oxygen mask was in the way as he tried to sight the weapon. As he tried to unhook the mask, the second figure also went out of sight. He became aware that Mualama was just in front of him. Turcotte shifted the aim of the weapon toward the archaeologist’s back and his gloved finger touched the trigger.

Turcotte let the gun drop on its sling. Then he hooked into the rope and moved out onto the Kanshung Face following Mualama.

The first Chinese commandos into the cavern were cut down by well-disciplined bursts of fire from the Delta Force men. It was a massacre and over a dozen Chinese lay dead in the entrance.

Then the first Kortad entered, spear leveled under its arm. Bullets hit the black armor, ricocheting off. As each Delta man shot at it, the Kortad would shift the point of the spear and fire a golden pulse. The flash of gold would hit the American soldier, briefly envelop him, and then he would drop, unconscious.

It was over in less than twenty seconds.

The rest of the Kortad entered and the rock floor flowed with blood as they decapitated the unconscious men. The surviving Chinese forces took up defensive positions.

“Thirty-seven,” Yakov said.

“Thirty-seven,” Major Briggs confirmed.

They had come about a half mile down the middle of the mothership. Yakov slowed as he came to the next opening. “Thirty-eight.” He turned the corner.

A twenty-foot-high dull red pyramid was in the center of a huge spherical room, a forty-foot walkway leading out to it.

Captain Lockhart received the report of inbound aircraft with no concern. The entire Alien Fleet was under the guard of the shield. She was more involved with preparing the strike wings on the two carriers. Planes were being readied, bombs full of nanovirus were being loaded, and infected pilots were receiving their orders via the nanovirus inside them.

The Alien Fleet wasn’t hard to spot. CAG (Commander Air Group) had his planes at forty thousand feet and the ships, huge as the two carriers and tanker were, appeared to be tiny toys on the surface of the ocean far below.

He’d assigned each plane a number and broken them into three groups, one for each of the capital ships. As they approached the strike point, they began to circle, waiting.

“CAG, this is Alpha-One. Over.” “This is CAG. Over.”

“Do you see what I see in the lead of that fleet? Over.”

CAG reached for a set of binoculars and trained them on the fleet far below and ahead of them. The silhouette of the lead ship was strangely familiar but at the same time not anything he had ever studied in his ship recognition classes. The superstructure was, well, the only word he could come up with was archaic. But the Tomahawk missile launchers where large turrets should have been were as modern as his plane.

Then he realized what he was seeing. “That’s the Arizona!’ Strangely, the sight of the long-sunken warship didn’t surprise CAG. It made him angry that the aliens would scavenge even that to use against them. “Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie flights. Stick with your primary targets. Our concern right now are the two carriers and the tanker. We go when they launch. Over.”

He received acknowledgments from all three flight leaders. Three lines of planes were spreading out below him, each circling just outside the shield near their target. Each line consisted of twelve planes, a five-thousand-pound bomb under each wing. Twenty-four bombs per ship.

Lockhart gave the order to launch. The two carriers turned into the wind and the first planes were catapulted into the air. At that moment, the shield was shut down.

“Go, go, go!” CAG screamed into his mike. All the planes headed for their targets.

Lockhart saw the planes coming in for the attack. She smiled, but the smile disappeared as the nanovirus took over, forcing her to put the shield back up.

CAG saw the second plane launched smash into the invisible barrier just ahead and cursed. His squadrons didn’t have enough fuel to hang around here much longer and still be able to make it back.

CAG launched his bombs and then cursed as he saw the impotent explosion when the ordnance hit the shield wall.

CAG looked once more at the Arizona. “Flight leaders, take your planes home. Over.” He turned his plane and started to circle, just outside the shield. “This is Alpha flight leader. CAG, what are you doing? Over.”

“I’m going to hang around.”

Lockhart saw the planes fly away. All except one. But it had dropped its bombs already so it was no longer a threat. She ordered the shield down and the launch to resume.

She looked over at the Washington, seeing a third plane brought onto the parallel catapult.

CAG saw the plane rocket down the runway and into the air. At the same time, he turned the nose of his plane toward the large carrier. He could see sailors on the deck of the ship.

Infected sailors, he reminded himself. He took a look to his right as he passed by the Arizona. He could swear he saw someone on the bridge looking straight at him. He flicked a half salute, then turned his attention back to the deck of the carrier. He saw the two planes in launch position and aimed directly for them.

As the deck rapidly approached, CAG suddenly remembered a prayer he’d been taught by his mother so many years ago. He began reciting it as he lost altitude and continued to accelerate.

Lockhart watched the F-14 and it was only when it was less than a quarter mile from the carrier that she realized what the pilot was planning on doing. As the part of her controlled by the nanovirus yelled commands, the smaller part that was her free self mentally saluted the pilot.

The commands were far too late. The crews manning one of the 20mm Phalanxes on the carrier got off a short burst that missed badly and the escort ships were too slow to react. The F-14 traversed the last quarter mile in just a couple of seconds before slamming into the Washington just forward of the two planes loaded on the catapults. The aircraft exploded, ripping open the flight deck and blasting down through the hangar deck into the bowels of the ship. Secondary explosions from fuel on board waiting planes rocked the ship.

The forward speed of the carrier fanned the flames, which enveloped planes farther back on the flight deck. One by one they also exploded, adding to the carnage and destruction. The captain of the Washington immediately ordered the engine room to reverse thrust to bring the massive ship to a halt before the flames engulfed the entire ship. He gave the order with tears in his eyes, forced to by the nanovirus, while his core wanted to keep the ship moving, to burn it all up. He could look down on the deck and watch his sailors fighting the fire, getting too close, forced by the nanovirus, and being burned alive. More sailors would move forward to take their place.

Lockhart immediately issued orders for the entire Alien Fleet to halt. The shield generator was on board the Jahre Viking and the options were either keep moving and leave the Washington practically undefended, or halt the entire fleet until the fire was brought under control.

She checked status of repairs on the Stennis. The nanovirus was very efficient. It would have one catapult ready for launch in eighteen minutes.

Leaving Briggs and Kakel at the entrance, Yakov had made his way along the walkway to the Master Guardian. He was standing on a three-foot-wide, black metal ledge, which went all around the pyramid. He placed his hands on the Master Guardian. Nothing. The surface lacked the glow he had seen on the golden guardians. He looked around. The pyramid was in the exact center of a perfect sphere and the walls were featureless. He could see no visible means of support for the guardian unless it was the ledge and the walkway.

“Trouble,” Major Briggs called out in a low yell.

Yakov ran back to join them. Briggs was lying on his stomach, peering down the center corridor, showing as little of his body as possible. Kakel was against the far wall, also slightly leaning out and looking. Yakov peeked around the corner and saw what had alerted Briggs. Several tall figures were slowly walking their way. They were so far away that Yakov couldn’t see much detail, but he did note the red hair, the spears in their hands, and the disproportionate bodies.

“Airlia,” he whispered.

“We don’t have much time,” Briggs said.

“We do not control our fate,” Yakov said. “That is up to Major Turcotte. He must free Excalibur so I can access the Master Guardian.”