“I would gladly take your cheese and crackers over this,” Henri said as he tossed the casserole free of his plastic spoon. He slowly placed the open package into the plastic bag they were using to keep the animal life from snooping around for food. He spit again to clear his mouth and then drank some water.
“We have enough of the damn MREs to last three months,” Jack said as he sniffed his own package of roast beef. He reclosed it and decided to try again later.
A soft tone came from the remote panel Jenks held on his lap. The master chief placed the MRE package down and raised the small plastic console. The holographic map displayed the radar information the portable defense system was acquiring. The first station coordinated with her sister units and that gave Jenks a complete 360-degree view of their surroundings and anything that moved within.
“We have major movement close to the tree line.”
“Which one?” Jack asked as he raised the night-vision scope to his eyes and started scanning the trees to his left no less than three hundred yards away.
“All of them,” Jenks said as he saw multiple targets moving in and out of radar range. He switched over to infrared and his eyes widened. “Targets are too numerous to count.” Jenks leaned over and switched on the main acquisition program on the weapons control. “Laser system is now armed.” He looked up at Collins. The light-colored ash was now falling heavier than a moment before as the skies to the south were a deeper red in the night sky. “What fail-safe point do you want the safeties placed on, Colonel?”
“Zero,” Jack said as he lowered the nightscope. “I don’t intend to wait around here and allow something to get close enough for us to identify it.” He turned to a nervous Charlie Ellenshaw. “Doc, you said the odds of the local animal or humanoid life escaping Antarctica’s frozen future are a basic zero, right?”
“Yes,” he said as he wondered what Jack was thinking.
“So we won’t be altering the destiny of any living species occupying this land?”
“That’s just a theory, of course, but the anthropological departments and also natural history concur. Europa reported that all the animal life here at this time will perish.”
“Good. Master Chief, give me a three-hundred-round spread just into the tree line on all sides. Let’s see if our visitors’ interest in us is a motivated one.”
“Right,” Jenks said with a gruff chuckle.
“Very scientific of you, Colonel,” Henri said as he lowered himself to form a smaller target just behind one of the empty trailers.
Collins raised the glasses once more and saw that the white blurry targets were gradually easing themselves closer to the first line of trees. The jungle floor hid most of their bodies from view.
“Thirty-five three-thousand-watt bursts from each laser should make our chicken friends think better about dropping in on us without calling first.”
“If that’s what’s out there,” Ellenshaw said as he hunkered next to Farbeaux.
“You just add the most wonderful elements to any discussion, Doctor, you know that?” Henri said, looking at crazy Charlie as if he had lost his mind.
“Ah, you ought to be used to me by now, Colonel.”
“That’s what’s worrying me — I am.”
“This shouldn’t hurt us too much with the system’s portable battery. Here goes nothing. Firing sequence — now!”
The six long poles with their strange little black boxes affixed to their tops activated and started tracking the closest moving targets inside the tree lines on all sides of the camp. As one target was picked by one weapons system its sister tracked the next in line and then the next, all the while feeding their own targeting information to the base system controlled by Jenks. The targets were then prioritized as to threat and all of this happened in less than a microsecond. The lasers started their silent destruction. The sound of a small battery-powered generator fired, giving the laser its umph. Small pinpoint beams of light burst from each weapon with an audible pop as the argon laser cleared the glass apertures of the black boxes. The shots were faster than the speed of light and the green dot of burning energy was hard to pick up in the glow from the south. But soon the pace of fire was so rapid that it looked like a science fiction war. Beads of light struck trees and other things that cried out in the night. Like tracers from low-caliber weaponry, the lasers punctured the initial line of trees and jungle. Then all was silent with the exception of the animal cries in the jungle beyond.
Jack examined the black boxes housing the lasers. They were hot but looked as if they had operated as designed. He leaned over and looked at the battery drainage from the light assault. Down only two percent.
“My God, they sound like the screams of children,” Charlie said with horror written across his features.
As much as Henri didn’t want to agree with Charlie, he was right. The wounded animals sounded like children and it was damn-well unnerving to the Frenchman.
“I hope we didn’t screw the pooch here, Colonel,” Jenks said as he laid the targeting hologram down. Jack looked and nodded at the device. “All activity with the exception of a few blips have all gone. Listen, the cries are fading. So at least we know one thing.”
“What’s that, Master Chief?” Charlie asked, but it was Jack who answered with a concerned look.
“Whatever they are, they carry off their wounded.” Collins looked at the darkened and quiet tree line. He then faced the men. “Doesn’t sound like an animal to me.” The colonel raised his M-4 and made sure the weapon was charged and safed. “Okay, two on, two off. Fifty percent alert. Charlie, you’re with me. Jenks, you and Henri get some rest, we have a hell of a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
With that note, the camp had a very lousy sleep.
17
As Ryan held the door for the unwelcome visitors, his radio crackled to life.
“One, this is main gate, the six vehicles have turned off the main drive and have gone beyond my view. We’ve lost them, Commander.”
“Roger, make your way back to building one-seventeen, consolidate what we have.” Ryan lowered the radio and saw that the small group was waiting on him inside the old reception area.
“Problems?” the Russian asked with a mockingly concerned look on his face.
“None at all.” Ryan again raised the radio to his lips. “Five, this is one, copy?”
“Copy,” Will said from outside.
“Inform the local authorities we may have a security concern.”
“Roger,” came Mendenhall’s reply, and then the radio was silent.
“A wise precaution, my friend. Wise indeed.”
“You know, I’ve always noted the comic book ways you guys talk, a much more precise language, trying to be more sophisticated than you are, when in the end you are nothing more than those pathetically depicted comic book villains.”
The smile faltered for the briefest of moments and Jason could see that his words had angered the Russian. He smiled and gestured that they should follow him.
Joshua Jodle directed the first Explorer in line to the south side of the navy yard toward the original building 114. The windows of the building were dark as all of the activity had shifted to building 117 a quarter of a mile away.
“The tunnel better be there.”
The small man looked over at the brute who was wearing a black leather jacket that didn’t do much to hide the small automatic weapon he held.
“Of course it’s there. I supervised the construction myself,” he lied. “How do you think we could move about from one building to the other while reengineering the doorway without being noticed by the navy yard staff? It’s there, it goes directly to the subbasement of building one-seventeen.”