Excalibur

CHAPTER 20: THE PRESENT

Major Briggs fired a controlled three-round burst, the rounds hitting the lead Kortad and bouncing off. Briggs cursed and ducked back behind the protection of the wall as several bolts of gold shot by.

“This is not good,” he understated to Yakov and Kakel.

“Maybe whatever they’re shooting would damage the Master Guardian,” Yakov said. “And?” Briggs extended his weapon into the corridor and fired without aiming. “If we go in the chamber,” Yakov said, “they might not use it.”

“That is—” Kakel began, when a golden bolt bounced off the wall behind him and struck him in the back. He tumbled to the ground unconscious.

“Damn it,” Briggs cursed as he stuck his firing hand out and pulled the trigger. A golden bolt struck the weapon and his hand. A golden field enveloped his body and he slumped to the floor.

Yakov didn’t waste any more time. He ran across the bridge to the Master Guardian, then around the narrow ledge to the far side, away from the entrance.

“We’ve got forty bogeys inbound,” the operations officer announced.

Admiral Kenzie had just finished listening to the strike report from his air wing. CAG’s sacrifice was noble, but given the bogeys flying toward his fleet he had to assume the other alien carriers had gotten aircraft in the air.

He’d been dreading this moment ever since leaving Pearl Harbor, but he’d also been preparing for it. He’d maneuvered his ships over deep water and had each ship’s captain initiate the preparations for what he was about to order.

For the first time since leaving Pearl, Kenzie made a transmission, making sure each ship played it over their intercom so every sailor in the fleet could hear.

“This is Admiral Kenzie. I am ordering strike wing two to launch immediately. As soon as the last plane is in the air, we will”—he paused, almost unable to say it, then forcing himself to go on—“we will scuttle every ship in the task force. “We have no choice. If we are still here when those planes arrive, they will absorb both the ships and us into the Alien Fleet. I would rather be dead, and have our ships sunk in deep water, than allow that to happen and for us to be used against our own homeland.

“Strike wing two, begin launching and do your best to avenge us. Attack when their strike planes try to land.”

The last piece of ice fell away. Turcotte reached in, his hand closing around the hilt of Excalibur.

Stars flashed in his head and he fell to his knees. He tried reaching for the hilt again and once more he was struck from behind. Turcotte crumbled to the rock in front of the sheath as Mualama leaned over him. In the archaeologist’s hands was a blue stone, pulsing with light.

The stone could not touch the sword. Turcotte knew that as surely as if it had been shouted out from the top of the mountain. The ax was still in his other hand. He struck out from his prone position, the point puncturing the African’s leg and buckling the knee. Mualama scrambled, trying to place the stone on the hilt. Desperately, Turcotte looped one arm around Mualama’s throat, pulling him back, but the African was stronger, getting to his knees with inhuman strength. Out of options, Turcotte kept his grip on Mualama and shoved away from the mountain with his feet, sliding off the ledge. He free-fell two feet to the end of the nylon strap, pulling Mualama with him. The archaeologist tumbled backward, the stone flying out of his hand as he grasped for a hold to keep from falling, which he found by grabbing the arm around his neck.

Turcotte grunted in pain as Mualama came to a halt, dangling below him with a death grip on his forearm. Turcotte glanced up — the piton was strained, moving very, very slightly. He knew it wouldn’t hold very long. He slashed with the ax he still held in his free hand. The point struck Mualama’s arm, piercing skin and lodging between the bones in the forearm. Turcotte levered the handle of the ax, pressing outward on both bones, then they snapped. And still Mualama kept his grip.

Turcotte gasped as Mualama’s mouth opened wide, wider than humanly possible and something gray appeared, slithering out. Three “fingers” on the end were grasping as it continued to exit the African’s body, reaching toward Turcotte’s arm, still in Mualama’s grip. Only when they grasped Turcotte’s arm did the African let go. As the body fell, the entire length of the gray creature ripped out of the body, over six feet long, pieces of Mualama’s spine still attached.

Turcotte shuddered, scrambling back, shaking his arm to get the thing off, but it was slowly inching its way up his arm. Blindly he reached back, his hand finding Excalibur’s hilt. He pulled it out of the sheath and slashed down, slicing the Swarm tentacle in half. The two pieces fell to the ground next to him. Turcotte staggered to his knees, completely exhausted, and watched as both ends shriveled up.

Turcotte slumped back among the three frozen bodies, the naked blade of Excalibur across his knees.