The room they were in was circular, with several tunnels going off in various directions.
Yakov had stood up and was slowly turning in a circle, taking in all the bodies. “Everyone,” he whispered. “Everyone.”
“I am sorry,” Turcotte said. He thought of Area 51 wiped out, all the people who worked there killed. He realized it was as vulnerable to attack as Section Four had been… even more vulnerable, as it was more accessible.
“This is most of Section Four,” Yakov said. He walked over to a man wearing a uniform, collapsed in front of a red switch. “General Trofimoff, my commander.”
Yakov checked the switch. “He threw the destruct, but it must have malfunctioned.”
“Or been sabotaged,” Turcotte said. “Do you think The Ones Who Wait or The Mission did this?”
Yakov pulled his long coat in tighter around himself, even though it was warm in the base. “The Ones Who Wait, most likely,” he said. “We captured one of their operatives several years ago and brought him… it… here. They have finally paid us back.”
“I think there is more to this than simple revenge,” Turcotte said. “Where would this device be?”
Yakov ticked off tunnels, reading the sign over each. “Scientific staff lodging. Mess hall. Communications. Research. Engineering. Power. Storage.” He headed for the last one, Turcotte and Katyenka following.
They walked fifty meters down a stone corridor. It ended in a vault door that was standing wide open, the body of a guard draped across the threshold.
They went through the entrance. The chamber beyond was over eight hundred meters long, with alcoves cut into either side every ten meters or so, depending on what was inside. The alcoves ranged in size from a few meters wide and high to several that were over a hundred meters deep by fifty high.
Yakov was reading the placards above each. He began heading down the central corridor, looking left and right. Turcotte followed. Yakov stopped at one of the smaller alcoves farther on the left. “It was here.”
He was pointing at a table that held an empty frame.
“So that’s how Lexina got control of the talon and that’s why they attacked here,” Turcotte said. “Her people took the artifact you had. We’ve failed. I hope Duncan is having better luck than we are. We need that key now.” Turcotte had continued past and paused at one of the small alcoves. It was blocked off by a dark glass wall.
“What’s in there?”
Yakov looked at the plaque. “All it says is: ‘Recovered from subcellar, Reich Research, Aviation Ministry, Berlin, 30 April 1945.’” He touched the glass. “It’s warm.” He looked around and saw a switch. “Here, let’s see.”
The tank was backlit, rays of light streaming through the greenish liquid that filled the tank. And floating inside were a half-dozen objects.
Turcotte stepped back involuntarily. “What is that?”
Five of the objects were six feet long by about twelve inches thick at one end, tapering to what looked like three six-inch-long-by-inch-thick projections that formed a strange tripod at the other end. These were grayish blue in color. The sixth object was a ball, yellowish, about three feet in diameter. On the side that Turcotte could see there were, evenly spaced about six inches apart, slits about four inches long. There was also a bump, about four inches high here and there on the ball, with a fold of the yellow material on the bump. The ball… and the other objects… was floating in the green liquid, which seemed to be circulating very slowly, moving them ever so slightly.
“Oh my God!” Turcotte exclaimed as the ball rolled and one of the slits appeared… this one open. A dark black eye peered at the glass.
CHAPTER 15
Larry Kincaid had worked around scientists all his life and was a scientist himself, but he had little patience for the intellectual type whose specialty was so narrow they couldn’t program their VCR. The scientist in front of him was one of those, and Kincaid had to force himself to try to figure out what the man was trying to say as he babbled at the mouth.
Joe Forrester was a NASA specialist and the head of the Hubble Telescope division. Forrester fit the NASA geek stereotype to a T, even to the extent of the pocket protector holding his pens and the sophisticated calculator behind the protector. His wire-rimmed glasses held thick lenses, and Kincaid found himself disoriented every time he tried to look the man in the eyes.
Kincaid was one of the few left at JPL and NASA from the early, exciting days of the space program. He wasn’t a specialist, but a jack-of-all-trades. He had been mission head for all Mars launches, a job that had thrust him into the spotlight when the Airlia base on Mars had been uncovered in the Cydonia region. He’d brought Forrester to Area 51 to coordinate surveillance on the Airlia base on Mars.
“Hubble is capable of tracking moving targets with the same precision as for fixed targets.” Forrester spoke as he typed into his laptop, which was hooked into the secure Department of Defense Interlink. “The images you had of Mars before were just snapshots taken by the Hubble’s FOC… faint object camera.”
Kincaid had dealt with men like this for decades, so he knew enough to just let Forrester talk as he worked.
“To track a moving object in our solar system we maintain a FGS… fine guidance sensor… fine lock on guide stars, and drive the FGS star sensors in the appropriate path, thus moving Hubble to track the target. Tracking under FGS control is technically possible for apparent target motions up to five arcsec.” Forrester looked up. “That is how we were initially able to follow the talon fleet as it came toward Earth.
“However, as happened in that case, this technique becomes unfeasible for targets moving more than a few tenths of an arcsec. What we do then is begin observations under FGS control and then switch over to gyros when the guide stars have moved out of the FGS field of view. If sufficient guide stars are available, it is possible to hand off from one pair to another, but this will typically incur an additional pointing error.”
With great difficulty, Kincaid still said nothing.
“Targets moving too fast for FGS control, but slower than seven point eight arcsec, can be observed under gyro control, with a loss in precision that depends on the length of the observation.”
“Can you see Mars?” Kincaid finally asked.
“We’ve always been able to see Mars,” Forrester said. “What you want is to see it with the full capabilities of Hubble, and I’m trying to explain to you what is needed to accomplish that.” Forrester continued without missing a beat. “The track for a moving target such as Mars is derived from its orbital elements. Orbital elements for all of the planets and most of their satellites are available at STScl. Moreover, STScl has access to the ASTCOM database, maintained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory… which you have so kindly provided me with through the Interlink… which includes orbital elements for Mars.”
Forrester hit a key. “And thus we can get a tight shot, with the best that Hubble has to offer, of the target area in the Cydonia region you gave me. Much better resolution than we had before.”
Kincaid stared over the man’s shoulder as pixels changed color on the screen and a picture began to appear.
The most noticeable thing that became coherent in the image was the bright reflection from the large solar array from the open “pyramid.” It was still intact, no damage from the nuclear explosion apparent. The “Fort” where the talons had taken off from also became visible, the roof still open, the interior empty.